Puella Magi Madoka Magica Official Guidebook "You Are Not Alone"

Summary

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Official Guidebook "You Are Not Alone", a compilation on a wide variety of information on Madoka Magica, was released on August 27th, 2011. The table of contents reveals these categories of information: Illustrations, Episode and Characters, Cast Interviews, Materials, and Staff Interviews.

A look at the sample pages from the Guidebook reveals it contains a wide range of information, including:

Prior illustrations from magazines and other sources
Episodic coverage and character pages including commentary
Staff Interviews with cast members
After-recording report comic reported and illustrated by hanokage, author of the Madoka Magica manga.
Design, sketches and other production-related material similar to Production Note or Art Book
Staff Interviews with many staff members
Staff behind-the-scenes discussion
Early character designs of initial concepts

Translations

Staff Discussion

Translation courtesy of symbv from evageeks forum.

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Akiyuki Shinbo: Major works include Bakemonogatari, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, Hidamari Sketch, Arakawa under the Bridge (all as director)
Gen Urobuchi: Works for Nitroplus. Involved in the screenplay writing for many games from this company. Major anime works include Blassreiter (series composition), Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (screenplay)
Ume Aoki: Manga artist. Her manga Hidamari Sketch is being serialized in Manga Time Kirara Carat.
Mitsutoshi Kubota: Chief Executive Officer of SHAFT. He also worked as Animation Producer in Shaft works like Bakemonogatari, Hidamari Sketch etc.
Atsuhiro Iwakami: Works for Aniplex. Involved in anime works like Bakemonogatari, Kara no Kyokai, Hidamari Sketch, Ore no Imo ga konnani kawaii wake ga nai.

LOOKING BACK FROM NOW AT THE INITIAL COMPOSITON PROPOSAL

I heard that the project "Madoka Magica" started from some chats with Director Shinbo saying "I want to do a mahou shoujo anime".

SHINBO: I cannot remember such a thing at all. When I asked later "Um? Didn't Iwakami-san first mention it?" and I was told "No, that's not the case." (LOL)

IWAKAMI: It's not like you assertively said "I want to do Mahou Shoujo!!". It was with nuance, like "For the mahou shoujo format, there should still be possibilities."

KUBOTA: Surely it must have been around 2008.

IWAKAMI: And then we had some talks about talking to Urobuchi-san and Ume-sensei about joining [the project]. I think it took place unexpectedly quickly, so much that I could not remember the process.

When did all of you first gather together?

IWAKAMI: According to the material from that time and the mail history, the first meeting was held in October 2008.

AOKI: It was at that time that I first met Urobuchi-san. I remember thinking, "Oh, he is a person who takes memos with a PC." (LOL)

IWAKAMI: There we threw in and exchanged many ideas, and then I gathered and summarized them (cf p.124).

UROBUCHI: In particular I did not prepare in advance any idea. I just said one after another what I came up right at that place. And when I did that, almost everything I said were accepted with "This is good." "Let's do that." Then I got worried as I thought "Oh no. I will have to turn everything I've just said into plot lines myself." (LOL)

How many times did you repeat this kind of discussion?

KUBOTA: No, only once at the very beginning. Urobuchi-san summarized everything into a composition proposal before our next chance to meet.

UROBUCHI: I came up with a rough structure of around 3 stages: I will show the beginning of the story like this; and next these details of the truth will be revealed; and last that truth will be revealed. And then I divided them further and made it into a composition proposal for one cour. However at that stage, the flow from ep. 6 to around ep. 8 was still a bit tricky. When I look back from now, ep. 9 was really bad!

AOKI: That's right. [You were saying] "I am going to put Sayaka decisively into despair." (LOL)

UROBUCHI: The idea that I came up with anyways was to bully Sayaka (LOL). At that moment, the thinking for Sayaka falling into despair was that it was not due to Hitomi. For that, it was a part that got inserted at the stage when the screenplay was written.

I heard the composition proposal had 13 episodes altogether?

IWAKAMI: I went to talk [to Urobuchi] and said "Could we make it into 12 episodes?" I had this thought of packaging the series into 6 volumes with 2 episodes in each volume.

KUBOTA: Although the number of episodes was cut, basically the flow did not change. That Mami got killed in ep. 3 was not changed either.

SHINBO: I see. So the reason [you] did not show that much shock when you read the screenplay for ep. 3 was because you had already read the composition proposal.

AOKI: Or perhaps in text it was not that shocking...

SHINBO: If it were 2 cours a different flow might have been used instead. I would like to do another version in which I could show how the development could be like if the length were 2 cours.

UROBUCHI: I guess if there are that number of episodes, [the story] would have to be quite different if we do not put regular daily life scenes in between, like in the episode after Mami died, out of a sudden and without much coherence everyone went to the hot spring (LOL). And once they arrived the waitress in the ryokan somehow looks like Mami....

IWAKAMI: There are things that I'd like to draw out if there was enough room, but I think the speedy pace we have now is also good. Right from the beginning, with 1 cour, I had the image that I was going to a roller-coaster movie that was Urobuchi-like.

TEMPORARY TITLE WAS "MAHOU SHOUJO APOCALYPSE"

AOKI: Later when I re-watched it again from ep. 1, I got the impression that the heroine kept changing from one to another. From ep. 4 it was about Sayaka and Kyoko, and as it got near the final stage, Homura started to get more noticeable. And finally Madoka became a proper protagonist on her own.

IWAKAMI: To be honest, regarding the characters, at the time when I read the screenplay I could not read this far. It is indeed something like an omnibus, where there is Mami chapter, Sayaka chapter, Kyoko chapter etc. In one sense it was a composition like Bakemonogatari in which the appeal of the heroines was highlighted by turn. And I thought, oh so it was how it became and it made so much sense.

By the way, why did you make the girls including Madoka, the protagonist, junior high students?

IWAKAMI: A primary school student, if you think in 3D, gives an impression of a child actor instead of an idol. I think that if they are junior high students, they will be recognized as idols and thus may get more people to watch. So before Urobuchi-san finished the plot, I had a talk (with him) saying, as a prerequisite, "Let's use junior high students as mahou shoujo".

Episode Commentaries

EP. 1 - WE MET IN A DREAM...IT SEEMS

KUBOTA: During dubbing, at the point when the sound effect and BGM were put in, I got the feel (about the anime). Perhaps it was the combination of sound and images. With music from (Yuki) Kajiura-san synchronized to the visual images by Inu-Curry-san, I had the tactile feeling of what kind of anime it would become.

