Madoka Magica - Episode 07 Discussion / Poll

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by omimon

That's so much confidence from her, it's like she knows she'll get him. The question now is did Sayaka friend zone herself with all that hospital visiting?

I think it's obvious that Sayaka herself doesn't believe that she'll manage to make him love her. This is why she's been shying away from confronting him and telling him the truth. She's been hurt that he didn't tell her that he was released, and then that he'd be coming to school. That's not merely tsundere-style denial, I think that she KNOWS the truth. He doesn't love her, and he never will.

Hitomi is acting quite admirably for a friend, giving her a proper warning, and the opportunity to go ahead first. But Sayaka is obviously not even going to roll the dice. She's given up already.

[Seihai]

Originally Posted by Vanish

Prediction. Kyouko will be pissed off and stuff herself with countless Taiyaki and Pocky. Maybe she will find new food, too?

Add apples and popsickles.

Urobuchi once again was able to make me "OMGDISISSICK!" D: welp... young girls >are< vulnerable, but I thought Sayaka would be stronger than that. However, it's really logical if you think about it. Sayaka is able to make an excuse. She used her wish for someone else. However, the ability she indirectly acquired through it is for her own use and made her much more capable of destroying this time's witch. Her additional regeneration and stamina magical passive powers probably got to her head. Without them, Kyouko would have to help more.

Gogo colour rangaaas! Yellow Ranger already died, but there are still 4 left! Now, it's time to break and release your honto no chikara! Starlight BREAKER!

[panzerfan]

Well Mentar, the whole assumption about the final witch being Sayaka is becoming more and more plausible. At this moment, it looks like a descent into the spiral labyrinth is unavoidable. Once factoring in the previous speculah, the direction of Sayaka seems to align to this end.

Madoka may be the only person that may sway Sayaka somehow. I don't know if she can manage to snatch Hitomi from death though.

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by omimon

The question now is did Sayaka friend zone herself with all that hospital visiting?

Well before someone says it (and I know someone will) these turn of events have nothing to do with the wish backfiring. The wishes aren't supposed to directly backfire, it's more like people wish for something and assume things will play out a certain way but that's not the way the world works. Sayaka wishes to heal his arm, deep down thinking "now he'll be happy and he'll acknowledge me because I've been here for him through all this" but now he doesn't have to rely on her so she's forgotten about. And since she can't come out and confess to him someone else is inevitably going to swoop in and do it.

Also I'm assuming that Kyoko went through her own crazy phase as well, after she found out she indirectly killed off her family with her wish. Then she calmed down and become badass. Sayaka will probably go through the same emotional roller coaster - I mean, COME ON, it's just a guy not returning her feelings. Kyoko kinda lost her family?

[cat_monster]

What Homura said in EP7 attracted my attention.

When Madoka asks Homura why she is always so cold (to Madoka), she says maybe it's becase she's no longer a human person.

This means Homura was a normal person in the past, perhaps.
Then, it doesn't fit Homura = Cat theory, which I've favored ....

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Mentar

I think it's obvious that Sayaka herself doesn't believe that she'll manage to make him love her. This is why she's been shying away from confronting him and telling him the truth. She's been hurt that he didn't tell her that he was released, and then that he'd be coming to school. That's not merely tsundere-style denial, I think that she KNOWS the truth. He doesn't love her, and he never will.

Hitomi is acting quite admirably for a friend, giving her a proper warning, and the opportunity to go ahead first. But Sayaka is obviously not even going to roll the dice. She's given up already.

That isn't the issue. She remained hopeful Kamijou would return her feelings until this very episode. The reason she's been shying away from confessing is that she's scared, like all teenagers (even adults, really... it's never easy to confess). Her problem now isn't that she's realized Kamijo will never love her (she hasn't), but that she's convinced a zombie like her can never be with him. There is no future for the two of them. There is no future for her. Not a single spark of hope left. This is what pushed her over the edge.

I agree about Hitomi. That was commendable of her to spill everything to Sayaka first rather than go behind her back.

Now that Sayaka went bonkers, I predict she's going to come up with a twisted "if I can't have Kamijo then no one else will" logic. She will either seriously injure Hitomi or kill her.

