Back in Winter 2021, I started this series of episode reviews for the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary. I got very far into rewatching and covering the show but to my embarrassment, I did not finish covering it. It is now Fall 2023. At the time of re-editing this post, Madoka is now 12 years old and it’ll turn 13 in a couple months (neither of which have the same ring to it as the 10th anniversary). While that incentive has long passed, the original series is coming back with the upcoming Walpurgisnacht: Rising movie so I decided to finally finish these posts. The first nine episode reviews will be the same ones, just re-dated and re-edited. The remaining three will be entirely new writings. I’ll worry about the original film trilogy, namely Rebellion, when I get there.
The original Puella Magi Madoka Magica was a very formative anime for me. I remember watching this for the first time at my high school anime club, during the final term of my freshman year (and about a month or two after the show finished airing). One of the senior members played the first three episodes. One of the senior members played the first three episodes; he was the only one who had already seen it and he just let the show speak for itself. And boy did it do just that. I attended every club meeting after to watch more. I recall the club stopping at Episode 9 due to finals coming up but I also just had to know how the story ends so I finished the show the following weekend. It was an enthralling, larger than life experience that left my 14 year old self speechless and it was one of the shows that cemented my interest in anime. I’ve seen a number of magical girl anime that have come out since Madoka aired. Some are good, others not so much, but none have captured that exact spark I felt with Madoka and that show remains at the top for me.
At least that’s what memory serves. I am blogging about this series out of interest for its upcoming return but I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t an opportunity for me to re-evaluate it. It has been a couple years since I last watched this show and with anything that you claim to love, it’s important to revisit it and see if that feeling remains as strong as it once did. I also couldn’t help but wonder if I’m still fond of the series when I frankly don’t have much of an attachment towards the overall franchise. I’ve always felt the show was one and done so I’ve never seen the movies (though that may change soon). The only other piece of Madoka media that I’ve seen so far is the first season of Magia Record, which I previously covered in episode reviews, and that was…something. All things considered, I can’t help but doubt how I feel towards the original series. With Walpurgsinacht: Rising on the horizon, now seems like a good time to revisit the show and hopefully rediscover and reaffirm what I love about it.
Chances are, if you haven’t seen Madoka before, you probably already have an idea of what the show is about. It was one of the biggest anime of the 2010s and it’s a household name within the magical girl genre so it’s harder to not know anything about it. On the .01% chance that you’ve been living in the biggest rock imaginable, don’t read these episode reviews. I know that sounds counterproductive for me as a blogger and don’t worry, I will be playing dumb with regards to spoilers just to be on the safe side. But honestly, if you’re that oblivious to Madoka and you are thinking of watching it, I strongly recommend going in as blindly as possible. Much of the joy that comes from a first viewing back in 2011 was not knowing what this show is truly about and seeing it reveal all the tricks it has up its sleeve. It was an irreplaceable feeling. If there was any anime that I’d love to watch for the first time again, it’d be this one.
Assuming that you’re still reading and/or you don’t care, here’s what I can say about the story one episode in. Puella Magi Madoka Magica follows Madoka Kaname (Aoi Yuki), an average girl attending middle school with her two friends Sayaka Miki (Eri Kitamura) and Hitomi Shizuki (Ryoko Shintani). One day during school, a new student named Homura Akemi transfers to Madoka’s class which surprises the latter as she actually saw the former in a dream she had beforehand. As Madoka tries to make heads or tails of her connection to Homura, she runs into another being from her dream, a cute cat-like creature called Kyubey (Emiri Kato). For some reason, Homura has been attacking Kyubey and she tries to take the creature from Madoka but before she can do that, their surroundings become enchanted by a mysterious monster and another girl named Mami Tomoe (Kaori Mizuhashi) steps in to intervene. After a fight, Kyubey explains that Homura and Mami are both magical girls and he would like Madoka and Sayaka to become ones as well by forming a contract of some kind with them.
There are definitely some points of intrigue in this episode. The first is Madoka’s dream. That both Homura and Kyubey appear here and then in real life can’t be a coincidence. Madoka sees Homura fighting to the death and losing but what is she fighting and losing to? Judging from the dialogue here and what’s revealed at the end, Madoka is about to become a magical girl with Kyubey’s help so does that make the dream a premonition of some kind? By that same token, we have Madoka’s connection to Homura. While Madoka doesn’t know Homura, Homura seems to know her. She approaches Madoka right from the get go, encourages her to act informally around her, and often glares at her. Combined with her stone cold personality, Homura’s demeanor is off-putting to the unknowing Madoka. There’s also Kyubey to consider. If a magical girl such as Mami is allied with him, one has to wonder what kind of beef Homura has with them, so much so that she’s trying to kill them. Furthermore, why does Kyubey seek out Madoka and Sayaka to become magical girls?
While there’s certainly some interesting developments going on here, I wouldn’t blame a new viewer if they told me that this episode didn’t exactly hook them in. It is purely set up, both in terms of narrative and characterization, and it is all very unassuming. Really, the thing that stands out in this episode is the presentation, which is no surprise given that this is studio Shaft we’re talking about. Shaft can get needlessly stylistic at times. This is especially the case with the set designs where Madoka’s house has a number of odd looking items and the school she attends looks like the most advanced and fanciest middle school in existence. Even so, it’s hard to deny that the style does work at times, most notably during the action scene at the end with the eerie, paper cut-out-esque aesthetic that clashes with the general art style of the show. I suppose the show’s age is apparent nowadays but I think it still holds up for the most part. The music by Yuki Kajiura is also worth mentioning. I forgot how good some of the tracks are, such as the theme that plays when Mami starts fighting, with its vocal chants and its strange yet harmonious mix of classical and techno beats.
All I can say is to keep watching and watch the space. Trust me, there’s a reason why Madoka caught the attention of many, back in the day.
OP: “Connect” by ClariS
ED: “Mata Ashita” by Aoi Yuki
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This post was originally published on January 7, 2021
Watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu
Xenodude Scribbles 
The way I see it, Madoka Magica is like pre-Disney Star Wars (and unlike a lot of newer multimedia franchises) in that there’s a sharp distinction between the core canon (the 12-episode series and the movies) and the “extended universe” of side material–the various manga, console and gacha games, including Magia Record, none of which series and movie writer Gen Urobuchi was directly involved with.
I’ve seen all three seasons of the Magia Record anime and I think I’ve read all the Madoka spinoff manga except for the Oriko Magica spinoffs-of-a-spinoff, the ongoing Magia Record manga, and some of the comedy ones. I found all of the spinoffs severely flawed in one way or another, but that doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of the original series or Rebellion, or my anticipation for the new movie.
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That’s kind of how I’ve viewed the Madoka franchise. Come to think of it, a lot of franchises kind of operate like that.
Gen Urobuchi’s involvement is a solid way of distinguishing the main canon from the spin-offs (aside from the titles, I mean). His writing is a big part of the original show’s identity and a big reason why it succeeded. I’ve never seen Rebellion as I felt very content after the show but Urobuchi coming back to write for it always did interest me. Likwise, I got a lot more interested in the new movie when it was announced that he’s writing for it.
I’ve only seen the first season of Magia Record and I don’t know. It wasn’t nearly as good as the original show but I did think it had its moments. Am still curious about the last two seasons; maybe I’ll get to it after I’m done blogging about the original series. I’ve never read any of the manga spin-offs; those always felt like a rabbit hole to me.
As I wrote in the post, that first season of Magia Record left me wondering about how I feel about the original. That said, I rarely feel that spin-offs diminish my feelings towards the parent work in particular so I might come to the same conclusion for Madoka as you did.
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