I'm kind of disgustingly late, but I've been thinking about Madoka for a while. And I realized it's kind of trash?

I'm kind of disgustingly late, but I've been thinking about Madoka for a while. And I realized it's kind of trash?

It's not so bad it offends me or anything. And it looks really cool. But it's hailed as this amazing work with deep meaning and amazing plot, when it's mediocre at best. It's just the edgiest magical girl show, or at least the most obviously apparent edgy magical girl show, with nice action scenes, so people who normally wouldn't give magical girl shows the time of day decided to watch it, and assumed that it said jack shit about magical girl shows.

Is this just common knowledge? What's the stance on Madoka on Sup Forums?

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I think it suffered from having a poor mc, which is a pretty big deal, but if you can get past that (which I did), it's pretty enjoyable.
There's a couple of plot holes but I don't think it's anything you can't fix yourself by thinking through it.

>It's just the edgiest magical girl show,
You need to watch more magical girl shows.

Immediately after that, I said that it's at least the most obviously apparent edgy magical girl show.

I think plenty of magical girl shows are edgier, but Madoka went full edge immediately.

I enjoyed watching it, but it's pure schlock. It's best not to think about it, and just enjoy the cool shit on screen.

>But it's hailed as this amazing work with deep meaning and amazing plot, when it's mediocre at best.

Welcome to seasonal anime. Every season, there is a heavily marketed or memed series which becomes heavily overrated by casuals. The king of these plebs series become so famous that their existence is cemented as a great work, despite its mediocrity.

>but Madoka went full edge immediately.
Or at least in the third episode.

It has a cool aesthetic, but the characters are complete garbage.

It is. People just either like it for that or they don't.
Urobuchi is Urobuchi here, as anywhere, and as always, everyone dies and nothing goes right; this renders the show "nihilistic" (and with a wicked sense of humor) and a deconstruction of majo shoujo by default. It's compared to Evangelion in that sense, and both have their merits, despite being similarly overrated and sterile narratively.

Tl;dr, you hit the nail on the head.
I thought it was great, but only when I was 15 and still a fledgling writer.

Nope, I know people who go on here that think it's one of the greatest anime of all time. And they've seem quite a lot of anime.

I personally think it's a good show but that's it, nothing more. I'm not really a fan of the character drama apart from perhaps Kyouko and Sayaka's scenes and even then it came across as pretty heavy-handed.

What are your favourite magical girl shows, OP?

>as always, everyone dies and nothing goes right; this renders the show "nihilistic" (and with a wicked sense of humor)
Not everyone dies. Some things go right. The show isn't nihilistic. If you weren't so busy memeing you might actually be able to describe the anime.

I really liked Nanoha when I watched it, but that was a while ago now. Apart from that probably Utena, but I don't know if that counts or not.

the ghing with madoka is that it took a turn from a simple mahoushoujo anime to what we have now, and thats a big deal back then.
it might have some flaws here and there but the result was something that we cant use the little cheatsheet in our heads to predict what will happen, that was the biggest drive I had while watching.
one can always look back and criticize but not that many shows can reproduce the magic of that season.

Don't care for it anymore. Like you said, it's mediocre at best.

Madoka is fine. In fact, it's great. I think the trend of people coming back later with "meh it was trash I think I guess" stems from Madoka being their first introduction to something deeper than petri-dish depth moeshit - in fact, it actively lured you in with the promise of shojou moeshit, then burns your heart out with death, suffering and lots of snow. It's straddling a line, there - it's playing with magical girl moeshit tropes even as it savages them, so it's always going to be a magical girl anime, if that makes sense. Shows that never bothered to pretend and dove right into the deep end aren't so inhibited. So naturally, when you look back on Madoka, you judge it more harshly. I think it says something that it's judged against "serious" shows rather than trite moeshit, though.

And to be fair - this "grimderp edgedark" stuff was *always* present in magical girl anime, if you look back far enough. There were shows that were cutesy and lighthearted, but had some crushingly tragic themes at their core - Full Moon wo Sagashite comes to mind, for sure. People argue back and forth over it being a "deconstruction" but in some ways it's a throwback, too. The effort it invested in introducing itself as a "typical" magical girl anime only to blindside you in episode 3 is something that worked great then, but now everyone who hasn't seen it is spoiled; they know Madoka is "dark and gritty" just through cultural osmosis. It was made to shake up the genre and it did so; ironically this means it doesn't have the same impact anymore.

