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I already had my suspicions in the last entry, but by the time I watched Madoka on Thursday I was pretty sure I was coming down with a cold. And look, I did! One with a low fever. So I had to spend some time feeling miserable before I could get back to the computer. Now I'm gonna make a WHOLE NEW ENTRY for Madoka!
I was disappointed. I was not enraged or depressed, though I was weirded out, and disappointed. I watched for girls having awesome fight scenes and interacting more or less as a team. For exactly one of them to go off and announce that she would become a god and end the story...I mean, Madoka saving each and every magical girl from a fate worse than death was nutritious creamy soul moisturizer for me. It was good. It just wasn't as good as Usagi mowing down the last boss and healing the world with the help of the spirits of her friends. Not only did the universe get reset, Madoka had to really sacrifice herself for good, instead of just returning to the life of a schoolgirl who runs to school with toast in her mouth every morning. And her best friend got left behind---imagine if Rei and the other inner senshi spent the rest of their lives missing their princess. Ffff.
Isn't Urobuchi is the anime version of Whedon? A friend of mine argues that Whedon gives the characters a brief moment of happiness and is thus different, but I think any writer who sacrifices the happiness of female characters to prove that the world is a sad, shitty place ...should jump off a fucking bridge. What the hell? He would have let Sayaka die every time around afliuahsrgfiulahg. Uhh, anyway, the fact that he averted a massive downer ending with something slightly less sad irritates the shit out of me. Yeah, I understand there is the whole rest of the show, which I enjoyed, but how good can he be if he let what I guess is a fixation on angst change it?
(rant about stupid people in general: What kind of writer are you if you claim that a depressing ending is something that was was required by your characters? Saying that your characters are so alive that you can't get a happy ending out of them is just another advertisement. "Ooh, look at me and my uncontrollable characters, they're so real they have to all die! It's all their fault, anyway that's how real life is, so read my stuff and get awesome characters and reality!!!!" It is lazy and weak and immature. You are the writer. Get your ducks in a row, or admit that you wanted angst---why are you expressing yourself anyway?
I see people talking about underaged nudity and other fanservice in Madoka Magica and I remember how I felt about Nanoha. Fate and Nanoha were married only so that they could pose naked together in color pictures, their hairless skin gleaming everywhere, while their nipples touched and ribbons covered only the important parts. Ten years old. (This was not in anything that aired on TV, it was a picture in a novel I bought. The ad on the cover kept me from seeing a panty shot ;_;) It is not an easy shock. But they were transforming, fighting with weapons that clanked, working as powerful members of a SPACE ARMY, and having their capabilities ranked as statistics like characters in some GEEK THING. I think it's okay to look around the creepy stuff if your media has something you want. It's also okay to get mad that you have to compromise instead of getting spoonfed.
Next time I will do an entry on Atelier Rorona 8D
EDIT:
What I got from this show is a message that it is a really terrible idea to give teenagers the power to break the rules of physics and rewrite the universe. The only reason you would do it is if you wanted the teenagers to go crazy, die, and start ripping up everything they ever cared about. It is unfortunate that magical girls were chosen to send this message, and that it was done for moe, but I don't think it was done on purpose to show just how wrong it is when women are strong.
Incubators could probably get energy from any human, but they choose girls because they have fewer legitimate ways to make their own wishes come true in our society. They choose certain girls for poorly defined desires and lack of ability to fulfill them. Adults male and female are out because they know what they want and they can have it. Tatsuya is out because he's privileged (and also because his most serious battle is waking up mom in the morning). Kyoshiro is out because he's a genius violinist with girls falling all over themselves to be the comfort part in his hurt story. Hitomi is out because she's rich, she gets the boy she wants, and she has a million lessons to make herself good wife material---not that this is a very nice situation, but she's chugging along just fine.
Homura is recovering from a serious illness that might make her feel guilty for existing, and people think she's an idiot at school. Madoka is still a baby who draws adorable pictures of her magical girl outfit and gets really charged about helping Mami kill the bad guys. If they hung around for a while and suffered through being teenagers, things would likely get better for them later. But Kyuubey comes along and dangles a shortcut in their faces! It's not wrong that they were given the power to make wishes come true and be awesome, because they would have that stuff in a few years anyway, like Madoka's mother. It's also not wrong that they did it while still young, seeing as Kyoushirou and Hitomi are two teenagers who land up with everything they want. What I got from this is that it is wrong that somebody exploited them and told them how wonderful it is to sacrifice themselves. In the end, Madoka did sacrifice herself (just not in a way that would help Kyuubey), and it sucks, but what can I do? She's a stupid teenager.
