Magical Girls (Homura Akemi, Sayaka Miki) | Kyubey | Witches | Supporting Characters | The Movie Rebellion | Kazumi Magica (Magical Girls | Others) | Oriko Magica | Suzune Magica | Tart Magica | Portable | Magia Record | Concept Movie Trailer | Wraith Arc
This character is a Walking Spoiler. Therefore, all spoilers will be unmarked on this page. You Have Been Warned.
Voiced by: Emiri Katou (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English) Foreign VAs
"Let's make a contract."
A small, cute creature that communicates through telepathy. His duty is to form contracts with girls where they will become magical girls and fight witches in exchange for any one wish. He is intent on contracting Madoka due to her immense potential.He's working towards the fulfillment of a mysterious, overarching goal which is slowly unveiled as the story progresses.
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- Adorable Abomination: He's a cute little cat like animal! He's also from a species of Starfish Aliens with Blue-and-Orange Morality, reality-warping wish-granting powers, and Resurrective Immortality to the point where he can eat his own corpse seconds after being killed.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Though he doesn't mean any malice, he'll still doom humanity to extinction if he meets his quota. So much for his relationship with humans being mutually beneficial.
- Allegorical Character: Kyubey embodies a callous and predatory system that preys on people, only to discard them once they are no longer useful. His modus operandi consists of approaching young and vulnerable children when they are most likely to make foolhardy and poorly thought through decisions, offer them everything they could ever want without mentioning the consequences, and then throws them into a meatgrinder that inevitably kills them so that he can benefit for their labour, all while justifying it as being necessary for the world to function. On a broad scale this can represent any system of exploitation, though the fact that the Incubators specifically target young girls makes them specifically allegorical for the way a sexist society treats women; Useful until they give birth (to a witch), and then discarded.
- All for Nothing: He pushes Madoka over and over again to make her wish...and he ends up with nothing to show for it. Madoka wishes to save all Magical Girls by having the power to destroy witches, meaning that she doesn't witch out. Plus with her existence erased, he won't remember her nor the original Magic Girl system which is gaining energy at a slower rate than he expected.
- Arch-Enemy: To Homura, who has been fighting him for a long time. Technically speaking, Kyubey doesn't have any particular malice toward her...it's just that he really, really wants Madoka to make that contract so he can get all that delicious anti-entropy witch energy from her turning into Kriemhild Gretchen, and Homura would very much prefer that Madoka stays alive.
- Art Evolution: Kyubey's original design
gave him large pupils, making him look cuter and more similar to a standard magical mascot. The smaller red eyes with relatively small pupils of the new design give the creature a somewhat eerie Thousand-Yard Stare, befitting his Lack of Empathy and his alien mentality. - Asian Fox Spirit: His design and demeanor certainly evoke the kitsune, right down to his name.
- At Least I Admit It: In Episode 11, Kyubey points out that humans are just as willing to disregard the feelings of their livestock as the Incubators disregard the eventual despair and death of magical girls for the sake of The Needs of the Many.
- Auto Cannibalism: Eats any body that dies; technically they're all himself.
- Awful Truth: Kyubey's go-to weapon. Kyubey never lies except when he describes his kind's relationship with humanity as mutually beneficial when it's quite obviously really parasitic and so long as he meets his quota he doesn't care what becomes of humanity; he doesn't need to when the truth is that much more horrible. The little monster's a genius at using it to break his marks down, leaving them either desperate and prone to making contracts or nihilistic and ripe to become witches. However, this failed against Madoka because yes, the truth is awful. Very awful, but it also gives Madoka the deterimination to change it so that people didn't have to suffer anymore.
- Bad Boss: A rare example towards the protagonists. Whether it's by getting their wishes screwed, withholding the Awful Truth, forcing them to "experience real pain", or by sending them to their deaths under false hopes of saving their friends, Kyubey simply has no compunction in sending any magical girl he contracts to their demise.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: As the Jackass Genie who guided young girls to their doom and was perfectly content to leave Earth to die once he completed his quota, his biggest hope was for Madoka to become the most powerful magical girl to create the greatest energy burst once she witched out. In the end, Madoka did become a magical girl... and her wish was to erase all witches from existence, including the release of energy Kyubey harvested once the girls crossed the Despair Event Horizon. In the new timeline, the magical girls are saved by Madoka and Kyubey is stuck with a system that gets him way less energy than before.
- Benevolent Genie: He grants a wish with no strings attached and (usually) to the spirit of the wish, any unintended consequences usually result from people not thinking their wish through, as opposed to interference on Kyubey's part. In some cases, he will even warn a magical girl candidate against a particular wish if that wish is directly negated by the results of the wish. In Kazumi Magica, he warns Kazumi about what he sees as the pointlessness of her wish; she wished to be human but as soon as the wish was granted she would turn into a magical girl, and thus no longer be human.
