Two-and-a-half years after their initial teaser announcement, Aniplex finally released a trailer for Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Walpurgisnacht Rising, the fourth (?) movie in the anime franchise, with a vague but promising Winter 2024 release date. It’s been over a decade since Rebellion came out and sharply divided the fandom, and it looks like the fourth movie will pick up where that one left off. Considering how that movie ended, and all of the nebulous tertiary material that’s come out in the decade since, one’s tempted to be skeptical…

But the trailer is full of absolutely bonkers imagery, from the Magic Homuphone to Sayaka in bandages to what looks like a new Magical Girl. More importantly, all of the major creative team from the original series (including Gen Urobuchi, who wrote the original script back in 2014) appears to be involved, and clearly Shaft didn’t scrimp on the animation like some of their recent projects. Here’s hoping that this won’t be a massive letdown.