Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Movie 4: Walpurgis no Kaiten

I sincerely recommend you do not watch this movie. It exists for no other purpose than to tease another movie. It's the textbook definition of spoiler bait; Walpurgisnacht Rising gives us no conclusions or resolutions to any of the questions asked in Rebellion; its dialogue is vapid, and the abstract and experimental visuals that set Rebellion apart from any other movie outside of the work of Satoshi Kon have become equally vapid, more style over substance here. We get one interesting story, that of Walpurgisnacht, but frankly even this too is not explored enough. All of the characters feel like caricatures; Madoka is nothing more than a plot device with basically zero agency, and she's one of the better treated characters. Homura is the victim of a character assassination here as the movie not only sprints away from making any particular statement on what she has done to Madoka in Rebellion, it leans if anywhere, toward ENDORSING her actions which is utterly mind-boggling. Because the movie refuses to reach any conclusion whatsoever, this just feels extremely strange. The ending is not satisfying. It's infuriating, even, with it quite literally being the phrase "As you were then!" put into cinematic form. NOTHING changes, nothing at all, except for the knowledge of some characters. Even visually, whilst beautiful, doesn't hold a candle to Rebellion. Frankly, this movie should have been one act of an actual sequel movie. It feels more like a beautifully animated cash grab than a sincere sequel. It's an insult to the genius of Rebellion, and an insult to the fans (many of whom will no doubt simply see the caricatures (faces) of the characters they like and be satisfied anyway). Where Rebellion genuinely shattered my impression of the original series and made me wonder how I EVER thought the story was finished with Madoka's sacrifice, Walpurgisnacht Rising does the exact opposite in having me question whether Rebellion needs a sequel at all.

13 years later, multiple delays, production issues and excuses Madoka finally returns. I won't lie, it is by margin my favourite anime franchise, I had flew to Japan solely to see this movie on its opening day. And I am happy that I did so, at the moment of writing this review I had pleasure seeing it three times with additional two screenings already booked. But lets get to the movie itself, it will most likely divide a lot of fans, not because it's bad, but because it's different, somewhat not at all what was expected, myself included. Rebellion was faustian thesis heavily dosed in flat out negativism and Shakespearian drama with christian symbolism. Most of us had most likely expected something similar in the sequel yet Gen Urobuchi has done something very different. Negativism was replaced by nihilism, Shakespeare was replaced by greek tragedy, symbolism was replaced by... love. Yes, love, it's probably the best thing Gen Urobuchi has written for the medium, deeply moving story about consequences and price that, inevitably, needs to pe paid for our choices. As we all know at the end of 3rd movie Homura has rewritten, yet again, entire order and changed the Cycle, but what's due it's due and needs to be paid. Surprisingly it does not focus solely on Homura x Madoka and most of the girls receive good amount of time to shine, especially Sayaka, who at one point became a driving force of the story forging unexpected relationship with Homura. Moreover the conflicts between magical girls are much more important and focused on, they do not agree with each other and it does lead to interesting clashes. Also Selma and Nagisa are much, much more exposed and their relationship is ultimately a driving force of the movie. The final Walpurgis form is a sight to behold and it isn't what you expect it to be. I think it is one of the most clever games Urobutcher has done in his career. But as I mentioned earlier the main theme is love. All the tragedy, hatred and pain comes from either lack of thereof or twisting and bending the love itself to the own satisfaction. It is also what comes as redemption, salvation or simply a saving grace, as far as nihilistic philosophical themes often take the lead it is the clash of these views and feelings that ultimately come together in perfect tandem to deliver final gut punch and yet leave us hopeful. It is a rare achievement. And don't get me wrong, this movie is heavier and darker that previous instalments but as well rewards us with completely different outcome, which is a grace on it's own. I had purposely avoided to talk about the plot itself as anything more that synopsis will and should be taken as a spoiler and when it comes to this production in particular, spoilers are worst thing possible. In just under 2 hours it brings us back to the world we love so much but at the same time it does not take the easy way, it expands the lore and further deepens psychological aspect of being a magical girl, focuses more on internal conflicts as well on differences between the girls, it might be one of the most important aspects of the film itself. But it also feels like specifically shafted production for the most loyal fans, does not take shortcuts and definitely is not welcoming if you are not into the franchise. It is also clearly a beginning of the new chapter, hopefully we won't need to wait another decade for the next one. As much as I love and adore this film it does feel at times crammed and clearly content was cut here and there to improve the pacing, animation wise its unbelievably pretty and detailed (though Walpurgis fight will deffo be redone on blurry as SHAFT usually do). It feels like complete and definitely properly planned throughout production, but considering amount of delays it does feel sometimes like it could be polished even more. Yuki Kajiura OST is definitely among my personal TOP3 works in her career and is ungodly, not of this world, I cannot express how amazing it is. Voice acting is, as you expect, goated, star studded cast delivers absolutely immersive performances. It definitely deserves to be watched on the big screen and I urge you to go to cinemas when it premieres outside of Japan, it's an absolute gem to watch. My absolute favourite Madoka instalment and absolute favourite anime movie/production ever.

Went into this movie with high expectations and left the cinema somewhat disappointed. Strong points first: it was absolutely stunning visually and the soundtrack was beautiful as always. My Japanese wasn't quite on par to keep up with the exposition so maybe watching the sub and receiving more context will improve my perception of the plot but I can say for certain that this movie made some major questionable decisions in terms structure and overall direction. The original show had a perfect ending; Rebellion did the impossible by successfully continuing a show with a perfect ending; but this movie's reason for existing and continuing the story feels tenuous at best and like it lost track of the show's original essence. A lot of screentime and character development is spent on newly introduced characters at the expense of original plot threads and character arcs making the movie feel more distanced from the series' initial vision and direction. I also didn't like some major plot decisions but that could be more a matter of personal preference. Overall it is a visual spectacle that struggles to follow in the footsteps of previous installations.

13 years worth of ideas and a team who doesn't remember the magic of the og, Madoka Magica Movie 4: Walpurgis Rising was the greatest middle finger I've seen projected on the screen, it was really insulting going in with actual good expectations and seeing one of my favorite shows slandered and torn apart like that. Writing (3/10) Honestly, the writing for this movie is something that I found hard to build a critique on, not because it is good -by all means it isnt-, more-so because most of it was very confusing, convoluted and bogus. Another re-watch might be needed to write a more proper formal review but this is unfortunately not possible due to still being cinemas only and not easily re-watchable (without popping some bucks and buying another ticket). With that said, lets begin. The writing for this movie summarizes with: "We have a list of all these ideas we've come up with in 13 years, so let's work with all of them!!" "But sir, the movie will only have a runtime of 2 hours..." Everything was being thrown around everywhere, they had a lot of things they could have worked with, but it ended up a hotpot of ideas that most were left short and underdeveloped. Rebellion ends with the creation of a new world where Homura is god (demon) and seems to control this world, she makes a new rumor appear at our classic Mitakihara school: a lizard phone that, when answered, can grant any wish in exchange for a piece of your soul. That is, until a new bunch of magical girls show up and defy Homura with her demonlord activities. Woah, neat premise! I wonder where this will go?--. Ahem, let's forget about the lizard phone, that wasn't an important premise so we'll throw it away. So, who are these new magical girls and what do they do?? Uhhh, crap. Okay okay let's back up for a second, we haven't even used up 10% of our ideas backlog. So, let's throw more at the wall and see what sticks. See the issue? Unfortunately, stuff was just happening without much sense, rhyme or reason. Throughout the whole film I could see glimpses of good ideas here and there. Some parts were actually kind of properly developed, like the "Walpurgisnacht" parts of the movie. I thought those sections worked and were the highlight of the film, but still they mostly amounted to barely anything in the end. End, end, end... Oh the ending ing ing. I couldn't believe my eyes when I was reading the subtitles on screen, this is honestly a one in a lifetime experience because of how actually stupid it is, once you see it you will know what I'm talking about. Setting that aside, if you have a money-printing machine why should you put it to rest after multiple unnecessary releases and gacha games when you could still make multiple more films? please let my girl Madoka rest, she should've retired after becoming the law of the cycles. Much like rebellion, they tried to let things open and ambiguous, most definitively done intentionally as to be left with more sequels. This is great for if you want to leave the cinema with a bad taste in your mouth, as I personally find these endings to sabotage any kind of film. Characters (4/10) The whole cast is back! Actually, they have been brainwashed by Homura since the ending of Rebellion. Damn you Homura!, You have erased any trace of good character writing!!! We can't go back to the impeccable depictions of realistic characters coming across magical unrealistic