Kamen Rider Geats and Madoka Magica narrative parallel

Kamen Rider Geats, despite the difference in medium and genre, is pretty much the thematic cousin to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. In this essay I will point out the thematic similarities and how they handle the themes of wishes, hope and hidden truths.

PREMISE: A selected group of people gain powers to fight creatures that endanger humanity, in exchange for a wish. The main cast slowly realizes many things were hidden from them, making the magic system untrustworthy. The wish granting system is different: magical girls have the apparent advantage of having their wish granted upon entry, while only the winning rider of each DGP can get their wish granted. However, both have in common the fact the wishes can have unforeseen consequences that can put the person who made them into despair.

ANTAGONIST DEUTERAGONIST: A character in the main cast antagonizes their own peers, trying to prevent more people from gaining powers as they consider this role as nothing but a source of misery. While Homura focuses entirely on Madoka (obsessively trying to stop her from becoming a magical girl and only tangentially caring about the rest of the girls in the current timeline), Michinaga applies his disdain for Kamen Riders rather equally while keeping a particular grudge against Geats. Despite these differences in methods, both were shaped by witnessing the tragic loss of a friend who paid the price of being a magical girl or a rider.

Due to the circumstances of their wishes, Homura is stuck on a perpetual cycle that does not allow her to move on and let go of the Madoka she once knew, while Michinaga could let go of the haunting presence of his friend but struggles with getting rid of the grudge he assigned to all riders. Homura fixates on the individual, Michinaga fixates on the masses. Nevertheless, both have poor coping skills that shape the plot of the story and the way they interact with the world.

HOW THE SYSTEM TREATS USERS: The Desire Grand Prix staff treats the players like pawns in a social experiment, “characters” whose worth is tied to their entertainment value, and the moment they get in the way of the game or ask too many questions, they get dropped. That is, if they’re lucky and don’t get erased instead. Kyubey’s kind, the Incubators, see magical girls as a necessary component to prevent the heat death of the universe, using their final maturation into witches as an energy source. Essentially, to them magical girls are fascinating test subjects, and while they claim they do not feel emotions, Incubators can be entertained by their journey. While the DGP staff is at the very least capable of human emotions, they share with the Incubators the detached, observational nature and the entitlement of fulfilling their goal above the needs of their subjects.

Furthermore, a parallel can be drawn between the ID cores and the soul gems. ID cores contain the memories and the “spark” of the rider, that is what drove them to make that wish. Once a player gets dropped, any memory related to the DGP is sealed away until they touch an ID core again. You could argue the ID core system holds an important part of what makes a rider who they are. Soul gems are the literal embodiment of a magical girl’s soul, to the point that their physical body is more like a container, a doll for the soul to move. If they soul gem is too far away from the body, it won’t be able to move, akin to the range of a remote control. Both items are a physical manifestation of the person’s essence, however soul gems have much more severe consequences when it comes to damage. Breaking an ID core at best excludes you from ever being a Kamen Rider again (but you could still regain memories from another ID core) and at worst it would seal away a part of the self forever, while breaking a soul gem is essentially a death sentence. Either way, gaining an ID core or a soul gem is a transformative process where the person takes the risk of losing their sense of self, usually without being properly warned of the consequences.

THE MONSTER REVEAL: The main cast finds out, to their own horror, that the monsters they’ve been fighting are not only a bioproduct of their magic system, but they’re also related to the users’ fates. Magical girls discover that witches are former allies that ultimately fell to despair, irremediably transforming them with no return. Riders discover that the most recent jamatos are lab grown creatures that use the ID cores of dead players as fertilizer, making them able to mimic their appearance and memories. Both cases are a morbid reflection of a person that does not exist anymore, and the reveals are a turning point for the main characters’ relationship with the system.

THE COMPASSIONATE DIVINITY: Tsumuri and Madoka have been witnesses for the majority of the story without powers of their own, but with a great wish for everyone to be safe. This good heart, tested by tragedy, ended up revealing an incredible power way beyond expectations, making them ascend to the status of divinity. However, their circumstances differ when it comes to the freedom of choice. Both had their power stockpiled due to someone else’s actions (Homura amplifying Madoka’s karmic destiny by trying to save her and the DGP actively cultivating Tsumuri’s compassion to trigger the power she was born with), but Madoka chose to become everyone’s savior, she made that conscious wish and was fine with the consequences of her own removal from the timeline. Tsumuri’s transformation, on the other hand, was beyond her control and forced upon her by the Gamemaster. Her real act of agency is keeping her independence and rejecting this role, transferring her power to a willing host beyond the DGP’s control.

There is also the fact that in Tsumuri’s case, the divine power was going to be used against her wishes to further the cruel system the riders went through. In the end, Madoka and Tsumuri went down opposite paths but guaranteed the same goal of protecting their peers from the thorns of their magic system.

In conclusion, while the two shows have different executions, both focus on the importance of hope as a driving force that can resist and triumph despite the odds, even leading to a miracle. To put it in Madoka’s words: “If someone ever tells me it's a mistake to have hope, well then, I'll just tell them they're wrong. And I'll keep telling them til they believe! No matter how many times it takes…”

Further parallels could be drawn between Madoka and Ace’s divine status, but I will form a full opinion on this specific aspect once I finish the final episodes of Kamen Rider I have yet to watch.