Puella Magi Madoka Magica

[neoeevee]

One of the new anime released this past winter, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a new kind of mahou shoujo tale. Full of adorable characters, beautiful music, and a truly intriguing plot line, Madoka is only twelve episodes long (and the last two haven't even aired yet!) but it's unforgettable.

(don't open this until after you watch episode 3! >3>)

SPOILER: Click to show

Unforgettable because of all the nightmares you'll have after you watch it.

Seriously, though. I can't recommend this show enough. The last two episodes air on Thursday, and subs should be out this weekend. Join in on the finale fun! Watch it. RIGHT NOW.

And on the off chance someone's already watched it... xD;

SPOILER: Click to show

...so, what's the betting the everyone dies?

[piedpiperpluto]

Late, but I seriously love this show. I managed to restrain myself from reading any spoilers about it until I watched the whole thing, and the effect was... interesting.

[neoeevee]

^Ehehehe, you did better than I did. xD; I got a few things spoiled... but they were BIG things. And it was all because I didn't watch the episodes the second they came out... and read the TV Tropes article in the meantime. So I guess I had it coming.

[piedpiperpluto]

...Actually, I did get spoiled for

SPOILER: Click to show

Mami's death

but I didn't know which character she was or what episode it was in. I just came across a clip somewhere.

[neoeevee]

May 31, 2011 15:12:03 GMT -5 piedpiperpluto said:

...Actually, I did get spoiled for

SPOILER: Click to show

Mami's death

but I didn't know which character she was or what episode it was in. I just came across a clip somewhere.

Ah. That was the one thing I WASN'T spoiled for. xD;;

Sweet Holy Madoka, that was such a shock! It left me gaping and wondering "wait, did they just do that? DID THEY SERIOUSLY JUST DO THAT?"

[piedpiperpluto]

I believe this video may be relevant to our interests.

[neoeevee]

^Yes. Yes it is. o3o

Oh God now I have a terrible idea in my head.

Ed makes a contract with Kyubey to bring his mom back to life/to perfect the alchemic formula for the transmutation...

[piedpiperpluto]

I actually recently had a similar terrible AU idea involving Kyubey being the equivalent of Truth.

[neoeevee]

^ohgod, somehow having that creepy smiling cat-thing as the Truth is worse than the actual Truth.

[amythista]

I'd rather have Truth be Truth Dx Kyubey's so cuuuute~

On the other hand, I started watching the show about two hours ago (episode 4 is loading as I type)so maybe he turns out being evil or somethin. I dunno yet.

Meanwhile, my reaction to episode three:

WTFDIDYOUSERIOUSLYJUSTDOTHATBJGHFJKFKUYTRHFHGHKJGTSASDFGHJFGHJKAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

[neoeevee]

^I guess he is kind of cuddly. But the way his face never moves? Do not want. D:

SPOILER: Click to show

The "evil" (it's more emotionlessness + indifference towards our heroes problems) starts coming out wheresabouts episode 6, but it's really apparant at the end of episode 8. Believe it or not though, people were suspecting him as early on as episode 1 or 2.

I KNOW, RITE? HOLY MADOKA, I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING. I remember staring blankly at the screen, thinking, "Wait, did that just happen? Holy crap, that just happened!"

[Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus]

Reviving thread because I finished watching this a few weeks ago and OMG SO MUCH LOVE. SO. MUCH. LOVE.

Seriously, based on the art style and the genre alone I normally never given it a second glance, but I had people vouch for it who said it was a deconstruction, so I watched it and HORY SHIT.

The trippy witch art! The music! Faustian bargains! slkdjflksjf I LOVE ALL THE CHARACTERS, ALL OF THEM. Why can't I hug every magical girl?!?!?

also please tell me I'm not the only shipper here. I have actual femmeslash pairs I ship hardcore now, I'm so happy ~

[piedpiperpluto]

^I ship basically everything that doesn't involve Kamijo or Kyubey. XD;

[neoeevee]

CROW! You are one of us! This pleases me. >D

I probably would've stuck with it even if it was a Sailor Moon-style exercise in formulaity, as long as it had the WITCH ART, and FFFF AWESOME MUSIC. FINAL OST VOLUME IS RELEASED ON SEPT. 21 EEEEEE...

FEMSLASH? Oh hell yes. I'll ship everyone and everything. Even if it doesn't make sense. SAYAKA AND RAINBOW DASH? Yes. Also...

Step 1: Take a video game I have recently become addicted to, with a cast full of dudes who are slashed every which way, and make an AU where they're all magical girls.
Step 2: Continue to slash.
Step 3: Go on about it even though no one knows the characters yet.
Step 4: ? ? ?
Step 5: WORLD DOMINATION.

[Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus]

Sayaka/Rainbow Dash wut

I WANT TO BUY THE OSTs BUT I CAN'T FIND WHERE COS SO FAR I THINK THEY JUST COME BUNDLED WITH THE DVDs, WHICH ARE RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE AND ALSO DON'T WORK ON AMERICAN ELECTRONICS > but I've been listening to stuff online almost non-stop, it's awesome.

I ship Homura/Madoka and Kyoko/Sayaka because sometimes my ships are the predictable ones, believe it or not o3o I didn't like Homura at first, but after her backstory episode (the entirety of which I spent SOBBING MY EYES OUT, and the two episodes after that...) I grew to love her like burning.

ALSO. CROW HEADCANON, BASED ON SPECULATION I FOUND SOMEWHERE ON THE INTERNET:

SPOILER: Click to show

Homura's witch form is Walpurgisnacht. Think about it - the gear imagery, how it shows up at random points in history (implying time travel), how powerful it is. If Madoka became powerful due to Homura continually turning back time, it makes sense that Homura would also become more powerful. The theory is that Walpurgisnacht returns to Mitakihara City to ensure that Homura loses hope and turns into it. IT MAKES SENSE AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE :I

also also Sayaka's witch form - notice how it's a mermaid? Have you guys ever read the original Little Mermaid story? (go read it cos it's beautiful and heartbreaking and my second-grade teacher read it to us and traumatized us all, here's the link to it, yay public domain) In it, mermaids have no souls and when they die they turn into sea foam, unlike humans who have an immortal soul. The only way to avoid the sea foam fate is for a man to fall in love with a mermaid and marry her, thus sharing his soul with her.

So the little mermaid in this story, on her fifteenth birthday and coming-of-age, rescues a young prince from a shipwreck. He's unconscious as she takes care of him, and she becomes infatuated with him. He wakes up when he is rescued by other humans, and he doesn't see the mermaid and doesn't know that she was the one who saved him.

Time goes on and she's still in 'love' with him from a distance, even though he literally doesn't know she exists. The little mermaid goes to the sea witch and asks to be turned into a human. The sea witch tells her that she will never be able to go back, and that her new legs will be beautiful and every step she takes will be light and graceful, but every step will feel like walking on knives. If the prince falls in love with another, the morning after he marries another the mermaid's heart will break and she will turn to foam. Additionally, the sea witch, as payment, wants the mermaid's beautiful voice ("the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught") for her own, and assures the mermaid that her beautiful new form will be enough to make up for her lack of voice.

The mermaid trades her voice, goes to the surface and drinks the magic potion and turns into a human. The prince finds her and takes her in to the palace. The mermaid and the prince grow close, and he says she is dear to him but not as dear as the girl who found him after the mermaid rescued him him: "she is the only one in the world whom I could love; but you are like her, and you have almost driven her image out of my mind." Soon after, it was time for the prince to find someone to marry, and he was sent to visit the princess of a neighboring kingdom, but the mermaid didn't worry, knowing he cared for her; he said he would not marry this princess because his heart belonged to the girl who saved him and then to the mermaid because she reminded him of her.

But guess what? Prince goes to meet the princess, and the princess is the girl who found him on the beach. The prince decides to marry her after all. “Oh, I am too happy,” said he to the little mermaid; “my fondest hopes are all fulfilled. You will rejoice at my happiness; for your devotion to me is great and sincere.”

Ouch

On the wedding night: "She knew this was the last evening she should ever see the prince, for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home; she had given up her beautiful voice, and suffered unheard-of pain daily for him, while he knew nothing of it. "

Then the mermaid's sisters show up, hairless, and tell her that they gave their hair to the sea witch in exchange for a means to change her back to a mermaid. The witch gave them a magic knife, which the sisters in turn give to the mermaid; they tell her that if she uses the knife to kill the prince she will become a mermaid again, and then they leave. It's almost sunrise, almost time for her to die. She looks at the prince and sees him with his new wife, the two of them happy together, and she throws the knife away into the sea and then jumps off the ship, dies, and turns to sea foam.

There's an alternate ending, written after the original: instead of turning to sea foam, because of her good deeds she turns into a daughter of the air, and she is given the opportunity to earn her own soul through spreading further good deeds.

(I'm kinda pissed right now because all I ever knew was the original sad end; I didn't know about the happier ending until just now and I can't find anything with the original sad end and this frustrates me >)

Anyway. THAT STORY SOUND FAMILIAR GUYS? Girl saves boy, hurts for boy, sacrifices everything so that he'll love her and he never knows just how much she suffered for him and falls for someone else.

DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MINDS I SURE HOPE I DID COS IT BLEW MINE WHEN I REALIZED IT

Additionally: convinced my best friend (straight conservative Christian) to watch it with me and she wound up loving it. Also, after episode ten, she agreed that it wasn't just lesbian subtext, it was text, obviously so. My best friend is awesome.