Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I really don't think they're expecting nine year olds to watch Lain. You've generally got two kinds of anime in Japan: the kind meant for kids, which tend to be quite long running shows that are produced very cheaply, and late-night anime, which is produced for otaku. Lain (and Madoka) fall into the latter category.

The questioner also used a terrible example to illustrate his point. Someone saying "What is that?" as he watches something strange fall from the sky is not exposition, which was implemented pretty badly that episode.

edited 21st Jul '14 5:25:34 AM by majoraoftime

I don't think it being exposition is the issue, just that such a response is kind of 'empty'.

Anyways for what it's worth I generally don't have a problem with Urobuchi's dialogue, though it sometimes gets a bit too heady in places.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

I am reliably informed by This Very Wiki that Lain is Seinen, targeted towards adults. (On the other hand, Deadman Wonderland is shonen, so it's not like you're wrong about some surprising stuff being aimed at kids.)

edited 21st Jul '14 1:02:16 PM by rikalous

Yeah I mostly just used Lain hyperbolically, but the point does stand that One Piece, Fairy Tail, Naruto, and Bleach, with all their sexual innuendo and be-bosomed female leads, are considered okay for kids to watch.

And what nine-year-old doesn't watch adult programming now and then?

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

If we are talking about dialogue, Urobvuchi has nothing on Nisio Isin or Kinoko Nasu.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Sexual innuendo?

Bosomy female leads?

Oh, the West would never let that fly. *halo of innocence and sincerity*

edited 21st Jul '14 1:06:17 PM by rikalous

Crunchyroll works again. Like MacArthur, I have returned! Settling down to episode 7 with a nice cup of tea.

EDIT: Don't listen to Kyubey, Sayaka. Just kill him. Also, damn is he a cold-blooded little shit.

EDIT: Can we please kill Kyubey?

Ooh, Kyoko's turned up. Good. She seems the most well-adjusted character so far, barring Madoka. Which is saying something. "You get what you pay for" indeed. Maybe one day I will write a Marxist criticism of PMMM with Kyoko representing...something. Maybe the struggling petit bourgeoisie. (*cogs whirr).

EDIT: Holy fuck...Perhaps not that well-adjusted. Never have I seen someone eat apples with such fury. I still suspect she's right, though.

EDIT: Hitomi seems far too nice to survive much longer.

Well, that was a bit slower, but nice for the character development. Sayaka seems a little...unhinged, now. Her arc seemed weakest here.

edited 21st Jul '14 2:03:19 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I always have trouble remembering when you find out that Kyubey is a super-advanced alien. Apparently it's in episode 9. I guess that's because he never actually says it, just strongly implies it, even though he's very blunt about everything else.

Also, the hinges are about to fly off the... uh... hinges.

edited 21st Jul '14 2:19:10 PM by Kotomikun

Episode 8 is pretty good for character development as well. Although it pales in comparison to episode 10, which you could point to in fiction classes and say "This. This is how you do character development."

Kyubey hates communism.

edited 21st Jul '14 2:26:39 PM by majoraoftime

Or he might just think it's unworkable for those cuh-raaazy hoomans.

Kind of wanted Kyubey to be a trolling demon thing as opposed to a trolling alien thing.

Communism works for beings like the Coobies because they execute it without the problems that humans have.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

@rikalous: Animaniacs was a better time

And superhero comics are increasingly targeted towards basement dwellers, which sucks because I've never been much one for basements.

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

I'm from earthquake country. I'm not completely sure a basement isn't a kind of fruit.

Anyway, the point (and I do have one) is that Parental Bonus, Getting Crap Past the Radar, What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? and suchlike tropes are far from a strictly anime/manga thing.

Why do people not like the sci-fi twist? I liked the sci-fi twist!

I'm from Cajun Country. Basements are some kind of underground pool, I think.

