Currently Airing Anime

Before reading any other opinions on the ending: HOLY PINEAPPLE THAT WAS AWESOME!

 Spoiler

Though the ending was kinda predictable in way, having Madoka wish for something that would break the rules of the game. It was wonderfully done without a Deux ex machina.
Also, seeing Homura go full power against the Walpurgis Night was awesome.
I feel although the ending was "resort to god" it was still pretty satisfying, easily one of my favorite anime.

 Spoiler

Wishing it all away kind of counts as a deus ex machina

 Spoiler

expected/10 ending, but a bit more meaningful than I expected. Various things seemed to pop out at me; the first being, QB seemed to not want to grant her wish, so one of two things happened there...he cannot deny any wishes, or her wish had gathered too much potency from the strings of fate Homura's time travel had been winding around her, making her wish more powerful than any being from a single dimension/universe could handle, thus he had no say over whether or not he could grant the wish.
Second, it was never commented upon whether or not the grief cubes provided the same amount of energy or less than the seeds for QB, so we cannot make a guess at that I guess...nevertheless, I'm assuming it is enough to stave off lolentropy. Many seem to think that where she is currently fighting is a post-apocalyptic afterscape, but that is entirely incorrect even basing things only on the little information we have. Despair dies with the person, therefore the same must hold true for the demons. Rather than it being a world where only she is left alive with leftover demons, it is simply a barrier-zone that she now inhabits and fights the hopelessness of humanity in the form of demons instead of witches; outside of the barrier, life goes on as normal.
Madoka becoming a goddess was no surprise really, it was the only option for a slightly good ending; the other option was bad end I suppose, but "bad end" in this case is just endless recursion for Homura until she gave up hope and became a witch. Rather, it was a bit of a twist for her to become a "concept" and not a physical goddess, but I suppose that is the only way for one to directly influence all planes of existence; even Homura could only exist in one dimension at a time.
Many have commented on the fact that Homura is now Madoka's "Metatron", which I think is about right, but then they go on to say that at the end she simply uses up all her power and vanishes, which I don't necessarily agree with. The fact that she had a white and a black wing indicated that she now held the powers of a witch as well as a magical girl, so, just because the distortions of the barrier were occurring around her does not mean she was dying. With the open-endedness of the ending, I suppose that could have occurred, but I prefer to think that, since she is now the equivalent of Madoka's chief Archangel in the real world, that she thus is sustained by Madoka's own infinite power and can never die unless she gives up hope, which she has already said she will not do "because this world is the world Madoka believes in".
One thing that does suck for her, she pretty much got friendzoned by Madoka right there, eh. No more lesbian vibes for her, LOL.

Oh wow, it just occurred to me, Homura's wish was to "save Madoka". Madoka is now immortal, rather, mortality is not a concept that applies to a law of time/space. Doesn't that in turn make Homura immune to mortality as well, since "saving Madoka" could be taken to the extreme of keeping her alive until her natural lifespan reaches an end?

All in all, it was a very good series though, and I think I like it enough to place it in my top 2 to 3.

Steins; Gate 3: Large Hadron Collider-tan.

Kaiji 3: The managers are definitely cheating.

Denpa Onna 2: The new girls seem very uninteresting.

C 2: I wonder if that black-guy sounding voice speaking random English philosophical phrases in the background is actually important or is just there to sound cool.

Ano Hana 2: WcDonalds, Hourou Musuko, Nokemon, and more. This show is just amazing. There's nothing like Nokemon to bring old friends back together.

Ano Hana 02:
Confirmed for favorite show this season. It was fun to watch them all get so excited over Nokemon. Poppo is a bro.

Madoka

 Spoiler

Ending was 100% Deus Ex Machina. As for Joan of Arc, Fate Stay Night.

Madoka

 Spoiler

Ending was 100% Deus Ex Machina. As for Joan of Arc, Fate Stay Night.

 Spoiler

1.(in ancient Greek and Roman drama) a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot.
2.any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot.

It was and it wasn't, it was an escape to god, but the whole wishing thing was already a known feature of the anime so it doesn't count as an aritificial device.

Madoka 11-12, responses to Swerve inside as well:
[spoiler=]

Episode 11 was great. Episode 12 seemed tacked on and the series really needed to bend over backwards in order to have a "happy" conclusion. It is sad because much of the show relied on revealing each rule or premise in a step wise fashion. The last episode kind of made the slow structure build up completely obsolete.

Madoka
Ending was 100% Deus Ex Machina.

