Tokyo Ghoul: re exceeded all of my expectations about it. I started reading the previous manga, Tokyo Ghoul, and I came to the conclusion it was not about the duality of being a ghoul or not, but the pain we inflict to others as humans, Tokyo Ghoul: re goes deeper into what the previous manga did and explores what it means to be an outcast, what it means to have no choice. This manga is important.
I will say, if you are an outcast, you will identify with Ghouls, and with this story, a lot. You might say “yeah but ghouls eat people.” Well, here
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is the thing: ghouls eat humans so they can survive, the author made this so everyone can feel it how it feels to have to hide your true self, regardless of who they are. By writing a story where murder is part of your reality, every reader will have to put themselves on the shoes of someone who can't give in to others’ beliefs, because if anyone gives out, that means death in the story, but you can extrapolate that to put you in the shoes when nobody can give up their points of view, their beliefs. If the story used anything less intense for its metaphor, people would say "why don't ghouls just stop doing that so they can be normal”, no friend, there is no normal here, that's why it works so well. Tokyo Ghoul:re is the apotheosis of living as an outcast, and I mean it.
My two personal examples, as an autistic person I make people uncomfortable in a lot lesser ways, when I am in a group and I keep messing up the mood of the convo and say something weird, it makes you think, huh this girl is odd, I wish she was more normal” But I can't!! Trying to be normal takes an effort, it is a toll in the soul. That's what you have to accept have to accept, the first manga made me think that if you come into the realization that your goals don’t align with others or that you are selfish, you have to suck that up, because they are your dreams, but the sequel showed what it means to have no other path for you to choose. I can't stop being autistic, I can't stop being trans or lesbian, and I mean it, by writing characters that kill not by choice but by necessity the story makes you confront what it means to have no choice, to know you will never be in the status quo.
Spoilers will follow now.
First, we get that disorienting new beginning that some anime and shows do, we get a new normal that is confusing and distracting, in the first manga we got in the shoes of an outcast and were told that the people in the system were wrong, but then in this manga we are brought back to being part of the system, we have the connection to the outcasts but now we also have people to root now, the story stops being about who should win, but about who is going to die.
There are a lot of bits and pieces that seem like part of a power fantasy at times, but the manga never follows them through. Remember in the first manga when Kaneki got super strong after being tortured? We never saw all the destruction he did first hand, just the consequences of it, like Touka getting disappointed in Kaneki for him trying to act as a hero. Here the same happens a lot, we get the amnesia trope, Kaneki loses his memories, and a duality between him and his new self, Sasaki, appears. You think, shouldn’t Kaneki be the evil one and then go on a rampage and destroy all CCG investigators so Sasaki could say, “please don’t destroy them!!! they are my friends!” and then Kaneki “would be like… my friends… are ghouls!” but the manga doesn’t take that cliched route, and it’s so good!
When Kaneki fights Eto you are all like “man, I ship them, they are both smiling, and they are like… you know, insulting each other, which in a way it means they are amused by each other, isn’t this the epitome of romantic tension between enemies” But at the end of the day not because they are both mentally ill means they are suited for each other, so the manga doesn’t follow through that idea either. It’s so good, it sometimes feels like the writer was all like “hell yeah I will make a story about me being strong and destroying everyone and mwhaha” but then they realized, every single time, that the worth is not in the suffering, the worth is in what we fight for. Every single time the manga could have taken a cliched power fantasy route, it always did something more humane, more realistic, and that’s another reason as to why I love it.
There is also a big, important part about the truths of systematic discrimination. The more the CCG created more ghoul-like soldiers the lines started to blur, and the revelation that it was handled by ghouls themselves also gives you a huge piece of the puzzle. You realize that it never was about stopping ghouls because in real life is neither about who is right or who is wrong, it never was about any of that.
It is all just a game of power dynamics, it will always be.
The ending of the manga hints that the only thing that would make you join forces with the enemy is an even bigger threat, the apocalypse, probably, and even then, more power systems would eventually appear, because that’s… how is when the saying goes? Ah right… because we live in a society. Damn right, I said the thing.
There are so many characters I loved, but to keep it short I will just mention too, one that I liked for psychological reasons, and other for aesthetic ones. Tokyo Ghoul: re also has a trans character, Toru, a trans guy. He's cool because being trans is a part of his backstory but not the whole character. When I read Tokyo Ghoul first, I liked the duality of being ghoul/being human because it mirrors me being transgender and not, so I like having a trans character acknowledged here, it feels neat. Yonebayashi is the other character I want to mention. She has an awesome vibe, like she has this tiredness all the time but she isn't like cynical or negative she's just aimless. She has these dead eyes all the time but it's not because she is mean or anything, she just lacks will but has a warm heart and that is so refreshing to see, like she is practically useless and you relate to her lack of will and she has this cute but tired cute and defeated smile like she's done with everything and everyone but she tries to smile it’s so awesome I love her. She turns motherly and cute down the line; she is downright amazing.
Tokyo Ghoul: re does not have the answer to give you a happy ending, even the final chapters show that not everything is perfect, and what you can do at most, is hope, but it will touch you deeply and make you see what it means to be outside of the herd. Of course, a lot of outcasts are terrible people, a lot of people will never fight with their nature and how they hurt others, others straight up enjoy it, the story is not about accepting this or about “well, folks will be folks” but about understanding about how pain shapes our lives and how pain shouldn’t be rejected. There might be times when the manga might make you feel it romanticizes pain, but it doesn’t, at least, not just pain, but the entirety of existence itself, the fact of struggling as the symbol of being a sentient being. In the review of the first manga I said that ghouls could probably be metaphors for selfish people, but here, I can see the whole picture, its not that ghouls are selfish people, but that there will be points in your life where you will have to think in yourself and accept the consequences that come from that.
