#kyubey icons

[pfpanimes]

⌕ madoka magica.

like or reblog if you save/use. 🤍

[wakatte-itahazu]

⊱ ━ Madoka Kaname x Akemi Homura ♡ 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 ⋅.━ ⊰

— 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾/𝗋𝖾𝖻𝗅𝗈𝗀 𝗂𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗌𝖺𝗏𝖾.

— 𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠.

— © pipioo08 (tw).

[tenitchyfingers]

Riri from Romantic Killer is the same as Kyubey Madoka Magica but for aroace people

And I wanna kill them. I’m 3 minutes into episode 1 btw

[nekita]

ʚ °· ꒰ఎ 🩷 ໒꒱ ·°ɞ

♡ 𝐌𝐲 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 ♡

[seginsquads]

♫ 🇳‌🇴‌🇼‌ 🇵‌🇱‌🇦‌🇾‌🇮‌🇳‌🇬‌ ♫ ; MISC. ASSORTMENT

200 x 200 ; seradeic ; circle DAY 1 ; ANGELS / DEMONS for the #pridewishes2000 edit challenge!

[ineviitabilis]

Was that . . . ?

No, surely her eyes must be deceiving her. Surely he hasn't followed her even here.

[yurimother]

'Puella Magi Madoka Magica -Walpurgisnacht: Rising-' Announces Winter 2024 Debut

On Sunday, at Aniplex Online Fest 2023, Aniplex revealed a new teaser trailer for Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: -Walpurgisnacht Rising- (Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica: Walpurgis no Kaiten).

The trailer revealed that the anime film, which continues the Puella Magi Madoka Magica main timeline after the events of the 2013 film Rebellion, will debut theatrically in Japan in Winter 2024.

Aniplex also revealed a new key visual for the film and announced that director Yukihiro Miyamoto, who directed the original 2011 television anime series, its two film adaptation, Rebellion, and spin-off Magia Record is returning for Walpurgisnacht: Rising at SHAFT.

He is joined by the previously revealed staff, including the original creators Magica Quartet, chief director Akiyuki Simbou, writer Gen Urobuchi (Nitroplus), and character designer Aokiume. Additional returning staff includes character animation designer Junichiro Taniguchi, who served as Chief Animation Director on previous projects, parallel world designer Gekidan InuCurry (Doroinu), who created the iconic, unique looks of the Witches Labyrinths, and composer Yuki Kajiura.

All of the original Japanese main voice cast from the series and Rebellion are set to reprise their roles:

Aoi Yuki as Madoka Kaname

Chiwa Saito as Homura Akemi

Kaori Mizuhashi as Mami Tomoe

Eri Kitamura as Sayaka Miki

Ai Nonaka as Kyouko Sakura

Kana Asumi as Nagisa Momoe

Emiri Kato as Kyubey

The anime was originally announced back in 2021, but in 2019 at Anime Expo, Homura's voice actress, Chiwa Saito, foreshadowed the sequel, saying that "the actual series has not ended yet" and that she was looking forward to everyone seeing Devil Homura, a reference to the ending of Rebellion, again.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica aired in 2011 to critical and audience acclaim. It became a cultural phenomenon and spawned two movie adaptations, Beginnings and Eternal, the sequel film Rebellion, and multiple manga and video game spin-offs. It is credited with popularizing mixing dark, postmodern tropes with the magical girl genre.

Source: Aniplex Online Fest 2023, Press Release

[sayakxmi]

Saiouma Puella Magi AU, but Kokichi takes Madoka's role and Shuichi takes Homura's.

For one, Kokichi's too naturally distrustful to just hear "I can grant you any wish :)" and not think ok where's the hook. So he just does what no one ever has & essentially interrogates Kyubey, so he knows it all even before he gets to make a contract. So, some of his classmstes are MGs & he won't become one himself BUT he still ends up tagging along to just protect them in his Kokichi ways. (Though I'm entertaining Kokichi lying about being a magical girl, because, well, it's Kokichi).

(I also got a small idea of Gonta being a magical girls and Kokichi originally tagging along him into labyrinths, Gonta also makes him a magic gun from the toy one he had, and at some point witches out & Kokichi manages to kill him with that gun. So he always has that spare Grief Seed on himself, bc it's still his best friend & he can't handle the idea of just giving it away or using it himself (he does anyway in the end).)

Shuichi prolly ends up being a new kid & it isn't like MadoHomu, the ppl who reach him first are Kaede & Kaito, classic. Kokichi's there, too, but he's his usual sus self. He's actually discouraging ppl from making a contract when they find out magic and miracles are real, which absolutely includes Shuichi. He's very vocal abt it, but he won't explain stutf, bc 1) he's a liar, so who'd believe him? and 2) he doesn't want them to witch out upon finding out the truth or, idk, murder everybody Mami-style.

