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Null Magical Girl (非–魔法少女, Naru Mahou Shoujo) is a Puella Magi Madoka Magica spin-off light novel written by GenGen Kusano and illustrated by Aya Haruhana that is notorious in the fandom for its fundamental weirdness. Originally published in 2021 in three different volumes of the PMMM 10th Anniversary Book [1], its zig-zagging plot twists and shocking revelations are in a league of their own even by the generous standards of the franchise, to the point where the most common reaction upon finishing the work--or a plot summary--is inevitably a variation on, "What the fuck did I just read??!!"
Yes, the protagonist is a 24-year-old failed magical girl whose discovery that she literally lacks a brain kicks off a bizarre adventure involving a time-traveling railroad and her dead twin sister. Yes, Kyubey hangs out in her empty skull at one point. But after reading Null Magical Girl in its entirety multiple times, I can safely say that no matter what rumors you've heard about it, the actuality is even stranger than you think. And yet in spite--or perhaps because of this--I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since.
You know the scene from Knives Out where Benoit Blanc says, "It makes no damn sense... compels me, though"? What follows is my attempt to make sense of Null Magical Girl through the lens of the classic science fiction directly referenced in the text--especially the works of A.E. van Vogt ("van vote"), a Canadian-American writer from the 1940s "Golden Age" of American science fiction, whose most famous novel, The World of Null-A, has an unexpectedly large influence on both this story and fandom in general.
Paralleling the staggered release of Null Magical Girl, The World of Null-A was originally published as a three-part serial in 1945 in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine [2]. A novel-length version was published in 1948, followed by a substantially revised version in 1970, which is the text I reference here, and the only one currently in print. As of this writing, there is no official English release for Null Magical Girl, so I have used the fan translation by nymphatix [3].
I do not think that word means what you think it means
The World of Null-A follows the bizarre and convoluted journey of Gilbert Gosseyn ("go-sane") as he struggles to understand himself and thwart a vast and ominous conspiracy that seeks to use him for unknown purposes. Initially, Gosseyn's primary defining attribute is his mastery of non-Aristotelian logic, referred to as null-A or Ā in the text.
Non-Aristotelian logic is an umbrella term encompassing any formal system that deviates from the standard or classical systems epitomized by those of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Real-life examples include quantum logic, which use the principles of quantum mechanics as a starting point, and "fuzzy logic", which allows for different degrees of truth and falseness in a given statement instead of fixed binaries [4].
Van Vogt's version of null-A was inspired by the "general semantics" of Alfred Korzybski, a school of thought that denied the Aristotelian concept of 'essence' and argued humans have direct control over their perceptions which can be augmented and enhanced through specialized training [5]. General semantics reached its peak of popularity in the 1950s, influencing a wide range of authors and scientists despite later critique as a pseudoscience.
Although one of Korzybski's maxims--"The map is not the territory"--is directly quoted in The World of Null-A and null-A philosophy is propagated in-universe by "The Institute of General Semantics", van Vogt's version of null-A is not synonymous with Korzybski's general semantics. Instead, it is a discipline vaguely defined as "automatic extensional thinking" that allows one to coordinate their cortex, the part of the brain that controls rational thought and reflection, from their thalamus, which controls the nervous system and emotions. A highly trained null-A practitioner can not only prevent their emotions from overwhelming them in a crisis, they are capable of temporarily cutting off the fatigue centers of their brains, which gives them an advantage in combat (though Gosseyn still prefers firearms in a pinch).
On a narrative level, mastery of null-A is a generic superpower that allows the characters to do whatever the author wants them to without difficulty. Mastery also comes with a moral element--adepts consider themselves superior in all respects to those are not, or who came to the practice later in life--as it is seen primarily as a matter of individual self-discipline rather than systemic or cultural issue.
