In my opinion you can't both like Madoka Magica and morally object to it's "Copycats".

You can dislike the Post-Madoka shows for their perceived lack of creativity or whatever and I'd still disagree but consider that a valid opinion.

But when I hear someone who's made 12 hours of YouTube content over analyzing every detail of Madoka to try and paint it as the perfect Magical Girl show, turn around and dismiss later "Dark" Magical Girl shows as "trauma porn" or a betrayal of the genre's core values, I get annoyed.

Every argument for why Madoka is still an optimistic uplifting true Magical Girl show in-spite of it's darkness applies to most of these shows equally as much or maybe even more so.  Yuki Yuna Is A Hero specifically is the one I definitely consider more Optimistic then Madoka in it's conclusion exactly as much as it can be described as more depressing then Madoka in the journey to get there.  

Because Madoka's ending is still not perfectly happy, and yes I'm going off the original 12 episode series and not counting Rebellion here.  Madoka does have to sacrifice her normal life with her family and friends.  Madoka Magica has a very happy ending by Hollywood "you can't not kill someone in Endgame" standards.  But by the standards I hold Anime in general but especially this Genre to, it falls short.  It is a less perfectly happy ending then we got from Nanoha A's or Pretear or Wedding Peach or any PreCure or Sailor Moon (at least the 90s Anime, I still don't know how the Manga version of Stars plays out).  The people who are more okay with Rebellion then Clearandsweet is are in part the people who were always unsatisfied with this aspect of Madoka's ending and are hoping a 4th Movie will finally achieve the perfect happy ending.

If you go back to my Gospel According to the East Post, and read where I refer to David Bentley Hart's take on The Gospel and Antigone, as building up the idea that a Sacrifice has to be made only to reject that, and how that is reflected in a lot of my favorite Anime.  Yuki Yuna Is a Hero appeals to me in how it's the one that most literally does that.  But also how I just generally like and relate to it's characters more, Madoka's feel so much more like paper thin archetypes in comparison.

And then shows like Selector Spread Wixoss and Daybreak Illusion I place between Madoka and Yuki Yuna on this scale.  (note Spread is season 2 and so you should watch Infected first but know that it was never meant to be the entire story).

Now I have not fallen massively in love with all of these shows.  Raising Project has it's good points so I don't regret watching it but it's not a top recommendation.  Sepc Ops Auska I couldn't finish but being "Dark" or "Edgy" isn't why since I really don't consider it much of either of those things.  Someone who is into the idea of Magical Girl Rambo would probably like it.

Now Mahou Shoujo Site is a show I have a unique relationship with, I'd kind of chronicled it as it aired on this blog in the Spring of 2018.  It's not a show I will try to argue is equal to or above Madoka in the Happiness of it's ending,  But it's also the rare example of a show I where would have been fine with it even if it didn't end nearly as happily as it did.

Because I do think we need more fiction that doesn't use kid gloves when it deals with bullying, as someone who was bullied themselves and thus is often annoyed how often both American TV and Anime brush that issue off even when technically condemning it.  That's why my love of Magical Girl Site is similar to my love of the 2005 Lifetime film Odd Girl Out, but even that falls a bit into the "just stand up for yourself" trope.  So right from episode 1 this Anime grabbed me.  And now post 2020 I appreciate it's Trans Girl even more as I've increased my questioning of my own Gender identity, she should be considered one of the top examples of Trans representation in all of Anime.

As much as I often talk like a happy ending is an absolute requirement for me, I do understand the artistic and emotional value of Tragedies, and so demonstrating the ramifications of bullying is one of the better justifications for that in my view.  But Site IS still a Magical Girl show and so these girls do overcome their Trauma, but not in the way most Individualist American media about bullying tells kids to deal with it, but rather they do it how Magical Girls usually do it, which I value even more.

Ya know it's not just in the context of this genre that I often feel those criticizing stories for being "Edgy" or "Trauma porn" are often people with more privileged lives looking down on the rawness of how people less fortunate express themselves.  I thought of this watching the latest Atop The Fourth Wall video.  I don't think the New52's Joker's Daughter has some brilliant origin story or anything.  But the detail that struck me was Linkara specifically reacting to her line about the physical pain drowning out the emotional pain as some particular proof the Comic doesn't understand the issues it's pretending to deal with.  But I know someone who's cut themselves in the past and that's exactly how they explained why they did it, so to me it was one of the better parts of that Comic.

Of course part of the methodology of these people who like Madoka and only Madoka of this Sub Sub Genre is saying that "Magical Girl shows had always gotten Dark sometimes".  And while I agree with pointing that out to undermine people's oversimplified understanding of classic Magical Girl shows.  These people really do seem in denial of the fact that Madoka is dark in a way no prior TV Anime undeniably classified as a Magical Girl show ever was.  

Sailor Moon could get "Dark" in ways that also applied to friggin Pokémon, the 3rd Pokémon movie is darker then Sailor Moon ever got.

Sailor Moon S gets called "the dark season" of Sailor Moon.  Most of it is not that dark, it's over half done before the real story even begins.  Once Hotaru's there the darkness is kind of present every episode, but most of them are ramping up the goofiness at the same time.  There really are only two episodes of them truly being in the thick of it.  To suggest that show is at all equivalent to Madoka in tone would be absurd.

The Magical Girl Warrior genre opening up to darker takes around the same time it turned 20 was inevitable, that's how these genre cycles work.  And now that it's turning 30 I look forward to what new innovations will come next.