Anyway, fast forward, bad things happen bingo & by the end of the run most charas are dead, there's Walpurgis nachting, and he makes his wish to bring back the ppl who died notably not as magical girls. Contract signed, he fights & fails, rip. I also thought it was similar to how he thought he could end the killing game by himself - he though he could finish Walpurgisnacht by himself, too. And he failed in both times. Whatevs.

Shuichi doesn't actually make his time travel wish for Ouma specifically, he wants to save all his friends. Timelines are messy esp at first bc he either tells then or it backfires or just makes himself look very sus bc he's trying not to tell them. He also realizes why Kokichi hadn't told anybody aby witches at some point, bc, yeah, it messes them a lot, assuming they believe it.

Still, Kokichi ends up one of the few people who are nearly always giving him a chance, not necessarily out of belief, but out of pragmatism - bro can stop time & knows the truth, that's just too useful. So they often work together & Shuichi grows closer to him but still we ain't there yet. But the thing is, Shuichi's time travel still makes Kokichi more & more powerful with each timeline, bc Shuichi usually goes back after Kokichi dies, so the universe figured out this guy's life's important. Anyway, another notable thing is the iconic Homura kills Madoka scene, but it's Saiouma with guest stars of Kaito & Maki. It's Walpy, it's not defeated yet, but the training trio are spent & just kinda accept their fate of turning into witches together. And then, boom, Kokichi appears & steals their Soul Gems for a sec & he's like did u know you can cleanse your Soul Gem with a darkened one? But it's a lie & he quickly tells them so, he just had a spare Grief Seed after cleansing his Soul Gem & he needs them to do some stuff. Shuichi can travel back in time & fix things, and Maki & Kaito are needed to fight Walpy here. He actually questions what happens to the timelines Shuichi leaves behin, and ofc he doesn't know. There's a chance they remain, so Kokichi needs Maki & Kaito to fight Walpy here.

Kaimaki leave, and Shuichi finally looks at Kokichi & realizes sth is Wrong. Kokichi struggles to hide how he's trembling & grimacing, and it's Kokichi, so obviously it must be extremely bad. Shuichi dreadfully realizes something worse, and he weakly asks Kokichi why aren't his wounds healing. And Kokichi just falls, laughing weakly, and Shuichi catches him & searches for his Soul Gem and, God, he knew it. It's nearly completely black. Kokichi laughs & admits he lied abt having two Grief Seeds, he only had one he never wanted to use. But they'll have the second one soon, so no need to worry. He asks Shuichi to maybe destroy his witch form as it's hatching, so he'll have the Grief Seed without any fighting… and he admits that he hates fighting, he hates this magical world and all its violence. He says that Kaito was right in calling him a coward, even here he just can't handle the idea of fighting any longer, he's so sorry. And Shuichi tells him he ISN'T a coward. He was scared, but he always followed everybody, trying to help, and when push came to shove he would always make a contract for the benefit of others rather than himself. He's a lot of things, but a coward isn't one. Kokichi actually tears up hearing that, and Shuichi promises he won't let him fight ever again, and especially he won't let him turn into a witch and hurt anybody, because he knows it's the last thing he's ever wanted. Even now he only accepts turning into a witch to help them fight to keep others safe. So Shuichi won't let him. Kokichi probably apologizes and thanks him and then he dies.

Keeping Kokichi from fighting starts off as a side quest that gains importance with time, bc it's something Shuichi won't compromise on (ah, trauma), which leads him to occassionally neglect others a bit, which makes them more likely to get hurt & ironically Kokichi more likely to make a contract, especially since he gets more powerful & Kyubey is more interested in him with each timeline. And that also makes him witch out super quick. Shuichi's paying more attention to him & over time grows resentful of others for how they're treating him. To Shuichi it's no question that Kokichi cares & is just doing his best to help, but nobody realizes that.

But the biggest obstacle in keeping Kokichi from fighting is actually Kokichi himself, bc he's too smart and nosy, lmao. Even if he knows nothing, he will find out quickly. Doesn't help that Kyubey wants him to make a contract.

Also, obviously Kaito is Sayaka-coded and Maki could be Kyouko-coded, so that's a thing, BUT it's usually Maki that witches out. Kaito is usually pretty close, but Kokichi intervenes & he survives, but Maki later cracks on her own (and since in the new timeline Kokichi isn't there, Kaito's the one to die, so he's still the secretary). So it's Kaito who gets the dramatic sacrifice. I imagine he genuinely hoped you could bring somebody back if you tried Very Hard & Kokichi called him a moron bc obviously it's not possible. If it was there'd be far less witches that there are. But it's Kaito, he doesn't listen to reason. So, Kokichi follows him to the labyrinth. At first Kaito's mad cuz what if Kokichi being there ruins the plan? Maki hates his guts! But eventually he gets hit pretty hard, and Kokichi is near immediately by his side, trying to help him get up, which kinda makes Kaito short circuit a little bc wait Kokichi's trying to help? But witch!Maki attacks them & Kokichi pushes Kaito away & gets caught himself (and choked until unconsciousness, naturally). Anyway, Kaito gets him away, Shuichi catches Kokichi & Kaito makes up his mind about going down with Maki & asks Shuichi to tell Kokichi that he's sorry. He doesn't get him, but he got hurt trying to protect him, so he'll believe in that if nothing else. F.

As for The WishTM, in the last timeline Shuichi lashes out at Kokichi for his willingness to just become part of the system. In no timeline has his wish actually helped, it did NOTHINHG, which OUCH but it also makes Kokichi think out of the box more & he becomes the Law of Cycles. And Shuichi realizes what is happening & freaks out bc Kokichi's doing it bc of what he told him & like Homura they end up having a momentTM in space & Shuichi remembers. He feels a lot of guilt even tho he also questions whether anything was real, but if it was, he pushed somebody he far too realized he loved into erasing himself from existence.

[felixcloud6288]

PMMM Final Notes

At first, I was surprised how PMMM is such a short series. But after watching it, I see why it's managed to be such an iconic series for over a decade.

The creators knew exactly what they wanted to make. The were given all the trust and resources to make it. And most importantly, PMMM came from a place of love.

It's clear that the creators love and understand the Magical Girl genre. They love the concept of the selfless heroine who fights with the power of love and hope to drive away despair and helplessness.

But they also wanted to acknowledge the darker questions about this genre. The Magical Girl genre is about young girls having to carry a burden that no one should ever have to carry. And all the magic and sparkles and hearts and cuteness doesn't remove the fact that children are forced to risk their lives and more likely than not, the world will never know what they've done.

PMMM decided to bring those ideas to the forefront and ask why do young girls have to be the ones to bear a great burden, what kind of person do they have to be to do this despite how miserable this could be, and what happens if they get crushed by the expectations placed on them.

But this is not some edgy despair story. Just as it deconstructs what's wrong with the Magical Girl genre, it also reconstructs it. At the end of the story, everything is reset so that even though magical girls still fight battles that no one will ever know and what they do will never be acknowledged, they are able to be hope in a hopeless world. They become the agents of the very manifestation of hope to save the world from despair. And once the burden becomes too great, they are embraced by hope itself to see that their lives and actions mattered.

Hope and despair are constant themes throughout this series. And for much of it, the theme seems to be there is a duality behind them. In order to bring hope, there must be an equal amount of despair. Wishes are hope made manifest and Magical Girls bring hope to the world. But over time, despair settles in their hearts and that despair curses them into witches who will bring despair equal to the hope they once brought.

But reading between the lines, the system is intentionally made that way. Kyubey wants to gather the energy that is made when a magical girl becomes a witch. In other words, he wants their hopes to be crushed.

And the unnatural appearance and nature of the witches reinforces how artificial the system is. If we compare witches to the demonic beasts in the new universe, the demonic beasts have a more similar artstyle to the rest of the series than the witches did.

When Madoka breaks the system and makes it so there is nothing to gain by plunging these girls into despair, much of the system changes as well. We don't see much of it, but one notable difference is Mami, Sayaka, Kyouko, and Homura worked together in this new world rather than being antagonistic to each other.

The old system encouraged Magical Girls to isolate themselves from each other because they have to compete for grief seeds. The system also encouraged callousness toward people because familiars didn't drop grief seeds, but they could become witches after killing enough people. So someone like Sayaka was crushed by the cruelty of the system.

The use of the opening and ending help reinforce how the system is designed to bring people in using hope only to always end in despair. Connect is a bright and cheerful song about moving onward and overcoming grief to strive to a better future. And the visuals paint the story as the Phenomenal Misadventures of the Magical Madoka.

Magia meanwhile is a more somber song about someone moving forward for someone else's sake without regard for their own well being. The lyrics imply that the person they're singing to will one day repeat the cycle as well. The visuals show Madoka walking from the light into the darkness, leaving everyone behind her and Homura being the only one who notices. And in the end, Madoka ends up absorbed into a shadowy being.