UROBUCHI: In terms of degree of shock, perhaps ep. 1 is the biggest. I thought, (ep. 1) being like this, there should be no need to play innocence since at the point of avant (pretitle) one can already see it is an ominous anime. (LOL) You see, the Inu-Curry monster was running on a rampage with that BGM. Also Part B, from the scene where Madoka got lost in the bewitched space made by a witch until the Mami fight scene, was amazing.

AOKI: I was also surprised, that in ep. 1 the mood of the anime could be thrust out to such extent.

IWAKAMI: However looking at the reactions after the broadcast of ep. 3, I think it managed to mislead (the audience) quite successfully.

UROBUCHI: No no... I thought if more carnage were there it could cheat (people more)..... Come to think of it, in the screenplay there was the description that, in the avant [pretitle], next to Madoka, who is about to make contract, the bodies of Mami and Kyoko are shown.

SHINBO: Although at first the direction of our thinking was to make use of it, but since we had not yet been able to see what mood the series would take on, we were cautious (about it). Besides there were viewers who would try to make predictions according to the fact that Urobuchi-san wrote the screenplay, we concluded it was better not to use that. Later when I thought about it, I believed it was a correct decision not to use it.

IWAKAMI: The ribbon in ep. 1 also became the key item in ep. 12. Did you plan to use that as the hidden plot device to be deployed at the end right from the beginning?

UROBUCHI: No, not at all (LOL). It was just something that I put in anyways when I had difficulty coming up with the dialogues between Madoka and her mother, as something that could be used in a plot device later. Since it got really good use in ep. 12, I thought "so the way is to put in many things in advance." (LOL)

SHINBO: For the ribbon, I have some regrets from a directing point of view. When Madoka held out two ribbons and asked "which ribbon I wonder?" it would be better to have another ribbon with even more flamboyant color beside her and her mother picked that one instead. With that the characters of both Madoka and her mother would have come out clearer....

UROBUCHI: I see. Doing that would be interesting.

SHINBO: Yeah. Among the students only one had a name - Nakazawa-kun. How come?

UROBUCHI: That is for the roll-call by the teacher and there is no particularly deep meaning. But since I have given him a name after all, I had him appeared again in ep. 7 (LOL)

EP. 2 - THAT WOULD BE REALLY WONDERFUL...

UROBUCHI: It is an episode for explaining the world in this anime, including the settings design [settei]. The amount of information is a lot.

SHINBO: Ep. 1 for impact, and Ep. 2 the follow-up. I think it is similar to the composition of standard anime work. However, since Kyubey's explanation is so interesting, it does not look boring.

IWAKAMI: The way cutback was used in Part A is interesting.

UROBUCHI: It was a complicated composition with flashback first and then back to exposition, then again flashback, and exposition....

IWAKAMI: And then there is the Madoka's notebook. That part was also used again at the end, just like the ribbon in Ep. 1. People who watch it the second time can have another moving experience.

SHINBO: Since the notebook will show up again later like you said, in order to give a deeper impression I had Aoki-san drew the front cover.

UROBUCHI: So there are such twists and turns behind that notebook... There is also how good Madoka's drawings are, or how bad they are. And what kind of thing a fantasy notebook from an actual junior high student is like...

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UROBUCHI: And besides, I really do not want to be put into the spot of having to impose my decision of letting live or killing off primary school students (LOL)

How did you decide the title of the anime?

UROBUCHI: At the beginning, I just put the temporary title myself. I think it was "Mahou Shoujo Apocalpyse Madoka Magica" for sure.

IWAKAMI: The name "Madoka Magica" stayed as the temporary title for some time, and as an unofficial name it stayed as the project made its progress. When 2010 came, we had the discussion about its official title.

UROBUCHI: And by then everyone was so used to the temporary title that (the discussion) came down to "Let's keep it like this." But there was also "obviously the Apocalypse got to go." (LOL) Come to think of it, there was also the idea of not having "Mahou Shoujo" and only go with "Madoka Magica."

SHINBO: But for me, I believe in the title the words "Mahou Shoujo" is absolutely necessary. To the extent that if it is not there, there is no meaning (for me) to do (the anime). On that I did not budge.

THE SCREENPLAY WAS ALMOST THE SAME AS THE FIRST DRAFT

How long did the writing of the screenplay take?

UROBUCHI: It went from the end of 2008 to the end of 2009. Since there were other works going in parallel in that period, I went full gear and came up with one episode every month. And I did not talk anything about what would happen later, just saying things like "Just wait for the next issue!". (LOL)

IWAKAMI: It's just that even though the screenplay was being done, there was not much chance to discuss it. As at the stage of the first draft, it was already interesting.

SHINBO: There was almost nothing that I would want to ask for changes.

UROBUCHI: Up till then, for me the work reality was that it was only natural to have only 30% of the screenplay I wrote remain and the other 70% would be crushed away and had to be redone. So every time I was tilting my head, I was thinking "Is it really going to be alright just to keep it like this?" (LOL) Besides, I had the complex of being an absolute amateur when it came to writing for anime, and this got me even more worried.

SHINBO: Different people may think differently, but to me even if there are some places that may get stuck, it is still better to have the momentum. Therefore, I think the small details can be left at the end to consider.

IWAKAMI: When I read it, even though I thought it may need a few adjustments, it was interesting. And that was important. I would rather it run until the final episode than it being filled up with (things that go like), "In here it will be like this" using some deduction point system.

UROBUCHI: The contradictions that were not pointed out during the screenplay meetings were later noticed by (Yukihiro) Miyamoto-san.

SHINBO: And also editor (Rie) Matsuhara-san. Unlike us who read the story one episode at a time, they read everything in one go and from that viewpoint they pointed out issues, and I am thankful for that.

How about using actual dialogues in the episode subtitles?

UROBUCHI: That was because we were lazy (LOL)

AOKI: What! Is that so? (LOL)

UROBUCHI: I thought I would just put it there anyway first and then later I would give it more thought.... But it just stayed as it is.

SHINBO: For once we indeed talked about what we should do with the subtitles, but I think at the end we decided to stick to Urobuchi-san's idea. I think it was good that they were not changed.

AOKI: In the trailer for the next episode, just by seeing the subtitle people can get excited by guessing what kind of scene in the next episode would contain that dialogue.

BEFORE THE COMPLETION OF THE ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN

To continue, I would like to ask Aoki-sensei about what happened before all the original character designs took shape. (cf. p. 125-127)

AOKI: The first draft... it was October 2008. That draft was not changed much in the final draft...but between the two drafts, I got lost in the 2nd draft. The period when I did the 2nd draft, I really had my head in my arms.

SHINBO: But for all of us, the feeling at the stage of the first draft was "This is good. As expected from Aoki-san."

