Sunday 21 April 2013

Madoka Amano

Okay, no notes to start of with so...
Today's review is of: Madoka Amano
Let's dive right into this!!
(For the seasons I'm going to try to refer more to the particular role the character had in that season, so I can leave the more personality aspects in for the end, so the season analyses will be a bit shorter, but the personality notes will be bigger.)

Season 1
So Madoka enters the season very early on as a support character, and as such, she isn't entirely well receieved, since her role is clearly less significant than the other characters, despite this, I really do like Madoka.

Despite the fact that she very rarely battles herself, she always cares a great deal about her friends and is willing to help them in any way she can.

Mainly her role is throughout the series, as a support member, and while she doesn't get to as much as other characters, her personality still shines through as she remains a loyal and trustworthy friend.

Overall for this season, Madoka is a very loyal character, always caring about everyone, going to great lengths to protect her friends, despite her small role, without her, the characters would struggle a lot, so why we don't get to see much from her, she's a great deal of importance to the rest of the characters.
Score: 6/10

Season 2
Madoka, in general, keeps the same role for this season (as she does for the next season), but we do get to see a bit more from her in terms of personality, her more serious side, her more cheerful side, her more angry side, everything is more fleshed out for her in the second season.

I would probably conclude that to the travelling aspect of the series, you always loosen up a bit when you're on holiday, and for Madoka, who wasn't in the battling aspect of the World Championship team, probably saw it more as an exciting holiday around the world, well, at least before the more intense moments happened.

This doesn't stop her from having a temper, however, she clearly loses her patience at times, which she can't really be blamed for, it seems that her patience would have to be tested to constantly be with a team where 3/4 of them were pretty immature at times, this doesn't stop a bunch of cute interactions between them, Madoka really feels like the mother of the group, and that's definately adorable to watch.

Overall for this season, Madoka seems to take a new mother role in the main group, it's a good fleshing out to her character, and makes her much more enjoyable to watch, because it feels like she has a more important role now, keeping her team in line, and she does very well at it, too, at least, when her temper isn't getting in the way.
Score: 8/10

Season 3
In season 3, Madoka seems to go back more to her season 1 role, which is probably due to having a more mature group with her this time...for the most part anyway.

She still feels more helpful then season 1 however, she steps up when her friends are in danger, despite knowing there isn't a thing she can do about it, she still keeps on being completely willing to protect her friends, no matter what happens, and in the intensity of this season, it takes quite a lot to be able to go through that.

She still manages to help out her team in other ways, as usual though, such as working through the constellations to decide who may be the next Legendary Blader in terms of season, she still shows her intelligent side a lot, and while she still has the occasional temper problem, she's still useful to the team, and always ready to help.

Overall for this season, Madoka still keeps her loyal traits that make her such a sweet character, she doesn't do as much in terms of personality than season 2, but it was still an improvement over season 1, and she remains a loyal, trustworthy character who always stand up for her friends.
Score 7/10

Season 4
Madoka returns in season 4, running the B-Pit where she used to help out in the previous 3 seasons.

I like that she's still doing somthing familiar, and her personality is pretty similar, except she's mellowed out a lot, which is definately a nice thing to see from her.

 She stays very friendly to the new main characters, and she seems to have a very strong friendship with Maru (Mal), which I'll get into a little later.

But it was great to see Madoka make a return, and to see her so much more mellowed out, it's really great to see how she changed in the 7 years.

Overall

Design: I loved the colours in Madoka's pre season 3 design, it was very bright, bold, and new.
I think the outfit went well together, but it did feel a bit simple, which made it nice when they finally did change it.

Madoka's season 3 design seems a lot more mature, and in general, it's just a lot nicer, it feels a bit more detailed and complex, which, while I liked the pre season 3 design, did sometimes feel lacking in this.
So, in general, I preferred season 3's design a lot more, it just seemed to show more effort, maturity and detail.

Friendships:

Madoka and Gingka:

Since Madoka met Gingka in the second episode, and has pretty much been by his side ever since, their bond was definately worth mentioning.

Since as I said, they've been together for a majority of the show, and it's really nice to see how far their friendship has grown over the length of the series.

