#it's just that yin and yang showing up again. the opposites. always opposing always striking a balance

[thekidsarentalright]

the parallel between "you are what you love not who loves you" and "give up what you love before it does you in" is SOOOO heavily reminding me of "i'm good to go and i'm going nowhere fast" and "we've gone way too fast for way too long" 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

[animebw]

“If someone tells me it’s wrong to have hope, I’ll tell them they’re wrong every single time.”

The idea of balance comes up a lot in anime. For every yin, there is a yang. If one wishes to obtain, something of equal value must be given. For every wish we grant a person, we curse someone else in equal measure. Outside of the power of friendship/love, balance is the theme I see crop up the most often. The idea of equilibrium, of stability between opposing forces, is a common value in Eastern cultures and religions, so it’s no surprise anime embraces this concept so easily. But let me tell you; no one in anime tackles balance quite like Gen Urobuchi.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of calling Urobuchi a man of grimdark despair. I’ve seen both his critics and fans alike talk about his work exclusively in terms of how edgy it is, how much his characters suffer, how dark and bleak his stories trend. And it’s true, the man is nothing if not a lover of all things twisted and harrowing. His characters undergo grueling trials, often dying in the process. The fictional worlds and concepts he comes up with don’t just strike nightmarish fear in your head, they strike psychological, emotional fear in the heart. His stories offer no compromise, no pulled punches, and no easy outs as they plunge headfirst into the inescapable heart of darkness. But as I’ve become so fond of saying in the past decade, as I talked extensively about when I tackled Psycho-Pass and Devilman Crybaby, the deepest darkness is nothing without a light to contrast it with. Only by understanding why the world is worth fighting for can we truly feel the agony of watching it suffer so immensely. And for all the despair he brings to the table, the reason Gen Urobuchi’s work has become to enduring is because at the end of the day, he doesn’t write stories about despair.

He writes stories about hope.

Time and time again, the man brings his stories and characters to brutal ends, sinking into the deepest voids of failure as the pressures of the broken system around them become too much to stomach. But time and time again, the final thought he leaves you with restores a beating light to the darkness, refusing to yield despite all the odds working against it. Makishima is killed and Kogame is forced to run as the Sybil System remains dominant, but Akane’s wise enough now to start guiding Sybil down a better, less destructive path. The Fourth Holy Grail War ends with Kiritsugu’s ideal crushed and nihilism seemingly triumphant, but young Shiro promises to carry his father’s hopes onward as a despondent Saber feels the light shine upon her once more. Madoka must become a magical girl and end Homura’s quest to save her in failure, but because of how much strength Homura’s given her over countless time loops, she’s able to rewrite the universe and break her world out of the cycle of despair it’s been trapped in. No matter how dark or desperate Urobuchi’s work becomes, no matter how much is lost along the way, no matter how pyrrhic the victory might seem, hope. Never. Dies.

And Madoka Magica, above all else, is a testament to the importance of hope. Throughout the show, characters say that for every ounce of hope, an equal ounce of despair must exist. But it takes Madoka herself to recognize that the opposite must also be true: for every ounce of despair, an equal ounce of hope must inevitably rise to meet it. The reason Sayaka, Kyoko, Mami, and Homura failed is because they couldn’t accept that ambiguity. They either believed too much in unshakable virtue or too much in inescapable sin. Only Madoka, who bears witness to all their triumphs and sorrows, grows enough to see the full picture. The world is flawed and imperfect, full of sadness and sorrow, and not even turning into a goddess and rewriting the fundamental nature of the universe can change that. But just because there will always be bad things in the world doesn’t mean we can’t still fight like hell to make to make it a little better along our way. No challenge is insurmountable, no despair is too everlasting to escape, and no darkness is so powerful that it can’t be pushed back and illuminated with the light of the rising sun. Even if it takes a million tries to get there, even if we lose some of the things that matter along the way, as long as we keep trying to make a miracle happen, then not even the fabric of reality itself is permanent enough to stand in our way.

It can be hard to hold onto hope sometimes, especially in a world as scary as our own. But it’s in these scary times where hope truly matters more than ever. Gen Urobuchi understands that perhaps better than any other anime writer working today. So if you take nothing else away from Madoka Magica, never let go of the promise the titular goddess makes to us in the final episode:

“If someone tells you it’s wrong to have hope, I’ll tell them they’re wrong every single time”

Thank you, Madoka Kaname. May we keep your torch burning bright as long as we still draw breath.