Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 2

This literally blew me off. Where else would you be able to see Mahou Shoujos blasting rounds of shotgun, and cool stances to boot too.

Being totally invisible to other commoners, Kyube is now safely out of reach from girls who love cute animals and also cute animal hunters, one of such being: Akemi. Communicating through telepathy is indeed cool for the girls, imagine being able to chat silently in the class, and even with friends on the upper floor. It's like wonderland :) Unfortunately, only Mahou Shoujos and Mahou Shoujos-to-be have such a privilege. Cute animal hunter Akemi seems to have removed her pursuit for Kyube after it successfully made contact with Madoka.

With that aside, contract rules were introduced by gun-wielding Mami, and the rules are as follows:

RETURN: A wish
GIVE: Risking your life

Apparently, the trade-off between a single wish and risking your life in return doesn't sound tempting enough for Madoka and her friend Miki to oblige to the contract immediately. What Mahou Shoujos are to fight were witches, which is like a complete opposite of Mahou Shoujos. Mahou Shoujos are born with hope whereas witches are born from curses. Some explanations were also made, including the small egg-shaped object that Mami holds, which was a Soul Gem and it holds the magic power of a Mahou Shoujo.

With that, the story gets to move after Mami decided to give Madoka and Miki a glimpse of a witch hunt and now things gets settled down. Mahou Shoujos are born to fight against cursing witches. Simple. As a commoner, tagging along for a witch hunt would prove to be dangerous, and that's were a baseball bat comes in handy, which Miki brought, unlike Madoka who went to draft out her image of herself as a Mahou Shoujo. Not that i detest what Madoka had drawn, but i thought at least the main protagonist could think of making her armour more cool-looking? Maybe that's where the Mahou Shoujo (Girl) comes in place i guess.

According to Mami, since witches are like curses, the first few locations to search would be vacant areas where suicides could be done and witches could appear anytime and anywhere which she had let one go while rescuing Madoka and Miki previously. The trio soon encounters a woman attempting suicide and Mami spots the Witch's Kiss on her neck. It doesn't suck the soul like a Dementor's Kiss but in this case, makes someone commit suicide unknowingly. Which is still, rather bad =/

Mami gives the baseball bat a magic makeover before proceeding in the hunt and again, the trio gets into the witch's dimension with unique animations. Although i wasn't expecting a witch to be of a human form, i was still surprised on what exactly WAS a witch. A gooey headed creature with long legs and butterfly wings. That's the kind of witch we'll probably see for the rest of the season. Oh well, at least they're the ones getting wacked so the uglier the better i guess.

What comes next could well be the coolest gun-user stance seen yet. Mami did pull out a magician-styled appearance of making her shotguns appear, with 2 "dropping" out from her skirt and a hell lot more from under her hat. With the countless shotguns standing still on the ground. Mami takes aim, fires, throws it away, retrieves a new one and continues.



That was just pure epic and so darn cool. Yet the monster witch denies the shots and tries to turn the table but gets head shot with a finishing move from Mami, a freaking enormous pistol. BAM!



Now, that's a hell of a fight.

Subsequently, Mami retrieves the "heart" of the witch, which is a Grief Seed and it allows one's magic power to be restored A.K.A., restoring the Soul Gem's power. Akemi seems to have been watching them throughout Mami's fight and returns the still-usable Grief Seed to Mami, claiming that it was her win. So adding on to the equation, i suspect a Mahou Shoujo's power doesn't last forever and needs to be replenished through the Grief Seed and with that, Mahou Shoujos are fighting with each other before fighting the witch and claiming the Grief Seed. Now that's complicated. It won't be long before Miki and Madoka joins in the fight, but with just plain staffs, it could take me a while before i get out of the norm of watching guns owning witches' heads.

This would definitely be the series i'll be following closely. Awesome art plus animation and music? Definitely :)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 1

WARNING! video contains slight fanservice



Do all Mahou Shoujo series have something to do with injured magical creatures that seek help from a small girl through telepathy?!

Apart from the Nanoha series, here comes Madoka Magica.

The start was awesome. Honestly, the way they opened up the series was really great. With the wonderful BGM playing at the back and we see a Mahou Shoujo tackling an unknown enemy + superb background animations, it kept me glued to the screen for that few moments.

Our main protagonist had dreamed of seeing a Mahou Shoujo engaged in battle and wanted to do something as that girl wasn't going to hold out long and that's where the magical creature places the ability to change things onto Madoka, to turn her into a Mahou Shoujo. However, that was just a dream waiting to become a reality.

And so it begins, Madoka's normal school life, chatting with friends and being envious of others receiving love letters. All was normal for Madoka until the girl whom she saw in her dream appeared right before her, named Akemi.

You got to have a cool-looking mage around in any Mahou Shoujo series, together with a more innocent one, which in this case, would be Madoka. Akemi seemed to have sensed Madoka's presence, probably in the dream, and prompts her later to not get herself involved in things that does not concern her if she still does treasure her friends and her family.

Akemi's athletic ability surpassed many others and was getting most of the attention in the school, yet she holds a secret of hurting cute animals at night.

The magical creature, well, does not know about Akemi trying to not get our protagonist involved and calls out to her, asking her for help which Madoka responds and locates the hurt animal. However, an Akemi she doesn't know stands before her, asking her to leave it behind.

How could one leave such a cute creature behind!? D:

Madoka responded morally and together with the help from her friend, the duo managed to escape from Akemi but was soon thrown into some alternate universe. It proved to be dangerous to all beings being trapped inside but a mage who knows the magical creature turns up with her sky of guns (literally), guns down all the enemies and confronts Akemi. Sensing the difference of abilities or not wanting Madoka to be involved any further, Akemi leaves and the creature introduces itself as Kyube, and wants Madoka to become a Mahou Shoujo.

It really had a good opening to the series until the back where it started to become like any other typical Mahou Shoujo series which i'm bored off already. Thank goodness at least there weren't loaded fanservices in henshins and hopefully there wouldn't be any in the future. The animation quality was great in general, even the alternate dimension had a certain 3D feel to it and with the rather cool execution scenes, i wouldn't mind continuing this series at all, the negative side of typical Mahou Shoujo storyline was kinda neutralised by the epic fighting scenes (including the very start, which is epic enough alone)

To add on, being a production from SHAFT, their previous work on Bakemonogatari had captivated me and i hope this wouldn't disappoint me either. Love their art too :)

P.S. had noted that the BGM of the starting scenes were Magia by Kalafina but i'm 100% sure about it, nonetheless, that song is great!