Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Nightmare Fuel

Sweet dreams.

Considering the pedigrees behind Puella Magi Madoka Magica, some creep factors are to be expected. However, the sheer level of Nightmare Fuel to be found in the series's life has been rather terrifying. Do NOT be fooled by Ume Aoki's Tastes Like Diabetes character design, this show is basically "Neon Genesis Evangelion with Magical Girls; a Tear Jerker with tears made of pure Nightmare Fuel. Yeah, it's that kind of show.

Episode 1

• While most remember the nightmare fuel from episode 3 onwards, the Nightmare Fuel was there as early as episode one, with the Anthonies. See how freaky those things are? Now look at them in action—the animation for them is deliberately jittery, and their babble translates to planning to cut Sayaka and Madoka up and present them to Gertrud.

Episode 3

• Mami's death. Her head gets bitten off by a monstered-out Charlotte, shortly before the rest of her gets eaten as well.
  • It's worse in the manga. Warning: Do NOT read that page if you are squeamish.
  • The first two episodes interlaced the credits with the action. The third had a ending theme song and a video. Just in case you weren't paying attention during episode 3... lets just say it would probably fit in with the Higurashi crowd. (High note: Madoka, floating in a fetal position... which is revealed after the camera zooms out to be taking place inside the eye socket of the Mephisto mask from a Nazi-era stage production of Faust.)

Episode 4

• Episode 4 feature Madoka being drawn into a witch's barrier...by being torn apart and drawn into the barrier piece by piece through several monitors before being reconstituted within. If that wasn't enough, the witch/familiar preys on Madoka by playing on her grief, replaying Mami's death over and over to convince her to give up as she's nearly stretched and torn apart for good. Lovely little Body Horror there. Although, for a change, all of these horrors are strangely absent from the manga.

Episode 6

• Episode 6 proves itself as a Wham! Episode by turning the whole premise into Nightmare Fuel: The Soul Gems are the literal crystalization of the soul. As in, the Soul Gem is the True Magical Girl, and the body is simply a puppet. And if the hints weren't already there, the revelation turns Kyubey into this personified.
  • To clarify and emphasize, Kyubey sees absolutely nothing wrong with this, because as he puts it, this way their bodies can't die so long as their Soul Gem remains intact. It's currently unclear whether or not this affects aging as well. In summary, Magical Girl is a fancy term for Lich. Considering what Magical Girls go through, he's probably right. Whether that makes it more or less horrifying a subjective issue.
• In another moment in the episode, Sayaka has discovered that Kyousuke was discharged early from the hospital and neglected to tell her. While she is standing heartbroken outside his house, Kyouko shows up and taunts Sayaka, saying that if she really wants Kyousuke to be hers, then she's got an idea for her...

Kyouko: If you're so caught up on making him yours, I've got an even better idea. Take the magic you just got and march in there, smash up his hands and his legs until he can never use them again. Make him completely helpless. Then he'll wholly be yours...his heart and his body. If you're too shy to do it, I'd be happy to take your place. Just as a favor to my new colleague. It'd be so easy...

Episode 7

• In episode seven, Sayaka is informed by Hitomi that she, too, has feelings for Kyosuke and plans to confess the next day. After she has a good cry about it, Sayaka takes out her frustration on a Witch...whose silhouette makes her look vaguely like Hitomi. (Fortunately, it's NOT her), Sayaka just keeps beating the Witch with a ferocity that has never been seen before, laughing maniacally all the while. Much like Mami's death, this is also worse in the manga.
  • And in the DVD version of the episode, she bleeds.
• At the beginning of the episode, Kyubey was torturing Sayaka and then pushing her towards the berserker rage she uses to attack Elsa Maria. That much cruelty to someone who's that vulnerable is unbelievably repulsive. This is even worse when you remember that she is only 14 years old. We are talking a fourteen year being subjected to the pain of impalement. Some would still get shivers watching the scene where Sayaka crumbles down to the floor gasping for breath while Kyubey sits there smiling as though the whole thing was no big deal.

