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I'm done commenting on that issue, but an interesting fact about the dub is that three of the VAs also did the voices for characters from Skullgirls. Specifically, Peacock also plays Sayaka, Cerebella plays Homura (and also Nanoha!), and Filia plays Madoka. The Madoka dub isn't bad, but it doesn't reach the highs of the Japanese dub and makes Homura sound slightly bitchier in parts. The JP voices actually cried for real during several takes. In what may be considered hilarious or sad in hindsight, watch the director's commentary for episode 9 in which all the actors present (even Kyubey) straight out bawl out when witnessing the climax between Kyouko and Sayaka. Madoka's VA also goes into fangirl berserk mode whenever Kyouko is present. It's pretty funny.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 03:40 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 18:51 |
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Space Bat posted:words
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| # ? May 4, 2012 03:44 |
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Primoman posted:And I consider Goddoka more like an Angel than a Grim Reaper, since she's essentially "saving" the Magical Girls from succumbing to a fate worse than death.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 04:19 |
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Psychopomp is a good word, more people need to use it.Gackt posted:A warped understanding of human interaction. Or missing context clues. I'm not gonna sit here and say Kyoko and Sayaka are true lovers because ~*farts*~, but the characters' arcs make them very close. The fact that a silhouette of Kyoko embraces Sayaka before Kyoko blows herself up in a sequence straight out of Utena (a series that is the most sapphic thing since Sappho went to Lesbos) is about as obvious as you can get that Kyoko at least wanted to give Sayaka a friend in death. Plus the dead body thing. They ain't fuckin', but you could see that Kyoko, at least, really wanted to make up over the bad first impression. And there's a whole undercurrent of Sayaka being idealistic for selfish reasons (she heals Kyosuke's hand so he'll love her) versus being pragmatic/nihilistic but selfless (Kyoko is both a thug and the only girl willing to work with anyone just because). She also realizes what the consequences of a selfish selfless wish is, since she lost her loving family to one. She even comes in to save Sayaka versus Elsa Maria, but Sayaka activated ZA BEASTO and signaled the beginning of the end. Kyoko is basically the real world Sayaka shuts out in symbolic terms. There's also the whole thing where Kyoko told Sayaka her life's story, gave a girl who she just fought relationship advice (delivered bluntly but truthfully), and was there to try to stop Sayaka from becoming a Witch. Then saved her body and tried to save her soul after Sayaka became a Witch. She loving dies for a girl who basically hated her guts when they first met. She is the Homura to Sayaka's Madoka. It wasn't subtle; their stories were linked from the word go. Sayaka enters as a Magical Girl, Kyoko enters as a Magical Girl. Sayaka exits the stage, Kyoko exits the stage. I know anime fans take poo poo too far but this isn't done out of whole cloth. Again, they aren't loving, but they are canonically paired. As in, they are paired in a character arc, like Homura is to Madoka and Mami is to Madoka and Sayaka. You want something to bitch about, bitch about Homura becoming a sex offender.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 05:01 |
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Primoman posted:The only downside I could see is that an incorruptible Soul Gem might produce less energy. I'd be worried it might result in losing all ability to genuinely feel emotion (you can't turn into a witch if you can't despair!). Perhaps a frivolous worry as the granting of wishes never seems to be through some horribly unfair/unexpected means like with a monkey paw. But even without anything sinister, you could end up with a universe just full of nothing but magical girls since they never die. Ultimately it would just seem to be too big a wish for thermodynamics to allow. MadRhetoric posted:Psychopomp is a good word, more people need to use it. Where have I heard that word recently... oh ya! http://labtanner.com/gamedev/index....vVI:Psychopomps cgeq fucked around with this message at May 4, 2012 around 05:25 |
| # ? May 4, 2012 05:09 |
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MadRhetoric posted:Again, they aren't loving, but they are canonically paired. As in, they are paired in a character arc, like Homura is to Madoka and Mami is to Madoka and Sayaka. You want something to bitch about, bitch about Homura becoming a sex offender.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 05:34 |
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Part of me really wants to see what would come of the Incubators Who have emotions poping up.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 05:49 |
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Factor_VIII posted:Agreed. Even Ume Aoki likes to ship Sayaka and Kyoko: page 1, page 2, page 3. (And of course she also likes to portray Homura being obsesed with Madoka.) Yeah, more than that I think. Most of the staff ship the Homura/Madoka and Sayaka/Kyoko pairings, which simply means whatever you might think, materials are going to lean that way. Besides, going so far as to commit double suicide is quite romantic as such things go. After that scene it was going to happen in the fandom, whatever it meant. Not to mention Kyouko's witch form
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| # ? May 4, 2012 06:28 |
