Forum - View topicREVIEW: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Vol. 3 Blu-ray
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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No, they can't. Well, at least there is no evidence that they can do such a thing. You are assigning them abilities that have never been demonstrated. Every indication is that they are simply working with an ability inherent in (pubescent female) humans. They don't know how or why it works, just that it does. |
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Kazemon15
 Posts: 400 |
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Kyubey = Nagi Becoming a HiME (which uses a Child) to protect from orphans = Magical girl to protect from witches Orphans are actually Childs who have no HiME master = Witches are actually Magical girls who lost in despair HiMEs existence true purpose is to kill off other HiMEs = Magical girls true purpose is to become witches for new magical girls to kill Yeah....plot points stolen and altered. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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If they could create the original type of magical girl, there is nothing saying they couldn't create another type. Sure, we haven't seen anything indicating they would do it but if they have the power to do it once, you would have to think that logically they would have the power to do it again, but in a different way so that it doesn't run afoul of Madoka's wish. That different way could be an even more disturbing kind though. I don't think it is out of the question. |
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swienke
 Posts: 245 |
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Sigh. And here we go again. But wouldn't that be a real Deus Ex Machina? Within the framework that the show created, the only way to gain power was to make the contract with Kyubey. Madoka's potential power has increased with each iteration, but we've been shown absolutely no way for a human to actually access that power without an incubator's help. Violating that and allowing Madoka to somehow access her power on her own would've come out of nowhere. EDIT: Whoops, amagee beat me to it. Dang, this thread moves fast. Last edited by swienke on Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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Nagi wishes he could troll like Kyuubey does. Also Nagi is blatantly ripped off of a bunch of other Ishida Akira characters.
"Becoming a <blank> to protect from <blank>" I find your argument...lacking
Uh huh. Really stretching the point here.
Not even remotely close to the same thing.
Survey says...no. Not to mention that My~HiME (which I do happen to like quite a bit) is hilariously unoriginal itself. |
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amagee
 Posts: 333 Location: Orlando, FL |
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It'd be interesting to know whether or not Incubators are supposed to be able to extract a person's inherent power into a form that allows them to tangibly use magic or if they give them magic when the extract their souls. If this is mentioned somewhere, please let me know. I'd personally argue the first since Kyubey could have refused giving Madoka power when extracting her soul gem given that he knew her wish and then she demanded he grant it. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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This doesn't follow in the slightest. As I said, nothing at all indicates that they had any control over how the system ended up. They just worked with what they had. The only times an Incubator directly interacts with the system is when they facilitate the creation of a Magical Girl (which is explicitly stated to be tapping into the potential inherent in the girl. The Incubators do not provide anything but a conduit) and then when they recycle the saturated Grief Seeds (later Grief Cubes). You will need to demonstrate something, from the show or from supplementary material, that indicates they have any control over the system other than at those two points.
You have to establish it is at least plausible within the established rules of the universe, which you have not. You are performing SPECULAH of the sort that was common when the show still aired, but at this point you have to actually back it up. |
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Kazemon15
Posts: 400 |
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Madoka isn't all that original either. So you saying it is is also hilarious. And how is that stretching it? I find it funny that Mai Hime is actually the first Magical girl series to come up with that concept (and even all the way to the despair part, losing their most important person) and yet you call it unoriginal, yet Madoka's concept is very similar and everyone thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, when it's not. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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I don't think anyone here has made assertions about the originality of the concepts used in Madoka, though the exact expression and execution of them is, at the very least, not how they are usually seen.
Well for one, My~HiME is only a "Magical Girl" show by the loosest definition of the term. I would personally not classify it as one (though My~ZHiME comes much closer, and I provisionally include it as such, though the overlap is pretty slim even then), so claiming its the "first Magical Girl series to come up with the concept" carries very little weight with me. Madoka has nothing remotely similar to the "Most Important Person" concept that is core to how the HiME system works, and I would suggest that that is the key bit of originality in My~HiME, and removing it pretty much destroys most of the comparisons (which were weak to begin with). Not to mention that My~HiME was aspoiler[ battle royale, quite literally a battle to the death between the 12 HiME, to determine who would stand at the side of the Obsidion Lord when he remade the world how he saw fit.] There is absolutely no equivalent of this in Madoka. At all. So what concept, precisely, does Madoka use that My~HiME came up with first? (and didn't steal from spoiler[Highlander]?) Last edited by Fencedude5609 on Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animerican14
 Posts: 963 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
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Yeah, I've known for a while now how dub reviews work around here, at least from Zac's perspective. Even considering that, though, there's too much dissonance between the comments on the dub/ the minus of "weak dub" and a grade still stays an A+, this time around. I guess the performances are at least about on par as the dub of the past volumes, so that could be part of it. Perhaps even the dub script is better this time around; there's no mention of any "strange" script changes that Zac alluded to here as there have been in previous volumes (good news, Veers: I've only seen two scenes of this volume's dub, scenes from episode 9, but it looks like they're not afraid to specifically mention the balance of hope and despair after all!