>one can always look back and criticize but not that many shows can reproduce the magic of that season.

Yeah, man, you put your finger right on it. It was all new territory, then. Well, nothing's truly "new" in fiction, but you can always mix and match elements in a new way, and each writer's (and with anime, each artist and composer's) presentation is always unique. The final, combined product is certainly unique. And the artists/writer/composers for Madoka were no slouches, I think we can agree on that much.

It reminds me of Evangelion in how it was received and how people look back on it. When you stop to think about it, it was really trash, wasn't it? And the funny thing is, the people who made it would agree with you. I'm a writer by trade, and I typically feel that way about my own shit, even stuff that was really popular. ESPECIALLY the popular stuff. But in the end, it made such a big damn splash for a *reason.* My "deeper more artistic" shit that I'm actually proud of has a more devoted following, but far smaller. Maybe there's a balance between depth and broad appeal - you could even call it accessibility - that manages to convey classic and powerful themes to a wide segment of the audience, covering a wide swath of varying interests and preferences. I dunno.

I doubt we'll be seeing anything with its impact again for a while, though.

Sailor moon is better in every way.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Madoka didn't blindside anyone. That it was going to be a dark and edgy show was incredibly obvious from episode 1. Episode 3 only shocks people who are incapable of thought.

Suffering means nothing if I don't care about the characters, and Madoka has nothing but bland characters I am physically incapable of giving a shit about.

You seem to understand that Madoka didn't actually do anything new, as you talk about previous magical girl shows and how they dealt with dark themes as well.

Madoka brought nothing to the magical girl genre. It was popular though, and as people assumed all magical girl shows were just innocent shows incapable of the slightest bit of darkness, it got hailed as revolutionary. It changed the shape of anime due to it's popularity, but textually it's as bland as shows come.

>Mostly great plot
>Great pacing for a 12 episode show
>Memorable scenes
>Really pulls off the "visual direction" meme without feeling pretentious
>Great OST
>Set Sup Forums on fire like it hadn't been since TTGL
>Won a billion awards
>Still talked about 6 years after it aired

no I'm sure everyone's wrong and you're not a contrarian user

>Madoka didn't blindside anyone. That it was going to be a dark and edgy show was incredibly obvious from episode 1.
You obviously were not here. You can claim whatever you want after the fact, but it blindsided pretty much everybody.

The show is alright.

The 3rd movie is a piece of garbage that pseuds defend.

This. I didn't want to sound like a fan boy, but it's easily one of the best series of the decade.

The show is great, and the 3rd movie is even better.

Madoka wasn't edgy though, it's just a different style of magical girl show. The violence was justified to the point that it was used to develop the characters through the trauma it caused them. Edgy would be excessive violence and gore with no reasoning behind it which wasn't what Madoka was. Mahou Shoujou Ikusei Keikaku is edgy.

How could anyone think Madoka is deep? I like it as an action suspense thriller, but everything about it is really simple and clearly spelled out for the audience.

>Blindsided
Madoka is warned once and stopped once from contracting in the first episode, along with music creating tension at those moments, they would have to be blind and death

Aside from the first point, I mostly agree with you.

It's a visual masterpiece, and it definitely sticks with you.

But there's no substance. Nothing to sink my teeth into. The characters are as bland as possible, and the plot doesn't withstand even the simplest of analysis. It's not a masterpiece of fiction.

Anyone with a brain knows this show is overrated.
It's a fine show but nowhere near the second coming of the Christ as some people hail it to be

Show me your analysis and I'll tell you why you're wrong.

The only memorable thing about that anime was the soundtrack. Characters were shit, plot was shit, and one of the shittiest endings, alongside NGE.

Definitely true.

But it has cute girls with guns so who cares.

How was the ending shit? The series has a satisfying end. Rebellion on the other hand...

>person living in the post Madoka world making fun of people not being able to predict episode 3
>people living in the post-medieval world making fun of people not having a modern understanding of physics
It only demonstrates your own mental limitations.

