Puella Magi Madoka Magica tells the story of a group of middle school girls who make contracts with an alien creature to become magical girls, whose responsibility is to fight witches. In exchange, the creature grants each of them a wish. However, as the story progresses, the girls become increasingly familiar with the anguish inherent to their new roles, and learn that no miracle comes without an immense cost.

I loved the art direction for the show from the start. It’s such a stunning and unique visual experience! For one, the witches the magical girls fight are depicted as sentient collages that look straight out of a fever dream, and yet the battle sequences still look sharp and coherent. The show also features many beautiful stills of the characters at night in Mitakihara City, the fictional city in which the story takes place. The fog, dramatic lighting, and framing give it a mystical and almost foreboding quality fitting for the horrific and surreal events of the plot.

What I can say without directly revealing any story events is that the Madoka Magica series will masterfully subvert your expectations. It will make you sad, and at times, may make you uncomfortable or even upset, but every second is undeniably brilliant.

(NOTE: People typically watch the main series, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and then go onto Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion, which I will simply refer to as “Rebellion”, because it adds more to the story. Here I will discuss both. Also, please keep in mind that I have only watched the main series and movie once, so I may have missed some details )

⚠ ⚠ WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠ ⚠

Thoughts on the Main Series

I’m not usually a fan of stories involving timeloops or time travel because they can get somewhat dull and repetitive to watch. Though the Madoka main series involves a timeloop as a major plot device, they took an alternate storytelling approach that I really liked. The story is told from the perspective of Madoka and her friends, meaning that to them and to the audience, Homura’s motives are unknown, and her behavior towards Madoka is dubious. It is only revealed later that Homura has been repetitively winding back time in order to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl. Homura’s attempts to save Madoka unfold in a heartwrenching compilation, allowing the audience to meaningfully experience her past, and understand why she is so stoic and detached in the current timeline. Because I tend to be a skeptical viewer when it comes to fictional stories, the consistency of the writing, plot-wise and character-wise, helped a lot with immersion.

In general, I found the characters in the show to be quite charming. All the main characters are revealed to have complex personal lives and inner thoughts, and past experiences that inform their present thoughts and actions. For example, Kyoko is practically framed as an antagonist when she is first introduced. Not only does she act brash and selfish, it’s implied that she’d go as far as killing Sayaka to reap more benefits as a magical girl. After she challenges Sayaka and sees how stubborn she is, she decides to initiate a heart-to-heart conversation with her about the repercussions of using one’s magic to help others. We find out that Kyoko is intent on only using her magic for herself because she used her wish to help her father, only for him to commit murder-suicide after finding out what she did. She then warns Sayaka not to make the same mistakes, tacitly expressing to viewers that Kyoko never actually had bad intentions. Though there are lighthearted moments between characters in the show (mostly toward the beginning), there are no joke or throwaway characters, nor are there any jarringly OOC moments, to drag down the integrity of the writing overall. I think the realistic character writing really adds to the effectiveness of the dark storyline.

A few more things here and there that I liked about the show:

• Because magical girls are fated to eventually become witches, the Incubators' system is self-perpetuating on top of being built upon trickery through half-truths. I found this concept pretty interesting, and it also struck me as vaguely Kafkaesque.
• As touched upon earlier, the main characters' relationships with each other are tense and even hostile at times, subverting the "power of friendship" trope in an incredibly realistic and sobering way. Best friends fall out and enemies make grudging compromises in the face of extreme desperation.
• Throughout the story, every blissful moment cannot come without an equally tragic one, as if some inexplicable, omniscient being is keeping check. This is cleverly foreshadowed by Mami's brutal death in episode 3; she dies shortly after she cries of joy and relief learning that she has friends who will fight by her side.
• All of the tragic events in the show happen for a reason. They are either a side effect of the girls' wishes, or are deliberately enabled by the alien creature Kyubey as part of a greater plan to force Madoka into a situation where she'd have to make a contract with him.

Thoughts on Rebellion

I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but the Rebellion movie changed my perspective of the entire series for the better. In fact, I don’t think I would have written any of this if I hadn’t seen Rebellion. While I watched, I kept thinking to myself that this movie is surely the crown jewel of the series, and it did not disappoint all the way through. Though I will give the main series credit for establishing the story and characters, I might go as far as to say that I liked the movie much more.

From the start, I felt viscerally that the animation was on a completely different level compared to the show. It seems like the studio strongly improved on animating the strange and surreal scenes that characterize Madoka Magica. In terms of visuals, I especially liked the scenes where Homura and Kyoko attempt to take the train to Kazamino, and the intense battle between Homura and Mami. I also enjoyed watching the main characters happily work together at the beginning, even if it ended up being an illusory effect of Homura’s labyrinth.

I will admit that Homura grabbing goddess Madoka and pulling her down to earth shocked me initially, but I realized that Homura’s actions fit her character and were understandable albeit questionable, and came to like the ending a lot. To me, the “plot twists” in the movie felt more like revealing more of the truth than a jarring change to the canon, as some viewers like to claim.

When goddess Madoka came to escort her to heaven, what Homura saw was her only chance to fulfill the wish she’d failed to fulfill hundreds of times over in the past, and she took it even at the cost of her own salvation. She acted out of love, a feeling she describes as “more passionate than hope, much deeper than despair”, but she became a demon because she defied a god in doing so. Just as Madoka ascended to a lonely, isolated, and eternal godhood as a tragic side effect of her wish, Homura became the incarnation of evil as a tragic side effect of her wish to protect Madoka. (Also, I’m not sure where to insert this, but the witch Homura scenes gave me chills and I loved them so much too What I wouldn’t give to experience this movie for the first time again…)

Homura has been consistently shown to want to save Madoka even at the cost of others and herself, so this ending felt like it was meant to be. It is also worth pointing out that goddess Madoka herself was lured into Homura’s labyrinth, forgetting her purpose for coming to Homura, and essentially becoming the original Madoka. Madoka then expresses to Homura during the emotional scene in a vast field of flowers that she would never have had the courage to sacrifice herself, and leave behind the people she loves. I think the pain and shock of finding out that Madoka thinks this is what enabled Homura, and makes her actions all the more understandable.

After Homura rewrites the universe and returns Madoka to her state as a human, Madoka can’t help but feel that she has obligations to fulfill… elsewhere, showing that she retains some memory of her godhood. Homura asks her, “Do you treasure the world you live in? Or would you break its laws to follow your heart?”, to which Madoka replies, “I do treasure this world. But I don’t think a person should go and break the rules just because they feel like it.” From this, Homura realizes that she and Madoka, demon and god, are destined to become enemies. But for now, Homura is just happy to get to see Madoka again.

Ultimately, I think it’s a beautiful and tragic concept that Homura’s love for Madoka is why they are fated to clash. Madoka would sacrifice herself for the world, but Homura would sacrifice the world for Madoka, creating a fundamental opposition between the two. The ending of the Rebellion movie firmly makes the Madoka Magica series a 10/10 for me.