218 Madoka

Okay, I think I need this man. Alright, we're gonna go and get started. First, I'd like to thank everyone so much for coming. This is my second time doing this panel at NDK, had a real fun time the first time, but I didn't think I got enough time.

So I said, hey, I want two hours this time, and they said thumbs up. So, my name is Reagan Bird. I've been presenting at NDK since 2012. I love you, so I'd love to get to geek out with fans, and just discuss this.

I look forward to it every year. So it's a real honor and a privilege. A little plug for me. I'm giving this panel, additionally, I'll be doing modern gaming, race and gender and representation on Saturday, and I'll be doing epic stuff on Sunday.

So if you like my format, I'll come see me for those panels. So, quick overview of what we're gonna be talking about. We're gonna be talking about the origins of magical girl anime. So it's a specific genre of anime, as many of y'all know.

We're gonna be talking about the differences between the magical girl, magical girlfriend, and magical girl warrior, of which Madoka is of the genre, magical girl warrior. We're gonna talk about some common themes and motifs of the magical girl warrior genre. And then we're gonna talk more about the series and the characters. That's kind of where I have more open discussion with the audience, and we can take topics wherever you want.

I have some pre-established topics, I can talk about it as well, and I'm also looking at some clips. And then I wanna talk a little bit about Madoka Rebellion. I still put spoilers because some people didn't know the movie was out, some people said it was in the movie, so I put that in there just on Netflix. Yeah, it's on Netflix, I saw it last year, but some people still wanted the spoiler wording, so I figured I could get it there.

Okay, so, we should first understand that the magical girl genre and kind of understanding what his origins are, actually an American TV, which a lot of folks don't know, and then kind of what some of the terminology comes from. I thought the first interesting thing was that, and this actually refers to, in episode eight when Cubay says, it's only fitting that magical girls become witches when they basically evolve. So that comes from the Japanese saying for the Japanese term for magical girl and witch. So, Maho Shoujo is magical girl, but Joko is witch girl, and then the Majo part of that is witch.

So basically it's kind of a play on words with witch almost means adult magical girl, and it's a play on those words. Also, it's a common, most Japanese native speakers kind of already had a common understanding of any kind of reference magical girl that can also alternatively mean witch girl. So, many of those speakers may have found the revelation in episode eight particularly fitting or amusing or ironic, so I just thought that was a nice place to starch, and that's the language that Cubay is referring to. So, the magical girl genre is actually inspired by the witch television series with the witch Samantha, I can't remember what decade that was, it was like the sixties I think, and that was the original magical girlfriend, the beginning of that genre, and that kind of inspired a lot of Japanese animation artists and film artists to kind of explore that genre a little bit more in depth, and they kind of took it in their own direction in the next coming decades.

One of the first magical girl animates is, I'm gonna mispronounce that name, but it's basically Sally the Witch, which was in 1966 to 1968, and you'll see that that was relatively close to the beginning of the premiere and then the run of the witch series, and that's not coincidental, because again, Japanese media was being inspired a lot by American media at the time. Another famous one is early show was the Joko Nechan, which was about a Tom Foyish magical girl, and then versus, it started that trend of, you have one type of magical girl versus another type, you had a feminine magical girl and a Tom Foyish magical girl that were rivals to each other, and that also kind of is one of the ones that put a little bit more in this is on fan service, for those who don't know what fan service is, is considered, most people when they think of it, they think of like the sexual aspect of fan service, but it doesn't only encompass sexual aspects. Fan service usually means like if there's penny shots or jiggling breasts or stuff like that, that's a type of fan service, but also anything, anything kind of drawn out or drawn attention to in a show that fans have really enjoyed or fans have proven to be popular, that can actually kind of spend service as well. In this instance, it does refer to the more sexualized fan service, and then coincidentally, all of the kind of magical girl genre shows in the 80s, the 4.92 were produced by Tully Animation, and then the genre, as it got more popular, kind of extended out from there.

So the first genre that kind of started the magical girl trend is still kind of considered, it's still what most people think of when they think of magical girl, they think of the magical warrior subdivision of magical girls. So QD Honey is considered a classic, because that was one of the ones that started the magical girl transformation sequence, which is actually really considered fundamental to the magical warrior, is why it shows up in so many different magical girl anime. So that kind of popularized that motif, and Storming still has a kind of devoid fan following, it's still considered classic in Japan, so that kind of started that trend. And then Devil Hunter Yoko kind of emphasized kind of more the gritty warrior aspect of the magical girl, the magical girl genre, and started some motifs about kind of fighting demons, fighting evils, that sort of thing that we now see also coming in magical girl warrior enemies.

Can't talk about magical girl warriors, but I'm talking about the magical girl warrior show, which is Sailor Moon. And there's a couple of things I wanna point out about Sailor Moon. So, Madoka is supposed to be a deconstruction of magical girl genres. And what I mean by that, when we say deconstruction, it's taking more of the common themes or understandings in the world of the magical girl genre, and it's actually trying to break that down and take those apart and examine each of those pieces to see what does that actually mean, or trying to turn some of the logic of the magical girl genre on its head.

So, there's a couple of animates that it is the most clear anti-thesis to, and Sailor Moon is actually one of them. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that a little bit later in the panel. But think about, well, is there one not seeing Sailor Moon, do I need to do a recap? Okay.

So, you never wanna see one of the people of seeing there's so many enemies out there, so, but most folks have seen Sailor Moon. Okay, but think of what kind of the core themes of Sailor Moon are. So, you have this magical team, right? They're best friends, they hang out together all the time.

Anytime there's a conflict or an enemy, they're able to pre, they have some adversity against the enemy, but they're pretty much able, you have faith in the viewer, and you have faith as the viewer, and you have faith in the characters that they will eventually overcome that adversary. They're kind of visiting any question, even when characters die, which they haven't seen in Sailor Moon, there's kind of no question that there's going to be a happy resolution, characters are gonna come back to life. The enemy is gonna be defeated. The power of love is a very common theme.

So, anytime you saw your Serena is kind of, when she is the most upset, and she's the most hurt by my friends are hurt, and there's nothing I can do about it, there's like this power of love, I will tap into this magical reservoir of stuff, an emotion I have, and say for the day. So, that idea that love can conquer all, and some of you might already know what, are thinking about what Madoka seemed, directly challenges that. That idea is kind of quintessential, kind of your atypical magical girl, I mean your typical magical girl anime. So, say I'm gonna kind of, it didn't invent a lot of these things, it solidified a lot of the things, and it invented a few more, especially with the magical girl team genre, but so think of some of those themes, when you think about, say you want me, think about the love, comfort, all the romance, the overcome evil, as we talk more about Madoka.

So, in modern day, magical girl anime, there are actually three kind of distinct genres of magical girl anime. So, there's a neoclassical genre, of which the best example is card capture is Sakura. I just got the name, I can catch that. So, I should get you instead of an A in the middle.

So, card capture is Sakura, is US audiences have less experience with this, because the evil and terrible four kids attempted to dub card capture is Sakura, and just did a god-awful job, they called it card capture, they started at like, episode eight. Yeah, I mean, so, it was, I remember trying to watch this at kid, and not being able to follow the plot very well, because they chopped it up and just mutilated it. So, US audiences haven't gotten a very good dub but it's still pretty well known, because it's very, very popular in Japan, and a lot of folks have streamed it and viewed it since then now that we have more access to Japan, I mean, enemies that haven't been ported over to the US. So, this anime is kind of, think of it as kind of this, these enemies focus typically on young girls, so, we're looking at middle school age, or even going to elementary school age, for some enemies, and they are, think of them as kind of the purest sense of what a magical girl anime is.

