puella magi madoka magica 10
Categories: episodic review, puella magi madoka magica
Tagged: madoka magica
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I Won’t Depend on Anyone Anymore
(“Lean on me when you’re not strong /
And I’ll be your friend /
I’ll help you carry on /
For it won’t be long till ‘m gonna need /
Somebody to lean on”)
I guess first and foremost, my condolences and prayers to Japan. Still stunned by the images coming out of the country, and it’s hard to not to appreciate the fragility of human life.
I am loving this show. It takes something old and puts its own spin on it like what Blizzard did with Diablo or what Apple did with the iPad or what Jeni’s did with bumbleberry. It also– gasp– did the Groundhog Day plot trope right! Amazingly, with only a single episode, I understood that Homura has been going back in time trying to prevent the future catastrophe. Some people may think it takes eight episodes to get the point across that the past has been repeating, but somehow Shaft managed it fit it into a single episode. Can’t wait for the one. Too bad I am on spring break next week. Noooooo!
(Also on my mind: does Homura still age as she goes back in time, or is her body and her soul gem reset each time? Can she go back even farther in time? Has this been happening for 15,532 times? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate middle finger to Kyoto if the 15,531st time was successful in defeating the evil Kyubey?)
Andohbytheway, this series has been amazingly viewtiful. Shaft finally harnessed their Shaft being Shaftiness into a great package and put it to work for the forces of good. This witch world? My favorite. Just awesome concept and design and leggy and sailor fuku-y, and I loved how Homura destroyed the witch with a pipe bomb to the groin.
Crotch. Explosion. Awesome.
Guns. We’ll need guns.
Loved the montage of Homura building explosives and obtaining guns… now we know how she got her weapons. More importantly, if military weapons can be used against witches, what exactly stops normal people from entering the witch world, which bytheway has happened numerous times already, in an F-18, bro, and destroy the witch in the air and deploy ordinance to the ground? Also, just as importantly, is Fox News going to have a conniption over this show since it depicts a little girl training to build explosives and procure guns a la Al Qaeda?
“But it’s not my problem. I gathered a lot more energy than our collection quota.”
Every time I see Kyubey, I want to step on him (or her or it) and twist the sole of my shoe. I think Kyubey is anime’s greatest villain of the past decade… seriously, can you think of someone who generates more hate than Kyubey? Maybe there are more despicable or rage-worthy villains, but in terms of pure hate, does anyone garner the same feelings as Kyubey? For Oharuhi-sama’s sake, there’s even a frickin’ “Everybody Hates Kyubey” image pool.
(Still, I don’t get these aliens. If it is so important to control entropy, why kill off the only species that can seemingly control it? Isn’t this like the hunter killing the last buffalo in that one Simpson’s episode about Lisa planting apple trees? Sure, no more buffalo meat, but, hey, at least I got the last one!)
Honestly, I thought the greatest villain of this year would be LeBron James, but, unfortunately, Global Icon ain’t going to The Finals. Kyubey, on the other hand, is besting Homua left and right.
Everybody. Hates. Kyubey.
I really like Mami’s room. I wonder what this reboot’s Madoka wished for when she became a puella magi. Please tell me it wasn’t something silly like, “I want the biggest ice cream sundae evar!”
Great episode. Enjoyed it a lot. Fills in the back story, presented Homura’s view, fills in some missing blanks, sets up the intrigue for the finally, just does a great job. This series just needed one thing– believable physics! It’s not about proper physics but at least something mildly believable. Honestly, aliens trying to revert entropy by destroying the only species seemingly capable to stopping it is just nonsensical– if you can get past the physics part. This is almost as terrible as the aliens in Battle: LA trying to take over the world for water. Seriously. Why dump so many resources into a military operation that will come across stiff resistance for a resource that they can, well, suck from any fucking comet that flies by? I’m sure that if we can land a probe on a comet, these aliens can surely figure out how to land on one too.
