How to Suffer Well: Sympathetic Characterization in Madoka and Magical Girl Site

For all the happiness this video brings me, the Madoka-At-Home scene also curses me with equal misery

Its been a long while since Ive watched MGS, and even longer since i finished the manga, but my biggest issue with it in both forms was that not a single character was likeable. Not a single one. None of them. Of course theres every single character besides asagiri and her lesbian lover to point to, but even those two are barely interesting/likeable at the beginning. And halfway through the manga (about where the anime ends i think? Again its been like 7 years) Asagiri is just another Yuuki (Mirai Nikki), someone who does almost nothing to move the story forwards on her own and lets the stronger characters around her do all the heavy lifting and dirty work while she cries in the background and occasionally tries to say something meaningful while maybe once in a while doing something of minor plot importance. And her lesbian lover?? All I can recall of her is that she was pretty much the most thoughtful calculating badass in the entire series, but after she met asagiri and started to entangle HER in her own plans, she kinda just lets Asagiri's Half-hazard views and ideas ruin her plans, and spends the rest of her time cleaning up after said fuck ups, and trying to make new plans out of the broken shards of the previous one to push her new bae towards a 'better future' until she runs her own life force dry. Completely abandoning her own goals for revenge (or did she already accomplish it??) and the way she was (apparently) being very careful with her powers so as not to, yaknow, run herself into a pre-pubescent grave. She just abandons all personal agency the second she meets the protagonist, and with it being the kind of story it was; I tried to hold out hope that she was like using asagiri for her own goals, or tricking and using her or something, but nope. Its just bad writing.

in the manga, asagiri and yatsumura kiss in an extremely romantic scene and declare their love for each other. i was kind of hyped- alright, you've juggled around these heavy themes for a bit, but this is a bright spot, so maybe it's building to something meaningful. turns out, they were twins all along. blood twins. that's about where i gave up trying to have any hope for the series at all.

That "Diss List" wad a hoot!!!
Also, considering I've recently been keeping up with like 5 Madoka Magica reactions, this video was great to watch right now, and I think it was very well done. I haven't seen Magical Girl Site yet, but I LOVE the "magical girl noir" sort of genre.

Magical girl site was alright after the first episode I believe currently reading the manga which is better in my opinion

The fuckin ho-down had me cackling 😭😭

Moral of the magical story is that pointless, hopeless school girl torture p*rn is a horrible cash grab for edgebros who just wanted to shit on the hope and happiness that magical girl anime brings to girls and women. Madoka is one of the very few that got its darker depiction right because it still fundamentally respects its genre.

the other thing about sayaka is that in media from after the original series (namely magia record and rebellion) they opted to make her the most badass character in the series

I think there's this one magical girl manga that's just as horrifying as this one but you can actually feel bad for the mc. The mc is VERY young, she's r*ped by her uncle and her pet is killed by her cousin. Yeah it's the same level as this but no one else outside of her family just abuses her, in factbwhen she she gets introduced to the "magical girl" world that many people do not wish harm on the child but she chooses to harm herself. When she learns that each time she uses magic the life span of her family is taken away.....she becomes VERY excited and is one of the first to use magic and everyone around her panics. Everyone around her in this world and notices she's self distructing.

the green girls name is hitomi

"Sayaka use soul gem!" Pokemon moment.

WARNING rant of an insane woman defending Aya/ this show and taking it way to personally bellow but is oki she understands you just don't share her experience but she wants to rant anyway to be hear may be triggering lol

"aya isn't believable and sympathetic" I'm glad you don't relate but i do, she's one of my fav characters ever and people really do go through things like that, i also don't really get the section about syakas, that is one good way to tell a story its tragic sayaka deserved better f in the chat</3, but sometimes like yea people really are just awful to you, you don't need to do anything wrong for bad things to happen to you

the arc of the series is really good actually i think, meeting the right people who can get you out of abuse really is life changing i mean think about it, if you were being abused that's all you knew and then you met your friends and they saved you from that it wouldn't just be "yay my friends idk what to do if they're gone one day" it would change your whole perspective on the world to learn genuine kindness does exist out there and your not exempt from it, i grew up feeling that i was wrong on some level that i didn't know what was wrong but it made me unlovable, i had no friends till i was 15 and considering they all stayed in contact but left me when high school was done that's debatable, if not then then that means i was 23 before my first friends and that was the first time i was really valued by someone, not just incidentally in someone's life but someone they tried to keep around, i had given up on people till then cuz i tried to be the best i could but i was only ever used, and coming back to not doing anything wrong thing i was just undiagnosed autistic, i always did my best for everyone but just cuz who i am i was neglected used and abused, and like aya it wasn't till i found others like me that i was truly accepted and cared about, and don't even get me started on the grooming, i got less punched than aya but a lot more of the 13 minutes in thing you mentioned lol, and the person i met who was the first to treat me with care had been through both her life makes ayas look easy

as for loosing people i was terrified to loose people to a really extreme degree, i had and still have very bad abandonment issues yea, and loss weather by death or just someone being out of my life is unbelievably hard, I've been the the mental hospital 2ce in the last 5 years over losing people, but the good they did in my life didn't disappear cuz they're gone now, they showed me that i can be loved i was just surrounded by assholes before, they showed me i could have something to live for, and i have many friends now, i still struggle with all the old stuff, like aya I'm still me, i never was the strongest person and in many ways I'm weaker than ever even with all the help cuz being through all this takes a huge toll, therapy and meds help but you cant expect someone with no legs to walk and prosthetics are an imperfect solution, mental health can be the same way, but i also am more hopeful than before, the lows may be lower and frequent pretty much daily, but large parts of most days are pretty peaceful inside as long as i keep doing things that help me and time spent with friends makes me happier than i ever thought i could be, aya has grown in the end just not conventionally, she's grown in the ways someone like her actually could instead of into some unrealistic beacon of hope

as for the two years at best i mean yea but if you went from hell to have an insane anime gf and friends wouldn't that be worth living for even for a short time? die alone and misserable or die with friends and your anime gf surrounded by love having treasured your short time together every day? yea i think its worth fighting for, them talking about wanting to go to the beach together was the cutest shit i ever seen these girls love eachother so genuinely fuck the fault in our stars this is how you show to terminally ill people in love and make me care LOL,

anyway all that said i feel like theres more hope to magical girl site, madoka insists so hard on anything good has an equal bad that the writers barely disguised pessimism BREAKS THE STORIES OWN RULES in the end, no homura you CANT become a witch that's actually impossible cuz madoka got rid of that that isn't a thing anymore anywhere in any time just let them have their bittersweet end but nooo "im the writer and i say bad end randomly stapled on!!" its actual bull shit lol, i love madoka but deny that in my headcannon, it ended with madokas wish she did it yay, and i really think rebellion is just incredible on so many levels but its like alternate cannon in my head cuz it shouldn't be possible, its great for what it is but its built on a bs foundation that negates the entire point of the show making basically a really sad filler arc lol

this is why granbelm is better

so keyaru but as a magical girl mc?

hey at least mahou shojou site ended with a good ending eh?

Despite the heavy topic and themes of this video I think your editing is hilarious, I lost it when treee trunks got Sayaka's hair, I see a MHA vid at the top of the video list, if I find that equally as funny I might sub

Read the MGRP light novel

And another magical girl in Madoka magica that made a mistake and became a witch herself is nagisa momoe. She has a very ill and abusive mother. Her dad left them when her mother became sick. Nagisa always bring cheese with her to the hospital so she could eat with her mother since she's overly damn obsessed with cheese, but her mom doesn't want anything to do with her and when we saw kyubey, she wished for the most delicious cheesecake ever which points out to her making a dumb decision since she could've heal her mother and when she found out ABT this, I think she witched out and became Charlotte, y'know the one that thinks mami is cheese

"Muhdoughkuh"

The time: rape index made me have to do a double take at my phone before I burst into laughter

A good mini series that starts with an (implied) suicide is Artiswitch. however it doesn't feel edgey about it.

if u like harajuku fashion, into the Majokko (cute witch, different from the sailor moon and meguka,more slife of lifey too) and cg anime doesn't bother you too much I def reccomend it. again its criminally short but very good imo. and it does feature topics like self worth, doing the right thing, bullying, and suicide without feeling like its exploiting and edgey (it's not gorey, its more on the artistic side, but it can be a bit triggering for some with the way some characters act) It has just enough of a hopeful message it's not super bleak. Despite the CG, its very pretty too, one of the best looking 3d anime imo.

