Madoka Magica

I immediately became hooked.

Madoka Magica then struck me with unimaginable feelings.

This is such a well executed piece of drama, with characters very close to real.

The author did an amazing job fitting the story inside only 12 episodes. Maybe this is why, the experience is so dense.

I also need to compliment the soundtrack. It is so well done, after finishing the series I am still listening to them, constantly.

Madoka Magica uses the magical girl genre as a surface shield, just like NGE uses mecha genre for the purpose. I recommend you give it a chance even if you don't care much about the magical girl thing. Chances that you will like this even if you are distant to the genre are big, given that you appreciate anime ;)

I thought about giving this 10 instead of 9, but maybe in another world.

It begins very cheesy, as Urobuchi described as a healing series, however, what occurs in the first two episodes has the only purpose to manipulate your expectations. After the third episode the shows true nature begins to creep through and only in episodes nine and ten that the full nature of the whole fictional universe is revealed. Truly a marvelous piece of entertainment and also a work of art. Its a very rare accomplishment, a TV series combining artistic value and entertainment value.

I never cried watching TV, I never felt so affected that I was unable to sleep, but Madoka managed to affect me on a very deep level that no other TV series (including Evangelion) has ever managed to match. It set a new standard for what I came to expect from television: brilliant writing, memorable characterization, over the top visual style.

The trailers and posters of this show are practically false advertising: When all they show is cute girls with wide eyes and colourful hair smiling and having fun, the show looks like it could be a shoddy clone of Sailor Moon. In reality, beyond the physical appearance of the characters Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a psychological-horror style genre deconstruction that has more in common with 'Faust' or 'Requiem for a Dream' than it does with anything else in the Magical Girl genre.

Like the other infamously existential anime 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', Madoka Magica starts out with the pretension of being representative of its genre so it can tear down those assumptions and tropes moments later. The first two episodes are a brilliant but not entirely out-of-the-ordinary set-up for a magical girl anime. By the end of the third episode it is made abundantly clear that things do not go according to plan. The remaining 9 episodes cover a nightmare-inducingly fatalistic and hopeless series of events that rank this show as among the emotionally darkest works of fiction I've ever seen.

There are no monsters that jump out at you, and there are no gruesome character deaths to make you cringe. Make no mistake, this is definitely horror - but it's horror in the sense of total and utter despair, regret and hopelessness in the face of the inevitable. The juxtaposition of the impossibly grim storyline and the overly cutesy visuals leaves a constant feeling of nausea and unease, such as how Kyubey keeps his cute-but- cold smile even as the story descends into hell. The casting of well-meaning and naive 14 year old girls as the tragic heroes only adds to this contrast.

The plot will surprise you at every turn - even if you're a savant at foreseeing twists, I can guarantee you that you will be caught of guard at more than once. I really can't say anything about the plot except the obvious, which is that there is more than meets the eye in the world of magical girls - but keep in mind that just as you think you understand what's going on, you don't.

My single problem with the show is that the ending felt rushed and incomplete, and the set-up for the 'Rebellion' movie at the end seemed a bit forced. I think the last episode or two should have been an entire movie, like 'End of Evangelion' - squeezing such apocalyptically dramatic events into a 20 minute episode was bound to leave things undercooked. Otherwise I have no complaints. This is, without a doubt, one of the best made stories in any medium that I've ever seen. It's arty but not pretentious, emotional but never clichéd, action packed yet thoughtful. It manages to hit hard without losing subtlety. Every character is believable, interesting and necessary. The art switches between clean and conventional scenes of the real world to portrayals of psychedelic lovecraftian destruction with total fluency - Madoka Magica is at every point incredible to look at. The soundtrack is well produced, emotionally versatile and never boring.

Even if you don't like anime or have never seen it before, if you like stories with originality, intellectual and emotional depth, themes of cosmic significance and painfully human characters, watch Madoka Magica. You will enjoy it.

The packaging is definitely off brand for the series. The cover art and opening music theme portray a series that looks like it'll focus on teen romance and relationship drama. And magic i guess. The show then becomes a journey into fantasy/sci-fi and fatalistic existentialism. The art is interesting, as various scenes into the witches' territories are a bit psychedelic. The story was a bit loose and jumbled, but it evolved with enough interesting concepts of mankind's place on earth and in the universe that it kept me sufficiently entertained through the end.

If you're expecting this series to be the greatest series ever or a masterpiece due to the other reviews, well, don't raise your expectations too much. I guess it might be, depending on your taste, but if it isn't, well, you can always throw Death Note or Food Wars on standby.

I started watching this knowing nothing except that it was a 'dark' magical girl series. I've never seen any of the magical girl stuff (unless Claymore counts?) so I had no idea of how it was using/subverting the usual tropes. Still, it was pretty amazing... and very dark. By the time I got to the 9th episode I was feeling pretty distraught over the fates of all the characters and how awful the whole system was.

One thing that particularly stood out for me was the animation and the various styles to represent the bizarre Witches and the Labyrinths they create. While the main characters usually remain in regular anime mode everything else becomes a wild collage of symbols and strange creatures that symbolize the Witch and her obsessions. Each one seems to be a mysterious story unto itself.

Don't let the cutesy character designs fool you though... this isn't for kids, both because it's so disturbing and also because I don't think they'd really understand it once the true nature of the magical girls starts to come out.