Madoka Magica was one of those shows I had heard about for years as something that revolutionised the magical girl genre and heavily influenced what followed it. After finally watching it, I understand the praise and the reasoning behind it.
However, the implementation of those ideas is imperfect and flawed.
Spoiler, click to view
A lot of Madoka Magica works because its symbolism is straightforward. Madoka is a character without clear ambitions or ideas of her own, someone placed into a role built around care and responding to others. Sayaka wishes to heal the hands of the violin player she loves and restore what was damaged, only for her own arc to become one of inflicting pain onto others after the revelation of Hitomi's confession, severing her relationships, and finally taking away her own ability to feel pain at all. Spoiler, click to view
Kyouko is introduced with apples, and that symbol matters. Her wish was tied to helping her family and her father's church, and what remains of her is someone marked by temptation, consumption, guilt, and sacrifice. Even the red of her design helps sell that reading, just as Sayaka being given blue fits her own tragedy in a different way. The symbolism in the show is often obvious, but that is part of why it works. It is easy to see and impossible to avoid.That sense of inevitability is one of the show's biggest strengths. You can see where things are going and it still hits.
Spoiler, click to view
Kyubey's motivations being slowly revealed is also done well. The conflict broadens from personal suffering into something grounded in the laws of the universe itself, and that gives the series much of its weight. That is also where the ending lets it down for me.Spoiler, click to view
Once Madoka is told she could change the laws of the universe, the final wish feels contrived. Instead of addressing the underlying requirement itself, the story has her erase witches across past, present, and future and become a concept in the process. It is grand, tragic, and emotionally strong, but it does not feel like the most satisfying resolution to the problem the story had constructed. Spoiler, click to view
The series builds up a conflict grounded in cosmic law, then resolves it in a way that preserves the structure of suffering rather than confronting its source. It feels less like the natural culmination of the ideas and more like an ending made to be specifically bittersweet and unsatisfying.That is the main thing holding the show back for me. Sadness and death are not unique to Madoka Magica in the magical girl genre. I watched the Senshi die when I was a kid in Sailor Moon. But the ending to that still felt satisfying as a resolution, even if it revived them. Madoka Magica, by comparison, feels like it chooses tragic weight over a more complete resolution.
The show is great and I understand why it was so influential. But for me it is let down by an ending that feels weaker than the symbolism, setup, and thematic strength of everything leading up to it.
