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Jun. 7th, 2011 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo answer me this: why are all the most depressing anime also the prettiest ones?
If you follow anime news at all, you are probably aware that Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a deconstructive magical girl show that aims to stomp up and down on the genre and also the viewers with enormous spike-heeled boots. I too was aware of this, which is why I watched it, because I cut my anime-watching eyeteeth on deconstructive magical girl shows; they are my kryptonite. (Though I have now actually seen some non-deconstructive magical girl shows too! Expect a post on these at some point in the future.)
Anyway, I knew this, but I was not prepared for the ridiculous stylistic gorgeousness, which honestly is the most overpowering reason I want to rec this show. Musically and visually, it's completely arresting. Just going to google images to pull out random caps gets me enough good examples for my thesis!
So you have the witch dimensions, which are animated in a range of styles from Art Deco to stark black-and-white to something like a horror-twisted Raggedy Ann:
And then you have the backgrounds of the bleak, vaguely futuristic city that the protagonists live in, which are just as gorgeously animated (and apparently all based off of different architecturally bizarre buildings from around the world):
The character designs are deliberately cutesified and simplified by contrast (elspeth_vimes has a good character primer post here, so I'm not going to do it!) which is for meta reasons, but also I am pretty sure it's also because the animators were just so proud of their backgrounds that they wanted people to PAY ATTENTION TO THEM. And justly! My praise for the style is one hundred percent wholehearted.
My thoughts on the story (basic plot: cute magical critter recruits girls to gain magic power and fight despair-inducing witches, subverted in half a dozen obvious ways and another half dozen less obvious ones) are a bit more conflicted
So there are aspects of the deconstruction that I really like and that I think are spot on. (I think I laughed for ten minutes straight at the reveal that the cute power-granting animal conpanion was an ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE who was there to harvest the OVERWHELMING EMOTIONAL ENERGY of teenaged girls! OF COURSE HE IS. I also laughed for ten minutes straight at Homura's GIANT GRENADE-FILLED ARSENAL. Robbing the yakuza is the best use for magical girl powers!) And the message that the myths we have force girls into the role of the self-sacrificing innocent while casting grown women as evil is not a new one, but continues to be a worthwhile one. There were other aspects that rang a bit off to me, though, in terms of the subversion and the apparently intended feminist message, and after thinking about it for a while I think I've figured out why.
So basically the whole series plot is driven by various idealistic teenaged girls running around nobly sacrificing themselves for other people, and then reaping terrible consequences, right? Many of the readings and responses I've seen seem to read the series therefore as cracking down on the idea of heroic self-sacrifice to save someone else, as pointing out that it doesn't work . . . but I don't actually think that's quite right. In the world of the series, you can save someone else. As far as we know, nothing goes horribly wrong for the guy that Sayaka saves with her wish - his life does in fact turn out to be as much improved by her sacrifice as it seems to be at first. All the consequences are on Sayaka's head alone. This is echoed by the ending, Madoka Becomes Jesus, which certainly doesn't make everything perfect but does seem to straightforwardly improve the lot of magical girls to at least a certain degree. And this is cast as tragically heroic, rather than tragically misguided (as Sayaka's sacrifice is) because . . . Madoka knows the suffering she's getting into and is okay with her own subsequent tragic fate? Well, okay, fair enough.
But what's missing here, and throughout the series, is a real concept of agency. Throughout the series, there is no possibility for anyone to save herself. That's what most distinguishes this from the easiest point of comparison as far as stomping on the magical girl archetype goes, Revolutionary Girl Utena - where the message is that you can't save other people, but people can save themselves. Utena can't drag Anthy kicking and screaming out of the duel system, no matter how she tries. But Anthy can, eventually, walk away.
Everyone in PMMM is trying to save someone else, and, in the end, Madoka manages it by being the most compassionate and most self-sacrificing of all, by making her heroic self-sacrificing choice on behalf of all other magical girls. No one throughout the series gets to make a choice that saves herself. Now no magical girl will ever get to make the choice to die well, by herself, because Madoka's taken that choice already. (And this echoes back: Homura's attempts to save Madoka take away Madoka's agency and growth pretty much by default. And then there's Kyoko, who goes from self-sacrificing to selfish when self-sacrifice doesn't work . . . and then back to self-sacrificing after all, the conclusion of her heroic arc. Despite all the deconstruction, self-sacrifice is the end of everyone's heroic arc.)
PMMM does poke at a problematic system, and that's important, and some of the bleak things that it says need to be said. I think it's definitely a series that's worth watching, and it totally tugged at my heartstrings in all the way it meant to. But if you're going to point out the inevitable terrible consequences of girls routinely giving up their agency for others, I think it is probably worthwhile to provide some kind of viable alternative option to that! When it comes to an overall feminist message, I'll take Utena any day.
(Also, I am sorry for this, but the ending in which the female lead sadly ascends to a godlike state for the good of all while her love interest soldiers sadly on couldn't help but remind me of Sheri S. Tepper.)
