The genius of Madoka

The reason the character designs in Madoka looked the way they did was so they could push the limits further than a traditional dark anime ever could while giving the audience less breaks in between. The logic behind it is that the moe style characters would hopefully comfort the audience enough on their own to make up for the grim nature of the series that would have been overwhelming with more traditional character design. In short it worked and the technique being used more in the industry.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=dPFMtGKSNhE
m.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZBt5h7nyI
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

tl;dr: muh shock value

It's almost like another anime did the same thing, only earlier.

what happens in this one user?

Literally cancer
But took like 3 seasons

Anything exciting in anime can be considered shock value. Madoka was just a complete thriller of an anime. I don’t know if calling an anime overly exciting would be much of a bad thing.

Honestly you could argue Madoka had influenced the industry more than any anime since Evangelion.

>Higurashi.jpg

>further than a traditional dark anime ever could
It wasn't even that dark. Besides the idea doesn't work, because people get more upset when they see cute things hurt, not less.

Those characters aren’t really moe and they actually look pretty scary in a lot of parts. A huge reason that series wasn’t close to as popular as Madoka was because it was overwhelming for a lot of people.

No, seriously what happened? What's their suffering?

It was pretty damn dark user. The only reason you don’t think so is because like I said what they wanted to accomplish with the character design worked. The series was a huge success.

You’re right about seeing the cute characters get hurt but at the same time you’re more likely to stick around for them. They did everything in their power to make you love the characters in Madoka. They went through a ton of voice actors for Kyoko to find the perfect one. I can’t remember who it was but somebody in an interview said her VA was chosen because it would be impossible to hate Kyoko’s character with her doing the voice.

What makes you think it's so dark? Many shows have bad things happen to the characters.
None of which supports your argument. They made them cute so you'd feel more bad when bad things happen, not less.

It was a good show but this is EVAfag-tier of looking into things too much

It’s generally accepted as being dark. I don’t think there’s any way I could prove it to you. I agree with your point btw but while you feel bad it’s more that you feel bad for the characters themselves and it won’t hit you as hard considering the characters are less realistic. Just looking at characters drawn in a moe style gives a sort of natural comfort that helps people deal with the stress of the show and thus there’s less of a need to take breaks for random filler episodes or just happy moments in general.

I know that you might be epic and cool to the point where a show like Madoka didn’t seem so bad and you can watch even shows like Higurashi with no problem but people on Sup Forums are a lot different and we don’t realize a lot of the stuff we watch here isn’t usually acceptable to most people. A good amount of fans would drop a show like Madoka the second it got real or overbearing kind of like how Higurashi didn’t quite make it when people started dying. Usually to offset that kind of thing writers need to add a lot of breaks or even filler episodes or label the anime as horror. Madoka took hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn’t usually watch this type of show and made them watch it. This is only one of many things Madoka did right.

You are a faggot. Sailor Moon was more grim and serious than Madoka was.

I’m not trying to be rude so there’s no need to get mad. If you think Sailor moon was dark that’s fine.

Cute, innocent character /character design + Bad things happening is just an easy way to get cheap shock value, done to death.
Butcher probably nabbed that one from some tokusatsu like everything else in PMMM.

See
Also the story in Madoka was good in general and it’s basically a derivative of Faust which gives it a lot of credit alone. It generates a ton of serious discussion and theories on top of the usual unavoidable waifu wars.

Cute magical girl show goes dark and real. That's why the characters are drawn cute but also die and suffer. Not that hard to understand. The idea is that you are doing a ping pong with both things in your head.

I dont "think". Its a fact and you are ignorant newfag probably getting in anime with Madoka in first place and spewing idiocy with no clue of subject.

