Japan Media Arts Festival 2011

Summary

Puella Magi Madoka Magica wins the 2011 Animation Division Grand Prize in the Japanese Media Arts Festival.

Reason for Award

The winner of the Grand Prize for a television series for the second year in a row. This year the work drew particular praise as an original work for anime, rather than being based on an existing manga or novel. The series continued to be an ambitious one, skilfully setting critical traps that shook the very foundations of the genre, leaving viewers unsure about the premises upon which this otherwise common theme of the “magical girl” is based. The seemingly adorable familiar Kyubey offers to grant a girl a wish if she will enter into a “contract” to become a magical girl and fight witches. Both the terror that lurks within “desire” and the emotional reaction to “miracles” that overcomes that fear...these are two sides of one coin, both born of the human heart. Putting the particular “media characteristics” of a television series--in which one must wait a full week to learn what happens next to their best use, the series maximized the tension within the viewers' minds even as they enjoyed the show’s beautiful images. The script is overflowing with the revolutionary energy that always strives to change things. With the hope that this series will become the necessary catalyst to change the world we live in, we award it the Grand Prize.

Gallery

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  Announcement in Japanese

External Links

• Madoka twitter announcement
• Festival awards pdf in English
• Festival awards pdf download (Japanese)
• ANN
• Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper
• Nico live video
• Ume Aoki twitter congratulations message
• Hanokage twitter congratulations message

See Also

• Other awards
• Translated magazines