- Big Bad: Unusually the show's conflict begins in truth with a morally neutral problem (called entropy) that threatens their entire world. The incubators step up into the role of the main villain through their manner of dealing with it. Then Madoka rewrites reality and he doesn't have to be evil anymore, but that's at the very end of the series... Until he becomes one again anyway, because there is no need for a reason more complicated than that it is profitable.
- Bizarre Alien Psychology: Kyubey and his race seem to operate in an extremely rational Hive Mind. They view emotions as a mental sickness, and do not consider not telling every part of the truth as lying. Simply put, their only concern is to offset the heat-death of the universe.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality:
- He literally can not comprehend why humans would care if their souls have been ripped out of their bodies or not. In Episode 7, Homura states that "human values don't mean anything to it". Then in Episode 9 it reveals that "they", the heavily implied Hive Mind don't have any emotions, bizarre alien ones included. Indeed, emotion is considered to be a mental illness among his race.
- He also genuinely does not understand why the girls end up so traumatized by the death of their fellows or why they see it as reprehensible; on a planet with seven billion inhabitants, the deaths of a few are virtually inconsequential. What, can't they make new friends or something?
- He tries to reassure Madoka that he "bears no malice" towards humanity and doesn't get any enjoyment from what happens to them. This isn't exactly comforting though, since "bearing no malice" is just an extension of "doesn't care what happens to you".
- Eating himself doesn't bother him at all. Given his overall goal of defeating entropy, it makes sense he wouldn't just let a pile of perfectly good energy go to waste just because he used to inhabit it.
- In Magia Record, while he understands the Dopple system the girls created to try and stave off turning into witches, he thinks it's ultimately pointless because it's just a waste of the potential energy they could give when they do. While he conceeds that all magical girls are not obligated to become witches, he still thinks they should.
- Break Them by Talking: His usual tactic is enforce despair by breaking a girl's self-confidence through words. It ends up backfiring when he attempts it against Madoka, since he inadvertently gives her the necessary information to make a wish that can derail his plans.
- Bystander Syndrome: Something doesn't involve magical girls hunting Grief Seeds? Then Kyubey doesn't have an opinion on it.
- Did you just throw away your friend's Soul Gem? I'd like to help you, but first let me explain why throwing that thing away is crazy.
- A massive Witch has been born and will destroy the whole earth in a matter of days? Good luck fighting it, I just harvested enough energy to meet my planetary quota.
- Cartoon Creature: Kyubey is a cute mammalian creature that vaguely resembles a cat-fox-weasel-thing. The series implies that it's not his true form and he looks like a Ridiculously Cute Critter on purpose so magical girl candidates will be more willing to trust him and make the contract.
- Cats Are Mean: His form is highly ambiguous, but his body and the way he moves seem to invoke a cat-like imagery (possibly a ferret instead — see Weasel Mascot below), and the things he says and does... he may not think he's being cruel, but everyone else disagrees.
- Character Catchphrase: "Make a contract with me!"
- Corrupted Character Copy: Post-reveal, Kyubey comes off as a particularly warped variation on Luna and Artemis.
- Luna and Artemis, while intelligent, capable of speech and originating from another planet, are actual cats and sometimes demonstrate Furry Reminder tendencies. Kyubey on the other hand is an outright fantastical creature by appearance alone and it is not likely his true appearance.
- Luna and Artemis don't tell the Sailor Guardians everything about the nature of their powers, but they genuinely do not know everything about them, whereas Kyubey deliberately omits information so as to ensure that those he recruits do what he wants.
- And of course, while the two cats do display some Vitriolic Best Buds tendencies with the Guardians, they do genuinely care about them, whereas Kyubey is coldly indifferent to the magical girls he recruits.
- Culture Clash: Kyubey and his race don't seem to make that big of a deal of having one's soul moved into a Soul Jar. Sayaka does, and it is implied that many other magical girls did, too. With Kyoko it is more than implied."It never fails. Whenever I tell you humans the simple facts, you always react the same way. It makes no sense at all. Why are humans so sensitive about the kind of container their souls are housed in?"
- Cute Is Evil: More amoral and without empathy than evil, and definitely cute. You know you wanna pet him.
- Deadpan Snarker: In the alternate universe created by Madoka, he remarks that it'd be cool if magical girls could become witches, but even he has to admit that in that universe, that's not possible.