So, they kind of, they have all the themes of Sailor Moon, but then they have those themes, and don't try to challenge or question those things really at all. It's all about the purity, the innocence of the girl that the love conquering all, is about her discovery of power, or becoming more self-confident, it's about all those kind of common themes that you know and understand. And this is another anime that's a good example of the type of anime that Madoka is trying to contract itself against. So, Sailor Moon, but car capture is Sakura, especially, because you can really kind of make some solid comparisons between Sakura's character and the Doka's character on their personality, and some of their instincts when it comes to friendship, and stuff like that.

The next genre that you see today is kind of, what's called the action anime girl genre. So, I would even put, what does it call them? I think of the name of it. The one where they have, they're fighting with the giant scissors.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, I can't, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're up here sometimes when my girls look. So, yeah, so kill, kill, I put that in this category.

It's an action oriented anime, where the focus is more on teenage or adult, adult, male or female, like there'll be male characters in it. So, they'll focus on either teenage or adult women. Male characters are more common in this type of one, either as, not necessarily as romantic partners sometimes, but usually as, they can show up as rivals, they can show up as allies, stuff like that. So, in the other, in some of the other enemies, you don't see as much emphasis on male characters, and a dope action does it as well, where there's not very many male characters that are getting extensive amount of characterization, but in the action genre, they show it more often.

And so, this one is just, this is kind of, this is a variation on the atypical magical girl, because there's a further emphasis on greediness, there's an emphasis on the action scenes. These anime are trying to bridge a gap between the anime that is seeking out solely kind of female answers, or young female audiences, and then male audiences in Japan, who are looking for, you know, the ones who are watching Dragon Ball Z or Yu Hakusho or Bleach, it's trying to blend the audiences for that and kind of appeal to two groups at the same time. So, that genre is a state that is actually becoming much more common and dependent that have been in the past, because, you know, they double their audiences, they're getting very popular and stuff like that. So, these ones, they will still have the themes of the neoclassical magical girl.

So, there'll still be an emphasis on friendship, it's still important, sometimes it'll be more of a subtext than a primary sort of the anime, but it'll still have some of those classic themes that we're used to with magical girls in those stories. And finally, the third one is actually now its own category, which is the deconstruction. So, Midoka is one of several series that are starting to tackle the traditional neoclassical magical girl and actually explore the themes on a deeper level. So, again, as I said, deconstruction is kind of summarizing the pieces, summarizing the themes of something, and then breaking that down and looking at each of those pieces and either countering it or problematizing it or giving you a different angle to look at it.

So, Midoka is, especially since Midoka was so popular, it's one of the, it's one of the most prominent magical girl deconstruction enemies and it is essentially the quintessential one. It's essentially the one that everyone refers to about the one that really did it right and kind of broke down some of these common themes. So, Midoka, I often started the trend, the name is this game, we have a couple other ones, but doing our research, there were a few other enemies that did do a similar type thing as Midoka, but they weren't quite as popular, but Midoka kind of started this trend about more deconstruction magical girl enemies and they're not becoming more common. So, just a quick recap for those of you who wanna see it visually, just the common themes and motifs are kind of the power of love, friendship, I put kisses and sparkles in there because it's really common to see very, and Midoka does this as well, but it's very common to see feminine attacks, a lot of glitter, a lot of pre-visuals in a magical girl enemy, and that is considered just one of those aesthetic pieces that's going to be the type of genre.

One thing I think is interesting that a lot of groups talk about is kind of a source of controversy and the fandom is this notion of the power of the feminine. So, and it's not clear-clapped, but in, typically in Western animation and in Western media, if you're going to have a strong female character, she tends to take on a lot of masculine attributes, and what that means is the way in which they write the action scenes, the female character, what you're trying to put into words, the female character, for instance, has a very distinct way of fighting that tends to mimic if you see male, if you see their her long male co-stars, they tend, their actions tend to mimic what the male co-stars do, as opposed to what I referenced in the magical girl enemy. There's not a lot of sparkly attacks, there's not a lot of super things that we associate with the feminine, there's not a lot of that, there's more like greedy sort of action for our female heroines. Additionally, there's less of an emphasis on emotion, which is associated with the feminine, there's less of an emphasis on, I guess I wanna say instinct, there's more of an emphasis on kind of a coldness, a rationality that we associate with masculinity in the Western media sphere.

And it's not true for all Western female characters, but if you're going to have an action female character, you will tend to see her blend with the way they write male characters. Now, in Japan, it's different, they have much, much less of that, and they actually have more of this very feminine action girl. So they wear dresses, even though they're doing action scenes. They have still very feminine attributes, they have still very associated with kind of feminine attacks, appearances, that sort of thing.

And there's much less blending of gender lines, there's much less ambiguity there than with some Western characterization. So the reason why it's a controversy is, to a Western audience, the ability of an action girl to still be feminine could be quite revolutionary. It could be, oh, so being powerful doesn't necessarily mean you have to be masculine, you could be feminine and still be powerful, and that's something we don't see less of. So a lot of Western artists is by never pressing or empowering.

The, on the contrary, some folks have pointed out, well in Japan, the concern is that it doesn't matter what you're doing as a woman, you still are expected to be feminine. So even if you're an action girl, you still need to be feminine if you're a woman. So they're saying that, well, it's actually not great. If you look at it from the perspective of Japan's media.

So it's kind of like, I think it's an interesting contrast. And again, it's kind of, I mean, it's not, it's something that people have felt but are just now starting to talk about, about what is this distinction between Western and Japanese media, and then some of them sometimes are actually influencing each other, it's a very interesting dynamic. Some other common things in motifs are coming up age stories. So that's especially true in neoclassical, magical girl genres where again, you have a young, the young woman who is again, learns self-confidence, learns her own power, learns how to come into her own, during her whole experience during the anime.

So that's a very common theme in a lot of magical girl. And we talked about good trimes over evil, then this notion of justice, and then this kind of purity of hearts or spirits. Even MacDoka doesn't really challenge that kind of theme because usually your main character, your main character or the most powerful character in magical girl genres will often be the most pure of hearts. That's really indicative with, in seo and room with Serena Rousagi, it's indicative of a Madoka, it's indicative of car type of Sakura.

So it's a lot of the magical girl genres emphasize that theme very strongly, and sometimes they don't, even if they're doing a deconstruction, it's still there in a very strong way. So there's this notion about purity and having a very unadulterated view of the world. So before I go on, I'm gonna talk more a little bit about the ways in which Madoka specifically deconstructs some stuff. But does anyone have any questions or any thoughts that they want to discuss about the magical genre, the magical genre as a whole?

Okay. Okay, so specifically with Madoka, the things that they're trying to deconstruct with magical girl themes are some of the things that I've listed here. So they're trying to bring in some of the real world implications, some of the actual challenges that you might actually face if becoming a magical girl was a thing that you could actually do in the real world or in our international environment. So one of the things they want to explore is this notion of the constant power.

So you wish for something, what is that, where is that wish coming from? What is the cost of that? You're gaining something, where does that gain come from? If everything in the universe is equal.

So Madoka challenges that notion by saying, whatever amount of hope or whatever amount of good will you put into the universe is going to be counteracted by the same amount of despair that you're going to cause. So there's a balancing act, it doesn't matter how powerful you become, you're going to add a certain amount of negativity to the universe in contrast to that. And that, it reminded me a lot, when I was thinking about it, a full metal ochanas to when, you know, they talk about that you can't get something for free and there's the balancing of everything that you produce or create must take from something and then things must remain equal. So that's not a uncommon notion in anime in general, but it's particularly apt when Madoka's trying to deconstruct that notion in magical girl genres because in very few of those, is that issue ever explored.

