![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The Shakeup: Madoka Magica Rebellion
It was an interesting sort of experience to see the two "compilation movies" made of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime series at the movies, but I suppose that in concluding they hadn't quite "replaced" the original series in my estimation (which saved me buying their pricy first release) I also let them point ahead to the promised third movie with its original story. The third movie came out in Japan without my picking up too much about it, and then a few months later it began its special screenings over here, including at my own local theatre. With a new sense of anticipation, I headed over to the movies, and this time managed to get one of the bonus items being handed out, an "art board." I took in the rest of the audience with a sort of "I'm not alone around here" feeling, then had the unfortunate thought that to wonder what to make of them would be to ask what they would make of me.
As for the movie itself, the problem with being surprised at a work of entertainment might be that when compelled to talk about it, you're giving that surprise away to others. Trying to craft a brief and non-specific statement, I want to say the artwork was as interesting as ever, what was happening kept surprising me and yet seemed to fit into the patterns set before with just a bit of thought, and my first settled reactions to the conclusion were to be intrigued, but to also think my particular grounding for that might just mean a lot of other people would find what happened more problematic.
With the original anime having concluded with its title character Madoka at last doing what had first just been expected but then set up to be feared by making a contract to become a "magical girl," only to shatter through that by spending the importance that had gathered around her to change the rules that made becoming a magical girl so ominous at the cost of vanishing from the world and the memories of almost everyone, I suppose I'd imagined the new movie would involve finding her again. As it turned out, though, she appeared at once in a deliberate recreation of the mundane beginning of the series. It seemed obvious enough we were to wait for explanations, and I did think back a bit to some discussion I saw of the very first episode offering various "this could be even more ominous than it already looks" speculations.
With Madoka around, having the other four magical girls of the series turn up as well seemed just part of the same first enigma. (To top things off, Mami was paired up with the particular creature that removed her from the series early on in a long-memorable way; this did feel sort of an "acknowledgement of grassroots popularity," somehow.) The quintet carried off what was very easy to see as a sort of "typical magical girl" adventure the series might have seemed at very first glance, and then the look of things began to change, Homura began to move into the protagonist role she had been revealed bit by bit to hold in the series, and I could feel we were approaching our explanation.
Homura's suspicions and attempts to do something about it (setting up the next big action setpiece) turned into the revelation of just who was to blame, and in linking to the new order set up at the end of the series what seemed the resolution got under way. Then, the biggest surprise of all the movie hit, the divine apotheosis at the end of the series matched and subverted by what could very well be called a demonic appropriation, and even as a sort of distancing-for-safety reaction started imagining "so how many are shaken that she's 'turned evil?'" I could see just how that also connected to certain viewpoints of mine built up over time.
When I see other people reading interactions between fictional characters with the thought this links them romantically without definitive proof having to be provided, the fabled "shipping," I do seem inclined to just shrug it off and think it's still "friendly" interaction (or, perhaps, "adversarial"). It can get a little wearying to see the enthusiasm and hold the thought "is it just letting what might not be there outweigh whatever is?" It happened, of course, with the series itself. Now, though, without an ordinary kind of "confession" or the sort of make-out session in the naughtier kind of fanworks, I could see what had happened as a probably unbalanced attachment, and the contrast between that and what I supposed was the usual run of speculation did amuse me even as I wondered "what next?" The hubbub as the movie ended after what seemed a very full running time, but not a stretched-out one as I glanced at my watch, included a vocal comment or two about how there would have to be another movie. I kept the thought "but what if there isn't?" to myself. Still, the thought that this mattered where some other anime movies following complete series don't stuck with me, building to a sort of "this could certainly be what happened afterwards" feeling, and I did suppose I wouldn't be so quick to "save my money" this time at some hypothetical opportunity.
As for the movie itself, the problem with being surprised at a work of entertainment might be that when compelled to talk about it, you're giving that surprise away to others. Trying to craft a brief and non-specific statement, I want to say the artwork was as interesting as ever, what was happening kept surprising me and yet seemed to fit into the patterns set before with just a bit of thought, and my first settled reactions to the conclusion were to be intrigued, but to also think my particular grounding for that might just mean a lot of other people would find what happened more problematic.
With the original anime having concluded with its title character Madoka at last doing what had first just been expected but then set up to be feared by making a contract to become a "magical girl," only to shatter through that by spending the importance that had gathered around her to change the rules that made becoming a magical girl so ominous at the cost of vanishing from the world and the memories of almost everyone, I suppose I'd imagined the new movie would involve finding her again. As it turned out, though, she appeared at once in a deliberate recreation of the mundane beginning of the series. It seemed obvious enough we were to wait for explanations, and I did think back a bit to some discussion I saw of the very first episode offering various "this could be even more ominous than it already looks" speculations.
With Madoka around, having the other four magical girls of the series turn up as well seemed just part of the same first enigma. (To top things off, Mami was paired up with the particular creature that removed her from the series early on in a long-memorable way; this did feel sort of an "acknowledgement of grassroots popularity," somehow.) The quintet carried off what was very easy to see as a sort of "typical magical girl" adventure the series might have seemed at very first glance, and then the look of things began to change, Homura began to move into the protagonist role she had been revealed bit by bit to hold in the series, and I could feel we were approaching our explanation.
Homura's suspicions and attempts to do something about it (setting up the next big action setpiece) turned into the revelation of just who was to blame, and in linking to the new order set up at the end of the series what seemed the resolution got under way. Then, the biggest surprise of all the movie hit, the divine apotheosis at the end of the series matched and subverted by what could very well be called a demonic appropriation, and even as a sort of distancing-for-safety reaction started imagining "so how many are shaken that she's 'turned evil?'" I could see just how that also connected to certain viewpoints of mine built up over time.
When I see other people reading interactions between fictional characters with the thought this links them romantically without definitive proof having to be provided, the fabled "shipping," I do seem inclined to just shrug it off and think it's still "friendly" interaction (or, perhaps, "adversarial"). It can get a little wearying to see the enthusiasm and hold the thought "is it just letting what might not be there outweigh whatever is?" It happened, of course, with the series itself. Now, though, without an ordinary kind of "confession" or the sort of make-out session in the naughtier kind of fanworks, I could see what had happened as a probably unbalanced attachment, and the contrast between that and what I supposed was the usual run of speculation did amuse me even as I wondered "what next?" The hubbub as the movie ended after what seemed a very full running time, but not a stretched-out one as I glanced at my watch, included a vocal comment or two about how there would have to be another movie. I kept the thought "but what if there isn't?" to myself. Still, the thought that this mattered where some other anime movies following complete series don't stuck with me, building to a sort of "this could certainly be what happened afterwards" feeling, and I did suppose I wouldn't be so quick to "save my money" this time at some hypothetical opportunity.