Puella Magi Madoka Magica/YMMV

"But the truth is I'm not really that strong. Both the scenery and the city are the same as always Even though I expected nothing would change, I still think I'm the only one who is small."
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Hitomi a scheming, man-stealing bitch or a good friend who wanted Sayaka to confess to the boy she liked instead of endlessly pining after him? This has been exacerbated further since, in the bonus route in the PSP game, she becomes something of a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing once
 * As of episode 9, Hitomi seems to worry about Sayaka and wants to ask Madoka about what's going on, but is refused. That would lean towards the third speculation: ).
 * Besides, let's be brutally honest here: Kyousuke didn't hate Sayaka, but he didn't like her in that way either. If he did, he'd have let her know when he checked out of hospital. YMMV on what this makes him, but whatever that is, the fact is that a relationship just doesn't work when one party isn't interested in the other, no matter how much vice versa is true. Hitomi's actually in a bit of a bind here - she likes Kyousuke, and maybe even has evidence that Kyousuke likes her back, but because neither he nor Sayaka is willing to bring matters between the two of them to a head and resolve them at last, however messily, she's the one who's forced to act. In this light, that she did at least give Sayaka a chance to take her own shot is, whilst maybe not angelic, certainly kinder than she could've been; and it's hardly her fault that she just happened to have very, very unfortunate timing in doing this.
 * It's also implied in the anthology that Kyousuke is uncomfortable about starting a relationship with Sayaka because he isn't in love with her, and doesn't want to fake his feelings, especially since it would come off as him being in debt to her (which is exactly what Mami warned her about in episode 3). He chose Hitomi because they could have a normal relationship.
 * Some suggest that Madoka's really comes from a sense of self-worthlessness.
 * Madoka's Image Song adds to this, with lyrics indicating her as a Stepford Smiler.

"Kyubey:"
 * Many (all?) Witches are implied to have very tragic back stories. Because of this, several people like to Draco in Leather Pants them, especially Charlotte.
 * Charlotte's scene: as told from her perspective.
 * Is Walpurgisnacht laughing or crying?
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: Pretty much the reaction to having a fixed date for the last two episodes of the series. This forum post sums up the reaction pretty well.
 * Some rejoiced when they found an English website for the show. Some time later, Aniplex USA announced they got the license.
 * Cristina Vee has joined the fray just makes it sweeter. Now this means that Nanoha will take a Darker and Edgier line.
 * They're releasing a video game. A video game with art by Gekidan Inu Curry and with Urobuchi being involved in development.
 * And it's now official! The show is getting not just one movie, but an entire trilogy of them! See Hilarious in Hindsight below.
 * Base Breaker Opinion is spilt on Kyubey. He's either a.
 * The characters involved in the Sayaka-Kyosuke- Love Triangle are fairly controversial, especially as people have different opinions on who was to blame for the tragic results.
 * (Even) Better on DVD: The Blu-ray release fixed some Meguca and gave an extreme makeover to Mami's residence. (No explanation given on that last part.)
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Some of the DVD edits have not been well-received.
 * All Soul Gems have been changed from hand-drawn to Conspicuous CG. While this fixes the scaling problems the Soul Gems had all over the place in the first few episodes, it's...well...conspicuous.
 * Mami's Soul Gem now has the added feature of constantly having weirdly edited in little flowers fluttering around it. These flowers also appear during her transformation and general use of her powers. It's both Narmy and unusual considering no one else's Soul Gems do anything similar.
 * Mami's apartment has been changed from having the most basic pieces of furniture and a blank hardwood floor to being decked out with pastel upholstery and stuffed animals everywhere. Detractors argue that the minimalistic version did a good job of highlighting Mami's depression due to complete lack of friends and family.
 * Among various architectural edits to the town, the school rooftop's chainlink fence was replaced with a very ornate white one. There would be no problem if they had actually re-drawn Sayaka's hand as she clutches the fence; the orientation of her fingers makes no sense with the new fence.
 * The Sayaka/Kyoko fight gets better shading, but in every other aspect the new artwork arguably looks worse than the originals.
 * Broken Base:
 * The ending cased some people to want to kill Shaft for creating the most perfect ending that absolutely fits the themes and tones of the series and others to kill Shaft for  and making them wait weeks for it.
