Four minutes. That's all Shaft needed to remind you why Madoka broke magical girl anime in the first place. The animation moves like something alive, cutting between imagery so precise and unsettling that you feel the weight of each frame. By the time it ends, you're already planning to watch it again because you know you missed something the first time.

Four minutes long, this concept film was revealed as a surprise at Madogatari, the Tokyo event held in Winter 2015 to mark Studio SHAFT's 40th anniversary. It acts as the centerpiece and trailer for a new Madoka Magica project. Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi ponder what happiness means, and the answers they form lead each to look back on her own choices. Meanwhile, strange events stir up trouble among the magical girls as they face their fate. A second version later screened in Osaka with several imageboard segments swapped out.