#And Kyubey Too (TM)

[stellarcanopy]

Practice sketches of the costumes of Madoka Magica’s main cast, plus two of the main cast members from Magia Record. Ta-daaa.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 1, Part 3

Madoka is escorting Homura to the Nurse’s Office as pretty much every student ignores their lessons and watches them through the glass walls. I would say taking her there, but all Madoka’s doing is walking behind and nervously asking how the Mysterious Student knew she was the Nurse’s Aide. Homura just says the teacher told her and continues to lead the way. Clearly she doesn’t need Madoka to guide her, so what’s the deal?

And would you stop with the creepy chime music?! Seriously, if I saw this happening in a movie and they were two guys I’d be screaming at the follower to run away from the obvious serial killer. I mean it, the two keep passing fewer and fewer students, and now I’m looking at Homura in shadow with some sort of scowl on her face. But then she tells Madoka to call her Homura instead of ‘Miss Akemi’? Madoka tries to make conversation about how ‘unique’ Homura’s name is (as I don’t know Japanese I can’t comment one way or the other). And yep that’s a scowl, Mysterious Student is pissed. Yeah, super pissed as Madoka stammers on. And now she’s spun around in an (empty) corridor to face Madoka. Sudden dramatic zoom-pan as Homura asks Madoka if she considers her family and friends to be precious. (That's not ominous at all!) Madoka of course says yes. Shadowy Homura accepts this, and says if that is really the case then she wouldn’t try to change the person she currently is. Because if she does, she will end up losing all of those things.

Ok, am I reading this right? Did the Mysterious Transfer Student just threaten Madoka’s friends and family if she takes up the Protagonist Mantle? Because that’s what I’m getting. Madoka is very confused as Homura says she should stay the same, leaves her in a surprisingly dark hallway, given all of the glass what is with this building? Sorry, just a little unnerved by the creepiness of the last scene. What the hell is going on here? Sudden flute music as we get a montage of Homura dominating math and athletics, filling a board with dense equations and arcing over a high jump still with a completely neutral face, to the shock and awe of everyone around her. And still the most emotion she shows is the occasional glance at Madoka, now that there are witnesses. Whoa what. Sudden Rabbit-Thing in a tree watching. After school in a massive, fancy mall (what city is this set in? A real one, or standard Anime City?) Madoka apparently told Hitomi and Blue Hair about the hallway confrontation, Blue Hair bemoans that the smart and pretty looking student is some sort of weirdo. Hitomi asks if Madoka has ever met the Mysterious Stranger before, she… huh, you’re telling them about your dream/vision/thing from last night? Title drop! And Blue Hair laughs about how Madoka is acting like an anime character, teases that it must be from a previous life or something. Hitomi asks some more questions, and makes a rather sensible suggestion that they actually did meet before, this is her subconscious bringing out a minor memory in the form of a weird dream. Huh. But given Homura’s rather extreme and specific reactions to Madoka, you’d think that she’d recognize her better. So what’s the deal? Hitomi has to run to one of her many lessons, Blue Hair asks if she and Madoka can visit a music store on the way home. A CD for Kamijo? Have we met them yet?

