Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters
______________________
Suzu shifted her gaze away from an article analyzing why the Big Three studios had suddenly launched a smear campaign against a mid-budget magical girl anime.
In the entertainment industry, such petty rivalries were commonplace. In the film world, competitors might maintain a facade of polite friendship while secretly sabotaging each other's box office numbers or bribing theater managers for better screening slots.
In the world of novels, authors writing in the same genre often harbored mutual disdain, frequently taking jabs at one another whenever they appeared on talk shows.
The animation industry, as it turned out, was no different.
"What's the point of all this? Audiences aren't stupid. They can see for themselves whether a work is good or not," Suzu muttered. She looked at the television tuned to Tokyo TV's Channel 1, a small smile playing on her lips. She knew in her heart that since the summer season began, the most exceptional anime on the air was Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
At 9:00 PM sharp, the eighth episode of Madoka Magica began its broadcast.
Over at the Tokyo TV offices, the staff watched their monitors in shock as the opening viewership hit 3.22%. It was an utterly preposterous starting number.
Even more absurd was the fact that the growth rate of new viewers during the broadcast was significantly higher than in previous weeks. Many people who hadn't even seen the first seven episodes were tuning in, driven by pure curiosity because the internet had been flooded with talk about the show for days.
The eighth episode immediately picked up the thread of despair left by the seventh.
Through the use of lighting, shadows, and the haunting performances of the voice actresses, every detail seemed designed to deepen the sense of hopelessness. Sayaka, exhausted to the point of collapse after fighting witches, found herself in a bitter argument with Madoka.
Madoka was frightened by Sayaka's reckless fighting style, which showed a complete disregard for her own life. Sayaka, however, was already teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown and lashed out with cruel words.
"Then why don't you take my place and fight? Kyubey says you have more talent than anyone. You could probably wipe out witches easily without having to suffer like I do," Sayaka said.
"You have the power to do everything, yet you choose to do absolutely nothing!"
Madoka stood frozen, paralyzed by her words. Sayaka ran off into the night immediately after, but the moment the words left her mouth, she was already drowning in regret.
In the pouring rain, Sayaka sobbed as she ran. She had already lost her chance at love because she became a magical girl. Now, because of her own lack of honesty and her immature outburst, she felt she was about to lose her most precious friendship. The murky darkness inside her Soul Gem pulsed and darkened as her inner despair reached a critical mass.
The episode moved into a conversation between Kyoko, Sayaka, and Homura Akemi regarding the impending threat of "Walpurgisnacht." Sayaka was clearly at her breaking point, yet she refused to abandon her mission to destroy witches and save people from those grotesque entities.
Because of her excessive use of magic and her deepening depression, her once brilliant blue Soul Gem had turned as black as ink. Despite this, she stubbornly refused the Grief Seed that Homura offered her.
Watching this, Suzu sighed.
Sayaka had many wonderful qualities, but she was far too headstrong and hated being indebted to others.
"I'm not trying to save you. I just don't want Madoka to have to see you meet your end," Homura said, her voice cold and detached.
'Her end?' Suzu caught the gravity of those words. This implied that if a Soul Gem became completely tainted, a magical girl would... meet her end. Did that mean death?
"Since you're going to be destroyed anyway if you refuse me here, it would be better for Madoka if I just ended your life myself right now," Homura stated. Her eyes were devoid of emotion as her transformation into a magical girl flickered into existence in an instant.
"No, stop it!" Suzu's heart tightened in her chest.
Was the writer, the infamous Warrior of Love, really going to deliver another tragedy in the eighth episode?
'Come on, give us a break already. It's episode eight. Just let Sayaka live a normal life!'
Just as the tension between the two reached a peak, an unexpected savior appeared. Kyoko, who had been Sayaka's sworn enemy since her introduction, stepped in front of Sayaka to shield her, allowing the blue-haired girl to escape.
Suzu felt a sudden warmth in her chest, and her nose tingled with the threat of tears.
Sayaka's relationship with Madoka was fractured, her feelings for Kyosuke were a dead end, she was physically weak, and she was utterly alone. Even Homura was ready to kill her.
Yet, in that darkest moment, it was Kyoko who came to her defense.
This complex bond between the two girls, hovering somewhere between enemies and allies, was exactly the kind of writing that Suzu loved.
The plot continued to accelerate. Just as Kyubey was about to manipulate a desperate Madoka into making a wish to "save Sayaka" and become a magical girl, the creature was suddenly blasted into pieces by Homura, who arrived just in time with her guns blazing.
