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Kyuubey is the main antagonist in the anime and manga series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and had some minor roles in its spin-off mangas Kazumi Magica and Oriko Magica.
A small, cute creature that communicates through telepathy. His duty is to form contracts with girls where they will become magical girls and fight witches in exchange for any one wish. He is intent on contracting Madoka due to her immense potential.
He's working torwards the fulfillment of a mysterious, overarching goal which is slowly unveiled as the story progresses.
In the AWA fics, Kyuubey made it's debut at Chapter 1 of All Worlds Alliance Missions - Madoka Magica fic.
Appearance[]
Kyuubey is a small cat-like creature, about two feet long (including tail). His entire body is covered in often clean white fur. He has what appear to be four ears; two that resemble an average cat, pointed and up, while the other two appear as long tassel-like appendages that split into three sections at their tip. The tassels fade from white to pink and have three red dots horizontally before the splits. they also bear a pair of floating golden rings. Kyuubey's face is his most well-known feature; two beady pink eyes with ark maroon irises and a tiny, sigma-shaped "cat mouth". Due to Kyuubey's method of telepathic communication, his face remains almost completely immobile with the exception of blinking and consuming food. This unmoving face is often a source of fan stigma involving Kyuubey "staring into one's soul".
On his back is an egg-shaped red oval. In timeline 6, this oval flips up, like a trapdoor to act as a receptacle for grief seed fragments.
In the anime, Kyuubey has not been evidenced to bleed, however, when injured, he has red matter underneath his fur. When he is shot by Homura several times, Kyuubey's body does not seem to contain organs, only solid red. Whether this is artistic censorship or an actual attribute of Kyuubey's anatomy is yet unknown.
In the anime, Kyuubey's body often makes noises like a plush toy when squeezed or pressed against, suggesting that he is soft and cuddly, at least physically. In Oriko Magica, Kyuubey takes on even more of a "plush toy" appearance than before. Now, his sharp tipped tassel ears are soft and curved, lacking the pink gradient and red spots. His magical hoops have moved further up his ears and his front legs appear to have shortened.
- Kyuubey's appearance (and name) share an affinity to Kyuubi, Mythical Japanese foxes with nine tails. In folklore, Kyuubi was known to possess men and have them do the Kyuubi's bidding, a trait identical to Kyuubeys desire to collect energy from Puella Magi.
Personality[]
Kyuubey is an Incubator/Messenger of Magic. Because of this, he (like his race) cannot exhibit emotions of any kind. As a result, Kyuubey often appears to be cold, arrogant, calculating and scheming; traits that make him appear villainous in the series. However, Kyuubey only seeks to achieve a goal; to preserve the universe from entropy. To meet this goal, he takes all means logically efficient and reasonable; namely creating Puella Magi. Initially, Kyuubey appears to be extremely enthusiastic to help the Puella Magi in their quest, offering advice where applicable, however, as more of his true motive is revealed, either by him or others, Kyuubey becomes progressively more passive and observatory in manner (although this could be because he has no advice left to offer).
Throughout the series, Kyuubey is often accused of trickery and deceit by turning girls into Puella Magi, and subsequently witches, treating humans as energy livestock under the guise of being an impressive miracle granted. Although this can easily be understood, Kyuubey states that he never intended to "trick" Puella Magi, but simply leave out traumatizing subtext in order to make the process more appealing to a potential Puella Magi.
Kyuubey uses certain speech patterns that indicate he may see himself as superior to the magical girls; the lack of honorifics, the use of the pronouns "Boku" and "Kimi" and the misuse or overall lack of polite verbs suggests that he is either rude or very casual towards the girls. However, due to his temperamental and emotionless nature, and the fact that he is an alien, Kyuubey may simply misunderstand the need to be a polite individual, as opposed to being direct.
Kyuubey apparently enjoys hot baths and human food, as evidenced in the second episode of the anime.
