#pmmm review

[threecheersforinking]

My Favorite Character from each of my Favorite Anime

Hi! I’ve done a few separate posts about my top 10 anime and my favorite anime characters, but I decided I’d combine those ideas into one post and try and pick out my favorite character from each of my favorite anime. This is going to be hard because I know I have multiple favorites for most of these, but I will do my best. Let’s go!

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood- Hohenheim

I usually cycle between Ed, Hohenheim, and Mustang being my favorite character, but recently it’s been Hohenheim. I think he’s both under appreciated and misunderstood by the FMAB fandom. Long story short, I love characters riddled with guilt (not sure what this says about me lol). If you’re interested, I’ve already written a whole post about how much I love him!

Revolutionary Girl Utena- Utena

I always shift between Utena and Anthy being my favorite, but I really have loved Utena from the start. I find it very compelling how she hides her internal anguish behind her cheerful, positive persona.

Toradora- Taiga

I’ve already written so much about Taiga (in this post, spoilers) so there’s not much else to say besides that I’m the number 1 Taiga defender. I love her, she reminds me of myself in some ways, she’s great. I think she’s the perfect example of a ‘flawed’ protagonist.

Chihayafuru- Chihaya

Chihaya is such a ray of sunshine, comic relief, and a total fuck up, and yet she is an incredible karuta prodigy and the protagonist of the show. She is also one of the most realistic neurodivergent-coded characters I’ve ever seen. I think it’s fun how she defies expectations as well; she has the appearance of a beautiful cool model, but as soon as other characters talk to her they realize how much of a nerd she is.

March Comes in like a Lion- Hina

There are a lot of sub-plots and semi-important characters in this show, but the side character that I was always the most interested in was Hina. I think the way she is so open about her emotions is inspiring, and as she goes through hardships it’s nice to see how she matures while also maintaining her cheerful attitude.

Your Lie in April- Tsubaki

I haven’t watched this anime in a long time, but I do know that when I first watched it my favorite character was Tsubaki for sure. Her unrequited love plot line was heart wrenching and compelling.

Love is War- Ishigami

I also cycle between a few favorite characters in Love is War (I adore both Shirogane and Kaguya of course) but at this point in the story in the anime, Ishigami is my favorite. I think he is such a realistic portrayal of an insecure, awkward teen, and I love how noble and selfless he is behind the scenes.

Haikyuu- Kageyama

What else is there to say, truly? I loved Kageyama the second he was introduced. His dynamic with Hinata is what makes the show, and his stubborn, cold personality is something I tend to be drawn to when it comes to my favorite kinds of characters.

Madoka Magica- Homura

Sayaka is a really really close second, but after finishing the series for the first time I couldn’t get Homura’s story out of my head. Her determination and willpower are honestly unmatched, and each new watch of the show makes me appreciate her more.

Monster- Dieter

I feel like Dieter may seem like an odd choice for a favorite; as you may expect, Tenma (many people’s favorite I’d assume) is probably a close second for me. But I think I liked Dieter so much because he was proof that love and support are capable of saving even the most traumatized individual. He was so cute and I loved how much he loved Tenma.

If you made it through this whole thing, thanks for reading! Also, I highly recommend watching all of these, I’ve linked my spoiler free reviews in the titles if you haven’t watched them and are interested in finding out more.

Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking

[emdotcom]

Really digging some o' the customer-submitted photos offa this kyubey listing.

[never-knows-best-yo]

I hadn't seen past the 1st season of Magia Record: PMMM Side Story until 2 days ago. I played Magia Record a shitload back before it got pulled from NA (guess who my favorite character was). I also started to watch the show with a very close friend, but while waiting for season 2 we grew apart and although I still see him it's only once every two years. It looks like it'll be a long time before I see him again, if I ever do at all. To comfort myself I decided to start marathoning the show, and I'm on S3 E3. And holy shit everything is so fucked. I have to quit watching now because it's late and tomorrow is the start of my work week, but just got a lot of big revelations and Touka and Nemu are definitely waaay worse than I originally thought, and Mifuyu and Momoko pulling that power play at the end was super unexpected and sad. Continuing on with episode 3 tomorrow night, and honestly I have no idea what to expect, but I still can't wait to see how this all plays out.