And a bit of a bonus, if you don't like "squeakey anime girl" voices, the charcaters in this show don't really have that either.

I remember watching this video years ago without having watched either show but the messages have always stuck with me. Really solid writing advice.

What's the anime between raising project and yuuki yuna? In the intro

The problem with Asagiri isn't that her misfortune has nothing to do with her personal actions. If we said that, then Guts' terrible childhood would be a problem because he had no personal power over how he was born, whether or not Sys adopted him, Gambino's abuse, etc. It's the fact that Asagiri isn't changed by this misfortune. When faced with a horrible situation, she just become depressed and does nothing about it but cry. Madoka has no personal power over the fact that all her friends make bad decisions and die horribly, and yet she does something about it. I'm not talking just about her massive wish at the end; she tries to reach out to Homura, she makes the choice to support Mami and Sayaka, she even tries (in vain) to call out to Octavia. Characters can suffer for any reason, even no reason at all; that's just how life works. What turns suffering unsympathetic is not just when it's unrealistic, it's when we don't see the characters... DO anything about it, which gives the impression that they aren't suffering as much as they SAY they are. None of the characters in Madoka Magica have this problem because they TRY to do something about it, and when they fail in the end, we feel for them because we REALLY wanted them to succeed due to their attempt.

Also think it’s worth mentioning that “I was suicidal but now I have friends” isn’t a great message because the audience at home may be suicidal with no friends, which gives them a feeling of helplessness as the don’t necessarily have any control over that and therefore cannot take any meaningful lesson away from the story other than “how dare nobody be my friend” or “woe is me I have nary a friend to be found I guess I don’t have any reason to live after all”.

Sayaka on the other hand DID have friends, but that wasn’t the solution to her problems. Her battle was internal, not external.

I was a big fan of Madoka Magica, and so I thought I'd give Magical Girl Site a try when I came across it. I stopped and restarted like 3 times before finally giving up on the series. I just felt... bad, when I read it. You have articulated pretty much my every gripe with the series, and I thank you for that.

urobuchi gen isn't lying when he keeps claiming himself the "warrior of love"

I love your work, but that hoedown scene made me want to comment! I laughed and laughed and appreciated your hard work!

Being a magical girl: can't relate
Being a third wheel: painfully relatable 🥲

It's interesting because everyone seems to hate Kobeni for the same reasons they hate Aya Asagiri.

Didn't you have a video on NGNL 0? Or have I finally lost my fucking mind and am imagining things?

this is the reason I had trouble finishing attack on titans its mostly a hate and suffering stiffy and they have trouble making those light moments hit (at least for me no hate for those that loved it)

Yeah , this one exactly destroyed me at like childhood 😭
Especially Madoka Magica , like in magical girl site sucked. Like tf am I lookin at . But Madoka Destroyed me as a lil child .

I liked magical girl site.. :(
((Maybe its just cuz theres two cute girls in a wholesome relationship tho idk))

I will give anything for a re-write of Mahou Shoujo Site. They could EASILY make her relatable if they removed some things. Make her find her own happiness, remove the random r*pe scene, make her have an environment where everyone else is happy, but she isn't, make her long for something. For example, they could've shown a friend group where everyone was happy, she could've wanted one. Like in danganronpa, despair makes a bigger impact if there's hope to begin with. (Fun fact: Asagiri's bully had NO motives to bully her)

If i had to make her sympathy. Id try to drive towards those who are minor audiences. Example is those who are different sizes, different races or purely different.
Another way to make a character just clumsy but not edgy. Is to make it feel like its natural bad luck.

I want that thumb drive. Where do I buy?!

Lol I did NOT expect Meduka, Hameru and Meguca to be here!

Being Meguca is Suffering

the sis puella magica acapella is somehow both funny and good