- Deal with the Devil: He offers to grant the girls any wish in exchange for becoming a Magical Girl Warrior and spending the rest of their lives fighting witches. The Faustian references are numerous, although not always obvious (e.g. Mephistopheles being a Ridiculously Cute Critter). In the end, they become what they fight against.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: He has "many bodies" and can reincarnate himself instantly. The drama of him getting beaten up (and killed, then beaten up again) by Homura in the first episode was, presumably, an act to get Madoka to sympathize with him. In addition, his method of clean-up in a new body is to eat his own corpse.
- Determinator: Once Kyubey knows you're a magical girl candidate, he will stop at nothing to make sure you make a contract with him, even if he has to visit you frequently to do it. For added fun, the more potential you have, the harder it will be to get his to leave you alone. This backfires on him; his insintent need to make Madoka a magical girl eventually makes Madoka grant her reality changing wish.
- Didn't Think This Through: In hindsight, maybe flapping your gums towards the girl you wanted to become a wish by saying just a bit too much wasn't your best idea, Kyubey.
- Didn't See That Coming: He knew that Madoka would make a wish, but he was never expecting it to be a wish that would take everything he wanted out of her — mainly to witch out and for him to harvest the energy out of her becoming the most powerful magical girl in existence — and rewrite the laws so badly that he has less energy than before.
- Dissonant Serenity: In the anime, he always keeps his Frozen cat smile and he almost always talks cheerfully in both versions regardless of context, only demonstrating any degree of distress a few times. He recognizes that his voice should show distress in situations of obvious danger, like when he's running from Homura, and, as later revealed, can also sound surprised but more nuanced emotions are too alien for him to mimic them convincingly. Justified because he's a member of an alien race which is unable to feel any emotions (the ones that do are considered mentally ill).
- Doing in the Scientist: Kyubey is trying to prevent the heat death of the universe (supposedly) by breaking the second law of thermodynamics. He does this by warping reality to perform genuine miracles and draw out the magical potential in human girls so he can gather the energy generated by their emotions, which are not governed by any kind of science and thus suit Kyubey's needs perfectly.
- Enigmatic Empowering Entity: He's a strange creature that grants magical power to human girls. Ostensibly, he wants them to fight witches but his motives are his own to understand.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He never forces anyone to make a contract because the Incubators "treat humans as sentient". He loves to take advantage of opportunities in which the magical girl candidate has little choice but to make the contract, and he certainly doesn't believe in the idea of informed consent, but he never ever holds a metaphoric gun to their head.
- Evil Colonialist: He's a predatory alien who has spent eons on Earth (and as Portable indicates, countless planets) trying to stop the heat death of the universe by exploiting unwitting young girls for their emotions, not caring if any innocents suffer in the process.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Greed. Kyubey wants girls to contract with him to fight witches so they'll continue the cycle of giving into despair, become witches themselves, have new magical girls kill them for grief seeds, all so he can be the sole beneficiary of the lucrative emotion harvesting system. He's determined to get Madoka to contract with him for her vast energy, and won't leave her alone even though she doesn't want to after Mami's death and he could simply target other girls instead. This persistence leads him to tell her everything she needs to know to beat him at his own game, and he's forced to help Madoka create a new system that saves the magical girls at the cost of his energy supply.
- His breaking exposition. By fully explaining what happens to magical girls, in the hopes that he'll get the largest energy harvest ever, this gave Madoka the incentive to make her wish to become a God — something that Kyubey mentioned prior — and makes him eat his own words.
- Faux Affably Evil: He politely tricks girls into becoming liches.
- Flaw Exploitation: A common tactic of his to get young girls to make contracts with him, mostly by making them feel useless. Of course, his own flaw is that he can't understand humans' emotions, which comes back to bite him.
- Foreshadowing: There are plenty of hints that Kyubey isn't actually as benevolent as he appears.
- If you listen carefully to Kyubey's explanation about Witches in episode 2, you'll notice that he only says that Witches are born of curses, but he never explains where the curses come from. This is our first hint that he's not telling the full truth.
- If you pay close attention to Kyubey's behavior long before the reveal occurs, you'll notice that he always seems far more interested in steering the conversation to turning the girls he meets into Magical Girls rather than protecting the innocent or getting Magical Girls to work together.
- In episode 3, Kyubey doesn't force Madoka and Sayaka to make contracts with him, but he still seems rather insistent that they do so as quickly as possible, to the point where Mami scolds him and jokingly tells him that girls don't like pushy boys. When Mami's head is bitten off by Charlotte, instead of showing horror at Mami's death or trying to get Madoka and Sayaka out of danger, he immediately tells them to make a contract with him now.
- Also in episode 3, Mami reveals that she became a Magical Girl because of a Leonine Contract; namely after she got into a car accident that killed her parents, Mami was forced into a situation where her only chance at survival was making a contract with Kyubey, who just conveniently arrived in the wreckage. While Kyubey didn’t cause the car wreck, he did take advantage of Mami’s desperation to manipulate her into making a contract with him.
