Speaking of event, I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but I really hate Shizuku as a character (I read her side story).

Could you elaborate on what you hate about her? the way I understand Shizuku, she is an incredibly paranoid person by nature, and that leads to her feeling restless and uneasy anywhere she is at, thus feeling she doesn't belong anywhere, Ayaka works for her because her sheer energy floods Shizuku's mind and prevents her paranoia from setting, allowing her to feel at ease at those moments, and her arc in this event was coming to realize why this happens.

Also that's the issue with brainwashing. How I'm supposed to take seriously anything that happens to her and all the interactions she has right now, when I have no idea how much is influenced by it?

I feel you are right about the extent of the brainwashing, but I also feel that the narrative is set up in such a way that it doesn't matter how much it was affecting her, the entire final sequence as Shizuku escapes Fendt Hope happens after she breaks out of the brainwashing(precisely, it breaks once she realizes how important Ayaka is to her), and it is clear she still remembers everything that happened in that time, and those experiences will still influence her moving forward.

Unless I'm terribly misreading OG series, I feel like a lot of people vastly misunderstands Homura's character.

Oh hey, someone else that gets it! something important to remember is that to Homura, all those people are her closest friends, and while Madoka is the most important person to her as the person she loves, it still hurts her a lot every time she had to watch any of the other three die.

I feel a huge part of the problem is that people take what Homura says at face value and often ignore how she acts, it's like her entire "mwahahaha I am so evil" speech at the end of Rebellion, and how I feel that anyone who falls for it got played by a 14 year old, even the first time watching it I felt I could see right through her and how her words completely mismatch the world she created...

last edited at Apr 24, 2020 6:44AM

Oh hey, someone else that gets it! something important to remember is that to Homura, all those people are her closest friends, and while Madoka is the most important person to her as the person she loves, it still hurts her a lot every time she had to watch any of the other three die.

I feel a huge part of the problem is that people take what Homura says at face value and often ignore how she acts, it's like her entire "mwahahaha I am so evil" speech at the end of Rebellion, and how I feel that anyone who falls for it got played by a 14 year old, even the first time watching it I felt I could see right through her and how her words completely mismatch the world she created...

Please bear in mind that I'm talking about anime/Rebellion Homura, the one that might be 80 years old now out of having redone that fateful month hundreds of times. Clearly if we take glasses Homura, yes she wants to save everyone and all. (What's your personal guess on how many times she looped? I personally think that the meager 5 times we see in anime isn't enough for such a character development to take place.)

The nature of Homura's actions is something that was quite debated, seeing how a lot of people consider she only registers the others characters except for Madoka because their death/something bad happening to them would sadden Madoka and might provoke her to make a wish. While I do agree she cares about them to a certain extent, I always felt like Homura appeared to save the situation before Madoka had to make a wish. If she really cared about the others, she'd try to prevent Sayaka as well from becoming a Magical Girl for example, but she doesn't. For Mami and Kyouko she can't do anything about it though.

And what I meant about the fact that at the end of all her time loops she's kinda like Alina was not so much that she's evil and bad but has the same sense of selfishness that drives her actions. It just so happens that Homura's selfishness is less human consuming than Alina's XD. I don't believe she would be taking the form of an 'evil' creature when she separates Madoka and Godoka if she was doing it out of pure : poor Madoka she's lonely. Though I don't believe doing something for your own benefit immediately equates it's bad.

And if the Wings of Magius were a thing in the original series, Homura would have ended up joining them at some point I'm quite sure, maybe as a way to make sure Madoka survives as a magical girl instead of her not becoming one (though she could still die fighting whatever would be left after the Magius' new order overtook the world).

In short, the only thing I wanna say is that Homura isn't benevolent like Madoka was when she made her wish. That's what I meant when I said 'she isn't a good person', I never meant to imply she was a bad person. Most people are situated between those two extremes, but knowing whether Homura is slightly more towards the 'good' part or 'bad' part of the continuum? Really depends on which Homura you consider.

