Well, yeah, probably the anime people talk about the most this season. The anime itself, that is, not like, uh… delays, simulcasts, etc. And while I’ll try not to hate away in this post, it doesn’t really have me going like some other people who decrypt the writings on the walls and interpret stuff like foreshadowing at the very beginning of the 1st episode or actions. I think it’s watchable, but not really exciting.
Most of the aired episodes are mostly talk and Madoka thinking. It’s not what one would expect from magical girl anime, but still I find myself bored, because the dia- and monologues mostly revolve around the same question “Should I become a magical girl?”, so to me the highlights really are the 20-25% of the episode spent fighting, even though I don’t really know what to think of the artistic style. Sure, it’s extremely surreal in a way one gets the impression the surroundings aren’t safe, despite the colorfulness of it all, but somehow it still looks plain weird. Also, they kinda end the same way every time: They get in some kind of pinch, Madoka almost loses her head about it (heh.), is about to form a contract when Homura jumps in and eliminates the threat. Even Mami losing her head whilst keeping her cool (heh.) somehow didn’t manage to excite me, even though I’m usually all for random decapitation.
To be honest, I now expect the rest of the anime to be a fight for Madoka’s soul between Homura and Kyuubey, so I expect two kinds of endings:
The first one is Madoka not becoming a magical girl, making the entire show an amazing trolling.
The second one would be, well, her getting magical powers, but with some implications. In the 2nd or 3rd episode there were some writings on the walls, as people pointed out, those are lines from Goethe’s Faust – I’m rather amazed people buy Faust because of the anime, because me, being a good student from Germany only have one book by Goethe which is not Faust, which I never read and I cheated in the class test on it. If I remember correctly, Faust is about a guy who wishes for power or something else, everybody kinda wants, so Mephisto (aka the Devil) shows up and offers him to fulfill his wishes in exchange for his soul. Sound familiar? Like I said, I never read Faust, but from what I gathered, the dude’s wishes in the book never really work out the way, he wants, also something that has been said in the anime. I know I’m a bit of a slowpoke about it, but never really thought about why there’s Goethe in the anime, until I started writing this post and let’s be honest: Anime producers love stuffing random things from other languages in anime and German seems kinda popular when it comes to magic, so I didn’t think much about it. But yeah, Kyuubey = Mephisto / the Devil. A cute, fluffy devil.
So, in conclusion, thinking about Madoka selling her soul for something and dooming herself is now something I can look forward to. Not, because I dislike her, but I think it’s interesting to end a magical girl anime on a dark note. One rarely gets a bad end for the characters in anime nowadays, bad end for the viewer is much more common, so that would be a welcome change. So some of the negative comments above are just a result of expecting something completely different.
Also, I kinda have the feeling, I should say something about the soundtrack, but to be honest while watching something, I rarely notice the soundtrack. Sure, it has an impact on how I perceive scenes and changes the mood of said scenes, but I honestly don’t remember any of it. It’s more like, if somebody were to play the soundtrack to me I’d be like “Ah, that was that scene where Homura and Madoka made out!”. Also, I think I’m not good at recognizing good music, so I’ll just say, if people praise it that much, it has to be okay, I guess.