So you refute my claim that the atmosphere of the show was not subtle with, muhdoka innovated the genre, foreshadowing and obvious stuff was never done before

Okay.

Madoka is a show about self-sacrifice. But what does it actually fucking say about self-sacrifice? Is it bad, as is implied by Sayaka and Kyouko's plotlines, or is it good, as is implied by Madoka's sacrifice at the end of the show?

Why is Kyubey evil? He claims to not be, and says that his actions will help humans in the end - but a few episodes later humanity is destroyed by a witch Madoka and Kyubey gives no fucks. If Kyubey is supposed to be an antagonist, actually fucking make him one.

The show is supposed to be about Madoka maturing and becoming more cynical as she gains knowledge, right? Leaving aside the fact that she never fucking changes the entire show, how is a show about growth in cynicism ending with "And then Madoka used her magic powers to fix everything wrong with the world" supposed to be a satisfying ending?

That's off the top of my head. And it's not really a plot analysis, so much as the points in the plot that really bother me.

I am saying that it was Madoka that trained people to pay more attention to such hints and to expect such twists, just like it was the middle ages that invented our modern idea of science.

but each anime is seasonal at some point

Especially since back then Madoka was advertised as in this picture while nowadays Madoka is advertised as deep and mature.
It jumped genres AND apparent target audience.

Madoka was dark from the very intro of episode 1. There was a lot of foreshadowing for the death of Mami, she even got a 2 death-flags in episode 3.
And I'm saying this as someone who watched it as it was airing and barely visited Sup Forums back then. I think I just went in a thread to see if Sup Forumsnon deciphered the runes.

>Madoka invented foreshadowing.
Sure.

What about Fate/Zero?

>>Madoka invented foreshadowing.
>Sure.
That was meant in the context of .

>That it was going to be a dark and edgy show was incredibly obvious from episode 1.

I don't believe you.

Based Ufotable

But as I said there it never "jumped genre". It was a show with Urobuchi as a writer and obviously dark since the very beginning. Rewatch the first episode if you don't believe me, it starts in a deserted world with two girls desperately fighting a large monster among crumbling buildings.

But it was.

>plebs didn't watch weekly from episode one
>plebs didn't suffer with the tsunami

You will never know this ride

>It was a show with Urobuchi as a writer and obviously dark since the very beginning. Rewatch the first episode if you don't believe me, it starts in a deserted world with two girls desperately fighting a large monster among crumbling buildings.
You need to watch more magical girls anime if you think that makes it different from other magical girls shows.
This is par for the course.

The witch design was highly morbid. Homura attempts to kill Kyubey, and gives cryptic warnings to Madoka.

So, witches are serious shit, Kyubey can't be trusted, and something is very wrong with the magical girl premise. Obvious from episode 1.

>Madoka is a show about self-sacrifice. But what does it actually fucking say about self-sacrifice? Is it bad, as is implied by Sayaka and Kyouko's plotlines, or is it good, as is implied by Madoka's sacrifice at the end of the show?

There's a differrence here. Sayaka and Kyouko both made their wishes expecting to receive happiness in return for their sacrifice. Sayaka made her wish secretly expecting gratitude from Kyousuke, which came back to bite her when things didn't turn out as she wanted. Madoka, on the other hand, made a legitimately altruistic wish without any expectations for gratitude.

>Why is Kyubey evil? He claims to not be, and says that his actions will help humans in the end - but a few episodes later humanity is destroyed by a witch Madoka and Kyubey gives no fucks. If Kyubey is supposed to be an antagonist, actually fucking make him one.

He isn't "evil", but he is an antagonist. He's the epitome of utilitarianism taken to the extreme. He considers the earth getting destroyed a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. Is it literally incomprehensible to you for an antagonist to not be a 100% evil villain from a saturday morning cartoon?

>The show is supposed to be about Madoka maturing and becoming more cynical as she gains knowledge, right? Leaving aside the fact that she never fucking changes the entire show, how is a show about growth in cynicism ending with "And then Madoka used her magic powers to fix everything wrong with the world" supposed to be a satisfying ending?

It's not really about that at all. If anything, it's about Homura maturing and becoming more cynical as she gains knowledge. And the ending is more like "Through great struggle and selflessness you can make the world a little better, although not necessarily for yourself".

