Madoka Magica - Episode 07 Discussion / Poll

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by guuchan

I haven't got the chance to watch it yet, but judging from the posts here, she is still alive alright. NOW, I would love to see you gulping down the 2 tails, please.

Counting in the 2 tails you won in this ep, you still owe me 8 from the Mami bet

I said this one was a long shot, but yea, your win. Still a bit risky to "guarantee" it.

[MeoTwister5]

Watched the subs after RAW the earlier today (or late yesterday), and now I'm already under the impression that in reality, Madoka actually hasn't made any real choices at all. It's easy to argue that she chose not to be an MG, but after today it might be closer to say that she hasn't really chosen either path in the first place. Even into the very last moment of this episode she was still essentially a bystander, an observer just watching the horrors unfold before her and left in her impotent sorrow. As Sayaka descended into the madness of despair she was still there, unable to do a damn thing. As was mentioned earlier, if idealism was enough then she would have snapped Sayaka out of her slump. Since this is an Urobuchu Gen story, if you're ever going to get your idealist ending you're going to get it at the end of road paved with broken dreams and shattered minds. Given that it's not going to be an ideal ending anymore.

Back to Madoka, while it's clear that she suffers by proxy/extension (I call it bleeding heart syndrome), I think it could be established fact that despite seeing all these horrors unfold before her she is still nothing more than an undecided observer from the sidelines watching the world go by and just being swept along in the process. While she bleeds for her companions, she as of yet does not show how she truly thinks about all of this. Her conversation with her mother shows how she feels, but what does she believe? What does she "think" about all of this?

Right now Madoka seems to be the in-world representation of the undecided viewer, just watching from the sidelines as the events unfold but yet to make an actual decision out of it all. Of course we don't have the same degree of emotional investment with the cast or the same looming threat of mortality hounding are backs, but it feels as if she has not yet tried to make sense of it all and make some sort of rational conclusion. She's just... watching. She's not really doing anything. It's clear her emotional support isn't getting people by, in fact she is not very proactive with said support in the first place. I dare say that apart from minute influences on others before and after the magic, her current state would not really not factor in any of the outcomes and results. Whether she's physically or mentally present would not have affected who lives, who dies, and for this episode, who breaks apart.

And I think she knows this. The show has pointed out that Madoka's central conflict is her general feeling of impotence and worthlessness in this entire debacle, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that. I don't think her feelings of powerlessness comes from a relative lack of self-worth, but more of not knowing what she can, and should, do when faced with two choices she feels are dead ends. I doubt she feels like a weakling, but more like she is still stuck in that confused state of wanting and knowing she can help, but she doesn't know how, because the only options she has are the same options she's trying to get others out of. In that sense she's the same as Homura already: both have decided they want to stop this mess, but Madoka doesn't know how while Homura has a path she follows.

So that begs a question. If Homura is so hell bent on stopping her from contracting because it accomplishes a larger goal, and QB is bent on getting her contracted, then could it be safe to say that the core of this entire MGs vs. Witch thing is intrinsically tied to the existence that is Madoka?

That actually leads me to my theory, given the episode ending, that what Sayaka is going through might actually be the process in which witches are created. We might be seeing the transformation of an MG to a witch.

And if Madoka holds a distinct MG quality that could also translate into a witch quality...

[creb]

Poor Kyoko. In the end, she's just like Mami in being lonely. In her own bumbling way she extends a hand of friendship to be slapped aside by that self-righteous jerk Sayaka. ;p

Yet, she's lonely enough that she still interjects when all hope seems lost.

That was a great witch fight. I especially loved Sayaka not doing her unlimited blade works imitation. That always felt lame beyond belief, as if she was so enthralled with Mami she had to copy her down to abilities. I mean, I still see bad things in Sayaka's future, but it's good to see her become her own Magical Girl for the duration she's got left being one. ;p

I also loved the coloring. It really seemed to illustrate the state of mind Sayaka is heading towards.

