When the movie was first announced, it was looking real good with their trailers, I mean even without subs you could still decipher what exactly was going on.
As a sequel to its TV series, I was getting pretty much hyped up after seeing how well the TV series has been, not forgetting the mini OVA we had previously as well, the story is just being expanded right into the aftermath of the Steins;Gate world line that Okabe Rintarou had finally got himself into.
From the trailer, there's alrdy much "possibilities" that you can start guessing what exactly happens in the movie. Well, the part that got me so interested in it was the apparent disappearance of Okabe. At the point where Kurisu actually asks about this "particular" individual who was the creator of the lab and Hashida just replied that it was him. Oh wow. Damn. That's some development over there O_O and... seems like Kurisu is going to time leap herself as well. Dang, this is sure gonna be an exciting movie, and it sure was. :)
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The movie takes place 1 year after Okabe entered the Steins;Gate world line, and Kurisu is back in Japan as a scientist in a talk but knowing her, she returns immediately to the lab where she meets both Mayuri and Hashida. Oh and right before that, we got another peek at Hashida's future wife, or Suzuha's mother, which means that in this timeline as well, Suzuha will appear in the future when the time is right. Okabe returns to the lab, sees Kurisu and started being slightly tsun himself. Which was later verified by Mayuri as well. With all the spamming of "Christina" all over the place, Okabe just couldn't open his mouth that he had organised a barbecue party for Kurisu and even invited Moeka and Feyris. Now that's just sweet isn't it? :)
With Mr.Braun bringing in all the beer to the barbecue party, we got a glimpse at how a drunk Christina was like. Apparently she was still quite buggy over the whole "another world line" story that Okabe had told her. It isn't everyday you get to see the two having a close chat after the TV series, or in this world line, so it was pretty neat to see the two, I would say, developing their relationship just a little more. Boy am I still amazed by Okabe's seiyuu, just brings out his character so well! And we have the gift from Okabe to Kurisu, a spoon and a fork. Now that's just nostalgic to see. Putting yourself in Kurisu's shoes, one would actually feel uncomfortable when someone else could actually know deep down, what you exactly want due to knowing the same you from another world line, which you yourself have no control of...
And 20 minutes into the movie, we got a glimpse at how serious the movie was going to become. With Okabe having all these "real" memories of previous world lines replaying right in his mind. Even after that, that huge sense of deja vu when he saw the clock stopped moving for a second, instantly reminded him of the danger which he instinctively picks up a knife and threatens Mr.Braun and Moeka who just entered the lab. Now, just what exactly happened? Of course this was the steins gate world line and Mayuri wasn't going to die here and all those were just mere hallucinations by Okabe but things didn't just stopped there as those memories just started becoming more and more realistic and the frequency just starts to accelerate itself.
Later in her own hotel room, Kurisu gets a surprise visitor who tells her about this thing called the "Phone Microwave SERN". To her in this world line, she doesn't have much idea on what exactly it was, but the unknown visitor just told her that she will, definitely, investigate it sooner or later. It was also a nice mini-transition that the producers made it that we could hear that it was definitely Suzuha talking to her after all. With Suzuha's appearance, would it mean that even in this world line, there will definitely be a time machine in the future? If so, it could possibly be Kurisu who had created it, but at what cost? Okabe would definitely be against it since it would only shift the world line once again if it was used, but in the trailer, we could see Kurisu possibly using a time leap machine, so perhaps that part we still got to wait it out. Not forgetting how confident Suzuha was in telling her about the Phone Microwave, it is most likely confirmed that Kurisu would make it, but for what reason?
The theme of "deja vu" was finally brought in when Kurisu helped Okabe sew his lab coat once again, just like she did in the TV series but when she completed it, Okabe just disappeared right in front of her. And that's where it struck me. "alright, storm is coming..." To Kurisu's horror, Okabe's disappearance wasn't on a surface level. It was as though Okabe's existence was written off by this world, that he just didn't exist at all. Further confirmation with Hashida acknowledges the fact that he was the one who had created the lab and the slot of Lab Member 001 was always left empty. Even Kurisu herself couldn't remember who the missing person was, she just felt uneasy that sometime was different in the world and she just couldn't pinpoint it out.
Days after the world "altered" itself to remove Okabe's existence, Kurisu finally got a hint after looking at her own fork, which was given to her by Okabe. Seems like the gift left a rather deep impression on her yeah :D Flipping through her own notes, she notices one that has the words "Phone Microwave SERN". After confirming with Hashida that there really was something weird in the world, after all Hashida could remember him hacking SERN but not the reason why, since the reason was Okabe all along. After returning to the lab, Kurisu and Hashida completes the time leap machine and this time, Kurisu was determined to use it, travel to the past and find out what exactly was wrong in the world.
Her time leap brought her back to the barbecue that they had and with Okabe still there, Kurisu wonders to herself how could she forget about him, and then the anomaly occurs again and Okabe's existence was written off once again. That's when Suzuha made her contact with Kurisu. It was explained that with all the accumulated memories from the other world lines residing in Okabe, he was shifted by "a law" to the neighbouring world line known as the R-world line, where Okabe, in the steins gate world line was deemed as an unstable existence. So that means that Okabe is now starting to drift between these 2 world lines and when he drifts over to the R world line, his existence will be removed over in the steins gate world line. Suzuha later explains to Okabe that the time machine was created by Kurisu to save Okabe's unstable existence but Okabe declines the offer of being saved and asks Suzuha to destroy the time machine. To him, he was afraid that the appearance of the time machine could mean another possible shift in the world line after all his hard work in shifting into the steins gate world line.
Kurisu rebukes him and reveals that she had used the time leap machine, which made Okabe all worked up since it was the creation of the machine that started everything, the D-mails and the deaths of Mayuri and Kurisu. Okabe doesn't want Kurisu to go through the same thing as he did, trying to save someone. With the time leap machine being made, it would mean that there is always the possibility of saving a person and with the possibility, someone would definitely use it and end up just like Okabe in the end, endlessly repeating the same time over and over again just for someone else. To Okabe now, having Mayuri and Kurisu live was the most important, and even with him disappearing, he just doesn't care. With their last night spent at the station, the two share a kiss which Kurisu finds it unfair since it was this kind of action that leaves such a deep memory that was not going to be easily forgotten.
Before Okabe's disappearance, Kurisu feels that she had to tell him something and runs to the lab, but before she was about to convey her true feelings, Okabe's existence was written off and the world had changed into one without the existence known as Okabe Rintarou. I guess that scene was pre-empted to have such uncanny resemblance with the TV series where Kurisu also returns to try and convey her true feelings but just didn't go through. It was painful to see Kurisu in tears after Okabe had disappeared and it seems like Mayuri had her own sense of deja vu as well, not wanting her to create the time leap machine again to try and save Okabe.
All hope was not lost as Suzuha returns to give Kurisu another chance to save Okabe, by a theory from Kurisu in the future, their goal is to implant a strong enough memory to overwrite the overload of the Reading Steiner so as to make Okabe's existence stable in the steins gate world line, making the steins gate world line no different from the others. Pretty sweet to see Suzuha wearing the cap that Hashida always had too :) By then, we would've thought that we could have seen the ending, but nope! Kurisu got to experience what Okabe had in his final time travel in the final series, that she had caused Okabe's death in the past. Not that it will directly affect her in the future since that would most possibly branch into another world line, the steins gate world line will automatically correct itself and Okabe would be still alive.
On the verge of giving up, the other lab members seem to have a sense of deja vu about the person called Okabe Rintarou and with Kurisu's imitation of him, the deja vu was made stronger and with that, various loopholes were found, such as those things that concerned Okabe and the others could remember but yet could not at the same time. With another time travel back to the time where Okabe actually "saves" Mayuri when they were young, Kurisu injected herself into Okabe's memory by being the trigger to the persona of "Hououin Kyouma" and also at the same time giving the young Okabe his first kiss. With that, Okabe goes back to the graveyard to find Mayuri and tells her that she would become his hostage from then on. It was that moment that Kurisu had achieved by inputting a strong memory, yet not changing the world line, just like how Okabe did to save Kurisu in the past. With that, Okabe is able to return to the steins gate world line with his "new" memories of the past and when he asks Kurisu if she would return his first kiss when he was a kid, she replies that she doesn't want to.
It was a pretty neat sequel to the TV series, considering the possible problem that could occur in the new steins gate world line. It was nice to see how many of the scenes lead back to the TV series, which makes us go "hey! I remember that!" Looks like the spoon and fork did play another important role over in the movie and of course Suzuha's appearance once again. It was really smart of them to pull another "almost confession" scene by Kurisu. Would've appreciated it if it really did go through this time round, but I guess they really want to keep the sense of "deja vu" high. What leaves as a possible question was that was the final timeline that Kurisu returned together with Okabe the steins gate world line? There wasn't any definite answer but I would think that it wasn't. Since when Okabe did save Kurisu and by not actually altering the past, he was shifted into the steins gate world line. So when Kurisu did the same thing for Okabe, I would assume that the world line had shifted once again, this time with Mayuri and Kurisu not dying and Okabe not disappearing as well. The plot isn't exactly perfect or so I would say, this movie generally focuses more on Kurisu and her being able to experience the same things as Okabe did, which I believe would make the bond between the two even stronger. They just do suit each other so well :) And kudos to this brilliant sci-fi romance series that I guess I'd never forget!
P.S. when Kurisu actually started talking about how cruel the world would be in a world where Okabe's existence was written off, it just sparked the Madoka reference over in my mind. I mean isn't that just like Homura and Madoka? Damn. Time travel is the thing.
