[AkibaSilver]

Just because something is formulaic doesn't make it inherently bad - Double and OOO also both go hard on the 2-parter formula, but they're still a lot of people's favourites even a decade on. Honestly, for all the praise Gaim gets for not relying on the formula, it probably does help that it came after Wizard, which was both formulaic and not well-received, with some of the criticism coming down to it looping the 2-episode MOTW plots when it should've been devoting time to the overarching story. For Gaim to then come along and do exactly that...

There's probably also an element of Gaim attracting Urobutchi fans over from Madoka, cause I remember feeling like Gaim was suddenly so much bigger than Fourze or Wizard, but maybe that was just me getting deeper into the fandom.