Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica: Episode 01

Of course, I have to make the first post in order to serve as an example to you hooligans.

I'm going to get one thing out of the way first: Contrary to most of my compatriots, I like moe. While it doesn't deserve its immense popularity and success, it's most certainly not a bad genre or artistic style. So of course, most people would not be surprised to find out that I found the pilot episode of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (romanized as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, because random alliterative Latin always sounds nice) very well done. However, that really wouldn't be doing the show justice.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is an original work produced by esteemed production company SHAFT and directed by Akiyuki Shinbo, responsible for such shows as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, Bakemonogatari and Hidamari Sketch. The character designer, Ume Aoki, is also the mangaka for Hidamari Sketch, giving the show's characters a distinctly moe-blob look. The animation is hand-drawn and very pretty-- the setting is some sort of shiny, futuristic city with nice aesthetics. It's always nice to see a show with quality animation.

As far as pilot episodes go, this was a fairly standard one, with a few notable exceptions. Madoka Magica opens with our delicious loli protagonist Madoka watching some sort of trippy, post-apocalyptic magical girl battle in her dream. Madoka then wakes up, gets ready for school, meets up with her totally-not-lesbian friends, et cetera.

A new girl named Homura Akemi transfers in. She's quiet, talented and seemingly perfect at everything, and she's also the girl from Madoka's dream. Homura seems to know a lot about Madoka in this vaguely threatening sort of way, and gets into an ominous conversation about "changing yourself". Later, at the mall, Madoka hears a voice calling for help. She follows the voice with her friend and sees Homura "cosplaying" while trying to kill something that can only be described as a bootleg Pokemon.

Madoka, her friend Sayaka, and the fox thing flee, only to become trapped in an unfriendly hallucination so odd that I can't honestly describe it with words. Or pictures.

Luckily, a magical girl comes from nowhere, destroys the trippy world with magic rifles, and chases off a rather stoic Homura, who is my favorite character so far.

This may sound like a generic moe magical girl anime, especially from the questionable opening. It's not. I was rather impressed with the episode, although I'm not sure how strongly the plot's going to carry through . People may be turned off by its cutesy loli exterior, but then again anyone refusing to watch something solely because of its artistic style probably isn't intelligent enough to entertain opinions of note. Even the anime bloggers are impressed with this show, and that takes a lot. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is most definitely worth checking out, and it's looking to be the best show this season. It's beside the point that nobody would watch a show called Puer Magi Madoka Magicus.