When the season list was just realised, Kyoukai no Kanata was definitely one of the stronger series among the others... Or so I thought.
Being a typical Kyoto Animation series, it still retained the usual moeblob elements but what surprised me was their rare entry into the semi-action genre. Sure we did see some KyoAni preview of how their action scenes seem like back when chuunibyou aired, but this time round, it wasn't just any typical delusions but rather a full fledged action animation series by KyoAni themselves! Additionally, Kyoukai no Kanata was an original series, although adapted from a light novel, it was still produced by KyoAni, and I had pretty high expectations for it. All was great until the very end. If you would ask me which part was great and which was not, I would honestly say that the first 11 and a half episode was awesome and the last half of their last episode just failed to deliver an appropriate end. Just horrible IMO. I'll get to that later.
The series had a strong start, having our main protagonist introduced in a rather interesting way, with our dear Kanbara Akihito getting stabbed right in his chest by our megane-bishoujo Kuriyama Mirai. Other characters were subsequently introduced, each with a typical personality that made each character easy to remember and likeable at the same time. So here's the typical line up of our main 4 protagonist: Kanbaru Akihito, a half-youmu (I would prefer to call him a hanyou though) who is pretty much immortal with insane regenerative abilities. Kuriyama Mirai is a youmu-hunter who wields a blade created by her own blood which instantly reminds me of Deadman Wonderland. Now there are pretty much many scenes where we see Mirai getting all anaemic due to her blood loss from using her weapon too much, but I dun actually recall characters in Deadman Wonderland feeling the same. They definitely use waaaay more blood than Mirai herself so I guess this makes Kyoukai a little more realistic? Next we have the Nase siblings where the brother Hiroomi is pretty much a siscon over his sister Mitsuki.
The first few episodes did focus more on Mirai herself and how she gets more comfortable living with everyone else as she thinks of herself as a more special person with the power of the cursed blood and normally she would get segregated by the society but that wasn't what Akihito and the others did. There was however a first loophole, or I would say a mistake n KyoAni's part, which was to introduce the anime-original character, Sakura into the series.
I wouldn't say that it is always a bad idea to include an original character, but in Kyoukai's case, it wasn't a good idea at all. In the end, there was not much development on Sakura as a character at all. All she felt like was a character being included due to having to fix a possible loophole or to be there because the story needed someone to play that role. Which in this case was the background story of the Hollow Shadow. To me, it didn't seem important to actually include Sakura in it since Mirai would still feel much distress if the Hollow Shadow was forcing her memory to surface and Sakura just felt 'extra'. Furthermore, her story was over in just one episode which after that she just became a normal side character with no plot drive at all. Kyoukai could do all well without this new character at all.
One of my favourite episode was perhaps the most light-hearted or the most stupid yet hilarious episode that we'll ever see with the fight to subdue the fruit youmu. It was obviously a filler and a slight fanservice episode but nonetheless, it was witty, funny and their insert song was amazing. When it comes down to music, KyoAni never stops to amaze me with those mini performances just like they did in K-on.
The Hollow Shadow arc was probably one of the best plot driver since it made Mirai realise the fact that she wasn't the only one feeling that she was special. After seeing how Akihito succumb to his youmu side, it was evident that in fact, Akihito was suffering more than Mirai since he was still unable to control his youmu powers. It was pretty obvious that Akihito would be the one to let the Hollow Shadow take over and later get eradicated by Mirai, but the last scene where Mirai sees the true Akihito was touching as well.
And then came the main plot of the whole series which was about Kyoukai no Kanata. I didn't expect the title itself to play a part in the story but boy was I surprised that it was and at the same time, I thought it was pretty brilliant for KyoAni to thought of this. Apparently, Kyoukai no Kanata is an extremely powerful youmu with a power able to destroy the world and the youmu-hunter's goal was to destroy this youmu. And it turns out that Akihito's youmu was actually Kyoukai no Kanata itself and Mirai knew it all along. Even killing Akihito has been her true goal all along! Up to that point, I was thinking that hey, this is a good twist. With everything linking up, the story progresses where Mirai forcefully separates the youmu from Akihito and she disappears along with it. Now that's where the true meaning of Beyond the Boundary starts to appear. The youmu took the shape of a 'world' and it was some sort of a mirror world beyond that of the real world, which I guess gave birth to the name of 'Beyond the Boundary'. It was sweet and touching too to see Mirai sacrificing herself and that little kiss that the duo shared in the dream world. Although the romance side of the series was pretty weak, it was still sweet to see that happening. And then everything starts to fall apart...
First was the solution in getting Mirai back. Akihito's eccentric mother appears out of nowhere, holding the solution to save Mirai. At that point in time, Akihito starts to question his origins, which the mother decides to hold on to whatever secret that she has till the very end. To the readers, it just seems like more answered questions are being added right when the series was going to end. It only makes us speculate more without ever getting the final answer to those questions. What comes next was Izumi's relation with Akihito's mother Yayoi. The two does seem to be rather close to each other but nothing was revealed about them either.
