It’s actually good the whole show is a critique of how young girls desires are manipulated from a young age to participate in the systems of society that destroy them. Really great politics and interesting delivery of them

tv madoka portrays social democracy and is cringe

movie madoka portrays stalinism and is based

sadly you gotta watch the tv madoka for the film madoka

It’s been at least a decade since I watched it, but it was one of the best I’ve seen. AFAIK it invented the Anti-Magical-Girl genre.

It’s just a well done subversion of the popular tropes in its genre when it was made, which earned it a lot of points back when that was novel and you went into it just thinking you were going to watch a magical girl anime. When you know that that’s not what it is it loses a lot of the magic, as it were. It’s fine, but it didn’t really blow me away.

It’s not made for pedophiles though. Shouldn’t be any risk of running into that sort of stuff.

It’s tough getting into details without spoiling some of the aspects of the show, but yeah there are definitely problematic elements. The character designs are overly sexualized for being middle school girls (case in point, Mami). A key subtextual theme is about how society exploits the images/bodies/persons of young women for cynical profiteering, but the show itself literally also does that as well. There are definitely parts of the show that feel edgy for edginess’s sake, although it’s probably not the most egregious anime in that respect.

To be honest, I’ve watched the show a couple times as well as listening to a whole (100% femme cast) recap podcast on the show, and I still have mixed feelings about it. I think it’s certainly an influential show, and one that’s worthy of critical discussion, but idk if you would have a good time watching it.

Its very good also its packed with lesbean energy

It is both worth watching and cringe.

To be serious I’d say it’s not bad, but it’s in my top 5 of all time so I’m obviously pretty biased. There’s definitely some edginess but I wouldn’t say it revels in it. As far as sexualization goes, their skirts are pretty short but imo that’s about it and the magical girl outfits aren’t really worse (see reference).

Madoka : Magical Girl :: Evangelion : Mecha

It’s good

Madoka is great. Watch from the beginning, avoid spoilers. The only romantic bits are between characters of similar ages, and the show avoids male gazey upskirt shit IIRC.

All I know is if you like the art style of the witches you need to check out Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

It has horny elements but it’s also just incredibly jaded and cynical, maybe SHAFTS greatest work.

The cutout style of the witches was huge in later seasons of the show CW suicide and self harm

Edit

Ume-sensei, the character designer(for Madoka and hidamari), is of course on record horny, and her work isn’t without the cheesecake that anime is known for. However it’s (it’s been a while since I’ve watched) way less service-y and gross than the average show. Granted I’m a huge fan of the SHAFT canon, and the horny service angles of their work (looking at you, monogatari) are always in tension with incredible storytelling and art.

Basically ymmv and don’t force it. But SHAFT is always pushing the medium as medium and I’ll always be looking at the positives

Love the way the pattern is static but the characters move in zetsubou

By anime standards, it’s fairly unproblematic as others have said. I reaaaaally like the Studio SHAFT aesthetic, and Madoka is a lot of people’s first foray into it. Head tilts, really interesting blocking, wild visual metaphors. It’s a shame that most of their other shows are filled with anime bullshit (except 3-Gatsu my love).

I haven’t seen it but my understanding is that it pretty much created the dark magical girl subgenre

It’s short and pretty cool. My favorite girl x girl anime ever! I don’t know what you usually watch but it’s easy to love for most people.

I don’t know I checked out at the OP