Puella Magi Madoka Magika

[soul.assassin]

While looking at one of the fanarts, I took notice of the ad on the side, and it was a very delicious piece of irony:
http://twitpic.com/4nz47k

Now who's the world's last chance? We all know that.

[InstrumentalityOne]

http://imperialx.wordpress.com/2011/04/ ... e-desired/

I can kinda sympathize with that guy.
The last two episodes were kind of a big deal, I kinda anticipated something else.
The end did feel kind of empty.
Maybe the hype over the long waiting period kinda killed it?
Dunno.

[soul.assassin]

http://imperialx.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/madokas-ending-leaves-something-to-be-desired/

I can kinda sympathize with that guy.
The last two episodes were kind of a big deal, I kinda anticipated something else.
The end did feel kind of empty.
Maybe the hype over the long waiting period kinda killed it?
Dunno.

That's what the viewers' feelings with EoTV had back in the day: the sense of WTF, the disbelief, the satisfaction, and the following uproar after Anno gave them one of the strangest endings in anime history.

[cramergamer]

Yo, symbv, I got one last piece of work for you to translate. This one looks pretty interesting.

[symbv]

From where this scan came from? It's full of coming-soon figurines.

These seem to be from a pamphlet of Ichiban Kuji 一番くじ, a luck draw for anime merchandise you can do at convenience stores at 500-800 yen one shot. Of course some prize would be worth much more than that. In second-hand figurine stores here in Japan you can often see rare items of Ichiban Kuji for sale (at premium price of course).

Those that are non-colored are unfinished so release date is not announced yet. The QB one will be available from August and the nendroids will be available from June.

Has anybody here already figured out the last few seconds of episode 12?

Homura´s black wings look kinda Witch-ish and her laugh was kinda half-hearted after Madoka said "Do your best!/Ganbatte".

There were indeed people who thought Homura was turning to witch or at least at the end of her soul gen limit, but that was a small minority. Personally I believe this should not be possible as the key point of Madoka's sacrifice, besides helping and repaying Homura, is to relieve all the mahou shoujo of the fearful fate of turning into witches.

The more common views that I found in 2chan and Japan blogs are (in order of increasing complexity):
- it is the fighting style and magic used in this new world, nothing special
- if she has wings to help her, shouldn't it be black because Homura's color is black?
- Homura heard Madoka's voice just before the battle, Madoka gave her the extra power to grow wings
- The black wings seem to take on the color of grief seed, signifying grief is still part of humanity (and by extension mahou shoujo), but this time it is something that mahou shoujo can take in and even help her.
- As Madoka has become the god of mahou shoujo, and now is all there but also not there, Homura becomes her "guard" that maintains a powerful semi-mortal manifestation in this world to "maintain and enforce" the order as envisioned by Madoka, just like Dharmapala 護法 enforcing the order as envisioned by Buddha, and thus Homura acquired the equivalent power as befits a role like Dharmapala.

The last scene is open to interpretation. Does she look she is going to lose? Or it is just one of the usual battles that Homura may find a bit challenging but at the end not really threatening? 2-chan did joke that if Homura were to die fighting, she would "go see Madoka"

@symbv Once more, my gratitude for your fanatical support. And your anticipation did very well. What do you suppose your sync rating is for Urobuchi-san? I think it's close to where you could pilot him ; )

I don't really think I can sync with Butch Gen. I have not even read any of his previous works ;-) I guess any seeming "understanding" of Butch Gen has more to do with the fact that I happened to read and translate his interview

http://imperialx.wordpress.com/2011/04/ ... e-desired/

I can kinda sympathize with that guy.
The last two episodes were kind of a big deal, I kinda anticipated something else.
The end did feel kind of empty.
Maybe the hype over the long waiting period kinda killed it?
Dunno.

Quick observation: Isn't the fact that just a few hours after the ending broadcast he wrote such a long review proved that this show was really thought-provoking and shouldn't that be sufficient to praise the show??

If all of his points are to be addressed, how is he going to write the screenplay if he were tasked with doing that???