(Or, better yet, extract water from one of the non-inhabited planets with water. I’m sure human scientists would be glad to tell these aliens how to find these planets.)
(Worse yet, these aliens could run up against Jeff Goldblum hacking away on his Mac… without an ethernet connection, wifi, or 3G modem… and somehow getting a virus from his laptop to the alien mothership. Is that really worth the risk for some water?)
(Walpurgis Night seems like the Watanagashi Festival where pretty much all bad things happen and stimulate the basis for the following reboot. Mmmm…)
Nonetheless, this episode is great, with Shaft providing just enough variation and show casing Homura’s increasing despair and resolve. Just fantastic. Love the story. Love the character development/redevelopment. Love the animation. Love how fun it is to hate on Kyubey.
Mmmm… all five girls finally in the image together. Sayaka is the stupid bitch. Kyoko is the fatty-chan at heart. Mami is the office lady. Homura is the jaded professional. Madoka is the ignorant sheep.
34 Responses to “puella magi madoka magica 10”
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It was an amazing episode, had me guessing how/what/WHEN until the end. Fantastic anime. I wonder what BD gimmicks SHAFT are gonna add later.
Better villain than Kyubey? Johan Liebert from Monster. Although I’m starting to wonder if QB beats even him at this stage…
An interesting one. Watching confident lively Madoka and shy meganekko Homura at the start made me wonder if I was watching the right show. Seeing competent magical girl Madoka never failed to make me blink. I liked that Mami and Madoka were Homura’s mentors, and we got to see Mami again…even if her fate is obviously fixed in every reboot ._.; It (initially at least) was also a glimpse of the carefree world of the OP, which was quite nice.
And all wishes still seemingly have their price. Every time Homura goes back in time she loses something, and that would appear to be her reason for doing it in the first place. She’s still devoted to saving Madoka, but for the last 2 reboots she’s got less and less friendly with her each time.
Staying away to protect her is one thing, but being positively cold and antagonistic to her is another.
I can’t help but feel I’m seeing the Groundhog Day mechanic used a bit too much though. Maybe Endless Eight just put me off it for life, but it’s also in Higurashi, Umineko… In this case it kind of cheapens things, since what we’ve been watching all season is just one of many (rather than say, the 2nd, and potentially Homura’s only chance), and if Homura doesn’t like the outcome (averted slightly in that she seemingly has to be in a position to actively return), she can just go back and try again, with her soul gem seemingly refilling itself each time.
wow x15,532
I think what makes Kyubei the best is not that he makes you hate his guts, but that he’s so smooth about acomplishing his agenda that there are people who still think he’s a “good guy” and try to defend him as such.
The best villan, I mean.
I am worried that the ending to this series is going to be one where Homura needs to save all the other girls (who always seem to be missing from the final witch adventure). Or it could go all Sailer Moon ending and all of them survive only to all defeat the final witch at the cost of their own lives. But I’m hoping for a tragic ending.
Yeah I love this series so much that I can’t put it into words, so I’ll just say something about Battle:LA instead: There is no way that female officer (screw their names) hit that drone with the rocket launcher, I mean… I GUESS I can understand how one badass missile took down that entire spaceship, but that lady who rarely used guns sniped a relatively small drone hauling ass to intercept the missile? No.
I have a bad feeling that madoka is gonna kill homura, which is the only way for homura to lose. When that happens, I quit anime.
Best episode of the series so far.
Also the best character development done in 24 minutes. From shy girl with no confident to pure bad ass. Damn.
Also, did anyone else feels after this episode that the real star of this show is Homura? Because this episode reveals that so far this really is her story.
I’d like to say one thing in defense of Kyubey’s grasp of physics. There is a way to decrease entropy in the universe. Reverse time. What Homura has been doing is using the energy Kyubey was supposed to have collected for his purposes. And she jumps back in time with it. This is what Kyubey’s people also probably had in mind. If so, it does add an extra layer of futility. They succeed in rolling back the clock, the only thing they’ve accomplished is having to do it all over again. And again.