Tokyo Ghoul:re is not a perfect manga. Tsukiyama was always to me a lame character I never found the worth on, he is just dumb, unlike Nimura Furuta, who had certain comedic appeal on his persona but that felt like an actual person with true goals that affected the metaphor of the story in meaningful ways. I felt there were too many characters at times, I confused a lot of the secondary ones, but I also have issues with my attention span that also affected that too. Can you believe I didn’t think Eto was the writer until the final volume when I asked someone about it? I still think some characters made me lose of the plot more. I could have liked more gore, like sure we saw the kagunes and quinques a lot but everything that could have been a human organ was basically depicted as a black goo in the ink of the manga, I mean I guess some people would prefer less gore and the story is not about the gore but… everything else is so good!
The message, the core, everything I felt is so vividly, so vividly, how many stories have touched the core of my being in so many levels? Not just transness, or just homosexuality, or just autism, or just depression, or ADHD, or simple places where I felt my needs affected other people’s needs, or simple fricking matters of taste in groups I am trying to fit in? Tokyo Ghoul:re depicts all of these issues at their core. To be an outcast, to be a reject, a stray, a pariah, an outsider, an outlaw, a castaway. How many stories have made me feel heard or seen in a world where everything about my existence is often a political point? How many stories have encompassed the entirety of my experience and told me “Yes, you are an outcast, we are all outcasts, but that doesn’t mean your search for meaning and your search for a place to be is invalid! Because… we are all looking for a meaning and we are going to end up hurting others! That is what it means to live! Don’t let the fact that you are not part of the system or the status quo stop you! Don’t let have people telling you are wrong and that we should all try to convive with each other stop you! Because one day we will all be forgotten and what matters is the fact we choose how now!” I want to fight, I want to fight for something real, and I will hurt you if I have to, because I want to fight for what I believe in, for what I am and for my own existence. I won’t say that It’s not personal, because it is. I will fight even if I am still broken, if the people I love are broken, because I am here, and I am alive. You know what? Fuck it, it’s a 10.
Dec 1, 2024
Tokyo Ghoul:re
(Manga)
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Tokyo Ghoul: re exceeded all of my expectations about it. I started reading the previous manga, Tokyo Ghoul, and I came to the conclusion it was not about the duality of being a ghoul or not, but the pain we inflict to others as humans, Tokyo Ghoul: re goes deeper into what the previous manga did and explores what it means to be an outcast, what it means to have no choice. This manga is important.
I will say, if you are an outcast, you will identify with Ghouls, and with this story, a lot. You might say “yeah but ghouls eat people.” Well, here ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 25, 2024 Recommended Spoiler
Sankarea is a fantastic manga, and the anime is even better for the ten chapters it adapted out of the whole fifty-six. The pacing is slower, letting you really sink into the atmosphere and each moment, to grasp each emotion. The ambience is beautiful, and the lighting it uses is fantastic, somewhat akin to what Shaft shows do. If you watch it, the OVA also has an episode that works as episode 0 and builds up some stuff that appears later in the manga. The OP song is amazing too by the way!
Now, what is Sankarea about? I will try to be as vague as ... possible, but I will say that there will be, surely, spoilers for the whole story, the only thing I could say is that it is a story about a girl that turns into a zombie, and likes it. Sanka Rea is a girl who’s been abused by her father, who’s obsessed with her, seeing her as the ideal of purity and beauty. He even takes naked photos of her. She grows up resenting her family and wanting to escape. Chihiro, on the other hand, is a guy obsessed with zombie movies. After finding a weird, spooky manual on how to create zombies, he decides to try and bring his recently-dead cat back to life. And, well, things happen, and Sanka Rea ends up taking part of the potion, too, dying—and coming back as a zombie. This part of the story is the strongest. Sanka Rea, now undead, feels freer because she’s left her home and her father isn’t around. She’s no longer some “ideal of purity”—she’s a broken girl now, and that lets her finally breathe a little. There’s a lot more that could be done with this concept, with even more characters, but what the manga does is still great. It focuses on the struggles of a single person, and that’s enough to tell a good story. It’s not just about accepting your imperfections, but accepting yourself as a “broken base.” If you’ve dealt with abuse, felt disconnected from the world because of anxiety or depression, or even from yourself because of dissociation, then the zombie becomes a powerful symbol. You can say, “Yes, I’m undead, but I’m still me.” The manga and anime hint at this indirectly, but one thing’s clear—Rea would rather be a broken person who requires high maintenance and deal with zombie life on her own terms than be an “ideal” who’s trapped and can’t even leave her house. So, how do zombies work in Sankarea? It’s actually pretty simple—Rea has to eat this certain leaf now and then, or she loses her awareness and turns into a typical zombie, hungry for blood. There are some other interesting characters, too. Aria Sanka is someone you might feel sorry for at first, but then you see that she bases her worth entirely on someone else’s opinion, and you’re like, “Wow, you’re a hollow woman.” Then you think maybe she, too, grew up with some trauma. Abused people are just broken by nature. And you end up thinking, “I am sorry, but I can’t do anything for you—I’ve got other people to care about.” Sanka’s dad is probably the weakest character. He just seems to leave the story a bit too easily. You’d expect someone like him to put up more of a fight. Still, I’ll accept what the author did with him because there are other things at play once he’s out of the picture. There’s a part in the manga where Chihiro goes to a zombie research base because he learns that zombies will inevitably turn wild, and that there’s no cure. There are some odd characters there, like Darin and her father, but I didn’t really connect with them? They’re more like actual researchers than part of the story’s metaphor, but they’re alright. The manga brings up this idea that a created zombie will eventually want to eat the person who made them, which feels like it mirrors real-life dynamics for people who’ve suffered abuse. Dealing with them requires strength and a strong sense of self because, unfortunately, they might end up hurting you, too— again, abused can end up broken by nature. This becomes a big