I finally got around to watching the Madoka Rebellion movie after spending the day marathoning the original series since I hadn't watched it since it aired. I'd heard the movie was dividing but I found it very good, maybe helped by my rewatch of the series making me enjoy Homura's character a lot more, which made me understand why she did certain things in Rebellion. No idea if I'm interested in any of the other Magica series besides if they end up doing anything more with the Madoka cast. I'm glad I ended up doing a rewatch, helped me appreciate the whole series a lot more than I previously did.
If anyone is looking to do a rewatch of the original series I highly recommend checking out Fancutfags release off nyaa as it pieces together the tv series with the first two recap movies. It features the nice animation of the movies while adding back some things that were cut from the TV series, apparently fixing the problem that the movies had where it felt like things were going way to fast while missing important details. They put a lot of work into the release, giving two different versions to pick from (TV vs. Movie Edition) with the ability to go into Marathon mode which skips things like openings and endings (unless it's important) along with the previews. Fair warning that you'll probably have to watch it through MPC-HC with the K-lite Mega Codec Pack for it to all work proper, had to switch from MPV to get it working smoothly. No idea how the experience would be for those new to the series, I watched the Movie Edition which was recommended for those that had already seen the series. They mention in the User Manual/FAQ that the TV Edition should be good for those that hadn't seen the series though:
I'll also take this chance to share my favorite Madoka amv, don't think it spoils anything major but I'll still give a warning just in case.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UcAVh8hN-j4
The Madoka movie is weird for me. The ending of a story is one of the most important parts for me, and I'm especially partial to bittersweet, ambiguous endings that don't go into too much detail about the characters get up to after the story ends; and as such I thought the original series' ending was pretty much perfect. It's one of those rare cases where the ending left me so completely satisfied with the story that I literally didn't WANT to see any more, because it would just be impossible to top it in a satisfying way. So from square zero a sequel movie was going to have to do a LOT to justify its existence to me. Being good in its own right isn't enough, it would have to be good enough to justify undoing the near-perfect anime ending and provide an even MORE satisfying conclusion to top it off.
At the end of the day, it just failed to do it for me. Probably my biggest gripe is that the inciting incident isn't really a logical progression from the ending of the anime. It's not like it actively contradicts or retcons anything, but the whole
Homura being locked away in a near-death state for the sake of SCIENCE!!! thing just felt like a plot contrivance to justify the movie's plot rather than something you'd naturally expect to happen after the anime.
Ironically, if the movie were exactly the same but the anime had a worse ending I'd probably love the movie. But as-is, no matter how good it may be, it wasn't good enough (and didn't end in NEARLY a satisfying and conclusive enough way) to justify throwing away the 10/10 anime ending for. In my head I just treat it as a neat "what if?" scenario.
As a dumb analogy, it's like eating a really delicious, really filling meal that leaves you completely satisfied, and then the waiter comes and asks if you want dessert. If the dessert was merely
pretty good, I'd just leave feeling overstuffed and not nearly as satisfied as I would've been had I just left after the meal itself. The dessert would need to be an absolute killer to make me think, "Yeah, I feel kinda blaoted right now, but it was well worth it because the dessert was just
that good". For me, the movie was just a pretty decent slice of chocolate cake. If it had come after a much less satisfying meal, I probably would've enjoyed a hell of a lot more, but it just ended up left me feeling overstuffed in a situation where I wasn't really even hungry for more to begin with.
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In unrelated news, I finally finished watching Darker than Black after a critical fail of accidentally watching eps 1-4 of season 2 followed by eps 5-8 of season 1, and overall I'd give it a solid 8/10. The second season is apparently incredibly divisive - and maybe it's because my accidental start prepped me for what was coming, maybe it was because I watched the OVA's first (and thus had a lot of otherwise confusing shit explained up front), but honestly I didn't mind it so much. The funniest part is that the way Hei's relationship with Suou develops, along with the ridiculous amounts of (seemingly) inexplicable ship-tease of Hei x Yin in the OVA's, plus the fact that his main goal throughout the first season is to find his lost sister, explains a lot about his behavior around women in season 1: dude's got a MAJOR fucking sister complex. Like seriously, just about every woman he interacts with in season 1, all of them fairly attractive, end up falling for him in some way, yet he seems completely oblivious to their blatantly obvious advances. But the second you trigger his "must protect imouto" instinct he's all over you.
