File talk:Scan-1302358251771.jpg

Source: Otona_Anime_Vol.20. Specifically: the bottom of and .

draft translation of 5.jpg as it was known when I started it.

I don't pretend to be the world's best translator, editor or speller (translating in notepad like a boss).

It's not perfect, but it makes more sense to an english speaker than the original moonrunes:

Leading from the everyday to a barrier

A gradient of nightmares.

The world of "Mahou Shoujo ☆ Madoka Magika" is governed by absurd rules. To have their wish granted, girls contract with Kyuubey and become magical girls, and to repay that decision without incident, they must quickly cast aside their feelings.

As if to highlight that absurdity, the city Madoka and her friends live in is overflowing with cleanliness. A stream flows alongside their route to school, and there is a lot of greenery. -- It's like looking a new resedential area, nature is arranged unnaturally. The glass-style classrooms of the school have an open feel to them, which the collapsable seats and the like contribute to, giving it a futuristic functional beauty.

In the hospital where the boy Sayaka fell in love with, Kyousuke, is hospitalised, the bed is depicted with a warm colour pallete, so the tension that's characteristic of a hospital isn't there. Madoka's own house has very high ceilings, the nature of the design being tall and spacious while giving a full sense of security. In other words, Madoka and her friend's living environment is unnatural but merely just a safe place. Even so, the characters progress through dialogue, and the city shows an unexpected side.

In Kyouko's first appearance scene, (in episode 4) she's looking down on the city, sitting on something similar to a radio tower. The scene's direction shows Kyouko turning up from the outside world, but also shows the existance of the city's "outskirts". In addition, in the scene with Madoka and Homura's conversation coming home from school, the factory's complex silhouette can be seen.

This scenery of the outskirts, right after the such orderly things as the school and hospital, is ugly in comparison. It gives rise to an indescribable uneasy feeling. Even if it's the radio tower, or the factory, the girls are middle schoolers, and their life has nothing to do with it. However, with such things as battle and death going on around the girls, entering the grotesque outskirts becomes necessary.

Possibly, right after Kyouko's decision to rescue Sayaka, in the scene where she requests cooperation with Madoka (episode 9). The cityscape has cobbled streets like that of Europe's allyways. That scenery leads to more uneasiness, and listlessness. After Mami's fight, in the scene where Madoka and Sayaka confirm their decision (episode 3), the impression of the enourmous stone bridge and the street lights remain. In brief, the girls exchange a conversation concerning their fate, and beautiful, distant scenery makes its appearance, as if they are in a different country.

Then, there's the factory and such, in the outskirts, that's like "passing through a foreign country", and the image of them having to experience the "barrier" where the witch is. The "barrier" is a creation of Gekidan Inu Curry; concerning the hair raising horror, I don't need to say anything. Due to the extensive collage, a completely different feeling from before surges into the picture. Inside the barrier, the cell shaded girls seem too ephemeral and helpless. It's impossible to say where the barrier's location will be, as they appear anywhere in the city. That randomness, above everything else, is frightening.

No, there might be some order to the barriers, as they never clash with madoka and her friends' living space. The barriers appear at places far away from Madoka and her friends. However, before long it is revealed that a magical girl's Soul Gem that finishes being stained black gives birth to a Grief Seed. This absurdity risked the order of the everyday life the girls are living, and their hope falls to the very bottom. It may be an absurdity, but there's still reason in going through it. The nightmarish barriers that arise inside their pure daily life -- that structure is the genuine chaotic nature of "Mahou Shoujo ☆ Madoka Magika".