And about cows, let's not forget we forcibly make them pregnant to take their milk, which isn't meant for us since humans artificially developed the capacity to digest milk as adults, take their child to kill them or enslave them if they're females to do the same process, and when these cows aren't profitable enough anymore, we kill them. They might be well treated in some places, the same way magical girls have a wish granted and gain supernatural powers, but in the end, it's all an illusion. I don't mean to go on a vegan tirade here, I am not even vegan XD, but it's a fact we act exactly like Kyubey. We could almost extrapolate on how certain humans stand way above other humans and might not enslave them but...

And I agree with all the above about FE3H and such, I watched an f!Byleth x Edelgard walkthrough and honestly, it took them everything to get the words 'I love you' out of Edelgard lips (does she even say it?) while with M!Byleth it's much easier to get there. Also, with the few female romance options of F!Byleth, it's even a minority with whom it's clearly stated they are a couple or married. Most of the time, it's just very vague comments. Those LGBT characters felt so token it was saddening. When you feel a LGBT character is there only to get some more money instead of genuinely wanting to have LGBT stories in your game/show/whatever, it just doesn't work for me.

Finally I was able to post, at first I was detected as spam -_- it's just lenghty XD.

Okay let's go by parts.

To start with, I agree that Homura is an inherently neutral person, but I seem to disagree what said neutrality means, because I have the perspective that doing something for the sake of someone who is very close and dear to you is still a selfish action.

(What's your personal guess on how many times she looped? I personally think that the meager 5 times we see in anime isn't enough for such a character development to take place.)

Oh, that's easy, 104, this is actually something OG Homura's personal story in MagiReco clarifies, the difference between the two Homuras isn't the number of loops, it is rather that the third time loop played out different for the two of them, because of one specific choice Homura made: Glasses Homura never tried to warn the others about Witchfication ahead of time, this key aspect prevented animosity from building between her and the others, and most importantly prevent Homura from believing that she was the cause of the deaths in this timeline for trying to help them, things still went poorly, Mami still freaked out, but Homura was no longer the cause of any of this, and thus she processes all of this very differently, and thus she is able to still see good in trying to help others, instead of believing it would only bring more harm.

If she really cared about the others, she'd try to prevent Sayaka as well from becoming a Magical Girl for example

I don't think she would ever do that, and it has nothing to do with caring or not caring about Sayaka, the reason Homura was so decided to not let Madoka contract under any circumstance isn't because it is impossible to live out your life as a meguca, we know it is for a fact, Yachiyo has been at it for 7 years, but rather because in timeline 3 Madoka made her promise very specifically that she wouldn't let her contract again, "save me from my own stupidity", were the words.

Timeline 3 is an immensely pivotal moment for Homura and it had a greater impact on her than the rest of the time loops combined...

I don't believe she would be taking the form of an 'evil' creature when she separates Madoka and Godoka if she was doing it out of pure : poor Madoka she's lonely.

Except she didn't take such form, everything that claims Homura is such an "evil creature" comes entirely from Homura herself, she claims she is the devil because she is the one who "betrayed god"(fun fact: Homura used to go to a Catholic school in Tokyo before moving to Mitakihara, she most likely had Bible studies class and it is likely where this comes from for her), she claims she is evil because she had to harm Madoka for Madoka's own sake, and in Homura's eyes, harming Madoka is the worst thing anyone can do, this is all self-loathing through and through for what she had to do, not objective claims that she is evil now.

And if the Wings of Magius were a thing in the original series, Homura would have ended up joining them at some point I'm quite sure

I really don't think so... a lot of what the Magius does would not ring well with her, it goes beyond her usual "I care for these people and these people only" mentality and into objectively causing harm to others who are uninvolved in her conflict, which is something Homura never did at any point, the only person she ever killed in the loops was Oriko, and only because Oriko really forced her hand.

As a final thoughts, I firmly do not believe Homura ever truly changed in any way, she became more cynical and desperate over time, and more willing to compromise what she could do to make anything work, but if you really pay attention to it, even the precious optimistic glasses Homura constantly resonates opinions and perspectives that Homura held onto even as far as Rebellion.

