So. Madoka. It's a show. I'll say things I liked about Madoka, things I didn't like about Madoka, some nitpicks, then summarize my thoughts in a nutshell. Let's go on with this review.

Things I Liked

Art Style: One of the things that's really cool about Madoka is the jarring difference in art style between the show itself and the "Witch's Realm" (for the lack of a better term). The vanilla show itself is done in a very standard anime style. Nothing really remarkable there, but... It's serviceable. (Though, it kinda bugs me that the characters' faces are all rather... Boxy. But that's not really anything major.) However, the really cool part for me is how... eerie the shift in art-styles is. It adds this subtle level of creepiness which, to me, is really nicely done. And since the Witches represent the darkness in the world... I find it extremely fitting that the art style reflects that as well. So major props on that front.

Character Roles: To me, it felt that all the characters were used... Effectively. All the characters played the role that they were supposed to be well. Kyuubey is a good creepy... Thing that is more antagonistic in nature. Madoka plays the part of the protagonist well. Homura does a good job being the mysterious student. Mami does a good job being the mentor. All these roles were played out... Effectively.

Soundtrack: I may not be a fan of the actual songs themselves, in the sense that I wouldn't want to go around working, listening to the OST on my iPod... But the soundtrack of Madoka is extremely good. The songs fit really well with their respective scenes, and thematically are very nice. I may not like the songs, but I can definitely appreciate the fact that it is very well composed.

Consistency With Internal Logic: This is kind of a mouthful to say, certainly. But one really good thing about Madoka is that all the important concepts regarding magic, powers, and the universe are all (eventually) explained and are consistent with each other. The origin of witches? Explained. The reason Kyuubeys do this? Explained. The purpose of Soul Gems? Explained. It's really good that this is all explained, as this resulted in another good thing, which was a lack of major plot holes or inconsistencies.

Ending: The ending to me was quite well done: It fits as well as it can in the Madoka setting, with it being bittersweet, but still leaving a relatively "happy" ending for most of the characters involved. (Well. Except Sayaka. She's still screwed.) I found the fact that Homura uses Madoka's bow and arrow and still has her hair ribbon to be quite touching. That was sweet. I liked that.

Things I Disliked

The "zomg so edgey" Syndrome: Yeah... For a series that's trying to be more dark... It honestly didn't do such a good job. To me, it felt like it relied too much on shock, and as a result, the resulting world feels rather phony. Like, to me, a well constructed dark world would be done in one of two ways: The world that the characters are in feels like a world that our world could become, or the world appears to be fine, but in fact has many subtle things wrong with it. And, to me, the Madoka universe just doesn't do either of those. As a result, it feels... quasi dark? But, it also doesn't really feel dark enough, in my opinion. Unfortunately, Madoka goes down the route of "zomg dark and edgey, let's have people die", and to me, it felt really... Forced. This leads, unfortunately, to another problem...

Lack of Sympathy/Empathy: I may sound quite mean and not caring here but... By the time Sayaka and Kyoko died, I was like... Meh. To me, Madoka plays the "death" card way too much. Too many characters died in too few episodes for me to really care about their deaths. Sure, I understand that the deaths are necessary to move the plot forwards, and to make sure that Madoka becomes that supreme being at the end, but... It felt like their deaths were rather cheap, and to me, it lacked any emotional resonance.

Lack of Consistant Character Growth: I may have liked the roles that the characters played in Madoka, but... To me, it felt like most of the characters were extremely weird in their character development. Like... Most of the characters, in terms of personality, changed in a very erratic manner. For example, Sayaka went from a person who is extremely driven to succeed in her goals to "zomg angst angst". Kyoko was a girl who was really brashy and driven to succeed, doesn't really care about others... And all of a sudden she just becomes self-sacrificing against Sayaka's witch? And... Yes, I know that the shock of finding out the truth about Soul Gems would have drastically affected her, but... It still seems like the shift from Personality A to Personality B is too sudden. Homura, luckily, is an exception to that, as we do see her grow and mature as a character throughout. And I liked that we got to see growth in her character in a consistent manner.

