I got exactly 14 minutes and 38 seconds into episode one before quitting. It extremely boring. There is no visual style other than everyone having a squashed face for some reason. I know that character development takes a while, but none of the characters are even the slightest bit interesting. The few conversations happening are boring. Everything about this nothing ball is just BORING!

I started watching this knowing nothing except that it was a 'dark' magical girl series. I've never seen any of the magical girl stuff (unless Claymore counts?) so I had no idea of how it was using/subverting the usual tropes. Still, it was pretty amazing... and very dark. By the time I got to the 9th episode I was feeling pretty distraught over the fates of all the characters and how awful the whole system was. One thing that particularly stood out for me was the animation and the various styles to represent the bizarre Witches and the Labyrinths they create. While the main characters usually remain in regular anime mode everything else becomes a wild collage of symbols and strange creatures that symbolize the Witch and her obsessions. Each one seems to be a mysterious story unto itself. Don't let the cutesy character designs fool you though... this isn't for kids, both because it's so disturbing and also because I don't think they'd really understand it once the true nature of the magical girls starts to come out.

The deconstruction of the Magical Girl Genre of anime has become one of this years smash hit anime series as well as another personal favorite of mine. Puella Magi Madoka Magica jumped to be my favorite of the winter season and most likely it will go down as my all time favorite of 2011. My interest in this mostly stemmed from a like of Magical Girl Shows and sealed by Yuki Kajiura's involvement because when she makes the music you can't go wrong.First impressions were "yeah okay they have all the magical girl tropes Yuki's music is good enough; hey where's the ending theme?" but the show for sure got more interesting when it got darker by episode 4 and considering Mami was for sure not coming back from the dead in any kind of deus ex machina as well as the torment the other characters go through as the series progresses.This is one of the darker Magical Girl Shows I've seen, I guess I should have expected it from the creator of Phantom of Inferno (adapted into Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~) as for the director Akiyuki Shinbo, who I'm not overly familiar with but I did some reading on him. From what I gathered all I was really expecting was some artsyness which made me go "oh cool an artsy magical girl show." But again wasn't expecting anything overly groundbreaking and invigorating.After episode 10 Home Run Homu Homura-chan easily became my favorite character from the series as well as one of my favorite anime characters of all time. The fact she continued to reset time and try to save Madoka only to have to watch her friends die over and over again....She's got moxy! Really that can't be healthy....The other characters even managed to stand out as well. You have Sayaka who loses it when the one she loves and makes her wish for goes for another girl, the bomb drop of the purpose behind the Magical Girl, Kyoko's own tragic past and Mami's as well. Sadly perhaps the only character who didn't get as much attention was Madoka however I will give praise for the fact she had to wrestle with the idea. While she is the titular character it becomes more apparent afterword that the series is really told from Homura's point of view.As I mentioned before one of the reasons I jumped right on this as opposed to waiting was Yuki Kajiura's involvement. Ms. Kajiura who has written solid classics in the past such as the .hack// OST, Noir, MADLAX, El Cazador de la Bruja and Tsubasa Chronicle once again was able to step up to the plate. The music is wonderfully written but suffers from a few generic pieces in the mix. You have wonderful tracks with a strong emotional grip which can evoke the images of the series but you have the dull everyday tracks which feel more like scratch. If I had to rank it with some of her past works I'd put it with Elemental Gelade which was a good OST but not one of her very best either. Regardless the OST is more than worth a look at especially for fans of Kajiura's music group Kalafina which delivered the stunning ending theme "Magia." The art and animation will strike you a bit strange with a combination of unusual designs. Even I wasn't sure of what to make of the cotton balls with mustaches as well as the acid trip design scheme for the Runes. Each Rune gets more elaborate and strange as the series goes on and many are quite creative. Sayaka's witch form which takes the environment of a full symphony orchestra is a brilliant example of environmental symbolism. Homura's apartment alluding to her time manipulation skills. The art direction is solid even of the characters designs look sketchy and unusual. You have a mix and match of landmarks from around the world from a glass prison to a giant oil refinery to a wind farm, this will be an art student's orgy.Of course things got complicated for enthusiastic watchers during the 2011 Northern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami putting the anticipated finale on hold but happy to say it was creative and daring. The series almost reconstructs itself on the spot with Madoka's final wish and creatively shows Magical Girls from around the world.Puella Magi Madoka Magica easily one of the best series of the season if not of all time. The same way Hideaki Anno's "Neon Genesis Evangelion" deconstructed the Giant Robot Genre. Shaft/Aniplex's Madoka deconstructs the Magical Girl Genre. And like Evangelion this series is quickly becoming a marketing and franchising juggernaut with toys, even books talking to fans of the show including acclaimed filmmaker Mamoru Oshii, shops and other materials dedicated to it.This is the first deconstruct of the Magical Girls genre of anime that I have seen personally, I don't know if Princess Tutu or Akiyuki Shinbo's other magical girl series "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha" falls into that. Puella Magi Madoka Magica doesn't fall into a lot of the old traps seen before and it doesn't try to model itself too much to other successful series in the past such as "Sailor Moon" or "Cardcaptor Sakura" though it certainly plays with the staples established by those series.If there is a sequel and there are talks of one, I wouldn't mind a reconstruct but it would be nice to keep it relatively dark and dangerous. Hopefully no earthquakes will complicate things this time and hopefully it can be as good as this, the original.

i really liked it, despite it being about young girls...the only other magical girl series I've watched is sexy magical girl which is a crazy hentai...this was nothing as mental as that...i had heard this was very dark, and i didn't think so to begin with, but maybe i was thinking 'dark' in terms of horror, which this isn't really, it is 'dark' in terms of despair and hopelessness...its actually a very intelligent, well thought anime, that had me guessing up til the end and keen to watch every episode...Madoka meets a strange creature that looks similar to a small dog, with long ears that talks (it is anime, so that is not as weird as it sounds!) named Kyubey. He offers to grant any wish she wants in return for making a contract for her soul, to fight witches for the rest of her life...what will her one wish be? awesome animation, interesting characters and a gripping story, but probably too deep and possibly disturbing for younger viewers (theres a lot of trippy imagery in this!)...its pretty awesome...