At the source of everything lies one magic... A power of the past that lost its way to complete its role... It all comes from the existence of a single shield.
An Interquel taking place between the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion, centering around the events that lead from one to the other.
After the events of the anime, Homura is left alone in the world created by Madoka's wish. Now, instead of witches, magical girls fight Wraiths, seemingly mindless creatures that attack people with high emotions. Homura goes after these creatures as is her duty as a magical girl, but when one steals a piece of her magic, she is met with a familiar face...
Late-Arrival Spoiler Warning: Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of the most popular anime franchises. As such, there are a great deal of spoilers. Most of them are marked, while others aren't. Avoiding these pages is highly suggested for those who have not seen the series. This page assumes you have both watched the original anime and Rebellion. Proceed at your own risk.
This manga provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The wraiths and the mechanics surrounding their existence are explained much more thoroughly in this manga than throughout the anime.
- All There in the Manual: The manga features three pages with detailed information about Wraiths, narrated by Nagisa, Sayaka, and Madoka from the Law of Cycles.
- Aloof Ally: Homura is disinterested in becoming friends with the other magical girls no matter how they reach out to her. This is because she is subconsciously rejecting the world knowing Madoka is not in it.
- And Then What?: This story has Homura struggling to figure out to do with her life now that Madoka is safe.
- Bittersweet Ending: Homura remembers her love for Madoka, affirming that her memories are indeed real after convincing herself that everything to do with Madoka was merely her own fantasy. Before she performs one last Reset Button to save Mitakihara, she realizes she'll struggle with the same self-doubt that plagued her throughout the story, but decides it's worth it as she believes she needs to finish off all wraiths before she can properly reunite with Madoka. However, not only does the self-doubt likely come back to haunt her, she's given Kyubey conclusive evidence she has time powers, which also means there's conclusive evidence of Madoka's existence... and Kyubey himself states that he plans to capture Madoka, the ultimate driving force behind Rebellion's story.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The wraiths are merely concerned about preventing emotional energy from causing some kind of cataclysmic event. For the most part they have little intelligence, as shown by the Madoka wraith, and don't mean to cause harm to humans, they simply can't help draining their emotions.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: This manga has an even higher body count than the first. By the end all the magical girls are dead and Mitakihara itself has been rendered a wasteland. This is only fixed through a Reset Button.
- Logical Weakness: Madoka can only absorb magical girls whose gems are fully corrupted and are about to become witches. So if a wraith fully absorbs a magical girl's emotions, freezing their gems in the process and the magical girl dies they can't be saved by Madoka.
- New Transfer Student: Homura starts as one, similarly to the original anime.
- Reset Button: The manga's events are retconned through Homura's time magic in the end.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Anyone touching Homura's shield when she rewinds time remembers the previous timeline. Kyuubey deliberately made sure to be touching the shield so he can retain memories of the Law of Cycles.
- Wrong Context Magic: The wraiths that absorb Homura's powers become something that is completely unknown. Multiple characters comment on how unprecedented the phenomenon is and how they've never seen anything like it. That is because the wraiths are turning into witches, a concept that shouldn't exist in the universe.
