Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion



All spoilers from the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica will be unmarked on this page. Spoilers specific to the film will be marked. Please do not read ahead if you haven't seen the show. It is very easy to spoil the show, as almost every episode reveals a crucial piece of new information.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion is Shaft's 2013 movie sequel to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It follows Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Beginnings and Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Eternal, two compilation films that re-edit the events of the series into feature films. Rebellion tells an original story, directly continuing after the original series. It was nominated for the Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year in 2014, but faced tough competition from Studio Ghibli, ultimately losing to The Wind Rises--the exact opposite film to Rebellion.

Fourteen year old Madoka Kaname was an Ordinary High School Student. Now she's a Magical Girl, attending school, hanging out with her other magical girl friends. When the night comes, she and her friends--Homura Akemi, Sayaka Miki, Mami Tomoe, and Kyoko Sakura-- team up to fight Nightmares, creatures born from, well, nightmares. Things are seemingly idyllic in this existence.

Except, wait a minute. Didn't the magical girls fight witches, not nightmares? Even after Madoka Ascended to A Higher Plane of Existence, the magical girls fought wraiths, not nightmares. Didn't half of them die in the original series? Why is Mami back? What is going on?

Well, things are far more than they look on the surface, for Homura quickly discovers she cannot leave the city of Mitakihara, and that it hides a far more sinister secret than it lets on. For you see, there's a lot going on in this "Mitakihara" the girls just don't know about.


 * Affectionate Parody: The way the group dispatches the Nightmare on the movie's prologue, with heavy use of Calling Your Attacks and silly terms, it is very reminiscent of Super Sentai. It helps that most of the main cast was already color-coded like heroes of that series.
 * Art Shift: During the bus sequence as Homura and Kyoto tries to get out of Mitakihara, the art style shifts massively. Backgrounds become much emptier, with less detail. Scenes are generally darker. This helps contribute to a feeling that something is wrong.
 * Back from the Dead: The original series killed off pretty much every magical girl in Mitakihara. Here, they're all back fighting--the first sign that something is wrong in the city.
 * Big Bad Duumvirate:.
 * Cerebus Syndrome: The first 30 minutes are pretty slow paced and revolve around simple magical girls who wake up, go to school, and save the world. Then, the revelation that their "Mitakihara" city isn't what it seems sends the movie promptly back to the territory of episode 8 from the original show.
 * De-Power:.
 * Gainax Ending:
 * Things make a bit of sense if you think about it for a bit. Homura's motivation from the original series is to save Madoka. In the penultimate timeline, she was never able to do it. Even though Madoka isn't a witch, her sacrifice means Madoka cannot be with Homura..
 * Jump Off the Slippery Slope:.
 * Masquerade: One is put up to conceal the.
 * Mind Screw: The movie is already feels very fever-dream like in his initial minutes thanks to weird colors and environments, but if you have watched previous installments of the series is outright confusing: those girls never worked together all the five at the same time in no timeline the audience have seen, they never fought enemies called Nightmares, and Bebe is an entirely new character that everyone acts as she was always there. It isn't until Homura begins to figure out in-universe something is wrong that the mind screw un-screws itself slowly.
 * More Dakka: The entire fight between is this, being two characters who fight prominently with, and the bullets keep hitting other bullets.
 * The Movie: This is the last part of a trilogy . The first two films were a retelling of the original series, and this one is a continuation of the story.
 * New Transfer Student: In the original series, Homura is one..
 * Opening Monologue: Homura gives one about magical girls and how their end will inevitably be claimed by the Law of Cycles.
 * Post Modernism: Some sequences blur the line between Clip Art Animation and Anime animation. Hard. And there's many of them.
 * Produce Pelting:.
 * Secondary Character Title:.
 * Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains:.
 * Sexy Backless Outfit: . While in general her outfit is stripperific, the no back is practical considering the wings (which themselves look impractical). Although the fact she is biologically likely to be 13-14 probably (and hopefully) undermines any fan service appeal..
 * Shoot the Bullet: Mami and Homura, can't hit each other during their fight just before halfway into the film. The reason for this is quite simple: their bullets kept hitting other bullets.
 * Trilogy Creep: Originally, we only have Beginnings, Eternal, and Rebellion. Now we're getting Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie -Walpurgisnacht: Rising- to clear up that Gainax Ending.
 * Token Loli: Bebe is the only child between a cast of teenagers.
 * Weird Moon: At the very end of the film, after the credits, the moon shown is sliced cleanly in half.
 * Yandere: Most yandere characters stop at murder. The entire Madoka Magica franchise has proven it has no difficulties taking every trope to the next level, and thus the yandere is also taken Up To Eleven..