Becoming the Labyrinth
Negotiating Magical Space and Identity in Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249494 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sara Cleto (The Ohio State University, corresponding author), Erin Kathleen Bahl (The Ohio State University), Erin Bahl |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 20 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-06 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h5020020 |
| OpenAlex | W2333204234 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
In the magical girl anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, middle-school girls receive the power and responsibility to fight witches in exchange for making a wish. The series has connections to many different genres and narrative traditions within the realm of folkloristics. However, the folkloric genre most relevant to the ethos and aesthetics of Madoka is that of the fairy tale. Drawing on Bill Ellis’s concept of “fairy-telling” and scholarship on new media composition, in this paper we seek to investigate labyrinths as acts of embodied composing—not lairs of evil or destruction but rather creative material memory work that negotiates grief and despair. Many of the series’ action sequences unfold in “labyrinths,” the magical spaces controlled by witches. By composing a labyrinth, witches can simultaneously reshape their environment and create a powerful statement about identity through personalized performance in narrative spaces that they control. In particular, we argue that both the frameworks of “fairy tale” and “new media” give us useful analytical resources for beginning to make sense of the intricately complex phenomenon of Madoka’s labyrinths
Aesthetics · Anime · Art · Folklore · Folkloristics · Improvisation · Literature · Narrative · Realm · Scholarship · Sociology · Visual arts · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |