Nomad Land

Absolutely incredible Art Nouveau-inspired piece from the amazingly talented @aptericia, illustrating Mami Tomoe and Castrovalva from Moebius, my Puella Magi Madoka Magica x Bleach crossover fic! Words cannot express how happy I am to see my girls in TECHNICOLOR (well, one of them, anyway--Castrovalva doesn't really "do" color), not to mention all of the wonderful details like the sunflowers, stellated dodacahedrons, and, of course, the cat's cradle ribbons and the lemniscates... it's everything I had envisioned and so much more.

(Oh, and if you look at this and go, "Huh, that's interesting, I wonder what that's all about," you can also check out the fic on AO3.)

"Friendship ended with Sayaka, Zi Dian Xiang is my new best friend!"

I jest, but the big blue X over the spotlighted heart does seem a tad relevant, yes? Also, I love how the silhouettes emphasize their similarities and how their poses are mirrored.

I also think they're going to have a falling out before the end, so having them sit back to back would be some excellent foreshadowing.

You can see something similar in Nagisa and Selema Terez's version, except that the yellow lines (Mami) are running parallel to each other and these two are facing each other. Again, the silhouettes really emphasize the visual similarities in their designs.

I am also pretty sure that the "bars" surrounding an open window are also thematically relevant, but I don't think we've seen enough for me to have any idea about the specifics.

I know what they're doing in these shots - or at least I think I know what they're doing in these shots. Purikura are a specific kind of Japanese photobooth aimed at teenage girls, who take them together as a social event. The purikura booths I have personally seen are not nearly so elaborate - I assume Shaft is taking some stylistic license here - but everything else feels right in context, given what we know: the girls are out on the town having fun, so it makes sense they'd want to commemorate it, especially since purikura is such a social thing.

One other thing I noticed in this poster is that the IMAX part is covered with thorny rose vines, which previously were used with Gertrud the Rose Witch. It could just be a stylistic thing, but combined with the all the witch cards from the original series, it reminded me of my theory that Walpurgisnacht will have a different power set in this movie once her true nature (origins) are revealed, and it will involve using powers and abilities from all of the witches and/or their familiars that were in the Law of Cycles.

You may recall that familiars from the witches in the original series all had cameos in Rebellion during the Homulilly battle, the idea being that all of these other beings in the Law of Cycles were "sending their support" to the fight, which, among other things, is why Sayaka was using "rental" versions of Gertrud's puffball familiars. If Walpurgisnacht is truly the "inverse" of the Law of Cycles and made from its component parts (i.e., the witches previously in the Law of Cycles), it would be a fascinating callback if the reverse happened in the new movie, with all the witches/familiars now fighting on the "wrong" side. I'd love to see what these "dark rentals" might look like, and it sounds exactly like the sort of thing Doroinu Curry would have fun designing. But TBD.

Also, this poster appears to answer a different question that I had - if there are 2 versions of Homura, the original and the mirror image, does the mirror image also have a lizard? - and the answer appears to be "no". The lizard is the original Homura's symbol and the embodiment of her power, so it makes sense that the double wouldn't have it (though I confess I'd enjoy seeing the "dark"/corrupted version, lol). On the double's side, there's just empty space - or, if you prefer, a spiral.

Which is exactly what the double's symbol is in the trailers, by the way: a spiral galaxy with a diamond-shaped black hole at its center.

Lizard vs. spiral - the ultimate match-up.

There are other spirals associated with the doppelganger - the staircase, the barber poles, etc - but this is the most obvious in my book.

And while both versions of Homura are the result of this "spiral" motion through time, the spirals in this poster are also mirror images of each other - the same shape moving in different directions. Which is also symbolic, of course. The original is moving counterclockwise (against time) and the other is moving clockwise (with time).

In keeping with the botanical motif, these spirals also remind me of fiddlehead ferns uncoiling, although @bernkastel11 pointed out they also look like fan blades if you focus on the negative space.

