Kyubey

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Kyuubee
Japanese Name	キュゥべえ (Kyuubee)
Seiyū	Emiri Katou

Kyuubey is a "Messenger of Magic" (魔法の使者, mahou no shisha) who grants the wishes of young girls, but in exchange contracts their services as Puella Magi (魔法少女, mahou shoujo, lit. Magical Girls). Girls who form a contract with him are tasked to defeat Witches -- bizarre entities that feed upon the hopes and dreams of normal people. Kyuubey features prominently as a character within the anime series of Madoka Magica.

Trivia

• People still argue as to how to write is name. Is it Kyubey or Kyuubey?
  • His name is written in both Hiragana and Katakana as キュ(kyu)ゥ(u)べ(be)え(e), so Kyuubee or Kyuubey would be most accurate as a romanization.
  • On the other hand, the fifth commercial has his name romanized as "Kyubey", which resulted in controversy.
  • Urobuchi Gen joked that the "Kyu" comes from the katakana of the English word Cute so it could also be Cubey.
  • Episode 8 suggests that his name comes from 'Incubator', which would be romanized as 'inkyubeetaa.' In the same episode, it is revealed that he has multiple replacements.
    • During Kyubey's dialogues in episode 9, he keeps saying "we", meaning that he isn't the only Incubator.
  • Some fans of 2ch have taken to assigning the kanji 「九兵衛」 (Kyūbē, lit. nine protector soldiers or nine warriors in defense) to his name, speculating that like Doraemon (whose name can be written as 「銅鑼衛門」), Kyuubey's naming might have been inspired by old Samurai dramas.
  • 'QB' is short for 'Kyuubey' in Niconico Douga. This name is also common on 2ch.
• Kyubey claims that he turns girls into magical girls (and thus eventually into witches) to keep a surplus of usable energy in the universe. He explains that through entropy, energy is gradually lost and the energy formed by the emotions of magical girls restocks that energy. However, this may be a ruse formed to encourage Madoka into becoming a very powerful magical girl, and thus a very powerful witch.

Speculations

• When Kyubey get shot by Homura in Episode 8, another one appears and eat the dead body. It could either be another instance of 'Kyubey' (as expected in some speculations), or the same Kyubey that respawned. After all, cats are supposed to have 9 lives, so what about him?
  • Kyubey said that he has plenty of spares.
• Many fans believe Kyuubey is evil and believe he/she should not be trusted.
• According to the same theory, it is likely that Kyuubey is the messenger of a greater entity that has its own agenda.
• Some think Kyubey's real form is that of a red devil and his/her white fur acts as a cover as indicated by tears rather than bleeding in Episode 1.
  • Additionally, when he gets shot full of holes in Episode 8 there are small drops that appear to be blood, but they do not spread out after he is hit. He also appears to have no bones or organs.
  • Gen Urobuchi's tweet "Yeah, that's terrible! We still haven't shown even a single scene with bloodshed!" (まだ今んとこ流血シーンなんてないのに、ひどいよね！) may refer to the fact that Kyuubey doesn't bleed.

Gallery

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  He stares into your soul.

• Pmmmk l.jpg

  Original character design by Aoki Ume

• Incubator.jpg

  Shot full of holes

• Kyubee name.jpg

  Offical site HTML show "Kyubee"

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  Offical CM show "Kyubey"

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  Kyubey being Kyubey.

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  Great taste, less filling

External links

• Kyubey at Pixiv image repository (Japanese)
• Kyubey at Danbooru image repository (NSFW)