I started watching Madoka Magica with the lowest of expectations. No one I knew liked it, I'd not seen any positive reviews, and just generally hate magical girl animes that aren't Princess Tutu or Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Low expectations usually lead to higher enjoyment, but in the case of Madoka Magica, it only braced my fall into this steaming pile of feces. At it's core, this series has some good ideas, but it all falls apart in a cluster of awful writing, dialogue, characterization, and DARKNESS. This anime is one of the worst I've ever seen, despite it's grand potential.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica follows Kaname Madoka, a junior high student with an ordinary life, as she uncovers an unknown fantasy world of witches and magical girls. It's all well and good until the DARKNESS kicks in and the show starts trying to be the Neon Genesis Evangelion of magical girls, minus the expert writing.

To start with a few positive things, considering the rest of this review is going to read like anger personified, the animation quality of the show is superb. All of the battles look excellent, characters move naturally, and the faces convey emotions very well. The music is also a treat, making awful scenes ever more bearable due to the enjoyable background sound. The voice acting is also very good, and it's just a shame Chiwa Saito doesn't get to have more emotions, because her voice is pitch perfect.

Now into the bit that's less pleasant. I could write for days about how much I hate the writing of this show. The characters are terrible. They embody bland stereotypes and easy caricatures, none of which I grew attached to. Madoka and Kyoko were in particular terrible. The plot varies from easily predictable and boring to nonsensical and hilarious. The explanations for what's happening in the series for the last 4 episodes had me rolling on the ground. Character backstories and motivations, with the exception of Homura and Madoka, usually make no sense and come off as laughable. The defining "serious" moment of the series is in the third episode, where it goes into the DARKNESS and deconstruction, but they forgot to make it not ridiculously easy to predict and the villain not hilarious looking. I swear to God, it looked like something out of Panty and Stocking, and I mean that as an insult.

I earlier claimed the animation of the show was above average, and that is fact. I simply wish it wasn't paired with the horrible art style of the show. Yes, I understand its cutesy nature is supposed to create "dissonance" between the "horrific" and "dark" nature of this show, but that would only work if the writing was good (beating a dead horse here) and the artstyle wasn't so horribly moeblob disgusting. I nearly wish to vomit at the sight of most of these characters, and generally did not enjoy the aesthetic of the show. A good example of art style dissonance would be the likes of Attack on Titan.

As a comedy, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is excellent. But as anything to be taken seriously, which this show is so desperate to be seen as, this show is a failure in almost every regard. The great soundtrack and voice acting simply cannot outpace everything else that is awful. I wish that this series was better, because it had so much potential. 3 out of 10.