Kyubey



Kyūbē  (キュゥべえ Kyuubee or Kyūbē) is a "Messenger of Magic"  (魔法の使者 mahō no shisha)  who grants the wishes of young girls, but in exchange contracts their services as Puella Magi  (魔法少女 mahō shōjo, lit. Magical Girls) . Girls who form a contract with him are tasked to defeat  Witches -- bizarre entities that feed upon the hopes and dreams of normal people. Kyūbē features prominently as a character within the anime series of Madoka Magica.

Physical description
Kyūbē is a small, cat-like creature, about two feet long (including tail). His entire body is covered in often clean, white fur. He has what appear to be four ears; two that resemble an average cat, pointed and up, while the other two appear as long tassel-like appendages that split into three sections at their tip. The tassels fade from white to pink and have three red dots horizontally before the splits. they also bear a pair of floating golden rings. Kyūbēs face is his most well known feature; two beady pink eyes with ark maroon irises and a tiny, sigma-shaped "cat mouth". Due to Kyūbē's method of telepathic communication, his face remains almost completely unmoving except for blinking and consuming food. This unmoving face is often a source of fan stigma involving Kyūbē "staring into one's soul". On his back is an egg-shaped red oval.

In Oriko Magica, Kyūbē takes on even more of a "plush toy" appearance than before. Now, his sharp tipped tassel ears are soft and curved, lacking the pink gradient and red spots. His magical hoops have moved further up his ears and his front legs appear to have shortened.

Personality
Kyūbē is an Incubator/Messenger of Magic. Because of this, he, like his race, cannot exhibit emotions of any kind. As a result, Kyūbē often appears cold, calculating and scheming; traits that make him appear villainous in the series. Kyūbē, however, only seeks to achieve a goal; to preserve the universe from entropy. To meet this goal, he takes all means logically efficient and reasonable; namely creating Puella Magi (Magical Girls). Initially, Kyūbē appears enthusiastic to help the Puella Magi in their quest, offering advice where applicable, however, as more of his true motive is revealed, either by him or others, Kyūbē becomes progressively more passive and observatory in manner (although this could be because he has no advice left to offer).

Throughout the series, Kyūbē is often accused of trickery and deceit by turning girls into Puella Magi, and subsequently witches, treating humans as energy livestock under the guise of being a miracle granter. Although this can easily be understood, Kyūbē states that he never intended to "trick" Puella Magi, but simply leave out traumatizing subtext in order to make the process more appealing to a potential Puella Magi.

Kyūbē uses certain speech patterns that indicate he may see himself as superior to the magical girls; the lack of honorifics, the use of the pronouns "Boku" (僕) and "Kimi" (君) and the misuse or overall lack of polite verbs suggests that he is either rude or very casual towards the girls. Since his species lack emotions, it is possible that Kyūbē may simply not understand the need to be polite, as opposed to being direct. Considering he utilizies the Magical Girls like animal slaugther though, it is probable he views them as lesser.

Kyūbē apparently enjoys hot baths and human food, as evidenced in the second episode of the anime. Trivia