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Just because the staff like to ship doesn't mean it's "canon". I seem to recall the manga author of G Gundam being a hardcore Domon/Allenbee shipper even though the official romance is Domon/Rayne. Just because they collaborated on something doesn't mean they all share the same interpretation. Anyway, I've been curious on how the characters rank in popularity, be it Japan or overseas.  I've noticed that Sayaka gets a lot of fan-art, with several new pieces added daily (shockingly, very little of it is porn). According to the booru sites, she has more images than Mami and Kyouko, and is only slightly behind Homura and Madoka (Madoka having the highest number than anyone). Not sure if one's popularity can be measured by images, or if it's simply that the character makes for some inspirational pieces. The most info I could get is that Homura typically wins out in Japanese polls, with Mami or Madoka as her biggest competition. On that note, I also see a lot of artwork that has Sayaka depicted as an Oktavia/Mermaid hybrid.  Most of these depictions revolve around the same design, so I'm wondering if this was based off a concept art, or if it was just a fad that someone started and soon spiraled into the de-facto centerpiece for most Sayaka fan-art (as well as this wonderful video). It would make a heck of a figurine, so I would like to see official merchandise based on this look. Primoman fucked around with this message at May 4, 2012 around 22:56 |
| # ? May 4, 2012 22:53 |
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quote:Just because the staff like to ship doesn't mean it's "canon".
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| # ? May 4, 2012 23:21 |
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The real danger an everlasting Soul Gem would have is you'd have a small army of immortal women with inexhaustible magical power practically impervious to attack outside of taking out their Soul Gems. Imagine batshit insane berserker Sayaka, but dozens of them that never need to stop. I for one welcome our new Magical Girl overlords. And Primo: Sayaktavia is Sayaka but a mermaid with a spiffy hat and cowl. It's a simple design to make that shows Sayaka as Sayaka but gives her Oktavia von Seckendorf's silhouette/accessories. Sometimes there's nothing deeper, gently caress. And I thought you were going to stay out of the Sayaka and Kyouko thing? Because you really do care too much about a trivial matter and this is coming from Mr. Spergy Effortpost.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 01:24 |
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MadRhetoric posted:
Well I wasn't implying there was anything deeper about it, just that most artists seem to follow the same blueprint on the concept, making me wonder if there was an original source that started the trend. And I already said I'm done discussing S/K or anything related at length. A one sentence reply hardly counts as discussion. Quit being such a goddamn thread nazi already, geez. I do wonder if a Magical Girl is able to live forever as long as her Soul Gem is properly taken care of. The whole "do they age?" debate has already been discussed, and without further evidence there's no way to tell for certain. Primoman fucked around with this message at May 5, 2012 around 01:51 |
| # ? May 5, 2012 01:48 |
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Yonic Symbolism posted:I kind of disliked Mami upon second viewing, because right off the bat she's threatening Homura and keeping her from warning Madoka about the truth. She also is desperate to have Madoka as a friend and look as cool as possible. I had the opposite impression with Mami. First episode, she seemed dangerous, what with threatening to kill Homura ( and I'd been spoilt that Kyubeey was going to become an antagonistic force). I couldn't help mentally siding with Homura, her experiences made me think she was correct. She grew on me, she did save that salarywoman's life, and she could be friendly and helpful to many others. You get the impression that she cares alot about what others think of her, she wants to be cool, she doesn't want to let people down, all she has left is to become a big drat hero. Conversely, if Mami can't deal with people on her own terms, as what happened with Homura, she'll just write them off and ignore them. So she's flawed and slightly arrogant, but I can't hate her. Sayaka doesn't get enough credit, her arc was very tragic and human. She was torn between two forces. She wanted to do the right thing to other people, saving them from otherworldly monstrosities. At the same time, she tried to Nice Girl the hell out of Kyousoke, because she loved him and wanted them to be happy together. But she was could not bear to impose that kind of selfishness upon Kyousoke, and definitely not Hitomi. Because she wanted to be a hero and not someone who acts solely for herself. And when she couldn't do it anymore and murdered that man for abusing his girlfriend, that was the end of her ideals. It's a credit to the writers, that the characters are multi-faceted and act differently to what say and feel about themselves.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 02:00 |
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My sister finally watched the first episode, and the first thing she commented on was "that blonde girl is definitely a villain, right? Her attitude is very shifty." I was also convinced of this during Episode 3 during her little cryfession with Madoka. It was so cheesy and over the top I figured she had to have been faking. Turns out she wasn't, but this is something that could be revised/rewritten a bit for the movie. They were probably intending Homura to look like the bad guy and Mami as the saint, but it honestly felt like the other way around. I still insist the Grief Seed in the hospital was planted, though. That thing was deliberately nailed on the side of the wall, ready to be spotted.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 02:07 |
