Except that's not Homura.

People are defined by their experiences and their environment; Homura and Kyouko would be very different without their personal tragedies, but that doesn't make one version less real than the other.

A separate rant, I forget where I've seen people say that MR is less "good" than PMMM because the stakes aren't as high in terms of max achievable despair

Tragedy must be dosed carefully, or it becomes hard to take seriously. I remember a lot of people complaining about Nagisa's story being too dark, what with the awful family and the serial killer.
Even so, a game like MagiReco can't really afford to off too many characters (in theory).

SuperText posted:

Except that's not Homura.

People are defined by their experiences and their environment; Homura and Kyouko would be very different without their personal tragedies, but that doesn't make one version less real than the other.

I didn't say she isn't real. I said she's different character. And they both had the same tragedy, but she made different choice than OG Homura given the same circumstances, making her different character.

last edited at May 27, 2020 8:35AM

I didn't say she isn't real. I said she's different character. And they both had the same tragedy, but she made different choice than OG Homura given the same circumstances, making her different character.

Keep in mind that being in Kamihama makes girls react differently to the same situations, thanks to the Doppel insurance. You didn't see anyone have a Mami-type freakout after Mitama's explanation.
If anything, the writers had to crank up the Magius' nastiness to justify why so many girls oppose them.
Also, MR Homura is still a very early version of Megane Homura, somewhat naive and not yet jaded, searching for a way to save everyone and not resigned to only save Madoka. Sure, she might not become the Coolmura we all know and love, but as far as she is concerned, that's probably for the best.

last edited at May 27, 2020 9:24AM

You clearly didn't see Homura's episode story.

You clearly didn't see Homura's episode story.

If you mean Coolmura's episode, nope. I didn't manage to roll her (no thanks to Mito and Mifuyu).

Edit: By MR Homura I was referring to the one with the glasses that saw Ui, in case it wasn't clear. With all these timelines it's easy to get the various Homuras mixed up while talking about them.

last edited at May 27, 2020 6:40PM

Any guesses on what the next event in NA might be? I just got my Rika to magia level 4 and all I need are six more bunny ear cottons to get her to magia level 5.

riverFlower posted:

Which makes seeing her actually getting along with people in MR and being able to care so much more heart warming.

Except that's not Homura. That's one of issues I have with the lazy justification for story. We're seeing different universe than the one from OG anime, so the Homura, Madoka, Sayaka, Mami and Kyouko are different character. They're not the characters we know, and as far as we know, they might be separate people with different personalities etc. ... Honestly the revelation we're not following the universe we know and those are separate characters that actually made different choices than OG cast in OG universe, kinda turned me off to them and now I can't really invest in them as much. So Homura you see in MR is not OG Homura and she will never become Coolmura, because they're separate characters that thinks differently.

I read a lot of fanfiction/parallel universe works so them being theoretically separate people doesn't bother me. I see people as a continuum of potential anyway and the experiences we go through or don't are crucial in shaping us. Since Moemura has gone through different things and because this universe is completely different, well makes sense she'd be different. But at the same time, I still see her as Homura. She's a version of Homura after all. And so far, she is purposefully meant to follow a Homura who does not become cynical. Anime Homura in her first few timelines is the same person as MR Moemura to me. And the diverging point seems to be the timeline where OG Homura is almost killed by Mami and MR Homura isn't.

Although it sounds like you had expected MR would take place in the OG universe and follow the same rules with same character thought processes, which I think I dropped any expectation of the moment the little Kyubey showed up.

so it make you feel like all Homura had to do was ask others for help, but still I kinda like the implication that we can overcome everything together. It gives different feel than OG, while being just as hopeful as it.

She does ask for help though (why is this spoilered), but in the last pre-Madokami timeline Kyouko sacrifices herself so she was forced to confront Walpurgisnacht by herself anyway. There's always a chain of events that gets in OG Homura's way no matter what she tries. It's more of the universe is different thing that asking for help didn't work for her before. But also exactly, MR explores another type of hope which I'm more than happy with. The doom and gloom of the original plus Madokami is of course unrivable, but I'm fine with them being two different stories. Even if MR's friendship overcomes everything approach can verge on being somewhat unbelievable. Eg. I'm torn between being happy they saved Tsuruno so easily in chapter 7 and wondering if there wasn't another just as satisfying plot that could have been written.

Speaking of when they saved Tsuruno in chapter 7, I've been thinking about an alternate version where both normal Tsuruno and Uwasa Tsuruno were separated into different individuals and lived as sisters. I've seen some fanart of it, and based on Tsuruno's personality (and her friends), I don't see why it couldn't happen.

thonk

Speaking of when they saved Tsuruno in chapter 7, I've been thinking about an alternate version where both normal Tsuruno and Uwasa Tsuruno were separated into different individuals and lived as sisters. I've seen some fanart of it, and based on Tsuruno's personality (and her friends), I don't see why it couldn't happen.

Loool so double the power of friendship. Now even the Uwasa can be saved. Uwasa Tsuruno was quite nice though, very chill, outside of how she's happy to let you relax forever.

If they killed Tsuruno off and saved Mami later on then I think it would make the writing worse off than it is already. I really like to see an alternate story mode told from the POV of the Magius and the Wings of Magius that portrays them more sympathetically instead of the hamfisted Magius are the "bad guys" and Iroha and company are the "good guys" that we got in the game.

last edited at May 27, 2020 5:23PM

riverFlower posted:

them being theoretically separate people doesn't bother me

They're not theoretically separate people. They're separate people.

Since Moemura has gone through different things

Except she didn't.

And the diverging point seems to be the timeline where OG Homura is almost killed by Mami and MR Homura isn't.

The diverging point is that when Homura made contract with Kyuubey, instead of trying to warn others about the truth, she decided to keep silent about it.

Although it sounds like you had expected MR would take place in the OG universe and follow the same rules with same character thought processes, which I think I dropped any expectation of the moment the little Kyubey showed up.

The basic premise of the game was advertised as one of Homura's earlier timelines, but as soon as you play the game and see her seeing Ui telling her to go to Kamihama, you know it can't be, because if something like that happens in Kamihama and it affects even other cities (less witches etc.) which then even affected characters (Mami and Kyouko went there, because of that) you know it couldn't be something that only happened in that timeline and in others it was just in the background and Homura never encountered it. But I heard they make it make sense later, so I was patiently waiting, when will finally story explain how it's possible and then turns out the explanation is a hand-wave in episode stories of 2 limited characters. And honestly that explanation is so ridiculous I can't believe it. And here I thought Magius somehow managed to block out Law of Circles in process of trying to find a true solution to becoming a witch, and that's why it's like separate universe that Madoka can't interact with and everything got so messed up, not because it's completely different universe where magical pebble randomly appeared before Iroha and she got so brain-dead watching it that she met Kyuubey for the first time. We have such complex story and we get explanation in 2 parts in 2 separate episodes stories and all it amounts to is like few lines of dialogue to explain entire thing. MR's Homura constantly going back in time and creating new timelines "created" that pebble, how exactly, even authors don't know. Then when OG Homura finally goes to learn why MR's Homura timeline is so different than hers and how it happened, it turns out when she woke up after making contract and decided to tell others that Kyuubey is deceiving everyone, MR's Homura decided to not tell them, because it would be bad idea. And that's were two universes started to diverge, at least only looking at MR's Homura's life. MR universe is different from timeline 2, but only somewhere, somehow later after repeating many timelines Homura happened to "created" pebble and Iroha, who never contracted before, did thanks to it and that's how entire MR story got kick-started. Some awesome writing that is. And it's still not even told in the fucking main story, where any explanation how this entire mess started doesn't exist. I was sure Homura's event will be where we finally learn the explanation (cos I thought the universe was created because of cutting of Madokami) or at least we'll get to see her interacting with cast from MR, but because everything has to fit tightly to timelines and to story, we can't have cross-over event like that where we just go loose, so instead we got shitty retelling of anime, where we learn nothing new about old or new story. I guess it's my fault for getting invested and actually expecting some yuri damn explanation after 9 chapters.

why is this spoilered

I think we're actually meant to avoid spoiling anime as well as we should avoid spoiling the game. We kinda go back and forth with what we mark as spoilers and what we don't, so it's kinda hard to tell at this point what information I'm supposed to hid.

but I'm fine with them being two different stories.