They're both very loyal to each other, always caring and concerning over each other, and overall it just developed really well, with lots of adorable interactions between the two of them.

Madoka and Maru:
I found the friendship between Madoka and Maru really sweet, since they both have similar roles to each other, I think it's nice to see how well they both get on together.

Maru really looks up to Madoka, and they act just like sisters, it's really sweet to see this friendship that started before we even got to see the how they met, which I'd love to see one day, how it all began, I'm really interesting in seeing more from them, I hope we'll be able to see those details at a later date.

Personality and other notes:


I often see Madoka to be one of the lesser liked characters, usually, mostly due to her not doing enough.

While I think Madoka could do more in some situations, I do believe her to be very useful in each season, and I don't think everyone would have progressed as far as they did without Madoka, the things that stand out about her most for me in general in terms of the positive sides of her character:

-She always stands by her friends, even if it puts her in danger, and she doesn't even battle, usually, so she knows her help will be minimal at best, but she still tries to help in whatever way she possible can, I think it makes her a strong character.

-Making the same point of the strong character: All the things she has to see throughout the series, she has to watch her friends struggling, getting hurt, comatose, fighting for their lives, lots of things, but despite everything, Madoka will stay strong and keep the most important things in the front of her mind, to help anyone she still can, it shows her bravery in a lot of scenes too, the one time she did battle was only to help someone else, and it was an awesome moment for her, I think it's a shame it never happened again, but it was good to see at least once from her, it shows the lengths she'll go for her friends. 
 

-She's an intelligent character, and it's always good to have at least one of those types of characters around for a well functioning group, it shows that even though Madoka can't help in the main ways as the other characters do, she can be there to give good advice, and the help her teammates out, she always tells them how she'll help in anyway she can, and it's nice to know, that while she doesn't do as much to contribute as others, that she's always there as someone to count on, and she manages to do a lot with her small role that makes her shine through as a good character.
 
-I really like the way Madoka bonds with the other characters, the way that she feels like the mother of the group is something I really like, seeing the way she acts with each of them individually is nice too, because the way she treats each character is usually unique, and I think it makes a good role for her, becasue, while her role was never too fleshed out, it gives her more personality, and more things to look into when assuming how she'll act towards a particular type of character.

I'm going to be putting both sides for each character, so now let's look more into the more negative aspects of her character.

- The role: now, don't get me wrong, I think Madoka is still a great character, even with a small role like she had, but like in season 1 where she got to battle, I would've liked to see more of that, personally, the things she does in general, are completely fine in my eyes, but I would of loved to just see a bit more from her in those kind of directions, it's nice that she gets her own unique traits to her character, but the time in season 1 where she battled, was just a really great moment, in my opinion, I definately would of liked to see a bit more from her, in that way.
 
 -The temper: I think it's great that we got a strong minded female character in the main cast, but I feel her biggest flaw probably comes from her temper, at times, she can really lose it quite often, and some of the time, the reasons aren't too huge, it's good to see that she's at least mellowed out in those terms by Zero-G, but for the earlier seasons, I think it gets in the way for her character, slightly, it gets a bit more under control by season 3, it's still there, but better, so I was pleased with that, and either way, it can be quite humorous to watch, in gereral, but in terms of her character, I think she needed to chill out quite a lot, mostly in season 2.

I did always find Madoka to be a fun character to watch, and I'm glad she got to be big part of the series, usually by Gingka's side, it was fun to watch her in terms of personality and interaction, and while I think she could have had a bit of a more involved role, especially towards the end, seeing her always prepared to help despite anything that's become an obstacle to them, is something that's always very sweet to watch.

Overall: I find Madoka to be a very sweet character, always ready to help her friends, and manages to help, despite traits that hold her back.
I think she's a really good character, but I think she hasn't quite reached her full potential in the way she could have, had she been a bit more involved with the plot.
Despite that, I enjoy watching her, and the unique interactions between her and each of the characters, I always find fun to see, and something I look forward to is more characters to be introduced, so I can see the way she acts around them.
Score: 7/10

That wraps up Madoka's analysis, see you soon for the next review.

- Surii

2 comments: