#not the full story what madoka does is very important. she saves everyone. and without homuras time loop madoka would never have been

[frascospecimen]

In bed crying real tears thinking about madoka magica

[bootlickerhawks]

I just watched Madoka Magica Rebellion, and now I finally get why it was such a big deal lol

first i'll go over the non spoiler stuff and then i'll put the important spoiler stuff under the read-more. (btw this isn't a review i finished watching it an hour ago and i've barely gotten the time to fully process it but i wanted to give my "raw" impressions)

- First off, the animation is fucking gorgeous and I'm really happy they brought back the original "aesthetic". At the end of the series when I saw the designs of the wraiths I was worried that this movie would use those, imo, boring designs, but thankfully they brought back the cool aesthetic. Overall the visuals were stunning and the movie was chock-full of interesting visual metaphors which helped grab viewer attention (like the Owls with Homura, ect).

- It was really nice to see all 5 girls interacting with one another and not trying to kill each other. Despite it being very clear from the get go that something is wrong I really appreciated that we got to see them relax, have fun and kicking ass together as friends.

- The transformation sequence and the opening song really captured the iconic Madoka vibe which is cutesy shit with a dash of dark and disturbing visuals lol. Something I noticed in the transformation sequence (notably Mami and Kyoko/Sayaka(?)) was the imagery of ripping > Mami rips her body apart to fully transform and Kyoko/Sayaka rip apart the "screen" during their sequence. The opening song does a great job of both subverting our expectations (much like the opening in the anime) and foreshadowing the upcoming events.

- Bebe was fucking adorable, too bad my subtitles stopped working halfway through the movie, so I didn't know what Bebe was saying during some key scenes ^^'.

Now it's time for the fun stuff and the meat of the discussion. /!\ Turn back now if you don't want to get spoiled, Rebellion is a movie that I really recommend watching without knowing any spoilers /!\

- not gonna lie that lil fucker Kyubey had me in the first half. It was acting so cute and then of course it had to open its stupid mouth again and i wanted to choke it all over again.

- The Mami and Homura fight was stunning. And it was really moving when Mami jumped to stop Homura from shooting herself (only for it to turn out that she had kinda predicted that Homura would trick her)

- Sayaka and Homura's conversation was sooooo good. By that point it was kinda obvious that Homura was the one behind the fake world but seeing Homura's internal conflict and Sayaka unknowingly(?) calling her out on her hypocrisy was so fucking good.

- Sayaka and Kyoko's moment of closure was great and I'm really glad both characters got a chance to let the other know how much they mean to each other.

- Homura's transformation into a witch was predictable but it still broke my heart. And it was during the fight when everyone tries to save Homura that I started crying (btw Sayaka and Bebe turning into witches too during the fight was so badass)

And now for the ultimate gut punch, the emotional bitch slap that was the plot twist of the movie. The story did a great job of making it seem like the (predictable) plot twist was Homura being a witch and the mastermind behind the labyrinth. And despite me knowing beforehand that this movie was controversial I really believed we were gonna get a happy ending and a nice implicit message abt the value of moving on and learning to accept help from loved ones BUT NOPE.

Noooooo nono no what we get instead is Homura giving a giant Fuck You to both the universe and everyone else around her and rewrites the entire universe for her own selfish desire. Homura became the anti-Madoka in this scene.

Honestly I can understand why fans would be pissed by this ending but personally I think I really loved it. Gen Urobuchi is known for writing nihilistic and tragic stories so I can't say I'm surprised he chose to end it this way. And as sad as it is to say Homura's devotion to Madoka was already unhealthy in the og anime I'm not surprised her love became so toxic and lead to this tragic turn of events.

I do think there's probably some fair criticism to make about the kind of message Urobuchi is sending given that his writing can be pretty sexist (*cough* looking at you Fate/Zero novel) and he seems to find great enjoyment in making female characters suffer. And I think it's fair to have skepticism about how he chose to portray a queer/wlw romance as extremely toxic.

But yeah to conclude while I did have a whirlwind of emotions after watching this movie I can pretty confidently say that I liked the ending and I kinda wish there was a sequel exploring the aftermath, but I doubt we'll get one 😔

[kitemist]

A salty thread by me because the second season of yukiyuna is coming up, and alternate anime that include disabled characters.

Additional notes under the cut.

Besides their animators, I’m also going to give props to their sound artists. The BGM during their transformations and battles are epic enough to have chills, with chanting in the background similar to Madoka. This is just a small section of Gonzo, who have also done Sore ga Seiyuu, Black Cat, and Full Metal Panic. Look at One Piece(Toei) and Detective Conan(TMS) nowadays and they sure have average quality despite their staff access. KyoAni did an awesome job with Koe no Katachi (ironically, their sound artists are great too for a movie about the deaf) and Studio Ghibli never fails to be iconic. Quality isn’t going to be as plentiful any time soon. Some more examples of YuYuYu Animation:

Compared to the latest precure, by Toei:

I get that some of the most talented animators out there are freelancers that jump from studio to studio, but with the power Toei has, you would expect something better than this that doesn’t have static backgrounds. Here’s One Piece, same studio.

Would this be a matter of favoritism? They have been questionable since Sailor Moon Crystal. 

