Madoka Magica - General Discussion

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Himeji

She could've been faking her reaction, or she did request help from the witch, but didn't expect the help to appear in the form of evil pringles

so true

Originally Posted by Himeji

"Gaytes of Muskets" just sounds gay

Ah! choices ... UBW is just wrong, than again Gaytes of whatever is yuri/yaoi ... what should I pick ...

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Himeji

She could've been faking her reaction

For who? There was no one present.

Really, you're working too hard to cast her in a villainous light, and I don't think the anime's creators intended you to.

[zato_1one]

I want to ask are those demonic pringles speak one of human language or just some random words like the alien in SoreMachi?

Don't know but I feel like they are counting number.

[pcj]

Originally Posted by zato_1one

I want to ask are those demonic pringles speak one of human language or just some random words like the alien in SoreMachi?

The language of the words written on the screen while they were speaking randomly looked like something south Asian, like Thai or one of the languages in India. I'm not familiar with any of those languages to know for sure though.

[Skyfall]

Seeing this is Shinbo x Magial Girl, i went in cautiously and with my mental shields in heightened alert mode, but didn't need them in the end - the episode turned out surprisingly enjoyable. While Shinbo had obviously left his mark of WTF-ness upon the presentation, it wasn't that bad, considering the timing for it (dream and 'alternate dimension' scenes) - while not my first choices for a scenery, i can appreciate them being used to add surreality to surreal situations.

While i didn't really like the character designs (or more precisely, the faces) , the story, mood and especially BGM, which goes a long way in setting the mood, are excellent. I knew i was sold at the very beginning when the music started playing during the dream scene - Kajiura Yuki never fails to impress me; I would be willing to watch this for the songs alone. No need to, though, as the story turned out plenty interesting itself.

My immediate guess (and that of many others, it seems) is that we are dealing with a looping universe / reset of sorts, with Houmura obviously recalling the past events. As such, it makes sense she would go after Kyuube after verifying Madoka is happy with her current life and doesn't remember anything - since the thing is needed for Madoka (or anyone apparently) to gain their magic powers, by killing it she could prevent Madoka from ever coming in to contact with the magical world, which apparently didn't end too well last time (if the dream is indeed a previous loop). Well that obviously didn't go as planned.

What i am wondering about though is - what was Houmura fighting in the dream ? The surroundings looked in a pretty bad shape, so does that mean the world was heading towards destruction for one reason or another ? If so, can Madoka actually be saved by cutting her off from the magical side, if the destruction is coming regardless ? (Unless Houmura was thinking she could stop it this time by herself, thus allowing Madoka to live her normal life, never the wiser). We shall see i guess, but i find all the potential variations quite fascinating, as usual with time loops.

Either way, Houmura's plan failed and Kyuube met Madoka. Personally i don't trust the little fuzzy ball at all (he seems awfully eager to get people in to a contract), and i have a feeling in the end it will be a "And we could have avoided all this, if only you hadn't stopped me back then" type of deal At any rate, this rabbitcat thing is what i am weary of the most.

So .. yeah. A pretty solid start, and what the show lacks in character designs it makes up in terms of interesting and potentially (somewhat) dark story, despite the magical girl theme. Me likes. Having seen all of the new season's shows thus far, this is likely (and unexpectedly) my favorite thus far.

[zato_1one]

Originally Posted by pcj

The language of the words written on the screen while they were speaking randomly looked like something south Asian, like Thai or one of the languages in India. I'm not familiar with any of those languages to know for sure though.

Well, at least I can assure you that it was definitely not Thai language. If those words were what they were saying then I suppose that they were just random words after all.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

My immediate guess (and that of many others, it seems) is that we are dealing with a looping universe / reset of sorts, with Houmura obviously recalling the past events. As such, it makes sense she would go after Kyuube after verifying Madoka is happy with her current life and doesn't remember anything - since the thing is needed for Madoka (or anyone apparently) to gain their magic powers, by killing it she could prevent Madoka from ever coming in to contact with the magical world, which apparently didn't end too well last time (if the dream is indeed a previous loop). Well that obviously didn't go as planned.

