iaria | Puella Magi Madoka Magica Thoughts

Episodes 1 - 8

• I love the whole set up of this universe’s ‘magical girls’. I love that the contract to make them one begins with them making a wish, any sort of impossible dream. I love the idea of witches and ‘grief seeds’ and that they have to hunt witches in order to not only continue to fight but to live. I love that their bodies were destroyed and their soul moved into their transformation gem. I love that each puella magi gets her own weapon and her own special ability. I love it all.

• “I can’t wait until I can get drunk with you mom.” – Madoka. LOL. I love her close relationship with her mother. I really liked Madoka’s family. I love that her father is a house husband while her mother is a businesswoman and it’s not treated as weird or tension causing between her parents, and I love just how normal and loving they are.

• Mami dying in episode 3 shocked the crap out of me. It was pretty gruesome too even if it wasn’t graphic.

• After Mami died I was actually pretty surprised that Madoka didn’t use her wish to bring her back to life. She didn’t even seem to consider it a possibility.

• I love that Madoka and Sayaka’s first reaction upon learning about puella magi was scepticism and uncertainty and that Mami’s death made them appropriately horrified and sad and pretty much killed any desire of Madoka’s to be a puella magi.

• I’ve been very uneasy about Kyubey from pretty much the first episode and it just kept getting worse and worse. He is so creepy! The way that his mouth doesn’t move when he talks disturbed me, the way the girls have to make a ‘contract’ with him set off alarms, and the way he kept pushing at Madoka to become a puella magi made me suspicious. I kind of love it. I love that the cute magical creature mentor is actually the bad guy, or so I assume, because that is something I’ve never seen. The helpful cute creature is always a friendly ally! I also love how alien he is. He destroyed their bodies, took their souls and placed them in their transformation ‘broach’, tying them forever into hunting witches to survive and he sincerely sees nothing wrong with it. He’s helping them because human bodies would be too fragile to fight. It’s so alien. Awesome.

• “Why must you always sacrifice yourself. Don’t throw yourself away thinking you’re useless or your life is meaningless! Think about the people who care about you!” To watch contained and unmoved Homura break completely down was pretty shocking. We haven’t even seen her look sad (or happy or anything) before. Madoka’s reaction surprised me a bit because she does feel such empathy and from the beginning has wanted/tried to reach out to Homura so I would have expected her to try and comfort her. But I suppose I can understand why she freaked out instead and basically ran away. Homura had just killed Kyubey (who Madoka still trusts for some ridiculous reason), the sudden breakdown after such distance before had to have taken her back and Homura was being very clingy, plus she was worried about Sayaka so it makes sense.

• Homura killing Kyubey made me go ‘holy crap!’ It was really unexpected and I loved how it was shot (pun not intended). She might, however, have gone a bit overboard there. I’m thinking someone has some very hidden rage.

• Kyubey eating his other form was so disturbing.

• I love the revelation that Homura’s ability is time travel/manipulation. It explained so much. Her interest/strange attachment to Madoka, her knowledge, her ability to move so quickly... it makes sense. I adore that she’s actually from a different time line. That’s awesome. I also love how this ties back to Madoka’s dream that started the series which clearly wasn’t a dream but rather a memory of a previous timeline.

• I ship Madoka/Homura the most, especially after episode eight, but this series is so slashy overall. Kyoko/Sayaka, Sayaka/Madoka and Madoka/Mami are all pairings I can see easily.