quest for Chihiro, who’s determined to stop Rea from losing her humanity, and it reveals parts of his own past and why he’s so into zombies. The revelation feels wholesome, but also bittersweet, which makes sense in stories about trauma and growth. Sometimes, there are things that can’t be changed once they’re in the past; you just have to keep moving forward and accept them. The solution the writer came up with to keep Rea sane might seem idealistic, even romantic. If you see it as “just a zombie story,” you might think, “Hey, that was kinda silly, maybe a bit of an ass-pull.” But as a story about trauma and growing up, the message feels different. If you’re with someone who’s been hurt (from Chihiro’s perspective), you’re going to need a strong support system—family, friends, and know how to forgive. Maybe forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of abuse, but not everyone can do it, not everyone can do it. If you’re more like Sanka Rea than Chihiro, well, it’s harder to say. It’d be unwise for the story to prescribe a path for handling trauma, but like Rea, we probably need to learn to take care of ourselves, just as we are. Chihiro is a great protagonist because of this. Sure, he’s weird, maybe a bit of a dork, but he’s got a good heart and strong convictions. He might seem one-dimensional to some? Maybe? But I found him with a person with a strong character and will, as well as a great heart. Mero, his sister, is also fantastic. She’s a quiet, aloof girl, the type who’d be annoyed with her brother a lot. But she’s not overly judgmental, just somewhat cynical and perpetually tired, with a good heart. Both Chihiro and Mero feel like they were inspired by stereotypical anime characters but given a more human depth, and I love that. Ranko is not that great but she's nice too. She’s a pretty girl in love with Chihiro, which adds a slight “harem” element, but I can believe in her feelings (probably because I love Chihiro, too, lol). Besides, she’s another support for him, rather than someone who demands anything. Chihiro’s grandpa is a key character, though he doesn’t really fit that much into the story’s metaphor too much in my opinon. He’s comedic relief, a source of world-building, and someone who accepts the surrounding pain, so he’s easy to like. Chihiro’s dad doesn’t do much, but his passive nature feels oddly fitting after you learn more about the story of the family. I don’t have much to add except that I really loved the family as a whole. The final chapter is ambiguous, leaving a lot open to interpretation in terms of zombie mythology. It reimagines the zombie as a mystical, forest-bound creature, perhaps akin to a wiccan spirit, and I loved the idea. You could say it even ties back to the metaphor, but what it means depends on how you’ve dealt with your own trauma. The last chapter is bittersweet, yes, it leaves many questions unanswered, yes, but it says the one thing I needed to hear. It says that, you and me, even if we end up living lives way out of the status quo or outside of the norm, we both can become into something we can love.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 27, 2024
Black Lagoon
(Anime)
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Black Lagoon is an anime series based on a manga from 2002. I haven’t read the manga yet, but the series, in what it manages to adapt, is very good. Black Lagoon has only one issue, and that’s the tone of its villains, which varies too much. Sometimes they are almost semi-realistic, like guerrillas or ex-Nazi soldiers, and sometimes they’re crazy characters straight out of a Marvel comic, like two half-vampire twin children from Romania who destroy anyone they encounter, or a Colombian ex-FARC maid with abilities comparable to the Terminator.
Now, although the villains vary too much in tone, the series has excellent characterization. All ... the characters carry a burden, they suffer from something, and the hellish, immoral world they live in takes its toll on them. The protagonist, Rock, gradually delves into that world and what it means to cross a point of no return, where there’s no turning back. It shows how people can be like dice—once thrown, they land with only one face showing. Rock, as a protagonist living on that threshold where he hasn’t yet had to make life-altering decisions, spends his time judging those who have already chosen their path. Little by little, he begins to understand the true meaning of his morality and the world he wants to live in. It’s one of those eye-opening series because it shows that judging is easy, but making decisions when you haven’t walked the same path is not always the sensible thing. Sometimes I think I’d also like to stay in that threshold, right before making permanent decisions. That’s what motivates me so much to be an artist—because if I’m an artist, I can take as many paths as I want from the threshold where I stand. That, and because with Asperger's syndrome and all, sometimes I feel like I’ve remained a child forever. It’s something that might not sound entirely positive, but when a series helps you understand your flaws without completely judging you, you get to know yourself better as a person, and that helps you manage them and work toward your dreams with who you are, without denying your shortcomings or difficulties.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 22, 2024
Gabriel DropOut
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
First, let me say that this anime is not good. That’s right, it’s not good. Yes, it features one of the best characters in all anime, Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell, a genius archdemon who controls the show every time she’s on screen with her absolutely demonic deeds and nefarious exploits. But then you have the other characters. While Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell excels in every scene she’s in, you also have Raphiel, one of the absolute worst characters I have ever seen. What is her trait? That she’s a sadist? That’s it? Yes, that’s it. She likes to see others suffering, including Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell. She never
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does anything amusing, heartwarming, or cute. She just disrespects Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell, forces her way into her home, or tries to trick her as if she were a plush toy. We all might want to be entertained by Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell, but we are on this side of the screen; she is not. If you are going to be in the show, try to earn your place and do something actually fun for once. For every scene where the genius Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell shines, there is a scene where Raphiel ruins the show. She is incredibly annoying, disgusting, and boring to watch. I hate her, hate her, hate, hate, hate. Sure, you might have characters you like and dislike in a show, but her presence serves absolutely no purpose other than being a passive watcher of Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell’s genius, which she always disrespects.
