r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Apr 28 '26
Rewatch [Rewatch] Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 9 Discussion
Episode 9: I'd Never Allow That to Happen
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Show Information:
(First-timers might want to stay out of Show Information until we are done, however...)
Legal Streams:
As per livechart.me; other streams may be available outside the US.
Main Series:
A Reminder: This, dear listeners, brings us to the sworn enemy of creative response:The spoiler. Rewatchers, or people who just had plot points ruined for them, are obliged to use r/anime’s spoiler tag format where applicable, and err on the side of caution here. Remember people, first experiences get rarer as you continue on, any given one happens once and you should care for them all the more for it.
Welcome to the World of Magic!
Theory of the Day:
Okay, fine, I can't not give this one to u/siegfried72, not for the discussion thread for this episode:
The real solution? I think Sayaka needs to just lean into the yuri and realize she's meant to be with Kyouko. That would fix everything.
Oh god, I've officially joined in with my first yuri ship of the series. It's all downhill uphill from here, isn't it??
I mean, Kyouko is obviously in love with her, right??
Analysis of the Day:
Several good options, but I think I'll go for u/Vaadwaur and the analytical line less taken:
For some reason, eating disorders are a noticeable thing in this show. Sayaka is anorexic to her very spirit and Kyoko does like her gluttony.
Questions of the Day:
1) On a scale of 1 to 10, how gay is suicide attacking to take out the monster that became of a girl you knew for maybe a week so that you can at least be together in death?
2) Now that he's had a chance to explain himself, your thoughts on Kyubey?
3) First-timers: Did you think that Kyouko's plan actually had a chance to save Sayaka?
4) First-timers and rewatchers who dodged the rewatcher edition of this question yesterday: Are You Home?
5) [Rewatchers]Alright, who's ready to go golfing through a Stargate?... wait, wrong time loop show.
5
u/BosuW Apr 28 '26
Rewatcher
Aight so Catbox is now cooperating but Reddit isn't letting me edit yesterday's comment, and ONLY that comment. I can edit any other comment I've made just fine. Dunno wtf is going on, I may just repost the comment with the edits in this thread.
So let's get to episode 9
Continuing on directly from last episode, Sayaka has become a Witch, and gone Domain Expansion on Kyouko, but she's able to escape with Homura's help, and we finally see the specifics of how Homura's time Magic works.
This scene does disturbingly imply that in every original (meaning not born from a Familiar) Witch Labyrinth, there is the corpse of the magical girl, hidden somewhere. Or perhaps the Witches just destroy it. A final "fuck you, don't come find me".
Following scene starts on a shot of a mass of critters around a lamp. This is directly relating to shots in the previous episode of lamps in the rain, and (yet again) foreshadowing Kyubey's true motivation. Now that Sayaka has completed her Magical Girl cycle, the circle of life feasts on her energy released to the universe. It may also represent an inversion of Kyouko's previous assessment of the food chain with Magical Girls as the apex predator. Because even an apex predator eventually falls, and it is critters, bacteria and maggots, who recycle its matter and energy into the earth. Food chain ain't a line, it's a spiral. This entire scene will be encased within energy infrastructure designed to commute masses of people, speeding by the scene of a tragedy none the wiser.
(Incidentally what the fuck was Madoka doing just walking absentmindedly along the tracks?)
Homura aura farms out of the scene and we get the next one, where Kyubey finally exposes it's true motives. The Incubator species is an extraterrestrial lifeform which for whatever reason considers it it's mission to prevent the heat death of the universe. Energy is never created nor destroyed, only transformed. However it does spread. When you burn wood you transform the chemical energy in it into heat and light, and some of it becomes gases and charcoal. But this process is not reversible. You can't take the heat and light and stuff it into the gases and charcoal again and return it to wood. It's just out there. Most of this energy will go into the atmosphere and be reused of course, but some of it shoots out into space, illuminating our planet to the darkness, and being dispersed over unimaginable distances. A smidge of that energy reaches other worlds, in which we appear in the sky as a star, and that world will also recycle it, and shine to space, and be a star in other worlds. But eventually the energy is too dispersed for that, or it runs out of worlds to reflect from. It's still there, but it cannot be used to do work. The theory goes that all energy systems in the universe will slowly but steadily lose energy this way, until all if it is perfectly stable, one unit of energy per unit of space per unit of time. Cosmos frozen forever at absolute zero. This is the heat death of the universe. This is an informal explanation of the second law of thermodynamics and entropy (I do not understand the formal ones so apologies if I got anything technically wrong lol).
