is the main protagonist of the 2011 Japanese anime television series Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Madoka is a kind and gentle girl who initially lives a normal and happy life, but is suddenly faced with the decision of becoming a magical girl. She aspires to become a magical girl after witnessing her senior Mami Tomoe fighting against surreal monsters known as witches in order to protect people. In Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, Madoka appears as a magical girl and joins her friends in fighting new monsters known as nightmares. She appears in most Puella Magi Madoka Magica related-media, including manga, novels and video games. Madoka Kaname is voiced by Aoi Yūki in Japanese, and Christine Marie Cabanos in English.
In developing the character, writer Gen Urobuchi imagined the series' protagonist would be a girl with a "cheerful and idealistic" personality, in contrast to his usual writing style. Madoka was designed by Ume Aoki, who used the character Yuno from her manga Hidamari Sketch as a base. Although her theme color was intended to be white, it later was changed to pink. Aoki also noted the difficulty of drawing Madoka due to her double ponytail hair.
Madoka has ranked highly in various polls, placing second in the Best Female Category at the 1st Newtype Anime Awards in 2011, as well ranking seventh in a top 10 anime heroines poll conducted by NHK in 2013. Her character has been well received by fans and critics, with reviewers praising her character transformation and resonance with the series' other characters, particularly her relationship with Homura Akemi.
Creation and development In the initial planning meeting of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica franchise, which began as a 2011 anime television series, writer Gen Urobuchi imagined that the heroine of the series would be a girl with a "cheerful and idealistic" personality. Madoka is an unusual character for Urobuchi's writing style, and fits more closely to character designer Ume Aoki's worldview. In order to incorporate a "foreign character that did not exist inside [himself]," Urobuchi wrote the initial script as if Yuno, the main character of Aoki's manga series Hidamari Sketch, was the protagonist. During this phase, Urobuchi even intended Kana Asumi to take on the voice acting role for Madoka. The personality of Madoka was specifically designed as an "Ume Aoki character", while other characters of the cast, such as Homura Akemi and Sayaka Miki, are more typical for Urobuchi's style. Urobuchi said that in the beginning, there was an idea to write the story as "Homura strives to save Madoka", therefore, he created the characteristics of Madoka and Homura as a contrast to each other. Madoka's birthday, October 3, was chosen as it was the file creation date of the series' initial project proposal.
Design
Madoka was designed by Ume Aoki, who initially used the protagonist of her manga Hidamari Sketch, Yuno, as a prototype to design Madoka; she created Madoka's design after exaggerating part of its image. Although Madoka's theme color was initially intended to be white as suggested by Urobuchi in the series' draft, Aoki forgot this when designing the character, and changed the main color of Madoka to pink. Aoki said that in terms of character design, drawing Madoka was more difficult than Sayaka Miki and Kyoko Sakura, particularly because of the double ponytail design of Madoka's hair, stating that once the size and painting of the ponytail are different, "it looks like a completely different role". Another difference with other magical girls is that in the story, when Madoka transforms into her magical girl outfit, is the result of the appearance of the magical girl in her dream. For this reason, the dress design especially added ruffles and several decorative elements. Overall, Aoki incorporated fairy tale elements and designed a very "cute" magical girl costume. However, Aoki also stated that Madoka's dress is not suitable for fighting.
After seeing the character design, the president of the series' animation studio SHAFT, Mitsutoshi Kubota, thought that it was a good that the production team got in touch with a new style, but it also brought challenges to the animation production. Recalling this, Aoki did not expect that her style would be adapted directly, although it could bring the feeling of the character Madoka. In addition, the animation production team also tried to avoid some exaggerated expressions, such as broken clothes, huge sweat beads or emoticons.
