The Dark World of Madoka Magica

This piece will contain mild spoilers for the 2011 animated Japanese show Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

The year was 2021, and COVID-19 was running our everyday lives. (I’m currently writing this with COVID-19 this very second in our good year 2024–how ironic is that?)

Like many others, I had the luxury of being very, very bored during quarantine, and I was also very lonely. Needless to say, I was watching a lot of television. Shows, movies, anime—you name it, I was watching it. Quarantine was definitely a time of mass consumption, in more ways than one.

I had just finished an anime by the name of Banana Fish, and it was great. It was also one of the most distressing shows I’ve probably ever seen. It absolutely destroyed me. I cried all throughout the show, I cried during the (devastating) last episode, and I cried thinking about it later that night. It had me an absolute wreck.

The following day, I decided my next show was going to be recovery. I wanted to find a nice, sweet, slice-of-life anime to indulge myself in.

So, like any red-blooded human would, I went to Reddit. I typed, Best happy, slice of life anime? Something like that. The very first comment I saw gave me the name of an anime I didn’t recognize: Madoka.

Madoka. Hmm. Okay.

I looked it up, looked at the cover art, and thought it looked quite cute, if not a little infantile. But I’m a child in a 22-year-old body who rewatched the entirety of Sailor Moon at 20 and enjoyed every moment of it, so I wasn’t ready to complain.

So I returned back to the thread to see the comments, curious what the good people of Reddit had to say about this cute, corny-looking show about a couple of magical girls. To my surprise, I realized that the comment suggesting Madoka as a happy, silly show must have been a joke. All the responses were ones of hilarity at the concept of it being cute or of abject horror at deceiving people this badly.

I found myself even more intrigued now, but I also found myself rather doubtful. The way people talked about it, this was the darkest show to ever hit the Internet. Could it really be that upsetting? That violent? That shocking? Was I really about to watch Berserk with magical girls? This was really a creepy, scary show? With that art style? How dark could that pink haired twelve year old on the cover possibly get?

I was pretty immediately ready to watch it, my plans for a slice-of-life show completely forgotten. Yes, Banana Fish had scarred me, but it had scarred me because it was so dark, and that anime is as devastating as it is because it’s way too real. The human characters have human problems, and they are traumatized or cruel or conflicted in painfully human ways. A magical girl show gone wrong? Gone dark? I saw no way it could affect me negatively. I was ready to have a good time and hopefully a good fright, and I was ready to have zero emotional investment in any of these corny, colorful little ladies and just have a good time. It seemed in no way rooted in any reality.

So I watched it. Twelve episodes—I was done within a day. It was quarantine, don’t judge me.

And I have to say: I was very, very wrong.

After watching it, I came to the conclusion that yes—Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a show about magical girls. This much is true. Think Cardcaptor Sakura, think Sailor Moon. A special little creature that talks comes to Earth and grants a little girl superpowers. This is a common trope in magical girl shows, and it happens in all three of these anime. What I didn’t realize until watching it was that the very purpose of Madoka was not to be dark or scary or edgy for the sake of it; it was to take the magical girl genre and subvert it, contorting it on its head. It was a complete and utter destruction and reconstruction of the entire genre as a whole. It had all the same working parts—the talking animal, the cheerful main girl, her best friend, the dark, spooky girl who clearly has a lot going on, the color coordinated outfits, the random, somewhat vapid bad guys—only it took every single aspect of that and twisted them in such clever, creative ways.

I don’t know why I immediately undermined the show, even after seeing that there was a deeper, darker side to it before I’d watched it. I had committed the grave sin of not trusting my anime brothers, sisters, and other kinfolk to know a good anime when they see one.

