The structure is odd and switches from a fast to a very slow pacing, seemingly at random. Heavy dramatic scenes are followed by parts that seem to ignore the moments before, sometimes with the same characters in new locations, a light hearted feeling and nobody even mentioning the dramatic stuff that happend just happend seconds before. It feels heavily disjointed to say the least.
We know little about the characters, relationships, feelings, history or motivation, but that doesn´t stop the drama nor the story from demanding that we care about them anyway.
A good example would be an argument early on between two girls we have seen about 3 minutes on screen who start to insult each other and it is ending with them ending their friendship. ,,So they were friends. Good to know." I thought right after the fight was over.
We learn a bit about some character later on, but the very most figures of the rather huge cast get no love at all and these who do get their time in in the spotlight are still pretty underdeveloped.
The worldbuilding has a rocky start too. You get a monolog explaining the core elements of this world in the first episode, but even with knowledge of the original series you have way more questions than answers of why things are happening or what these things are. They introduce new, often times quite interessting ideas constantly, but instead of explaining anything they purposely hide things from you and not in a suddle way like the original Madoka, where everything made sense on it´s own and new informations just changed your viewpoint.
Here they stop explanations by just ending the scene, or they establish something to break the established rules moments later, or explain something with great care just to forget about it completly.
The mystery story at it´s core was promissing and some of the character are still enjoyable, even without being fleshed out at all. It´s not a disaster or anything but it isn´t on the same level as the other Shaft anime you can find not so suddle references to either.
The core problem of being a Madoka spinn off doesn´t help either. The name, setting, cover art, character arcs and even character and whole conversations are ripped out of the original but without the good writing or built up of it. What is left is a confusing work with no emotional impact, a story that goes nowhere, mysteries that were either not resolved at all or just got explained with -she is smart, she invented it-, characters you couldn´t care less about and references to better Shaft productions.
It was probably supposed to be something between Madoka and Hanamonogatari, sadly they pretty much butchered it.
Don´t bother with this and rather watch the original Madoka, the movies or Monogatari if you want to see a story like this made competently.
If you liked the stil and want to scratch your head in confusion you could also watch Fate/Last Encore, which has a lot of similar problems but at least something like a conclusion.