This game power is just the power that you have. There is no consequence of having power in other magical girl enemies. The other one, excuse me, the next one that they try to look at is love and friendship versus fate. So what power does, does your love for people, does your belief in them have over what is ultimately going to be your fate?

Typically, love and friendship as we talked about, overcome any kind of obstacles that people may have in a magical girl anime, but in Madoka, they're saying that none of that actually matters because you can't overcome what your fate is, which is becoming a witch in Madoka. It does, most people point out that the end of the anime, in fact, does kind of semi-reaffirm the love and friendship. Like if you love enough or think about enough, you may still be able to get something done, but most of the enemy is challenging that sort of notion. Like when, so when Sakura turns into a witch and Kielko is attempting to save her, Kielko is relying, that's this notion that she's relying on in her head.

She's like, this is supposed to happen in anime. This is supposed to happen in stories where, if we just believe hard enough, we can save her, and then the anime doesn't even give you a quick link that was even semi-working and kind of just really definitively says that that is not the reality that we're living in in this anime. There's this notion of selfish wishes and the immaturity of youth. So almost all of the wishes, except for Madoka's ultimate wish and a background of some of the anime is kind of what her previous wishes had been.

So Madoka's first wish, I think according to the author, was to save a cat who had been run over. And then you see that in the anime opening where she's like happy and holding a cat. So that was one of her first wishes. And then other wishes were kind of less serious or sillier than that, or sillier than that, but silly like that.

So she, all of their wishes had kind of naivety to them. Cause I maybe exclude Mommy from that because the implication with Mommy's wish is that she was just simply saved her life. She was in a car accident. So the implication is we don't actually hear her wishes, but it's applied that she was bravely injured and then she wished something along those lines to get out of that situation.

So that was a pretty logical wish, but it's still one that was, she didn't have enough time to think about. It wasn't a well considered wish cause it was an emergency. Soccer's wish is considered by me neither fandom to be the worst wish and the stupidest one. I would agree with that.

We'll talk a little more about her character and I'll get some of the audience. But I did, I sympathized with her character, sci-fi character, but I also found her incredibly frustrating. So something to note about sci-fi's character is she makes the same wish in every single timeline. So it is considered a word of God or authors authority that she makes the same wish every single time.

So Homer's going back and seeing the same as day over and over and over again. You can imagine how at some point you're just like, well screw it, I'm not gonna say it's not a bad, I really don't get a shit at this point. I thought that was interesting side though, because you wouldn't think that necessarily unless you heard that or read that somewhere. So obviously her wish is to heal her, not even her boyfriend, he heals someone she has a crush on and then seems like a very ill-considered wish.

And then he'll go with wish is she acknowledges that it was immature and not for thinking. So she wanted her father to, she thought he was preaching interesting ideas and no one was following him, no one was listening to him. So she wished for him to get followers because she thought that that was gonna be helpful for a family. But then we know what ultimately happened is once he found out that it was all fake, then he committed suicide and then killed her their major of her family.

So the, yeah, so the immaturity of the wishes and then kind of reflecting back on what some of the mistakes were, that is the, that's the, it's kind of challenging this notion that anytime there's gonna be a magical girl, they're not necessarily gonna know what they're doing, they're not necessarily gonna be motivated by the correct stuff, they're not necessarily thinking about the full implications, about what battling every day would be like and what implications that would happen in their life. Which leads us to the benefits of having an ordinary life. So Homer as whole kind of motivation for Madoka is to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl because she now understands what the benefits are of kind of being an ordinary person. She can't go back but she can only stop and don't go back.

And then after this we'll get some clips as well. So the, so ordinary kind of existence is, and actually the opposite of what a magical girl, anime and genres, like talk about. The fantasy is the power or the fantasy is being able to become a magical girl, not to be able to affect the world around you or create some change. But the, so the emphasis is on the fantasy of the other magical girl, genres is becoming a magical girl.

Whereas in this one is the fantasy is, what if you were able to avoid all the consequences of becoming a magical girl and didn't have to worry about it and that's actually the better life to live. And then there's a lot of, there's way too much depth for me to go into in this panel but essentially a lot of, there's been a lot of analysis on the similarities between the Doka and Fauus which is a play by, that's a German name at Camembert. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Thanks. So there's been a lot of analysis on the similarities between the Doka and Fauus. You can read about it online on the Doka Wikipedia page or their Wikia page. And essentially it's, there's a lot of interesting similarities between between the play and the Doka.

And there's a lot of references that the series makes towards that play. So the, as best as I could tell, Fauus is essentially about a man who was dissatisfied with the kind of his human limitations and it makes it deal with the devil to kind of try to explore more of the, explore, explore his humanity past where the limitations are of a normal human. And it kind of goes into some deeper things after that. But things like, associations between Madoka and that play will happen like for instance, one of the characters in Fauus is the Incretion.

And Incretion is the name of Madoka's witch form from Hill's Gretchen. So they do, they make some associations like that, some surface level associations, but then there's also a lot of different overlapping things and stuff like that. So I encourage you to read more on that if that sounds interesting. Okay, so I want to play, I want to play a couple of clips.

I want to play one or two and then press to start talking up some more about some of these themes. I want to see which one is, I have a cute other one from here. Nope, that one? No.

I have a question. Does anybody know, has the atonement clip been confirmed as real, the movie for clip? Or is it an April Fool's joke? Yes.

Yeah, one of the April Fool's joke but in July this year they confirmed they were making it on the movie. Okay, yay, okay. So I do have that clip for those of you who haven't seen it online. I knew that they were doing more media but then I could not find any confirmation that it was still just a, I feel so this April Fool's joke.

You don't have? I'm sorry, I'm always gonna show you. You're gonna be guilty. Yes, guilty.

So he usually shows the preview on it but then it's not, to the away from some point. I thought we were gonna talk about the mentor yet. Oh, the mentor is referring to the older wiser, I think I skipped on that on purpose because I was wanting to get to a clip. So the mentor is referring to, there being a wiser, more experienced character that kind of leads or guides the magical girl.

So don't get deconstructs that in several ways. If deconstructs that with Mommy because Mommy is supposed to be an experienced magical girl but we see as the series progresses that she is feigning confidence, she is feigning kind of knowing stuff. She doesn't know as much as she thinks she knows about what's going on in the magical girl era. I mean, in the magical girl, she doesn't know as much as she knows in terms of the magical girl world of Madoka that's what I was trying to say.

And she, and things that are revealed about how much she didn't know such as what Homer says, Mommy's one of the people who never found out about the Soul Gems that she never found out that her soul was actually placed into a Soul Gem and it was separate from her body. Kind of turns out on its face that even someone that you're looking up to as more experienced may not be the person who knows the least or is it really confident or sure about what you're doing. And it's also turned on its face with Cubae. So obviously Cubae is supposed to be this guiding force.

Is he supposed to be similar to Luna and Sailor Moon or that Teddy Bear thing? And I can't remember the name. He's supposed to be Cerberus. Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for knowing that. So he's supposed to be contrasting with kind of the fluffy cute character mentor that kind of guides the magical girl but as we know Cubae is probably the opposite of that which we'll talk more about.

And we, so he's supposed to be, you know, you're supposed to have some sort of omnipotent, either omnipotent or well-intentioned guide throughout the trials and tribulations of being a magical girl but none of the magical girls in Madoka have that. They have people who are doing it for their own interests or they have people who think they're doing it but don't. So the mentor is, is looked on its head in the Doka in that way. I'm trying to decide what is, oh, that's everyone going on.