[pmmm-oc-reviews]

Since I’m back, I’d love to also offer advice on character designs! And to help, I’m offering a huge discount on magical girl reference commissions!

Order via my Artistree and mention you saw my tumblr post (or DM me about it), and the full character reference will only be $10! This is a fully colored chibi reference of your character, front and back, with a reference of their weapon. I’ll also change out the alignment information under their name to be anything you want- birthday, gender, a quote, whatever!

Examples:

[curecraft]

Tumblr Year in Review 2022- Magical Girl Addition

Top 22 of 2022

Ships

TV Shows

Console Games

Mobile Games

Anime and Manga

Anime and Manga Characters

[set-wingedwarrior]

I finished Magia Record

It was interesting, that's for sure, but to be honest it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

And it's not because I am already aware about the truth about magical girls, witches etc, my biggest problem is the pacing. I can feel that it's from a game, with conflicts that are obvious boss fights, characters appearing and disappearing randomly, lots of infodumping through dialogues.

Not even mentioning that the are so many characters that, as much as are interesting, don't get nearly enough attention for me to get too attached. Like, I care, but not the same way I grew to care to the original girls, who I got to know better through their story (which btw, were a delight to see in the few times they appeared!)

This is so obviously a story created for a game, and it would have been nice if they did a better adaptation in my opinion.

That's not to say it's trash of course. I was interested, I waned to know what the hell happened to Ui (shout out to crunchyroll for spoil it for me because it decided to jump to the third season directly after the first episode of season 2 like, how does that even happen), and the characters that appeared the most managed to make me care for them a lot! The music and animation are amazing as usual, some fights are particularly very very cool to watch, and some scenes were actually impressive and hit hard.

So, yeah. It could have been better, and I grieve a bit for the lost opportunities and potential, but it was still a good spinoff for my favorite anime. Good job.

Now, time to learn how to download the damn game.

[mikurutea]

Hello Everyone! I finally finished to watch Madoka Magica!

•

Everything was so unique, and I didn't expect to Cry : Homura's monologue in episode 11 really made tears fall out of my eyes, she sure is my favourite character, the one who suffered the most, the one who tried the hardest!

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The other girls were all also written in a such deep and understandable way, it's hard to find something or someone that I disliked.

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I really recommend this Anime to Everyone, it's mind-blowing, it shows you different points of view who faces different situations, lots of messages, and a super-cute artstyle!^^

(I took this photo you can use it without credits)

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That's all for now! ByeBye!

[mysteriouspresence]

Madoka Magica and Evangelion: An Introduction

part 1/3

hey everyone! i’m back with another set of analysis posts, but this one isn’t about classic literature and manga that they inspired. it’s an examination of two acclaimed anime series that ran their original course 15 years apart, with the latter finishing in 2011. why now, all of a sudden? well, i wanted to do something to connect these two other stories that I enjoyed : Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Madoka Magica)

(logo of Madoka Magica anime, sourced from Wikimedia)

and Neon Genesis Evangelion (Evangelion)

(title card from Evangelion anime, sourced from Wikimedia)

even though these anime are fairly old based on the standard of how quickly media is released and consumed after the rise of the internet, they are codifiers for entire subgenres and inspiration for many later works. they have left not only a great impression on the animation industry, but a lasting effect on the viewers as well — both works feature rebellious defiance of the parent genres they branched off on that reveals the darkness of the human psyche and the painful reality of handling humanity’s fate to 14-year-olds. oh, and the next Madoka Magica movie is coming out this year too — so if i get you hooked, there’s fresh, canon content for you to consume soon.

now, let’s get started! Part 2: Review Part 3: Comparison

[alteredphoenix]

Since we're finally getting the new Madoka movie, does that mean I can consider going back to rewriting that shitty PMMM/Sailor Moon fic I started over a decade ago.