The other two characters, the most passive ones, barely have any effect on the show at all. Vignette is a good girl, so she doesn’t do bad things, cause any shenanigans, and is reliable. While she would be great to have as a friend, watching her life is dreadfully boring. Gabriel is the same but in the opposite direction. She is a slacker, so she doesn’t do good deeds. She is lazy and always stays at home. While she would be terrible to have as a friend, she could theoretically be a good protagonist in a comedy. You’ve seen other anime with listless characters that only want to be left alone, right? Saiki K, for example? These shows make great use of the listless protagonist since they are always met with energetic and cheerful people who want them to live life and do silly things. This can be great for comedy when the protagonist’s cynical perspective deconstructs the silly traditions and realities they live in. Here? They don’t do that. Gabriel is never really punished for anything, and even Vignette helps with her homework, albeit reluctantly. Gabriel might get bored by having her friends around, but no jokes ever come from it—nothing, zero. There is barely any comedy here. The jokes are very scarce and might rely on some occasional slapstick or the fact that the angels act like demons and the demons like angels. Still, nobody ever suffers any consequences, leaving you with tasteless comedy without misery. Overall, despite having a character like Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell, who is sheer genius, the others don’t help the show at all. Vignette is the most blank slate for a good girl character, Gabriel is useless as a protagonist since she never makes anything happen, and Raphiel is one of the most despicable and awful characters in anime. She isn’t a horrifying villain that incarnates evil, an ambiguous scientist with a goal that sacrifices means for an end, an underdog, or anything interesting. She is just a spoiled brat bored with her life, only interested in schadenfreude. I still ask myself: How? How did this even happen? Having an anti-hero as a protagonist is a great idea. Making the feminine angel unfeminine, unkempt, and uncool—just a slacker like any other—can bring a lot of comedy with all the silly stuff you can do in animation. But she never ever does anything like that! If you watch this as a comedy, it’s barren. If you watch this as a CGDCT anime, it’s still pretty bad, considering we only have one truly good character. One is as average as they come Vignette, one makes you bitter from how boring they are to watch, Gabriel, and one fills your soul with absolute hate, raising your anger to the max and making you wish you could punch her until all her teeth fall out, Raphael. Seriously, what a disgusting creature. If one can hope, is that Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell one day gets her own spin off, away of all the mess her friends are, she was the true start of the show after all, and the only you should really pay attention too if you even decide to go through this mess. Megumin got her own spinoff, so why not her as well?
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 24, 2024
Youjo Senki
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
Okay so here my thoughts on the anime in general. When I was recommended this anime I was intrigued by name Tanya of Evil, I thought we would get someone with a lot of blood-lust and someone who would do anything to achieve her status of power, I knew it was an isekai and I was willing to put up with the whole "loli" aspect of the character if it had a compelling narrative, but it seems that the title itself is not really accurate, it is only a localization blunder, and her character is actually more strategical than plain evil. The crazy bits of
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her character seem to be exaggerated either by the anime or the story itself put it is clear is just smoke and mirrors to make the protagonist more "fun" than what she actually is. Overall, this is what I have seen:
- The character is put in a situation where they lack the social advantages to advance, this would have been interesting to see, but they were given enough magical power to make them competent. - There is no clear reason as to why Tanya has to fight so early in her childhood, she just says that its her only choice, but no sense of urgency is given to let the army join her so soon. - Considering that the character went through a full reincarnation, it would be fair to say that her brain is starting to develop again, nevertheless this doesn't show and Tanya is given a logical, reason focused thinking when it comes to battle and strategic planning. She is shown having some breakdowns, but it is never a plot that is followed up, another aspect of the issues her new body would give her that is not followed upon. - Her strength and stamina seem to be the same as an adult's, sure, they use magic and guns most of the time, but she is seen kicking, pushing and even hurting people with no physical problems, another issues of her body that is not followed upon. - Never she is seen to be not taken seriously because of her age or gender, aside two or three mentions of concern of sending a child to a war. Not followed upon. - While the story focuses in the battle and war tactics, reading the commentaries of episodes before it seems that the strategical thinking is heavily reduced in the anime. More than that, having only one side with an ace up their sleeve comes as rather boring since there is no competent adversary for the enemy to fight. I have been watching other war focused anime like Legend of the Galatic Heroes, where we see the fighting from two sides, which makes the strategical thinking of war a lot more interesting with the two sides trying to outsmart each other. - Most of the battle and war focused thinking seems to be focused in repeat or reenact previous world war battles verbatim. The people who are into these historical subjects might enjoy the references and see the events re-enacted over with the new characters, but little is given for the people who are not in the subject at all. - While I have enjoyed explaining the reincarnation side as a result of making God angry, his role seems to be rather to active in the story, appearing several times in the anime, which I find rather conflicting since it feels he might be interfering too much in the protagonist's world. - The magic system is not interesting, it is only a way for the writers to make the battles go whatever they want without little effort. - While making the protagonist an atheist is interesting, I feel that the duality of believing in God or praying to God as an almighty being could be clarified further or explored more with its implications since this is the basis for the story overall. The protagonists knows there is a being that can mess up her life, a being that can reincarnate her and make her suffer, so it seems unwise to make him angry, this could have worked if Being X didn't appear so frequently in the story since it could have put doubt in Tanya's mind about his existence and the memories she has. - None of the characters aside from Tanya and Erich are actually interesting. So overall we have, no blood lust protagonist, no actually interesting strategical battles, no rise from the bottom of the social chain protagonist, no social hurdles, no physical hurdles, no psychological hurdles, nothing really to latch ourselves upon. Yes, I have seen some interesting stuff, like how Erich seems to think and react towards Tanya, or how she is starting to get angry at the chain of command and God herself, which could lay upon a path for a slightly more interesting narrative when we stop reenacting real life events (those episodes were really boring) and the anger of the protagonist comes more into light. The only thing we have is a slightly fun character that over react at times but not even nearly enough, not really. So my final verdict is: this anime is just your below average isekai trash, sorry, it is a 5/10 from me. Next!