AOKI: But it was worry on my side (LOL) Ah, Kyubey was first proposed in the 2nd draft and I just wanted to draw it cute, really cute! (LOL). The basic details are the same as the final draft, but I wanted to bring out the "cosmic feeling" in the ear-ring part. Made them somehow float in space. But at that time over all, it was a period when I was in a "I just do not understand" state, or when I didn't know what and how I should do it. When I looked back at the first draft, I thought "What was I doing there?" (LOL)

IWAKAMI: Truly our opinion was "it is wonderful" right from the beginning. Also Ume-sensei's design of the school uniform of the girls is good. It is the same in Hidamari Sketch. Here the uniform designed by Ume-sensei can be manifested in 3D and it is a costume that is ready for cosplay. Did you do it with that in mind?

AOKI: I did not really create it for cosplay but to some extent I thought about its structure like where a zipper is to be attached on the uniform.

And in the final draft of the design, Hitomi and Kyosuke were also there...

AOKI: Hitomi was not changed much in the final draft. As Kyosuke is the only boy, it was fun drawing him.

IWAKAMI: I surely got the feeling that Kyosuke drawn by Ume-sensei really had a quite a bit of spirit put in, and that she seemed to have fun drawing him. (LOL)

How about the mahou shoujo costumes?

AOKI: For Madoka's costume, I started from the base design (settei) that it was "something designed by Madoka." As for Mami-san, Sayaka and Homura, I designed with the image of their weapons. Kyoko is the last character I designed, and the idea of her did not come from her weapon, but with the thought to distinguish her from other characters.

UROBUCHI: Since the idea is that Kyoko is a character who moves a lot, so when I received the costume design (Kyoko's) long dress was not what I expected.

AOKI: Perhaps I made it look too heavy (LOL)

UROBUCHI: No, when (the dress) moves it looks cool. There is also the thrill (I got) from kung-fu movies.

SHINBO: It's just that I think it would be good to have some ornaments on Sayaka's head... Even now I still think the same.

AOKI: Oh yes, since after transformation Sayaka lost her hairpins, I tried to put some ornaments on that place. I thought, for one Mami already has it from the beginning, and then Madoka has her ribbons, so I tried to match something for her. But if I put an Alice band (headband), then it does not look so much like an accessory and starts to get an image of a functional gadget. And then I tried to put things like stars or mysterious-looking spheres... But in serious fight scenes, the playful elements after transformation never fit well no matter how much you looked at it, so at the end I took it away. However, it is true that compared with other girls she indeed looks a bit plain. Poor little girl....

Episode Commentaries

Episode 2 (continued)

AOKI: When I first drew it, I thought Madoka would have drawn it even more badly. And so I really drew it very ugly..... I was told "this is way too ugly" (LOL) and "please go a bit more towards something that we can draw".

IWAKAMI: If you ask someone who does not know about the background, the words "this is way too ugly" would be really harsh words for Ume-sensei (LOL). And using the pictures that Ume-sensei drew in the style of a junior high student as reference, we got Yuuki-san, who acted Madoka, to draw them inside the notebook.

SHINBO: Actually Yuuki-san's drawings are even better than that. But since they are drawings by Madoka, she deliberately drew them badly. We got just the right amount of realism.

UROBUCHI: By the way, since the setting [settei] is that they are the drawings of mahou shoujo that Madoka had seen by that time, Sayaka was not drawn there. I am definitely not trying to exclude her from the group (LOL). On the contrary if Sayaka was drawn there it would become a contradiction.

SHINBO: I guessed at the early stage of the series, in both ep. 1 and ep. 2, the viewers would probably think "When will Madoka transform?" Around those episodes I got quite excited.

UROBUCHI: It is still not yet the stage where they realize that in fact the point is she must not transform.

EP. 3 -- I'M NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING ANYMORE

AOKI: The first time I intruded into the dubbing operation was this ep. 3. Moreover it was precisely at the scene where Mami got eaten. Since it had to be rewound many times to repeat the checking, I came in and suddenly I had to watch the "GabuGabu Puraaan" [sound effect] scene many times (LOL). Seeing it in images, those are very shocking scenes. It was scary.

IWAKAMI: To be honest, I was also a bit scared, about how the fans would react after watching ep. 3. I thought there might be people who would think such a development is interesting, but there might be quite a number of people who would flinch and leave.

UROBUCHI: When I wrote it, I thought people would be clearly divided into those who love it and those who dislike it. I got worried I might be stabbed by some "Hidamari" fans. (LOL) My friends told me something like "You had better watch the date and disappear from twitter. Conceal yourself until the storm dies down." (LOL) So I was prepared. Unexpectedly, that kind of reaction did not happen.

SHINBO: Even the witch in ep. 3 did not get hated. In fact she got quite popular, so much so that she had her own merchandise.

UROBUCHI: That is some good job Inu-Curry-san did. Of all things, they designed the most cruel witch to look the cutest.

AOKI: Indeed she looks very cute.

UROBUCHI: The element of surprise worked.

SHINBO: I think many things in ep. 3 belong to the well-done side. However, I had a bit of regret over the scene at the beginning where Mami was in the limelight. It was cut due to the episode length time limit.

EP. 4 - BOTH MIRACLES AND MAGIC EXIST

UROBUCHI: My thinking is that, after ep. 3, since those who found it not to their taste would have already stopped watching and so only those who still had anticipation would remain and kept watching. Perhaps I can call it a certain type of me being defiant.

SHINBO: I was worried about being asked why Madoka could still eat breakfast the next day after seeing that kind of thing. I was relieved when such an attack about that part did not materialize. (LOL)

UROBUCHI: And from around this time, Kyubey began to stop hiding its evilness.

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SHINBO: I thought that perhaps it is better to go without anything and keep it simple, and I got the design done in such a style, but as the story progressed I thought, "at the end it is still better to have something (on her head)."

UROBUCHI: But I feel the cloak is quite some style though.

IWAKAMI: For the weapons of the mahou shoujo, at first the plan was to have Ume-sensei design them but at the end the decision was to have the anime production side to do the design.

UROBUCHI: That said, the pictures used for the initial notification were drawn by Aoki-san. The weapon design in those pictures were inherited in the anime.

AOKI: Homura's bow and Mami-san's gun were picked up from the designs I did. Madoka's bow was used in the cover art of the single Magia.

CHARACTERS IN "MADOKA MAGICA" ARE SIMILAR TO CHARACTERS IN "HIDAMARI"?

UROBUCHI: Before I saw the original character design by Aoki-san, the character image I had in my head was that of "Hidamari." I imagined by making replacements like Madoka becoming Yuno, Mami becoming Hiro-san... And so every time a character design is done I was relieved, thinking "Good, it is becoming an anime different from 'Hidamari!" (LOL)

SHINBO: Come to think of it, Mami is a onesan (elderly sister) character and there are some overlaps with the image of Hiro. If that's the case, Mami may also need to pay attention her weight (LOL).