 Am waiting to watch it with a sibling...). Still, to get an A+ "feel" out of the review text re: the dub, I think it would've been nice to hear 1-2 more pluses spoken of, or at least a qualifying statement that the dub is comparatively "weak" alongside the stellar original cast (but still "good" enough) instead of just plain ol' weak.
By this point, it seems that the letter scores for the dub have gotten kind of.... arbitrary? Maybe more forgiving in overall evaluation? For instance, compare the reviews of the single English dub that's found on both CPM's Revolutionary Girl Utena's DVDs & the Student Council Saga box Nozomi put out. In the CPM releases, we've gotten dub:sub grades that range from A-:A (v.3) to a B-:A (v. 6) to a D-:A+ (v. 10); the first two ratios being Zac's scores and the latter's being Paul Fargo's. With Nozomi's release of the Student Council saga, and the dub still got an A compared to the sub's A+. Seeing how recent that review is, perhaps giving the Madoka dub a step lower of a grade would have wrongfully put it on the same level of Utena's? Or how about the Gankutsuou reviews? Vol. 1 from Zac got a B+:A+ dub/sub score, and all the other reviewed volumes after that have reached no higher than an A-:A (From Theron Martin.) If one is looking at the grades alone, at least part of Utena's dub is better than Gankutsuou's!  I realize that scales of "objectivity" in subjective reviews are loosely defined at times, and will inevitably be party to contradictions over time... still, it's a tad frustrating.
Beyond that.... well, great review as expected. (Understand you on the Kyoko-Sayaka relationship, but can't say I agree, at least not now after long being very familiar with the show's characters and their motivations. I bet, then, that all the Sayka/Kyoko slashfiction and yuri pairings that's out there seems even more ridiculous and misplaced to you!) Hope to actually hear you verbally gush more about the series over ANNCast. Last edited by Animerican14 on Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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From what I recall, Kyuubey at one point in the show statedspoiler[ that his people came up with the system itself because it was the most efficient way to gather energy. So, if they found another way to gather energy which was even more efficient and also involved some kind of human sacrifice, they could (and given their complete lack of emotion or sympathy, would) do it immediately. Remember, when the girl makes the contract, Kyuubey then pulls her soul out of her body and puts it in the gem. He then grants the wish. He is not just a vessel through which the "magic" happens. He is the one in control of the whole process.] There is every indication that given the control his people have over the process, they could change it if they wanted to. Last edited by ChibiKangaroo on Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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amagee
Posts: 333 Location: Orlando, FL |
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Urobuchi and Iwakami mentioned that they did take ideas and such from other magical girl series. While you're more than welcome to your personal opinion, saying one thing is bad because it uses something done before is an asinine way to judge a series. If you held that sort of view, you would hate Casablanca because that kind of thing had been done prior. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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The wish is granted via the girl's own power. And in fact it seems that the Incubators must grant the wish, even it were contrary to their own best interests (as Madoka's was). And no, there is no indication that they have that much control over the process, other than you asserting as such because it makes your preferred ending plausible. (ignoring how Madoka would almost certainly not wish for that, given the better options available to her). |
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amagee
Posts: 333 Location: Orlando, FL |
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Then why did he let Madoka change the entire universe even though it would hurt his race's ability to counteract entropy in the universe? |
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dandelion_rose
 Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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I know. It's almost as if there's something new with every refresh. And just so that my comment is not a one liner: Since no one else mentioned it -- not even Zac -- one of the things I really like about Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the presence of technology in it. You can see it so much in the background; the whiteboards the students use, the buttons Sayaka presses to go into a lift, the windmills in the background when Sayaka and Madoka are talking to each other, the huge modern houses. I don't know how true to life the background of technology is, but I really like it; it's a fresh appearance from the small homes with sliding doors that we've gotten used to in anime. |
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