I agree with you that the resolution was 100% Deus Ex Machina, but on the contrary, I felt that the ending didn't betray any of the build-up to when Madoka finally made her wish. Madoka was told that she could reach godhood early in the series by Kyubey, but Madoka didn't understand how she would be able to help or if she was willing to accept something like that. As Madoka sinks into a heroic BSOD with all of the tragedy that's happened throughout the series, the conversations in episode 11 are what allowed Madoka to develop from being helpless into becoming heroic and prepared her for making her wish. Kyubey's conversation with Madoka at the beginning of the episode about the tragic history of magical girls helped Madoka realize that magical girls were an important part of human history and to erase the system of Incubators and magical girls would be wrong because it would not only undo that progress, but it wouldn't prevent the heat death of the universe that's been mentioned before. Homura's conversation with Madoka at Homura's home and Kyubey's discussion with Madoka in the shelter go hand in hand: Homura's conversation makes Madoka realize the tragedy Homura had been facing all of this time and Kyubey's talk with Madoka about how Homura continued to fight even without hope inspires Madoka to decide to carry on the burden of the world's suffering, so that there was someone who was always fighting for the magical girls. It made Madoka consolidate everything she's learned from learning all of the rules or premises and decide to step into becoming a hero who'd continue to take on tragedy and preventing it. In a sense, it's a coming of age and Madoka deciding it at that moment wasn't exactly so sudden and actually very well-built up, but it's just that the solution itself was so easy to accomplish.

If there was anything I felt to be more convenient than Madoka's wish, it was probably how easily Madoka convinced her mom to let her out of the shelter to go to Homura.

Episode 11 was great, though. Walpurgis Night had a sweet introduction, the music was insane, and the fight looked amazing. The countdown was especially intense to me.

Episode 12 felt too condensed. It would have been nice if they had stretched it out for another episode. Still, I found the ending to be good, but not perfect and not bad at all.

I really enjoyed the religious themes and symbolism of Madoka, especially the way they were present in this episode. I like how Gen phrased it in one of Kyubey's lines, that Madoka became a "concept". Homura's talk with Madoka while the world was being rewritten was a kind of interesting possible look on people's relationship with God, and I like how Homura went from skeptic to being able to trust Madoka with this. I did see them as being symbolic of God and Jesus, but I think they could also represent Jesus and the Apostles. I personally am starting to lean towards the later, because I feel there's more examples of that in the series. Madoka having to resist the temptations of Kyubey throughout the whole series was symbolic of what's celebrated in the Lent season- how Jesus had to resist the temptation of the devil while he was fasting in the desert for 40 days. The devil tried to tempt Jesus by making Jesus test his powers as the son of God: like asking him to make manna in the desert, to jump off a really tall building to see if angels would save him, and finally when the devil took him to the highest point in the land overlooking all of the nations in the world and asked Jesus if he would make them all his own; very much like how Kyubey continually tried to tempt Madoka about her potential and what she could do with it. Plus, there's also the whole MADOKA DIED FOR YOUR SINS. Homura is fitting of the Apostles because at the ending, she acts as a "messenger" and loyal to Madoka, rather than being about sacrifice like Jesus was. Homura was also skeptical about the idea of God, kind of like how the Apostles had their doubts.

For me, the ending was inspirational and very emotional. I really liked that idea that they sum up nicely after the credits: "Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember that, you are not alone." I haven't really felt very strongly towards religion in a while, and for the first time in a long time, I felt a spark of what it means to really believe in my religion again. Even without the religious nature it seems to of point at, it's still a really moving and beautiful message. I was also really moved by the scene with the arrows, especially when Madoka helped out the girl on the way to the death camp. Some of Madoka's lines about hope and the one about proving people that it's wrong to think that believing in hope is wrong were nice.

It really pulled at my heartstrings how no one, including her mother, was able to remember Madoka except for Homura. I was kind of glad that Sayaka found some kind of peace, but it was still sad how she died either way. Again, she had intrinsic flaws and there's still no getting over the fact that magical girl bodies don't age.

Hm, as to what a few people were asking about what the demons were, I think that the demons in the new world created by Madoka's wish come from the taint in Madoka's soul gem that I imagine she takes in from the new system of collecting and harvesting energy to prevent energy. It could be possible that they're also just plain a new outlet of the curses/despair in the world.

Homura seems to work directly for Madoka as an agent of sorts for her, since she probably gained her new set of powers from Madoka and how she and Madoka can communicate. It was cool to note how Homura's wings appear to resemble a witch's dimension and had a number of signature items of the witches like wheels for Oktavia and roses for Gertude. The ending was interesting, though. Could it be an entire "dimension" of sorts, maybe Homura is somewhere back in time? Actually pretty confusing.
[/spoiler]

Oriko Magica starts soon, and i think it's pretty obvious she is the Magical Girl who becomes Walpurgis Night, considering the way she is drawn in official artwork (With her mouth open and her arms out, as well as a blue dress with white sleeves). Madoka isn't over yet folks, considering Kazumi Magica is still running.

