Puella Magi Madoka★Magica

Overview

It’s time to review my other favorite anime along with the Monogatari Series, Madoka Magica.  And don’t worry, I’ll do my best to make this a spoiler free review because Madoka is an experience more than a story as far as I’m concerned.

The general plot is that Magical Girls form a contract with Kyubey and then they fight witches in order to protect the world, or in this case, their city.

While I love the characters and narrative of Madoka Magica, it’s so much more than that.  The art style and animation are fairly unique (until afterwards when other shows decided to copy it) and the soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of the anime.

In fact, the Madoka Magica soundtrack is the only anime soundtrack I have on my phone.  The OP and ED songs are good too, although those don’t count as part of the soundtrack.

Magical Girls

14 year old Madoka Kaname is our main character this time around.  You’ll recognize her as the girl with pink hair who often looks confused and is often holding the strange cat animal known as Kyubey.

Next is 14 year old Sayaka Miki, Madoka’s best friend and classmate.  She’s the one with blue hair and she likes classical music because that’s what the boy she likes listens to.

15 year old Mami Tomoe is the upperclassman of Madoka and Sayaka.  She has yellow hair and is probably the most popular character in the show because people don’t know how to pick best characters correctly and so they choose design over character.

13 year old Homura Akemi joins the fight, as the new kid on the block.  This mysterious transfer student has black hair and like Mami, she’s popular too, but with good reason.

Finally, we have the new, new kid on the block, 16 year old Kyouko Sakura.  Now you may not know this yet, but characters with either Kyouko or Sakura as part of their name are often the best character, so clearly she must be the best character in the show.  She has red hair and an obsession with food.

Conclusion

Honestly, there’s so much more I want to say about Madoka Magica, but I don’t want to spoil the anime for anyone who hasn’t gotten around to watching it yet.  All I can say is that even if it doesn’t look like “your kind of show” you should still give it a chance.  It’s only 12 episodes long after all.

I put off watching it for far too long because I didn’t think I would like it, but now as I mentioned at the start, it’s one of my two favorites and one of my two 10/10 ratings.

The final thing I’ll mention is that while the series is comprised of 12 episodes, there are also three movies.  However, only the third movie, Rebellion, is the real movie which serves as a sequel to the series.  The first two movies, Beginnings and Eternal, are just the 12 episode series put into movie form.

Now, it may be tempting to watch the movie versions over the original series, but I strongly suggest watching the series and then the third movie.  The first two movies have some updated animation and voice acting, but they also leave out some scenes which I feel helped explain things in the original series.

If you are going to watch the first two movies, my suggestion would be to watch those if you ever decide to rewatch Madoka Magica, but not to watch them the first time through.