Blu-Ray Volume 3 Booklet

A booklet is included with Puella Magi Madoka Magica Blu-Ray Disc Volume 3. The full contents are listed on the Products Page, and the BD is for sale on Amazon. The package also includes Drama CD 2 titled "Sunny Day Life".

Pages 3-4: Akiyuki Shinbo

Translation by symbv of evageeks forum.

During the session of sound editing for Ep.7, all staff were so deeply moved at the scene where Sayaka departed.

When the anime was being aired, I tried to focus on the production work as much as possible, in order not to get distracted by the reactions from the viewers. However, the one thing that I heard here and there was the reactions regarding Kyubei.

At the beginning, I intended to draw Kyubei to be like a cute mascot. However, somehow the anime staff got to know the development of the story before they made this work, at the end they drew Kyubei looking suspicious. The animation staff then tried very hard to correct it and managed to draw it as a cute character. Even so still quite a few “suspicious points” remained. And the viewers all were sensitive to notice those and fed back the reactions. Even the seiyuu's, during the after-recording sessions, gave rise to screams like “Kya!” whenever they saw Kyubei appeared. As a result, everyone started to enjoy the speech and actions taken by Kyubei.

And the seiyuu's – Aoi Yuuki-san, voicing Madoka, was really good. She is not just cute, but can do serious acting. Although right at the beginning I had already thought Saito Chiwa-san, voicing Homura, was good in voicing other characters, she was unmistakably the one to voice Homura. Sayaka, played by Kitamura Eri-san, was much pain and earnestness. During the dubbing (sound editing) session for Ep.7, all staff were so deeply moved that they choked up. Nonaka Ai-san played Kyoko and she was very good. While Kyoko was a character with radical speech and conduct, I think Nonaka-san's voice acting took the balance well. And I would like to prepare some more episodes where Mizuhashi Kaori-san's Mami plays active role. Really no matter how many times I tried it was hard to show all about the characters in one cour (12 episodes). If possible, preferably it may be better to have 5 episodes, in the first half of the series, as the number of episodes where Mami-san plays an active part. This was something that I noticed once the production had started.

For an original work, it took time for the staff and the cast to deepen the understanding of it. It was far from easy to secure the time for mistaken thinking, and once we pushed into the middle phase, the amount of animation work kept increasing with all the characters making their appearances. By the time the staff got to understand the work, we were already in the final phase. This is the difficult part for an original 1-cour work, but is also the interesting part.

Pages 5: Interview with Eri Kitamura

Translation by symbv of evageeks forum.

I fell in love with Sayaka who faced up [the situation] with dignity

What was your feeling when you were selected to voice Sayaka?

Sayaka was a character who somehow grabbed my attention since the audition. When I heard I was selected, I was so happy that I could not help thinking “Is it really fate?!”. I also thought in the sessions everyone in the cast performed acting with charm and thus I could feel relieved and learn and absorb things. Of course I also remember even the joy and tension that came with becoming one of those who was respected by all the staff. I guess it was a feeling called 'warrior's trembling'” [symbv: a Japanese proverb to mean trembling with excitement]

How was it like when you started to voice-act as Sayaka? She was more honest than everybody else, but was also weaker than everybody else. And she held onto her own belief more than anybody else. I thought she was like that kind of “shoujo” [young girl]. Facing the bewildering changes of situation, she did not think this is right or this is wrong but just faced it up with dignity, even though she got more downcast than any others. I fell in love with this character. She is too good for Kamijou-san! w [w = smile]

I tried expressing the changes of expressions and sentiments in straightforward manner, while behaving a bit out of the conventional. Although it was difficult to act her, it was rewarding and I enjoyed it.

Your thoughts of the work Madoka Magika

It went against the expected image of mahou shoujo in a good way, something like that. It even got me feeling like I was playing an epic game with multiple endings. It was really interesting to see how it darkly depicted the inner conflicts among each mahou shoujo as well as the messages that you wanted to convey even after your voice became hoarse and dry. It is an animation that was filled with all kinds of appeals: the story, of course, and then the animation direction, the music direction etc...A work that firmly presses all the right buttons in me and became my best favorite. This is what “Madoka Magika” is to me.

How was it like during the After-recording sessions?

The sessions were full of love towards the work from the whole cast. It was a wonderful environment where the cast, becoming the work's fans, threw conversations regarding the contents of the story in each episode past each other.

While everyone really loved this work a lot, during the test after-recording session, when Kyubei just had one word to say, or even when Kyubei just showed up, everybody at the session reacted by poking fun at it (w) and of course we all kept uttering the famous phrases. Even during the breaks, we only did “Madoka talks” like “this episode is going to be a grand Sayaka Magika, eh (w)”.

Anyway, let's put the actual anime aside first. Among the girls in the recording sessions, the popularity was higher for Sayaka than Hitomi. That was my only salvation. www [lol]

As I said, “I was really being stupid, but both miracle and magic exist.”