While that's true, my point is that there isn't a radar in Japan. At least not the way we consider it. The banned episode of Excel Saga only got that way because they broke literally as many rules as they could while making it, including making it one minute longer than its supposed to be.

We consider there to be a radar on Anime and judge it as such on this site because we're primarily European/American, but in truth the line between seinen and shonen is very different from what we expect. Dragon Ball is shonen. Dragon Ball. The show/manga that had Bulma outright flash Master Roshi, openly talk about genitals, and have Goku pat people on the crotch to figure out if they were a boy or a girl.

And that was over the course of a single volume.

That's not Getting Crap Past the Radar. That's the Radar not giving a shit.

edited 22nd Jul '14 6:23:53 AM by Frishman

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

In truth, does it really matter? It's not like the sci fi elements start creeping into the show Nanoha style, so for all intents and purposes, it doesn't really make a difference if QB is ademon Or an alien . QB is still a creature that grants wishes in exchange for a person's soul and slowly warps them into physics defying, world breaking monsters, it's just that he comes from out space instead of from hell or whatever.

Side note, but has there been an official source of what exactly Homura did at the end of Rebellion? We know the effects of what she did, but what did she do, exactly? As far as I can tell she basically recreates the world sans the Magical girls, through either hijacking Madoka's powers or creating a galaxy wide Labyrinth, but I get the feeling that there's soemthing more to it than that.

edited 23rd Jul '14 12:32:39 AM by cannongerbil

ALL HAIL THE WARGERBIL!

Anyways, Magic is still Magic.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

I think they're keeping things deliberately vague on that score until the sequel. There's a bit in an interview (found here) where Urobuchi says "I want this to be the kind of story where everyone will want to imagine their own sequel." I haven't actually read the whole interview, though, so maybe there's some other info.

edited 22nd Jul '14 11:08:31 PM by rikalous

Random post, but who would've guessed that the theme to Sailor Moon Crystal fit Madoka so well?

The Sailor Moon manga has been doing the despair before it was cool.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

So, I watched the rest of the series.

Wow. Didn't expect any of that.

So let me get this straight:

Kyubey (arsehole) harvests the tears and despair of young girls in order to stave off the heat death of the universe. Homura met Madoka and Mami when they were already magical girls, and made a wish to be able to stop Madoka becoming a magical girl. So she's lived out the timeline hundreds of times, thus making Madoka more and more powerful, to the point that Madoka works out how to break the cycle by wishing for all witches to be retroactively deleted. Thus, Homura is saved from her cycle, Madoka becomes the goddess/concept of hope and saves all magical girls ever, but is herself destroyed. Everyone except Homura and Tatsuya forgets about her, and Sayaka, Kyoko, Mami, and Homura form a magical girl team protecting Mitakihara City, where Sayaka dies again, because the poor girl can't catch a break. Now, witches just disappear when they get too corrupt...and now they fight wraiths, which is more inefficient but still enough to save the universe.

Huh.

I really, really, really enjoyed that. Homura and Kyoko are best characters.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Pretty much.

EDIT: Though I'm the resident massive Sayaka fanboy.

edited 23rd Jul '14 4:42:41 AM by Sereg

Sayaka's pretty awesome in Rebellion.

Semi-related, why is Oktavia the only witch with a surname?

Song of the Sirens

So what do I watch/read now? Is there manga/OVAs/movies?

Schild und Schwert der Partei

There's a sequel movie, Rebellion, which is... divisive. But it's very beautiful and interesting, regardless. There isn't any way to watch it legally, to my knowledge. Unless you want to buy the B Ds from Japan.

The only manga spin-off worth reading is The Different Story, which involves one of the timelines Homura went through. It also expands on Mami and Kyouko's backstory.

EDIT: I have to say, though, the best audio-visual scene in the series is easily the Oktavia (Sayaka's witch) battle.

DOUBLE EDIT: *Points to title and relationship status, winks*

edited 23rd Jul '14 5:54:04 AM by majoraoftime