“Watch my cash-in moves to purify your soul gems…”
When you like anime you get used to people telling you how great awful shows are. You get downright numb to it, especially when a new season of anime is underway and people only have 20 minutes on which to base their opinions (yay season previews!)
So when an anime becomes a phenomenon, I get skeptical. I remember hearing about how great the magical girl show Puella Magi Madoka Magica was.
But unlike a lot of phenomena, the buzz around Madoka Magica didn’t quietly slip away. It only got stronger. A citizen applying to the dangerous recovery efforts after last year’s big Japan Earthquake disaster notably wrote ”I saw the final episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, so I’m not worried.” Kazuo freaking Koike said the anime made his blood boil with excitement, inspiring him to create his own magical girl story. Koike, renowned for forever shaping the manga business with both his own pulp stories and his training school that boasted students as far-reaching as Rumiko Takahashi, lost his shit for this show. In an interview with the series’ author Koike confessed he was learning a thing or two about storytelling.
Many months later and the buzz continues. The twelve episode series is going to be adapted into a trilogy of films. The first two are basically recut from the original TV episodes. And when they began airing in select US theaters they ranked a notably high per-screen average of $12,468.
Last weekend I checked out the phenomenon in my own personal way and came to better understand why Madoka Magica, a magical girl anime preening with a sinister edge that surprisingly doesn’t fall apart when all the plot twists reveal themselves, might appeal to a broad swathe of anime fans. What I still don’t understand is the almost mythic status imparted upon it.
Certain paradoxes make sense to me. The anime industry is arguably doing the worst it’s ever done in North America, and yet it’s been leading to some of the most exciting retro anime licenses of recent memory. I get how that’s happened. Anime convention culture is valued far more than the Japanese cartoons responsible for it. That too makes sense, hate it as I may, in light of how meme-based and gamified pop culture has become.
I don’t want this post to be about me coming to some kind of terms with a show I was never interested in to begin with, but that’s exactly what I appear to be doing. Because I’m not only out of the loop on what makes the show an instant-classic, I’m also positively baffled as to why anyone would bother watching the compilation movies for a twelve episode series they really liked, let alone go out of their way to see them in a movie theater.
It seems like a trick to me, a manipulation of fan enthusiasm to repackage a show into two movies that run nearly as long as what they’re compiling only a year after the show originally aired. But perhaps the people celebrating these movies are adding some kind of valuable energy to the world, which after all is the ultimate function of any Puella Magi. I just can’t help seeing Kyubey in the background, smiling innocently. But I know what you’re up to Kyubey, you can’t fool me! Not again!!
If you don’t understand that last paragraph: be glad. And if you’re one of the people who wrote about this show, maybe next time take your examination of it deeper than simply expressing the hyperbolic extent to which you liked it. It will confuse people like me far less, and we won’t have to spend as much time wondering if you’re crazy.
Which you totally are, by the way. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some classy comics to read.
No related posts.
I think it’s because Madoka is a well-constructed story, and we very
rarely get those. I mean, lots of things have premises and plots and
characters that start off about as solidly, but when Madoka throws all
sorts of twists in things don’t fall apart – in fact, they fit
together better than before, and in the process they say things
perhaps more emphatically and convincingly than they could have
otherwise, messages about how a person has value even if they don’t
have any real accomplishments to their name, or about how you
shouldn’t throw away everything else in pursuit of an impossible dream
(because being impossible, it can’t turn out the way you’d like).
We don’t see a lot of shows like that. I mean, it isn’t unprecedented,
just rare. But even when we do get a show like that, how well does it
speak to its audience? I think Madoka has a strong synergy going there
- it has these messages that speak strongly to teenagers and young
adults (who will be more receptive to themes about being unsure of
their place in the world, the value and cost of wishes – I think these
are especially resonant in a bad economy) while this same audience
will have had less exposure to strong writing. It isn’t a trick or a
novelty so much as new to them.
Going to see the compilation movie is a whole different phenomenon. It
seems more like participating in an activity based on a group identity
- creating a sense of belonging based on common interests. It also
benefits from the sense of value created by rarity; the Madoka TV
series can be watched anytime you’re in front of your computer (via
Crunchyroll or perhaps fansubs), but this movie is basically a
one-time event that you share with your fellow fans. In that sense
it’s sort of a mini-con, like the Macross World event I attended the
next day. Actually, that’s probably the best description for each of
those events – they both featured some cosplay and vendor presence but
were mostly social events for people who were already fans of a show.
Thanks for commenting. I hadn’t considered the idea that the show spoke well to a younger audience for two reasons: 1.) most of the buzz that reached my ears came from my own generation of anime fan or older, and 2.) the fairy tale nature of its premise. I suppose something could be said about youth feeling manipulated or being sold on a lie, and their ability to relate to the sinister contracts in the show. And I guess that kind of identification happens all the time with anime fans, regardless of how magical or unrealistic a fiction actually is. Well stated!
I figured that the communal appeal was a factor in people going to see the movie, and the manufactured scarcity of a theatrical premier had been mentioned to me on Twitter. I just… I dunno, if I was that devoted to an anime, I wouldn’t get excited about seeing a remixed version of it a year later. It’s a no-win scenario: either the movies are heavily edited to create less of an episodic feel, excising a bunch of the stuff I liked in the first place, or the movies are incredibly faithful to the TV show, and are merely like watching the series on marathon mode.
>” I’m also positively baffled as to why anyone would bother watching the compilation movies for a twelve episode series they really liked, let alone go out of their way to see them in a movie theater.”
Besides the community aspect that Alan Zabaro mentioned above, my understanding is that the animation has been touched-up and a little new material has been added. More importantly, a theatre screen and sound system is much better than what a fan will have at home.
For example, when the Evangelion Rebuild films were showing here in Dallas, I went to see them, and that those films are a very different experience in theatre than at home. For the first time, I was totally immersed in the films, and could really feel the scale of what was going on in that story, far better than with my relatively small TV/monitor at home. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Eva, but the spectacle of seeing the films in theatre is one of my favourite experiences with film and animation. I can easily imagine Madoka, and most any well-animated show that relies a lot on spectacle, would benefit immensely from a theatrical viewing.
Also, Madoka, like Alan mentioned, is just a better show than almost anything else to come out recently. Those who’ve only started following anime recently may well have never seen a show as good; even those of us who’ve been around a while only see this level of quality once in a while. You and I could probably name several shows as good or better than Madoka, and not everyone cares for Shaft’s aesthetics, but it shouldn’t be too hard to see why the show’s turned into a major hit.