Summarizing the plot of The World of Null-A is a surprisingly difficult task, and has the unintentional side effect of making the book seem more exciting and coherent than it actually is, so I will focus only on those sections most relevant to the discussion at hand. After being shot and killed during a prison escape on Earth, Gosseyn wakes up on Venus to discover his mind and memories have jumped to an identical new body, which makes him even more of a target by the enemies he seeks to evade. Later, Gosseyn learns that he has an extra brain, which will make him a player instead of a pawn if only he can unlock its potential.
Eventually, after an exhausting series of captures, escapes, interrogations, double-crosses, off-screen battles, and the surprise appearance of a vast galactic empire, Gosseyn uncovers the truth at last: he is the latest in a series of clones stretching back hundreds of years, which included the original founder of null-A philosophy. His extra brain is an organ found in every human being, but which cannot develop properly in normal humans, only in bodies cultivated to maturity through artificial means, and which allows him to transfer thoughts and memories to his fellow clones. It's a shame that all of these revelations come all at once in a rush in the final pages, as they are by far the most interesting developments in the entire book.
If I only had a brain
The most obvious reference to van Vogt in Null Magical Girl is, of course, its title, which uses the same character 非, (with furigana to indicate the atypical pronounciation of "na-ru") as the translated title of The World of Null-A, 非Aの世界 or Null A no Sekai [6]. The protagonist of Null Magical Girl is Kosane Kiriha, whose name was deliberately chosen to evoke Gosseyn's [7]. Though Gosseyn's eventual telepathy and immortality through cloned bodies are reminiscent of Kyubey, the emotionless alien who serves as both antagonist and ally throughout the PMMM series, his true counterpart in Null Magical Girl is Kosane, who initially believes herself to be wholly unremarkable before gradually unlocking the mystery of who she is and why.
Throughout his journey, Gosseyn is aided and abetted at intervals by the Machine, a sophisticated AI that administers the tests to determine mastery of null-A philosophy and epitomizes its ideals of being logical, objective, incorruptible, and always reaching the correct conclusion. The closest analogue to the Machine in Null Magical Girl is, of course, Kyubey, whom Kosane explicitly compares to sophisticated chatbots like ELIZA and ChatGPC. Neither all-powerful or all-knowing, both the Machine and Kyubey's lack of empathy is considered a plus in this context, one that makes them valuable and reliable allies in a sea of constantly changing circumstances and loyalties.
Like Gosseyn, whose amnesia about his past is initially obscured by false memories, Kosane discovers her own memories have been tampered with when she accidentally scalds herself with hot coffee. In lieu of sophisticated brain-scanning equipment available to Gosseyn, Kosane takes matters into her own hands by smashing her head into the mirror and tearing a gaping hole in her skull. However, she has the opposite of Gosseyn's problem--where he has an excess of brains, she has none, though a cluster of Incubator cells on her neck performs roughly the same function. While Gosseyn's augmented brain makes him a desirable target for various factions, Kosane's situation is initially an afterthought, quickly set aside as she deals with the impending collapse of the space-time continuum centered around her.
However, Kosane's hybrid nature proves useful on multiple occasions. Though she has an otherwise normal human body and is initially capable of experiencing emotions, Kyubey eventually disconnects Kosane's capacity for facial recognition to prevent her being overwhelmed by the saccharine cuteness of Homo magica, an advanced race of magical girls, in a manner reminiscent of Gosseyn's disengagement with his own thalamas. Towards the end of Volume 2, Kosane detaches even further from her own emotions, to the point where she is no longer sure where she ends and Kyubey begins. By volume 3, Kosane has fused with Kyubey completely, allowing her to use the Incubator's ability to analyze potential futures and make contracts with magical girls.
Mirror, Mirror
In a conclusion worthy of The Twilight Zone, The World of Null-A ends with Gosseyn staring at the face of the deceased leader of the Institute for General Semantics, thus proving once and for all that he is a clone. Kosane, too, is a technically a clone, albeit a more slightly conventional one, haunted by her identical twin sister Eruna, who remains entwined with Kosane's life despite dying at birth.