- When Sayaka and Kyoko start fighting each other, he tries to get Madoka to make a contract with him by telling her that being a Magical Girl is the only way she can stop the fight.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: It's heavily implied in the series that Kyubey's cute appearance is just a facade that he uses to endear himself to the girls he manipulates. The Incubators' true appearance is likely far more alien.
- Frozen Face: Kyubey's face is normally frozen in a cat smile but there are exceptions to this, such as in Episode 2 when Kyubey takes a bite of an omelette. It also closes its eyes at times, probably when it's supposed to be a smile. The manga gives him more expressions.
- Full-Name Basis: Often tends towards this, especially towards his Arch-Enemy, Homura Akemi.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: His glowing red eyes are often the only visible feature on his shadowed figure and he has brought doom to many easily manipulated little girls.
- The Heavy: Pretty much the entire plot is caused by Kyubey's manipulations.
- Hive Mind: An interview with Urobuchi states that he is this.There are many bodies, but only one consciousness. Therefore, even if you kill the body, there isn't any sort of damage. Killing one is just like pulling out a single strand of hair. The scene where Kyubey eats his corpse was a scene that came in after the early stages of the script; I was trying to write Kyubey as something that humans can't relate to. Imagine what your response would be if one of your compatriots had just died.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Kyubey's own modus operandi gets turned against him in the end, as Madoka exploits the lack of limitations on the wishes he offers (and the fact that he apparently has to fulfill them) to make a wish that screws him over royally.
- Invisible to Normals: Only magical girls or magical girl candidates can see him.
- Ironic Echo: When trying to persuade Madoka to become a Magical Girl, he often states that her potential is so great that any wish could be granted, and that she could even become a god if she wanted. He even repeats this moments before Madoka finally does make a wish, and is suitably horrified when she uses it to do just that.
- Irony: He's been getting away with turning magical girls into witches by withholding so much information. But to the girl that he wants the most to be a magical girl? He blabs a little too much and she turns it all against him.
- Jackass Genie: "Want to become a magical girl and have your own miracle? Great! Make a contract with me. Oh, and, uh, it'll only cost you your soul and end with you dying. It's either that or you becoming the very thing you fight through sheer, eventual despair. Toodles!"
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Kyubey needs to get all these magical girls to become witches because their emotional energy is valuable in their fight against the heat death of the universe. However, this doesn't mean he has to refrain from escalating to problematic measures when doing so, namely sending Kyoko to her doom to force Madoka to make a contract and betraying the Earth to Kriemhild Gretchen if she provides his species enough energy to warrant disposing of humanity.
- Just Desserts: Does this to himself in Episode 8 after Homura executes him with a fistful of dakka.
- Karma Houdini: Along with the rest of the Incubators, he suffers no punishment for all the trickery he would have done other than a less convenient business model and all of his mustache-twirlingly-evil actions were undone by the Cosmic Retcon. Interestingly, in the new timeline he's implied to be on better terms with the magical girls, or at least his behavior is more benign. As such, he doesn't have any karma to suffer for, since he lacked his original motivation for being cruel.
- Kick the Dog:
- The scene where Kyubey makes Sayaka "experience real pain" just to prove a point makes it clear that he is at the very least completely lacking in empathy. The point had to be made, but was it really necessary to keep the pain on for half a minute? This could or could not be relevant to The Plan. His entire goal is to have the girls fall into despair so they will become witches. His KTD moment was his way of reinforcing leading Sayaka to thinking "I done screwed up!" and witchifying her.
- A much greater Kick the Dog moment comes during one of the timelines in Episode 10, when Kyubey leaves the whole planet Earth to die at the hands of Kriemhild Gretchen because the human race has outlived its usefulness — despite the fact that entropy has not stopped growing. This is justified, however. It is implied, and confirmed in the portable game (which features an alien magical girl), that the Incubators "farm" many planets beyond Earth, so Kyubey is not exactly killing the golden goose. Presumably, the amount of energy he collected from Kriemhild's creation significantly exceeds the "expected" amount normally collected from a sapient race before it eventually gets wiped out by infighting or natural causes, and perhaps even the amount that could possibly be collected from the human race even assuming it survives all the way up to the Sun collapsing and becoming unable to support life.
- Lack of Empathy: Knowing that Kyubey has been harvesting the energy of countless adolescent human girls' despair for millennia, Lack of Empathy is pretty much the job requirement. Also, as noted in the Kick the Dog example, Kyubey isn't above outright torturing the girls to prove a point.
