I've fallen in love with this show because the story is a tale of unconditional love and selfless sacrifice. I'm not actually into the Magical Girl genre itself (actually had never even heard the term Magical Girl before) and when an acquiantance asked if he could stream it for me I was sure I was not going to like it. He convinced me by showing me the Mahou Shoujo Requiem AMV and promising me the story had great moments of selfless sacrifice. His promise held true. As I said I'm not really a fan of the Magical Girl Genre, and what what I've been told PMMM arguably isn't a true Magical Girl story anyway. I may be an outsider here if all of you are fans of the genre and like this show for reasons less personal than mine. As I said I have a soft spot for stories of unconditional love and self sacrifice. I always find it interesting when characters are able to feel so strongly for one another that they would sacrifice themselves to save each other. These types of stories allow me to vicariously feel emotions that I do not feel in real life. For me a story can go from uninteresting to amazing if it has a well done selfless sacrifice.

So two questions - why do you enjoy Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and how do you feel about the unconditional love and self sacrifices that are contained in the story?

Here is how I feel about the sacrifices.

Kyouko made her sacrifice to save her doomed friend from a fate of dying alone. She could have simply killed her, which would have ended her suffering and have been merciful enough. Instead she suffers great injury trying to redeem her friend's soul, and upon realizing that intention to be an impossibility she sacrifices her own life while ending Sayaka's so that her friend would not have to die alone. Sacrificing herself was not at all necessary, it was pure selflessness so that her friend who already had fallen to despair could feel warmth again one last time as they died together. The fact that she was able to find such compassion for someone that she considered to be an enemy to the point of wanting to kill her makes it that much more powerful.

Homura's sacrifice was very moving as well, throwing her world away and travelling through time again and again to try and safe her friend from a horrible fate. Her sacrifice was to give up her world and potentially her life to save her friend's soul. She knew that if she were to succeed she would remain a stranger to her friend, always remaining in the shadow of her heart (Cosmic Love <3). If she were to fail then should would either die or suffer a fate worse than death by losing herself to despair and becoming a witch. Either way there was no outcome that existed where she could walk away unharmed; she would either die physically or emotionally but she was willing to make that sacrifice because she loved her friend unconditionally. A very fine display of altruism.

Then of course you have Madoka's sacrifice which was very nice but I don't consider it to be in the same category as Kyouko's and Homura's. The reason being that Madoka's was completely logical. The decision could have been made without any emotional involvement because the choice was that clear - one life to sacrifice to save all of humanity and to prevent countless lives from the fate of becoming witches. It's pretty clear what to do when presented with this situation, there's only one course of action. You could argue there is more than one choice but the logical conclusion would always be the one life to save the entire species from extinction. Making a decision like this is much easier than what Kyouko and Homura had to do. Kyouko and Homura's sacrifices were on a much more personal level where logic can be completely removed from the equation and only emotion could allow them to choose what path to take. That is why I find their sacrifices to be more moving than Madoka's.

As for Sayaka's sacrifice, I have a lot to say about hers. I've written down my thoughts on it but I'm not ready to post it yet. I consider her sacrifice to be very controversial so I'm not decided on whether it deserves its own thread or not yet. I might post it later in this thread because this forum doesn't appear to be very active, but we shall see.

I didn't forget about Mami, might post some thoughts on her later but I don't consider what she did to be in the category of a selfless sacrifice like Homura and Kyouko.

Interesting. Probably the sole reason why I enjoyed it because the formula was not the kind that would be shown in magical girl shows.. Or at least this mature enough to be consider clling the Magis as "knights" than "heroines".

I enjoyed it because of Mami's death curiosity... And the animation. But if you want me to go deep... In fact, I tried my best to go deeper into this show because non-PMMM fans like RLinkSoul (fellow mod of this forum) did not enjoy the same way because the unexpected factors on this show did not deliever him to well. We all know that "magical girl" shows are about maturing girls by using magic.... And the fans out there are right on the "deconsturction" trope. BUt I think the reverse had created a different way of shipping..

