It’s been a couple weeks, and we’re already about a quarter way into this show. I wrote mainly about the art style and potential for things to get interesting in my post on the first episode, and episode 3 saw this show make good on that potential. Now, this should be assumed for any episodic blog post, but, be warned, there are spoilers ahead.
A couple things about Magical Girl Madoka Magica have been surprises so far. First, Shaft is actually doing action well! Of course, Shaft is notorious for using cost cutting measures wherever possible in order to reduce the number of frames drawn. Not ideal for action, which is why most of its shows are comedies that rely heavily on the writing. Its weakness in action was demonstrated by last year’s middling Dance in the Vampire Bund.
Episode 1 of Madoka Magica didn’t contain any action. The scene with Mami’s multiple single shot guns at the end of episode 2 was quite nice, but even Vampire Bund had had flashes of brilliance, after all. Then the action in episode 3 was even better, with great choreography, timing, and animation while Mami took down those black… things. I think we are seeing a genuine pattern here, not just a flash in the pan. These weren’t crazy over the top high octane scenes you expect from a Gainax or Madhouse production, nor were they particularly long, but they were still among the better action scenes I’ve seen in TV anime.
But you already know that that’s not the most fun surprise from this latest episode.
The theme for the magical world this episode seemed to be sweets + hospital. Maybe that boy has diabetes?
A lot of speculation about the “dark” nature of the story had gone up after episode 2, and I had been deeply skeptical. Ooh, a quotation from Faust in the background, making a blindingly obvious allusion to the nature of the contract magical girls have to make in this world. Give me a break. This is still a magical girl show, after all. Let’s see some bodies before we talk about how “dark” or “subversive” this show is. I point out posts at THAT Anime Blog and 2DTeleidoscope as examples of posts that had me rolling my eyes.
Well, I happily stand corrected. Even throughout most of the episode, I was rolling my eyes at how typical and predictable everything was. Of course Sayaka had someone sickly (who is also clearly extremely rich, based on his hospital room) for whom she wanted a wish. Of course some other magical girl had tried using her wish for someone else, and of course it’ll be Homura, whose current angst will be explained by her wish having gone wrong, most likely due to the object of her affections ending up happy with someone else.
Of course Kyubey was starting to sound like he had ulterior, perhaps selfish, motives when discussing Madoka’s massive potential. Of course Mami’s wish had been made under duress, and her role as a magical girl was a life-long prison sentence, not some glorified triumph. Of course Mami was starting to show a darker side in needlessly tying up Homura, working with Kyubey to pull Madoka into the world of magical girls. *yawn*… yeah, we know, these characters aren’t all they seem, they already shoved that down our throats last episode…
Of course Madoka led such a happy life that she had no wish. Of course she would make Mami happy through the power of FRIENDSHIP and LOVE. Of course they were going to waste the wish on something banal, like a cake, which they would have to celebrate once Mami took care of this episode’s Monster Of the Week. Of course Mami would get her head bitten off at the climax, just when it looked like she was about to win. Of course-
Wait, what?
Yeah, so they killed off one of the primary 4 magical girls from the initial promotional material just 3 episodes in, and it had exactly the intended effect. The particularly gruesome way in which Mami died and Madoka’s and Sayaka’s horrified looks contributed a lot to the impact of the scene.
Yes, this is the kind of scene I was waiting for! The characters need to display a real fear for the consequences!
What was so satisfying about Mami’s death isn’t that she died, but how it was presented. It came suddenly, and it was followed quickly with the episode ending, Mami and Sayaka still in shock and tears from what happened. That’s what makes death scary in fiction, when it happens randomly and without meaning, when it just blindsides a character who you didn’t think had it coming. It establishes that, much like in real life, death is just something that can hit anyone at any time for any reason. The plot armor that we’re so used to seeing protect our protagonists isn’t there any more. It helps to make the rest of the work feel more tense and significant.
Where does the show go from here? I figure Sayaka’s wish will play a prominent role pretty soon. As I mentioned above, it seems to me that they’re setting up Homura as Sayaka’s foil, a magical girl who wished to help someone only to have the wish backfire on her. Homura’s disattached, deadpan face even after knowing that Mami had died reeks of the typical “jaded and cynical because life screwed me” character. This goes along with her constant attempts to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl presumably to save her from suffering the same fate as herself. Clearly she doesn’t want Sayaka to become a magical girl either, but I wonder if Sayaka will end up learning something from her anyway in order not to mess up at the same place she had.
Analytical and calculating speech just doesn't go well with such an innocent, unchanging happy face.
On Madoka’s own journey to being a magical girl, I already mentioned how creepy Kyubey looked when telling Madoka that she had the most potential of any girl he’d met (that unchanging smile and unmoving lips get a little unsettling when the conversation topic turns heavy). It’s pretty clear that this was purposeful, but why is Shaft doing it? I think they’re setting up for a classic double-twist, where we first learn for sure that Kyubey is indeed not all he seems, but then they turn it around so that he still turns out to be a good guy. It would be too simple if they played it straight and made him be the bad guy. I also think Madoka’s family life will play a major role in her story going forward, what with the shadier part of her mother’s work life rearing its ugly head the last couple of episodes.
What this show needs to do is to keep going in the same direction. One easy way that it could mess up is if it reverses Mami’s death. Now that it’s made its point about magical girls dying, dead needs to mean dead, not briefly inconvenienced. I want to see Madoka and Sayaka be put through the wringer. I want to see them under pressure, I want to see them forced to react to more horrific things, because that’s what’s fun to watch. With Mami’s death, the show has already pushed them down towards a painful journey, and I can’t wait to see it do even more.
With any luck, the worst is yet to come.
“I want to see them forced to react to more horrific things, because that’s what’s fun to watch.”
Nice.
I think the reason Homura is deadpan in the face of horror is the soulgem, Mami was dead calm as well throughout the show till she saw a chance at redemption. Kyubey even said the price for the wish was the girls soul(gem). Madoka will be powerful as a Mahou Shoujo becaue she is so pure she wishs to be a hero. And imagine what she will become once she is corrupted, broken and twisted. The dream at the start of ep. 1 is Madoka and Homura’s future, Homura’s wish was the chance to stop Madoka I’ll bet.
That’s certainly a fun idea; part of what the girls lose due to becoming a magical girl is their emotions. It would be neat to see Madoka corrupted and jaded from her current perky, innocent self Michael Corleone style, but I don’t think that’s the direction the show will go or even should go. Not that she should remain an Emiya Shirou level idealistic blockhead for the rest of the show, but I’m more attracted to the idea of the show spreading a message of hope, not of despair.
After episode three finally caught my attention, I’m hoping for the same increase in despair, despair, despair. I can’t help but also be worried that Mami’s death will be reversed, like if Madoka uses her wish to bring Mami back to life. I’m glad to see that you look like you may be doing periodical updates on this show while it airs, instead of just initial and final impressions.
I’m personally hoping for the opposite of your hope, that Mami WILL be brought back to life with Madoka’s wish. I just hope that this sets off a whole new set of consequences instead, which can’t be undone with the wish already spent.
Even if they play it as a one time thing by using up a wish, it would still cheapen the death. And it would still establish that in the fiction of Madoka Magica, death is reversible. Sure, they don’t have a wish to burn on it again, but who knows what else the writers can cook up in order to bring someone back to life? It would go down the dark path of Dragonball Z in that aspect.
For the good of the show, Mami needs to stay dead.
I disagree. While I also think Mami should stay dead, I don’t think the show would go down a dark path (as in becoming bad) by having Mami return via a wish. This show is too self aware for that to happen. If Mami did come back, I think she would return in the form of a witch or in a way to show that Madoka made one hell of a mistake. However its done, I think it would show that death is irreversible, and the consequences of thinking otherwise are not good, ala FMA.
That said, I don’t think Mami will come back in anyway and that the consequences of wishing for someone else will come up with Sayaka as you discussed very soon. This in turn will probably prevent Madoka from wishing for Mami, as she seems like a very thoughtful and deliberate character.
Well, certainly, if returning from death meant something worse or more tragic than simple death, I could see it working. But I do prefer the clean cut idea of no more Mami for the rest of the show, period.
This is what I was thinking: Basically the “Pet Sematary” route.
Best freaking episode ever! Wooooooooo! loved it and Mami’s death I did not see coming.
God you love to see these characters in PAIN don’t you? I find it kind of funny that we homed in on two different aspects of Mami’s death. You focused on the after effects of the death, while I focused on the events leading up to her death. No real significance to that, just an observation.
Anyway, I think it’s just as likely that Homura has just been a mahou shoujo for a long while, which has caused her jadedness. I mean from what Kyuubey has said, it certainly seems that there have been other mahou shoujos before.
And I’m still not on board the Kyuubey is evil train yet. For some reason I just can’t bring myself to see it yet, largely for the same reason as I think Homura is jaded. I think I’m rather alone in that belief though XD
It’s not so much seeing them in pain as it’s seeing them under pressure. And stress. And seeing how they react to that. That’s how you really get to know what the characters are made of, and that’s what makes a work of fiction fun. All the best works of fiction have their protagonists go through hell. Sometimes literally.
I don’t think Kyubey is evil, but I think it’s obvious that Shaft is presenting him as someone who is hiding something. Now, is that just a non sequitur, or will something materialize out of it? I don’t know; both could be fun, but I see more potential in the latter case.
I hope that Mami will be brought back, but as a normal girl to live a normal life. Wouldn’t that be magical? Then she could have her cake and eat it too. Just a thought.
Yeah, that would suck. After playing up the whole “real danger” aspect, if all that was reversed to turn the alternate world into essentially a glorified video game, it would take away all the possible tension from the rest of the show.
I really love that this episode has sparked so much discussion in the blogshere.
I am in the camp that wants Mami to be wished back but not right away. Like not BAM oh there she is with her head sewn back on. I think there should be conditions of the wish (well there are but you know) that someone has to serve as a magical girl first and then receive the wish. I think it would cheapen the death if she was brought back instantly without any tragic consequences.
That being said I really think Sayaka needs to worry about her own life expectancy. She was NOT in the dream at the beginning of the series. Mami’s not being that can be explained because well she is dead but what about Sayaka?
I think that the show is doing a great job of mixing things up while still sticking to some core aspects of magical girls (friendship power, sparkly moments, and over the top attacks).
Having Mami come back in some non horrific way would cheapen her death regardless. She has to show that the consequences are harsh and inescapable.
It’s funny you mention Sayaka, because, initially when she went in with Kyubey, I was hoping that she would die. Of course, since she hasn’t turned to a magical girl yet, she’s invincible for now. I don’t buy into the idea that episode 1 cold open was anything more than a particularly prescient dream, but I do think she would serve as a worthy sacrifice later on once she signs the contract.
Good lord the poor girl’s already died once, just let Mami R.I.P. is what I say. Anyways, glad I wasn’t the only one eye-rolling at this epi, as I said to Kyalaran elsewhere this show seems more style-over-substance at the mo’, I hardly care what happens to these characters anymore. Hence I’m dropping it, but I’m glad I gave it a go. Enjoy the trip-tastic dream/nightmare-scapes everybody else!
Style over substance by itself isn’t a problem. It’s style in place of substance or style at the cost of substance that produces mediocre works (see: Cowboy Bebop). Until this episode, I did think there wasn’t much substance there, just the good style to keep me going, but just 3 episodes in, it’s shown that it does have substance. Now for it to keep showing it..