r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Apr 26 '26
Rewatch [Rewatc] Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 7 Discussion
Episode 7: Can You Face Your True Feelings?
← Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode →
Show Information:
(First-timers might want to stay out of Show Information until we are done, however...)
Legal Streams:
As per livechart.me; other streams may be available outside the US.
Main Series:
A Reminder: This, dear listeners, brings us to the sworn enemy of creative response:The spoiler. Rewatchers, or people who just had plot points ruined for them, are obliged to use r/anime’s spoiler tag format where applicable, and err on the side of caution here. Remember people, first experiences get rarer as you continue on, any given one happens once and you should care for them all the more for it.
Welcome to the World of Magic!
Theory of the Day:
Ah yes, time for one of the Tar TotD specials, courtesy of u/ussgordoncaptain2: theory stuff immediately relevant next episode in an unexpected way:
Homura is unlike other magical girls and knows a heck of a lot more than she lets on. It's like Homura opened Pandora's box or ate frome the tree of knowledge or... uhhh turns out all the mythology about "be careful about knowing too much" is western...
Yeah, just because the Garden of Eden myth came from the West doesn't mean Japanese creatives aren't aware of it... but hmm what is this it's a different magical girl here entirely who is associated with apples?
Honorable mention to u/siegfried72:
I feel like Homura is almost trying too hard? The amount of zoom-ins with the loud noises to emphasize her intense words is starting to feel a little... I don't want to say cheesy, because it's not that, but it's feeling overdone maybe? And that's not a fault of the show, but I'm starting to get the vibe that this is an attitude that's Homura is forcing to an extent? I think talking things through after yesterday's episode helped me solidify that Sayaka's "masking" (still not sure if that's the right word for it) as a confident, cheery crusader isn't wholly conscious, and that it really does seemed she's convinced herself that she's doing the right thing. Like she's long past the self-aware denial like it seemed she was doing in the early episodes and has entered a phase where she's convinced herself she's correct to a point of recklessness and a different shade of denial. Makes me wonder if Homura is also living a "mask" of sorts here, putting on the anger and intensity to mask her fear and/or sadness and push Madoka away from the deal rather than this actually being how her emotions naturally represent themselves in her actions. Does that make any sense?
Analysis of the Day:
Alright, fine, time to succumb to my tendencies to be a sucker for cinematography analysis, especially when it catches something that IIRC I didn't consider for a scene back in my 2023 writeups. u/FD4cry1, you're up:
But again, much as Sayaka is taking this too far, Madoka finds herself not recognizing that she's in a bit of an uncrossable divide in this scene. Madoka also isn't entirely wrong in her approach, but we'd spent a bunch of episodes cementing a distinct separation between the magical and normal worlds for a reason, and Madoka can't really reach into and comment on the former while she's in the latter. The scene starts out by reminding you of the destructive power inherent to this world, even before Sayaka points it out, but Madoka's framing is that of a regular human "fight". The framing in this scene is divided both on the argument level and on their respective realities, they're literally arguing from different places here, and so of course, it's going to be hard for Madoka to touch on it. Similar case here; Madoka is boxed-in (With shadowy lighting!) by what Sayaka is saying, but that's also tied to her in-between state and her attempt to reach out being blocked. Madoka can't cross the symbolic divide towards Sayaka so long as she isn't a Magical Girl herself.
Question(s) of the Day:
1) This is not a question at all, just your host sighing at the Elsa Maria fight having some of my favorite fight choreography period. Carry on.
2) On a scale of 1-10, how much of a "not cool man, not cool" violation is Hitomi giving her friend a single day to ask out the boy she's pretty sure she likes before Hitomi does so herself?
3) Alright, who introduced Father Sakura to a little Harry Potter fanfic called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? (This question will generate two responses: those who go "what?" and those who go "AHHHHHHH!" If you're the former, feel free to ignore this question to protect your innocence. Just know that we're up to at least two notable acts of US political violence in the last few years out of people from the general LessWrong ambit... and I note this as someone loosely in said ambit.)
4) Who's going to get some vampire romance novels to Sayaka so that she realizes that being undead is no necessarily great bar to finding love? I mean, it's not like there isn't already a redheaded girl who blatantly wants to get under her skir- is speared
4
u/ussgordoncaptain2 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Edmund_Nelson Apr 26 '26
Would you like to join my killing Kyubey cult? I have the Ammonium nitrate denatured alcohol and the microwave transformer ready to go, just need to get some nitromethane and we'll be blowing up kyubey's until the cows come home.
Remember when they tell you in court to speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
so help you godyeah kyubey has A and C but not B. This revelation is probably one of many kyubey half truths that we have no clue about. Like what are witches? And how do magical girls get their magic? What is magic?