Hey, so remember when I was discussing what the trios of little green lights in the background of certain shots were? We got an answer, and it turns out instead of "planes" as I'd guessed, they're drones. Tiny autonomous drones, how cool is that? These are not so different from the airships/blimps that patrolled Homura's world in Rebellion, only smaller and more maneuverable.

As you can see, they are propelled by a three-blade fan, which has been a recurring visual motif in the trailers. The body of the drone is a diamond, which is Homura's usual shape.

There are two lights (shaped like soul gems) on either side - i.e., balanced. The top light is the "don't walk" part of a crosswalk illuminated in red. The lower light, representing "walk", is unlit. It's super blurry but if you look closely, both "girls" resemble a stylized Homura.

Given that we've also seen green lights in the sky, and there is a green walk sign option, I think these drones will change colors/shift allegiance (so to speak) depending on which version of Homura is in charge. Given the ongoing color symbolism, the "green" lights at the beginning represent the original Homura, and switch over to red/the Homura doppelganger at some point, similar to how the air conditioning fans also switch colors from light blue to red. [Light blue is also used to portray the Nazukakokotsune/the witch library of the Law of Cycles before everything goes to hell, so presumably this marks the shift from business-as-usual to Walpurgisnacht II: Judgement Day.]

I suppose they could just be "stop" and "go" for original Homura, but given that there are two of them, I know where I'm placing my bets.

Still no news about a North American release, Walpurgis no Kaiten is getting an IMAX release in Japan, and I bet it's going to rock on the super-big screen. Also, we got this new graphic featuring the big W herself.

Here we have the same golden "doorway" (curtain) shown in the trailer, along with all the scattered witch cards and covers of the books that previously contained them - once again strongly suggesting that Walpurgisnacht is made up of all the witches who were previously contained in the Law of Cycles, and thus will reform when those witches are removed and scattered.

This drawing is once again too fuzzy for a good look at the cover, but a clearer view shows that it reads "WITCHES" in runes and depicts an upside-down Walpurgisnacht at the top reaching down to what looks suspiciously like a stylized Law of Cycles at the bottom. In other words, they are connected; when one is ascendant, the other is in abeyance, and vice versa.

I like how the border design ends up resembling an illuminated manuscript - basically, a more colorful version of the black and white Walpurgis-themed woodcuts Homura was studying back in the original series.

They didn't show us the settei for this, but Nagisa also has a school uniform, at least in this shot. I like the gray-purple-black-yellow combination. The arm is most likely Selema Terez's, as she's the one who primarily wears the cardigan.

It's so funny because I keep thinking of Selema Terez and Nagisa as being the same age, but they're very clearly not... I don't know if we'll see Selema Terez at school, but she might even be a third-year like Mami rather than a second-year like everybody else, thus enhancing the parallels. But even though she's older than Nagisa, she has no problems acting like a kid, enjoying the ball pit and the carousel with gusto.

I had thought the cafe was part of the amusement park, since they're both bear-themed, but maybe not if Nagisa is wearing her other outfit. Either that or Shaft ended up swapping it out the way they did with the shot of Homura slouching on her throne because very little is final until the movie is in theaters and even then, they change a bunch of stuff for the physical release.

Once I started paying closer attention to the red lighting, I realized it was everywhere - in this shot, the sky on the scaffolding side (mirror Homura) is significantly redder than the yellow-orange on the original Homura's untouched side.

This same pattern appears in this shot, where the clouds transition from red to orange-yellow at roughly the halfway point. All of which composes one half of the "sky", with the other half being tranquil blue with white clouds.

So here we have two "halves" representing the Law of Cycles and the Devil (the latter of which also has two "halves"), and the original Homura becomes less and less "red" as her counterpart's influence grows. (As she steals Homura's "role", the double also steals the colors.) In this shot, the original Homura is standing on the Law of Cycles's "side", but she's upside down and about to fall from the heavens into red-and-gold "hell".

Every time I think I've caught all the symbolism, I keep finding more and it takes my breath away.

I may be surprised, but I am unlikely to be the most surprised.

I may be disappointed, but I am unlikely to be the most disappointed.

If I don't like the movie in 2026, I probably wouldn't have liked a hypothetical 2016 version any better.