Homura Akemi

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Homura Akemi
Japanese Name	暁美 ほむら (Akemi Homura)
Seiyū	Chiwa Saitou
Age	13-14 (estimated)
Weapon	Shield (storage and timejump device), various mundane weapons like grenades, pipe bombs, pistols, machine guns

Homura is first seen by Madoka in a dream of her fighting a monster in a desolate landscape of skyscrapers. The day after the dream, Homura has transferred to Madoka's school where she gives her ominous warnings.

Official Info

A smart, graceful, athletically-talented girl. Cool if not chilly, her personality even can even be seen in her posture. Her primary ability is to stop time, all her other abilities and attacks seem to come from non-magical items, such as firearms and bombs. Her time manipulation device can also allow her to travel back in time, act as a shield, and seems to act as a limitless storage facility.

She seems to be a magical girl, but there are a lot of mysteries surrounding the way she acts. Her fighting style is also unidentified.

• Ms. Aoki’s Design Check: A blunt girl. I tried to let this shine through in her design. Her distinguishing point is her silky long hair.
• Magical girl outfit: Homura was designed with her personality and combat style in mind. I found her fascinating right away. (Aoki)
• The sharp lines of her upper back and jacket evoke her personality. Overall rather monochromatic. Her black tights have a diamond pattern.
• School uniform: She wears black tights in uniform too, leaving her overall feel just like in her magical girl outfit. She gives off the air of a silent beauty.
• Regardless of her reasons, Homura'a priority is preventing Madoka from becoming a Mahou Shoujo. Since that is not understandable by other Mahou Shoujos or Madoka, she decided to act alone.
• Homura is a magical girl from another timeline, as revealed by Kyubey. She knows that Kyubey is behind a sinister plot, and it mostly involves Madoka turning into a magical girl.
• Homura's special ability is revealed to be some kind of time-travel, which explains why she knows so much to the point of knowing exactly when and where certain things will happen. This also may be why she can move at blistering speed.
• Her house has a wall display of documents relating to witches.
• In episode 9, it was revealed that Homura can stop time. However, anyone she touches while the ability is under effect will not be stopped.
• Homura's backstory was revealed in episode 10. She was a transfer student who was recovering from heart disease. Probably due to her lack of confidence, she was targeted by familiars. However, Madoka (who was a Puella Magi at this time) and Mami save her. During Walpurgis Night, Madoka and Mami die. Homura then makes the wish to re-do her meeting with Madoka to prevent her fate.
• Along with stopping time, Homura can also reverse time to before her meeting with Madoka.
• Homura, while initially ditzy and insecure, has become very independent and strong during her time traveling. Her cold nature is from her determination to save Madoka after having failed in her mission to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl several times.
• A previous Madoka was the one to task Homura to prevent Madoka from becoming a Puella Magi.

Observations

• She wants to stop Madoka from making a contract with Kyuubey
• She has much knowledge about Mitakihara Middle School.
• Is annoyed when Madoka uses her last name or honorifics instead of the more intimate "Homura".
• She was openly pursuing Kyuubey until Kyuubey made contact with Madoka.
• She appears obsessed with Madoka's happiness and/or survival.
• She appears to live by herself; her residence only has her name on the nameplate, much like Mami's. In episode 10, when she wakes up in the hospital, no-one is there with her, and she seems to have been filling out the school transfer forms on her own.

Speculations

Homura is able to move extremely fast in comparison with water drops.

Homura's grenade in Episode 8 looks like an M61 grenade, used during the Vietnam War.

Homura's pistol in Episode 8 looks like an M9.