To show the difference in animation within the same place, here is Yuri on Ice by MAPPA, formerly part of Madhouse:

Same show, but differing styles. Who you see do one shot is not going to do the next, and you have a low chance of even seeing them ever again. Thomas Romain also talks about the state of animation in japan here. Quality is dying because who wants to work for $2 per page, less than a minimum wage worker, with almost twice the hours and less time to actually teach?

Back onto what’s wrong with YuYuYu: They sure like to emphasize how much of a “burden” being disabled is. You’re immortal, being doomed to never die, in a body you cannot use. And every girl that they recruit to be a hero has this be their end. And not only that, any attempt to opt out early in one way or another ends in THIS BULLSHIT:

YOU CHOSE THIS, THEREFORE YOU LIVE WITH IT FOREVER! Nice to have the disabled character attempt to kill herself, many times, on screen, with differing methods. Some REAL NICE REP YOU GOT THERE, and showing suicide to some adolescent girls whose minds already can go to dark places, this is like 13rw level encouragement to go over the edge. Nice to have someone finally see themselves on TV only to see this shot. Even though this was literally just for testing purposes, her mind sure has gotten so far down that road to even think of going this extreme. Despite showing her newfound bravery of being so strong and paying back Yuna for saving her ass, she still is in this mental state. Sorry Yuna.

Meet Nogi, who has mankai-ed so hard she is reduced to this, stuck in a bed forever with completely useless limbs. Not only that, but she also encourages Togo to go even further into darkness because of the truth behind Togo’s incident that costed her not only her legs, but part of her memory. The heroes have to learn the harsh truth of being a hero through her instead of their hirers who have said nothing when they started to lose small parts of themselves thanks to mankai. Because keeping this secret will keep attracting more girls and hold off inevitable death for just a little longer. 

This is the end everyone who wants to be a hero will face. Yuna’s group has done nothing to stop this, they only lucked out of it because Yuna uber mankai-ed and it made her a living statue, and as a reward, they get recovered 100%, and Togo getting her legs back just implies that they were a burden in the first place. She was already disabled before she became a hero, so why was it fixed after everything was over?

The prequel season will go deeper into Nogi’s past and her generation of being a hero. When this cycle was still going on with this shit. It wouldn’t be solving any problem that the plot presents. If it goes ahead and jumps into Yuna’s group after the main series, the chance of them actually going back to heroism to stop this cycle, like Madoka actually has done something about, is completely out of the question. Togo nearly lost her best friend, so the main two aren’t into it, and neither will the rest of the group. The point of being a hero is to save people, which yuna mentions herself, so why not save people by stopping this cycle forever, and finding another way to stop the vertexes from attacking what’s left of the earth? If Yuna can mankai so hard to skip a generation, then there’s always more loopholes that the protag will jump through and pull a victory out of their ass.

Now onto what’s worth watching!

A Silent Voice is a great alternative. First, it’s true to life with the mangaka’s mother being an interpreter, and the manga being supervised by the japanese federation of the deaf while it was running. Many shots of sign language, and there is even a chapter showing what being deaf is like through the deaf character’s perspective. There are notable differences between the manga and movie, but the movie can’t fit everything in two hours. The movie has an alternate plotline that shifts the focus onto Shoya and Shouko, while the manga has more focus on side characters and how they relate to what Shoya has done on a larger scale. In both adaptations, you have a story centralized around communication and the importance of relationships.

Gangsta isn’t focused on deafness, but it does have a deaf main character that has to life with the problems of what being deaf brings, such as being the only one and being forced to speak sometimes. The setting that he lives in also isn’t the best place to find interpreters or other accommodations, especially because he is a tag, a descendant of an illegal drug user, and they are already treated with rules similar to the 3 laws of robotics. He may be a superhuman tag with enhanced senses and strength, but his physical drawback of being deaf balances it out, much like what all tags have. Doug has his physical body be stuck at such a small size, and Heather has a raw leg that’s very, very weak. Here’s how nico is deaf:

See his delayed reaction? He didn’t get the signal of a gun from his ear, but from his eyes. His partner Worick is also clever to shoot this close to this face. I highly recommend finding the full clip by Funimation and watch the entire scene. It’s so cleverly made to show that Nico is deaf without anyone having to mention it.

Sign language is also included, with this much clarity. Kohske is learning as she goes. Not only that, but Worick and Nico grow up having to learn sign from a book once he found out that Nico is deaf! They both didn’t start out learning it! There’s more instances of signing communication in the manga, although not as many shots of hands as ASV does. The manga also has signing communication be important, such as signing through walls. RIP Manglobe.

So these are the main two anime that feature disabled characters in the spotlight. Other anime that have a disabled character are Fullmetal Alchemist(As I have mentioned in the thread with examples), Guilty Crown, Sailor Moon, Boku no hero Academia, Fairy Tail, and Hunter x Hunter. There is very, very little representation in general for disabilities in anime with so much focus on them as who they are as people, and I really wish that can change. You have those two to choose from if you want to watch anime that shows what being disabled is like. Don’t praise yukiyuna just for having a girl in a wheelchair on the front cover, because she loses it in the back.

I will be watching the second season just for kana hanazawa, and to see where it goes after the main series. I’m still proud of the studio with the current state of the industry. Just wish they had better stories than this so they don’t turn out to be gilded like hibike in KyoAni’s hands. Like that ending was just chucking everything it ever made out the window, but that’s another long rant.