puella magi madoka magica 1
Categories: episodic review, puella magi madoka magica
Tagged: madoka magica
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I Met Her in a Dream
(“That was really dangerous, but you’re safe now, little darlings. Hi, my name is Shizuru Fujino.”)
Brand new anime from Shaft (last original work? This Ugly and Beautiful World) with the creative team of Akiyuki Shinbo (who really to Shaft what Steve Jobs is to Apple), Ume Aoki (character designs, which is why everything looks Hidamari Sketch-ish), and Yukihiro Miyamoto (Maria+Holic) plus Gen Urobuchi (Blassreiter, Phantom) for the original script and concept. As I said so many times before, Blassreiter and Phantom are awesome anime, and whatever genius came up with those two shows should be given a chance to make an original magical girl anime in an era of waning interest in said genre.
(Oh wait, I haven’t praised Blassreiter or Phantom? Mmmm… OH NOES! This can’t be worse than This Ugly and Beautiful World, can it?)
Help! We’re being attacked by Shaft being Shaft!
(No, seriously, the world– err– ZA WALUDO!– is under siege by trippy Shaft being Shaft animation, and the only thing stopping them from spreading their LSD/heroin/car exhaust fume-fueled design talents across ZA WALUDO! are a bunch of innocent little girls. Who need to undergo a thorough nakkid transformation sequence. Yes!)
Kyubey is adorable, in a Cerebus/Kero from Card Captor Sakura kind of way. I hope he’s just as perverted as Onsakumaru, the standard of which all magical girl familiars should be based.
(What a job to be a magical girl familiar? You get to scout for the next magical girl… “Mmm… that one looks too old… that one has too flat of a chest… that one looks like she has fluffy pillow thighs… PERFECT! I’ll go make her my next magical girl. Kukuku.”)
Can’t tell if Shaft purposefully spends a lot more time and effort on the backgrounds than the characters purposefully or unintentionally. Like they just have a kick-ass background guy who cannot be contained– I HAVE A PEN THAT’LL DRAW MIGHTY FINE BACKGROUNDS! YOU’LL NOTICE THEM MORE THAN THE MOE GIRLS IN THE FOREGROUND!!!
I know the “e” word gets tossed around randomly, even being used for blues when we all know they’re not purple, but epic bathroom is epic. My gosh, that bathroom looks larger than my house. And I like how spacious it is except for the tiny sink area. It even has some sort of display embedded in the window, yet not toilet nor shower. And, really, is a bathroom composed strictly of windows a good idea? Well, maybe Senjougahara would enjoy it.
“Now all your secret fanboys will be head over heels for you.”
Amazing MILF transformation sequence is amazing MILF transformation sequence.
(Secret fanboys? Come on, nothing is secret in this age of Facebook, Twitter, and Wikileaks. I can fully picture Assange promising to out the secret Madoka Kaname Fanboy club. Both members.)
Nothing like an “EXIT” sign to tell you that you’ve entered a Shaft anime.
Awesome “Leave me alone! Imma enjoying some Justin Bieber!” face.
I liked Mami’s attack, but the transformation sequence was a little bland. Gotta do better, Shaft. Not enough weirdness like groping hands or cut & paste photography to it. I expected better, not just some watered down version of Sailor Moon.
The character pans are all straight up Shaft. I like them. I also like Chiwa Saito as the bitchy, mysterious transform student. I hope her magical girl transformation sequence involve scissors ripping off her school girls and staplers assembling her magical girl outfit. That would be 00 Qan[T]actular.
Enjoyed teacher pissed because she got rejected, enjoy the space age desks, enjoy how we have a class at school devoid of bookbags, books, stationary, computers, paper, or anything else that could help them learn.
They have eight chairs (visible) in the bedroom, some of which look really uncomfortable to sit on. Only one possible explanation: Madoka’s parents enjoy having kinky chair-based sex. This is the hard hitting analysis that you’ve come to ex– no– demand– from blog好ã. Madoka must have been conceived on the weird curvy one that looks like a Salvador Dali painting reject. Also like the empty closet… tell me how realistic it is for a professional high-power office lady to have an empty closet? And the stairs? What the heck? Do they have even more kinky chairs up there? Who has an upstairs for their master bedroom?
(Shaft’s great tweak to the genre? A stay at home dad. Somehow I expected better from them.)
Help! We’re being attacked by Shaft being Shaft!
(If Shaft and the Persona team at Atlus ever got married and had a child, what would that kid look like?)
Like you know how a lot of magical girl shows use an alternate reality to fight in thus not to damage real reality? Like the bubbles from Shana and Nanoha… here… they fight in Shaft being Shaft. Which is both good and bad in that Shaft being Shaft is restricted to these parts, i.e. haven’t seen any weird love notes on the whiteboards or random Triforce sightings, but who knows. Shaft being Shaft. Love it or hate it.
Plots all confused and mysterious right now, so I’m not going to venture any predictions for this series except Madoka’s parents must have met at an Ikea. There’s a 80% chance that the plot will be pure crap, so why bother trying to figure it out? Just enjoy it for what it is and revel in ridiculous Shaft being Shaft nonsense. Life’s too short– live it up.
It would be expecting too much for her to spill the beans about what’s going on, right?