- Laughably Evil: Kyubey's complete obliviousness to human morality, standards and emotions can come off as quite funny sometimes. Practically his catchphrase is "I don't get it."
- Lesser of Two Evils: The magical girls' ultimate fate as witches is terrible, but it is indeed preferable to the whole universe eventually dying. Double-subverted in Episode 10, when Kyubey is shown to be perfectly willing to doom humanity to extinction once the energy quota is fulfilled, but even that is a lesser evil, even if from a very callous and cynical (and possibly very short-sighted) point of view.
- Leitmotif: "Sis puella magica!" is generally considered one for him and the series as a whole.
- Literal Genie: Played with. Kyubey will grant any wish on the exact terms that it is made, whether it's for something as small as a cake or as fantastic as going back in time. He does not purposefully misinterpret or corrupt the wish — whatever you wish for is exactly what you get. The problem is that the girls all too often wish not for what they really want but for what they think will get them what they want, and their wishes often have consequences that they don't or can't think through before making the wish. What makes it this trope is that Kyubey is not only aware of this, he is in fact counting on it.
- Light Is Not Good: A small white creature the size of a cat with golden rings around its ears, how wrong of a sign could that be? Turns out, a very wrong one.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": He's an Incubator, or "In-kyu-bey-tor."
- Lying by Omission: Kyubey does this with pretty every magical girl he contracts, leaving out vital details about what it means to be a magical girl, like the fact that your soul gets ripped out and turned into a gemstone or that you inevitably turn into the very witches you fight. Granted, he will up-front the info if the girl actually asks, but that relies on the girl having the presence of mind to ask about any catches, and Kyubey will do his damnedest to keep weaseling the answer in such a way to make a contract still seem appealing unless they point-blank ask the right questions. Kyubey claims that he doesn't understand how omitting information is considered deceptive and is confused when humans get mad about it.
- Magically-Binding Contract: He makes contracts with girls to become Magical Girls. Notably, his contracts are entirely verbal and are without any form of fine print mentioning the downsides and side-effects, meaning that they aren't actually legally binding under most systems of law, despite being magically binding. He also will always follow through on his end of the contract. Always. Unfortunately, while he gives the girls exactly what they wanted with no Literal Genie side-effects, the girls don't wish for the right thing in the first place. Given that one of the anime's main themes is that a truly Selfless Wish doesn't exist, this isn't surprising.
- Make a Wish:
- Kyubey will grant a candidate one wish in return for them becoming a magical girl. He does not look for the worse interpretation. His explanation for bad things happening to wishers is that the power of the Wish creates equal parts despair and hope. (Like a magical version of two particles coming into being in vacuum fluctuation; both negative and positive thus equaling zero.) He cannot stop someone from making a wish that he wouldn't want them to make, and he can't force anyone to make a wish either.
- Rather than exploit Jerkass Genie, he simply gives them exactly what they asked for because what they ask for is never what they actually want. The girls are never honest with themselves about their desires, every selfless wish has a selfish motive behind it, and the despair sets in when they realize that their selfless wish being granted did not guarantee their selfish desire being granted as well.
- Manipulative Bastard: He may have trouble understanding human values and emotions, but he's very good at exploiting them. He asks the girls to make a contract with him at the exact moment when they'd have the most difficulty refusing and he will abusively call you, even if you refuse his offer. While his claim of never lying is indeed true per se, he knows exactly how to twist his words and withhold information in such a way that he that he still technically tells the truth, but also tricks the girls into actions that help him further his goals while making things worse for themselves.
- One of the best examples of this is after Sayaka falls into despair and transforms into Oktavia. Kyoko asks it if it's possible that her Soul Gem can be recovered, that she can be reverted to Magical Girl, if not human. It replies "It's never been done before," with the obvious implication that it might be possible, just that no one has ever managed to pull it off. After Kyoko sacrifices herself to take out Oktavia, Homura asks Kyubey the same question, and its answer is a blunt "No, it's not possible."
- Meaningful Name: Incubator, one who incubates young witches into mature ones. Also, Questing Beast, as in the Perlesvaus.
- The word incubator comes from the Latin word note "incubare", meaning 'to lie upon'. Another similar word that derives from this is 'Incubus', a male demon that lies upon a woman at night, causing their dreams to get perverted and witches to be born.
- Mentor Mascot:
- Inverted. At first he looks like your standard Magical Girl cute critter mentor, until we find out that he views the girls as expendable power sources and it's in his best interests to make them as miserable as possible... because it will mean gaining energy to save the universe. In other words, Kyubey looks like a Magical Girl familiar but is actually a Magical Girl villain, right down to turning humans into monsters to harvest their energy.
