Homura Akemi

Homura Akemi is a character from the 2011 original anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica. She is a gun-slinging, hair-flipping, mysterious magical girl who tries to prevent Madoka from forming a contract with Kyuubey and become a magical girl like her. In the last few episodes, Homura's true intentions and backstory are eventually revealed, with the events making her arguably the "true protagonist" of the story. Indeed, she later stars as the main character of the 2013 sequel film Madoka Magica: Rebellion.

As a magical girl, Homura uses real military hardware to fight witches instead of magical weapons, and is later revealed to possess the power to control time. In the fandom, Homura is mainly shipped romantically with Madoka as her actions and motives stem from her love for the titular character - although whether this love is romantic or otherwise is yet to be confirmed in the canon anime.

The resident "dark magical girl" is the anime's best known competitor in saimoe tournaments, having won Anizone's Korean saimoe in 2011 and scoring multiple decent results in notable contests such as /r/anime and ISML. Ironically, in 2channel's original Saimoe contest, Homura was the worst performing girl out of the main quintet because she did not reach the final round unlike the other four girls, only managing a quarter-final result in 2014.

Icons

Main Tournament
Overall Record

Match History

History
Homura is the most popular Madoka Magica character on /r/anime, as far as her results in the tournaments are concerned. She is best associated with the phrase "Homura did nothing wrong" (originally a response to her controversial actions in the Rebellion film), which has become both a running gag and a battle cry for her fans who desire to see her succeed in the brackets despite years of hurt and disappointment. Homura has also been involved in several restarted match days in the tournament's history, which coincidentally fits in with the fact that she has time-related powers.

The dark-haired magical girl debuted as the highest-seeded Madoka character in the very first Best Girl contest at #24. She reached the sixth round, but narrowly missed out on a place in the elite eight after she lost by 16 votes against Asuna. Since then, Homura's subsequent appearances in Best Girl have her get knocked out in round 4 against many tournament staples. However, she did break the 4th round barrier two times: in Best Girl 3 where she lost to Saber in round 5, and in Best Girl 4 where she upset #9 seed Tadokoro in round 4 (which featured an link-heavy, RES -crippling post by an /r/Homura moderator) before getting knocked out by Yoko Littner.

After a new Madoka movie serving as the sequel to Rebellion was announced in 2021, Homura's chances in Best Girl 8 seemed hopeful, especially when she secured the #16 seed, her highest position to date. Unfortunately, she could not capitalize on the announcement hype, and she was eliminated in round 4 against the underseeded Tsubasa Hanekawa.

On the other hand, Homura would enjoy relatively better results in the mixed-gender Best Character Contest, because her character plot is one of her main appeals. After being denied in the last 16 by Spike Spiegel in Best Character 2, Homura finally broke into the Elite Eight in Best Character 4 when she defeated Mayoi Hachikuji, but her run ended when she encountered fellow time traveler and eventual champion Rintarou Okabe.

Two years later, Homura became involved in an incident when she lost to Zero Two in Best Character 5's round 3. The match got suspended as the host received reports of outside parties influencing the result, which was implied to be Zero Two fans cross-posting the contest to their home subreddits and Discord servers - a definite possibility given their involvement in a high-profile match against Asuna in Best Girl 6. After a discussion thread was put up on deciding what to do with the brigaded characters, the host decided to restart the round, and requested the offending users to delete their posts promoting their character in the contest. As a result, Homura won in the ensuing rematch, but she was eliminated by Shouko Nishimiya in the following round.

Homura would finally earn her first /r/anime honour by winning the second "24-Hour Best Girl" exhibition contest, which turned out to be /r/anime's 2020 April Fools celebration event as the title was switched into "Worst Girl of All Time" halfway through. . Given her divisive reception as a character, having her win the title instead of the likes of Kurisu or Megumin seemed very fitting, and her fans don't seem to mind, because a win is still a win anyways.

Matches
Best Girl

Best Character

Exhibitions 24-Hour Best Girl (1mil. Subscriber Event) - seed 37
 * (220) Yui @ Angel Beats -- 304 - 107
 * (165) Hinata Hyuga @ Naruto -- 293 - 173
 * (28) Zero Two @ Darling in the Franxx -- 210 - 180
 * (5) Mai Sakurajima @ Seishun Buta Yarou -- 284 - 497

24-Hour Worst Girl (April Fools 2020) - seed 43
 * (214) MISAKA 9982 @ A Certain Magical Index -- 193 - 84
 * (171) Hinata Kawamoto @ 3-gatsu no Lion -- 155 - 74
 * (22) Ram @ Re:Zero -- 300 - 210
 * (11) Yunyun @ Konosuba -- 306 - 297
 * (38)  Tohru @ Dragon Maid -- 310 - 255
 * (14) Rin Tohsaka @ Fate/stay night -- 318 - 292
 * (2) Megumin @ Konosuba -- 285 - 272
 * (9) Kurisu Makise @ Steins;Gate -- 414 - 382

Honours
Total Wins : 7 + 1 = 8


 * 1) Korea Best Moe 2011
 * 2) Baidu CIP Moe 2011 Baike Baidu link
 * 3) Yamibo Yuri Saimoe 2011/2013
 * 4) Baidu AST 2014 Baike Baidu link
 * 5) r/anime's 24-Hour Worst Girl (April Fools 2020)
 * 6) ZERO2014 Moe Contest Zero DM BBSdead link
 * 7) Miss Anime Tournament 2013 (ISML forum, Websitedead link)

Navigation
References

Beware of spoilers and pop-ups
 * Wikipedia
 * Puella Magi Wiki
 * Madoka Wikia
 * MyAnimeList
 * Baike Baidu (Chinese)
 * Moegirl (Chinese)
 * NamuWiki (Korean)