being developer is suffering

madoka madoka madoka / yuki yuna / princess tutu / magical splash flare / etc 

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

early Madoka Magica character previews

in which it's not fair to mention them on the blog without sharing

so cute! so fluffy! so misleading!

and they were playing a little piano soundtrack... which I don't have...

does anyone know where to find a copy of these? maybe with the other ones that just had the series name and words like "scenario: gen urobuchi" and one or two clips of Morning Rescue?

[kcflowers]

Re-creating a PMMM Heritage Photo

Spent the past two days working on reproducing (as well as I can) the photo a reporter took at the 2015 Madogatari exhibit where the PMMM Concept Movie was shown off for the first time. The photo was good for a photo taken on an iPhone 6s (per the metadata) but there's only so many pixels, and internet denizens have fixations galore.

Above is the original, and below is the rasterized reproduction. While not perfect, it represents an enormous amount of effort to try and make the graphics coherent, visible and appreciable.

The odd, rectangular shapes with colors represent either known missing media (the majority of the witch cards) of items without a high resolution image (such as the candeloro cards). Not all of them are labeled, but those are there as a sign of "I looked for a while and didn't find 'em, sorry."

The zoomable-to-infinity PDF version is on a Google Drive I uploaded here, and pulls material from the Production Notes, Image Notes, Concept Movie stills, the Grief Box 2012 that Inu Curry did a bunch of work for, Madogatari specific designs, and production note graphics. DO NOT OPEN PDF ON MOBILE, WILL CONSUME 700MB+ OF DATA

If anyone wants sources / links for items in this, let me know! They didn't embed in the PDF but I *did* keep track as I was making it. Go wild Madofans (and Inu Curry fans.)

[kcflowers]

Oh, and if you want a context for why I care so much? Have a comparison still (original at 100% opacity for clarity.)

It was *bad*, and so... I tried.

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Reblogging this again, this time with thoughts:

I have a small set of GIFs that were taken from the original Madoka Magica preview videos, the ones with the pretty piano background music and extra-cute happy smiling magical girls and adorable Incubators.

The video I extracted that from has disappeared. I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I can't find it. All the ephemera associated with the media is so ... ephemeral.

So it's really, really cool to see this kind of pre-release material all gathered together and organized and preserved like this. In five or ten or twenty years, we can look back, and say, "oh wow, the speculah was something else... and look! look at this, this is what we were getting really excited about!"

[cracklewink]

god is watching

[silvermoon424]

What if I died in your arms over and over and OVER again, and then I became a god powered by your devotion to me who ascended to godhood to end the suffering of other girls like us. And then what if you were so desperate to see me again that you conjured up a fake paradise where we and our friends could live happily, only it was actually a trap set by aliens meant to contain me. And what if you decided to become a monster to keep my secrets safe, only for me to intervene and remind you how much I love you which saves your soul from eternal corruption.

And we were both girls 😳

[dizzyisdizzy]

Homura “Too Cool for School” Akemi 

[kcflowers]

Re-creating a PMMM Heritage Photo

Spent the past two days working on reproducing (as well as I can) the photo a reporter took at the 2015 Madogatari exhibit where the PMMM Concept Movie was shown off for the first time. The photo was good for a photo taken on an iPhone 6s (per the metadata) but there's only so many pixels, and internet denizens have fixations galore.

Above is the original, and below is the rasterized reproduction. While not perfect, it represents an enormous amount of effort to try and make the graphics coherent, visible and appreciable.

The odd, rectangular shapes with colors represent either known missing media (the majority of the witch cards) of items without a high resolution image (such as the candeloro cards). Not all of them are labeled, but those are there as a sign of "I looked for a while and didn't find 'em, sorry."

The zoomable-to-infinity PDF version is on a Google Drive I uploaded here, and pulls material from the Production Notes, Image Notes, Concept Movie stills, the Grief Box 2012 that Inu Curry did a bunch of work for, Madogatari specific designs, and production note graphics. DO NOT OPEN PDF ON MOBILE, WILL CONSUME 700MB+ OF DATA

If anyone wants sources / links for items in this, let me know! They didn't embed in the PDF but I *did* keep track as I was making it. Go wild Madofans (and Inu Curry fans.)

[tokyo-tower-symbolism]

A Deep Dive of the Junna-Nana Revue in the Movie, or why you really ought to believe in others more

The Revues in Revue Starlight can be difficult to understand.

