Let's Discuss Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Happiest Anime Ever

[Fetch()tirade]

On a less serious note, if

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Joan of Arc

really was a

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Puella Magi

and therefore later a

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witch

, then the

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English

really did have grounds to

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burn her at the stake

. Just saying.


But really, the ending was fantastic. It provided the sort of (non-)closure that the show needed. Although there were still the problems of the energy of the universe and the negative emotions of people (which, if Madoka had wished away, would have easily been solved but would have completely missed the point of showing the struggles of the girls [I mean, what's the moral of a story where everything is solved with a wish?]), there was still hope in the world (the magical girls no longer became the enemy they hopelessly fought to destroy, unless they killed themselves) for the universe can still be saved. The part when

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Madoka became the immortal embodiement of hope

is what really makes this show one of my favorites. That one moment was just phenomenal, hands down.

Plus

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long-haired Madoka is sexy

. Once again, just saying.

[Drake]

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I'm a bit unsure how to react to the ending. It feels slightly cheap considering all Madoka did was chose her wish carefully but at the same time it seems like everything that happened in the last timeline was required to force Madoka to think her wish through really carefully before accepting.

i don't know what you are saying

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Although there were still the problems of the energy of the universe and the negative emotions of people (which, if Madoka had wished away, would have easily been solved but would have completely missed the point of showing the struggles of the girls [I mean, what's the moral of a story where everything is solved with a wish?]), there was still hope in the world (the magical girls no longer became the enemy they hopelessly fought to destroy, unless they killed themselves) for the universe can still be saved.

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You're underthinking it. You missed the point that any given wish like that would have had unforeseen consequences. Even if Madoka could have gotten rid of all negative emotion, it essentially is the same thing as eliminating emotion altogether. Humanity would collapse. To destroy all sources of emotion would mean either destroying humanity itself, or leaving humanity as emotionless, which not only was obviously not an option, but it would also let the universe slip further into heat death. An easy wish like that would definitely have not have worked. Something like "i wish nobody in the world was ever sad!" is so idealistic and childish I don't even.

[Silent Harmony]

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I agree, Madoka's the kind of person who wanted to save everyone, not just magical girls. Getting rid of negative emotions, making it so that Incubators never visited the earth; those kind of wishes help stop girls dieing by becoming witches but can lead to so many other problems it isn't funny. No Incubators means we'd still be living in caves. No negative emotions would kill any sense of consequence (you wouldn't feel bad doing anything, even murder) and, as Drake pointed out, would do nothing to save the Universe from heat-death. Wishing for no witches was probably one of the best wishes she could've made under the circumstances, and was truely amazing considering she's supposed to be 14 years old!

Plus keep in mind as powerful as she was, she wasn't exactly all-powerful. This means something like "I wish no bad things happened ever!" would not only likely cause disaster, but would likely even fail to occur (she wouldn't have enough magical energy to support it).

Plus the moral of the story was not that you could wish away your problems; it was the opposite! The girls still struggle, the girls still fight, the girls still die. That's life; no matter what we do or how hard we try there will always be bad things coming into our lives. We have to stand back up and fight it until we die, and never let it overcome us. That's the message; never stop fighting, because you are never alone in your struggle.

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

Still, didn't you all just love

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the "FUUUU-" tone Kyuubey took when Madoka made her wish? He knew hiis precious system was screwed. Damn did it feel so good to see HIM be cornered for once.

So much for no emotions, eh? :3

[Kasu]

Still, didn't you all just love

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the "FUUUU-" tone Kyuubey took when Madoka made her wish? He knew hiis precious system was screwed. Damn did it feel so good to see HIM be cornered for once.

So much for no emotions, eh? :3

I actually had to contain my laughter when that happened. :3

[Drake]

Surprise comes with a being having expectations and those expectations being falsified. I'm not sure you could even consider that as emotion. He also was surprised at Homura being a time-traveller. I guess they could have had Kyubey nihil admirari, but that's no fun.

[Blargel]

I'd just like to point out....

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Grief seeds came from soul gems. Grief seeds purified soul gems, making it possible to delay turning into a witch. Soul gems now disappear instead of transforming into grief seeds. Have fun with your shortened life spans, magical girls.