The critical flaw of his review is that it talked as if those points are the MAIN THEME of the show. He did not seem to realize the show is about how the love and friendship between two girls can be so powerful as to be miraculous, and this can even transcend (and break) the grim, tragic and terrifying destiny of girls who pursued their dream (wish) by becoming mahou shoujo. It is the focus on this main theme that makes the last 3 episodes so powerful and touching. Adding distractions to address other points will only reduce its impact. And not to say points like feminism is only raised clearly in ep.11 (historical young female figures who lived tragic life) -- how can the same be addressed thoroughly with so little length of anime left?

And I wonder how much longer complaints he might need to write for Eva TV ending....which raises even more points that were not addressed at the end....

I do agree with him that the anime has left me empty though -- but not for the same reason. I feel empty because I no longer has another episode of PMMM to wait for!!



@cramergamer This post is long. Let me do the translation later...
It looks like something coming from Inu-Curry's drawing board though... Where did you get this? Is there any more similar sketches?
EDIT: Never mind. I found the mention of it in 2chan.... Seems someone is leaking stuff out again...

[Seen]

Question about the soul gems in the new universe:

How do they run out? If the girl uses too much energy all at once? (Like the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon)

Or does it just run out gradually with nothing to stop it? Those "grief cubes" the demons dropped weren't used to replenish their Soul Gems, from what I saw.

[cramergamer]

unknown how soul gems work now, but it is more or less guaranteed that it is lighter, softer, and easier on the girls now.

[soul.assassin]

The critical flaw of his review is that it talked as if those points are the MAIN THEME of the show. He did not seem to realize the show is about how the love and friendship between two girls can be so powerful as to be miraculous, and this can even transcend (and break) the grim, tragic and terrifying destiny of girls who pursued their dream (wish) by becoming mahou shoujo. It is the focus on this main theme that makes the last 3 episodes so powerful and touching. Adding distractions to address other points will only reduce its impact. And not to say points like feminism is only raised clearly in ep.11 (historical young female figures who lived tragic life) -- how can the same be addressed thoroughly with so little length of anime left?

Most of these pundits nitpick, trying to be "objective" as much as possible. But objectivity is so much of a gray area; pundits always have their biases. Shit, why can't they have some fun? There's one guy I shot back at here in AS.

No surprises, considering your inclinations.

Many critics (and "critics") were expecting something groundbreaking in the end, but instead they got Rick'd in with a WTF/Gainax ending, which is why some viewer/critic/"critic" reactions left me completely amused; they felt cheated, shortchanged, and of course, outraged.

Me, there's no perfect anime (or, for that matter, a perfect movie or TV show). The best anime perfection is the one that pleases, entertains and satisfies the heart and the mind, without having to go overboard with the nitpicking but instead just have some fun or get thrilled. I'm talking emotional factors, not the intellectual (I'll leave that to the kind of stuff such as movies made by David Cronenberg or Stanley Kubrick), and emotionally Madoka knocked me out (especially with its astonishing ending), and that knockout -- and the plot craziness -- are the ones that I'll never damn forget.

When's the last time there was an anime series that really moved you?

Which is why I don't make anime reviews; they're a dime/yen a dozen.

[Oz]

The criticism of Madoka's ending seems to revolve around every "critic's" own set of delusional attacks on plot points that apparently don't make "sense". They conveniently forget things that would ultimately be sufficient counter-arguments and forget to think about thematics rationally. They are too plot-oriented to feel - or even think clearly. Their reasoning has nothing to do with great characters, the outstanding quality of storytelling and carefully fleshed out themes. In other words, they are not dealing with anything that is essential for the series. Also, they are downplaying the importance of animation, editing, compositions and music. Personally I found Madoka to be hugely stimulating on an emotional and intellectual level.

[symbv]

^ Very much agreed. I think in many anime reviews in the west, too much emphasis is placed on plot.

Question about the soul gems in the new universe:

How do they run out? If the girl uses too much energy all at once? (Like the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon)

Or does it just run out gradually with nothing to stop it? Those "grief cubes" the demons dropped weren't used to replenish their Soul Gems, from what I saw.