Usually that’s because of all the imagery and music and symbolism coming at you simultaneously, but this one in particular is confusing because Nana is just so hard to understand. She is absolutely terrifying in the movie, and last time it was because she had to protect her reruns, but we don’t know why she’s doing it this time. And don’t get me wrong, we just had a whole thing where Mahiru chased Hikari with murderous intent, but that was acting! So we keep waiting for Nana to drop the act, but she never does! Even when Junna is crying and has lost the will to fight, Nana just leaves her behind like she doesn’t even care!? What’s going on? Nana is Junna’s biggest fan! What happened to Nana? What’s going on?

So this is my attempt to lay out everything going on and try to get a better understanding of what was going on with Junna and Nana throughout the movie. It’s also part of my series of deep dives into each of the movie’s Revues, and while it should be able to be read as a standalone thing, I will be analyzing the Revue of Annihilation in this one, so I may touch on the issues everyone else is dealing with as well. 

So to start it off, let’s take a look at what Junna’s dealing with at the start of the movie.

And I gotta say, girlie is going through it.

Admittedly she seems fine at a glance, but literally her first scene has her own acting being overshadowed by Karen’s brilliant performance of someone who feels lost after their friend leaves them behind. And if we’re being real, that really says more about what Karen’s going through than anything about Junna’s actual ability, but can you blame her for being discouraged by this brilliant display of method acting?

And it get’s even worse when you realize what they were performing. This is the play that they were going to see at New National. And from the poster and the fact that Mahiru and Futaba were practicing these lines, you can figure out that Junna was playing the lead role in this rehearsal. 

So literally everything in the script is working to make her stand out, but she got upstaged by the supporting cast! Not only that, but she’s also gonna see this her own role played by a professional soon enough, so she’ll have to compete with that too soon enough.

If you take a look at her future plans, you can see that Junna plans on continuing to University, which is a big departure from literally everyone else who is planning on auditioning for Acting Troupes so they can become professional actors straight out of high school. But unlike them, Junna wants to study more about the stage right now to understand it deeper.

And this is a sign of the growth for Junna compared to the start of the series, since she used to be extremely impatient. She was obsessed with becoming the top star and pushed herself with extra practice to the point of passing out to try and make up for her lack of experience compared to Maya or Claudine, so the fact that she’s willing to take it slow and learn properly is much healthier for her in the long run. If you think about it, pre-character development Junna probably would have applied for a troupe immediately after graduating because that’s what everyone else was doing and she doesn’t want to fall behind, even if it wasn’t the best move for herself.

But if she wants to understand the stage, it’s a little odd that she’s applying to a literature department as her first choice. Keep in mind that Seisho is a music academy and her second and third choices are explicitly drama focused, so it’s a little strange that her first choice isn’t explicitly stage related. 

But then again, Junna has always loved using quotes from literature, and she says she’s going to use what she learns to act in college, so it’s not like she’s completely given up! She says as much, in that all of this is so that she can become the star she aspires to be! Also she quotes William Shakespeare because of course she fucking does.

But I think it’s a little sad that the quote she and her teacher recite is about how some are born great, while others achieve greatness, and it’s pretty clear that Junna doesn’t think she’s the first one or that she’s the second one yet.

We see this lack of confidence surface again when Kaoruko accuses them all of having given up their desire to become a top star.

Obviously in the scene we know that Kaoruko is wrong here. Kaoruko even admits as much to Claudine after storming off from the room. She’s clinging to an idealized version of the past, so obviously the rest of them aren’t interested in becoming the top star of a stage that never existed. They are looking to the future instead.

But I wanna take a look at Junna’s reaction in this scene.

When Junna looked at her phone, she didn’t recognize the date, because she had moved on from the auditions, which is a little surprising when you remember how much weight she put into that initial loss to Karen. She was ready to complain to the manager about it too! But then again, Junna had matured since that first revue, and by the 10th episode when she got knocked out of the auditions, she wasn’t bitter. She instead chose to watch and learn from everyone else.

So she and everyone else is shocked to realize that Kaoruko actually still wants to participate in the auditions.

Although unlike everyone else who remains shocked, Junna is the only one who looks away while Kaoruko talks about waiting for another shot at the auditions. Because although this is coming from a place of hurt, Kaoruko accidently hit the nail on the head for Junna. She hasn’t been waiting for the next audition, since she doesn’t think she can compete with top stars as she is now. And from an outside perspective, this scene almost makes it seem like Junna can’t bring herself to look at the brilliance of someone who strives to be the top star of the audition.

