Talk:Creative Intentions

Format for adding alternative interpretations, so that they're easy to tell apart from the proposed theory: (use for actual alternative theories; discussion of a theory and "no u" go in this discussion page)

Rebuttal
Text

Example:

Anthony

Me	"Anthony is obviously the best familiar."

Anthony is not only fluffy, but also has a moustache, so he is far better than other familiars. Since Anthony makes an unexpected appearance in Episode 12, getting petted by Madoka, we can conclude that the creators love Anthony more than any other magical creature.

Anthony is Madoka's Familiar
An alternative is that Anthony is simply Madoka's or Gretchen's familiar as well as Gertrud's. Since Anthony was the first magical creature Madoka encountered, she subconsciously considers him to be a general-purpose symbol for magic.

Note:

major ==sections== for big things that can stand alone, minor ===sections=== for expansion/elaboration of the existing material, and white box for contradiction of it, so you can tell at a glance which is which.

Call me slow...

...but I don't get the purpose of this page. Is it intended to track staff-created speculah? --BrickBreak 17:45, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Not staff-created, but based on information from or about the staff. If the translated official documents page had speculation/observation sections, a lot of it would go there. Of course, the point of translated official documents is to contain only official information, and it's already enormous, and this page also covers things that aren't official documents, like staff's unofficial art or prior works.

Unfinished

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Mahou Shoujo Formula

The term "deconstruction" (within the context of literary criticism) is ambiguous and poorly defined. The coiner of the term, Derrida, when asked "What is deconstruction?" replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question".

In this article, deconstruction will be taken to mean exposing the supposed contradictions and internal oppositions upon which a work or formula is built, demonstrating that it requires certain assumptions to be made in order to make sense, and questioning those assumptions. This can be done via either direct analysis or imitation by a similar work. Reconstruction will refer to resolving those contradictions by providing solid foundations to replace the assumptions.

building off healing writer section, review producer quotes, shinbo early plans and future season 2 slice of life plans, idea to create a mahou shoujo that's a mahou shoujo

timeline 1: a traditional MS show

"deconstruction", or "gen is on the loose"

ending as a reconstruction that justifies the MS genre without relying on the traditional handwaving and "it's a show for little girls, don't think about it too much" - source quote?

Open-Ended End

Ending scenes, Homura, Kyouko, Mami's fates, mahou shoujo valhalla and manga afterlife scenes in oriko and PMMM, room left for season 2 while concluding the story.

break afterlife into a separate article: cover physical vs magical universes, madoka's transition from physical to magical side, qb's belief about fate of souls upon death and implications about closed box nature of physical universe as seen from within, manga and anime afterlife scenes, interactions between two universes - ghosts returning and conversion of physical closed box to open box as a means of using magic and countering entropy without actually breaking thermodynamics

Shinjidai_no_Mixture_Magazine_BLACK_PAST

4Gamer: We want to know more about what will happen to “Madoka Magika”. To be blunt, will it be a 2nd season?

Urobuchi：　It would be great if we could have one.

4Gamer：　Wow.... we surely wait in expectation! Does it mean that there is in fact some hidden advance hint in the last scene where Homura went to face the maju's in the wilderness?

Urobuchi：　No, in fact I did not think of anything there. That was the result of various excessive overworks coming out from the staged animation (lol). In the screenplay, that scene was only put as “not in Japan”. As many have also observed, that is also a homage to “Blade”. The image was something like “The battle goes on... Homura, on to the world!”, and I was surprised that it generated all these researches. There is even a theory saying that “there is no doubt that she is the last surviving mahou shoujo!” and I think “Eh, what is that!?” (lol)

---

to do

-- Urobuchi – For me if I consider the “hidden history” in my life which had the impact of causing influence in my creation I remember when I was 24 I got sick and almost died. I contracted some epidemic and had fever. It got so dangerous that if the treatment had been delayed I could have died. What I could not forget is the feeling I had when I was in recuperation. Although I did not suffer grave wounds or anything like that, well, I felt that I was in a way erased from the society then. I could not get away from the feeling that I was just like a dead man. What I felt during that time is very much alive even now in my works.

Uno - So the fact that so often the protagonists got near death in your works is linked to that incident. And in every work you took care to build up a feeling that the body is slowly accumulating damages.

Urobuchi – By spending several months living like a dead man, I feel that I obtained something like the “eyesight of the dead”. It was unmistakably a precious experience when I could let my imagination to wander free regarding my death.

--

...to me it is nothing special at all that she could not come back to life, as this is also the future for the surviving mahou shoujo. Inside myself at the point of the final episode, whether she will be alive or she will be dead – the two are absolute equivalent. Whichever it will go, once the decision to become a mahou shoujo is made, those who were living at that point, like Homura or Kyouko or Mami or Sayaka, will all reach the same fate.

