Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Magi Reco is kinda firmly on ignoring the passage of time / don't think too hard about it, with some vague acknowledgements between arcs.

Arc 2 dealt with it a tiny bit, but it's in untranslated sections of the chapter 12, with Mikoto bringing up and showing to Iroha how in every other timeline she, Ui, Touka, and Nemu die, as part of an attempt to convince her of the validity of her nihilism and desire to Retgone humanity.

The Madokami interventionist also something arc 2 kinda feels like they want to soft retcon out, as how well things went get brought up again and the lack of anyone dying in the battle with Eve and Walpy getting excused as the result of Mklage Yakumo's wishing for Kamihama to not be destroyed when Kyubey showed up to her during the Walpy fight and told her how her sister wished for Kamihama to be destroyed.

Reading the first few pages of this thread when the twists and overall storyline were fresh is wild.

I had no idea that the ending was hated that much.

It's very divisive. Some people love it, some people find it an interesting sequel hook but an unsatisfying conclusion if not followed up on, and some just outright hate it.

I am of the opinion that it was a good ending and it was totally in character for Homura, but the sequel is extremely overdue.

It’s a very interesting ending that, given a little thought, does have a fair amount of set-up in the film but, by the very nature of it being that interesting, a follow-up is definitely needed and it’s been almost a full decade since the movie’s release.

Yeah, the sequel really should have come out years ago.

Or we could've just waited until the sequel was finalized before releasing Rebellion. Or just make it clear that there would be no more Madoka content after that (should be easy to do with a bit of refraiming)

Didn't Urobuchi say he's had the script for the sequel movie written since like 2015?

The keyword here is "finalized". Its became clear that just because a script was made doesn't mean a movie is produced.

Either that or SHAFT is experiencing serious production hell.

1 bloody decade is long for an anime to get a sequel. In that time, I got married and had 3 kids.

For all my issues with GUP Das Finale, at least its a semi regular dripfeed of content.

Are we talking the show's finale or Rebellion's finale?

I'm assuming Rebellion's mainly because of context (the gap between PMMM and Rebellion was way shorter than 10 years)

The Concept Trailer has existed for a very long time (that reupload was only made three years ago, but it's been around for much much longer). At one point, Shaft did seem like they were producing the movie enough to make a trailer for it. But something happened and they've been sitting on it for some reason, despite Madoka being a Cash-Cow Franchise.

Hell, Walpurgis Rising may be a totally different script for all we know.

Edited by PhiSat on Aug 14th 2023 at 12:49:25 PM

I can imagine what happened in the immediate last three years. Before that, who's to say?

Yeah, from what I recall the Concept Trailer was first shown at a Japanese event in 2015, and leaked online a year later with attendees confirming that it was the trailer shown to them. So the sequel to Rebellion has been in Development Hell for at least 8 years now.

Well, I've never seen any Magical Girl shows aside from the 4Kids dub of Tokyo Mew Mew (a LONG time ago) and Kill La Kill, if you even count that.

Clearly, the best one to start with is the grimdark deconstruction, right? That's basically the extent of my knowledge. I was considering watching this for a while based on what little I heard about it, and I was surprised to learn when I looked it up that it's only one cour plus some movies. I thought for sure it was longer.

Before I start, sub or dub?

Dub's pretty good so it comes down to personal preference.

Dub's good.

Might as well check out magireco afterwards (also dub) and see how the compressed adaptation of the gacha spinoff fates in comparison, among other things.

I'm going to be a contrarian and say the dub is really meh at best. Not horrible, but just bland and average. Go for subs.

Edited by PhiSat on Aug 25th 2023 at 11:55:42 AM

Madoka is one of those franchises with a very small core but a huge sprawling collection of secondary works. The primary story is just 12 episodes and a movie (there are two other movies, but they're just compellations of the series), but there's an absolute ton of side stories in the form of manga, video games, audio drama, etc etc. That's a big part of how it managed to stay in the public consciousness so long even without any ongoing releases to the main story (thought we're supposed to get a second sequel movie... eventually).

The big spinoff are three manga (plus two that are focused on the anime cast, and the straighter manga adaptation) and Nagia Record. All focus on different casts (Oriko is borderline as it is one of the manga that leans more on the anime cast)

Yeah, there's manga with different casts, manga about different timelines Homura has been through, an Interquel between the second and third movies, and Magia Record. Plus the PSP game that fleshes out the side characters somewhat.

Edited by PhiSat on Aug 25th 2023 at 3:41:15 AM

Decided on the sub.

• Episode 1: I like how coldly hyper-futuristic the world is. Everything is simultaneously really open and really constrained because of all the windows everywhere, the world feels like observation rooms in a lab. And then shit gets nuts. Even before it gets dark, it's still pretty psychedelic and weird in the dream and battle.

• Episode 2: Man, I LOVE the artstyle for the Witch section. I know that's probably the number one thing people praise about this show, but it deserves it, that clipart artstyle is AMAZING. The ED seems really low-effort compared to the rest of the show.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Aug 27th 2023 at 4:16:35 AM

• Episode 3: And there it is. They even changed the ED, too. Honestly, I was expecting worse. The headless body falling was pretty bad, though.

• Episode 4: Seems like the show has settled into a "dark magical girl" style, with stakes and threat of death but still keeping the cool action. Honestly, it feels like I've seen this before, but only because this show came out in 2011 and it had many imitators since then, so I shouldn't be harsh on it. The execution is still great. So, the Witch was making those people mix Bleach and Ammonia into Chlorine Gas, right? That's what I assumed.

• Episode 5: And now we've got a Magical Girl who sees herself at two levels above regular humans on the food chain. Interesting that Kyubey didn't make a contract with Homura and doesn't know where she came from. Maybe there's more than one Kyubey? They're really teasing the moment where Madoka makes the contract, and I'm glad it hasn't happened yet. It's implied to be a bad thing, she shouldn't make it until she really makes up her mind on a wish.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Aug 28th 2023 at 5:30:15 AM