[tyrantzeye]

painting my sjeychbook cover rn n one side i madokami themed n the oter is gonna be tbhk themed and i love these two franchises. check back in in like a month or less when i end up writing an essay about both of them

[atamascolily]

@sailormiuccia asked for my thoughts on the possibility of new characters in Walpurgis no Kaiten, so let's go!

One notable thing about the original PMMM series is how tightly focused it is on the core cast--while there are still plenty of named side characters who play an important role in the plot, they get only a fraction of the screen time that the Holy Quintet does. I remember reading an early review of the series by a professional critic lamenting how "empty" Mitakihara is, but it fits nicely with the show's theme of magical girls existing in a liminal space separated from the normal, ordinary everyday world.

Ironically, PMMM has a much larger cast than many of the magical girl shows influenced by it, who took that same trend and dialed it up to eleven. PMMM gives us scenes of Madoka interacting with her family, or interactions with teachers and classmates, but the first season of Yuki Yuna is a Hero (2014) doesn't bother to give us any named characters outside the main cast at all; many of the adults wear masks on their faces to make them appear anonymous and interchangeable and most of the girls' actions with the shadowy organization responsible for the Hero System occurs via text messages. The first episode of Granbelm (2019), a magical girl mecha battle royale, doesn't show any adults at all--only adolescent girls--in its first episode at all. And so on.

Because PMMM is so tightly focused on its main cast, introducing new characters is a challenge. Rebellion has only one new character, the magical girl Nagisa Momoe--although I would argue she is not a completely new character, but a recontextualization of a character we already know, Charlotte the Dessert Witch. This allows her to slide nicely into the action with minimal exposition (especially important in a movie, which has a limited run time compared to a multi-episode series) and explains why she's hanging out with the main cast in the first place via Charlotte's established connection with Mami.

In spite of this, Nagisa has a pretty limited amount of screen time--even if we count her scenes as Bebe, she gets only a fraction of the focus of the Holy Quintet. It's not that her presence isn't meaningful or important, just that she's in the background for most of the movie, placing her somewhere in between the main cast and the other side characters.

This is also why I'm perpetually bemused by the fans who want Hitomi to become a magical girl--not only do we already have plenty of magical girls on the team already, Hitomi's narrative role is to be the Ordinary Friend, aka monster bait. The characters have emotional connections with her beyond what they would for a random background character, and her well-being means something to them--making Hitomi a magical girl would remove that element from the mix completely without necessarily adding anything in return. As anyone who has ever watched the later seasons of Sailor Moon can attest, the more characters you add to the team, the more most of them get shafted or sidelined by the narrative because there's only so much you can cram into a twenty-four minute episode or a two-hour movie.

Right now, Magia Record is wrestling with a similar problem in the current Scene 0 arc, having introduced a brand new character, Mabayu Aki, and positing her as a full-fledged member of the main cast whom nobody remembers ever existed due to as-yet-unrevealed shenanigans. After watching a good chunk of the arc that's been translated into English, it's not clear to me if the writers will be able to live up to this premise--but either way, it demonstrates just how hard it is to bring new characters into a long-running franchise in a way that makes their presence feel both natural and inevitable.

Based on what we've seen so far, I would expect Walpurgis no Kaiten to continue this trend of focusing primarily on the previously introduced core cast (especially Homura), with any "new" characters being alternate versions or recontextualizations of characters we already know. This is not to say that SHAFT can't pull a fast one and introduce someone we've never heard of and with no prior connections, just that it would surprise me if they did--especially given the narrative constraints of a feature film, where every second counts.

[threecheersforinking]

I am sooo sick of hearing people online say "I like anime but I hate how the female characters always suck and there's boobs everywhere :("

Fun fact, did you know? That not all anime has terrible female characters who are oversexualized? Because I'm starting to realize that there are people who genuinely don't know that. It is not all anime. I promise.

Here's a list of anime that do not oversexualize women*:

A Silent Voice

Anohana

Barakamon

Baccano!