But all of that was just my wild speculation about this scene. For all I know I could be reading way too into it, but Junna explicitly says as much to Claudine later in the train ride, so I’m probably not too far off.

On the train to New National, Claudine decides to reenact her conversation with Mahiru in the laundry room, but this time with Junna.

Just like with Mahiru, Claudine takes a look at her questions for New National. And Junna’s questions are… rough to say the least. They’re all about how to handle pushback from those around her or how to overcome hesitation about her career path. And like wow, this is heavy stuff. Can we go back to the power of love overcoming hardships? This got way too real for me way too fast. 

Honestly that thing in her questions about her family makes me think her first choice college being a literature department instead of a drama department might have been a compromise with her parents so they would let her act in college. As I said earlier, girlie is going through it.

But Junna defends herself for having such a long list of questions, just like Mahiru did with Claudine earlier. And just like with Mahiru, Claudine remarks to Junna on how excited everyone is, because thinking of new conversation topics for every single person is hard.

But eventually Junna asks Claudine if she’s the one who recommended Futata to aim for New National. And while Claudine says she simply encouraged Futaba, she does ask if Junna is okay with not applying to New National.

Junna doesn’t directly answer that question, saying she’s no match for Claudine or Maya right now, but she’s going to improve to be their equal one day because she’ll keep learning and trying. Anyways that whole monologue is a nice call back to what she had been saying since the first episode, that she would work hard to catch up to the rest of them and reach her own star!

But don’t let her eloquence deceive you, she absolutely dodged the question on whether or not she was okay with not applying to New National.

Anyways, earlier I mentioned that the conversation was practically ripped from the laundry room scene before, but there was a notable difference. When Mahiru expressed doubts that she would be good enough to get into New National, Claudine didn’t try to comfort her, but Claudine tried to cheer on Junna when she expressed her doubts. 

This is because despite their similar lack of self-esteem, at least Mahiru is at the start line and is willing to at least audition for the best troupe in the world. Mahiru doesn’t need Claudine to encourage or comfort her. 

But Junna gave up before she even started, already deciding that she needs to learn more, that she’s not ready yet. Which is why Claudine tries to give Junna a push, just like she did with Futaba. But even when Claudine encourages Junna literally word for word the same way she encouraged Futaba, Junna is still hesitant to try to audition for New National, too scared to aim for the top star at the top troupe. 

But that’s all in her head. Junna is underestimating herself. Sure Claudine was making a jab at Maya when she said Junna was just as good, but she really does think that Junna has what it takes. And much later during the Revue of Resentment with Kaoruko, Futaba explicitly mentions Junna as a stage girl who has something she lacks.

Junna covers up this insecurity of hers by claiming she’s only not a match now, and in the future she will be, so it’s not that like she’s completely given up. But even so, right now Junna has lost the recklessness she had at the start of the series, that courage to try and become the top star, no matter how slim the chance. The Junna we see on the train is not the same Junna who got mad at her classmates for giving up on becoming Flora or Claire even before the auditions because they were sure Maya and Claudine were going to win. 

That Junna would have snapped at this Junna.

Anyways, there’s a reason that is the last meaningful conversation anyone has until the Revue of Annihilation.

But before that, let’s take a look at Nana.

In Nana’s career counseling, she says her current plans for after graduation are to either apply to New National’s acting troupe, or apply to be part of their production troupe, but she’s not completely sure which one to choose in the end. This is a nice reminder that although Nana’s pretty knowledgeable about the auditions and revues and everything, she’s also trying to figure out her own future, just like everyone else.

It feels important though, that Nana mentions that she knows she will have to choose, and that eventually it will end.

But unlike everyone else who is guiding the new students in their opening scenes, Nana is instead helping out Class B, essentially guiding the existing students instead of new ones.

Although, I gotta be real with you guys, I kinda forgot that Nana’s initial goal was New National.

When I rewatched the movie, I actually did a double take at this scene since I completely forgot that she applied there, and not the Royal Academy for Theatrical Actors where she ends up in the epilogue. And while this may be attributed to the fact that I am illiterate, I think part of it is because we don’t really see Nana get excited about New National with Maya, Mahiru, and Futaba. 

The entire time before their field trip to visit New National, the three of them are talking about it non-stop since it’s their dream troupe, but not Nana. She’s thinking about something else the whole time.