--

Urobuchi – That much is certainly true. For me, perhaps there is part in my thought that said whatever relationship that could exist between male and female it should also exist between couples of same sex. Inside me, I could not imagine a model in which there is something that absolutely could only exist between male and female. Notwithstanding the extra element of sex, I do not believe male-female relationship is such a special thing among all the different inter-human relationships. Therefore if I really feel like doing, I may even try a melodrama between male couples, something like BL.

Recommendation

I would strongly recommend reviewing more recent sources in writing up this document. Specifically, the Guidebook, the BD booklet interviews, the Production Note and Artbook and the NewType_2011-07, the pages of which were republished in Urobuchi's book, showing this is how he view the characters. --randomanon 05:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Other comments: I'd like to point out that Urobuchi is a VN writer by trade. As a matter of course, characters can commit different actions that still fit within their character. However, like with an anime adaptation of a VN (like Fate/Stay Night), once a selected path is chosen, like a character killing someone, that becomes canon for the anime and is maintained for continuity purposes. Then, you can see another form of media, like a manga for example, that chooses to go a different route in the VN and still be canonical in its own way because of the original VN source. This is not an unusual thing to see and basically what's happening here, except rather than a VN, it's Urobuchi's "VN" way of viewing the world where he sees a character can be capable of multiple actions.

However, also in a VN, some events and outcomes cannot be avoided as essential scenes. To Urobuchi, Sayaka's death is one of those. Unlike Shinbo, Urobuchi does not see death as a bad thing nor was it personal. Review Ultra_Jump_EGG_Urobuchi_Interview and you'll see the plot point of Sayaka's death was predetermined before her character creation and that to Urobuchi, death is not a bad thing. He mentions the same philosophy in Black Past. He truly does not see death as a bad thing for a character and in essence says in both that death can be a way to make a character shine brighter.

Finally, the big point that everyone makes about, "A character that killed other people cannot get a happy end" is made by Shinbo, who also happens to be the one who decided Sayaka did not kill the ones on the train. He's said that being taken by Madoka is a good thing Animedia_2011-06#Fate_of_Magical_Girls_in_the_New_World so essentially a "good end." Both Iwakami and Ume Aoki believed the ending was good as well at the end of episode 12 discussion in the Guidebook#Episode_Commentaries. So you may want to rethink why you interpret any of the characters as being "punished." --randomanon 22:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Or if you want my interpretation: It's a matter of course that magical girls are all good girls. They are usually depicted as individuals with personal quirks and flaws, who sometime makes mistakes, but are very good people. Even the "bad" ones routinely turn into protagonists and not because they go from evil to good, but because they were good all along deep down inside and they had been mislead/mindwashed/wrong place wrong time/had good reasons to want to help someone evil, etc. but in the end, they turn to their true "good" nature. It's so expected, it's practically a cliche (watch any popular mahou shoujo to see what I mean). Madoka Magica isn't any different in that regard.

There's a great deal of information in the Document pages. The difficulty lies in synthesizing and weighing the content, before coming up with any conclusions.

The VN author approach is a good point. That'll have be added in somewhere. On Sayaka's death, I'm thinking "punish" as in the hubris/nemesis of a greek tragedy protagonist. That section does need a lot of work, and I haven't decided whether to put it all in there or split that into two of those mini-articles. The question is, why did Sayaka in particular have to be the one predetermined to be dead in the ending? Even if it's "plot device to establish consequences that will end up becoming that character" the story seems to be going in that direction in order to take a shot at allies of justice who are too inflexible. I think Sayaka is provoking her nemesis by refusing to be more like Madoka, who gets along with everyone and keeps her head when under pressure.

The Iwakami/Ume comments in the Ep12 commentary seem to be about the story as a whole - another thing needing to be addressed is Urobuchi's idea about having a good ending for the world despite individuals having bad ends. I'm convinced that Sayaka explicitly ending her life is a "bad end" relative to the other girls living indefinitely as of the end of the show, even though they're all mortal and inevitably going to die someday. That "blissful" remark in Animedia throws a monkey wrench in, but Shinbo still wanted Sayaka to be alive at the end, so it's at least not the most desirable end for Sayaka even if it isn't a nightmare either. KM 01:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

No, if revisit the sources I listed, it makes it very clear whether it's the Black Past, the Guidebook, Urobuchi's interview etc. that all the girls are destined to the same end, "the ending that will, without exception, visit the girls who embraced hope and chose to take up the destiny of becoming a mahou shoujo." It was a necessary plot device to choose one girl to illustrate that point but it is not punishment unless you somehow think that destiny is a "punishment" to all girls. I also specifically explained how mahou shoujo works and it should be pretty clear it's a completely different animal than a Greek tragedy.

