Madoka Kaname (鹿目 まどか Kaname Madoka?)
Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese), Christine Marie Cabanos (English)
Madoka is a kind and gentle 14-year-old girl who comes from a loving family. A second-year at middle school, her life changes when she encounters the incubator Kyubey, who offers to transform her into a magical girl. She sees herself as a person without special qualities or talents, and after seeing Mami fighting against witches, aspires to become a magical girl like her. She is a kind and gentle person that is averse to fighting. She hopes that the magical girls will support each other, sometimes even putting her own life at risk to help them. After witnessing Mami's death, she grows uncertain about becoming a magical girl, growing ever more hesitant as the true cost of the role is revealed to her.
In previous timelines, Madoka became a magical girl in a pink dress wielding a rose branch bow and arrow. In the drama CD, "Memories of You", it is revealed that the wish in the first timeline was to save a cat named Amy from death. However, every time, she was either killed or transformed into a witch named Kriemhild Gretchen, the Witch of Salvation, one that became ever more powerful with each time reset, as Madoka's power also increased and if created would, by the end of that same week, consume the Earth in order to create a paradise where there is no free will or individuality to cause strife or conflict. In the current timeline before the final episode, Kyubey claims that Madoka has an impossibly large amount of potential for magic, going so far as to claim that she could become god. The reason for this is unclear, since her life so far has been relatively average and free of tragedies. This is later revealed to be due to her accumulated misfortune, which was caused as a result of Homura repeatedly resetting time, with Madoka's fate getting worse with each timeline, making her magic power grow exponentially with each reset. In the first timeline, she still possesses a high amount of power, being able to defeat Walpurgisnacht (ワルプルギスの夜 Warupurugisu no Yoru?), though dying in the process. Subsequently, by the current timeline, she has the potential to be the most powerful magical girl to date. Towards the end, she learns of this and Homura's efforts to save her.
After seeing the suffering of magical girls throughout history, Madoka decides to make her wish: to prevent all magical girls from the past, present, future and all other timelines, from ever becoming witches. The laws of the universe are rewritten such that at the moment that a soul gem becomes black with anguish, Madoka appears and purifies it before the magical girl passes on. As a result of this wish, she becomes an omnipotent being, named Ultimate Madoka (アルティメット・まどか Arutimetto Madoka?), that exists for all time, erasing her pre-ascension existence from the world; leaving only Homura – and to some extent her little brother – with the memory of her. Madoka becomes only a concept in the new world, one named the Law of Cycles (円環の理 Enkan no Kotowari?). Magical girls absorbed into the Law of Cycles regain knowledge of their lives in previous timelines.
At the end of Rebellion, Ultimate Madoka was usurped by Homura and had her human and goddess selves split, with her role as a martyr being forced onto the Incubators. Homura places human Madoka in a new universe where she and her friends can live normal lives unaware of their pasts, though Madoka regains her memories at the last second and a final conversation with Homura implies that it is only a matter of time before Madoka merges with her goddess self once more.
Homura Akemi (暁美 ほむら Akemi Homura?)
Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō (Japanese), Cristina Vee[1] (English)
Homura is a magical girl who first appears in a nightmare of Madoka's. She transfers into Madoka's school the day after the dream. She is unnaturally good at everything she does, including academics and sports. This makes her instantly popular, even though she is cold and demeaning towards others. Homura's indifferent personality is the result of her failures while going through approaching 100 timelines.[2]
Originally a shy second-year student, she was befriended by Madoka and eventually saved from a witch by her and Mami, who revealed that they were magical girls. When Mami died in the fight with the rampaging witch Walpurginacht, Madoka sacrificed her life to stop it. Homura, overcome by grief and uselessness, contracted with Kyubey in order to become a person that could protect Madoka, just as Madoka protected her. Her wish was to be able to go back to her original meeting with Madoka, leading Homura to receive the power to manipulate time to a certain extent. Homura cares deeply for Madoka, however this caring is eventually twisted into a sole, obsessive fixation on Madoka's survival regardless of her feelings, and Homura never gives up on trying to "save" Madoka, even as she grows more cold, intimidating and antagonistic to others, taking on the role of the "rival hero" magical girl archetype. Caught up in a predestination paradox, she tries again and again to prevent Madoka from being killed or making a contract, but time after time fails to save her. After a timeline reset, Homura always returns to the hospital room she formerly lived in. Since she is always reset to the same age as when she was living in hospital, as a result of her timeline resetting, Homura's physical age is not the same as her mental age; mentally, she is far older than she looks, again a result of her going through what is now approaching 100 timeline cycles.