As for what she’s thinking about, we can take a guess.

If we go back to the scene where Karen and Junna are acting in front of potential students, Nana is in the background watching, and it’s pretty clear that Nana definitely relates to Karen. In Karen’s performance of someone who is lost because their friend has to leave them, Nana is the one who finishes Karen’s line, “Why are you leaving?” by adding “my friend.”

Nana’s whole subplot in the show was about how she didn’t want her friends to change and leave her behind, making her alone again like her time in Middle School. And while she made peace with the idea that they would all eventually grow and evolve as stage girls at the end of the show, the threat of them growing apart is still very real, especially as they all graduate and go their own, separate paths.

And unlike every other girl in their class, Nana and Karen are the only two without a clear plan for the future. But while Nana is at least attempting to narrow down her options and aware that she has to make a decision soon, Karen left her future plans sheet blank.

This separation of Nana and Karen from their classmates continues even into their next scene at Seisho. While Karen is who-knows-where, Nana had left to do laundry before she can hear Kaoruko’s rant about how pathetic they all are for not being interested in the audition this time. However despite being physically separated from the group and not participating in the conversation, Nana is somewhat aware of what’s going on with everyone.

Nana doesn’t come in and take part in the conversation though. She chooses to wait outside, despite not being busy with the chores.

This is a switch between Maya and Nana’s usual roles in the show, since usually Maya would be the one to be separated from the group in the show, and Nana would be the one infodumping about what’s going on. My working theory is that Nana feels guilty about what she will have to do later, so she’s trying to isolate herself from her friends before the Revue of Annihilation.

Even on the train ride, Nana only talks to Karen, the sole person in their train car who won’t take part in the upcoming Revue. And it isn’t like the two of them are having some important conversation either, since Nana is paying attention to Junna and Claudine’s talk.

When Junna talks about how she doesn’t plan on aiming for New National right now, Nana stares, although I gotta wonder if she is staring in disapproval or concern?

Keep reading

[meager-pickings]

watching re: creators and like. why is their a side character who is just the main character four years post transition

[huli-jinx]

Here’s what I think each Yuki Yuna is a Hero Character’s cream soda would look like:

Yuuki Yuuna:

Tougou Mimori:

Inubouzaki Fuu:

Inubouzaki Itsuki:

Miyoshi Karin:

Nogi Sonoko:

Link: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/2075394

[gossqmere]

take your final bow

[argentumcation]

Woe, kyubeynetes be upon ye

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

kyubeyctl list meguca -n mitakihara

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

sakura uses the clow wand to hit a badminton birdie (cr 球场NPC羊)

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Sayonara, Washii. Genki de ne.

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Reblog for anime version!

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

princess_principal_irl

It is the turn of the 20th century. Despite the revolution, our H. G. Wells-inspired Cavorite monopoly is intact, so the antigrav is taken care of; what our steampunk spy anime needs is a posh-looking school.

The London wall restricts us to the east side of the city, and various shots of driving on the steampunk aerial expressways suggest that we’re south of the Thames, quite possibly at an elevated location. The name “Queen’s Mayfair School” is not helpful: Mayfair is too central (just west of Piccadilly Circus) and seems perilously close to the wall. While the school must be fairly convenient to central London, where various Action happens, it needs to also stand on its own private patch of green land, uncrowded by the city.  

Conclusion: Queen’s Mayfair is located at what we would today call Dulwich College. It’s not an exact copy of our world today, but the key features of the college match. Pictures after the break.

People commenting on Dulwich say that visiting there is like you’ve left London. The tree-lined streets are lined with low fences, iron chains hanging between whitewashed posts. College Road itself is kept quiet with London’s only operating tollbooth. And here, with plenty of open space, we have a fancy school. With a tower. Let’s check it out on Google.

Embellish this with a few gardens and the style matches episode 1 exactly.

How about the college’s Great Hall?

Things are admittedly imperfect. This particular building doesn’t exist, but vaguely resembles the residence halls just down the street, if they were scaled up several stories.