What i am wondering about though is - what was Houmura fighting in the dream ? The surroundings looked in a pretty bad shape, so does that mean the world was heading towards destruction for one reason or another ? If so, can Madoka actually be saved by cutting her off from the magical side, if the destruction is coming regardless ? (Unless Houmura was thinking she could stop it this time by herself, thus allowing Madoka to live her normal life, never the wiser). We shall see i guess, but i find all the potential variations quite fascinating, as usual with time loops.

Either way, Houmura's plan failed and Kyuube met Madoka. Personally i don't trust the little fuzzy ball at all (he seems awfully eager to get people in to a contract), and i have a feeling in the end it will be a "And we could have avoided all this, if only you hadn't stopped me back then" type of deal At any rate, this rabbitcat thing is what i am weary of the most.

Homura failed due to killing Kyube would cause a temporal paradox to occur. I bet that he is the one that made Homura into a magical girl.

But Kyube said that the destruction and grief was unavoidable. Madoka, by becoming a magical girl is just "changing it". So at least Kyube is trying to work within the constraints so as to not cause a temporal paradox.

Maybe he needs a certain number to only let a minimum amount of damage occur in the future or adding Madoka would mean possibly a certain action can occur in the future that didn't occur to change the outcome.

[Nina.Wolken]

Originally Posted by zato_1one

I want to ask are those demonic pringles speak one of human language or just some random words like the alien in SoreMachi?

Don't know but I feel like they are counting number.

Sounds like a countdown to me. You can "quite" clearly heard them say "zero" when they are about to attack Madoka and Sayaka, right before Mami step in to protect the two girls.
For lack of better idea, I like to think it's Kajiura language they are using in that scene .

[Cabrini6000]

That was....a lot better then expected. I honestly thought I would be dropping this show. So much for that. This is defiantly better then expected. The art, story, music, even the characters were great!

[SilentOutlaw]

Is it just me or does basically everyone that says what they thought about the first episode that "I didn't think it was going to be so good, but it's amazing and could be the best show this season."

I think that too....

[zato_1one]

Originally Posted by Nina.Wolken

Sounds like a countdown to me. You can "quite" clearly heard them say "zero" when they are about to attack Madoka and Sayaka, right before Mami step in to protect the two girls.

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Originally Posted by Nina.Wolken

For lack of better idea, I like to think it's Kajiura language they are using in that scene .

Talking about this, I heard before that she actually developed her own language. Is it true? If so then what's the purpose of it?

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by orion

Homura failed due to killing Kyube would cause a temporal paradox to occur. I bet that he is the one that made Homura into a magical girl.

Assuming we are dealing with a "reset button" here, a paradox is actually impossible. A paradox would be Houmura going back in time prior to becoming a magical girl, and killing Kyuubi before she was made in to a magical girl, thus rendering it impossible for her to go back in time. I don't believe we are dealing with time travel here though, which is what temporal paradox would be associated with (And even then it's not like a temporal paradox is a certainty - it isn't any more of a likely outcome than, say, Multiple Timelines theory, butterfly effects and what not, all are just speculations which offer plenty of variety of how to approach time travel) , so that's a non-issue.

The fact Madoka is having dreams of what should have been her 'previous life' puts a rather big stop to the time traveler theory, because Madoka wouldn't have dreams of events that have actually yet to happen. Some sort of a resetting or parallel world would be my first guess, as both leave room for handwaving as to why Madoka would be having dreams involving herself in events that have yet to happen. Or heck, this world might even be Madoka's creation in an attempt to start over, depending how her attempt to "change it all", implied in the dream sequence, went.

[pcj]

This show is showing up in the Android client for Crunchyroll, no episodes in it yet though. Likely that means Crunchyroll has it licensed and hasn't announced it yet (and someone got sloppy setting it up).

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by SilentOutlaw

Is it just me or does basically everyone that says what they thought about the first episode that "I didn't think it was going to be so good, but it's amazing and could be the best show this season."

I think that too....

