Puella Magi Madoka Magica

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mangaluva
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Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

I couldn't find a topic for this and I feel like it needs one because I have an extreme amount of feels about this anime.

So I started watching it because one of my friends insisted it was life-changing. In the spoiler box can be summarized my thought process episode-by episode.
Spoiler:
Episode 1: Cute high-school girls, yup, hey the witch barrier animation is pretty unusual, I guess that's something to make it stand out
Episode 2: Cute magical girls, yup, witch animation is still the only thing that really stands out, goddamn is Kyubey adorable
Episode 3: WHAT THE F--THAT IS NOT HOW THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP IS SUPPOSED TO GO
Episode 4: OH MY GOD THEY'RE EVEN GETTING PTSD THANK YOU FOR ACTING LIKE FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRLS WHO JUST SAW SOMEONE BRUTALLY MURDERED
Episode 5: Okay but now that Sayaka's a magical girl she's going to turn everything around right?
Episode 6: LOLNOPE THEY'RE ZOMBIES AND THIS IS REALLY NOT THE ANIME I THOUGHT IT WAS
Episode 7: Opens with KYUBEY TORTURING SAYAKA THAT LITTLE SHIT
Episode 8: Did a main character just turn genuinely evil?
Episode 9: Wait no Power of Friendship is supposed to revive and restore her not get both of them killed
Episode 10: When did Homura get meganekko and OH MY GOD TIME-TRAVEL ANGST HAS JUST EXPLAINED LITERALLY EVERYTHING
Episode 11: Are you actually serious with Anne Frank being a magical girl because I think this is the one and only magical girl 'verse where that could work and oh my god Walpurgisnacht is the freakiest thing ever and did Homura really just steal basically the entire army and I CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS SHOW ANYMORE
Episode 12: ALL OF THE TEARS ALL OF THEM
So basically there's a lot I like about this show. I like the unusual animation of the witch barriers and how they make the witches so unsettling and just plain broken-looking. I like all of the twists of everything you think you know about magical girls. I even like hating Kyubey. And I have so many feels about the final episode.
Spoiler:
The bit that gets me, the bit that REALLY gets me, is Madoka saying "I won't let your hope be in vain... believe in yourselves until the very end" and "if somebody tells me that it's wrong to hope, I'll tell them that they're wrong. I could tell them that an infinite number of times." There's just something incredibly powerful about that to me, about the incredible selflessness of Madoka giving herself up to ensure that none of the girls ever hope for nothing, that hope is a good and powerful thing and it's not wrong... during that montage of her going to all of the dying magical girls, as well, what hit me very powerfully is that every single one of them is dying completely alone. I felt very keenly their fear and despair at dying alone, feeling like their hopes and dreams were for nothing, and in that moment Madoka appears to them, staying with them as they die and ensuring that they left nothing in the world but hope and positivity... I'm crying just typing about it. I can barely articulate my feelings about this scene, but it's powerful to me.

The last placard, as well. "Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone." It gives the idea of world-saving superheroes, I think, a very personal twist, the "someone is fighting for you" bit. It feels like it's saying that these protectors, even though they don't know you and may never meet you, believe that your life is worth protecting and that you are worth fighting for. It's... again, barely able to articulate the feels.
Even though the series can be extremely dark, int he end it's powerfully hopeful, which is really very meta when you think about it.

If you haven't watched it, do it and then come spew feels with me :D
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by GinRei »

You should delve into the drama CDs, they really expand on the characters.
Spoiler: Drama CD 1
Shows how Homura met Madoka and goes into detail with it, including a scene where Homura is so bad at everything and keeps getting bullied over it that Madoka feels compelled to use magic to help her in PE. Unfortunately, that goes badly and her legs go out of control. This leads to the scene from the anime where Homura walks into a witch's barrier and is saved by Madoka and Mami.

Somehow, Mami already knows about Walpurgisnacht at this point.

Maodka then reveals that her wish in the original timeline was to revive a black cat that she and Homura later bonded over, which happened to get run over by a car.

When the storm starts due to Walpurgisnacht's arrival, Homura googles it and realizes that a "gathering of witches" cannot be anything good, and goes to look for Madoka. The cat from before guides her to Madoka, leading to what we see in the anime.
Spoiler: Drama CD 2
Only thing I remember from this one was that it was one of those "feel good" stories that doesn't really fit anywhere, and that Kyouko tosses out a lot of Engrish.
Spoiler: Drama CD 3
This one is the story of how Kyouko and Mami met. It's also basically Kyouko's origins.

Story is about a year before the anime, and Kyouko is said to have been a magical girl for a year already, so Kyouko has been operating for two years by the time the main story starts. Despite being a magical girl for a year, Kyouko was not very good at all. Mami had to save her life from a witch that used illusions (ironic, since that was also Kyouko's power). Mami takes Kyouko under her wing and teaches her how to be a better fighter, including getting her to name her ultimate attack ("Rosso Fantasma", or "Red Illusion/Phantom").