Regarding the comments in Guidebook, when they say "Bad End" and "Good End," it's pretty clear they're talking about the ending very specifically not the anime as a whole, it's a common VN/game reference. As for the Animedia article, it is not a "wrench" or as you're implying, some kind of Shinbo fantasy. It is an answer from Urobuchi himself, replying to the question, saying he talked to Shinbo, and this is what they came up with. Urobuchi would not have answered like this if he disagreed and had a different interpretation. It was a solo interview as well, so you can't even say Shinbo was unfairly influencing it either. That was all Urobuchi.

You seem very set on thinking that Sayaka came to a "bad end" but if this is indeed a page on creative intentions based on what is here on these document wiki pages or some other credible source, I'd say you need to give a reference. The documents as I pointed out, indicate quite a different picture.

Actually looking through the page...I wonder where you came up with these interpretations. There has never been a mention in any interview or source provided in the Documents pages that describe the girls the way you're doing. Look at the character descriptions in NewType_2011-07 which are also in Urobuchi's book. Read the quotes of how Madoka describes the girls in Madoka_Secret_Project#Translations. This is also consistent in other sources like the BD audio commentaries translated by tri4. They all portray the girls in a very different light, much more positively. Are you truly reading the sources objectively and writing based on what is in them? Again I am not seeing what you're seeing, so please quote the source if you have substance that would counter the ones I'm listing (there are others, but they basically say the same things, like Animedia_2011-06#Kyoko_in_the_New_World). --randomanon 01:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Gen Urobuchi	"The Law of Circular Path". That actually means "the ending that will, without exception, visit the girls who embraced hope and chose to take up the destiny of becoming a mahou shoujo.

Iwakami	It looks something like a Bad End, with an ending that had Homura hearing Madoka's voice just before she went to a certain death. (LOL) Personally I believe it is a Good End.

Iwakami is referring to the main story. In VN terms, that could apply to a VN where either Madoka or Homura is the main character, and it fits an anime about how Madoka brought hope, but that doesn't say anything about a VN on Sayaka's subplot where she's the main character instead. If I was playing one and my main character was shown dying in battle leaving her friends behind in tears, I wouldn't consider that a Good End.

Gen Urobuchi	...producer and Shinbo-san got attached to Sayaka and I got the request that “could something be done in the final episode to bring her back to life?”. ... I even wanted to ask back “Why all of you so obsessed with whether a character lived or died?” (lol)

Shinbo	When the filming was done, I started to feel "she is such a poor girl," and moreover when I listened to the performance during the after-recording session my heart gradually started to ache more and more, and I started to think "couldn't there be a little bit salvation for her?". At first I took a rational point of view, thinking so she is (written as) such a character, but gradually my emotion gushed out and took over.
Iwakami	Indeed I went together with Shinbo-san to have a talk with Urobuchi-san, and asked "in the last episode, can't we get Sayaka to come back to life?" (LOL)
Urobuchi	Guess I bullied Sayaka a bit too much (LOL)

PSP Promotional Event	Urobuchi read the script of the game. He felt that Sayaka might not be bullied bad enough. He got some protest from the seiyuu for that opinion.

Ume Aoki to Gen Urobuchi	That's right. [You were saying] "I am going to put Sayaka decisively into despair." (LOL)
Gen Urobuchi	The idea that I came up with anyways was to bully Sayaka (LOL). At that moment, the thinking for Sayaka falling into despair was that it was not due to Hitomi. For that, it was a part that got inserted at the stage when the screenplay was written.

Gen Urobuchi	After that, be it “Eisen Fluegel” or “Madoka”, I approached to write works in which the protagonist may face ruin and destruction but to the world it holds a good ending.

Eri Kitamura on Sayaka	Her (death) flag is set by herself. Her surrounds likely has such turn for 2 or 3 times.

Those show that Iwakami and Shinbo asked to bring Sayaka back to life and reacted to Sayaka's death as if it were a Bad End, but Urobuchi disagrees. Yet he was intentionally bullying and throwing her into despair, and he's willing to send characters into ruin. The blissful comment and similar ones throw a wrench into my interpretation, not the story, if Urobuchi thinks that's a Good End for Sayaka individually. So there's division among the staff, which is reason for covering two interpretations in the writeup.

Gen Urobuchi	...at the stage when I think about the plot of the story, I do not consider the name of the characters. Once I decided how they live and how they die, I will give the characters name. The method of getting the story rolling by "first build up the characters and start from there" is something I may give a try at some point, but it is not a method I am skillful at.

