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ActionZero posted:Magical Girls really don't get on with each other mostly. Another one turning up on your turf means competition for grief seeds and I would guess most of the magical girls who tend to last longer are more like Kyouko in their outlook on working together than Mami. I also imagine the long-lasting magical girls wouldn't take someone up on a request that's basically "Hey, help me kill this impossibly powerful witch. You won't get anything out of it though, and you'll probably die in the process."
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Apr 3, 2014 00:37
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DarkHamsterlord posted:I also imagine the long-lasting magical girls wouldn't take someone up on a request that's basically "Hey, help me kill this impossibly powerful witch. You won't get anything out of it though, and you'll probably die in the process." Also adding in "I don't actually have any evidence for this, but I totally know for sure because of reasons I can't tell you." doesn't exactly make Homura seem like she's on the up-and-up.
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Apr 3, 2014 00:53
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Rebellion Chat: So, in the post-credits scene it didn't really look like Kyuubei was sneaking up on Homura and more like he was just stumbling towards her. Her comment about the Incubator staying with her combined with the shaken and ruffled condition he's in looks far more like he has just been her plaything for the last however long. I guess we'll have to wait until the next continuation before we find out what the actual deal is. The concept of Madoka being separated from the Law of the Cycle implies that the cycle is still occurring just without a conscious willpower behind it. But with all the Incubators seemingly eliminated within Homura's Has anyone else picked up on that? What's the point of having a cycle to deal with a group of beings that doesn't actually exist any more?
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Apr 3, 2014 01:42
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AlternateNu posted:Has anyone else picked up on that? What's the point of having a cycle to deal with a group of beings that doesn't actually exist any more? Isn't that what was said near the end of the movie, was that the cycle no longer exists? I thought I understood it as the Incubators were trying to come up with a new solution.
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Apr 3, 2014 02:19
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There's no indication that Homura has eliminated Incubators. In fact, it's very heavily implied that she's either rewritten their memories or otherwise "enslaved" them to continue their purpose in creating magical girls and harvesting grief seeds/cubes. It's also not suggested that the "Law of the Cycle" (Madoka's saving grace that prevents Witches from occurring) is broken; she's simply separated Madoka the girl from Madoka the concept.
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Apr 3, 2014 02:28
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In her conversation with Sayaka, Homura explicitly states that the Law of the Cycle still exists, and she mentions Wraiths as well. And if you pay attention you can see Soul Gem rings on Kyouko, Sayaka and Mami, so magical girls exist too. I would imagine the Incubators are still making magical girls to fight the Wraiths and combat entropy just as they were in the universe Madoka created. And when a magical girl has run her course, the Law of the Cycle unconsciously descends upon them and kills their witch.
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Apr 3, 2014 02:36
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AlternateNu posted:I guess we'll have to wait until the next continuation before we find out what the actual deal is. I don't think there will be a continuation. Shinbou is just an evil man who wants a bad ending.
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Apr 3, 2014 02:50
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MagicalDuck posted:I don't think there will be a continuation. Shinbou is just an evil man who wants a bad ending. There almost certainly will be, the franchise is printing money at this point. The Rebellion credits song, Kimi no Gin no Niwa, has some interesting lyrics. You can read them as being about what's going through Homura's head or being sung by her towards the end of the movie (similar to Connect), though I think it's a somewhat unkind interpretation. If you're a Madoka junkie it might be worth looking them up though.
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Apr 3, 2014 04:06
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Mercrom posted:If I'm gonna sperg about the current plot: Madoka's wish was pretty fool proof. She will destroy anyone before they become a witch no matter how insurmountable the obstacles are. She must have known that Kyubey would never succeed in his plans, and that Homura would never actually finish the transformation to a witch, and in the end chose to let her take over the universe rather than just nuke Kyubey's lab from orbit from the very beginning. The most logical conclusion is that Madoka consented to everything that happened. Maybe she saw a chance to live a normal life while still having her wish fulfilled and took it. I cannot accept that Madoka consented. First, to your argument, I do not believe that Homura completed the transformation to a witch. Rather, she began the transformation into a witch, but ultimately transformed into a demon instead. This evades Madoka's wish. Second, if Madoka's wish came true, it is unclear if even Madoka herself could not save someone from becoming a witch. Third, Madoka's reaction is completely inconsistent with consent, it doesn't even show any hints of consent.