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 12, 2023 Recommended Spoiler
This film, and the TV show itself, have a lot of flaws, like holy crap there are so many flaws that I just feel lazy when I think about listing them all.
Anyway, let's list them all, first and foremost, the pacing is incredibly convoluted, like bloody hell the first time you watch this you will have eyebrow pain from frowning so much and you will be mentally exhausted of all the things you have to keep to track of to puzzle the story together in a overarching arc that feels as long as listing all the digits of Pi, and most digits of Pi serve ... no purpose whatsoever! The thing is that, this movie would have worked a lot more as a full TV season for the show, things are so heavily compressed and the pacing might start slowly but then goes super fast and then builds up an important scene and then moves to another part of the plot! The TV show does have this same issue as well, since while it builds up nicely around the beginning, some things are cut short and that makes some scenes feel underdeveloped, like the whole arc with Sayaka and the pain of feeling like a lich, or a zombie, we got to see her pain and her reluctantcy to talk to the boy she likes, but we didn't get to see or feel what bad things she felt would happen in a relationship in the state she was in, I have dealt with dysphoria myself, so I understand her predicament to an extent, but I know a lot of people will think she is just dumb, the friendship of Homura and Madoka could have been expanded more to make us feel the importance of Madoka in Homura's life, and at the end she just comes as a very obsessed lesbian, I can go on and on, but again, I am getting a little lazy, the first season could have even been 24 episodes long, this movie, 12 episodes long, but with its movie running time it has at the very most 8 episodes worth of runtime, and that hurts the storytelling a lot. Because of that, there are scenes with a lot, and I mean a lot of exposition, with Kyubey being the equivalent of the exposition pug from the Men in Black series here, while in the show he still had a bigger role in the story despite also delivering a lot of exposition. That makes the whole story feel clunky, convoluted, and nonsensical, we don't get shown what it is happening, we get told about it more than what it is healthy for a story. There are some characters, like Bebe, that are introduced in a very quick way and then work as a normal part of the rooster without us getting to know her backstory, I only know it myself because a friend told me about it from something she read about a gacha game that expanded her arc. All this, all these issues, and more, that it's hard to call it a good movie, let alone a good show because of that, and the thing with animation and art like this is that knowing how to use your screen-time properly is really really difficult, and no matter the path you pick (either some scenes of quick exposition or basically not explaining it at all just to leave it to additional material) will end up leaving at least some people unhappy. So, what about the goods? Is there anything good in this movie at all? Yes, there is, starting with the eye candy that is 新房昭之 [Akiyuki Shinbo]'s visual direction, with that heavy French New Wave influence and featured not just here but also in the Madoka show and the Monogatari series, for the whole 100 episodes of it, its an absolute joy, the surreal atmosphere with complex backgrounds, overbearing lighting, characters that talk in such a idiosyncratic way that feels unique to them, and the cutout animation that mixes with the more traditional characters to create this scary but beautiful aura with the unnatural creatures and happening of this world, for eye candy like this alone I would rate this movie 4 stars, and out of all the discourse people seem to bring from this movie, it is at least the general consensus that the visuals of it are great! But! That's not the thing, haha, you see, because the reason I like this movie so much... the reason I like this movie so much it's because of its writing! Yes, that is right! Yes, I know, you might be saying the obvious, how I, with all the issues I see about this movie and the TV show, saying that the best thing about Rebellion being the writing is bogus, so now, just stay still, and listen. You see, the Madoka TV show was fine... it was fine, it was a fun show, you know, a normal deconstruction of the super hero genre, even if you aren't into magical girls, as long as you know what a super hero is, and are familiar with the trope of the normal person protagonist thingy being chosen to save the world, you will enjoy the show, the TV show has some twists and turns that make you wonder who the real villain is or what it is going to happen next, but there are things that you can easily predict from the first episode alone, and as the story goes along, these predictions get confirmed to you, and the end of the show does not really come as a surprise when you reach it, you say, ahh, yeah, that makes sense, that was nice. Madoka the TV show takes the whole idea of the Magical Girl/Super Hero and shows us a story where the only way to save the world is sacrificing yourself, even at the cost of your humanity, and plays with the idea that maybe the best option for you is to not become a super hero, a magical girl, because the cost for that power and that responsibility can be too great to bare. The show ends in a bittersweet note, and plays with the idea of Godhood and the ideal time loop after a sacrifice has been made, that idea is very fun on its own, there are interesting rules within the show that allow Madoka to propose a cohesive idea of God without becoming a power trip story, like the idea that God is in every place and every time in the universe, but can't directly interact with us because its fighting to keep the balance of the world as we know it, making it no more than a mere observer that cannot alter our life on its own will despite being omnipresent. The idea is good, and I like it a lot, even when there are shows that have used this idea to make things a lot more interesting things with them, like it is the case of Serial Experiments Lain where its ending is not only an exploration of godhood but it also plants questions about our identity on itself, and about who we are now in the digital era, which makes more the message a lot more personal to the audience. There is another anime that explores both time loops and the loss of humanity as well, but I didn't really enjoy that one as most people did, and I consider it such a train-wreck that it's just not worth my time to discuss here, considering it also that doing it