...

>Madoka is a show about self-sacrifice. But what does it actually fucking say about self-sacrifice? Is it bad, as is implied by Sayaka and Kyouko's plotlines, or is it good, as is implied by Madoka's sacrifice at the end of the show?

That's supposed to be up to the viewer to decide. And it's a hard decision, because the show makes sure to twist the knife vis a vis the *cost* of that sacrifice. Sayaka's tragic arc served as an example of the Typical Magical Girl in the setting; how they all started out pure of heat and with only the best of intentions, and how when their youthful inexperience rendered their wishes useless and the joy they expected from them absent, how they soldiered on defending their ideals, until even those were stripped from them, and they died alone, miserable and bitter. The fact that Sayaka actually *won,* and was able to bring around her polar opposite; the cynical, bitter, self-serving Kyouko - but only after she'd fallen, so she never knew that her ideals were vindicated - was the real brilliant bastard move by the writer.

It leaves you wanting to see Sayaka - and all the countless others - saved. But then it slaps you in the face with the cost of Madoka's sacrifice - her mother and her brother only remember her as if in a dream. Imagine *that*, if your own mother didn't even remember that you ever existed. That's fucking *brutal.*

Yes, you can "save everyone," but there is *always* a price - and this show was very, very good at making that price hit the viewer's emotions, so they would internalize it.

There's nothing wrong with a story where self-sacrifice is neither inherently good nor bad, and there's nothing wrong with a character filling an antagonistic role in a story without being deliberately malicious.

>witch design was highly morbid.
A mixture between strange and threatening. But the enemies being scary is not really indicative of what was going to happen.
>Homura attempts to kill Kyubey, and gives cryptic warnings to Madoka.
At that point everybody thought she was a dark magical girl. Her role was to oppose the team of heroes. Of course she would try to kill Kyubey. Showing sympathy for Madoka just meant that she would become a friend after being defeated.

What are you trying to say, then? You were saying that people went into Madoka thinking it will be cute and and light-hearted, but now you admit that it was dark.
And this has nothing to do with wether other magical girls shows are dark or not, you were arguing that it wasn't clear Madoka was going to be dark.

For god's sake it was a late-night anime, not a saturday morning cartoon, it was obvious that if they went for a dark done it was going to be darker that your average magical girl for children.

Maybe you were "tricked" into thinking it was going to be cute but don't just assume everyone was.

I'm currently reading the original novel, it's fucking great.

Urobuchi has an amazing ability when it comes to creating interesting and sometimes very unique characters.

I wouldn't call Madoka one his best works, but Rebellion was pretty great.

> Sayaka made her wish secretly expecting gratitude from Kyousuke
... No, she didn't. Sayaka knew full well that she wasn't going to get to be able to be close with Kyousuke, because she knew she was going to be a magical girl and live a short life. She just wanted to do something nice for the person she loved, while also trying to uphold the ideals that Mami presented to her.

She fell into despair because she couldn't cope shouldering such a great burden with no reward. She's got the most interesting plot line, but she was trying to be genuinely good.

She couldn't have wished for anything, because becoming a magical girl would mean she's not able to be with Kyousuke. Wishing them to be romantically linked oir some other self-pleasure would lead to the exact same thing. So the only thing I can take away is that she should not have made a wish and try to do good. Which directly contradicts Madoka's decision, unless the moral is to commit suicide immediately after doing something good.

Running out of space, will continue in another post.

>all these newfags and people with Alzheimer's

SHAFT clearly attempted to troll the audience back in late 2010 by showing very little about the show other than Ume's designs. Urobuchi being the scriptwriter raised obvious suspicions. He poorly bullshitted his way through that by commenting on his Twitter, eventually leading to the famous "it's time to recongnize me as a healing type writer" meme.

Regardless, with that staff on board people knew some shit was up with Madoka but the HEALING clearly exceeded expectations.

>2011 + 6
>people still can't admit to themselves that madoka is badly written
almaelmacom.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/overrated-and-overhyped-garbage-madoka-magica/

The show practically invalidates self sacrifice, if despair and hope balance out then there is no point investing in helping someone outside your friends and family, that mechanic was just a means for the show to be edgy and a rather poor means

I'm just going to repeat what I posted above.
>Maybe you were "tricked" into thinking it was going to be cute but don't just assume everyone was.