Secondly, in the final fight between Izumi and Miroku, Miroku hinted that Izumi does hold a youmu inside her, similar to Miroku himself but that too, was never explained and was just left hanging. Same with the outcome of the fight. Miroku just exploded into thin air... so does that mean that he died? But judging from his youmu powers, it doesn't seem like he would die so easily... which means that no one knows what had happened to Miroku too.
With all the fuss separating Akihito with Kyoukai no Kanata, where has the plot gone when he just takes it back into himself??? It all seems like whatever happened in the previous few episodes just occurred for nothing. And that would mean that Mirai had sacrificed her self for nothing AND that the whole problem about the Kyoukai no Kanata residing inside Akihito just went unsolved, and the series ends... So ultimately, the risk is still there since Akihito still can't control his youmu side, which is the Kyoukai no Kanata, which holds the power to destroy the world... Nice reversal of the plot over there... *note the sarcasm =.=*
Finally, it was the return of Mirai in the epilogue that ruined everything. Honestly I was still ignoring the other loopholes until the epilogue came, which just destroyed the whole series in that few minutes. Right before the conclusion was reached, Akihito takes back the Kyoukai no Kanata into himself and with it gone, Mirai who had previously absorbed it would cease to exist. It was heartbreaking to see Mirai breaking down at the last moment. Akihito sure looked so sad, knowing that no matter what he did, he wouldn't be able to save Mirai since what's done had been done and all he was left over was the ring that Mirai always held with her. Honestly I didn't quite sense the death flag by Mirai. It only hit me when a crack was shown at her leg which then struck me : "oops. she's gone". Was glad that there weren't any forced romance flags being triggered right at the last moment just like Robotics;Notes and then the credits started rolling as we head into the epilogue. Halfway through, the ring that was the only thing remaining of Mirai disappeared. It led me into thinking that the ring could've stayed on due to the bond between Mirai and Akihito and by disappearing, it would mean that she was really gone and Akihito would most likely move on after there short but fateful encounter.
BUT WAIT!
KyoAni decides to pull out a deus ex machina and Kuriyama Mirai returns, all unscathed, without her megane and reunites once again with Akihito at the rooftop where they first met. Now now... just HOW did she manage to return? I do get the idea that KyoAni is settling for a happy ending, but it is this kind of situations that some characters should remain dead. Not that I particularly want to see Mirai dead and Akihito being all sad, but the series would have ended so much better if she had just stayed out of the picture until the end. I don't see it as a "must" to bring her back, since she only satisfy the condition of a "happy end" which to me, I only see it as a story breaker and a horrible ending.
All in all, this is actually a good series to pick up, among the whole 12 episodes, I would say that 11.5 episodes really hit the "original series expectation" condition and only the final 0.5 have failed. A good recommendation would be to just ignore the epilogue and you'll get a much better ending feel to the series. Kyoukai no Kanata in overall is a good series just with a bad ending, nonetheless it was still entertaining to follow this series.
The current season didn't actually turn out to be too well which I had expected when the season begun but I'll just leave those comments on another post tomorrow with the coverage on Kyoukai no Kanata and perhaps another post soon on the recent Steins;Gate movie. So as the new year approaches, here's a lookout to the upcoming series next season. Chart is taken from Neregate so visit the website for the whole view: Alternatively, click here to view the full image
Adapted from a manga, the series revolves around 2 siblings who are affected by a virus called the Pupa. What the virus does is it transforms the sister into a flesh-eating monster, and the brother, which the Pupa virus instead gave him fast regenerative powers. So in this setting, I guess I'll be seeing the brother possibly giving up "parts" of him to feed the sister? D:
Well this seems like a gory / semi-horror series which the seasons has been quite lacking so I would most probably give this a go. Its trailer is sure creepy with all the whispers of the sister calling out to the brother. (You could search it up on youtube), but I'll be leaving the 2nd trailer here instead
Similarly adapted from a manga, this series has a rather interesting plot. With history mixed into a modern sci-fi series. What we see is protagonists being equipped with various modern sci-fi weapons to fight against monsters, but what is special about those equipments is that each of them is infused with an ancient historical figures. Our main protagonist Shio is equipped with a machine gun infused with the spirit of Oda Nobunaga. (you can search him up in google to know who he his)
A rather interesting twist in a sci-fi series... the PV totally caught my eye though, definitely gonna catch this!
Adapted from a light novel, the series revolves around the clash between 2 worlds, the human world and the magician world and I guess, that is the main plot? Pretty simple plot, possibly showing clashes between magicians as what the title suggests so this would possibly be an action series. No harm trying this one out...
