Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Josh Taylor I watched this series after seeing it on Netflix and reading a few reviews about it - most of them shining endorsements that oversold the actual product. Upon finishing the series, I looked for some more reviews to see how my opinion added up to others, and found it somewhat different.Most of the reviews on here laud this show as "the best thing on television" and a "masterpiece". This is far from the truth.Don't get me wrong. Madoka is good for what it is - a 12 part miniseries that can be binged in a few days. The plot, while it does contain some interesting surprises, I found largely predictable. At times I even caught myself wondering at the seeming lack of common sense of the characters, especially after the first major twist, but I guess that's what suspension of belief is all about.The animation style is good, but not quite on par with what I've seen in other series from the same time period, and sometimes it just gets plain weird. The music I can't really fault, as it's every bit what I expected from a Magical Girl anime. The plot starts thin as cheesecloth, starts getting darker as you go (there is one moment that really made me go "whoa...") and ends with fluff again.Ultimately, go into this one with a grain of salt. It's good - I watched the whole thing - but there were times I struggled to maintain interest. With the right expectations, it will be an enjoyable experience.

bonanue I didn't like it at all. The humor is for kids. Sailor moon came to my mind more than twice. The music wasn't for adults or even teenagers. I've seen nothing special in this series... and I prefer not to say anything about the "enemies" that appear... dear lord If you are tired of the new anime generation where there's a little girl that is reaaaally shy, the dialogs are meaningless and supposed to be funny, this is not for you. The plot may be interesting, but they have choose a very poor way to tell it. Also the powers are lame. The 5 first minutes looked good but then they started with the yelling, the "smiling to the camera", the huge pistol trick with shining rays.. no thank you

arorashadow_2003 The deconstruction of the Magical Girl Genre of anime has become one of this years smash hit anime series as well as another personal favorite of mine. Puella Magi Madoka Magica jumped to be my favorite of the winter season and most likely it will go down as my all time favorite of 2011. My interest in this mostly stemmed from a like of Magical Girl Shows and sealed by Yuki Kajiura's involvement because when she makes the music you can't go wrong.First impressions were "yeah okay they have all the magical girl tropes Yuki's music is good enough; hey where's the ending theme?" but the show for sure got more interesting when it got darker by episode 4 and considering Mami was for sure not coming back from the dead in any kind of deus ex machina as well as the torment the other characters go through as the series progresses.This is one of the darker Magical Girl Shows I've seen, I guess I should have expected it from the creator of Phantom of Inferno (adapted into Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~) as for the director Akiyuki Shinbo, who I'm not overly familiar with but I did some reading on him. From what I gathered all I was really expecting was some artsyness which made me go "oh cool an artsy magical girl show." But again wasn't expecting anything overly groundbreaking and invigorating.After episode 10 Home Run Homu Homura-chan easily became my favorite character from the series as well as one of my favorite anime characters of all time. The fact she continued to reset time and try to save Madoka only to have to watch her friends die over and over again....She's got moxy! Really that can't be healthy....The other characters even managed to stand out as well. You have Sayaka who loses it when the one she loves and makes her wish for goes for another girl, the bomb drop of the purpose behind the Magical Girl, Kyoko's own tragic past and Mami's as well. Sadly perhaps the only character who didn't get as much attention was Madoka however I will give praise for the fact she had to wrestle with the idea. While she is the titular character it becomes more apparent afterword that the series is really told from Homura's point of view.As I mentioned before one of the reasons I jumped right on this as opposed to waiting was Yuki Kajiura's involvement. Ms. Kajiura who has written solid classics in the past such as the .hack// OST, Noir, MADLAX, El Cazador de la Bruja and Tsubasa Chronicle once again was able to step up to the plate. The music is wonderfully written but suffers from a few generic pieces in the mix. You have wonderful tracks with a strong emotional grip which can evoke the images of the series but you have the dull everyday tracks which feel more like scratch. If I had to rank it with some of her past works I'd put it with Elemental Gelade which was a good OST but not one of her very best either. Regardless the OST is more than worth a look at especially for fans of Kajiura's music group Kalafina which delivered the stunning ending theme "Magia." The art and animation will strike you a bit strange with a combination of unusual designs. Even I wasn't sure of what to make of the cotton balls with mustaches as well as the acid trip design scheme for the Runes. Each Rune gets more elaborate and strange as the series goes on and many are quite creative. Sayaka's witch form which takes the environment of a full symphony orchestra is a brilliant example of environmental symbolism. Homura's apartment alluding to her time manipulation skills. The art direction is solid even of the characters designs look sketchy and unusual. You have a mix and match of landmarks from around the world from a glass prison to a giant oil refinery to a wind farm, this will be an art student's orgy.Of course things got complicated for enthusiastic watchers during the 2011 Northern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami putting the anticipated finale on hold but happy to say it was creative and daring. The series almost reconstructs itself on the spot with Madoka's final wish and creatively shows Magical Girls from around the world.Puella Magi Madoka Magica easily one of the best series of the season if not of all time. The same way Hideaki Anno's "Neon Genesis Evangelion" deconstructed the Giant Robot Genre. Shaft/Aniplex's Madoka deconstructs the Magical Girl Genre. And like Evangelion this series is quickly becoming a marketing and franchising juggernaut with toys, even books talking to fans of the show including acclaimed filmmaker Mamoru Oshii, shops and other materials dedicated to it.This is the first deconstruct of the Magical Girls genre of anime that I have seen personally, I don't know if Princess Tutu or Akiyuki Shinbo's other magical girl series "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha" falls into that. Puella Magi Madoka Magica doesn't fall into a lot of the old traps seen before and it doesn't try to model itself too much to other successful series in the past such as "Sailor Moon" or "Cardcaptor Sakura" though it certainly plays with the staples established by those series.If there is a sequel and there are talks of one, I wouldn't mind a reconstruct but it would be nice to keep it relatively dark and dangerous. Hopefully no earthquakes will complicate things this time and hopefully it can be as good as this, the original.

Albrecht Durer Very deep story, nice characters, great action scene and awesome background music, opening and ending song. if you know and love Avengelion, this show really suits for you. there will be also two things that might be a little awkward perhaps the characters and monsters designs, but still it wont bother you a lot. this show really tells you that it is not easy to be a magical girl, there will be consequences that you have to pay for being magical girl. "in great power comes great responsibility" really fits the story. Maybe it's a little bit similar to "Bokurano". I watched this series nonstop from episode 1 to 12 in 1 day because the story really will make you curious and you cant stop watching it unless you finish it. Moreoever, you cant guess what will happen till the end, even for me, I didn't expect the ending would be that good.