Anime review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

 


                               Madoka (center) with (left to right) Kyoko, Sayaka, Homura, and Mami

 

This 2011 anime does not waste any time diving into the weird! Schoolgirl Madoka wakes from a dream in which a magical girl is fighting a losing battle and a strange creature tells her she can help, only to go to school and discover the same girl transferring into her class. When Madoka tries to befriend the beautiful and rather grimly efficient Homura, she is warned that if she values her life, friends, and family she shouldn’t seek to change herself. Puzzled, she goes with her friend Sayaka to the mall but then hears a voice calling for her help. It is the odd cat-bunny-fox thing, Kyubey, which Homura seems to by trying to kill. Then all of reality fractures - illustrated by a collage of photos and patterns and animation - and they are rescued by another magical girl, Mami1. Kyubey says he can make contracts with Madoka and Sayaka to make them magical girls as well: All they have to do is wish for what they want most. However, being a magical girl means committing to fighting witches, dangerous creatures that create the kinds of bizarre labyrinths the girls were almost trapped in. Mami takes Madoka and Sayaka along on several witch hunts, while they try to figure out what to wish for. Homura disapproves, but we don’t really see why until episode 3, when a hunt goes horrifyingly wrong. It is not long before Madoka and company learn there is an even a darker truth behind being a magical girl.

 

1. An unintentionally funny name if you are a Spanish speaker, BTW!

 

 

Fans often mention the Sapphic vibes of this series, particularly between Madoka and Homura. That is accurate, though the subtext is subtle – which is appropriate, given that these characters are 12-13 years old and are only just beginning to comprehend what eros is2. One of the other characters has a crush on a boy, but again is clearly thinking of it in an appropriately child-like way. Madoka and Homura kind of remind me of Yu and Mika from ‘Seraph of the End’ when we first meet them: passionately devoted friends who would already risk their lives for each other but who haven't yet tried to put a name on what they are feeling.  

 

2. I was going to say “what romantic love is”, but then I remembered that I mostly understood the appeal of romance much earlier than that – I just didn’t understand why kissing had to be involved! ("Eww, gross!")


 

 

The artwork and soundtrack of this anime are both really interesting and beautiful, complementing  the mixture of cuteness and horror in the story. I also liked that the story made Madoka’s mom an ambitious businesswoman, fully supported by her more domestically-minded husband. It was initially confusing to have Walpurgisnacht, which in German folklore is a night (nacht) of bonfires to drive away witches, turn out to be a single very-powerful witch…but one can roll with that. I do kind of wish that there had been more than 12 episodes to flesh out the secondary characters. While I quite enjoyed the initially aggressive, perpetually-snacking Kyoko, we get her tragic backstory in a 5-minute narration; It would have hit harder if there was a full episode to see how her attempt to help her family with her wish backfired. Similarly, we might have felt Sayaka’s desire to use her wish to heal the boy she likes more deeply if we’d seen the two of them interacting before his accident. Mami, sadly, gets almost no character development. She doesn’t need it, strictly speaking – this is essentially a fairytale format– but I was intrigued enough to want more.

This series was originally created by producer Atsuhiro Iwakami as a stand-alone anime, not based on a pre-existing manga. It served to popularize darker themes in magical girl anime and spawned a bunch of other media which may answer some of the character development questions I had. Among these is a film titled 'Rebellion' that serves as a sequel to the series and reportedly highlights some of the less healthy aspects of Homura’s devotion to Madoka. I might check that out eventually, though I like the ending of the original series enough to be worried a sequel might screw it up!

 

Overall recommendation: If you appreciate creative animation artistry and like the sound of a cute-but-dark story, check this out. At just 12 episodes (~5 hours) it is a quick but satisfying watch!

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