Other than that, great show. I marathoned it this weekend at the urgings of multiple people.

EDIT: Also, someone needs to make a crossover image of the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith and Kyubey because of what he explained in episode 9. :V

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

Allow me to point out that

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The little blocks dropped by curses are what purify the girl's soul gems now, rather than grief seeds. The scene with Homura feeding these blocks to Kyuubey shows them purifying her soul gem.

So it's all fine and dandy. ...Well, kinda.

[Drake]

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Nope, Homura is shown simply using the cubes to siphon the grief from her Soul Gem. It's essentially the same process, but the cubes can evidently contain much less, and the cubes simply come from the demons (which spawn from human emotions) rather than from the Soul Gems. By comparison, there are many more demons than there were witches, however.

Also it's worth noting that without the whole WE WANT YOU TO SUFFER thing the Incubators had going on, Magical Girls and the Incubators seemingly work together now. Homura alludes to this by saying that "their relations weren't the best" in that universe (as opposed to this one).

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

See?

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The fact that there are more demons than witches, and that they are far weaker than witches make the new system balance out. Sure, the girls must fight multiple enemies at the same time, but wasn't it the same when fighting familiars in a witch's maze? I think that other than the lesser energy and less purifying power, the system works out quite well.

[Moerin]

If anything,

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more, weaker enemies would lead to an increased lifespan for the Puella Magi, seeing how they weren't exactly long lived when the Witches were around and all.

[Drake]

omnomnomnomnomdeliciouscheesecoloredhair

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

omnomnomnomnomdeliciouscheesecoloredhair

That explains a lot.

[Letty Whiterock]

On a less serious note, if

Spoiler:

Joan of Arc

really was a

Spoiler:

Puella Magi

and therefore later a

Spoiler:

witch

, then the

Spoiler:

English

really did have grounds to

Spoiler:

burn her at the stake

. Just saying.

This

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is not

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how you

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use

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spoiler

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tags.

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Just do the entire sentence. Goddamn.

[Tengukami]

I am starting to think more and more that Kyubey was indisputably evil -

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even with the whole "inability to feel emotions" thing, he and his kind calculated how to gain the energy they needed for their comfortable living, knowingly spreading death and despair to do so - because when human beings behave the same way towards other human beings, we call such people evil. Sociopaths, while capable of emotion, are certainly incapable of compassion. Such people are quite accurately called "evil".

Having said that, Kyubey makes a very good point here. Humanity does in fact do this to itself. Our struggle for happiness can and does cause death and despair, and many comfortable things that we take for granted were (and, in many cases, are) made possible due to the pain of countless human beings. Are we "evil" for taking part in this struggle? Do we even have a choice?

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

Well, humanity does have to make sacrifices in order to advance. I guess that's what Kyuubey meant when

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he said that humans would still be living in caves if it weren't for incubators and Puella Magi. If it weren't for those girls' sacrifices, then we would never have advanced at all. If anything, we would've disappeared.

[Tengukami]

I'm not sure I buy that, though. Kyubey's estimations have been wrong in the past. I think humanity would evolve, indisputably, for all the reasons we know of today. What I think Kyubey was trying to point out was that

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although Kyubey's people enjoy a comfortable existence due to the magic girl/witch cycle of suffering in other world, the comfortable existences of people like Madoka - middle-class folks in industrialised countries - do enjoy an easy life due to the suffering of many, many others both within their society and elsewhere in the world.

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

I am starting to think more and more that Kyubey was indisputably evil (ry

Who said it was

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just so his kind could live comfortably? Someone (I've totally forgotten who or where, unfortunately, did a run-through of threads on this forum but didn't spot it) made an interesting postulation that the heat death of the universe could have been due long before humanity ever evolved; it's only because of the Incubators' prior efforts that we perceive it as a distant catastrophe and that we had a chance to exist at all. In that case, it seems quite just that our species pays for its own borrowed time. It would become a question of "is it better to live and suffer than to not live at all?", which I believe many people would answer "yes" to.

