Speculah:Puellae Magi Don't Age

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How old is Kyoko?

This speculah was first spotted in animefan's comment on Steel's blog post about Episode 7. Whether it is his original theory or not is unknown.

The theory basically says that Puella Magi, due to the "zombie"-like nature of their bodies, stop aging the day they make the contract. The explanation given in the original comment is that rather than the original body becoming soulless, it is "replaced altogether by a magical meat puppet that approximates her old body appearance", though other explanations for the same basic theory are also possible.

This speculation has strong counter-arguments.

• In episode 11, Kyubey recounts historical figures such as Cleopatra and Joan of Arc among the list of magical girls. All of the historical figures matured in a normal fashion before dying relatively young.
• In the Production Note, the background of one of the witches, Roberta, is described as "liv[ing] for a long time as a magical girl" into her mid-20s to 30s before becoming a witch. This indicates magical girls typically do not live long lifespans and in fact, the duration seems much shorter than the average human.

Evidence

• Kyoko Sakura gives most evidence:
  • She speaks in an "arcane" dialect of Japanese; however, characters using strange speech patterns or dialects isn't uncommon in anime (still, it's a fair point).
    • Not "arcane," but an older style of speech, as it is "Shouwa-ish" as described by Ai Nonaka in the Blu-Ray episode 5 commentary. Or as Chiwa Saito describes in the commentary, Teyandee, a speech style characterized by straightforwardness, cheerfulness, and assertiveness.
  • In her memories in Episode 7, she is seen in clothes of Victorian style, while not looking significantly younger; moreover, some events in these memories indicate a different age, like the water bucket; however, the highly stylized nature of the memories scenes may mean it is not a valid evidence. On the other hand, she was also shown, in normal animation during her memories, to be wearing modern clothes before her contract with Kyubey, thus dispelling the possibility of her born before the late 20th century.
  • We never see any hint of her going to school, which might mean she's graduated; however it's also possible that since she came from a family that could barely afford food, it's why she's not going to school.
  • Kyoko is also able to use her Soul Gem's magic to keep Sayaka Miki's body from going cold/decomposing after death. While this isn't outright defying the concept of aging, it comes rather close.
  • The name "Kyoko", is a plausible name coming from long ago, given that it's a traditional Japanese name, and that it at least ends in "ko", a very popular suffix mostly from a few decades ago.
  • In the concept art showing a younger Kyoko and her family, Kyoko and her sister are wearing fairly modern clothes; however, the art is not within context. However, a shot in Episode 7 shows the younger Kyoko drawn normally; her outfit is distinctly modern, detracting from the theory that she is centuries old.
    • The Drama CD Farewell Story appears to take place one year before the events of the anime, and at that time Kyoko's family was still alive. It also states Kyoko had been a magical girl for one year before meeting Mami. Due to the appearance of Madoka and Sayaka who were saved by Kyoko from a witch's labyrinth, and Mami meeting Kyoko's family after this suggests that Kyoko is not from old times and her family's death only happened a year ago.
• Homura speaks about seeing many Puella Magi die, and trying to stop girls from becoming Puella Magi many times, implying that she's doing it for a very long time - yet she passes as a 13-14-year-old. Not to mention about her Intelligence as shown in episode 1. (In Episode 10, it was revealed that she simply saw the same Puella Magi die multiple times due to having traveled back in time multiple times due to her wish.)
• In the retrospect scene of Mami making a contract with Kyubey in Episode 3, she appears to be of the same age as she is in the current timeline, while she is said to be a long-time and experienced Puella Magi. However, it's worth keeping in mind that "long time" for a Puella Magi could just mean a few months, or maybe just a year, and in that timeframe Mami wouldn't have changed enough for it to be noticeable.

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The secret to immortality

• While it is stated that magic can heal or regenerate a Puella Magi damaged body. It is difficult to determine if this interpretation means that the magic can not only regenerate cells but even slow down (or stop) the aging process. Perhaps even altering the process that causes cell division, which is part of an organism aging.
  • However, this speculation by no means indicates that immortality can be easily achieved, as there could be some obstacles in the process.
    • Then again, it is magic.
• Near the end of the final episode, Homura is seen in what some have interpreted as a post-apocalyptic wasteland of the far future; this must be taken with a grain of salt, though, since it's pure speculation.
  • Urobuchi has described it only as Homura fighting somewhere outside Japan. The Production Note has since confirmed this scene to be a storyboard from Inu Curry's "Image Note" storyboard collection, thus an Inu Curry creation which tends to have "otherworldly" elements in it.

None of this evidence can be considered a hard proof, though.

A possible variation of this theory is that every Puella Magi can choose herself whether to age or not. It can be further variated that they are not aware of that choice - it may be linked with the decision not to feel body pain (about which Kyubey was talking to Sayaka in Episode 7's pre-OP scene), for example.

