[SilverSyko]

Welp, I finished up this apparent "godsend" of an anime several hours ago. This being the only the 3rd mahou shoujo series I've ever watched in my time as an anime fan, this may not mean much, but a lot of the time it didn't really feel like I was watching a mahou shoujo anime. It felt more like a shounen thriller than anything made for younger girls. I guess that's what they had in mind for this series though, and quite the experience it was.

I'm sure anyone who reads this is already aware of what I found good about this. The plot is well-constructed with many twists and shocking developments, It covers the emotional and psychological ramifications behind the duties of a Puella Magi and it answers practically every question that is presented throughout the course of it's running time. The fight scenes were very cool and intense to watch too despite how short they were.

SHAFT did it again with the animation this time. They never cease to put me in awe when it comes to their animating styles and this series is no exception. The times when the characters encounter a witch were really surreal and fit the gothic nature of witches to a T. I also like how witches are presented more as monsters rather than humanoids too.

Of course, as much as I enjoyed it all, it wasn't perfect. There were a few things that felt off to me...

First of all, the fact the titular character didn't even become a Puella Magi until the very last episode was rather silly. This series is called "Madoka Magica" and yet Madoka herself probably has the least involvement in anything (sans Mami since she dies early on) in the series until the very end. She doesn't even have a tragic backstory unlike any of the other characters. This could be nitpicking but this just seems silly to me.

Next was the ending. It was kind of confusing, bittersweet and left-open ended. Madoka wishes to erase the existence of witches so this ends up creating a whole new universe where she attains the status of a goddess. This is about all I could follow until I got lost on the rest of it all, and I'm not even sure I got that first part right. Anyway, after that's all done the only one left is Homura to fight against some new kind of foe that we aren't given any explanation on. Sayaka, Mami and Kyoko are nowhere to be seen so we don't even know if they were revived and Madoka is on some higher plane of existence or something watching over Homura. Not the easiest-to-follow ending I've ever seen, and since it's open-ended that means a possible future plotline could be made, but with the titular character gone how is something like that going to be achieved?

Lastly, and probably the biggest problem was the length. It was WAY too short for my tastes and all the developments seemed to come at too unnatural a pace. We hardly even get to know Mami before she is killed so the emotional trauma brought on by it seems forced, Hitomi's admittance of her love for Kyousuke was spontaneous and never even foreshadowed beforehand, Sayaka deciding that there was nothing worth fighting for in the world just because of two delinquents on a train was rather silly and the entropy plot device doesn't seem very well thought-out and tacked-on. I feel if this series had a least a 2-cour run a lot of the character's development would feel a little more believable.

Anywho, despite all that this was a very cool series and I can definitely see why people like it so much now. If there's ever a continuation of this series I'd love to see it.~


TL;DR: I found it just as great as a lot others have, but it still isn't without imperfections, mostly in it's length.