Her Ultimate Magical girl form, was also designed by Aoki. She designed her costume based on white theme color and cherry blossoms, and designed her hair to be longer and her eyes to change from pink to gold, suggesting Madoka's new form of magical girl. Ultimate Madoka's form has been described as "the ultimate form that has undergone a super evolution by fighting infinite space-time"; according to the Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Beginning Story guidebook, the form was originally called "Hyper Ultimate Madoka" in the series draft, but was later changed to "Ultimate Madoka".
Voice actresses Madoka is portrayed in Japanese by Aoi Yūki. In an interview with Animate, Yūki reminisced about the series' early production and how she aimed to do her best in playing the role. She also felt from the start that the series would be one that would be enjoyed by many people.
In the English dub of Madoka Magica, she is portrayed by Christine Marie Cabanos. During the recording process, Cabanos had trouble not overthinking her role, but she learned to "let go" as the dubbing process continued.
Appearances In Puella Magi Madoka Magica Madoka is a kind and gentle girl who comes from a loving family. A second-year at middle school, her life changes when she encounters the messenger of magic, Kyubey, who offers to transform her into a magical girl. She sees herself as a person without special qualities or talents, and after seeing her schoolmate Mami Tomoe fighting against witches, aspires to become a magical girl like her. Averse to fighting, she hopes that the magical girls will support each other, sometimes even putting her own life at risk to help them, and is distressed by the infighting they often engage in. 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. Kyubey claims that Madoka has an impossibly large amount of potential for magic, going so far as to claim that she could become the savior of all the magical girls. 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 her classmate Homura Akemi repeatedly resetting time, with Madoka's fate getting worse with each timeline, making her magic power grow exponentially with each reset.
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 all life on Earth in order to create a paradise where there is no free will or individuality to cause strife or conflict. In the first timeline, she still possesses a high amount of power, being able to defeat , 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 , 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 . 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 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 almost regains her memories at the last second and her final conversation with Homura implies that it is only a matter of time before Madoka merges with her self once more and must face her friend in battle.
Madoka will return in Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie - Walpurgisnacht: Rising.
Appearances in other media A drama CD written by Gen Urobuchi that explores other aspects of Madoka's life was released along with the anime series' Blu-ray disc.
Being the protagonist of the franchise, Madoka has almost always appeared in all manga related to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. She is a supporting character in the manga spin-off Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Different Story, with her role being very much the same as that in the anime series. Madoka also briefly appears in Puella Magi Oriko Magica, in which she gets killed by the main character of the manga Oriko Mikune. Madoka also appears in a spin-off manga Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura's Revenge, that takes place in an alternate universe story where Madoka joined Homura in her time traveling, and in another manga, Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Wraith Arc, that takes place between the second film Eternal and the third film Rebellion. Additionally, Madoka appears in a novel adaptation of the original series written by Hajime Ninomae, illustrated by Yūpon and published by Nitroplus, as well as appearing in a manga adaptation of the anime series, written and illustrated by Honakogae, and published by Houbunsha.
Madoka is a playable character in most Puella Magi Madoka Magica video games, such as the PlayStation Portable action video game developed by Namco Bandai Games, Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable (2012), and the PlayStation Vita titled Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Battle Pentagram (2013). She also appears in several pachinko games related to the series, including Slot Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2013), Slot Puella Magi Madoka Magica 2 (2016), CR Pachinko Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2017), SLOT Puella Magi Madoka Magica A (2017), and the 2019 Slot Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion.
Madoka is also a playable character in numerous games outside the Puella Magi Madoka Magica video games, such as Chain Chronicle, Million Arthur, and the rhythm game Girl Friend Note. Both Madoka and her Ultimate form also appear in the mobile game Puyo Puyo Quest. Madoka's magical girl costume appears as an alternative for the character Elize Lutus from Tales of Xillia 2, though Madoka herself does not appear. Her costume and weapons also appear in the game Phantasy Star Online 2, as well as the PSP game Gods Eater Burst, being available as downloadable content (DLC).
Madoka has also been made as a downloadable playable fighter in the engine fighting game M.U.G.E.N. Different versions of the character have been made.
Cultural impact Popularity