Actually, Walpurgis Night wasn't born of any specific magical girl. I like to think of Walpurgis Night as being born from the collective despair and hatred of all witches, and being born from a concept instead of a magical girl. Walpurgis Night never gives a Grief Seed when it dies based on episode 10 and among its familiars are shadowy magical girls. The first suggests that there was no real single magical girl behind it, and the other suggests that it was born out of many.

It's possible that the Walpurgis Night is some sort of balance to ensure that all magical girls eventually tire out their Soul Gem (and it's even possible that it's an artificial witch created by the Incubators), but it's not well proven.

EDIT: I watched parts of it again, and when Walpurgis Night is defeated, it breaks up into different shadowy magical girls.

Nichijou - Loving this series so far, it's ridiculously funny and random, reminds me of Ichigo Mashimaro. This has farrrrr more random pomegranatesanity though.

Dog Days - Kinda meh so far, I'll keep going with it, though the plot is pretty bland.

Hidan no Aria - Two of my favorite voice actors as the main characters, so I've got my hopes up for a decent show. Seems alright from the first two episodes. We'll see where it goes though.

Nichijou - Loving this series so far, it's ridiculously funny and random, reminds me of Ichigo Mashimaro. This has farrrrr more random pomegranatesanity though.

I'd say it's more like a current season Seto no Hanayome or Paniponi. But yeah, so far its my favorite this season, I love a good comedy.

For me, there was only one real mystery left in Madoka that I'm curious to find out.



WHO WAS BLACK CAT?!

And guys, on one more note about the ending:

 Spoiler

Do you remember when Spidey brought up the little preface at the beginning of Fate/Zero? It's worth re-reading, but most of all, this was a really important part to draw from it:

Therefore, in order to write a perfect ending for a story you have to twist the laws of cause and effect, reverse black and white, and even possess a power to move in the opposite direction from the rule of the universe. Only a heavenly and chaste soul that can sing carols of praise towards humanity can save the story. To write a story with a perfect ending is a double challenge to the author's body and soul.

Like or dislike the ending, it's really inspirational and uplifting to think about how much finishing up Madoka meant for Gen.

And also, thinking about this idea of a "perfect end", it might be too perfect to seem true, but what makes the ending so nice for me and whoever may have liked it as that in the words that Gen puts it, is that it sings "carols of praise towards humanity". To me, the perfect end helps people believe in the good of humanity and humanity's triumphs.

For me, there was only one real mystery left in Madoka that I'm curious to find out.



WHO WAS BLACK CAT?!

 Spoiler

At this point, i think its safe to say that image was symbolic of her bearing the sin/despair of the magical girls. As black cats tend to be linked to misfortune and all.

Guessing also the scene where her older form embraces her represents her growing up in that sense: struggling with it all, and realizing what she needs to do. For the longest time i thought that part was just plain meaningless.


Also i really loved your opinion on the religious undertone in madoka's story, i'm glad I'm not the only one who picked up on that.

 Gosick

Gosick Ep14 - Hmm...so we pretty much have confirmation from Victorique that "Leviathan" was in fact not one but multiple persons taking up the mask and mantle over the years, thus appearing to be immortal.

As for the gold...could it all actually be iron pyrite ("Fool's Gold")? In which case it would be rather appropriate, seeing that "Leviathan" calls himself a "fool"...

Anyway, having Brian pop up everywhere is getting annoying...and what happened to Victorique's mom?

Currently waiting for Fate/Zero. Madoka was great, but I want to see Zero Berserker throwing Gilgamesh's swords back at him.

Just watched all of Chaos;Head today. Episodes 1-12. They were great :O
Paranoia everywhere~
1 Male X females, yet not a harem show (cept in a main character's delusion or two :3)


I'll watch Stein;Gate once it finishes airing so I can watch it all in one day... though i hear it's gonna be longer :O

I wish Stein's Gate kept the game's art style, but then maybe that would be asking a little too much from the animators... dat shading kinda takes a while.

Madoka 11-12: I liked it. It all made sense.

Denpa 2: Pretty boring so far.

Ano Hana 2: I love it. The characters are good but it's the setting that's really great. Those gameboy SP's and Nokemon.

Stein;gate 2: Nice moment with the banana.

