Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable/Characters

This page is only for character and character gameplay tropes that appear exclusively in Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable. See here for character tropes from the original series.

Madoka Kaname

"It's like I met her in a dream..."

• Adaptational Badass: Of sorts; we see more of her in action than we do in the anime.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Leaps to the aid of anyone in trouble, be it her friends, a new transfer student she's never met before, or Amy the cat. Prior to becoming a magical girl, however, she doesn't have the self-confidence to follow through on this all the time.
  • In Mami's route, Madoka can even wind up coming on too strong and making Homura uncomfortable with all the attention she's getting.
• Combat Medic: She was known as The Archer, but a third of her active skills are healing techniques. She can even heal murky Soul Gems!
• Crutch Character: Employed rather interestingly. As long as she's been properly raised^[1], Madoka can eat Walpurgis Night and its familiars for breakfast. But because the story eventually progresses to Homura's wanting to keep her from contracting, Madoka isn't an available party member in the later routes, where the Walpurgis battle actually matters.
• The Messiah: Retains her ability to make friends with and see the best in everyone.
• Plucky Girl: Especially in early timelines, where she quickly bounces back from revelations of the true nature of magical girls and refuses to give in to despair.
• Simple Staff: Her bow can turn into this.

Homura Akemi

"Fate can be changed."

• A Taste of Power: In Madoka's (tutorial) route that follows the anime closely, Homura is at level 25 at the start of Charlotte's fight. Compared to Mami's level 10 (and she can be considered a veteran) and Sayaka's level 1, Fridge Brilliance plays here when you remember just how much her accumulating experience from her time-loops affects this.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: In-Universe. Depending entirely on the player's choices, in Homura's own route she can be anything from The Paragon devoted to protecting the well-being of the whole cast to her anime characterization of only caring about Madoka.
  • Paragon Homura is taken to the point of Character Exaggeration in the bonus route, where she runs around being the other girls' extremely aggressive fairy godmother.
• Combat Pragmatist: Unlike Kyouko, she actually follows through on the philosophy that anything less than a witch isn't worth chasing. In Madoka's route, an optional scene shows her abandoning a familiar's victim to die.
• Despair Event Horizon: And this time, it can turn her into a witch.
• Didn't Think This Through: In the bonus route, she spends so much time and effort making Mami, Sayaka, and Kyouko happy individually that there's no time for the five girls to learn to work together before fighting Walpurgis Night. When the others turn to her for advice, Homura gives up and resets the timeline right away.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: If she tries to solo Walpurgisnacht and wins, she still ends up dying in Madoka's arms. Finally in peace knowing that Madoka will never make a contract and with the Witch finally gone, she moves on without succumbing to her despair.
• Flower Motifs: A Red Spider Lily. Marking her continual loss and Star-Crossed Lovers motif. Hell, it's even in her witch name and witch kiss.
  • Specifically, a Red Spider Lily means that you will never see someone ever again.
• Hidden Depths: We all know that this girl is more than she seems, but this game reveals more of her off-screen actions like how she actually was hunting for Gertrud to present her Grief Seed to Mami as a token of friendship when she's shooting Kyubey in Episode 1, trying to save Mami from her well-known demise and Sayaka from her Witch transformation, or even offering Kyoko food and shelter.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Actual skill in-game.
• Meaningful Rename: Homulilly
  • Punny Name: The higan in higanbana (spider lily) can also be construed as a Buddhist euphemism for nirvana, which has a matching term for samsara that is also Homulilly's "nature" as a witch.
• Time Master: Not only stopping time and leaping back to the beginning of the month after her sand runs out, Homura is also capable of slowing down enemies and speeding up herself.
• Socially Awkward Hero: From social anxiety in early timelines, and then out of apathy and Brutal Honesty in later ones.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Of course, it's Homura we're talking about.

Sayaka Miki

"The miracle I wished for..."

• Always Someone Better: She realizes that she's the weakest girl in the Mitakihara group, which really does wonders to her self-esteem. Kyubey says that she spends ten times the amount of magic in her familiar hunting than Kyouko's brutal frustration-fending massacre of the same familiars. When Mami gets her head chomped off, Sayaka thinks that she's not worthy to be a magical girl and throws her Soul Gem inside Charlotte's barrier, triggering the already elaborated event of And I Must Scream above.
• And I Must Scream: There's another gem-throwing accident, but this time it isn't found for quite some time and her body starts to rot. She wanders around awhile, ignorant of her condition as Kyoko is unconscious when she awakes, until Kyousuke comes and calls her a monster. For crying out loud, the girl has half of her face fall off and she doesn't realize it because of the Feel No Pain attribute of the magical girls!
• Butt Monkey: All the girls have at least one opportunity to become witches somewhere or other in the story, but Sayaka has more than anyone else. In her own route, there are two points at which she might turn into a witch, and both involve her accidentally traumatizing Kyousuke into a Freak-Out and calling her a monster.
• Cat Fight: With Hitomi in the bonus route. More of a screaming match, to be precise, but Hitomi still slaps Sayaka.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: In her own route, she's not at all pleased to have to share Madoka with Mami and Homura, especially since Madoka has to go on witch patrol and can't hang out with her as much.
• Combat Medic
• Counter Attack: Only if the enemies are attacking in close range.
• Hey, You: In most routes, she refuses to call Homura anything other than "Transfer Student".
• Musical Theme Naming: Many of her skills' names.
• Oblivious to Love: Though she's usually the victim of this from Kyousuke, in the Tea Party ending, Sayaka acts this way towards Kyouko, not understanding why her effusive praise of Mami's cleanliness hurts Kyouko's feelings.
• Power Born of Madness: Can inflict the madness status on herself with Rhapsody.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Possibly.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: In the bonus route, she finally manages to win Kyousuke, and he even accepts her identity as a magical girl as the coolest thing ever.

