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The story
A thread on 5ch’s News VIP board sparked discussion of impressions after watching the new ‘Madoka Magica’ movie. Comments included “I couldn’t make sense of it from watching Rebellion just once,” alongside a flurry of theories over the true identity of Walpurgisnacht.
Meanwhile, opinions are divided, with harsher takes like “13 years of waiting for THIS?” also making the rounds.
What people said
The ending is pretty vague — it's basically "go figure it out yourselves!"
Though there are spoilers going around, so if that bothers you, don't go digging for info.
Personally I don't care at all.
Oh, really?
I think this one's a masterpiece.
Opinions are split so far.
There's a fair number of "13 years of waiting for THIS?" comments too.
Turns out it's a direct continuation of Rebellion.
If you don't have a solid grasp of Rebellion, you'll be completely lost.
Wait, seriously?
That's an impossible ask then.
There's no way I remember the finer details anymore lmao
But if you watch the TV series and Rebellion, you'll get the general gist.
Well, it's a 2011 work after all…
I panicked at first thinking neither Madoka nor Homura were even going to show up, though.
This is garbage
All those delays made no sense, and it's cringe that the official account is making such a big deal about "no spoilers" for something like this.
Nah, this clearly took a ton of work.
Though yeah, fair enough on the no-spoilers thing.
↓
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Walpurgisnacht Rising — 290 theaters
tps://i.imgur.com/Xbd9cEf.jpeg
Theaters selling out in 3 seconds, and this during an anime-movie box-office boom too
It'll clear 20 billion yen easy, brace yourselves
Chiikawa's some weak-tier anime, we could crush it without even trying
Eh, who knows — this is really an anime for core fans
For the people it clicks with, it clicks WAY too hard
Guess I'll go watch Rebellion first.
Just saying, but watching Rebellion only once won't be enough to understand it.
I mean, I did finish watching it back in 2013
It confused me so much I was planning on never watching it a second time, though.
And these days when so many anime have great art, it's not exactly a standout on visuals either.
It's more of a directing/staging showcase, honestly
There's a mosaic-style scene like this
where you get to experience the shift from anime → live performer → anime, and it made me cry
https://tadaup.jp/8g4nsXHF.png
Come on, you should've caught on by now
Walpurgisnacht came back to reclaim the witches' world, along with the witches' underlings.
But didn't Madoka already erase Walpurgisnacht?
Apparently Walpurgisnacht doesn't count because it's not technically a witch
So it was never actually saved/purified.
I thought it had been saved but came back because of the Devil, or something like that.
Wait, wasn't the whole point that a Soul Gem gets corrupted into a Grief Seed and that's how a magical girl becomes a witch?
So what even was that "Walpurgisnacht" stage-device witch supposed to be? Retconning the rules like this after the fact is lame.
Stuff like this is corrupting my own Soul Gem.
Also, that bratty kid was kind of irritating.
What even is that character's deal?
The one who loves Kyubey, right?
You mean the unnamed upperclassman
Did you actually watch it?
Yeah, that one
The kid who just wants to be loved
Come to think of it, "Was" also had a change of heart that felt kind of arbitrary — maybe aside from the core storyline, some parts are a bit scattered.
Oh, that might be true.
Yeah, it does get pretty chaotic from that point on.
Was the movie any good?
Homu-chan's outfit has her shoulders bare now, huh.
Oh, there is. There really is.
There was a ton of it.
Had no idea. I almost spoiled it for myself.
What happens if you break the no-spoilers rule?
Background and Key Points
Puella Magi Madoka Magica began as a 2011 TV anime from Studio Shaft, directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and written by Gen Urobuchi, that took the cute “magical girl” format and turned it into a bleak meditation on wishes, sacrifice, and cosmic law. It was followed by two compilation films, then Rebellion (2013), a continuation that ended on a famously ambiguous note with Homura rewriting reality and becoming a “devil.” The new film, Walpurgisnacht Rising, is a direct sequel to Rebellion, arriving roughly thirteen years later — hence the “13 years of waiting for THIS?” jab — and its distribution numbers (120 theaters for Rebellion versus 290 now) reflect Japan’s current anime-film boom, where box office is often measured against hits like Chiikawa’s movie.
The thread doesn’t split on whether the film looks good — the SHAFT-style live-action/mosaic sequences drew praise even from critics — but on whether the story holds together, specifically the retconned status of Walpurgisnacht as something other than an ordinary witch born from a corrupted Soul Gem, which posters felt contradicted rules the original series spent years establishing.
What outsiders are likely to miss is that this was never pitched as a jumping-on point: without the 2011 series and Rebellion fresh in memory, the plot is close to unfollowable, which is why posters kept warning newcomers off rather than debating basic quality. Also unmentioned in the thread is that Shaft’s jarring live-action inserts are a longstanding directorial signature going back to the original series, not a new stylistic misstep.
*This article was compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News VIP) thread “Madoka Magica was great!!.”
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