 Otherwise , Shinbo granted Urobuchi a large amount of autonomy in writing the series and determining the path of the story . In describing his interactions with Iwakami and Shinbo while collaborating on the series , Urobuchi commented that " neither one is the type to show their hand , they would always wait for me to make the next move . " In his effort to create a successful deconstruction of the magical girl genre , Urobuchi studied aspects of traditional magical girl media that were " troubling or overlooked " . He also stated that the development of the plot was heavily influenced by the character drawings he saw Aoki design . Other inspirations he credited for contributing to the series included horror fiction author Stephen King as well as previous projects that Shinbo directed such as Hidamari Sketch and Magical Girl Lyrical <unk> . 
