Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Tropes F-J

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Late Arrival Spoiler Warning: Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of the most popular anime franchises in the anime fandom as of the Winter 2011 season. It also has a Wham! Line roughly every episode. In other words, there are a great deal of SPOILERS below—most marked, some unmarked, but all of which will ruin your enjoyment of the story. Avoiding these pages is highly suggested for those who have not seen the show.

F

  • Failure Is the Only Option: Once you become a magical girl, that's it. There's no way back.
  • The Fair Folk: Some witches behave like this. Gertrud is focused on her(?) roses; while Charlotte is fixated on cheese and will be caught off-guard if one throws her(?) some. It's also a tantalizing irony for Charlotte: despite being able to make candies out of nothing, she can't create cheese.
    • Kazumi Magica refers to contract-making creatures like Kyubey as fairies.
  • Fairy Tale Motifs: Sayaka's storyline has parallels to the non-Disneyfied The Little Mermaid.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "Moemura" for pre-Adrenaline Makeover Homura.
    • "Madokami" or "Godoka" for Ultimate Madoka before her name was revealed in the booklet of the sixth DVD/Blu-Ray release.
  • Fan Service: The nude transformation scene with two Madokas in the OP.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Arguably for any girl who becomes a Magical Girl must continued to kill witches or else they'll become one as well. (At least until Madoka manages to Take a Third Option.)
  • Faustian Rebellion:
    • Up until the last episode, Homura's time-manipulation powers seemed to be the only factor capable of catching Kyubey off guard.
    • Madoka's wish in episode 12 coupled this with Cosmic Retcon.
  • Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Type 1, and is consistent throughout the entire series, including Kazumi Magica and Oriko Magica. Can be considered a Mythology Gag (although a very Nightmarish one) for the series due to Mami doing this in Episode 3 and getting her head chomped off in the process. Every time a character performs this trope, something bad happens directly next to it.
  • Field of Blades: Queen of Dakka, do you have enough rockets?
    • Of course, this too would be subject to fan videos comparing Homura to Archer
    • Mami is capable of creating a field of rifles, but it's not quite as impressive. That's more a testament to Homura than a dig against Mami, though.
  • The Film of the Series: The anime will be adapted into three movies, the first two being recaps of the show, and the third expanding the plot after the anime's ending.
  • Finger-Twitching Revival: Inverted by Sayaka. Her entire body twitched except her fingers.
  • Five Moves of Doom: Anime example, and an Oh Crap moment. Crosses over with Arc Number. Episode 10 showed how Madoka had four iterations, each one getting progressively worse than the last time. The fifth one in Episode 12 rewrites the universe.
  • Flash Step: One application of Homura's power looks very similar to this.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The witches' names, barring a few examples such as Walpurgis Night.
  • Food Chain of Evil: Magical girls need Grief Seeds, which witches leave behind upon death, while familiars don't. Familiars need to eat (figuratively or literally) weak people to grow into full-blown witches. Kyoko wholeheartedly embraces the necessary philosophy of it. If the magical girl doesn't get grief seeds? They become a witch.
  • For Doom the Bell Tolls: "Magia" by Kalafina plays during fight scenes and Madoka's dream at the beginning of the first episode. It's also the regular ending song.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • In the form of a Freeze-Frame Bonus when Mami and Madoka enter Charlotte's maze: "Caution" with a row of decapitated bodies on crosses.
    • Kyoko appears in the opening credits long before making her first appearance in an episode proper.
    • During a brief moment in Episode 7, when Kyoko and Sayaka are in the church, an angel appears to come out of Sayaka's shadow, stabbing Kyoko's shadow with a sword. A bit of a Red Herring in that what happened was a bit different.
    • In the ending, Sayaka's silhouette is facing away from Madoka. Guess what happens after she contracts?
    • In the same ending, Homura's silhouette reaches out for Madoka walking by, hinting at her true motivation.
    • The conversation between Madoka, Sayaka, and Hitomi about Homura in Episode 1. In Episode 10 we find nearly all of it is relevant, even Sayaka's throwaway joke about "Is this moe?"
    • Sayaka's own narration moments before the opening credits of Episode 4.
    • Also in episode 4, Homura and Madoka's conversation about Mami dying and nobody remembering her.
    • Meta example: "Puella Magi" was initially thought to be a botched mistranslation of "magical girl". It means "girl of the mage" or alternatively "slave of the deceiver".
    • The bow that Homura carries in the initial concept art is finally seen in the last episode.
    • According to the website, Madoka's witch form wishes to make a perfect world free of suffering. When Madoka finally does make a wish, it isn't very far off.
  • Frozen Face: Kyubey's face in the anime is always frozen in an intense stare, and his mouth never moves since he talks telepathically. This makes him extremely creepy to look at face to face. However, this is averted in the manga, where Kyubey uses normal facial expressions. Usually. Sweet dreams. Or good lulz.
    • In the first few episodes, however, Kyubey's expression does change. He has several expressions of pain when Madoka first meets him and has a different expression when one of the girls is feeding him.