>very unique characters.

?

>now you admit that it was dark.
What?
Do you even read my posts or do you just pretend to read them so the content doesn't conflict with your point?

>And this has nothing to do with wether other magical girls shows are dark or not,
I am talking about Pretty Cure. That's not dark. That's children's entertainment.

>it was going to be darker that your average magical girl for children.
Not all late night anime are dark.
>don't just assume everyone was.
Sorry, I saw the reactions on Sup Forums. Apparently you didn't.

Rebellion is a first rate pseud detector.

>there are people out there that seriously believe Madoka is on the same level as classics like NGE, Utena and CCS

>He isn't "evil", but he is an antagonist. He's the epitome of utilitarianism taken to the extreme.
Utilitarians don't typically support genocide.

Humans are an energy farm. Why would you let your energy farm die out? The only thing I can conclude is that he never intended for humans to have any kind of long term survival, and was going to cull them pretty soon anyway at some point. Which means he's directly opposed to humanity.

Which is fine? But it's never actually explained. I had to piece that together myself. And then, in the end, the person who's planning to kill all humans is still just hanging around.

>"Through great struggle and selflessness you can make the world a little better, although not necessarily for yourself".
Making a wish is not a great struggle. Accomplishing every goal you set out for in one fell-swoop isn't realistic, inspiring, or even very selfless.

I think anyone who calls Madoka trash is just being an elitist weeb who's trying to show off how much better they think their taste is than everyone else's.

No one is callling it trash in this thread though?

>Urobuchi
>Interesting characters

Pick one

Have you read the OP?

>He poorly bullshitted his way through that by commenting on his Twitter, eventually leading to the famous "it's time to recognize me as a healing type writer" meme.

This might blow your fucking mind, but not everyone who watches anime - here or in Japan, which is the main market - pays attention to who each show's writer is. I can't tell you the names of the writers of my favorite domestic TV shows off the top of my head, and I'd have to read their wikipedia pages to see what other stuff they wrote.

>The show practically invalidates self sacrifice

Then why does Kyouko eventually come around, convinced by Sayaka's idealistic devotion?

At the time Urobuchi wasn't really that big in the anime scene yet. He was active before, but his real fame here stems from Madoka.

>Humans are an energy farm. Why would you let your energy farm die out?

He explicitly said that once Madoka inevitably witched out, she'd provide enough energy just on her own to end the entropy problem handily. As Kyuubey put it, "we don't need this planet anymore." All of humanity was just a resource to be exploited, to him.

Talking from Sup Forums's perspective it was pretty hard to miss. Requiem for the Phantom had aired a few seasons prior to madoka and that same year the Fate/zero novels were being translated

Did you miss kybee's explaination? Madoka witch transformation released enough energy to supress entropy for a long time, there was no need to stop it for the universe greater good?

Read the thing next to that.
> The only thing I can conclude is that he never intended for humans to have any kind of long term survival

>Even if we put Urobutchi’s incompetence to the side, one still cannot excuse that none of the characters have any concrete character, they change however and whenever the creator feels like it. (I’m primarily referring to Kyouko suddenly deciding to consider Sayaka a friend, then barely after, abandoning her initially shown and established ideals just so she could die with Sayaka.)

So he has no fucking clue what "character development' means. Christ that's an autistic rant, there.

You said this:
>You need to watch more magical girls anime if you think that makes it different from other magical girls shows.
So I assumed you were admitting that both children shows and late-night shows can be dark. Or do you consider that the introductory scene of Madoka isn't dark? If that's the case you're just bullshitting.

>Not all late night anime are dark.
But that's not what I said. I said "if they went for a dark tone it was going to be darker that your average magical girl for children." Read the whole sentence, please.

>That's not dark. That's children's entertainment.
You seem to decide what's dark or not purely on what suits you.
Futari Ha had a lot of dark moments, and subsequent seasons also had some even if fewer.

>Sorry, I saw the reactions on Sup Forums. Apparently you didn't.
You're right, I didn't, I already said earlier that I wasn't browsing the threads back then. And?
Because people on Sup Forums were surprised by the third episode that means I was too?

