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Madoka Magica 10: Groundhog Day

RIP Mami... again

After last week’s sorta meh episode, we get another Madoka of awesomeness! This time, we get to see how Homura came to be a mahou shoujo. Apparently in the original timeline, Mami and Madoka became partners (since Homura wasn’t there to delay Madoka becoming a Meguka, which probably led to a Madoka/Mami assist on the candy monster). They saved Homura and she became their magical girl toadie.

The original Walpurgis Night giant witch thing ended up killing Mami and Madoka and Homura made a contract to go back in time to make things right, just like in Quantum Leap! Homura then goes through a series of resets, trying to save her friend Madoka from what seems like the inevitable: becoming a witch and possibly destroying the Earth!

Homura 1.0

It’s really cool to see how Homura used to be the most awkward of everyone, and conversely, Madoka seemed the coolest. Through perhaps years of battling witches, Homura mastered the art of using concealed weapons (her shield is a bag of holding?) to become the most badass magical girl ever. A magical girl who uses guns? Fuck yeah! And man, does she clean up well (though I kinda like her with twintails and glasses…)!

This seems to happen a lot.

It was interesting to see the reactions of the characters in other situations too, like when Sayaka the witch was defeated and Mami went all apeshit, killing all the other magical girls so they wouldn’t turn into witches themselves. I was kinda hoping for a Kyubei death montage, sort of like Bill Murray’s montage of suicides in Groundhog Day.

Cool magical girls don't look at explosions

Homura’s actions finally make sense now, given the fact that she’s lost her friends multiple times. She calls Madoka by her first name because they’re BFF and acts cool because Madoka said she should. Basically everything she does is for Madoka, her first friend. She just has to convince her not to make a contract. It doesn’t seem too difficult, given that she could just sit them down with Kyubei and have him explain the contract legalese at length? Kyubei really doesn’t seem to be averse to telling the truth; he just leaves a lot out.

The series looks like it’s leading to a pretty finale. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Madoka Magica needs more yuri moments like this!

12 replies on “Madoka Magica 10: Groundhog Day”

I’m surprised at the wide range of emotions some watchers had in the aftermath of the revelations shown this episode. Some thought it brilliant execution-wise, others thought it lame for its relative unoriginality (ESPECIALLY since some message boards managed to predict these twists more than a month before) — there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.

Really, it’s VERY hard to come up with something 100% original, and as a writer I understand that the best many of us can do is try to make sure that the execution/presentation of the themes, plot, or characters is somewhat different… Which is what I thought the episode succeeded at. At the very least, it made one feel for Homura’s almost hopeless fight.

How is it unoriginal to expand on what’s been building up for the whole series? I think it would be more annoying for them to just pull random shit and claim originality.

It’s not my opinion, sir, but some sour-grapes in some forums aren’t digging the time-travel angle just because it’s been already done before in different series. It’s a stupid STUPID reason to hate on a series, as I mentioned that the execution was near-flawless despite of the ‘cliched’ set-up.

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. People can give whatever reasons they want for not liking this show, but I agree with you that the execution has been great thus far. Episode 9 was a bit slow but this one was great!

New reader here…. I’m not really familiar with that series in particular, but enjoy anime, like some of your other posts that I’ve seen, and appreciate the Groundhog Day reference. 🙂 Wanted to say hi!

Hey people at basugasubakuhatsu,

Just wondering if you guys are going to continue blogging about new series? I know it’s been a year, but I’d love to keep reading, as I used to be a frequent visitor, but after the lack of posts I moved on.

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