Let’s clear something up right now. This is not an unbiased review. I don’t believe any such thing exists. However, I will do my best to keep my fangirl juices in check and judge this anime the same way I would any other one. Madoka is not a perfect anime by any stretch of the imagination. It is not flaw-free. So why, you may ask, am I giving it a 10/10? Because I love this anime more than any other one I’ve seen. I give out scores based on my personal feelings, and my feelings are that this anime is amazing despite its flaws.
Plot: 9/10
I have a weak spot for dark, depressing as fuck anime. I have a soft spot for suffering lolis. However, that alone is not enough to merit a 9/10, as can be seen by my Charlotte review. The scope of this anime’s plot is perfect. It never tries to be anything it isn’t, which seems to be a sadly common theme among a lot of other anime I’ve watched. The pacing is always on point and the twists come one after another, always in natural ways. They never feel forced. This anime feels like it was planned out before the writer even wrote the first sentence. There’s little hints everywhere about the truth, from the name of the soul gems, to Homura’s reactions to Madoka’s comments. They are subtle, and things you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for them, but they are effective in making nothing feel like it was put in at random. Madoka has a few holes in it, though not very many. For example, in episode 10 it’s revealed that Homura has been going back in time over and over and over. We see the beginning of episode 1 where she’s fighting Walpurgisnacht and Madoka is up by the big tree. But if that’s the case, then what was that abstract hallway she was running through? And what was the big floating island? Those don’t appear in any of the other timelines. You could argue that it was because it was a dream, but we’re seeing it from Homura’s perspective this time. The giant tree is still there. There is no giant tree in Madoka’s city, so where did it come from? It kind of feels like the plot forgot about that, but maybe I’m just misinterpreting something. Another bad part about the plot is that it felt like it was trying to hit a series of plot points and the story was based around those plot points. It’s basically the opposite of penguindrum; the story is plot-driven rather than character-driven. That is to say, the characters change with the plot, not the other way around.
Honestly, if I was going to judge this anime objectively and set my personal feelings aside, the plot would probably get an 8/10 simply because of the ending. It was almost but not quite an “it was all just a dream” ending. It felt conclusive, but rushed. It felt like it should have taken up at least one more episode, maybe even two. It had a lot of good ideas, but it was presented in a way that left you wondering “what just happened”. They wouldn’t even have had to change any of the ideas, just give each one of them more screen time. Explain things a little better as well, since it can get really confusing unless you’ve seen the anime several times and read spoilers and explanations online. All in all, it was not the worst ending I’ve seen to date, but one of them. That last scene with Homura was really sad. This is the one time I’m going to let my emotions cloud my judgement, because I just loved that ending scene so much where she is fighting and can feel madoka in her. And she has Madoka’s weapon. It’s just so… heartwarming? I don’t know. I loved it. 11/10.
Characters: 9/10
The characters in Madoka are even better than the ones in Penguindrum in terms of depth and development. Each of them has their own sets of motivations, their own desires and, of course, their own wishes. Every single one of them has a tragic story of some kind, be it Sayaka’s path to self-destruction or Kyoko’s backstory of parental abandonment or Homura’s determination to save Madoka, even if it means doing the same month over 100 times. The character relations and interactions all tie into the bigger story and serve to show something much larger than the story we see. Each one of the girls is there to show what can become of a magical girl. We have Mami, who died in battle, being beheaded by a witch and then… eaten. We have Sayaka who follows what she believes is the one and only righteous path, eventually falling into despair and becoming a witch, and we have Kyoko (who’s story I loved the most) who died after using up all her magic and destroying her soul gem. Unfortunately, at times the characters interact with each other and talk like plot devices rather than actual characters, and while they never acted in a frustratingly irrational way just for the sake of the plot, their actions did feel like they were in service of the plot more than anything a lot of the time. And fucking Kamijo was literally nothing more than a plot device to lead Sayaka to become a magical girl and eventually to crash and burn. I kind of wish Urobuchi had given him more character rather than treating him like a prop. Also, Homura is best girl.
Art: 10/10
With this being a shaft anime is is directed, like all shaft anime, by Akiyuki Shinbo. His artistic vision is one of my favorites, with his use of random colors and photographs in the background. It’s no secret that Shinbo loves to be artsy and symbolic, and oh boy did he have fun with Madoka. The labyrinths are basically the definition of Acid Trip Dimension. The witch designs are hilariously horrifying with their abstract surrealness. The character designs were done by Ume Aoki, better known for her moe/slice of life anime Hidamari Sketch (which was also done by shaft). This made all the characters look SUPER adorable, serving to clash nicely with the dark plot and fool people into thinking that this show was going to be happy before they watched episode 3.
Sound: 11/10
The music was done by the one and only Yuki Kajiura, also known for her work in Fate/Zero, Sword Art Online, and the .hack franchise. The Madoka soundtrack is basically everything I could ask for in an OST. It’s memorable and distinctive and if you were to play one of them for me, I’d be able to say “hey, that’s Madoka music!” All of the music fits with the mood of the scene it’s played in and draws out the emotion of both the characters and the audience members. Or maybe that’s just me…
As I said before, this review is biased. Objectively, this anime probably deserves an 8.5 or a 9, but I loved it enough to push the score up to a 10. To me, it is one of the best anime ever made, despite its flaws. I recommend it to pretty much everybody I meet and everybody who watches it tell me how much they love it. If I could rate it 11/10 I would, but sadly MAL only goes up to 10.