 * Kyūbē's Name spelling is often a topic of argument amongst fans, the many various spellings in different texts have caused confusion as to its meaning
 * His name is written in both Hiragana and Katakana as キュ(kyu)ゥ(u)べ(be)え(e), so Kyūbē, Kyuubee or Kyuubey would be most accurate as a romanization.
 * On the other hand, the fifth commercial has his name romanized as "Kyūbē", which resulted in controversy. However, the lack of the extra u is probably just a use of the modified Hepburn system, which never accounts for extended vowels.
 * Gen Urobuchi joked that the "Kyu" comes from the katakana of the English word Cute so it could also be Cubey.
 * Episode 8 suggests that his name comes from 'Incubator', which would be romanized as 'inkyubeetaa.' In the same episode, it is revealed that he has multiple replacements.
 * During Kyūbē's dialogues in episode 9, he keeps saying "we", meaning that he isn't the only Incubator.
 * Some fans of 2ch have taken to assigning the kanji 「九兵衛」 (Kyūbē, lit. nine protector soldiers or nine warriors in defense) to his name, speculating that like Doraemon (whose name can be written as 「銅鑼衛門」), Kyūbē's naming might have been inspired by old Samurai dramas.
 * 'QB' is short for 'Kyūbē' in Niconico Douga. This name is also common on 2ch.
 * Kyūbē's speech patterns may have been used to give a "foreign" touch to Kyūbē's speech, as this pattern emulates the typical way of speaking in other languages, such as English.For more information about energy, entropy and thermodynamics in general, see Thermodynamics.
 * Kyūbē appears to be capable of teleportation. In episode 10, at the end of the first timeline, he appears to fade into reality above Homura.
 * A fanart meme tends to point out Kyūbē's similarity to Hummy, the mascot of Suite Precure♪, the other (much more traditional, child-friendly, and optimistic) magical girl series that began airing in Winter 2011. Due to the closeness of their airing dates, this is likely a coincidence, but it has not gone unnoticed and adds to the series' postmodernist deconstruction of the magical girl genre.
 * It can also be interpreted as Kyūbē treating personal names just as tags for identifying individuals, similar to a social security number.
 * Boku is also used by girls, but this is uncommon in real life. In manga, anime and alike, this is often employed for girls exhibiting "boyish" personality traits. Such girls are called boku-kko (僕っ子) a western equivalent is a "tomboy".
 * Some fan speculation has arisen that the "Kyu" in Kyūbē may be resemblant to a tag or identification number, just as Juubey has the number 10 affixed to "Juu" Kyūbē is Number 9 in the series. although this would make sense, Kazumi Magica conffirms that the "Juu" in Juubey does not mean 10. Juubey, however is also not a "real" incubator
 * In Episode 11 Kyūbē reveals to Madoka that while this statement is true on the majority of their race, there have been extreme rare cases of those capable of expressing emotions, but because this is a very rare phenomenon they are considered to be mentally ill.
 * Spa Weekly's Article: Kyūbē's utilitarianism prioritizes the continuation of the whole universe and takes precedence over the happenings of individual entities. Kyūbē's actions are not based on ignorance since he is aware of the cause-and-effect law of nature, he consciously decides that the law is immutable and conveniently uses it to exploit the Puella Magi system. Apparently this makes Kyūbē a Bad Buddhist.
 * In Chapter 21 of Kazumi Magica, Kyūbē "wanted" to communicate with Juubey, even if it was man-made, as it wanted to connect with another of his kind. It is unknown if Kyūbē's reasons were because it wanted to learn more about Juubey or if it was "feeling lonely".
 * In the Drama CD "Sunny Day Life" Kyūbē tries to convince to an exasperated Madoka that "he" doesn't see himself as male (in human terms) so "he" doesn't understand why "he" isn't allowed to be in the bathroom with a naked Girl.
 * On the Blu-ray commentary it was pointed by Gen Urobuchi that Kyūbē has no gender.
 * According to the Blu-Ray Episode 2 voice commentary:
 * Kyūbē was not based on any animal, just the concept of a "small mahou shoujo animal"
 * When asked what animals were used as the basis for Kyūbē's design, Ume Aoki was very cryptic because of spoilers.
 * The only clue she gives is <span class="inline-spoilers" style="color:white;border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-right-width:1px;border-right-style:solid;border-right-color:rgb(179,179,179);padding:2px;">"coil". According to the drama CD interpreter, it's possible that it relates to the theory that Kyūbē's design is based on the uterus. Supporters of this theory believe Kyūbē's ears look like fallopian tubes.  It could also refer to <span class="inline-spoilers" style="color:white;border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-right-width:1px;border-right-style:solid;border-right-color:rgb(179,179,179);padding:2px;">Incubator ., which has a similar meaning to it. This interpretation was proven wrong in the commentary for episode 8, where Chiwa Saito explained that the truth that was hidden was that the marking on Kyūbē's back is that of an egg, and that was the connection to <span class="inline-spoilers" style="color:white;border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(179,179,179);border-right-width:1px;border-right-style:solid;border-right-color:rgb(179,179,179);padding:2px;">Incubator .
 * Considering he is an Incubator, this is not farfetched.
 * In an interview with NewType, Shinbo was thinking of giving lip-synching to Kyūbē in the new world but Yukihiro Miyamoto said no since fundamentally Kyūbē remains the same creature as before, only interested in energy efficiency, so he remains unchanged. Also in the interview it's stated Kyūbē doesn't move his mouth to speak because he is communicating through telepathy.
 * It also enhances the creepy factor.
 * Prior to broadcasting, no one told the seiyuu (specially Emiri Kato) that Kyūbē's mouth doesnt move, so she tried to properly lip-synch her lines. When they saw the first episode on the air, the seiyuu were shocked that they were tricked.
 * Aoi Yuuki (Madoka), Chiwa Saito (Homura), and Kaori Mizuhashi (Mami) tried for the role of Kyūbē. Saito was told her Kyūbē sounded too stupid, and in Yuuki's part hers sounded too naive and that she was too cute for it (no surprise there). They all found the role for Kyūbē to be too difficult for them.
 * In the Audio Commentary for Episode 9, before reading the script or knowing the nature of the show, Emiri Kato (VA of Kyūbē) was very happy that she was voicing a cute animal character.
 * According to Shinbo, he just finished reading Michael Sandel's book, and he describes Kyūbē as a Michael Sandel-esque character (referencing the book's section on Utilitarianism).
 * Gen Urobuchi comments in the Audio Commentary for Episode 12 that (the) Kyūbē's presence is world wide (WWQB). This can be interpreted as that multiple Kyūbēs are being used to contract and reduce entropy; and are not limited to just using one single incubator at a time. this would explain as to why Kyūbēs can consume dead predecessors. It may also suggest that instead of Kyūbē being able to teleport, there are simply several, each one assigned to go with a magical girl or clusters thereof, at a time.
 * During the Sakura-Con 2012 panel interview, Urobuchi explains that Kyūbē is not evil, it is his lack of human feelings that makes him scary (i.e., psychopathic tendencies).
 * Urobuchi compares H.P. Lovecraft's creatures to be same as Kyūbē, in that they are uninterested in humans feelings.