Mami was Kyouko's first real friend, or at least the first one she ever brought home. Cut to Kyouko's family dying, and the grief was so great that she subconsciously shut off her illusion powers since she blamed herself for their deaths. She lost all her ideals and became completely disillusioned, and basically has the same fight with Mami over familiars that she had with Sayaka. Like with Sayaka, they end up fighting, and Kyouko wins and walks off, leaving Mami beaten and crying due to being alone again.
Can't recall what was in CD 4.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by Soreiyu »

I never had any real interest in watching it. It's all female characters and I've already been plot spoiled by the internet.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

Soreiyu wrote:I never had any real interest in watching it. It's all female characters and I've already been plot spoiled by the internet.
I was spoiled for episode 3, but it turned out that knowing what was going to happen is not the same thing as being prepared for it T_T

I've heard of the drama CDs... I find it both adorable and sad what Madoka used her original wish for. At leas that explains why that cat is in the starting sequence.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by ranger »

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8907

I could of named it better but yeah
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by ranger »

mangaluva wrote:Ah! That's why I couldn't find it, I tried searching "Puella Magi" XP
My B

but yeah, madokes is a great series. The new movie is coming out this fall, if they decide to do a world premiere like they did with movies 1+2 I'm definitely going (probably to the Chicago one again).

I went to the premiere last year and it was great.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by GinRei »

With my luck, once again I'll wait and wait and wait for a showing near me. Months later one will pop up, but then it'll be right at the start of busy season again, and timed to begin in the middle of the week, close enough to tempt me to go but far enough that I wouldn't be able to get there after work at the normal time. Then, it'll end late enough that I'd be absolutely dead the next day.

That was my experience with the first two movies, so I still haven't seen them. I fully expect them to pull some stunt where you can only get tickets to all three movies, rather than just the third, for all the "minor" markets (ie: not New York or California).

Yes, I'm a bit bitter.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

I'm praying for at least one of the movies to be on at Scotland Loves Anime this year. Please, please, please...
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by ranger »

What is that, some anime convention?
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

It's a movie festival that's happened in Edinburgh and Glasgow for about the past three years. It's gotten bigger every year because it's been so successful. Last year they had Blood -C: The Last Dark (damn good movie despite the anime being the shittiest incarnation of Blood after the live-action movie) and Wolf Children Ame and Yuki (which I bought tickets for but didn't get to see because the website LIED TO ME about the showtimes and a bunch of us turned up forty minutes late). In Edinburgh all the showings are in the Edinburgh Playhouse, which is a classy little venue. The first year, they had the Professor Layton movie. They always get stuff.

Therefore: please, please, please let there be Puella Magi... it won't be the first subbed movie they've shown.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by ranger »

mangaluva wrote:It's a movie festival that's happened in Edinburgh and Glasgow for about the past three years. It's gotten bigger every year because it's been so successful. Last year they had Blood -C: The Last Dark (damn good movie despite the anime being the shittiest incarnation of Blood after the live-action movie) and Wolf Children Ame and Yuki (which I bought tickets for but didn't get to see because the website LIED TO ME about the showtimes and a bunch of us turned up forty minutes late). In Edinburgh all the showings are in the Edinburgh Playhouse, which is a classy little venue. The first year, they had the Professor Layton movie. They always get stuff.

Therefore: please, please, please let there be Puella Magi... it won't be the first subbed movie they've shown.
If they showed the first two then it's very likely they'll show the third one - I don't really know if any of the movies premiered in the UK though, never looked into it
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

ranger wrote:
mangaluva wrote:It's a movie festival that's happened in Edinburgh and Glasgow for about the past three years. It's gotten bigger every year because it's been so successful. Last year they had Blood -C: The Last Dark (damn good movie despite the anime being the shittiest incarnation of Blood after the live-action movie) and Wolf Children Ame and Yuki (which I bought tickets for but didn't get to see because the website LIED TO ME about the showtimes and a bunch of us turned up forty minutes late). In Edinburgh all the showings are in the Edinburgh Playhouse, which is a classy little venue. The first year, they had the Professor Layton movie. They always get stuff.

Therefore: please, please, please let there be Puella Magi... it won't be the first subbed movie they've shown.
If they showed the first two then it's very likely they'll show the third one - I don't really know if any of the movies premiered in the UK though, never looked into it
They haven't, to my knowledge, shown the first two movies... although this time last year I wasn't into Puella Magi, so I wouldn't have noticed if it was in the lineup. (Like how I only got into Trigun a couple of weeks after they showed Badlands Rumble the year before. *sobs*)

This was the lineup last year http://www.lovesanimation.com/edinburgh/
Damn Ghibli movies, selling out within five seconds so I couldn't get a ticket. *more sobbing*
I can't wait for this year's lineup to be posted, but that probably won't be until July.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by ranger »

Did some research - there weren't any UK showings for movies 1 and 2 :|

I think it's mainly because it's an Aniplex of America thing.
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Re: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Post by mangaluva »

ranger wrote:Did some research - there weren't any UK showings for movies 1 and 2 :|

I think it's mainly because it's an Aniplex of America thing.
Dammit UK get your shit together. WE NEED ANIME.
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