Nor is there a church just off campus to watch the Morse code signals from the window: it appears they have taken liberties with the school’s clock tower:

They used a different tower, which does not exist, for this scene – presumably to project a rather different aesthetic:

On the whole, the architecture of the central building matches quite well, and the location is fairly compelling, especially considering that the Kingdom of Albion’s territory seems to be squarely focused on the southeast anyway:

Dulwich Academy is nestled up against that solid line, a location that can be seen just to the north of Sydenham Hill and east of West Dulwich on the blue (Southeastern) franchise on the London Connections map here, and west of the Brighton Mainline which can also be seen there:

That rail line is currently operated by the Southeastern franchise as far as Tulse Hill and the Thameslink franchise into London afterwards (observe the awkward crossing at Tulse Hill in the current service pattern; trains through this station are often forced to wait and it’s rather annoying).

Past Ashford, the route mostly follows the southern branch of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, which takes you into the terminal at Holburn Viaduct:

which is just on the other side of Smithfield Market from the modern day Farringdon station, which was also once the terminal of the Metropolitan Railway. (Through service to the north via King’s Cross was available from the nearby Snow Hill station, built only a few years afterwards.)

Whilst I’m not aware of any single-track or historically-single-track portions of the railway between Maidstone and London, they do sillier things as an excuse for dramatic tension in that episode. 

In conclusion, there is an anime, presently airing (one of approximately four I’ve ever watched this way), and its primary setting is just over a mile away from my house, in a random zone-3 suburb of London. That’s ... a pretty weird thing to randomly happen in life, I’ve got to say.

Cc:  @dulwichcollege, @dulwichdiverter.

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Sayonara, Washii. Genki de ne.

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Magical Slayer Mamika’s “Magical Splash Flare” scene is a Revolutionary Girl Utena reference

I don’t hold that this is super mega ultra insightfulness, but I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else, and I have heard hat some people were calling it a Fate reference (Gilgamesh or Unlimited Blade Works). Granted, a lot of the series is obviously a knockoff of loving homage to the Fate franchise, so I feel compelled to observe this special exception for posterity.

Mad mad mad mad mad mad mad spoilers for Re:Creators (episode 8) and Utena (episode 38-39) below the fold. (I’ll try to keep them from being complete-and-utter spoilers but we are talking about them being literally a frame away ...)

So let’s see what we’ve got here!

pink haired protagonist

on a mission to save her ally

getting stabbed by a sword from behind

with several swords, which may be said to symbolize human hatred, present in the scene

with these swords of hatred being of consistent and uniform design

with these swords of hatred forming a circular shape

with the stabbed protagonist turning to the viewer’s left with an open mouth and wide-open eyes

and then proceeding to a brief moment of injured glory

And while the Utena franchise isn’t a magical girl franchise per se, the paths which it forged have been followed by such shows as Princess Tutu and Madoka Magica. It is a beacon of influence, lending its dramatic import to many shows in the magical girl genre.

For a magical girl to die in an homage to Utena is a high, high honor.

.gif comparison available on imgur (they don’t work in this text post)

[beingdeveloperissuffering]

Sleepover Night at the Trope Warehouse

The story, as far as I’ve been told, is that once upon a time there was an animator on Toten Tengen Gurren Lagann. He was captured by Space Dandy, but escaped, and made his directorial debut.

Your author has never seen either of these, so went for advice. The summary I received was that TTGL is “Neitzsche”, and that 

if you thought firefly was a creative product and not just a stumble through the trope warehouse, space dandy might be really good for you! :P

(For reference, I think this is a little unfair. Firefly was not entirely uncreative in the space-western department. The rest of the tropes it dragged in sort of did it as much ill as they did good, though.)

Flip Flappers is no mere stumble through the trope warehouse. It was born there amongst the boxed-up props. It knows every nook and cranny of every box and every aisle. It will dump entire shelves full of tropes in an avalanche of joy; with its left hand it will reach for the Swimsuit Episode and with its right hand for Giant Robots, and as they careen towards the ground it will deftly combine the two in mid-air, assembling them into a masterpiece of entertainment. What chaos-magic is this??!

Nobody has any idea what’s going on, and it’s wonderful.

As of this writing, we are on episode 8 of 13, and we just had the swimsuit episode (yes, with giant robots). With that in mind, it’s time to serialize all the crazy theories about what the hell is happening so I can look back later and either feel good that I was right, or laugh at them. Wild speculation (and spoilers) after the break.

Theory 0. Pacing.

I’m cheating by being meta, but I think we are on the same basic schedule as Chuunibyou and Yuki Yuna Is A Hero. I call this the Baker’s Schedule, to contrast it with the Butcher’s Schedule that Urobutcher uses. It’s a slow start with lots of happiness and brightness and magic and sugar. Then somewhere around episode 7 of 12 or 8 of 13, there’s a gloriously happy beach/swimsuit episode, but sometime before the episode ends you realize that things have just got way too serious to handle: you will be baked, and then there will be cake!

(Or, with reference to the ending sequence: crawl into the oven, Hansel, and see if it is hot enough!!!)

There have been enough hints dropped throughout the series that (a) all is not right (dreams, possibly-dead-girl in ep1 at Flip Flap, the mysterious Flip Flap agenda, “world conquest”, etc). On top of that, the first episode showed us Cocona’s grandmother, and she was Way Too Real of a character for this not to be an emotionally serious anime. So the forecast is for dangerous drama and heavy Feels.

Let’s go again, Mimi!

Theory 1. Papika is a dog.

She goes ‘sniff sniff sniff’ (well, ‘kun kun kun’) everywhere. She keeps putting strange things in her mouth, including electrical cables. She does not conform to human expectations, inhibitions and values, and does not understand at all what is considered appropriate. She’s not stupid, but she’s clearly not experienced at rational reasoning or explaining things. She’s incredibly curious, but it’s not an intellectual curiosity. She is simple and pure. She love love love love love LOVES Cocona but hasn’t shown an ounce of actual romantic/sexual interest. Her eyes go wide chasing Uexkill and the creature is terrified. We’ve heard it explicitly mentioned by our mad scientist friend that Pure Illusion is not just about humans, but all kinds of existences - this isn’t just a callback to Uexkill’s world, it sets the stage for the future. And, most tellingly, there’s that line in Episode 3. “It sounds like Puppy-chan!” You thought that was a throwaway line? There are no throwaway lines, there is only secret foreshadowing.

This would also be a callout to magical girl anime Princess Tutu, where our redheaded protagonist is a duck who is literally named Duck, or “Ahiru”.

Confidence level: 80%

Theory 2/3. Homeworld is Pure Illusion, Cocona is not real

I’m not exactly sure what she is, but she’s clearly got some embedded amorphous in her and is the same sort of existence as other creatures.

Homeworld is Pure Illusion: 80%

Cocona is not real, at least not in her current form: 60%

Cocona is explicitly Papika’s imaginary friend and is not anchored in another form of real existence: 10%

Theory 4. Mimi is the boat-girl

If so, Cocona is somehow Mimi, or an artifact of Mimi.

Confidence: 50%

Theory 5. Zearth

Theorized: The enemy robot-thing in Episode 8 has Zearth’s right arm and that this is an explicit Bokurano reference before everything goes to Hell. In support of this, we see that the Pure Illusion experience may be harmful to your existence as an organism (Episode 1 flash of girl on floor). We see that no one is filling in the protagonists on the details and implications of what they’re doing, especially not the guy with Kokopelli-like glasses who actually knows what’s up. We see that the thing powering the robot and the thing inside Cocona’s leg are of the same sort. We have no confidence in the long-term existence of any universe we’ve visited (some of them explicitly seem to melt away). We see that there’s an insidious organisation bent on using these strange energies for presumably nefarious purposes which could be an analogue for the mysterious Founders.

Confidence: 25%

If this is the case, Papika will die to protect Cocona.

Long shot theories

These are all too much of a long shot to deserve a confidence rating, but detailed here for completeness sake.

It’s possible Mimi is the blue-haired girl who’s about to appear in episode 9 gone over to the dark side. (Cocona may have to fight her for the right to exist.)

It’s possible Yayaka is the real protagonist here. She’s been friends with Cocona far longer than Papika, she’s worried about the girl and her involvement in these matters. Like early-Cocona, she seems to suffer from an achievement and self-value deficit.

Cocona is actually dead and the risk getting stuck down a portal to “Hell” (as episode 7 joked about episode 6) is all too real. Pure Illusion, including the homeworld, is a sort of limbo state between proper reincarnations. (This fits quite well with Papika being a dog.)

Combination theories

Papika was said to have a wish that she wanted the amorphous to grant:

If Cocona is a dog, Mimi is boat-girl and Cocona is not real, then Papika has been sent into Pure Illusion to sniff out Mimi and bring her back, and this is the foundation of the plot. Computer-guy-hiding-behind-tree from ep7 may be the instigator here. Papika’s wish is to get Mimi back or to be a real girl.

If none of this is the case, the wish is something about saving Mimi from certain death, or terminal illness, or something along the lines.

Conclusions

Best anime I’ve seen in a long time.