would come with spoilers. So, the show itself is fine, yeah, the ending had been done already before and after, the plot is a bit convoluted and characters arcs cut short, but overall its a fun ride with its own self contained ending, not life changing or anything but really good for the fans of this kind of media. Anyway, the show become super popular and a movie sequel was approved, so what are we gonna do now? The show had already used the concept of alternative timelines for its main plot, so if you are going to make a sequel or alternative version, using them to spicy things up or continue along with the characters its a no go, its a really big task to continue things from the point the TV show ended, and the struggle does show, some people call the movie unnecessary, and I can see why would they think that. The movie does have also some well known tropes like the ideal/dystopian timeline that starts the new arc of the franchise that has been shown in anime like... well, I don't think I can say it without making it a spoiler, but if you want to know, ask me, it's a fun trope to write, and a confusing one to watch. In that part, it is nothing new, and the pacing is a lot more convoluted than the TV show, not just reducing character arcs and growth to mere one liners but also making the whole succession of events a mind boggling mess to watch the first time. But around the end, around the end, it happens, it just happens. Homura's arc in the show was good enough, she acts as the quiet, traumatized hero, the martyr that is under the scenes and tries to save people despite looking as a cold hearted foe in the outside, she was someone with extreme methods that could involve even killing Sayaka or letting Mami die as long it meant to save Madoka, there are great moments she has like in the episode 10 where she and Madoka are about to become witches, and Homura says that as long they are together, she doesn't care if she destroys the entire world with her, and that she would destroy and unleash her despair on the whole earth as long she gets to be with Madoka, which I found quite passionate, the way she remembers her after everything has passed, and how get to see her more and more as the protagonist in the show as it goes on. The thing that... her character as it is its fine, it is just fine, like... she is a good character, but maybe not the most memorable character ever? I mean considering that the trope of the martyr hero that is silently suffering but is helping the hero from the shadows its a very well known trope, it doesn't come as a twist, it is something that you can even see from episode 1, and a lot of people did, myself included, when the flashback scenes come, you say, yeah yeah, I see it now, but there is not really a twist, not the twist the show wanted you to experience, it was heavily implied and when you see it come, you watch it mostly because you want to know the how, not the why, of her character. So yes, the character its fine, it is a good character, but it doesn't change things too much, it just serves as a another spring in the perfectly tied together clockwork that is the show, it has a nice conclusion, all answers are given to you, when you look at it, it does feel as what you would expect, it is a fine good clock, aside the pacing, you could say the TV show its a good clock, maybe too good in fact, too tidy and perfect for its own good, it is a story that ends as how it should have, with protagonists that end with the character growth that they should have... Madoka does the sacrifice of losing her humanity to save all magical girls, and Homura is finally able to express her pain directly to the person that she loves, and is finally able to break the time loop she is in, living now in an universe where magical girls don't become witches, and continues as a silent hero that fights from the shadows, with her sad backstory, and her resolve to go on, it's all really nice, a really tidy and clean ending for a show... But, if you allow me to be a bit pedantic... I think that's boring, super and incredibly ultra mega boring, it is boring, boring boring, super boring, expected, already shown, already made, predictable! It is boring! BO-RI-NG! It is too by the numbers! And yes, sure, Madoka started as a deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre, and it might have been seen as something that subverted the source material it was inspired from, but that is only if you came to it blind, all blind, expecting something cute and fun, so in other terms, it relied in nothing more than a marketing gimmick, and when your movie relies in a marketing gimmick, once that gimmick is gone, half of its appeal its over, just like with The Blair Witch Project, sure it was supposed to be a real found tape, but of course you can't keep your actors locked in a basement, so the immersion is absolutely broken out of the gate with that. I did my best, and I watched Madoka as blind as possible, not knowing anything about the plot, anything, I didn't google it, checked it or did anything or research about it, but even then, when people mention Madoka on the internet, they say, oh Madoka... haha, Madoka is not what it pretends to be! Mwhahaha! If Madoka comes up as a random conversation topic in your discord server, that is the bare minimum you are going to hear. I can say that in this day and age, it is incredibly obvious from the get go that you come to Madoka looking forward to it pull a fast one on you, and with me having watched stuff like Magical Girl Site around 2017 or so and being used to a whole fanfare of violent magical girl shows, I arrived to Madoka and I kept asking myself, where is all the blood? Where is the angst? The edgyness? Sure, a character just died in episode 3, the cutouts are artsy and fancy, but to be honest with you, I'm not feeling subverted right now! I am waiting to see the most shocking and grotesque thing to exist! Where is it?! And then, I have to adjust my expectations, the plot it is very interesting with the material it works on, people say Kyubey did nothing wrong, and that is a discussion you can argue with very solid points, but if you are familiar with the the time loop genre or time travel stories, you will see that Homura is a good girl from episode 1, from episode 1. I kept eating my nails waiting for Madoka to become a magical girl in every episode, just to start to realize around episode 5 and 6 that it most likely wouldn't happen in the whole anime, and if it did, it would probably be only at the very end, because the story is about avoiding letting Madoka become a magical girl. When you realize what kind of story it is, you can see the whole picture of it before it ends, it is just so tidy and clean