I got back into the yuri/girl love topics after my huge mix of "preferences" in my love life. I also RP too, and there was a "selfless sacrifice involved that puleld a huge preasure for one of my muses.. But she had regain the love by dating someone that was sent by the dying wish of her BF to be together... And it's girl x girl related too. I also think that the characters there are very mature.. Something not suited for little kids (well duh) in the first place. PMMM had lead me back in to the magical girl genre and pushing my own stories to create something similar, but in a "magical girl in a Marvel world" kind of thing with it's own twists.. But adding a second magical girl would be hard when I have a antagonist that was also a mahou shoujen.. X_X;

I probably took the long way to understand the feelings of these characters. I adopted a Kyouko muse set in an alternative universe with a alternative background with an growing Sayaka-like motivation for "justice" and "heroism". Though again.. Not all get nice things. An OC of mine was set in the future story that she became a magical girl and end up sacrificing her own life for the sake of her friend and the world... Which was not pretty, but PMMM gave me an inspiration to create stories like this, even if it's full of despair when we want friend magical girl stuff.

Sadly, I don't think Mami had fallen into the "sacafising knight" role.. But then again I have not read the new "The Different Story" manga... And waiting for a translation.

I wish Link can have a talk on this, but I know he's not a fan and hate to bring the hatedom into our forms...

1. Well, I have never seen "Revolutionary Girl Utena", but it's something I must watch, since I like empowering female character, especially in a "magical girl show". I don't think you do not need to be the heroine type... Some are protecting for something else, while others go for themselves. The transformations is something I took a look (one I recently watch is Kyouko's), and they don't take long compare to a flashy and adorable children's show like Smile Precure, which the first intorductory transofmration takes at least a minute to get the PreCure into their costume. And here I know they are fighting the "monsters"... But fighting Octavia.. Was entirely different compare to fighting an joke like Akanbe in Smile PreCure. I guess Kyouko's scene was more like a knight's movement than some frilly magical girl end with a super attack on the enemy.

2. Putting it roguh from Link's deffinition of a magical girl: Most of the shows regarding towards for children or nothing involving blood and death (like Cardcaptor Sakura) usually demostrates of a girl's developement (and maybe love) through magic and help everyone who need that kind of miracle. Puella was slightly getting there, until the story twists around... I think the "developement" was kind of differnt compare to most traditonal girl shows. I like Kyouko's end (well I did recently RPing her) because it shows a bit of a interesting.. Way of bringing the genre together.. I guess. But then again it's very hard to compare PMMM to something like Smile PreCure. Oh yea. "Love and courage"... This is soemthing I LOVE from Kyouko's words, and what the whole genre is all about. I know it doesn't have to be shipping (the recent episode shows Cure Happy's way of sending love to her favofrite fairy tale while bringing her courage to fight against the silly glass slipper Akanbe.. ^^;; ) But I guess to most fans (including me), shipping can also a way to connect the friendships together AS MAGICAL GIRLS and outside of the job!

3. The "Lovekiss Momoko" project is still on WIP and somehting I wish to do and bring out for the animation industry (but I can't do this alone lol X_X).. But as for role-playing.. And please don't hate me as I use "alternative unvierses" with a different personality to pull this story out... One of my ideas for my "role-play story" (or known as a "drabble", which are short fics that go for the minimal of four paragraphs to more depending on how to feel like writing. Anyway, imagine a virus bug has spread through the entire city's sytems and causing all electronics to go haywire. A "video game character" under my Wreck-It Ralf Muse, Jubileena was the first character to fufill an (illegal) contract to become a magical girl that had the ability to re-write the mess in the game world "Sugar Rush". However, the invasino wsa to much for her and the Grief Seed sender (via a magical portal), Kyouko. Kyouko's long-time (and only) friend, Julie Pepper had made her wish to get rid of the viruses, which cost her life. Yea this may sound like Madoka's wish and by the time the wish furfilled Madoka came to "purify" the world from wiping the witches from despair.. Which end in destruction to the entire ISLADN, but Julie had sent her "last wish" to Kyouko to free Jubileena from her in-game prison and restore Hanshin for her... And well.. I guess it requires a ton of love and dedication to get that wish dream come true with her resources and a bit of magic....

