Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie - Rebellion - Book 1

"We dream of a familiar smiling face... that we hope someday to meet again" - Homura

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the critically acclaimed 2011 seinen anime series about five teenage girls and their dealings with a bunny-cat called Kyubey who offers to grant one single wish, in return he creates a soul gem which becomes the source of the newly created Magical Girl's powers and they have to commit to a lifetime of fighting monstrous beings called Witches who hide in labyrinths and feed off humans.  Unfortunately there are several things Kyubey isn't telling them, first that he creates the soul gem by literally ripping out the girls soul leaving the body an empty shell that can take huge amounts of physical injury in battle. Secondly that the Witches are actually magical girls who gave into despair and transformed, and finally that he is part of an alien hive mind called the Incubators who use the energy created from girls transforming into witches to battle entropy.  The girls are Mami Tomoe, the senior girl who gets her head bitten off by the witch Charlotte, Sayaka Miki the newbie who falls to despair and transforms into the witch Oktavia, Koyoko Sakura the cynical lone wolf who falls for Sayaka and dies in a suicide bomb attack against Oktavia and finally Madoka and Homura. Homura is a time traveller who has been repeating the same six week loop for over a subjective decade in an effort to stop Madoka, the girl she loves, becoming a Magical Girl.  Madoka however does make a wish in the end, the wish to erase all witches before they are born, past, present and future and all the karmic destiny Homura's time resetting built up around her gave her the power to do this.  This rewrote the laws of the universe, and resulted in Kyoko and Mami coming back to life as there were no Witches to die to now (they battle things called Wraiths instead), Sayaka still dying but being taken away after death to Magical Girl valhalla and finally Madoka ascending to Magical Girl Godhood as "The Law of Cycles" but the trade-off was being forgotten by everyone in the whole world but Homura, the girl who did everything out of love for her and who had lost her time manipulation powers too so no more do-overs.  It was obvious to anyone watching the closing moments of the series that Homura was not doing at all well mentally and so in 2013 a sequel movie focusing on her was released.  And like the original series, it has a three volume manga adaptation.  I'll say right now, the film basically split the fandom down the middle but I shall keep my opinions on it under my hat until I wrap up volume three.

Magical Girls.

This manga is unflipped so the pages read from right to left and as regards Kyubey's gender... I give up.  I'm calling it a "he".  90% of the proof reading corrections I made to the three posts I did on the series adaptation was erasing references to him as male.  Strange that a genderless being who is voiced by women should be gendered male by pretty much every viewer (including myself obviously), probably a gender studies essay to be written there.  But anyway, it's a he, and that's that. Oh and just a reminder, I'm a fanatical Kyoko/Sayaka 'shipper so if you want an idea on which side of the fence I'm on regarding this film, there's your clue.

Sayaka and Kyoko fight together not each other.

After a short intro vaguely summing up what it was like to be a Magical Girl, the story begins proper.  A stuffed cat wearing a teddy bear head goes flying through the streets causing cutesy havoc as it goes.  Then Madoka appears (huh?) and fires her bow at it.  It bounces through the streets and suddenly Sayaka (wha?) and Kyoko appear and work together to divert the teddy-cat into a house where a picnic is taking place.

 A song strikes up with the lyrics "no not yet", while Mami appears.  The four of them feed what is revealed to be a "Nightmare" with various foods as the song continues.  Then Mami unleashes Bebe on it, which is her best friend.  And also the witch form Charlotte who bit her head off in the series.  So that's dark.  With the Nightmare out cutesied it fades away, "your bad dream ends now".  And the four plus Bebe stand triumphant.

Kyoko, Mami, Sayaka, Madoka and Bebe up top.

Next day Madoka is woken my Kyubey.  But something is wrong with him, he only speaks the word "Kyu" like a Pokemon. Madoka gets dressed, wakes her hungover mother up and in the bathroom they chat, Madoka says that Hitomi is having a hard time dating Kamijou due to his constant violin practicing.  Madoka also metions her teacher Kazuko keeps going off about the end of the world.  And finally a new transfer student is arriving today.

Madoka finishes breakfast and catches up with her two friends.  But this time Kyoko has taken to place of Hitomi, she's a student now with a uniform to match!  Not much has changed though as Kyoko says she totally blew off the homework and can she copy Madoka's? She and Sayaka then argue about how irresponsible Kyoko is and how when they went home together to do it, she just watched TV instead.

Kyoko: "Geez! I knew it would be impossible to do both school and Magical Girl stuff!  We don't get any time to relax!"

And Madoka rolls her eyes as Sayaka chases Kyoko round and round her, scolding her all the while.  Later in class, Miss Kazuko starts speculating that the world will end in many different ways and she would welcome it because she getting close to age forty and not married.