scenarios. Characters that, in their inexperience, created erroneous ideologies just to end up falling into the fate of every magical girl -the Witch's Curse-. That formula was broken with Rebellion, where characters were very one-sided and the cast was static and played with during the whole film, and Walpurgis Rising only doubles down. Mami, Kyouko, Sayaka, -hell even Madoka and Homura- are all very plain and simple, embarrassingly so. They don't feel like real people anymore, these aren't human beings with complex emotions like we saw in Madoka Magica, these are magical girls from a generic action movie. To hell with the old cast, they will be dragged into fights and they won't acknowledged the stakes of possibly losing their life. In PMMM there was hesitation that just isn't present here, we don't see any of their personal lives as students which was critical to making loss gut-wrenching. So then, new characters. Hmm there's a Chinese girl, evil and intimidating Homura lookalike, and an evil Disney twist villain because the film couldn't figure out who the main villain was supposed to be. Out of these three, only one and a half get proper backstory and development, which is a bummer because these were my favorite part of the film. We learnt -somewhat- about their wishes and their stories as magical girls, and how tragic their stories were, leading to becoming witches. (It really was just going back to the main formula Madoka Magica had to make this film somewhat good) So we are left with Bebe and Kyubey. They really tried to act like Bebe was part of the main 5, she probably has more shining moments than the rest which is really silly because she is the youngest, least elaborated character from what could be considered the "original" cast. Even got monologues for some reason. Okay... Now Kyubey, 'incubator', the mascot thing. He became a tool for the writers to explain things that they couldn't figure out how to in a more natural smooth manner. Sometimes he will show up unprompted and start yapping about things and such. Oh well, I guess after being left unemployed by Homura he gets by via coping and mourning for the good ol days. Visuals (7/10) I must say, quality wise this is much better compared to the other films -of course it is, wouldn't it be weird if it was worse than 2013 visuals?-. However, PMMM made by with what it had (which was still a lot mind you), so we ended with stunning backgrounds, angles and shots when the show required to. Rebellion was not weak on these too, they had a style very similar to the first 2 films. Now, back to 2026, the animation obviously got better, however the vibe is totally different. I am no expert in any means to the other works Shaft has made, I've only watched Madoka from their list, but I believe it is part of their style to integrate shots and cuts that would otherwise seem out of place to the scene, this was present in this movie, but something just felt... off?? I'm unsure how to explain it, but if I had to put it into words, it seems like they prioritized making shots and backgrounds to be as polished as possible rather than having some variety and visual identity. Things were framed like you'd expect them to be, which isn't something very Madoka-like. I also noticed a big lack of Homura hair slick and, the biggest sin of this film, magical girl transformations. (LIKE ACTUALLY, how did they make this film have basically NONE??) Music (6/10) The beautiful sounds of orchestra with no primary melody or motif. Could be that I was just not paying attention to it, but it had music that's for sure. The main song is Kanata by FictionJunction, a neat choice but I'm left with not much to say. Music was really not an issue for me but it also wasn't anything to point out or give credit for. Where was ClariS though, did I miss them?? Personal score (4/10) Hella disappointed, I think I've expressed enough and I'm drawing blanks while trying to come up with a conclusion. One thing I wanna point out, the 4Dx effects in my screening were de-synced with the movie by like 10 seconds, so I'd end up paying attention to a serious scene with little movement when suddenly I feel air on my neck and my seat starts tilting left to right while nothing was still going on on-sceen. I tried to ignore it but I would be lying if I said it didn't have any effect on my score. Still, I'm confident in my final score, so hopefully someone paid mind to this review before going to watch the film. (List of notes I used to help write this review, some stuff I didn't mention. …