PSP Scenario

In the Madoka Magica Portable game, when Sayaka's body is separated from her Soul Gem for more than two days, her body goes into the stages of decomposition. This seems to indicate that their magical bodies do experience cell deterioration, indicating the possibility that body cells do grow and age with time. However, this opens up alot of other questions regarding the nature of the Soul Gem and the magical body of the girls.

For example, how does the Soul Gem interface with the magical body? If we are to assume that the Soul Gem sends commands or signals to their magical body, we can either speculate that the brain acts as a receptor to receive commands, or that the muscle tissues within their body reacts to the commands from the Soul Gem. If this is correct, it could explain the need for proximity for the Soul Gem to be able to interact with the magical body. The lack of a Soul Gem, or a source of magic to maintain the cellular composition of the body could probably trigger and cause cell degredation, similar to the decaying process of a cadaver. When Sayaka's body starts to decompose, the brain cells are the first to die and the muscle tissues go into rigor mortis[1]. If this is correct, then it seems odd that when Sayaka's Soul Gem is returned to her decomposed body, Sayaka wakes up without noticing anything unusual.

Did the Soul Gem repair Sayaka's brain cells to allow its connection to the brain? Did it reverse the rigor mortis of the body muscle? Is it possible that the Soul Gem regenerated Sayaka's dead cells (if so, could this mean it can reverse the aging process as well?). Or perhaps Sayaka is trapped within a dead body and now she is a magical dead zombie. Kyubey has stated that magic can fix their broken/damaged bodies (but we dont know if there are any limitations to it) making it more convenient and efficient to fight and hunt witches. So, we have to assume that since Sayaka has the magical ability of healing/regenerative powers, perhaps it would have required a lot of magic to fully restore Sayaka's dead body, which is why her body was still rotten (after all, her magic is still not strong).

These are the observations and questions that we have to consider from this scenario:

How does a Soul Gem interface with a magical body?

Once a Soul Gem regains connection to the magical body, how is that reconnection done?

Can a decaying body magically regenerate or heal dead tissue and dead cells?

If so, what is the required magic input to fully attain the desired output (fully heal a damaged body and complete cellular restoration)?

Does the restoration process starts automatically or does it require for the magical girl to be consciously aware of the damage?

Does it require for the magical girl to have the magical ability to heal/regenerate her body?

And how long will the regenerative process take?

Can this information answer the issue regarding immortality?

Let us assume that it would require a magical girl to consciously choose to stop her own aging process. If this is correct, she would technically attempt to fully heal and restore her damaged cells constantly. This means that she would require a large magical energy input to stop the decaying cellular output within her own magical body. We have to assume that for a magical girl to attain immortality, she may require alot of magical energy, not just to fight witches (and other dangers), or to heal herself from damaging attacks, but on top of that to stop the aging/cellular decaying process within her own magical body.

Of course, considering the complexity, perhaps there is no satisfying answer. Perhaps Urobuchi wrote that scene without giving any thoughts to the mechanism or the process involving the Soul Gem and magical bodies. Perhaps Urobuchi failed biology class. Perhaps the shortest, yet the most unsatisfying answer to this puzzling question would be: IT'S MAGIC.

Although it's logical for Kyubey's race to make the bodies decompose naturally under circumstances where the soul gem is separated from the body, it avoids questions that humans would have if a body remained pristine after appearing dead for an extended period of time, potentially causing problems in hiding their contracting process. It fits better with the anime depiction of magical girls being past historical figures, all of whom had their bodies decompose in a natural manner. The soul gem restoration even fits the stories of rare cases where people suddenly "wake up" after appearing dead for days. --randomanon 20:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: It is important to note, that Kyubey states in the game that if a magical body is deprived of her Soul Gem for 2 days, that person's body and soul would be permanently separated.

Artificial Life

This section may contain major spoilers for the Kazumi Magica manga!

Please refrain from reading if you haven't read the latest chapter yet.

In Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, it is revealed that Kanna Hijiri is the product of magic/wish. She is a duplicate of Nico Kanna but with a different set of memories. The manga seems to suggest that magic can not only create artificial bodies, but it is also possible to create artificial souls. Kanna Hijiri was able to contract with Kyubey and she possesses a Soul Gem, indicating that an artificial life form, a product of magic, can indeed become a magical girl as well as produce the energy needed to reduce entropy. If we were to take the extreme logical step, Kyubey's race could just create an artificial world full of artificial humans easy to manipulate into creating new energy to reduce entropy, so why spend time and energy with real humans in a system that is probably less efficient and time consuming? However, without fully understanding the mechanism, science as well as the metaphysical implications, we can only speculate that magic can do a lot of things, but it cannot reverse entropy itself. Otherwise Kyubey's race would have found a solution that was much more simpler and elegant than depending on the emotional instability of prepubescent girls..

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  apparently Puellae Magi not only age but they get some great fringe benefits

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  Dont judge, you all thought the same thing.