Homura Akemi

Homura Akemi is one of the main characters in Madoka Magica. Homura is a beautiful young girl with hip-length black hair and flat purple eyes. In the present timeline, she almost always presents herself with an emotionless, stoic look on her face and a black headband. Long before she came to realize the horrors of her destiny in earlier timelines, she wore red square glasses accompanied by braids with purple bows, thus causing her hair to branch out in two sides in the present timeline upon removing the braids. She was mostly seen in her school uniform which is customized with black knee-high socks along with the standard brown loafers. In the present timeline, she is mostly in her school uniform which is customized with black leggings along with the standard brown loafers. As a Magical Girl, she wears a black-trimmed white blazer with a pale purple-grey collar that has a black diamond pattern on the back and short slitted sleeves over a black shirt with violet-brimmed sleeves,a white-trimmed collar, and a dark purple bowtie that sits between it. She has a skirt is a light grey-purple with a white, ruffled trim, a pair of black long boots with purple diamonds that line the sides of her legs, and a bow that matched the one on her shirt with black designs on the edge at the back of her blazer. Her outfit reassembles a school uniform. Ever since her initial arrival at Mitakihara Middle School in episode 1, Homura is depicted as being very intelligent, athletic, distant, and cold. It is revealed in episode 4 that she ended up like this because she had seen so much suffering during her tenure as a Magical Girl. Because of this, she does not want Madoka Kaname to become a Magical Girl and exudes her best efforts in order to stop her from making a wish with Kyubey, going as far as to attempt to injure or kill the cat-like creature. Despite her cold attitude towards the others, she still very much cares for them, and especially Madoka, as it is her sole objective to protect her ever since she made her wish. In the original timeline where her journey began, however, Homura is portrayed, and is known around the school for her lack of confidence. She was also known for her physical incapability of performing in P.E. class; she would get dizzy upon doing even the simplest of warm-up exercises, likely because of her time spent in the hospital due of her heart condition. This ended up having the result of her being a target of bullying, as heard on Drama CD 1. Overwhelmed by her perceived uselessness, she begins questioning the worth of her existence as she wanders into a Witch labyrinth. As she is trembling at the hands of the familiars, Madoka saves her life, and she begins her fated friendship with her. Madoka, alongside Mami Tomoe, shows her the basics and dangers of becoming a Magical Girl, and notes that Madoka's attitude became much healthier with every Witch battle. Despite being regarded as emotionless by Sayaka Miki, Homura is shown to be capable of feeling and expressing emotion. Although she does not easily show signs of remorse, sadness, or pity, it is only because she had grown used to the suffering around her, and must put up a strong front to continue fighting for her goal. Homura herself has stated that she always feels badly with each life she's unable to save or alter, but nevertheless, it does not slow her down from staying true to her objective in saving Madoka Kaname. Homura was a transfer student who was hospitalized for a long period of time due to heart disease. The whereabouts and status of her family is unknown, as they're never mentioned in the series. In the original timeline, Homura is physically frail and weak most likely due to her illness. She wears glasses and braided hair in her early insecure depiction. Later with renewed determination, she undoes her braids and uses her soul gem to correct her vision and to heal her heart condition. From then on she no longer required the use of glasses. Homura's time-loop starts on the 16th of the month in the anime (between March and April). She was released from the hospital on the 16th, and transferred to Mitakihara Middle School on the 25th. In the original timeline, she's attacked by a witch and saved by Madoka and Mami. Sometime during the next month, during Walpurgisnacht, she becomes a magical girl while wishing to redo her meeting with Madoka, thus gaining the power to pause and/or rewind time one month. It's estimated Homura repeated the same month starting on the 16th nearly 100 times before the present timeline in the TV anime. Within these timelines, Homura was able to gradually improve her abilities and acquire items (such as ammo and weapons from the Japanese military) to prepare for the battle with Walpurgisnacht. She was also able to memorize and deduce through statistics the major events that would occur within all timelines, giving her incredible knowledge about most of her adversaries. The corollary, however, was that Homura experienced the deaths of many of her friends repeatedly, often horrifically. As a general trend, Homura became increasingly distant to Madoka with each repeat of the month. By the timeline of the TV anime, Homura appeared as a cold and calculating character who is distant from all the characters. She failed to save all of her companions (apart from Madoka), and by Walpurgisnacht, was forced to face the witch alone. She was subsequently defeated by Walpurgisnacht, and seemed just about to succumb to despair before Madoka appears and rewrites the universe with her wish. After Madoka's revision of the universe, Homura is the only known character to retain her memories of the previous universe. She has Madoka's ribbon and a new black bow as her weapon similar to Madoka's weapon. It's unknown if she retained her abilities to manipulate time and space. Homura is shown to have a much closer relationship with Kyuubey, so much so she even confides an entire account about how the old universe worked. She also has the ability to create wings of energy, forming angelic wings when confronting Wraiths in the city, and jagged dark wings when walking through the desert. In events prior to The Rebellion Story Homura was captured by the Incubators, and her Soul Gem was placed in an Isolation Field that blocked out the Law of Cycles. This strain led Homura to transform partially into a witch without her knowledge. In this form, she also unconsciously created a labyrinth that was a near-perfect replica of Mitakihara City, and unconsciously lured her former acquaintances into it. She even drew in Madoka from the Law of Cycles, who entered the barrier along with Sayaka and Nagisa Momoe. In this dream world, Homura unconsciously distorted almost everyone's memories (including her own) so that they believed they were living in the real world fighting new enemies called Nightmares. In order to stop the Incubators from fulfilling their goal, Madoka entrusted her memories and powers to Sayaka and Nagisa. Sayaka only pretended to have her memories altered, while Nagisa disguised herself as Charlotte/Bebe. Eventually Homura realizes that she's trapped in a witch's barrier and attempts to discover who is behind it. Near the end of her journey she has a conversation with Madoka that causes her to realize that she can't accept Madoka's sacrifice. At this point she begins to realize she is the witch, and confirms it when she separates herself from her Soul Gem without consequence. At this point Kyubey appears and explains the truth about Homura's present nature and the Incubators' plan to control the Law of Cycles. This causes Homura to go berserk and curse her existence, completing her transformation into a witch known as Homulilly. Madoka and the other magical girls manage to rescue Homura by destroying the stasis field containing them all, returning them to reality. Due to the Isolation Field, Homura only became a witch inside her own Soul Gem, allowing Madoka to save her. Ultimate Madoka arrives to take Homura away as per the Law of the Cycle. However, Homura grabs Madoka first. Her Soul Gem turns black, then fills with swirling colors that Nagisa calls worse than curses. Reality begins to crack as Homura separates Madoka from her goddess self. The colors burst out of her Soul Gem, and both the cracks and colors engulf the entire universe. Homura and Kyubey reappear in the same place where Madoka ascended in Episode 12. Homura shatters her Soul Gem in her mouth, and a new gem appears called the Dark Orb. Kyubey exclaims that Homura is rewriting the universe, and asks what happened to her Soul Gem. Homura explains that she remembered all of the times she repeated time, and all of the pain she suffered for Madoka's sake. She says that even this pain has become precious to her, tainting her Soul Gem with something greater than curses. As she swallows the Dark Orb, she calls it the pinnacle of human emotions: Love. Homura transforms into a new form and grows a pair of black wings. Kyubey says that Homura is no longer a magical girl or a witch, and asks what Homura is now. Homura that since she brought down and imprisoned god, it's only appropriate to call her a demon. Kyubey decides that it was a mistake to experiment with human emotions and flees, but Homura grabs him and says she still needs his existence to deal with all the curses of the world. Homura becomes a goddess of this new universe. Apart from her true nature as a demon, she still exists with a human form in the real world and can interact normally with everyone else. She appears to have the power to manipulate the memories of virtually anyone she pleases, but otherwise the full extent of her abilities are unknown. It's assumed that Homura is a deity that embodies love (whereas Madoka embodies hope). Homura is presently holding a fraction of the Goddess Madoka captive--specifically, the part that was Madoka Kaname before she became the Law of Cycles.