Puella Magi Madoka Magica

So after watching the anime yesterday and just now finishing up the movie, I think we should talk about this show.

After only watching the anime, the strI concluded that Madoka was clearly supposed to be a metaphor for jesus / other messiah type characters; being the savior and hope of all magical girls. She came to be so after Homura started to rewind time over and over in hopes to save her. Since space/time was being manipulated around Madoka, it only makes sense that she would attain God-like status; literally the universe was being manipulated to revolve around her. The only other character that has such prevalence in this space/time fuckery was Homura, as she was the one who was rewinding time and "causing" the universe to revolve around Madoka. They make it quite clear in the anime that the balance of all things is a universal law. If Madoka is God, the pinnacle of good, it would only be natural that Homura would be Madoka's reciprocal. Homura was motivated by her selfish love for Madoka. While Madoka is supposed to represent Jesus, God, the savior and embodiment of good, Homura is her reciprocate; Satan, the deceiver and the embodiment of evil.

So uh let's discuss some Puella Magi Madoka Magica ya?

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Yeah but homura did nothing wrong, unlike Satan. Even if her intent was selfish, she still did they right thing. Plus it was pretty much spelled out that it’s god/Satan in the movie.

After watching the movie it made a lot of sense that Homura would end up the way she did. Her motivation was entirely selfish. She was willing to do anything and everything to see Madoka again. She wasn't saving Madoka for Madoka's sake, but for her own; to be with her and to not have to watch her die.

Since this show has such prominent Christian themes, it makes me wonder which biblical figures the other 3 girls represent.

Even if she tried to do the right thing, things still didn't end up quite right.
I give Homura 1 month before her world falls apart.

>So after watching the anime yesterday and just now finishing up the movie, I think we should talk about this show.
>Watching these just now
>blogging
Are you new to anime and Sup Forums?

Same guy who recommended books to you yesterday. I think it's a mistake to try and force Homura into the Lucifer/Satan role. Obviously she calls herself a devil, but there's really very little about Homura's story that tracks to Christian mythology. Satan's great sin was pride, which is not really what Homura suffers from. I think you'll struggle even more to fit the other girls into specific biblical roles. Remember that the only piece of literature we definitively know inspired Madoka, thanks to the quotes in the background, is Faustus

I thought Urobuchi didn't read Faust?

That would be shocking to me. Where did that come from?

it's been in my back log for years and i finally got around to it. are you trying to say you d*n't have a backlog? pfffff and *you're* calling *me* new

yeah i guess i didn't exactly mean satan, as there are six other princes of hell with their own great sins that reflect the "seven deadly sins", but there has to be some sort of parallel between the two right? from my understanding, which is pretty small, satan is supposed to be the yin to god's yang. and thank you for those recommendations i plan on starting them tomorrow since i have off

Word of mouth. I have no idea how true it may be.

>satan is supposed to be the yin to god's yang
In layman mythology, perhaps, but not at all in the Bible. All demons, including the ones who have been fused into a Grand Evil type figure, are subservient to God. There is no question of equality, even a little bit. The story of Job literally starts with the tempter asking permission to tempt Job, and the Prologue of Goethe's Faustus begins the same way.

Homura seems too powerful and too independent of Madoka's will to be Satan, especially when Kyubey is the obvious Mephistopheles stand-in.

I don't think that can be true. The cypher in the background explicitly quotes Faustus. I suppose it could have been added in by Shinbo or another animator, but the writing seems to direct in its homage for the butcher not to have read it.
I just realized there's another story which partially inspired Madoka that I forgot about, which is Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.

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Don't do that here.

Anyways, Homu is neither inherently good or bad. She calls herself a devil because her sense of morality forces her to acknowledge that her actions aren't aligned with the 'good', so she accepts that it's a role she has to play in order to protect Madoka to a level she deems acceptable.

It's really not anymore complicated than that.

