but nobody talks about Madoka running into a hurricane for Homura in a timeline where she seems to not have even known about magical girls
or in the final timeline where Madoka finally plans on making her wish after learning Homura's pretty much doomed to failure, and she runs into a hurricane to say goodbye to Homura
she could have made that wish inside of the shelter, but no, she ran into that hurricane for a girl she's known for a month (and the lyrics of Magia state that her motivation is love, so don't try that "wow, what a good pal she is" bullshit)
Madoka sees a pretty girl and what little self preservation she has just fucking vanishes, and people just don't talk about that
Honestly, if you had to ask me what one thing makes Shaft anime so distinct aesthetically, I'd probably say the blocking
There's a lot else at play, but every anime I've seen by the studio is just full of shots of perfectly-posed characters, subtle when they need to be, but just as often quirky or outlandish
The studio is clearly good at hiring people who know how to frame a shot and how to maximise the potential of a character's design
I sincerely do not understand people who watch rebellion and think that homura is evil. Congratulations. You fell for the “I am pure evil” facade of a fourteen year old who’s only motivation throughout the entire series was to love and be loved.
Obsessed with Devil Homura post rebellion ring just a little… off to everyone else. Her tongue is just a bit too long and lizard like. Her skin is a few degrees shy of cold and you never hear her enter the room. She always looks tired and weary and you get the sense she knows much more then you do.
Same with Madoka post rebellion… she glows just a little in the dark and if you look into her eyes at a weird angle they look golden, she has this far away look like she’s trying real hard to remember something
I also found a new way to read Madoka after my latest rewatch. The friend I was showing it to pointed out that even the simplest of actions are super exaggerated and I thought “huh, they usually do that in stage plays when so the audience in the back can see better” ex:
Then I realized: this is on purpose. The way the whole story is told is privy to a stage play.
The very first things that happen are the curtains opening and Madoka entering centre stage.
The sets, too. Ik the chairs are symbolic but it also is very much spread out like it’s on a stage
Especially the shadow play with Kyubey, it’s a common thing utilized in stage plays.
Most of all, Walpurgisnacht is LITERALLY THE STAGE-CONSTRUCTING WITCH.
Walpy puts the play in action by killing Madoka and Mami in the first timeline. From then on, Homura is forced to act out the same play over and over again helplessly for times lines and time lines. Her lines become scripted, she’s become an actor and in the theatre witches play.
What keeps us all hooked to Eva time and time again? You get through your initial, confused watch of either Evangelion endgame, probably sometime in your adolescence wondering what the hell it is you just watched. The original source material is suffused with unsettling imagery, and sometimes too-close-for-comfort shorts. It’s so much to process that one watch is never enough. The imagery isn’t enough, however, because the mid-to-late-90s series comes with things you’ll pick up the more you focus on certain characters’ struggles or the interesting world-building. They arise little by little with every re-watch, adding onto what interested you in Eva to begin with.
There’s always that little voice asking you “What it is that really draws me here?”
Oh. The horrors.
The tragedy of it all.
These things never leave you the second you bear witness to them, whether you become aware of them or not. You’re disturbed over it, a tad worried, no doubt, but you’re strangely hooked.
Horror works better on limitation, it’s why found footage capturing pale, ghastly, monstrosities of the deep wood will always stand as exponentially terrifying. While most all of us have taken cracks at Eva’s budget at some point, that’s what really drives these terrors home. Its low budget nature made it work.
Evangelion has commentary which forces a viewer to reflect. Most no one enjoys that. It’s the fear, however, that has its audience come back. Evangelion’s reflection alone isn’t what gives Eva it’s charm decades after its run. It’s the little things, most everyone misses, the anxieties, the terrors, all of it. Most of those things, fly over a lot of fans’ heads.
Buckle up, there’s a lot to go through…. (warning for mentions of abuse, body horror, means of suicide, nudity, blood, and gore)
Homura and Madoka's Wishes (the Concept of Selfishness)
TW: Mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation.
I) Beginning
In a lot of PMMM "discourse", even pre-Rebellion, there existed the idea that Homura's wish was fundamentally selfish, while Madoka's was fundamentally selfless.
This idea is often based off of the wording of Homura's wish. After all, Homura could have altered hers to simply make Madoka come back to life! Why couldn't she just have said, "I want Madoka Kaname to come back as a human girl"?
However, this "argument" of Homura's wish being "selfish" due to Homura wanting to basically protect Madoka instead of of "just" saving her hands-off is flawed from the start. Namely, because Madoka's wish has a similar catch:
Both of these wishes have a catch that can be considered selfish, but only Homura's is seemingly ever argued to be "bad". However, the same arguments that people use to call Homura selfish can be used with Madoka's wish here. After all, she could have just wished to erase any and all witches. But, instead, she wishes to do it with her own hands. Similar to how Homura didn't just want to protect Madoka, she wanted to be the one doing the protecting.
II) Homura's Wish is Never "Granted"
I'd like to bring up here that Homura is the only magical girl that, pre-Rebellion, is shown to not actually get her wish fully granted.
Everyone else gets their wish, even if it's twisted/not as they intended. But with Homura, the whole second part is cut out. She never becomes strong enough to protect Madoka, pre-Rebellion. Ever.
She loses the fight against Walpurgis. It's not even a close fight. Even in the anime timeline, when she's shown shooting it with guns/bombs/grenades/a train(?), the witch is nearly entirely undamaged. It is literally impossible for Homura to win. Not winning = Madoka not protected. Madoka not protected = the "I want to become strong enough to protect her" part of Homura's wish is not granted. Not in the slightest.