UROBUCHI: No no... there is no such setting (settei) for Mami (LOL).

SHINBO: For one thing it seems easy to become a talking point - her position is the same as Hiro I guess. (LOL)

AOKI: And she also makes cakes. (LOL)

SHINBO: It is interesting that although they are different characters, there is such a coincidence.

UROBUCHI: In that sense, in fact I was most worried about Kyoko. I have never seen such a kind of girl who projects the image of a runaway child in Aoki-san's world.

AOKI: Indeed it seems so. Well what did you feel when you first saw Kyoko then?

UROBUCHI: Ugh well, when I saw the expression that could never have come from a Hidamari character, I gave it my OK.

AOKI: When you were writing the screenplay, did you find it hard to match Kyoko with a Hidamari character?

UROBUCHI: It was extremely hard to match. And so Kyoko almost became speaking in Hiroshima dialect just like the movie Battles Without Honor and Humanity (LOL). But at first I imagined the image color for Kyoko to be yellow instead of red. If anything this overlaps with Miyako...

AOKI: Do you think it was good that I made changes to the image color of the characters used in your proposal?

UROBUCHI: I think the result was good. Now I just cannot imagine a red Mami, you see.

KUBOTA: Looking back from now, it is also interesting to see that in the first draft the hair style of Sayaka was different.

AOKI: Ahh... I was really lost..(LOL)

And then based on the final draft material, Takahiro Kishida-san produced the character design, what did you think of it?

AOKI: I was glad that they grasped the details down to many small points. The use of double border lines also seems to have come from certain impressions of my pictures.

KUBOTA: That came as an overall decision as after checking many pictures and works by Aoki-san, we thought this touch style would be good. It was a challenge during the sakuga (animation) process.

AOKI: That drawing style is not commonly seen in the anime. I also did not think the oblique line of sight would be kept in use without change. Those eyes were even faithfully recreated in Nendroids. Perhaps doing that can bring out the feel of "Madoka Magica."

KUBOTA: But at the beginning that touch style did not really permeate much among the animators.

SHINBO: My feeling is that at around ep. 9 or ep. 10, the pictures finally came together (in unified style).

THE WORLD AS CREATED BY GEKIDAN INU-CURRY

Gekidan Inu-Curry-san is the staff that was the key of "Madoka Magica".

AOKI: This happened when we had the screenplay meeting. After the meeting that day, we were on our move to a drinking place, and the director said, "I think the witches should not have a conventional witch look. Even if they take a look of geometrical forms, it would be better.". And then, "I am thinking of asking Inu-Curry-san. They helped us on "Zetsubou Sensei" and "MariHolic". At that moment I felt the "Director is having some vision!" That was very impressive.

And after asking Inu-Curry-san, what kind of talks took place?

KUBOTA: There was discussions regarding Art Design (settei) that involved Inu-Curry-san. Looking at the minutes from that meeting (cf p.124), Shinbo-san said "'Madoka Magica' should be a work that is on the extension line of 'Le Portrait de Petit Cossette' and has a different image from 'Lyrical Nanoha.'"

SHINBO: Did I say something like that?? .....Hmm? But indeed it was written here.

The reactions from Inu-Curry-san at that time?

KUBOTA: Inu-Curry-san had read the scenario in advance, and after that we had talks bouncing ideas to fine-tune the images we got. So although they are quiet people, they understood things without difficulty.

UROBUCHI: Inu-Curry-san themselves may be quiet, but they are very talkative about the stuff they came up with.

KUBOTA: They also have the stubbornness of absolutely not yielding to the worldview in which they thoroughly built in the images for settei (base design). Besides as creators, they do not compromise at all. As the production progressed, the weight of the part for Inu-Curry-san got bigger and bigger, I got quite worried about what to do if the time came when things could not be processed by just them.

SHINBO: Even in the retake for BD and DVD, just the parts of Inu-Curry-san got quite big.

KUBOTA: If given time, they will just keep coming up with good stuff.

SHINBO: (Yuki) Kajiura-san, who did the music, gave high praises for the bewitched space in ep. 9 and said it was wonderful. But even now I cannot let them hear it. You know, if I tell them, I don't know how far they will lay their hands on the retake (LOL). As we have raised the hurdle by ourselves, I plan to tell them after all the work is done (LOL).

Episode Commentaries

Episode 4 (continued)

SHINBO: Since every member of the staff knew the real identity of Kyubey, they all ended up drawing it that way. Although personally I would like to have hidden it a bit more.

KUBOTA: I was particularly impressed with the scene where Kyosuke made a scene because he could no longer play violin. The impression is less about Kyosuke than feeling sorry for Sayaka who became the victim of Kyosuke venting his anger.

AOKI: But then I can understand the feeling of Kyosuke. I also used it as an idea behind a 4-koma manga in the BD booklet. (LOL)

UROBUCHI: Come to think of it, at the point of the initial composition proposal, there was no such setting [settei] of Kyosuke being a violinist. So he did not have an injured right arm, but instead he had an incurable illness. As for why it became violin related, by now I could not recall anything at all.

AOKI: Also I really love the scene where Madoka and Sayaka were looking very miserable on roof top. I can imagine that after such a shocking event, naturally it would be like that. Surely it would not be "I should take up the fight instead of Mami-san."

IWAKAMI: And there Kyubey pulled itself away for once, saying "farewell". (LOL)

SHINBO: Kyubey got a lot of popularity with that strategy. (LOL) Instead of pushing it pulls away. Saying "That's too bad," and then leave. And when Sayaka made up her mind, it just casually appeared next to her (LOL) Also later after Sayaka became a mahou shoujo, the feeling of "oops I did it" she projected. This is kind of hard to describe.

IWAKAMI: From here onwards, it will be the Sayaka arc for a while.

SHINBO: It's just that at first I was a bit concerned about the motivation of Sayaka's decision to become a mahou shoujo being Kyosuke, that is a boy. I wondered if fans might not like this. Although it was already written since the initial composition proposal, after I read the screenplay I remember raising the point and said "what should we do."

KUBOTA: Ep. 4 had Sayaka's first battle, the image Shinbo-san initially had was something like a magician and he said he wanted to do the battle where she fights with magic. In discussions he said it would not be something cliched like pulling some pigeon from the cloak but he would like to have attack like that.

SHINBO: In terms of adding some flourishes in action scenes, I was thinking perhaps it would be interesting to have something that is a good talking point as well as flourishes. For example, something like action scenes with magic tricks in them. But then it is just something I came up at the beginning. I did not do that in the actual animation.