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Also, I'd be happy if there were no more spin-offs to the series. The story is over, the fundemental horror is gone, there's no point escalating the stakes. I think adding more to the story will dilute the strength of the original series. And I didn't like the Oriko spin-off. Maybe I don't read enough manga, but the art and designs made the action difficult to follow. Details draw the attention of the eye, and the detail drew the eye to irrelevant portions of the page. This hurt the pacing, as I had to constantly look back and forth to work out what the hell I was looking at. Plus, I don't like Yurika's design, she looks way too similar to Sayaka, except she had a tie instead of a bow. And the story made no sense. Oriko wanted to kill Madoka before she Kremhilded the planet. So why the hell was she sending out her minion to murder other magical girls? She knew Madoka's name, she knew where she lived, so why draw attention by murdering other people and acting openly? And if she was worried about Walpurgisnacht, then don't kill the people who were your potential allies.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 02:12 |
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Oriko was a big letdown for me too, I didn't feel like it added anything interesting to the story and as you said the art was sometimes hard to follow. For Madoka I feel pretty much the same way I feel about Haibane Renmei; I loved it, it's become one of my all time favorites. But, it is complete as it is, reading or watching spinoffs and sequels and alternate versions just doesn't have any interest for me.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 02:26 |
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MadRhetoric posted:The real danger an everlasting Soul Gem would have is you'd have a small army of immortal women with inexhaustible magical power practically impervious to attack outside of taking out their Soul Gems. Imagine batshit insane berserker Sayaka, but dozens of them that never need to stop. Phobophilia posted:And the story made no sense. Oriko wanted to kill Madoka before she Kremhilded the planet. So why the hell was she sending out her minion to murder other magical girls? She knew Madoka's name, she knew where she lived, so why draw attention by murdering other people and acting openly? And if she was worried about Walpurgisnacht, then don't kill the people who were your potential allies.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 02:57 |
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Primoman posted:I do wonder if a Magical Girl is able to live forever as long as her Soul Gem is properly taken care of. The whole "do they age?" debate has already been discussed, and without further evidence there's no way to tell for certain. Given what we know of their capabilities(Homura used her magic to permanently cure her heart condition and eyesight), they can very likely stop aging entirely if they knew to. Just that it didn't matter much because the lifespan of a magical girl in regular active combat(they need grief seeds) makes it unlikely they'd even make it out of their teens from sheer combat hazards alone. I suppose if you got an extremely experienced magical girl she could steamroll fights with minimal magical effort to stockpile grief seeds and thus live a long while. As for Oriko, I figure she was killing those with strong probabilities of becoming particularly dangerous Witches?
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| # ? May 5, 2012 06:00 |
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They don't really 'age' in the normal sense anyway, they are Liches. Their bodies are basically just moving because their Soul Gem fuels it movement. But who knows. I was under the impression that Kyouko had been a Magical Girl for a very, very long time, judging by the condition of her father's temple and the fact that her father was the kind who would murder himself and the rest of his family over the discovery of a witch in the family. That says to me that she must almost certainly come from a different century from the rest of Madoka's cast. Or her father was just very, very pious.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 09:02 |
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Mordaedil posted:They don't really 'age' in the normal sense anyway, they are Liches. Their bodies are basically just moving because their Soul Gem fuels it movement. PS: Apparently this drama CD indicates she became a magical girl around 2 years before the anime takes place.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 11:44 |
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Kyouko was no older than at the least, Mami, she sorta apprenticed under Mami until her father killed everyone, while Mami herself contracted during a car accident. Seems like Kyouko's father was one of the various charismatic leader cults that spring up in Japan from time to time.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 11:44 |
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Primoman posted:I do wonder if a Magical Girl is able to live forever as long as her Soul Gem is properly taken care of. The whole "do they age?" debate has already been discussed, and without further evidence there's no way to tell for certain. On a similar note, I always wondered what would happen if a magical girl contracted, but then didn't use her magic at all. Is there some kind of consequence for not fulfilling the contract, or would the guilt of doing nothing be enough to trigger a witch?
