Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I finally got around to watching Rebellion, and after thinking about it a bit, I thought it was great. Easily one of the trippiest movies I've ever seen, setting the whole film in a Witch Labyrinth was definitely a way to escalate the animation budget from the anime. Should I check out the spin-off before the next movie comes out?

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 6th 2024 at 5:17:54 AM

If by spin-off you are referring to the Magia Record anime, then I'm not entirely sure. I only watched the first season and it was already deviating from the gacha game it's based on considerably. By the time the third season came around, I heard lots of people complaining about how different the end turned out. There was just no room for the game's second arc after what happens.

It's not worth watching imo. It's unconnected to the main series' timeline and apart from some of the fight scenes isn't very good (look up Yachiyo vs Holy Mami and Sayaka vs Patricia for the two good parts). The changes made to the ending to deviate from the mobile game's story make it nothing more than a poor man's Puella Magi Kazumi Magica.

If you want to read the spinoff manga, most of them are pretty good! The only one I'd suggest not bothering with is Suzune Magica. It was cut short due to poor sales and is probably the weakest of the bunch.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 8th 2024 at 1:31:13 PM

Suzune was actually extended to be longer than it was supposed to be IIRC.

Though watching the spin-off might help you understand some fanfics better.

EDIT: After research people thought it was Cut Short because the pacing is terrible, which is what I was led to believe. Apparently it was indeed expanded, but the continuation got a pretty frosty reception for the awful pacing and suddenly killing off characters.

I still wouldn't really recommend it for the pacing issues and horrible character designs.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 8th 2024 at 2:57:47 AM

Volume 2 basically ends IIRC on the climatic fight getting ended by a new never before mentioned antagonist because it looked like Suzune was going to lose to the character who'd been the protagonist until then who basically takes over the plot.

I thought the first season of Magia Record was mostly pretty boring, but the second season was a big step up and much more interesting. Though if you do watch it, try to find the Blu-ray version because Shaft's production was melting down hard enough that they had to delay the last few episodes of season 2 and air them as a separate season.

That being saaaaaaaaid, it should all be irrelevant to the Rebellion Sequel, so don't feel like you have to watch it before it comes out.

Edited by Moth13 on Apr 8th 2024 at 5:24:55 AM

yeah Magia Record should be treated as its own thing for two reasons

• the game canon had a happy ending though it rehashed how Madoka's plot in the anime ended and actually exceeded the original anime in terms of how better off the meguka are. This means it will mess with the original anime's sequence of events and the importance of Madoka's sacrifice.
• The anime adaptation instead changed it so that the game's happy ending is impossible and made the efforts of the cast, hero and villain, alike as futile as the manga spinoffs were.

Barring potential cameos for Infinite Iroha specifically, there should be nothing in the third movie that would warrant Magireco as required watching. and certainly not the anime adaptation of it.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 8th 2024 at 2:35:16 AM

the upcoming moviue is technically 4th one, though.

It's either the 4th movie overall or the 2nd original movie, I don't know how you got "3rd".

The recap movies.

As pointed above, it is odd to count recap movies as one. It is either two or none.

I forgot there were two recaps isntead of one, my bad.

The recap movies aren't worth watching, right? There's no, like, new content like in the Gurren Lagann recap movies.

Theres some stuff that's reanimated or has different visuals if you're curious, but yeah they're the same story

Oh, so they are worth watching?

I don't think there's really any reason to bother with them. There's some minor changes like a different background or something when Homura is going to fight Walpy and some major scenes are cut, like I think the confrontation between Homura and Sayaka in 8 is deleted?

I'd prioritize watching the original series in Blue-Ray rather than the movies. The movies have some upgraded visuals, but a lot of downgraded music choices (imo, your mileage will probably vary) and pretty bad pacing because of having to compress 12 episodes into four hours. They feel like they take place over a few days rather than a month.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 9th 2024 at 11:32:36 AM

Magia Record's in a weird spot. The story of the gacha game is probably the single most complex and interesting piece of Puella Magi media produced anywhere, and it's also supremely difficult to access thanks to being Japan-exclusive and also being paywalled and FOMO-gated to hell and back due to being a gacha game.

