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Kyubey (キュゥべえ?), also known as the Messenger of Magic (魔法の使者?), is a cat-like creature featured in Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica anime and manga series as well as several subsequent works.

Bio

Appearance

Kyubey is a small, cat-like creature. It has white fur and four ears, one pair representing the average cat and the other similar to those of a rabbit's. It has red eyes and golden rings around its long ears. At the bottom of the ears, it appears that it is separated into three, along with a pink-white fade and three red ovals. These ears seem to be what turns the girls into Magical Girls, as seen when it makes Sayaka Miki's Soul Gem. It has a large tail and pointy ears, the inside of them being pinkish peach color. On its back is a hot pink egg-shaped oval that can flip open to remove Grief Seed fragments.

Personality

Despite appearing and sounding somewhat human, Kyubey is an Incubator and has no personal understanding of human emotion. Despite appearing as an individual, Kyubey and the rest of the Incubators do not seem to have a distinct sense of self. On the occasions where a Kyubey is killed, another will step out and continue to converse as if nothing had occurred.

The Incubators are an emotionless race, but seek to exploit the thermodynamics-violating emotions of the human race to produce energy and prevent the Heat Death of the Universe, the ultimate end of the universe itself. The fact that the system they use to harvest this power-- Magical girls and Witches-- would be considered horrendously evil by humans is inconsequential to the Incubators. They choose this method because it is the most expedient to their goals. No action they take is ultimately malicious, as they do not themselves experience or understand the emotions required to act in such a way. Everything about Kyubey, however, is implied to make it as appealing as possible to the Magical Girls, as well as emulating behaviors and 'emotions' for the same purpose.

This lack of understanding ultimately results in Kyubey being unable to predict or understand the actions of the Magical Girls or the results of those actions, despite them being obvious to the girls themselves.

Etymology

Kyubey's name comes from the word Incubator (インキュベーター?).Episode 08 Incubator comes from the Latin word "incubare" which means "to lie".[1]

Prior to the series' premiere, Urobuchi pointed out that Kyu (キュゥ?) came from the English word "cute" which was proven to be a lie.[2] Kyu however, matches Juubey's Juu, which mean "nine" and "ten" respectively.

Biography

Kyubey is a creature who makes contracts with young girls to turn them into "magical girls" so that they can fight witches. In this process, the girl makes a wish and Kyubey grants it, but in return, the girl's soul is put in a small gem, which is also the source of their magic. If destroyed, the magic will disappear and the girl will die. If it is corrupted with darkness from grief, the gem will turn into a grief seed and the girl will turn into a witch. This is the ultimate fate of all Magical girls.

Much like the rest of its race, Kyubey does not possess any human emotion. As seen in a later episode, Kyubey refers to magical girls' bodies as empty shells while explaining why Sayaka "died" when separated from her soul gem. This may also be why Homura Akemi got angry when Madoka Kaname threw it. Kyoko Sakura claims that it tricked and turned them into zombies, though it wasn't its intention. It believed that it was doing a good thing, seeing as it was convenient that they were invincible.

Despite its emotionless attitude, it apparently likes hot baths and human food, as seen in episode 2. It is also able to bleed, though it can reproduce its body and eat the old one. This body reproduction ability can be used whenever Kyubey's body is too damaged to be used or simply at an inconvenient state. (For example, is shown covered in bullet holes from being shot at.) It has an unlimited amount of these extra "bodies" that could be used, but it says that it would be more convenient to not use them so much.

Relationships

  • Madoka Kaname: Madoka and Kyubey used to share a bond because Kyubey always saw a great potential in Madoka and wanted to make her a Magical Girl. As the story was unfolding, she hated him more and more even when she made the contract to become Ultimate Madoka.
  • Sayaka Miki: Sayaka is very protective of Kyubey in the beginning and likes him a lot. However, after finding the truth about Soul Gems, Sayaka starts being aggressive towards him and has even come to a point to stab him.
  • Mami Tomoe: Mami is very good friends with Kyubey, at least in most timelines as long as she doesn't know the dark secrets of being a Magical Girl. She takes good care of Kyubey and is very protective of him towards Homura.
  • Homura Akemi: Homura dislikes Kyubey to no end. No matter the timeline, she will always attempt to kill him and prevent Kyubey to form contacts with Madoka and to a lesser degree with Sayaka. Kyubey usually comes to Homura whenever there is something new he has discovered or wants to talk to someone aside of Madoka.
  • Iroha Tamaki: Like many other Magical Girls, Iroha, prior to finding out the secrets of a Magical Girl's life, used to be good acquintances with Kyubey, contacting each other on a daily basis. Though after Iroha found out the dark secrets of a Magical Girl and seeing Kuroe transforming into a Witch, she despises Kyubey endlessly, to the point that she even shot him.
  • Touka Satomi: It is described by many characters that Touka and Kyubey are really alike in terms of ideology. Though Touka does despise Incubator like everyone else because she knows the secrets of a Magical Girl's life.

Powers and Abilities

  • Kyubey is the one who gives birth to Soul Gems and Magical Girls. Once a girl makes a contract with Kyubey, the Soul Gem will be summoned.
  • Kyubey can use telepathy to contact Magical Girls or girls Kyubey sees potential in.Episode 01
  • The teadrop-like on Kyubey's back is actually a hole that they can open with it to eat Grief Seeds to prevent the hatch of Witches.
  • Kyubey can cause pain to Magical Girls simply by touching their Soul Gems.Episode 07
  • Once Kyubey is killed, a replacement by another Incubator of type will occur.
  • Kyubey can teleport.Episode 09
  • Kyubey is shown to be capable of showing other Magical Girls the past of a Magical Girl or even the world's history.
  • Kyubey also has a large memory that allows him to keep records of the last time any Magical Girl ever defeated a Witch or even a Familiar.[3]

Trivia

  • The spelling of Kyubey's name in Japanese is peculiar. It uses a mixture of hiragana and katakana, and the long u sound in "Kyu" is marked with a small u (ゥ) instead of a large u (ウ) or dash (ー). Both features are fairly uncommon and non-standard.
  • Kyubey's appearance and name share an affinity with Kyuubi, which are mythical Japanese foxes with nine tails. In folklore, Kyuubi is known to possess men and have them do the Kyuubi's bidding, a trait identical to Kyubey's desire to collect energy from Magical Girls.

Kyubey throughout the world and eras is known with various other names such as White God, Lord Cubius, White Angel.

  • Kyubey is fond of human food and hot baths.Episode 02
  • Pointed out by Kyubey in the second drama CD and Gen Urobuchi in the Blu-ray audio commentary, Kyubey is genderless. However, official translated sources adress Kyubey as a male.
  • According to NewType April 2011 issue, Shinbo wanted to make Kyubey look cute, but the staff ended up making Kyubey look scary.

References

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