As many of my readers know, I am a HUGE fan of Mahou Shoujo, or Magical Girl animes. If it features a cute girl in a floofy costume saving the world, I'm at least going to give it a solid chance. I grew up in the 90s with the golden age of Magical Girl series: Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tokyo Mew Mew, but in recent years I've had a really hard time finding a Magical Girl series I could really sink my teeth into. When you've seen enough of them, they sort of start blending together. The old tropes: the sweet but braindead heroine, the bickering teammates, the mysterious villain and the 40 minute long transformation sequence. I tried to give Pretty Cure a good try a few years back, but outside of the Kabuki David Bowie villain, I really didn't see anything I haven't seen a dozen times before. Then Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out. I've been hearing about it everywhere from friends and random internet folks all saying this series is the game changer, the mold breaker, the new, different and special we Mahou Shoujo fans have been craving. With that kind of information, I broke my unintentional anime viewing hiatus to check it out. Is it worth the hype?

Follow up:

Madoka Magica is about a girl named Madoka who dreams about a horrific battle between a girl roughly her age and a monstrous entity. A cute, cat-like creature says if she becomes a Puella Magi, she can stop this madness. Madoka wakes up, meets up with her two friends Sayaka and Hitomi and goes to school where a new transfer student is introduced: Homura, a girl who looks identical to the girl Madoka dreamt about. Madoka tries to be friendly, but cold, distant Homura gives her a dire and cryptic warning, and keeps her distance from the girl. Later that day, Madoka and Sayaka go shopping when they both hear a voice in their minds crying for help. They go to the mall's basement and find the same cute cat-like creature from Madoka's dream being hunted by Homura, who is dressed like some kind of super heroine. The battle is interrupted when a series of strange visuals appear, and another girl, Mami comes to rescue Madoka and Sayaka from this strange world, which is in fact a barrier created by a Witch.

After the Witch runs away, Mami thanks the girls for rescuing the creature, whose name is Kyubey. Both Mami and Homura are Puella Magi, girls charged with hunting Witches, beings of great despair and hatred whose Curses cause people to become murderers or suicidal. Kyubey says that both Madoka and Sayaka have potential to also become Puella Magi, and if they agree to take on the responsibility and hunt down the Witches, the girls could get any wish they wanted, no matter how unrealistic or impossible. But as the series goes on, we find out there's a price to pay for that offer, and there's more going on than Kyubey's happy smile is letting on.

This series is genuinely brilliant. It's easily one of the best animes I've ever seen in my life. A comment on Kotaku described Madoka as the Watchmen of Magical Girl series, and I would say that is a really good analogy. The story is amazing, thought provoking and moving even if it's only 12 episodes, and the Witch battles are some of the coolest use of animation I've seen in a long time out of an anime. It's like Salvidor Dali directed an anime. All the stereotypes get warped and examined, everything you expect gets turned on its head. It's not a perfect series however, because it's so short you don't get a chance to really feel for the girls, and only Sayaka and Madoka's stories are truly compelling because their arcs last the longest. Also the non-witch animation gets a little dull.

Also, be warned that this series is dark. Like Evangelion dark. Like X/1999 dark. The trailers and production art is extremely deceptive. This ain't your little sister's Magical Girl series, behind the cute imagery is a very mature psychological examination of self sacrifice, fate, and desire. If you are looking for light-hearted romance and lots of humor, look elsewhere. I will say that a lot of the themes remind me strongly of my friend Drake's ongoing universe of Science and Sorcery. If he ever watches this he'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm definitely getting this series once it comes out on DVD in the US next year, and I seriously hope that Madoka is the series that refreshes the Magical Girl genre.