cyharding wrote:I haven't seen the series, but I thought it best to bring to your attention some Japanese fans are trying to set up bus tours to Tokyo so they could see the final episodes. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-04-12/madoka-magica-fans-plan-bus-tour-to-catch-finale
Is it that important?
I read that in 2chan too but did not realize it was reported in the west too!
The report in the link was brief. Actually the discussions in 2chan also covered how to take the day off from work and school the next day as the broadcast will go until 4am and then time would be needed afterwards to vent out feelings and discuss it in forums and blogs so it WILL BE an all-nighter. For those in Nagoya the issue is particularly urgent because keeping spoilers out for THREE DAYS is almost impossible (unless you cut off every link to anime and perhaps internet and social life too) and so to avoid spoiler it may be better to watch it in areas where broadcast is quicker. And the closest big city from Nagoya is Tokyo - distance-wise I think it is about Boston - New York so it is not that far, and the public transport is very convenient too, shinkansen and bus service is abundant. I guess the initiative of the bus trip is to gain extra flexibility (and comrades) by chartering a bus with like-minded fans. Anyway, I am glad that this time MBS/TBS is going to broadcast the last 2 episodes at around the same time in Osaka and Tokyo (Osaka is earlier by 20 min) instead of one day earlier in Osaka as in ep.1-10 because Tokyo fans are fed up with spoilers coming from Osaka.....
BTW, thanks to CorporalChaos for typesetting the doujin manga. It is really an adorable one for HomuxMado yuri...
EDIT: I finally decided to buy the latest issue of Otome Anime to read about the PMMM feature. Actually the 80 pages of feature include a general overview of Mahou Shoujo genre (interestingly they put Strike Witches as mahou shoujo too!) so PMMM material made up of just 34 pages. Not bad though because it has interviews with Inu-Curry, Miyamoto (series director), Butch Gen and Kajiura (music), as well as comments on each episode and character design.