Throughout Null Magical Girl, Eruna urges Kosane onward towards their eventual reunion at what she calls "the epicenter of fate", first via a mysterious letter in Kosane's skull, then by actively interfering with Kosane's efforts to change her fate. The two of them chase after each other across space and time, co-creating their own interlinked destinies until they ultimately become each other in an endless loop--not unlike how Gosseyn's dying clone urges him to take up his predecessor's mantle and responsibilities in perpetuity.
Given that Kosane and Eruna were originally one entity that split through repeated cell division and even shared a brain at one point, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins even before the final merger. Like the Incubators they increasingly come to resemble, they are identical in every way except personality and temperament, two complimentary halves of a single whole. What Gosseyn and his predecessors achieve through cloning and memory transfer, Kosane achieves through routine cell division and time travel paradoxes; like Gosseyn, Kosane's story ends with her becoming her own ancestor. The face in the mirror is always her own--or is it?
There is tremendous narrative ambiguity over whether Eruna is a separate entity in her own right or if she is an alternate personality projected by Kosane's own mind, the part who does what Kosane cannot or will not countenance herself. Kosane is the only character who acknowledges or interacts with her, and hears Eruna's voice in her head and sees her sister's reflection instead of her own at regular intervals. Eruna is always one step ahead of Kosane, able to anticipate and counter her actions with remarkable efficiency. The fact that Eruna, who Kosane considers a not-so-imaginary childhood friend, disappears when Kosane tries and fails to make a contract with Kyubey at fourteen and only reappears when Kosane regains her memories is certainly suspicious. Is Kosane truly surrendering her individual autonomy by finally re-uniting with Eruna at the end or is she finally becoming whole?
I'm nobody, who are you?
Null Magical Girl opens with a depressed and isolated Kosane stuck in her apartment during a Covid-19 lockdown in 2021, complete with the daily ritual of fantasizing suicide via a bullet to the head. Although suicide is a less prominent theme in The World of Null-A, Gosseyn listens to a tape of his own voice repeating negative thoughts on endless loop while under hypnotic suggestion in to commit suicide in hopes of releasing his next (and presumably superior) body.
Eager to be the protagonist of her own story, Kosane sees her failure to successfully contract with Kyubey at fourteen as proof of her own worthless. As graduate student in evolutionary biology, Kosane muses over the evolutionary purpose of suicide, a matter she eventually solves along with the "ultimate crime" of her own suicide. However, unlike Kosane's seemingly unalterable fate, Gosseyn is interrupted before he can succeed, much to his relief, and over the course of the story, he transforms from a non-entity and engima into a person of great importance.
In the PMMM universe, regular (dare I say "Aristotelian"?) magical girls draw their power from their emotions. Claiming that she has no soul, Kyubey initially dubs Kosane a "null magical girl", which fits with her low self-esteem and frequent self-negation. However, as the story continues, Kosane proves she is not merely the absence of a magical girl, she is the anti-magical girl, determined to stop them (or at least Eruna) by whatever means necessary, up to and including creating more magical girls so she can siphon the power from them. In Volume 3, she also relies heavily on her powers of logic, reason, and deduction in order to solve her problems, before turning eventually turning to magic to carry out the solutions.
Ultimtely, her narrative journey mirrors the mathematical symbol for "null", ∅--a circle with no beginning and no end, just like the human soul (itself revealed as a time loop), stories, human relationships, and Kosane herself. Note also the resemblance to a cell dividing itself in two, another important theme given Kosane/Eruna's wish in utero to divide and multiply without limit.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
The most obvious textual reference to van Vogt is in Volume 3 of Null Magical Girl when Kosane dubs her theory of human evolution "Project Null-A World". According to her her explanation, the minds of Homo sapiens are dominated by stories, emotions, and relationships, and are fundamentally Aristotelian in nature. Meanwhile, their Neanderthal counterparts live in a non-Aristotelian world sans fantasy or fancy--and hence no access to the miracles and magic that allows humanity to supplant them.