So the question is what the story reasons were. If the plot was created first and the characters were built to fit its needs, then logically the character should be designed with flaws that serve the plot, and he confirmed that the root cause wasn't external pressure from Hitomi. "unless you somehow think that destiny is a "punishment" to all girls." - Yes, that fate is the price they pay for contracting. They go beyond the limits of humans, and there's consequences for it. Being made into an example of that gives Sayaka a different role in the story than the others.

Audio Commentary Ep 7 6:55:39 Chiwa Saitou	The people who don't say that [people who don't ask for help] are the ones who are actually weak–This is true for Sayaka. I really think this, but when you get cocky about yourself, or think of yourself as strong, or place too much on yourself...That entraps you, and it's actually weak.

There's no reason you can't have elements of greek tragedy in a mahou shoujo show, and it doesn't conflict with Sayaka being good as in Lawful Good.

• Downfall of a noble hero or heroine: Check, she's presented as noble and has a downfall.
• Usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods: Fate check; will of the gods fits the old world if the "gods" are incubators, and new world Madoka accepts Sayaka's fate; and most importantly hubris: Sayaka's insistence on being a "different kind of magical girl", refusal to accept help from anyone or make up with Kyoko, and rejection of Homura's grief seed qualify.
• The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty: Check
• Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake (hamartia): Check. Refusing to accept and play by the rules of the system.
• In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition: Check, "I really am a fool", and what she explained in the theater scene at the end
• Catharsis: Check, with her death and the theater scene with Madoka.

Shinji Miyadai	The flip side of making a wish also means grudge and resentment remain. And originally this was the general principle behind Greek tragedies. All the events in “Madoka” also established the cause and effect along the extension line of the conducts of the characters.

Sayaka's subplot fits the definition of tragedy. In the new world, Sayaka ends up in "heaven", but there's no problem there; Faust also gets into heaven in his tragic play.

As for Kyoko,

Gen Urobuchi	Kyoko, while a character created by Aoki-san, is a heel [symbv: pro-wresting jargon for a villain character].
Ume Aoki	She brought out the feeling that even when she acted like a bad person, somehow you just could not bring yourself to hate her that much.

Audio Commentary Ep 7 12:35:10 Aoi Yuuki on Kyoko	Even though she aims for an over-all justice that she believes in, she has to fight to overcome aspects of her own unjust self...

Gen Urobuchi On Kyoko	When she first appeared, she was supposed to be a heel [e.g. villain] character, but before you know it she became the only conscience. (LOL)

Explicitly calling her a villain is fairly negative.

Animedia	In despair Kyoko voluntarily sealed away her original stance of wanting to help people. She was strong after arming herself with an armor of hopelessness and resignation, but the moment she empathized with Sayaka it crumbled down and she became weak. Kyoko of the renewed world doesn’t have to act tough again. She lives a life with pride, without deprecating herself or giving up from the start.

Confirms that she gave up her early morality, and that she became vulnerable due to recovering it. Her main internal conflict is selfish individualism vs. helping and depending on others:

NewType	At any time when she only thought about herself, even if it meant to use others as stepping stones, she was living strong and brave.
NewType	However, at the very beginning the reason she became a mahou shoujo was for her irreplaceable family. ... All these was just to save the world.
NewType	She might be able to live happily if she could live without getting involved with anybody.

Gen Urobuchi	Justice for some people is evil for some. Good intentions, kindness, and hope will not necessarily make people happy.

And the story gives mixed messages about how to balance them, until Madoka changes the rules and solves the problem for her (a world-level resolution, not an individual resolution originating from Kyoko). The main problem with the current writeup is that part is too much of a plot summary.

Gen Urobuchi

In fact, nobody in “Madoka” is linked to anybody. Just when Mami thought she was about to be freed from loneliness, she died; Before Sayaka noticed Kyoko's feelings, she turned into a witch. In that sense, a very important theme in “Madoka” may be that everything missed each other along the cross-paths. ... There are the “misses” as the primary premise, and inside myself there is the thought that on the contrary how one gets to know the other side and by what means she understands them are more important.

Gen Urobuchi on Kyoko

She appears as a character that covers values of battle after the premise of the series has been established. How her sense of values differs from other characters, as a character that changes the viewpoint [of the premise], that there's someone with this way of thinking. After Mami's death, the viewpoint is changed to Kyouko; the way each Mahou Shoujo treats her is how each character's nature becomes clear.

Gen Urobuchi	My gut feeling told me this time I should also write the “mahou shoujo anime” as an anime about “friendship between girls”.