- Metaphorically True: More or less everything that comes out of his mouth. While never technically lying, Kyubey makes it a point to only speak in half-truths, and he consistently refuses to acknowledge the very concept of lying by omission, despite it being exactly what he is doing. When pressed, he responds with either confusion or incredulity; after all, it's their fault for not asking him the right questions in the first place. He eventually tortures Madoka with the whole truth after Sayaka's funeral. Though it was probably not supposed to be torture but an explanation and a way to prove a point, from his point of view — being someone who wouldn't see why she would feel tortured by it.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: Part of his job is to dispose of used up Grief Seeds by eating them. Considering what Grief Seeds are, and its relationship to Soul Gems, this might also count as Your Soul Is Mine!. He also ate his previous incarnation which got swiss-cheesed by Homura, to recycle the protein and flesh.
- Murder by Inaction: Considering its problematic preference for the majority, Kyubey decides to do nothing about the human species' potential extinction when Madoka's transformation into a witch gives its own species enough energy to justify considering them to have outlived their usefulness.
- Mysterious Backer: He's a creature that our heroines know nothing about but accept Magical Girl power and wishes from.
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- The Needs of the Many: He argues to Madoka that the cycle of witches and magical girls are necessary to keep the universe from dying out, and it even has the side benefit of helping humanity to advance as a species, so he can't understand why she objects over the relatively few lives it destroys. When Gretchen threatens to destroy Earth, he has no problem with applying this reasoning to humanity as a whole. The implication the Incubators would do the same to as many lifeforms as possible completely defeats their own justifications, as it means their goal is the longevity of the universe for the benefit of only themselves or no one at all.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His Info Dump toward Madoka — aka the one who he wants to become a magical girl the most — about magical girls' role in the history of humanity and his own confirmation that any of Madoka's wishes can be granted (including one where she could become a god) are what inspire Madoka to make her Cosmic Retcon wish.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Of the Can Only Kill Part Of Him kind. An exact replica of it comes to eat its corpse after Homura riddles it with bullets in Episode 8. It claims it has unlimited number of substitutions.
Word of God says he instantly creates a body from surrounding Mana. - Never My Fault: Refuses to or is unable to acknowledge that almost every problem the magical girls face is a direct result of him failing to mention vital details of the contract, with the excuse that they never asked. He is furthermore unable to acknowledge that intentionally leaving out said details unless asked directly constitutes a deception.
- No Biological Sex: Most fans default to referring to Kyubey as "he", but the character doesn't have any physical sex. In the Japanese dub he refers to himself with "boku" so it's safe to say that if he isn't male he is pretending to be for the sake of brevity.
- Non-Action Big Bad: He's plenty active but none of it is fighting; 100 percent manipulation.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: The stated goal of the Incubators is to lower entropy of the universe to make it last longer. How? Create magical girls and witches to unleash energy, of course! Once he gets his quota, the planet Earth and everyone on it becomes expendable to all of the messes he created by kickstarting the magical girl-to-witch cycle. At its most successful, their plan would make the universe last as long as possible, but remove any benefit this would give to anyone besides themselves. It's later revealed in the series and in Portable that they are also harvesting on multiple planets in the universe that house sapient lifeforms beyond just the Earth and the Incubator world, meaning they're dooming hundreds of other species for the sake of their goal. As long as the harvesting process is not causing worlds to die out at an unsustainable rate, and Incubators are not personally affected, Kyubey has no issue with what race he has to harm to get what they want. And since Kyubey/the Incubators are effectively just one entity, it is even more blatantly selfish.
- Obliviously Evil: Downplayed. He knows that humans disapprove of his actions but he doesn't understand why they disapprove. From his perspective, he's saving the universe.
- Oh, Crap!: When Madoka wishes to save every magical girl that ever has or ever will exist."It violates the laws of karmic destiny! Are you trying to become a god!?"
- Omniglot: Besides Japanese, Kyubey also speaks fluent French, English, Egyptian, Dutch, Old Norse, Swahili and you-name-it-he-speaks it. After all, known victims include Jeanne d'Arc, Cleopatra, Anne Frank, Norse and African children, not to mention countless others presumably from every nation across Earth. If ever he's forced to change jobs, Kyubey would make a lucrative career as a Professor of Linguistics.
- Omniscient Morality License: The Incubators use the powerful emotions given off by Magical Girls and witches to counter entropy and prevent the heat death of the universe. He ultimately considers humanity expendable.
- Our Genies Are Different: Kyubey is an Alien that takes the form of a Talking Animal of Unknown Species.
