Audio Commentary/Episode 3

I'm Not Afraid Of Anything Anymore もう何も怖くない
Commentary	Aoi Yuuki Chiwa Saitou Kaori Mizuhashi

The 3rd episode commentary features Kaori Mizuhashi, who plays Mami. She's also known for Navi in Ocarina of Time and Miyako in Hidamari Sketch.

The first topic was about how Mizuhashi doesn't have a TV connection. As a result, she didn't get to watch the show as it aired, until they sent her the 'white package' DVD of each(?) aired episode.

They then talked about the auditions, standard fare for a seiyuu guest. Right off the bat, they accidentally let spill that Mami died, but they tried to cover it all up. Apparently, Mizuhashi knew that would happen once she got the role. This time around, they said that the audition was unusual for an anime, since they let the actors actually decide who they wanted to play.

Mizuhashi then noted that 'Mami' as a character name is fairly interesting, because one of the earliest magical girl series was Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel. I know nothing about it, but apparently the character is memorable. There's also Esper Mami, apparently, so 'Mami' as name for a magical girl has a lot of precedence. In any case, she thought it would be interesting to try an onee-san type character. She also auditioned for Kyousuke, and Kyubey. It seems like Saitou Chiwa and Yuuki Aoi also tried out for Kyubey, but they remarked that that role was extremely intellectual and they're not smart enough to play a character like that.

The first recordings they made were introduction lines for commercials. They noted that your impression of a line really changes between hearing it out of context in a commercial and hearing it in context in the story. The same is also true of the episode titles, like this one's "I'm not afraid of anything anymore". However, it is said with different intonation between the episode preview and the actual use in the story.

They next talked about Mami getting 'mamirareta' (Mami + to be eaten (食べられた, taberareta)) getting popular on 2ch.

Then they asked Mizuhashi her favorite part of the show. She said that as an actress, there are a ton of lines in Madoka that made her feel "I wish I could do that line". Also, there were Aoki Ume-sensei's character designs, and the Urobuchi script... That and the fact that it was an original work so you really don't know what's going to happen. Even the actors wanted to know what would happen.

A little background information: the day after the 10th episode aired was the Touhoku earthquake in Japan, and the final two episodes were delayed more than a month. By the time of this commentary, they apparently had recorded up to the end of episode 11, but they still didn't know about what would happen in episode 12.

They noted that they really like how everyone in the story has their reasons. There are no really bad people in the entire show. Saitou also said that just before she had been in an interview and one topic was really interesting: both males and females are able to relate to the characters in the series, despite all of them being girls. The seiyuu there were all girls, so they all understood: Madoka is a nice girl, but she runs away, and that's understandable. Mami fights while persevering, but she also understands her own weakness. But through a man's eyes, these girls who are fighting and persevering despite all of the pressure, really leave an impression.

For example, Mami's parents died in the car accident and now she has no friends anymore. Now, she has potential magical girls to fight along with, to fend off the loneliness, and you can really relate to how she's trying not to scare Madoka away with continuing telling her to just wait a bit before contracting. The combination of strength and weakness in her character is really amazing.