< Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Tropes K-O


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.

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  • Killed Off for Real: Mami Tomoe (Episode 3, which got bumped into some really meme-tastic territory), then Kyoko Sakura and Sayaka Miki in Episode 9 (the former sacrificed herself to "save" the latter).
  • Kill Them All: In all the timelines she has gone through, Homura has always been the only survivor. Only time will tell this will change in the current one. For now, it doesn't seem probable...
    • At the end of the anime, Madoka creates a new timeline where she no longer exists, while Homura, Mami, and Kyoko are still alive. Sayaka still dies in the new system.
  • Killer Rabbit: The witch Charlotte starts off looking like an adorable little stuffed doll.
    • Kyubey is starting to look a lot like this as his behavior becomes more and more sinister.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Madoka and Homura both exemplify this, but especially Madoka. She sacrifices all semblance of her own identity to change the magical girl system. She creates a new world where suffering runs just as rampant as ever, acknowledging good cannot exist without evil. And why? Because, by god, magical girls deserve to die happily, and she's willing to become the embodiment of hope itself in a despair-filled world.
  • Knight Templar: Kyubey comes off as this due to his Blue and Orange Morality.

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  • Late Arrival Spoiler: Mami being Killed Off for Real seems to be one now, due to fan-reactions, blogs, and especially 4chan mentioning it everywhere.
    • Sayaka's transformation into a witch is also the quickest one ever!
    • The reason why the headline at the top exists. If you did not know that Episode 3 was a Wham! Episode and did not decide to look at the spoilers (there's a lot of them), you've seen the series properly. Otherwise, good luck.
  • Laughing Mad: Sayaka, at the end of Episode 7 and the beginning of Episode 8.
  • The Law of Conservation of Detail: Done straight, but with consequences. This trope was one reason why the storyline was predicted ahead of time, mostly due to the numerous Faust references (again, there's a lot of them). Lists are on The Wiki Rule (here), the Trivia page, and the Fridge page. There is, however, one notable one that is very easy to pass off: Homura, near the end of the anime, is shown with only one of Madoka's hair ribbons. Madoka gave Homura both.
    • She's shown wearing only one of them, which makes sense, since the ribbon is a precious memento from Madoka, Homura probably has the other locked up in a safe somewhere. That's probably why Homura offered to give one of the ribbons to Madoka's mother.
    • In the manga, Homura wears her hair in pigtails in the new universe, using both ribbons.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Dog Drug Reinforcement makes its debut! Supports up to three players!

WASSYOI WASSYOI WASSYOI WASSYOI

  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In Episode 12, when Homura seems to recognize Tatsuya's "imaginary friend" (Madoka), Madoka's mother asks, "Is she some kind of anime character or something?"
  • Leitmotif: Each of the six main characters has one. Madoka has Sagitta Luminis (Arrow of Light), Sayaka has Conturbatio (Disorder) and later Decretum (Decision) (same motif, different arrangements), Mami has Credens Justitiam (Believing in Justice), Homura has Puella in Somnio (The Girl in the Dream), Kyoko has Anima Mala (Evil Soul), and Kyubey has Sis Puella Magica (You should be a Magical Girl).
  • Light Is Not Good:
  • Lighter and Softer: The second drama CD (appropriately named "Sunny Day Life") is probably the closest we will get to a canon depiction of the show as a conventionally cute Magical Girl series.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Every girl is shown with two outfits each: her school uniform (Madoka, Homura, Sayaka, Mami)/one casual outfit (Kyoko) and her magical girl costume. A slight subversion in the last episode when Ultimate Madoka is seen with a more complex uniform.
  • Literal Genie: Seemingly averted in the few instances Kyubey is seen granting wishes.
    • Probably a case of Zig-Zagging Trope. Kyubey gives exactly what is asked for without twisting the intentions of the wish in any way, but the unfolding plot reveals that what is asked for is not always what is wanted or intended.
  • The Little Detecto: Soul gems, in addition to everything else they do, also function as handy witch detectors.
  • Live Action Adaptation: Apparently, there's going to be a comedic one, courtesy of Nico Nico Douga.
  • Lock and Load Montage: Homura does this, every single time after she loots tons and tons of firearms from the local Yakuza.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Played with in regards to Sayaka. Since she became a Magical Girl in order to heal Kyosuke, it fills out one of the main aspects of the trope. Kyoko later suggests she go a step farther and add a dose of If I Can't Have You by breaking his arms and legs so Sayaka can be the only one he can depend on. Once Hitomi tells Sayaka she has her own feelings for Kyosuke and says she intends to act on them, it essentially leads to Sayaka's My God, What Have I Done? moment, which then leads to her Heroic BSOD/witch transformation.
  • Love Triangle: Hitomi reveals to Sayaka that she also likes Kyosuke and plans on confessing to him. She gives Sayaka 24 hours to do something about it ... and since she doesn't, she acts on her own word and confesses. See also the above trope.
  • Lucky Charms Title: 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ, Mahō Shōjo Madoka ☆ Magika.
  • Lying Creator: So much. Gen Urobuchi enjoys teasing the fans.
    • Claiming that the "kyu" in "Kyubey" comes from "cute" we now know it's Incubator. Technically he wasn't lying. The 'Kyu' in 'Kyubey' really did came from "cu-" of "cute". Just without the "-te" part.
    • Before Episode 3, he made a point of complaining about fans speculating as to when the show was going to get really dark: "Come on, we still haven't shown even a single scene with bloodshed yet!" That episode more than made up for it.
    • He also claimed that Sayaka is The Heroine. Well, technically, she was. Until the grimdark world broke her.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: The opening may have an irritatingly cute demeanor, but the lyrics are so sad.