If they had to resort to making it as a different universe, they should have just made it as a alternative take on original story, which I'd be more than happy with. What annoys me is that they try to explain it, but the way they do are very flimsy and barely make any sense.

Eg. I'm torn between being happy they saved Tsuruno so easily in chapter 7 and wondering if there wasn't another just as satisfying plot that could have been written.

Honestly, killing her off would leave much stronger impact and really would sunk in that Magius are bad and need to be stopped. I'll refrain from commenting more, because until I'll have full picture of the story, it's really hard to understand what they're going for exactly.

Sakura Cartelet posted:

If they killed Tsuruno off and saved Mami later on then I think it would make the writing worse off than it is already.

If I had killed of Tsuruno, I'd most likely kill off Mami too.

I really like to see an alternate story mode told from the POV of the Magius and the Wings of Magius that portrays them more sympathetically instead of the hamfisted Magius are the "bad guys" and Iroha and company are the "good guys" that we got in the game.

Yea. I have issues with how Magius are portrayed in the game too. Of course you could still have them doing clearly bad things, but at least you could present it more as a necessary sacrifice and ends justify the means and not make them so 1 dimensional villains. But of course to fairly and accurately judge them, I need to see the ending of the story first and finally learn the entire plot. Depending how it goes, I really feel like trying to rewrite story to make it better.

Except that's not Homura.

Okay now this is a line I have issue with...

We're seeing different universe than the one from OG anime, so the Homura, Madoka, Sayaka, Mami and Kyouko are different character. They're not the characters we know, and as far as we know, they might be separate people with different personalities etc.

On a purely empyrical sense you are correct... but on a meta perspective we know this isn't the case, the Homura we see in MagiReco is still a Homura, she is a path that Homura could have taken if things had played out slightly different for her, and for the other four, we know that they are the same at their starting point because that's the point of them being there at all.

Maybe this doesn't bother me because I irregularly follow cape comics since forever, 2020 Superman isn't the exact same character as 1938 Superman by any stretch, but he is still Superman, and that's what matters in that context.

In fact, I kinda feel like writers don't understand OG story at all, because in her episode story Coolmura is incredibly OOC. She can't comprehend why Homura from this universe would ever bother helping or doing anything for someone else than Madoka and she thinks befriending people and trying to act as a team is a waste of time.

I had a different perspective on that entirely, Homura was mentally exhausted by that point, having just fought Walpurgis(from her perspective, anyway, time is convoluted when reality is getting rewritten), and being told that she had to accept what was the worst outcome for her with no way out, she had to tell herself that the way things happened was the only remotely positive way they could've happened, and I feel that becomes clear at the very end when she ends the synchronization, and how she does it, she didn't really think that all that had nothing to do with her, rather she was being shown right in front of her eyes that there was another way, that however unlikely, there was a better way, and that she had failed at attaining it, therefor she rejects that reality as being valid by quite literally shooting it in the face, because doing that is the only thing she can do at that point besides wallowing in her own failure.

And they both had the same tragedy, but she made different choice than OG Homura given the same circumstances

Yes, she made a different choice, a choice that once taking in account who Homura was at that point, it is completely in-character for her to take, it just took her spending long enough thinking about it to second-guess herself once, it is ultimately the concept of For Want of a Nail that MagiReco so very heavily relies upon taking place once more.

For want of a pebble, Iroha Tamaki contracted, for want of a thought, Homura Akemi took a different path.

That the biggest strength of OG was the fact everyone dies and that no one was safe.

This is very much not true though, one of the things that people ignore a lot about the OG series is that at the end of the story, every single death gets undone, if anything we are at -1 deaths by the end of Rebellion, we started that story with 5 characters, and now we have 6 with the addition of Nagisa, we achieved the fabled negative deaths!