to the point it is almost antiseptic and symmetrical, just uncannily geometrical, it just feels artificial, and fiction is that, artificial, but the magic trick is about to make it feel like its not. Sure, you are going through a very elaborate and carefully made build up, but even when I am in that slowly but surely ascending roller-coaster, I could be ripping my eyes out because I just want the roller-coaster to start to descend! I am seeing the whole landscape from up here already! Just shake me right now! Scare me away! Even when the show ends with a character turning into godhood and rewriting the entire world and history as they knew it you can't do anything else than say... yeah, that was a good ending, all arcs were written... all characters were there... and the conflict was resolved as it should have, it was all done, in a tidy neat little bow, overall, it is one of the TV shows of all time. Listen, I know that there is only 7 basic plots for all fiction, I get it, and it is not easy to making something properly satisfying when you have to handle several characters, fantasy worlds with rules on their own, the feelings you want to convey and handle the life of all people that live temporarily in your head, but I just want to dream! Is that so wrong? Is it wrong of me to wish for a character that makes me feel absolute and complete rage even when do not actually exist? To want to feel inspired by a conclusion a character reaches that is actually taboo for the place they and I live in and that makes the audience raise an eyebrow because it defies the status quo? To have a Chekhov's gun unfired the whole play? I just want to feel that the world I am watching to feel real! To have the gun there just because it happened to be that there was a gun there! Not because it was left by the karmic threads of destiny for the heroes to pick! That is what I want, it will make people angry, it will make people confused, but that doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, that's what I really want, I want to feel things! Not to account for all the mathematical equations the screenwriter is trying to balance on a narrative! So, in this movie, we see something further beyond than that perfect, tidy ending of the show, we see that Homura, despite Madoka's promise of being always everywhere and every time, is still afflicted by her inability to interact with her, to see her or talk to her, to see that Madoka cannot see interact with her friends, her family, and that for most purposes, she is as good as dead to the world. Because all of this, she ends up, due to Kyubey's meddling and others, creating a fake reality where she and her friends are all fighting as a group of friends, always together, and living a happy life following their own duty as magical girls, the life they always dreamed. After a lot of suspicion and her good detective skills, she realizes that the city they live in is no more than a mirage, and that the friends she has been fighting with have been trapped due to her own grief. Even Madoka, who used to be an omnipresent being, had turned into her previous, human form, and it is interacting with the world just like she used to. After all this, Homura, yet one more time, decides to follow her path of a martyr, and tries to sacrifice herself now that she has gotten her wish to talk to Madoka yet one more time, she doesn't want to keep her friends in a glass prison where everything is fake, where they fight threats that do not really exist, where Madoka is not doing her duty saving other magical girls, and she cries because she knows that even after the sacrifice Madoka made, she is still unable to move on, and it is heartbreaking. Just before she finally jails herself in an eternal prison where not even Madoka to save her, ready to experience eternal pain, her friends come to save her, Mami and Kyoko, who after realizing they have been trapped they decide to help, and even Bebe and Sayaka, who had died in a way or another in the past, are in a way, alive, helping Madoka, and are working together to save her. It is all a nice display of the power of friendship, and a nice ending, so nice, so wholesome and cute that almost makes me puke, hehe, even Sayaka says that they are kinda like Madoka's secretaries and are moving through the cosmic plane in a carriage, isn't that nice? Since they are all working together, why not start giving presents to the kids every 24th of December as well? Why not make it a tradition? Call it, I don't know... Christmas or something! Even when had experienced those characters death's, it's fine! They will just go back to the main dusty cloud of the whole universe hivemind, where they will continue to do good deeds like the super heroes we are in our own life! Haha! Haha! How nice! Isn't it? Don't make me laugh. Anime has touched a lot of times the idea of instrumentality, right? The idea of being part of a whole, huge massive being, Evangelion, Kaiba, Code Geass, and Ghost in the Shell have mentioned the idea either as a main plot device or mentioning it as something they want to avoid, right? Because the unknown is scary, that's the basis of cosmic horror, the basis of losing our own individuality, our self, and become something that might not even be truly alive to our own eyes. So when Madoka takes Homura's hand and promises to take her with her, to that afterlife, so they can be together forever, I can feel the fear, I can feel the wish, the need to avoid that to happen, because even if there is a promise for her to be together forever, Homura has already experienced the pain of being unable to interact with Madoka in the human world, the pain of knowing Madoka wouldn't be able to interact with other people, her friends, what does even mean to be a god if you can't put your own will of your own in the entire universe? If you can't experience what it is to have your own senses? To be a fragile and mortal being? After Homura remembers all the pain she went through to keep Madoka alive in every loop, and the pain she experienced even when she somehow achieved with Madoka entering into a new plane of existence, she decides that that's not what she was to have, and an awesome thing happens. She takes Madoka and breaks her apart, stealing her power, and yet once again, jailing her in a reality she has herself made, just as she said herself, a new demon is born. The story, in a way, ends the same as it just started, but with the big difference that Homura has turned from protagonist, to antagonist, from secretive hero to anti hero, and the people who trusted in her, the audience as well, felt heartbroken, felt disappointment, and condemned the movie because of it. But the thing is that, even when the pacing is convoluted and filled with a lot of exposition and shortcuts, the story on itself it is not! It is not, I can feel the character's pain and their whole psychological progression, I can deeply relate to them in a way that feels so real that I can almost touch it, the trying to help behind the shadows, the failing and succumbing to despair, the accepting the bittersweet solution and gray reality of things, and the pain that comes from realizing that you can't really accept that bittersweet reality and you just break over again! Sometimes I have to do something even if it means losing the friends I had, even if it means probably losing my parents! Even if it means becoming a stranger to the people that knew me and making cry to the people that took care and grew up with me all my life! Because that is my desire, because that is what makes me happy! Oh and because screw you, that's why. Wouldn't destroying the God that reigned over your life and do whatever you want completely outside of the plan he had with you the most liberating thing you could ever do? Wouldn't that be the ultimate expression of your own free will? See? This is what is so good about Homura's character this arc, not because being becoming trans is akin to becoming a villain or any nonsense like that, but because to have what you truly want, you sometimes you will have to take decisions that will make others unhappy, because sometimes you just can't play the good girl all the time! After this, Homura turns from the tidy and fated secret martyr hero of her perfect and tidy story and turns into something a lot more real, she turns into someone you can't really agree with because turns to be heavily flawed in her morals, but that you still deeply relate with, and that emotion she felt around the end of the movie, I felt it deeply and intensely, and you feel it too, because we have seen not only her breaking point, but also the whole arc and descent into madness. I have seen people even argue that Homura did nothing wrong, but even when you agree, like me, that she did something truly wrong, just because she was in love, you just can't help but feel for sympathetic for her, not even because we have been love, or we also have had a crush, but because we all have experienced grief in a way or another, and we are afraid of the unknown. There is something that I really like about cosmic horror and the fear of the unknown and I think turning humans themselves the mere sources of that fear of the unknown that you can use to evolve the genre in something new. With the ending, the whole movie and the franchise altogether breaks into that neat tidiness and clockwork precision of character arcs and destroys a character that people liked making it into something really different, but you want to know why this is great? Because it all felt real, because unlike all the rest of the shows answers and questions, that moment alone felt like a break into the perfectly synced chain of events that lead Homura's life. This is why, even with all the qualms I have with the movie, with the show itself, with the things I don't like and the things I can laugh at, this is why, this movie deserves my absolute and guaranteed five stars, making it the top of 10 movies I have ever seen, because what I felt with it, I felt it so vividly and so intensely that for a moment I felt I could see a real person in its plot, rather than a mere sets of puppets pulled by a writer's strings. I remember a comment about Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror] where a person said that in their class the people who watched it kept laughing the whole way through the movie, making fun of the techniques, the plot and the tropes of the time, even after when the movie finished and they all left, but there was one moment, one single moment around the end where Nosferatu dies and turns to ashes, everyone stayed silent, surprised, and for that moment alone, they felt the surprise and shock of the character's death, without saying anything, only feeling what was really happening, and they commenter said, that is cinema, and that's right, that is cinema! Even when I did not understand Броненосец «Потёмкин» [Battleship Potemkin] the scene of the stair kept me fascinated and horrified the time I watched it, and with this movie, I got shaken to my very core at the end, do you understand what I am trying to say? Sometimes we will interact and understand movies and fictional media as much as we do real people, partially, only in bits, but if we do, that moment we connect with each other will become something truly special. Even when there are unanswered questions at the end, even when there are characters that could have gotten more screen time, even where the pacing could have been a lot slowed down, even when things could have been shown instead of told, even when the character design is too chibi-like for me to call it actually interesting, even when its just a goofy magical girls movie with all those idiosyncrasies that this Japanese sub genre of super hero fiction for kids has that seem silly to me, even with all that, I think this movie is truly great, not just because of its artistic direction and animation eye candy, but also because its with its conclusion that the movie achieved something that felt real and unique. Stories about exploring godhood are incredibly fun because they are stories where you can get really creative with the stakes of the plot and it's conflict. In the movie, that whole concept in the movie morphs in an amazing idea, filled with lots of possibilities, the idea of a demon trying to keep God asleep because they are in love with them it's probably one of the funniest ideas to come out from fiction in 2013, there are other anime like the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that play with the concept of Godhood and the task of having to keep a God asleep but this whole series turns that concept with an antagonistic lenses, which makes it a lot more fun, since the biggest catastrophe is not something you want to avoid, but something that you live in every day, in the story. I know, I am afraid and excited for the upcoming sequel, because just as I can feel a great connection with an artist, or a person, that something can always change after we all move to the next stage of our lives, just as a franchise moves to a (probably final) sequel, and a new arc, still though, I know that was done here will always mean something to me, it is not a simple retcon, it is not unnecessary, it felt warranted, it felt genuine, and it made me feel truly intense things. And that is, my whole review.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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