I mean, I'm not going on. I'm talking. And I can also, I have the episode so I can also pull up clips that folks would like to reference as well. Yeah.

So we're about to talk about Cubae. So this is what I wanted to look at. I wanted to look at Cubae's speech to Madoka. So this is in episode nine after Madoka finds out that being a magical girl, eventually, to which, after she has found all these horrible things and realities about what being a magical girl is actually about.

So I want us to look at Cubae's speech to Madoka and kind of analyze that a little bit more. And this is in Japanese with subtitles. We tested it earlier and I think folks can, and there's not many people in the far back but y'all thought you'd be able to read it as well. Thank you.

Yeah, though. It's not up. Oh, I'm not proud to ask you to do it. Oh.

Oh. It's weird. Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.

No. No. You want to talk about that? I'll post that.

I'll post it later. I'll post it later. I'll post it later. You want to talk about it later?

Oh. Okay. Okay. No.

I'll post it later. Okay. That's all right. Thank you.

Well, well, yeah. Oh. C'mon. That's okay.

Okay. That's all right. Yeah. Okay.

Oh. PLAY Oh the Mart. You feel like dying just from me. I have a simple question for the audience.

Want to fart? Does? So does Q-bay obtain consent? I don't know what I'm saying.

Not important. I think we might find it. I think we might find something like that. So explain what you mean.

Explain what the difference between consent and informed consent. Any year of trial is not well enough to consent. It's not like that. Right?

It does, I guess, vary Western view. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, Japanese legal law is similar to ours in terms of consent for contracts and stuff like that.

So there's a lot of overlap there. But yeah, it is. You could say we're looking at it from a Western perspective as well. But you've been looking at it legally.

Right. So in terms of our definition of informed consent comes from a legal background. So I want to talk about what do we mean by what is consent and what's consent look like in terms of something like entering into a contract. Yes?

So I have two things. The first thing I could think of as a best analogy to explain consent and informed consent is like, I'll bring someone to cake. You're like, look, I have to spend nips at cake. You want to solve it.

And then you're like, yeah, I want cake. And then when you try to cake, it turns out it has an ingredient that you're allergic to. And this person knew you were allergic to it. It's still off of you to cake.

And then you're done in the ground. You're just from allergies. And they're just like, well, you said you wanted to cake. But one thing I wanted to put out is like, we keep looking at consent in terms of legal matters.

Like, he's not from our world. He doesn't understand our legal consent. So his version of consent is like, you want this cake? Whereas our version said, yeah, don't cake.

But tell me if it's going to kill me. Do you think you may be in genuine when he says, we're attaining consent? Like, do you think you may think he needs that? Or is he just saying that to try to convince me to go?

He himself says, we're a creature that likes motion. Our race does not have that movement in the last fight. I feel that his idea of consent is asking you, if you want to cake him, that to him is probably complete consent. Because he doesn't understand this could kill you.

But you wanted it. So that's consent, right? He probably doesn't understand like, since he doesn't understand motion. Like, consent is one telling me that if you want to cake, it's like, yeah, I want to put, like, if you're not telling me how it hurt me, then that's not really letting me know like if I really want to escape.

He's not going on that second level of consent. Because they don't really need that second level of consent. Because they're not going to create their consent. It makes sense.

Yes. Although also regarding the clip, Kyue says that he doesn't understand the concept of deception. However, in other parts of the show, he specifically says that he did not inform, like in the case of Kyoko, he acted in a manner that suggested to Kyoko that maybe something was possible when he knew otherwise. And he said as much to Homura that he did.

So I'm not so sure that he doesn't know of deception. And the fact that he's saying that made him facty a deception. But the thing is, he made view it as okay because since he lacks emotions, from his logical viewpoint, anything that furthers his goal is acceptable. And I'll call on a couple of people, but just real quick.

So some people touched on this notion that our understanding of ethics or our understanding of morality and consent is contingent upon human emotion, which is an interesting kind of idea. Like, so you need to have kind of this instinctual feeling of right in wrong to like have, didn't have an adequate concept of ethics or consent as much as you can get. Yes. But he also wasn't receiving that thing.

So later on, when he was different, that would be deceiving, but he was never officially accepted. He doesn't give the whole game to him. Well. He doesn't accept it.

He wasn't as easy as that. So we do know that at one point, at least at one point, he intentionally withheld information. So Kyoko is, the author has said that Kyoko does not lie. So we know that Kyoko does not give false information, but he will actively and intentionally withhold information.

Does that count as deception? Or does that not count as deception? In our current, in our legal concept of consent in America, withholding information is considered intentional deception, especially if you're withholding information to reach a certain end, which Kyoko is doing. He said, I'm withholding information because I want Kyoko and Saika to die, so that it would force Medoka to become a magical girl.

So he did it with also a certain aim. He didn't just withhold information. He was like, oh, oops, I forgot about it. Or it was just, I didn't think it was important.

He did it to achieve a certain aim. So is that deception or is that not deception? Yeah. You back in the back.

It's very, very good. He's not seen her. He's actually being quite blunt with all these things he actually has worked. He's raised something, whatever they are.

They actually have a lot of values. We're talking about values more so than dollars of a designing card. So I'm just going to talk to somebody. I'm going to talk to all of these in this card.

I'll talk to all of them. I will not tell them that statistically, like, being as part of the right on the road, you have a great chance of dying. You are walking and sidewalks and roads back there because for us it's called knowledge. It's a fair trade.

I mean, you wish. That was usually a really nice thing. It's a funny thing. I was funny, sorry.

My friend and I have this funny thing. Sometimes I have to make up what if QB was doing, existed in the world and you were trying to ask it for this free question. Does this car have tires? This car has rubber on it.

Or you'll just answer the question, but we'll do it in a way that doesn't really answer the question. That is funny. It's a car red. There are stacks of red in the car's color spectrum or something.

Yeah, in the green shirt. Yes. I mean, the issue that people are, there's two fundamental tools for all of your injuries. But we're doing that in that we're giving QB not having it as a country, which is based on the maximum that you do something that the people are in.

Yes, these are different to Emmanuelle of the cost. Don't try to read him. He's the death. It is possible.

I just saw you saw how to read him. But he may operate on a grand scale of utilitarianism which jumps through a wheel. And basically, he's operating at such a huge scale that the misfortune of the human is still utterly middle school as to not actually not impact his mind itself. But the projected gains from the entire universe are so grand compared to the misery of the people that is completely justified in the world.

Yes. Quick summary of what you tell us here in his image. Basically, it doesn't show that the greatest number of that's your highest moral obligation is that she's the greatest guy for the greatest number of people, which QB does in fact he's doing. Let's do one more.

I know one more to another topic. Yes. I also want to build on something that's already been said. It's that QB just because he can't lie, you know, he is restricted by the truth, it doesn't make him manipulate it.

And it's very key because he even says they never ask the right questions. It's like, well, I told you all this, if you asked, LOL jokes on you. And I think, you know, he has to know that. And so they know what to manipulate giving out pieces of information so they never ask the right questions or they ask the questions that they think will give them the complete truth.

And so it's not a deception in that it's direct and it's lying, but it's manipulation of the truth that he has all of the good. Thank you. I know the school of thought that like some of you in the room that QB is intentionally being deceptive because I think that the whole thing with you kind of confirmed that he's trying to achieve a specific end so he's fearing thought processes and conversations to try to achieve that end. But I want to put another thought out there is which is up on the board.

