Puella Magi Madoka Magica

My issue is that no one treats male characters this way. After End Of Evangelion no one say "Wait Shinji being stuck with only Asuka in a world that literally cannot support human life is depressing. We'll have err... Misato pull something to fix it."

Circumstances matter. Plus, Madoka didn't end up creating a world filled with nothing but bloody oceans and wastelands.

True, also there have been a lot of fix fanfics and doujin stuff to try to deal with that ending.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:05:05 AM by asellus111

No of course it's not going to return to the Lo C system as we saw at the end of PMMM; Homura and Madoka are going to have to reach some common ground.

And yeah, that's another thing. Their impulse to go 'Oh she's given up too much!' smacks of not respecting the dignity of Madoka's choice. Personally, Rebellion's ending to me is better than a reunion because a reunion would've made this movie a pointless exercise, nothing is achieved that we didn't already know. But because of the ending it sort of illuminates the fact that Homura never really accepted Madoka's sacrifice.

No, I think they're right when they say this smacks a bit of misogyny. Course, NGE doesn't shy away from Asuka sort of bringing her condition on herself either.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:07:07 AM by Scherzo09

Any ending can get the Fix Fic treatment. It's one thing for fans to think and ending's too sad and want to make it happier. It's another thing for the author to do that.

Also Shinji is a mentally disabled teenage BOY that was put in a position he shouldn't have been at all, by a secret organization who orchestrated a lot for that very outcome. It's like blaming T4 Madoka for Gretchen.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:09:57 AM by RhymeBeat

I want to think Shinbo and Urobuchi knew what they were doing when they did PMMM's ending. Sure it's melancholy, but I want to think they were aware of its power. Plus I honestly think Urobuchi is trolling a bit; why would he, of all people, complain about the fate of a character being unfair? He's all about the intrinsic 'unfairness' of the universe.

I want to clarify, I don't think Rebellion needs a conclusion because I find it insufficiently happy; I feel it continuation because there's a dissonance to it, everything isn't nicely resolved yet, there's too much disquiet.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:12:18 AM by Scherzo09

We've been over this already. My interpretation is still that they asked themselves "would Madoka be better off if someone saved her from being Madokami?" and decided the answer was "no, that is completely the wrong thing to do, so let's make it a whole tragic anti-villain sort of thing where someone does that but makes the world a better place in the process."

I don't think the movie implied in any way that yoinking Madoka out of the sky was a good idea in and of itself. They go out of their way to show how super-duper-evil it is, in fact, implying that the authors didn't realize it was wrong at first and felt they should make the badness extra-clear to the audience.

It does need to continue, though... not because it's sad, but because it's inconclusive. The world is vaguely defined and unstable.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:14:23 AM by guyy

Honestly they need to continue the series at this point, and with the conclusion of the next series settle the cosmology of the PMMM universe once and for all. Then write a spin off with a new cast of Magical Girls. I'd watch that.

Unless they were aiming at that, it's clear after the interviews that they wanted to reach for that kind of ending, open and with many directions. Let the fans think and imagine the sequel, (a huge tumb up to the doujin market)

edited 17th Apr '14 1:14:01 AM by asellus111

Hmm, Yeah I agree with that. I think they realized that they couldn't depower Madoka and treat it as a good thing intrinsically, so you're right that they believed in what Madoka did even if they felt the cost was probably exceedingly high.

And that's my thought too, though as a friend said, PMMM will always exist.

I think they didn't want to box themselves in exactly with what they wanted next season's plot to be with Rebellion, but if it isn't involving Akuma Homura as an Anti-Villain it'll be a total cop-out in my eyes. Obviously Kyubey isn't down and out either though, Shinbo hinted at that.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:18:29 AM by Scherzo09

I'll say this. I like that the whole thing isn't completely black and white. Heck, most of Urobuchi's works tend to always have shades of gray for most of the characters' actions. This is no exception.

I think you can still say actions are 'wrong' even if they aren't intrinsically Evil. Like Homucifer strikes me as Chaotic Neutral, for insistence.

My point is I can still see Homura as a fundamentally sympathetic person while decrying her actions as wrong.

edited 17th Apr '14 1:28:20 AM by Scherzo09

So this part of the comments raised a point.

I really love the Clara Dolls.

The Clara Dolls are just so great.

edited 17th Apr '14 6:58:11 AM by unnoun

Apples and oranges. Shinji still has a life, and as they say in Evangelion "As long as you are alive, you can be happy." Madoka doesn't have a life anymore.

You know what's really sexist? The fact that girls have to sacrifice their lives to make their wishes come true and to prevent the heat death of the universe. Even Madoka, for all of her hope, could not change this rule. In fact, she became a part of this system.

Yeah I've noticed that.

Alexander the Great, Ghandi, Leonardo da Vinci? They all achieved their goals and fame through their own power. Meanwhile Joan of Arc had to wish to become a figure of importance to the French people.

Or the only reason Joan of Arc could become a magical girl in the first place was because she had a karmic destiny of changing France's future.

And I doubt every important historical woman was a magical girl.

edited 17th Apr '14 7:56:21 AM by majoraoftime

On a completely unrelated note, I've stumbled across raws of the serialized chapters of Suzune Magica. Even though I can't read a word it, I can still kind of make out the plot. There are some...interesting witch designs.

edited 17th Apr '14 9:17:14 AM by universalperson

Madoka has an existence of some sort, she can look upon existence, see it as a good, and be happy. Of course, Godoka's cognition is probably closer to Capital-G God's rather than a human's, so its hard to exactly say 'how' she views reality, since outside the Isolation Field Godoka has a sense of timelessness to her.

I think it's more the base notion that girls are more 'emotional' than boys is the sexist thing, though obviously that was a concession to make this a Magical 'Girl' show. Remember that 'Wishes' are 'impossible', they're bringing a good into the world that otherwise could not exist.

I do think the new Magical Girl system is probably better. It seems like Kyubey doesn't obfuscate the ultimate end of Magical Girls in the Wraith-verse, given by how bluntly Mami talks about it (compared to how she lost her shit about the revelation of the identity of witches in Timeline Three), and also because Homura seems to have no quarrel with this timeline's Kyubey.

Really, the greatest casualty of Rebellion is Homura and Kyubey's relationship. I wanted them to be snarky buddies, not do horrible things to one another ;_;

Well hey, there's always Shinbo's interquel idea.

@End of Eva ending: Well, it's not all that bleak, since it's stated that if people wish to, they can just get out of their little Impact thing and come back to the real world.

That's sort of supposition. And besides the Earth's ecosystem is deeeeeeead, there's no way it can sustain life.

I don't think that's stated anywhere, people just think that bc Shinji came back, rather than realizing him and Asuka never dissolved in the first place.

Nice artwork

Madoka/Nisekoi crossover or you could call it Puella Magi Onodera Magica.

So Clara Dolls.

Or.

...So, the first fourteen of the dolls are present throughout Rebellion. And Ai is definitely wearing the same dress Homura wore right before when she transformed into Homulilly.

"Noi!"

...So I think Akuma Homura actually is "Love".

edited 18th Apr '14 6:59:54 AM by unnoun