G

  • Gainax Ending: Episode 12 is really weird.
  • German Expressionism: Borrows a lot from it, especially the witches' barrier. Even during real world sequence, the atmosphere feels dark and surreal. Have we mentioned that Faustian motifs and Gratuitous German are abundant?
  • Ghost in the Machine: A magical girl's body is essentially a magical meat-puppet controlled and powered by her soul, now in the form of a jewel.
  • The Glasses Come Off: Just before the last "iteration" of past, Homura takes off her glasses and uses her powers to restore her eyesight.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: When Charlotte eats Mami in episode 3. Subverted, as afterward we see it dive down and start tearing the corpse apart like a wild animal. It pans away again, to the disbelieving and horrified Sayaka and Madoka watching on, but the sounds continue—this just makes it worse.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The grief seeds, the source for the strangeness in the town. If it only was that simple.
  • Gratuitous French: The themed cafe that will appear in Matsudo, Chiba is called Cafe du Madoka Magica (Cafe of the Madoka Magica). "Du" (de + le) is masculine; it should be Cafe de la Madoka Magica.
  • Gratuitous German: The language of choice for the bizarre creatures at the end of the first episode. They speak in a highly disturbing, screechy and somewhat childlike voice, which is arguably even scarier if you can understand bits of what they're saying. Let's just say those flying scissors aren't just for show...[1]
    • In Episode 2, there is some German scribbled on the wall. It is a quote from Faust. Specifically about a destroyed world being rebuilt...
    • Translating the runes scattered around also yields up a few more Faust quotes.
  • Grey and Grey Morality: Just about everyone in this series seems to have a little good and bad in them. Even Kyubey has an understandable reason for what he does, and the witches are fallen heroines. Madoka is an exception, being the only 100% good character.
  • Groundhog Day Loop, Save Scumming: Due to Homura's wish to start her relationship with Madoka over again and this time protect her, she gains power over time. However, she hasn't quite succeeded yet. As a result, she rewinds time to try again whenever she fails. This is why Homura seems so powerful early on in the show; she was very weak when she started as a magic girl, but by "now" she's had years of combat experience and has detailed knowledge on any witch (and magic girl) that is likely to show up.
  • Green Lantern Ring: Generally, a magical girl's abilities and signature attack will remain the same, but they seem to be able to use it for minor things on the fly; this generally adheres to New Powers as the Plot Demands meets Mundane Utility. For example, Mami mostly sticks to summoning enchanted muskets, but can enchant a bat to harm familiars and can create a barrier using a length of chain as a boundary and conduit. Homura once used her powers to fix her eyesight, despite that her main gimmick is totally unrelated.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told: In the end, Homura remains as the only living witness to everything that has happened, and the new version of Kyubey says he'll have to take her word for it since no proof of it remains.
  • Guest Strip: PMMM continues the recent trend of inviting talented semi-pro and Pixiv artists to draw eye catches and end-of-episode preview art, something that has been traditionally done at the last few pages of Doujinshi for decades. The full list of ending cards can be found in trivia.
  • Guns Akimbo/Gun Kata:And how.
    • Not that it helps...
  • Gut Punch: Mami's death in episode 3 is something of a shock to the system. Every episode after that is arguably more of a Gut Punch.