I am tired and need to dig for my scripts in my blog archive to find other samples. But long story short: Magical girls (for us) can be about the theme that you are into, and a struggle for ressurection if that is possible in the formula. (Not a magical girl thing, but Mia from .hack (the original games) got ressurected after hard work clearing a dungeon and facing a boss related to Mia..)

4. As long it's well-written, I don't mind a mix of both. Smile Precure is full of sugar and heartwarming flashbacks until a certain "Joker" crumbled the girls' hearts... I could have twist the story if it's for the older audiences... >> (Really, it's so open for these despairing PreCures to pull an attack and kill them... Gosh I'm mean!) But I guess after RPing as Kyouko in a AU story and remembering the scenes in PMMM, I grew appreciate to the show/franchise for the very least! Maybe a bit of a realistic development for Madoka would have been nice, because that certain person.. Well.. Doesn't like her. See.. If a person who watches the show does not care for the character, it's hard for that person to return to it or even love it... Everyone has their own cup of tea, and I do respect all of their opinions as well with a good reason. I am not talented enough to "fight back" civilary and convince to give something a chance.

5. If you do plan to post anything Mami-related, I have a "Discussion" thread for the character up (because Link insist that I do it and because this form needs to come back to life!). So if you feel like Mami needs her own spotlight, especially about the deaths that bug me from the fanbase (imagine the crowd cheering for her death! D: ), then yea. Also, "The Different Story" were manga volumes (about two volumes so far) that was recently released in Japan to go along with the movie(s) releases, which covers the drama-CD story about Mami's and Kyouko's relationship in the past before Kyo's parents died. (And during their death too, where Kyouko had to break up with Mami's friendship tides to prevent any future trouble.)

P.S. I wrote all of this in Notepad and I need sleep, so bare with the errors.

Time to celebrate my below four waifus by having a Kyouko avatar up!

1. YEA!!! That's the sole reason! Well.. Kyouko is still the best and grew my respects at the end. And agree on the episode length. A few mahou shoujo fans dislike the lack of time or pacing for PMMM because do not get to much of the inner-development fleshed out. ^^; And I could have agreed, but a bit late to expand the story now... That's why there's the spin-off manga I guess...

2. Yep. But I enjoyed them nether the less. But it's most likely because I enjoyed the slice-of-lifey "lesson" episodes in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". A few PreCure episodes had rich lessons.. And probably a few related to personal real life issues. (And if curious, it's at 3/4s season done...)

3. I don't use sacrifice themes a lot, but it felt so strong in magical heroine stories. And even if it's not a "magical girl", other types of characters did sacrifice itself for that-said magical heroine.. Like a certain fairy from Heartcatch PreCure sacrificed for Yuri/Cure Moonlight... (And yet I need to watch it. If you lurk around the forums, especially from Link's posts, he sees Heartcatch like a Madoka-Magica FOR the magical girl fans...)

4. Yea. Here's an interesting fact. The author for Deathnote stated that "flashbacks" pushes back the main point of the plot, and I think it was the same for Madoka-Magica. But of course... A flashback for Homura is pretty mandatory to understand her real background... (But it's still sad that the other girls are not fleshed out on a flashback view..) So yea. Once again: Complaints that this show could have been "Puella Magi Homura Magica". xDD

5. Not sure. I am not a Sayaka fan, but I do have a friend who RPs as Sayaka, so maybe i'll pull that tribute once I am free from my HWK frenzy. ^^: But I have a thing to say: I enjoy seeing Sayaka fanart representing her despair evolution till Octavia, and sometimes even like her in Octavia costume. ^^; A bit unrelated, but I also have a "kink" for conversion themes... But that's a-no good place to talk about it here LOL!