2 years ago, this anime called Madoka blew my freaking mind.Years after Sailormoon, Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura someone finally decided to deconstruct the genre and what was created was the Watchmen of the Mahou Shoujo genre. Deconstruct meaning pulling apart all the magical girl conventions to see how they work and putting them back together in a way that had never been done before. I would like to think Madoka scared millions of Japanese girls from wishing they were Mahou Shoujos but I guess with the popularity of Pretty Cure, I don't think its happened. At the very least, this generation of parents will teach their daughters to say no to strangers and cute talking animals.
When I heard about the movies, it sounded like a cash grab, similar to the Eva movies. Granted, I've only seen the first Eva movie which was basically the TV show with some new scenes but if its the price for having the third movie continue the story, so be it. Whether or not the third movie will be worth it remains to be seen. It comes out in Japan end of October. Not going to try the Eva movies unless I hear that Shinji actually grows a pair.
The two Madoka movies are basically the edited version of the 12 episode series. With each episode running at 20+ minutes, it wasn't that difficult to refit it into two movies. I have to say unlike the first two Berserk movies, its doesn't feel like anything was left out. Of course we can't really compare the two since the Berserk movies were 25 episodes crammed into 3 movies but basically there's nothing really new to see here. If there were, they was nothing that stood out.
However, it was really fun watching the story a second time because now that I knew the truth, it becomes a different experience. I know that Homura is the main character and not the uber nice but seemingly boring Madoka. Its like Homura is the only sane person in a psychiatric ward and she can't tell everyone that they are crazy because they would never believe her. Instead of being an enjoyable groundhog day experience for Homura, its a never ending fight for her against the inevitable and that is what makes her interesting.
If you've only seen the series once, I recommend watching the movie. If you've watched the series more than once, there's nothing new to see here. Fingers crossed the movie will be good but I can't see how they could continue from a pretty good happy end with a deus ex machina that is connected with the story. Do they want to do a happier ending cause that would suck. Do they want to go darker? What new twist can they add to the truth?
2 comments:
Don't they also do stuff like this with anime blu-ray releases? Proof the editing is good is that only the most hardcore would notice the cut scenes cause the story flowed fine.
JC, would you consider Red Garden a must watch?
Yes dear, I am dying to watch the series of “Madoka” movies about magic movies about magic. You have given a very genial overview of these movies here on this blog. Thanks for sharing these gracious looks of this series.
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