That’s how the show starts, and as the show was suggested to me by a friend whose first recommendation was Another, I was surprised. The show starts off all cute and nice, which was a great surprise, and I found it really strange and quite boring, but I told myself I have to at least try to make it through a few episodes. The atmosphere in the show slowly began to change from this blissful school life it started getting darker and darker. It changed from a cutesy lighthearted anime into a psychological thriller.
The story was great, I found it original and it was never really dragging, but it never got me to feel like I had to watch another episode so it actually took me quite a while to finish it (I watched three other anime in between). The characters were all great, everyone had flashed out backstory. Everyone had believable motivation behind their actions and practically nothing went unexplained in the end. Speaking of the ending like pretty much all 12 episode anime I found it to be a bit rushed but there is are three movies made afterwards that might fix this just like the OVA saved Mirai Nikki's ending.
The one thing I found truly exceptional was the art, it was just beautiful especially the sequences with the witches, which looked like they had just escaped from a surrealist painting. Also the characters all looked amazing and the action sequences looked just perfectly executed. Throughout the episodes it actually managed to keep the whimsical esthetics from the start and managed to make them work in a completely different setting. There is not much to talk about the sound, nothing felt out of place and nothing that great. The opening and ending are good enough to find their way into my iTunes but I won't try to hunt down the whole soundtrack like I did with Noir and Yosuga no Sora.
Even though I found nothing wrong with the Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica I just can't give it more than a low 8 because it never really pulled me in like even the adaptation disaster that is Gokukoku no Brynhildr managed to do. I can fully understand anyone who thinks this is a masterpiece and it is possible I would find it to be one also, had I watched it at a different time. No matter what I still have recommend it to everyone who wants to watch a quality anime.
