Earlier this month, the Madoka Magica movies hit the big screens in Japan. Recognizing the interest overseas, Aniplex and SHAFT worked hard to bring the first two parts of the trilogy to foreign theaters. The very first screening was held at Downtown Independent in Los Angeles, California at 1:00PM. Being personal fans of the TV series, this was an event we would not miss.
We arrived at the theater around 11:30AM and there was already a short line forming. Some people were cosplaying as characters from the anime while some others sported Madoka-themed T-shirts and bags. The little theater was decorated with Madoka Magica posters all around, so it was hard to miss. At around 12:15PM, the theater and Aniplex staff started to let people in. Funneling people in slowly, to give them a chance to purchase exclusive movie merchandise. Specifically for the Los Angeles viewers, Aniplex was kind enough to give us some exclusive free gifts, which included a standard Madoka Magica movie poster and a printed
sign board (pictures below). Inside the theater, they set up a small shop selling Madoka Magica related merchandise and goods. They had everything from wall scrolls, mugs, key-chains, theatrical guides, to phone accessories. Unfortunately, most of the premium movie exclusives sold out incredibly fast.
The size of the theater was relatively small compared to known establishments like AMC or Edwards, but this theater still seated around 140 people. Our showtime was set at 1:00PM and the movie started around 1:15PM. After the first movie ended, we were given a short 15 minute intercession to either purchase more goods from the store or take a break. When the second movie ended, we were given a small treat; they showed us the up and coming 3rd Madoka Magica Movie trailer. Right after that ended, the lights came on and they promptly kicked us out as they needed to clean up for the 6:00PM showing.
*As a warning, this part of the article may contain some spoilers to the story of Madoka Magica. If you have not yet seen the series or the movie, you may want to stop here.*
This theatrical engagement consisted of a double-feature for $25. Madoka Magica Movie 1: Beginnings and Madoka Magica Movie 2: Eternal were shown back to back.
The movie was basically a recap of the series with a large majority of the fluff cut out. They cleaned up a lot of the animation from the TV series and it seems they even made some improvements from the Blu-Rays, most noticeably the background art. I had recently re-watched Madoka Magica with a friend, so the series was still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, even with the minor visual and noticeable audio improvements, the movie felt lackluster. Certain scenes were direct copies from the TV series. It was as if they had copied and pasted the editing timeline from the TV series project file to the movie project file. However, all major plot points were covered and while they didn't leave anything out, they really didn't add anything new. The English subtitles were decent, but obviously catered towards a more generic audience and while I did catch a few grammar errors here and there, it was definitely watchable. The movie was enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting a little more in terms of newer or refreshed content. Other movie adaptations of anime series, such as Gurren Lagann or Macross Frontier are probably the best example of what I was kind of expecting.
The openings for each movie were really well animated. The new ClariS song 'Luminous' was a nice touch and really fit well. However, in the first movie, I noticed that they didn't include Mami's back story and her wish to become a magical girl. Leaving this bit of info out, really made Mami's death and character a whole lot weaker in the overall scheme. They also didn't include the part where Mami stresses to Madoka and Sayaka that the wish Kyubey grants has to be for 'yourself' and that a wish for others will end in despair. While it didn't take anything away from the movie, I felt it shouldn't have been left out. It was an important literary device to foreshadow Sayaka's demise.
"Madoka Magica: Eternal" had a section at the beginning that was devoted to Homura's flashback. This section of the movie turned out to be a complete copy from the TV series. From the way Homura beat up the oil barrel to Mami's emotional break down. They literally just copied and pasted the editing timeline from the TV series onto the movie timeline. They added some fancy transitions, changed one or two scenes, but for the most part they left it as is. I was rather disappointed when I caught this. However, there were some really well done scenes. The ending Kyoko fight with Witch version Sayaka was fantastic. They added plenty of new fight animation and the emotion of the scene was very well carried over. In addition, the transformation sequences for each girl were really well done and were given fresh animation as well.
Right after Homura's flashback, they had a snippet where they injected a re-animation of the TV series opening with ClariS song 'Connect'. It was extremely out of place and it ended abruptly for being placed mid-movie. From there, the movie pretty much ended as expected. Nothing new, and even the very last scene with Homura was exactly the same.
Overall, I was hoping at the very least that we would see something new, but a great deal of the movie was a copy from the TV series/Blu-Rays with fluff cut out and the main plot getting to the point quicker. Some new animation was added here and there, but really not enough in my opinion. Some scenes were exactly the same, the least they could have done was re-animate, but from a different angle. All in all, I enjoyed the movie, I don't have any regrets, but I desired a little more from the recap movies.