H

  • Hair Decorations: All of the magical girls have some form of this.
  • Hammerspace: One of Homura's abilities. It's shown that she's got an entire armory hidden literally up her sleeve. Mami also has the ability to summon muskets from under her hat and skirt and Sayaka once summons swords from her cape. It's not entirely apparent where Kyoko stores her spear because it sometimes vanishes between shots with no evidence of her dispersing it (episode 8).
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: As seen in episode 10, stopping time is useless in combat if you have no decent way of hurting your opponent. Homura quickly realizes that stopping time lets her easily break into restricted places and stock up immense amounts of firearms and explosives that she uses to terrifying effect in combat in combination with her ability.
  • The Heartless: Without witch's grief seeds to infect, the grief of mankind become demons that Magical Girls have to fight; the demons output can be consumed by Kyubey.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Played with but probably subverted. Sayaka is the only one to use a sword as her weapon. Although her outlook and motivations fit the classic hero mold, she is far and away the weakest of the magical girls and eventually turns into a witch.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Kyoko for Sayaka so the latter won't die lonely.
    • If what Kyubey told Madoka in episode 9 is true, becoming a magical girl can be viewed as such, with delayed consequences though.
    • In another timeline, after both of them suffered mortal wounds from failing to defeat Walpurgisnacht, Madoka brightens Homura's soul gem with her only remaining grief seed, giving the latter the chance to go back again and try to save everyone but at the same time dooming her own self to become a witch. Cue the request for and subsequent Mercy Kill.
    • Madoka pulls this again in the end, by using her wish as a Reset Button that prevents witches from being born (and gives the already witchified magical girls peaceful send-offs) ... but while doing so, pretty much erases herself out of existence ... or possibly above existence. Bonus, the finale aired on Good Friday. Significant? With her last words to Kyubey ordering him to fulfill her wish, it's made clear that she doesn't care what she becomes as long as the world is saved.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Witches are magical girls who let their soul gems become too corrupted. Sayaka is a more specific example.
  • Hive Mind: Kyubey, according to an interview with Urobuchi.

There are many bodies, but only one consciousness. Therefore, even if you kill the body, there isn't any sort of damage. Killing one is just like pulling out a single strand of hair. The scene where Kyubey eats his corpse was a scene that came in after the early stages of the script; I was trying to write Kyubey as something that humans can't relate to. Imagine what your response would be if one of your compatriots had just died.

  • Hope Spot: And an in universe example in Episode 9. The main characters ask Kyubey if it's possible to restore Sayaka to human form. He replies that it's never been done before.
    • Subverted in that not only does it fail, but he was counting on it failing and only presented the hope as a trap.
    • It could be argued that the entire anime timeline -- as opposed to the timeline in the epilogue / the previous timelines is one giant Hope Spot. Everything seems to be going so well from Homura's perspective. She's saving Madoka, Madoka hasn't contracted, and that's all that matters. But then it turns out that even with an absolutely ungodly amount of military hardware she can't stop Walpurgisnacht, Kyubey now knows about her time traveling, she's the cause of all Madoka's problems in the newer timelines, and her very actions are making things worse, every. single. time. It takes the events of Episode 12 to pull everything out of the tailspin.
  • Humanity Is Insane: Never outright stated, but the Incubators consider emotion to be a mental disorder.
    • Power Born of Madness: From the Incubators' perspective, this is arguably what turning emotions into energy is.
  • Humans Are Flawed: One of the main themes.
  • Humorless Aliens: Kyubey
  • Hurting Hero: Every Magical Girl, but especially Homura. Kyoko ceased being a hero at all. (Until episode 9, that is).
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Especially Homura.

I

J

  • Jedi Truth/You Didn't Ask: Kyubey. He will not lie to the girls. He just withholds information unless specifically asked.
    • Or answers with multiple true statements that can be easily misread by those not adept at picking out logical fallacies. When asked if there is any way to turn a witch back into a magical girl he says, essentially, "That's impossible" followed by "Magical girls do impossible things all the time". An emotionally distraught fourteen year old isn't likely to realize that these two statements are unrelated (just because you can do some impossible things does not mean you can do all impossible things) until it is far too late.
  • Jerk Justifications: Homura is mostly Type 3 ("That's the way I am, I can't fix it") while Kyoko is type 1 ("Kindness is weakness").
Back to Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  1. ↑ They're surrounding Madoka and Sayaka, saying that they've never seen flowers like them before. This would be creepy enough as it is, but then they start saying things like "Let's just cut them off." and "We present the roses to our queen."
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