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I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore (もう誰にも頼らない Mou Dare ni Mo Tayoranai?) is the tenth episode of Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica. It originally aired on March 11th, 2011 in Japan.
Plot[]
The timid girl is so nervous and withered. She introduces herself shyly while feeling the eyes of all students in the class. The girl is overwhelmed by questions from her new classmates, and then, another girl saves her from the situation.
The trasferred girl is inferior to the other students in grades and physical strength because she was hospitalized for a long time. Feeling an inferiority complex on the way home, she wanders into the Witch's Barrier. Two Magical Girls appear in her absolutely desparate pinch.
Major Events[]
- Homura's past is revealed, alongside her wish. She went through multiple timelines to save Madoka from her tragic fate.
- Madoka has transformed into a Witch before, twice.
- Due to her strong potential, Kyubey says that she will need only 10 days to destroy the entire planet as Kriemhild Gretchen.
- Homura was hospitalized for six months prior to the series' events.
- The key dates for the timelines are: March 16th, the day she gets discharged from hospital and March 25th, her first day at Mitakihara Middle School.
- Both Madoka and Sayaka have been Magical Girls before.
- Madoka has transformed into a Witch before, twice.
Summary[]
Timeline 1[]
In the original timeline for Homura, she was a normal human girl suffering from a heart disease. She is shown just released from the hospital and transferred to the Mitakihara Middle School, similar to the first episode. She differs in appearance to the Homura we know, though - she wears glasses and wears her long hair tied in two braids. Her personality also feels different - she is a lot shyer and clumsy.
Madoka, Sayaka, and other new classmates try to befriend Homura, which makes her feel uneasy. During a talk with Madoka, she admits finding herself worthless, not unlike Madoka does in the timeline of other episodes. Homura's problems during math and sports classes (probably related to being out of school for a long time) contribute to her depression, which makes her get suicidal thoughts on the way from school.
Presumably because of these thoughts, she wanders into the barrier of a witch, Izabel. She is quickly saved by Puella Magi Madoka and Mami, with Madoka asking her to keep their jobs a secret from schoolmates. Later, during a visit at Mami's apartment, Madoka reveals that she's been contracted only for a very short time. Homura feels fascinated about her magical friends, similar to how Madoka acts in initial episodes.
Sometime later, Madoka and Mami fight Walpurgis Night together, with Homura following them as a human. Mami is defeated quickly, then Madoka apparently manages to defeat the witch, but at the expense of her own life. Homura cries over Madoka's dead body, and accepts Kyubey's proposal to become a Puella Magi, she wishes to be "I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. Instead of being protected by her, I want to protect her!" The contract is formed, with Kyubey commenting that the wish has "surpassed entropy".
Timeline 2[]
Homura wakes up in a hospital, on the date she was released in the previous iteration, having a Soul Gem in her hand. After transferring to school, she instantly tells Madoka about becoming a Puella Magi, hoping for good cooperation.
Madoka and Mami train Homura the Puella Magi, who turns out to be extremely clumsy, despite having the very powerful ability to stop time. Meanwhile, Homura reads online guides about making explosives, contributing to improving her skills. While still clumsy, she plays the most important role when the trio - now good friends - fights with the witch Patricia.
The next scene shown is after the Walpurgis Night - after defeating the witch, Madoka's Soul Gem turns into a Grief Seed and she becomes a witch.
Timeline 3[]
The time goes back again, and Homura wakes up at the exact same place and time as previously. Scared and angered by the discovery of the true nature of the contract with Kyubey, she decides to tell the other girls immediately. Sayaka, who in this timeline became a Puella Magi, too, doesn't believe her and accuses her of collaborating with Kyoko, whom apparently only Homura has met yet.
Sayaka also tells that she feels afraid of Homura's explosives, which makes Homura go to a meeting of some armed formation (the building is labeled "Shaft Industries" (射太興業 Shafuto Kōgyō)) and steal some firearms, all on frozen time. Since Sayaka turns into a witch, presumably for similar reasons as in Episode 8, Homura uses the firearms during the fight with her to protect Madoka, and also defeats her, even though Madoka and Kyoko try to make Sayaka human again in a fashion similar to Episode 9.
Upon seeing the true nature of Puella Magi herself, Mami breaks down and attempts to kill all the magical girls, including herself, in order to prevent their eventual transformation into witches. She kills Kyoko first by shooting her Soul Gem and attempts to kill Homura by binding her, but before she can do so, Madoka uses her beam arrows to kill her. The remaining two fight on the Walpurgis Night together, and defeat the witch, having their Soul Gems fatally tainted, though. Madoka heals Homura with a Grief Seed she was hiding and asks Homura to prevent her from becoming a Puella Magi next time she'll go back in time. Homura agrees and grants Madoka one more wish of hers - killing her to prevent her from becoming a witch.
Timeline 4[]
Upon waking up in the familiar hospital, Homura changes her presence by magically healing her eyes, wearing the hair down and taming her emotions - just how she looked in all the previous episodes. At night she warns Madoka not to accept miracles, confusing her. Then she goes hunting all the witches.
On Walpurgis Night, the dream sequence from Episode 1 is shown again. Homura watches Kyubey persuading Madoka and screams to prevent her from forming the contract, but Madoka doesn't seem to hear it.
Off-camera, Madoka forms the contract and defeats the witch with just one shot, but becomes a witch (Kriemhild Gretchen) herself shortly after. Kyubey comments that she may destroy the whole Earth in near future. He has collected an enormous amount of energy from her already, though, so he doesn't care about it anymore.
Homura refuses to fight Madoka the witch, saying that "This is not my battlefield," which makes Kyubey realize that she's from a different timeline.
Characters[]
Trivia[]
- The end card is designed by Mura Kuroe (ムラ黒江?), the artist for the Puella Magi Oriko☆Magica manga.
- The opening is not featured at all in this episode, instead, the sequence and the song are featured as the ending theme.
- Madoka's dream from episode 1 is actually revealed to have been taken from timeline IV. This time, Homura has speaking lines and it has some new animated scenes. Magia also plays in this scene.
- According to Megami July 2011 issue, the episode needed to be trimmed by Shinbo. In Shinbo's mind, the episode would be around 45 minutes long.
- Even though the first Drama CD does expand upon timeline 1, it is not confirmed whether or not this is part of Shinbo's vision of the full episode.
- According to an interview in Animagic 2013, Homura has went through more than five timelines, approaching 100.[1]
- Even though the first Drama CD does expand upon timeline 1, it is not confirmed whether or not this is part of Shinbo's vision of the full episode.
- In timeline I, Isabel's name in Runes has a typo and it's read as "Isadel".
- In the first two timelines, Sayaka, Hitomi and Nakazawa make cameo appearances during the school scenes.
- In timeline III, Kyoko's lines about Oktavia von Seckendorff, are actually the same with the ones used in episode 9.
- Also in timeline III, Oktavia throws wheels at the Magical Girls which implies that Sayaka became a Witch in a train station and this time, Madoka, Mami and Homura were present during that event, in contrast to timeline V, where only Kyoko was.
- Again in timeline III, the military Homura sneaks in to get her weapons is named "Shaft Industries" (射太興業?), which is a references to the animation studio of Madoka☆Magica, SHAFT.
- Timeline III is the only one to feature all five Magical Girls of the series is in it. However, they do not appear altogether.