The ending first appears in episode 3, when we start to see how the magical girl life is not as wonderful as it first seems. So combining these two pieces together, each episode opens with the bright and cheerful side of what we think magical girl life is and ends with the darkness and horror of what it becomes. And similarly, they represent the life of a magical girl - Always starting with hope and always ending in despair.

There are a few exceptions such as episode 9 opting for a love song as a send-off for Sayaka and Kyouko and episode 10 using the opening as an ending because the entire episode takes place before the story began. However, I want to point out episode 12's use of the opening theme.

Episode 12 does not have an opening theme. Instead, it uses Connect as its ending theme. There are no visuals when it is used. It's just a bright background with the credits rolling. If we were to make Connect represent hope and Magia represent the despair, then episode 12 chooses to end on a hopeful note compared to everything prior. Episode 12 begins with Madoka rewriting the rules and now the lives of magical girls begin and end with hope. So fittingly, the series ends on a bright note. And as a whole, the entire series begins and ends on a bright and hopeful song.

So yeah. I get it. I get why this series has stood tall and redefined an entire genre. It is a love letter to the magical girls genre. It understands why people love the genre and recognizes the darker aspects implied by it.

There are still so many ideas pouring out of my head that I wish I could say, but I genuinely don't know how to say them. Maybe at some later point, I'll come back to this when I can put these things into words, but I'm going to end everything here for now.

back

[eldragon-x]

i think its kinda funny that i bought a kyubey keychain yesterday because earlier this year i saw a kyoko keychain and i was like "idk i mean i dont love kyoko in particular personally. id buy it if it was madoka or homura or even sayaka but eh". and like, my justification for getting kyubey is that hes iconic to the show but also hes my least fucking favorite character out of the main cast.

[pridewishes]

♔ || MORGANA ICONS

250x250 || bisexual || bordered circle

like / rb + credit + read dni if using

MMC : Kyubey, Monokuma, or Morgana !!

[atamascolily]

I didn't discuss Rebellion in my earlier post about anticipating plot twists in Madoka Magica, partly because I came to it already spoiled for both reveals, and partly because at least one twist plays by very different rules than those of the main series. While I can't speak to what I might have been able to guess had circumstances been otherwise, I can talk about the structure of these twists, and how they function in the narrative.

The first twist (Homura is a witch) is relatively straightforward, and I would argue, entirely guessable on first viewing approximately forty minutes into the movie. This is the scene on the bridge connecting Mitakihara to whatever is outside of it (answer: void), where Homura and Kyouko are being stalked by zombies who are wearing masks with Homura's face on them. I mean, yes, there are Kyouko masks, too, but let's be real, the symbolism cannot be more obvious.

Not only do the zombies peacefully disperse when Homura explains the situation--subconsciously responding to her will--Homura is awfully well-versed on the nature of witches, something that only she is in a position to know. This is followed by an incredibly surreal sequence as Homura "descends" into a landscape of blurry mosaics playing out various scenes from the original series--not unlike how the "paintings" in her apartment re-played her memories in the original series, or a witch's labyrinth.

At this point in the story, all of the major players have been introduced, so the witch has to be one of them--it can't be a random person we've never heard of before with no previous connections to the main cast. Likewise, we've seen Sayaka and Charlotte's labyrinths, so the false Mitakihara wouldn't be their style, Madoka is unlikely to be the culprit, and Kyouko isn't faking her confusion. The only other person besides Homura who might concoct such a fantasy of "everyone getting along and having adventures" is Mami, and yet the plot of Rebellion kicks off with Homura joining the team, (despite the initial fake-out that makes it seem like the film will follow Madoka's POV) implying that she is the central character. And while Kyubey could certainly be responsible (and is later proven to be involved), he cannot be the witch himself; he can only manipulate what is already there, not create from scratch.

Thus, I'd argue that it's entirely possible to guess the witch's identity from the bridge scene onward, with more and more evidence piling up in Homura's favor until the actual reveal thirty minutes later. However, the second twist (Homura becoming the devil) is structured very differently and deliberately to keep it from being guessable on first viewing. Despite the fact that it is foreshadowed well in advance in the famous "flower field" sequence between Homura and Madoka, it utterly fails what I call the "Vonnegut test" after this iconic quote from Kurt Vonnegut:

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Urobuchi and Co. achieve this paradox by doing what I call "the Unreliable Narrator technique"--they show us what is happening in the flower field sequence, but they do not provide sufficient context to allow the viewers to draw the appropriate conclusions at the time. Ironically, for a movie that takes place primarily in Homura's psyche, so much of her motivation and thought process remains ambiguous, precisely because of this method. Instead, we are shown Homura's moment of epiphany, but not what it means, which remains ambiguous right up until the moment of reveal.

