Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika - first impressions

I've had a really busy time at work lately and as a result have been too tired to do too much of anything at all.  It's taken several days since the first ep aired in Japan but I finally did go locate a Chinese subtitled version and just finished watching it.

Looks like I might enjoy this anime since I do enjoy magical schoolgirl animes like Card Captor Sakura and darker stuff like Mai-Hime etc.

I really want to try and keep this short because I need to go sleep in about 10 mins and I know that I can be quite verbose when I write.

So although this will sound disjointed, it's going to have to do because my brain isn't quite working and I'm too tired to try and write better. =)  So... here are my first impressions of the series and Kajiura Yuki's music.

I'm not really in love with the character designs in this series but as long as the story works, I'm not too bothered about character designs.  Maybe that's why Character Design was not my best subject in school. =)

What I do like about the visuals in this anime is the "magical" world the girls find themselves in in the last third of the episode.  In the beginning, the visuals seem perhaps more akin to a light water colour look.  Interestingly, the locations, Madoka's home and her school seem quite plain, almost minimalistic and some of the designs depict a lot of space.

The reason for all that becomes immediately clear when Madoka and her friend Sayaka enter the magical world.  Suddenly, the visual design becomes more claustrophobic.  It's not just that the world has suddenly become more cluttered, it also seems to have become quite flat.  The creators of this anime chose to use cutout style animation to give a feeling of a lack of depth and suddenly our "3d" world has become more "2d".  Yet, they weren't content to just leave it there.  Stylistically, none of the girls in this new world have become cutout like, they retain the way they look in the "real" world.  So what they tried to do was to combine the cutout out look with perspective.  Which is kind of strange but interesting and I kind of like it.  I'm not sure if I'm describing it properly but what is certain is that I rather like it.

The other thing that seems certain to me is that this anime is likely to be "not for young children".  The opening sequence with Kalafina's powerful and dramatic song pretty much underlines the menacing undertones in the latter half of the first episode.  This is underlined quite well by Kajiura with the chimes and heavy base in the sequence when Akemi Homura and Madoka walk down the corridor towards the sick room.  It doesn't sound anything like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells but if you know Tubular Bells, then you know what I mean by the chills something as innocent and clear sounding as chimes can give you.

The other two pieces of music that I rather liked are used later in the episode.  One was used right after the sequence mentioned in the previous paragraph.  This piece is classic Kajiura.  It's Celtic inspired which isn't new to Kajiura but it's not similar in tune to her previous compositions and since I like this kind of music. I like this piece quite a bit.

And the last piece of music that I really liked is the creepy, probably Middle Eastern inspired piece that was used as bgm when Madoka and Sayaka are in the magical world.  The visuals here are also quite striking and combined with the music, this scene would certainly be very scary for younger children.

That's it... I have exceeded my ten minutes by half an hour. :)  I will stop now and go to bed.  My week at work isn't going to slow down at all and I'm a little sick too, so I really need to rest more.  I'll just end with this.  I think so far, this anime is my cup of tea.  It seems interesting and is a darker magical schoolgirl anime which makes it closer to a Mai-Hime series which means that I will very likely enjoy the series even if I don't love it.  And I like Kajiura's music and I like what she's so far done in this anime.  So far, it's all positive for me. =)

Oyasumi. =)