Plot: The series uses the same one Sailor Moon did in order to start itself. A young and fairly naive girl discovers an animal that is not as it seems and through some means becomes a Mahou Shoujo (Magical Girl). Naturally she tells others and her friends become them as well. I am bound by spoiler-free style to not talk much about its overall plot to prevent ruining anyones experience. However, when a show has a plot this bad I feel their is very little to spoil, this is very true in light of the ep 3 death that nearly everyone knows about. Mami, a mentor of sorts dies from the attack of a demon (Called a witch) in ep 3 and from there the girls are left to fend for themselves with a magical animal named Kyubey "helping" them every step of the way. I also need to mention that Kyubey is the animal/entity that bestows these powers on the girls in the first place. Giving out wishes to girls in exchange for near slavery as Mahou Shoujo. The first plot hole we need to address is Kyubey itself. This "thing" is emotionless and claims to merely be following a prime directive to harvest the energy (fancier word used in show) for its alien planet. If Kyubey can grant these wishes for anything to the girls, why not take their energy by force? Why have a roundabout way of getting them to be Mahou Shoujo and waste time killing an infinite amount of Witches and a lot of crap when it could just take the energy and leave. Its because Urobutchi said so thats why. Next point is that one of the girls named Homura is actually a guardian for the main girl Madoka. For reasons that never had what I would consider sound reasoning she cannot tell Madoka to not become a Mahou Shoujo outright, and since Kyubey is likened to that of a god in power thus never dying she also cannot kill the instigator. It stands to reason that Homura's best option would clearly be to either kill Madoka to end her protection cycle (Oh yeah, Homura is stuck in a time loop protecting Madoka because terrible reset ending said so) or yelled it out to her at the several points she could of instead of being emo and stand-offish every chance she gets. Even reality would of had a collapse because of Madoka learning this it would still be preferable to the never-ending "Groundhog Day" scenario Homura finds herself in. I could go on through several more plot holes but these two illustrate my main point. Point being that the series ignores solutions to problems in order to create a false sense of danger despite it just being a reset ending so the danger isn't really there. 1/5
Character Development: I am guessing that at some point Urobutchi decided to take a page from Evangelion and use its characters as pure symbolism. This is great in theory, but the problem is that in Evangelion they were Characters with a personality first and symbols second. This series' cast are all supposed to be symbols first and every once in a while some part of them develops. Madoka despite being the main character never develops, all we see is an alternate reality version of her where she is better but thats not development, thats just another version of her. The only girl worth mentioning for development here is the blue-haired girl named Sayaka and her friend who is a sickly boy in a hospital. Thanks to their interactions both develop and learn to cope with that situation in a great way. But of course a good male character with development need not stay long and once he is healed is kicked from the story, thankfully not in Urobutchi's favorite method of death, but is simply fazed out. Sayaka's development ends shortly there-after and everyone else either stays the same or has an alternate "what-if" version shown near the end. 2/5 for taking a small amount of time out to develop someone. 2/5
Sound: Finally, a good aspect of the series! I will not lie I loved all the dark music and the way it helped build tension and atmosphere. If the plot and characters were as fun and interesting as this music it'd be another story. Then again, the music had nothing to do with Urobutchi in terms of design, so it makes sense to me. The openings and endings are nicely done too. Not much t say here since it was all handled quite well. It'd be higher if it actually had a better variety aside from brooding sadness, but it does that very well thankfully. 3/5
Art: Its no secret to those who know me that grossly disproportioned moe (Cute for sake of being cute, big eyes small facial features with waxy feel) turns me off from a title. The good news is that "Madoka Magica"'s designs were handled by someone with no knowledge of the story and it resulted in nice concept art. While I am not fanatical about it, the backgrounds in the witch's realms and the girls' designs are not the worst I've seen (See K-On! for pure moe hell). It gets the job done but does not impress me. 2/5
Final Thoughts: If I owe my critical views of moe and Urobutchi to any show it is this one. Every type of trope modern anime has come to behold from reset endings (Thanks Key/Visual Arts), moe visuals (Wow K-On! "nice" job), and also flat characters (Thanks every boring battle shonen) Madoka has it all in one pretty bloody Urobutchered package. As I sign off from this review, I urge to remind the haters that these are my views and they do not need to match theirs, if you are a lover of Madoka thats fine (even if I honestly am saddened by that fact) and you should continue watching whatever interests you. I am here to merely give a harsher analysis with more detail and higher bars for media to live up to. Oh and one last note, you gotta love how the name of the studio that made this is called Studio Shaft, Urobutchi sure loves to give us the shaft all day long. Final Rating is 4/10
