Trivia / Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Trivia tropes pertaining to Puella Magi Madoka Magica:

• Actor Allusion: Due to the all-star voice actors ensemble, we were expecting this.
  • Eri Kitamura voices Sayaka Miki, the blue-themed member of what amounts to Madoka's magical girl team. In Fresh Pretty Cure!, she voiced Miki Aono, the blue-themed member of that show's team. Add also that she played Saya Otonashi from Blood+ a sword wielder.
    • Be it accidentally or on purpose, Sayaka is a veritable pile of these. In addition to her surname being the given name of Cure Berry, Berry's weapon is called the Berry Sword (even though it isn't.) Also, her witch form, Oktavia von Seckendorff, resembles a mermaid and as a character, especially in the movies she has a strong connection to music through Kyosuke. Both of these things she has in common with Seira, a character from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, who is also voiced by Eri Kitamura.
    • Eri Kitamura also voiced Aquarius, an ill-tempered Celestial Spirit summon in Fairy Tail. She could be only summoned wherever there is a pool of water. Oktavia is very similar in this regard, as stated by her official description. At various points throughout the series and the Rebellion movie she manifests from a tear, a rain puddle, a fountain, and even a pool of Sayaka's own blood.
  • Junko Iwao plays Kazuko Saotome, Madoka's school teacher, who happens to be a scorned lover who can't keep boyfriends. Junko Iwao also plays every incarnation of Akane in the My-HiME metaverse, and most of that character's drama revolves around how she's constantly separated from her sole love interest, Kazuya, no matter what universe she's in. "Kazuko" is literally the feminine form of "Kazu", which is the nickname Akane always calls her boyfriend.
  • Mami, voiced by Kaori Mizuhashi, wants you to HEY!! LISTEN!! whenever she's talking to you. Fridge Brilliance applies when you know she's the most annoying voice in videogame history, is the person that's helping the girls and act like a Big Sister Mentor, but gives off some of the most dubious information and is killed in the cruelest way imaginable.
  • In the dub:
    • A multiple strike with Karen Strassman played Sawako Yamanaka, a teacher or something to Christine Marie Cabanos, Cristina Valenzuela and Shelby Lindley in K-On! as they were Azusa Nakano, Mio Akiyama and Tsumugi Kotobuki there. This mirrors her role as Kazuko Saotome in this case as these three school girls were Madoka Kaname, Homura Akemi and Hitomi Shizuki.
    • Cristina Valenzuela plays as a protector to Christine Marie Cabanos' Madoka from Cassandra Lee Morris's Kyuubey's trolling here in the same way that Mio Akiyama does to Azusa Nakano from Ritsu Tainaka's schemes.
    • Cristina Valenzuela again for being another Magical Girl where she was already one as Nanoha Takamachi of Lyrical Nanoha. And the fact that she receives a ribbon from a dear friend in the last episode, well? Where did we see that before?
    • Shelby Lindley plays Hitomi which mirrors the rich keyboardist Tsumugi and she loves tea as well.
• Acting for Two:Aoi Yūki voices both Madoka and familiar Anja.In the French version of the movies, Hitomi and Kyosuke are both voiced by Jessie Lambotte.
• Anime First: The series is an original anime (being Studio Shaft's first original property in over a decade) and the manga adaptations began after the anime first started airing.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: One episode was all it took for this series' (and the company's) popularity to go through the roof. Now Studio Shaft is rolling in money.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Spanish dub, Mami is voiced by TV host Violeta Bibiloni in a quite surprising casting.
• Creator Breakdown: Gen Urobuchi's self-confessed "tragedy syndrome" from his afterword to Fate/Zero (see the Quotes page) is in full play here. Yet the trope is ultimately inverted. Everyone gets a happy ending in the last episode, with the exception of Madoka, Homura, and Sayaka, who get Bittersweet Endings.
• Defictionalization: For the 10th anniversary, 1:1 scale replicas of a Soul Gem and Grief Seed were made available for purchase. The Soul Gem lights up and plays voice clips; with each clip, the color gets darker. Holding the Grief Seed to the Soul Gem restores its brightness.
• Distanced from Current Events: Suspected to be the reason for why the Schedule Slip is more than the one week of most other shows. Episode 10 shows a flooded city after the Walpurgisnacht attacks; after the 2011 Sendai earthquake (and resultant tsunami), SHAFT re-animated some sequences.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Gen Urobuchi and Akiyuki Shinbo went right for the jugular with the cast, not telling them beforehand how harsh things would get. It was especially hard for Emiri Katou, who ended up playing the alleged main villain.
  • The English dub did something similar, such as not telling Mami's actress, Carrie Keranen, about her character's death scene until she was recording it. Carrie recounts how this went, especially her confusion since she knew she was coming in again to record more lines.
    "Did I just... Did I just DIE!?"
• Follow the Leader: The success of Madoka Magica lead to many other Magical Girl Genre Deconstruction works throughout the rest of The New '10s.
• Fountain of Expies: The main five girls of the series (Madoka, Sayaka, Mami, Homura, and Kyoko) have become franchise archetypes, with various send ups to them being found in the various spin off mangas and games, each of whom take the characters in a different direction sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.
• God Never Said That: Mami's wish is "to connect to life". Not "to connect lives". Sounds small, but this very wiki had a problem with contributors saying that she lied about her wish.
• Lying Creator: Gen Urobuchi enjoys teasing the fans.
  • Gen Urobuchi shortly before the series premiere: "I have been entrusted with the formidable task of series composition and script for all episodes. Although having director Akiyuki Shinbo and Ume Aoki-sensei as teammates puts a great deal of pressure on me, I will do my best to deliver a heartwarming, happy story to our viewers!" If you believed that last part, you don't know what his idea of a "heartwarming" story is.
  • From his postface to the first volume of Fate/Zero :
    Gen Urobuchi wants to write stories that can warm people's hearts... But ever since I can't recall when, I can no longer write works like this. I have nothing but contempt for the deceitful thing men call happiness, and have had to push the characters I poured my heart out to create into the abyss of tragedy...
  • Urobuchi later confessed that he lied to retain surprise Episode 3. The original plan for the production team was to hide Urobuchi's involvement with the show, so when the staff list was leaked he tried to do damage control. Now that the cat is out of the bag and it's clear nobody believes that he reformed: "Okay now I've took a big load off my mind. Thank you everyone who keep up until today! I'm going back to the normal Urobuchi from now on!" Note that Episode 3 is his idea of going back to "normal".
  • As a warm up to the statement above, just watch Episode 4. Then Episode 6.
  • His statement that Sayaka's the actual main character should also be taken with a grain of salt, considering Episode 8.
  • Claiming that the "kyu" in "Kyubey" comes from "cute" we now know it's Incubator. Technically he wasn't lying. The 'Kyu' in 'Kyubey' really did came from "cu-" of "cute"; just without the "-te" part.
  • Before Episode 3, he made a point of complaining about fans speculating as to when the show was going to get really dark: "Come on, we still haven't shown even a single scene with bloodshed yet!" That episode more than made up for it.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": The movies is the first time something related to the original series will be released in Mexico, since the TV series was not released there, albeit it seems the movies' release there are in Development Hell, due to possible legal reasons.^note Very possibly because, due to Mexican laws, animated films must include a dub. Since Aniplex doesn't plan to include one, this is possibly the reason the movies' debut in Mexico are stalled. Contrast with the Mexican release of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, who also doesn't include a dub, but the Mexican distributors managed to avoid this problem by showing the films as art films and as such, they don't need to be dubbed. Subverted later, as the TV series is now streamed, albeit sub-only, on Netflix in Latin America.
• Meaningful Release Date: The last two episodes were released on Good Friday, and in the finale Madoka sacrifices her existence to become a god and save the souls of all the witches. It wasn't even intentional: it was because of the March 2011 tsunami in Japan which pushed back the final two episodes.
• Newbie Boom: Caused one for the Magical Girl genre.
• No Export for You: The series never gained an Arabic dub as this is one of over 100 Magical Girl Warrior anime barred from Arabic-speaking countries. (UAE excluded, but only English dub is available and open only to expatriates.)
• The Other Marty: For the English dub, Carrie Keranen has said that the actress originally cast as Mami was released after she'd already started recording dialogue. Keranen was cast only because she happened to be recording another show in the same studio and agreed to audition without prior notice (which explains why she was in the dark about her character's fate).
• Playing Against Type: Ai Nonaka is normally cast to play cutesy characters and nice girls... but here, she plays Kyoko, who is very rough around the edges.
