>>543373481
its just a trope, not a subversion of tropes. Darker mahou shoujo was already a popular subgenre by the time madoka came out. if anything i feel something like alien 9 is closer to a deconstruction on the genre, even if its not really a magical girl show, but you do still have the mascot animals that gives the girls powers to fight off non-human threat, and the girls undergo physical and mental changes while combined with their animal partners