I don't like self-righteous people as a general rule. By all rights, I shouldn't like Sayaka. She's all the things I dislike, but, she's impressed me a lot with her moments of surprisingly mature contemplation spent outside the public face she shows to her friends. Which makes the maniacal laughing there in the fight vs the witch minutes after I thought she'd pulled herself back together after letting it all out to Madoka...troubling. Has she really snapped? Is this the beginning of the dark descent for her?

Anyways, another week of Kyuube apologists using every word they can find in the dictionary to defend everyone's favorite plush doll. Personally, I really liked him in this episode. He dropped his cute act for a minute and became someone I could see myself drinking beer and playing poker with as he matter of factly showed Sayaka what real physical pain felt like.

I'm just really, really, really curious what he meant by "if you go further you won't feel pain at all" statement (I know, with the amount of balls dropped by gg, I'm aware this could be yet another mistranslation, but if not...). When he explained the offset was slower speed, it seemed to imply his putting their souls into that soul gem was what he considered the best compromise between leaving it in their body......and what? What other methods has he used! :/

I think at this point it's safe to say that Madoka won't be going Magical Girl till near the end of the series. Probably in an effort to change the entire system (oh I'm sure there might be some world saving as well, but it'll ultimately be about the system I think).

I'm a bit worried about Kyoko. I mean, we didn't see her in episode one after all. Granted, we don't know that witch was Sayaka or not, so it's possible we didn't see her either, but we definitely didn't see Kyoko. And now that Kyoko has finally given us her backstory, she seems fair game for a bad ending. Especially since, like Mami, she's opening up and starting to think she might not have to be completely alone anymore.

There are 4? 5? episodes left. That's actually not that many if we assume there's a fate set out for Kyoko, Sayaka, and Homura, while also having time for Madoka to make the plunge and "fix" everything.

[raruku]

too much blue, gimme black pink or red already !

[Makender]

Is it just me or did Hitomi's admission to liking Kamijo seem somewhat fishy? Like I was getting a vibe that it was forced or done to elicit some kind of reaction out of Sayaka. Maybe it was all those incredibly awkward pauses that lasted a second too long. I just know (okay have a strong inkling!) that there's more to Hitomi. I've been suspicious of Hitomi ever since episode four and can't help but feel she may have a deeper connection to all this somehow. She wanted to drive Sayaka to break for some deep, dark, nefarious witch's plan? Sounds like a Gen grimdark mindfuck to me.

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Makender

Is it just me or did Hitomi's admission to liking Kamijo seem somewhat fishy? Like I was getting a vibe that it was forced or done to elicit some kind of reaction out of Sayaka. Maybe it was all those incredibly awkward pauses that lasted a second too long. I just know (okay have a strong inkling!) that there's more to Hitomi. I've been suspicious of Hitomi ever since episode four and can't help but feel she may have a deeper connection to all this somehow. She wanted to drive Sayaka to break for some deep, dark, nefarious witch's plan? Sounds like a Gen grimdark mindfuck to me.

I think she has asked Sayaka about Kamijio in the first or second episode. So at least she cared about Sayaka's interraction with him.

[jeroz]

can kyubey eats a soul gem as well?

[zato_1one]

I think that Sayaka was just too coward to approach Kamijou. Her words were just an excuse to hide her fear of being rejected. And after watching sub, I feel like Hitomi tried to set up a plan to force Sayaka to confess to Kamijou. What a mess if the root cause of all these problems comes from the misunderstanding. D:

[creb]

Originally Posted by Makender

Is it just me or did Hitomi's admission to liking Kamijo seem somewhat fishy? Like I was getting a vibe that it was forced or done to elicit some kind of reaction out of Sayaka. Maybe it was all those incredibly awkward pauses that lasted a second too long. I just know (okay have a strong inkling!) that there's more to Hitomi. I've been suspicious of Hitomi ever since episode four and can't help but feel she may have a deeper connection to all this somehow. She wanted to drive Sayaka to break for some deep, dark, nefarious witch's plan? Sounds like a Gen grimdark mindfuck to me.