Walpurgisnacht: Rising presents a sequel to Rebellion while somewhat focusing on Walpurgis in the second half. The most striking thing about this movie was how unexpected, both for the visuals and the scenario. In what is now standard for PMMM: Come with no expectations, and be totally flabbergasted. I did not get the scenario very well because of my poor Japanese, but to not spoil, as new magical girls appear as new friends to the Quartet, in this new world, all the characters have differing plans for Madoka. The main protagonists are unexpectedly SayaHomu, with fake Homura being the troublemaker but an incredible character, while Kyouko and Nagisa+Mami have most of a fighting/supporting role. Meanwhile, Madoka is mostly being lugged around by the plot, but that's okay. While being sometimes visually creepy, its actually quite more optimistic and less noir than Rebellion: It is no longer a façade but an utterly broken world that is all largely altered and controlled by Homura, while everything looks nice and happy for the main characters. The main theme is how magical girls are not acting for themselves, but for others, and why they do so. It is strong emotionally, but it thematically seems simpler than the earlier iterations. Some will see the links with Kazumi Magica at some points. "Even if you ignored the story completely, there is still more than enough here to make the movie worth watching." Visuals is where Walpurgisnacht: Rising shines the most (explaining the delays maybe), because with exceptions, every shot is perfectly crafted and unique, as you'll nearly never see the same thing twice, which actually makes the first third seem somewhat disjointed: there is a myriad of places with different ambiances that appear all throughout the movie. The details and creativity in the scenes make it a whole league above other anime movies and sometimes even overwhelming: It uses every trick in the Madoka style book and ramps it up ten-fold. It is more surrealistic than the Rebellion's world, except it is now the reality of the new world. Music is on-par with the rest, but I do not think it was as good as Rebellion. It keeps some musical references to the original, and goes from complete silence to duper-epic, which is more impactful in the cinema. Even the sound design is good, which is important considering the quantity of destruction that happens. Indeed, the pacing is fast and the parallel storylines, coupled with grandiose fights and décors, make oftentimes an over-the-top experience, if you like that. PS: If you saw the post-post-credits scene of Rebellion, it's really the first minutes of the movie, but its more of a backdrop and not really related to the rest.

So yeah.... This was something First I want to praise the visuals, they were amazing, another great work from Shaft, the sequence in the beggining was stuning and I loved how the designs looked in This Now... The story, i can say much about it, i liked the fact they revealed Walpurgis backstory bafore becoming a witch, It gave a great addition to the worldbuilding and was the only thing I actually expected from this, I liked Sayakas subplot about how shes the only one who seems to remember the universe reset and it was really interesting to see Nagisa finally do something important and useful for once after being almost useless in rebellion, but besides all that... The movie doesnt have much to offer The new characters introduced dont serve much purpose, the only character that seems to be important to the plot its Selema, the main antagonist, chouka has an interesting backstory but besides that she doesnt do much, in general, the whole movie doesnt add much besides the Walpurgis part, it just seems to be a long reminder that homura still has a madoka complex and that she loves her very much, at the end nothing happens and they just pull some cliffhanger so you wait another whole decade until they release another movie or whatever theyre going to release The movie its pretty pointless, if youre a fan of madoka magika and wish this to be a great sequel to rebellion, reduce your expectations to zero, at least it was fun to watch in cinemas....

