Madokati Selective

I'll start by saying that I was reasonably certain that the hybrid girl did not have a soul gem, but I wanted to wait until the trailer came out in case we got some more action shots. We did, and it confirmed what I had suspected and also gave us the reason for it: she doesn't have a soul gem because she's not a magical girl.

To be a magical girl, you have to have a soul gem. A soul gem is the source of a magical girl's power as well as the proof of a contract. To create a soul gem, you have to separate soul from body and transform it into an object - something that only Kyubey can do. So if a girl is "making a contract" with Homura, she won't have a soul gem, because while Homura has considerable powers, most of those are illusion or memory-based. She can transform the appearance of things, she can erase memories, but there are limits to what she can do, and this is one of them. So the end result is a "fake" system that appears superficially similar to the old one, but isn't the same once you start looking more closely. Therefore, no soul gem.

This is confirmed in the official summary: "Around that time, a series of unusual events were occurring, in which 'girls without soul gems' were hunting wraiths."

When I first read this line, I thought this was referring to Zi Dian Xiang and Selema Terez, who also don't have soul gems (more on this in a bit) but this is actually referring to the hybrid girl. This is confirmed in the trailer itself:

And that was *before* Mami saw how much this girl looked like her!

The official summary explains how it works: "Recently, certain rumors have been spreading among the magical girls of Mitakihara. The lizard phone will grant your wishes—in exchange for battling the curses of this world." And this is exactly what we see plastered on all the signs in this scene - advertisements exhorting girls to call!

I was initially confused by the "no soul gem" logo on the phone, but now it makes perfect sense: you don't need one! All you have to do is call and everything else is taken care of.

Kyubey contracts multiple girls by having multiple bodies. Homura bypasses this problem by setting up the phone system precisely so she doesn't have to. People come to her, not the other way around.

She really needs to work on her customer service skills, though.

Okay. So you make the call, get your wish granted, and gotta pay for it by fighting wraiths. But you don't have a soul gem, so how are you going to transform? Don't worry, Homura's got you covered.

I've already talked about how the transformation process in this scene mirrors the process of death and resurrection - the girl removes her shoes and jumps from the building (suicide), lands curled up in a fetal position on a bed of flower petals inside the cupped hands (funeral/burial). And then - resurrection and rebirth.

Surprise, bitch, guess you thought you'd seen the last of me! FWIW, I did not have this on my bingo card.

A lot of people think this Kyubey is the hybrid magical girl and Homura is making him take human form as punishment - I can see why they might think that and it's a fun idea to contemplate, but I don't think that's actually true. [For fans itching for a human Kyubey, Urobuchi already wrote the canonical equivalent in Thunderbolt Fantasy; I don't think we're going to get it in this movie.]

Once again, Kyubey is the messenger of magic, but instead of ripping out the girl's soul, he's reduced to an errand boy, carrying two things that belong to Homura: her black bow and her glasses, neither of which have ever co-existed in the same timeline before. If I had to guess, it's the glasses that are the catalyst for the transformation, while the bow is the weapon she uses afterwards.

How is this possible? Okay, so for those not familiar with Magia Record, I have to explain how rumors (Uwasa) work as a mechanic. Essentially, they are stories that have come to life and can "possess" people who come in contact with them, often through objects (such as the crown and robes with Holy Mami and Holy Alina). However, rumors actually predate MR and proto-versions can be found in Rebellion [tl;dr: the Law of Cycles and Walpurgisnacht are both functionally Uwasa, as they are propagated and spread via rumors]; and the official summary even uses the word "rumors" in its opening line, so it's not a stretch to assume these rules are in play. The "Rumor of the Lizard Phone" doesn't specifically mention the bow and glasses, but I could see how they could easily be a part of it.

So as with Holy Mami, taking the symbol of the Uwasa transforms your appearance and personality - in this case, quite drastically. The bulk of it is Moemura, of course, but we also see bits of Madoka and Mami. My guess is because these three worked together as a trio during the "good times" Homura had as a magical girl, and because Madoka and Mami are symbols of what is good about being a magical girl (Mami as a mentor to look up to, and Madoka as the quintessential magical girl) and truly believe in their ideals. As a result, whoever puts on the glasses gets mostly good stuff rather than trauma - but still has to work alone because Homura "I Won't Rely On Anyone Else" Akemi is no longer a team player. But that's just a theory - there may be other reasons.

The other fun thing about this Uwasa(?) is that it really captures Moemura's personality while making her far more graceful than anything the real Moemura was ever capable of (recall how much Homura loves ballet). Look at those beautiful bow and arabesque!

This is likely one of the first scenes in the movie and the structural equivalent of the first Nightmare fight in Rebellion - its purpose is to explain the rules of the new system and unsettle us with how strange and weird it is. It also sets up the main plot, in that Mami gets wind of this strange new phenomenon (rumors again!) and decides to investigate.

I'm always here for detective!Mami.

Homura, however, remains unbothered, moisturized, and happy in her lane because she knows exactly what is going on because she's the one responsible for it. To go back to the official summary again: "Homura gazed upon that scenery with a serene composure, as the demon who reigned over this world, and seemed to have everything at her disposal. —Or so it seemed." Duh-dun-dun!

Unfortunately for Homura, three other magical girls without soul gems show up and start making her life complicated. The first is her doppelganger, her dark reflection, who is cozying up to Madoka; the other two are out for blood and trying to kill her. Where did they come from?

Well, the other Homura was likely born from Homura's suppressed feelings and desires, and since she's a mirror image, they have the roughly the same powers and abilities (with a few key differences). So if the original Homura has set up a contracting system, there's no reason why the other one can't set up her own competing system and make her own "magical girls without soul gems"... who would naturally be invisible/undetectable to the original, since she wasn't involved in their creation!

This may seem like a stretch, but we see the other Homura hanging up a landline phone which is different from the lizard phone - and has Walpurgisnacht's cog symbol on it. But instead of waiting for Madoka to call her, she's calling Madoka instead.

(It's also possible that the other Homura is really only interested in contacting Madoka via the phone, especially as it allows her to conceal her identity, and her relationship to the other girls and their origins are different, but there's so much mirror imagery in these trailers that it would surprise me if there weren't parallels somewhere. My working assumption is that everything is mirrored/inverted until proven otherwise.)

Just as there are two Homuras and two systems, I also think there are two conspiracies. The first is the one we already know - that Homura is controlling everything and the world is a lie. As Mami et al. start to explore the first conspiracy, they are aided and abetted (and likely hindered and misdirected as well) by the new magical girls, not realizing that this is part of a much larger conspiracy orchestrated by the other Homura.

Going back to the hybrid magical girl from the beginning, I do not know if she is a one-off character or if we will see her again later in the film; it could honestly go either way. My gut feeling is the former, but even if she does appear again, I doubt she'll be directly named within the script (possibly in supplementary material/production notes) and I don't think she'll have very many spoken lines.

The real question is, if you're a magical girl without a soul gem under Homura's system, what do you do with the grief cubes the wraiths drop? You don't need them for anything, so... do you just feed them to Kyubey or what? That's the part we haven't seen yet, and the part I'm the most curious about. I suspect it's tied to how Homura appears to have frozen the world in place if her moon-orrery is anything to go by, as well as her limitations and creative repurposing of the previous system.