Unless I'm terribly misreading OG series, I feel like a lot of people vastly misunderstands Homura's character. Even in the last timeline we see, aka the plot of animu, she's clearly not a bad person. People say how she never cared about anyone else than Madoka and she's fine with ignoring and leaving to die other character, but that's not true. In episode 3, she comes to kill Charlotte and tells Mami to let her handle it because she knows Mami will die. And when Mami binds her, she's clearly agitated and tries to stop her, because she don't want Mami to die (even when we see their first failed attempt at fighting Walpurgisnacht, she's clearly disturbed by Mami's death). Later when Kyouko and Sayaka are having their duel on the bridge and Madoka throws Sayaka's soul gem away, Homura rushes to get it without skipping a beat. If she didn't care about her, she wouldn't even bother, yet her first instinct was to "save" her. And she was clearly angry at Kyuubey when he let Kyouko died, because again, she cares about them. Just over all her timelines, she never manged to save everyone and whenever she tried to tell them the truth, they didn't believe her, or worse, it backfired, so she gave up on trying to save everyone and only focused on Madoka, but she still tries to keep everyone safe. She just prioritizes Madoka first and tries to not show her emotions when others get killed (and well, seeing them die over and over definitely would numb anyone to the sight), but she still pretty much don't want them to die.

I think you are massively misunderstanding Homura's reactions, Homura only helped others because she didn't want to see Madoka suffer, remember what she said to Sayaka in episode 8?

She said that she doesn't care what happens to Sayaka, she was only trying to help Sayaka so that Madoka didn't get upset and that she would be fine with killing Sayaka if it stops Madoka getting upset (Sayaka disappearing would upset Madoka much less than knowing that Sayaka turned into a witch)

She also wanted people to stay alive because they would help fight Walpurgisnacht

last edited at Apr 24, 2020 11:00AM by

@Veya A lot of the sites that I've read about Homura (in Rebellion) tend to portray her as being abusive or a sadistic monster. From what I've read here it doesn't seem to be the case.

@Veya A lot of the sites that I've read about Homura (in Rebellion) tend to portray her as being abusive or a sadistic monster. From what I've read here it doesn't seem to be the case.

Abusive? Sadistic? Ridiculous. She jumped to conclusions and didn't ask permission to fix a problem that might have not been there, sure. But everyone is better off because of it (except Homura herself, but that adds to the depth of the character).

That said, a sequel to Rebellion will have to address her new... instability.
Actually, I was wondering if Magia Record could be said sequel in disguise... Maybe Akuma Homura manipulated the game's timeline to create an alternative to the Law of Cycles... And found one with the Doppel system.

last edited at Apr 24, 2020 1:23PM

I suppose that could be a possibility given than in Ultimate Madoka's side story she states that this timeline is an irregularity in that it's the only one where: Touka, Nemu, and Ui live and Iroha contracts. That and this is one that she can't directly intervene in either- although she does seem to be able to indirectly influence the timeline- including by sending some "representatives" like Nagisa.

As for Devil Homura, her VA said something about it being worked on a while back (or so I heard) so I suppose it's only a matter of time. Probably around the anniversary in JP Magia Record this year?

Concerning "Cool" Homura, yeah I know it's mostly a mask that she uses to cover her "inner Moemura" given all of the timelines she's been through (including ones that weren't shown).

On an unrelated note, if yuri subtext is only hinted at what does that make yuri SuperText?

last edited at Apr 24, 2020 1:54PM

On an unrelated note, if yuri subtext is only hinted at what does that make yuri SuperText?

Well, that happens when a girl openly says she rewrote reality out of love (for another girl).
And then proceeds to curbstomp a little alien conniver into the ground.

Actually, I was wondering if Magia Record could be said sequel in disguise... Maybe Akuma Homura manipulated the game's timeline to create an alternative to the Law of Cycles... And found one with the Doppel system.

