Madoka Kaname dreams of a dark-haired girl battling an overwhelming force, then wakes to an ordinary morning. At school, the same girl appears as transfer student Homura Akemi and behaves as though she already knows Madoka. Homura privately warns her not to change her current life if she values her family and friends. Later, while shopping with Sayaka Miki, Madoka hears a voice calling for help and finds a small creature named Kyubey injured by Homura. The girls rescue it, but their escape leads into a distorted labyrinth filled with hostile creatures. Mami Tomoe, an older student and magical girl, arrives and destroys the attackers with an array of conjured firearms. She confronts Homura but avoids a direct battle in front of Madoka and Sayaka. After Homura withdraws, Mami heals Kyubey. The creature explains that it can grant each girl a single wish in exchange for a contract requiring her to become a magical girl and fight witches. Madoka's dream, Homura's warning, and Kyubey's offer transform the familiar world around her into something secret, dangerous, and strangely personal.
Episode 2
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Mami and Kyubey explain the contract more fully. A wish can perform a miracle, but the recipient must hunt witches—beings born from curses that spread despair, accidents, and suicide. Because neither Madoka nor Sayaka knows what she would wish for, Mami invites them to accompany her on patrol before deciding. Kyubey, invisible to ordinary people, teaches the girls to communicate telepathically. Homura again approaches Madoka and refuses to reveal what she wished for, repeating that becoming a magical girl carries consequences Madoka cannot yet understand. That evening, Mami traces a witch's mark to an abandoned building, where a possessed woman is preparing to jump from the roof. After saving her, Mami leads Madoka and Sayaka into the witch's labyrinth. She confidently fights through its familiars and defeats the witch, leaving behind a Grief Seed. Mami explains that the seed can cleanse a magical girl's Soul Gem and restore expended power. Homura appears afterward, but Mami refuses to share the reward, warning her away from the territory. To Madoka and Sayaka, Mami's elegant victory makes the role appear heroic, even as Homura's caution suggests that the demonstration concealed its true cost.
Episode 3
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Sayaka visits Kyosuke Kamijo, a gifted violinist whose injured hand may never recover, and considers using her wish for him. During another patrol, Mami warns that wishing for someone else can hide a desire for gratitude or love. She admits that her own contract was made moments after a fatal traffic accident, leaving no time to choose anything beyond survival. Homura separately urges Mami not to encourage Madoka, but Mami rejects the interference. At the hospital, Madoka and Sayaka discover a Grief Seed about to hatch. Sayaka remains inside the forming labyrinth with Kyubey while Madoka fetches Mami. Homura tries to warn them that this witch is unusual, but Mami restrains her and advances. Madoka tells Mami that her wish might simply be to become a magical girl and help people. Relieved by the prospect of companionship after years of loneliness, Mami fights with exuberant confidence. She overwhelms the doll-like witch Charlotte, only for it to transform suddenly and bite off her head. Homura escapes her bindings, destroys the witch, and takes the Grief Seed. Madoka and Sayaka are left traumatized, their glamorous image of magical-girl life replaced by the abrupt reality of death.
Episode 4
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
After witnessing Mami's death, Madoka tells Kyubey that she is too frightened to make a contract. Kyubey accepts her refusal and disappears from her daily life. Homura explains that ordinary people will treat Mami only as a missing person because magical girls often die where no bodies can be recovered. Madoka promises that she will remember Mami and thanks Homura for saving them, but Homura warns that Madoka's compassion can be exploited. Sayaka continues visiting Kyosuke, whose frustration erupts when doctors confirm that he may never play the violin again. Unable to bear his despair, she makes a contract and wishes for his hand to heal. Meanwhile, Madoka notices Hitomi and other people marked by a witch gathering in a warehouse to create poisonous gas from cleaning chemicals. She disrupts the mass suicide and is dragged into a labyrinth that torments her with images of Mami's death. Sayaka appears in magical-girl form and defeats the witch, proudly revealing her choice and Kyosuke's recovery. Homura reacts with concern rather than celebration. Elsewhere, Kyubey welcomes Kyoko Sakura, an aggressive veteran who intends to claim the territory Mami left behind and views Sayaka as an unwanted rival.