That said, I suppose death as a concept loses all meaning when both of your leads have become omnipotent deities...

A separate rant, I forget where I've seen people say that MR is less "good" than PMMM because the stakes aren't as high in terms of max achievable despair

This is one of those things that I agree but for different reasons, the OG series is better to me but because it is this incredibly fine-tuned, concise story with almost impecable theming, MagiReco is still really good once it picks up steam, but the OG series is just really difficult to beat, and saying something isn't as good as it is like saying that a millionaire isn't as rich as a billionaire, that is a completely true statement, but saying it doesn't discard the fact both are still filthy rich.

If they killed Tsuruno off and saved Mami later on then I think it would make the writing worse off than it is already. I really like to see an alternate story mode told from the POV of the Magius and the Wings of Magius that portrays them more sympathetically instead of the hamfisted Magius are the "bad guys" and Iroha and company are the "good guys" that we got in the game.

I think that might depend on what you see as being sympathetic. As of current main story I find them sympathetic. They're selfish as fuck, but with all the Ui / Eternal Sakura stuff going on, there's clearly something more happening in the background. And even more importantly, the game has had Yachiyo (or was it Iroha?) declare that they were fighting for their respective selfish wishes.

Also when we first learn more of the Magius, it seems their goal is to prevent magical girls from becoming witches. In chapter 9, we find out their goal is even bigger than that and seems to actually be the eradication of all witches in the present and the future while pushing out Incubators at the same time. That's a lofty goal that I would argue could justify the means. It's similar to what Madokami does, except you prevent the creation of magical girls too. You prevent the witches, the deaths those witches cause, and the deaths of future magical girls who will never have to contract. That's pretty amazing isn't it?. Still though, it would have been nice if there had been more wings who kept on following the Magius even after Mifuyu left. But the only people who would have been left would have been people who don't have much left to lose in terms of relationships since the Magius are depicted as going to a extreme that even loyal wings can't accept anymore.

The basic premise of the game was advertised as one of Homura's earlier timelines

Oh was it advertised that way? I mean it is one of her earlier timelines, just not in the PMMM time loop.

This is very much not true though, one of the things that people ignore a lot about the OG series is that at the end of the story, every single death gets undone, if anything we are at -1 deaths by the end of Rebellion, we started that story with 5 characters, and now we have 6 with the addition of Nagisa, we achieved the fabled negative deaths!

Lol I did consider bringing that up too. There is so much death, but it's all negated. It's a well-deserved negation which is probably why it doesn't feel contrived, but objectively, only Sayaka dies in the end of the main series.

Probably people just want to see higher stakes in MR though. Like the real chance of anybody dying or suffering some terrible fate. I do feel that way too sometimes for plot tension reasons. It should only happen though if the writers are prepared to write the aftermath. Personally I wouldn't mind if Mifuyu dies, but I doubt she will. Her soul gem didn't crack all the way.

This is one of those things that I agree but for different reasons, the OG series is better to me but because it is this incredibly fine-tuned, concise story with almost impecable theming, MagiReco is still really good once it picks up steam, but the OG series is just really difficult to beat, and saying something isn't as good as it is like saying that a millionaire isn't as rich as a billionaire, that is a completely true statement, but saying it doesn't discard the fact both are still filthy rich.

Yeah agreed. I stopped playing MR months ago because my units sucked and the story battles were frustrating me (during chapter 4 I couldn't get three stars for twenty straight battles), but I'm extremely glad I came back, just for the story. And partly because the game itself is more fun now.

The thing is about the Magius's "extremes" is that if Iroha and her friends had just left them alone, then it probably would've never had to come to that. Instead Iroha and her associates decide to keep interfering with the Magius and the Wings of Magius plans thus driving them into a metaphorical corner where they (the Magius) start to act extreme including plotting to hurt other magical girls (who may be scheming with Iroha for all they know). Also at least the Magius offer a possibility for salvation (the Doppel system) for the magical girls while Iroha and company offer nothing so in that way the "heroes" are in the wrong.