I’d also committed the sin, in all honesty, of a bit of what I view now as internalized misogyny. I took in the name and the concept and the cover art and the young, happy, all-female cast I’d seen to determine that the show would probably not have any depth or lasting impact on me, when really the depth and emotion in Madoka is incredible. I found myself passing judgements on “girly” shows my entire life. It was more than just being a pick-me around my elemenary and middle school friends, many of which were boys. I had a real, true disdain for the whimsical and the feminine for so long, and I didn’t know why. Madoka made me reflect on these deep-seated insecurities I held towards female casts and characters and ask myself, why? Why can’t they be taken seriously? Why shouldn’t they be? Maybe it’s a bit silly, but I truly believe this anime opened my eyes to how beautiful women and girls and feminine magic can be, and how dark and destructive and powerful they can be as well.

Warning for explicit spoilers if you’d like to give this show a shot, but these are some of the moments that had me gaping, crying, or on the absolute edge of my seat:

• A beloved, strong mentor-like character named Mami takes the girls out on some missions before they have powers, showing them how fun and cool it is to be a magical girl. She is brutally beheaded by a witch in the third episode while teaching Madoka and her friend Sayaka how to fight witches; this is the ultimate start of the genre change of the show.

• Madoka and Sayaka cope with the trauma of witnessing the murder of their new friend while still being coerced by this cute, creepy little animal named Kyubey to become magical girls.

• When you become a magical girl, you get a wish. Sayaka agrees to the magical girl contract and uses her wish to heal the arm of her lifelong crush so he can play his violin again. He immediately starts dating another girl, Sayaka’s other best friend, and he couldn’t be happier. Oof.

• Sayaka learns that to become a magical girl, you give up your very soul, the core of your being as a human. She learns this after becoming one. Oof again.

• Sayaka grows increasingly depressed. She feels as if her body has been violated and something has been taken from her, and she begins doubting her own morality, questioning if her wish was kind and helpful like she wants to be (like Mami) or selfish and cruel (like a witch).

• At the end of her existential crisis, Sayaka ends up having a mental breakdown. She is cruel and cold to Madoka. She stops collecting Grief Seeds, which appear in a witch’s place after they are defeated, essentially purposefully harming herself and filling her Soul Gem with darkness and despair. On the train, she hears two men talking crudely and despicably about their girlfriends who love them, and it is then that she decides people are not worth saving. Her Soul Gem is overrided completely with darkness, and she becomes a witch, fully killing her human self.

• It’s here we learn that corrupted, sad magical girls are what make witches, the monsters magical girls are tasked with slaying.

• Madoka is going THROUGH it. That’s two friends dead. And Kyubey is still pushing her way too hard to become a damn magical girl.

• The most jarring part of the story for me—who we know as the minor antagonist of the story, Homura (really it’s Kyubey, but alas) is revealed to have the most tragic backstory ever. We as watchers know she is only concerned with the safety of Madoka, constantly following her and policing her actions. Guys—this girl has reversed and gone back in time thousands of times in countless timelines to try and save Madoka’s life, but Madoka always ends up dying in the end. This is why she is so jaded and cold. It was such a devastating episode.

It’s not a friend love either, which was an interesting, heartbreaking angle. Homura is a thousand percent very clearly in love with Madoka, which we love. I admire Madoka for taking that extra step for queer people for once and not doing this song and dance so much anime does where we all pretend the two same sex characters don’t have romantic chemistry. Let’s not be delusional.

So yeah—no depth? No emotional investment? Am I out of my mind? This show was phenomenal.

I had also previously judged the show’s animation, which—hey, wrong. The animation was stellar, beautiful, and stunning throughout. The show’s artists didn’t even stick to a singular style, which was awesome. They use this insanely beautiful paper-cut style of animation for all of the fights, depicting witches and their domains specifically as collage-like and colorful. They’re like 2D art pieces in an otherwise 3D show, and it’s insanely cool. Here’s a few of my favorites:

All in all, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a legendary, genre-bending show that surprises you at every turn with its intense themes and jarring imagery. It’s definitely not overrated—it’s talked about so much for a really good reason! This show has it all—great fights, funny moments, heartbreaking moments, amazing writing, complex characters, and a major plot twist at the end that I haven’t mentioned!

If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and please, give it a shot! It’s only twelve episodes 😉

Thanks for reading!