- Outside-Genre Foe: The Incubators are a Sufficiently Advanced Alien race using extremely advanced technology to deal with the problem of entropy, and think of abstract and mystical concepts like the "soul" in terms of "a cluster of nerve cells", and tend to view existence almost entirely in Cold Equation terms. Kyubey is a very much a science fiction problem (with a dash of Cosmic Horror Story for good measure) in a magical girl setting. No wonder the girls (and the audience) find it so darn difficult to understand him!
- Perpetual Smiler: It's VERY creepy because it remains this face in the face of horror.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- Kyubey disapproves of Madoka killing Sayaka, be it ever so inadvertently, in her attempt to stop in-fighting amongst magical girls, and he even rebukes her for doing something "that's crazy." It was a waste of a perfectly good Soul Gem! He has standards in the same way that a person who objects to throwing away a half-eaten sandwich has standards. It's a waste.
- Kyubey doesn't approve of needless sacrifices. He notes in Episode 9 that he would have stopped Kyoko had her death been meaningless (but didn't because her death served the purpose of forcing Madoka into contracting). Compare to the second-to-last chapter of Kazumi Magica, where he warns Kazumi about what he sees as the pointlessness of her wish (she wishes to become human, and he points out that once she becomes human she will immediately become a Magical Girl; as he sees it, this will essentially cancel out the wish).
- Post-Cosmic Retcon, Kyubey is much more forthright about what becoming a Magical Girl means. Fundamentally he's the same being with the same goals, and he doesn't care about the Magical Girls or humanity in general any more than he did in the original reality, it's just that under the new system, a Soul Gem overloading just means he's down one demon-hunter in exchange for absolutely nothing, so it's now to his benefit to be honest.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Normally cute, but in the right circumstances, he can be terrifying. Eeep...◊
- Red Right Hand: From the outside, the only thing even remotely sinister-looking about Kyubey is its red eyes which almost never change expression.
- Regular Caller: He's a Double Subversion. He subverts the trope at first by not having any significant means of attack, leaving a lot to be desired in terms of defense, and the fact that only Magical Girl candidates can even see him means both guys and non-magical girl candidates probably won't ever realize he exists. The double subversion happens if you're a magical girl candidate, at which point he will stop at nothing to force you to make a contract with him, growing more persistent the more potential you have, and also having a good knowledge of just what to say in order to get you to make the contract.
- Riddle for the Ages: It is implied that Kyubey's cute appearance is A Form You Are Comfortable With, tailored to make potential magical girls more willing to contract with him. We have no idea, however, what he really looks like.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Who wouldn't want to make a contract with something this cute? Word of God says this is intentional to hide his true nature.
- Satanic Archetype: He turns out to be this. A contractor who promises to grant wishes and desires to girls in exchange for souls- an exchange which will inevitably lead to damnation for the girls who accept. He's often seen trying to tempt the local Messianic Archetype, Madoka Kaname. He has an angelic appearance, much like how the Devil is often depicted. He's also heavily based on Mephistopheles, hence the cute, animal-like appearance.
- Saying Too Much: Kyubey explaining that any of Madoka's wishes — including that she could become a God — and then bringing up how all magical girls eventually fall into despair — heavily backfires on him in the finale. Guess he should've kept his mouth shut.
- Spanner in the Works: He convinced Kyoko that Sayaka could be turned back into a magical girl, leading to both of their deaths, which left Homura without anyone who could help her fight Walpurgisnacht. It's very unlikely, however, that Homura would've beaten Walpurgisnacht with just Kyoko's help.
- The Sociopath: Kyubey (and his species by extension) convinces girls to form dangerous contracts with him, which will end up turning them into the very Eldritch Abominations that they're meant to fight. He doesn't lie, but he dodges around the concept of informed consent by leaving out crucial aspects of becoming a magical girl until the unfortunate contractors get a first-hand experience, excuses it by saying You Didn't Ask, and is utterly incapable of understanding why the risks of becoming a magical girl troubles his contractors. As long as he's met his energy quota, he doesn't care what happens to the Earth once the magical girls turn into witches. Kyubey is an interesting example as his species lacks emotions — thus, while he's trying to keep the universe running with the energy he collects, he cares not who gets harmed as a result of his actions as long as it's not him. This backfires on him when his attempts to turn Madoka around to his way of thinking give her the info she needs to thwart him and his system.
- The Spock: Incubators take "logic" and The Needs of the Many to such extremes that it makes him a villainous version of the trope. Earth can blow up and he will not care as long as energy is collected.
- Starfish Aliens: He's a freaky alien, and that explains why his moral compass is completely out of whack, his creepy cheerful expression and his powers.
- The Stoic: Of the "say something horrific without any emotions" variety. For example, his serene speeches in Episode 12. He calmly explains what's going on to Homura and seems to be more concerned about Madoka's fate, even when the Universe ends around him and he's already figured out that very soon he will cease to exist, to be recreated as a different version of himself.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Kyubey isn't really a magical creature in the traditional sense, but an Alien Reality Warper.
- Super-Empowering: His job is granting powers to potential magical girls. He's quite pushy about that and he doesn't give you a run-down of your powers, either.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Homura has probably "killed" him dozens of times by now, but it never sticks.
- Tin Man: Claims to be non-emotional, but displays emotion constantly. While some of that is probably an act to trick the girls, even when talking to someone who knows better he displays smugness, gloating, exasperation, and a very dark sense of humor. Even his explanation that his race is unemotional has a distinct sarcastically-patronizing sound to it. Of course, his exact statement is that his race considers emotions a mental illness, so it's possible that he's just gone nuts and doesn't realize it.
- Totalitarian Utilitarian: Kyubey's goal is to stave off the heat death of the universe, which he does by dooming teenage girls to lives of suffering and eventual transformation into Eldritch Abominations that kill plenty of innocent people — and potentially entire planets — in the process. His determination to extend the universe's life as much as possible, at cost of any amount of lives, begs the question of who would ideally be left to benefit.
- Troll: Kyubey's actions seem conspicuously chosen to frustrate everyone he talks to. He does it to get more emotional energy out of the magical girls before they turn into witches or to speed up the transformation process.
- The Unfettered: For Kyubey, no sacrifice is too great if it means saving the universe from heat death. Effectively enslaving humanity, torturing teenage girls and turning them into witches, and causing mass suicides are all in a day’s work, and it can’t even comprehend the value of individual life.
- Unreliable Expositor: Kyubey's tendency to speak in half-truths and withhold information whenever possible make it difficult to tell how much of what it's saying is accurate. The story with the Incubators and Entropy could be the honest truth...or it could be just one part of what he's actually doing with the energy created by Witches and Magical Girls. We simply don't know. For that matter, the idea that he doesn't lie comes from Kyubey, and he states it in a way that leaves considerable wiggle room at that. His claim that his species is the reason humanity has civilization similarly has some serious holes in it.]
- Villainous BSoD: He panicks when Madoka wishes to erase witches from existence. This is made all the more poignant because Kyubey's race views emotions as a mental illness, so Madoka's game-changing wish literally made Kyubey lose his mind.
- Villains Never Lie: If lie is defined as "saying something that is definitely and entirely untrue" then he has never lied. However, he deliberately invokes Exact Words and Lying by Omission to deceive.
- Walking Spoiler: As you can see. Even saying what Kyubey actually is, is a massive spoiler unto itself.
- Weasel Mascot: We do mean weasel, in the figurative sense.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: His reason for stoking the magical girl vs. witch conflict is to harvest the magical energies that are created and use them to stave off the heat death of the universe.
- White and Red and Eerie All Over: He has pure white fur and red eyes with a red, egg-shaped marking on his back. He's also an amoral Eldritch Abomination whose goal is to trick the girls into becoming magical girls for the purpose of having them eventually fall to despair and transform into witches, as part of his plan to prevent the heat death of the universe.
- Wicked Weasel: Well, a weasel-like creature that engages in trickery.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: Kyubey never lies about anything and will happily tell the truth if asked directly. He even seems offended at the idea that someone would accuse him of lying. He does however have no problems with exploiting all the wiggle room he possibly can, such as leaving out vital information in his answers if he thinks it would be to his disadvantage to reveal said information, invoking You Didn't Ask every chance he gets, and even if someone asks him the right questions, he will still try to weasel around it by carefully wording his answers in ways that makes them technically true, yet also misleading. In essence, Kyubey has absolutely no problems with lying by omission, if only because he refuses to view that as "lying" in and off itself.
- When Kyoko asks if there is any way to return Sayaka to human form, Kyubey states that there's no precedent for it. It's an answer that is technically correct but also baits Kyoko into believing that there could be a way.
- In Episodes 9 and 10. In 9 he states that his actions would preserve humanity's future among the stars. However, he phrases it in such a way that it doesn't reveal whether he cares if humanity goes to the stars or not. We find in Episode 10 that he does not care one bit about humanity or Earth, as long as his energy quota is reached, and an alternate timeline version in the same episode dismissed the end of the world as "humanity's problem" after it filled said quota by unleashing it.
- You Didn't Ask: Constantly invoking this is his MO in a nutshell. While he never outright lies, he also frequently goes out of his way to not tell the whole truth either if he can get away with it.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Gives one on occasion, as far as he/she/it can actually express approval. The one he's speaking with definitely feels shame as a result."Excellent work, Homura. You've made Madoka the most powerful witch ever."
"We could never hope to control something whose final form is so irrational."
