Would Madoka Magica have some storyforms going on?

analysis
#1

Some people in the board mentioned before the existence of storyforms in some animes they enjoy. Now as for me I used to watch no-brainers filled with slice-of-life episodes, except for Madoka Magica.

Now for those who watched it, I always kind of had the idea that the anime had two storyforms going on - the main one with Madoka as the MC and Homura as the IC, and another with Sayaka as the MC and Kyouko as the IC (a big old Failure / Bad). However I’m not good enough from an analysis standpoint to really dive deep into this, and I might already be wrong with Madoka having a storyform at all. If some of you watched all 12 episodes before, do you have any opinion on the matter ?

(I know analysis are mostly for novels and movies on the board but I thought it would be nice to see if there was something going on in another medium as well. Hope it’s okay to discuss this hypothesis even if it turns out I was wrong!)

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#2

It’s a pity, but the only other Anime show that was really discussed was Toradora (Storyform woes (would love some help :) )), we do have some Anime movies though (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Grave of the Fireflies).

I haven’t seen Madoka Magica, though I heard a lot about it, I don’t have much time for shows these days. Sorry.

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#3

[Rampant PMMM spoilers everywhere]

It’s been a while since I watched Madoka Magica, but I think there’s definitely something interesting going on with its story. What makes it kind of odd, I think, is that Homura is probably the Protagonist, whose Goal is defeating Walpurgisnacht without Madoka becoming a magical girl. Trouble is, this is pretty well obscured from the viewer for most of the season; what we get instead is Madoka and Sayaka digging into the magical girl community, and Madoka deferring on her choice of wish. So perhaps Madoka is the Protagonist, with a Goal of “choose a good wish that will save the world?” I think that makes Homura sort of a complex Contagonist, always needling and probing in just the right way to delay Madoka’s wish and so prevent the previous time loops that ended in heartbreak.

So you’re definitely right that the relationship between Madoka and Homura is key to the main front. (Kyubey is… Temptation, I think. Not a full Contagonist, since Homura is Hinder, but Temptation and maybe Logic, too.) As to Sayaka… I’m a little leery to start throwing around a second storyform, in part because I prefer thinking of subplots as facets of the main plot rather than a second plate to spin, but also in part because I don’t know if I ever really empathize with Sayaka. I pity her and her lot in the story, but I never think, “Wow, I know what it’s like to be the knight trying to be the sin-eater for the entire world.” To me, Sayaka’s arc is a cautionary tale as part of Madoka’s arc–“Don’t let your wish consume you, like Sayaka’s did.” I do feel like I’m Madoka throughout the show, seeing all the other magical girls and wanting to do right for them. (Help, I’d imagine, to counter Homura’s Hinder? Which of the two is the Change character? Madoka, for finally making the wish that saves all magical girls from slavery, or Homura, for finally letting Madoka go?)

(…Was Kyouko the red magical girl, or was Kyouko the boy Sayaka liked that rejected her? :sweat_smile: Like I said, it’s been a while. The -ko suggests it’s the red-haired girl, but… now the cracks are showing in my memory. I don’t remember her role in the story that well. I remember the beginning, the bit with the eggs, the part where Sayaka falls, and then the ending with Homura’s reveal and Madoka’s wish. I haven’t seen the movie.)

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#4

Yep Kyouko is the red one ! I thought about a second incomplete storyform for these two because of the “you and I are alike” scene between them at the church, and at times we follow Sayaka a lot more up until her fall. Which was where the idea came from, with their relationship finding conflict in their vision of hope and despair. But the idea of cautionary tale works too !

For the main plot I’d say Homura is definitely changed and Madoka steadfast. Madoka never stopped wanting to make a wish and help her friends regardless of the timeline, she just grew into her resolve to make a truly mature wish - without Homura’s interventions she would have made a wish to help others many times before. Homura on the other hand lets Madoka go in the end, which is a big change for someone who was trapped in a maze of her own making.

I’d say Madoka is holding out for something to stop and is pressured by Kyubey to just, you know, give in and become a Magical Girl. She seems to be a Universe character (her fate and potential are unique to her, she’s basically the center of everything and we experience what it is like to be the only normal girl fully involved in the Magical Girl business), and Homura feels like Mind (determined to repeat the same events again and again despite having lost herself a long time ago, she just won’t give up - she can’t really).

And so the main story in Physics. Possibly, like you said, a goal of “Making the right wish”, a theme that is present from the very beginning before everything turns sour. And a consequence of
Becoming, either by dying to Walpurgisnight or Madoka turning into a witch. The latter might not look like it involves everyone, but if Madoka becomes a witch she is bound to destroy the planet, and Homura reseting the timeline affects everyone as well.

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#5

It’s been a while since I saw this so I might have some things wrong, but I see Madoka as the MC with Homura as the IC - and then it gets complex.

Everything which happens is a result of Homura trying (Reconsider/Hinder) to change the past: Madoka’s steadfast desire (Pursuit/Consider) to become a Magical Girl - first because it’s so cool! but then so she can help her friends.

I almost put Homura as Pursuit instead of Madoka because her actions are so persistent and what set the story up in the first place. Not sure which is correct. If Homura is Pursuit then this feels like a Failure/Good story: Homura fails to get Madoka to stop yet it turns out okay. :slight_smile:

I like Kyubey (that sick little Lovecraftian horror) as Temptation/Logic, with Sayaka as Feeling (everything from her competitiveness to her outbursts to her refusal to listen to reason seem to stem from a deep feeling of insecurity and unworthiness).

I know I’m missing some elements here but I can’t remember the story well enough to offer more. I need to go watch it again! :smile:

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