AOKI: If there has to be someone who fights in that style, I think it would be Homura.

SHINBO: Also for me in the last scene when Kyoko first showed up, the way she looked just hit me as so shounen-manga. And the part where she looked down from high above at the top of a steel tower is also good. I think the dialogue she said at the end "So I can just crush her, right?" generated anticipation of where the story will go afterwards. Honestly, a viewer would like to keep watching if he cannot read the coming development.

IWAKAMI: It is difficult to link a story to the next stage after a character died. Naturally other characters will be depressed, and the question is to what extent you can invigorate the story under this situation. Therefore I believe this ep. 4 is important after that ep. 3. After I read the screenplay, I realized I was over-worried.

SHINBO: For example, in "Star of the Giants", when Hyuuma Hoshi's 'Major League Ball" was defeated, he got into depression for many weeks, right? I was so tough watching that week after week. (LOL) But in ep. 4 there was the transformation of Sayaka, and at the end a mysterious mahou shoujo appeared. The story got lively again. This is something that I will pay attention in future too.

EP. 5 - THERE'S NO WAY I'D REGRET THIS

UROBUCHI: When I was writing the screenplay I imagined that the the battle between Sayaka and Kyoko took place in some dirty little back alley...I was surprised even that back alley became such a cool looking place.

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KUBOTA: But then since they have created that much stuff, I have the feeling that they must still have some regrets from their point of view.

IWAKAMI: When I was first shown the image pictures from Inu-Curry-san in the meeting room at Shaft, I was dumbfounded.

UROBUCHI: They were mainly static pictures, but there was also the mustachioed familiars of ep. 1 in GIF animation. Besides at the stage of screenplay there was no names or settei information for the witches. Those are all there thanks to Inu-Curry-san.

AOKI: I always had fun when I saw updates of the Witch Compendium in the official website. It got me to guess that besides the settei found there, in fact there must be a lot more that had been thought through.

CASTING OF THE MAHOU SHOUJO

I would like to hear about the casting.

IWAKAMI: Although the roles were decided by auditions, somehow by coincidence there were many actresses from "Hidamari".

UROBUCHI: Mizubashi-san was unexpected. Don't you think it is quite rare for Mizuhashi-san to act for an onesan (elder sister) character like Mami?

AOKI: And the acting was completely different from Miyako of "Hidamari."

SHINBO: As for Saito-san who took Homura's role, there was the image of Hitagi Senjogahara in "Bakemonogatari." I had this concern that no matter what, I still got the impression that Homura and Hitagi look similar. Of course I knew Saito-san was pretty good, but I still thought "perhaps as a change it is good to use another actress." But when I heard the acting performed by Saito-san during the audition, I could only come to the conviction that "This is it".

IWAKAMI: There was this acting that did not come up in the audition - the scenes in the second half when Homura cried and collapsed. If you consider that, it is easy to conclude that after all casting Saito-san was a good (decision).

SHINBO: Not only Saito-san, if you think about Yuki-san who took Madoka's role as well, there was the flow coming from the anime "Dance in the Vampire Bund." In "Vampire Bund", there were Yuki-san, who acted an aloof vampire princess, and Saito-san, who acted an ordinary human girl. And in "Madoka Magica" the position of the two were switched. And I think at that time the two may have developed a synchronized wavelength between them. So I have a feeling that in the actual recording actions the two, Yuki-san as the protagonist, and Saito-san, supporting her, managed their roles really well. The two also said so in the audio commentary.

And about Kitamura-san who took Sayaka's role?

AOKI: Seems every time drinking after the after-recording sessions, the director said "Kitamura-san was good."

SHINBO: Kitamura-san was really great acting as a suffering girl. She gave a feeling that she worked really hard but she was not really good at it and (her effort) got requited.

UROBUCHI: Considering the aspect that she worked hard a bit and behaved cheerfully but she herself in fact thought about serious matters, indeed she is like that.

How about Nonaka-san who took Kyoko's role?

UROBUCHI: Kyoko, while a character created by Aoki-san, is a heel [symbv: pro-wresting jargon for a villain character]. So I could not guess how she could be acted. But it felt so good hearing the voice of Nonaka-san and I got hooked.

SHINBO: Since it is the voice of Nonaka-san, there is no way she is a bad person, I guess? (LOL)

AOKI: I was wondering how a seiyuu would handle the dialogues of Kyoko, and when the role was given to Nonaka-san, I thought "Oh, so it will be like this." She brought out the feeling that even when she acted like a bad person, somehow you just could not bring yourself to hate her that much.

SHINBO: Once I got asked by Nonaka-san, "Why is Kyoko (given to) me?" and I answered, "If it is Nonaka-san then nobody will hate her." She has such a mysterious charm.

AS THE START DATE OF BROADCAST APPROACHED

And then the cast were decided. In fall 2010 the information starts to be released to the public...

IWAKAMI: But the first thing that went out to the public were "oh it went out" type of leaks (LOL)

UROBUCHI: That was still at quite an early stage. Around spring I guess.

IWAKAMI: Rumors came out, down to mentions of Shinbo-san, Urobuchi-san, Ume-sensai and Shaft. At first there was the idea of doing it in phases, like at the beginning there was the notification "Shinbo-san and Ume-sensei will work on a mahou shoujo anime!", and then around one month later the name of Urobuchi-san will be announced. But with the information leaked out, (I said) let's release everybody's names in one go. Later, it was often said there was a plan to hide the name of Urobuchi-san until after ep. 3. Of course I did not think of that (LOL).

UROBUCHI: Although I was sure that this was going to happen. (LOL)

IWAKAMI: Well, it's just that I indeed think doing that way is interesting in its own way.

UROBUCHI: Like "Since the pictures are cute and you think the screenplay will be the same? Too bad! It's me!!" (LOL) [editor: reference to a certain 2ch Sayaka meme].

As the time approached for the start of broadcast, you went for a purification rite in a shrine.

UROBUCHI: Because it is something involving the demons. I myself did not go, but I got them to buy me a charm and I always carried it with me during the after-recording sessions, since I thought if there was any curse around it would have to be with me (LOL)

SHINBO: For myself I was more for praying for a hit than being purified. Since the result is now we have a hit anime, I think our prayer was answered.

KUBOTA: Well, there is also a bit of the superstition thing in it.

IWAKAMI: Because there were some in the staff who cared about this. If no purification was held, it is "Since no purfication was held my arm got hurt.", while if purification was held, then it becomes like "although my arm got hurt, it is good that it is not my dominant arm.". The frame of mind will be different.

SHINBO: By the way, in the purification rite, Emiri Katoh-san came as a representative of the seiyuu.