*laugh* I originally thought Hitomi was a witch as I sat watching episode two. Not because there was a shred of evidence for it, but because when you've watched as much anime as I have, your mind tends to automatically try to peg every character you see. And when it was just Sayaka and Madoka out of the trio going down the path to Magical Girlness, coupled with Hitomi always having to...study and being basically the perfect girl, one's first thought is always that the perfect girl is hiding some dark secret. It's practically a law of anime. ;p

Anyways, in a show like this, it's easy to be paranoid that no one is what they seem. For now I've settled on her being what she seems to be. The normal girl serving as a counterpoint to Sayaka and Madoka getting pulled further and further into the world of Magical Girls. Possibly a point of tragedy if Sayaka goes unhinged over a boy.

Btw, I don't think we've ever seen what a witch looks like outside of their little strange zone that the girls fight them in. Presumably they must exist in some form in the real world in order to "kiss" their victims right? :/

[Avvesione]

Originally Posted by Makender

Is it just me or did Hitomi's admission to liking Kamijo seem somewhat fishy? Like I was getting a vibe that it was forced or done to elicit some kind of reaction out of Sayaka. Maybe it was all those incredibly awkward pauses that lasted a second too long. I just know (okay have a strong inkling!) that there's more to Hitomi. I've been suspicious of Hitomi ever since episode four and can't help but feel she may have a deeper connection to all this somehow. She wanted to drive Sayaka to break for some deep, dark, nefarious witch's plan? Sounds like a Gen grimdark mindfuck to me.

Funny you should mention that. A friend and I were talking about that and, after a little back and forth, we sorta came up with a little list. This is just for fun but it might help explain a little bit of Hitomi.

We were looking who would be the embodiment of the seven deadly sins. After all, this was the 7th episode in the series. Some were pretty easy and some were harder.

Kyoko - Gluttony - She's always eating
Sayaka - Pride - Her ego and idealism
Mami - Greed - Keeping Madoka and Sayaka to herself/wish for herself/gold-theme blonde hair
Homura - Sloth - Never finished killing Kyubey/only tells Madoka things once/watchs lots of fights
Hitomi - Lust - She's after Kyosuke. She also thought Madoka and Sayaka were yuri in the second episode (jokingly), so her mind is in the gutter
Kyubey - Jealousy - Jealous of Madoka's powers/potential. Friend suggested Madoka's mom for this part though.

which leaves the final pairing to be:

Madoka - Rage. I can only hope that's true because then the next few episodes would be AWESOME.

Of course, this isn't perfect but it was fun to see what we could come up with. My list is a little different, so I'm kinda curious to what you guys think.

[Makender]

Originally Posted by creb

*laugh* I originally thought Hitomi was a witch as I sat watching episode two. Not because there was a shred of evidence for it, but because when you've watched as much anime as I have, your mind tends to automatically try to peg every character you see. And when it was just Sayaka and Madoka out of the trio going down the path to Magical Girlness, coupled with Hitomi always having to...study and being basically the perfect girl, one's first thought is always that the perfect girl is hiding some dark secret. It's practically a law of anime. ;p

Anyways, in a show like this, it's easy to be paranoid that no one is what they seem. For now I've settled on her being what she seems to be. The normal girl serving as a counterpoint to Sayaka and Madoka getting pulled further and further into the world of Magical Girls. Possibly a point of tragedy if Sayaka goes unhinged over a boy.

Alas, I fear for Hitomi because she seems like the perfect candidate for Urobuchi's wild, dark fantasies to prey upon. Such a nice girl linked to such a dark future...

Also I was a bit disappointed with Kyoko's backstory in that her father was just able to find out about her being a magical girl and believe it so readily. It seemed contrived and rushed. I'm sort of thinking that Gen's true writing genius isn't able to shine here.