All this comparison with Jesus and Satan is silly.

i find this hard to believe after reading the transcriptions of the runes throughout the series. i was unaware of their meaning until a few minutes ago after doing a quick search on the subject.

nigger i will do whatever the fuck i want i've been here far too long to give a shit about fitting in with Sup Forums culture obsessed autists. here have an emote too ;P

Well, at least don't pretend like you're the first rebellious teenager in human history. We all grew out of it, you will too.

>pfffff and *you're* calling *me* new
This sentence is god awful. I sentence you to lurk for two more years.

the only thing that truly doesn't make sense is as to how madoka appears at the end of the movie. i get that homura still kind of remembers her and that madoka would appear as a projection in homer's subconscious, but wasn't madoka supposed to be erased from existence? to me it seems like the only retcon.

Homura fully remembers Madoka at the end of the original series because Madoka pulls her out to talk to her during the creation of the new universe. Maybe the point of Rebellion is to say that this was a mistake, and Madoka shouldn't have shown Homura preferential treatment.

get over yourself

you get over yourself too. i'm allowed to type however i want to
im sure i've been around here longer than both of you, im fully aware of what is "acceptable" to the average user here

You don't know that, I've been here all summer.

well yes and no. later on, she explicitly states that she was beginning to doubt whether or not madoka was just a figment of her imagination or her true memories. regardless madoka is not supposed to exist. the madoka in homura's subconscious is not the real madoka. but the "real" madoka appears after homura breaks from her trance which should not be possible because made is not supposed to exist

>she was beginning to doubt whether or not madoka was just a figment of her imagination or her true memories
That's just because Homura is literally the only person who remembers her. If the entire world had a different set of memories than you, eventually you'd start to wonder if you had gone crazy. And Madoka only "doesn't exist" within the Universe. She's an extra-universal being now, so there's not reason she shouldn't be able to make an appearance.

TDS is canon.

look out we got a funny guy over here
if you've been here longer than 12 years then i guess you win but im pretty sure you haven't

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Madoka the person still exists, just not in a normal way now. She personally takes magical girls to the afterlife. She "doesn't exist" in the way that she erased herself from ever existing and nobody remembers her but Homura, so now she lives as a goddess full time beyond reality.

People in this show aren't always who they appear to be.

Sayaka especially. "I'm the same Miki Sayaka you've always known, T R A N S F E R S T U DE N T."

idk mayn it's all still very fresh in my head since yesterday, i'm pretty sure madoka was written out of existence with the exception of residual memories from homura.

that's exactly what i believe to be the retcon. unless my memory is absolute dog shit, i remember madoka being btfo of existence.

Sayaka was actually Madoka's mom the whole time. Have you noticed they've never been in the same room?

In the Universe, yes. As a fundamental law of nature, she exists outside of the constraints of physical reality.

>Q: Madoka seems to be inspired by Goethe's Faust [...]
>A: The designers from SHAFT thought of inserting the quotes from Faust. I only noticed them when people approached me asking about them. My main inspirations are eroge and classical literature.
Looks to me like he's saying Faust wasn't an inspiration but I guess you can interpret it either way. (not the guy you were replying to btw)

It's not a retcon. Her wish was to prevent witches from existing "with my own hands". Madoka not physically taking souls up is a direct violation of her wish. The Madoka at the end of Rebellion going to get Homura is indeed the real Madoka, and you have to be deluded to deny that.

That's the most blatant interpretation and it's what Homura sees herself as, but far from the only one. If that was all to Rebellion, then the movie wouldn't have generated the amount of fervent debate that it did.

>the strl concluded that Madoka was clearly supposed to be a metaphor for jesus / other messiah type characters
I think Madoka fits the role of a bodhisattva more closely than a messiah, given the main story's constant references to karma, fate, and cycles. Other anons with more knowledge of Buddhism and Christianity would probably be able to give a better explanation, though.

Interesting, I'd never seen that before. I wonder how much each person contributed to the final outcome.

ok that kinda puts it into perspective. but then she wouldn't not be able to have been tainted/destroyed/whatever the fuck homura did to her at the end of the movie. and if that's the case what homura did should not be possible as if she is a fundamental law of nature, such as entropy for example, there should be nothing that could interfere with what madoka does/is

i'm not saying it wasn't the real madoka but im saying that the real madoka shouldn't exist in that form in-universe. it's not like there has to be someone to ferry souls into the afterlife. their souls can just go there themselves after leaving the soul gem.