Unrelated, but it's something I thought of a crossover with the Neptunia series with Madoka as a Goddess (CPU) and Ultimate Madoka form as her transformed state. Sorry if it's not making much sense I thought it up late at night.

last edited at May 28, 2020 1:01AM

The thing is about the Magius's "extremes" is that if Iroha and her friends had just left them alone, then it probably would've never had to come to that. Instead Iroha and her associates decide to keep interfering with the Magius and the Wings of Magius plans thus driving them into a metaphorical corner where they (the Magius) start to act extreme including plotting to hurt other magical girls (who may be scheming with Iroha for all they know). Also at least the Magius offer a possibility for salvation (the Doppel system) for the magical girls while Iroha and company offer nothing so in that way the "heroes" are in the wrong.

If that's a reasonable conclusion derivable from the text, is the game portraying them unsympathetically then as you originally said? Since there is a difference between the protagonists' views being unsympathetic and the game/creators showing them that way.

Just finished the Sayuki event and it's adorable. When I read battle one's story I thought it was a shame there wasn't music accompanying her song lyrics. Then at the very end they show an entire MV of that song. Rena fangirling was cute too.

Lol I did consider bringing that up too. There is so much death, but it's all negated. It's a well-deserved negation which is probably why it doesn't feel contrived, but objectively, only Sayaka dies in the end of the main series.

Even that one is iffy, considering in Rebellion we learn that she became one of Madokami's archangels(through sheer nepotism of being god's childhood friend), and that while she was gone, she was not anymore gone than Madoka herself(if anything far less so, people still remember her), and she was just out there doing whatever Madoka needed her to do, so even the one death that seemly sticks turns out to also have been negated once we learned the full context behind it.

The thing is about the Magius's "extremes" is that if Iroha and her friends had just left them alone, then it probably would've never had to come to that. Instead Iroha and her associates decide to keep interfering with the Magius and the Wings of Magius plans thus driving them into a metaphorical corner where they (the Magius) start to act extreme including plotting to hurt other magical girls (who may be scheming with Iroha for all they know).

This is actually not true at all, summoning Walpurgis to Kamihama was always going to be their end goal as that was considered necessary to finish Eve and fully realize the system, and that in itself would have killed hundreds of thousands, they also state that they expected to generate a lot of energy through the Anihillation plan, which makes the pretty obvious implication that their plan was never to actually kill any of the Kamihama megucas(though they did not care if they died), but rather to drive as many of them to Doppel out as possible and generate energy to give Eve the final push to confront Walpurgis, which suggests that the Anihillation plan was always going to happen anyway.

Iroha's team only pushed their hand in so far as to cause an escalation of conflict, it made things get progressively worse instead of going from 0 to 100 in one go.

Just finished the Sayuki event and it's adorable. When I read battle one's story I thought it was a shame there wasn't music accompanying her song lyrics. Then at the very end they show an entire MV of that song. Rena fangirling was cute too.

It was really nice but it left me wondering one thing... why did they not just cheat with magic at the end...? I am not saying anything fancy, but Sayuki's main issue was just being unable to memorize her lines, why did they not just read the script to her through telepathy during the recordings? it would've been extremely easy and while I would've understood not wanting to cheat in a normal situation, when Sayuki was pushed into a corner they were completely justified to do so...

As a side note, we have gotten info on the next JP event, and while we haven't got the full art for this one memoria yet... are they finally going to do it? are we finally going to get someone interested in Mami? it took almost 10 years, but Mami might finally be getting a girlfriend, goddamn... it is just a thumbnail but I am so weirdly excited for this... I don't even like Mami that much...

last edited at May 28, 2020 3:45AM

It was really nice but it left me wondering one thing... why did they not just cheat with magic at the end...? I am not saying anything fancy, but Sayuki's main issue was just being unable to memorize her lines, why did they not just read the script to her through telepathy during the recordings? it would've been extremely easy and while I would've understood not wanting to cheat in a normal situation, when Sayuki was pushed into a corner they were completely justified to do so...

Were they all already contracted? Don't own any of the three so have no context.

