Almost 3 years after Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica was first released now might seem like a redundant time to be writing a review for it as many people within the anime communtity have already seen it, discussed it and come to a final opinion on it. Despite this however I realised the other day after trying to sell the series to a friend that even though many people have heard of the series and how its actually really good despite its minimal fluffy exterior its still very difficult to get other 17 year old males such as myself to take it seriously. While they often hear about its dark themes they don't feel like experiencing it for themselves for whatever reason. But I will state here and now that this series is definitely a must see.
Story-The story of Madoka Magica is most likely the thing most widely praised about it along with its animation. It is written by Gen Urobuchi who is sometimes nicknamed the Urobutcher due to his dark and brutal works which should give a preliminary idea of what kind of story this is considering his other works(Psycho pass, Fate/zero) and while this series is very different to those ones the style of writing is quite similar. Madoka magica is a top-tier example of brilliant tragic storytelling with a perfect grasp on twists and turns, weaving complex themes into a narrative and keeping you guessing the conclusion until it smacks you in the face. While some of Urobuchi's other works (including the 3rd Madoka movie) suffer from disjointed ideas and odd pacing this series blends everything it has to say together without feeling forced, rushed or leaving anything unfinished. It's the kind of series that gives you an understanding of its world and concepts to ease you in and then suddenly turns EVERYTHING on its head in one jaw-dropping moment to make you rethink everything you thought that you knew. Its crazy and could have failed in a lesser written series but it manages to work here without feeling like a deus ex machina or a cheap writing decision because of how much sense it makes when you think about it in retrospect. I'm only talking in broad narrative terms here because of how much better it is to experience this series with minimal information about the actual plot. The series covers themes of Hope, despair, self-sacrifice, nihilism and faustian concepts and countless others many of which it explores and resolves without you even noticing on first watch which gives the show a high rewatch value. There are a few minor problems with the narrative such as some concepts introduced later on that don't make a whole lot of sense under scrutiny but they don't manage to topple the thematic palace that the show builds throughout its run.
Story-9.5/10
Characters-Now this is the aspect of the series that Madoka-sceptics like to rip on the most and generally divides opinion with watchers of the show. A quirk of Urobuchi's writing style is that his characters are generally designed to represent 1 aspect or flaw that defines them and leads to their downfall. People who dislike the characters often claim that they are bland and uniteresting but I do not find this to be the case. This is only a 12 episode series that focues mainly on plot and themes more than anything else and if it spent too much time on characters navel gazing it would detract from all the other aspects. The characters definitely have personalities and traits that serve to aid the ideas at play in the story but it dosen't make them feel inhuman or unrelatable mainly because they act and react very realistically when faced with the heart-breaking decisions they have to make and you really do feel for these characters. Even if you know things probably won't work out for a character you still want it to as you know they didn't want to be in the situation they are in but they deal with it and keep going until the very end. You can relate to the emotional turmoil they must be feeling and that makes all the heart breaking scenes you witness in this series even more emotionally resonant. No, they're not really complex or original but that's not the point, they do feel like real people and without them the story wouldn't work as well as it does.
Characters-8/10
Art-This is the bit that even sceptics agree is really, really good. Madoka's art style is an eclectic mixture of styles that while vastly different to each other manage to create a blend that mirror the plot and ideas perfectly. The character designs were part of director Ayiyuki Shinbo's original idea to market the series as a cutesy magical girl series targeted at a younger audience than it actually is and as such are very typical of the genre and of production studio Shaft's other works. The trademark big eyes and almost pencil-like aesthetic to the characters is probably what puts a lot of people off. It is true that it seems kind of jarring at first to have such disturbing content with such cute looking character designs but it really only makes it more disturbing than it already was and adds to the overall impact of the series. The rest of the art style is really weird but effective, from the near-future aesthetic of Mitakihara city to the bizarre and psychedelic witch mazes and the escher-esque dream-like landcapes the art style of Madoka magica takes you on a journey equal in splendor to the story itself.
Art-10/10
Sound part 1:Music-Yet another brilliant aspect of this series is the heart-achingly beautiful music penned by Yuki Kajiura, it not only compliments the already incredible emotional tension the series has but also creates its own beautiful atmosphere that melds perfectly with the animation and dialouge. Kajiura's music is mainly a mixture of strings, electronics and guitars that blend in an explosion of different feelings and moods. The creepy and foreboding 'A duel with a witch' uses distorted guitars and a haunting choir to build a creepy and disturbing atmosphere while tracks like 'Decretum' and 'Inevitabilis' are indescribably beautiful and reach the exact wavelength of emotional resonance that the story reaches and manages to say so much about what the characters are going through that it has made me shed tears once or twice and i'm someone who rarely ever cries. The opening and ending themes are polar opposites to each other, The opening theme 'connect' is a very stereotypical magical girl anime theme song (for more of the director's misleading) but is so damn catchy that you won't really care how out of place it feels after a few episodes of dark, faustian tragedy. The ending theme 'Magia' however is a dark, gothic song performed by Yuki Kajiura's band Kalafina which feels much more like the tone of the show and is also a really awesome song.
Sound part 2: Voice acting-The japanese track is something that I don't believe I have the knowledge to discuss as I do not speak the language and do not know a lot about the voice acting industry in Japan but for the most part it sounded great and managed to convey the wide emotional ranges present in the story very well. The english dub however was not perfect, don't get me wrong its not bad by any stretch of the imagination it just dosen't compare at least not for me anyway. The casting is quite stereotypical and while there are some stand outs like Cassandra Lee as Kyubey most of the girls sound too girly and typical of the genre for such a dark story. If they had cast more natural sounding voices it would have worked so much better in my opinion as many of the emotional scenes just don't work as well in the dub.
Sound-8/10 but only due to mediocre dub without it music alone gets 10/10
Enjoyment-This is a hard one to discuss as my enjoyment of a series very much relies on the above categories. Enjoyment in this series is tied mainly to how emotionally gripping it is, due to this I had to limit myself to 1 episode day on first watch because of how intense each episode is. I enjoyed it on the basis that I wanted to see what was going to happen to these characters and how such desperate situations were going to turn out in the end, I would be legimately suprised if anyone was able to drop this series mid way through due to all the twists it throws at you that just coaxes you to go one layer further into the story. Overall watching Madoka magica was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and was riveting, engaging and heart-wrenching from episode 1 to 12.
Enjoyment-10/10
Overall verdict-
+ Well written, complex plot, unique and beautiul art style, fantastic and fitting music, a thoroughly engaging watch
-Mediocre dub, some may be put off by character designs
Final score-9.1
