That's Entertainment:
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
This is going to sound snobby, but it's not intended to be that; it's simply a statement of fact: I'd never seen an anime show until October.
It wasn't because I look down on the medium or anything; it's just that no anime that showed up on my radar (mostly Sailor Moon) interested me. To be honest, I'm not sure Puella Magi Madoka Magica would have interested me much on my own, but I had several friends watching it and then talking about it, so I thought I'd check it out.
Oh, boy, what a world I was missing!
This show is a magical girl series, which I gather is basically teenaged girls who are also superheroes. Neat! But judging from people's reactions to the show, it goes so much deeper than that, offering a sort of deconstruction on the idea of magical girls. It makes it an odd first magical girl series for a person to watch, perhaps, but it's definitely worth the time.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (let's just call it PMMM now, for convenience) is about a girl named Madoka Kaname, who along with her best friend Sayaka Miki is invited to become a magical girl — who protect the world by fighting against Witches — by the creature Kyubey. All that's required is for Madoka to become a magical girl is to make a wish — any wish. Madoka and Sayaka meet up with Mami Tomoe, a veteran magical girl who is protecting the city from Witches, and Mami shows them how to fight. Meanwhile, the mysterious new transfer student at school, Homura Akemi, repeatedly tries to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl.
For an episode or two, it all seems very straightforward: Homura obviously has an ulterior, possibly sinister, motive to stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, but Madoka and Sayaka will join Mami as magical girls, and together they will be awesome together and defeat Witches and bring hope back to the city. Or something.
But oh my god, it's so much more than that. To say more would ruin the experience of watching the show, but needless to say, it's a veritable roller coaster ride of emotions. There are moments in the show that left me thinking something along the lines of, "... ... ... Can you even do that? I didn't know you could do that."
Beyond an amazing story and compelling characters, one of the things I adore about this show is the music. It was a few days after I finished the show for the first time when I realized that I had the show's theme song in my head. Bear in mind that the song is in a foreign language to me, one that I know nothing about. So that meant that I had the tune in my head and wanted to sing it, but could only make nonsense syllables (like 'la' and 'da' and maybe 'ba'). I had to get my hands on the theme songs (yes, there are multiple, and they are all amazing; trufax), and I've listened to them rather a lot. Not to slight the instrumental music at all, though, because that's also great. I've spent a lot of time in the last several weeks with PMMM's soundtrack as my reading music.
The only thing that was difficult for me with this show is that I first watched it with subtitles, which are just hard for me to deal with. See, when there are words on the screen, I feel compelled to read them all, which means that I'm not looking at the rest of the screen. For this show, it means missing out on some pretty stunning visuals. (Oh, those visuals! Another of those "I didn't know you could do that" moments.) There's an English dubbed version available, which I used on my second watchthrough, and it made it a much more enjoyable-for-me experience.
So if you have the chance, check out Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It's got beautiful music, gorgeous animation, and a story that'll hit you right in the feels.