Hey, it’s Rabbit-Thing! Running through a dark alley while barely dodging busts of light. Oof, got hit there, but it’s back up and running. What’s attacking it? Oh, there’s Homura! Or at least I think that’s her, given the shadows. Are you chasing whatever’s chasing the familiar? Cut to ok time out. When is this show set, in a post-scarcity world or something? Because I have seen music stores here in America, and they are not that fancy and open. And if I know anything about Japan is that space is at a premium there, a music store this large in America would be pushing it, let alone this presumably-Japanese Mitikihara. And from the looks of it it doesn't even have CD's on display, just kiosks to browse the selection and headphones to listen. A cool design, and one that would need maybe half the space I can see. Why is it so large?! Sorry, the show just irked my business-management side there. Back to the show. Blue Hair (Sayaka) and Madoka are listening to headphones (hey, isn't that the opening theme I hear? Nice touch!) when the lyrics take a dark turn. Or rather, Rabbit-Thing telepaths for help and Madoka's Protagonist Senses pick it up. Madoka wanders off into an area that frankly looks more like a mansion than a mall, with old-style lamps and a white-and-black checkered floor- Huh. White and black checkered. Like the dream-thing earlier. Coincidence? Madoka follows the Call To Adventure^TM to this floor (apparently closed for remodeling because it wasn't fancy enough yet), creeps into a dark construction area and proves she has never seen a horror movie by calling out "Where are you?". This is just asking for Hockey-Mask McMurder to come jumping out. Guh, the ceiling's shaking! And wow an extremely beat up Rabbit-Thing just fell down. Madoka swoops in and grabs it. But if something's been chasing it, maybe you should leave Madoka (and I) are startled by a chain falling and hey Homura's here! She's been creepy about Madoka before, but maybe she can get over that and help against whatever "Get away from that thing." Um. What. Wait. Homura was the one attacking Rabbit-Thing? Homura. Homura what are you doing. Why were you attacking the show's familiar and why are you now staring down after Madoka said she could hear it? PFFFAHAHAHAHA! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm sitting here getting all invested in this tense standoff and wondering just what the heck Homura is up to, when Suddenly Fire-Extinguisher. Sayaka apparently followed and provided a distraction, outright chucking the emptied extinguisher at the Mysterious Student. Now the two are running away as Homura dissipates the could with a hand-wave and what. What is going on? 2D butterflies and sudden trippy music and what is happening? Have you seen this before, Homura? Madoka and Sayaka are running, the latter wondering about Homura's outfit (huh, it is different, similar enough to the school uniform I didn't notice at first), Madoka's focusing on getting Rabbit-Thing some help. Uh, but it looks like the trippy environment is catching up to them, now they're stuck without an exit. "There's something wrong with this place." Yeah, no Kidding Madoka, the animation is all screwy! The girls are rightly freaking out as twitchy puffballs... with mustaches... look, I'm trying my best to describe what I'm seeing but there's so much going on, this is insane. So creepy Monarchs and Puffballs are dancing around the girls with creepy child chanting, strange symbols are flashing over everything, now there are scissors and thorns and JEBUS the Puffballs have blank eyeholes and twitchy mouths Finally! Some chains broke and landed around them in a circle as the creeps get blasted away. Took you long enough Homura, now stop being spooky for five minutes and help out the mundanes. Wait, that's not Homura. It's Blondie from the poster! Apparently she knows Rabbit-Thing (Kyubey) and thanks them for rescuing it (him, actually). Madoka says she heard a voice in her head, and Blondie says "I see". Like Homura did? Blondie's confirmed to be a Mitakihara Middle School student too, and is about to introduce herself when the creeps come back. Transformation time! Blondie tosses her gold egg-thing into the air and does a little jig (with some rather graceful yet driving music) as she gains a rather European outfit, complete with beret. The Puffballs scatter as she WHOA WHAT Ok, Blondie just summoned what looks to be a platoon's worth of rifles. Um. Listen, I started this with only the most basic of 'magical girl' knowledge. One thing I accepted as a given was that MGs used things like wands or tiaras to fight with, I definitely never heard of Sailor Moon pulling a gun on the Week's Monster! If MGs can actually use weapons in this show, then things just got very interesting. Seen here as Blondie unleashes an absolute storm of exploding bullets on the Puffballs. Somewhere out there an Ork feels like he's missing something wonderful. Literally seconds later, Blondie lands among the flaming wreckage, and the trippy background skedaddles. Homura finally shows up to look down at the other three (I'm sensing a pattern here), Blondie informs her that the 'witch' escaped and says she should hurry along to finish it off, she'll 'let' her take it this time. So they know each other? Partners? Um, no. Not partners, as Blondie says she'll "overlook what you did this time." I'm guessing she means attacking Kyubey (for some reason)? So if Homura was attacking Kyubey and Blondie considers him a friend... Am I looking at two factions here? What's with the disagreement over the familiar? Homura's not happy about Blondie standing against her (want to note that Blondie has kept this peaceful half-smile up this entire time), ultimately turns around and leaves to Madoka and Sayaka's relief. Blondie's doing some magic girl mojo on Kybey to heal him, we get a name of Mami as he wakes up. He thanks her for the healing and the other girls for rescuing him, and confirms it was his voice that Madoka heard. And he knows their full names. Which he knows because he has a request for the two: make a contract with him and become magical girls! Aaand credits! We've got a drawing of Hitomi, Madoka and Sayaka with some light guitar as a singer does Generic Anime Credits Song #527, not much to add here. After-credits picture of all four poster girls (Homura and Mami in magical girl outfits, Sayaka and Madoka in school uniforms) with Kyubey in the center, and the familiar saying "I will grant you one wish - any wish you desire!" And in response to the girls questioning, "Anything you want. I can grant you even the most impossible of miracles!" Wow. That was a very, very impressive first episode. Will put up my general thoughts after I've had some time to process this last part, I'm looking forward to the next one!