• Referenced by...:
  • The character designer for Drakengard 3 was told to keep Puella Magi Madoka Magica in mind while designing the Intoners. Speaking of, Chiwa Saitō voices both Homura and Two in the Japanese dub, and Cristina Valenzuela voices both Homura and Four in the English dub.
  • Sleepless Domain: This page's Alt Text references Mami Tomoe's infamous death, which Undine has narrowly avoided a repeat of by saving her friend Kokoro's life.
  "Only one Mami'ing allowed per comic."
  • And Shine Heaven Now: Homura, Mami, and Sayaka are among the magical girls that beat Incognito back to hell. Later, Madoka is held up as an example of someone who saved the day by changing the rules of the game, and finding a more elegant solution than just 'hitting it harder'...before noting that Integra just decided to 'hit it harder'.
  • Jules from Euphoria is a fan of Madoka Magica. She has official Homura/Madoka art as her phone wallpaper.
  • The series finale of Amphibia features Anne ascending to a higher plane of existence the same way Madoka did. Domino is also similar to Kyubey.
  • In PreCure in a Nutshell, all characters named Madoka (Madoka Akimoto, Aguri Madoka, Madoka Kaguya) get renamed "Magica".
• Schedule Slip: After the 2011 Sendai earthquake, SHAFT announced first that episodes 11 and 12 would be delayed a week, then upped that to "will air some time before April is over." Episodes 11 and 12 were eventually scheduled to air together on April 21st. The last volume of the manga adaptation, and the manga spin-off Oriko Magica, have also been delayed. The cut segments of the anime were later revealed, which explains the delay — showing refugees hiding in a school gym, and a collapsed building crushing someone's leg was just a little too close to home after the Sendai disaster in 2011.
• Screwed by the Network: Until April 21, MBS (the station broadcasting Madoka) refused to air the final two episodes, citing the images of destruction in light of the Sendai Earthquake as the reason.
• Shipper on Set: In the audio commentary of the twelfth episode, Chiwa Saito (Homura's voice actress) asked Gen Urobuchi for a love scene between Madoka and Homura if a second season was ever released. Aoi Yuuki (Madoka's voice actress) agreed with a fervent I want to be happy. In the audio commentary of the previous episode, both actresses commented how Homura's confession was very emotional, with Yuuki thinking that Madoka would have accepted Homura's feelings.
• Star-Making Role:
  • For the Japanese version, Madoka served as this for Aoi Yūki.
  • For the English version, Mami and Sayaka served as this for Carrie Keranen and Sarah Anne Williams, respectively.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Word of God has stated Episode 10 was actually cut down in size, and would have originally been 45 minutes long.
  • According to the official guidebook, the original proposal for Madoka had thirteen episodes instead of twelve.
  • As seen here (major spoilers in link), the audio Drama CDs were originally going to be quite different. Even in the final product, a line got cut from the first Drama CD: Madoka shouting "Finitora Freccia", which means Finishing Arrow in Italian.
  • The battle in Episode 11 was noticeably different in the manga version. It turns out that the manga version was based off the original storyboard for the episode (scroll downward to Episode 11).
  • In this interview, Gen Urobuchi mentions having watched HeartCatch Pretty Cure! while writing Madoka, and suggests that if he had finished watching it before writing the script for the final episode of Madoka, he might have written a happier ending.
• Word of God: According to an interview with Urobuchi, Hitomi's wish if Kyubey approached her would be for Kyubey to "disappear immediately".
• Word of Saint Paul: Cast Full of Gay? Or Bait-and-Switch Lesbians? Hanokage, who wrote the manga adaptation and The Different Story, and Ume Aoki, the character designer, would both vote for the former. So would the voice actresses, who joked about their characters shacking up, and the official artists, who live and die by Ship Tease, and arguably Mura Kuroe and Masaki Hiramatsu, who both wrote magical girls as pretty unmistakable lesbians. Gen is basically the only person who hasn't given the idea a straight answer, though he has stated in an interview that Homura's love for Madoka is non-sexual, if perhaps romantic, in nature.
• Write What You Know: Gen Urobuchi based the scene where Sayaka listens to two men ranting about their ex-girlfriends on the train on a real conversation he overheard riding to work one day. He was disturbed enough by their blatant, public misogyny (noting that the two men "spoke in cliches" as if performing for an audience) that he decided to make it a major catalyst for Sayaka's transformation into a witch.