Episode 5
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Sayaka delights in hearing Kyosuke play the violin again and insists that she does not regret the contract that restored his future. Madoka remains worried that her friend will share Mami's fate. She asks Homura to cooperate with Sayaka, but Homura says magical girls cannot be rescued once they have made their choice. During patrol, Madoka accompanies Sayaka as she hunts a witch's familiar. Before Sayaka can destroy it, Kyoko intervenes. She argues that familiars should be allowed to consume people and mature into witches, because only full witches produce the Grief Seeds needed to sustain magical power. Sayaka is disgusted by the idea of sacrificing civilians for efficiency. Their disagreement becomes a brutal fight, with Kyoko's experience and segmented spear overwhelming Sayaka. Madoka can only watch as the two girls treat severe wounds as part of an ordinary territorial dispute. Desperate to stop them, she considers making a wish and becoming a magical girl herself. Homura arrives before she can contract, interrupting the battle with the calm authority of someone who expected the confrontation. The episode exposes how competition for Grief Seeds can turn magical girls against one another even when both claim to be fighting witches.
Episode 6
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Homura incapacitates Sayaka and pressures Kyoko to withdraw, then again tells Madoka to abandon any hope of saving her friend. Kyubey emphasizes Madoka's extraordinary magical potential, but Sayaka insists that she must not be drawn into the same danger. Homura informs Kyoko that the immensely powerful witch Walpurgisnacht will reach the city in two weeks and proposes a temporary alliance. Sayaka refuses Madoka's requests to reconcile with Kyoko and continues blaming Homura for Mami's death. When Kyoko challenges her on a highway bridge, Madoka tries to prevent another fight by taking Sayaka's Soul Gem and throwing it onto a passing truck. Sayaka's body immediately collapses and shows no sign of life. Kyubey matter-of-factly reveals that the contract removes a magical girl's soul from her body and stores it inside the gem, turning the body into a remotely controlled shell. If the gem moves more than roughly one hundred meters away, the body becomes unresponsive. Homura races after the truck, retrieves the Soul Gem, and restores it to Sayaka, reviving her. Madoka and Kyoko are horrified that Kyubey never disclosed such a fundamental transformation, while Kyubey appears genuinely unable to understand why humans consider it deceptive.
Episode 7
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Sayaka confronts Kyubey about placing her soul inside a gem without informed consent. To demonstrate the body's reduced sensitivity, Kyubey touches the Soul Gem and subjects her to intense pain, arguing that the arrangement protects magical girls during combat. Kyoko takes Sayaka to the ruins of a church and reveals her own history. She wished that people would listen to her preacher father's teachings, but when he discovered that his success came from magic, he rejected her, killed their family, and died himself. Kyoko concluded that wishes should be used only for oneself. Sayaka sympathizes but refuses that lesson, insisting that her choice to heal Kyosuke was selfless. When Kyosuke returns to school, Sayaka avoids him. Hitomi confesses that she also loves him and gives Sayaka one day to speak first. Sayaka breaks down before Madoka, convinced that her altered body makes her inhuman and unworthy of romance. During a witch battle, she refuses Kyoko's help and disables her own pain so she can attack without restraint. She wins while laughing at the damage to her body. The idealism that once distinguished Sayaka from Kyoko begins turning into self-punishment, resentment, and reckless dependence on magic.
Episode 8
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Sayaka defeats the witch but refuses its Grief Seed, claiming that accepting help or reward from others would compromise her ideals. Her Soul Gem darkens as exhaustion and despair accumulate. When Madoka pleads with her, Sayaka lashes out and accuses her naturally gifted friend of criticizing sacrifices she was unwilling to make herself. Hitomi then confesses to Kyosuke while Sayaka watches from a distance, deepening her isolation. Homura offers a Grief Seed, but Sayaka rejects it because she distrusts her. Believing Sayaka's collapse will push Madoka into a contract, Homura prepares to kill her; Kyoko intervenes and helps her escape. Kyubey begins persuading Madoka to use a wish to save Sayaka, but Homura shoots him and, overcome with emotion, begs Madoka to stop sacrificing herself. Another identical Kyubey appears, identifies Homura as a time traveler, and consumes the dead body. Kyoko later finds Sayaka after an encounter with cruel men on a train. Sayaka admits that her attempt to be a pure hero has failed. Her completely corrupted Soul Gem shatters and becomes a Grief Seed, transforming her into a witch. Kyubey reveals the hidden life cycle behind the term “magical girl.”