 * The announcement of The Movie trilogy. You have people complaining about the first two movies because they are only a retelling. You have people complaining about the third movie because it's a continuation (and that the original ending will be Ruined FOREVER). You have people complaining that it isn't a Puella Magi Oriko Magica adaptation. And of course there are the people who simply go "TAKE MY MONEY!"
 * And, pretty much inevitably, the English dub.
 * Crack Pairing: Mami/ is just a little too popular. With the number of fanarts with them having tea party together easily overwhelming that of those "following the story", this is kind of to be expected.
 * Mami/Kyoko is a popular pairing who was considered crack, because they never met during the story proper. In fact it is not: the 3rd Drama CD shows that
 * Counterpart Comparison: (WARNING: A Higurashi no Naku Koro ni spoiler within the spoiler tags as well)
 * Oh, and it gets better. (WARNING: Same deal as above)
 * The All There in the Manual revelation of  has led to the typical comparisons with Neon Genesis Evangelion.
 * Mami, to (Muv Luv Alternative spoiler)
 * The upcoming movie trilogy has brought Evangelion comparisons. Although most fans are saying it will be like the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, a closer look at the trilogy suggests something more like Evangelion: Death and Rebirth followed by The End of Evangelion.
 * Director Akiyuki Shinbo has also made Mobile Suit Gundam comparisons, referring to it's Compilation Movie and saying that he wanted to subtitle the third movie  Counterattack.
 * The process of becoming a magical girl
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Now has its own page.
 * Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Between the characters' unwillingness to listen to each other and the overall hopelessness, some viewers wonder why they should care. See the variant mentioned on the main page.
 * Death of the Author: It has been stated that Shaft made the opening without input from Urobuchi or any of the other writers and that it carries no real meaning. Fans still believe that it does (for example, the black cat featured in the opening and the resulting witchery in-series). Given that Word of God has now explained the cat, this may be Ascended Fanon.
 * Deconstruction Fic: Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella is one example.
 * Die for Our Ship:  That said, there's no reliable measurement.
 * Actually,
 * It is heavily implied  it's kind of hard to doubt.
 * Which is still not reason or excuse for the fandom's bashing and slutshaming of  and the canonization of   As said above,   had no idea of WTF was going on, and would've likely thought twice if she at least knew   had reasons to not confess; if , it's her own responsibility and not.
 * Part of the reason the prevalence of the theory that she was  drives me nuts—she doesn't have to give up the guy she likes to her friend in order to be a good person. While it can be a little hard to handle in real life, she at least made some effort to be mature about it, and that's really all that she needed to do.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Kyoko is a cynical, antisocial darwinist who is prone to Ax Crazy mements and allows familiars to kill people so they can become Witches that produce Grief Seeds, she mocks Sayaka's wish and goads her into fighting ... but the fandom adores her and some use her to bash Madoka. And this was from before her genuinely Dark and Troubled Past was revealed.
 * Dropped a Bridge on Him:
 * Dying Moment of Awesome: death could count, as this depending on who you ask.
 * With a Revolutionary Girl Utena homage/send off, you bet it is.
 * Ear Worm: Sis, puella magica is one of the most haunting melodies of the show.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Mami. We've only seen her for three episodes , but due to her sheer sexiness, badassery and really awesome theme, she is well liked by the fans. She even went on to win Saimoe 2011 (a tournament of the most Moe characters of anime in the recent times), directly beating Kyouko and Madoka from this series, and other popular characters like Ika Musume, Shirayuki Hotogi and Mikan Yuuki.
 * Out of all the witches, Charlotte, who has a respectable amount of fanart despite appearing for all of two minutes. Even though she's an Eldritch Abomination, many fans find her adorable; having a face that wouldn't look out of place next to Hello Kitty helps with that. The biggest reason for her popularity though is likely her status as the
 * Also, with the revelation that, there's now fanart popping up depicting what Charlotte might have looked like
 * Fanartists have also latched onto the All There in the Manual tidbit that Charlotte loves cheese but is unable to create it. Awww.
 * With at least a couple of them even attempting to speculate on why...... Example
 * Depending on how much you view her as a separate character
 * Kyubey's face shows up in the strangest of places in Japan - namely arcades and price tags for stuff in specialty stores -, not quite rivaling Tony Tony Chopper's popularity in that respect but getting there. A curious case considering
 * A bear-themed magical girl has managed to catch a lot of attention from fans, despite only showing up for the briefest of seconds in episode 12.
 * A nameless, faceless classmate was the subject of an image macro, captioned "Poorfag is poor", because she was the only student who had no laptop. When the Blu-Rays were released and the fans got a better look of "Poorfag", her popularity soared.
 * Patricia, another witch which appeared in episode 10 is getting a good fanbase as of recently.
 * Epileptic Trees: These started sprouting just after the first episode.
 * The real kicker? Some of those were right.
 * The real kicker to the groin? Some of those that were right qualified as Poison Oak Epileptic Trees right off the bat.
 * Esoteric Happy Ending: the series ends with Everything seems to be okay, right? Well... not exactly.
 * Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory:
 * Family-Unfriendly Aesop: When Madoka gets worried about Sayaka's well-being due to the latter's strong sense of justice, Madoka's mother tells her to do something wrong to balance it out. While the qualifier she adds makes it valid advice (that it's easier to recover from mistakes while you're still young, and learning to pick yourself up will be a valuable skill as an adult), this advice might be what possessed Madoka to.
 * Incidentally, Junko's advice is fairly reminiscent of the reason Mephistopheles was allowed by God to tempt Faust, in Goethe's version.
 * The finale and possibly the whole series:
 * Fountain of Memes: Kyubey
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment: Rewatching early episodes is kind of uncomfortable in light of recent events.
 * Kazuko's wacky ramblings about her failed relationships. In the first episode she warns the girls about men who judge women by the eggs they can prepare. turns out to be exactly that kind of guy. In episode 4 she goes off on a tangent about biological eligibility having nothing to do with finding or pursuing love. Unfortunately  is in no state to listen and only gets worse.
 * It's also possible that, in light of what happens to, her frustration, instead of something to be taken lightly, might actually be a symptom of deep depression.
 * Genius Bonus: This show is crammed full of it, from the Shout Outs to obscure 19th century literature and musicians, mythological references, Faust quotes, and coded runic fonts. Sometimes you even have to pause and zoom in on a tiny portion of a frame to find some of them.
 * Physicists will laugh when they realize that Kyubey is
 * 魔法少女. Mahou Shoujo. Magical Girl, right? Lets examine this. 少女: Shoujo, which means girl. 魔法. Mahou, which means magic, right? Not exactly—it means "Evil Spirit" + Method", typically meaning Magic in General.
 * Physicists will laugh when they realize that Kyubey is
 * 魔法少女. Mahou Shoujo. Magical Girl, right? Lets examine this. 少女: Shoujo, which means girl. 魔法. Mahou, which means magic, right? Not exactly—it means "Evil Spirit" + Method", typically meaning Magic in General.

"Hitomi: Is this... FORBIDDEN LOVE?!"
 * It gets even more obvious when you realize the choice of Latin—Magical Girl—was originally believed to be a misuse of the words, due to the translation coming across as more akin to "Sorcerer's Girl".
 * The outside of Homura's house is rather reminiscent of a locale in the video game Shadow of Destiny. Some ome of the possible titles used before they settled on the final one were The Day and Night of Walpurgisnacht, Days of Walpurgis, and Time Adventure. Sounds like a regular Shout-Out, no? Well, the game is about a man who, which it turns out is.
 * The witch Oktavia von Seckendorff . Her name comes from Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff, who composed for "Der König in Thule", the poem that prefaces Goethe's Faust, as well as wrote a book called "Das Rad des Schicksals" (The Wheel of Fate). Oktavia fights by throwing wheels, and the word "Schicksal" appears in her labyrinth. Also, the Wheel of Fate (or Fortune) is a tarot card which symbolizes "possibilities, opportunities, new developments, sudden changes";.
 * Growing the Beard: If the first two episodes didn't already show a stubble to some fans indicating this isn't the usual Magical Girl series, then Episode 3 should've done it.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: In hindsight, it's pretty unfortunate that Mami just so happened to wear her Soul Gem as a hair dec,.
 * Episode 10 featured the image of a destroyed and flooded Japanese city. Shortly after it aired, Japan got hit with a massive earthquake and tsunami.
 * Hell Is That Noise:
 * Het Is Ew: The amount of fans who simply cannot accept Sayaka devoting herself to a male love interest is staggering.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Before the last two episodes were aired in Japan, one fan decided to make a trailer for a Madoka Magica movie in the style of an actual film trailer (Watch it here). Months later, well...
 * One episode features Kyouko playing a Dance Dance Revolution-like game, to the tune of an arrangement of "Connect", the opening theme. Several months later, Dance Dance Revolution X3 was released, and it features a cover of "Connect".
 * There is a doujin involving Mami by Guts (it's in the Fan Fic Recommendations page). Cue the English dub cast, it's announced that Mami will be voiced by Casca's voice actress.
 * April 21, 2011: Episode 11 airs.
 * April 21, 2011:
 * Holy Shit Quotient: Almost every episode will leave you off with an unstable mind trying to comprehend what just happened.
 * Honor Before Reason: Sayaka refuses help from any magical girl who does not meet her ideal of justice.
 * Hype Backlash/Hype Aversion/AngstAversion
 * I Knew It!:
 * Episode 6:
 * Episode 8: ;  That said,
 * Episode 9:
 * Episode 10:
 * Episode 12:
 * Also, from the very beginning of the series there was speculation that Whether you can say that or not is left to the watcher's interpretation.
 * Internet Backdraft:  Just mentioning anything about entropy in /a/ would cause an argument. Even if
 * Do not ask whether this show is a Deconstruction or not, unless you want to start a Flame War.
 * The debates over whether the proper term is "magical girl", "puella magi", or "mahou shojo" will go on forever.
 * Mentioning this series on /m/ will get... interesting reactions from toku fans who note similarities with Kamen Rider Ryuki.
 * It Was His Sled: Even people who haven't watched the whole show know that
 * An interesting case with
 * Jerkass Woobie: Kyoko. Yep, she had to live through a LOT of shit in her life... but it still doesn't justify how much of an ass she was at the beginning. And neither does it excuse how she's used to bash Madoka.
 * Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Madoka x Mami, Madoka x Homura, Madoka x Sayaka, Madoka x herself (the last one comes from the opening animation). It's slightly hilarious that the trope namer is Doctor Faustus.
 * Les Yay: We have a separate page for this.
 * Every character has at least one possible lesbian pairing. It's a mahou shoujo anime with an all female cast. What did you think was going to happen?

"Kyubey:"
 * The big couples are Homura and Madoka (the former is curiously obsessed with the latter) and Kyoko and Sayaka (the former suddenly takes a big interest in the latter after they have a heart-to-heart, and ).
 * Sayaka, Kyoko's magical weapon is a harpoon spear, make of that what you might. Also, in the episode, the episode-end guest-image is a Catgirl Kyoko.
 * The show was ranked as the best yuri anime.
 * Love to Hate: Kyubey. Most of the fans would love to see him die horribly, yet he's also a Fountain of Memes and the source of much humor and entertainment in the fandom.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Kyubey's line in episode 9 cemented him as one in many fans' eyes.

"."
 * becomes one in Rebellion, being even able to completely outdo the above-mentioned Kyubey in the end.
 * Memetic Badass: Both Homura Akemi and
 * Also, to a lesser extent, Junko Kaname is a bit of a Memetic Badass Normal. She's among the few characters (from all media) the fandom assumes can take on Homura on even footing.
 * Memetic Molester: Kyubey. Oh, Kyubey.
 * Homura, being depicted as a Madoka-obsessed fangirl, is somewhat milder, but not by much. Sometimes the roles are reversed. (ATTENTION: Site is NSFW)
 * Heck, There's even a "Perverted Homura pool on Danbooru (NSFW).
 * Memetic Mutation: Has its own page.
 * Memetic Outfit: There is a whole boatload of artwork for.
 * Memetic Sex God: Mami, or more specifically, her breasts. They have their own wiki page.
 * Misaimed Fandom: Yuki Kajiura's mother apparently works out to "Magia", of all things.
 * Moe: Very much so, though not in the way people were expecting. The promo materials made it look like the "adorable Magical Girls have cutesy, sugary, light-hearted adventures together" type of Moe, but it turned out to be the "adorable Magical Girls have terrible things happen to them, cry a lot, and desperately need a hug" type of Moe.
 * Moe Anthropomorphism: Kyubey has gotten this treatment.
 * Many of the witches also get this treatment in fanart. Which may be justified, considering.
 * Moral Event Horizon: The fandom is divided on when he becomes an Acceptable Target of much fan hatred (the infamous 'Everybody hates Kyubey' pool in Danbooru (NSFW) standing as eternal proof of this), but the most commonly believed Moral Event Horizon crossings are either when, or.
