Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

This show is such a tightly integrated experience such that it would be a disservice to talk about aspects like story or visuals separately, for in a perfectly crafted machine, each part works perfectly within it yet do not work at all elsewhere. Rather than talking about aspects of the show here, I will just talk about some random reasons why this show is better than almost all others. There are light spoilers but let's be honest, a masterpiece like this can't be spoiled.

This is a 12-episode show that tells a story as epic as other 50+ episode shows. Characters that only technically show up for 3 episodes feel like you've known them since forever, a one-episode montage of time loop feel as long as those 8 episodes in Suzumiya Haruhi. It goes without saying, not a single frame is without purpose. A rare gem of a show especially now in an industry filled with unfinished or never ending adaptations spanning decades.

You know how people praise Thanos as being a plausibly relatable villain? Thanos has got nothing to respond to even simple challenges like why can't he just double the resources. But the "villain" here, well if anybody has a coherent argument as to why they're in the wrong and actually the "villain", I'd really like to hear it. Being someone familiar with philosophy, it doesn't blow my mind because I've read and thought it this before, and I'm of the opinion that there is no way to argue against that position. I love how the battle is ultimately philosophical, the villain is not even within the realm of being defeated in battle, yet somehow Madoka prevails against all odds, that's epic AF and also smart AF.

The use of technobabble to justify fantasy settings tend to backfire in Anime, like how they mention "quantum mechanics" in Bunny Girl Senpai when it isn't necessary nor make any sense. Madoka shows you how it's supposed to be done. Firstly you don't invoke unnecessary technobabble, there is no attempt to explain how "energy of emotion" is harnessed, it's just magic and that's totally fine, nobody really cares how it works. Then you sprinkle in some real facts to make things sound plausible, like for example here, the total usable energy in the universe is constantly reducing as entropy increases, this is a scientific fact. It has also been proposed that hypothetical super civilizations in the far future might eventually run into this energy problem, AKA, "heat death of the universe". Put these two things together, aliens are here to harness the energy of emotions, and who has the most emotions in the universe? teenage girls obviously. Bam there's your idea for a magical girl show!

Some shows like to make the fiction seem like they can plausibly exist in the real world, like for example in the Fate series magic is kept secret from the public and you just hear about stuff like carbon monoxide poisoning when it's really casualties from magic battles. Madoka kind of elevates this plausibility to a higher level, yea it has the regular "normal people can't see magic" thing going on but also it maybe kinda claims we are living in a sequel of the show. As in, this real world exists because of the events taken place in the show, and that's wild. Characters like Goku it doesn't matter how much power he gains or what villains he defeats, ultimately he lives in a fictional Dragon Ball universe, but if you somehow have the inkling that Madoka is a real person who battles real life monsters, that just makes her tale far more epic than Goku's.

Endings can be tricky the more epic you make your show. While normal 12-episode shows aren't hard to end because nothing happens relatively speaking, this show has already done a whirlwind of triple layouts, corkscrew twists, and aerial splits; I mean this show has more than one timeline to conclude for Madoka's sake, can you imagine it? Obviously we're here because it does indeed nail a pin-drop landing, somehow, and you don't even need to watch the movie, it ends perfectly right here. Things don't just magically work out, we don't live happily ever after, yet everything happened for a reason we can be satisfied with, if we have to pick one thing this show is the best at, it's being perfectly balanced.

Madoka is also an allegory for the Idol industry in Japan, on top of everything else, is there even anything this show isn't about? Much like other good shows on this topic like Oshi no Ko, it offers an authentic portrait of the duality of the situation. On one hand there's the brutal competition and commodification of youth, but on the other hand there are genuine wishes to help and inspire people, and people who really need that inspiration. As audiences you will be left to question how this conundrum should be solved, is the industry evil or is it a force for good?

It's also a Yuri show, because why not. Admittedly it's limited by realities of space-time but still one of the best. I've been watching some Yuri shows recently and it seems to me they tend to focus on the emotions after falling in love, and less on why or how they fell in love. Except here we don't really have a lack of reasons here, you totally get where the relationship comes from. In just a couple of masterful scenes you understand these two characters and will be pulled into the emotional roller coaster.