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by Avvesione

We were looking who would be the embodiment of the seven deadly sins. After all, this was the 7th episode in the series. Some were pretty easy and some were harder.

Kyoko - Gluttony - She's always eating
Sayaka - Pride - Her ego and idealism
Mami - Greed - Keeping Madoka and Sayaka to herself/wish for herself/gold-theme blonde hair
Homura - Sloth - Never finished killing Kyubey/only tells Madoka things once/watchs lots of fights
Hitomi - Lust - She's after Kyosuke. She also thought Madoka and Sayaka were yuri in the second episode (jokingly), so her mind is in the gutter
Kyubey - Jealousy - Jealous of Madoka's powers/potential. Friend suggested Madoka's mom for this part though.

which leaves the final pairing to be:

Madoka - Rage. I can only hope that's true because then the next few episodes would be AWESOME.

Of course, this isn't perfect but it was fun to see what we could come up with. My list is a little different, so I'm kinda curious to what you guys think.

Madoka being rage WOULD be pretty sweet. I'd love to see that.

Personally, I think I'd switch QB and Mami around. It's seems more fitting that Mami would be jealous of Madoka and Sayaka's ignorance and freedom (at that current time). That may be a little far-fetched, but it fits.

I dunno, I just think that Greed fits QB so much better with his hunger for recruiting more MGs (possibly to be restockers of his virtually never-ending grief seed supply? but I highly doubt that's his motive). He's so blinded by the allure of getting more girls to contract with him that he purposely leaves out the important/more disturbing details. That sounds pretty greedy to me.

[BaKaBaKaOtaKu]

wow! so much sayaka this episode. and it seems she just snapped! O__o she’s turned psycho!! DX

OMG! i definitely didn’t expect hitomi to play such a huge role into having sayaka fall into despair! it’s quite the shocker for me this episode.

man, i admired hitomi for not going behind sayaka’s back about kamijo. she’s a true friend. it’s quite apparent that she confessed to sayaka,encouraging her into finally admitting her feelings to kamijo. But i’m afraid, given what became of sayaka, along with her loss of hope (and sanity?), she might do something terribly wrong.

i mean, like killing hitomi? *shudder*

with these thoughts, i think it’s becoming likely that sayaka’s that witch in madoka’s dream. well this might be proven wrong since i’m just speculating. oh btw, i love how the battle scene went. with all those silhouettes, it’s actually my favorite witch encounter so far. And not to mention how cool sayaka was(whilst madoka just stood there >_>).

moving to kyoko, since her background was revealed,it’d not be surprising if ever she gets her end next chapter. but dang, i’m really liking her character.i’d be sad if she dies. just like how i did with mami. DX

i knew from the start that she’s not that bad. there’s an acceptable reason behind her cynical and realistic view in life. but man, finally knowing her backstory, i say, it was pretty tragic. She lead her family in destruction without intending to. it was plain horrible! DX

i’m just kinda pissed at sayaka for not appreciating those help that she’s offering her.

so yeah, deathflags for kyoko are everywhere, i guess. DX (i’m already bracing myself for those inevitable deaths)


about QB, it’s quite clear to me now that he doesn’t really understand human emotions. therefore, i label him as not-yet-evil STILL.(this is subject to change ofc). what seemed like a torture he did to sayaka was just to show sayaka how much advantage the SG had. atleast that’s what i see. unless, it’s outright told or later revealed that he knew all along what he’s doing and yet continued to do so. then i can finally tell that he’s not good at all.

lastly, homura’s line at the rooftop scene. When Madoka asked why she’s cold, she answered that she may not be human anymore.

Does this mean that she was never a cat,having the cat-theory overruled?

hmm. i guess not yet. sure the theory tells that she might be a cat BEFORE. BUT, we can still consider that SHE WAS TURNED INTO A CAT instead and she’s animagus. how? i dunno yet.

so yeah, not an excellent episode but still VERY GOOD!

