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INTEREST: Madoka Magica Writer Urobuchi Compares Plot to Al-Qaeda

"Someone's justice is someone's evil"

spoiler[
Asahi: Madoka Magica is an original story. Where did the idea come from?

Urobuchi: I received a request to write a sanguinary story where mahou shoujo appear and then drop out one by one. I turned my attention to the aspects in conventional “mahou shoujo anime” that do not look right or are overlooked. I thought that when [someone] acquired superhuman power and thus became an existence that was removed from the world, contradictions and trade-offs would be generated.

Asahi: Mahou Shoujo who were full of hope working to save people became tormented with hatred and jealousy before long, and they turned into the witches, their enemies. The change from good to evil made a strong impression.]

Urobuchi: For example, Al-Qaeda brought down the Twin Towers in order to fulfill their own sense of justice. Justice for some people is evil for some. Good intentions, kindness, and hope will not necessarily make people happy.

spoiler[Asahi: At the climax of the anime, a bunch of witches merged and brought catastrophe onto the city. And even in real life society, could the negative emotions of human be the precise thing that could destroy this world?

Urobuchi: Perhaps we can say “a curse calls for another curse” – Hatreds form a chain. And I think that is the most terrifying. One can talk about positive words like happiness, victory, glory only after he dumped anything that stands in contrast to them to the trash bin. But even when stenches emerged from there and it got infested with maggots, he still pretended he did not see that and attempted to illuminate the whole world in bright lights. Countries such as America push this kind of negative management towards the third world while showing themselves as being prosperous.]

spoiler[Asahi: Facing the catastrophe, one of the characters in the cast kept starting over the time in an attempt to prevent it. Her action is so tragically heroic. This kind of “time loop genre” technique has become a prominent way of expression in the 2000s.

Urobuchi: I think that is a convenient way to express the feeling of entrapment. The “King of Terror” of 1999 did not end the world. During the 80s and 90s, there was the impatience and festival mood regarding a possible end of the world and people were able to share an apocalyptic image like nuclear war.

Asahi: But the world kept going.

Urobuchi: Although the end did not come, situation does not necessarily turn for the better. The mood is now one where the days in which some sort of troubles keep tormenting [people] seem to be going to last forever. ]

spoiler[Asahi: So there is no absolute justice nor absolute termination. In the anime, there is a scene in which one of the mahou shoujo, who was being philosophical, said “if we pray for hope, there will be a same amount of despair scattered around. The balance in the world is obtained by both canceling each other out.”

Urobuchi: If one chases after hope, despair will always follow. And one must take this as the precondition. Just like you must solidify the oil and throw it away when you make tempura, there is no way you can produce only nice things without producing any waste.]

Asahi: Nuclear power was supposedly established with the wish for life of abundance but now we have nuclear radiation being scattered around. It brings to mind the aphorism “Hope that is not in keeping with reason brings about distortion” from the dialogues.

Urobuchi: Now that it is power conservation, power conservation, but it would have been better if some thoughts had gone to [creating] a world that does not need to have dangerous things made. Do we want the shiny Christmas illumination after full consideration of the risk of radioactive contamination?

Asahi: But then people cannot live without hoping for something....

Urobuchi: Let me go back to the topic of Al-Qaeda. There is no doubt that they have the thought of wanting to righteously guide the world. spoiler[Madoka, the protagonist, made a certain decision at the end, and that was because she did not want to negate what the many mahou shoujo had wished for themselves.]

I mean, that's about the same as respecting the intentions of the Nazis to create a purer world, even though that translated into the genocide of millions of Jews and other non-Aryans. That line of thinking is off-kilter, yo.

I think that Mr. Urobuchi is stupid for saying something like that. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization that murdered three thousand Americans because we don't worship the same god they do. They and others like them believe that Americans must forced to practice the same religion that they do. I found his remarks stupid and foolish and that Mr. Urobuchi should be called on them.