Review of Puella Hagi Madoka Magica

Written for Witch Awareness Month 


The Complete Series Episodes 1-12
Magica Quartet/Manga Ariplex, Madoka Partners MBS
Original Story: Magica Quartet
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo
Screenplay: Gen Urobuchi (Nitroplus)
Character Concepts: aokiume
Character Design: Takahiro Kishida

DVD Description: Madoka Kaname is an average 14-year-old girl who loves her family and friends. One fateful day, this all changes when she has a very magical encounter with a strange creature called a Kyubey. Kyubey have the power to grant one wish to chosen girls. However, in exchange, those chosen must become magical girls and use their powers to fight against witches, evil creatures born from darkness and catalysts of despair. 

First off, despite the Japanese schoolgirl costumes, Puella Hagi Madoka Magica is Dark. The story centers around a group of five girls – one of whom is Madoka Kaname, some of whom are confronted with the choice of becoming magical girls, and some who are already are.

Sayaka, Homura, Madoka, Kyoko, Mami

 The anime itself is gorgeous, from the quality and sharpness of the animation to the rich colors and effective surrealism of some of the settings that fit well with the excellent soundtrack, music composed by Yuki Kajiura. That alone makes it a pleasure to watch. The DVD I own has the choice of English or Japanese with English subtitles. I think anime is only truly authentic viewed as the latter, at least for me. I did watch a couple of the episodes in English, and it just didn't work for me. English is too tame a language for anime. There isn't any graphic violence (rating of 15), but this may have been edited for North American sensibilities.

As implied by the description, magical girls are the good guys. Witches are the bad guys. They're all female. In fact, the minimal male presence in the series is secondary except for possibly Kyubey, who looks like a white cat with gold-ringed pigtails coming out of his ears. There is a subliminal amount of girl love going on; it's really not more than a hint and done very elegantly (it's an implied rather than explicit form of yuri).

Kyubey

 Before meeting Kyubey, Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a new transfer student at their school, Homura Akemi. She's beautiful and mysterious with a strong Japanese-Goth vibe about her. Shortly thereafter, Madoka and Sayaka encounter Kyubey and are drawn into a surreal alternate reality landscape – a witch's labyrinth – where they are in mortal danger until rescued by magical girl Mami Tohoe, who dispatches the witch.

Over cake and coffee, Mami explains the basics of being a magical girl. Witches have to be destroyed. It's a full-time occupation and doesn't leave time for any kind of normal life including boyfriends or careers or even growing up. It's a non-reversible contract made with Kyubey. The contract is sealed by Kyubey granting the girl any wish she chooses. The physical contract manifests as a soul gem which contains the magical girls' power and their soul. Witches are born when their despair manifests as a grief seed. What Mami – and Kyubey – don't tell Madoka or Sanaka at this point is what's hidden in the fine print.

All magical girls are destined to become witches when their good magical energy turns dark. The magical girl can evade this fate for a time as long as she collects enough grief seeds to cleanse her soul gem. And magical girls who are not strong enough can be killed by witches and their familiars as well. Homura pits herself against Mami (and Kyubey) in an effort to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl. There's also fierce rivalries and territorialism among the magical girls due to the necessity of obtaining enough grief seeds to keep themselves from turning into witches.

Mami Tohoe battling a witch.

 As the story progresses, magical girls die during the course of battling witches. These battles take place in the witch labyrinths which are really creepy manifestations of the witches' power and are cool enough on their own to make another viewing of the anime worthwhile. It is unclear at first whether Kyubey is a force for good or evil and Homura, even though a magical girl, comes across as not-so-clearly on the side of the forces for good. This conflict would be enough to carry the story forward, but things become inordinately more complicated as the series progresses. I can best describe it without too many spoilers as a cross between Groundhog Day meets Highlander (substituting short schoolgirl skirts for kilts). It is a science fiction-magic mix, but I don't want to reveal too much about that.

Suffice to say that the plot turns interesting and even darker around the eighth episode; up until the final episode, the darkness seems unrelenting – there doesn't seem to be any redemption possible for the magical girls. My main critique is that the middle four episodes are relatively action-poor compared to the first four and the last four with backstory as filler and too few witch battles.

Some reviewers have called PHMM a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but I found it more of a creative reconstruction, fully self-aware and with sly asides about anime and cosplay from the characters themselves. Taken as a whole, the series is completely satisfying. I viewed all twelve episodes in one go, jet-lagged and armed only with a few glasses of wine and tomato sandwiches, and was not bored in the least.

What surprised me in a good way was the brief but interesting tie-in with global witch history. The final witch battle is even with an über witch with the name of Walpurgisnacht. Although I would have enjoyed a bit more background about this witch, it was a nice touch.

Highly recommended.

Review of the Vampire Knight Anime Series

This review first appeared on the Vampire Awareness Month on Mark Deniz's (Morrigan Books) blog

Sharon K. Reamer

Vampire Knight, 13 Episodes

Vampire Knight Guilty, 13 Episodes

Studio Deen

Vampire Knight is an anime dramatization of the of the same name as the (ongoing) shōjo manga (drawn by one of the stars of Japanese manga, Matsuri Hino) started in January, 2005. The first Vampire Knight anime series originally appeared on Japanese television starting in April 2008 and was followed in October 2008 by the second series, Vampire Knight Guilty.

The story follows the three protagonists Yuki Cross, Kaname Kuran, and Zero Kiryu. Yuki and Zero are Guardians posing as prefects at an unusual school founded by Yuki's adoptive father, Cross Kaien, a legendary vampire hunter who has hung up his sword and profession to start the Cross Academy intended to show that vampires and humans can live and study together peaceably. They are divided into the Day Class (humans) and Night Class (vampires). The nature of the Night Class students is a secret maintained by Chairman Cross and known only to Yuki and Zero, whose job it is to prevent the labile females of the Day Class from getting too close to the elegant, sparkly Night Class males and finding out that they are vampires or tempting the vampires with adolescent girls as snacks.

Yuki has no memories before the age of five, when Kaname, a (rare) pureblood or 'Level A' vampire saved her from a bloodthirsty 'Level E' vampire and brought her to Cross. She has adored Kaname since then, and it is quite clear that he feels the same about her. Zero came to live with Cross Kaien after his parents, also vampire hunters, were killed by a pureblood vampire. Zero was spared but hates all vampires and had already completed his apprenticeship as a vampire hunter. Kaname is the Dorm Leader of the Night Class, the only pureblood, among noble Level B vampire students. Both the Vampire Hunter Association and the Vampire Senate conspire to disrupt the peace of the Cross Academy for purposes of their own.

Zero, Yuki, and Kaname

My original intention was only to view the first seven episodes of the first series to get an impression. Each episode lasts twenty-four minutes including title and ending song. I watched them together with my 15-year old son in a single sitting. As my anime background is slight, and he watches a lot of anime, I wanted to see if he could also relate to this series. Although my son liked the episodes we watched, it was not something he wanted to actively pursue further. (Aside: he did ask when I was going to order the second half of the series. Teenage boys are inscrutable.)

I, on the other hand, was hooked after the first seven episodes. I watched all the remaining episodes of both series over the space of two weeks. The target audience for the magazine (and the anime dramatizations) are primarily girls between the ages of 13-25. The vampires are drawn with a lush sensuality, and Yuki is, of course, quite adorable. I found all of the animations richly detailed and well drawn.

Yuki Cross in her Day School uniform.

The love triangle with Yuki, Kaname, and Zero plays out with a generous number of plot twists and surprises. Some of the revelations were predictable, but many were not. Plot holes and inconsistencies abounded, and I had many questions at the end about certain details that were likely much clearer in the manga version. Despite this, I found the series irresistible and enjoyable.

Zero getting some from Yuki

The top-shelf vampires are all sparkly and have sworn off drinking human blood (at Kaname's insistence). They drink water with dissolved blood substitute tablets. Comparisons to Twilight must inevitably be made, at least for the first series, in terms of the problems of an ongoing love affair between human and vampire, but the original manga appeared nearly ten months before Twilight hit the bookstores.

The bestial Level E vampires are humans who have been 'turned' into a vampire by a pureblood and have degenerated due to bloodlust after a certain time. These vampires attack Yuki regularly necessitating rescue by either Zero or Kaname. Because of the PG rating, buckets of blood should not be expected with this series, although the blood volume is high enough to raise the level of violence satisfyingly above tame. Alas, also no sex, although the sensuality of the character exchanges are suggestive enough to titillate any teenage girl's heart.

A Level E vampire.

I found it interesting that most of the vampires drank blood from each other. Drinking the blood of a pureblood can bestow a vampire with more powers and also stave off degradation to a Level E vampire. Besides the usual traits such as enhanced vampire strength and magnetic attraction over the opposite (human) sex, Level A and Level B vampires have an array of neat tricks such as encasing their Level E opponents in ice blocks or disintegrating them outright. Vampire hunters have individualized charmed weapons effective against vampires. As Guardians, Yuki and Zero also possess anti-vampire weapons. The vampires have red eyes when they are in their 'vampire' mode and sleep during the day but are not adversely affected by daylight.

Inevitably, the conclusion I made from the series is that it's not so much about vampires as about undying (!) love, personal denial and sacrifice, and the quest for power. The series contains all the ingredients required for a good suspenseful romance, especially against the backdrop of humans and vampires cohabiting in a boarding school. There are artful shades of gray in the both the vampires and Vampire hunters that lend the characterizations verisimilitude and depth.

I think those of us in the Western world either like anime or not – I haven't observed much middle ground. I enjoy anime and find it fascinating but am not a devoted fan. Even though I'm also not the target age group for this series, I did enjoy it enough to watch all the episodes as quickly as I could manage. I watched it in original Japanese with English subtitles, preferable in my opinion (despite a touch of translation awkwardness) to the trailers I've seen for the English-dubbed series that came across as saccharine in comparison. I've also ordered a few of the manga books (available in a number of languages) to see what plot points had been left out of the anime (and, of course, to see what happens next). This series ranks as the best anime I've seen so far, both for visual effectiveness and story. Although a quick survey of a couple of the anime forums revealed that many series followers did not like the dangling threads ending, especially with the lack of a follow-up (anime) series, I found it satisfying. My rating: 8 out of 10.