As a side note, we have gotten info on the next JP event, and while we haven't got the full art for this one memoria yet... are they finally going to do it? are we finally going to get someone interested in Mami? it took almost 10 years, but Mami might finally be getting a girlfriend, goddamn... it is just a thumbnail but I am so weirdly excited for this... I don't even like Mami that much...

Well, she does have Bebe/Nagisa from Rebellion. Not so sure about MR Nagisa.

Were they all already contracted? Don't own any of the three so have no context.

Their soul gem rings are visible in a lot of scenes, plus Sayuki's idol outfit is literally just her meguca outfit, Mayu's personal story shows that her and Ria only became close after Mayu contracted, and we haven't even seen Ria before she contracted, due to the nature of her wish.

Well, she does have Bebe/Nagisa from Rebellion. Not so sure about MR Nagisa.

Mami and Nagisa were always meant to be a more familial bond though, it's what their names are supposed to be working off of when put together, Mami and Bebe >>> "mommy" and "baby".

Though there IS a joke to be made there about how Mami likes white hair...

last edited at May 28, 2020 1:39PM

Suppose you are a magical girl in universe that only knew that you had to fight witches, avoid soul gem corruption, and death due to soul gem damage. Now one of the Wings of Magius (probably Mifuyu) approached you telling that they can save magical girls. Another group (Iroha) and company claims that the group is "evil" without much believable evidence. Which group would you join? Again you don't have knowledge of what we as readers do meaning: no information of the Magius's ultimate goals, no knowledge of Ultimate Madoka's existence, no knowledge of Uwasas...

I'd still argue there is a lot going on with the Magius that are gargantuan red flags, in particular their cult-like behavior is palpable, Shizuku's event did a lot to show why their rules are incredibly oppressive to self-identity, and that the only reason the group has any sense of livelyhood is because said rules are constantly ignored, as they don't have the infrastructure to enforce them.

That said, I don't fully blame them, the weight behind meguca life is immense for kids like them to handle, and chapter 9 shows how absurdly hard the group started splintering the more and more they knew of the truth behind the Magius' actions, it also shows that not all of them were outside the know of the Walpurgis plan, plenty of them knew, and they went with it anyway.

On an unrelated note, I just need the dark books and the bp potions then I'm done clearing the shop.

Mami and Nagisa were always meant to be a more familial bond though, it's what their names are supposed to be working off of when put together, Mami and Bebe >>> "mommy" and "baby".

Though there IS a joke to be made there about how Mami likes white hair...

Doesn't stop people from having shipped them. XD Though after seeing Nagisa's event, her having a better mother does seem appropriate.

Mami likes white hair? I've never heard of that before, that's interesting.

That said, I don't fully blame them, the weight behind meguca life is immense for kids like them to handle

I always wonder, is there really that much of a difference between kids and adults? I see that being said a lot in Madoka series discussions. Like that kids are less mature, adults aren't as immature, etc. type of statements.

Mami likes white hair? I've never heard of that before, that's interesting.

It was just me making a joke, with how consistently so far(even if only two) every meguca outside the original 5 who seem to have a connection with Mami has white hair, not anything canon or anything.

I always wonder, is there really that much of a difference between kids and adults? I see that being said a lot in Madoka series discussions. Like that kids are less mature, adults aren't as immature, etc. type of statements.

There are different forms of maturity, it isn't a binary thing, and emotional maturity plays a massive role in all of this, teenagers are factually more emotionally volatile than adults by a long shot, lots of hormones needed for bodily development also have a huge impact in emotional state, which leads to emotional immaturity, if we are speaking on average, a 25 year old will be able to handle stressful situations far better than a 15 year old, plus the point that the 15 year old is still developing, physically and mentally, and how that much stress realistically could harm their development rather severely, and how people approach things from that angle.

There is also a lot to be said about how to a lot of people, it is natural to feel more protective of younger characters, because it is a very instinctual human behavior to care for the young, and fictional or not, those characters can trigger that instinct pretty hard, I include myself in that and I often have the tendency to care more for child characters than for adult characters.

last edited at May 30, 2020 8:49AM