It is technically possible to guess this particular twist in advance, but is it likely? If the last few pages of the Rebellion script were eaten by cockroaches and fans were forced to reconstruct the ending from scratch, do you think they would all reach that particular conclusion? My guess is probably not. This kind of twist is really only visible in hindsight, precisely because the audience isn't provided with the information they need to judge the situation correctly.

So, no, I'm not just salty because I would never have guessed this plot twist on first viewing in a million years. I'm salty because I'm not sure that anyone could--and if you did, my hat is off to you and I want to know your secrets.

(Urobuchi pulls a similar stunt in Thunderbolt Fantasy S3, and it drove me fucking crazy, because it was extremely clear from context that one character was not what he appeared to be, but the show hadn't given me any hints about when the switch had occurred, so while I could infer that something had happened, I had no way of knowing what or how, because I was operating in a complete vacuum! In this case, the creators took pity on me by eventually showing a flashback scene outlining the missing steps in great detail, as opposed to merely monologuing about it after the fact, as happens in Rebellion.)

As you can probably tell, I have a lot less patience for this particular kind of plot twist--at best, I think it's not particularly fair to the audience, and at worst, it can come off as a random ass-pull. As a reader, I like to be rewarded for close attention to detail, so the author yelling "PSYCH! IT WAS SOMETHING ELSE I DELIBERATELY DIDN'T EXPLAIN THE WHOLE TIME!" is not a fun experience for me. It's the sort of twist that I can't even feel bad about not being able to anticipate because the game is so steeply rigged in the house's favor.

I'm not sure I would call it cheating, exactly, but I do think it's disingenuous, and I can't help wishing the creators of Rebellion had opted for a different route and been slightly less subtle in their approach. Fingers crossed that they don't end up bringing this kind of twist back for Walpurgis no Kaiten.

[wakatte-itahazu]

⊱ ━━━━.⋅ Madoka Kaname x Akemi Homura ♡ 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 ⋅.━━━━ ⊰

— 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾/𝗋𝖾𝖻𝗅𝗈𝗀 𝗂𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗌𝖺𝗏𝖾.

— 𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠.

— © pipioo08 (tw) & fangpili (tw).

[catgirl-catboy]

Changed my icon since it was Kyubey for too long. Now its the cat from Kiki's delivery service, with my flags! ^-^

[nekita]

ヾ(๑╹ꇴ◠๑)ﾉ”

♡ 𝐌𝐲 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 ♡

[magicaldogtoto]

Learning that much of the Witch imagery and folkloric/fairy tale references of Madoka were added in by Inu Curry and others at Shaft after Gen Urobuchi finished the scripts certainly explains why there's something of a disconnect between the visuals and how the characters act/react to their surroundings.

According to a quote on Wikipedia, Urobuchi originally envisioned the Witches as looking like conventional monsters a la kaiju like Godzilla. (Which I find amusing, since I've had the image of a magical girl fighting kaiju in my head for a few years now...) Things like Sayaka's Witch being an allusion to the Little Mermaid to parallel her unrequited love for Kyosuke being later additions explain why, when stripping the show of its visuals, Madoka really doesn't have much in the way of fairy tale themes/imagery (at least compared to anime like Princess Tutu, which is something I recall pointing out to someone on Twitter not too long ago). Yeah, the Faust stuff fits, but that's also arguably just the result of Inu Curry noticing the archetypal similarities between the contracts and Faust. And really, stories of deals with the devil are nearly universal, and can't be attributed to only Faust. Fairy tales are full of similar stories, for example (like "The Little Mermaid," since the Sea Witch in the original story was a neutral party akin to Kyubey, but she at least was upfront of the struggles the Mermaid would face).

This also applies to other, non-Witch details like Homura's weird apartment, which no one comments on. As pointed out by Anime Slushie, it's obvious Urobuchi didn't intend for Homura's apartment to be so surreal.

This isn't anything new, nor is it "bad" that Madoka had this kind of development. Lots of visual media have similar developments. George Lucas didn't originally picture Darth Vader as having his iconic helmet, but Ralph McQuarrie added that in in his concept art (McQuarrie noted that Vader traveled from one ship to another in the draft he had, and figured he'd need some breathing apparatus).

This gets interesting when we think of Rebellion and the Magia Record anime, since by then the aesthetic of the franchise would have been locked in, and in the case of MagiReco, Inu Curry was in charge and could do whatever they want (this is why I think the imagery gets confusing there; Urobuchi may not have had much in the way of designing elements for the setting, but I'd argue his script at least held Inu Curry back from going completely confusing with their visuals).