Magic Madoka, is your average magic show where a bunch of girls are conscripted to fight against evil witches but are granted a wish to do so but the wish also comes with its own dire consequences. There you go. Plot Synopsis over.
And I would say right off the bat, the best thing about the show was probably the characters. Madoka was probably my favorite. I liked how she went through all these different timelines and how she struggled with losing her friends over and over again. She was by far my favorite character. In fact, she should have been the main character. I didn’t have any actual problems with the main character herself. It’s just that she didn’t really do anything except become a god at the end, which I kind of thought was a little weird.
But I actually liked the backstories for the individual magic girls themselves. For example, there was a magic girl who had a dad that was a priest, and she wished for everyone to take him seriously, but once he realized what she had done since they no longer listen to him for what he’s actually saying. The story did a great job of exploring these characters in interesting ways. The action scenes were cool largely because of the aesthetic.
The show went for a very Alice Wonderland-style where everything looks super weird. And as someone that has a fascination with that story. I found this quite appealing.
However, I think the biggest problem with this show is the story was not told in an interesting way. This was because Madoka herself was not that interesting. There just isn’t that much about her that audiences can get invested in. She was a generic self-insert that has a bare-bones personality. I am struggling to describe her in a meaningful way because literally, nothing about her stands out.
I also thought that Sakura was mediocre. For example, there is this revelation that when you become a magic girl and have your wish granted your soul is removed from your body and it is contained inside a jar you must carry at all times. To the characters, it should be a shattering experience, and yet the story doesn’t do a very good job of making the life of a magic girl seem particularly undesirable. Altogether, the show is really weak as it was relying on the shock of the reveal. Unfortunately, it didn’t land.
A lot of the motivations for the characters feel kind of shallow and combined with the fact that Sakura’s fall from greatness. Due to their own grief and like her perceived inability to connect with people just felt really contrived so, like that whole part of the story, it felt weak.
But outside of that, I thought the show was fine I enjoyed the part where our main character sacrificed herself and the emotional toll it took on Houma.
Unfortunately, I don’t really think the show was that amazing; it had some good characters, an alright storyline, and solid animation, but the story was not told with nearly the same level of finesse that it should have been. The end result is a show that I found to be decent but ultimately not quite worthy of the title of greatness.
As such, I give the show a 6.97 out of 10. just call it a decidedly okay, show.
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