Anime review: "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica"

"Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica", or "Madoka Magica" hereafter, is not a show I would usually be attracted to, at least considering the style of its animation and its cover-picture on AniDB. Therefore, I pretty much unintentionally avoided it two years ago when it came out. I also avoided it the year later when it got several awards for the pass year... But after watching other high-rated anime, "Madoka Magica" kept jumping out on first places and getting nice reviews, so I finally decided to give it a try.

As I said, "Madoka Magica" at first looks as a typical shoujo action anime with magical girls (mahou shoujo): cute flat-chested and silly/clumsy protagonist, cute uniforms, lots of pink, lace and winking.... Setting include middle-school girls who enter a contract with some kind of cute-cat-look-a-like demon who gives them magical powers and a free-wish while they in return have to fight evil "witches" (nightmares) who attack innocent men and women...

Well, while it certainly has elements of mahou shoujo anime and it looks like one, "Madoka Magica" hides a big surprise for its viewers: it is actually a very powerful seinen tragedy! While it is a bit angsty toward end, that is to be expected of such anime, and the complete reversal of expectations negates any negative experience...

As you noticed, I am trying to avoid spoilers as much as I can. But I just can't avoid talking about the main villain... First, you really don't expect her to be a villain, especially considering her looks. Secondly, he is really a psychological masterpiece! It is scary how good she is at being passive-aggressive and manipulative toward an innocent girl... I am fan of grittiness, but there are some lines you just don't cross...

As I said, it is really a tragedy - it becomes evident after all that Mami's happy talk. And definitely it is seinen: the more Homura tries to do what is right, the worse it gets.

Other remarking sides of this anime are the visual side and the music. The music is very good, including a song by Kalafina. The show has nice vibrant colors, which together with intense music and the action at the beginning, made me like this anime instantly. As I said, design of character is typically shoujo, but this you just have to accept. Things change when they enter the "witch domain", where it looks like some kind of patchwork and it is very interesting. There are 12 episodes totally.

All in all, "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica" was a pretty good surprise, but a kind of that I would recommend mostly to those who like seinen, and potentially josei anime. I hope those will forgive me my little misdirection in review and be thankful for it later.

Movie review: "Snow White and the Huntsman"

This weekend my girlfriend and I went to movies to watch "Snow White and the Huntsman". We were talking about it or "Prometheus", but this one was playing at better time. We first saw the trailer for it few months ago and decided we will definitely go watch it because it was great. But as movie came out, I found few reviews proclaiming it as a disappointment, and telling that trailer was misleading. Now, after watching it, I think they are half-way right: trailer is misleading, but the movie is not as bad as they said.

"Snow White and the Huntsman" is an movie-adaptation of the classical fairy-tail, but with additional elements and a bit darker and more violent. After Snow White's mother dies, her father the King is in great mourning. One day he rides out to defeat a strange, black-glass army that appeared at his boarders. The army is defeated fairly easy, and in their mist they found a prisoner, young and beautiful Ravenna, who immediately catches the King's eye and heart. But on the night of the wedding, it turns out that she is actually a witch and a Trojan horse - after killing the King, she lets in the real army lead by her brother Finn, imprisons Snow White, and starts her long-year tyranny. But now, after several years and her beauty is starting to fade (despite the countless lives of innocent girl she had spent saving it), her only option is to takes Snow White's youth...

After this point, new elements starts creeping in, but mixed it classical fantasy (and Snow White's) tropes: the Dark Wood, huntsman, dwarves, fairies, poison apple... Don't expect miracles, this is not LotR, but story is OK. There is only one scene that was too much (with that elk, you will recognize it), and there is a bit of pathetic drama toward end, but all-in-all, it was a satisfying movie.

I was positively surprised with the character of Ravenna. In the fairy-tail, she would be an evil-stepmother - no reasons, not history, just evil... But in the movie, there is a revelation how and why she became what she is now - also revealing her weak side.

The dwarves were pretty funny, as it was intended. Beith kept reminding me on Ian McShane - and I was pretty surprised after I later read that this was Ian McShane... I don't usually comment on the physical looks (either good or bad), but they could have found someone prettier to play the role of Snow White - Kristen Stewart is not the one to be "the only one looking fairer in the whole land" than Charlize Theron.... Chris Hemsworth had a pretty decent part, as had Sam Claflin.

A big NO for the "rumored sequel"!

All in all, not as good as it could be, but better than I expected. A "Snow White and The Huntsman" is a nice action-adventure movie based on a darker version of Snow White fairy-tail.