Homura joins the team.

She snaps out of her reverie and introduces the new transfer student.  It is one Homura Akemi, seen here in her bespectacled incarnation before the time reset angst turned her into the hardened warrior of most of the original series.  As Miss Kazuko introduces her, Homura lifts her hand and shows she has the ring of a Magical Girl much to the surprise of Sayaka, Madoka and Kyoko who are all in this class.

Later on top of the school roof, Mami says she should have introduced Homura sooner.  She had her on standby the previous night.  Mami says they'll be astounded by her magic, Homura shyly says she can only really operate in a support role. Sayaka says the Nightmares they have been having to take on recently have been a lot of trouble so her prescence is very welcome.  Kyoko agrees too.  Madoka runs up to Homura, grabs her hands and says "let's give this town our best.  Homura-chan".

We then jump forward a month.  Homura and Madoka are sitting in a park with Kyubey curled up next to them.  Homura is pondering something:

Homura: "It seems like we've always been together.  But it also seem like yesterday that we met".

Madoka just wishes people could have good nights sleep and no nightmares.  Then she says she has hoped for a long time that she and Homura might get a chance to talk. But she does't have anything special to say.  Homura say spending time with Madoka "is something I've been waiting for a long, long time, Madoka".

Homura and Madoka together again.

We then cut to Hitomi, she was the friend of Sayaka and Madoka who declared her love for Sayaka's crush Kyosuke and sent Sayaka spiralling into the depression and self-hate that saw her turn into a witch.  She ring Kyosuke and asks him out on a date, but as usual he is practicing his violin. She hang up and thinks that he is "so gallant... and wonderful... I do love him, but... why can't he work a little harder for my affections for a change!?"

She slumps down on the bed  saying she's "had it". She nods off to sleep thinking dark thoughts and a Nightmare forms around her.  Mami is getting ready for bed when Bebe flaps about speaking gibberish that tells Mami there is a Nightmare that need dealing with.

Outside watching the Nightmare are Kyoko and Sayaka.  Kyoko asks Sayaka if it's Hitomi's nightmare and Sayaka grins saying:

Sayaka: "Hitomi's sure got it rough... but it's her own fault for dating a guy who has the consideration of a brick".

Kyoko notes that it means a lot coming from her and Sayaka replies that she has some experience with these things.  The Nightmare is rampaging around turning the sky into patterned cloth.

Kyoko and Sayaka jump down to meet up with Mami and Bebe.  Then Homura and Madoka appear and the team is set to go.  We then get a few pages showcasing them transforming into their Magical Girl selves, which manages to be less ridiculous than the same transformation sequence in the film.  At the end they all stand in a line and declare themselves "Puella Magi Holy Quintet!"

The Nightmare has trashed a building, so Mami and Madoka attached themselves via ribbons to Homura who freezes time, they can still move and using Mami's ribbons attched to Madoka's arrows they wrap round the building and pull it tight, bringing it back to normal.

The Cake Song begins.

Kyoko and Sayaka are up next.  Sayaka hurls five swords at her and Kyoko creates a lattice barrier.  The swirds fly through attaching to the barrier and tie the Nightmare up.  They all land on a table and Bebe shrinks the Nightmare so it sits under a clear dome on the table.  Then we get the infamous cake song.  Rendered here in "chibi" style they chant a song about what kind of cake it is until it suddenly grows huge and Bebe turn into her clown worm self and eats it.

Back to normal, Bebe burps up Hitomi's floating head.  Sayaka grabs it and send it towards a sillouette of Kyosuke.  They hold hands and disappear and Hitomi gets a nice dream for the rest of the night.  Madoka says triumphantly, "we did it!"  Sayaka agrees it was easy with all of them there.  Mami cautions not to get over-confident, but Kyoko says she'll only listen to a lecture if they come "with a side of tea and cake".

Mami invites them all over, but while the four of them discuss what they want, Homura hangs back frowning.  Madoka turns and asks if she is alright, Homura says she is but is thinking:

Homura: "Is this... what our battles... were supposed to be about?"

Next day in school Homura notices that everyone bar her fellow Magical Girls, Hitomi and Kyosuke have blank faces and are speaking but with no words.  Only she seems to see this though, as far as the others are concerned everything is normal.  On the roof while the others eat she looks down and sees the rest of the city is like this.

Sinister world for Homura.

Madoka asks her if she wants to come shopping, but Homura says she has something she needs to do today.  Kyoko says she won't come either so Sayaka agrees to bring some food back for her.  And the gang split up.   Sitting under a tree a short time later, Kyoko ask Homura what she wants to talk about.

Homura: "...have you felt like something seems off lately?"

She has asked Kyoko first because to her, Kyoko is the one acting most strange. She says Kyoko is "different from the impression I have in my mind."  Reality is way off from how she pictures it and she has a feeling she wasn't always like this.

Kyoko is somewhat taken aback by this and asks if Homura is trying to pick a fight with her.  Homura asks where Kyoko is living right now and Kyoko says she is staying at Sayaka's place.  Homura then asks how long she's been going to Mitakihara Junior High.  Kyoko says she transferred in, but when pressed by Homura, can't recall exactly when.

Homura then asks where she lived before and Kyoko says it was the next town over, Kazamino.  But she cleaned the place out and Mami asked for help so she came over to Mitakihara.  Homura asks if she has been back to Kazamino recently and Kyoko says there was no need.  Homura asks Kyoko to come with her now to Kazamino and "if it is the town you knew from before you moved here, then I'll apologise".

Kyoko agrees to Homura's plan.

Kyoko realises she is serious about this so agrees saying there is a really great ramen place and she can treat her to dinner there.  So they board the bus headed for Downtown Kazamino.  Kyoko rings the bell as they approach, only to find they are back at Mitakihara District 3.  Kyoko freaks out saying it's supposed to have turned left.  They disembark wondering if they got on the wrong bus.

They get on the next bus and ring to get off at Kazamino North Entrance, but it just takes them to Mitakihara District 2.  Angrily Kyoko starts to yell at the faceless driver but Homura stops her and they get off.   They decide to try walking this time, but the road twists and turns before bringing them back to Mitakihara.  Kyoko starts to power up saying someone is trying to stop them leaving Mitakihara.  Homura stops her with a scary thought:

Homura: "It may not be as simple as that.  It may even be... that there is no world outside of Mitakihara".

She then asks Kyoko if she could keep this quiet for now, she has some other things she wants to investigate.  Kyoko starts to protest but Homura point out the shadowy blank-faced people who are watching them now.

Homura says the trap is set up so they'll attack them if they show they know what is going on.  So for now it would be better for her to work alone, "as long as we keep going along with it... there should be no danger".  Kyoko agrees but says she also feels something weird is going on with her memories. She should be surprised seeing Homura show backbone, but she isn't surprised, "it's just the opposite.  It seems like that attitude fits you best".

Creepier and creepier.

And she leaves.  Homura now alone begins to reflect on what she knows.  She recognises the isolated illusory space, trapping and confusing prey in a maze with no exit, she has no doubt that this is a Witch's labyrinth.  As she undoes her braids and removes her glasses she thinks about how Witches were the final form of a Magical Girl who had fallen into despair and how she travelled through time to "thwart a fate that was too heinous to imagine."  And how Madoka sacrificed herself to break the cycle and lead a new world order.

Homura: "That's what should have happened.  And yet we have forgotten.  Someone is altering our memories as a part of this trap... No. We have been made to forget. Within this fictious...version of Mitakihara!"

The glasses come off, the hair comes down and it's go time.

End of Book 1. First thing you might have noticed is this is a much shorter post than the ones on the series.  This is because this three volume series is based on a two hour movie, not a twelve episode series and there is much more action as well. Anyway this Witch's labyrinth has all the aspects of your typical Lotus Eater Machine.  Sayaka has made her peace over losing Kyosuke and has no overwhelming angst about being a Magical Girl.  Kyoko has Sayaka back and is close enough to her that they live together and this seems to have encouraged her to deal with her dark and troubled past and rejoin society.  Mami is not the fragile individual she was in the series, the support of Bebe has lead her to become a respected leader of the team and has helped her with her issues around being lonely.  Madoka is back and is no longer worried about being The Load, she's a capable Magical Girl and also has her family again.  And Homura has Madoka, which has seen her returned to her more "innocent" self rather than the battled hardened veteran of many timeline resets.  Battles are fun not frightening and the reward encourages fighting as a team.  So what kind of Witch would create a Labyrinth that brings happiness and contentment not despair and death?  Well Homura has finally seen through the sham, a gut feeling that things are not quite right and if there is anyone equipped to sort this out it's her.  Even if it means losing that which she cares about most dearly. And there is always Kyubey, just why is the evil bunny-cat acting like the cuddly Team Mascot not the complete bastard we all know he is? We shall see what he's up to never fear.  What's also noticable about this first part is the extreme pandering to the fanbase going, things like adding Charlotte as a character, putting Kyoko and Sayaka together, having all five fight together and call themselves "Puella Magi". It's like they were reading the fanfics.  But, like the series it's based on, the cutesy exterior is already falling away as Homura sets herself the task of figuring out just what sort of witch would create a labyrinth like this.  Find out yourselves in a few days time.