Puella Magi Madoka Magica may be beloved for its uncompromising storytelling, but even the biggest fans have standards. The below moments have sent many a viewer into despair.
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The Show
- Kashima Kitty: Episode 3 "I'm Not Afraid of Anything Anymore". The major Wham Moment of the episode, you know the one. Mami getting decapitated and devoured. After the series spent the last two and a half episodes pretending to be Lighter and Softer than it really is, this moment arrives for the sake of pure shock value. Not only was three episodes too soon to care about this character, but up until this point, said character came off as ignorant and Holier Than Thou. The recap/movies make it even worse, as what little character development this character had is completely removed, making her seem even more expendable.
- Shotgun Ninja: I agree that this show felt stupid and pointlessly dark, but the one thing I really liked in it was Kyouko. That's why the ending of episode 9 "I'd Never Allow That To Happen" annoyed me so much. So she starts the show as somewhat psychopathic, but one single Wham Episode - which she really has no excuse for being blind-sighted by, considering everything she already knows - causes a complete change in her personality, to the point where she seems completely focused around Sayaka. This all culminates in her suddenly deciding to kill herself to beat Witch!Sayaka, rather than, oh I don't know, asking Homura for help! Why is she suddenly worth dying for when you can't have known her for more than two weeks? This was where the show officially lost that last shred of interest I had in it, because if that is what passes for good writing in this series...
- melonpan09: I agree with the first two tropers, but my moment came when Sayaka suddenly starts wailing about being unable to embrace people after she's found out the true purpose of her Soul Gem. I was already watching the series with slight dubiousness, and the sheer melodramatics of that scene actually lowered my opinion of it as a whole. While the cause is painfully obvious, Sayaka had far too little character development to even hint at something of that magnitude being on its way; it's supposed to look like a plain old nervous breakdown, I'm sure, but instead it looks like a completely uncalled-for temper tantrum. What's even sadder for me is that it could have had real power and impact, if only it had been written differently.
- akanesarumara: For me it was Hitomi suddenly saying she has feelings for Kyousuke. She showed no signs of it beforehand, she had plenty other reasons to be susceptible to a witch's kiss than repressed feelings as she had been burdened with several extracurriclar activities that left her with less free time than her friends, and Sayaka's breakdown would have happened in pretty much the same way without it too, just maybe in a bit longer time. She never asked Sayaka or Madoka about how Kamijou was doing, she just said she had feelings for him after he came back to school.
The Films
- Disco Glacier: While I would argue that the movies overall improve on what was already a masterpiece, one change I didn't like was the replacement of "Nux Walpurgis
" with a second playing of "Surgam Identum." As terrific as the latter is for the final battle between Homura and Walpurgis Night, the former fit Homura's falling to despair much better, and replaying a musical number twice in any case is just bad form for this sort of thing.- Tropers/ryanson209: Seconded! And it's extremely baffling too, since every moment before then they seemed to go out of their way to *not* reuse any music in the same film. Why even change it? It doesn't just undermine the scene, it creates a completely different mood by leaving in tense epic music instead of the tragic music it once had. (On a nerdier level, the music that was replaced in a way foreshadowed the sequel due with its track name, which I won't repeat here due to spoilers.)
- Slo Motion: I love this series to death, I really do. I loved the idea of movie continuation, that is... until I saw the movie. I liked the first half, but then oh boy did things take an awful turn. And that horrid turn was Homura's Face–Heel Turn into Akuma Homura and just the way she acted like a creepy Psycho Lesbian Stalker with a Crush willing to selfishly rewrite the world for her own demented sake, which just killed it for me. Homura is my favorite PMMM character, and in my opinion, this movie just took a huge dump on her whole portrayal. The whole point of Homura is that she seemed cold and bitchy at first, but then it was so beautifully revealed in the series that she's Not So Stoic and truly has a good heart and sacrificed her own happiness and sanity to attempt to save her best friend. But here, she's just obsessed in a really creepy ass way. I know Love Makes You Evil and whatnot, but this just felt like a pointless attempt at being 'dark' (and of course this series always was but this was just ridiculous) which fell flat on its face instead. Total bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, there is no Rebellion movie. The series ended after episode 12/the second movie.
- Silvermoon424: Seconded. I was extremely disappointed by the ending of the Rebellion movie. To make matters even worse, apparently the original ending consisted of Ultimate Madoka taking Homura with her to heaven so they could finally be together forever. That's an actually satisfying ending that does justice to both the series and the characters. Unfortunately, Executive Meddling kicked in when the writer was told to scrap the original ending and replace it with an Ass Pull that would allow the series to be continued. So instead of a beautiful, if somewhat bittersweet, ending where Homura and Ultimate Madoka get to stay together and Ultimate Madoka can continue her duty of being a magical girl savior, we get one where Homura turns into a Psycho Lesbian and locks Madoka away in a Gilded Cage. What a great ending to the series!
