Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica Review

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica is about a girl named Madoka that dreamed about a magical girl fighting and getting beaten up by some entity and seeing a fox like creature that tells her she can become a Puella Magi aka magical girl so she can help if she makes a contract with him. The next day after her dream happens she meets a transfer student named Akemi Homura the girl she dreamed about. The same day she finds the creature named Kyubey being chased by Akemi the girl with same outfit she saw in her dream. Madoka sees and gets trapped in a witches labyrinth and a new Mahou Shoujo appears named Tomoe Mami to save her and thus begins the story of Madoka.
                                                
     From what I remember this anime was marketed as a regular school girl anime but after watching it, it ended up being a little bit more than ordinary. Sure this anime was over hyped by a lot of people and at first it threw me off wanting to watch it so finally after 2 years here it is. The story starts of rather nice and somewhat ordinary but quickly turns dark in the third episode and eventually grounds the idea of magical school girls and it makes it out to be something more grim. Kyubey the fox like creature makes deals with girls granting any one wish in exchange for having magical powers and forced to fight witches leaving out some minor details like taking the souls out of girls and putting them inside a soul gem making their actual bodies a shell of what they used to be, this for one makes the whole plot more dark.
     Sayaka along with Kyouko drive the point of don't live with regrets otherwise you're life will be a bit uneasy specially if you keep thinking of a bad choice you. Now when it comes to Homura she's somewhat of an antagonist but her reveal kind of ruined it for me, I feel that she should have been the main character and have the whole show be a bit different just because of what she's been through. Madoka the main protagonist of the show is somewhat naive and shy but after she meets Mami it seems as though she gains confidence and would have made a contract with Kyubey. Due to unfortunate circumstances she becomes insecure and questions herself a bit, sure it might be a bit overbearing for some people but it's part of who she is as a character and feeds the plot so sure why not. In the end Madoka does become a hero of sorts but leaves a plot hole as a result, a little bit aside she doesn't wear the magical girl uniform until the last 3 episodes so that's a minor grievance I have with this anime. Overall  the characters are pretty good and none of them feel as if they are forced on us or shouldn't be there since each of them reinforce a point in the plot.
     The music in Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica is great the OP and ED both stand out and definitely leave an impression in a way that if you were to hear the songs again in a few years you would remember where they are from. The background music is always on spot and fits the current situation some tracks are somewhat reminiscent of .hack and others have a darker opera tone that really set the mood for whats going on.
     Now for me the animation and art style was phenomenal specially during the witch maze's the surreal art with the blend of the anime characters or the scene where Sayaka is fighting a witch and everything is black and white is something refreshing. I usually tend to watch anime's that have clean and sleek animation and visuals so I might be a bit biased toward the rating of the anime but something that can't be denied is that all of the fight scenes were animated perfectly and smooth.

Rating: 4/5
  Overall this anime is a bit over hyped and some people might hate it due to its ending but hopefully that's something the upcoming movie can fix. Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica doesn't drastically change anime as we know but it does show us that they can reinvent a classic idea/plot in the likes of The Brothers Grimms and what I also mean by that is future anime can retell fantasy stories with a more grounded dark plot and it will be well received. Is this the first anime to do something like this with the plot? of that I'm not sure but it is the first I've seen and it's a trend we're seeing a lot lately in reboots and it will probably keep going since it something that is closer to our reality and honestly what girl wouldn't want to be a mahou shoujo?  

Watch this clip after you finish the series, I can't be the only one that found this humorous?