So I watched Redline last week, and it is one fine film, definitely worth checking out. But this post is specifically about one of the plot points in the movie: that protagonist JP and his partner Frisbee fix races for the mafia, which they do by having JP hang back until the last quarter of the race, suddenly take the lead, before ultimately losing the race. There will be some minor spoilers.

I got to thinking what kind of scheme the mafia had going that allowed them to profit from this situation, and what they needed JP to do. And it made me realize that, given JP’s capabilities, they could have fixed it a different way which would have allowed them to profit regardless of whether or not JP lost the race.

First of all, what was the mafia’s business model in Redline? At first, I thought it was by being the house and enticing people to make many losing bets on JP by making him look like a sure thing at the end of the race. But towards the end of the Yellowline race that started the movie, the mafia boss’s underling came to him and said that “all their positions on JP” had been “unloaded.” This implies that, in fact, the mafia no longer had any bets for or against JP at that point, so they had no reason to care whether or not JP won. It also implies that there is an after-market for these bets that they could sell already-made bets to.

So I’m not sure what scheme they had going on (if anyone is, please let me know in the comments!). But it seemed like they were pretty dependent on JP’s capabilities: JP needed to be someone capable of both (a) convincingly being an underdog for most of the race and (b) convincingly being the favorite for some of the last part of the race. And, of course, the mafia was quite insistent that (c) JP lose the race.

The fact that JP is conning the spectators twice, first by pretending to be worse than he is, then by pretending to be about to win before losing, should set off an alarm; you only need to con someone once in order to make profit. Indeed, if JP is capable of (a) and (b), there is a pretty safe way for the mafia to fix the race, one that doesn’t care if JP wins or loses.

So here’s the new scheme:

1. Keep JP at or close to last place for most of the race. Make bets for JP as late as possible while he’s still behind.
2. In the last segment of the race, have JP suddenly take the lead. As late as possible, take all those bets you bought for JP and re-sell them in the after-market.
3. Profit! It doesn’t matter who wins the race, because you’ve sold all your bets, and all you’re holding is cash.

How does this work? The key lies in the fact that the bookie must adjust the odds of a bet in a predictable way. And this affects the price at which one can sell bets in the after-market.

First, a quick review of how one accurately determines the value (expected value) of a bet. If you have a ticket representing a $1 bet on JP, its value V is determined pretty simply:

V = Y*Z

where:
Y = payout of the bet.
Z = probability that JP will win.

Betting odds during the end of the Yellowline race

One thing bookies have to do is to try to keep that expected value V fixed, and under 1. Consistency is important so that you get an even distribution of bets for the racers and under 1 is important so that the house is likely to make a profit. Everyone knows this, so the bookie must follow this behavior so that there is no suspicion of foul play. As Z fluctuates throughout the race, the bookie must change Y in the opposite direction to keep V as close to constant as possible (of course, there is flexibility in real life, since no one truly knows the value of Z).

Here’s an example using dummy numbers. Let’s say the bookie wants to keep V at 0.9 throughout the race. During phase 1, when JP is far back in the pack, Z is very low, making Y very high. Let’s say that, when the mafia bets on JP, Z(1) = 1/10,000 – probability of JP winning is 1/10,000. Then the bookie sets Y(1) = 9,000 – the $1 ticket that the mafia bought will pay out $9,000 if JP should win.

But then enter phase 2: JP surges to take the lead. Now, Z(2) = 1/10. The bookie adjusts the odds accordingly so that Y(2) = 9. But the mafia has already bought a lot of bets that will pay out 9,000 instead of 9. So the mafia turns around to the bettors and offers to sell these bets to them, for a premium, of course. These bets are now worth Y(1) * Z(2) = 9,000 * 1/10 = $900.

If bettors were willing to purchase bets worth $0.90 for $1, then they should be willing to purchase a bet worth $900 for $1,000. Let’s say the mafia offers it to them for $900, to entice them with a better deal compared to what the house is offering. In fact, the expected value of the bet is 1 at the price of $900, so ignoring risk aversion, there is no reason NOT to take it (plus, gamblers tend not to be very risk averse people).

And then, the mafia walks away. It has “unloaded” all its “positions on JP” and is sitting on a pile of cash. It bought bets for $1 that it sold for $900, a nice 89,900% profit. Of course, these are dummy numbers, but as long as the bookie follows this predictable behavior, and as long as the after-market is liquid enough for the mafia to resell all their bets to bettors, the mafia will profit. Using more reasonable numbers, even if the jump between phases 1 and 2 of Z was from 1/50 to 1/10, and V was fixed at 0.5, the mafia would make a 150% profit.

This fix is almost exactly what insider trading is in the stock market. In this case, JP (or more specifically, the probability that JP will win) is the stock, and the non-public information is the knowledge that (as well as of when) JP’s probability of winning will skyrocket. It would be like an insider knowing that a company will soon be bought up by another company and buying lots of shares in that company’s stock before it happens.

Here, the mafia is in an even better situation than insiders, because they are actively manipulating the stock instead of just knowing how the stock will move. The incentives line up so that the mafia wants Z(1) to be as low as possible and Z(2) to be as high as possible. Both are accomplished by having the phases 1 and 2 end as late as possible in the race; as it gets closer to the finish, the odds tend to get more extreme: the probability that someone who’s behind will win gets lower, and the probability that someone who’s in the lead will win gets higher.

It will look awfully suspicious both to bettors and to law enforcement if you see one player buy and sell huge bets at such times. So the mafia would want to hire many bettors to do this, perhaps during slightly staggered times, and on much smaller scales as not to arouse suspicion. So the profit would be slightly variable, and the bettors would have to get their cut. It would also create more possible holes, more people who could talk to the police. Still, don’t you think the mafia boss would’ve preferred to take on that extra risk given to what happened?

This wouldn't have happened if the mafia had adopted this business model.

Of course, if the mafia had done this and hadn’t cared about whether or not JP would win or lose, we wouldn’t have gotten the awesome moment when Frisbee was saved, nor would we have gotten the epic finish with the planted bomb. So all in all, I guess it was for the best.

So the phenomenon that was Magical Girl Madoka Magica is finally over. From the start, many had compared it to Neon Genesis Evangelion with its genre subversion and psychological themes, and the ending provided plenty more fodder for this comparison. The final 2 episodes tried very hard to emulate great endings that had come before it, but, lacking the focus and cohesiveness of such works, it ended up merely stumbling its way across the finish line.

I was somewhat disappointed that Shaft didn’t take this opportunity to retool the 2 episode finale into a singular unit, as had been the case with the finale of Code Geass‘s first season. Episode 11 stood on its own with its own story arc, featuring some good action as Homura went all out against Walpurgis Night. And with the cliffhanger end, it was clear that these episodes were meant to be released a week apart.

But that’s not a knock against it. There’s nothing wrong with having the episodes structured like they were originally intended. It was just a missed chance for greatness. And so was the ending. Shaft was obviously swinging for the fences with this one, and though I wouldn’t say they struck out, at best, they managed a weak single.

A wholly unnecessary scene. This was about the point when Shaft's intentions became too transparent.

I have the belief that, for the most part, people are pretty good at telling when they’re being manipulated, and when one senses this, the compulsion is to push back. This is why people have a problem with melodrama – they don’t like it when they’re tricked into feeling things, instead of having the feelings come to them naturally. I know I don’t like it.

Instead of providing an ending that was simple and tightly held together, Shaft provided one that was a hodge podge of scenes clumsily thrown together, trying as best as it could to force its way to greatness. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote that Madoka Magica ran the risk of being crushed by the weight of its own narrative. Greatness comes effortlessly and naturally; it’s only after the fact that the viewer should be aware of how his emotions were toyed with.

A beautiful scene with which to close out the series. Homura's epilogue, I have absolutely no complaints about.

It was so obvious that Shaft was trying to make us feel a certain way, that, ironically, it achieved the exact opposite. This, despite that I liked most of what happened in the ending. Madoka’s wish of breaking the rules and going beyond the impossible (row row fight the power) was pretty cool. Was it a deus ex machina? Even though it literally introduced a god in order to tie things up, I don’t think it was, because it fit in well with the rest of the show. And the end result, with Madoka disappearing from existence, Homura the only one to remember her, still being a magical girl but fighting… things that aren’t witches, with the red ribbon in her hair and a bow as a weapon in remembrance of Madoka? Corny, yes, but also poignant and moving. Corny things became corny for a reason. The fact that the ending was not a perfect one, that magical girls still had to fight in order to save the universe from heat death, was much appreciated. It gave a happy but cynical end, by showing that Madoka couldn’t create a perfect world despite her godly power. She could only take away one specific source of despair in it. Yet destroying that one specific thing was something impossibly noble and beautiful.

But when it’s obvious that the events were there just to enable the Evangelion-esque conversation sequences, to bring back Kyoko and Mami for a final farewell, to bring back Sayaka to converse with Madoka, forgive Kamijou and Hitomi and to give her story closure, to have Madoka and Homura say goodbye half naked in the stars, there was an undeniable feeling of being manipulated. These scenes were supposed to be touching, but the smell of artificiality overwhelmed whatever goodness they had.

What a wonderfully moving scene... it would have been if it didn't seem completely forced. Again, unnecessary.

It certainly stole from the best, like Evangelion, Diebuster, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann had done so before it. But those works managed to take what they stole and seamlessly integrate with their own identities. Madoka Magica‘s ending threw together all the great things it stole, with little in the way of order or sense, forming a messy jumble of would-be great scenes. It was completely transparent in what it was doing, resulting in something that so clearly was meant to be great but wasn’t.

In fact, “thrown together” is an appropriate phrase to describe the entire last 3rd of the show. Whereas everything up to episode 8 had been carefully and lovingly constructed, forming a slow but exciting magical mystery thriller, the rest of the show was messy and cluttered, a collection of nicely done scenes and story elements in search for a common thread to tie them all together.

The ending could have achieved greatness by tying everything together, a pretty standard way for endings to do so. But many things were dropped and introduced at the convenience of the story. Madoka’s mother’s earlier advice about messing up was one of them, with the conversation they had in episode 11 serving no useful purpose (other than to show that’s Madoka’s mother is a really bad mother! You don’t let your kid run out into a supercell!). Same goes for shoehorning famous figures as being Magical Girls, as well as the 2001-esque aliens-made-humans-evolve plot element.

It was messy, it was all over the place, it was manipulative. I don’t want to go as far as to say that it was outright bad; I’ve seen plenty of bad endings, and this wasn’t one of them. Neither was it good, though. It was passable. And that’s alright. But certainly not up to the standard set by the show.

Series End

Now that it’s over, what exactly was Magical Girl Madoka Magica? At its best, it was a mystery/thriller that kept us hooked, pulling us along for an unforgettable, intense ride where every move mattered. At its worst, it was a jumble of great elements that didn’t tie together in a meaningful way. It was a show that peaked at the 2/3 way point and then stumbled the rest of the way, through the climax.

The common criticism that it suffered from underdeveloped characters was very true, and that was the issue that came to define the show’s success and failure. When it really delved into a character, her feelings, and her motivations, as in the case of Sayaka, it was a success, a sublime combination of writing, directing, and pacing into which you simply couldn’t help get sucked. But when it tried to force drama with characters with whom the show had not allowed you to form a connection, as in the case of Homura or the eponymous Madoka, it faltered.

At least the art was great throughout, even though even that weakened a bit in the last third, with the craziness of the witches’ realms not being as prominent or as crazy. The cinematography, though, I have no complaints with. Same goes for the music which, even though it took me a bit to warm up to, was perfect for setting the mood of this dark and somber show. Too bad Claris’s opening theme Connect and Kalafina’s ending theme Magia, along with their respective animation sequences, were just passable.

Now this was a good scene, both emotionally affecting and visually stunning.

Greatness, Manufactured

Perhaps it’s a shame that the end is so much more important than the middle or the start, but that’s simply the nature of the beast when it comes to fiction. And Madoka had a start and middle that was about as good as it comes in the world of TV anime. But it could only do so much in the face of the weight of the disappointing final third.

It will rightfully be remembered as the incredible phenomenon it was, and for the absolutely thrilling ride it provided. But, years from now, will it sit at the same table as the rest of the greats? Well, that sort of greatness must come naturally; it can’t be manufactured.

Though the show ended on a low note, it's hard not to feel emotional seeing this, knowing that it's all over. It certainly did many things very well.

So Magical Girl Madoka Magica has been delayed indefinitely (a Shaft show being delayed near its finish? Say it ain’t so!), or at least until some time in April. But no hard dates as of yet. Which I guess gives us some extra time to step back and reflect upon the ride it has provided us so far.

Below is a chart of my reactions to each episode. Bigger is obviously more positive.

I remember going into the show with cautious optimism, which I guess is the way I go into any show that has so many big names behind it and receives so much hype. As you can see, the first 2 episodes didn’t wow me, but neither did they disappoint me. They just… were. Typical urban fantasy stuff, with a distinctive and compelling art style.

Obviously, then episode 3 happened. Killing off Mami was a move that I greatly respected. As I wrote in my post, it put a serious tone on the rest of the show. And the moment of Mami’s death was wonderfully directed, fully conveying the horror of what had occurred.

I'd buy it. Seriously, someone make this thing so that I can give them my money.

Episodes 4 and 5 were a bit slow, but Kyoko was a welcome and surprising addition to the cast. The reveal at episode 6 was well done, and though it lacked the power of Mami’s death, it made the setting feel even more stark. Getting one’s soul removed and becoming a zombie is no laughing matter.

Episodes 7 and 8 played on that to great effect. Sayaka’s downfall was the most well done part of the show. It was handled in a believable and entertaining manner, with each step in her downward spiral lovingly laid out in front of us to enjoy. The insanity at the end of episode 7 was beautiful, and the double reveal at the end of episode 8 capped off what was the best episode of the show so far.

Then we had episode 9, for which I guess it was just unfair to try to follow up 8. It could have been done much better. Kyoko’s death wasn’t handled poorly, but it did feel forced at times. It was a convenient way to get rid of two of our favorite characters in one shot, but it paled in comparison to Mami’s death 6 episodes back.

At least episode 9 gave us plenty of Sayaka/Kyoko fanart. Hopefully they're together where they are now. ;_;

And speaking of convenience, that’s pretty much exactly what episode 10 was for. Its reveal, the biggest reveal of them all, may have been telegraphed since the 1st episode, but it was handled appropriately, making it pretty impactful. In fact, perhaps it had too much impact. Anime has never been known for being subtle, and this surely wasn’t. It was beating us over the head with how Homura had been beaten over the head by fate.

I do like having Homura as the gun-toting badass magical girl.

To the show’s credit, none of the reveals have been twists. That is, they didn’t achieve their impact mainly through shock value or surprise. Rather, if there’s anything to criticize about them, it’s that they were too obvious. Everything fell too neatly into place. It’s just that the execution has been so top class that it’s been a joy to watch. Even when I think some things should have been done better.

And that’s been the story of Magical Girl Madoka Magica so far. When you dig into the details, things start to break down. Kyubey’s explanation about entropy just falls flat and gives a needlessly physics based explanation to a fantasy story. Kyoko’s death seemed wholly unnecessary, even if it had been telegraphed like crazy in the episodes leading up to it. And the introduction of the Groundhog Day time loop for Homura was jus as unnecessary.

Always read the fine print. Always.

But it all managed to work. It’s a testament to the overall direction of the show. Cinematography and music have been top notch throughout (even if it took me a while to warm up to the music). The radical shifts in art style have been used very well with the story itself, besides just looking pretty. Every scene has felt purposeful and deliberate. It has created a work that has the pacing just right, a mystery story that has kept us hooked step by step, baiting us with little bits here and there, steadily building up to… well, where we are now. Only the climax and ending are to follow.

And so we enter the final sixth of the show, the last 2 episodes. I don’t know how the whole release schedule deal will pan out, but I’m kind of hoping that this delay gives Shaft a chance to retool the episodes to fit as one 2-episode unit that are released quickly back to back. It’s a trick a lot of US TV shows use, and Code Geass‘s first season used it to good effect. Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s final 2 episodes also went together, though they weren’t released back to back. As I’ve said before, Magical Girl Madoka Magica has been a fun, gripping, tight ride so far. It hasn’t been without its missteps, but with the final bits to go, thanks to the strength of its direction and narrative, this is a show that genuinely has the opportunity to be one of the best, as long as it doesn’t get crushed by the weight of its own narrative. And there aren’t enough shows like that.

And I leave you off with a scene much sweeter than we're likely to see in the episodes to come.

And it all came to an end. 10 years ago today, on March 16, 2001, the grand finale, and the longest episode of FLCL, FLCLimax (originally Furi Kura) was released on DVD. It brought forth the 3rd amazing episode in a row and also provided a worthy finish to this great series, one that left me speechless and sad that it was over. But it didn’t leave me wanting more. Rather, it made me happy that the work was so complete, so well constructed from start to finish.

This is the last post in a series of posts I’ve made celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of each of the episodes of FLCL. As for all the posts before this, I did not rewatch the episode before writing this and instead chose to write based on my memories. The last time I watched the series was in the summer of 2009. You can read the previous posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing) (5: Brittle Bullet).

I don’t know if it came to me upon first viewing or later on, but what stayed with me was how well this final and the 1st episode bookended the series (indeed, there was a symmetry to the whole 6 episode series in some aspect). The most obvious thing the 2 episodes had in common was the manga dinner scene, which was an exact copy of the one in the 1st episode, at least at the start. There was also the title of the episode, Furi Kura, just 1 letter away from Furi Kuri, the title of the 1st episode. The use of The Pillows’s One Life right before the halfway cut as Naota bemoaned the boring life in this town while crying into Haruko’s bosom was similar to the series’s cold open leading to the title shot, in which he was being held by Mamimi. Right down to the overhead view of the iron-shaped Medical Mechanica factory. On a higher level, the episode started off with a slow, melancholy, almost dejected mood before Haruko entered and brought life to the setting, much like the 1st episode. And there was the epilogue as well, showing Ninamori taking Naota’s, a much more appropriate girl for him than Mamimi in the 1st episode.

These couple frames in which Naota became doe eyed somehow felt so significant.

Of course, to get to the epilogue this episode provided the climax proper. The yellow saturated finale, starting with The Pillows’s Last Dinosaur, followed by I Think I Can when Naota took Atomsk’s power remains one of my favorite scenes in anime. It lacked the raw emotional magic of the episode 4 climax or the high octane action of the episode 5 climax, but it was a worthy finish to this chain of 3 incredible episode climaxes. Seeing Haruko really upset for the 1st time was a bit jarring, and it would be some time later that I realized its significance in the series as a whole.

And it delivered the single most powerful moment in the series, when Naota, having beaten Haruko handily, dove at her and… said, “I like you” before stealing a kiss from her (the fansub I had translated the “suki” as “I’m in love with you,” which sounded even more powerful to me, though I’d learn later it wasn’t the best translation). There was something amazing about this simple moment, when our hero finally got the guts to say what he said and do what he did. It was an ultimate moment of catharsis, when all the emotional tension and pressure that had been building up throughout the series was released, with a simple, “I like you” and a kiss. The first one he initiated, one he had wanted so badly from the start.

This image was my wallpaper for a long time after I watched this.

In typical FLCL fashion, it was followed by a literal explosion, but all that was just the aftermath, the falling action before the denouement. I remember being heavily moved by the ending. Some of it was the sadness from watching the series end. Some of it was that it was a bittersweet ending, in which both Haruko and Mamimi left Naota. But more than anything, the ending was one of hope, showing Naota go on with his life, moving on to middle school, with a girl who genuinely liked him, not one who just wanted to use him. Mamimi’s story ended with hope as well, as she moved on from her stuck crush on Tasuku and left the town that had been nothing but abusive to her, to discover her own path (she likely learned a lesson about the futility of revenge as well, seeing what her “Ta-kun” this time ended up doing).

Certainly, life would not be easy for any of our protagonists. But life isn’t supposed to be. It’s about moving forward with what you have, making the best of it. This was how the most mature characters in this series – Haruko and, as this episode revealed during his conversation with Naota’s teacher Miyaji, Naota’s father – approached their lives. By the end, Naota and Mamimi had learned it as well.

Mamimi Samejima. She knew how to make smoking look cool.

Of course, this being FLCL, it was technically and artistically excellent throughout. One scene that stood out to me was Mamimi’s first meeting with the Terminal Core under the bridge, when she nonchalantly took a giant step towards it and shuffled over next to it discreetly before calmly turning to it and blowing smoke on it. There’s also a shot of her that has stayed with me, when she was enacting revenge on the scooter that had splashed her earlier in the episode, her dead eyes calmly watching the robot devour the scooter, her face only illuminated by the cigarette in her mouth.

Another memorable scene was the aforementioned hug between Naota and Haruko. When Haruko went from playfully poking fun at Naota to seriously asking him if he wanted to run away with her, when Naota’s usual barrier dropped down, his eyes swelled, and he cried into her bosom. The slow pan up to Haruko’s bored eyes as the sensor on her wrist started to clang once again, and The Pillows’s One Life fading in. It was a perfectly directed scene.

"Good bye, Naota-kun." A beautiful transition into the epilogue, Mamimi finally letting go and calling Naota by his real name.

I don’t know if or how watching the entire last half of the series in a row affected my initial reaction to it. As I’ve written before, I consider the final 3 episodes of FLCL to be a set, each a great episode in its own right with a powerful, exciting climax set to a rocking energetic song by The Pillows. The reason that they’re a set is that they worked together to form the final half of this series. Episode 4 saw Naota triumph over his fears of swinging the bat, episode 5 saw his downfall as he learned that he wasn’t “all that,” that the women around him were just using him. And episode 6 saw him triumph again, but differently. As amazing as he had been once he turned against Haruko, he wasn’t filled with joy or excitement afterward. He looked calm, almost serene, as Haruko sarcastically blamed him for losing Atomsk and said good bye.

It was as if he had finally learned that important fact, perhaps the most important fact about being an adult: there is nothing amazing or special about it. The path to adulthood isn’t one with leaps and bounds, it’s one defined by its gradual progression, of growing accustomed to new things little by little.

Naota wasn’t there yet, but he learned what it meant to grow up. And that was all I needed to see.

And as one story ends, another begins. However, it is not FLCL's role to tell that story. This is how it should end.

The reveals are coming hard and fast now, and the one in this episode somehow managed to top everything else so far. It was a move that many had predicted from the start, and a perhaps disappointingly convenient tool for explaining Homura’s story up to now. Still, the episode was filled with solid action and moving stand alone scenes and did its job of teaching us Homura’s story and letting us feel for her.

So this little twist gave Shaft carte blanche to do anything it wanted with the characters and story (in fact, I’d bet that that was one of the main reasons that the twist was used in the first place), and at the very least, it made for some good fanservice. Much like in doujin, we got to see various “what if” scenarios play out starring our favorite characters, without worrying about the continuity of the main story. Plus, there was something deeply satisfying about finally seeing Madoka as a magical girl, fighting and protecting as she had longed to do throughout the show.

So her weapon was the bow and arrow, after all. Now, will we get to see her use it in "our" timeline?

One thing I liked was the brevity with which each loop was shown, and how much variety there was in them. Homura woke up, she fought along with some of the girls, failed on Walpurgis Night, tried again. There was no dilly dallying around. And Shaft clearly had a lot of fun with what they were allowed to do in the loops. One of my favorite moments was Homura shooting Madoka after Walpurgis Night. The shaded zoom out followed by a simple flash as her gun went off, with Homura’s pained screaming going on the whole time. The scene leading up to it would have fit well as the ending to a separate story about the two girls. Of course, that part was the only glimpse we saw, but the Groundhog Day loop let us forgive the lack of development up to that powerful climax and just accept the moment for what it was.

Another thing I really liked seeing was Mami losing her head in the loop in which they had to kill the witch Sayaka. Who would have thought that she would turn out to be so unstable and suicidal? I mean, her magical girl wish was to live, so of all of the girls, you’d think she would want to keep going. But that’s what’s convenient about the Groundhog Day loop, isn’t it? You’re allowed to have crazy, out-there situations that don’t necessarily jive with what’s been shown thus far.

The progression of Homura's facial expression during each reset. She flinches in the 1st 2, is just plain distraught in the 3rd, and isn't even shown awakening in the last.

Maybe I sound very positive about this reveal, but I’m actually not. Introducing the time loop is a cheap way of explaining everything up to now. Again, it gives Shaft carte blanche, and that power is a double edged sword. It’s just too powerful a tool and can result in a deus ex machina. So that they decided to use it annoys me somewhat. I would have preferred a more typical back story for Homura, in which her cynicism slowly crept into her over time in a linear progression, instead of it bashing her over the head through the loops. Alternatively, since Shaft decided to go the route of the Groundhog Day loop, I wish they had really run with it as is the norm for uses of the loop, that is, that Homura had to suffer through hundreds, thousands, or even millions of loops to get to where we are now, instead of just 5.

At the same time, I always say, it’s never the concept, always the execution. And this episode was executed very well. Not amazing, mind you, but it did its job of letting us see Homura’s character development, and it had some awesome action and heartfelt scenes, to boot. It convincingly presented Homura as a gun toting badass magical girl, and that’s pretty cool. The cinematography, art, and music were top notch as usual. I can’t take anything away from that.

Homura performs the quintessential badass move, walking away from an explosion calmly without looking.

So, and I’m repeating what I wrote last week, the stage is set for the finale, to defeat Walpurgis Night and save Madoka. We know that this will be the last loop Homura has to suffer, because this is the loop that this show has followed. I’m really pulling for a happy end, because that would be just so unexpected at this point. And it would be darn hard to pull off well, which would make it all the more satisfying if it did. There are a lot of traps the story can fall into in these next 2 episodes, and it will be fun to see how Shaft navigates around them.

What made this scene for me was Homura's unending scream. So much pain.

After last week’s intense reveals and Sayaka’s quick spiral into despair, we were treated to an episode that was decidedly more relaxed in its pacing. The reveals came calmly this time instead of as big hits, with Kyubey finally explaining his motivations to Madoka and Kyoko rediscovering herself in the face of Sayaka’s transformation. As usual, the pacing was spot on, and the development of Kyoko’s character was handled wonderfully, but the way the climax played out left a bad taste in my mouth, ending an otherwise good episode on such a sour note that this may be the worst episode in the show so far.

It’s not that Kyoko’s sacrifice was too predictable. It was predictable, but that in itself is not a problem, as the show wasn’t playing it as a twist. Nor was her decision to do it unbelievable. The show did a fine job of turning villain into heroine through bits of character development in the past 3 episodes. Her wistful comment this episode about why she became a magical girl to begin with – and how Sayaka reminded her of that – had impact. It was just as clear to her as it was to us, the audience, that she was Sayaka’s foil, and seeing that girl’s downfall made her regret the loss of her innocence. Her desire to find redemption by saving Sayaka felt genuine.

Rather, the trouble was that what should have been a crowning moment of glory turned not to be, due to the poorly directed action of the climax. The necessary sense of danger and urgency just wasn’t there. I was ready to believe that Kyoko would give her life in this battle, but it should have been done under a truly dire situation, when no other option presented itself. Though the battle did a good enough job of showing Sayaka as dominating over Kyoko, there was no immediate sense of danger at her moment of sacrifice. It could have been a dramatic, powerful moment, capping off Kyoko’s journey for redemption with a truly selfless and needed sacrifice. Instead, we got a bit of yuri subtext which (though pretty damn cool) framed her death as one out of romantic love for Sayaka rather than of out of a desire to redeem herself for her crimes by aiding Sayaka. As I mentioned above, the latter was very well developed over the past few episodes. The former was jarring and, more importantly, unnecessary for justifying her sacrifice. There was a perfectly good reason to have Kyoko sacrifice her life! Why not use it!?

First of all, HAWT. Second of all, was that really necessary?

As for Kyubey’s reveal of his origin, I don’t like it, but I’ll allow it. I’m wary of stories using science fiction mumbo jumbo – especially “fancy” things like quantum mechanics, chaos theory, or, in this case, thermodynamics – to explain its fantasy. It’s just magic; by watching this show, we’ve already accepted a certain level of suspense of disbelief, and trying to rationalize it further just takes away from the mystique. And, as was the case here, when the science is wrong, it flat out sounds stupid.

To be fair, the science wasn’t completely wrong. Kyubey was conflating entropy (loss of usable energy) with the actual loss of energy (which is impossible), but perhaps he was simplifying things to explain to a middle schooler. Even so, the time scale he’s talking about – the point at which the universe will be so dominated by entropy that energy might as well not exist – is just too damn long to care about. Even if Kyubey’s race is as old as the universe, the time it would take for this to happen is several orders of magnitude longer than that. It’s a bit ridiculous to accept that his race thinks in that long a time scale.

Looking very predator there, Kyubey.

Of course, Kyubey’s race is supposed to be unfathomable to us. Their inability to have emotion, I thought was good enough to explain his manipulative and disattached personality up to now. I don’t think the show was trying to use it as an excuse to forgive him for his actions, because it doesn’t. He’s still a psychopath. It merely served as an explanation of his reasoning, which will help us understand his moves in the future.

For example, his manipulation of Kyoko to kill her and Sayaka at the same time. His giving Kyoko false hope was a really clever move to set up the situation to force Madoka to become a magical girl. The kind of cold and calculated move fitting for such a villain. Given that he’s the villain, of course, it’s also probably a good idea to take what he says with a grain of salt. He might not state outright lies, but there are ways to lie without doing that.

"Are you human!?" "No. And neither are you." Fucking badass.

So with 3 out of our 5 heroines disposed of, all of the pieces are in place. Walpurgis night looms ahead, which will be a challenge too much for Homura to handle alone, and the only possible source of help being Madoka. This should remind you of Madoka’s dream in the very first episode, in which Homura was shown fighting alone against… something, with Kyubey telling Madoka she could help her by becoming a magical girl. Was that dream indeed a glimpse into her future? I didn’t like that conjecture from the beginning, and I still don’t, but it seems quite likely to come true. But excepting the little misstep at the climax of this episode, this show has proven that it can execute on its story very well, regardless of its contents. After all, 2 very early conjectures came true in the previous episode in a truly awesome way. And when the show finally got around to character development the last few episodes, it has done it incredibly well. We’re entering the final act now. Madoka is still not a magical girl. I wait anxiously to see what comes.

Going out with a smile, that's so typical, Kyoko. You and your sugary voice will be missed ;_;

So, wow. We’re 2/3 done with the show, which means it’s about time some questions start getting answered. And that’s exactly what happened this episode, with a couple of the most major reveals yet in the show. These were part of tightly paced and well directed package, making for one of the most tense and enjoyable episodes of the show yet, despite it having almost no action.

Where to begin? I guess the biggest revelation is that not only are witches former magical girls, in fact, magical girls are precursors to witches. This is an important distinction, as it means that magical girls don’t just fall and become witches, but rather, they have been being formed by Kyubey in order to become witches.

And of Kyubey, “or should I say, Incubator,” he’s been upgraded from simple sociopath to full on psychopath. Who knows if his end goal is good or evil, but he’s made it abundantly clear that, in order to reach his goal, he is willing to fool ordinary girls into becoming magical girls, and then witches. So regardless of his intent, he’s, as people have been shouting all along, “evil.”

So the two biggest conjectures, that witches are fallen magical girls, and that Kyubey is evil, came true this week. But, as any good reveal does, more questions have been raised. What is the meaning of “Incubator?” Is it a reference to Kyubey “incubating” magical girls in order to produce witches? Or does it tie into the grief seeds he was eating – after all, they’re called “seeds.” What did Kyubey mean when he said Homura came “from another time?” We’ve seen her mastery of time and space, but is she someone who traverses the multiverse? Is this the type of thing Madoka would be able to do with her massive potential if she ever became a magical girl?

A fine use of this meme. Shaft's previous work Bakemonogatari featured an in-show use of this meme.

All these conjectures and mysteries are fun to think about, but I’m the kind of person who prefers just to let the story unfold to me. It’s much more fun to see the creators tell the story at their own pace instead of trying to preempt them. The reason Magical Girl Madoka Magica has worked so well is that the execution of its story and reveal of the setting have been so good. The pacing and art are what have really stood out to me so far, and episode 8 hit all the high notes in both.

Pacing is, I think, the single most important thing to get right in telling a story, and though the show has had its issues, it has been, by and large, downright masterful. Has it really been 8 episodes? We’re done with the majority of the show, and Madoka is still not a magical girl. Kamina was introduced, had his triumph, and died in the span of 8 episodes. Yet this is not a criticism that the show has been too slow; on the contrary, every episode has been eventful. The show has been so engrossing on a moment to moment basis, it is only when we actively step back and look at the big picture that we realize that we’re already almost done.

Probably my favorite OH SHI- moment of the show so far. Wonderfully directed scene, showing us just enough to know what's going on.

Episode 8 made use of its time about as well as I’ve seen this show do. If Sayaka’s turning into a witch came as no surprise, what did surprise was just how quickly we saw it happen. Leaving off from her psychotic butchering of the witch from the end of episode 7, continuing with her fight with Madoka in the rain, her jealous stalking of Hitomi and Kyosuke, her encounter with Homura, her first murder on the train and her tearful transformation in front of Kyoko at the end, the show did not waste any time in showing us her descent. Interspersed in between were scenes that were just as important, teaching us more about the world, about Walpurgis Night, about Homura, and about Kyubey.

And the scenery porn certainly didn’t hurt, either. I commented on the background architecture in the first episode, and though it has been present throughout the show, episode 8 showed it off better than any other episode so far. Homura’s rather lonely but super high tech home was quite the sight, as was the sunset-lit waterfall where we got to see Hitomi confess to Kyosuke. That fountain in the scene of Kyubey’s reveal threatened to steal the spotlight. Given the sadness of the events going down, it was hard not to feel a sense of melancholy from these beautiful shots of parts of the city.

Hitomi couldn't have chosen a better place or time to confess.

And the super clean minimalist aesthetic was, of course, contrasted by the messy, busy, and downright dirty art style of the witches. The show has done a good job of establishing this contrast, to the point that it was immediately obvious that Sayaka was becoming a witch when the black spiral art passed over her while she confronted those 2 men on the train. The same could be said about the style of the background when Sayaka’s soul gem began turning into a grief seed at the train station. The show has trained us with its art style shifts, giving us the power of immediate recognition of plot elements merely by how something is shown before we even identify the contents.

The story thus far has been absolutely gripping, and it was somewhat cathartic to finally get some confirmations regarding some of the major mysteries of the characters and mythos. At the same time, this show continues to impress not with its plot but with its sublime pacing in its reveals, along with use of art that is both beautiful and meaningful. With the final third of this show left, I’m eagerly looking forward to more reveals that are sure to come at a steady stream, and how the final act will be set up… and resolved.

One of my favorite shots of Sayaka. Looks dead, empty. If only she had embraced her feelings during her little bouts of emotion throughout the episode...

Very exposition heavy episode this week, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t see some epic shit go down. Kyoko’s back story went into Key territory in its forced drama, but the way it was told was visually entertaining, and it added depth to her character. And we were finally served with some genuine character development in Sayaka as she came to terms with the fact that she’s a “zombie.”

The stars this week? Kyoko, Sayaka, and… Hitomi? You know, the girl who’s hanging around Madoka and Sayaka? Her crush on Kyosuke came out of left field, but still wholly believable given the middle school setting. What was unbelievable was the maturity with which she handled it, telling Sayaka outright that she was willing to give Sayaka the 1st chance. Now, I’ve talked with someone on SCCSAV who thinks maybe this was a ruse by her to play matchmaker for Sayaka and Kyosuke, but I think that’s overthinking it. It’s just a straight up love triangle.

At least, it would be, if Sayaka believed she was capable of being loved. Nameless’s post comparing magical girls to child abuse victims painted the scene in which Sayaka cried in Madoka’s arms in an even darker light than it initially appeared. It’s a painful catch-22, isn’t it? Because she got her wish for Kyosuke granted, she no longer feels that she can have his love.

The pain that a magical girl has to bear... it's too much for one person. Also, I like that Sayaka used the z-word to describe herself.

Meanwhile, Kyubey offers her no consolation. In fact, the cold open showed him to be a sociopath, unable to sympathize with the girls’ horror at getting their souls sucked out. And literally torturing Sayaka to make his point. I feel that this might be Kyubey’s true nature; he’s not malicious, but he just can’t understand humans. His motivation is something that’s still up in the air, and his obsession with Madoka comes off far too strong, but hey, maybe he just wants a really powerful magical girl to take down witches. Still no reason to suspect him of ill intent.

Who does step in as a sort of a mentor to Sayaka is, surprisingly enough, Kyoko. Her explaining her back story was another thing that came out of left field given what we’ve seen of her so far, but it humanized her, letting us see her as more than just a villain but a victim as well. In fact, she’s the girl of whom Kyubey and Mami spoke when referring to a magical girl who wished for someone else only to have the wish backfire. And boy did it backfire! To the point that it had me rolling my eyes a bit, but hey, it wasn’t as overtly trying to manipulate our feelings as some of the shit we saw in Angel Beats! And the presentation really helped.

No fourth wall? In a Shaft show? Say it ain't so!

The paper cutouts during Kyoko’s flashback should remind you of the flashbacks from Bakemonogatari – Mayoi’s and Tsubasa’s back stories used this technique. But this show played with it by showing Kyoko actually holding the cutouts as she spoke, a visual metaphor for her verbal recounting of her past. It’s not a new trick, but it worked well in delivering the feeling of Kyoko telling her story to us. Also, the rundown church in which the scene took place was flat out gorgeous and fit in with the music by Yuki Kajiura better than any other setting in the show so far. The view of the dilapidated beauty served as a metaphor for the magical girls of this show and also reminded of the haunting settings from the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

Speaking of hauntingly beautiful, how about that final fight scene? Shaft is notorious for hiding cheap animation with its artistic style, and the silhouetted fighting did that quite well. We finally got to see Sayaka kick some ass, and the choreography and action direction overall were great! Beyond hiding the money-saving animation, the silhouetted fighting fit with the theme of the fight, which was Sayaka finally accepting her situation as a “zombie” and going mad. I had thought Kyoko was the one who had gone mad from the horrors of being a magical girl, but it looks like it was Sayaka! Then again, Kyoko is clearly Sayaka’s foil, and perhaps Sayaka has simply taken a step toward becoming another Kyoko.

Flat out badass and beautiful. This is the type of action scene I wanted to see Sayaka in.

It seems that each of the girls we’ve seen represents a different stage in the life of the magical girl. At one end of the spectrum, there’s Hitomi, who’s unaware of the existence of magical girls, and our heroine Madoka, who knows, but hasn’t become one yet. Then there’s Mami, who became a magical girl, didn’t know all the details fully and was still fairly idealistic, but got killed before she could progress any further. Sayaka, on the other hand, survived, and discovered the true horrors, and we got to see her go mad. Kyoko seemingly went through that phase as well, and now she’s a cynical, narcissistic, self-serving jerk. And at the end, we arrive at Homura, who has fully accepted her role, completely jaded by what she’s seen, but also fully committed to making sure that others don’t have to go through what she has. It’s a very sad progression, and so far, we’ve gotten to see Sayaka go from start to, well, where she is now.

Will Madoka be the one to break this seemingly inevitable downfall of magical girls? That’s the question in my mind, as we cross the halfway point in the show with our title character still not a magical girl. And showing no signs of wanting to become one, being present to both Mami’s death and Sayaka’s descent into madness. What will finally drive her into becoming one? What is the wish that she will deem so precious that she would be willing to go through what she knows is the hellish life of a magical girl? Part of me hopes that we will enter the final episode with her still not having turned, because the anticipation will have built to epic proportions by then. It’s still far too early to pass judgment on this show, but I haven’t had this much fun watching a TV anime episode to episode since The Tatami Galaxy last year. Which won our best TV Show (traditional) award for that year if you’ll recall.

Speaking of badass, Kyoko was that in this scene. Holding up another girl entirely by her collar? Awesome.

Another couple weeks, another worldview changing revelation. What else is new in Magical Girl Madoka Magica? Episode 5 wasn’t really inspiring, despite having some solid action, but combined with episode 6, it has been a solid pair of episodes in this show. The fantasy set up stage seems to be coming to a close here with conflict against our first major villain in Sakura Kyoko, and new questions join old ones as we see hints of what’s to come.

One question that has been present since the beginning and whose answer gets more and more intriguing as we learn more is, what’s the little fella’s motivation? At this point, with how Shaft has portrayed Kyubey’s actions, without his pleasant voice and reassuring words, he would clearly be a self serving, villainous figure. Hanging out with Kyoko before she gets into a (potentially) lethal fight with Sayaka? Pushing Madoka to make a wish during said fight? Then pushing Sayaka to perform some peer pressure on Madoka to achieve the same thing? One thing’s for sure: he really, very badly wants Madoka to become a magical girl.

That’s even without mentioning the creepy cold open to episode 5 in which he sucks out Sayaka’s soul through her breasts using his extended ears and puts it in her soul gem. Or his unnecessarily pulling Madoka into the fight between Sayaka and Kyoko at the end of episode 6. Then there’s his consumption of the grief seeds via that red mark, which he hand waves as just “being one of his functions.” He just purifies the evil dark power contained within? It’s hard to buy that he’s not getting some benefit out of this, given that magical girls have been shown to consume power from similar sources.

His unchanging smile gets creepier and creepier as we dig deeper and deeper into this world.

What is Kyubey after here? I stress time and again, there is no reason not to take Kyubey at his word. But with it being so obvious that Shaft is showing Kyubey as being overly pushy and depicting him with demonic imagery, I think it’s safe to say that Shaft wants us to think that there’s more behind Kyubey. Is he just after more grief seeds for himself, and he sees an incredibly powerful magical girl such as Madoka as a good means? Or is he after something more sinister?

A simple twist would be far too obvious, and a red herring would be far too easy. I want to think that our opinion of Kyubey will change at least a couple times before all is said and done.

Certainly, Kyubey’s off-hand comment about magical girls “always being surprised” at the discovery that they’ve been separated from their bodies makes him seem at least callous and insensitive. Like the type to use magical girls and throw them away, cycle after cycle. It was a bit of a surprise to me that Kyoko was taken aback, since she’s made out to be the hardened, cynical veteran, same as Homura, who already knew about the gems holding the magical girls’ souls. I wanted to think that Kyoko was someone so horrified by discovering the world of magical girls that she went psychotic. I guess she’s just a plain old power hungry bad guy. Oh well, at least she makes for quite the villain. Her threat to disable Kyosuke’s limbs permanently was wicked, exactly the kind of speech we want coming from a villain. Plus, she has fire in her eyes (yes, she – and the show – reminds me a lot of Shakugan no Shana. I’ll keep using that joke).

Flame Eyed... Kyoko? Ai Nonaka's voice is a pleasure to listen to, and combined with the art and writing, creates a great villain in Kyoko.

Besides Kyubey, Kyoko really was the star of the past couple episodes. I loved the DDR scene with her and Homura, starting with the shout out to the show’s OP and ending with her getting a perfect score before offering Homura a Pocky in the style of a cigarette (with how this show is playing out like a crime thriller, it was very appropriate). And there was one of Shaft’s favorite tools, the bullet time head tilt, in the middle, when she asked what Homura’s story was without missing a beat. Kyoko was being made to look really cool here, and it worked.

Her fight scene against Sayaka at the end of episode 5 was excellent as well. The use of recycled clips was distracting, especially since there was enough unique content in there to make a good fight scene! But, well, there was enough content in there to make a good fight scene. Kyoko’s oversized spear/multi-sectioned staff is badass, full stop. Such things are what I love about animated martial arts violence: the ability to have crazy, physically impossible, beautiful weapons. Unfortunately, Sayaka was a pushover, and her fighting hasn’t been much fun to look at. She needs to get in close with her sword instead of throwing them.

When combined with the knowledge gained at the end of episode 6, this image from the cold open to episode 5 becomes more... wicked.

What about the big reveal at the end of episode 6? So magical girls can theoretically move from body to body. That solves the whole aging problem. But that raises some major questions. How old is Kyubey anyway? How old is Homura, for that matter? How many bodies has she been through? Are magical girls like Roa, jumping from body to body as need arises? Maybe her first body was Joan of Arc? Mary Magdalene? Cassandra? Eve? More importantly, how will this new information come into play later in the show? In a fantasy work such as this, the writer doesn’t throw in such an element without the intent of using it. I would welcome some body switching hijinks. I could use something light hearted in this show (hey, Shakugan no Shana did that too!).

While on the topic of Homura, we finally got to see her teleportation powers clearly and in action, and that was pretty cool. Don’t get me started on why she did the whole “teleport a few meters at a time while running” bit instead of landing right on the truck (or why she painstakingly climbed the truck after catching up instead of, again, landing on top of it). For all the cool action in this show, some scenes test my suspense of disbelief with their stupidity. Sayaka pushing against Kyoko’s spear in episode 5 was also one of those.

This clash kind of pissed me off. Just tilt the sword 30 degrees and stab her instead of needlessly pushing against the spear, you twit!

Then there’s our eponymous (non) magical girl, Madoka. Hard to believe that we’ve almost reached the halfway point, and she’s still not a magical girl. Whodathunkit? The way she keeps getting hyped by Kyubey and Homura as a game breaker, I wonder if we won’t see her as a magical girl until the very end, under duress like Mami, in order to save something or someone. Or what if she never turns? Maybe the lesson is that by simply being herself, she was magical all along and just needed to click her heels 3 times! Yeah, that would suck.

Given everything Madoka has seen up to this point, who would blame her for not wanting to set foot into the monstrous world of magical girls? Yet she continues to do so despite lacking powers, because she cares about the safety of her friends. So like you’d expect a magical girl show to be, this is about the power of FRIENDSHIP and LOVE. Her nighttime conversation with her mother makes it clear that that’s what this show is going to go for. And to its credit, by putting these girls in tough situations and giving them life-altering and life threatening challenges, the show manages to make this boring message compelling.

It’s never the idea, it’s always the execution. So far, Magical Girl Madoka Magica has taken a very tired old premise and has executed wonderfully, especially with its consistently impressive art and pacing that provides slow burn punctuated by significant, memorable events. Again, because I don’t know much about magical girl shows, I’m staying away from the word “deconstruction.” But all that and the enormous amount of speculation aside, this is simply a fun, intriguing fantasy action show that tells its story very well. I can’t wait to see how the story will run its course and am eagerly looking forward to what else Shaft has in stock for when the Walpurgis Night that Homura mentioned comes.

Great end title card by Hajime Ueda, he of FLCL manga fame. He was also responsible for the ED art in Shaft's previous hit, Bakemonogatari.

There was plenty that happened in this episode that could be used to fuel speculation. At the same time, I’m not much of one for speculation; I prefer to let the work come to me at its own pace. Guessing and coming up with outlandish theories to fit what we know so far is not the game for me. Still, this episode gave lots of indications and hints that are worth at least mentioning.

As I had figured last week, Sayaka’s route to becoming a magical girl was the next thing to get focus, though it happened much faster than I had expected. I had expected Homura to play Sayaka’s foil as an example of someone who wished for someone else’s wellbeing only to have it backfire. That didn’t happen. In fact, it seems that Homura going to play mentor to Madoka, what with their sunset conversation while walking from Mami’s now abandoned room. If you have yuri goggles on, that scene provided plenty of service, particularly with Homura seeming to care just a bit too much about Madoka’s wellbeing. I’m looking forward to seeing all the fanart that will pop up.

The backdrop, other than being beautiful, reminded me a lot of the city at the start of Diebuster. That was another "magical girl" show with heavy girl-love undertones...

It’s noteworthy that Kyubey showed up exactly as Kyosuke was throwing his tantrum and Sayaka was revealing to him the world of magic. And that during the rooftop scene before, Kyubey only said good bye to Madoka. Shaft sure is laying it thick with hints that there is more to Kyubey than meets the eye. Again, I don’t think it’s going to be the simple bad-guy-all-along twist, but that looks to be at least part of the story. Either that or just a subtle red herring, which I wouldn’t put past this show at this point.

As for how Sayaka’s wish will turn out, the dreary music playing in the background during Kyosuke’s discovery hints that, indeed, not everything will go as planned. The next episode’s title is “I Have No Regrets,” and I’d like to think that it refers to Sayaka, who will see the wish blow up in her face, but still be happy (or maybe it will be a line for someone else entirely). Will Kyosuke abandon her but still have Sayaka be happy that she was able to help him? Maybe he’ll die, but Sayaka won’t regret making the wish for him? Or, perhaps the darkest result of all, Sayaka will have to face her own death, but happily and without regret, because she was at least able to give Kyosuke what he wanted? I think I like the sound of that last one, since it would have an impact on Madoka as well.

Though I hope that doesn’t happen for a few episodes, since I want to see more of Sayaka in action. Her moment of glory was rather short in this episode, certainly not comparable to what Mami displayed the past two episodes. But as a swordswoman, she’s sure to pull off some badass stuff in the future.

This was a pretty good OH SHI- moment, as we didn't find out until after the fact that this was how Madoka was sucked into the witch's realm.

Actually, the action overall was much weaker in this episode compared to the last 2, but the continuing evolution of the trippy other world made up for that. I’ve been impressed at Shaft’s ability to keep these segments fresh. The paper cutout collage art in the 1st couple episodes had clearly been taken right out of their Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OPs and bits of Bakemonogatari, but since then, the realms have evolved while still keeping that paper cutout aesthetic. The way Madoka was sucked into this one was gruesome and awesome, and the world itself, in which Madoka was falling endlessly while surrounded by TV screens showing Mami was appropriately surreal. The way her rendering changed as she was pulled in all directions before being saved by Sayaka was a nice touch and showed a character changing art style along with the background for the first time. I hope to see more of that.

Of course, I have to mention Kyoko, who made her introduction at the very end. Is she another magical girl, or something else entirely? If the former, why is she so hostile to other magical girls? What’s her relationship with Kyubey? If Homura is one who has become jaded from all the death she’s seen, is Kyoko someone who’s gone mad and power hungry from it? Or maybe she, not Homura, is the girl Mami and Kyubey were talking about who wished for someone else’s benefit only to have it backfire, and she’s absolutely pissed because of it?

I think the most important part of her to keep in mind is that she’s voices by Ai Nonaka (FUCK YEAH)! That came out of left field even moreso than Mami’s death last episode. Her sugary sweet voice is is quite literally a pleasure to hear, and I’ve missed her since she hasn’t taken on any major roles since the 2nd season of Natsu no Arashi. Now, her roles in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and as Ichijou in Pani Poni Dash had been somewhat psychopathic, but in a deceptive way. Kyoko is more blatant about it, and you can tell she’s playing her a lot darker than her other roles, but she can’t hide the cuteness in her voice.

This girl has FIRE IN HER EYES. And is that a melon bread? Wait, wrong show.

I really hope Kyoko will be around for a while, which maybe hoping for too much, since she wasn’t one of the 5 named major characters in the pre-airing promotion material, and the show has established that anyone can die at any time. I’m quite a bit surprised as to how much I’m enjoying this show, as I tend to have an aversion to things that receive a lot of hype beforehand (see: Black Rock Shooter). Then again, there are cases when the hype is justified (see: Evangelion 2.22, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya). In a way, Magical Girl Madoka Magica seems to fit more into a regular fantasy action genre, a la Shakugan no Shana, than the magical girl genre from which it derives its title. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the fact that the latter is merely a subgenre of the former, just sugarified. Is Madoka Magica what you call a deconstruction? I’m not really equipped to throw around that word, since I’ve never seen a magical girl show, but it sure seems to be trying to do something like it. And that’s proving to be very fun to watch.

It’s been a couple weeks, and we’re already about a quarter way into this show. I wrote mainly about the art style and potential for things to get interesting in my post on the first episode, and episode 3 saw this show make good on that potential. Now, this should be assumed for any episodic blog post, but, be warned, there are spoilers ahead.

A couple things about Magical Girl Madoka Magica have been surprises so far. First, Shaft is actually doing action well! Of course, Shaft is notorious for using cost cutting measures wherever possible in order to reduce the number of frames drawn. Not ideal for action, which is why most of its shows are comedies that rely heavily on the writing. Its weakness in action was demonstrated by last year’s middling Dance in the Vampire Bund.

Episode 1 of Madoka Magica didn’t contain any action. The scene with Mami’s multiple single shot guns at the end of episode 2 was quite nice, but even Vampire Bund had had flashes of brilliance, after all. Then the action in episode 3 was even better, with great choreography, timing, and animation while Mami took down those black… things. I think we are seeing a genuine pattern here, not just a flash in the pan. These weren’t crazy over the top high octane scenes you expect from a Gainax or Madhouse production, nor were they particularly long, but they were still among the better action scenes I’ve seen in TV anime.

But you already know that that’s not the most fun surprise from this latest episode.

The theme for the magical world this episode seemed to be sweets + hospital. Maybe that boy has diabetes?

A lot of speculation about the “dark” nature of the story had gone up after episode 2, and I had been deeply skeptical. Ooh, a quotation from Faust in the background, making a blindingly obvious allusion to the nature of the contract magical girls have to make in this world. Give me a break. This is still a magical girl show, after all. Let’s see some bodies before we talk about how “dark” or “subversive” this show is. I point out posts at THAT Anime Blog and 2DTeleidoscope as examples of posts that had me rolling my eyes.

Well, I happily stand corrected. Even throughout most of the episode, I was rolling my eyes at how typical and predictable everything was. Of course Sayaka had someone sickly (who is also clearly extremely rich, based on his hospital room) for whom she wanted a wish. Of course some other magical girl had tried using her wish for someone else, and of course it’ll be Homura, whose current angst will be explained by her wish having gone wrong, most likely due to the object of her affections ending up happy with someone else.

Of course Kyubey was starting to sound like he had ulterior, perhaps selfish, motives when discussing Madoka’s massive potential. Of course Mami’s wish had been made under duress, and her role as a magical girl was a life-long prison sentence, not some glorified triumph. Of course Mami was starting to show a darker side in needlessly tying up Homura, working with Kyubey to pull Madoka into the world of magical girls. *yawn*… yeah, we know, these characters aren’t all they seem, they already shoved that down our throats last episode…

Of course Madoka led such a happy life that she had no wish. Of course she would make Mami happy through the power of FRIENDSHIP and LOVE. Of course they were going to waste the wish on something banal, like a cake, which they would have to celebrate once Mami took care of this episode’s Monster Of the Week. Of course Mami would get her head bitten off at the climax, just when it looked like she was about to win. Of course-

Wait, what?

Yeah, so they killed off one of the primary 4 magical girls from the initial promotional material just 3 episodes in, and it had exactly the intended effect. The particularly gruesome way in which Mami died and Madoka’s and Sayaka’s horrified looks contributed a lot to the impact of the scene.

Yes, this is the kind of scene I was waiting for! The characters need to display a real fear for the consequences!

What was so satisfying about Mami’s death isn’t that she died, but how it was presented. It came suddenly, and it was followed quickly with the episode ending, Mami and Sayaka still in shock and tears from what happened. That’s what makes death scary in fiction, when it happens randomly and without meaning, when it just blindsides a character who you didn’t think had it coming. It establishes that, much like in real life, death is just something that can hit anyone at any time for any reason. The plot armor that we’re so used to seeing protect our protagonists isn’t there any more. It helps to make the rest of the work feel more tense and significant.

Where does the show go from here? I figure Sayaka’s wish will play a prominent role pretty soon. As I mentioned above, it seems to me that they’re setting up Homura as Sayaka’s foil, a magical girl who wished to help someone only to have the wish backfire on her. Homura’s disattached, deadpan face even after knowing that Mami had died reeks of the typical “jaded and cynical because life screwed me” character. This goes along with her constant attempts to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl presumably to save her from suffering the same fate as herself. Clearly she doesn’t want Sayaka to become a magical girl either, but I wonder if Sayaka will end up learning something from her anyway in order not to mess up at the same place she had.

Analytical and calculating speech just doesn't go well with such an innocent, unchanging happy face.

On Madoka’s own journey to being a magical girl, I already mentioned how creepy Kyubey looked when telling Madoka that she had the most potential of any girl he’d met (that unchanging smile and unmoving lips get a little unsettling when the conversation topic turns heavy). It’s pretty clear that this was purposeful, but why is Shaft doing it? I think they’re setting up for a classic double-twist, where we first learn for sure that Kyubey is indeed not all he seems, but then they turn it around so that he still turns out to be a good guy. It would be too simple if they played it straight and made him be the bad guy. I also think Madoka’s family life will play a major role in her story going forward, what with the shadier part of her mother’s work life rearing its ugly head the last couple of episodes.

What this show needs to do is to keep going in the same direction. One easy way that it could mess up is if it reverses Mami’s death. Now that it’s made its point about magical girls dying, dead needs to mean dead, not briefly inconvenienced. I want to see Madoka and Sayaka be put through the wringer. I want to see them under pressure, I want to see them forced to react to more horrific things, because that’s what’s fun to watch. With Mami’s death, the show has already pushed them down towards a painful journey, and I can’t wait to see it do even more.

With any luck, the worst is yet to come.

No Cybody fight this week, but this episode did a lot to bring the two big storylines closer to their conclusion. While I know a lot of people have been focusing on the Mizuno’s endless eight like experience, I thought the far more interesting storyline came from the very short segment between Sugata and Head.

First, given that Sugata must have figured out by now that Head was a part of the Glittering Crux, it was only natural for Head to finally offer him the position as the Emperor Squadron leader. While it seemed that Sugata was at first against the idea, his conversation with Takuto later in the episode about fighting for Wako did make me wonder what his motives were for this sudden change. That aside, the big revelation in this scene was that Head signed his painting the same way Takuto’s father did/does.

Now does this mean that Head is Takuto’s father? That would be pretty messed up if that were the case, but I think it is more plausible that Head somehow has access to Takuto’s dad’s memories after he apprivoised. This line of thought would require that Takuto’s dad would have at one point piloted Head’s current Cybody, which I guess isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but who knows. Star Driver does have a way of pulling things out of left field. However given that this show has already used some time/age altering plot devices, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that time passes differently for some characters (I thought that it might be possible that time passes at a different rate on the island than on the mainland, but it seems that Mizuno’s aunt recognized her now returned mother fairly easily, so that theory doesn’t seem to hold any water).

Poor Mizuno

Then there was poor Mizuno. Not only did she have to deal with the news that her mother had returned to the island, but she had to hear the aforementioned conversation between Takuto and Sugata, in which she deduced that Takuto liked Wako, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It now seems even more likely that Marino doesn’t actually exist than it did last week, especially considering that Mizuno likely created her as some sort of coping mechanism after her mother left. One thing I would like to know is if Marino really is just a figment of Mizuno’s power, does she realize it and does she have her own thought processes.

Regardless, I thought that Groundhog Day sequence was very well done and in such a short time period at that. I didn’t really understand Wako’s explanation for how she figured out what was going on, or why she and her grandmother didn’t keep a better eye on Mizuno after taking her in, but those are minor complaints to an otherwise very good episode.

Looking ahead to next week from the previews it seems like Takuto might finally lose to the Blue Cybody shown, but I wonder it will be interesting to see if this is the true form of Sugata’s Cybody or if it is Head’s. Additionally, it will be interesting to see what Keito and the Glittering Crux do with Mizuno. I find it weird that Keito would tell Mizuno how to leave the island, when it seems that there needs to be some sort of ritual performed, but maybe Keito isn’t all that bad (probably not, I mean did you see the above picture?). Still, all signs point to a lot of things happening in the next episode, so it should be good.

So Shaft and Shinbo’s hightly anticipated original magical girl show has started, which means we finally get to see what all the hype was about. At the same time, this was still just the first episode, so the “wait and see” approach would be the right one to follow at this point. Still, what was shown was unique and displayed a lot of potential, leaving me excited for more.

Story-wise, nothing presented here should make anyone even raise an eyebrow. It strictly followed well established cliches and tropes of schoolgirl anime, although it did it to such a fault that I can’t help but think that it was on purpose. I was inclined to facepalm when Madoka Kaname (Aoi Yuuki) ran out of her home with the toast hanging out of her mouth but was delighted to see her quickly munch it down just seconds after exiting the premises. Was that a casual wink and nod about that particular trope and how the show was using it but also destroying it?

Then, of course, there was the attractive transfer student, Homura Akemi (Chiwa Saito, channeling Hitagi Senjougahara with a heavier, more masculine voice than her usual cutesy one) around whom everyone clusters instantly. And like any attractive transfer student, there’s something mysterious about her (see: Itsuki Koizumi), such as the fact that she appeared in Madoka’s dream during the cold open, and that she already knows who Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki (Eri Kitamura) are, as well as the general layout of the school. Oh yeah, and it turns out she’s the bad guy, some magical girl trying to kill the ferret Kyubey (Emiri Kato) who also appeared in Madoka’s dream.

Yup, it's Aoki Ume's work, alright. Wish it was a bit wider, though...

But enough about the plot. Again, nothing special here. What really struck me about this episode was the art. First of all, the character designs obviously reek of Aoki Ume, she of Hidamari Sketch fame. Though the faces aren’t quite as wide as in that show (for shame), the soft, rounded faces and simple and solid colored hair styles reminded a lot of the characters from Hidamari Sketch. The key was in the large, widened eyes, though, with the subtle pencil strokes for shading visible during the close ups.

But, as was the case before with Shaft’s Bakemonogatari, the backdrops were what really stole the show. Shaft was clearly going for the super-clean near-future aesthetic with the designs of various locales from the episode. It started with the Kaname house (speaking of near-future, we’ve got a working mother and a stay-at-home husband in this one, a very modern nuclear family) with its hard rectangular lines, wide open spaces with huge windows. The bathroom scene with Madoka and her mother could’ve been terribly boring without all that architectural eye candy (and, of course, Shinbo’s favorite visual trick, reflections). There were some subtle touches here and there as well, such as the presence of the staircase in Madoka’s parents’ bedroom, or the changing digital picture frame behind Madoka’s mother just as she leaves for work.

Watching the banal household morning scene unfold, all I could think was, "I WANT TO LIVE IN THERE!"

The same aesthetic was pushed hard at the school as well, with all of the walls surrounding the classrooms being made of glass, and the use of digital whiteboards instead of the traditional chalkboards. Same goes for the CD shop at the mall, with its glass shelves and walls filled with square shaped windows. All in all, the super-clean near-futuristic look made for a very appealing world, one very pleasing to the eyes.

And all that served as a strong contrast to what would happen when the magical girls actually entered the picture. As the battle started in an unfinished portion of the mall, the style took a distinct shift in a more dirty, lived-and-worked-in direction. Even with the daylight peeking through the large windows, the place was oppressively dark and dirty. What really pushed that was Mami Tomoe’s (Kaori Mizuhashi – played Miyako in Hidamari Sketch) entrance, when the scenery became full-on psychedelic collage, the same type seen in some episodes of the later seasons of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as well as parts of Bakemonogatari (it is displayed well here in the OP to the 3rd Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OVA).

We’re talking some really disturbing stuff, the stuff nightmares are made out of. Creepy chanting butterflies with clouds with handlebar mustaches. I’ve never seen a magical girl show, but I’m guessing that the art style during their transformations and fighting are a lot cleaner than what was shown here. At the same time, the contrast levels took a huge jump, painting the characters with far more stark and harsh colors, away from the soft, more pastel tones from during the everyday scenes.

You can clearly see the more saturated, stark colors filling in not just the background but also the characters.

So even though Magical Girl Madoka Magica isn’t exactly taking things to The Tatami Galaxy or Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt levels, it’s doing some very fun things with its art style. And so far, the eye candy alone intrigues me enough to be excited about seeing more. Again, the story is strictly run-of-the-mill, and the music isn’t much to write home about. The tune during Mami’s transformation scene (one that was wonderfully short and to the point, I might add) was quite nice, but the rest of it was forgettable. Yuki Kajiura‘s music has never done anything for me in the past, other than fitting in wonderfully with the dark horror theme of the Kara no Kyoukai movies. And the opening theme, usually a strong point of Shaft’s shows, might have been good if it didn’t sound exactly like Irony, the opening theme to last season’s horrendous My Little Sister Can’t be This Cute.

This was a strong first episode overall, certainly stronger than the first episodes of any of Shaft’s (new) efforts last year (Dance in the Vampire Bund, Arakawa Under the Bridge, and Yet the Town Keeps Going). Even though we’ve yet to see any of the story unfold, the distinctive and pleasing art style makes me see a lot of potential for the rest of the show.

As a bonus, even the art piece at the end was absolutely beautiful.

So this is a bit of a cheat, as it’s about something from 2000, not 2010. It’s about something exactly 10 years ago, in fact, as today, December 21, 2010, is still the 10th anniversary of Gainax’s release of the 5th episode of FLCL, Brittle Bullet. This is part of a series of posts I’m making on looking back at FLCL 10 years later. Like all my other posts, I opted not to rewatch the episode for the post and to write based only on memory instead. You can read the other posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing).

I see this as a bit of an odd episode. It was right in the middle of the tour de force that was the entire 2nd half of FLCL, yet it didn’t have the same magic of episode 4 or the significance of being the true climax of episode 6. Still, this episode was a major part of the reason that the last half of FLCL was as amazing as it had been, and it provided some of the best action sequences in the show while also pushing the plot along.

What got me about the episode at first was the action. It was full of it, from the opening BB gunfight between Naota and his father, to Amarao’s encounter with Haruko at the barber shop, to the climactic scene in which Haruko, dressed up as Gainax’s old Daicon girl, battled it out against the gigantic gunslinging hand robot.

I remember fondly the John Woo style scene at the barbershop, in which Haruko decimated Amarao’s troops with ease (speaking of John Woo, I loved the reference to him at the beginning of the episode, when the Nandaba family was watching some action movie on TV in which doves suddenly start swarming everyone, eventually escaping from the TV and entering their living room). One shot that stayed with me was when she was shown dodging bullets, not by avoiding them per se, but rather by changing the shape of her body to have holes where the bullets would hit. Or what about the scene just before, when Haruko cleanly sliced in half Amarao’s bullets using nothing but a pair of shaving razors? Talk about fucking badass.

This single take sequence is one of my favorites in any anime.

Of course, if you want badassery, what about taking down a gunslinging hand robot while riding a bass guitar like a hoverboard and using a slingshot as the weapon? Haruko’s devil may care attitude as she performed beautiful acrobatics, flying around and shooting and running on the gunslinger’s gun was a joy to watch. As was her display of more of her unique bullet dodging abilities. There was a great humorous touch of realism as well, as the oversize shells from the robot’s guns fell right into the path of Amarao and Kitsurubami (those shells actually reminded me a lot of Gainax’s earlier masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion, in which the gigantic humanoid robots got proportionately sized tools and objects). And of course the climax was distinctly FLCL, featuring Canti pulling out a glowing guitar from his face as both Haruko and Amarao, watching in awe, yelling out in unison, “That’s Atomsk’s Gibson EB Zero, 1961 edition!” And just as the all of The Pillows’s Crazy Sunshine played in the background during the final action sequence of the previous episode, their Blues Drive Monster played through this one, providing upbeat, energetic accompaniment to the equally playful scene taking place.

One of the truly iconic shots from this show. Let it never be said that FLCL was subtle.

I haven’t even mentioned its beautiful use of guns for transitions. Gunshots were used to connect many scenes, from the opening BB gunfight to a flashback of them watching an action movie the night before, from Amarao and Haruko’s initial exchange at the barbershop to Mamimi shooting Naota with the BB Uzi, from Kitsurubami freaking out on Canti back to the completion of Amarao and Haruko’s exchange at the barbershop, and even Ninamori seeing the dumped and depressed Mamimi through the green squirt gun she won via the aforementioned popsicle.

I would be remiss not to mention the famous South Park parody scenes. They were stuff just out of left field and helped add to the crazy, surreal feeling that was so important to the FLCL experience. It didn’t occur to me until a later viewing, but the latter scene, in which Naota played the role of Kenny, unable to produce anything more than muffled sounds when talking to Mamimi, may have been a foreshadowing of how his ego was about to get killed in a couple of gruesome ways in the rest of the episode.

It's funny that now in 2010, 10 years later, Gainax once again parodied South Park with the beach episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Were there any others in between?

But more significant than all the heart pounding  action was the intense character development taking place throughout the episode. One scene that I didn’t fully understand the first time around was the imagery of fellatio created by Ninamori sucking on her popsicle. Of course, it represented the overwhelming praise Naota was receiving from his friends in that scene. But what of when she bit the popsicle off? Did it show how Ninamori was one who had not been taken in by the hype and didn’t see him as some super hero? Or was it a foreshadowing of what would happen later in the episode, when Naota would be taken back down to Earth by learning that, in Mamimi’s eyes, he was still not equal to his brother?

That was the heart of this episode: Naota’s realization that even after everything he did throughout the show, to Mamimi, he was still nothing more than “Ta-kun,” the little brother to the one she really loved, a replaceable substitute. He was brimming with confidence as he forcibly dragged her to the cafe then tried to get a kiss, only to be rejected. But the breaking point was when they were on top of the gunslinger, Mamimi yelling out for help over and over again not to him but to his brother, “Tasuku-senpai,” even though he was right there next to her. His anger blew up then, and it was clear that he was trying to hide the immense pain he felt from Mamimi rejecting him so completely.

This was easily one of my favorite and most powerful moments in the show. It perfectly delivered the anger and confusion that the adolescent Naota must have felt at this rejection.

It was a pretty powerful moment. The episode ended with Naota getting rejected by another female, this time Haruko, who carelessly landed right on top of him to get next to the awakened Canti as she looked on with admiration. What this episode showed both to Naota and to the viewer was that despite everything, Naota was nothing more than a tool to these women whom he liked and thought cared for him. If the ending of Full Swing showed Naota hitting his zenith, the ending to Brittle Bullet showed him on his way to rock bottom.

At the beginning of the episode, Haruko was on top of Naota, wearing nothing but a towel, in bed. Here they are again, but in a very different way.

Looking back now, it’s hard to believe just how chock full of things this episode was. It started with the threads from the previous episode of Naota and his father competing over Haruko and Mamimi’s disappointment at seeing that Naota was one to swing the bat and ended with Naota being dumped by two women whom he thought liked him. In between, we got to learn a little more about Amarao’s past with Haruko – how he had been unceremoniously dumped by her when he was no longer a use to her – we got to see the effects of Atomsk’s manliness in Kitsurubami falling in love with Canti, and we were finally treated to the first glimpse of the “final boss” since the first episode, the red Canti without Naota within.

But more than anything, the nonstop wild action was what I took away from this episode on my first viewing. It was just plain fun, and it was a reminder that, for all the notoriety it gained with the ending to the Evangelion series, Gainax was an action oriented studio, and even if it wouldn’t do it in the most traditional of ways, it could still blow your socks off with its action. And even though, again, this episode didn’t have the power or significance of either of the episodes sandwiching it, it was a key component of what had made the last half of FLCL so special, and the Blues Drive Monster scene is one that easily stands toe to toe with any other action sequence in anime.

I leave you with another one of my all time favorite shots, so cool that Gainax decided to show it twice, from different angles!

That is the one thing I learned from my 10th grade English class. I had written an otherwise excellent (for a 10th grader), well sourced paper about Herbert Hoover’s life and she gives me a B- for no other reason than that the paper had no transitions. Suffice it to say, I’ve never made that mistake again in an academic paper. That’s one of the big issues with Legendary Heroes that has bothered me for some time; there are no transitions. Now, there has been the constant shifting from one story to another, and I’m cool with that. However, putting characters in unexplained situations, like the show did in episode 15, or the weird shift in tone from the last episode to this one are disappointing, to say the least.

Episode recap in four words: Sion goes crazy, finally.

Then there is the problem with the within show transitions. Having comedy intermixed with drama is a fine line to walk, and I pointed this out in my episode one post. LOLH has been doing a fine job with handling this concern of mine, but for some characters to act so out of turn, like Miran did in this episode, is perplexing to say the least. Now you might think that I hated the quick transition from the disconcertingly flirtatious and nice Sion to evil Sion, but that had been hinted at for some time, so while the transition was quick, it was understandable.

Aside from that last revelation, nothing really happened in this episode. It seems like the creators needed some reason to bring all of the characters together before Sion went bonkers, and they went with the birthday idea. Nothing too revolutionary or well imagined with that choice, but hopefully the show’s ending makes up for it. It was nice to see that the show hadn’t forgotten all of its side characters, like Miran and Noa (who was berating Clough for drinking too much in the background of the party scene, which was pretty funny). I really don’t think too much else needs to be said about this episode, so I’ll leave it at that.

I’ll end this post with some pictures of Ferris, but unfortunately there were no good ones of her blushing when it was revealed she was planning on opening her own Dango shop.