An original series by ARMS! Well hopefully this turns out good as well since the PV really did show some interesting plot elements, but somewhere I think this series is going to fail to live up to expectations. It's kind of a hunch but we'll just have to see how this series goes. It is this genre of plot that either things can go exceptionally well or just tumble all the way down.
The series reminds me of Psycho-Pass where the plot revolves around Laws of Magic and there is this special group of "police" (I would call them that for now), who are responsible for capturing magician criminals and judging them as they wouldn't be able to do it with the normal judge for humans. Very interesting plot I would say, definitely going to give this a try but don't actually hold high hopes for this.
This actually surprised me since I didn't expect this series to be taken by SHAFT. Adapted from the manga series, this is a romantic comedy series that I wouldn't mind watching. Had been hearing about this series for quite some time but didn't actually started reading it. So I guess this would be a good time to give this series a try without actually touching the manga series. Unless of course if the series ends abruptly then I would be switching over to the manga then.
The basic plot can be summarized in 2 words: "Love Triangle". Ok, thats done, so now let's wait for it's release.
(P.S. Well, decided to take this up partially due to me being a SHAFT fan so hopefully this is a good indicator :D)
This series was featured over at AFA 13, didn't catch it's first episode premier so I actually don't know much about this series but I would say this is currently the most promising series among all the others in the upcoming season. Based off a manga series, this series holds the supernatural genre which I am definitely into, especially with all these divine beings and stuff like that, magic is not included though.
The plot talks about this boundary between the 2 realms and between it lives many divine beings. So one day our female protagonist decides to "Summon" one of the diving beings into the world who actually does not answer anyone's prayers but instead has the ability to hunt down all those that tries to break the balance between the realms. Or so it the plot that I presume to be. Will be eagerly waiting for this series' debut!
and here's the sequel to previous series that's going to be aired in this season as well:
Chuunibyou demo Koi Shitai! Ren
Have been waiting for this for a looooong time. Need moore Rikka and Yuuta screentime!!!! Seems like there's a couple of new characters appearing this time round, don't actually see Nibutani in the trailer though... or did she just change her hair color!? O_O
Seitokai Yakuindomo *
Pretty self explanatory for all those viewers of this series, so I'll just leave just that. Hooray for S2! :D
Been busy the last few days, or weeks, catching up with family and friends, so a little less time to actually resume updating here on a weekly basis. From now on the weekly update will continue, so here's just a small update about recent things that happened and events that are to come.
ORD LO!
Just finished my national service 2 weeks ago, been a long and tough time over the last 2 years... All those tough times, all those rough work and sleepy nights... all those memories would definitely stay with me regardless of whether I wish to forget them or not. Even those unhappy moments will still be remembered, it was that significant of the 2 years. Bad times passed, looking back it definitely was fun but going through it all again, I would think twice about it. It's always when things are over that you look back and see how fun it actually was, but during that time, it didn't felt that way after all. What really brought me through this 2 years with ease was definitely with the friends that I made there, with majority of them staying together ever since basic training had ended. It is all those joy and laughter that made difficult tasks seem just a little easier and with everyone helping each other out, things get done and everyone would laugh or talk about it other words, like a big family. I wouldn't say that I hated the 2 years, in fact I would say that I learnt a lot, from working with peers and the importance of teamwork, I gained more hands-on experience, I learnt more life skills and most importantly, I made many many lifelong friends. Thank you for all the wonderful experiences you have all given me. Cya guys around! :')
And here's some event updates that are coming right up:
EOY 2013 will be held tmr at the Marina Barrage, has been years since I last went to an EOY, but since I've got quite a lot of free time now, so why not? Would be more interested in the local doujin groups who'd set up booths there. Will leave most of the cosplays for Cosfest & AFA instead...
Talking about Cosfest, apparently Cosfest is having a christmas event this year:
According to their facebook page,
"Cosfest Christmas Programme for 28th December 2013 at Bugis + Programme for 29th December 2013 will be out soon! Stay tuned!
28 December 2013
1.00pm : Opening Ceremony for Cosfest Christmas
1.30pm : Cosplay Performances
2.00pm - 5.00pm: Running Man Cosplay with Cosplay Idols
5.00pm - 6.00pm: Cosplay Workshop
6.00pm - 7.00pm: Xmas Gift Xchange (XGX)"
Don't really think I'd be heading for that event but just listing here since it's still a partial cosfest event... Cosfest does seem to be holding more and more of these small events yea, similar to the previous part 2 cosfest of the previous year.