So much incredible material there that like 2% of Madoka fans will ever have a chance to experience. So. Good for them, I guess.

The anime is a pale imitation of what the game has to offer. But it's also. Like. Accessible in a reasonable way that people can actually experience rather than reading 900 pages of wiki recaps or looking up event videos on YouTube. It's not as good as the game but most people either aren't going to or can't play the game so it's better than nothing.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 9th 2024 at 1:56:35 PM

they could officially translate the manga spinoff (its also an adaptation of the game) it would be slower, but at least there's a chance it could get to arc 2.

Also in my humble opinion. I think you can't really expect to have the deep lore and world building expressed in an adaptation because it is tied to the gacha aspect and thus the FOMO-gating. That aspect is why it has events focused on side characters. Its why the cast is as large as it as well. I'd also argue it is also why the story is more serialized in a sense similar to MMO games and other GAAS stories.

I'm not say its impossible to have something a setting as deep as Magireco's or for another example, say, F/GO's or Arknights' settings in a different medium. I'm slaying that attempting to do so would take a large amount of media than a 26-ep tv show would provide (case in point. The Lord of the Rings was adapted into a film trilogy instead of a single film and still likely cut some details out. Ditto the Hobbit), and have it adapt content that would be seen as tangential to the plot at best. (think of it this way, how likely is it that people would consider an adaptation of say, And so The Azalea Blooms, See You Tomorrow and The Flowers' Lament as filler, Prequel status aside?) It is not feasible in any other medium except another video game, something that would likely been as redundant and still runs the risk of cutting out details for pacing's sake.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 9th 2024 at 2:01:37 AM

I genuinely vastly prefer the Magi Reco cast to the original girls. Neo-Magius are so much more fun characters. No animated Arc 2 is tragic, especially since San and Miyuri didn't get a anime cameo, and no animated Himena is tragic, they could've gone so over the top handling her. So glad Magia Union Translations keep translating content and put out a semi-translated apk of the game.

The Magi Reco manga is being officially translated. The latest volume was just a few weeks ago.

Anyone calling them filler would be hilarious with how important Mikoto became.

Edited by doineedaname on Apr 9th 2024 at 5:08:20 AM

My biggest problems with Magia Record is that season 1 is essentially just a rehash of Puella Magi Kazumi Magica (and the anime lifted even more from it) and how heavily sexualized so many of the girls are. To be fair to Magia Record, the ideas it lifts are smart ideas and it makes sense more girls would be trying their best to create a better place for magical girls, but it stings that they didn't just adapt Kazumi.

Plus it is a different timeline so I guess a lot of the differences can be handwaved, but it's a little frustrating how Magia Record really doesn't care much about the series' overall universe and continuity. It clearly had no idea what to do with Oriko Magica and kind of tries its best to pretend nothing from that series exists (for example, Kyoko is both Yuma's guardian yet not at the same time, plus the government conspiracy stuff that makes sense in a vacuum but directly contradicts Oriko Magica). Same with Kazumi Magica.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 9th 2024 at 3:11:52 AM

Good point, but it took a while for her to crop up and didn't translate to Nanaka's group, the Azaleas, or the Daito trio getting relevance in Arc 2 (granted they were prolly stuck in torpor by the time Sena reared her head). (plus Mikoto also had an event to herself IIRC)

A better example would've been It's Okay to be Clumsy, or the Valentines/Summer/Christmas events, but I figured the latter was too low hanging a fruit.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 9th 2024 at 2:14:41 AM

Mikoto only had an event after the story, and her first event was half a POV switch of Azaleas 2. Nanaka and the Azaleas also had a decently large role in the Mirrors Story that ended with Mitama thinking on how Mikoto was likely the Mirror Witch, and Nanaka had a decent role from what I've heard in the final Mikoto event.