Episode 8

In General: Episode 8. Dear god, episode 8.

• After Homura guns Kyubey down, a second Kyubey appears and devours the corpse of the first one. If that didn't frighten you, then Kyubey's last line of the episode should.

Kyubey: "So this country calls women who still growing a 'shoujo', right? Well, for you all that are on the way to become witches ('majo'), shouldn't you be called 'Mahou Shoujo'?"

• Sayaka's transformation into Oktavia Von Seckendorff. Absolutely terrifying. It also borders on Tear Jerker because of the events leading up to it.
  • Once again...the manga is no better.
• Seeing Kyubey being riddled full of bullet holes wasn't exactly fun either. He's fine though. Unfortunately.
  • Also worse in the manga.
• When he returns from the above, he's shown solid black with glowing, evil red eyes, a-la Irisu Syndrome. You could build a house with the number of bricks that were suddenly created.

Episode 9

• The battle against Oktavia. All of it.
• Kyubey's line to Madoka. "When you're ready to die for the universe, call me. I'll be waiting." also counts.

Episode 10

• Madoka's transformation into a Witch in the previous timelines. Guh.
  • To elaborate: Madoka, now Kriemhild Gretchen, is not simply a witch; and Walpurgisnacht (easily the most powerful witch in the Madoka universe up to this point) is merely a blip compared to her. She's become something that Big Mommy would envy and that Remina would fear. To make things even worse, take a look at her Witch's Card. That thing? That giant, mountainous thing? That's the Witch of MERCY.
  • And her idea of "mercy" is strongly rumored to be something like Instrumentality or even worse, a Matrix-style Lotus Eater Machine. Yeah, worldwide happiness is just so much easier once you remove that pesky "individuality" thing, right? Perhaps it's not such a big step from a Wide Eyed Optimist who just wants people to be happy to Omnicidal Maniac.
  • When the storm clouds burst from Madoka's Soul Gem and form into a lumpy, amorphous shape just barely resembling her.
• Homura's fate also worths some mention. Specifically, she constantly going back in time to prevent Madoka's death/corruption. She has to watch the suffering of Madoka and the other Magical Girls over and over again, and the outcomes only seem to be getting crueler with every timeline. At one point, she was forced to shoot poor Madoka to death to prevent her transformation into Gretchen. And it was at Madoka's own request.

Episode 11

• Kyubey talks with Madoka about the relationship between incubators and mankind through history. Its Eyes. ITS FUCKING EYES. When asked about why he has no feelings to the girls' tortures...
  • "You don't feel sorry for cows, do you?" Then they show quick shots of farm animals in pens, done in that creepy "stained glass" art style.

Episode 12

• Episode 12 was mostly just awesome. However, that universe ending witch Madoka was unbelievably unsettling. Just...that enormous Eldritch Abomination with two halves of a face? Completely engulfing the earth? Dear Christ.. OH MY LORD!!! Yes, that thing is Kriemhild Gretchen, the witch form of our adorable protagonist.Every new timeline sees her absorb all the magical energy of the previous universes that Homura has went through, meaning that each time, Kriemhild Gretchen is bigger and stronger—way beyond Walpurgisnacht could ever hope to be. And there have been at least 10 timelines, although only 2 versions of Kriemhild Gretchen were seen prior to this. And the wish that created that ... thing was infinitely stronger than any other wish, powered by 10+ universes worth of magical potential. There's a reason that version of Kriemhild Gretchen is using celestial objects for eyes.