If you follow anime news at all, you are probably aware that Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a deconstructive magical girl show that aims to stomp up and down on the genre and also the viewers with enormous spike-heeled boots. I too was aware of this, which is why I watched it, because I cut my anime-watching eyeteeth on deconstructive magical girl shows; they are my kryptonite. (Though I have now actually seen some non-deconstructive magical girl shows too! Expect a post on these at some point in the future.)
Anyway, I knew this, but I was not prepared for the ridiculous stylistic gorgeousness, which honestly is the most overpowering reason I want to rec this show. Musically and visually, it's completely arresting. Just going to google images to pull out random caps gets me enough good examples for my thesis!
So you have the witch dimensions, which are animated in a range of styles from Art Deco to stark black-and-white to something like a horror-twisted Raggedy Ann:
And then you have the backgrounds of the bleak, vaguely futuristic city that the protagonists live in, which are just as gorgeously animated (and apparently all based off of different architecturally bizarre buildings from around the world):
The character designs are deliberately cutesified and simplified by contrast (
elspeth_vimes has a good character primer post here, so I'm not going to do it!) which is for meta reasons, but also I am pretty sure it's also because the animators were just so proud of their backgrounds that they wanted people to PAY ATTENTION TO THEM. And justly! My praise for the style is one hundred percent wholehearted. My thoughts on the story (basic plot: cute magical critter recruits girls to gain magic power and fight despair-inducing witches, subverted in half a dozen obvious ways and another half dozen less obvious ones) are a bit more conflicted
So there are aspects of the deconstruction that I really like and that I think are spot on. (I think I laughed for ten minutes straight at the reveal that the cute power-granting animal conpanion was an ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE who was there to harvest the OVERWHELMING EMOTIONAL ENERGY of teenaged girls! OF COURSE HE IS. I also laughed for ten minutes straight at Homura's GIANT GRENADE-FILLED ARSENAL. Robbing the yakuza is the best use for magical girl powers!) And the message that the myths we have force girls into the role of the self-sacrificing innocent while casting grown women as evil is not a new one, but continues to be a worthwhile one. There were other aspects that rang a bit off to me, though, in terms of the subversion and the apparently intended feminist message, and after thinking about it for a while I think I've figured out why.
So basically the whole series plot is driven by various idealistic teenaged girls running around nobly sacrificing themselves for other people, and then reaping terrible consequences, right? Many of the readings and responses I've seen seem to read the series therefore as cracking down on the idea of heroic self-sacrifice to save someone else, as pointing out that it doesn't work . . . but I don't actually think that's quite right. In the world of the series, you can save someone else. As far as we know, nothing goes horribly wrong for the guy that Sayaka saves with her wish - his life does in fact turn out to be as much improved by her sacrifice as it seems to be at first. All the consequences are on Sayaka's head alone. This is echoed by the ending, Madoka Becomes Jesus, which certainly doesn't make everything perfect but does seem to straightforwardly improve the lot of magical girls to at least a certain degree. And this is cast as tragically heroic, rather than tragically misguided (as Sayaka's sacrifice is) because . . . Madoka knows the suffering she's getting into and is okay with her own subsequent tragic fate? Well, okay, fair enough.
But what's missing here, and throughout the series, is a real concept of agency. Throughout the series, there is no possibility for anyone to save herself. That's what most distinguishes this from the easiest point of comparison as far as stomping on the magical girl archetype goes, Revolutionary Girl Utena - where the message is that you can't save other people, but people can save themselves. Utena can't drag Anthy kicking and screaming out of the duel system, no matter how she tries. But Anthy can, eventually, walk away.
Everyone in PMMM is trying to save someone else, and, in the end, Madoka manages it by being the most compassionate and most self-sacrificing of all, by making her heroic self-sacrificing choice on behalf of all other magical girls. No one throughout the series gets to make a choice that saves herself. Now no magical girl will ever get to make the choice to die well, by herself, because Madoka's taken that choice already. (And this echoes back: Homura's attempts to save Madoka take away Madoka's agency and growth pretty much by default. And then there's Kyoko, who goes from self-sacrificing to selfish when self-sacrifice doesn't work . . . and then back to self-sacrificing after all, the conclusion of her heroic arc. Despite all the deconstruction, self-sacrifice is the end of everyone's heroic arc.)
PMMM does poke at a problematic system, and that's important, and some of the bleak things that it says need to be said. I think it's definitely a series that's worth watching, and it totally tugged at my heartstrings in all the way it meant to. But if you're going to point out the inevitable terrible consequences of girls routinely giving up their agency for others, I think it is probably worthwhile to provide some kind of viable alternative option to that! When it comes to an overall feminist message, I'll take Utena any day.
(Also, I am sorry for this, but the ending in which the female lead sadly ascends to a godlike state for the good of all while her love interest soldiers sadly on couldn't help but remind me of Sheri S. Tepper.)
