Character Analysis: Mami Tomoe

Next character analysis is for Mami Tomoe. This is a post... that needs to be made.

*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 post mentions suicide!*

Brief Backstory

Miami’s backstory is rather sad. She was out for a drive with her parents but got into a car crash. Both of her parents died and she was close to the same fate. Until a magic contractor appears and offers to grant her a wish in exchange for being a magic girl. Her wish is to save her own life. (Why she didn’t ask to save herself AND her family I’ll never know.)

Personality

Mami is basically the group big sister. She’s the oldest and one of the most experienced with fighting witches. Because of this she tries to act like a teacher for her younger recruits and introduces them to the magical girl world. She comes off as a very kind proper lady who carries herself with a sense of elegance and showmanship. Even when she fights it looks like a performance. Likely to impress her younger recruits.

Character development

None. She basically stays the same for the entire show. Except she has ONE moment where she acts different with no buildup from her character. When she finds out the dark truth about the contractors turning magic girls into witches and it’s only a matter of time before they all turn. She snaps and tries to kill all of her friends. Not able to handle that they were tricked and saying they should all die if their going to just turn into monsters eventually. And this is SECONDS after they find out. She didn’t talk to any of them, or even let them all process what just happened. She just pulls out her gun and starts to shoot. She even says she’s going to kill her self last. In self defense one of her friends have to kill her themselves, but geez! It was so out of nowhere and seemed so unlike anything she’s ever reacted to so strongly.

The first time something that was based on her emotions happened was when she was trying to recruit more girls. She its to one of them that her being the main protector of the city with no family or friends is a rather lonely life. Which is one of the reasons she wants to recruit them. (Even though this is a life or death job and she is aware of this.) So when she tries to take on a witch by herself, one magical girl whom she doesn’t trust (Homura) from the previous post says: “Hey this witch is strong, you can’t beat it by yourself. Let me handle it.” Mami ties her up after Homura keeps trying to warn her that the thing will kill her if she tries to fight it alone. So Mami finds the witch and tries to show off to the other girls while fighting it and dies as a result. She straight up gets beheaded because of ignoring these constant warnings. And here’s the thing, Homura has never interfered with Mamis kills before this. Every time Mami offers her some of the rewards of the witch hunt , Homura refuses because she says since Mami killed it she should keep the all reward. Yet Mami is still convinced that Homura is just trying to eliminate competition by telling the girls how dangerous this job is. When it IS dangerous! If she wasn’t so trusting of the contractor and used her common sense, she would know that Homura not trusting the contractor or not wanting new recruits in this mess of a job, made some semblance of sense.

Then we have the movie. She befriends a creature who isn’t a contractor and just doesn’t question its existence. Granted you could argue her memories were altered for them to be friends, but then we get to another Homura development. In the movie where Homura senses something is wrong and tries to find the truth, she suspects the creature Mami is friends with and re the creature was once a witch. The witch that killed Mami in the main timeline as a matter of fact. Now how Mami found out Homura was going to act on this before Homura even did anything isn’t explained. The show gave Mami omnipotence for this situation to get the two of them to fight. Which is such bull. You cannot make Mami smart enough to be able to literally predict what people will do, and then when Homura tries to explain the situation she’s all : “Whaaa??? What are you talking about Homura??? Nothings wrong about this at all!” She even claims she was listening to the conversation she and the creature were having and once again doesn’t believe Homura when in this timeline they’re supposed to be friends. It’s only after the fight is over and Homura has to keep repeating to Mami that somethings off does she start to find a lapse in her own logic and thinks “oh you’re right I might actually be wrong about this”. My goodness, she NEVER listens when people are trying to warn her! Her hardheadedness causes so many problems! Acting so heavily on emotion is NOT a good thing in combat.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Mami is a very skilled and talented fighter. Killing witches is something she’s good at since she essentially is only alive because becoming a magical girl. She’s also kind and nurturing to anything that’s nice to her.

Which goes into her weaknesses. She is entirely too trusting about things she doesn’t have all the information on. At the same time she is very emotionally fragile and can easily be distracted. If it’s between someone telling her everything is fine and another telling her the world is about to end, even if the doomsday one is telling the truth, she’ll probably believe the nicer one instead. Her actions are also based on her emotions more so than on facts which causes several problems along the way. It resulted in her death almost all of the times she did so. And she never seems to learn from this because she keeps getting brought back to life and never knows how destructive her behavior actually is to other people.

Personal Opinion

There are no words to describe how much I hate this girl. She’s the worst character in the show for me. (Fight me) Not only was she fully aware of how life threatening and dangerous this job was. But knowing so, still encouraged these two girls she just met to do the job with her even though it was clear they were on the fence. But the main reason is what she did in one of the timelines. When she found out the truth behind witches, she shot one of her friends and killed them no questions asked. Then she said she was going to kill them all, then herself because she couldn’t handle the truth. That sealed her fate to me. The selfishness she expresses when things go south is so angering, but she still proclaimed herself leader of the group. But she can’t handle when things get emotionally devastating, and since she keeps getting brought back in each new timeline she NEVER LEARNS. That’s what is the worst about her character. She makes the same mistakes of action on her emotions with devastating results and the show never lets her learn from her mistakes. It just makes her infuriating to watch/read about because of how she just has this type of behavior and it’s never addressed how unstable she is. She’s only a good character when things are going well. But if something heavy and emotional happens, she cracks even though she’s supposed to be the leader. She doesn’t listen to life threatening warnings, she puts other people in danger for the sake of wanting company, and she’s mentally a weak character who’s so fragile in the mind, I have no idea how she functions as a person if she emotionally snaps every time she gets into a heavy situation she can’t handle.

I’ll be honest in saying I love her design and outfit. And her powers are awesome. But she is so unlikable to me in her actions that I can’t bring myself to like her, or feel any sympathy for her when she died on screen. In fact I was cheering because of how stupid she was. Out of everyone in the entire main group, she had no character development, made the same types of mistakes and is just dumb. Anything that doesn’t involve fighting, she’s just so focused on the wrong things. But I feel like the fan base let’s her get away with it because she’s “the pretty one with the biggest chest.” Pretty characters don’t get a for character development. If they don’t grow as a character, I don’t care how awesome her powers are or how epic her fight scenes are written. If they have destructive behavior and it’s never addressed or they don’t ever learn from their mistakes, THEY’RE A BAD CHARACTER. Mami has horribly unlikable behavior and I feel no sympathy for her at all.

That concludes the end of the analysis posts for the Madoka Magica series! I have another set coming soon so stay tuned! And if I happen to rip on your favorite character and you disagree with me, feel free to say why you like them in the comments. But let’s be nice and civil to others!