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  • Made of Iron: Justified. Magical girls have their souls separated from their bodies which allows them to take hits that would severely injure or kill any normal human being. Any damage can be repaired by magic later as long as the soul gem stays safe.
  • Made From Real Girl Scouts: A soul gem contains its owner's soul.
  • Magical Girl: It's half of the title, duh.
  • Magic Skirt: Madoka's magical girl skirt is basically justified since there are a lot of frills underneath. The other skirts are rather short and the show has a tendency to show a lot of leg, but never more. Especially apparent when Kyoko is carrying Sayaka in her arms in episode 9. There is a side shot with Sayaka's leg conveniently in the way.
  • Magical Underpinnings of Reality
  • Magitek: Kyubey's race. That's because they're Sufficiently Advanced Starfish Aliens.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Kyubey, specially towards the end of Episode 9. He allows Kyoko to try (and fail) to save Sayaka as it would force Homura's hand since she would not be able to stop Walpurgisnacht by herself, thus requiring Madoka to become a magical girl.
    • Episode 12 suggests that this was later averted due to the major Retcon done by Madoka.
  • The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Being a magical girl is a lonely job.
  • Meaningful Name: There is a freakin' good reason they are called magical girls. It's a bit of Japanese wordplay: In written Japanese "magical girl" contains the characters for "young girl" and "witch" - "magical girl" can then be read as "young witch". Also, Kyubey's full name is Incubator, which more than hints at his actual purpose, - and coincidentally is formed from the same root as incubus.
    • also the name Madoka can be written with the character for "circle"or "round" in Japanese reflecting the cyclical nature of the magical girl,witch,incubator relationship as well as the circular repetition of timelines that revolve around her.
    • The final and most powerful Witch seen in the series is Walpurgisnacht. This is the name of spring festival in Central and Northern Europe, and tradition dictates that it is a time that witches would gather together. Walpurgisnacht is a fusion of many different witches.
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: Emiri Katou plays Kyubey. According to Gen Urobuchi, she's a sweet lady and a big Magical Girl fangirl ... and almost had a Heroic BSOD when she learned what would go on with the series.
  • Meganekko: Surprisingly enough, Homura before getting really serious about her goal.
  • Memento MacGuffin: In the last episode, Homura's weapon of choice changes to a bow that looks identical to Madoka's, but in Homura's purple-and-black color scheme instead of Madoka's pink-and-white.
  • Mental Time Travel: The mechanics behind the fulfillment of Homura's wish.
  • Mercy Kill: Sayaka receives one from Kyoko. Homura to Madoka in one timeline.
    • At the end of the anime, Madoka performs a Cosmic Retcon that basically does this to every magical girl that is about to become a witch (including ones that existed in the past). Though they may actually go someplace else.
  • Meta Twist: Bacause of Gen Urobuchi's previous works, many expected a Kill'Em All Downer Ending. It didn't happen.
  • Million-to-One Chance: What Kyubey says about Kyoko's desperation move—it's never been tried, it's completely illogical, and even he doesn't think it'll work—raises all the flags for this trope. The show promptly goes on to subvert the trope: it's completely illogical, so of course it doesn't work.
  • Mind Rape: This happens to Madoka, when she got caught in the witch Kirsten's barrier. The witch then uses her powers to torture Madoka by re-playing Mami's death over and over while subjecting her to Body Horror.
    • Kyubey is not above doing this. He shows Madoka how the world has been affected by his contracts, and how if it wasn't for the Incubators humanity would probably still be in caves. She did not enjoy it.
  • Mini-Dress of Power
  • Mistaken for Gay: Madoka and Sayaka in the second episode by Hitomi, since Sayaka did spend some time flirting with Madoka in Episode 1.
  • Mood Whiplash: People were trying desperately to figure out where exactly the Deconstruction lay in this series. Episodes 1 and 2 were fairly tame, although ominous. Then came Episode 3, complete with new ending.
  • Monster of the Week: The witches. Subverted in that they're not harmless mooks, and that fighting them is actually an emotionally scarring experience. It is even more scarring when the witches themselves were once magical girls like the protagonists.
  • More Dakka: In one scene, Mami briefly manages to achieve this trope using only an unlikely number of single-shot rifles. Also, in Episode 11 when Homura attempts to take on Walpurgisnacht alone, there is a long one-sided battle consisting of Homura expending a small army's worth of weaponry against Walpurgisnacht, including rockets, mortars, and a naval barrage. Unfortunately, it merely serves as The Worf Barrage.
  • More Hero Than Thou: Every magical girl or magical girl candidate is adamant about being the only one who will have to throw herself on the blade for the sake of somebody else. As they all get in each other's way doing this, it causes an amount of conflict that would be downright ridiculous if it weren't so depressing.
  • Morning Routine
  • Morton's Fork: On Walpurgisnacht, Homura's choices are:
    • Lose to Walpurgis alone and see it destroy the city, or
    • Defeat Walpurgis with Madoka and see Madoka destroy the world, or
    • Rewind time, making Madoka more powerful.
  • Mundane Wish
  • Murder-Suicide: Mami of all people attempts this in episode 10. In one of the alternate timelines, she completely snaps when she finds out magical girls eventually become witches. She succeeds in killing Kyoko, but is killed by Madoka before she could kill Homura.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: In episode 8, Kyubey finally manage to convince Madoka to make her wish while the overly optimistic music is building up in the background. However, Homura shows up to put a stop to not only the proceedings, but the music, Kyubey (for the moment at least) and time itself.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Several examples:
    • Sayaka after her Despair Event Horizon where events just keep giving her one Gut Punch after another. She eventually starts to lose her humanity/sanity as a result.
    • Kyoko perhaps felt this way due to her telling Sayaka her backstory, and why she's such a Jerkass who only cared about herself. Which helps explain why Sayaka began to care less and less about the reason why she became a magical girl in the first place. As well as finding out more about their roles and the gems. This may be one reason why she seemed to be trying to hard to help Madoka save her later on.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: Homura has gotten many second chances to undo her greatest failure. Four of those were seen in episode 10, and it's strongly implied there were more. Unfortunately, Failure Is the Only Option.
  • Mythology Gag: That black cat that keeps on popping up in the opening? Okay, it doesn't show up in the anime proper, but you can interpret it entirely differently. A black cat is normally associated with witches (you know, the one on a broomstick, casting spells, wearing a pointy hat, and so on). Now think about this for a moment: what was one of the biggest Wham Lines that Kyubey mentioned?