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Apr 3, 2014 07:54
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Kyrie eleison posted:Madoka's reaction is completely inconsistent with consent, it doesn't even show any hints of consent. It's really bad storytelling in my opinion, completely unlike the confident clarity of the original series.
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Apr 3, 2014 09:43
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Mercrom posted:That's because the movie is intentionally convoluted and wipes memories left and right. Which becomes even more convoluted when you consider that Madoka's memories effectively include both the past and the future, so she would have known beforehand that her memories would be wiped even if only for the reason that there's a blind spot in them. One way or another, Madoka intentionally gave up control over her existence, at least temporarily. At the moment Madoka descends as Madokami she has all of her memories restored, and even comments on this by saying she can't believe she forgot something so important. Also, Madoka is not omniscient, she is capable only of fulfilling her wish.
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Apr 3, 2014 10:10
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Whether Madoka is omniscient or not is debatable, but I think the original ending made it pretty clear she exists outside of time. The way I understood it was that she created an infinite loop by absorbing her own absorbed despair, effectively creating a paradox, and to avoid that paradox the wish rewrote the rules of the universe by making Madoka herself have no past or future. That is why she is not affected by causality and she experiences the past and future simultaneously in all timelines, never being born, and never turning into a witch.
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Apr 3, 2014 11:45
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Again, Madoka is not omni attentive and could be argued to not be omniscient. She's a natural law, not the Abrahamic God. It's not like Gravity knows everything it will ever attract.
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Apr 3, 2014 14:06
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Cubemario posted:One thing I'm confused about, which the anime sort of touches on, but doesn't. Why couldn't Homura bring more people to the cause of fighting Walpurgisnacht?
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Apr 3, 2014 15:42
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Nyaa posted:Beside what Actionzero pointed out, Homura suck at persuasion, which contributes to all the distrust she gotten from every loops. I think she did succeed in the PSP game though. Speaking of games, I wish there was a high budget Madoka Magica game. There's been two games so far, on PSP And Vita, neither are good and were in Japan only.
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Apr 3, 2014 17:41
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MagicalDuck posted:I don't think there will be a continuation. Shinbou is just an evil man who wants a bad ending. I don't want a continuation, I suppose because I am an evil man who wants a bad(?) ending.  Legitimately though, as much as I know things won't go the way I'd prefer, I feel like ending on the implications that Rebellion does is the best way for the series to end, and any follow-up will just be disappointing by comparison.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:04
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The dancing motif in Rebellion is interesting. I think it tells us a lot about Homura's worldview. In the movie's opening song, all the other girls are cheerfully dancing while Homura is fallen on her knees. Their class teacher, as if possessed, unsteadily spins on one foot while lecturing her class, echoing the ballerina imagery established earlier in the film. The movie opens with a troupe of shadow girls dancing. In Homura's witch world, there seems to be an imperative to dance, but it's a drive that she cannot fulfill. During the "Holy Quintet" transformation sequence, all of the girls dance flawlessly. Starting as shadows of themselves, they break out of that form and assume their true, pure white selves. When Homura attempts this gesture, however, it seems to be imperfect: she stumbles once, and her sequence is interrupted by witch runes that read "I kill myself" and "They glorify deathV [sic]." Likewise, her dance is an interpretive dance in which she is stumbling and falling. This seems to be a strange break from the dancing motif so far; a dance of negation as opposed to everyone else's dances of self-affirmation. On the note of the shadow selves and the white selves, it's interesting that when Homura invokes a curse, she creates white selves and shadow selves: the white selves rise up from the sludge and look skyward at the shadow selves plummeting towards them, battering them. They also spin incompletely on one foot and wave their hands in the motion of a spinning gear. All of the dancing in the film converges toward the credits and post-credits, where she's finally able to dance. Finally, in her new world, she's able to dance freely, smiling contentedly as she looks at her transformed soul gem. She seems so miserable to me, up until this very last point when she's actually smiling for herself. However, she's not the only one who dances in her new world; Nagisa dances for the first time, too, which seems to imply an increase of freedom. It's also interesting that there are so many mentions of dreams and nightmares in the movie, and when Homura takes on the role of a devil, she has lines under her eyes as though she's perpetually under-slept or tired.
