Madoka Magica Inspired Poetry

"Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you."

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A month or so ago, I did something I never thought I would. I watched an anime.

I write this and by no means intend to disrespect those who enjoy anime or to stigmatize those who watch it—I honestly didn’t know much about what it was, and always assumed that it would never fall into my personal pool of interests. But you know what happens when you assume, I’m sure.

The anime I watched was called Puella Magi Madoka Magica, or just Madoka Magica, for short. To summarize, the series follows a group of teenage girls: the main character, Madoka Kaname, her best friend Sayaka Miki, their older, mentor figure called Mami Tomoe, a mysterious, morose girl named Homura Akemi, and the fiery-haired, food-obsessed Kyoko Sakura. 

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What a first seems to be a cute, innocent cartoon about female friendships and the struggles of adolescence turns out to be much more profound and gloomy than it appears. 

One day, a strange, cat-like alien creature named Kyubey reveals itself to Madoka and Sayaka, telling them it will grant them one wish, anything their heart desires, if they agree to become magical girls. 

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Magical girls are also granted superhuman powers but must eliminate witches, which are monstrous conglomerates of objects born out of the grief of someone losing hope in the world. While these witches live in an alternate dimension that only magical girls can see and navigate, the residual energy of the witch causes people in the normal world to do things like hurt themselves or commit suicide. It is a magical girl’s responsibility to risk her own life, day after day, to fight and defeat these witches so they cannot bring harm and hopelessness to people. 

In the anime, the witches can be identified by a particular art style.   

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I won’t give much more away, considering the storyline is full of twists and turns that result in (well, at least for me) Netflix-binge-watching the entire series over the span of just a couple of days. Where do the witches come from? What, truly, is the cost of getting whatever you most desire? What does it mean to do the right thing? How do you determine what is the right thing in the first place? What is created out of true love as opposed to a love tainted by selfishness? 

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Overall, I think the series is magnificent if you want to further wrestle with your current thoughts on good and evil, what makes someone or something a good thing versus a bad or evil thing. There are lots of indirect ethical questions throughout the series, as well as beautiful and creepy artwork and scenarios depicting human hope and suffering. 

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So, why am I ranting about how good an anime was to you, poet? Because I think there’s some potential for some poetry here, even if you haven’t seen the series or don’t want to. Just from its themes and artwork, there’s some potential inspiration here.

The Prompt

I challenge you to write about one or all of three pictures of witches included in this post. For example, the first witch picture in this post is of one called Oktavia von Seckendorff (still not sure where their names came from, to be honest…), AKA the mermaid-knight witch. 

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Since she is clearly composed of objects rather than human parts, what do you imagine caused her grief? What emotions, memories, and themes do the objects in her dimension induce—her mermaid tail and suit of silver armor secured with a pink bow, the gramophone in the background spouting musical notes every which way. Try to include the imagery of the witches in a poem, the objects, the colors, the humanoid qualities.  

The second witch is Anthony, composed of cotton balls, mustaches, and butterflies, among other things.

The third is called Kriemhild Gretchen—and she takes the form of a huge storm that sometimes appears underwater—other pictures of her show her with many long, spindly legs.

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You could also make this prompt a bit more personal and create your own Madoka Magica inspired witch in your head. What events in your life, objects do you have connections to, concepts or subject matter do you love, would make up you if you became a Madoka Magica witch? Think heavy on the symbolism. Sketch it out. Daydream it and project it onto a blank wall. Then free write and let all the images in your head design their own chaos. 

Hopefully a magical girl will step in to shut it down if it gets too weighty or too creepy. Happy writing.

Read more work by Alyssa on Floodmark.