Story Twists: Like I mentioned earlier, I felt like Madoka relied too much on shock twists. For example, the whole Homura is a time traveler twist felt really out of the blue (though, it does work in the context of the story, don't get me wrong). Kyuubeys wanting the whole magical girl/witch conflict to gather energy? Again, feels like a twist that's meant to shock. But that is only the first half of the problem I had. The other issue I had with the Madoka twists is that they were too predictable. Like... For example, Mami's death? It was pretty obvious to me that that was coming. Sayaka becoming a witch? Also pretty obvious that it was coming. So, for me, it feels kind of lame that the story doesn't have any twists which were subtly foreshadowed, and that I can come back from a future watching and be like "Oh, that's cool, how did I not notice that before?" There are things that I can appreciate from a future watching (such as Homura's actions throughout the show make sense now that we know that she's looping this over and over), but... That's not really a foreshadowy twist that I can appreciate.

Story Arcing: This one is much more of a "this is something I want" opinion, but... Since it's a review, I can include it anyways. But to me, it felt like Madoka lacked a central focus "arc" to have the entire story about. And... This bugged me, because there just seems like there is so much potential in the Madoka universe to do a centralized story arc. Yes, I know that the episodes are leading towards Madoka learning about the dark dangers of becoming a magical girl, and the whole conclusion of her rewriting the universe, but... It feels like Madoka would have benefited from some sort of centralized focus. The whole conflict with Walpurgisnacht feels more like a background event, rather than something that is important to lead towards. To kind of analogize it, it feels like I could disconnect each episode, and still make sense of what was going on, since there isn't really a large overarching grand story to Madoka. And, to me, it feels like Madoka would be a good story to have that type of large overarching story.

Minor Nitpicks

The OP: The OP ceases to really be fitting after Ep 4. I think that another OP would have been better after that point. Like, sure, I get that they're trying to be deconstructive, but... Still. By that point, people realize that. They changed the ED at that point, so... Why not the OP? (And yes, I know that the lyrics are meaningful, but still...)

Lack of Magical Girl Fights: I was excited when I saw Sayaka and Kyoko fighting in Episode 6. I thought that this could be a direction that they go down: Fighting magical girls that are willing to kill each other to defeat witches, and in turn, become witches themselves. But... No. They didn't go down that route. And also, it seemed that there were a lack of fights with witches themselves. Like... I think of all the episodes, there were only fights with witches in about... Half the episodes? Which, to me is a little strange, though, I can understand why they do it.

It Takes 12 Episodes for Madoka to Become a Magical Girl The show is called Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Yet it takes her the entire show to actually become a magical girl. That's just lame, show name. That's just lame. I understand why it's done, but still... Don't call your show about Madoka being a magical girl when she isn't a magical girl for pretty much the entire show. >_>

Mami uses guns, and guns are a lame weapon.

Overall

All in all... Madoka isn't a bad show, despite my long list of criticisms. It's a perfectly good show, but... It just feels lacking to me in many ways. The "dark" premise feels too shallow, and... Not well done. Many of the story twists feel like they are done for "shock" value, and as a result, it detracts me from enjoying it. The world of Madoka itself feels like so much more could be done with it, but... It just fails to live up to that potential. All in all, would I recommend watching Madoka? I guess I would? But, it certainly wouldn't be a heartily recommended show by me for others to watch.

Steins;Gate. It's also a thing. Like with my Madoka review, I'll first say things I liked, go on to things I didn't like, state some minor nitpicks, then give my overall thoughts.

Things I Liked

The OP: Steins;Gate's OP is amazing. It's fitting, it sounds nice to listen to, and it's overall a really well done OP. Yes, the OP is so good that it deserves its own point. And the very first point, at that.

Time Travel Logic: In time travel pieces of fiction, the logic regarding time travel is extremely important, lest you want to end up in awful plot holes and whatnot. Steins;Gate does a fantastic job in this regard: The internal logic is extremely sound, and I can't find any big plot holes in the time travel. In addition, the whole butterfly effect that is done by the different D-Mails is extremely good. I like how most of the actions done by Okabe in Steins;Gate have a drastic effect on the timeline. That is well done, and I really liked that. In addition, most of the actions hold up to scrutiny in terms of how the D-Mails were reversed, and whatnot.

Kurisu: Kurisu, to me, was a really well done character. She has really good character growth, we can see her maturing as a character, and she acts as a great foil to Okabe. In addition, it was really sweet to see how Okabe grows to really care about her, and that he is willing to do anything to save her. also, she's a total tsundere, and i like that

Research Done: This sounds like an awfully odd point, but... I really appreciate the research done by the writers of Steins;Gate. All the stuff that was mentioned in Steins;Gate? All stuff that actually exists. Like, the IBM5100, John Titor, these are all objects and occurrences that happened in real life. It's great that they took stuff from real life, and made the time traveling aspect actually seem plausible in our universe. That's really nicely done.

Things I Disliked

Pacing: Oh man. The pacing in Steins;Gate is quite poor. The first few eps are a bit slow, but, from a first time watching perspective it was fine for me. (Though, I can see if you're watching it again, how it goes by rather slowly.) For the middle part, we're decently paced, with each episode being about reversing the D-Mail sent, and watching Okabe do stuff to save Mayuri... But then we reach the Beta Timeline, and Okabe saves Kurisu in two episodes. To me, that felt rather rushed. It would have been better, in my opinion, to shift more episodes to Okabe doing that, than having all the padding in the beginning.

Lack of Character Development: Aside from Okabe and Kurisu, most of the characters really don't grow at all. Which, in a 24 anime, just doesn't seem right. Especially since a lot of the characters that don't grow get quite a bit of screentime. For example, Mayuri still remains and acts exactly the same at the beginning of the show and the end of the show. Daru also remains the same. Faris remains the same. Ruka remains the same. Moeka is lolMoeka. It just irks me that there was so much potential in all these characters, yet, nothing is really done with them.

Episodes 13/14: I really don't know where to start about my dislike of Episode 13. Just... Everything with Episode 13 was extremely poorly done, in my opinion. I like to say I have a decently high level of suspension of disbelief... But the sheer insanity of what goes on in this episode was a bit too much for me to handle. I can accept that Okabe is desperate to save Mayuri and is willing to keep going back in time to save her. I can accept that fate wants to kill Mayuri and will do pretty much anything to kill her because of the distorted world line. What I can't accept was just the sheer stupidity of how Mayuri dies in Episode 13. Like, if you wanted her to fall in front of the train and die, that's fine. But having Nae somehow push Mayuri, who probably is a good deal bigger than Nae, about 5 meters in front of a train, and have Mayuri fly head first on to the tracks? That's going from the realm of heavily implausible to the just downright idiotic. And then, there's Episode 14. Well, at least, part of the first half, where Okabe somehow magically escapes from the van, and runs back to the time travel lab (where somehow, none of the SERN members have gone to take the time travel stuff, despite the fact that they know that it is there), and travels back in time. Luckily, it gets a lot better after this, but still... These two episodes left a bad taste in my mouth plot-wise.

Minor Nitpicks

SERN Being a Lack of a Threat: SERN to me, in Steins;Gate, serves as such a peripheral villain, that they almost feel unnecessary. Yes, I understand that the plot is supposed to be more about Okabe and Kurisu or Mayuri, but, SERN still feels heavily underutilized, aside from the weird pudding threats, a threat with a doll, and killing Mayuri over and over again.

Okabe's Lack of Explaining Anything: OK. I get that Okabe is most likely stressed from all this time travel nonsense. But it still really irks me that he doesn't ever just explain his plans or what happened to anyone. Or, rather, that it takes forever for him to actually explain anything. For instance, in Episode 14, he runs through a good few number of loops before saying anything about Mayuri's constant deaths to Kurisu, despite the fact that Kurisu says that she can look in his eyes and tell that he time jumped back. I understand that it's necessary to do that to advance the plot, and to create conflict, but it seems rather strange and illogical to me.

How People Start Magically Remembering Previous Wordlines: This honestly really bugs me because all the other weird wibbly wobby timey wimey things get explained, yet the fact that people remember the previous worldlines gets completely glossed over, and doesn't get any sort of explanation. I would be perfectly happy if they gave some sort of pseudo-sciencey explanation, or if they just made up some sort of excuse of how the Reading Steiner can start to affect others if Okabe starts caring for them. But, instead, we just kinda get shafted for an explanation, and how it just... happens. Which seems rather silly to me, when everything else is so well explained.

Mayuri's Age: Or, this could honestly be about her lack of maturity of any sort but... How on earth is she supposed to be 16? She acts completely immature for her age, and her actions just seem really odd for a 16 year old. Like, if they made her 13, then her actions make more sense, or if they just made her a tad more mature, it would make sense as well. But, as is, she seems really odd as a character, because of the dissonance between expected actions for her age and how she acts.

Lotto D-Mail: Why did they never have to reverse this D-Mail? Like, did they completely forget about this one or something?

Overall

All in all, I would say that I enjoyed Steins;Gate. Sure, there were flaws in the lack of character development, and the plot sometimes gets a little silly, but it was pretty enjoyable. I would most likely recommend it to people to watch, as it's a pretty decent anime that doesn't try and go over its head in what it's trying to achieve. (Also, that OP is amazing. <3)