Mahou Shoujo mostly was not really about cheerfulness and happiness. Sailor Moon while being monster of the week format for most part, had rather grim actual story (especially manga, but anime too) with suffering, horror, and characters being disfigured and dieing - being murdered in horrific ways.

youtube.com/watch?v=dPFMtGKSNhE

Similarly Card Captor Sakura, being CLAMP work obviously had a grim and bizzare element, and other shows were not scared of shock value either. Fucking Do Re Mi, show for 6yo kids had
> Like many of the series licensed by 4Kids, the series received changes to character names, music, sound effects, and cultural references, as well as heavy edits pertaining to violence, death, and alcohol, to make the series more suitable for a young American audience,

lol no you forgot SAO
how did madoka influence the industry?
I'll wait

Like I said before if you think Sailor Moon was dark that’s fine.

Sailor Moon may have dark moments and plots, but you're delusional if you think Sailor Moon is darker than Madoka.

it's a super shitty faust which doesn't even begin to make good use of its concepts
asspulls and shock factor, as well as half the cast being horribly dry results in a bad end product

The genius of Evangellylion

The reason the main character is a normal high school boy with a harem of hot girls constantly around him was so they could invent what is known as moeshit and ruin anime forever.

You seem like you just want to fight so I’ll let you be.

>being derivative of literature gives you credit automatically
No, and the deal with the devil shit has been done more interesting in other shows, like Ryuki and Urobuchi's work right after Madoka, KR Gaim.
The only real thing Madoka has is a twist 3 episodes in.

You’re forgetting episode ten is probably the single best episode in anime history and that Madoka is one of the youngest anime to feature an episode on the god list in Japan.

Thanks for your opinion.

The only good thing about episode 10 is Umetsu animating. He is a God of animation, Madoka is still shit.

Why is Sup Forums so tsundere for Madoka Magica?

>It's a Urobuchi apes Yasuko Kobayashi's style episode

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZBt5h7nyI

Sagitta Luminis is better.
Madoka theme is best theme.

>generic Yuki Kajiura OST number 100
When did Kajiura become self rehashing unoriginal bland shit? Somewhere after Mai Hime?

Sadly Sawano is on the way to become the same.

Because madoka came out in 2002 and hung there in limbo until it was compressed into rule 63 12 episode anime format.

She’s so sophisticated.

Sometimes I lay awake in bed at night and just cry because I know that somebody like me couldn’t even begin to comprehend the mystery that hides within Homura’s heart.

Silly user, you must be dumb.
I shall horribly butcher Homura's character for the sake of summarizing in greentext form.
>muh madoka
>muh self-loathing
consider yourself educated

It’s said that the smarter a person is the more they will realize just how little they understand while the man who thinks he’s got it figured out is truly ignorant.

Homura's character just reads like a greentext of Kanzaki shiro minus the mystery and menace.
>Muh beloved little girl
>Muh time resets

>reads
Homura isn’t fiction user. Homura is a place within our heart. Homura is a state of mind.

Do you want me to write you a fucking essay, user?

Go for it. I’ll be happy to read your opinion.

Yea but she's a copy of a more interesting character from a children's show from 2002.
Actually no, comparing Shiro Kanzaki's sincere wish to keep Yui alive to Homura wanting a random high school friend she would've forgotten in a few years to love her is an insult to Kobayashi and Ishimori Pro.

That must be why that show was way more popular than Madoka.

...

>playing the obscurity card against toei's #2 cash cow
Popular enough that type moon's been aping it's style since 2004, and enough that urobuchi aped it 3 times, one of which was an actual Kamen Rider show.

It's not bait when there's an apt comparison to be made.

Fuck off.

Good way to argue around the point.

>Eva fan

The point of "popular = good"?
Fuck off fag this thread is a joke.

I think you’re just mad.

You're just upset Madoka is more popular than your favorite show, so you call it a ripoff.

I can see the similarities between Kamen Rider Ryuki and Madoka, but in what way is it similar to Fate beyond the basic premise? I don't think there are any characters with the same psychology as Emiya Shirou (closest is Kotomine). And the other characters are most similar to Tsukihime characters.

