Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Faith of Kyoko Sakura
One key subplot from Puella Magi Madoka Magica concerns Kyoko Sakura’s religious background. Her backstory involves her father, a priest for an unnamed Christian denomination, losing his followers over an unspecified dispute with the church. In exchange for becoming a magical girl, Kyoko makes a wish to revive his flock and their family’s fortunes. As anyone who’s watched the series knows, that well-intentioned decision has tragic consequences for Kyoko and her family. (spoilers below)
Most viewers likely take Kyoko’s tragic backstory at face value. Certainly Kyoko shows little evidence of retaining her faith, aside from her brief moment of prayer near the end of the series. But I was sufficiently intrigued to dig deeper, and to make sense of the seeming contradictions in how she’s presented. What Christian sect did Kyoko’s father belong to? Why did he break away from his church and what might that tell us about him, his daughter and their relationship?
(Disclaimer: I am neither a religious expert nor currently a practicing Christian. These are my inexpert analyses based on some research and personal experiences. Make of them what you will, or won’t.)
The canonical (heh) answer is that she is a Protestant. Has to be, since her father was a priest who married and had children. Yet the imagery associated with her family (her father wearing a black cassock, the stained-glass windows of his church) screams the Catholic Church. Catholicism is the most popular form of Christianity in Japan, so it’s possible that the creators just carelessly blended elements of multiple denominations. Or that they had a specific church in mind.
After some thought, it occurs to me that Kyoko Sakura is an Anglican.
The Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan (Nippon Sei Ko Kai, or NSKK) is the third-most popular Christian denomination in Japan, with 32,000 congregants. While not as well-represented as Japan’s Catholic community, NSKK is among the more visible Christian sects in the country, as they are heavily involved in disaster relief and other charity work. I suspect the creators of the series are aware of the NSKK as an organization even if they weren’t familiar with the details of its inner workings.
In this context, the Catholic imagery makes sense. Kyoko’s father is seen (in Kyoko’s flashback, in official character designs and the Different Story manga) wearing a long black cassock with a priest’s collar. This type of dress is most often associated with the Catholic Church. However, it is also worn by Anglican vicars and clergymen during sermons and other occasions.
Similarly, Sakura Church is an elaborate cathedral-like structure with stained glass windows depicting saints and Biblical scenes. This, again, would appear to be Catholic at a glance. But Anglican/Episcopal churches often retain similarly elaborate religious decorations in their houses of worship.
What clinches it for me, though, is the key part of Kyoko’s backstory. Father Sakura’s (and Kyoko’s) fall to despair and poverty is because he clashed with his church, lost followers over his unpopular doctrines and was apparently excommunicated. This struck a chord with me watching the show, as it suggested Anglican/Episcopal doctrinal struggles that I’m personally familiar with.
As a former Episcopalian, I’ve seen a lot of “culture wars” within the Church over social issues, particularly involving LGBTQ rights. Denominations of the Church still argue over whether women or gay and lesbian congregants can serve as priests, bishops or other church officials. Some priests and congregations have schismed away from the Anglican Communion, others have even rejoined the Catholic Church over these arguments. Despite its reputation as one of the more forward thinking Christian denominations, the Communion’s acceptance of progress certainly hasn’t been universal.
The church I attended as a child and teen broke away from the Anglican Communion because our pastor disagreed with the Episcopal Church USA’s decision to allow priests to officiate same-sex weddings. I had left the Church before then, not for any deep doctrinal reasons but simply because I’m irreligious and didn’t feel the need to pretend otherwise once I reached adulthood. Still, this was especially galling since there are LGBTQ people in my immediate family who’d be affected by his decision. For all the years we spent attending that church, it felt like a slap in the face.
Anyway…Considering the above, it’s easy to imagine Father Sakura as an Anglican breaking away from the NSKK over a doctrinal dispute, and his life ruined as a result. One wonders if he was a more liberal priest racing ahead of church teachings on cultural issues, or a conservative who resisted them. The latter seems especially devastating and cruel if you read Kyoko as queer, which isn’t hard considering her relationship with Sayaka.
Granted, I’m not inclined to view Father Sakura sympathetically considering his actions in canon…but the glimpses we get of him before Kyoko is “outed” as a magical girl in Different Story suggest he was every bit as gentle as Kyoko remembers. If he was cast out of his church for being too liberal, that makes Kyoko’s former devotion to him easier to understand.
I suppose this is trivia, since the specifics of Kyoko’s (former) faith are never expounded upon in Madoka and really, the details aren’t as important as what happened. I dunno. Maybe it’s intriguing to me to see an explicitly Christian character in anime. Maybe, on a personal level, it’s because I’m a (lapsed) Episcopalian and it’s cool to think that my favorite Madoka character shares both my (former) faith and my disillusionment with it. Do with this post what you will.
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