In terms of the story... I'm new to the majou shojo genre, and wish I had found it sooner! I'm so compelled by the idea of a magical girl--someone who appears ordinary to others yet has the ability to be a hero in her hidden life. It's an empowering narrative because it feels really true to the world as it really is, which is a place in which girls and femmes are made by default to feel powerless, despite all that they can actually do.
I was immediately drawn to Sayaka, who is mediocre in life and love and magical ability but believes so strongly in carrying out justice in a certain way, ultimately alienating everyone around her and is literally consumed by her own grief. I feel her energy in terms of seeing injustice and wanting to strike it down with her own fists. She's the SJW that SJW-haters love to hate!! Her story also reminds me of my own fear that my anger will alienate people I care about, which hers ultimately does. I found her rivalry with the fiery Kyoko probably the most compelling relationship of the show. Kyoko and Sayaka initially hate each other because they are so similar, equally fierce in their beliefs that their approach to justice is the most correct. Kyoko's cold and detachment approach to justice feels backwards to Sayaka, but really they've both crafted approaches to carrying out their magical duties that are informed by their experiences (e.g. they both used their wish to help someone they loved, only to have it all completely backfire in different ways, and in Kyoko's case a horribly traumatic way). I love the moment in Ep 5 when Sayaka declares "If there are humans who are worse than witches out there, I'll fight them too. Even if they happen to be magical girls," leaving poor Madoka anguished and perplexed at this infighting among supposed allies!!! It me! Both of them!!!
Interestingly, the whole Homura plot was spoiled for me before I even watched the show, which I think was a blessing in disguise because I could focus on other parts of the story since I knew the major twist that was coming. Homura's story is tragic indeed. Her love for her friend drives her to relive a painful journey over and over until it is all that she knows. Her attempts to drive Madoka away fails again and again, perhaps because her approach is to infantilize Madoka and give her commands while keeping her in the dark. Ultimately Homura is unable to protect Madoka as she intended. Instead, it is simply her love for her and her fight for her that allows Madoka to do what she does. What a metaphor for parenthood amirite???
Which brings us to Madoka, our Lord and savior. Madoka starts off as the Observer of the story, walking through life and watching as the truths of the world reveal themselves to her, forcing her to grapple with the twisted fate that lies ahead for her friends and the women that have come before her since the beginning of time. When told she could have any wish granted in exchange for becoming a magical girl, she truly believes that simply becoming a magical girl would be enough, because she'd finally feel like she had a purpose. SO real. At the end of the series, to see her finally realize what justice looks like and to use her unique powers in such a beautiful way, absolving the grief of all the magical girls that have come before her and wish them only strength and happiness, just felt so radical to me! It feels pointedly feminist, for her to have learned about the invisible labor foisted upon young women by the Kyubey peeps (idk what they're called haha) since the beginning of human existence, and to imagine a different reality, reconfiguring the universe as we know it in order to abolish that suffering... it's revolutionary! It's epic! It's what a benevolent god would do... create a world in which girls can be superheroes without having to pay with their souls. They can just be their wonderful, powerful selves.
And the ending speaks to this idea too. That all along, the true enemy was not the witches (which actually turned out to be fallen magical girls) but the exploitation of young girls' bodies and souls to serve some sort of higher purpose predetermined by the cold logic of the Kyubey peeps that paid no mind to the individual and generational suffering inflicted on this cohort of humans. One the cycle was broken, the ills of the world still remained. The difference was that the magical girls were free to live intentional lives.
My main critique of this show would be a representation issue, most glaringly re: the lack of magical girls with dark skin that Madoka saves in the last episode, when it's suggested that she goes back in time and saves all the magical girls throughout the world before her. This is clearly a flaw related to white supremacy and the way it erases the contributions of women with dark skin through its canonization of the contributions of Women in History (i.e. that Madoka sequence included characters who were clear references to a light-skinned Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Anne Frank). Of course, colorism and racism are pervasive in anime and most media in this world... boo.
Overall, I just loved Madoka Magica. It really spoke to me with its questions of what justice looks like, its mythology of what the ills of the world look like and where they come from, how the labor of young girls and femmes are often invisible, traumatic, and important. The story dared to reimagine a new world created by feminine love and justice. When I finished this show, I couldn't help but wish the world I live in could be rewritten like it was in this story.
Now off to watch Utena~