>artist is popular and already has a good business relationship with the studio
>MUH DEEP DARK THEMES

That was hyperbole, but the rigged battle rotale fight for a wish in which you make a contract with a semi-otherworldly being shit is real similar considering F/SN came out, what, a year and a half after Ryuki?

Evangelion was pretty good for its time.

Sorry, I wasn't claiming it isn't dark, just that it isn't exceptionally so. It does not go
>further than a traditional dark anime ever could

Nor do I believe for a moment that this sort of thing puts off a majority of people. The mainstream popularity of shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad should make that obvious.

I doubt you can even name 25 anime from Evangelion's time, much less pick up on any of the anime directly referenced in it.

Game of thrones and breaking bad have a lot of funny moments and breaks between the bad where as Madoka is just constantly in your face with the suffering and things continuously go down hill.

I seen Eva at an impressionable age. I watched it on Adult Swim as a kid. I could list anime for you but that wouldn’t prove anything because I could just as easily look it up.

I would hardly say madoka pushed anything for the medium when the same medium also happens to have like, violence jack and devilman and whatnot.
Works so self-masturbatory in their own cynicism it ends up wrapping around from anti-war to anti-humanity.

because i'm still salty at the ending of Rebellion

There’s a reason those series aren’t as popular as Madoka.

Having not watched Madoka in a while it’s easy to forget how it effected me but it’s the kind of show that really just drives you down.

>Faust
The protagonist makes a deal with the devil, knowing fully well what was the price he was paying, but only in the end realizing the real weight of what he had lost

>PMMM
>The protagonists are tricked by the devil into making a deal. They don’t know what they are going to lose because of it

How are they really similar? The deal with the devil is a pretty standard trope, but PMMM’s one wasn’t like the Faust one

>those series aren’t as popular as Madoka.

sooo this is all your knowledge about Faust? the beginning and the end?

Because they were created before the internet and the circlejerk it brings?

Kamisama Dolls aired about the same time and was superior to Madoka in about every aspect be it animation, horror, story.

Kamen rider and devilman have been around for 40 years user, they aren't going away.
Where's madoka going to be in 40 years?
Probably forgotten like the rest of Urobuchi's shit.

>Madoka is just constantly in your face with the suffering
It's been a while since I haven't watched it since it came out, but that's not how I remember it. A lot of melancholy and tension rather than just wall to wall suffering. Never mind the more relaxed parts at the beginning and the relatively upbeat conclusion.

>Devilman
>not as popular as Madoka

I can't agree with that. If nothing else it didn't even tell a whole story. The ending felt like "and that's the end of the prologue, now go and read the actual story". I also vaguely remember some weird directing, like things happening but only being shown indirectly in awkward ways.

The most overrated thing about Madoka is its "writing". Majority of it is boring tedious and irrelevant filler, the actual relevant and interesting moments can be shortened down to 3-4 episodes. The rest not just doesnt have a purpose, but pretty much weighting it down and story would be better without it.

There is absolutely superior to Madoka yuri show that everyone has forgotten - Blue Drop, doing everything better without exaggarated writing and a lot more depth.

The "Madoka" and "Homura" are better there.

Nasu came up with Fate when he was in highschool. Look at Fate/Prototype.

Wasn't Saya no Uta getting some kind of normalfag film adaptation?

No. The problem with Madoka is it doesn’t have enough episodes to flesh out the characters, as concise as it is for an 11 episode show. There’s a reason Sayaka is my favourite character, and that’s because she stole the spotlight throughout with enough episodes to see her character inside out before the final despair.

I’m not trying to say Madoka is the scariest show or had the most suffering or anything and I think that’s what a lot of you are thinking I’m saying. I’m saying it brought a particular type of show to an audience that usually wouldn’t watch it and helped them watch it with the character design and making the characters as lovable as possible. I personally think Madoka was very dark but that’s just my opinion. Arguing about how dark the series is kind of is irrelevant because we’re all jaded to a different level. I think where it really got me is how relentless it was with them.