My biggest mistake was not refreshing my memory of the TV series beforehand (I've already corrected that oversight), because the movie is a direct sequel and doesn't make any effort to introduce new viewers. The film grossed an enormous one billion yen in just four days. Does it deserve that success, and why did it happen? Frankly, there's not much surprising about it. Lately, high-profile anime films have been breaking records one after another. *Madoka* has a huge fanbase in its home country, and it's still a successful franchise even years after the original release. That's especially impressive considering that direct sequels usually underperform. I'm not a fan of the franchise. I only went to see it because I was curious about how Shaft was doing these days. So, despite not understanding what was happening in the script, I got tremendous enjoyment out of the visuals. They really are stunning. There are countless bold, insane visual ideas, a mix of different styles, and beautiful action scenes. The film isn't beautiful in the way something like *Demon Slayer* is; it's beautiful because of its direction and style. The animation is excellent, though it's not on Ufotable's level. But it doesn't need to be. That said, I do have a few complaints about the visuals. The first, and biggest, is that I couldn't see any meaning behind the imagery. It felt as though these visuals existed simply because they were unusual and beautiful. I have a fairly broad cultural background, but I couldn't recognize any visual references in them, aside from a handful of nods to classic anime. The second issue is the film's unconventional storytelling. Normally, I'd consider that a positive, but here the first half gave me the impression that someone had taken the text of a novel, left it completely unadapted, and simply overlaid visuals that only loosely connected to what was being said. What I mean is that the characters don't really talk on screen. They do speak, but it's mostly off-screen, while on-screen we either see them from behind as they go about their business or simply look at cityscapes. The film never creates a real sense of place. Even though we're shown views of a relatively realistic city, the characters move through it off-screen, and the locations they actually appear in are completely different from the city and don't match its establishing shots at all. Instead, we get circus-like settings, phantasmagorical cafés, and fantastical temples. Together, these two issues create a strange sense of dissonance. I'm technically watching a movie, but it feels like an audiobook being narrated over random imagery. In the second half, the storytelling becomes more conventional, and that dissonance disappears. Although I didn't understand the story because I'd forgotten too much of the original and because it was too linguistically complex for my level of Japanese, I came away with the impression that there wasn't anything particularly special about it: once again, someone is trying to drag Madoka into another mess, and once again Homura is trying to stop it. To sum up this review—which is unusually long for my account—I was surprised that I never got bored. Even with its flaws, the visuals are strong enough to keep you engaged. Even more surprising is the fact that a feature film with such an unconventional style is setting box office records in a country that, at times, seems to have had much of its creative spirit beaten out of it by the popularity of shallow, formulaic works like *Demon Slayer*.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSx28BFV9cQ simply the only current worthy analysis. A prediction that still stays 80% accurate. As for the movie itself, it derailed in second half. It seems urobuchi had another plan, but they didn't have the guts to make it fully complex, so its stuck at being semi complex and semi bad. Still, i hope they hire a good writer for movie 5 now that urobuchi has dropped the series. You know, like ME. Your other option is anireco writer. The art and ost were as good. No even better. For what purpose. They killed the potential for a sequel. All characters are now fully developed to the point a sequel would feel like relinking the fire. Should have kept x alive. The story was predictable. (Only i am ever qualified to say this.) The characters acting was not as good as rebellion, if you were to put your peak symbolism on the screen aside. Still an 8, cause its madoka. But that should not be what i am writing as the strong point of the series.

“If being a ‘devil’ means I can keep her smiling, then I’ll burn every heaven there is.” Madoka Magica: Walpurgis no Kaiten is different from the rest of the Madoka series. As usual in this franchise, the core message is related to hope and despair, In particular the eternal dispute between nihilism and Buddhism, love and selfish. This time they add something interesting: the consequences of our decisions. Before, we watched the consequences of Madoka’s and Homura’s actions from the perspective of the Holy Quintet. Now we see the consequences of Homura’s and Madoka’s universe rewrite on the world. I watched it in the cinema thanks to the Konnichiwa Festival. The animation was insane. I can say that it is the best animation of 2026. The battles were great. Now they use rotoscoping as a new tool, and the combination of many different kinds of animation becomes insane. As expected from the art style of the franchise, it was incredible. It’s impossible to say anything bad about this aspect. The script and characters are not as good as in their past movies. I think this is because they expected to continue with more movies. The positive thing is that they close the arcs of the new characters, and the new characters are fresh and add varity within the same anime's theme. The big flaw is that the Holy Quintet don’t move the plot; only Homura and Madoka do. That’s why I feel the movie is a soft reboot, because the whole movie is centered on the new characters + Homura. It’s possible that this movie is the first part of a soft reboot. I have only watched it once, so I couldn’t recognize all the foreshadowing, symbolism and details, but I’m sure they are there. This review is from a one-watch perspective. But I have to be honest: I love the movie. It made me feel the creepiness of some situations and Homura’s obsession with Madoka. It’s denser than Rebellion and leaves many things open to your own interpretation. P.S.: A personal note. I think that maybe something similar to Rebellion will happen. Rebellion was very controversial at first, but with time we realized how good the movie was. If this movie is the base of a soft reboot, maybe we will be able to return to it later, reinterpret it, and connect all the holes in the script.