>Madoka fits the role of a bodhisattva
i don't know shit about buddhism but it's definelty possible. by wikipedias definition it could be more likely than not.

>classic literature
isn't faust a piece of classic literature? i think it's within the realm of possibility that he doesn't just want to out right say it because it kinda ruins the mystery of it all

You don't understand. It was Madoka's wish to go down and take the girls' souls HERSELF. That's what "with my own hands" means.
Madoka did wipe away her existence in normal reality; that's why nobody remembers her. She just now lives in a different plane, and slips into reality when taking up girls.

It's objectively not. Not that you even care, you just want to shitpost.

no. she said: "I wish to erase all witches from existence before they're even born. Every witch in the universe, from the past and the future, with my own hands."

there are many ways to interpret this and i see where you're coming from, but that would be a little too literal. let's not forget all of the wishes have the "be careful what you wish for" cliche sprinkled in. the whole slipping in and out of reality just doesn't jive with me based on the results of the other girls' wishes

I guess that's just your problem, because that's literally what happens.
And the girls' wishes aren't monkey pawed, they're interpreted literally, and the only bad things that can happen is if they realized they wished for the wrong thing or if they fuck something up afterwards.

i don't believe they make it clear what Mama wishes for, but literally all of them get bitten in the ass by their wish. even madoka does at the end of the movie, if homura pulls her out of her god-mode who is going to save the magical girls' souls?

The wishes aren't twisted to fuck them over. There are always unforseen effects.
For example, Sayaka wished to heal Kyousuke's hand, and that's exactly what happened. Love wasn't part of the wish. Sayaka wanted to make Kyousuke grateful for healing him so they could start dating; that wasn't part of her wish, and she dropped the ball and it's her own faoult things turned out the way it did.
As for Homu, that's part of why Rebellions ending is so open. We don't know if the LoC works without Madoka. Even though Homura says it works, we haven't seen it work. If Homura is telling the truth, we can assume she made it work autonomously when she was changing the universe.

im not exclusively saying that the wishes are designed to fuck them over, just stating the fact that they all get fucked over by their wish so it's in the realm of possibility. yes their wishes get granted, but ultimately they all suffer from it. homura's wish bites her in the ass too, she wishes to go back and save madoka and she literally can't.

>literally
Please stop abusing this poor word.
As we see with the granting of Sayaka's wish, languages games and wordplay are irrelevant: Kyubey doesn't grant what the girls say they want, but what they mean to want. Madoka wanted to bring hope to all magical girls in all universes, and wanted to do it in a humane manner rather than follow the utilitarian calculus of the Incubators.

Homura says she only broke off a small portion of the Law of Cycles, implying that outside of her pocket universe, MGs are still being saved. I see no reason not to take her at her word, given that she had just ranted about respecting Madoka's wish (when she resolves to fight the Witch who had created the Nightmare world), and that the same courtesy had been extended, far more charitably, to Kyubey whenever he exposits on the system.

But erasing witches before they are born with her own hands is exactly what she does. "Literal" was correctly used.
QB is like a gatekeeper, not a genie. The girls grant their own wishes. It's why he can't refuse them.

There situations do end badly, yes, but it's not because of any sort of manipulation.

>We all grew out of it, you will too.
Are you talking with your kids like this too?

original series was mediocre.
the movie, though, was complete garbage.

TDS was pretty good. Loved the KyouMami moments of them kicking witch rear.

you didn't need to explain all that, the imagery makes everything you said very apparent

people who try to find a deeper meaning in anime are retards

yes.

Except Homura saved the universe, unlike satan.

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I usually prepare myself to see people hating Rebellion upon watching it like I originally did, but since it seems pretty clear to you how Homura's characterization in the movie is a logical extension of the person she was in the series I don't really have much to say myself. Was never any good with interpreting any of the symbolism or references personally.

Why?
Her world seems pretty perfect to me