It's really great to see Madoka Magica gain a new fan here on Anime Suki. Welcome to AS, by the way!
Very good first post. It's good to meet another PMMM fan, particularly one that seems to have a pretty deep and thorough understanding of the show and its characters.
With that in mind, I want to focus on this part of your post here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asehpe
Many have criticized the characters as 'sketchy' or 'archetypical' or 'unrelatable', especially Madoka herself, the 'sobbing coward' (a Shinji type?). Yet I personally find it so easy to see them as real people -- I wonder why that is? Why can I see Kyōko Sakura's hard life so clearly in almost every one of her gestures? Why can I see Sayaka Miki's courage and apparent strength (with an underlying serving of weakness and self-hatred) so clearly even in the way she laughs (completely different from Madoka's, Mami's, or Kyoko's -- has anyone else noticed how well their way of laughing fits their overall personality?)? Similarly, Mami's sense of comfort with inner loneliness seems to me so clear both in her demeanor, in her attempts to interest others (all those tea and cake magazines, her coyly saying 'only a few refreshments' to then treat her friends with cake and tea served with such elegance, everything suggests an attempt to seduce others into staying and helping her ease her loneliness)...
I could literally write an entire essay on the intricacies of every single character, as they are revealed by small things here and there. (What do Homura's hairflips make you all feel, for instance? How do they relate to who she is as a character?). I would love to analyze the witches' labyrinths, and how they relate to the wishes, powers, and other circumstances of the magical girls that gave rise to them. The sheer change in insects (from nice ones like butterflies in the first episodes to buzzing threatening ones around lampposts in episode 9...
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Very eloquently stated.
Madoka Magica has its critics, but it's a widely well-regarded anime show, one of the more popular and critically acclaimed ones around.
However, a fairly common comment I run across is that what makes Madoka Magica great is its plot and style, not so much its characters. So it's very refreshing to read a Madoka Magica review that gives special attention and credit to its characters.
What you wrote about the main cast resonates strongly with me, especially what you wrote about Sayaka and Mami. I think you very nicely captured the emotional richness and personality depth of both characters.
Why more people don't "see" the main cast more like you and I do is indeed a bit of a mystery to me. Like yourself, I find the main cast to have considerable depth of character. So much so that, yes, they feel like real people to me. While I think there's some truth to the characters being
archetypal, that just makes the sense of realness coming from them that much more remarkable. Each of the main cast characters manages to exemplify a certain popular anime character/personality type as well as stand for certain ideas - But even while doing this, they still feel like real people to me.
Madoka Magica probably has the strongest main cast of any anime show I've watched. All five are well-realized and carefully fleshed out, representing a good and believable range of personalities as well as very good interpersonal dynamics given those personality similarities and differences.