Talk:Timelines/Original/Final

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Dates

Hold on a second. Where exactly is it stated what month it is? My understanding was that the exact month is not known. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 13:31, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

If I had to guess, there were some calculations on particularly likely dates of the timelines, as early as after ep10 or so aired. Section Miscellaneous under this https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Madoka_Magica_Episode_10:_I_Won%27t_Rely_On_Anyone_Anymore#Continuity_to_previous_episodes (can't just link Misc since there are 3 sections named Misc here). 25th is kinda established, May, no idea where from.

In general, PMMM ain't great about keeping track of dates. Kirika died in 2011 during a Homura loop in OriMagi manga, yet MagiReco stuff suggests it's more, like, 2017ish iirc. This doc has a discrepancies section. Iirc there was something about the Magius summer event, too. EPF (talk) 13:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

If that's all it's based on, it would be the same conclusion as Timeline, which is that there is no definitive final conclusion. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 14:04, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I was able to surmise the month by looking at the different facts of the anime and Scene 0. I'm willing to remove them and only leave the dates table as a theory, but I'd like to present my findings first:

• School Days: Throughout Scene 0 I was able to find out which days were school days and which days were on a weekend. The only outlier is Day 6 which has a school trip to a factory, but school trips on the weekend aren't unheard of. It was the only one that didn't strictly fit into that calendar but if you go over Scene 0 and see which days they go to school, this makes sense. This is how I established which day of the week it was within each day.
• March or May: There were two main theories as to what month the anime happened, those being March and May. The Japanese school year has three terms. The first term starts in April and ends in July, the second in September to December and the third is from January to March. It makes more sense for Homura to join relatively at the start of the school year. Based on several Magia Record arc 1 era events, Summer is just around the corner, so it makes more sense to be May. A student is unlikely to join class at the end of the school year so March is ruled out. Homura transferring on May 25th fits perfectly as a mid-term transfer.
• Flora: Another reason was the scenery and the garden in Madoka's house. Tomohisa's (Madokadad) cherry tomatoes ripen in Summer. The Blu-ray version of the anime changed the cherry blossoms seen in the TV broadcast to bare branches and this seemed very deliberate. This aligns with the May timeline, as cherry blossom season in most of Japan is over by late April/early May. While the March theory aligns with the release date of the anime, the BD changes seem deliberate for these changes.
• Walpuris: With Scene 0 detailing when Homura wakes up in the hospital, the real life date of Walpurgis Night being on April 30th becomes obsolete so I'm confident in saying we can ignore that.
• This is off topic, but I also plan to add a moon phases column to the table if I can figure out how to verify them for the anime. Again, I'm fine with the dates being removed from the timelines, but I think they should stay on the table as suggestions or theorizing until they're disproven. Sweet Beanie (talk) 14:23, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Okay, it sounds like you have a lot of reasonable arguments here, but all of them are very tenuous. I'll touch on them one by one.

• School Days: This ultimately has no bearing on what month it is. Whatever we decide on in the end, I'd be fine leaving in the days of the week in each individual page.
• School Year: While you're right that a transfer after the start of the new term is more likely than a transfer at the end of the old term, I don't think the latter is so unlikely that it can definitively rule out March.
• Flora: This is a pretty good argument in general, but the fact of the matter is that the cherry blossom season is not a fixed thing. It can vary from year to year, and it has probably drifted over the years due to global warming or other factors. So while it can be used as evidence, I think it's difficult to make any strong conclusions about it.

Summary: I think it may be better to remove the month and day from all the individual timeline pages and instead have a table on Timelines/Original that maps the days to specific days of the month. That way we can easily include the other theory in the same place. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 14:43, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

That's fair, I'm willing to have the exact dates removed and have the matter of May 16 to June 16 be relegated to a paragraph somewhere near the table. The wording can take into consideration both months' angles. Luckily, both March and May have 31 days, so I'd argue we at least leave the date of the month on the timelines. Like Day X - Friday, the 13th. Sweet Beanie (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Since April and June also both have 30 days, I think that should work out, yes. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2025 (UTC)