WHO’S GONNA GET KILLED NEXT? i wonder..

can’t wait for next episode!! XD

[FlavorOfLife]

Sayaka's not dead . Now its looks like Kyoko is going to die sooner tha Sayaka probably at Sayaka's hands or trying to save her. Still my initial guess was Sayaka dead on ep 7 or ep 8. 1 more episode for Sayaka to die.

On the bright side, Sayaka has started understanding she's a moron for taking that wish. Kyoko's not much better.

[adamatari]

It's clear Kyouko is just as lonely as Mami was... I think her original desire to kill Sayaka had a strong flavor of self-hatred, in light of events. She's obviously completely unlike the front we were shown earlier - she's a sheep in wolf's clothing. The personality flip is a bit abrupt to say the least, but I'll just give it a pass and assume the new knowledge of having an external soul gave her a shock or something. In any case, her message seems to be "care about/love yourself", which is exactly what Sayaka isn't getting.

Sayaka - well, she has given up long before anything has happened. She decided her impure body (and also her impure soul, because she wished she hadn't saved Hitomi) disqualified her from being with Kamijyo - but to some extent I think she just doesn't have the courage to face him and confess (because she knows she'll probably be turned down). I don't think she'll attack Hitomi or Kamijyo as of yet, she seems driven by despair in the last scene but being in despair does not mean giving up on your principles neccessarily. You can always be a martyr. Or commit suicide, which she seems half trying to do in the last fight.

As for Madoka - she has been extremely important, she's still trying to support Sayaka, and her actions are basically the reason why Kyouko and Sayaka didn't kill each other. I think she's still trying to find a way out. Of course she doesn't want to be a magical girl - who would really want that? Under those circumstances?

Homura is still the dark horse of the plot. We don't know her backstory, we don't know how she contracted or who with (Kyuubey is evasive here), we don't know her motives, all we know is that she's trying to prevent Madoka from contracting. I think it's clear she's not nearly as coldblooded as some people seem to think - she tried to step in when Mami went after her demise, she stepped in when Kyouko was after Sayaka, she saved Sayaka's butt doubly when Madoka threw her off the bridge, and she's hanging out with Kyouko...

The only character that isn't showing human feeling is Kyuubey, that evil little stuffed doll from hell.

Basically, this is a show moved by a cast of idealistic characters moved by their feelings, as would be expected of a Magical Girl. They're all searching for a reason to live, all trying to get and give love... But they're all screwed. Like the rest of us.

[Qikz]

Originally Posted by FlavorOfLife

Sayaka's not dead . Now its looks like Kyoko is going to die sooner tha Sayaka probably at Sayaka's hands or trying to save her. Still my initial guess was Sayaka dead on ep 7 or ep 8. 1 more episode for Sayaka to die.

On the bright side, Sayaka has started understanding she's a moron for taking that wish. Kyoko's not much better.

Why would you want Sayaka to die, she's the best character.

I can't believe it's turning out how it is, why has she suddenly turned insane in that fight, I honestly can't work out what would have forced that hand. All she had to do was confess to Kamijou and Hitomi would have left him alone. I really don't get this anime, I love it so much but I hate it for all the right reasons. It's Dark and good but depressing because you can just see the characters you've begun to like falling apart all around you and it annoys me.

Damnit.

[DmonHiro]

Does the witch Sayaka was fighting look like a mini version of the witch Homura was fighting at the start of episode 1, or am I just thinking too much?

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by jeroz

can kyubey eats a soul gem as well?

That was one of the questions which popped into my mind as well.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by DmonHiro

Does the witch Sayaka was fighting look like a mini version of the witch Homura was fighting at the start of episode 1, or am I just thinking too much?

Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought the "tree" coming from the witch was mere coincidence. I have no speculation about it though. On the other hand, is it me or did the witch look like a person this time?

[RedWing]

Kinda looks like a person praying. The ground they're fighting on looks like the statue of liberty's hand.