Magical Girls. From the silliness of Sailor Moon to the wackiness of the Winx Club, and the goofiness of Glitter Force, stories of ordinary girls transformed into Mistresses of Magic have been inspiring our double X chromosomes for longer than I've been alive. And yet at the same time, I'm sure most of the people reading the title of this blog post will have no idea what I'm referring to since most of these shows associated with the Magical Girl genre originate from Japan instead of America. But such is life, and that won't stop me from talking about it anyway. Or spoiling it either, so preemptive warning. This is one of those shows where after a certain point, EVERYTHING is a spoiler of some kind. Turn back now.
For those of you who don't know, the basic premise of a Magical Girl is as follows. A girl, usually a pre-teen or a teenager, makes contact with a magical entity that transforms her into a super-powered being in order to battle against and defeat nefarious forces that are either trying to corrupt humanity into darkness, destroy the world/galaxy/universe, take over the world/galaxy/universe, or some other horrific goal. Generally, the Magical Girl will have to find and recruit others to join her cause so they can invoke the Power of Friendship/Love/Trust in order to obtain victory over evil.
Puella Madoka Magica follows a similar format at first. A little fuzzball named Kyubey visits girls with high magical potential and gets them to make a contract with him. After they sign it, Kyubey grants them a wish. The wish can be anything they want, from something as simple as their favorite food to the ability to go back in time, anything they wish for is within their grasp. Once the wish is granted, the girl is transformed into a Magical Girl, gaining a Soul Gem, magical powers and a special ability depending on their potential and wish. With those powers, it becomes the MG's duty to fight against and defeat Witches, mysterious beings that feed off of the despair of humans. Those infected by a Witch's Kiss are either lured to a Witch's Barrier to be eaten or have their mental health slowly deteriorate until they commit suicide. After defeating a Witch, a Magical Girl can use the Witch's Grief Seed to purify their Soul Gems, as using too much magic taints the Gem and causes it to become corrupted.
And after three paragraphs of explanation, I now come to the actual focus of the blog post, the wishes.
Our two main characters, Madoka and Sayaka, meet another Magical Girl named Mami, who tells them about the process needed to become like her. But even after a demonstration of a Magical Girl's Power, the girls are stumped as to what to wish for. Mami tells them to be careful to not waste their wishes, as they don't get do-overs. Mami herself made her wish after getting into a car accident with her family. When Kyubey found her, she was barely clinging to life and wished to continue living. Unfortunately, she forgot to include her parents in the wish, and they died while she lived on. Mami carries the regret with her even years later. As such, she wants them to be sure not to take their chances lightly. And so, with this new knowledge, Sayaka and Madoka try to figure out what to wish for.
LAST WARNING FOR SPOILERS!
After Mami dies fighting a Witch due to carelessness, Sayaka decides to become a Magical Girl to honor her memory. Her wish? To heal her crush Kyosuke from a tragic accident that robbed a promising violinist of the use of his hands. To her joy, it works, and Kyosuke can resume his joyful passion. Surely, this wish can't be anything but an act of True Love from a caring friend willing to sacrifice her attempt at normal life for the sake of another. Right?
Actually no. And here's where the twist comes into play.
Once his hands are restored, Kyosuke returns to his normal life as if nothing happened. Because he doesn't know anything about Magical Girls and the wishes, he doesn't treat Sayuka any differently than before, much to her chagrin. As time goes on, Sayuka realizes that despite having her wish granted, she didn't really get what she wanted. She didn't just want her friend to be healed, she wanted his gratitude for her wish, and more importantly, his love. And to add insult to injury, she learns that becoming a Magical Girl means she doesn't have a soul anymore, as the transformation transferred it into the Soul Gem. If the Soul Gem gets too far away from her physical body, the body dies and starts decomposing. With this realization, she withdraws from the world in shame, spending all of her time fighting Witches without regard for her own safety or bothering to purify her Soul Gem. With her energy completely spent and her Soul Gem mere moments away from total corruption, Sayuka realizes just how selfish she's been and how big of a mistake she's made. But by then, it's too late, her Soul Gem breaks apart and the magic explodes out of it, transforming her into a Witch herself and forcing the other Magical Girls to kill her.
As the series goes on, we find out about other wishes that ended tragically. One of the Witches, Charlotte, wished to share one last cheesecake with her dying mother instead of wishing her well again. Another Magical Girl, Kyoko, wished for her father to become a successful preacher to feed their family only for her father to go crazy and commit suicide when he realized the only reason he'd succeeded was due to magic and not mettle. Only one character manages to make a completely selfless wish by the end of the story, and it is her wish that sets everything right.
Sometimes, the Enemy uses similar attempts to get us to fall astray from the straight and narrow. Rather than tempt us into doing something wrong, he instead targets our righteousness instead. So long as we're doing the good deeds, it doesn't matter what our motivations are, just what we're doing them. But James 4 tells us that, "You do not receive because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures."
It's important to examine the motive behind your actions just as much as the actions themselves. Because even if you can hide your intentions from other people, you can't hide them from yourself.
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