 * Narm: Considering that Kyubey's "charm" is his Perpetual Smiler traits, his "Nightmare Face" from the manga (which he pulls when  could come off as more ridiculously overblown than truly scary. Even more since, ever since then, he's drawn with stupidly Anvilicious Black Eyes of Evil, as if the viewers were idiots who needed to constantly be reminded of how eeeeeeeevil he's supposed to come as. A little subtlety, people, PLEASE.
 * Mami's cute little hops with bended knees and pigeon toes before her Transformation Sequence were... well, pretty out of place.
 * In episode 11,  is supposed to be a very dramatic fight... except for   having a super ultra high-pitched Evil Laugh that completely ruins the effect. Shut up, stupid bitch, just SHUT THE GODDAMNED HELL UP!
 * Oh, definitely YMMV. I actually loved her constant, unstopping laugh.
 * Although it may have been ruined before that. Homura's ready for the final showdown as a dramatic thunderstorm looms, and... giant green elephant. Wha? And the initial use of Conspicuous CG.
 * Charlotte's One-Winged Angel is a large worm that appears to be made out of candy and looks as though it has the face of a clown. It's something of the equivalent of Lelouch's pink sword in dramatic effect, especially after it
 * The signature head-tilt can turn a serious and dramatic moment somewhat narmy given how unnatural it looks.
 * Narm Charm: In episode 12, when, the camera zooms to Kyubey making His Most Epic Face EVER. However, unlike other cases, it actually works. (At least for some...)
 * Nausea Fuel:  Oh my GOD... eeeeeew.
 * That is, unless you think that it's actually  Insert more 'eeeeeeew'.
 * And the manga version of  is far worse and more graphic.
 * Never Live It Down: If all the fanart and even official merchandise showing them together is any indication, Charlotte will be remembered for one thing and one thing only -, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Mami will be remembered only for
 * Look at the bright side, that is precisely what the vast majority of those fanarts are meant to fix.
 * See the Memetic Sex God entry above for the other reason.
 * Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: It has been said that, regarding an Urobuchi work, "Think out the worst possible logical scenario that can happen, and Urobuchi will top it."
 * Paranoia Fuel: Witches are everywhere and they are responsible for suicides. Whats worse, they are completely invisible to normal humans until you wander into their lair, wherein you will be killed in a most horrific way. That friend of yours online that just killed herself? Could have been because of a witch. Wanna take that shortcut through the alleyway? Could walk in right into a witches lair. You are never safe.
 * Possession Sue: Sayaka is not a Mary Sue in canon, but a pretty loud part of the fandom loves to overproject on her. Sometimes to extremely uncomfortable degrees: in their view Sayaka is a pure little girl who never commits mistakes, never should be responsible for the missteps she takes, deserves 's penis handed to her on a platter because she healed him, is soooooo like the poor woobie that her "fans" are in Real Life and thus   is her property and   is a whore who must die for daring not to give up on her feelings for him since that's soooooo like what happened to them in real life...
 * Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Madoka enters the show as Shinji Ikari. She comes out as Jesus.
 * The rescuing also comes in part on eventually learning the truth about Magical Girls and the reason why Homura actively keeps Madoka from joining a career as a Magical Girl:
 * Ron the Death Eater: A big part of the Fan Dumb really, really took  in a horrible way.
 * Kyubey, though not being a "heroic" character, takes the cake, since it's apparently okay to compare the suffering he inflicts of a bunch of fictional girls for the greater good to the real suffering of 17,000,000 people killed by the Nazis.
 * Sailor Earth: Very common in Fanfic; easiest is creating new magical girls; but also Kyubey variants with personalities named "Prefix"-bey are often villains or characters since Kyubey's personality is really tricky to do correctly.
 * The Scrappy: Danbooru has an entire pool (WARNING: MANY IMAGES ARE NSFW) dedicated to fanart of people maiming, killing, and otherwise beating on Kyubey. At last count the pool had 250+ images and climbing.
 * Though most of the hate doesn't actually come from the fact that he's annoying, but because of his morally questionable (if well-intentioned) decisions, which result in him having a large share of the responsibility for the characters' suffering.
 * Hitomi gets a lot of flak from the fanbase due to the fact that her hooking up with Kyosuke caused so much trouble with Sayaka, or simply they think Sayaka would be better with him.
 * Serious Business: There are people running MATLAB simulations over this show.
 * That's nothing compared to a 224 page book!!!
 * The fact that the fans has go deep and wide to discover every single symbolism in the show; from the Witches' back-stories, meaning of their name and its connection to said back-stories, astronomy connection of said names, philosophical and psychoanalysis of the characters, foreshadowings, deciphering the runes, thermodynamic, Homura's, Mitakihara's architectures and their comparison to the real-life buildings, canon's evidences of those yuri undertones...
 * Shout-Out: There's a pretty blatant Shout-Out to Revolutionary Girl Utena in Episode 9.
 * And one to Bokurano in the same episode.
 * So Cool Its Awesome: This series is one of the, if not THE, most acclaimed show in 2011 and everyone and their grandparents are talking about it. The series' thread on this site holds a record for the fastest growing Anime thread. Yeah, it qualifies.
 * Start of Darkness: Arguably, the whole series is about Start of Darkness. Yomi would have been proud crying blood. The only caveat is
 * Straw Man Has a Point: As cruel as Kyoko's Social Darwinist outlook may seemed, her belief that helping others would only lead to trouble looked to be somewhat accurate in light of the series' universe.
 * Too Cool to Live:
 * And then, just as she  dies too.
 * True Art Is Angsty
 * Wangst/What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: Madoka is condemned for being emotionally crushed by all that happens to her and not react with violence or bitchiness, as well as hesitating in becoming a Magical Girl after  and realizing that being a Magical Girl involves a Deal with the Devil. The fanbase simply ignores the part on how Homura told Madoka that if she becomes a magical girl she will lose everything, and Madoka's doubt comes in part from being drawn into a lifetime of servitude just for a single wish. Oh, and her emotional breakdown reaches its peak in Episode 6 when she loses it and . Thus, Madoka had to endure some time being called "emo", "selfish", "bitch", "lazy", "whiny", "slut" until she redeemed herself to a part of the fanbase by openly dying for your sins.
 * Made worse when we see that, therefore this means that she MUST take up the contract or people will keep calling her "stupid weakling" for not living up to their "standards" of what a "strong female character" must be... while obviously missing the huge downside of her
 * And in some circles, very bad things have been said about  and   after the first's  and the second
 * Don't forget how the first is idiotic, offensive and weak (if not slutty) for having  as her major motivation. But when Homura does everything just for Madoka, it's A-Okay!
 * Which is even sillier since  has every reason to care so much about , as they've known each other since they were kids.   on the other hand threw her life away every bit as unknowingly as Sayaka, but for the sake of a girl she met a month ago. On the other hand, an argument can be made for  being more willing to return  affections than  is for
 * Don't forget how some people hold up  as some sort-of "strong women rolemodels" that the other girls should imitate, lest they're "stupid and useless."
 * A part of 's hatedom also comes back to this trope, since she's a girly-girl who "dares" not back off in her own word  . Being a Yamato Nadeshiko who doesn't bow to a Tomboy is an horrible, terrible sin!
 * Unfortunate Implications: From this blog...
 * A part of 's hatedom also comes back to this trope, since she's a girly-girl who "dares" not back off in her own word  . Being a Yamato Nadeshiko who doesn't bow to a Tomboy is an horrible, terrible sin!
 * Unfortunate Implications: From this blog...


 * Chew on that and remember the old magical girl genre conundrum... why are there no magical boys? Surely not only females are so ruled by their emotions that only they can possess such unstable powers? Just sayin'.
 * The Woobie: Everyone in the whole Goddamn series (aside from Kyubey) makes the viewers want to give them a big hug and tell them that all is going to end well (even if it really doesn't), but special mention goes to Homura for being an Iron Woobie. There's a reason her Fan Nickname is, you know.
 * Sayaka is also a huge woobie, not only due to
 * Kyouko's backstory implies she's a bit of an Iron Woobie herself. It's damn impressive
 * What Do You Mean, It's Not For Little Girls?: Hey, look at this show where the casts are all little girls who wear cute dress and can do magic It Got Worse from there.
 * World of Woobie
 * X Meets Y: Kamen Rider Ryuki meets Magical Girls. If only for the Deconsruction that goes on..
 * In which in turns into Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Magical Girls.