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  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Walpurgisnacht, Kriemhild Gretchen, Incubator.
  • Negative Space Wedgie: When you stop to think about it, a witch's maze is nothing but a big entropy sphere that houses an alternate dimension, something that wouldn't be too unfitting in a sci-fi series.
  • Never Found the Body: As Homura explains to Madoka, a magical girl who dies in a witch's barrier does not leave a corpse in the real world. Thus, they will forever be "missing".
    • This trope's straight version (someone's not really dead unless you see a corpse) seems like it may be coming into play with the revelation about what soul gems really are, until you realize that Mami's soul gem was stored in a hairpin during combat, meaning it was likely destroyed by the witch during the fight in Episode 3.
    • Subverted in Episode 11 with regards to Sayaka. On the other hand, we never saw if Oktavia dropped a grief seed or not.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The way the previews for the series were set up, the series looked to be rather average and normal as a Magical Girl series.
  • New Transfer Student: Homura.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Almost. In Episode 6, Madoka nearly kills Sayaka by throwing her soul gem away in order to prevent her from fighting. To her credit, this actually worked, and to be fair she didn't know the consequences of such an action.
    • Episode 10. The very first timeline was the best possible conclusion: Madoka and Mami defeat Walpurgisnacht and die in the process, without becoming witches. As Homura keeps turning back time, the endgames get worse and worse, down to Madoka becoming a super powerful witch and destroying the world. Nice job breaking it, Homura.
    • Episode 11 drills it in: Homura was literally giving Madoka more power to use as a witch by creating alternate universes.
    • In Episode 12, this gets subverted; Homura's time loops gave Madoka enough power to break the system.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Kyubey, multiple times over. To count the times he screwed up, he:
    • Gave someone time traveling powers to try and retcon someone's death, thus setting off the chain of events in the show. To his credit, this means it would fill his quota quicker...
    • But then he goes off and tells Awful Truth after Awful Truth, not knowing that they could be used against his advantage. Again, to his credit, he thinks this would lead them to the Despair Event Horizon...
    • ...Until he revealed one Awful Truth too many and told Homura that her time traveling is what is making Madoka stronger, thus giving her despair when she considers time traveling again. Sure, the more witches, the merrier, but considering that Homura is the main source of Kyubey's quota income, this is a bad thing to do. Oh, and it just so happens that Madoka decides to use these awful truths to her advantage and tells Kyubey to eliminate witches as her wish. Had Kyubey not did these things, he would have gotten away with it.
    • Had he not done these things either the Universe would have been eaten by Krimhild Gretchen, or, if we don't assume that Kyubey is suicidally stupid enough to even appear before Madoka if she had a wish other than the one she made in mind, everything would have remained unchanged. The idea that the ending was somehow not planned by Kyubey, who can easily read human minds (easily enough to flawlessly relay girls' thoughts to each other) is ... bizarre. Simply considering the fact, that the only time he actually goes beyond his usual bounds and mindscrews Madoka in Episode 8, he does that to make Madoka witness Sayaka's witch transformation, leads to conclusion that he (again) is not telling the whole truth about his goal. Never mind that a being far-sighted enough to seriously care about the end of the universe countless billions of years in the future would never risk an action that has even a remote possibility of causing the end of the Universe right now, so it's pretty much a given that Kyubey's goal was not what he told Madoka, the only question is whether he lied to her, or whether he omitted what he truly had in mind for her.
  • No Body Left Behind: The final fate of all magical girls in the current timeline, including Sayaka, as Madoka takes them to Heaven, body and all, at the very moment they'd normally be slated to become witches.
  • No Conservation of Energy:
    • When Kyubey explains entropy, he says it involves the net loss of energy, which is not possible in physics. What the term actually describes is the decay of energy into internal energy (associated to its temperature) and its subsequent scattering through space, until the system reaches equilibrium, at which point all energy conversion ceases until further external energy input.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Double Subverted, Discussed, Exaggerated, and Defied.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Sayaka goes into one of these against a witch to show how badly she's been broken.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Mami's bindings on Homura dissolve as soon as the former dies.
  • Non-Indicative First Two-and-a-Half Episodes: Be careful of these episodes, as they make the series billed as a Magical Girl series with Slice of Life. That's half-correct, as the second half of Episode 3 demonstrates.
  • Normally I Would Be Dead Now: Subverted with Kyubey. The multiple bullets he takes does kill that particular body, but unfortunately, he has spares.
  • Not So Different: Episode 7 implies this between Sayaka and Kyoko.