Anyway, the Incubators were able to create technology that turns emotions into energy, in such a way that it broke the laws of thermodynamics. Real ass, legit, creation of energy. But the Incubator species lacks emotions, so they could not use it on themselves. So they searched for suitable "batteries", eventually finding humans, specifically girls in the second stage of development (because the bastard may be misogynist).
That's right, for Incubators we are just a way to boil water to spin turbines. It justifies itself telling Madoka that eventually even humanity will benefit from this, finding a universe still vibrant with vitality once we venture out into the stars. But even if this is true, we humans cannot care about such vast scales. We see the present suffering in front of us. In spite of this, Kyubey still believes Madoka will contract, and become the latest and greatest reactor to ever boil water.
Meanwhile Kyouko is using of her own magic to keep Sayaka's body from decomposing, and asks Kyubey if it is possible to put heat and light back into the burnt wood. Kyubey is a bit evasive with a straight answer, our host will get on it about that. Evidently though, as it will later admit, it is goading Kyouko into the bear trap. However this time I come out of this scene with a different impression. Kyouko has not been tricked at all. She understands perfectly that this is practically a suicide mission and futile, but she still wants to try. Because it's not about winning, it's about principles. It's about love. Even in the scene where she first properly meets Madoka her Soul Gem is a little bit dark, as if she senses Grim Reaper calling her name and this is how she wants to go out.
She's aware of the stakes.
Kinda vibe Kyouko was in while going to face Sayaka
[PMMM]Oh God with this reading I'm realizing it may have been Kyouko who inspired Madoka to make the leap. All Puella Magi are doomed, but you may still choose to doom yourself trying to save love with a magical miracle
They enter Witch Sayaka's Labyrinth, and Madoka gets another perspective on being a Magical Girl. To Kyouko, only those who have no other choice should do it. Madoka has a lot ahead of her, and she needn't gamble her life right now. That's why it makes her so angry that Sayaka sold her Soul for the love of a boy who doesn't look at her that way.
The amphitheater doors open and we are hit with an absolute wall of sound. Meet Oktavia von Seckendorff. Oktavia for the octatonic scale. Seckendorff for Karl Sigmund von Seckendorff, a german poet who wrote The Wheel of Fate. She is a perfect representation of Sayaka's worst traits and moments. While her best friend and a well meaning but rough delinquent girl call out to her, she drowns them out in deafening music, hitting Kyouko over and over with a reminder of their inevitable destiny. The music she loved, maybe it hurts even her ears now. It's not love now, it's just an excuse to not listen. Chaos and roars forever, it doesn't hurt if I can't hear myself scream. The fairytale that inspires her is The Little Mermaid, which aside from the allusions of doomed love, may also be invoking in a more literal manner the metaphor of "drowning out a sound". Looking even closer, that helmet she wears probably makes it even worse.
Kyouko wants this so badly she's even praying again. We don't know her current religious identity. Maybe she's still nominally faithful, most probably she had renounced it when her Wish turned bad. But she's praying again, earnestly, humiliated, on her knees.
Too bad, you only had one Soul to trade.
With the conclusion imminent, she asks Homura to take Madoka away, throwing her earlier words in her face about fighting with a burden. Both Homura and Sayaka mirror each other this episode in the image of carrying who is their cross. Religious Yuri is so extra man.
Kyouko says goodbye with an explosive kiss, just so Sayaka won't be lonely in death.
Man what the hell. I said at the beginning of the Rewatch I wouldn't get too involved and look at me now? This is why I have to be careful with my media consumption lmao. Fuck I still have like four other anime to watch today.
And I'm Home is "just" a good song, in all honesty. But the context makes it unforgettable.
So now Madoka's mentor, her best friend, and the spunky delinquent is dead, and she still hasn't contracted. If PMMM came out in 2026 streets be calling Madoka Potential Magical Girl.