UROBUCHI: Oh, there is such thing as "representative of the seiyuu". I thought it was because she played Kyubey's role.. (LOL)

Episode Commentaries

Episode 5 (continued)

IWAKAMI: Is battle in a back alley something rare in Shaft's work?

KUBOTA: Yeah, indeed it seems there aren't many...

SHINBO: In "Tsukuyomi" there is. But other than that, there isn't I guess.

KUBOTA: Making the back alley look like that was from the beginning Shinbo-san's idea. Even the battle scenes have cool looking images.

SHINBO: In fact I had wanted to make the alley look narrower. I thought it would be interesting that in such confined place the spear would have to be turned into a (multi-section) staff which would be swung around. The idea was that Kyoko's original weapon is a spear and she will find it hard to wave it around in a back alley. So in the storyboard I made it a multi-section staff. It was a change rooted in such consideration but I think it was good that it also created variety in battle portrayal. It is a creative idea from combat movies, not mahou shoujo works, but I thought "Whatever" (LOL)

UROBUCHI: However now I think about it again, this is the screenplay being unreasonable, as I put a fight with spear swinging around in a narrow back alley. I should have thought things over a bit more... (LOL) It was my bad habit to have events take place in a back alley when I got absent-minded. Being a follower of Hideyuki Kikuchi, I also let my story go the way of a back alley before knowing it.

IWAKAMI: But this is a scene where I was excited to see it in images when it was still only in screenplay. I wondered what kind of hardboiled battle scene Shinbo-san and Shaft could come up. In fact that after watching the battle scene, it was worth the wait.

UROBUCHI: Sayaka fought better than she was in the screenplay.

SHINBO: I wanted to show some portrayal of ripostes. Also I wanted to immobilize Madoka in advance.

UROBUCHI: Indeed that is necessary. I also have that pointed to me when animation was being done.

SHINBO: And then another thing that made ep. 5 interesting is where Homura showed up and there the story was to continue in the next episode.

UROBUCHI: It could not be helped because of time restriction, but it turned out be something good.

KUBOTA: The original idea was to show up till the fighting ended and the episode ends with Kyoko leaving. That was instead carried on to be the avant [pre-title] in the next episode.

SHINBO: And it was better that way. It is more likely to generate excitement by ending with a scene where you'd say "Eh?! What will happen?" and letting the story continue (to the next episode).

EP. 6 - THIS IS JUST NOT RIGHT

UROBUCHI: This is an episode where the phrase "I just do not understand" made its debut. Kyubey started not to put up any excuse any more (LOL). But having reached this episode, the build-up of the story is now complete. I also had the expectation that those viewers who are still with us until this ep. 6 should find episodes from ep. 7 on very enjoyable. I thought ep. 3 would for once filter the audience, and if they would stay along in ep. 4 and ep. 5, then I guessed we should be fine.

SHINBO: However since in reality instead of seeing people drop out after ep. 3 it got a lot more attention, we did not really need to worry about that. And coming into this ep. 6, people should start to realize that the question is not "When will Madoka transform?" but instead "In this anime she must not transform."

UROBUCHI: Also in ep. 6, there is one whole scene that was cut out. That was something that I did on my own initiative. When I dug around some old files, I found there was a scene where Homura and Sayaka talked to each other. There is a scene where Homura met Kyoko in a game center, isn't it? My thought was that after Homura finished talking to Kyoko there, there was a scene where she advised Sayaka, saying "You are not fit to be mahou shoujo, so behave yourself and stay quiet." And of course Sayaka would reject that. But then it is hard to call a scene enjoyable when you just watch Homura and Sayaka going on and on doing nothing but arguing. (LOL)

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STAFF DISCUSSION PART 2

THE ROLE PLAYED BY MADOKA'S FAMILY

In the first half, we talked mainly about things before the start of broadcast (of the series). From now on, I would like to ask something different. First when you were doing the creation work (for this anime), was there any character whom you held particularly strong feeling with?

UROBUCHI: As I look at my own work from a vantage point, there is no particularly strong feeling I hold towards any specific character. But if I have to pick one, I guess it would have to be Madoka's mother. Since a character who does not appear frequently must have her character established with short dialogues, I came to hold a stronger impression (with her). She and Kazuko-sensei may have been the characters I worked hard on (even compared to other characters).

SHINBO: And (Yuuko) Gotoh-san, who voiced Madoka's mother, gave a really good performance. (Her acting) had the persuasive power of "This mother is a capable person!" I also want to see the past stories of her together with Kazuko-sensei. Let's find some way to do those kind of episodes!

IWAKAMI: It will then become a story without any mahou shoujo making appearance (LOL)

Why did you make Junko, Madoka's mother, the way she looks in the anime?

UROBUCHI: I had wanted to create such a character. For one, it is rare to see a mother who is macho and strong-minded in mahou shoujo works. Also I thought that to provide a reason for Madoka to become aware of heroism, it is perhaps more convincing for her to have such a family background. Because she will grow up while watching the back of an adult who is very close to her and has carved out the path of her own fate by herself.

Usually in anime that would be the role played by a father.

UROBUCHI: That's right. But I thought it would be good to have a family which does not confine itself to ideas like it must be men's role to makes all the heroic moves. I wanted to have some concrete example where women can also be heroic and strong. That being said, so (the next thing is:) OK, so what is a heroic mother like? The fact that after much consideration I gave her a speech style of a yankee [delinquent girl] is purely my own taste (LOL)

IWAKAMI: In anime, usually there is not much depiction regarding the family of the protagonist, isn't it? In "Madoka Magica" the weight of that is also not really that big, but we still have the ribbon in ep. 1, the consultation in ep. 6, the farewell in ep. 11 and then the epilogue in ep. 12.

UROBUCHI: For me, I had this image that "in general mahou shoujo works should have the family properly portrayed." In that sense, it can be said that Madoka's family, including her mother, are characters I forced myself to come up with, since usually in my works family almost never appear. And contrary to Madoka, there is absolutely no description about the family in Homura's case, and it is because she is a character who is not needed to be taken as a symbol for mahou shoujo. It is not that there is some reason that she must not have a family, but it is because there is no need to depict them so they do not appear. Conversely, for Madoka the family must be depicted.

HOW THE CHARACTERS ARE DEPICTED

Director Shinbo, if you are to pick a character for whom you have particularly strong feelings, who would that be?

IWAKAMI: According to the public, the answer must be: Shinbo-san is very fond of Sayaka (LOL).

SHINBO: Indeed, I am particularly attached to Sayaka. I may have that side in me.

IWAKAMI: From around which point did you start to feel that?