(Two notes: One, great facial expression. Two, she’s warming arm warmers plus a short sleeve blouse in her transformed outfit. Fashion faux pas?)
Best. OP. Ever.
24 Responses to “puella magi madoka magica 1”
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to me Shaft is hit and miss depending on the material. In this series i think they hit the bulleyes with their Shaft being Shaft.
Self-symmetrical docking FTW. That is all.
I think for every show of Shinbo’s that I like, I greatly dislike 2 others.
Also I thought you’d mention the awesome automatic picture changing frame in their living room.
Yep. Best OP this season yet.
While you’re busy making fun of that house and the
mom/dad/school, etc, I’d like to point out that I don’t think a bit
of it was real, and nothing you showed here changes that opinion.
Behind all the weird Shaft-being-Shaft visuals, I think there’s a
message — Wake up, Madoka, the Matrix has you.
Love it.
Hoping for a great soap opera.
Yuki Kajiura + Loli Self Symmetrical Docking as transformation scene= Best anime of 2011.
The mahou shoujo’s familiar is not perverted? stopped watching…
“Awesome “Leave me alone! Imma enjoying some Justin Bieber!†face.”
Did not think this was referring to his music when I read that.
Shana isn’t a magical girl, she’s an anti-magical girl.
Yup, Chiwa Saito as the expressionless girl… and Miyako as the twin-tailed girl who casually talks about letting said expressionless girl live because it’d be too inconvenient to kill her at the moment.
Mind you, SHAFT being SHAFT means this becomes creepier than it might otherwise be if they’d just gone the Rozen Maiden route to animate the alternate world normally.. especially as it shows just how far away from normal the girls have fallen.
I was expecting you to gush more about Miki (the girl molesting Madoka), or maybe Madoka’s mom and dad who are like a Ume Aoki version of Nanoha Takamichi’s parents. Or maybe about how every other girl save for Madoka is… rather gifted. Or perhaps about the glass cages they call classrooms.
Now I’m waiting for things to go all GRIMDARK, with the writer being the guy who wrote Saya no Uta, and the show itself went suddenly from school-based slice-of-life to dark in the last five minutes (including a blood-covered familiar). GRIMDARK Moe seems to be a new moe mode, to judge by how cute and creepy things got towards the end…
Oh, and Maria+Holic Alive called.
You know how you can say a word so much in a short time that it stops making any sense. It’s just some random combination of letters that you doubt make up a real word.
You’ve reached that point with the phrase “Shaft being Shaft.” What I even wrote there I have trouble comprehending. What is “Shaft”?
After one episode of each, I think Kore wa Zombie desu ka is in the lead for Most Inventive Magical Girl Show of the season. Madoka was OK, but I couldn’t help feeling a little let down. Still plenty of story left though, so we’ll see if architecture eventually triumphs over fanservice and gore. Uh oh…
Somehow Yuki Kajiura music + Loli doesn’t seem to be the magical combination. It just feels a tad weird, I keep expecting Madlax to come out of nowhere.
Ah, Shaft + some big names + Jason’s blogging it. All’s brok– right with the world.
I liked how the spaces and backgrounds (at least in the “normal” world) were like a cute, pastel version of Bakemonogatari’s world, also filled with more people than just the main characters.
Also, dat MILF. And you just know she’s awesome in bed, having that man enslaved like a puppy and smiling all day. Men just don’t smile that much that early in the morning unless your woman did something really awesome last night.
Oh, and Chiwa Saito makes my tsundere senses tingle soooo deliciously much.
Finally, to end this comment in an unbroken, ‘daww note, the scene with the baby-brother attacking his breakfast with the fork made me chuckle.
Maybe someone should just go back and remake Sailor Moon or Sailor V. Oh right, 200 episodes.
ithekro, don’t give KyoAni any ideas. Some of us want to see the next Full Metal Panic series before 3011.
We might be able to live out Full Metal Panic by 3011. KyoAni (or whoever) would need a few new cast members since some of the Sailor Moon actresses have retired. It has been about 20 years since that series came out.
Why do girls always seem troubled when asked to become a
magical girl? Didn’t they watch magical girl animes growing up? A
more realistic response would’ve been “Fuck yeah!”, or “How naked
do I have to get?”, “Do I have to learn Engrish?”, “Can I still
have sex with my father?” Okay I see why they seem
troubled.
@ithekro, i look over on ANN, from the main cast(sailor Scouts+Cats+Chibi Usa) the only who looks completely retire is the VA for Sailor Pluto. The rest looks to still be working or at worst semi-retire but still doing some roles.
The one who did Sailor Mars is also retired. It is only a few, but then it depends on how the work is adapted….if even considered…since Sailor Moon is rather…clean….for todays magical girl shows.
Also lacks the massive collateral damage in each fight provided since Nanoha hit the scene.
the Seiyuu for Sailor Mars recently did the voice for Roberta (Black Lagoon), at best she is only semi-retire. As for the remake, we can have Shinbo re-direct it, the sailor scouts texting each other 9000 times, a sailor scout yuri orgy, the possibilities are endless in the remake.
Shaft LSD is the best kind of LSD
Was that supposed to be Tsubasa Hanekawa in the classroom during the ranting-christmas-cake-sensei’s rant about eggs (about 9:25 in)?