You can see it in the scene near the end when Homura talked to the reformed QB. She was using the Grief Seed cubes to re-energize her Soul Gem crystal and then threw the cubes to QB. So we can assume that the mechanism works the same in the new world - meaning the energy/power will be used when they change to mahou shoujo and use magic. The only difference is that when the power in Soul Gem is used up,　the mahou shoujo will disappear (think Mami mentioned that to Kyouko when she asked where Sayaka went)

[cramergamer]

The criticism of Madoka's ending seems to revolve around every "critic's" own set of delusional attacks on plot points that apparently don't make "sense". They conveniently forget things that would ultimately be sufficient counter-arguments and forget to think about thematics rationally. They are too plot-oriented to feel - or even think clearly. Their reasoning has nothing to do with great characters, the outstanding quality of storytelling and carefully fleshed out themes. In other words, they are not dealing with anything that is essential for the series. Also, they are downplaying the importance of animation, editing, compositions and music. Personally I found Madoka to be hugely stimulating on an emotional and intellectual level.

This is exactly how I feel. I feel like QB and the critics are the magical girls. I just don't understand what is wrong or how their complaints are relevant to the enjoyment of the series.

[Obstermaxmaster]

The ending was too beautiful for me to explain.

This is exactly how I feel. I feel like QB and the critics are the magical girls. I just don't understand what is wrong or how their complaints are relevant to the enjoyment of the series.

They're just unhappy because their ending theories weren't true.

[tender]

Of course :)

======================
With less than half an hour left before Osaka MBS shows PMMM Ep.11, I think it is about time to show the details of the alleged "leaked document" of ep.11/12 screenplay draft.

It goes like this (don't read if you don't want to risk spoiler)

SPOILER: Show

Ep.11
- Part A
QB explains its theory of why Madoka got so much energy to Homura.
- Part B
Homura finally let Madoka know everything.
Madoka talked to her family.
Homura tried to fight Walpurgis Night alone. Found it impossible to beat.
Madoka said "gomen ne" to Homura and decided to become Mahou Shoujo.

Ep.12
- Part A
Madoka did not want Homura to suffer for her any more and this time she cleverly picked her wish -- but this means Madoka needed to leave this new world behind and she went to another world while the current no longer had mahou shoujo or witches. And the current world no longer remembers Madoka. Madoka gave her ribbon to Homura and said goodbye. Homura stayed in this world but still remembers Madoka.
- Part B
Kyousuke played violin on the stage and everybody went on their life happily and normally.
However, the world still had its flaws and some other monsters came up. Homura somehow heard Madoka saying "Gunbatte" and decided to face the monsters in this world.


****IS THIS REALLY THE SCREENPLAY? BELIEVE IT OR NOT****

This is why I avoided every corner of the internet that had the potential to spoil the last episodes for me ^^

While the ending was much more positive than I expected it to be, I'd say it's a very good season finale! PMMM's definitely a show I'll be watching again.

[Xard]

I guess that since there's at least IO around I'm not only one who felt somewhat dissatisfied with ending (and merri only gave it 7 on MAL but he has been angsty lately anyway :P). I don't know, I felt like it lacked...something. It didn't involve me emotionally like ep 10 did or surpass its impact.

I'm not saying it was bad ending or something like that, it's good but...I dunno, maybe the wait managed to kill the zeitgeist at least for my part. I need to see the episodes again before passing judgement.

but at the very least as of now I do feel a bit empty and I can see where the 4channers come from - though I don't see any flaws big enough to call ending bad

[symbv]

Ep.10 is unquestionably the best episode in PMMM, at least in terms of the uniformity of praises and acclaims in fandom, both in Japan and in the west. The amazing thing is that this show kept setting people's expectation higher and higher -- I still remember there were so many people who predicted the show could not get better after ep.6 or ep.8 but PMMM kept leaping over the raised expectation hurdle time and time again. Finally we saw the ending, which must wrap up all the questions and plot lines in the previous episodes and deliver on what it wants us to focus on, and this simply could not please everyone with all the diverse expectations of what they want to the story go (and end) and what they want to see to be drilled down and focused on.