Architecture:

• The Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai) appears in the OP, right before Homura can be seen frowning as she is having higher ground than Madoka. Considering Burj Khalifa is 828m high and is currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, that's one heck of a visual cue.
• The shopping mall Madoka, Sayaka, and Hitomi visited in Episode 1 is a blatant rip-off of the Weltstadthaus. There are actually extremely glass-y buildings in the world!
  • Weltstadthaus means "global-city house". According to The Other Wiki "global city" is defined as a city where happenings in it affects the world (due to the city's economical/strategical/magical importance), i.e. Alexandria in the ancient world or New York in the modern world.

The writings on the wall in Episode 2

• ...are German quotes from Goethe's Faust.

Rune Translations

• The various runes which appear during the fight sequences are actually cryptograms and in German. The translations can be found here.

Ending cards and their respective artists:

• The first one◊ is by Hanokage, the author of the manga adaptation.
• The second◊ is by Hikawa Hekiru, of Pani Poni Dash! fame. (And inexplicably includes a Mad Max reference.)
• The third◊ is by Santa Tsuji, a professional ero-ren'ai game artist from nitro+ (same as Gen Urobuchi).
• The fourth◊ is by Jin Kobayashi, author of School Rumble.
• The fifth◊ is by Yuupon from Nitro+Chiral, the BL branch of nitro+, who is the artist planned for the novelization of Madoka Magica.
• The sixth◊ is by Hajime Ueda, who created the FLCL manga and the art for one of the Bakemonogatari endings, among others. A touch of Fridge Horror: The girls are all solid black, with their Soul Gems the only thing being illuminated. They also form the Kanji for death◊ when flipped 180 degrees.
• The seventh◊ is by Takashi Tensugi, the artist for the Puella Magi Kazumi Magica spinoff manga.
• The eighth◊ is by Fujima Takuya, the artist behind Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid.
  • For comparison, here's ViVid volume 2 cover◊. Yeah, Madoka is Vivio and Homura is Einhart.
• The ninth◊ is by Namaniku ATK, the main artist for the nitro+ Visual Novel Full Metal Daemon Muramasa.
• The tenth◊ is by Kuroe Mura, the artist for the Puella Magi Oriko Magica spinoff manga.
• The eleventh◊ is by Buriki, the character illustrator of Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl.
• The twelfth and final end card◊ is by Ume Aoki herself, thanking the viewers (in English) for watching.

The rest of the trivia...

• Is here at the Madoka wiki.
  • The Cyrus Hamlin one gets special mention for being particularly creepy. A case of maybe meta-Editor Existence Failure?
• Both Aoi Yūki and Emiri Katou (who voice Madoka and Kyubey respectively) apparently love the Magical Girl genre, and were excited to be in this anime. According to Gen Urobuchi, they didn't take the plot very well. Ume Aoki seemed to suffer a mild Heroic BSoD when she learned the plot of Episode 3 too.

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