[panzerfan]

It would be interesting to see how Gen decides to define humanity to be honest. With Sayo no Uta still fresh on my mind, I am tempted to say that it might well be defined based on understanding and practice of human behavior and to have a mental explanation, or bias, to such actions. I do not feel that Urobuch Gen is being narrow in the definition of humanity at all, but that would be my bias.

Kanon and her description matches much of adolescent behavior, and we are forced to conclude base on experience, of the worst potential outcome (nice boat). Reputability in observation of trends to generalize the logic would apply here as there is no one set of metric that can be replicated going from one person to the next, and the causes are highly independent of one another regarding human condition. For that matter, what I just said is also refutable in itself...

[Silverwyrm]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

You'd have to look at her statement again, because she compared something as being as fruitless as bringing back the dead. Not that it was impossible, since fruitless could also "not worth the effort." Also, was in no way in reference to a wish. And Homura is biased, too, since she doesn't want Madoka to become an MG, thus telling her you could wish Mami back to life might make Madoka consider doing it.

just for the record, the first half of my post there was sarcastic

[zato_1one]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Hitomi told her she'd confess to Kamijou tomorrow. She advised Sayaka to make a move before then so that she won't have any regret. From my understanding, Hitomi has had feelings for Kamijou for a while, yet she didn't do anything and even tried to forget about him out of consideration for Sayaka. However, she's grown tired of waiting and lying to herself, so now basically, she's telling Sayaka that if she doesn't freaking make her mind up already, she'll take him.

The only reason she's giving Sayaka an advance notice is that she's known Kamijou for longer than her. She feels it's only right for Sayaka to confess first. If she doesn't, then it's her loss. She's been warned, so she can't complain if Hitomi "steals" Kamijo.

OK. That explained why she didn't make a move earlier. But seriously, the reason she decided to make her move might be because Kamijou was heal. Considering that she was from a high class family. I think that her feeling for Kamijou might not strong enough for her to devote herself for him. In other word, I don't believe that she did this for Sayaka. She was definitely sure that she could snatch Kamijou from Sayaka. This was just a very politely way to do it.

I don't understand the raw but what I can tell is that the BGM is getting more and more awesome. ლ(¯ロ¯ლ)

[wry bread]

Wow, this episode was all about "Breaking the Sayaka", wasn't it?

• I'm starting to question Kyuube's amorality now...it felt like that torture scene'd gone on longer than necessary to prove his point. (Either way, I'd love to strangle the thing.)
  
• Kyouko has this giant flag waving over her head now, with her backstory out like that. Noooo don't die.....
  
• Kamijo's a thankless bastard. D: Hitomi part kinda came out of left field, but it left me slightly irritated how easily Sayaka seemed to give up on everything after that (even as a soulless zombie, you can still feel! Ish.)
  
• Loved the execution for that witch battle. The silhouetting was a nice touch. and kinda reminded me of a PV for that one Vocaloid song, Alice Human Sacrifice, haha

Oh, Urobuchi Gen, you're so ruthless...

[Archon_Wing]

Let's see, pointless predictions :

Given that three of our Puella Magi are shocked by this new revelation, I would expect at least a temporary strike

Kamijou probably doesn't understand Sayaka's feelings for him regardless , so a revelation here will cause Sayaka to break down as she realizes her wish has not turned out the way she wanted.

There hasn't been a witch fight lately, and the last ones have been getting more and more threatening; It leads me to believe the next with will probably be a huge threat, especially given insinuations from the last episode. If so, Someone's going to either get killed or severely incapacitated by the start of episode 8.

Because of these things, it should be fairly obvious that this episode will set the mood for the end. Most importantly, we may find out that People die when they are killed

And regardless, the amount of "I told you so" will increase massively at the end of this episode.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by zato_1one

OK. That explained why she didn't make a move earlier. But seriously, the reason she decided to make her move might be because Kamijou was heal. Considering that she was from a high class family. I think that her feeling for Kamijou might not strong enough for her to devote herself for him. In other word, I don't believe that she did this for Sayaka. She was definitely sure that she could snatch Kamijou from Sayaka. This was just a very politely way to do it.