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Apr 4, 2014 06:00
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The only part of the movie I was upset about was Homura not wiping the floor with Mami in the fight 
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Apr 5, 2014 08:31
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Lemonpieman posted:The only part of the movie I was upset about was Homura not wiping the floor with Mami in the fight
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Apr 5, 2014 09:53
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I can't come up with an explanation for why that sequence needed to happen, but it was still really good and I enjoyed watching it.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:08
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I just watched Rebellion and... What the gently caress? I have no idea what Homura even accomplished. Did she somehow take over Madoka's job so Madoka would be able to live a normal life? Did she somehow rid the world of wraiths and witches? Why is Kyubey just a terrified lump of matter fur? What happened to half the moon, and the Earth? What-  On one hand, I wish that the movie ended when Madoka was coming to retrieve Homura and take her... wherever it is that she goes. On the other, a story with that ending would just be a reaffirmation of the themes of the first movie, and not really contribute anything else. But Homura turning into the devil and transforming Madoka from a god into a normal human was absurdly over the top to the point where I don't understand the point anymore. ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 03:51
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The movie had its confusing points, but all of what you asked is clearly explained if you pay attention.
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Apr 6, 2014 03:58
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Thinking about it, I think it's less that I didn't understand the ending, and more that I don't want to believe that was really how it ended. It's a really unsettling ending, and I don't mean that lightly. There's still one thing I don't understand. I know there's some kind of symbolism with the half-moon and half-hill in the post-credits segment, which homura falls off after her dance, but I'm not getting it. Can someone explain it for me? e: I find it hilarious how straight up incompetent the ANN review of the movie is. ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 04:11
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i don't have an answer to your question, and it's something hopefully someone else can shed light on. I would certainly agree with you, that it's incredibly unsettling, I knew that certain events would happen, but seeing it was another thing entirely. I give them credit for making it absolutely disturbing. Fiction rarely gets me feeling like that, so there's a lot to be said for that.
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Apr 6, 2014 05:48
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ViggyNash posted:There's still one thing I don't understand. I know there's some kind of symbolism with the half-moon and half-hill in the post-credits segment, which homura falls off after her dance, but I'm not getting it. Can someone explain it for me? It's a callback to the scene with Madoka and Homura sitting side-to-side in the flower field. By the end she's betrayed Madoka and made herself the villain. She's all alone now, missing her "other half" so to speak.
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Apr 6, 2014 06:01
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It's also interesting that superGretchen had a split/divided face too.
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Apr 6, 2014 06:21
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I don't think the movie ever even explains what new law Homura added with the piece she took from Madoka. Seems it's something beyond Kyubeys understanding and that's about it. Obviously it's something that allows her to become a demon but to what end is never really said.
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Apr 6, 2014 07:00
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Iretep posted:I don't think the movie ever even explains what new law Homura added with the piece she took from Madoka. Seems it's something beyond Kyubeys understanding and that's about it. Obviously it's something that allows her to become a demon but to what end is never really said. The "Piece" she took was basically just Madoka's mortal existence. Her personality, memories, history, etc. It didn't have anything to do with her becoming a demon. That was all because of the weird way she became a witch. Instead of cursing her fate, she embraced it, since her fall into a witch was a deliberate move for the sake of love, a fulfillment of her wish to protect Madoka. The idea/plot device is that love is supposed to be a more powerful emotion than hope and despair, which is what magical girls/witches run on, so as a demon she's exponentially more powerful. Kyubey doesn't get it just like he doesn't get any emotion, it all just seems utterly illogical to him. There are a couple of alternate takes on the source of Demon Homura's powers. One would be that she basically did what Kyubey planned to do. In the instant Madoka came to claim her, her existance was detectable, and what can be detected can be interfered with, and possibly even harnessed. If she really did bite off more power from Ultimate Madoka than just Madoka's base personality, it would give more credence to a lot of the symbolism in the last part, like her drinking the pink cocktail, etc. If you don't buy into this, that it's simply a matter that her barrier grew in her transformation from witch to demon, going from covering the whole city to covering the whole universe. All powers, memory erasing, etc is all just her displaying her abilities as master of the barrier, which included memory manipulation, just like how Kyoko/Mami had their memories altered coming in the first time. Alternatively, I've seen some arguments that if Madoka became so strong due to Homura's looping stacking causality on her, it's not unlikely that a lot of causality wound up tied to Homura as well. In ascending to a witch/demon, that might have been taken into account and led to her becoming a witch on the scale of Madoka's witch form, if not for the fact that Homulilly as presented seems to be in a state of actively trying to kill her self and not fight. I really feel that just the fact that the movie has an ending that makes you want to debate it and think about it makes it an unabashed success, no matter if you eventually decide you love it or hate it.
