Madoka Magica - Episodes 11 &12 - Series Review B

(Note: Major Spoiler Warning Applies.)

The final two episodes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica return us to the dystopic conclusion of Episode 9. Madoka and Homura are mourning the deaths of their friends while debating how they are going to defeat the legendary witch Walpurgisnacht. Ultimately, Homura insists on fighting it herself, which results in her being defeated completely and utterly.

In what is considered the true ending, Madoka makes the wish that will turn her into a Magical Girl. Her wish is for witches not to exist in the past, present, or future; such a wish can only be achieved by rewriting all of humanity, which is exactly what happens. In the new universe, Magical Girls who have reached their limit simply vanish, and witches have been replaced by wraiths. This world is far more optimistic, and the story concludes with Homura giving a brief monologue before the scene fades with her battling an army of the demonic figures.

Now, these last two episodes have some rather incredible mechanics, but I think we'll save that for the actual review component.

Inspiration (3/3): Naturally, the Madoka franchise is known as being many things, and being them well. It is naturally a deconstruction of the magical girl archetype, reinventing the old storylines to keep up with modern social elements and character personifications. It has also been called the analogue to Evangelion for its deep look into both human psychology and ethics.

That said, in watching it I found it to be something which I don't think anyone's really described it as being, and that's post-cyberpunk. No, seriously, go on TVTropes and you will not find Madoka Magica described as being such. Because Kyubey acts similar to a computer seeing humans as tools for preventing the heat death of the universe and nothing more, this series has traditional cyberpunk written all over it.

Episode 12 was a serious genre shift in which the ethical and psychological issues present at the start of the series had all been addressed. Truly, what had been created was a perpetual state of contentedness and ease among magical girls, humans, and incubators. In a way, the series was channeling Ghost in the Shell more than it was channeling, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion. To be honest, that speaks volumes.

Aspiration (1.5/3): Where the series fell flat is in the circumstances behind the motivations of the characters. First and foremost, everything was Homura's fault. Her traveling through time resulted in so many paradoxes and the near-creation of the most powerful witch in the universe. Second, the incubators clearly didn't have all of the answers and were toying with elements they did not understand (something we just recently covered in another series). Third, Homura never gave a damn about Mami Tomoe and that's really screwed up. Finally, all of this inevitably gets invalidated (in the "Rebellion" movie) because the incubators were told by Homura about the existence of witches following the invalidation of their existence. Yeah, turns out that "Many Worlds Interpretation" thing has some significance here.

Plausibility (2/3): The series takes place Twenty Minutes into the Future. From a tech point of view, this is a rather conservative look at what our world will be like by 2030, so tech relevance takes a back seat here. Now, the actual speculative science (using emotional energy to combat entropy and heat death) is pretty much complete fiction, so let's throw it out and focus on what truly matters.

Madoka Magica is all about associations of things to other things. We saw this first with wishes and desires, complete concepts which are the result of a large number of singular stepping stones. Next, we discussed the association between humans and organisms above or below. Following that, we used the Many Worlds Interpretation to discuss possibilities of events occurring, as well as ways to decipher that explosion of information. What do all of these things have in common?

Why, the Singularity of course. Superintelligence is considered one of the five threats to human existence. In a sense, humans are offering a contract with computers not unlike how Kyubey makes contracts with the magical girls of this series. We are the ones relying on "Forbidden Tech," and as computers become wise to this they may respond by becoming witches of their own making. As soon as computers figure out how to control time itself, humanity has lost. The incubators will simply be disposed of. That is the true depth of Madoka Magica.

VERDICT: 6.5/9