Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Box Set Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Wishin' and hopin'.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 13, 2012

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a sweet little anime whose most complex element may well be its title, a title which some viewers may respond to by saying, “It’s all Greek (and/or Latin) to me!” A puella magi is a “magical girl”, a sort of subgenre of Japanese manga and anime (and if you’re a fan of these art forms, you know just how many subgenres there really are). Magical girls are usually recruited to battle evil on Earth, but they do so after having agreed to exchange a wish of their own for eternal servitude as a wizardess. The Madoka of this anime’s title refers to the series’ heroine, one Madoka Kaname, a kind hearted young female who traverses the outer ring of her school’s inner popularity circle, but who probably isn’t “out there” enough to lapse into the complete social pariah category. Puella Magi Madoka Magica recounts Madoka’s angst filled decision whether or not to become a magical girl, replete with occasional soulful questionings and more than occasional battles with various supernatural phenomena, thanks to friends and acquaintances of Madoka who have already become magical girls. Aniplex is releasing the anime in a set of Limited Edition Box Sets, each of which contain one keepcase with a Blu-ray and DVD and another with a CD featuring tunes from the show’s rather nice and evocative soundtrack, as well as various other printed material. The sets are frankly a bit on the pricey side, and so potential consumers will need to weigh whether they want to pay a premium price for a set that will only give them a few episodes to enjoy. This particular set contains episodes 5 – 8 and picks up the story from where Puella Magi Madoka Magica LE Box Set Vol. 1 left off. By this point, Madoka's best friend Sayaka has just made an unexpected commitment to be a magical girl, and has begun to realize the ramifications of that decision. That includes having to choose between helping personal friends, something the seems somehow concrete, as opposed to the somewhat more amorphous general idea of “battling evil”, even if that evil sometimes comes in a fairly concrete form of a witch or other villain. In the meantime, Madoka is reeling from a terrifying encounter with a witch which has left another magical girl dead.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica really ups its game in this second set of episodes, with all sorts of melodramatic developments that might be patently ludicrous (hey, this is a show about girls fighting witches—what did you expect?), but which also invests the series with more compelling content than the opening four episodes managed to deliver. One thing that repeatedly happens in this second set of four episodes is a sort of internecine warfare (for want of a better word) between various magical girls, revealing that not all who have taken up the magical girl banner automatically have the same motives. As Madoka looks on (often helplessly), Sayaka again and again finds herself in various conflicts, kind of the “new kid on the block”, so to speak, a kid who is still trying to figure out her way through the magical maze she’s attempting to circumnavigate.

Also kind of interestingly, it’s revealed in this second set of episodes the Kyubey, the sort of magical rabbit-like creature who wants to make the magical contract with Madoka, may not be as relatively benign as he once seemed. This companion who has set Sayaka and others on their magical way is forced to cough up some salient information about the Soul Gems, the kind of glowing Fabergé egg-like items that supposedly contain the girls’ magical powers. While that turns out to be technically true, there’s a little catch that paints Kyubey’s actions as perhaps less than totally altruistic. This puts Madoka into yet another tailspin, as she has attempted to utilize Sayaka’s Soul Gem for noble purposes, only to see her decision drastically backfire.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica continues to be a supremely effective anime in terms of its design aesthetic. As per the first volume, episodes open and close with bumpers in 2.35:1 which offer really incredibly beautifully detailed animations, often including CGI that manage to invest a quasi-three dimensional look to the proceedings. If the bulk of the series can’t quite measure up to that excitement, there are still many things to enjoy here, including some of the “portal” worlds that the girls enter into. One of the early battles, for example, is like a Looney Tunes version of a child’s nursery, with a bizarre demon who looks like a scribbled crayon drawing a very young kid would have drawn. This evil elf zooms around in an environment filled with slightly menacing animals that seem to be peeling off of a kind of nefarious wallpaper. It’s bright, it’s colorful, and it’s just slightly spooky, three things that Puella Magi Madoka Magica manages to emphasize more often than not.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Box Set Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As with Puella Magi Madoka Magica LE Box Set Vol. 1, Puella Magi Madoka Magica Limited Edition Box Set Vol. 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Aniplex with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (each episode also includes bumpers typically in 2.34:1). This is a bright and vivid high definition presentation which features incredibly sharp line detail, robust and extremely well saturated colors and consistent stability. The best part of this series is undoubtedly the weirder, more "magical", moments, which include everything from the bumper sequences mentioned above in the main body of the review, to several brief sequences where the various girls are either in a sort of demonic lair or fighting witches and other nemeses. While the bulk of the shonen aspect of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is pretty standard fare (which is not to say it's not enjoyable), the series really kicks it up a considerable notch in these other, more fanciful, elements, and it's then that this Blu-ray really pops with some amazing detail and color, not to mention a really cool looking design aesthetic.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Box Set Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Limited Edition Box Set Vol. 2 features two uncompressed LPCM 2.0 audio options, one in the original Japanese and the other an English dub. Both of these tracks are virtually identical with regard to overall amplitude and mix, with the only salient difference being of course the language being spoken. Fidelity is strong and voice work is quite good in both languages, but this is a series that could have benefited from a surround mix for a couple of important reasons. First of all, the series includes a really effective underscore, one that blends a sort of Japanese version of the group Mediaeval Baebes with some nice sounding ethnic instruments and J-pop (there's also some classical source music used as well, one Bach piece of which shows up on the soundtrack CD sampler included in the set). Second of all, some of the weirder surreal elements have some great sonic activity that really could have been opened up significantly with a surround mix. That said, the stereo mixes here are artful and well prioritized and they get the job done within an obviously narrower soundfield.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Box Set Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only on-disc supplement is a:

• Textless Opening (HD; 1:33)

However, as with Puella Magi Madoka Magica LE Box Set Vol. 1, this second volume comes replete with quite a few other extras, including:

• Soundtrack CD. This second volume of soundtrack selections is again quite enjoyable and may in fact be one of the more appealing selling points to this set. However, it should be noted that on one of my CD players the CD exhibited recurrent dropouts on several tracks.


• Reversible covers (inserts) for the BD/DVD and CD cases


• 24 Page Booklet features staff and voice actor interviews, original art by Aoki Ume and art gallery by Inu Curry.


• 2 sided poster


• Postcards featuring preview illustrations of Episodes 5 – 8

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Box Set Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica became manifestly more interesting in this second set of episodes. New conflicts emerged and though the series' tendency to mix a more traditional shonen ambience with the whole magical girl plotline is fairly cliché ridden, the series has started to reveal a bit of unexpected nuance as various back stories are explored and Madoka has to decide whether or not she wants to join the magical girl fray. The series continues to excel in exploiting a very cool looking design aesthetic. This deluxe Blu-ray set may frankly be short in the actual episode content (only four episodes for something this pricey?), but the rest of the bonus content helps at least somewhat to justify the expense. With stellar video and solid audio, this set comes Recommended.