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  • The Obi-Wan: Mami quickly becomes this.
    • Kyoko becomes one as well in the final episode where she and Mami return in a dream-like sequence to discuss things with Madoka.
  • Official Cosplay Gear: There are official soul gem necklaces. However, they aren't cosplay gear as such—they're smaller than the canon Soul Gems—and are more intended as, well, jewelry. Still really nice, though.
  • Official Couple: Hitomi and Kyousuke.
  • Off-Model: Really doesn't have that much of a problem with it (and the instances tend to be from distance shots), but it's absurdly popular so it's a meme anyway. (Spoilers for the entire series!)
  • Oh Crap: From Kyubey, of all things, in Episode 12. "That's treason against the wish itself" indeed.
  • Omniscient Morality License: Kyubey's plans to combat the entropy implies this.
  • One Degree of Separation: The third drama CD reveals that Kyoko and Mami had actually worked together before the events of the anime. This was subtly hinted at in the anime proper. But then it further reveals that Kyoko once helped Madoka and Sayaka escape from a witch. This was not hinted at the anime - although to be fair, Madoka and Sayaka never actually saw Kyoko.
  • One Magical Girl Army: With the exception of Walpurgisnacht, Homura is able to defeat literally every witch she encounters by herself. However, this took a long time to perfect.
    • It also makes perfect sense; she has the power to save-scum, so she "memorized the guide".
  • One-Winged Angel: Charlotte in Episode 3. Starts off as a shout-out of Pukka, ends as a supremely creepy Takashi Murakami-style thing that looks like what you'd get if you mated a clown with a Sand Worm.
  • Origins Episode: Episode 10, for Homura. Doubles as a Whole-Episode Flashback.
  • Our Liches Are Different: You see, in this series, they're called "magical girls."
  • Our Souls Are Different
  • Our Witches Are Different: They are reality-warping Eldritch Abominations with more specific powers that seem to be based on a combination of the location they were born at and whatever they were feeling at the time. They are actually "matured" magical girls who allowed their soul gems to become too corrupt.
  • Out-of-Clothes Experience: Madoka and Homura in Episode 12
  • Out of the Inferno: A villainous version with Walpurgisnacht, who emerges from huge flames of Homura's making unharmed.
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