What to do while waiting for Madoka Magica 6

by dm00

Mami...ina

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is shaping into a story about young women who embark on a magical career only to find that things can go terribly wrong. Magical girl costumes are no armor against violence and death.

These themes are shared by Simoun, which examined them in surprising depth for what, at first, looks like a series full of the worst sort of pandering exploitation.

Simoun is about young priestesses who spend a few years associated with a temple, where they learn to dance in the sky, in mother-of-pearl craft called “Simoun” before they graduate into adulthood. But their aerial ballet — a form of prayer — can also be used as a weapon that can call great power down from the heavens.

So the priestesses must go to war, using their art to bring destruction to the enemy.

Madoka Magica 5 (no spoilers)

by dm00

Endcard comes much too soon

Before this series is over, I am going to come to hate the opening chord of the end-credit song Magia.

What to do while waiting for Madoka Magica episode 5

by dm00

Mahou shoujo has been subverted before

If you like what Puella Magi Madoka Magica is doing to the mahou shoujo genre, you should take a look at 2002’s Princess Tutu, which remembered the grim in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Kyube could learn a thing or two from Drosselmeyer

The sweet appearance, the goofy cartoon duck, the pratfalls, Neko-sensei, and the ballet poses are a deceptive gloss on the dark forces, tragedy, and suffering that lies buried underneath. A bittersweet tale that doesn’t cop out — it obeys its internal logic to the end, when Ahiru makes the choice presented her by Drosselmeyer and is fully aware of what her choice means.

The series is also memorable for the surprising development that its major characters go through. The attitude you have three episodes in will not be the attitude you have at the end.

Oh, and director Juunichi Sato grew up to do Aria, so of course we’re fans.

Madoka 4 (no spoilers)

by dm00

Sweet dreams are not made of this

The music. The visuals. The direction. Perfect.

Winter Anime Season Initial Impressions

Again doing something a little different here, where in this post, some authors of DMAB will note quick impressions and, in some cases, unnecessary snap judgements of some of the shows that start this season. Long post will be long for sure. Since the opinions can be long and unwieldy, various authors will be color-coded to tell them apart (though it probably won’t be for your reading pleasure, now that I think about it), with Link in the normal everyday black, TheBigN’s opinions in reasonable orange, and dm00’s opinions in the other end of the RGB spectrum. Too make this even harder to read for many, pictures might be at a minimum here. Have fun! 😀

Madoka Magica 1: I don’t usually do this but…

TheBigN

And no, I’m probably not going to do this for each episode. Probably. :v

Yeah, I was kind of like this after the first half.

Watching the first half of this episode, I felt like everything (the music, the character interactions, the situations, so on and so forth) save SHAFT’s character animations (!!!) was trying too hard to set up at least the normal life of Madoka. Being a fan of SHAFT X Shinbo, Yuki Kajiura and Aoki Ume, through that period I was thinking to myself “Calm down guys. You got this” as if it was a team that I don’t want to lose/fail. And I don’t, because I know what each can do when they’re at their best, and how often does a show combine things I like together? I’d watch this dream team’s result regardless of how it turns out, hopefully having more good vibes than not.

Totally unexpected mustaches. And great ones at that.

But after the initial Madoka/Homura conversation, the overall “feel” of the show seemed to calm down and go smoother. Even as things got WTF (gogo Gekidan Inu Curry) and awesome (gogo UNLIMITED GUN WORKS). More than likely because things got WTF and awesome.

And Tatsuya is so damn adorable.

Also kind of liked how besides Madoka, her family, Sayaka, Himura, Mimi and Kyube, no-one else’s name was mentioned. This despite a lot of relative screentime for characters like the teacher and that middle-class friend. Hope that sort of remains that way on purpose.