Decided to watch Chaos;Head for the hell of it.

Episode 1 - 5
What the f`uck is this sh`it? Idonteven-. Typical harem, though the protagonist is bat-sh`it crazy, not that I blame him though. This literally screams "Fuminori all over this b`itch" from Saya no Uta, though since it's created by Nitro+, no surprise there. I really don't know how to react to this, because it doesn't seem like a lot has progressed within the past 5 episodes. Just the protagonist's thoughts becoming more insane and how he starts to judge everyone. It's an okay watch though.
-----

Though, recently, picked up Jigoku Shoujo for the hell of it. It seems like it's great artwork, though it's not my slice of pie. I was hoping for gruesome deaths, and usually, most of the endings for the episodes are the same, so I decided to drop it. Might pick it up eventually. Dunno.

Also tried to re-pick up The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Protagonist has an okay personality, sorta reminds me of Yuuichi from Kanon a bit. Not sure if it's the voice or if it's just the personality, though the voice actors are obviously different. Just the tone of his voice was similar. Pretty overly hyped series though, it's not bad, but it's not good either. It was pretty watchable, but I didn't feel like watching a Slice-of-Life series in which

 Spoiler

the female that the protagonist is primarily focused on is a 'God'.

Meh. 5/10 for that. Dropped right after episode 9, while watching in chronological order.

-------

Kanon Kazahana
OVA version for the original Kanon, decided to watch that for the hell of it. Episode was about completely nothing, though I guess it was a small gap before the final episode in the remake. Kinda fills in on things a bit, and I must admit that it was nice to see Sayuri, Mai, and Makoto. Seeing the shoddy artwork really bugged me, but I looked past that and went for it anyways. I liked how the word 'Kazahana' was described at the end of the episode, because I was wondering why they named this episode 'Kazahana'. 5/10, watchable, but boring.

Ao no Exorcist 1:
Not bad, not bad. I've always been a sucker for demon/angel/exorcism type content (the Priest manwha from way back in the day, for example). Definitely watching a lot this season. Some good music right at the end. Well animated too.

Deadman 2:
Prison sucks.

Decided to watch Chaos;Head for the hell of it.

Episode 1 - 5
What the f`uck is this sh`it? Idonteven-. Typical harem, though the protagonist is bat-sh`it crazy, not that I blame him though. This literally screams "Fuminori all over this b`itch" from Saya no Uta, though since it's created by Nitro+, no surprise there. I really don't know how to react to this, because it doesn't seem like a lot has progressed within the past 5 episodes. Just the protagonist's thoughts becoming more insane and how he starts to judge everyone. It's an okay watch though.
-----

Though, recently, picked up Jigoku Shoujo for the hell of it. It seems like it's great artwork, though it's not my slice of pie. I was hoping for gruesome deaths, and usually, most of the endings for the episodes are the same, so I decided to drop it. Might pick it up eventually. Dunno.

Also tried to re-pick up The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Protagonist has an okay personality, sorta reminds me of Yuuichi from Kanon a bit. Not sure if it's the voice or if it's just the personality, though the voice actors are obviously different. Just the tone of his voice was similar. Pretty overly hyped series though, it's not bad, but it's not good either. It was pretty watchable, but I didn't feel like watching a Slice-of-Life series in which

 Spoiler

the female that the protagonist is primarily focused on is a 'God'.

Meh. 5/10 for that. Dropped right after episode 9, while watching in chronological order.

-------

Kanon Kazahana
OVA version for the original Kanon, decided to watch that for the hell of it. Episode was about completely nothing, though I guess it was a small gap before the final episode in the remake. Kinda fills in on things a bit, and I must admit that it was nice to see Sayuri, Mai, and Makoto. Seeing the shoddy artwork really bugged me, but I looked past that and went for it anyways. I liked how the word 'Kazahana' was described at the end of the episode, because I was wondering why they named this episode 'Kazahana'. 5/10, watchable, but boring.

Khoi, did you really spoiler tag that? :p

Also, started Ano Hana and really loving it.

Decided to watch Chaos;Head for the hell of it.

Episode 1 - 5
What the f`uck is this sh`it? Idonteven-. Typical harem, though the protagonist is bat-sh`it crazy, not that I blame him though. This literally screams "Fuminori all over this b`itch" from Saya no Uta, though since it's created by Nitro+, no surprise there. I really don't know how to react to this, because it doesn't seem like a lot has progressed within the past 5 episodes. Just the protagonist's thoughts becoming more insane and how he starts to judge everyone. It's an okay watch though.

Keep watching it. It gets better. Least in my opinion.