Character Analysis: Homura Akemi

Welcome to the first character analysis post! We’re going to have a look at some good, as well as bad characters and how to write different personalities to the best effect!

*This character breakdown has spoilers! So if you haven’t seen Puella Magi Madoka Magica and want to, don’t read this yet!*

*trigger warning! this posts mentions suicide!*

Brief Backstory

So Homura’s story begins when she’s released from the hospital from a heart condition. This made her rather frail when she got released and behind on schoolwork because of being bedridden. Then she meets Madoka at school! Madoka approaches her (because Homura is super shy and doesn’t approach others.) and is very kind to her. Homura opens up a little, saying that she doesn’t think of herself as all that special, but Modoka tells her that if she wants to be a cool person, she could be if she really wanted to. Homura takes that to heart... and miserably fails. She hates how her sickness had made her so useless and just wants to be good at something for a change. Then she gets caught up in a witch attack and finds out that her new friend and an upperclassmen are magical girls who fight witches. She then gets swept up in their world until a giant witch shows up, killing both her friends. So the magic girl contractor says Homura can change their fate by making a wish in exchange for her soul to be a magical girl. Her wish? The ability to go back in time to save her friend.

Personality

She starts off as a very shy nerdy girl. But it’s shown early on that her best trait is her resourcefulness. Once she gets her time powers, she gives herself an offensive edge by tracking down guns and making her own bombs to put into her shield’s hammer space. Basically turning her into a one woman army.

As she rewinds and makes a promise to save her friend Modoka, she sheds her shy self and becomes a cool and collected powerhouse. Capable of taking witches on her own. Her goal is very specific: Save Modoka. The only true friend she’s ever had and the only person she thinks can really understand her. Also the reason she no longer feels useless about herself with this goal. Her drive to save her being the main motivation for all of her actions and repeating time over and over due to her promise is the driving force of her personality.

Character development

This is a character with their development done very well. She’s not very confident in herself and never does any fighting the first time around. But after her friends die and she makes her wish she gets a little confidence boost. She fights alongside her friends and beats the big bad, but one friend still dies while Madoka has something strange happen. She turns into a monstrous witch from using so much power to defeat the previous one. The dark secret of their contracted powers. Turning back time again, she tries to convince her friends as well as several others that they’ve been tricked by the contractor and they’re all in danger. But for some reason none of them believe her until one of their very own turns and two more girls die as a result. So she and Modoka have to fight the big bad solo. And loose. After Homura’s makes the promise to save Modoka, her personality changes to her cold and cool persona. So she tries and tries again to save her but fails each time and learns that her rewinding time makes Modoka a more powerful magical girl and in turn, a more powerful witch. She almost gives up, until Modoka makes her wish to become a literal goddess and stop magic girls for becoming witches. Happy end?

Nope.

So the contractors (or incubators) want to control Modokas power. So when Homura is about to turn into a witch ( knowing Modoka is a force that shows up to stop that from happening) they set up a trap around her to capture Modoka and try to turn magical girls back into witches. All of their memories are wiped once trapped inside, until Homura realizes something is off and that her soul is bait to lure out Modoka. To avoid this, Homura now aware that she’s the only reason this is possible, tries to kill herself as a witch before she is saved so that Modoka is protected. But Modoka and her friends aren’t having any of that and break her out of the trap to save her anyways. Homura and Madoka are finnaly reunited! She’s about to take Homura to magical girl heaven where they can be together forever- and Homura snaps.

In the trap with Modokas memories wiped from before she got her god powers, she mentions to Homura that she would be sad if she never got to see her family and friends again (as a result of her being a goddess having no one but Homura her.) Finnaly making Homura realize that Modoka didn’t become a goddess because she wanted to, but because she had to. So she separates Modoka from the law of cycles she created as a goddess, keeping the safety of the magical girls in tact, but taking Modoka out of the equation so she could live the normal life she wanted. Homura realizes that she is directly responsible and becomes Modokas opposite in the form of a powerful demon and forces the contractors to be apart of the cycle they started, making them suffer for all the pain they put so many girls through. Homura is aware that by doing this, all magical girls are now her enemy and she is a villain for stealing Modoka away and violating her powers to change the universes rules. But she doesn’t care. Her friends and Modoka have their lives back, the incubators are stopped and her wish is fulfilled. But she and Modoka are no longer friends. That’s the price she paid as she fully accepts that Modoka will she is a goddess one day, and become her enemy as well.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Her strong suits are that she’s intellectual, resourceful and extremely determined. This is shown by how she fights and her drive to save her best friend.

Her weak points are that she’s selfish, underestimates people at times and very cold when others don’t listen to her. This is shown by how she only cares about Modoka since the others often do nothing to help her. She underestimates people because of thinking she knows all the outcomes due to her powers. Which in a way she does, but not ALWAYS. But the biggest aspect of her power is that she goes back in time because she learns from these mistakes. And she’s so used to warning these girls and them dying, that she just became desensitized and stopped trying to save them at all. She spent literal years of rewinding the same month over and over trying to fix this and they never once believed her.

Honestly I can’t blame her.

She tried.

Personal Opinion

Homura in my eyes is the best character in the entire show. Everything she does ties to her motivation, her personality is wrapped around achieving her goal and her mindset is very understandable to me. Something about her struggles just really speak to me about trying as hard as you can to succeed, but you keep failing. But somehow, you find a way that no one ever thought of and make it work. There’s always a way. Always. Maybe not an easy one, but still.

I also really love her design and how she uses her powers. She started off as a shy girl who just wanted friends and to be good at something, to being one of the greatest villains I’ve seen on screen. You witness this entire rollercoaster of this girl becoming the shows main villain over the initial villain she was trying to stop to begin with. And that is just so great to me because it’s rare to see such vast character development and still have it be completely understandable. Many drastic changes like this often come out of nowhere in books and tv. Characters just suddenly say “oh I’m evil now.” With no build up or a really petty motivation.

But with Homura it all makes sense. She starts off as shy and trying her hardest out of her own merit. But once she swears to her best friend she’ll save her, she becomes laser focused. This is something she can do. She’s spent so long being useless but someone is relying on her to do something only she can accomplish with her time powers. Madoka becomes a goddess and Homura keeps fighting like normal knowing they’ll be reunited one day. Until the incubators use her as a trap. At that point she realizes there only one way Modoka will be safe. If Homura is in charge instead. So that’s what she does. Taking the power by force and making things the way everyone wanted, at the cost of giving up her friendship and being forever by herself as new demon goddess of the universe.

What a great character.

This concludes my first Character Analysis Post! I tend to do my favorite character from the series and least favorite main character from the series to show the different aspects of good and bad writing as well as ways characters with different personalities develop! (But only two per series or else my favorite shows will have like 10 character posts!)Hopefully you liked this one and stay tuned for the next installment!