Had took the time in the previous month to actually catch up with some past series that I've missed but turns out to be rather outstanding in one way or another, namely Rinne no Lagrange and Symphogear. Will possibly be talking about the two series somewhere in the future too. New season is already near and I will be looking forward to see how exactly they are going to end Kyoukai no Kanata, Valvrave and Tokyo Ravens... :)
The 3rd movie to the Puella Magi series really served as a beautiful sequel to the already popular series and its remake into 2 individual movies. After watching the 3rd movie, I can say that the whole movie was like a mini roller-coaster ride, plot twists and unexpected series of events really make the whole movie shine. For fans of the series itself, you'll definitely be surprised to see how far the movie carries the series forward and not forgetting the many jaw-dropping moments as well. For non-madoka fans, it is really time to pick the series up :)
WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
Ever since the movie was announced, the title always kept me in suspense. "Rebellion" and the various PV of the movie has quite shown that there was going to be a battle between the 5 magical girls, and perhaps including the 6th character, Nagisa. But nothing much was known about the whole "Rebellion" portion. Who exactly was rebelling, and for what reason?
So here's a brief summary of the whole movie itself before I head into 3 main focus of the movie itself:
It all begins in a magical barrier where Mami, Sayaka, Madoka and Kyoko are all fighting a Nightmare, a new kind of evil in the world that they are in where witches no longer exist due to the Law of the World. However, the witch Charlotte exists in their world and is Mami's best buddy. The whole fighting sequence was later revealed as just a dream but most of the facts such as the four of them being in the same school except Homura, even the existence of Charlotte was real. Akemi Homura then transfers into the school but this time, she was already a Mahou Shoujo and was already friends with Mami who had planned her transfer into the school. The team of 5 Mahou Shoujos then started to hunt down Nightmares, which are manifestations of an individual's nightmare itself. (Just like the name itself suggests). One of the highlighted fight with a Nightmare was with Hitomi's Nightmare. In this world, Hitomi and Kamijo were already a couple but due to various reasons, Hitomi couldn't spend much time together with Kamijo and that resulted in her Nightmare being born and had to be taken down by the Mahou Shoujo team.
After many fights later, Homura finally senses that something is quite wrong with the world that they are in. She asks Kyoko out and discusses her suspicion on the world and that she didn't quite feel that Kyoko was supposed to be with them. Homura questions the history of Kyoko in transferring to the school and made a bet with Kyoko to see her old hometown. However no matter which bus they took or attempted to walk there, they never made it out of their town of Mitakihara. That is when Homura realises that they must be in some sort of a witch barrier that restricts their movement to be only in Mitakihara, or in other words, they are being locked up in the town itself. But according to the Law of the World, witches shouldn't exist due to Madoka's wish in another timeline. From there on, Homura directed her target to BB, which was what Charlotte was called in their world. She headed to Mami's apartment with Madoka, used her time control magic to remove Charlotte from the apartment and attempted to kill it. BB however has no clue on what Homura was going to do and at the same time, Mami catches up with Homura and a fight breaks out between them as Mami wasn't going to allow BB to be killed by Homura. With Homura's time control magic, Mami had to leave a constant thread contact with Homura in order to be not be frozen in time. After an intense fight that seemed to end with a draw, Homura tried to commit suicide which Mami then tries to stop her, releasing contact with Homura for that moment which Homura then attempted to turn the table around on Mami. While being frozen in time, Homura aims a bullet into Mami's legs to restrain her but her plan was seen through by Mami and she had to be saved by Sayaka instead.
It does seem to Sayaka that she knows what exactly is happening in the world. To Homura, no one should know that witches exist except her as according to the Law, witches do not exist at all, but this case, Sayaka does seem to know. As Homura started questioning Sayaka's existence, she somehow saw a replica of Octavia appearing behind Sayaka. After they parted ways, Homura was found by Madoka and the duo had a heartfelt talk with each other, where Madoka reveals her true feelings that no matter what, she would never leave her friends nor family behind, and that there would definitely not be a reason to do so since she loves everyone so much. That confession made Homura regret her own decision of allowing Madoka to make a contract with Kyubey and should have stopped her after all. Thanking Madoka, she leaves her behind and moves forward to finally break free of the whole barrier itself. Homura then started to piece everything together and started solving the puzzle by calling Kyoko. She asked her if she knew about the witches which she replied "No." and that was the correct answer since witches aren't supposed to exist. The next question was whether or not she knew Madoka to which Kyoko replied a "Yes." and that was the wrong answer, since Madoka ceased to be an existence but instead she became a Law. That was when Homura finally confirms the true mastermind of the whole witch barrier. The only person that could create this world is someone who still retains the memories of Kaname Madoka. And the only person was Homura, her own self. It is then, that she realises that she was no longer a Mahou Shoujo and was a witch herself.
In her own witch barrier, Kyubey reveals itself to Homura, which obviously suggests that it was all its plan all along. Kyubey then shows Homura what the real world was like, which appears to be Homura lying down with her extremely tainted Soul Gem in some sort of a barrier that Kyubey had created. It turns out that Kyubey had become extremely interested in what will become of a Soul Gem that was at its limit as due to the Law, the Soul Gem would just disappear which to the others, it was Madoka who was purifying them, preventing the existence of witches itself. However Kyubey became obsessive on the term "witch" that Homura had previously used and thus contained Homura's Soul Gem in a barrier that breaks free from the Law itself. At the same time, Kyubey wanted to confirm with the existence of Madokami which Homura tends to call the Law instead. Without the usual interference, Homura's tainted Soul Gem was allowed to reach it's final stage and thus Homura became a full fledged witch herself. But as the Soul Gem was still in the barrier, Homura as a witch can only exist in the barrier of Mitakihara that she had created and not in the real world since the barrier was not removed. At that point in time, Homura realises Kyubey's objective, which was to have control over Madoka.
With Homura now awakened as a witch in the fake Mitakihara, the rest of the girls assemble and together, they take down Homura, who initially refuses to be saved, possibly due to her regret of not stopping Madoka from making a contract with Kyubey while her true feelings was to remain with everyone instead of sacrificing herself. With Homura's witch form being taken down, she reawakens in the real world with her own tainted soul gem now no longer within Kyubey's barrier and thus is now vulnerable to the Law itself. At that moment, Madokami appears as according to the Law of the World, Homura's Soul Gem would be purified before she turns into a real witch which of course shouldn't exist due to Madoka's wish. As she approaches Homura and apologises for having made her wait so long, Homura smiles and grabs Madokami's hands tightly, telling her that she had been waiting for this moment to come. A different kind of darkness starts to envelope the surroundings that comes from within Homura and even her Soul Gem started to become tainted with some other colour other than the usual colour that we normally see. The darkness then consumes Madokami and somehow tears Madoka away from her God form and the universe and reorganised once again.
At that point in time, Homura no longer possess a typical Soul Gem but rather something similar but more oval in shape. She acknowledges herself that she was no longer a Mahou Shoujo, nor a witch, and since she was able to even trap Madokami, she calls herself a Devil and then, Kyubey finally realises how dangerous it was to harvest energy from human emotions. Homura tells Kyubey that her Soul Gem was no longer tainted with the usual hatred nor despair but something much bigger to her which was "Love". With her "Love" for Madoka, she recreates a new world where humans and even witch familiars live together and only Sayaka realises that the world was yet another fake Mitakihara created by Homura. Sayaka however has no power in this fake world as it is now governed by Homura herself and at the same time she was already altering Sayaka's memories to suit the fake Mitakihara that she had created. It is known that Homura has stolen a piece of the Law, which was the memories of Madoka itself, making Madoka a real existence once again before she had made a contract with Kyubey. In this fake Mitakihara, Madoka becomes the transfer student and Homura took the lead to guide her around school. However in midst of walking along the school corridor, Madoka suddenly feels that she was part of something larger and started to regain a little of her Madokami form before Homura rushes in to stop her transformation. Homura questions Madoka if she treasures the Law more or desires to which Madoka surprises her by saying that she feels that the Law is more important. It is then that Homura acknowledges that sooner or later, she and Madoka would become enemies one day. With the fake Mitakihara going along peacefully day by day, Homura observes the new world she had created from afar, together with Kyubey, whose eyes begin to start filling up with despair.
Now let's take a closer look to 3 main parts of the story itself:
1. The first fake Mitakihara
What confuses me upfront was when Homura transferred in to their school as a Mahou Shoujo already and the existence of Kyoko Sakura in their school as well. Referring to the first point being made, what I thought was that Homura had became a Mahou Shoujo due to her wish to protect Madoka, which in this case, would mean that she has indeed come from the future and leaped back into a different timeline where Madoka still exists. However if that was the case, as seen in the TV series, Homura should've retained her memories before she went to a different timeline which wasn't actually the case in the movie. Another reasoning I believe could be possible was that Homura had made a different wish for this scenario and had came into this timeline just like any other Mahou Shoujos, not using her wish to save Madoka and perhaps for some other reasons. But due to her own powers, she thus had a "memory-flashback" from other timelines, which ultimately made her able to remember herself. If it was the former, it could also mean that she just took a longer time than usual to regain her own memories.
It was a nice touch after all those "power ranger" style fighting against the nightmare and all those weird moments with singing a song right before they finish the nightmare off, the story directly leaped back into the topic of "inconsistency" that was lingering around the movie from the very start. Just another though: the henshin sequences were kinda unique though, seems like they have a liking to dancing or ballet in this movie yea? Everything started to roll out part by part after Homura seemed to have regained part of her memories, when she starts to questions Kyoko about her history. It is that moment that you feel that you are going to see the old Homura soon and no longer the twin tailed girl that we have been watching for more than 30mins in. From that point on, we could see that the story begins to unfold when Homura's prediction that everything was a result of a witch became spot on and then we got the old Homura back! Woo!
Following that was an extremely fast paced action sequence of the fight between Mami and Homura. It was a rather detailed fight since each of their powers were taken into account, with Homura's power being able to freeze time for anything that wasn't in her contact, which Mami, to counter that, leaches onto Homura's legs with her yellow thread constantly to prevent herself from being stopped in time. The fight was great to watch too with all those bullet tracks being shown due to Homura's powers. It was a pity that Homura lost though, would've actually thought that Mami would be on the losing end.