Abilities[]
Kyuubey has a wide variety of magical abilities which he uses in his mission to counteract entropy. The ones he has demonstrated so far are listed below:
- Telepathic communication - Kyuubey communicates with Puella Magi and potential Puella Magi through telepathic communication, as opposed to verbal. Exposure to this apparently enables Puella Magi and potential Puella Magi to also communicate telepathically amongst each other when Kyuubey is nearby.
- Invisibility - Kyuubey is invisible to everyone, except for Puella Magi and candidates. Normal humans do not seem to notice his presence at all, just as he never communicates with them.
- Teleportation - Kyuubey has been evidenced to cross long distances in impossibly short time spans, the method for which is yet unknown, but can be assumed to be teleportation. In episode 10, he also fades into reality above Homura, which may be the visible manifestation of him teleporting.
- Wish granting - Kyuubey can grant the wishes of young girls, in the same manner as a Genie would. Unlike most genies, Kyuubey does his best to grant the wishes accurately, without twisting the wording, and wishes that end up backfiring do so for factors entirely beyond the Incubator's control. Kyuubey only allocates one wish per contract. It appears that Kyuubey can only grant the wishes of others since he has never been seen using his reality-warping power to his own ends. Wishes are fueled via the magical potential of the new Puella Magi. Because of this, while Kyuubey can grant almost any regular wish, particularly high-impact wishes cannot be granted for most girls.
- Energy conversion/collection - Kyuubey is able to collect energy from witch transformation and battles through unseen means. In Timeline 6, he collects it when magical girls drop grief seeds into a hatch-like "mouth" that opens in the red oval on his back. How he is able to transport this energy also remains a mystery.
- Soul Gem Creation - Kyuubey is capable of rending young girls' souls from their bodies and placing them within small egg-shaped gemstones called soul gems. This makes the newly formed Puella Magi capable of transformation into their "magical girl form", granting increased agility, strength, endurance, pain threshold, conjuring of magical weaponry and other magical abilities. Although this process is invaluable to allow the girls to fight without being overwhelmed by pain, Kyuubey tries to avoid mentioning fact that it involves separation of the soul from the body, as it tends to be traumatic to the Puella Magi. It is unknown whether Kyuubey can create a Soul Gem at will, or whether a contract must first be formed.
- Replication - After being killed, another identical Kyuubey will appear nearby and consume the remains of his predecessor if possible. This duplicate appears to retain most, otherwise all the knowledge of the last one. This may suggest a "hive mind" or cloning process. It has been stated that Kyubey "instantaneously generates a replacement body out of the surrounding mana". The ability may reference the saying "cats have nine lives", as Kyuubey resembles a cat.
- Soul Gem Stimulation - As seen in episode 7, Kyuubey can create impulses of certain feelings on a soul gem simply by touching it. In Sayaka's case, he emulates a pike (probably mimicking Kyoko's) impaling Sayaka's stomach.
- Soul Gem Purification - Juubey, another Incubator, has been shown in the spinoff comics to be able to purify Soul Gems. Kyuubey likely has the same ability.
- Advanced magical technology - The Incubators are stated to be a highly advanced alien race. They are obviously capable of space travel. The Inhibition Field is seen in Rebellion Story is an example of their technology. Since they are not overly hostile to humanity and do not need to defend themselves if attacked, preferring to regenerate in a new body, it is unknown whether the Incubators dispose of any weaponry or offensive magic.
Trivia[]
- For more information about energy, entropy and thermodynamics in general, see Thermodynamics.
- Kyubey apparently enjoys hot baths and human food, as evidenced in the second episode of the anime.
- Kyubey's appearance (and name) share an affinity to Kyuubi, Mythical Japanese foxes with nine tails. In folklore, Kyuubi were known to possess men and have them do the Kyuubi's bidding, a trait identical to Kyubey's desire to collect energy from magical girls.
- In the Drama CD "Sunny Day Life" Kyubey tries to convince to an exasperated Madoka that "he" doesn't see himself as male (in human terms) so "he" doesn't understand why "he" isn't allowed to be in the bathroom with a naked Madoka.
- On the Blu-ray commentary it was pointed by Gen Urobuchi that Kyubey has no gender.
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