What does it matter if her love for him is not as strong as Sayaka's. In the end, it's Kamijo's decision, and he would choose the girl he likes the most.

And Hitomi is confident because she's the most popular girl of the school. This was established in the very first episode. It would be out of character of her not to be this confident about it.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

Spoiler for Episode 7 - breaking down of sakaya-chan:

I think Hitomi is planning to confess to kamijou-kun (kamijou, kamijou-kun name always rings a bell and connected to a girl) and she confronted Sakaya on her feelings because they are friends.

Kyoko's past from the point where her whole family was burned, dismembered or cut into pieces. For the whole point that the people accuse Kyoko for being a witch. And an ironic one because she is the one who hunts witch. Her witch is for the people to believe in his father again.
And food are important to her because she new what hunger and poverty is but still Sayaka can't bring to like her because of the apples that she is giving Sayaka is more likely a stolen one because she doesn't even had money but she manage to bought a basket of one.

Sayaka is really tortured both mentally and physically in this episode. From the demonstration of Kyubei usefulness of soul gem to the point where she can only look at kamijou-kun because she think she can't become closer to him due to the fact she's already dead and a zombie. Then their goes a best friend of her confronting her that she also likes kamijou-kun..... nice move Gen.

The finally is really creepy. Black silhouette that tells horrors. Just watching it.

Sayaka testing the extent of her power. She doesn't even block and just charge and pummel, slice and dice the witch. even if kyoko help her and agree to help her fight the witch. She just charge forth.

The final form..... well a dark being that's crying blood.

Man really mind breaking.

I find it interesting, though, if I'm reading this correctly. Kyoko has been through a hellish ringer, and thus is in perfect position to help Sayaka. It's possible this is being deliberately setup, too, since Sayaka could be foreshadowed in Kyoko. After all, Kyoko didn't turn into a witch.

And it's still fanon that MG's can turn into witches. Hell, to listen to Kyube talk, he deliberately makes their soul strong enough that it wouldn't turn into one. It would actually be counter-productive to let MG's be vulnerable to that. Even if, by some odd chance, he wants that to happen, he has a horrible track record. Kyoko, Homura, and Mami haven't become witches, so even if Sayaka does, that's only a 25% success rate.

In short, it doesn't add up.

Originally Posted by Silverwyrm

just for the record, the first half of my post there was sarcastic

Heh, thanks for noting that. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

Anyway, a few more initial thoughts; it is becoming more clear that idealism won't win this. If Mami and Sayaka's idealism was thwarted this badly, then having Madoka's idealism win would be incredibly stupid. Instead, Homura's and Kyoko's words about staying out, or only getting in for selfish reasons, to be the more correct choices. Homura would have been proven right.

So that only leaves the possibility of a bittersweet ending at best, where Madoka eventually kills all witches, but she's lost all the friends she had, and thus goes on alone, realizing that the world doesn't work on idealism, and if she had only made the hard choice to get involved sooner, she might have been able to prevent everything.

As Kyube said in the dream at the start, she has the power to change fate (like most MG protagonists do), but she didn't use that power, and thus didn't change fate at all.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

I find it interesting, though, if I'm reading this correctly. Kyoko has been through a hellish ringer, and thus is in perfect position to help Sayaka. It's possible this is being deliberately setup, too, since Sayaka could be foreshadowed in Kyoko. After all, Kyoko didn't turn into a witch.

Kyoko didn't go bat-shit crazy, she just lost faith. The problem with Sayaka is that her pain leads her to feel and do things that contradict with her own morals, which makes her sadness escalate even more. For instance, after her chat with Hitomi, she thought it would have been better is she didn't save Hitomi from the witch in episode 4. That in turn made her even more sad because she realized she being a jerk, and it contradicted with her own supposed morals and stuff.

It's this contradiction inside her what's going to doom her. There's nothing like that with Kyoko, she just lost faith and took a cynical route.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Anyway, a few more initial thoughts; it is becoming more clear that idealism won't win this.

I think that you might be jumping the gun a bit here.

I mean, you might be right, but I think it's important to note that there's different kinds of idealism, and one type could be wrong while another type could be right.

I mean, Madoka and Sayaka are both idealistic, but in very different ways.