And this isn't like Homura just needs to keep trying, and she'll eventually be strong enough. The creator said by the anime, Homura has looped nearly a hundred times. One hundred attempts to protect Madoka, and she isn't able to do it even once.
And then, when Madoka becomes a God, she literally ceases to exist and cannot physically be protected at all, meaning Homura's wish then becomes literally impossible to fulfill.
III) Homura remembering Madoka
Madoka (and Kyubey) tell Homura that Madoka's wish essentially erases her from existance. Any physical memory or evidence of her ever being a person is entirely wiped out. But Homura remembers her — how?
I'd like to argue that it's entirely possible that Madoka wanted Homura to remember her. After all, she gives Homura her ribbons, with a vague "But maybe you'll still be able to remember me."
The only people shown to remember her in any capacity are Homura herself, Madoka's toddler brother who is implied to only remember due to his age (and that he might forget when older), and her mother — who only says the name is nostalgic and comments on Madoka's/Homura's ribbons. Kyoko doesn't remember her. Mami doesn't remember her. Her father isn't shown to remember her. Mami/Kyoko show blatant confusion when Homura cries over Madoka, because they can't even recognize her name.
But how is Madoka wanting to be remembered possibly a bad thing?
It's not bad. But it does, again, touch on the idea that Homura = Selfish, Madoka = Selfless.
IV) Rebellion
See, a main issue a lot of people have with Rebellion is that Homura's new world is bad because it is unstable.
Madoka is constantly seemingly on the cusp of remembering being the Law of Cycles (LoC). Sayaka seems to remember her as well before her memories are altered. This re-written universe she's made isn't stable. And, thus, people think it's "bad".
But Madoka's wasn't stable, either.
Madoka let Homura remember her existence. And, yes, I am saying "let her". Madoka gave Homura the ribbons as a token of rememberance. She has everyone forget her existance, all except for Homura.
She could have also altered/wiped Homura's memories. But she didn't.
Madoka letting Homura remember literally led to the events of Rebellion.
Homura remembers Madoka -> Homura tells Kyubey about Madoka/the previous universe -> Kyubey plots to trap Madoka/the LoC -> Homura begins to turn into a witch -> Homura feels the need to seperate the LoC from Madoka both to prevent Kyubey from harming/trapping her, and to follow what she believes to be Madoka's true desires (to not be the LoC) -> Homura creates a new universe that's, arguably, just as unstable as Madoka's.
Yet, despite this error, Madoka is still never called selfish for essentially causing a chain reaction.
V) Madoka's Wish Isn't Selfish, but Neither is Homura's
You might see this post and go, "Oh, samble is trying to call Madoka selfish and evil!", but that's not it.
A major, major thing anyone who has issues with Homura (or any of the cast) forgets is that the characters are little girls. 13-15 year old middle schoolers. They are not grown adults. They are not mature people who make 100% rational, level-headed decisions (nobody does all the time, anyways). They are all deeply traumatized children manipulated by a force beyond their control.
Madoka is not a selfish character. She has low self worth, low self confidence, and can even be argued to be depressed. Her wish to defeat all witches "with her own hands"...
Is likely a side effect of this, in a way — in that she wants to do good. She wants to be "useful" and help people. She wants to have a purpose.
Homura in Timeline One has more similar characterization. Remember, Homura then wasn't this mysterious, edgy girl. She was physically disabled. Very shy and socially stunted. Behind on her education, bullied, etc. She also had self worth issues, and in canon was suicidal, or, at least, depressed enough to be influenced by a witch into becoming suicidal.
So why does she wish to protect Madoka instead of just wishing her back to life? Because Homura is Selfish and Evil™ and wants some sort of spotlight on her? No.
Homura is like Madoka, at this point. She doesn't feel like she can do anything worthwhile. She thinks she has no use, that she's unable to do anything right or good or helpful. But what she can try to do is save Madoka. Like what Madoka does is try to defeat all witches. Because it gives purpose. Because it let's them feel like, look, I feel worthless, but by doing this I must be doing something good. It's not because a traumatized thirteen year old is selfish. It's because she's canonically shown to feel like she's worthless.
Not even touching on the fact that Madoka's wish "erasing her from existance" when she canonically has these issues can read an awful lot like a cosmic suicide, and that Homura is canonically suicidal and self-hating in every movie she is in.
madoka magica is sooo crazy imagine being in middle school and your crush dies and you’re so upset that you kickstart a time loop and repeat the same month 100 times over trying to stop her from dying but unwittingly you make her more and more important to the universe’s continuation (because you have effectively created 100 timelines that are dependent only on the survival of your crush) and therefore her death becomes more and more devastating to the world as a whole in every new timeline and finally your crush sacrifices her life willingly to become a god and you’re the only one who remembers her and this depresses you so much that you construct a whole imaginary universe where your crush is alive and you trap yourself and the souls of your friends inside it and then when you realize it’s Not Real, Actually, you pull your crush (who, again, is now god) down from heaven and become the literal actual devil
The worldbuilding for Madoka Magica is so laughably ridiculous the more I think about it. There’s an entire conspiracy of alien ferrets bolstering human evolution because we are canonically so stupid we could not have done it on our own. Said alien ferrets have learned to harvest human emotions as an energy source to prevent the heat-death of the universe but EXCLUSIVELY target teenage girls because that’s the only demographic that emotes hard enough to do this viably. They also think having emotions is a mental illness. They start poking around the soul of a teenage lesbian and accidentally turn her into Satan and she is now hunting them for sport.
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