Red cross link for disaster donation.
http://www.redcross.org/portal.....mt=default
Puella Magi Madoka Magica isn’t throwing amazing twists that you can’t possibly see coming. Indeed, it was fairly workable from episode 1 that Homura was a time traveller who had befreinded Madoka. But the execution… The scenery, combat, music, and voice acting add up to something that is absolutely top notch. Good times.
In before people claim sacrificing little girls is justified to fight entropy. ;)
See, in this light it makes no sense to destroy the species whose energy is needed and not available in themselves… which really makes me think they’re doing this for the fun of it. Otherwise they’d be trying to manage the resource better, being hyper advanced and supposedly doing this for the universe’s sake.
Also, Homura could be the next Doctor. Look at that animation when she’s going back, walking like Senjougahara..
@Haesslich: Yeah, I think Kyubey lied to Madoka (and us the viewer) about all that entropy stuffs. At best, they are harvesting us for energy they need (and not for that saving the universe nonsense) and at worse, well… Just for fun and giggle like you said. :P
Also, the image of meek Homura making a homemade explosive just kills me. XD
God I could talk about this episode forever.
Also, did anyone else noticed that after this episode, the opening theme’s lyric is really about Homura?
Yep. The opening lyrics fit Homura’s ‘promise’ and never-ending attempts to find the future she ‘lost’.
If there is supposed to be a balance of hope and despair in this show, wouldn’t the despair that Homura (and Madoka) have endured for however many resets need to be balanced by a whole lot of hope?
But given that ‘balance of hope and despair’ tends to mean “MWAHAHAHA EVERYONE SUFFERS” in this show, I can only assume that this is going to end badly.
Kyubey’s telling the truth about entropy and saving the universe. He talked about it when creating Homura’s soul gem… why? because he knew it was pointless to hide the truth any longer. Besides lying in that situation would mean he was afraid of losing Homura… totally not like him.
Kyubey’s job is to gather energy. A few human lives? he doesn’t care. A whole city full of people? he doesn’t care. An entire civilization?… hey, he’s an alien! Maybe they can mass-produce humans in another planet and return later when they are evolved enough to produce its own emotionally-confunsed teenagers… ok, no… they don’t care at all… they’re focused on their quota and they doen’t even care about the consequences of the wishes they grant… Homura’s wish is the best proof…
And the song! It makes sense now! The 5 girls finally together, awesome!
> Still, I don’t get these aliens. If it is so important to control entropy, why kill off the only species that can seemingly control it?
Truly, it seems… dumb. I would have expected more of the QBians. How disappointing.
I don’t hate Kyubey. I love him.
I want him to succeed forever.
Ending will be Homura dying and Madoka becoming a magic girl by wishing that she will be the one protecting Homura instead of the other way around.
Repeat!
You read this from me first!
The point about choosing humans wasn’t just that they have emotions BUT ALSO because of how many there are and how quickly they reproduce. I still maintain that it’s the witches that act as the entropy traps and that the magical girls are merely there to make sure that they don’t get out of hand.
Ouch, I think the fact that QB doesn’t care when the human race is endangered means either:
1. Humans aren’t the only civilization that QBian’s can exploit for energy
2. They don’t really care that much about the heat death of the universe, and are only gathering energy for themselves, so once a get their quota, it doesn’t matter if the human race dies out.
3. A combo of 1 and 2, It’s possible that there are many alien civilizations being exploited by QBians for the sake of just getting energy for the QBian’s own purposes, the loss of one world isn’t a big deal to them.
Still, it’s probably impossible for witches to actually destroy the whole world. Since witches have to disguise their kills as suicides using mental influence, eventually the problem will get too big as too many human suicide and people start noticing. If worse comes to worse, the humans can just fight back with their conventional weapons which work on witches.
