The cliffhanger from last week's episode left me intrigued about Madoka's fate. As such, I'm hoping said cliffhanger will get resolved this week. After all, I was kinda expecting some mahou shoujo action last week and didn't get any, so I'm hoping I can get said action this week.
This week, we get an explanation, a la Yuki Nagato dragging Kyon to her apartment. Madoka goes to Mami's apartment, where she gets told everything she needs to know about Puella Magi. Apparently, "Soul Gems" are proof of a contract with Kuybey, or however you spell it. They're also the apparent source of a magcial girl's power. They must fight witches of some kind, and it is evidently extremely life-risking. Oh, and it apparently must be kept a secret that you're a magical girl. Geez, someone get me my list of magical girl tropes.
The episode struck a nice balance between the school life and explaining Puella Magi. The animation was very crisp, as expected from Studio SHAFT. The dialogue wasn't filled with technobabble, and it got straight to the point. There was also a rather amusing scene revolving around an apparent yuri fangirl.
The balance was nice, but the fact that it kept flipping back and forth between school and apartment was rather distracting. Once the exposition finished, however, the episode was pretty smooth sailing.
Other than the heavy exposition, this was another plain episode with little to no mahou shoujo action scenes. Quite frankly, it's starting to irritate me. I imagine this is a 12- or 13- episode series, so the fact that we're almost a quarter of the way done with few transformation sequences is very discouraging. I hope the show can focus a bit more on actual magical girl work now that the expostition's out of the way.
Madoka Magica 2:
Plot Advancement: 2.5/5
Comedy: 4.5/5
Characters: 4/5
Episode Plot: 3.5/5
Animation Quality: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5
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