When people say that Madoka Magica is a masterpiece, I find it hard to disagree! Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an anime released back in 2011 that was quickly touted as a masterpiece for its intelligent storytelling and creative subversion of tropes associated with the magical girl genre of anime. But to throw this in with the rest of the magical girl fodder is completely unfair to itself and the creators of this great anime.
Why is that? Because Madoka Magica is a hard deconstruction and reconstruction of the magical girl genre. It starts off slow and boring, but after about the 3rd or 4th episode, Madoka Magica stops fucking around and gets down to business. It has no problem killing off characters unexpectedly, dropping emotional anvils on the viewer's unsuspecting minds, and turning characters that appear cute and cuddly into vile, despicable, monsters. I don't really agree with that last one, but I'll get to that character later. Madoka Magica does everything in its power to subvert the audience's expectations and it an immense challenge on the viewer to keep up. That's one of things I admire greatly about it. It challenges the viewer to make sense of it all and if you can't, you'll be left in its dust.
Let's brush over the story real quick. As stated, Madoka Magica deconstructs and reconstructs the magical girl genre in absolute flawless fashion. It flows seamlessly, has no plotholes I could find that weren't addressed later or in one of the movies, and can carry a certain emotional weight to it depending on who the viewer is. But what is a deconstruction or a reconstruction? Well, a deconstruction means that a piece of literature deliberately takes many of the tropes and clichés of a specific genre, and goes in a completely different, more realistic (usually) manner than is usually par for the course. Not only is this incredibly difficult to do without breaking flow and natural storytelling, but it also takes immense knowledge of the genre and a lot of focus to pull off correctly. Somehow, Madoka Magica does it flawlessly. It rips the magical girl genre down to its bare bones and creates something far more dark and interesting than your Sailor Moon or what not.
For the happy, girly, everyone wins tone of the average magical girl anime, Madoka Madica embodies themes of sadess, betrayal, decay, the cruel hand of fate, the sad reality of ulterior motives, and even heavy religious commentary, among others. Needless to say, Madoka Magica is immensely deeper and more intelligent than what you would expect from something that would take on this genre. But just when you think it's going to end in a grimdark, bleak, dry heave, Madoka Magica pulls another trick out of its metaphorical sleeve and reconstructs the entire genre again seamlessly.
I won't waste time explaining what a reconstruction is, but it's basically the opposite of a deconstruction. You're re-creating what the usual ending would be for a genre despite breaking the tropes down into something completely different to create the story. Basically, it's like taking a door, breaking it, and then putting it back together.
Normally when a piece of literature does this, the door isn't quite as functional or aesthetically pleasing as it was before you ripped it down, but again Madoka does it in stride and pulls off an ending that is nothing short of mindfuck. It's incredible. But I could go on for hours about the story, so let's just go over the other elements, shall we?
As for the art, it's mostly good. The visuals for the witch realms are incredibly organic and creative, as well as dark and a solid match for the tone. The only complaint I have is the models of the main characters. They're a bit block-headed and they tend to have the same proportions aside from their hair. It's a bit off-putting, at least to me.
The music is pretty good, too. It's emotional and atmospheric, but never in a manner that distracts the viewer. It's mostly meant to accompany the narrative, rather than be something you would want to listen to casually. There's nothing wrong with that, so I have no problem with it. All I can really say negative about it as that I find most of the music blends together and feels hard to differentiate. That's more of a personal gripe, though. All in all, sound design and music is very good.
As for the characters, they're far deeper than I would have imagined and more interesting, too. They're surprisingly complex and not one of them feels like a bad stereotypes that doesn't belong. To put them plainly; Mami is motherly and welcoming, Sayaka is caring but a bit jealous at times, Madoka is frail but very kind, Homura is initially distant and emotionless but ends up being easily the deepest character present, and Kyoko is fiery and feels more like the grey area moral character. They're all unique and ineresting, which significantly helps differentiate them (which is needed due to the samey art style they're drawn in).
There are 2 main gripes I have with the characters. The first is with Homura. Homura's character arc is, to put it bluntly, absurd. I can't really get into it in detail without spoiling her genius character development and the emotional way it unfolds, but I'll put it as vaguely as I can. At one point, it's clear what causes Homura to be the way she is at the beginning of the show, and I found it completely absurd. She did a complete 180 in her personality and I found it incredibly hard to believe, even if her motivations for doing so were clear. Not a huge deal, but it still bugged me. The second gripe is Kyubey. Seeing as how I make a big deal about good vs. evil being childish drek, it should be no surprise that I disagree with the notion that Kyubey is evil (this is what I was referring to earlier). As odd as this may sound, I don't find his actions to be particularly malicious. In typical genius fashion by the writers, Kyubey isn't quite on the same page as humans (as any alien creature probably would that tried to interact with them). But people seem to think that just because Kyubey left several details out that would seem manipulative if left out, that automatically makes him a hell spawn. I don't necessarily think that is the case. It seems clear that Kyubey doesn't really have a clear sense of morality like humans do. To blame him for not really understanding that he should have told them everything up front is understandable, but ultimately childish. Whether or not he was being malicious is up to debate, but personally I think it makes sense as to why he didn't. From a cold advantage standpoint, he did everything that would make sense and revealed everything in a manner that would serve his purposes the best. It makes perfect sense. [Mild Spoiler here] His motivations are also pretty clear too. He wants to prevent the universe from certain doom in the form of heat death, if I interpreted it correctly. I think that pretty well justifies a few instances of careful manipulation. [/spoiler] Overall though, great work with the characters.
Madoka Magica is and will continue to be a unqiue and intelligent take on something not usually associated with the themes it tackles. It sticks out, but not in a manner that could be considered negative. It's refreshing to see something so smart come out of a genre I usually refer to as " boring gobbledygook", and I also recommend you check out the movies if you're interested. From what I gather, the first 2 are small summaries of the anime, while the 3rd is a completely new story with 1 new character. I've only seen the 3rd one, but I've heard from some they consider the movies to be better than the actual anime. Either way, I strongly recommended you check out Madoka Magica. Just stay away from cute things with contracts.
Madoka Magica earns a 9/10.
