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NEWS: Madoka Magica & Fate/Zero's Urobuchi Plans Project for Kids

zeo1fan wrote:

Chiaki J. Konaka also wrote the scripts for Princess Tutu, another story subversive of the Magical Girl genre.

For what it's worth, he only wrote the scripts of four episodes. The main writer of the series was Michiko Yokote.

Tanteikingdomkey wrote:

Lets be fair the only time the D word came up in conan it was censored to high heaven especially the second time they animated the first episode.

If you're talking about the English dub... then you're missing the point.
The English dub was targeted towards an adult audience in the West because it was too violent for children's eyes. Thus, they added swear words and such in to make it more for adults, but censored them on television for the sake of television's rules in the West.
In Japan, the series is more like a shounen anime, targeted towards children and adults alike. There are no "swear words" (or Japanese equivalents that aren't appropriate for children) and, though much of the examples Titan gave WERE censored on television or cut from broadcast (those are the DVD release screencaps), the DVD's themselves were still marketed towards children, as were the gadgets and such.

Madoka, on the other hand, was targeted heavily toward a niche group of adults. It was not intended to be marketed towards mainstream children like Detective Conan is. However, once the property made a miraculous turnabout and hit the mainstream, and especially after the movies were released in theaters (at least, from my understanding and experience in Japan), Madoka became popular with both adults and children of all sorts. Evangelion, too, had a similar situation when it first came out. Madoka and Evangelionare both still targeted toward the adult otaku, first and foremost, but they do lower their reach for children and such on many occasions.

I can definitely see Urobuchi writing something "dark" for children. I think I have a harder time believing that he can write something lighter and far more appropriate for children, but at the same time--especially after Madoka--he's been testing the waters for a lot of things, so I also see just about anything possible for him.

'Magical Girl' and 'Tragedy' aren't mutually exclusive.

Gen Urobuchi wrote a story, having been inspired by people who try to justify bringing terrible destruction and tragedy by acting in the name of "Justice" and trying to "Do the right thing"

Are you kidding me? spoiler[ Madoka ultimately can't escape fate; she becomes a magical girl, becoming an entity consigned to do nothing but fight witches for all eternity, and then she's forced to destroy her own body and her existence is all but erased from the world, save for her brother and Homura. She fell, Sayaka falls, and Homura becomes a fallen hero (another trope of tragedy).]

I'm convinced you're just being willfully ignorant at this point; are you even aware of what constitutes a tragedy? Are you aware of the significance of Madoka tapping into such a difficult, elusive form of storytelling? Who are you?

Solely advertising Madoka as a 'Dark Magical Girl Show' is ultimately reductive of it. 'Dark' is not a measure of quality. Saying "it's just like another thing, but dark" significantly narrows its appeal.