I READ THE MADOKA MAGICA MANGA FOR THE FIRST TIME!

 

 It's such a great feeling when you finally get around to reading a popular manga you've know about for a long time, and end up liking it! This is the omnibus edition (they combined all the manga volumes into one big one). 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica by Magical Quartet is about teenage girl Madoka, who gets pulled into a magical girl contract by a mysterious creature named Kyubey. The contract guarantees that one wish of theirs will be granted, but they have to fight these monsters called "witches" in order to maintain balance in the universe. Madoka wishes to protect everyone she loves. Madoka's best friend Sayaka gets pulled into to a contract, too, and she wishes to see her childhood friend Kyousuke get better after an accident. While this is all going on, a mysterious girl named Homura keeps showing up and tries to get the girls (mostly Madoka) to stop doing magical girl duties. 

Well, the girls find out very quickly part of the reason why that is. They learn that being a magical girl is not what it's cracked up to be. It's filled with a lot of destruction (of people and things) and trauma, and it ultimately all ends up being a game of survival. You also end up (literally) becoming a shell of your former self. And Madoka seem to be the only one who can put an end to all of this...

It's not a very long story (only 12 chapters long, which is the same length for the number of anime episodes), but I will spare you the details! All I can say is, wow! This was a story deconstructing the magical girl genre, and it delivered really well! It also has a dash of sapphic love in it (between Madoka and Homura). 

I gave it 4.5 stars, but that's only because it did take me a while to understand some of the magic system, and there a lot of triggering things that happen throughout the story (I mean, the third paragraph I wrote above should give you an idea of what to expect). But it was great! 

I also couldn't help but think this had a lot of common with Revolutionary Girl Utena (I saw the anime several years ago). It's a magical girl show from the 90s that also deconstructs a lot of tropes, but mostly from shojo anime in general, not just limited to magical girl ones. A lot of the story beats are similar, and the MCs Madoka and Homura reminded me a lot of Utena and Anthy, too. I wonder if Utena was one of the creators' inspirations for writing this story (Madoka Magica came out in the early 2010s). 

Here are extra pics of art from the manga: