The anime is Madoka Magika. I recommend watching up to the 3rd/4th chapter without spoilers, then decide if you want to continue watching it.
The joke (spoilers)
The studio advertised it as a generic slice of life magical girl show, and when it was leaked that its writer was Gen Urobuchi, who was known for his horror stories, they tried to do "damage control" by claiming that he was trying to get into new genres and styles. The show does indeed turn pretty dark fairly soon, and you should definitely not watch it if you need something mild. In any case, it's top stuff and I recommend it.
Hi, elderly rookie anime-liker here: the version on Crunchyroll is a side-story from 2020. Do you perhaps know where I can watch the 2011 version?
And perhaps a bit forward, but do you have some reccomendations for me?
I watched and liked (order of watchdate):
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Steins Gate
Demonslayer (started with mugen train movie with my daugter, binged back and following)
Chainsaw Man
One Punch Man
Mushi-shi
Made in Abyss
Way of the househusband
Jujutsu Kaisen
and while not anime per se Blue Eye Samurai (binged this weekend with husband and daughter)
And I recently watched Suzume wich made me cry.
thanks in advance!
(sorry for typos, cat really wants to sit on the keyboard.)
The first two episodes start off pretty standard for magical girl anime: weird creature comes to protagonist offering magical super powers in exchange for vanquishing weird demons and whatnot. However, by the end of episode three, the dangers of this lifestyle become extremely apparent and the whole anime takes a HUGE tonal shift as a result. I don't really want to go further into it as I'd fully recommend you see it yourself.
Yes, ignore the people explaining it, Madoka is totally a chill magical girl anime. It's made for kids and very safe to watch, total comfort food. Best watched when you're feeling down about anything, like if you're feeling down about work or getting over the death of a loved one. Will really lift you up.
"Madoka Magica is actually a deconstruction of the magical girl genre because unlike most magical girl shows it's really dark and revolutionized the genre imo" sayers be like: "no I haven't actually watched any other magical girl anime but I really want to :)"
I hated the ending of the TV show, because it was still fundamentally a bandage over a fucked-up system, but Homura managed to take advantage of it all to take down the incubators in Rebellion.