Hey! I watched a new anime for once! Well, it's not exactly new, but it's new to me. This has been on my list for a long time but I always pushed it back but then when I was procrastinating.. I was like, stuff this, I'm gonna watch an anime. Annddd...since this only had 12 episodes, why not? I'm glad I did as well, it really goes to show that the length of anime isn't an excuse for it to be bad. I've watched so many 12 episode anime that I really gave up on them but I guess I should try again now hahaha.
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
Genre: Drama, Magic, Psychological, Thriller
Episodes: 12 (Finished, 2011)
I've always held off from watching this because I didn't like how the characters looked, but since there were such good ratings and reviews for this, I thought I should try it anyway. I'd say the turning points of this show would be episode 3 and episode 8. What made me like this would probably be the music and the portrayal of the story. The music was done by Yuki Kajiura and I have been impressed by her and loved her since she was in the group See-Saw and sang many of the Gundam Seed songs which I still love to this day. So, the soundtrack was great throughout the whole show. The story is most definitely not something surprising or original considering how it loves to drop hints on everything, especially death flags haha, in any case, I'd say it's a rather predictable story, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I have my reserves on some plot points such as why Homura seems to be able to continuously use her Soul Gem without ever wasting away with corruption since it's not supposed to be just despair in concerns of your wish that corrupts it but overall, I really like this anime.
Like every other mahou shoujo, it starts off with the MFC (if you can say Madoka is, considering everyone seemed to have a fair amount of screen time in terms of Madoka, Sayaka and Homura) knowing about the existence of witches destroying the peace of this world and magical girls who need to defeat them. It goes along with the trope of the pet partner choosing the girl to be a magical girl but instead of the idea that she should be one to merely save the world, if you choose to be a magical girl, you can have one wish granted. It's more like an exchange, rather than a simple save the world thing. I liked how the MFC actually thinks about whether she should become one or not and episode likes to highlight the fact that being a magical girl isn't all rainbows. So, yeah, probably won't be your thing if you want to watch a typical mahou shoujo that is all about positivity and optimism because this one is all about the sadness and tragedy that comes along with being a magical girl instead.
The most appealing thing would probably be the emotional rollercoaster. A lot of people seem to dislike Sayaka's supposed overreaction but I personally liked it and could relate very well with it because I've always thought about the idea whether people really do make these wishes for themselves or others. The crying from Madoka was also understandable since it's not like she's had the need to grow up and be so realistic with things in comparison to the others who have had pretty bad experiences that forced them to grow up or just be more pessimistic towards life. I'd say that the driving force of this anime would be the central characters, their motivations and the revamp of the idea of a mahou shoujo anime.
This basically has everything a mahou shoujo anime has but changes it in a dark way. For example, Kyuube's existence as a pet partner to the magical girl is still apparent but he is not her best friend and does not help her in need. Instead, he is motivated for his own interests and is constantly suspiciously trying to convince Madoka into becoming a magical girl. He's cute but dang he's ruthless lol. There is also the presence and importance of friendship between magical girls like they all do but this anime likes to make it seem like that instead of them fighting to save the world, they're all fighting for their own interests, in order to survive. I like that.
I guess another disappointment would be that it's not as dark as other people have stated it to be. But I do like the contrast of how cutesy the characters look and yet how saddening of a turn the story decides to take in terms of magical girls and witches. The magical girl and witch thing was definitely something I surmised but didn't expect to really be the truth, I'm glad it was though because I thought it was a great angle to take in terms of some real sacrifices magical girls need to take for such power of granting wishes.
Overall, I really liked it because I felt the emotions ran quite deep for me. All of the characters had understandable reasons for doing what they did and the most important thing was that, within the tragedy and sadness, all everyone really wanted was just to be happy but it seemed so hard to be granted in their circumstances.
Like every other mahou shoujo, it starts off with the MFC (if you can say Madoka is, considering everyone seemed to have a fair amount of screen time in terms of Madoka, Sayaka and Homura) knowing about the existence of witches destroying the peace of this world and magical girls who need to defeat them. It goes along with the trope of the pet partner choosing the girl to be a magical girl but instead of the idea that she should be one to merely save the world, if you choose to be a magical girl, you can have one wish granted. It's more like an exchange, rather than a simple save the world thing. I liked how the MFC actually thinks about whether she should become one or not and episode likes to highlight the fact that being a magical girl isn't all rainbows. So, yeah, probably won't be your thing if you want to watch a typical mahou shoujo that is all about positivity and optimism because this one is all about the sadness and tragedy that comes along with being a magical girl instead.
The most appealing thing would probably be the emotional rollercoaster. A lot of people seem to dislike Sayaka's supposed overreaction but I personally liked it and could relate very well with it because I've always thought about the idea whether people really do make these wishes for themselves or others. The crying from Madoka was also understandable since it's not like she's had the need to grow up and be so realistic with things in comparison to the others who have had pretty bad experiences that forced them to grow up or just be more pessimistic towards life. I'd say that the driving force of this anime would be the central characters, their motivations and the revamp of the idea of a mahou shoujo anime.
This basically has everything a mahou shoujo anime has but changes it in a dark way. For example, Kyuube's existence as a pet partner to the magical girl is still apparent but he is not her best friend and does not help her in need. Instead, he is motivated for his own interests and is constantly suspiciously trying to convince Madoka into becoming a magical girl. He's cute but dang he's ruthless lol. There is also the presence and importance of friendship between magical girls like they all do but this anime likes to make it seem like that instead of them fighting to save the world, they're all fighting for their own interests, in order to survive. I like that.
I guess another disappointment would be that it's not as dark as other people have stated it to be. But I do like the contrast of how cutesy the characters look and yet how saddening of a turn the story decides to take in terms of magical girls and witches. The magical girl and witch thing was definitely something I surmised but didn't expect to really be the truth, I'm glad it was though because I thought it was a great angle to take in terms of some real sacrifices magical girls need to take for such power of granting wishes.
Overall, I really liked it because I felt the emotions ran quite deep for me. All of the characters had understandable reasons for doing what they did and the most important thing was that, within the tragedy and sadness, all everyone really wanted was just to be happy but it seemed so hard to be granted in their circumstances.
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