Sayaka is (or, at least, was) idealistic in a way similar to a patriotic soldier that genuinely believes in her country and the war that it's fighting.

Madoka is idealistic in a much more pacifistic "everything can be solved through careful caution, diplomacy, peaceful negotiation, and doing what's right".

These are two very different idealistic takes, and are even diametrically opposed to one another to a degree.

[zato_1one]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

What does it matter if her love for him is not as strong as Sayaka's. In the end, it's Kamijo's decision, and he would change the girl he likes the most.

And Hitomi is confident because she's the most popular girl of the school. This was established in the very first episode. It would be out of character of her is she wasn't this confident about it.

Of course, it doesn't matter. I just want to say that I don't believe her reason why she didn't make a move earlier. But can't really blame Hitomi either because it looks like Sayaka decided to give up when she wasn't even try to start. Sadly, Sayaka was totally a loser here. It was stupid if she really believed that Kamijou would notice her feeling by just playing nice to him. I guess that she was too fear for being rejected. D:

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

It's this contradiction inside her what's going to doom her. There's nothing like that with Kyoko, she just lost faith and took a cynical route.

People live with conflicting ideas in their heads all the time; it's called cognitive dissonance (and you can see it on this, people with contradictions and double standards as to how they treat characters, heh). All that matters is what kind of self justification they come to.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I mean, you might be right, but I think it's important to note that there's different kinds of idealism, and one type could be wrong while another type could be right.

*snip*

These are two very different idealistic takes, and are even diametrically opposed to one another to a degree.

While I'd agree on a difference, I'd argue that it ultimately doesn't matter. In an idealistic universe, idealism works. It doesn't matter what type of idealism so much, so long as it is considered "good" idealism and the types of idealism don't contradict. Sayaka and Madoka (and Mami) were all doing "good" things, and in an idealistic world, that would be rewarded. Perhaps some hardship along the way, but ultimately triumphing.

Since Mami is dead and Sayaka is supposedly headed for a psychotic breakdown and Madoka is ineffectual, I personally think the writing is fairly clear. Especially when you consider that Kyoko and Homura's cynicism is presented more favorably.

Of course, Gen could pull an idealistic ending out of his ass, but there would be no basis for it and amount to shoddy writing. For idealism to win, there has to be some victories on the way for it, and we've seen none of that.

But it's also a great point to use for character growth. Mami didn't learn that, so she died. Sayaka still has a chance to learn it, and if she doesn't, Madoka will have to. Life is teaching them that cynicism is what works, not idealism, and that's the character growth that awaits them if they want to get through this.

That is, if Gen is going to be consistent in showing that a magical girl world is not all rainbows and hearts and sparkles. If he diverges to that, then he'll have to ignore everything he's built up so far. It would be like building a colorful circus tent on top of a rundown, shabby building; would seem horribly out of place.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

People live with conflicting ideas in their heads all the time; it's called cognitive dissonance (and you can see it on this, people with contradictions and double standards as to how they treat characters, heh). All that matters is what kind of self justification they come to.

It's Sayaka we're talking about. She's having a moral conflict and it's eating her inside out. She's not going cynical because her morals are just too strong to give up like that, so she's going crazy instead.

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

first impressions last.....

Stop torturing Sayaka UROBUCHI!

Thats what you mean : P.


Ok, about the episode it wasn't that interesting showing Kyoko's past and breaking Sayaka isn't to be surprised , what I'm waiting is the possible outcome to this.

The worst outcome for Sayaka could be that "all was in her mind" and that she realizes this too late after the crime.

Sayaka torture herself thinking she can be able to reach Kamijou's heart...heh! typical so all that visiting for nothing and she not even tries to tell him her own feelings? Another clear example of self-cockblocking ... childhood friends archetypes, always the same, it seems in japan histories the guy always ends with any girl except the childhood friend, oh Japan .


Mindbreak and NTR.... by Urobuchi Gen.... without being NSFW material...

Why I'm not suprised with this episode in the absolute?

[zato_1one]

Originally Posted by Wilfriback

The worst outcome for Sayaka could be that "all was in her mind" and that she realizes this too late.

Yes. It would be very very terrible if the truth was Kamijou also had feeling for her. D: