Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Tropes U-Z

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.

U

V

  • Vagueness Is Coming: The lyrics of "Magia".
    • The event known as Walpurgisnacht.
  • Vicious Cycle: Played straight. Kyubey needs Magical Girls to fight Witches; he also needs Magical Girls to become Witches.
    • Homura goes back in time whenever Madoka dies.
  • Villainous Breakdown: A very minor one from the resident stoic, but still, Kyubey's reaction to Madoka finding exactly what to wish for in episode 12 was somewhat satisfying.
    • Doubles/works better as an Oh Crap, as the very last thing he says is the thing he'd been tempting Madoka with: "Do you really want to become a god?"
  • Visual Pun: Minor, possibly unintentional example: in the first episode, Sayaka uses a fire extinguisher on Homura. "Homura", written a certain way, can mean "flame" or "blaze".

W

  • Walking the Earth: Homura in the ending; fighting demons who are the new manifestation of despair to feed Kyubey and protect the world that Madoka left.
  • We Have Reserves: Why Kyubey doesn't feel guilty about all the Magical Girl blood on his hands.
    • Also why he doesn't seem to mind Homura killing him, seeing how he's a Hive Mind and all.

Kyubey: Your population is six billion nine hundred million right now, so why do you make such a big fuss over the loss of just one of you?

  • Weird Moon: The moon phases consist of either dramatic crescent or completely full moons.
  • Wham! Episode: Episode 3. You will NOT be ready.
    • To recap—the first few episodes were ominous, but mostly standard Magical Girl show fare, leading to lots of fan theories. They had no ending credits montage nor ending theme, relying on the credits showing as the story continued. After the events of Episode 3, we have a fairly good idea where the deconstruction elements lay, and the show now officially has an closing-credits sequence. It's creepy as hell.
    • Another one happens in Episode 6. Not only Sayaka is getting more and more hyped up in her rivalry with Kyoko, but when Madoka tries to stop her from fighting via throwing her soul gem away and hoping to strip her off her powers ... it's shown that if a Magical Girl loses said soul gem, she will become an Empty Shell. So no, there's literally no way to get the fuck out of the contract, until she dies. Ouch.
    • Another one happens in Episode 8. Homura is confirmed to be from an alternate timeline. Sayaka's soul gem goes fully dark, turning into a grief seed, which then explodes and turns her into a witch. This is how all "true witches" are created. Kyubey knew this from the beginning, ending the episode with the Wham! Line below.
    • Why don't we just go ahead and call this a Wham Series while we're at it?
    • In episode 9 it is revealed that Kyubey is an alien who is using the massive amounts of energy released from magical girls and witches to prevent the universe from dying. Also, Kyoko sacrifices her life to kill Sayaka.
    • In episode 10 we see Homura has traveled between not one, but several different timelines trying to save Madoka, and all of them have ended with the deaths of everyone except Homura herself. On that note, "past" Homura herself is a wham; she is unexpectedly different from her "present-day" counterpart.
    • Episode 11 sees Kyubey point out that all the time traveling has inadvertently given Madoka all the magical power of all her previous incarnations, which due to Homura's Groundhog Day Loop, are legion, meaning she's destined to be the most powerful witch ever, and every time Homura tries to fix it, she makes it worse. Speaking of Madoka, she shows up at the very end, causing divergence from the foreshadowing of episode one, and announces her intent to make a wish.
    • And in Episode 12, we see what she wishes for--and it's big enough to completely rewrite the laws of physics. Even Kyubey freaks out.
  • Wham! Line:

Kyubey: That was very bad, Madoka.
Madoka: What?
Kyubey: Even on this world, something like throwing your friend down there, that is crazy.

    • Episode 8 spoilers:

Kyubey: "Since this country calls women who are still growing up shoujo (少女 girls), then for girls who are on the way of becoming majo (魔女 witches), it's logical to call them mahou shoujo (魔法少女 magical girls)."

    • From Episode 8 as well:

Homura: I will not allow your plan to succeed, Kyubey... no, Incubator.

    • Episode 11

Kyubey You'd all still be living in caves, I think.

    • And in episode 11:

Madoka: "Homura-chan... I'm sorry."

    • Also from episode 11:

Kyubey You've done great, Homura. You've raised Madoka to become the most powerful witch ever.

    • Episode 12:

Madoka I want to destroy every witch, before they are born- with my own hands!
Kyubey That's treason against the wish itself! Do you really want to become a god?

Madoka becoming hope as Penitent Gretchen Hang in there.

Kyoko: You son of a... Give me a break! You've turned us into zombies!

  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: There is no way that Homura could be Faust, Madoka couldn't possibly be Gretchen, and Kyubey representing Mephistopheles/Satan? Patently absurd.
  • What Is One Man's Life in Comparison?: Kyubey's rationalization of the events. Witch energy is used to prevent, or slow down, the universe's entropy. Those that meet the requirement to provide a good amount of energy in exchange for a wish should not really object to it as they would be helping all the other lifeforms in the universe. Kyubey even insinuates all of human history has revolved around magical girls and their wishes, and later falling.
    • A Million Is a Statistic: It gets worse. Kyubey's have energy quotas per planet. As long as they fulfill their quotas, they don't care if a whole civilization, along with their planet, perishes.
  • Where On Earth Is Mitakihara?: The city has a German shopping mall, the school building is an Austrian prison(!), and the tallest man-made structure is the Burj Khalifa; there is even an oil refinery. Yeah.
  • White Void Room: Homura's room; she puts holograms of her memories over the walls.
    • Also in the manga This is where Ultimate Madoka and Homura talk, instead of the starry cosmos.
  • Whole-Episode Flashback: Episode 10. Doubles as an Origins Episode.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: While it isn't obvious at first, the plot is essentially that of Goethe's Faust: Eine Tragödie, with Homura as Faust, Madoka as Gretchen (her witch form's name even references this) and perhaps a bit of Helen-of-Troy (& Euphorion), and Kyubey as Mephistopheles. We just don't see it in full until late in the series because the plot is basically being told from "Gretchen's" point of view.
  • The Wiki Rule: Includes an enormous amount of speculation, a translation of the weird runes, as well as translations of All There in the Manual and Word of God. Can be found here.
  • Wind Turbine Power
  • Wishplosion: Madoka's wish rewrites the laws of the universe so that magical girls don't turn into witches when their soul gem expires, vanishing instead. By doing this, she even manages to safeguard herself by erasing her own witch form.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: If Sayaka's insane laughter and Ax Crazy behaviour is anything to come by...
  • With Great Power Comes Great Perks: This is Kyoko's attitude after becoming a Magical Girl. While she initially was an idealist like Madoka and Sayaka, after her life was ruined, she decided to only use her powers for her own benefit. Yet another reference to Faust...
    • Also, insofar as Kyubey is concerned, the "become a magical girl" process involves a lot of this. He's very quick to point out later on that the "detached soul" thing makes their human bodies virtually painless and nigh-invincible (Mami only dies in Timeline 5 because she gets eaten in one bite, basically, and the only other time we see non-witch magical girls die are when their soul gems are violently destroyed) and essentially gives them superpowers. He really doesn't understand why they freak out about the soul separation so much, because as far as he's concerned, even with the whole "fight witches" thing, this "painless immortal superbeing" thing is a pretty sweet deal.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Deconstructed. Is getting your wish granted (which can be as small as [ wishing for a cake) worth having to fight Eldritch Abominations for the rest of your life?
  • Worf Effect: Two examples in Episode 3:
    • Mami, who had been played up as being rather powerful if not experienced, goes up against the witch at Homura's express warnings against doing so, and gets her ass kicked in the most horrific manner possible.
    • The second example is Homura, showing up seconds later (Mami had used magic to subdue her) and beating the witch effortlessly.]] Justified in a later episode when it's revealed that Homura's time stopping ability is useless if she's restrained before she activates it, which is logical considering she would still be restrained with time stopped.
  • Worf Barrage: Mami's Tiro Finale easily finishes Gertrude in episode 2. When Episode 3 comes along, it did little outside of making Charlotte go One-Winged Angel and kill her.
  • The World Tree: An enormous tree appears post-Walpurgisnacht in the Niconico stream of episode 10.
    • Walpurgisnacht in general seems to be associated with a giant tree.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Kyubey pulls this off in the first episode while being chased by Homura.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: A lot of this goes around but particularly Kyoko in episode 9.
    • Sayaka seems to think that being a seigi no mikata (warrior of justice) in a Gen Urobuchi work is a valid life choice.
    • In most other Magical Girl series, trying to reason with the remaining human part of Sayaka's witch form, Oktavia, would probably have worked.

X

Y

  • Yakuza: Homura raids a Yakuza group's locker for small arms after the other magical girls became uncomfortable with things randomly blowing up around them.
  • You Are Not Alone: The Stinger after episode 12: "Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone."
  • You Can't Fight Fate: The no-holds-barred unfortunate truth and the Broken Aesop that's present. Homura intends to avert this trope. However, every time she tries to do so is ... well ... it got worse every time. Still present even after the ending.
  • You Didn't Ask: Kyubey's response to Sayaka regarding why he didn't bother mentioning that becoming a magical girl involves separating magical girls' souls from their bodies.
    • Or the reason why they actually need grief seeds, witches and magical girls.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The colors span the rainbow.
  • Your Size May Vary: In the broadcast versions, soul gems vary in size from egg to pear. They're more consistent in the Blu-Ray versions.
    • Kyubey mentions that the size of a soul gem can depend on the magical girl's potential power. In the last episode, Madoka's soul gem is the size of a comet.
    • Kyoko's spear seems to randomly change length between shots. In a zoomed out shot, the spear is twice her height. When the shot changes immediately afterward, the spear is a more manageable length for her to spin around. There's nothing to really suggest that she can change the number of segments in the spear.

Z

  • Zettai Ryouiki: Madoka in her school girl outfit and Mami, Sayaka and Kyoko in their magical girl outfits.
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