Her magical weapon is a shield filled with sand that allows her to freeze time. However, this power becomes useless if she is physically restrained as she cannot turn her shield to activate it. She can also use this shield to block projectiles and store the various infinite amount of weapons that she carries. Since her shield and magic has no offensive capability, she instead attacks using stolen firearms and homemade explosives while time is stopped. None of the girls actually know what weapons she has, since she only uses them while time is stopped. Homura cannot reset time until all the sand in her shield is drained – which happens approximately a month and a half from her discharge from the hospital, on the day of Walpurgisnacht – after which she can reset the timeline whenever she desires.
In the final timeline, she inherits Madoka's bow – now a sleek ebony bow with purple diamond setting – and arrows, along with a set of white wings. Homura continues to fight in the new world against the wraiths, despite believing that the world was irredeemably full of tragedies, because it was a world that Madoka once tried to protect, and she vowed never to forget Madoka's resolve.
Her witch form in the PSP Game and the movie Rebellion is Homulilly, known as the Witch of the Mortal World in the PSP Game and the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion.
At the end of Rebellion, Homura usurps Ultimate Madoka and becomes the being Akuma Homura (悪魔 ほむら?), splitting Madoka and her goddess form, sealing her powers and rewriting the universe. Unlike Ultimate Madoka, Akuma Homura can take human form in the new world, and does not exist as a concept. She managed to enslave the Incubator race, who now work under her to take on the curses of the new world. Ultimate Madoka's powers are sealed within her earring, which can change to and from a lizard form, and walk around on its own.
Sayaka Miki (美樹 さやか Miki Sayaka?)
Voiced by: Eri Kitamura (Japanese), Sarah Williams (English)
Sayaka is Madoka's classmate and best friend, a second-year at Madoka's school. She is a lively tomboy with strong ideals of love and lawfulness. After helping Madoka rescue Kyubey, she contracts with him to grant her wish to heal the wounded hand of Kyosuke Kamijo, a young violinist that she is infatuated with, visiting him daily in the hospital. As a magical girl, Sayaka's weapon of choice is a cutlass, being able to produce multiples of them at a time. She also has an extraordinary regenerative ability due to the healing nature of her wish. Sayaka insists that her wish is selfless and feels that fighting witches to save people is a bonus, even after witnessing Mami's death. As Sayaka's ideals are put against the reality of her wish's consequences and the stress of fighting, her view of the world is slowly corrupted. She becomes hateful and distrustful towards others, including Madoka, whom she lashes out at and accuses of being selfish. Because of this, Sayaka seems to be based off the original story of the Little Mermaid, because like the little mermaid who saves the prince from near-death, Sayaka heals Kyousuke; like how the little mermaid gives up her tongue to become a human and get the prince to fall in love and marry her, Sayaka gives up her humanity so she can heal Kyousuke and also get him to fall in love with her; like the prince instead falls in love with another princess and breaks the mermaid's heart, Kyousuke falls in love with Hitomi, breaking Sayaka's heart; Finally, like the little mermaid is told to kill the prince and have his blood drip onto her feet so she can turn back into a mermaid, but doesn't and turns to sea foam, Sayaka refuses to cleanse her tainting Soul Gem, causing her to turn into a witch, who is like a mermaid.
After learning that her soul is no longer in her body, but in her soul gem, Sayaka starts to believe she is a zombie; and when her friend Hitomi confesses to her about her love of Kyosuke, Sayaka falls into isolation and refuses all help. In her despair, she loses faith in humanity and justice, making her give up on her ideals and herself; thus leading to her soul gem becoming fully corrupted, turning into a grief seed, making her into the witch known as Oktavia von Seckendorff (オクタヴィア・フォン・ゼッケンドルフ Okutavia Fon Zekkendorufu?), the mermaid witch, an armored mermaid witch with her barrier resembling a concert hall, where a figure similar to Kyosuke is playing among faceless figures. Though Kyoko and Madoka attempt to communicate with her, they realize that they can't do anything to save Sayaka. Kyoko then performs a powerful attack to finish off Oktavia, taking her life along with the witch's.
