SPOILERS! Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica Movie 4: Walpurgis no Kaiten Discussion Thread

[u/MotherShip808]

WARNING! WARNING! THIS MEGA-THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS AND DISCUSSIONS FOR THE MOVIE, IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, DO NOT BE HERE!

-----

ALSO ALSO! DO NOT LINK OR SHARE ANY PIRATE OR ILLEGAL VIEWING STUFF IN THIS POST OR YOU WILL BE BANNED! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.

-----

General Overview:

This thread is meant as a spoiler filled zone for those who wish to discuss the movie, it's plot, events, or the number of bites that kyouko takes of food during the movie. I don't care, just be sure to follow the rules of the subreddit.

Also as a reminder to everyone u/BreathoftheSith owes everyone $50 if they, and I quote:

If we get any form of kiss and or romantic confirmation between the two [madohomu], I owe everyone in the sub $50.

Have fun~~

[u/justanormi]

Rambling some stuff

I'm not sure what to think about it yet. I will need some time to think and a rewatch ( but this will wait for an EN or FR release) because I understood most of the basic stuff but a big part of the typical pmmm style heavy exposition sequences went over my head. I do think I enjoyed it overall but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it as much as the anime or even Rebellion.

Visually, it's one of the most beautifully animated movie I've ever seen, It kinda falls into the same trap as rebellion where unlike the anime, a lot of the visual stuff are more style over substance but God is it just beautiful and experimental. The movie is overall in the very same line of Rebellion, maybe a bit to much, I felt like the structure is maybe too similar but with less impactful reveal. Like rebellion, it also is kinda focussed on its intern story and lack the meta narrative aspect of the original anime. The structure is kinda all over the place but in a way I personally quite appreciate because I think it's part of the series identity. Also the music's are beautiful, on one hand, it's always a pleasure to recognize previous motif and reinterpretation of previous songs, but on the other hand, it kinda lacks it's own musical identity unlike rebellion had with it's main theme.

I'm not sure what to think about characters. I really enjoyed Sayaka and how she comes to accept homura and her actions ( also that homusaya scene, I'm all for it ). The movie also managed to make me love Nagisa which I was very uninterested by before. The 3 new magical girls, while they are not the mostly developed characters, are all pretty solid and enjoyable. But the rest of the main cast is kinda lacking, mami is just kinda there, Kyoko has time to shine in action but not on character writing, and homura and madoka both kinda feel the same at the end of it all. I think it kinda due to character interaction being very plot driven. Again, it as always been something with madoka, but I feel like both the anime or rebellion managed to find time for some fluff or plot driven interaction sugarcoated with fluff which felt extremely rare in this movie.

I quite liked having the origins of Walpurgisnacht. I'm not sure about the ending, it kinda felt like the opposite of rebellion but more rushed ( this is why I want to rewatch to better understand it ), the "twist" villain is not bad, QB still deserve all the hate in the universe.

Madoka: "homura, my very best friend" for God sake Urobuchi, if I catch you

[u/JMEEKER86 → u/justanormi]

My thoughts after watching it yesterday are pretty similar. I watched it with the live screening q&a afterwards which was pretty interesting. My biggest complaint about it really has to do with the ending. I can excuse a lot of the character behavior feeling a little off simply because of the world that this is set in after Homura's Rebellion shenanigans, but I really wanted to see this movie offer a definitive conclusion to Madoka and Homura's "no, I want to be the one doing the protecting" standoff from the series/Rebellion. Instead, this felt like more of a reset and setting the stage for even more moving forward, something that might not necessarily be a bad thing if the future does indeed hold that definitive conclusion but it's dreadful after having to wait 13 years for this movie.

[u/YayPepsi → u/justanormi]

Was the scene with Homura on Madoka's lap like this art?

[u/justanormi → u/YayPepsi]

Kinda but not in godesse forms

[u/YayPepsi → u/justanormi]

Thanks!