"Why? Why do you value yourself so little? Why are you so ready to sacrifice yourself for others? If anything happened to you, don't you realize how many people would be heartbroken?" Homura cried out, her voice breaking into a literal sob. She had fired her weapon just half a second before Madoka could seal the contract with Kyubey.
Homura's bizarre, intense obsession with Madoka's safety sent Suzu's curiosity into overdrive.
Why did Homura care so much? What was the secret behind her attachment?
The eighth episode spent most of its runtime planting these narrative seeds. As it reached the conclusion, Sayaka sat alone in a deserted shopping mall after closing hours, looking small and pitiable. Then, the red-haired girl appeared by her side once again. Suzu found herself holding her breath. These two girls, who had tried to kill each other at the start, now seemed to be the most important people in each other's lives.
Kyoko tried to encourage Sayaka to pull herself together, but Sayaka simply held up her Soul Gem. It was now a mass of swirling, opaque filth.
"It's true. I've saved a lot of people up until now. But in exchange, I've accumulated an equal amount of resentment and jealousy," Sayaka said, looking down at Kyoko, the only person left who was willing to listen to her. "I even hurt my most important friend. To pray for someone's happiness, you have to curse someone else by the same amount. That's how the system of being a magical girl works, isn't it?"
On the screen, a final peaceful smile appeared on Sayaka's beautiful face as a single tear traced a path down her cheek.
"I really am a fool."
Those were the words from the previous week's preview. After Sayaka spoke them, her tear fell and struck the Soul Gem. The balance between hope and despair finally snapped.
A wave of abyssal darkness swallowed the entire mall. Sayaka's Soul Gem shattered into pieces, and the force of the magical eruption sent Kyoko flying backward.
Suzu stared at the screen, her mind a whirlwind of shock and confusion. Within the vortex of Sayaka's despair, a mermaid-like monster manifested, completely replacing her human body.
"That... that's a witch, isn't it?" Suzu whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The narrator provided the devastating answer.
"On this planet, you call females who have yet to become adults; girls. It makes sense then, that since you'll eventually become witches, you should be called... magical girls."
High above the city, a new Kyubey looked down at the witch manifesting below. Its internal monologue was cold and devoid of any human empathy.
Magical Girls... turned to Witches.
So, witches were simply the monstrous incarnations of magical girls whose Soul Gems had become completely tainted.
The episode ended.
Suzu sat frozen in her chair.
What kind of setting was this? What kind of cruel cliffhanger was this writer playing at?
The very enemies that Mami and Sayaka had risked their lives to defeat were actually former magical girls who had fallen into despair.
A suffocating sense of oppression washed over her.
Suzu was fine with a bit of dark innovation, but this was something else entirely.
The enemy they spent their lives fighting was ultimately themselves.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The story had been leading them on from the very beginning. Her eyes grew misty as she thought of Sayaka. To end up becoming the very monster she hated most... the cruelty of it was almost unbearable.
Across Japan, anime forums were erupting in a firestorm of debate.
"This setting is genius. Absolute genius."
"Don't talk to me, man. I'm still trying to process this. This is the most tragic thing I've ever seen."
"What kind of magical girl anime is this? This isn't for kids; this is a grimdark fairy tale!"
"I'm literally crying right now. My poor Sayaka."
"Warrior of Love, you bastard, I'm going to kick your ass!"
"He definitely did this on purpose. I'm genuinely traumatized. I could handle Sayaka's emotional breakdown last week, but her turning into a witch? Who can stomach that?"
"Warrior of Love, go to hell! How can you end the week on a cliffhanger like that?"
"I can't believe I defended this show while the Big Three were trashing it. Warrior of love, you really aren't human."
"How did he even come up with this? And to keep it hidden until now... he's a monster."
Compared to the aftermath of episode seven, the reaction to episode eight was on a completely different scale.
That night, every major anime forum was buried under a mountain of discussion threads about Madoka Magica. The following morning, the viewership ratings for the eighth episode were released.
3.87%.
It was a number that guaranteed Madoka Magica the top spot in the weekly rankings.
The producers and scriptwriters of The Dragon's Treasure and Mechanical Metropolis had barely finished their week of trash-talking before Haruto delivered a lightning-fast slap to their faces.
They had claimed the show wouldn't last? Well, in just one week, the ratings had soared past all three of their productions.
He had utterly humiliated them.