Lolikitean Christmas continues with yet more lag and yet more Madoka (click for last time’s). I warned you guys: I like revisiting things multiple times!

Episode 10 of Madoka may be one of the best episodes of anime of All Time™. Not only did it come at the perfect time in the show’s arc, but standalone it was superb. Execution both visual and audio was top-notch. Homura’s emotions and goals are solidified, believable (within Manga Logic at least). Madoka’s weakness is explained (more explicitly in the following episode, but still). Homura’s issues with Sayaka are also addressed. Overall, this episode binds the rest of the show together, the keystone of the series, while also being a fantastic piece of animation in its own right.

I’ve seen it maybe seven, eight times now. It never grows old.

And my maybe favorite part: the resemblance I see between Madoka, as magical girl, and Chise, as ultimate weapon. Both are well-meaning young girls roped into destructive conflicts far larger than they. The end^[1] result is that the world suffers tremendously, and the girl is obliterated, replaced by an ominous black spire. It casts an imposing shadow across the ruined Earth.

I could talk phallic, I could talk 2001, or I could just shut up.

C) Put It In

Footnotes

these notes are like lelouch's head to the boot of this post's suzaku

1. typical end result, I guess, since it’s not guaranteed for Madoka [↩]