It's not though. I've given at least one example of a serious and clever real life theme that it went into, it was the same theme that Anna Karenina had spread all over, and Madoka Magica did it a lot better than Tolstoy did. It works on a lot of levels.
I feel like I made my case for deep at least, I didn't just say 'it's deep' and leave it there. I didn't even dwell on the magic girl aspect and deliberately showed how it stood apart from that idea, because I had no familiarity or emotional connection to magic girls going in (which I also say in my review). And whilst I do promote the dark stuff, not at the cost of the real emotive themes.
I kind of feel like no dealing with any of the actual points at all and summarising my opinion like that isn't really very fair on me
I'm sorry, I'm just bitter and sick of "SO DEEP" bullshit people on tv tropes spew about their favorite works. If it actually is deep, more power to it and to you for enjoying it.
The example you gave does at least show complexity.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.
No worries, it was a pretty terrible choice of title on my part and probably over selling it a bit. I do think the series itself is deep though, but maybe not my 'so deep' claim =D
- over selling it a lot
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Down is up, thats how deep
Even knowing what Madoka Magica is, is a spoiler. All you need to know is, it's incredible and deep and I recognised that despite knowing nothing about anime or even really that 'magical girls' is a genre. I'm not going to mention details, but the more you know about this series, the more you're missing out on.
Because there is something darkly desirable about falling into the rabbit black hole. Each revelation and event pulling you further in, till you pass the event horizon and time and space become distorted. There is no going back, no light, no hope escapes it's clutches and no choice but to go further and further in until the singularity is reached.
There were signs from the beginning that this time was going to be different. The opening shot in the credits is of a girl crying alone on a white plain, in a frilly pink princess dress that doesn't seem to fit what's going on. And the bosses are drawn in a strange abstract slightly creepy artstyle like almost nothing else.
But this story does what it does for a reason, not subversion for subversions sake, it says important things about hope and stories and life. People trying to do the right thing, sacrificing themselves for others and taking on their pain is something we do and it's hard and can break people. Even in small ways, like when someone doesn't want to do the dishes but does, without complaining, to save a friend the effort. But the friend was willing to help and doesn't know the first is sacrificing anything. The first secretly resents not being acknowledged and it flares into an argument where both feel wronged.
Madoka Magica can be looked at on almost any level and work as a perfect self-contained entity, (spoilers!) it is itself. The experience of watching Madoka Magica, follows the same arc the characters in it experience, at first things appear normal, like any other magic girl anime, and then everything is shaken up and it's wonderful, it's entertaining to see children's dreams and wishfulfillment twisted and destroyed. But slowly the illusions are stripped away and it becomes real and the threat becomes real and hope begins to seep away as it all seems too much.
Everything takes on different meanings, normal, magical, sinister, sad... as we learn things and look at them with new eyes and a new perspective. And that's a lot like life.