• Homura's wish was to protect Madoka, and since wishes always come true, it should make her immune from death and becoming a witch before saving Madoka. This makes her doomed to be locked in this cycle. In one timeline she was almost successful, but Madoka sacrificed herself for the sake of Homura and caused another restart.
• In the first two episodes, Homura appeared to be the antagonist. It was later explained that she only wanted to prevent Madoka becoming a magical girl. She saved Madoka and Sayaka multiple times and may become an ally and/or mentor of Madoka in the future.
• She might also wish to prevent Madoka becoming a magical girl because of the risk that she could turn into an overwhelmingly powerful witch.
• In Episode 5, Homura saves Sayaka from Kyouko by suddenly manifesting as Kyouko's attack is about to land, somehow moving Sayaka out of the path of the attack. The ability seems to involve massive acceleration rather than teleportation(this because of her power being to turn back/stop time and thus being able to move quickly from one point to another by stopping time temporarily), as she is able to act in a split second. As there are hints that a Puella Magi's powers may relate to her wish (e.g. Sayaka's regeneration), this may be a clue as to Homura's true motives. As of Episode 8 it has been confirmed that Homura's ability has something to do with time.
• Per the image in the gallery below, the pipe layout on the corridor wall is completely different after Homura uses her 'teleportation' ability. Assuming this is not a production error, it has been suggested that the ability actually involves magically reconstituting the entire corridor while moving the people in it around. For more information, please refer to the entry on this phenomenon in the Magical Powers speculah.
  • In the 10th episode we can see Homura with her glasses and duvets, she looks like Hanekawa Tsubasa in Bakemonogatari, which is possessed by a cat during the golden week (Tsubasa Cat arc).
• Homura may be a homunculus created by Madoka.
  • The last line of Magia reads 命を作るのは願い(What creates life is a wish).
  • 'Akemi(アケミ)' and 'alchemy(アルケミー)' reads similar in Japanese.
  • 'Homu' in 'Homura' is also the first four letters in the word 'homunculus'.
  • Dr. Faust in Goethe's Faust created a homunculus, which has superhuman perception to see through Faust's dream. Mephistopheles could be subtituted by Kyuubey, and Dr. Faust by Madoka. See Speculah:Madoka Magica and Faust on Shaft's usage of Faust.
• Homura might be in possession of the soul gems of magical girls from an alternate timeline, such as the alternate Madoka's. See also Speculah:Homura Identity Swap Theory.
• One of the speculations as for why Homura does not tell Madoka upfront of the consequences of becoming a magical girl, is because Madoka might just become one in order to save Homura or Mami. This could also be the reason why she's trying to keep a distance between her and Madoka.
• Fans at the beginning expressed shock at Homura's strange choice in weaponry, all Puella Magi are suppose to have magical weapons but not Homura. This is partially correct, Homura's weapon is actually her magical shield which allows her to stop time as well as travel back in time, the shield can also act as a repository for her variety of arsenals and weaponry.
• Homura may actually be Faust, as Faust in the play tries all his might to save Gretchen (Madoka) from dying but in the end she perishes anyways.

Trivia

• Homura is frequently referred to as "Homerun-chan" amongst Western fans, due to the similarity of the two names in Japanese, however she is frequently referred as "Homuhomu" (ほむほむ) within Japanese community.
• The first character for Akemi (暁) means "daybreak", while the second one (美) means beauty.
• When her full name is written vertically in hiragana (あけみほむら) and with left half covered in certain angle, it could be read as カナメまどか which is Kaname written in katakana and Madoka written in hiragana.
• Her last name can also be used as a first name.
• Her first name is written in hiragana, which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji, it can mean:
  • inflammation, blaze (炎 or 焔)
  • heart on fire (心火)
  • mass of flame (炎叢)
  • village protector (保村)
    
• Some folks in 2ch nicknamed Homura's Residence "Homuhōmu," (ほむホーム) since Homu is a nickname for Homura, and Hōmu is "home" rendered in the Japanese syllabary. It should be noted that "homu" is more often used for dog houses and similar structures, with the English word "home" expressed using "uchi" (うち, which refers to one's own house or household), "ie" (いえ, which can refer to a physical house or a family lineage), or the honorific "otaku" (お宅, which refers to someone else's house or household).
• Homura is often referred to as "Moemura" amongst Western fans, due to her personality and actions prior to the current timeline in episode 10.

Gallery

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  Original character design by Aoki Ume

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  How Homura became Homerun-chan

• Homerun-chan2.png

  2ch's reaction

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  Homura's ring and fingernail

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  Spatial Reconstitution Theory (空間再構成)

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  The cover of Megami magazine featuring Homura with a black cat.

• Hunter-x-hunter-1641920 2.jpg

  Comparison of unnamed Nen ability in Hunter x Hunter and Homura's 'teleportation.'

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  Homura in Episode 10 from Timeline 1

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  Homura's arsenal of weapons: Home made bombs, hand grenades (M61), Flash Bombs, M9/Beretta M92F, Desert Eagle, Remington 870 (though the picture denotes it as a Benelli M1), FN Minimi M249, and lots of ammo

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  Homura's Soul Gem

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  A manga illustration of Homura with her shield

External links

• Homura Akemi at Pixiv image repository (Japanese)
• Homura Akemi at Danbooru image repository (NSFW)