SHINBO: When the filming was done, I started to feel "she is such a poor girl," and moreover when I listened to the performance during the after-recording session my heart gradually started to ache more and more, and I started to think "couldn't there be a little bit salvation for her?". At first I took a rational point of view, thinking so she is (written as) such a character, but gradually my emotion gushed out and took over.

IWAKAMI: Indeed I went together with Shinbo-san to have a talk with Urobuchi-san, and asked "in the last episode, can't we get Sayaka to come back to life?" (LOL)

UROBUCHI: And then I answered, "That would be impossible now." (LOL)

SHINBO: It is uncommon for me to have such gushing emotions, so it has been an interesting experience.

UROBUCHI: Guess I bullied Sayaka a bit too much (LOL). But then the reason why I do not feel that sorry for Sayaka is this thing, that I just do not feel that even if she hooked up with Kyosuke that girl would really be happy ever after. Most likely Kyosuke is a guy who will stand her up in dates and go to practise violin, I think.

AOKI: But at the very end Sayaka said "I do not have regrets". For Sayaka, perhaps it is something she had come to terms with.

SHINBO: I wonder. When I checked the after-recording, I got the mood of from Kitamura-san who voiced Sayaka, "I am not convinced." (LOL)

UROBUCHI: But also for Kyosuke, a man who could not notice that "Hm? this girl seems to have some feeling for me..." even after so much self-sacrifice from her is simply no good. (LOL)

How about Mami then?

AOKI: In ep. 2 when Mami-san got into a mood which seemed to be arguing with Homura, it got me to think "Although she is an onesan [elderly sister] character she does not act all that mature." I found this quite cute and I loved it. (LOL)

SHINBO: Although she dropped out (from the anime) in ep. 3, she still holds a strong sense of presence.

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UROBUCHI: I was also surprised by how popular she got. I think Mami's popularity was helped a lot by how cool she looked in the fighting scenes. Although she already looked cool since the point of ep. 1, in ep. 2 she elegantly danced and fought, and after all that a cup of tea. How more elegant can it be? What a girl! (LOL)

AOKI: That cup of tea was a total surprise (to me). I remember thinking "So cool!"

IWAKAMI: Really this can be put as the power of images. Showing it like that in pictures you will think it looks so cool, but if the same thing is written in the screenplay you would just think "What?!"

UROBUCHI: I think it is normal (for people) to doubt my sense. (LOL)

SHINBO: For that part, (Yukihiro) Miyamoto-san, series director, once came to me for advice, saying "Inu-Curry-san said they would like to have Mami drink tea at the end." At that time I did not have much idea (of what it was about), but I thought "They must be aiming for something. Guess it's fine." I gave my OK, thinking that if what they came up with looked odd, I would think up something at that point. And when I saw the result in video....well in fact it really looked quite odd (LOL). Perhaps it looked odd in a good way. People thought it cool and got hooked.

UROBUCHI: That "oddness" is in fact its charm. (LOL) At the stage of screenplay, the impression of Mami's fight scenes were more like that of a machine fighting, as the image was that of guns being fired off relentlessly as weapons.

AOKI: Here I have something I want to ask Urobuchi-san. Among fans, Mami-san is often categorized as a bit of a suffering girl, isn't she? What does Urobuchi-san think about that?

UROBUCHI: I could only say that it was too much of a surprise (LOL) In particular, I did not expect the "Law of the Circular Ring" would be misunderstood as a term coined by Mami.

SHINBO: But popularity and talking points came from that kind of things. Like in the BD, it got the chapter title as "Dance of the Magic Bullets."

UROBUCHI: If you come down to that, I too got really high spirits. (LOL) I am sure Mami-san must have created a notebook that is even more amazing than the one Madoka made! And instead of a thin notebook it would be a scrapbook!

KUBOTA: Also, Mami is the only one who gave a name to her signature special move.

UROBUCHI: That was actually done in order to mislead viewers that they were watching some conventional mahou shoujo anime. From ep. 4 onwards such guidance became unnecessary, and there is no more need for anybody to call out the name of their signature special move. It is only Mami, who was active in the early stage, that needed a name for her move.

IWAKAMI: That is interesting. Although the name of the move was created only due to the necessity as required by the story, the understanding instead became that only Mami made up a name for her move. (LOL)

AOKI: When Mami-san's BGM starts to flow, although it looks cool, it also gets me to laugh just a little bit (LOL)

KUBOTA: But in fact that BGM was not written as Mami's theme. Originally it was planned to be used in a different scene, but we found it such a good fit for Mami...(Youta) Tsuruoka, the music director, really picked his tracks well.

THE UNEXPECTED REACTIONS FROM FANS

I would like to continue with discussion of the characters. In certain sense Kyubey has become highly popular. (LOL)

SHINBO: I did not think it would become so popular. This is the biggest surprise to me personally.

UROBUCHI: I was also surprised. At the beginning I had thought it would become a hated character. So my feeling towards Katoh-san who voiced it had been one of "My apologies!"

SHINBO: It just came cross my mind. I think it may be interesting to have Kyubey visit Hidamari-zo in "Hidamari Sketch".

UROBUCHI: Since the girls in Hidamari-zo are so smart, they will not be so easily conned. But then if it were to be Hiro-san... (LOL)

SHINBO: If she were told "If you become a mahou shoujo you will lose weight." she may be at risk (LOL)

UROBUCHI: Yoshinoya-sensei would surely be at risk too. She gave the impression that she seems to be susceptible to desires.

SHINBO: Yoshinoya-sensei would be fine. Since she is not a young girl any more, she will not be subject to persuasion talk. (LOL) Aoki-san, how about give this idea a try and draw a manga about it? If Aoki-san draws it, it will become "Madoka Magica the Origin".

AOKI: Oh well... I wonder....(LOL)

IWAKAMI: I think it would be interesting (LOL) Also for Kyubey, when it shows up it often gets a close-up. The reactions by the seiyuu (when this happened) during the after-recording sessions were interesting.

SHINBO: That's true. When Kyubey appears, everyone just shouted "Here it is!". This even got me to start thinking "I see. In this case I will do it even more often and surely everyone will be happy." (LOL) I have a feeling that even some scenes where originally it was not to be shown that way got a close-up, as I aimed for that reaction. Although I also felt that the aim was a bit off to another direction. (LOL)

AOKI: I talked to Katoh-san, who voiced Kyubey, in the closing day. I told her that after this "Madoka Magica" she would see a lot of topics related to Kyubey thrown her way in places like radio or twitter.

SHINBO: These should be some tasty topics for Katoh-san, because, well, to put it briefly, (Kyubey) got super popular, and there are things like "Make contract with me" or "I just don't understand" (LOL)

IWAKAMI: "I just don't understand" are just some ordinary words. (LOL) Though somehow it became a longstanding gag....

