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these specials gave me extreme whiplash, each in a different direction, and im still in just. complete shock over that second special. like. oh my god what the fuck

like i like this show, its ok, trends towards fanservice but the characters are all likeable and theres some funny moments. but these specials go off the fanservice deep-end.

oh my god im not gonna spoil it ok but, what. what is that second special. why does it exist. its so forced. oh my god what. WHAT?????

THATS THE LAST EPISODE OF THIS SHOW???????????????

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

men are banned from anime.

to some extent, REVUE STARLIGHT is a breath of fresh air.

it feels nice to have a straight-forward magical girl series. it feels great to watch something like this that's really optimistic, even working against some of its own themes just to give people a good show. it felt nice to watch this immediately after finishing utena and evangelion, two shows world famous for their density and darkness, and to be treated to something just as appealing to the senses, albeit a lot breezier. and it felt great to watch something that was so excited about what it was, so INTO itself and PROUD of itself.

the ... sheer amount of creative confidence throughout STARLIGHT is staggering. it's almost infectious. it wears all of its influences on its sleeves (the previously mentioned UTENA is a huge one, but also takarazuka, and even shakespeare), but it weaves them together in a way that's visually gorgeous and. oh my god. oh my god this show has MUSICAL NUMBERS! WHAT!!! oh my GOD YES

the use of tragedy as a central theme is really interesting. it has a hard time going anywhere with it, but its very seeped into the final product in a way that's impossible to ignore. even if its written in blood, can it be changed? can there be happy endings, even in the deepest and darkest of places?

i kind of love everything about this show. the characters, the art, the music.... no, it's no utena. this won't rewrite a format, or even a genre. but this show understands the value of shining stars.

YUKI YUNA IS A HERO is kind of a low-rent madoka magica. this isn't completely a bad thing, because there's a few things this show does better and even things that madoka straight up just doesn't do, but that inspiration echoes throughout the entirety of this show in a way that made it hard to take seriously.

YUKI YUNA is a similar "deconstruction" (using the term very. very. very loosely. VERY loose) of mahou shoujo wherein girls pay a steep price for their magical status. in this show, that exploration of genre is used as the center for larger themes of SACRIFICE and FATE, but ... it feels borderline.... exploitative. manipulative, even. don't get me wrong, i like plot twists, i love tone shifts, but here, it feels as if the theme wasn't thought through, wasn't properly threaded throughout the story. where madoka kicks itself into gear pretty quickly, leaving a lot more room to develop and extrapolate, yuki yuna seems to wander for a bit before KNEEJERKING into nihilism and "edgy territory" around episode 8.

this is where most of my problems come in, because. the first two episodes have a dark cloud looming over them, with some nice foreshadowing, but then i was really pleased to see it NOT go all the way overboard. instead it really slows down and stretches itself out. there aren't even vertex fights for a lot of the show's run, in fact a lot of it is bordering on slice of life. and, i REALLY like this cast. yuna is the glue that holds everything together and she's extremely likeable as the hyperoptimist, but togo and karin steal the show for me - karin as being (for a while) a fun take on a mami tomoe/kyouko sakura-type role (extremely athletic, health food nut) and togo as being really great disabled rep in a genre that more or less uses disability as a central character conflict and not just an attribute. but of COURSE when the show takes the nosedive it (not so subtley) wants to, it feels like character is hurled out the window. sure, yuna is still yuna, but everyone else just loses all their personality to become "crying girl". and not only this, but the show gets very bleak. EXTREMELY bleak. HEAVILY nihilistic. it's. very frustrating. sure, there's some more twists and things work themselves out by the last episode but it's hard to ignore or forget all the weird, almost unwarranted amounts of suffering this show pushes you through.

and for this reason it's really hard to recommend it. the show wants you to go in blind but i can't envision someone coming out the other end excited about what they just watched. to sit through 5 episodes of a pretty upbeat slice of life anime and suddenly watch characters be horribly injured, depressed, suicidal, and worse, to have the tone just SUDDENLY CHANGE LIKE A LIGHTSWITCH, it just. hmmm. i don't know. this probably won't be a madoka for a new generation.

that all being said, it isn't that bad. like i said, all the characters are likeable. the mythology of it all is interesting. the themes, even though they only rear their head in the LAST SECOND, they do a few pretty neat things with them. but, eeeeeeehhhhh. i think i'm tired of MAHOU SHOUJO BUT F*CKED UP. and i do really feel bad for anyone looking for just a cute magical girl show having to sift through piles and piles of "girls crying" shows. i don't know.

overall, all i gotta say is.... men ruined magical girl shows. thank you. no, you don't have to respond