For some time, whenever I’ve considered writing about Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I’ve stopped myself, because I assume that few people in my audience watch anime. Part of what makes this series so great is how it subverts the magical girl genre in anime. But how many of my readers know anything at all about magical girls?
Then I realized that most of what I know about magical girl anime comes from the anime geeks around me. It’s not a genre I typically enjoy, so when I watched Puella Magi based on the recommendations of others, I was watching it with mostly secondhand knowledge of magical girl anime. And yet I still loved it and understood what makes it so good.
So, because it is such a good series, I’m going to give readers a very short introduction to the magical girl genre, and then I’ll tell you why you need to watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica, even if you don’t normally watch anime.
What’s a Magical Girl?
Magical girl anime has been around since the 1960s, when a Japanese cartoon called Sally the Witch first aired. (Some magical girl manga came out before that, as early as the 1950s.) It first took off in the U.S. with the series Sailor Moon.
Not all magical girls are exactly like this, but Sailor Moon exemplifies a very popular type in this genre: a regular schoolgirl who is called to save the world. Before doing battle, she transforms into a magical version of herself. She sometimes works on her own, but she often is part of a larger team, such as the girls in Ojamajo Doremi.
Magical girls also are often accompanied by an animal or animal-like mentor, such as the winged creature in Cardcaptor Sakura. In anime such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, this “Mentor Mascot” informs the main character of her magical calling and then advises her as she learns how to be a magical girl.
Essentially, magical girls are cute, powerful girls who battle evil. I wasn’t at all surprised to find an essay titled, “I Want to Be a Magical Girl.” I’m sure many a little girl wishes she had powers like the characters in these shows.
And Then Came Puella Magi Madoka Magica
If you noticed the image at the top of this post, Puella Magi Madoka Magica appears to be just another magical girl anime.
It’s not. Puella Magi turns the genre on its head. While the magical girls are cute and powerful, and there’s an animal-like mentor, this series is dark. More importantly, it raises questions about what it means to be a magical girl.
In the world of this series, magical girls battle witches, whose presence can be discovered through concentrations of human misery, such as a rash of suicides in one area. Each magical girl possesses a soul gem, a container in which her soul is kept after she becomes magical. Over time, these gems become corrupted and must be cleansed through grief seeds collected from the witches that the girls battle. The very act of fighting evil corrupts a magical girl’s soul.
There are enough twists that I don’t want to give away too much about the plot of this series, but as it continues, it questions the whole notion of the heroic magical girl. Is becoming a magical girl, even for a very good reason, worth the cost? Is this really a role to aspire to?
Most magical girl anime is too sweet for my taste, but the depth and artistry of this series held my attention.
And speaking of artistry…
Don’t Just Watch This Because It’s Subversive
The animation for Puella Magi is stunning. When the girls are in the “real world,” the animation is typical of what you might expect of anime (and very well done). But when the girls move into the labyrinths where the witches hide, the style changes, and it’s really something!
The music is good, too.
The original series is only twelve episodes, each approximately 25 minutes long, so this isn’t a major commitment. If you get really into it, there’s also a trilogy of films (which I haven’t seen) and a lot of manga. You can find the original series on Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.