However, Madoka and her friends eventually discover that Kyubey is part of an alien species that harvests the energy from magical girls’ degeneration into witches in order to counteract the effects of cosmic entropy. For the sailor scouts, these animal-like guardians serve as benevolent guides in helping the heroine discover and use her powers. Additionally, the arrival of a small white catlike animal who possesses knowledge of magical powers and frequently appears in the main character’s bedroom evokes the guardian-cats Luna and Artemis in the iconic magical girl anime Sailor Moon. For example, Mami, the friendliest and most reliable of the magical girl characters, dies an unexpected and gruesome death during an early witch-battle, marking a distinct tonal shift in the series and shocking early audiences. This series draws from many common elements of the genre, such as: middle-school-aged girls an apparently average, somewhat inept heroine who reveals or receives magical powers extended transformation scenes and color-coded magical state costumes.However, Madoka also works within and against the magical girl genre, deliberately interrupting and subverting its conventions. Madoka not only features magical girls but is also an example of the “magical girl” genre of anime, which includes other series such as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Prétear, and Princess Tutu. In particular, we argue that both the frameworks of “fairy tale” and “new media” give us useful analytical resources for beginning to make sense of the intricately complex phenomenon of Madoka’s labyrinths. By composing a labyrinth, witches can simultaneously reshape their environment and create a powerful statement about identity through personalized performance in narrative spaces that they control. Many of the series’ action sequences unfold in “labyrinths,” the magical spaces controlled by witches. Drawing on Bill Ellis’s concept of “fairy-telling” and scholarship on new media composition, in this paper we seek to investigate labyrinths as acts of embodied composing-not lairs of evil or destruction but rather creative material memory work that negotiates grief and despair. However, the folkloric genre most relevant to the ethos and aesthetics of Madoka is that of the fairy tale. The series has connections to many different genres and narrative traditions within the realm of folkloristics. In the magical girl anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, middle-school girls receive the power and responsibility to fight witches in exchange for making a wish.

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