Can we even trust anything QB says? Keep in mind the only person that the only confirmation we have gotten that what QB says is happening is from QB. So we don't, we haven't seen entropy and action in the anime. We haven't seen any of this devastation in the universe.

We actually only have his word about why he's doing this and to what purpose. And he's been, and if we don't think he's telling the truth or if we no see it with whole information or if we know that he can, he can be partially deceptive depending on what your opinion is, then how do we know that his take on what is happening at the universe is even reality. And of course his whole notion that so even if we take what the author says that he doesn't lie or is it being intentionally, Doc also says that QB is not evil. QB is generally is trying to achieve what he says he's trying to achieve.

He doesn't go into detail about what that means but he basically does say that he does not, he does not, he is unfeeling and cold. He says but QB is not evil. Even if we take all that to be true, QB can still be with whole information about what is the full picture of the universe. Let me give you an example.

If QB is actually utilitarian and is trying to achieve the maximum good for the greatest number, then why is the new solution from a Doka's recreated restructure universe not good enough? Because curses reappeared, they started converting energy in a different way with those little black crystals that Homer was throwing into QB's back. That was achieving the end of getting additional energy from the universe. The QB is somehow thought that was unacceptable.

Like no, we want to get more energy, let's go back to the which thing and that's what happened in rebellion. So why is that acceptable then? Wouldn't it be better to then get energy conversion and allow the people of Earth to remain, you know, to remain un-inipulated, to remain themselves, to not turn into witches, to not ultimately become the biggest witch. QB also didn't have a problem with Madoka essentially becoming the biggest witch in destroying Earth, meaning that there's no more magical worlds.

Why was that? Okay, is it that they cut off your energy sources and what's so important? So some of these decisions are kind of confusing if he's truly coming from a utilitarian perspective and if he's truly doing what he says he's going to do. So we can talk about QB a little bit if you all want, but I want to give folks a chance to talk about some of the characters.

So, Monnie's, we're going to go through the magical worlds. Monnie, I post for each of the magical worlds what their names kind of mean because some of their names have associations with their characters and kind of give you indications about, excuse me, their motivations or their, or what associations they have, they're trying to draw that character in the enemy. So Monnie's name is actually pretty simple. It's supposed to sound like Monnie as in mother, which is a common pronunciation and understanding about pronunciation worldwide.

And then I also thought it was funny that her companion in rebellion, Bebe, also sounds like Bebe. So I think that this is supposed to just give an indication about her character being maternal to the other characters, her character kind of supposing a mentor and her kind of status as the de facto leader of the group before, even when folks sign out who Homer is, like the mommy is still kind of considered, is still the most representational of the leader in terms of how she's characterized in the enemy. And then we also get to directly see a fight between Homer and Mami and Mami appears to be more skilled because she's able to catch on her off guard and kind of make adjustments. So Mami is kind of the best representation of the leader and the best warrior fighter, even though she has weaknesses for the group.

Sia-Cuth, her name has the character for Beauty in it and also Tree, and interesting enough, it can be written as Tree Trunk or Sake offered to the gods, which I thought was funny. I don't know if you're going to interpret her sacrifice as an offering to the gods, but it's an interesting interpretation. She, as I talked before, I find her character frustrating because I found the problems with the wish you wanted to make so obvious that I was just like, I can't believe she's actually going to make that stupid ass wish. And you know, he was just like, just wish men to be like sick and then you can take care of them and things like that makes sense.

And I just thought that him arguing with her about, it's almost like he was pointing out how foolish it was because he wasn't that invested in her becoming or not becoming a magical girl. But it was kind of, I just thought it was, I don't know, I'm trying to pinpoint what I was trying to have with the character. I did think she had a lot of dimensions drawn to her with in her interactions with Kyoko and then kind of this, her conversations with Homer because, like any of you, I think if any of you have gone back and watched the series like a second time, it's so fun to like, you know, watch the first time of yours, to practice stuff like that, then to go back and rewatch it from Homer's perspective and just to really understand how angry and frustrated she is, like, I don't know, I would have been, I would have probably gone insane. The author said that he estimates that Homer went back and has been going back in time for about 10 years.

So that's, you can just, and then, you know, the span of time that she's going back is several, a couple months, we're looking at maybe two to three months. So she's going back in time and reliving the same three months over and over again for a span of about 10 years. So, so in terms of sci-fi, if it's three, three months and spent 10 years, it's like about four times a year, that's 40 times. Yeah.

Well, it's even more, it's not like I see us, where's it? Yes. So, so, so I thought going back and looking then at her discussion with sci-fi discussion with Homer, like what's like, what are you talking about, this is about my doga, like I'm going through stuff and Homer doesn't care, she's like, no, everything actually has to do with my doga. Your stuff is incidental.

And furthermore, I've seen you do this 18 freaking times, just, I'm sick of it. So, so I really thought that that the layers from rewatching it that adds to the conversation I thought were really interesting. So, Kiyoko didn't find much on her name other than obviously her last name, soccer, I mean it's cherry blossom. And then her first name, I think, means it has a character for Abracot in it, which might be like a reference to the food that she always eats in her value for that.

Kiyoko is, I think her character is, her role in the character is supposed to be kind of the cynical person and like, so these are common character typeings in kind of any of the fighting team, such as the team, the different common stock characters. So, she has a role to play in the team and her role is, so Mommy is a leader. Saika, I guess you can call her the, she's kind of an idealist who gets kind of discouraged. Kiyoko is more of the Tom Boyish, revolution, frustrated, is angry about past decisions, like she's so she's kind of that type of character, I think, and again, I found, you know, once you know her story and then go back and look at it, once you kind of see her interactions with Saika and even in Rebellion, you kind of see that they, I think they're still trying to imply that those characters are close, that she has a close relationship with Saika, so there's more additional layers to her conversations with people and kind of her perspective, essentially she made the same mistake as Saika.

She's like, I was trying to make, I made a really brash wish that I didn't really think through, and that, and in a department of people I care about, it didn't achieve what I wanted to achieve, so that's kind of what draws her to Saika's character is that she made it, and she essentially said that in the series, but essentially she made the same mistake and that's why she's kind of bitter and angry that she hasn't been fighting for something that she hasn't even had more. She doesn't have the family, she doesn't even have the wish that she was fighting for. Mami at least still has her wish, and Saika doesn't have a sense of her wish, even though it did result in her actually developing a relationship, she still has the benefits of her wish, whereas Kiyoko has lost all the benefits of her wish, is not fighting the perpetuity for really no reason. If you want to chime in about characters, you can also read your hand if you want to discuss something further.

Yes. In that sense, Saika also attempts to be a mentor to Saika in that regard, because once she realizes it's to make the same mistake, although Kiyoko is very harsh about her methods, she suggests that Kiyoko is in which Saika could fix her problem and get what she wants. She also mentions that it would probably be better to ignore what's going on with the wish and find her own reasons to be yourself. Yeah, definitely agree with that.

So, Kiyoko, again, she's had experience for several, five or several years, like Mami, so she has a more holistic view of the whole magical world wish structure as well. And what is, I'm just terrible at remembering that today, so what is the guy's name that Saika made which works? Just kidding. I was also like, you can't be bad at them because Saika never approached her, but you're also kind of like, she explicitly was on his hospital, that'd be like, miracles happened, then the next day everyone will happen, I'd be like, did you do something or what happened?

Like, she would do something. And everyone seems to approach her, which I thought was interesting. And yeah, I mean, like I said, I feel I really can trust between Philly and Sydney, because you really have to draw the end of this day there versus being freshly with her wrist. Yes.

I think it's only just through and everything. I think we're going to die a bit more about hard time than she can do. I might be, I could, I could, I could, I could. I feel that she could represent that, that your medical girl character they were talking about earlier and what happens to nice people in the real world, like they just get ratty typing so they don't know.

I don't think we can do that on a tight cuss. I apologize if I pick you on a tight cuss. I'm just trying to communicate what I thought, like what my rascals are the character work. So, but yeah, I do think your point is worth taking that.

She is, her and Madoka, Mami is actually really optimistic and stuff like that too. So, her and Madoka and Mami are clearly contrasted as the characters who still have an idealistic outlook on life and are still kind of not jaded as much as Kiyoko and Homera. Even though we don't see, with rebellion they finally kind of pair Homera and Kiyoko together to acknowledge that they have some similarities in terms of their outlook. But yeah, Dokamami and I thought also the three star characters, also the two were friends.

Of course the audience first in the beginning. So they try to group those characters together potentially because they are kind of the idealistic, have a positive outlook characters. Yes. I agree.

Well, they have to make my favorite character to watch because I like watching her destruction. You know that sounds super, like she should be my favorite character for that. But it's so fun to watch because she has a black and white view of the world. She is that, and she was saying, that in a sense that she's sure that love will prevail and justice is the strongest.

She is like the heart or no, like right in the same drawing, the embodiment of that and how that just doesn't work when you're talking about the real world. And that's what breaks her is she has this definition of justice and how the world should work and it should prevail and everybody should listen to it. And then it doesn't, it's a shattering world view and unfortunately her soul is on the line when that world view is shattered for her. Right.

And then turns which. So I think it's really interesting to watch that. And that's why it's frustrating too. It's so white knight, black and white.

Right. I was going to say, so who the same thing that like it's all Hitomi's fault, like Hitomi invited in, like things would have been better or should have been pissed off or, because I mean Hitomi doesn't get talked about very much. Yeah. Yeah.

It would have happened eventually. When your world view is that black and white, it's very fragile to the grays of the real world. So if it wasn't Hitomi and the love interest, it would have eventually have been something else. Maybe she would have learned about the witch thing and then had problems with it or something else could have triggered it.

But if the fact that it was inevitable was kind of a reality as long as she kept that world view. If her world view had changed without simply a shattering that it was a lie, if she had started changing over the course of things, she might have been more flexible and able to handle it. But it all likely could, if she continued with her present world view, becoming a witch wasn't inevitable. Right.

That makes sense. Let's do two more. I'll do even the green and then you and the green. Hitomi's really interesting because she's our pure representation of human beings like pure, because she's not tainted by the views of having a magical option to escape a problem.

So the best version we have of human outside of Mommy, if you're not obviously a pideokas mom, where she's like, when you're human, there's things that you're very prone to. There's a whole thing when they're looking at each other, not saying anything. She goes, girls are supposed to act like that. And she's obviously like, you know, showing her own innocence in the world.

She knows that that's not what's going on. But she likes to play up. But whenever it gets down to situation with the boy, she's very upfront with that. She's like, say something or I'm going to say something.

And so she is that version of the world. It's like, and even nicer to the actual world, I'm giving you an opportunity. And Sayaqah doesn't take it. So she is that partiality of the world that the world does on W.

And Sayaqah has to realize that, which I think is the biggest human struggle ever is realizing that the world doesn't stop no matter what's going on your life. I want to add something quickly about one of the struggles I have with the pictures and the pictures of romance is this really drawn out like coinous thing where the girl just cannot confess. And they will just like, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm correct. I'm going to tell you like asked Sayaqah front, like, do you like him?

And she did that whole like, oh, I don't know and stuff happens and things and, you know, blush. So she didn't, she didn't ask a question. And that's a very Japanese thing about, it's not necessarily, it's an notion that first of all you don't really say things directly that you more show things to your actions. So there's less emphasis on words to say, you know, to spit out, you know, I love you where I want to go out with you or something like that.

There's more emphasis on action. But it's also a very, it's a very strong gender expectation about, you know, being forward for men and women. So there's a gender expectation in dating. And it's a little bit, there's more emphasis on it for women.

But there's this, you don't, you don't come out and kind of state your intentions very clearly because that can come off as sleazy. So, in ZZF, sorry, did a book called Modern Romance and he actually went to Japan and interviewed some Japanese men and they talked about that notion. Like, you don't just walk up to a grown-up and say, like, you're like, that's ridiculous. Like, you're trying to be a player or something.

So it's a very different notion and sometimes from a western perspective, I could be frustrating about you have these long drawn-out, like if somebody would just say, I kind of like you one time. Like, does anybody watch the Tech of Conan? I was like, oh my god. After episode 585.

I was like, oh my god, the show is pissing off. So yeah, so that whole thing, I just thought that was funny. That is, maybe that's a part of my frustration with side co-workers, I was sick of seeing that trope. But they do that trope on purpose because it has a place and a relationship with magical girl anime as well.

So that was probably done intentionally. They didn't need to have this romantic sub-plot. They certainly didn't need to have Hitomi do anything. But having that little bit of reference to what you see in magical girl anime's and the relationship aspect of it, because they don't get us to have a love interest so they do it with one of the characters.

They get them on purpose and kind of reference back to what a lot of magical anime does. And then I just say you next. They actually brought it up. What I was going to say about Saka is that she's a child.

So she wants what she wants and she doesn't really have a lot of idea of consequences or the way that things should be. And I think that's part of what's so frustrating to watch her is that, especially as an adult watching the show. So look at that. Remember when you were like, but I should have that.

You know, that's the way that things should be. And then also watching if Homura has lived this for 10 years, she's no longer a child now. She's grown up. And so she's trying to have this discussion as an adult with a child.

And I think trying to watch that dynamic is really tough because Homura can't say that's what's going on. I know better than you. I mean, she tries, but she's not going to communicate with people. So watching that, I think that's part of what makes it so tough is it's almost like you want Homura to be more of a parent to her and say, I just know that you shouldn't do this.

And Saka is such a preteen teenager. I know what I want. This is what I deserve and you can't tell me what to do. And that to me is a lot more real than, say, Madoka as a young child.

I was never like, because child I wanted what I wanted. I really care about what other people wanted. And I think that's why we want to talk about Saka so much is that she's so much more real in a lot of ways, even though she's so frustrating. Sure.

Let me tell you what's best. Me? Yeah. One thing I wanted to add to like, what you were saying about like the coin is when I was in high school, in Miami, because I was a nerd since the first day.

One thing is that we had a whole day, we used to look at weird Japanese commercials. And my teacher, who was a teacher, he actually like childhood Japan, he actually learned more about the culture. One thing he was actually told that he told us in turn was that one common thing that he was told is that if it's too upfront, it can't be trusted. So you have to make the most, it's sort of like that's why the commercial is so weird.

That's why he was trying to explain is like the weird is the more they sort of ideas like, oh that can be trusted. So you never actually go to like in our commercials for like it's a very weird way to like, the part about like our commercial is like, swab will make your hair super soft. Look at this hair. But in Japan they'll be like, that can't be trusted.

They're so upfront on that's clearly alive. But like so they'll be like, look at this dog, he's so cute by this trip here. So it's like you have to be very, you have to like not refer something too directly. You can't be correct about what you're trying to tell about the actual product.

You can be like, man this is not a delicious try. You have to be like, look at this, not this. You have to go at it directly, otherwise they can't trust it's a weird thing. But I guess they're so, I guess like they're very modern country.

They're like very smart. They're like education, they're like, you can't trust it. That's very interesting. I love that.