What comes as a next confusing question was Sayaka's existence in the world. If Homura's suspicions were right that everything was caused by a witch, the Sayaka shouldn't exist due to her becoming a witch in the TV series, or in the past in the series context. There are visual proof that Sayaka somehow is able to hold Octavia's powers within her so her existence in the fake world is definitely questionable. Everything fell into place shortly after when Homura begins to ask Kyoko if she knew about the witches. It then hit me that Homura was trying to pinpoint the culprit through eliminating possible inconsistencies in this world, where some things that shouldn't exist, exist. Since Kyoko still didn't know about the existence of witches, it would mean that Madoka's wish had come true and was still somehow holding through, then it was the existence of Madoka. It was already pretty obvious at that point in time that the witch was Homura herself since the only person who remembers Madoka is Homura herself.
2. Homura as a witch
It was an interesting turn of events when I saw Homura turning into a full fledged witch. At that point, I was thinking that hey, so this was the rebellion? Wow. I was pretty much speechless about the development, I wasn't expecting the story to actually turn another of the group of 5 into witches after Sayaka but hey, if this was going to be the climax of the story itself, I wouldn't mind since I'm pretty interested in seeing how this plot would continue and end. And finally, the return of the Incubators. It does seem that they actually had a plan all along to try and dig into the mysteries of the law itself. Perhaps it was the curiosity of the Incubators after hearing Homura talk about the witches and acknowledging the law as an existence known as "Kaname Madoka" that they decide to isolate Homura's tainted soul gem from the influence of the law and from there did they thus discover the existence of witches, but not quite existing in the real world, just in the dream world that Homura's witch form had manifested in.
It could also be due to the reason that the world was a make shift town that made Homura not be able to regain her memories as she wasn't exactly travelling through time but was instead more similar to a form of "travelling" into a deeper realm, disconnected from the world and the influence of the law. But somehow she does manage to influence other existence into her own fragmented world such as Hitomi. This is still a part that I didn't fully understand so I guess I'll have to wait for more proper subs to actually be able to get it. Same with the part with Homura being taken down by the others, it was a nice thing to see everyone working together, especially with Kyoko and Sayaka working together once again since the two would never be able to see each other in the real world any longer...
3. The true rebellion
When Madokami finally arrives to clean out Homura's tainted gem, it is shown that Sayaka and BB were following Madokami from behind, which makes me think that their existence might be just a special inject into the fake Mitakihara that Homura had created and in the real world, they don't actually exist but "exist" in a form similar to Madokami itself. More of a theory of non-existence rather than an actual one. And when I thought that everything would be over and we'd get a happy ending, the plot says "nope". And the rebellion story is back up, with the true rebellion taking place. I was definitely surprised when Homura grabbed hold of Madokami's hands and things started to turn nasty.
We see ominous colours flowing out of Homura's soul gem and the real world being slowly de fragmented, including Madokami's "existence" as well. Homura somehow manage to split Madoka out from Madokami and the end result? We get a 2nd fake Mitakihara, this time complete with Madoka and the rest, and Homura, who now calls herself a "Demon". What could have driven Homura to that point was definitely the answer that she had heard from Madoka in the 1st world, that no matter what, she would never choose to leave her family nor friends behind. That perhaps sparked a huge sense of remorse for Homura who feels so much regret that she wasn't able, or actually, willing, to stop Madoka from making the contract in the end. It all felt that she was forced to do it since she had no choice when her own true feelings was that she would never wish to leave everyone behind. Homura then sees her actions of taking Madoka back, a form of "love" for her best friend. It kinda seemed like a more "atonement" kind of action by Homura, who forcefully splits Madoka's existence from Madokami, allowing Madoka to gain a proper existence in the 2nd Mitakihara. Now in the 2nd world, Homura now have control over the world and its movements, including forcefully getting help from Kyubey, whom in the end we got to see the Kyubey's sense of despair. Homura might have made a wrong choice in deciding to break Madoka away from the law after she asks her on which she treasures most and what she got was a conflicting answer as compared to the one she got on the 1st world. Homura might have started thinking that the 1st world Madoka might be a make belief one created for the sake of her own existence? But nonetheless, she seems quite positive that she wouldn't be able to keep Madokami's powers in check even though she had became a demon so the only thing she could do was to observe the world that she had created from afar preserving it as long as possible.
Overall, I would say this movie was pretty darn good. It was absolutely a great sequel to the TV series as it now shows Homura's regret on not being able to save Madoka in the end and all those plot twists in the movie just makes it twice as exciting. Even though some parts were quite expected, the animation quality, coupled with the storyline just makes the movie even more worthwhile to watch. Now the only problem that remains is: so when is the next sequel coming? :)
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