Since it started it aired in 2011, The Puella Magi franchise has become a successful ip in Shaft's eyes with several adaptations of the tv series, two spin-off mangas, Videos and games.

Someday at the meeting room in Shaft's HQ, Akiyuki Shinbo and co. plus Shaft's stock holders decided "Hey, let squeeze what was suppose to be the show's second season into a feature length movie and produce 2 movies before it that recap the 13 episode tv series to remind the fans of how good this show was back in 2011, Evangelion did a similer thing with Rebuild of Evangelion, It will probably work with this Franchise and we will get a lot of money out of this Trilogy"

This is what I assume happened at the time, there probably a lot more to it on the day that they started to plan out this trilogy of movies.

I don't know if I could recommend this movie to a fan like in my case, I enjoyed this movie for its vaguely darker tone then the tv series and production values but parts of me hate it for retconning the original ending and other issue that I'll be mentioning later in the review.

To start with the positives, this movie is gorgeous from a visual standpoint with well done Animation and as mention before, I appreciate the darker tone of the movie even if the first 30 was Alternative Universe-ish with the light heart-ed tone and magical girl cliches thought it has some of the most surreal transformation sequence I've seen visually and it weird to see the main cast happy after the shit they went through in the Tv series.

The movie is a roller coaster of revaluation and plot twist which to be honest blend in with each other fairly well thought the ending 15 minutes is a big slap to the fans of the TV series in how it retcons the original ending and it feels tack on in relation with plot of the movie(thought you could say the thing about the movie itself in relation to the tv series)

Mitakihara in this movie is lot more disconnected structurally with a lot of scenes being ambiguous in where they take place heck we don't see the city itself that much during the day aside from the first scene with Madoka in it and the scenes in the school; because of this, scenes are a lot more disconnect then they were in the Tv series in where they were located and how the background artwork was done, The movie does a defined plot but whatever sense of location and time the Tv series had is gone in favor of a more surreal aesthetic along the lines of what you see during Witch's fight scenes plus the visual symbolism in the case of later scenes.

Now onto the Negatives(Spoiler alert)

Off of all the thing they in this movie that pissed off fans, the one that annoyed was Homura's characterization in the movie, she is such a bitch in this movie especially in the ending where she resets the universe(For the 6th time) for her sake and keeps the half of God-form Madoka that contain her memories, now homura's in the Tv series is put into a more selfish light thanks to this movie if you consider the movie canon. and even before the the ending she is still the catalyst for the events of the movie, the central character of the movie with much of it's plot points revolving around her which is bad because all of the characters with the exception of ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ and Madoka son't have that much of a role in the plot and even when we do see them onscreen, they are walking plot devices that are suppose to progress the plot and character like Kyouko and Homura being flanderized to the point of parody with Kyouko being a caricature of herself and whatever character development Homura had is gone, she is essentially satan in this movie.

Another thing is that as good as this movie objectively, the entire movie feels tack on like the original ending was as it is until this movie retcons it and the end  is such a cop out like it completely contradict what the movie was building up to(Homura uniting with Madoka)

Also the movie draws a decent share of Allusions to Utena, some are minor(The entrance arch to the school resembles the one at Ohtori academy) then you get plot points that directly ripped straight of utena in, Might as well call it Revolutionary Girl Madoka considering the similarities in their plots with Akio/Homura breaking the world's shell/Witch barrier to get the power of Dios/Merge with Madoka to revolutionize the world/Recreate the universe in her image

The movie for feels like a cash grab with Fanservice, A plot that's not well done, flanderized characters and again the entire movie feels tack on, this entire trilogy reeks of cynicism in how it was made like it obvious they needed something to get cash so they continue a TV series that did't need to continue in the first place.

That aside, it still a enjoyable movie much more so then the Abomination that was Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 and other shit anime movie adaptations including the Escalflowne movie and Adolescence of Utena(Compared to the TV series) "I recommend the movie for Fans of the TV series but expect to have a somewhat mixed opinion on it"

Last edited by Rosesareawesome101 (12-13-2013 06:07:24 AM)