[ SECRET POST #6411 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6411 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 11 secrets from Secret Submission Post #916.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. https://i.imgur.com/H3rZKWs.png

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's less that, but at the time the marketing and creators really tried to push the idea that it was just fluffy, so as to make it even more dark and edgy and surprising when the reveal happened. I think it's also that Madoka kicked off a bit of a trend of grimdark edgy stories aimed at adults using magical girls.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember this secret. Gods, I wish I remember what I wrote in response.

[(Anonymous)]

It was marketed as very fluffy and soft and then ep 3 came and it was a SHOCK. Madoka is honestly one of those shows that benefits from not knowing fuck all about it before going in and that slap in the face from fluffy to DISASTER is done really well.

It's one of the shows I wish I could erase my memory of and watch for the first time again because it was SO GOOD going in blind to it.

[(Anonymous)]

This. I started watching it when it first aired thinking it was going to be a cute magical girl show and then episode 3 absolutely blindsided me in a GREAT way and got me hooked.

[(Anonymous)]

This. IMO Magica earned its stripes by not just masquerading as a cutesy anime and then pulling the rug out, but then actually developing into an interesting character study. Its characters felt well developed enough that the eventual sad payoff didn't just feel like 'dark for the sake of dark' to me.

It wasn't the first magical girl anime to go a bit dark, but it did it with a twist and a voice all its own.

[meadowphoenix]

I only know it as a commentary on sailor moon, rather than a commentary on magical girls in general, so if commenters are coming from that perspective, i could understand.

[(Anonymous)]

People have written a lot about whether PMMM is or is not a dark take or subversion of the Magical Girl genre. I think it is, but mainly by introducing sexism into a genre where sexism doesn't exist or is strongly against the vibe of the genre. The frustrating thing about people who praise PMMM for being a subversion of magical girls is that technically they are correct but they haven't watched enough magical girl anime to know *why* they're correct, and will state (incorrectly) that PMMM is dark while magical girl anime is uplifting.

But almost every magical girl anime I've watched is dark! Many involve close friends betraying the main character, the heroine's best friends dying, the heroine being tortured at length, and sometimes even an outright downer ending where the last shot is the main characters sobbing. Magical girls as a genre is plenty dark.

I think what makes PMMM unusual among magical girl anime is that its form of darkness is that to be a woman who wants power is itself a cursed existence. In all the other magical girl anime I've seen, the reason why the heroines suffer so much is because they are *heroes*, with responsibilities, and being a hero requires sacrifice. In PMMM, the reason why the heroines suffer so much is because they are *women*, and to be a woman is to live a life of pain, Biblical-style.

This is an unusual take on the magical girl genre because magical girls is ultimately a power fantasy for young girls. The whole point of the genre is to allow girls to imagine themselves as powerful and with a way to make a positive impact on the world, even if that requires sacrifice or they do not understand everything that role entails. PMMM is not a usual magical girl anime at all because it undermines the power fantasy at the core of magical girl anime by making the powers a curse, dooming the heroes to become villains who make the world worse not better, and tying this capability of destruction specifically to the female desire for power and to change the world for the better.

It is a subversion, but not simply because it's "dark" (almost all magical girl anime is dark) but because it's dark in a way that breaks the power fantasy at the heart of the magical girl genre.

[(Anonymous)]

“Genre where sexism doesn’t exist”

Uhhhh. That’s impossible. Sexism exists in every genre because sexism exists in the world and people who write. Now, you could say some magical girl anime PRETEND sexism doesn’t exist, but they can never fully succeed. And you could say PMMM saying outright that sexism exists and condemning it is less sexist than glossing over it.* In fact, many Japanese feminists themselves believe magical girl anime is sexist because they believe it teaches girls they must only be strong if it’s in a socially acceptably feminine package and often prioritizes the love of a man as the ultimate end to all the asskicking. Not all feminists of course: trying to boil down what Japanese feminists think of magical girls is as useful as trying to boil down what western feminists think of the Barbie franchise. But the magical girl genre has never been an unambiguous sexism-free zone is what I’m saying.

*And PMMM does attempt to condemn the sexism. Anyone who thinks the narrative punishes the girls for their wishes is confusing the in-text magical girl to witch pipeline system with the narrative. The system is cruel to the girls, so Madoka becomes a god and says stop. I don’t think condemning sexism explicitly was Urobuchi’s goal in writing PMMM, just like I know perpetuating it isn’t the goal of writers making nonsubversive magical girl stories. But the texts are what they are.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh... I think you're interpreting my words in a much more expansive sense than I meant them (and which my argument is built on). When I say "sexism doesn't exist" in the magical girls genre, I'm not making a broad statement on whether sexist attitudes exist in society, or in the minds of the authors, or in the worlds or plots depicted in magical girl anime. What I meant was specifically that sexism is built INTO the very rules of PMMM's world in a way that ties the magical powers into a curse upon women specifically, which is an uncommon treatment of how powers work in magical girls anime. The *world* itself is metaphysically sexist that goes beyond the attitudes of any one person within the world, and the world itself treats women differently (and worse) than how it treats men. By building a world this way, it makes it so that magical girl powers are not a simple power fantasy for women but rather at worst a curse and at best a devil's bargain, which cuts right to the heart of the power fantasy that is at the core of magical girls anime, which makes it a subversion (or at least, not clearcut example) of the magical girls genre.

I'm not saying that PMMM is more or less sexist than other magical girl anime, or it is less interesting to feminists. I'm not even saying that that embedded-in-the-world-itself sexism I'm referring to isn't challenged within the anime itself. I'm just saying that PMMM subverts a lot of the core implicit "rules" of magical girl anime by making it impossible for the magical girl powers to function as a power fantasy, which is why PMMM tends to come off as more "bleak" than other magical girl anime without actually being any darker. Female suffering is not actually what distinguishes PMMM from other magical girls anime; it's the way that suffering is framed in relation to the powers granted and the meaning of the suffering.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

The show you’re describing isn’t Madoka Magica. It’s closer to Yuki Yuna, which portrays magical girls as sacrificial maidens. And not even Yuki Yuna is as sexist as you’re describing.