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| # ? May 5, 2012 12:28 |
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Seems to me that being a prettylich, some power must be expended to keep their body operational at all, and do all the healing and bodily functions stuff that a living body would normally do by itself. Probably insignificant compared to using any magic at all though. I read somewhere that if their body was destroyed, as long as they have enough power left, they can regenerate a new body with the soulgem alone, but odds of turning Witch at that point is rather high.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 12:36 |
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The soul animates the body in Japanese folk belief, so a magical girl turning off when their soul goes out of range doesn't necessarily preclude their bodily functions not working without magic. Remember, Sayaka calls herself a zombie and QB thinks she's dumb instead of corroborating the prettylich thing. Also, Mami grew a little taller and grew ludicrous tits in the interim between contracting and the series. Also, if the Soul Gem controlled all bodily functions, Sayaka wouldn'tve woken up without some brain damage (her Soul Gem might've been able to quick-heal). Catastrophic organ failure caused by complete brain death would've taken some time, even with Sayaka being musical Wolverine. She probably went comatose, without the proper care to keep her stable (Kyoko's magic), she wouldn't wake up. All that being said, a girl could probably live a normal life as a Meguca until entropy catches up to them and they Witch out. It'd probably take their entire natural life, especially if they never transformed or used combat magic. Veekie: that sounds like something from Kazumi Magica, which has gone head-first into crazytown.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 14:02 |
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Might be possible that they can live out an ordinary life if they don't use any part of their contract at all I suppose, but theres the following costs I don't see going away: -Initial outlay for wish, you'd need to pay that off at least, particularly when it seems that a dimmed soulgem makes you more likely to be depressed and dim it further. Might get around this by making a trivial wish. -Transformation costs. Forming whats basically magical armor out of nothing likely takes some out of you, and given their superhuman physical abilities, buffs there as well. Presumably that means only transform when you actually need the protection. -Magic costs. If you spawn guns like Mami does you'd run low easily, and its mentioned that all kinds of magic usage tends to burn power. If instead you use mundane weaponry you probably would last longer. -Healing. You can't help this, it seems like a passive benefit that you can operate regardless of physical damage and just heal faster. Don't get hurt I guess? It was mentioned that the girls don't get overweight or anything because of magic as well. -Emotional upheaval. Emotional state affects soulgem. Avoid depression? So if you completely avoided combat beyond paying off your initial wish, you're just dealing with healing and emotional state then. Those might wear you down, but I suspect daily boo-boos won't really take much out of your soulgem compared to repairing stuff like being slammed into a wall by a witch. Doesn't look that impossible, but it seems wise to maintain a small stock of Grief Seeds to cover minor outlays.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:05 |
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Should I be asking if Magical Girls can get pregnant, and if so whether or not their children will spawn as liches? I shouldn't, but all this talk has got me curious anyway. If they wanted to make it officially plausible and also morbid, perhaps the birthing process would require so much energy that their Soul Gems would burn out after giving birth. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:22 |
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One thing I realized recently while looking at the PSP storylines: weren't Mami and Sayaka's wishes pretty much pointless? While she didn't know it at the time, if Mami had wished for anything else she would presumably have still survived her injuries thanks to immediately undergoing the lich transformation. In Sayaka's case, at the beginning of the series, after Mami saves Madoka and Sayaka, she heals the wounds that Homura gave QB. If Magical Girls can use healing magic, could it not have been possible for Sayaka to just use her magic to heal Kyousuke's hands, or at least get Mami or Homura to do it?
