The new Madoka Magica movie opened this weekend, so naturally I made time to go see it. Whereas the first two films (which we have on Blu-ray, complete with English subtitles) were a compilation of the series, the third movie features a great new story that starts where the series left off. (I’ll avoid spoilers, but will say that the movie was great, with lots of everything that we all love about Madoka.) I like Madoka Magica because of the way writer Urobuchi Gen cleverly deconstructs the magical girl genre in the same way Western comics like Astro City or Top 10 toy with the superhero genre. Viewers go into Madoka expecting something in the tradition of Rayearth, Nanoha or Sailor Moon, yet the series refuses to conform to expectations, eschewing predictable monster-of-the-week stories and transformations that happen at the same point in every episode, instead jumping around chronologically and giving us a heroine who doesn’t even become a magical girl until the series is mostly over, when the drama is highest.
The Madoka story continues with a new movie.