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Apr 6, 2014 10:08
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Super Jay Mann posted:It's a callback to the scene with Madoka and Homura sitting side-to-side in the flower field. By the end she's betrayed Madoka and made herself the villain. She's all alone now, missing her "other half" so to speak. Ah, thanks. That makes a lot of sense. Bakanogami posted:I really feel that just the fact that the movie has an ending that makes you want to debate it and think about it makes it an unabashed success, no matter if you eventually decide you love it or hate it. The ending is brilliant, from a technical standpoint. It's the culmination of everything Homura has done since the first time Walpurgisnacht shows up. Her flashback episode shows how far she was willing to go to save Madoka out of her love for her, and she sees what she does as "saving" Madoka from the responsibility of being a god. That is supported by what Madoka says to Homura in the garden, that she would never have wanted to leave everyone behind and go far away. We've also all seen how extreme Homura can be, so her stealing Madoka's god-dom doesn't feel out of place. But as much as I can respect the ending, I still hate it. It feels like Urobuchi's way of taking a massive poo poo on the themes of the show, as if having written a heartwarming ending was driving him crazy so we went and wrote the coldest, darkest ending he could think of. e:VV Compared to this ending where the entire universe has been turned into demon Homura's fantasy playground, a universe in which magical girls are free of their curse and Homura has finally managed to save Madoka from her cruel fate is pretty heartwarming. Bittersweet, but still heartwarming. But since when was the show ending ambiguous? It's pretty obvious what happened, and it's a very conclusive ending. ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 14:33
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Whoa whoa whoa. When did we go from Madoka having a bittersweet, ambiguous ending to having a heartwarming, conclusive ending?
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Apr 6, 2014 15:11
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Bakanogami posted:I really feel that just the fact that the movie has an ending that makes you want to debate it and think about it makes it an unabashed success, no matter if you eventually decide you love it or hate it. What can matter is the level of the discussion, not the amount of it. Most of the discussion I've seen has been "but technically in the canon...", and that's not a very good sign. What are the themes in this movie, and how are they explored? Not "is Homura yandere y/n, and could she take madoka in a fight" or "could Kyubey do x" or "why is it so dark I hate it" or "what the gently caress is even going on". PerrineClostermann posted:Whoa whoa whoa. When did we go from Madoka having a bittersweet, ambiguous ending to having a heartwarming, conclusive ending?
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Apr 6, 2014 15:44
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Mercrom posted:What can matter is the level of the discussion, not the amount of it. Most of the discussion I've seen has been "but technically in the canon...", and that's not a very good sign. What are the themes in this movie, and how are they explored? Not "is Homura yandere y/n, and could she take madoka in a fight" or "could Kyubey do x" or "why is it so dark I hate it" or "what the gently caress is even going on". How would the level of discussion even be quantified enough to directly correlate with how successful it is? Anything can be discussed at higher levels if you read deeply into them enough, and anything can be dismissed with a reptilian one-liner like all the stuff you put in quotation marks. Couldn't your negative conclusion about the successful-ness of Rebellion also be explained by the fact that the majority of people
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Apr 6, 2014 16:44
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:How would the level of discussion even be quantified enough to directly correlate with how successful it is? My point was that I don't agree with the attitude that something is thoughtful just because it's talked about. A lot of people wrote a lot of words arguing about Kill la Kill, but that is only testament to the show's popularity and controversial nature, nothing else. But if someone successfully explained why Kill la Kill is thoughtful, I would consider it. The crazy thing is people actually tried. The discussion about Rebellion teaches me a few things I already know. Most of all that the movie is confusing and full of unnecessary sci-fi stuff. Also that it's controversial because it has a darker ending. The only actually new things I have learned have been how people think about the original series, and how they interpreted Homura's arc. For being half as long as the original series, this movie doesn't add much. Not that it doesn't add something, but I'm just not certain what that something is. As a sequel it's not nearly as unnecessary as it could have been, but it's still pretty unnecessary.