TO BE CONTINUED

Puella Magi Madoka Magica After-recording Report

Main article: Guidebook After Recording Report

Episode 11: Part 1

Part 2: Pre-recording

Part 3: Recording

Part 4: Walpurgis Nacht

Data in production stage

Planning Memo (Upper right)

Story keyword

When the wish of a magical girl comes true, she becomes a witch.
Based on friendship between an idealistic girl and a realistic girl.
The idealistic girl claims that to become a witch is bad. But she exhausts her power for the world and becomes a witch...

Main characters are the two above, with additional two, total 4.
If sub characters are counted, total about 7 characters.
Protagonists are about 15 years old.

They may use magic to transform.
But they are mainly wearing uniform.
Although it is subtle whether they are in magical school, the school is serious and strict.

Visual image

The image of 4 girls are as follows:
- The idealistic girl: bright, and looking forward.
- The realistic girl: seem to know everything as an adult. She is excellent in both knowledge and physical power.
- The talented girl: comes from witch's blood. She has inborn magic.
- The learned girl: learning magic systematically. She looks like an otaku.

The tragic fate of magical girls, and the decision. ...(their serious face?)
Needs some gadgets of magical girls, like sticks, bracelet or necklace.
An animal who guides them to their fights.
- While looking cute, he will say something terrible like "Do you have desire to improve the world, even have to pay your life". He is so cruel because he knows everything.

Minutes (Lower right)

(ToDo)

Series Proposal (left)

Episode	Story
01	A scene of destruction. All characters are dead miserably. Homura is fighting a terrible monster with blood on her. Madoka is watching this but she can do nothing. However, it seem she can save all of them by becoming a magical girl. As soon as she makes up her mind to make contract with a fairy, she wakes up. Is this a dream? In a peaceful morning, she is going to school with her good friend, Sayaka, as usual. Here comes a transferred student called Homura. She is the girl in Madoka's dream. But after school, Madoka sees her killing a cute animal. Then Homura come to attack Madoka and Sayaka, who are trying to protect that animal.
02	(Mami appears. Mami explains about magical girl to them.)
03	(Madoka almost makes a contract. But Mami dies, and Homura saves her. At the same time, Sayaka makes a contract)
04	(Kamijou quarrels with Sayaka so that she makes a contract. Kyoko appears)
05	(Kyoko attacks Sayaka. Homura agrees that Kyoko can be the backup. Madoka now in middle of Sayaka and Homura.)
06	(Kyoko's past. Kamijou recovers. The three tiers (Sayaka, Homura & Kyoko, and witches) are fighting endlessly. Madoka is worried about how to help Sayaka.)
07	(Kamijou fully recovered. But he is going the way out of Sayaka's expectation. Sayaka doesn't give up her duty as a magical girl. To make Sayaka back to a regular girl, Madoka steals and throws away her soul gem. To Madoka's surprise, Sayaka doesn't move anymore. The fairy tells her the truth.)
08	(Sayaka is no longer human. But she overcomes the sadness. She simply bears the fate to do witch hunting just like Mami. Madoka considers to become a magical girl again to help her, and Homura comes to argue with her. At the beginning she rebounds strongly because of embarrassment from her over simple consideration, but Homura convinces her by all means. Meanwhile, Kyoko starts to have sympathy with Sayaka, although they are incompatible, still fighting against each other.)
09	Sayaka falls into despair definitely (caused by Kamijou?)
10	Sayaka finally become a grief seed and hatches a witch. Kyoko killed the witch but also sacrifice herself. The fairy tells the truth to desperate Madoka. He also tells her that he has seen countless examples of this but he is still unable to understand how human thinks. And a new witch with unseen power is approaching. It seems there's no way to protect the city unless Madoka becoming a magical girl.
11	Homura confesses to Madoka about her ability and object. She also tells Madoka that she has done that many times. This is the timeline Madoka keeping alive the longest. Although she cannot save other girls' lives, it might be a chance to change Madoka's fate. Homura swears that she will protect Madoka with her own life. But Madoka is still unable to understand. The final fight is coming in such situation.
12	Madoka arranges her feelings about Homura. The fairy predicts that Homura won't have a change to win. He suggests Madoka to make a contract, and says her soul gem is so enormous that the power of her wish is much more than others. The final battle between Homura and witch comes. Homura cannot stand up with such a great power difference. This scene is the same as Madoka's dream.
13	Is there a way to save all magic girls? Madoka finally makes contract with the fairy. "I wish to become the existence to eliminate all witches from past to the future!" ...... Madoka finally understand how hard Homura did for her, and the friendship between them. ......

Witch Design

Labyrinth design

Episode	Concept	Words
3 (Part)	Cafe for two （２人カフェ）	"My dream is tea time." （私の夢はティータイム） When the witch dies, the magical girl steps on the cups and breaks them.
3 (Part)	One hole cheese cake	"It's really a delicious cheese cake. My dying mother wanted to eat it, but maybe I should have cured her disease instead. However, that surely wasn't possible." （とてもおいしいチーズケーキ。死にかけのお母さんが食べたがっていたの。でも、もしかするとお母さんの病気でも治してあげたらよかったカスラ。けれと、きっとそれはそおいうことでもないのダワ。）
4	Snowglobe （スノードーム）	"I have only one wish. Box up that memory." （私の願いはただひとつ、あの思い出をとじこめて） When the witch dies, the lights on the Christmas tree and merry-go-round short out. There's a 'basssh!' sound.
7	Church	"I wish you, although not seen from me, to be happy." （まだ見ないあなたが幸せであるように） When the witch dies, the stained glass collapses and drops into the air. There's a 'baaaaaaahn' sound like from a pipe organ.
9	Trains	"My wish is somewhere not here." （私の願いはここではないどこか） In the final scene, the magical girl kills her from behind in the first carriage, and the train derails.
10 (Patricia)	Blue Sky	"It's raining again today. How long will I continue to be unlucky for?" （今日という日が雨だなんて私はどれほどついていないんだろう） When the witch dies, it rains heavily. There is a sound like an aircraft crashing.
10 (Roberta)	Dolls	"I wish for friends. Friends who won't dislike me." （私の願いはお友達。私を嫌いにならないお友達） When the witch dies, the bird cage is getting shot down and spilling a circular rain of blood.
Set-constructing witch (Walpurgis Night)	Stage	"Everything in this world is fake. My life is nothing more than a drama that you penned. Please, prove it. "Faust" is on show." （この世界はすべて嘘でした。私の人生はあなたの書いた戯曲にすぎません。それを証明して下さい。「ファウスト」が上演中）