Despite Madoka's reworking of the world in the final timeline, Sayaka still makes a wish in the new world, and thus ends up disappearing after exhausting her soul gem. Despite this, however, Sayaka does not regret her wish, and hopes that Hitomi will make Kyosuke happy, before leaving with Madoka to the afterlife.
In Rebellion, Sayaka assists Madoka and Nagisa in saving Homura, and has received knowledge of all previous timelines as a result of becoming a part of the Law of Cycles. She shows the power to summon and manipulate witches, including her own witch form Oktavia, though she can control Oktavia independent of her body, unlike Nagisa. Sayaka states that she became an assistant of Madoka because she "regretted leaving Kyoko behind".
At the end of Rebellion, Sayaka and Nagisa were pulled from afterlife by Homura, and given a new life and human forms in the new world. Unlike Madoka and Nagisa, Sayaka retained all her memories in the new world, however Homura took these away too after their confrontation. Even so, Sayaka promises that she will never forget that Homura is a demon.
Mami Tomoe (巴 マミ Tomoe Mami?)
Voiced by: Kaori Mizuhashi (Japanese), Carrie Keranen (English)
Mami is a veteran magical girl and a third-year student at Madoka's school. She lives alone in a penthouse after the death of her parents in a car accident, during which she was only able to survive by contracting with Kyubey to save her own life. Her magical abilities revolve around yellow ribbons, which can suspend enemies, and be manipulated to produce nearly infinite amounts of Tanegashima-like flintlock rifles, as well as also possessing healing magic. Mami is characterized as being much like the stereotypical magical girl protagonist: she is particularly focused on saving those around her, with a traditionally selfless perspective on the role of magical girl, and has a habit of giving names to her finishing attacks. She had previously been Kyoko's partner – as shown in the drama CD "Farewell Story", and expanded on in the PSP game and The Different Story – but was left alone after they fought over their ideals.
Though her outward disposition is cheery and confident, inside Mami feels deeply alone as she has no friends to confide in or support her as she fights. Madoka offers to become her partner and save her from her loneliness, but Mami is subsequently killed by a witch named Charlotte, never knowing the darker truths concerning soul gems and origins of witches. In one timeline, she had learned the truth, then killed Kyoko and turned her gun on Homura in an attempt to prevent them from becoming witches, but was killed by Madoka. As for her actions, Yukihiro Miyamoto, the series director of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, explains that Mami carried out that action with calm, calculated judgment, as opposed to being driven mad or insane.[3][4]
In the final timeline, Mami is alive again, and fights along Homura and Kyoko.
Rebellion shows that Mami has the potential to become the most powerful of the magical girls if in peak form, when she isn't held back by her crippling loneliness, as a result of her meeting and becoming close friends with Bebe/Nagisa. In the ending of Rebellion, after Homura rewrites reality, Mami is seen saving Nagisa from falling packages of cheese, implying the two will become friends.
Her witch form in the PSP Game is Candeloro, the Dress-up Witch, the smallest witch in size, being barely any larger than a teapot.
Kyoko Sakura (佐倉 杏子 Sakura Kyōko?)
Voiced by: Ai Nonaka (Japanese), Lauren Landa (English)
Kyoko is a veteran magical girl who comes to the city following Mami's death. Her distinguishing features include long red hair, fangs, and a voracious appetite, almost never being seen without food. She came from a poor church family, and used her wish so that people would listen to her father's preaching; when her father learned of this, however, he went mad and killed everyone in his family aside from Kyoko. As such, Kyoko decided only to use her magic for herself from this point on, since using it for others will only cause despair. Having grown up in a poor family, she often has to steal food and hates people who waste it, a logic she also applies to grief seeds, as she only goes after fully grown witches.
Kyoko has been a magical girl much longer than the others, and thus is more skillful; she wields a spear which can extend itself, split into multiple sections, and produce a ball at the end of a chain, which can constrict and hit others at the same time. She also has the ability to put up barriers to protect others or keep them from interfering. She initially clashes with Sayaka, but after learning the truth about soul gems, she sympathizes with her and tries to help her. This is partially because Sayaka reminds Kyoko of her past self, as she too had made a wish for another person's sake and tried to fight for justice. Thus, she wants to stop Sayaka from making what she believes is the same mistake and advises her to live a life of selfishness. Even though Sayaka thanks Kyoko and admits that she misunderstood her, Sayaka refuses to abandon her ideals of justice.
After Sayaka becomes a witch, Kyoko becomes determined to save her and restore her to normal. In the end, though, Kyoko becomes tired of her pain, gives up her previous ideals and abandons her outlook of self-preservation, and chooses to destroy herself along with Oktavia, in an attempt to both find peace in death and make sure that Sayaka will not die alone, by overloading her soul gem to create a massive explosion that kills them both. However, Kyoko's sacrifice leaves only Homura and the potential contract Madoka to face off against Walpurgisnacht, which ends up in Homura being defeated and Madoka contracting.
In a previous timeline, she was killed by Mami, who was driven to kill them all in a desperate attempt, after learning that they would all eventually become witches.
In the final timeline, Kyoko survives, and grieves over Sayaka's death in battle, lamenting how they had "finally become friends".
In the ending of Rebellion, Homura rewrites reality so that Kyoko lives with Sayaka and has a more kinder, cheerful, yet slackish personality, as a result of her better life, instead of being selfish and vicious to others.
Prior to the storyline, Kyoko was previously Mami's partner and also possessed illusionary magic gained from her wish of deception, allowing her to make copies of herself. However, following the death of her family, she subconsciously lost her illusion magic and decided to be more selfish in her outlook, ending her partnership with Mami. This relationship is explored in the third drama CD, "The Farewell Story", the PSP game, and the Different Story manga. In the PSP game, her witch form is Ophelia, the wǔdàn witch, depicted as a horse rider with a candlestick for a head.
Kyubey (キュゥべえ Kyūbē?)
Voiced by: Emiri Katō (Japanese), Cassandra Lee (English)
Kyubey is a genderless (though he apparently identifies as a male) extraterrestrial being posing as a familiar who can grant any wish to a certain girl, on the condition that she become a magical girl and fight against witches. When the chosen girl makes a contract with him, he extracts her soul and places it inside a soul gem, reconstructing their body into a shell that is more resilient in order to fight witches. He constantly tries to get Madoka to make a contract with him, as she allegedly possesses great magical potential within her that would allow her to become the most powerful magical girl. He can only be seen or heard by magical girls and those with "magical" potential, and is able to communicate with them telepathically. Kyubey has an unknown but possibly infinite number of bodies; when one is killed, another body appears and devours the destroyed body.
Kyubey comes from a race named the Incubators (インキュベーター Inkyubētā?), whose goal is to find and gather a form of energy to counter entropy and prevent the impending heat death of the universe, developing a technology to turn emotions into this energy. After evaluating many species throughout the universe, the Incubators find that the souls of humans, specifically pubescent and prepubescent girls, contain the most powerful form of this energy. This energy is the strongest when a magical girl's soul gem turns into a grief seed, and then can be collected and used towards preventing entropy. Kyubey claims his race lacks emotions (or, at least, that those in his race who have emotions are abnormal), and has little understanding of human values and morality, not understanding why the death of one human among billions is viewed so catastrophically, instead believing the Incubators' actions are not cruel but utilitarian in nature. Despite this, Kyubey is a very skilled manipulator, never actually lying, but instead leaving out important details involved in the forming of contracts and the details behind them, only presenting the truth when it is asked of him. According to Kyubey, the very existence of the Magi-Witch system is what allowed the evolution of mankind's civilization, as many of the main events in human history have had magical girls involved. Despite answering all questions posed to him, there is still much about the universe that Kyubey has not spoken of.
In Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, Kyubey also appears as the contractor of all the magical girls in Asanaru City, including the Pleiades Saints. When the Pleiades learnt the truth about magical girls, they took one of Kyubey's corpses and manufactured their own Incubator named Jubey, who could absorb darkness from soul gems. Furthermore, they had Umika cast a spell that would make Kyubey invisible to all other girls in the city and rewrite their own memories to believe they contracted with Jubey, in an attempt to stop more witches from being born. This ultimately backfires as Jubey turns out to be a failure.
Rebellion shows that the Incubators are a hive mind race. In the events of the movie, the Incubators tried to control Ultimate Madoka and the Law of Cycles in order to restore the witch system of previous timelines, since more energy could be harvested via the old system. However, their plan was thwarted and Homura ended up stealing Ultimate Madoka's powers for herself, enslaving their race and using them to take on the curses of the new world in place of Madoka. Kyubey is last seen laying on the ground, disheveled and shivering as he is driven mad by his sudden ability to feel emotions combined with being forced to shoulder the combined grief, suffering, and despair of every magical girl that is, was, or ever will be.