Devil man isn’t as popular as Madoka though

To add to this, I feel the butcher had to exaggerate a lot of the dialogue for Madoka and especially Homura to push the audiences into caring, since there clearly wasn’t enough time for that to happen naturally throughout the series. Very exaggerated dialogue especially hurt it because it broke immersion away from the dark and sombre moments, where more episodes to flesh them out and being more subtle with it would have worked wonders.

This is a show that wants people to take it seriously so cutting corners like that is pretty bad, especially when it won’t put enough effort into making me connect with the two lead characters. I guess it worked on a ton of other people though.

I was recently thinking about Blue Drop. You know how the aliens used sentient lifeforms as living bombs? What was the point of that? Looking back on it, it seems really fucking stupid.

Can /lit/ go fuck off back to their board?

>muh FAUST
Phantom Thief Jeanne did it better. Late 90's magical girl anime. Girl becomes magical girl to steal things for god; turns out she's actually working for the devil. The big reveal was way better.
>muh STORY
>don't become meguka
>okay I won't become meguka
>I'll become meguka
>don't become meguka
>okay I won't become meguka
>I'll become meguka
>oh by the way, you're condemned to fight witches endlessly until you become a witch yourself
>so don't become meguka
>I'll become meguka
B-B-BUT SASUGA SHAFT
>headtilts
>random shot of eye
>random shot of mouth moving.
>the plot doesn't happen, characters just talk the plot at each other
B-b-b-but muh deconstruction
Clearly you haven't seen much in the magical girl genre, because there are literally decades of magical girl shows where way worse shit happens than meguka.
The difference is the way worse shit is suggested, implied, hinted at in the story rather than explicitly shown. Anime fans have become indolent self-entitled faggots that need their shit spoon-fed to them. They're no longer capable of figuring shit out for themselves.

I'm seeing more /m/ than /lit/ here, what are you talking about?

For getting only twelve episodes the anime was crazy good. I think you’re asking for too much.

The cute character designs serve several purposes. They make you care about the characters (there's not much screen time to do that just through writing), mislead expectations, and provide contrast to the darker parts.
I don't believe your theory that they comfort people to keep watching despite the suffering.

Can you guess why Blue Drop wasn’t that popular?

Ah yes, Jeanne Die Kamikaze Diebin.
Good times. German OP also best OP.

I’m saying they went in over their heads trying to make me care when they didn’t have the skill to do so in a short time. And how is it asking for too much when the show is praised so much? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good but nothing more.

So Anpanman confirmed more art than Madoka

That’s just you though. Obviously a lot of people cared. Madoka has probably been the most discussed anime while airing since the start of Sup Forums.

As if that's a mark of quality.

>The cute character designs serve several purposes.
moeblobs going through Maeda Jun-tier suffering.
Seriously, they just pulled a KEY:
>look at the cute thing
>now we do cruel things to the cute thing.
>feel bad
>next week we'll trot out an even cuter thing and do even crueller things to it so you feel even MORE bad!
Case in point: AIR, Kanon, Clannad, Tomoyo After, Planetarian, Angel Beats

bland, basic, boilerplate phoned-in formulaic plot with no real surprises.
>

I already acknowledged that it worked for a lot of other people, so not sure what your point is there. Doesn’t take away my right to express my stance though, and I don’t think I’m special enough that I’m the only person that feels this way about the show.

Let's talk about the middle parts then.
Faust 1 is really boring and basically just Mephistopheles helping Faust to fuck some girl, who then gets pregnant, murders her baby, but then Faust tries getting her out of prison, but she doesn't want to go.
It's honestly not very exciting after the deal
Faust 2 is basically Faust going on road trip with Mephistopheles. And it's pretty fun. But I really don't see how that relates to Madoka, other than that sequences where QB tells her all about how amazing all the historic magical girls were.