Mami Tomoe

"If you'll be by my side..."

• Barrier Warrior
• Butt Monkey: Dies or at least has a chance of dying in every route but the bonus one.
• Clingy Jealous Girl / Green-Eyed Monster: In her own route, she becomes insecure in her friendship with Madoka and resentful towards Homura when the latter enters the picture. Depending on the player, Mami can either discuss her feelings with Madoka or isolate herself and become more and more miserable to the point where she breaks down after fighting Gisela alone and becomes a witch.
• Driven to Suicide: There's an option for Homura to tell her and Kyouko about the Awful Truth. When Sayaka turns into Oktavia, if Homura kills her before Kyouko and Madoka do their "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, she decides that all the crazy shit happening is too hot for her and shoots herself.
• Taking the Bullet: Against Walpurgisnacht's attack so Madoka can deal the killing blow in her route, then doing the same to save Sayaka from Charlotte in Sayaka's route.
• Idol Singer: Bonus route.
• Meaningful Rename: Candeloro.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Possibly.
• Survivor Guilt: She really takes the fact that she could have saved her parents along with herself, but didn't, hard. When she runs away and lets a child get eaten by Gisela, the guilt becomes twofold. Later, depending on the Road Cone, she can save the child's mother, thinking that she can finally atone. But the mother is already suicidal to begin with because her child is dead, and demands to know why Mami didn't let her die. This is one of the factors that contributes to Mami turning into a witch.
• Team Mom: Particularly in Sayaka's route, where she has to temporarily play peacekeeper between Sayaka and Madoka, then between Sayaka and Kyouko.
• Whip It Good: Mami's weapon is actually her ribbons, used in this manner. But until her encounter with Gisela, she decides that she can't fight in close range, making her muskets from the ribbons as her primary weapon.

Kyouko Sakura

"She's the only hope I had left."

• Barrier Warrior
• Due to the Dead: She makes Mami a grave in the day 10 of her route and gives it some flowers and teddy bear from the game center she often plays in. It's very simple, but the effect is powerful.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Sayaka in Sayaka's route, eventually, if Sayaka doesn't wind up turning into a witch first.
• Friend to All Children: Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: To the point of When All You Have Is a Hammer.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Just like Homura, an actual skill in-game.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Beats up bullies, gives Tatsuya candy, rescues other magical girls, and grumbles about it the entire time.
• Master of Illusion
• Meaningful Rename: Ophelia
• Pater Familicide: And this time we'll witness it from Kyoko's eyes.
• Pooled Funds: There's a scene of her sitting on top of countless Grief Seeds in her church like some kind of mafia boss.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Mami's suicide.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Possibly.
• Walking the Earth: In Homura's route, if she and Homura survive the Walpurgisnacht battle, Madoka and Sayaka don't make their contract, and Mami gets mogu-mogu'd.

Kyubey

• Blue and Orange Morality
• Manipulative Bastard: A main game mechanic of the Visual Novel part of the game is for Kyubey to manipulate the girls' emotion depending on his choices.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: All of Kyubey's actions are geared towards his energy collection goals, but because he doesn't understand how emotions work, his dialogue choices can serve to calm the girls down instead and prevent their turning into witches.

Witches

• All There in the Manual: Albertine, a witch first mentioned on the anime's website, is revealed in the game. Gisela might also count, given that she is only seen for about two seconds in the anime during a flashback sequence.
• Canon Foreigner: The game has several original witches, such as Candeloro and Ophelia the witch forms of Mami and Kyoko, respectively. There's a also a witch that has Kyubey's head and uses giant stuffed Kyubeys as familiars, and another witch that resembles a Brain In a Jar and is said to be from another planet.
• Creepy Doll: Albertine. Candeloro's familiars which resemble Madoka and Kyoko as maids may also count.
• Doppleganger Attack: Ophelia.
• Flaming Hair: Of sorts -- Ophelia's head is literally a lit candle.
• Fun Size: Candeloro is the tiniest witch yet, even smaller than Charlotte--she's little enough to fit into one of her own teacups.
  • Visual Pun: That's small enough to be bite-sized.
• Headless Horseman: Ophelia evokes this.
• Meaningful Name: Ophelia is a reference to Hamlet. Candeloro is apparently named after Candlemas, which may be a Stealth Pun - it's on Groundhog Day.
• Mook Maker: The Witches in general are this, but special mention to Charlotte's first form that has no other attack except for spawning unlimited Pyotr until her lifebar is drained.
• Transforming Mecha: Gisela can transform into a motorcycle-like form.
• Youkai: Ophelia's familiars are based on the rokurokubi.

1. ↑ (given equal status doping and taught skills rather than ignored in favor of other party members)