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Apr 6, 2014 17:46
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Mercrom posted:It's subjective and not quantifiable. The only quantifiable form of success is profit and this movie is probably very successful in that sense. I have no idea what you're talking about, but maybe we can agree that the Rebellion soundtrack is the best one yet?
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Apr 7, 2014 07:29
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GloomMouse posted:I have no idea what you're talking about, but maybe we can agree that the Rebellion soundtrack is the best one yet? I can agree with that. Anyone know when it'll be released?
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Apr 7, 2014 12:06
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ViggyNash posted:e:VV Compared to this ending where the entire universe has been turned into demon Homura's fantasy playground, a universe in which magical girls are free of their curse and Homura has finally managed to save Madoka from her cruel fate is pretty heartwarming. Bittersweet, but still heartwarming. But since when was the show ending ambiguous? It's pretty obvious what happened, and it's a very conclusive ending. PerrineClostermann posted:Whoa whoa whoa. When did we go from Madoka having a bittersweet, ambiguous ending to having a heartwarming, conclusive ending? While it might seem Urobuchi ruined the happy ending of the show, if you look at it from the perspective as Homura as the protagonist, it's entirely the opposite. The show ending represented her ultimate and complete failure to stop Madoka from sacrificing herself, and ensured that she would never meet her again as long as she lived. On a grander scale, it may have been for the best, sure, but on a personal level it was a bad end for her. That's what the opening of Rebellion is all about, with everyone dancing around her distraught form. If you look at it objectively, Rebellion's ending is the heartwarming and conclusive one. Everyone is alive and (theoretically, at least) happy, it's implied that the law of cycles Madoka set up is still active to some extent, Madoka and Homura are together...really, the only thing that indicates it's the "coldest, darkest ending he could think of" is that Homura has a nasty face and is enforcing her will over that of Madoka or Sayaka. I think it's brilliant.
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Apr 7, 2014 12:07
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TheHeadSage posted:I can agree with that. Anyone know when it'll be released? Tomorrow It's bundled with the LE Blu-ray. It came out on the 2nd in Japan, most of the rest of the world is getting it on the 8th.
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Apr 7, 2014 13:47
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Bakanogami posted:While it might seem Urobuchi ruined the happy ending of the show, if you look at it from the perspective as Homura as the protagonist, it's entirely the opposite. The show ending represented her ultimate and complete failure to stop Madoka from sacrificing herself, and ensured that she would never meet her again as long as she lived. On a grander scale, it may have been for the best, sure, but on a personal level it was a bad end for her. That's what the opening of Rebellion is all about, with everyone dancing around her distraught form. Lets compare the show's ending to Rebellion's. Show Ending: -All MGs throughout time saved from becoming witches. Homura saved from infinite time loop. -Memories specifically involving Madoka and Witches removed, replaced with Wraiths so change isn't too drastic. -Incubators still able to harvest some energy from Wraiths to counter entropy. -Madoka's only interference with the world is through the Law of Cycles. -People's lives are still their own in the Madoverse. Rebellion Ending: -MG status: ??? (suppressed? still fighting wraiths?) -Witch/Wraith status: ??? (fought only by Homura? by other MGs?) -Incubators are Homura's slaves. -Homura has direct control of everyone's lives by constantly manipulating their memories. -Everyone is only living as Homura allows them to. The entire universe turning into mind-controlled robots is not a heartwarming ending, especially compared to one in which everyone benefited in some way. Yes, Homura did benefit from the Madoverse, but she was too obsessed with Madoka to realize it or care. In fact, I'd argue that the Homuraverse actually leaves everyone worse of. If the beginning of Rebellion is anything to go by, fighting together was the greatest joy of their lives. Homura has taken that away from them so that Madoka could live her "normal" life. Homura is obviously worse off, considering how much she sacrificed to create what she thought she always wanted.
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Apr 7, 2014 15:01
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ViggyNash posted:Rebellion Ending: Magical Girls exist, you can see Sayaka's, Kyouko's and Mami's Soul Gems in the ending. Homura mentions the wraiths, so the Magical Girls are probably fighting them. The Law of the Cycle is explicitly stated to still be in effect (but without a human consciousness), so witches are eliminated before they're born.
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Apr 7, 2014 15:09
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Wow, can we weasel word things any harder? That's a horribly biased representation of the endings for comparison.
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Apr 7, 2014 16:32
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