Chihayafuru

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Hyouka

Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish

Kimi ni Todoke

March Comes in like a Lion

Mob Psycho 100

Monster

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

Mushishi

Nichijou

Odd Taxi

Orange

Pluto

Run with the Wind

Vinland Saga

Your Lie in April

And while we're at it, how about some shows with particularly good/complex female characters (in my opinion)?

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Toradora

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The Promised Neverland

To Your Eternity

Wonder Egg Priority

*(Disclaimer that I haven't seen some of these in a while, if I somehow missed something egregious, let me know and I'll remove it from this list)

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, this is simply shows I know and like. I am certain there are more and I would love if people would add on to this list. I am just frustrated by seeing tons of comment sections where people lament that there aren't anime where girls don't have their boobs out all the time. There are! They exist! Please watch them! Thank you.

[silvermoon424]

Hi! Is there an order/best way to watch Madoka and the others "spinoffs"? (and it is the same for the manga?) I would like to but I am not sure where to begin. It is like Precure with no real order between the series? or do I have to watch some to understand the others? It looks very complex with so many characters and timelines! Thanks!

Hi there! I'm glad there's someone who's interested in getting into the PMMM extended universe!

First of all, you can read my rankings/reviews of the spinoffs here and find links to read/summaries of them written by me here.

Secondly, there's not really a right or wrong order to watch/read most of the spinoffs in. But you should definitely watch the original anime first, followed by the Rebellion movie. That lays the groundwork for everything, plus they're just the best entries overall.

Aside from that, the PMMM spinoffs can be categorized by whether they're directly related to the main PMMM story (meaning they include characters/plotlines from PMMM) or feature an entirely original cast of characters and story. I'll outline them below:

Direct spinoffs:

The Different Story

The Wraith Arc

Oriko Magica and its spinoffs

The PSP game

Tons of other lesser-known spinoffs/gag manga like Homura's Revenge, Homura Tamura, etc

Original spinoffs:

Tart Magica

Suzune Magica

Kazumi Magica

Magia Record (this one is hard to categorize because it largely features original characters and an original plot, but characters from the original PMMM series do show up. However, they have less of an impact as the story continues and most fans agree that they were only really present to help sell the game to older fans (not that that's a bad thing, they're utilized pretty well). Overall I would categorize this as far more of an original spinoff than a direct one)

Most of the spinoffs are standalones and don't really require any prior knowledge of other spinoffs to enjoy. I will say that if you get really deep into the Magia Record game and not just the manga adaptation that there's a lot of overlap with the spinoffs in things like events, magical girl personal stories, etc. Nearly all of the spinoff magical girls are playable in Magia Record so that's something to keep in mind. But it doesn't really affect the main story.

[beepiiboop]

watching some pmmm reviews for funsies and one thing i found out is hearing people saying they don't like rebellion bc of it "messing up" homura's chara which is like. Blud What Are You On Abt. did we watch the same series.

[pmmm-oc-reviews]

Just found you, luv it. So I've got a magical-boy and his wish was to be loved. I've thought that he'd fall into despair because he would start to question if people Truly liked him and would blame himself. His witch form would be called the "Teen Idle Witch" and the story is the witch adores his groupies but quickly becomes board of them and "discards" them after the show. I don't what to do for a weapon tho, any ideas?

Something that really helps me with deciding on weapons is spending some time thinking about what the character’s vibe is and what they would look coolest with. If his theme is that he’s a prince archetype, heroic and powerful, then a sword, shield, or lance would look great. If he’s more rebellious, then maybe daggers or Molotov cocktails fit him more. If he’s more soft and sweet, then something less weapon-y may be more his style, like exploding stuffed animals or a camera that does damage by taking pictures.

Since his wish was to be loved, then I would consider what that love looks like to him. It seems like he basically ended up being famous (the teen idol reference suggests that) so consider what his idea of being popular is!

[voidpumpkin]

genuine question, how much of Quinton reviews videos are actually him talking, cause I remember a couple others and how much of it was long clips from the thing without much analysis and that's kind of why I struggled to get through his stuff, compared to something like clearandsweet's pmmm analysis which is 16 hours long but is nothing but talking