There obviously aren't a lot of people left here, but maybe some day somebody will read and possibly even benefit from these thoughts of mine. That is my hope anyway.
This episode brought a whole new perspective that helped to pretty easily bring the enjoyability level of it all up for me. Getting to see the fallout of Mami's death was pretty compelling. It's a pretty sad fate to die in a strange land to a weird snowman face monster and never have anybody remember you except for a small handful of people you essentially just met. Seeing Madoka and Sayaka go through some serious survivors guilt I think qualifies as an example of the TV Trope "
Break The Cutie" and makes for some pretty sad scenes. I kind of have to agree with the sentiment that it's a bit of a deconstruction of the whole Magical Girl genre, which is usually known for it's lack of consequences and pretty tame fighting.
I also like Sayaka's bit about them essentially being in a different world from anyone else and when you think of that in terms of the bizareness of the Witches world it's a really apt way of describing it. I still think the artwork there is really distracting, but it's a little easier to accept as real and dangerous when you think of it more a bit from that perspective....weird snowman face monsters devouring Magical Girls aside.
It's also neat to see some flaws appearing in Madoka character as well that don't really destroy the essence of what makes her endearing so much as limit her potential to do anything about her situation. Madoka is a pretty weak character as evidenced by her being pretty well petrified by the thought of losing her idol and crutch in Mami and almost immediately latching onto Akemi who is essentially the next in line in terms of overall experience it would appear or probably even more strong than Mami considering she defeated the snowman face that ate her. Akemi also has a flair for the dramatic it would seem, always being sure to strike a pose before delivering a line in the most severe manner possible. I tend to find this more amusing than impressive, but I guess her abilities speak more than enough for her in the long run.
So anyway I guess since Madoka can't really step up that's why Sayaka decided to accept the contract in Mami's place in an again rather bizarre Witches world sequence. How was the witch even attacking Madoka there? It almost seems like unless your a Magical girl the witches can just do anything to you that they want and even if you are one that's no guarantee they can't just do the seemingly impossible and kill you with it. Very strange and confusing fights in this show.
Anyway Sayaka obviously continues to deal with her own problems in trying to play crutch to a crippled friend and now has to play crutch to the whole area by taking on the apparent death sentence that is being a magical girl. On top of all that now there's a new Magical girl sporting fang powers (bet she has a lot of fans in Japan) that seems flat out mean compared to Akemi who just comes off as cold or indifferent. Shows getting interesting.
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