A lot of people see the cute characters and transformations, the beautiful bright visuals and think 'This is gonna be a typical sugary, cute- magical girl anime with cute transformations and a very linear story'- and for those who think that- please- WATCH this anime.
I cannot stress how much I love this anime because everything is done for a reason. The chibi faces, the cute colors, the jokes, the sheer scope of scenery. I have never come any anime that has made me watch it through a second time and understand every single moment of the first 3 episodes- and I gotta be honest after watching the ending and then rewatching it- you'd appreciate what happens at the start about a thousands time more.
While Sailor Moon showed me the innocence of being a magical girl, Madoka Magica handed me Pandora's box with a smile and then unleashed hell.
There is nothing to hate about this show. The art style although questionable at the beginning works really well and does something that Sailor Moon fails to address. Madoka is 14 and I can believe that, Usagi is 14 and I don't believe that. The harshness that comes with actually seeing that these characters are so young is really put into that light and the emotions that a young girl faces in her day to day life is really touched upon. But every entire character is a different depiction- we got the girl that want's her friends to be happy, we got a girl that wants to protect her family, we got another that falls in love. This makes the entire cast different as opposed to just being focused on the typical romance subplot that many Magical Girl genres bludgeon you with.
Back to the art style- it is fantastic! I cannot stress this enough, sure we got those cute moments with bright colors- but then there's a splash of dark orange across the sky and suddenly the world looks frightening.
The dark tones contrasting against the lighter tones really highlights the key-tones of the scenes and further pulls out the meaning of said object. There's this particular moment with chairs, and the coloring and shadowing really puts across the unspoken meaning behind it.
Now while I can talk about the art for ages- I'm gonna move onto the animation. Madoka Magica- is a masterpiece It doesn't just use traditional animation, it also meshes silhouettes and what I assume is mock-cut out animation. And I cannot praise it enough- the moment you see the mock-cut out you feel you've fallen into another world and the only sanity you can pick out is the animation of the characters really standing out against it. And I'm not going to talk about the animation of the silhouette battle which just knocks me off my feet every-time I see it.
Now my final point before the overall would be the sound. And this is where it loses a small point. The dub for me was terrible- everyone was voiced badly and it does try to destroy the experience- but that's just my taste if you find yourself liking the voices then go ahead and watch it in dubbed. Personality for me- I felt the characters either sounded to old or to childish while the Japanese voices were perfect. The entire Japanese voice cast put a lot of effort into it and constantly left me in tears with their performances. The soundtrack is probably the best I've heard it uses the combination of all sorts of styles of music and I could listen to it for hours.
I cannot recommend this anime highly enough. It goes for and then against the entire magical-girl genre. I will warn you though, this anime is very dark and doesn't try to be fluffy and give magical ways out (aha)
So I now have one question for you
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼Contract?
