Madoka Magica's long-awaited 4th film finally has a release date

The wait for the next Puella Magi Madoka Magica film is almost over, hopefully. The oft-delayed and long-awaited fourth entry in the subversive magical girl anime series is finally set to be released on Aug. 28 in Japan.

Aniplex announced the release of the fourth full-length Madoka Magica movie alongside the release of a full-length trailer for the animated feature. The full name of the feature is Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Walpurgisnacht: Rising. That sure is a mouthful.

Madoka Magica first premiered as a 12-episode anime series from studio Shaft in 2011. The show follows a group of schoolgirls, including the titular Madoka Kaname, who make contracts to become magical girls and fight enemies called witches. Over the course of the series, Madoka Magica subverts the tropes of the magical girl genre (think Sailor Moon) and takes a dark turn by revealing all magical girls eventually succumb to a deep despair and turn into witches. Simplistically, this is to magical girl anime as Neon Genesis Evangelion is to mech anime.

Much like Evangelion, Madoka Magica began a reboot/sequel series of films starting in 2012. The first two films, Beginnings and Eternal, were released in 2012 one week apart from each other and retell the same plot covered in the 12-episode anime. A third film, Rebellion, was released in 2013 and told an original story that further chronicled the adventures of the main group of magical girls. Walpurgisnacht: Rising was teased as a concept in 2015 before officially getting announced in 2021. Initially slated for a 2024 release, the project was delayed to 2025 and then later to February 2026, and finally (fingers crossed) to August.

To summarize as simply as possible, the original series ended with Madoka essentially ascending to godhood and creating a new world free of the despair that plagues magical girls. This decision also erases Madoka from people's minds, except for her friend and fellow magical girl Homura Akemi. Homura had spent the series traveling back in time in an attempt to keep Madoka from the tragic fate of all magical girls. The ending of the series, while bittersweet, was somewhat hopeful in that Madoka gave people a new world and Homura seems willing to move on with her life.

Rebellion diverged from this by showing Homura interceding in Madoka's ascension to godhood, instead taking the power for herself and creating a new universe where Madoka lives even at the cost of forcing others to continue suffering. The trailer for Walpurgisnacht: Rising picks up from there, setting the stage for a confrontation between Homura and the other magical girls. While there have been no official announcements, it seems likely that this will serve as a conclusion to the film series.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Walpurgisnacht: Rising will be released on Aug. 28 in Japan. There is no information on an international release at this time.

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