One common gripe of the last 2 episodes I saw in 2chan is that the scale became so big and vast (the whole universe, the past and present) that it inevitably could not be as intimate as seeing the relentless focus on Homura herself with her hardship and development in ep.10. That Madoka became god-like was also a bit too far-fetched for some to take in, thus producing a sense of emotional detachment to those characters in the reconstituted world. I can understand where those feelings come from and I sympathize with them, yet IMO this is not the same as that nitpicking review that focused on the wrong things that IO posted. I cannot sympathize with people like him. Their criticism is misplaced IMHO.

======
A few more things I trawled from 2chan:

Remember I said Xard and I found the rebroadcast Ep.10 already had changes? Here were some samples of the changes made:

SPOILER: Show

---------

People counted 10 mahou shoujo shown in the last episode who were not part of the standard cast:

SPOILER: Show

1 - Tibetan (these are the prayer flags (Tibetan དར་ལྕོག་ dar lcog）, not shirts hang out to dry)
2 - African savannah? Masai?
3 - dream city, disneyland? American? (seem to be a fan of Pooh the bear)
4 - Baltic sea? Sweden? Viking?
5 - volcano... Italian?
6 - place of conflict + burqa -> Libya? Palestine? Afghanistan?
7 - WWII? Jews in cargo cabin train going to concentration camp? Anne Frank?
8 - Himiko?
9 - Cleopatra
10 - Joan of Arc

[Azathoth]

I guess that since there's at least IO around I'm not only one who felt somewhat dissatisfied with ending (and merri only gave it 7 on MAL but he has been angsty lately anyway :P). I don't know, I felt like it lacked...something. It didn't involve me emotionally like ep 10 did or surpass its impact.

After that wait it was never going to deliver on expectations without being something epochal and EoE levels of out there - and of course it didn't deliver for the people who got themselves hugely hyped up for OOMG BEST SHOW EVAR-level finale.

The main problem as I see it is that the show claims to be about Madoka, a character whose most important aspect for like the first 90% of the show is that Homura really likes her, rather than one of the numerous other characters who are actually doing shit while Madoka flops around like a pink-haired, weepy, landed fish. She is a rarity, a protagonist even less relevant to her show than Shinji. For Shinji it works because the show he's in is about one's feelings of irrelevance to everything, but PMMM is about true love. Homura and Madoka's relationship, the absolute core of the plot, is painfully underexposed, and mostly only fleshed out in episodes 10 and 12. I wonder if a slower-burning relationship between the two of them throughout the show, as Araragi and Senjougahara, might have helped. It's a pity because, once she makes her choice, Madoka is rather well-handled as a not-too-obnoxious omnipotent martyr/savior. There's nothing to suggest that Urobuchi can't write her character or something, so why is the majority of the show's runtime devoted to characters like Kyouko and Sakura who, interesting as they are (or in Kyouko's case, aren't), are not particularly consequential to Homura and Madoka's eventual actions?

It's not as if the finale ruined the show, far from it. But a finale has the ability to make a good show genuinely great, and that isn't what happened with PMMM. It wasn't a very adventurous finale, and I feel that that's the criticism which will be leveled at it in future. Given Urobuchi, I was fully expecting possibilities as broad as underage lesbian sex and the nuclear extermination of mankind, but that isn't where it went: like Madoka herself, it functionally chose to restore the status quo with one big change. I'll check back with it in a week to see how much my opinions change on rewatch, but my current verdict is about 8/10.

[CorporalChaos]

I liked the ending. It's rare that something can be so straightforward and mindfuckish at the same time. Although, I suspect the mindfuck has to do with

SPOILER: Show

rewriting the rules of the universe as we know it

The end was a bit empty, but I think it was a fitting end for the show. Now to look forward to the slice of life second season, which would be even more fitting if

SPOILER: Show

Madoka wasn't actually in it.

[MegucaMagica]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APCx5MfU90g

thought you might like this

[soul.assassin]

It's time for me to do my take on the show.

We've gone through the journey, awaiting each and every episode to see if the titular heroine would bring herself to sign the contract, but she couldn't because just as she was about to make the decision, some tragedy or conflict falls upon any of her friends, the painful reality of being a MG becoming obvious as a wish can have consequences, both bad and good.

It's only when at the end she finally makes an informed decision, with Homura as her reluctant witness. Why she has to do this? It has become obvious for Madoka, with bits and pieces of information and clues put together, that no matter how much Homura tries to stop her fate, it comes back to the girl, that she's the center of it all, and that she's the only one who could ultimately change it all.

And so, because a wish to QB has no limits applied once fulfilled, she makes a wish that completely rewrite the rules of the game (yes, much like Captain Kirk tweaking the Kobayashi Maru test), but much to QB's disappointment and surprise, and at the price of her very existence.

And from there... Madoka Kaname becomes a goddess who can only exist in the mind of Homura Akemi.

*sighs*

Someone at AS said that as the show is a 1-cour run (12-13 episodes), it's not surprising that everyone feels underwhelmed with the half-baked ending, as that length wasn't enough to cover the entire Madokaverse, that there were more questions than answers, things that would've been explored with much detail had the show were to be extended to 2-cour (or 26 episodes). To me, Gen and Shinbo were trying to pack in almost everything as much as possible in so limited a 2-episode timeframe, but some things have to be left out as they have to concentrate on the more important aspects of the endgame. Besides, given the current -- prohibitive -- costs of anime production (including taxes), they have to limit a show's budget to 1-cour and to turn a decent profit (which I think would soon become one of those convenient scapegoats that were applied to studios such as Gainax).

It's like the beach scene in EOE, the end of The Matrix Trilogy or the final scene in Inception, an open-ended ending in which the viewer can only envision what's gonna happen next, what should/could/would have been...

Shit, I'm hungry because 12 episodes of Madoka isn't damn enough, and assuming that Gen or Shinbo aren't trolling, I like the idea of an expanded Madokaverse, in the form of spin-offs or the Director's Cut (in which, of course, the auteur tries to answer long-standing questions).

I want more.

Homura: Give me back.... MADOKA!

[cramergamer]

It's time for me to do my take on the show.

We've gone through the journey, awaiting each and every episode to see if the titular heroine would bring herself to sign the contract, but she couldn't because just as she was about to make the decision, some tragedy or conflict falls upon any of her friends, the painful reality of being a MG becoming obvious as a wish can have consequences, both bad and good.

It's only when at the end she finally makes an informed decision, with Homura as her reluctant witness. Why she has to do this? It has become obvious for Madoka, with bits and pieces of information and clues put together, that no matter how much Homura tries to stop her fate, it comes back to the girl, that she's the center of it all, and that she's the only one who could ultimately change it all.

And so, because a wish to QB has no limits applied once fulfilled, she makes a wish that completely rewrite the rules of the game (yes, much like Captain Kirk tweaking the Kobayashi Maru test), but much to QB's disappointment and surprise, and at the price of her very existence.

And from there... Madoka Kaname becomes a goddess who can only exist in the mind of Homura Akemi.

*sighs*

Someone at AS said that as the show is a 1-cour run (12-13 episodes), it's not surprising that everyone feels underwhelmed with the half-baked ending, as that length wasn't enough to cover the entire Madokaverse, that there were more questions than answers, things that would've been explored with much detail had the show were to be extended to 2-cour (or 26 episodes). To me, Gen and Shinbo were trying to pack in almost everything as much as possible in so limited a 2-episode timeframe, but some things have to be left out as they have to concentrate on the more important aspects of the endgame. Besides, given the current -- prohibitive -- costs of anime production (including taxes), they have to limit a show's budget to 1-cour and to turn a decent profit (which I think would soon become one of those convenient scapegoats that were applied to studios such as Gainax).

It's like the beach scene in EOE, the end of The Matrix Trilogy or the final scene in Inception, an open-ended ending in which the viewer can only envision what's gonna happen next, what should/could/would have been...

Shit, I'm hungry because 12 episodes of Madoka isn't damn enough, and assuming that Gen or Shinbo aren't trolling, I like the idea of an expanded Madokaverse, in the form of spin-offs or the Director's Cut (in which, of course, the auteur tries to answer long-standing questions).

I want more.

And this is how you can tell Madoka is a masterpiece of a show. When the biggest (and almost only) complaint is that it ended and you want more.