Not everyone. A few of us thought it was going to be awesome as soon as we heard about it. Considering the staff involved, there was no way it was going to be bad.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

Assuming we are dealing with a "reset button" here, a paradox is actually impossible. A paradox would be Houmura going back in time prior to becoming a magical girl, and killing Kyuubi before she was made in to a magical girl, thus rendering it impossible for her to go back in time. I don't believe we are dealing with time travel here though, which is what temporal paradox would be associated with (And even then it's not like a temporal paradox is a certainty - it isn't any more of a likely outcome than, say, Multiple Timelines theory, butterfly effects and what not, all are just speculations which offer plenty of variety of how to approach time travel) , so that's a non-issue.

The fact Madoka is having dreams of what should have been her 'previous life' puts a rather big stop to the time traveler theory, because Madoka wouldn't have dreams of events that have actually yet to happen. Some sort of a resetting or parallel world would be my first guess, as both leave room for handwaving as to why Madoka would be having dreams involving herself in events that have yet to happen. Or heck, this world might even be Madoka's creation in an attempt to start over, depending how her attempt to "change it all", implied in the dream sequence, went.

What if Kyube put the dream there? Then it's not Madoka having a dream of her previous life but Kyube showing her the future and then planting the seed about the contract.

Or in the reset scenario, Madoka wished for the "reset" and was put back in time to prevent Kyube being "killed" and allowed to form the contract. First timeline with Homura taking a nose dive was canned and now they're on the new branch of timeline.

Kyube's speech goes with a temporal paradox problem that was getting solved. Also, at no time during that fight did Madoka call out Homura's name so she might not have known her then. Madoka just saw a girl dying with lots of destruction going around.

It's only the first ep. We'll figure it out prob by the end of the show.

[minagoroshi-hen]

Originally Posted by SilentOutlaw

Is it just me or does basically everyone that says what they thought about the first episode that "I didn't think it was going to be so good, but it's amazing and could be the best show this season."

I think that too....

I thought it was an utter disappointment and that the only good thing was the bgm,but that's just me.I dunno...Maybe I set my bar too high after hearing that Urobuchi Gen is involved.

[wingman32x]

watched episode 1, and it was awesome. I usually avoid Mahou Shoujo series like the plague, but I tried it to see what Shaft could do with the genre. It was pretty damn cool. The effects are awesome. This type of show compliments Shaft's weird animation style really well. And some of the stuff is delightfully freaky, like Akemi's trap. I was really impressed by episode 1. The plot is pretty average at this point, but I don't think that's the selling point though. I will be following this.

[broken270]

Spoiler:

That was quite interesting. Here, we have Madoka living her life as a normal student when a transfer girl walks in. From here Madoka tries to be freindly with her, yet she gives her a cold shoulder. Then, both Madoka and Sayaka were caught up in a mess where Homura was attacking Kyubei. Then, they were caught in an illusion, but Maimi saves them from those things. In the end, her dream in which she sees all of this and is asked to become a magical girl actually comes true.

At first I thought Homura and Mami were working together, but Homura attacked Kyubei. Maybe something happened to her related to her family and friends, and she blames Myubei for it, since it all started out with him asking if she would like to become a magic girl. Still, since they are both magical girls, I would have thought that they were working together. Maybe it is so, maybe not. I will wait for the next episode.

[SquirrelLuvsPnut]

Besides all the other noteably awesomeness, did anyone else melt at the sound of Madoka's little brother's voice? Normally I hate little kids, but that was just darling!

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by orion

What if Kyube put the dream there? Then it's not Madoka having a dream of her previous life but Kyube showing her the future and then planting the seed about the contract.

Kyube's speech goes with a temporal paradox problem.


Either way a full powered Homura inserted herself into a timeline where she prob wouldn't have been normally as her timeline ended.

If that was the future, then present time Houmura wouldn't show any recognition/concern towards Madoka. Since she did, it can't simply be some images in Madoka's head as Houmura would hold no attachment to Madoka in present. I am not sure why you are fixating on the paradox idea specifically here, especially since it's but one among half a dozen speculated outcomes of time travel, especially since little actually suggests time travel.

And if full powered Houmura inserted herself in to another timeline, it again is impossible for her to cause a paradox regarding herself, because her origin isn't tied to this specific timeline, thus she can have all the bunny hunting she wants. Fun with parallel universes