I wonder if the final twist will be Kyubey knows all of Homura’s powers and is just using her to power up Madoka
Possible wishes Madoka could make:
1. Give QB’s species emotion and guilt-trip them into helping in the final battle. Requires some quick wit that Madoka has not displayed.
2. Protect Homura forever thus cause a massive feedback with Homura’s wish and blow up QB’s species in the ensuing loop.
3. Be immune from turning into a witch and thus giving a big finger to QB.
Hope for #1 for the chance to see QB’s smug face go away. Also it is a pretty elegant solution.
I’ll just leave this here.
http://imgur.com/fJMBz
The urge to fap is too great.
QB stays winning, without ever lying (outside of omission). Nobody reads the fine print anymore, even when it’s told to them.
SHAFT being SHAFT has been used for good since Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s OPs.
Mami with an M249 saw is moe
GhostBanquo, don’t you mean Homura with a SAW is moe? Although, really, any puella with SAW is probably moe. It would be so funny watching Madoka firing one for the first time.
Homura needs a bandanna, a camo green tank top, a set low cut khaki booty shorts, combat boots, and a M60 (or a M240B).
Either way, now I have an excuse to tell the 1st SGT that we’re missing a weapon and explosives on post because of a time traveling magical girl/power reactor fueled by emotional trauma.
Joking aside, my favorite scene this episode had to be Mami doing her best impression of Private Hudson from Aliens.
@FlameStrike:
Maybe they don’t need humans or anyone anymore, because they’re just going to use all that collected energy to build a bomb. One that goes off with a Big Bang.
You forgot 4, the human race ends on Walpurgisnacht, anyway.
I’m also betting witches are protected by that dimensional bubble they generate. It seems that unless you’re invited, only a baby witch can open the door, let alone find it.
Guys, let me tell you. I have been hating Madoka since episode 1.
Madoka is the happy, good girl type of character. She cares for her friends with her kind heart and so on. Well, if you put her in a typical mahou shoujo anime, she would fit perfectly fine. And, a very important fact here is that I would NOT hate her if she were to be in such an anime. However, this is an angst anime. Honestly, I didnt despise Madoka as much when she first appears. I really like happy moe characters like her to add. However, after the anime turns into an angst, I seriously could not stand her personality.
After Mami’s death, Madoka’s personality no longer fits the genre. She is still your kind girl who “likes to help everybody.” But hell, now it becomes annoying. When Sayaka set out to fight witches, Madoka also wanted to “help.” FCK! You have no power for god’s sake. What do you want to do? Be a decoy, a hindrance? Where do you put your brain? My head almost exploded with anger toward Madoka and her childish, naivety. I wanted to slap her so many times after episode 3. She cries whenever bad stuff happen. I got freaking tired of it. It feels like she’s a big burden to everybody else.
I felt immensely satisfied when Sayaka almost lost her soul from Madoka’s hand. I bet it was a good slap to the face for her.
Well, with all that covered, let me say it again. I hate her no more after episode 10. The first time Homura lived her past brought me this thought: “this is how a typical mahou shoujo anime should be.” Not like I wanted the anime to turn in this direction, but the Madoka in that first time line has the most likable personality among the “Madokas” in my opinion. My opinion of the anime has turned from 7 to 10 on a scale from 1-10.
This anime. Is. Great.
So basically she would be early Sailor Moon (in most situations before she gets a wand) if her entire team was full of Sailor Uranus and Neptunes. Basically crying most of the time and useless in a fight.
@Ithekro,
in the other timeline she was not sailormoon, closer to Nanoha actually.
You know what I’ve noticed this anime does really well?
Crying.
Mami’s crying when she learns the true fate of a mahou shoujo.
Homura’s crying at the injustice of her existence.
Madoka’s crying at… well, everything.
Delicious.
drama CD1 gives the answer to what the 1st Madoka’s wish was. Apparently it was to revive someone’s dead dog.