Yeah, this was absolutely terrible. For a while, I thought the movie was heading toward an ending where the miracles accumulated over the course of the story would finally save both Madoka and Homura — that separating Madoka herself from the Law of Cycles in Rebellion would ultimately turn out to have had a purpose. And I thought, “Well, if you want to save everyone, I guess this is basically the only way to do it.” Then again, Sumaga already did something along those lines back in 2008. But then… what? In the end, are they seriously just going to dump the burden back onto Madoka again? More elements have been added, the mythology has become more complicated, and there are more moving parts than ever before — but fundamentally, we are right back where we were at the end of the TV series. So what was the point of these last fifteen years? And to make matters worse, the movie ends in a way that is blatantly dependent on another sequel. At some point, this stops feeling like storytelling and starts feeling like the audience is being taken for granted. Until now, Rebellion was easily the lowest point of Madoka for me. Somehow, this movie managed to go even lower. At this rate, I honestly expect every new sequel to set a new low. This may be the worst thing I have ever watched. Even judged purely as a single film, it is a mess. There are too many ideas, plot devices, characters, concepts, and visual motifs competing for attention. Instead of forming a coherent whole, it feels like a chimera stitched together from several different movies. The only things I can genuinely praise are the animation and the performances. Visually, it is impressive. The cast does their job. But none of that was enough to make the movie work for me. I am done with this series. Even if another sequel comes out, I will not be watching it.

[ES] Tengo sentimientos encontrados con esta película. En lo visual y lo musical entregó exactamente lo que esperaba, pero es en la trama donde decae: quisieron meter demasiado lore extra en poco tiempo y dejaron bastantes cabos sueltos, evidentemente para dar pie a una nueva entrega en algún punto del futuro. Pensé que Walpurgis tendría un peso mucho mayor, pero no fue así. Aún debo volver a ver la película; en un solo visionado te deja una sensación mixta, pero quizás con más revisitas se pueda lograr entender y digerir mejor. Por ahora, mi calificación se mantiene. [ENG] I have mixed feelings about this movie. Visually and musically, it delivered exactly what I was hoping for, but it falls short when it comes to the plot. They tried to cram in too much extra lore in a short runtime, leaving several loose ends clearly meant to set up a future installment down the road. I expected Walpurgis to play a much bigger role, but that wasn't the case. I still need to rewatch the film. On a single viewing, it leaves you feeling conflicted, though maybe with a few more rewatches it can be better digested and understood. For now, my rating remains unchanged.

Yeah, this was absolutely terrible. For a while, I thought the movie was heading toward an ending where the miracles accumulated over the course of the story would finally save both Madoka and Homura — that separating Madoka herself from the Law of Cycles in Rebellion would ultimately turn out to have had a purpose. And I thought, “Well, if you want to save everyone, I guess this is basically the only way to do it.” Then again, Sumaga already did something along those lines back in 2008. But then… what? In the end, are they seriously just going to dump the burden back onto Madoka again? More elements have been added, the mythology has become more complicated, and there are more moving parts than ever before — but fundamentally, we are right back where we were at the end of the TV series. So what was the point of these last fifteen years? And to make matters worse, the movie ends in a way that is blatantly dependent on another sequel. At some point, this stops feeling like storytelling and starts feeling like the audience is being taken for granted. Until now, Rebellion was easily the lowest point of Madoka for me. Somehow, this movie managed to go even lower. At this rate, I honestly expect every new sequel to set a new low. This may be the worst thing I have ever watched. Even judged purely as a single film, it is a mess. There are too many ideas, plot devices, characters, concepts, and visual motifs competing for attention. Instead of forming a coherent whole, it feels like a chimera stitched together from several different movies. The only things I can genuinely praise are the animation and the performances. Visually, it is impressive. The cast does their job. But none of that was enough to make the movie work for me. I am done with this series. Even if another sequel comes out, I will not be watching it.