Episode 9
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Sayaka's transformed witch, Oktavia, emerges inside a new labyrinth. Homura uses time manipulation to extract Kyoko and recover Sayaka's human body, then tells Madoka that their friend has become the very kind of creature she hunted. Kyubey explains the Incubators' purpose without remorse. His species harvests the enormous energy released when adolescent girls move from hope to despair and become witches, using it to delay the universe's eventual heat death. Because Incubators lack emotion, they regard human suffering as an efficient exchange rather than betrayal. Kyoko refuses to accept that Sayaka is beyond recovery. She recruits Madoka, hoping the sound of a friend's voice might awaken Sayaka within the witch and restore her Soul Gem. Inside the labyrinth, Kyoko absorbs Oktavia's attacks while Madoka calls to Sayaka. The witch eventually strikes at Madoka as well, proving that no recognizable response remains. Kyoko orders Homura to carry Madoka to safety and uses all her magic to destroy both herself and Oktavia, choosing to die beside the girl whose ideals once angered her. Kyubey admits that he knew the rescue was impossible and deliberately allowed Kyoko's death, leaving Homura unable to face Walpurgisnacht alone without Madoka contracting.
Episode 10
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Homura's past is revealed through repeated timelines. Originally a shy, physically fragile transfer student, she was rescued from a witch by the confident magical girls Madoka and Mami. When both died fighting Walpurgisnacht, Homura contracted with Kyubey and wished to redo her meeting with Madoka so she could become the protector instead. Her shield granted control over time. In later loops she trained with stolen guns and explosives, but every attempt ended disastrously. She watched Madoka defeat Walpurgisnacht only to transform into an even greater witch, learned the truth about Kyubey, and failed to convince the others before Sayaka's own transformation exposed it. In one timeline, a panicked Mami killed Kyoko and nearly killed Homura to prevent further witches; Madoka stopped her, then used the last Grief Seed to cleanse Homura and begged her to return to the past. At Madoka's request, Homura killed her before she could transform. Each reset made Homura more skilled, isolated, and emotionally guarded. She eventually stopped seeking the group's trust and focused solely on preventing Kyubey from contacting Madoka. The current Homura's cold behavior is therefore the result of countless failed rescues and a promise only she remembers.
Episode 11
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Kyubey tells Homura that her repeated attempts to save Madoka have unintentionally concentrated the karmic weight of many timelines around a single person. That accumulated destiny explains Madoka's unprecedented potential both as a magical girl and as a witch. After Sayaka's funeral, Kyubey forces Madoka to witness humanity's long history with Incubators, arguing that magical girls' wishes accelerated civilization despite the individual tragedies. Madoka is appalled by his detached calculation. Her mother, Junko, recognizes that she is hiding a crisis but cannot understand its supernatural cause. Homura finally tells Madoka about the time loops and admits that every version of herself has been devoted to protecting her. As Walpurgisnacht approaches, the city evacuates into shelters. Homura fights alone with an arsenal prepared across years of repetition—explosives, artillery, fuel trucks, and stolen weapons—but the witch survives everything and crushes her defenses. Realizing another reset may only strengthen Madoka further, Homura begins losing the hope that keeps her Soul Gem from corruption. Kyubey tells Madoka that Homura will become a witch if she despairs. Madoka persuades Junko to let her leave the shelter, reaches the defeated Homura, and announces that she has finally chosen the wish she will make.
Episode 12
あらすじ
選択した言語がないため、Englishで表示しています。
Madoka contracts with Kyubey and wishes to erase every witch before it is born, across all times and all possible worlds, by her own hand. The scale of the wish uses the karmic power gathered through Homura's loops and rewrites the laws of reality. Madoka appears to magical girls throughout history at the moment despair would corrupt their Soul Gems, cleansing them and carrying them away before they can become witches. She also comforts Sayaka, who accepts disappearing after seeing Kyosuke's musical future. Because Madoka destroys the witch created by her own accumulated despair, she transcends ordinary existence and becomes the universal Law of Cycles. The world is reconstructed with no memory that Madoka Kaname ever lived. Mami and Kyoko are alive, but magical girls now fight Wraiths, and their exhausted Soul Gems vanish rather than hatching into witches. Homura alone remembers Madoka clearly and receives her ribbons as proof that their bond survived the rewrite. Madoka's family retains only faint impressions, including her younger brother's unexplained drawings. Homura continues fighting in the changed world, sustained by Madoka's unseen presence and the promise to protect what her best friend saved.