[Tengukami]

Who said it was

Spoiler:

just so his kind could live comfortably? Someone (I've totally forgotten who or where, unfortunately, did a run-through of threads on this forum but didn't spot it) made an interesting postulation that the heat death of the universe could have been due long before humanity ever evolved; it's only because of the Incubators' prior efforts that we perceive it as a distant catastrophe and that we had a chance to exist at all. In that case, it seems quite just that our species pays for its own borrowed time. It would become a question of "is it better to live and suffer than to not live at all?", which I believe many people would answer "yes" to.

That's an interesting theory, and I'd be curious about what led him to think this. Because the way Kyubey tries to break it down, 

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he talks about "our energy recycling quota," how they've been able to harness the magic girl/witch cycle's energy for their use, but taking it to a grander scale than that, I hadn't considered, and makes me curious to hear more about this.

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

Besides, Kyuubey practically told Madoka that to Incubators

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Magical Girls are not much more than cattle with benefits to them.

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

That's an interesting theory, and I'd be curious about what led him to think this.

Nothing in particular, as far as I know. It's just a way of playing devil's advocate, but as valid as any other interpretation. Personally, I think we don't know enough about what Kyubey was really after to fault him with anything besides poor communication skills.

[Tengukami]

Nothing in particular, as far as I know. It's just a way of playing devil's advocate, but as valid as any other interpretation. Personally, I think we don't know enough about what Kyubey was really after to fault him with anything besides poor communication skills.

Devil's advocate or not, it's a neat theory. I think it's a testament to the story's strength that the reveals went just far enough, such as to the vagueness of Kyubey's background, like you point out.

[Iryan]

Just watched the last two episodes.

WHOA!

This series just does so much right!

Especially

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both time travel and wishes, stuff that are so very easy to screw up on. Not to mention the ending. Oh my god.

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Very nice ending as well. A sunshine-and-rainbows ending would have been a bad choice, so seeing it done this way was good. A situation that is rather similar to that of other magical girl series, and yet it still has the dark parts that make Madoka Magica so special. The girls can still die, the demons still come from human emotions, Kyubey is still working only for his own peoples' benefit and needs to use the girls for that.

Homura vs. Walpurgis was one of the best scenes I have ever seen. The creativity with which she used her powers and surroundings was awesome.

It's also nice that despite the time-travel plot nothing that happened was ever useless. Everything that happened was necessary to lead to the final outcome, none of it existed without meaning.

All of this as well.

Homura is now one of my very favorite non-comedic characters in anything ever.

Magia is still a wicked sweet song.

Really, the only complaint I can think of is

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the opening being a tremendous lie, excluding the lyrics, which, like the lyrics for magia, are actually alot more descriptive of the series than one would expect.

And that one being complaintworthy or actually another positive thing going for the series is still debatable.

I have watched very little anime actively. I do not regret this being one of them.

[Drake]

The opening being a complete lie is done completely on purpose and I would completely laugh at whoever would actually complain about it. Completely.

[Moerin]

Besides, it's not.  Somewhat misleading perhaps, but if you pay attention it actually fits the tone a lot better than you'd think it would with just a casual glance.  It's just like the opening to Evangelion, actually.

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

The pink fluffiness is a lie.  :V

[Iryan]

Besides, it's not.  Somewhat misleading perhaps, but if you pay attention it actually fits the tone a lot better than you'd think it would with just a casual glance.  It's just like the opening to Evangelion, actually.

Well, I am not referring to the tone, but the actual sceneric content, what with the whacky hijinx for madoka which makes it look like it is card captor sakura.  :V

But as I said, that is only if I desperately try to find something to criticize.  :derp:

[Letty Whiterock]

Besides, it's not.  Somewhat misleading perhaps, but if you pay attention it actually fits the tone a lot better than you'd think it would with just a casual glance.  It's just like the opening to Evangelion, actually.

The OP was designed by Urobuchi to have nothing to do with anything, and the staff actually laughed when he handed it in.

[ふとくていなねこじょおう]

The OP was designed by Urobuchi to have nothing to do with anything, and the staff actually laughed when he handed it in.

And now we can rightfully declare them as trolls.

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

The OP was designed by Urobuchi to have nothing to do with anything, and the staff actually laughed when he handed it in.

I'm not sure how involved Urobuchi actually was. He mentioned in an interview that he

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never suggested the cat and was surprised when the storyboarders put it in the OP (then proceeded to write the cat into the first drama CD to make it not a complete red herring.)