I was disappointed. I was not enraged or depressed, though I was weirded out, and disappointed. I watched for girls having awesome fight scenes and interacting more or less as a team. For exactly one of them to go off and announce that she would become a god and end the story...I mean, Madoka saving each and every magical girl from a fate worse than death was nutritious creamy soul moisturizer for me. It was good. It just wasn't as good as Usagi mowing down the last boss and healing the world with the help of the spirits of her friends. Not only did the universe get reset, Madoka had to really sacrifice herself for good, instead of just returning to the life of a schoolgirl who runs to school with toast in her mouth every morning. And her best friend got left behind---imagine if Rei and the other inner senshi spent the rest of their lives missing their princess. Ffff.
Isn't Urobuchi is the anime version of Whedon? A friend of mine argues that Whedon gives the characters a brief moment of happiness and is thus different, but I think any writer who sacrifices the happiness of female characters to prove that the world is a sad, shitty place ...should jump off a fucking bridge. What the hell? He would have let Sayaka die every time around afliuahsrgfiulahg. Uhh, anyway, the fact that he averted a massive downer ending with something slightly less sad irritates the shit out of me. Yeah, I understand there is the whole rest of the show, which I enjoyed, but how good can he be if he let what I guess is a fixation on angst change it?
(rant about stupid people in general: What kind of writer are you if you claim that a depressing ending is something that was was required by your characters? Saying that your characters are so alive that you can't get a happy ending out of them is just another advertisement. "Ooh, look at me and my uncontrollable characters, they're so real they have to all die! It's all their fault, anyway that's how real life is, so read my stuff and get awesome characters and reality!!!!" It is lazy and weak and immature. You are the writer. Get your ducks in a row, or admit that you wanted angst---why are you expressing yourself anyway?
I see people talking about underaged nudity and other fanservice in Madoka Magica and I remember how I felt about Nanoha. Fate and Nanoha were married only so that they could pose naked together in color pictures, their hairless skin gleaming everywhere, while their nipples touched and ribbons covered only the important parts. Ten years old. (This was not in anything that aired on TV, it was a picture in a novel I bought. The ad on the cover kept me from seeing a panty shot ;_;) It is not an easy shock. But they were transforming, fighting with weapons that clanked, working as powerful members of a SPACE ARMY, and having their capabilities ranked as statistics like characters in some GEEK THING. I think it's okay to look around the creepy stuff if your media has something you want. It's also okay to get mad that you have to compromise instead of getting spoonfed.
Next time I will do an entry on Atelier Rorona 8D
EDIT:
What I got from this show is a message that it is a really terrible idea to give teenagers the power to break the rules of physics and rewrite the universe. The only reason you would do it is if you wanted the teenagers to go crazy, die, and start ripping up everything they ever cared about. It is unfortunate that magical girls were chosen to send this message, and that it was done for moe, but I don't think it was done on purpose to show just how wrong it is when women are strong.
Incubators could probably get energy from any human, but they choose girls because they have fewer legitimate ways to make their own wishes come true in our society. They choose certain girls for poorly defined desires and lack of ability to fulfill them. Adults male and female are out because they know what they want and they can have it. Tatsuya is out because he's privileged (and also because his most serious battle is waking up mom in the morning). Kyoshiro is out because he's a genius violinist with girls falling all over themselves to be the comfort part in his hurt story. Hitomi is out because she's rich, she gets the boy she wants, and she has a million lessons to make herself good wife material---not that this is a very nice situation, but she's chugging along just fine.
Homura is recovering from a serious illness that might make her feel guilty for existing, and people think she's an idiot at school. Madoka is still a baby who draws adorable pictures of her magical girl outfit and gets really charged about helping Mami kill the bad guys. If they hung around for a while and suffered through being teenagers, things would likely get better for them later. But Kyuubey comes along and dangles a shortcut in their faces! It's not wrong that they were given the power to make wishes come true and be awesome, because they would have that stuff in a few years anyway, like Madoka's mother. It's also not wrong that they did it while still young, seeing as Kyoushirou and Hitomi are two teenagers who land up with everything they want. What I got from this is that it is wrong that somebody exploited them and told them how wonderful it is to sacrifice themselves. In the end, Madoka did sacrifice herself (just not in a way that would help Kyuubey), and it sucks, but what can I do? She's a stupid teenager.