I don't need to have been there to know that it must have been full of crossboarders and people ironically posting about how they were "tricked". Generally speaking threads for popular anime aren't representative of core Sup Forums users.

What part of you didn't get
>there is no point investing in helping someone outside your friends and family
The dumb and edgy mechanic doesn't make people think that it is worthwhile to go around saving people.

Oh, it's possible he did - Madoka getting superpowers because loltimeloopentropyspoops was not something he'd foreseen, I think. He'd want to keep "farming" humanity indefinitely, if he could. But he wouldn't turn down the chance to destroy Earth and cash out, certainly - it solved his goal, after all.

Yes. But it's at the sacrifice of the entirety of humanity. Which implies that to him humans had no moral weight. Either he's not actually utilitarian, and just wants to selfishly promote his own races survival over humans, or humans were going to die anyway. Otherwise you could keep humans around as an energy farm, get around the same energy you'd get from Madoka, and then let humans join the aliens in the future. Like he said would happen.

>The dumb and edgy mechanic

*What* mechanic?

Then he's not utilitarian, because he's disregarding human life. Just don't offer Madoka a wish if it's going to destroy humanity, and let humanity stay alive as a resource.

>>Then he's not utilitarian, because he's disregarding human life.

He's not fuckin HUMAN, bro. He's sacrificing one planet/species to save all life in the galaxy.

Well at lest two thirds of the rant are spot on which is enough to prove the point.

He'd accomplish the same fucking thing by not destroying all of humanity. So he does not care about human life, not because it's a moral decision, but because fuck humans I guess. So as far as we're concerned, he's evil.

>Or do you consider that the introductory scene of Madoka isn't dark?
What a pointless diversion.
We are discussing the expected direction of the show.
This was generally assumed to be an eye-catch to lure people into the show. No one took it to mean that one of the main cast was going to die in episode 3 and that most of the remainder of the show was going to be suffering.

>Futari Ha had a lot of dark moments,
Again with the diversion.
I would almost say you are trying to move goalposts. The topic was foreshadowing of what was to come, not whether or not the anime had dark bits.
When I responded to and with "dark", then it was only in the context of the darker aspects of the story of Madoka. Why are you ignoring the actual topic now?

Who's your favourite Madoka character and why?

Sayaka, because she's the only one who actually has a character.

Despair and hope balancing out, if you had read my comment properly you would have noticed it

Kyubey in the series is portrayed as willing to let humanity harm itself to any extent, but unwilling to harm humanity directly/against their will. Since he's a hive mind species, from his perspective his actions are probably just fair and respectful dealings with another individual.

Not really. It's just a bunch of autistic spergrage, to be honest.

>THE STORY ISN'T UNIQUE AND NEW

NO plotline is "unique." There's only about seven basic plots and storytellers have been using them in one permutation or another since before the written word was invented. Anyone who fails to grasp this isn't qualified to bitch about writing.

>H-HE USED CHARACTER ARCHETYPES BAAAWWWWW

This is like bitching about a car having wheels. If they were just cardboard cutouts meant to serve their archetypal roles, we wouldn't have shit like Mami flipping her shit and trying to whack everyone.

And then there's his fucking autismo "plot holes" list, all of which was explained by anyone who actually watched the show. It's not the show's fault that he's too fucking stupid to, you know, watch the show.

>How did Kyuubey survive that attack baaaw

He's effectively immortal and his bodies are disposable, dipshit, that's coverd.

>How did mami lose to a plebwitch

She was busy showing off for her new sempais and was high on the whole YAY I HAVE FRIENDS NOW. As is shown later the girl's apparent mental stability was the result of carefully balanced high pressure. She called kyuubey a *friend,* if that fuckin illustrates anything for you.

>Episode four, Madoka is captured by a witch after she foolishly went out, strangely no Homura rescue in sight. It is Sayaka who comes and helps her, question is, how did Sayaka know where she was?

They literally showed Mami hunting down a witch the prior fucking episode, you fucking numbnuts

>Why did Kyouko want to become friends with the girls she just tried to kill the episode earlier? It is never explained.