A leading theory for me and my friends for a while now has been that the entire MagiReco universe is Devil Homura's experiment to prove that the Law of Cycles is unecessary and that there could be a better alternative to it, keeping interference at an absolute bare minimum, simply move one pebble out of its intended location and have everything spiral into place, and that Madokami's personal story is deliberate misdirection, oh yes, this is absolutely the result of Homura's time loops, but not the Homura we are thinking of...

last edited at Apr 24, 2020 3:02PM

I really like Tan0's Yachiyo/Tsuruno fanart. Their art style is really cute and reminds me of Variangel's cute Love Live related fanart (Variangel also does Yachiyo/Iroha fanart).

[...] and that Madokami's personal story is deliberate misdirection, oh yes, this is absolutely the result of Homura's time loops, but not the Homura we are thinking of...

That Madokami could be the one that got split from her human side, without memory of the "Rebellion" and unknowingly operating under Akuma Homura's supervision... And perhaps she can't interfere with the MagiReco timeline because Homura is preventing her...

I believe that the Amane sisters ship is the best ship, no one can change my mind

Yes!!

Love the Akane sisters so much. And their game swimsuit transformation is a real good piece of musical video (watch out for the siren though).

last edited at Apr 25, 2020 2:12PM

Yeah the Amane sisters swimsuit transformation is great

After going through Mayu's side story, I really am starting to like the Mayu/Ria ship. It's cute how naive Mayu is and how Ria wants to protect her from that man in the museum.

She also protects Mayu from Sayuki lol

I thought Sayuki, Mayu, and Ria were friends though. From Sayuki's description of her side story on the wiki along with her wish of wanting to have friends it sounds like they'd get along. That and the (currently) JP only event Sayuki Steps Up! desuu~ seems to further this as well.

Yeah it was just one occasion, some boys were hitting on Mayu so Ria drove them away and she also accidentally drove Sayuki away in the process

This scene

Does anyone have Riko on their support lists: I really like her (both from a gameplay and story perspective), but nobody has her. :( My ID is Yoshiko (KunTXGfr) support list: Mifuyu Magia Level 4, 4s Rika Magia Level 2, 2s Mayu, 3s Hinano, 2s Ultimate Madoka with Doppel, 2s Moemura with Doppel

Also an interesting fact I found out that Tsukuyo's original surname was Akatsuki she only too Amane after meeting Tsukasa.

last edited at Apr 26, 2020 12:23AM

I don't think it's ever established which name Tsukuyo uses legally; the twins were born before the divorce, so it's entirely possible she kept her birth name. It's also possible that she's just using Amane to be closer to Tsukasa, but that could only ever be an informal alias given her situation.

But from the story it seems like they didn't know of each others existence before meeting near the seance shrine (and thus eventually joining the Wings of Magius). If they were born together wouldn't Tsukasa already know about Tsukuyo's existence and vice versa?

If their parents divorced when they were like 1 I doubt they would remember each other

I don't think it's ever established which name Tsukuyo uses legally; the twins were born before the divorce, so it's entirely possible she kept her birth name.

It is actually mentioned in her personal story that her name was changed(towards the very end, when they are talking about the doctor that delivered them), so it is safe to say she is legally "Tsukuyo Akatsuki" still, odds are she is planning to change it back once she is of legal age, she just can't yet cuz she is like 16.

Her using "Amane" is likely only a thing within the meguca community of the city, since they have their whole host of secrets from the muggles.

last edited at Apr 26, 2020 7:27PM

Muggles, heh I never though I'd hear that in a discussion about Madoka given that the existence of magical girls is not exactly really secret. While it's true that not everyone can see Kyubey and the magical girl "community" may have some secrets I don't think they have a lot (besides their wishes) compared to other fictional worlds like Harry Potter for instance.

And magical girls don't even have a community, they exist in small groups at most. It's impossible for them to exist in a big group as they won't be able to get enough grief seeds to sustain themselves. Most magical girls that don't die quickly would become like Kyoko, a lone wolf that only cares about themself (until they get infected by the gay and suicide)

Kamihama is a massive anomaly, it managed to become like this as there is no need for grief seeds.