PSP Game

• Madoka in the middle of her transformation into Kriemhild Gretchen in the PSP version is certainly creepy, if not terrifying. Just from the way it looks like the grief seed is splitting Madoka's body in half, and the silhouette of what used to be Madoka... -shudder
  • Also in the PSP game, there's an event that happens if Charlotte eats Sayaka's Soul Gem and Madoka and Homura, being inexperienced, can't find Charlotte's barrier. We learned in Episode 6 that Soul Gems are Soul Jars, and the body is useless without it. Add that to the fact that Magical Girls die when they lose contact with their Soul Gems for 2 days, and that's pretty creepy on it's own. But, no, they had to make it even creepier by adding that when a Magical Girl loses contact with her soul gem, she starts to decompose. Luckily, Kyouko kills Charlotte before Sayaka dies. Happy ending right? Wrong. Sayaka's body had started decomposing already, before her Soul Gem came back. So she wakes up, unaware of what she looks like, and just happens to meet Kyousuke. Who FREAKS. OUT. You can guess what happens next.

Uncategorized

• Hey, you know how Kyubey's Frozen Face freaks us out? Well guess what? Kyubey does show different expressions in the manga! Expressions just like these!
  • What's scarier? A Kyubey that can't feel emotion with an unchanging face, letting you know that something's off with him, or a Kyubey that can't feel emotion, but knows how to fake it?
  • From chapter 9 on, his eyes maintain the frightening tone except from the flashback chapter before returning in the same chapter and onward.
  • Emiri Katou, who played Kyubey, was supposedly brought into a Heroic BSOD by the character according to the Trivia section. Same with her co-star Aoi Yuki.
  • Some people saw these "Nightmare Faces" more as Narm than as horror. Just because he can feign emotions doesn't mean the faces he uses to do so can't be seen as way too overdone than truly scary sometimes.
    • Made even better/worse/whatever by how from then on, Kyubey has Black Eyes of Evil. It's so stupidly and ridiculously Anvilicious that it seems he's constantly tripping balls, or that the manga author thinks the readers are complete idiots who need to be constantly told how eeeeeeevil he's supposed to be.
• Sayaka is alone in a train compartment with two men who are badmouthing the girlfriend of one. She gets up and, in a scene that wouldn't be out of place in Higurashi, asks them to tell her about the girl, then suddenly wondering why she should even protect guys who act the way they do. She transforms into a magical girl and...nothing. The two men are gone—it is heavily implied that Sayaka killed them. And the fact that we don't see anything... What's worse, there're multiple Gods in this work, and each have completely opinion on this issue. Producer Shinbo said Sayaka did not kill them, at least not in the anime. Hanokage says she did in the manga, and writer Urobuchi says it's deliberately ambiguous.
  • It's even creepier when you pay closer attention to the center panel. There are blood stains trailing behind her sword. Yeah...
  • Also a remainder to those who think of Magical Girls as cute and pretty, being warriors their magic is aimed at KILLING, not just being flash and entertainment... also the target doesn't necessarily have to be other magical beings..
• There's something seriously unsettling about the ED. The flickering silhouettes of all the girls is really creepy, but the last one, with what seems like a naked Madoka running hysterically into the darkness and slowly disappearing is just...damn.
  • And it's just disturbing with her in a fetal position in an almond-shaped thing that looks like something's eye... we never see its whole face.
  • Oh, that thing? That's the mask of Mephistopheles. The anime is directly comparing making a contract with Kyubey to being a Deal with the Devil.
• While Madoka's witch form, Kriemhild Gretchen never shows up in the anime, what few things we see of her are freaking terrifying
• It can't be just me who thinks the whole concept of Kyubey the stuff nightmares are made of. Appearing in a form that is psychologically appealing to young girls for the 'cutesy' element and playing on the natural inferiorities the girls possess into manipulating them into making a contract that ultimately results in their death for the good of the universe. There's a particular reason he doesn't seem to chose current world victims that are old enough to understand the concept of trust... /shudder
  • It's not just you. Kyubey is fricken terrifying. However, what makes him even worse is that his utilitarian philosophy is no different from that of several leaders throughout history. In other words, we are more alike to him than previously though. That alone makes for serious Fridge Horror.