Completely ignoring several scenes, most potently the conversation in the church where they come to understand one another better. Jesus. I could keep going, but what the fuck.

So as far as we're concerned, he's evil.

Yes!

>if you had read my comment properly you would have noticed it

I honestly don't get what you mean by "despair and hope balancing out." I don't remember that being part of the metaphysics at all.

Then he's not a utilitarian, he's a deontologist who believes in acting according to various moral rules. So he's willing to perform fair trade, even if the actual consequences are negative overall.

Which completely destroys the rest of his character, and stated goals.

>edgy

Oh boy here we go again.

Edgy means "cutting edge" when used to refer to a product. When referring to people, its usually used to refer to, say, that guy in a fedora and trench coat posing with a katana and talking about how badass he is.

They mean very different things. When someone says that intel came out with an edgy processor, it doesnt mean the same as "that guy with a katana is edgy".

For some reason people on Sup Forums seem to think that an edgy anime/manga is anything that has "named characters dying/suffering". By that definition, evangelion is edgy. The only series that wouldn't be edgy are generic slice of life ones or ones where the good guys win with no negative consequences of any kind (see : one piece).

Madoka isnt particularly special beyond a catchy OP, a modern take at the "magical girls being misled by cute mascot" trope and urobuchi trolling with CHOMP. Urobuchi trolling was probably the #1 contributor to the series popularity actually.

There are many things that Madoka could have done to provide a more indepth deconstruction of mahou shoujo tropes. For example, Mami has to juggle fighting witches and her school work, and consequently has no friends. Kyouko has to basically steal food to live. Mami getting the money to pay the bills isn't addressed though, and Kyouko dealing with all of life's basics problems is mostly skipped over apart from the apple stealing scene. But in the end, it was a one season show so presumably they had to cut out a lot of parts to focus on Homura trying to change the past.

Madoka on Sup Forums has a special status not because of how amazing or good it is but because a certain autist spends more than 18 hours every day spamming madoka threads to complain about shipping.

Kyubey is clearly malevolent at times though and even leads one of the girls (I think it was Kyouko?) to their deaths through misinformation/misleading them. It's not even a matter of perspective.

>Kyubey is clearly malevolent at times though and even leads one of the girls (I think it was Kyouko?) to their deaths through misinformation/misleading them. It's not even a matter of perspective.

This, too. As that other poster said, he's only "utilitarian" from his own perspective, i.e. humanity is little better than cattle to be manipulated. He even says that having emotions are considered a mental disorder in his society - he's an alien sociopath. Bad fuckin news.

>Yes!
I should clarify.

Kyubey isn't merely evil. He's evil for no real reason. He isn't justified by ethics, which is what I was explaining. So he's just evil because ???.

IIRC Kyouko askes Kyubey whether it was possible to turn Sayaka back, and Kyubey says "maybe" or some other vauge answer. Kyouko seizes on that blind shred of hope and proceeds to do something stupid.

>Kyubey isn't merely evil. He's evil for no real reason.

Dude, he wants to stop entropy. He has a *goal.* He just doesn't care at all how many humans he kills or tortures to get it - even if he kills *all* of them. He's like a middle manager with a quota to meet, absent any human emotions or ethics whatsoever.

Is this really that fucking hard to get!?

But if i remember correctly (it has been a while) Kyubey later implies that he knew it was never possible. And the way he said it was fucking devilish regardless. There's no way he didn't have ill intent with the way it was voiced and directed.

>absent any human emotions or ethics whatsoever
>ethics
This is the problem. It's one thing to have a character make disgusting decisions which are ultimately for the greater good - which what Kyubey claims he is doing. Causing an endless cycle of hope and despair to generate power for the universe is disgusting, but justifiable.

But it doesn't make sense if that character disregards morality to this end. If it's a passionate character, it's perfectly fine - he's too distracted by his goals to care for morals. But Kyubey is supposed to be a perfectly logical and moral being. The fact that he plainly fucking isn't is a gaping plot hole.

>spamming madoka threads to complain about shipping.
Or, you know, the much more likely conclusion, you are actually a problem and many people want you to stop shitting up threads.

It amazes me how shitposters think they are actually entitled to act badly and post however bad they want as if there are no standards at all.