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:35 |
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Kyosuke's hands aren't 'injured', they're permanently hosed up to the point that he can't play violin anymore. I don't think healing magic could fix that, the same way she probably couldn't cure blindness.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:37 |
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Somehow I doubt birth would be as traumatic as getting stabbed through the gut. The real danger there is the emotional instability. As for healing. Kyosuke's case implies nerve damage actually, which shouldn't be a problem to heal(given that again, you can likely heal even a severed limb). And it'd be completely in theme for their wishes to be meaningless because of what they didn't know. However, Sayaka specifically got healing magic, just as Mami got binding magic, Kyouko got illusion magic and Homura got time magic. It might be beyond the ability of a magical girl whose power didn't derive from a healing wish.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:44 |
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Primoman posted:Should I be asking if Magical Girls can get pregnant, and if so whether or not their children will spawn as liches? Cleopatra was a magical girl who shagged and got knocked up by not one but two Roman emperors. Who knows whether those babies were liches! Now I'm wondering if Caesar and Kyubey ever met and had a chat.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:45 |
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Primoman posted:Should I be asking if Magical Girls can get pregnant, and if so whether or not their children will spawn as liches? Lots of magical things start breaking down once you add pregnancy to the mix. The classic is probably "what happens if Girl Ranma gets pregnant?" and I'm sure hundreds of fanfics have been written on that subject... and similar for two series in this season: Can zombie be pregnant? Can a ghost? The best answer I can come up with is that this is the reason Anime Boys tend to be allergic to girls, otherwise the writers would have to deal with that kind of issues.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:45 |
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Well in this case there seems to be nothing against it, unless you have to deal with falling to despair or turning witch while pregnant.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 19:58 |
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nielsm posted:Lots of magical things start breaking down once you add pregnancy to the mix. The classic is probably "what happens if Girl Ranma gets pregnant?" and I'm sure hundreds of fanfics have been written on that subject... and similar for two series in this season: Can zombie be pregnant? Can a ghost? The best answer I can come up with is that this is the reason Anime Boys tend to be allergic to girls, otherwise the writers would have to deal with that kind of issues.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 20:15 |
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This thread is going places. I think a lot of the weirdness in trying to figure out Meguca physiology comes from the assumption that they actually are undead. We see Mami (and in the PSP game/Farewell Story, Kyoko) grow like normal. We also have examples of famous Meguca throughout history that wouldn't make sense as undead (like Cleopatra and Himiko). Assume that Meguca are physiologically the same as normal girls, only they can misplace their brains and use magic to heal and enhance their bodies (like Homura does).
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| # ? May 5, 2012 20:20 |
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I wonder though, how much enhancement can they take from the body's norm? Or is it just how far they can go without risking their sense of identity. Basically a Witch is just a magical girl with no restraints on remodeling their body after all.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 20:36 |
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Considering Mami (and presumably, most other girls) never found out about her altered state, the changes to ones body can't be very grave. There's no indication that Kyubey removing the soul affects their biological functions at all, and the show's highly wishy-washy about what a soul actually is. All we know is that humans keel over dead when it's destroyed.
Ententod fucked around with this message at May 5, 2012 around 20:39 |
| # ? May 5, 2012 20:36 |
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This thread got creepy real fast. Can Voldemort get pregnant?
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| # ? May 5, 2012 22:13 |
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veekie posted:I read somewhere that if their body was destroyed, as long as they have enough power left, they can regenerate a new body with the soulgem alone, but odds of turning Witch at that point is rather high. After watching the show a second time I realized that the giant Madoka soul gem heading to destroy Earth was all that was left of Madoka before she warped time and space to save herself. I wonder if we'll ever see a magical girl who just goes whole hog for the soul gem aspect and zips around like a Snitch (if we're bringing up Harry Potter...) and shoots out lasers or something. Such a small target might be more effective against witches too. Also, if the Walpurgisnacht is a collection of witches, could there exist a Walpurgismorgen or something that's a collection of magical girls? Like an assemblage of soul gems that come together to form Voltron? Is anyone buying the blurays from brick and mortar stores? Are they easy to find/quickly stocked upon release? I'm going to be vacationing in the States when the last disc comes out and I'd like to pick it up while I'm there. cgeq fucked around with this message at May 5, 2012 around 22:43 |
| # ? May 5, 2012 22:36 |
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Mordaedil posted:This thread got creepy real fast.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 22:39 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 18:51 |
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cgeq posted:After watching the show a second time I realized that the giant Madoka soul gem heading to destroy Earth was all that was left of Madoka before she warped time and space to save herself. I wonder if we'll ever see a magical girl who just goes whole hog for the soul gem aspect and zips around like a Snitch (if we're bringing up Harry Potter...) and shoots out lasers or something. Such a small target might be more effective against witches too. Takoluka posted:It's an interesting idea, if only to ask the question of whether magical ability as a result of becoming a magical girl can be passed on across generations.
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| # ? May 5, 2012 22:51 |
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