One quick aside is that I love analyzing commercials. It's one of my favorite things to analyze in the culture because you actually get a very quick picture of what is the distilled form of a culture. Because you have to communicate something very quickly that you understand within that culture that connects to either a values or a common understanding of something. So commercials are great for kind of analyzing what are some of the cultural values are in any sort of culture that you're analyzing.

So I've referenced that a lot of times and I use actually commercials, not commercials. I use magazine advertising and stuff like that to kind of initiate people in some of my race and gender discussions because it's a great way to say, what is the value that's being communicated here? Why does this even make sense? Because a lot of times commercial realism as it's called, they're weird or they're, they make references that unless you really understood what is behind it don't necessarily make sense.

So it's a great tool for analysis. Okay, let's talk about the Doka. We want to talk about the Doka first. So her name is, it has the characters for Wish, Ambition and Flower in it.

And the name of the Doka can also be written, it's not written like that way, but the name of the Doka can also be written with the character for Circle or Round, which is definitely interesting because the Doka is the character of something being cyclical is actually a common theme in the series. So first there's the cycle of the magical world becoming a wish and having to be far by another magical world. So that's its own cycle. The other cycle is the cycle of Homer going back in time over and over again and then that creates Doka as a focal point.

Yet another cycle is, this is a fan term for what the pre-Midoka goddess universe was, which is called the law of wheels, meaning that the energy flow in the universe when the magical world became magical world and then became witches and had to be far by magical world. And then they ultimately succumb to despair which caused them to become witches. That law or universal cycle was called the law of wheels. And then in Madoka's universe, she changes the laws and there's a name for that as well that is escaping me.

But she creates a new law that then instead of being succumbed to despair, magical world simply run out of magical energy and then they kind of disappear and it's applied to the Doka heaven which she became in her goddess form and she kind of created that new reality. So she broke the law of wheels and created a new reality with her with her wish. So there's a lot of references to cyclical and circular things in the anime which is interesting. Now, the way in which they characterize Madoka is kind of referential to a bunch of stuff.

So she's supposed to be innocent obviously. She's supposed to be kind of a pure hearted character. But she's also supposed to be, there's a lot of Madoka's personality that is kind of not written or is left up to other characters to kind of flesh out. So Madoka doesn't get actually a lot of strong characterization throughout most of the series.

So she, I guess in contrast to something like Yusagi and Seo Moon where I hope no one's going to like get upset with me but I don't care for Seo Moon Crystal because the characterization I feel like is too much on Yusagi. But even in the original series and Seo Moon Crystal, her personality is written pretty clearly. Like she's supposed to be very bubbly, very friendly, very open, deeply romantic, deeply invested in kind of a bunch of school world notions about romance in her future has vivid dreams. Like things that she wants to be.

So she has a very kind of distinct characterization and her personality is what connects her and what pulls in other characters to her and that's why she develops strong friendships with the rest of the Seo's. Madoka is supposed to have some of that but we more hear about it rather than see it. So we know that Homer has a strong, has a very strong connection with Madoka but that is only fleshed out in one episode because the whole series is obviously only 12 episodes which they have limited amount of time to flush stuff out. So we don't quite, you know, she's quiet in class, we don't quite see her as like a social butterfly, we don't see her reaching out to people except in kind of in Homer's flashbacks.

We do see Madoka taking some effort to like talk to Homer and stuff like that so Homer seems shy but her characterization is less crystal clear than other typical magical girl protagonists. So I think that that's done, I can only speculate about why they did that in the anime but I think that that was done once you put the audience more in Madoka's shoe so you're kind of going through this journey as Madoka. And it's a common author strategy to if you want the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the character you characterize, you make the character, the characterization of that make character less strong. You make it kind of more like people can easily put themselves into that character's mindset.

It's why Bella and Twilight series is a complete non-character because everything is supposed to be immediately able to put herself in the shoes of Bella. So I think that's one of the reasons that they did it and I think we're also kind of supposed to discover more about Madoka from Homer's eyes because essentially, like a very good argument can be made that this series actually isn't even about Madoka. The series is actually about Homer. It's about Homer's journey, Homer's decision, Homer as an instigator of all of these events because Homer is now controlling a timeline.

So the series is actually about and if you watch the opening, the lyrics to the song are actually from Homer's perspective because she's talking about her friendship and stuff with Madoka. That only makes sense if you're looking at it from Homer's perspective really. So there's a good argument to be made that you're looking at this series from Homer's perspective and your actually Homer is actually more of a main character than Madoka. Madoka is simply a catalyst for Homer's actions.

So that might also be why you have kind of a limited characterization of Madoka. Another thing that could be said is that Madoka is the point of view character. Although she's not Homer as the main character but Madoka is the one through which we see how Homer is dealing with her issues as- Yes, absolutely. So again, if you're going through that journey with Madoka especially the first time you watch the series, you don't know anything about what- what Homer's control of the timeline is or what her situation is so you understand her perspective much less than Madoka's perspective.

But at the same time around then you understand Homer's perspective a little bit better. I'm going to talk more about Goddess Madoka a little bit later, but did anyone want to add some stuff about Madoka or actually any other characters that we talked about so far? Yes? Here I am keeping attention on me.

Another thing that could be thought of of Madoka though in some respects, especially towards the end is similar to the Buddha's journey of enlightenment. As she sees all of these things that go around all of these sufferings that occur and similar to the supposed election of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree suffering through temptations and eventually ignoring them and seeking enlightenment, then Madoka was being constantly tempted by Q-bay to become a magical girl to do these things even after she realizes what's happening because Q-bay keeps setting it up to try and force the situation. And eventually rather than just follow Q-bay's script although she does become a magical girl, she acts in a manner to basically eliminate the suffering. Yeah, and then there was a person who did a panel on, was that you?

No, someone else. He was at my panel last year and I can't remember what his name was, but yeah, there was someone who did a panel a couple years ago on the Buddhist connections with Madoka. There's actually a lot of parallels with Madoka and Buddhism as well in addition to the Faust play and some other stuff. So there's very strong symbolic connections between those two.

Let me actually look real quick on what I do. Okay, so I want to watch, where are you talking about Homer next, but I want to watch the clip and I'll bring it up of when Homer first wishes to be a magical girl. I want to talk about that with a leader. So the exact wording, they must have one part of this up to other, but essentially is I want to redo my meeting with Madoka.

Instead of her being the one that protects me, I want to be the one that protects her. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit. Which starts with everything. Okay, so Homer, as we talked about, she is, again, a lot of the cities is from her perspective, especially upon the second viewing.

Her name has a character in it for Flame and Blaze. You can also have associations with Heart of Fire, Massive Flame and Village Protector. Which is interesting because in Rebellion, when she turns into a witch, you actually see a lot of flames forming around her, and they did that visually, also to draw attention to her name and her witch character. And then Village Protector is interesting because in a sense, she's trying to protect the village of her friends from this fate of becoming a magical girl in the trap.

She can't save Mommy because Mommy had become a magical girl already by the time she's able to go back to, but she can't save Kiel for the same reason, but she does make efforts for a lot of the time to save Saika. So Saika, the first impression, and then obviously her whole aim is to save Madoka. I just thought this quote from Orico Magica, which is a spin off of Madoka, was interesting about Homer's motivations. She basically says to Madoka, like, don't ever tell me not to save you because that has been her sole motivation for so long.

It kind of seems like she's unable to kind of separate her existence or her purpose from saving and protecting Madoka. So even if it's something that Madoka doesn't necessarily want herself, Homer is intent on achieving what she thinks is the best outcome for Madoka. In the beginning, when she first made her wish, she didn't have a full understanding of what becoming an edge-poor was, but she knew that she wanted to stop Madoka from dying, but then as she obviously got to know more about becoming a much more argument, and eventually became witches, she then only learned that her true aim was to stop Madoka from becoming a witch, as well as Madoka's request for her to stop her from becoming a witch, but she has she know what she needs to do in the beginning, she might have made a different wish, she might have pushed her in a different direction as she had a holistic picture of what she was trying to accomplish, but unfortunately she phrased her wish in a specific way which we'll talk about and then her aim became to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl, and then rebellion, her aim becomes a little bit more complicated which we'll also talk about. Most of us don't want to talk about Homer is, has to do with ultimately what I think happened in rebellion, but if we have other things we want to talk about, we can definitely go into that as well.

So quickly I want to talk a little bit about witches, just for folks who want a little bit more background on the witches and why they are, and what is actually going on with each of the witches in the series. So background for the witches is that the witches barrier, which is all the different scenes you see there, is unique, so each witch is very unique and that's because of motivations for becoming a magical girl unique. The barrier is a manifestation of what are the origins of their despair, or what finally tipped them over the edge to becoming a witch. So it's supposed to reflect, you're supposed to know something or be able to figure something out about the witches based on what their barrier looks like, it's not just arbitrary artistic, artistic, what's it's like.

What's it like, we love. Yes, it's not quite where we're for, but it wasn't Hat Hazard. So, for instance, Charlotte, who's the witch on the left, so the story behind her that's been pieced together through author comments and stuff like that, is that her mother was dying of cancer in a hospital, and the hospital that you remember her witch appears at an actual hospital site. So her mother was dying of cancer in a hospital, a few days shows up as she asks her wish is that she gets to share one less slice of cheesecake with her mom.

And then she becomes a magical girl based on that witch. She becomes a magical girl based on that witch. Then immediately she figures out and she was supposed to be a younger than our main magical girl character. She's supposed to be more towards eight, nine, whereas our main series character is supposed to be around 12, 13, 14.

She immediately realizes how stupid that witch was because she didn't wish for her mom to get better. So the idea was that she almost immediately became consumed with despair because she immediately realized how stupid her witch was, and she becomes a witch right at the hospital. So her, her witch's barrier reflects her why she even thought of cheesecake because she had a love of dairy products, there's cheese, there's desserts, there's cheesecake around in her witch's barrier, and then it shows kind of her interest and then it's tangentially related to why she became a witch. So that's supposed to be what's happening with all of the witches barriers, just supposed to know a little bit about the magical girl behind the witch.

Also, I would not like to note that, Sainka's witch, best name Octavia Von Secondor, which I think is great, her witch has the form of a mermaid. And that's supposed to be indicative of the loom mermaid story, which as you know the loom mermaid makes a sacrifice to try to end up with her love or her mental interest. So they're making a reference to the loom mermaid story in her witch's form, and then you also see the music around her, you see kind of, you see the images of her past come up. So it's more clear where the images in her barrier are coming from, but then they also make another reference to it with the loom mermaid as well.

Yes. I think it was Moni who said why don't you wish for a cake, right? I think that's what I suggested it, and then my choos are like, if you can't think of a wish, let's just wish for a big cake. And Doka actually said that, why would I wish for a cake?

Right. But yeah, so I think they probably have that seat take place in the time where you see a bunch of food and stuff around as kind of another connection between the thought processes of magical girls. So yes. So in terms of witches, I guess in the law cycles was kind of the previous structure of magical girls becoming witches.

And then in turn, need more magical girls and then stop the witches. So the brand of goddess Medoka's wish, or Medoka's wish was that she essentially she becomes a new universal constant. So that's why you have to see the whole universe getting rewritten when she asked for her wish because she's stopping a current universal process for happening and she's creating a new process and having to, she has to intervene in the past, present future. And she says, I want to stop all this just for being born in the past, present future.

She has to intervene in all dimensions, all time frames. So she has to be constantly present in the universe as kind of this entity now to actually achieve that wish. The only reason that wish was able to be achieved is because of Homer's actions that then centered all this cosmic energy as QA references around her where she was able to make such a powerful wish because it kind of, you know, you think about if another magical girl had figured that out if they had been able to make such a similar wish and the answer was probably no. Like it had to be the circumstances that led to that wish were created and were only possible because of Homer's actions in this ultimate amount of cosmic potential energy or everyone to it that was built up around the Doka, giving her the ability to make this wish that essentially be rights the structure of the universe.

So that's important to understand to then understand what is happening in rebellion. To understand that Madoka is actually, she has a physical form that she can take, she still has a personality and all that stuff, but she's in a sense become a law of the universe. She's become a universal constant that has to operate as any sort of universal law does. So does anyone need, does anyone need to leave the room for who hasn't seen rebellion yet?

Okay. I was thinking about the other one. So there are going to be spoilers. So if you would not like spoilers, then we're going to talk about the rest of the panel.

So we'll give that a minute. If you pause the, if you pause the, what's it going to say? You pause the, everyone, we'll never buy it. I don't know.

You can come back in like 10 minutes. I don't know. I don't want to be able to answer questions about it too. So another cool thing is if you pause the series in different places where you see all the different types of magical girls, you actually see some historical figures which I thought was pretty cool.

So you see John Bard, you see, you see a girl in a train and the common advantage representation is that she might be in a Holocaust train or something like that based on the, just how it's drawn. And then you see other magical girls throughout history. So I thought that was a little cool aside that they threw in there as well. That also includes magical girls that seem to be coming from a future time period.

Oh, yeah. If you notice there are one or two magical girls that show up as their amounts of parish monitors. The background shows something very, that seems very futuristic. Yes.

So that does do job illustrating the different timelines that you were able to see. I mean that Madoka intervenes in. Okay, so we're billion. What?

I thought that was better. So essentially, so here's why. Let me give you my theory about what's happening in the room. So the reason why I want you to keep in mind Homer's wish is because I think that's also a part of what's coming into play with what happens in the room.

So, you have Homer, you know, has her corrupted soul gem. Madoka, you know, I think the movie then. Madoka's coming into the cleanset and take Homer into this, you know, disappearing, becoming a part of them. Madoka have been psycho.

Homer grabs Madoka and then doesn't allow her to complete her action either way. My belief is that Madoka separates from herself partially because she is that universal constant. She has to be able to continue to travel off into the different dimensions and time periods to, that's a part of her wish, it's a part of the part of her wish. So she has to be able to travel to those different time periods to their stop wishes from being born.

But if she's being restricted, then the part of her that is the universal constant leaves and the part of her that has a physical body remains as Homer grabs her. Then some of this is based on author word of god, some of it is based on fan interpretation, but essentially, so Homer grabs her in Madoka separates. Then we see Homer's soul gem get corrupted in a way that is different. Number one, because it's no longer possible for the soul gems to get corrupted in the same way that they have been because which is no longer exist.

Number two is because of what Madoka was saying that my soul gem is never corrupted by despair. It was corrupted by this constant need to save Madoka or my love for Madoka. So that's Homer's theory about why the corruption was different. Her soul gem breaks and the corruption and energy from her soul gem encompasses the entire universe.

So that's partially word of god that it's encompassing the entire known universe and now Homer is, so the entire universe is now within Homer's version of which is barrier. So not only is Madoka now still a universal constant, Homer now actually has some universal influence and maybe stronger universal influence than Madoka. So her soul gem encompasses the whole universe and she turns into a demon version of what Madoka became. So Madoka became a goddess, became some partial universal constant, Homer becomes a demon and partially universal constant as well.