Reviews

Sep 27, 2020
Madoka Magica seems to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it type anime, and as someone who doesn't like it, I hope I can still explain both sides of the debate. But first, I'll describe its basic story structure, characters, and themes, and take into account the context of the show's production.

Story and Themes

The overarching plot follows Madoka as she learns more about the dark nature of magical girls through her encounters with them, all the while trying to decide if she should become one herself. Though this should come as no surprise considering Gen Urobuchi's style and Madoka Magica itself being already famous as a deconstruction, the events can be summarized as twists designed to show the unforeseen negative consequences arising from heroism and idealism. In doing so, the show establishes a world full of inevitable tragedy in order to set up for a hopeful conclusion; it tries to bring you low so that the message of hope feels uplifting and cathartic at the end. Along the way, the scenarios that the magical girls find themselves in evoke several questions such as:

-Is the sacrifice required to be a hero really worth it?
-Am I doing heroic acts for selfish reasons?
-Is good destined to be negated by bad?
-Is tragedy inevitable or can fate be changed?

Characters

The characters are very divisive--- on one hand, each of the girls has a compelling internal conflict and sympathetic situations. On the other hand, their personalities by themselves are archetypal and in twelve episodes there is not enough time and attention given to them to flesh them out and give them fuller arcs. Madoka is an exception with regards to a fuller arc because she's the one character that the show follows for 12 episodes, but again, her personality remains archetypal. On the other end, Homura is the most egregious example of how rushed the characters were, as her backstory was given in one episode and her relationship with Madoka was established in a few minutes. Many people will cry for her backstory because the trope they use is naturally poignant, but since Madoka Magica never puts in the work to put the meat on the barebones framework, all I see is a plot device used for cheap emotional manipulation.

SPOILERS

You know that romantic trope where a couple deeply in love separate because one person had a memory loss, and we watch the other's heartwrenching efforts to reach/protect their amnesiac lover? Madoka Magica basically uses the same structure compressed into 20 minutes to manipulate your emotions the same way.

ENDSPOILERS

Meta-view

In combination with the story, the characters feel like they were designed to propagate the message and carry out the twists rather than people first and foremost. This makes sense when you consider how Gen Urobuchi described his writing process for this show: "He said he would first determine the actions and the ultimate fate of a character before even assigning it a name, and contrasted this with other writing methods that first focused on developing the characters and then creating a storyline for them to follow," according to Wikipedia's paraphrase of his interview (original interview found here: http://ultrajumpegg.com/#/column/0004/0029/02). In addition, comments made by the creators strongly indicate that their intention was to shock viewers by lulling them in with the cutesy exterior and following it up with death and despair.

All this is relevant because 1)a show should be able to stand on its own even you know the shock is coming 2) some people praise the show for the shock effect itself 3)the show has a reputation for being a deconstruction of the magical girl genre. I'd love to evaluate a show on its own merits, but in this case it's necessary to disentangle Madoka Magica from its hype and shock factor before I can do that.

So first, is Madoka Magica good because it's a deconstruction of the magical girl genre? My response is, was there anything worth deconstructing in the first place? As literaturenerd said, the magical girl genre has always been tongue-in-cheek--- I don't think anyone who watches a magical girl show is unaware that it's a bad idea to put so much power and responsibility in the hands of an adolescent girl while also endangering her life. Furthermore, I doubt those same people are sitting there complaining about the cartoony, unrealistic stories in a animated show whose main target demographic is young girls. Bottom line is, simply exposing all the downsides of being a magical girl isn't saying anything groundbreaking. Evangelion wasn't just a show depicting all the downsides of being a mech pilot; that was only one facet of a larger central theme about depression.

That's not to say that all Madoka Magica tries to be is a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, especially since at its core it's more of a deconstruction of idealism and a proponent of hope in the face of despair. So I'm not bashing the show, but pointing out that being a deconstruction of the magical girl genre wouldn't be primarily what makes it good.

However, I do think the show's reliance on shock factor to deconstruct idealism and heroism undermines what it's trying to do. And this is because shock, by its nature, is jarring and unexpected. Thus, using shock factor to show that there are negative consequences to idealism and heroism causes a disconnect between cause and effect. Instead of telling a fluid, reasonable story about how being too idealistic can gradually turn someone sour and lead them down a path of self-destruction, the situations in Madoka Magica come across more as, you tried to do the right thing, but then that inevitably leads to something bad happening even if that something had a 1 in a million chance of happening. As a series of coincidences, the story is blunt and heavy handed in its attempts to discuss idealism, but in fact it goes further and lays down laws of karmic destiny that stipulate that something bad happens every time you try to do something good. By contrast, Griffith's actions at the end of Berserk certainly created a lot of shock, but at the same time his decision felt natural because the show had spent so much time creating ambiguity around the nature of Griffith's ambition. Madoka Magica came the closest to this with Sayaka's story, but not only is it too rushed, the introduction of karmic destiny and the inevitable fate of magical girls undermines all the naturality of her arc. It's quite telling about his philosophy that Urobuchi used Osama Bin Laden as an example when he said that good intentions don't always lead to good results. Terrorists' "good intentions" meant killing a whole bunch of people and they succeeded. They achieved exactly the result they wanted. Urobuchi has characters try to help other people, only for it to somehow backfire and lead to them getting killed.

Because the show is so forced, so blunt, so contrived in order to produce shock factor, its message of hope doesn't have the proper foundation to lift off. As a viewer, I didn't feel hopeful at the end because I know all the bad stuff that occurred in response to idealism were either highly unlikely, or entirely preventable and just seemed shocking because the girls were too immature to think two steps ahead.

On that note, the best case I can make for the show thematically isn't that it's a deconstruction of the magical girl genre or idealism, but rather a coming-of-age story. That way, the stupid decisions of the girls and unforeseen events make sense from the point of view of adolescent girls, because making decisions as you mature is hard and scary, and reality seems beyond your control. Though the show would still be too rushed, the characters too bland, and the events too contrived, thematically it would be more sound.

On the other side of the debate, it's easy to see this show working for a lot of people. Though the show is rushed, the fast pace and shock factor can make for a thrilling ride. Though the characters are bland in terms of personality, the situations the girls find themselves in and their internal conflicts might be compelling and sympathetic enough to draw you in. Though the events are contrived, it seems many people have found them rich with philosophical and moral implications, especially with its talk about fate. If you buy into everything here, then you will be emotionally invested enough to be wowed by its hopeful finale.

Buuuut I didn't so 5/10.

If you want to see an anime that's actually about how girls realistically deal with despair and a hopeless fate, watch Red Garden.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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