- KashimaKitty: Concurring with the above, but also I found the twist at the ending to be poorly done not so much from a character standpoint, but from a writing standpoint. Having Homura reach a result of such magnitude based on a complete misunderstanding is terrible writing. The scene would not have happened if (at least Madoka) had her proper memories. "I want Madoka to be happy." Doesn't work if Madoka was already happy with her decision to begin with.
- chucknormie: While I was pissed off by Homura's selfish decision to keep Madoka for herself, what truly makes the end of this movie a DMOS was what she did afterwards. Homucifer decides to Mind Rape Kyubey with all the sorrow that magical girls have felt over time. While this would be a fitting punishment for an unrepentant monster, Kyubey is hardly that. He is trying to save the universe, after all. He should have gotten some kind of karma for his actions, but he's not doing it For the Evulz; what Kyubey did did not warrant being forced to suffer for all eternity. So not only did Homura deliver a severe case of Disproportionate Retribution, but she also doomed the universe to an early heat death. Way to go, Homuhomu.
- TheOtakuNinja: What bothers me the most about the revised ending - and I can't seem to find a straight answer for some reason - is that the ending was meant to either deconstruct the notion of a happy ending and/or fanworks that depict happy endings, or it was meant to lead up into a follow series - something that hasn't shown up yet. This strikes me as needlessly mean-spirited and morally despicable, not to mention the fact that this change-up ends up removing Madoka's character development. It ticks me off so much, even seeing the Incubators getting their just desserts in the end can't get the bad taste out of my mouth.
- EternityOfSpirits: While I understand that the ending happened because Urobuchi was unable to think of a good conculsion to the film, Shinbo's decision to artificially extend the series by having Homura turn evil as a solution is confused at best and insulting at worst, especially since there was no actual continuation planned. While the idea is semi-interesting, it really, really didn't need to be handled as it was.
- Asue: Tenthed. The fact that Madoka was completely back to being a simple human and that both Homura and Kyubei's characterizations went down the toilet (Homura is portrayed as a extremely Psycho Lesbian with Yandere tendancies and that the subtlety of Kyubei's character was reduced from the Blue-and-Orange Morality and Well-Intentioned Extremist to plain For the Evulz) made me completely dislike the movie. I hated it so much that I don't consider it canon, as it would be an awful ending to a great series.
- Kirby0189: I'm probably beating a dead horse by talking a bit more about the ending considering all of the entries already here for it, but I just really can't get over how they ruined an otherwise enjoyable movie by sticking in this crap and making me feel the need to pretend it never happened when I rarely feel that way. Even without considering how it completely defiles Homura's character, I legitimately do not see the build-up to the outcome. It just feels out of nowhere. Ok, they were interested in making a continuation. That's fine, but even without resorting to Alternate Universe series, there are better ways to leave a series open for new stories than abruptly pulling stuff from seemingly nowhere and going against the pre-established character of one of the main heroines. Still waiting for that continuation by the way! Not worth it!
- MasterN: Leaving aside the fact that most of the “foreshadowing“ is incredibly vague and fails to actually set up the twist (it foreshadows that the twist will happen, but doesn’t give a logical setup that will make the viewer look back and realize it made sense), the worst part of all this? Is the fact that THIS is what Homura will be seen as from now on. Already, people are talking about Homura as a “tragic” and “messed up” character who “did the right thing”- not only was what she did NOT the right thing in any capacity, not only is her reasoning fallacious and self-defeating, but it forever altered people’s perception of Homura. Most new discussions of Homura center on her actions in Rebellion. Looking her up online brings up all kinds of material referencing an ending I would rather forget. All around the Internet, people are praising the “daring” direction the ending took, and love Homura’s new character. When people think of Homura, no longer do they think of the complex, interesting Anti-Hero from the original series; instead people’s image of Homura is of a caricature so absurd it may as well have been lifted from a bad fanfiction. It genuinely baffles me when I see so many fans praise the ending and say that Homura was right. It also does not feel right at all that I feel sorry for Kyubey and want him to overthrow Homura. And that saddens me. Homura was one of my favorite characters of all time back in the original series, so to see her replaced by this... copy that bears only superficial resemblance to the original, every time I try to indulge in my enjoyment of the character... it truly fills me with despair. The ending of Rebellion has left me in despair.
