House of Jealous Lovers

I'm always, at least on some vague level, thinking about the comic Morning Glories even after all these years. I recently listened to a podcast about a place from the Ancient World called Eleusis, which was the spiritual capital of the globe at that time.

The best and brightest of Athens and Rome would be sent to this place to "drink a magical potion" and in their own words, have a vision of holy mysteries, where they claimed to have direct encounter with the Otherworld and it would completely eradicate their fear of death. It was a test of the mind and spirit. There are only fragment testimonies, but it was described as a transformative event, one where "people's eyes were opened to the true nature of life and death." You can see why this caught my attention?

It was a thirteen mile pilgrimage, made most commonly from Athens to Eleusis, and some suspect now that the potion was actually a drink spiked with ergot, which is a naturally occurring fungus from which you could synthesize LSD. It produces a sticky "honeydew" colored sap.

Ergot also connects to the Salem Witch Trials, as there are theories that a late frost during that time period led to mold growth on the wheat, which could have led to an ergot infestation of their food.

Tomohiro Furukawa, otherwise known as "Toppy" Furukawa is a new name to the production of Madoka Magica, but... not by any means a newcomer to the industry.

When the Madoka Magica social media released the April 30th, 2026 trailer, they also included an updated staff card, showing Tomohiro Furukawa as being in charge of "Storyboards/VisuaI Concept Designs".

I leapt out of my seat.

Furukawa is known perhaps best for his directing of Revue Starlight, but prior to that, he was known as the understudy of one Kunihiko Ikuhara. Yes, the Ikuhara of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame. SakugaBlog points out that:

"There is no denying that Furukawa is Ikuhara’s apprentice. He has no desire to hide it and will shower his teacher with praise at any given opportunity, even as he pokes fun at how cute his insincere grumpiness can be."

So we have a director who studied under perhaps one of the most celebrated figures of the magical girl genre. Is he a fan? Oh yeah.

(Please note I had to use Google Translate, but I think it's relevant to include nonetheless.)

Furukawa: This encounter with this episode was the catalyst that made me continue watching Pretty Cure afterwards, and I also rewatched all 200 episodes of Sailor Moon. I returned to Toei Animation. Before that, I was like, "From now on, it's all about Production IG!" It was around the time Innocence was released, so I had a longing for something like that.

This man knows the magical girl genre, and it shows.

Revue Starlight doesn't even have named guys in the cast, it revolves around a cast of nine girls fighting to be the top star at their theater school... in a mysterious underground dueling arena. Utena much?

No, there's plenty thematically that makes me think that he's not only a good fit for Walpurgisnacht Rising's production, but wears his heart on his sleeve in his own works.

Episode 1 of the anime, we get a mysterious dark haired transfer student who keeps looking at our main character (perhaps). The subject of the stare was even seen in a dream immediately prior.

This feels like an overt homage, sure, but they're more explicit in their references to Utena, or to Faust, or to MAD MAX.

Well... SHAFT likes the latter too! (Cir. 2015) And I cannot believe I'm saying this but the right still is from the Revue Starlight movie.

Perhaps the more interesting piece is the use of gears, wheels turning visually, as this interaction takes place. Not like there's a certain witch with a stage machinery penchant as well...

Where have I seen this before?

The 2021 wild screen baroque has a revue, a duel, open set to Faust, and in it? One of the characters wears a red ribbon. To my knowledge this is the only time she wears a red ribbon.

Wait, that Faust duel? Oh right this seems familiar.

Where might a red ribbon be significant... Oh right.

(I am specifically not including screenshots here because it's genuinely worth going in as blind as possible. It's beautiful.)

Without going too far into spoilers for Revue Starlight, there are countless copious setups that either parallel Madoka Magica, make allusion to other media but especially magical girl media, and it's masterful.

That said, I think the biggest visual shorthand that he's dragging off of one stage and onto another is that of the tomatoes. I already made a post asking who crushes them, but perhaps we forget that tomatoes were used to mock Homura, were crushed by Kyoko (?), and in Revue Starlight... fuel, forbidden fruit, blood, all in one. A versatile fruit!

Doesn't this look like Kyubey if you squint?

A small quip; Revue Starlight is one "Madoka Magica" in length; 12 episodes and a Rebellion, and I do not describe the movie as juxtaposed to Rebellion lightly.

In short? I'm leaving quite a bit off, but Tomohiro Furukawa is perhaps the best new hire they could have gotten for Kaiten. I can hardly wait.