YES XD

I don't mind dark themes in magical girl shows. But sometimes dark themes miss the point of the genre. Like Link it's suppose to empower young girls and be up beat and fun to watch.

It's time for me to air out another grievance about Madoka Magica, this time directed at the show itself.



This line right here leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Time and again Madoka is shown and said to have a great life. She has a full, loving family, good friends and there's no reason she should give that up.

And then in the end, she does it anyway. But it's okay because no one important will remember her! I can appreciate the story's thing it was doing with the whole "A wish worth giving up everything for" but it still feels uncomfortable that the show spends so long saying being a magical girl is something you should NEVER be and showing us time and again that Madoka's life is worth keeping, only to turn around and do exactly that.

Madoka's character is another reason I don't like the fact that she had to become a magical girl and give up her entire life. She's such an insecure little wet blanket. She wants to be confident and helpful but has no idea how to go about doing so.



One week. One week is the difference between the Madoka we see for 90% of the show who can't even speak up against Sayaka's stubbornness, and the one we see in episode 10's alternate timelines. Apparently being a magical girl is so fulfilling to her that she immediately sheds all of her insecurities and shyness and becomes the confident and courageous person who ever lived.

When I first watched, I felt like it was a bad move to set up all of the above mentioned things and then have Madoka make the contract anyway. It felt like the show was trying to say that Madoka can be confident and heroic without sacrificing her life. But of course with the way the story was written there was no way to do that. She has to act and it's not like she can become a magical girl some other way that doesn't involve selling her soul and instant witchification.



Then there's this one moment in episode 11, where Madoka apparently decides she's had enough crying and feeling helpless. I get that she knows what she can do now. She knows the wish she wants to make. But it's still incredibly jarring to see her go from someone who can't even stand up to her best friend, to this.





Without a single shred of hesitation or timidness, she becomes positively hardcore and while it does win her the respect of the fandom, it seems jarring and faulty considering her previous characterization and the trauma she has endured so far. It tells me that all she needs to be confident is to have power. Once she knows she can make a wish that won't end in despair, even if it means erasing herself from existence, she becomes the most heroic hero who ever existed.

Really I'm just watching the wrong kind of Magical Girl show. In any other magical girl show, the characters are able to achieve great things with OR WITHOUT magic. In fact some of them make a point to NOT use magic to do things they could do on their own. And when that magic is an sure-fire death sentence, you would think that the character would find away to achieve things without it. But nope. This is not a normal Magical Girl show.

I was gonna put this in the Creamy Mami thread but I thought this might be a good oppourtinty to use this thread for something besides ranting about Madoka.

I just watched episode 37, "Marian's Eyes", and I AM FURIOUS. I have never been so angry with a single anime episode in my life.

Long story short, Mami finds herself wrapped up in a conspiracy involving a cursed wedding dress. The dress's owner committed suicide after her husband died before the wedding. Anyone who wears the dress gets possessed by her and does the same. 

When Mami finds herself being stalked by goons in black outfits and sunglasses, who RAM A FRIGGIN TRUCK INTO HER, that she just barely manages to avoid. Then she gets kidnapped by those thugs and wakes up in the setting based on the dress's owner, she quickly deduces that it's all faked, and then... Megumi walks in, covered in blood and dies in Mami's arms as she sobs in utter despair.

Then the walls open and we see everyone involved in the episode applauding Mami's performance in a scene that is a bigger kick to the face than the "Congratulations" scene from Evangelion. 

Turns out the whole thing was for a movie they wanted to film. The guy who brought the dress is a film director who wanted to film "real terror", and even Megumi and the studio Mami works for were all in on it. I mean I kind of figured Megumi wouldn't really die but come on!

So they put Mami through attempted murder, kidnapping, and psychological trauma that would probably scar her for life, and all we get is her comically crying "I HATE YOU ALL!" And the next episode she's going to still be working there.

Keep in mind that as an idol Mami can't be much older than 16, but she's around 8-9 in her true form. Also keep in mind that doing something like this to a person is BEYOND ILLEGAL. Not even those hidden camera prank shows go so far as to even fake TRYING TO SMASH A TRUCK INTO SOMEONE or chloroform them.

This is the kind of thing I would expect from a sadist show like Family Guy, not from a show that kids watch.

I've been wanting to say this outloud for such a long time in a public place.

I think Wedding Peach is an extremely sexist show.

I can overlook its myopic view that every girl will be happy and nice if they just get a hot guy and get married. I can overlook Potamos. I can overlook the terrible OVA with its "We know this is a kids show, but only dudes with money will buy this so lets slip in some light fan-service" tone
 
But really, I can't get over: the BFF Catfights 

The main 3 girls are best friends, like they go everywhere together and are in the same clubs and they get along fine - UNTIL they all like the same boy in their school. The show even comedically reiterates "every girl would rather choose love over friendship after all!" .
When it comes to Cardboard-senpai (as I like to call him) they will gleefully sabotage each other's plans, try to set the other up with a boy they've clearly stated they hate being around just to "get her out of the way", bicker about him constantly, and try to one-up each other in every "important" lovey-dovey task from lunch boxes to sewing. 

Yeah, I know Rei and Usagi had a similar rivalry when it came to Mamoru in those early episodes - but they were practically strangers and were more "partners" than actual "friends" so I think that makes more sense than: childhood friends stabbing each other in the back then brushing off their differences once the bad guys show up.     

In the end, each girl gets her own boyfriend, so their feelings toward Cardboard-senpai don't really matter anymore. But instead of just handling the situation maturely like "Girl A, I know you really like this dude and so do I, why don't we just support each others efforts and not be bitter about it like little twats" "Okay" 
They just sort of move on like it didn't happen. yeah okay.

I dunno. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

and Potamos is really the worst character.

And now I'm gonna do something slightly out of the ordinary and ramble about a show that's not a Magical Girl show. And that show is Avatar: The Last Airbender. This will specifically be about the finale, so if you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, look away now or tell your parents to raise you better.

Okay so, for those of you at home who aren't familiar with this show and don't care about spoilers, Aang, our protagonist, is a monk, a monk who has been taught that all life is precious. Problem is, he's the Avatar, the spiritual peacemaker of the world and when a threat to the world takes place, he's supposed to stop it.

So we have the main villain, Fire Lord Ozai who's planning to use the power of a once-every-hundred-years comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground in order to extinguish all remaining hope of those who oppose him. Aang has to put a stop to this, but the reality of "defeating the Fire Lord" hits like a brick at exactly the worst moment.

"If I just fight him until he passes out or whatever, he'll just keep coming back." It won't end the threat he presents. Naturally that leaves him with only one immediately visible option? KILL the Fire Lord. Of course this goes against everything he has been raised to believe, everything he stands for as a monk, and as our protagonist.

So why, dear fandom would you think that Aang should go through with it? The only way it would have been a viable option is if Aang wasn't raised to believe all life is precious, and the conflict of having to kill the Fire Lord wasn't brought up at all.

You can't just have Aang at a conflict about killing, and then go through with it anyway. That would be like if Superman refused to use guns, and then used them to kill clones of Hitler and Batman's zombie. "This is never the solution... except when it is."

I can understand finding the finale to be a bit poorly foreshadowed, but I respect it a heck of a lot more than the idea that he should go ahead and kill Ozai. Aang EARNED the ending we saw. He earned it because even after the world and all of his past lives told him to kill Ozai, he stuck by his convictions and found his own answer. It was the culmination of everything he has stood for as our protagonist.

That's the kind of idealism we need in the world. The phrase "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything" should mean something.

For second I thought you were going to be against what Aang did. I liked that he didn't kill the Fire Lord to be honest. I guess a lot people wanted Aang to kill him?

That or people just didn't like how he spent so much time Aangsting about it.

He had every right too! If you are raised not to kill you would freak out too.

It's time for me to talk once more about my favorite anime Madoka Magica. /sarcasm.

This time I'm not going to lay into the show itself, in fact I'm going to talk about one thing the show did well. One of the things I respect the show for. It's a male targeted anime made by studio SHAFT and yet it had next to none of the sexualizing fanservice so rampant in their other shows such as Bakemonogatari. 

You could argue that the occasional close-ups on Mami's chest (and the accenting outfit itself) are somewhat fanservice, but at least none of the characters ever comment on her chest or grope it. We get one odd shot of Madoka in a revealing outfit in the OP, some naked self-holding and some naked lesbian space-hugs but  that's actually pretty tame compared to what Shaft usually does.

Rebellion Story upped their game a little with Mami being seen in a bath towel and Homura's demon outfit, but again, that's nothing compared to what modern anime typically does.

So why? Why on Earth... Is The Official Art SO SKEEVY!?

The hugging pillow is particularly bad because it was drawn by Ume-sensei herself, which makes it as official as you can get. I get that stuff like this is usually from magazines and they're not directly working for Shaft, but you'd there's literally no reason for so much sexualized artwork from a show with so little iffy content. You'd think Shaft could veto such tasteless artwork.

And then it happened... They did it... They FREAKING. DID. IT.

I knew from the moment Nagisa appeared she would be seen as some kind of lolicon pedo-bait, but to think that the magazine artists would get in on it is just disgusting. (NSFW) HERE is the picture I'm referring to. Why is this even allowed to exist? This kind of thing is why I refuse to believe this franchise is empowering to girls/women. If it was, the creators wouldn't have let such distasteful official art exist.

Heck, the creator of Smile Precure has asked people not to draw sexualized art of the characters. That's not going to stop the fans, but it shows that they'd at least be against official magazines doing stuff like this.

I think I have gotten to the point that I hate Sailor Moon Crystal. Hate maybe a strong word, but I have no idea how else to explain my feelings toward the show.

First off it's not about the animation! I don't care at all about the animation. However it's sad that I can tell that SMC has been made cheaply just so Toei can get people to spend money on the BRs/DVDs. I do that anime is made when the show is airing so common mistakes are made, but this...?




(^^From an episode preview, but still!!)





(^^ This is my favorite mess up)

I know they're on a tight schedule, but how can this be okay? Plus this have two weeks! Most animes get one week. Yes it's outsource! But that doesn't matter!! Out source stuff can look great! Just ughh! This proves that Naoko's style is not meant to be animated.

The thing that does bother me. Is the storytelling. I just feel insulted when I watch this show. Yes it's based off the manga, but the Sailor Moon manga is too fast pace to be adapted directly into an anime series. A movie yes, but not a series. Characters can't interact and I feel like I barely know the girls that I love. Plus the generals are waste of space. Why keep them around if you're not going to do anything with them? Crystal had the opportunity to flesh out the manga storyline and update it, but nope! We don't get that. Instead we get the UsaxMamo show!!! >.> 

rant over. Sorry to those who love Crystal. I don't hate you for liking it.

I thought it was a budget issue, rather than a schedule issue. Maybe both. I mean jeez, as much as I rag on PMMM for its derpy animation, at least it never treated us to "I have nothing else to do" face. XD

I think I dropped off the Crystal radar after that episode where Beryl descends from the sky and tries to kill the other three, and Tuxedo Mask has to convince Usagi to do something other than stand around and feel powerless. I've seen that part criticized quite a bit. I can't really judge whether it's out of character for Usagi not to step in to try to save her friends right away. She was terrified of ordinary monster of the week enemies, so when things get real I can't really see her being immediately read to jump in and fight.

I think I might wait until the Blu Rays come out to pick up Crystal again, cause so far it's been a disappointing game of "Spot the animation errors" and all the discussion lately seems to be about its faults. It's kind of sad cause this is supposed to be a big deal, the 20th Anniversary thing for the single most famous work in the genre. Yet all it seems to be bringing is criticism and hate.

I'm perfectly fine with what I've seen of Sailor Moon, ie the manga.

A budget shouldn't be an issues. There are low budget animes that look better than SMC. >.> 

You can tell Toei wants to milk people for the DVDs. A lot of Japanese people aren't happy with Crystal too. :/

This post features spoilers for Yuuki Yuuna, up to episode 8.

So it took some time, but they've finally done it.

I'm seeing parts of the fandom jumping ship, losing their respect for this show, and I don't know whether I find this hilarious or infuriating.

For those of you not following, this currently airing thing was disguised as a slice of life show, but it's actually a magical girl warrior type thing. Midway through the show it's revealed that the power-ups the magical girls use (called a mankai if I recall correctly) come with the price of removing something from the user, like their ability to speak or their hearing in one ear, or the use of an arm. 

Episode 8 has revealed that this is in fact permanent, and that the characters are being sacrificed for some purpose I don't give a crap about. All I can say is: Ugh.

When people said Madoka Magica would have an impact on the genre, this is not what I had hoped for. It seems to be developing into a trend to have shows where young girls are tricked into selling themselves for power. It's getting to be kind of sickening and disturbing the frequency at which things like this are popping up. We had Wixoss, which was kind of a Magical Girl show and it did the "wishes come at a price far too steep for anyone to knowingly make one." thing with a dark twist blah blah blah.

This is why, for all the things Daybreak Illusion did wrong, it doesn't get my scorn the way these shows do. Aside from labeling magical girls as executioners, it didn't try to punish the girls for wanting to make a difference. It didn't try to deceive the viewers about being a dark show. It didn't have the characters suffering and crying the majority of the show, and it didn't pull dark twist after dark twist out of its behind in order to keep the audience from noticing its flaws.

Of course very few were fooled into thinking that something like this wasn't coming. Barely a word of this show could pass without Madoka's name leaking onto it.

Just look at the PVs for Madoka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCb_GyEVOJg

And Yuuki Yuuna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ptJgTU1aA

Similarly vague, tells nothing of what the show is like, and shows only the character art. If that's not a sign that Yuuki Yuuna was waiting to bust out some dark twists, I don't know what is. 

And of course this isn't a kids show, which makes me really disappointed because it's getting to the point where the magical girl genre as we once knew it exists only in Precure. Everything else is becoming either edgy grimdark crap or otaku pandering loli-fanservice crap, or both as I've been told of that  Fate/Prism/Whatever the crap.

And then this happened. NSFW.

Spoiler:

I... I don't even know anymore. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the 80/90s, where the genre still had respect.

RLinksoul wrote:

And then this happened. NSFW.

Spoiler:

I... I don't even know anymore. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the 80/90s, where the genre still had respect.

Well,  6 Hearts Princess is being led by Takashi Murakami, who is a contemporary studio artist (as in, his work gets put in modern and contemporary art galleries/museums) and his work usually deals with japanese pop culture and can get a little perverse but there's some commentary in there really.

Murakami has been working with the idea of magical girls for awhile, so I'm really curious on where he'll be taking his 6 Hearts Princess girls - but I can tell you right now that it's not going to be a traditional take on magical girls, nor should you expect it to be treated like a normal series. 

TLDR- Murakami's weird but there's a method to his madness

I am so sick of this edgy magical girl stuff too. There are dark elements in past magical girl series. Heck even Ojamjo Doremi had some dark moments. They had pretty serious topics for a kid show and they wrote it without dumbing it down for kids. I think I'm more annoyed that people think the genre has never had dark elements before madoka.