Kosane also draws on the work of historian Yuval Noah Harari's theory of a "cognitive revolution", a notable shift in human development that appears to have occurred approximately 70,000 years earlier. The key to both Kosane's graduate school thesis and her own personal dilemma is the revelation that the cognitive revolution was actually the magical girl revolution, born of human contact with the Incubators. Thus, Kosane declares her mission as a null magical girl is to overthrow the current A world and set up a null-A world in its place by preventing the propagation of stories in the first place.
Instead of interfering with the Incubator's initial encounters with humanity, however, Kosane assassinates Johnannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press--first by smashing his brains into the sidewalk and then by destroying the entire solar system. In both cases, Eruna ultimately restores the status quo. All of Kosane's subsequent attempts to create the null-A world are thwarted, and the concept is never mentioned in the narrative again. Ironically, it seems a truly null-A world can indeed exist--but only as an story in Kosane's mind.
Once Upon a Dream
For all its emphasis on logic and rationality, The World of Null-A is like a dream (or a nightmare) where plot twists appear of out nowhere, scenes melt into each other with little to no transition, and characters veer in and out of the narrative without warning. This is no accident; van Vogt's preferred writing method was to wake himself every ninety minutes and pick up the story where he left off [8]. However, one of the results was derison from editors and critics like Damon Knight, who famously dubbed The World of Null-A "one of the worst allegedly adult science fiction stories ever published" and wrote a lengthy essay detailing its perceived failings that negatively impacted van Vogt's reputation for decades [9].
However, the writer Philip K. Dick, who openly cited van Vogt as a major influence on his own work, pushed back on Knight's interpretation arguing that these "flaws" were deliberate and intentional stylistic choices:
There was in van Vogt's writing a mysterious quality, and this was especially true in The World of Null-A. All the parts of that book did not add up; all the ingredients did not make a coherency. Now some people are put off by that. They think that's sloppy and wrong, but the thing that fascinated me so much was that this resembled reality more than anybody else's writing inside or outside science fiction [10]
In other words, reality itself is unrealistic; real life is full of plot holes, contradictions, and inconsistencies out of keeping with narrative conventions; focusing on the underlying logic (or lack thereof) of the plot ignores van Vogt's true purpose. A truly rational view of the universe requires a willingness to perceive the universe as it truly is, instead of relying on artificially contrived plot devices and tropes. As Dick notes,
Damon feels that it’s bad artistry when you build those funky universes where people fall through the floor. It’s like he’s viewing a story the way a building inspector would when he’s building your house. But reality really is a mess, and yet it’s exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.[11]
"Mysterious" and "chaotic" are certainly accurate descriptions when it comes to Null Magical Girl. Abrupt plot twists and shifts in tone occur at such a speed and frequency to induce whiplash. The universe expands and contracts in rapid succession, moving from a claustrophobic locked room mystery to a cosmic journey across space and time and back again with little warning. The lines between human and Incubator and self and other blend and blur again and again, and it is perpetually unclear how much we can trust Kosane's narration at any given moment.
In volume two, Kosane explicitly cites Belgian surrealist René Magritte's painting The Castle of the Pyrenees [12] to describe the incredible sight of a huge asteroid hovering over the surface of a strange planet 800,000 years in the future. Surrealism was an early twentieth century European art and cultural movement emphasizing both impossible, illogical situations and the unconscious mind. Magritte in particular famous for "his constant play of reality and illusion" blending and blurring and visual, impossible situations. Magritte's most famous work, The Treachery of Images--a drawing of a pipe above the words "This is not a pipe" [13]--is the visual equivalent of Korzybski's "The map is not the territory".
By citing Magritte, Kosane is not merely displaying an in-depth knowledge of art history, she is deliberately invoking the same awe and incomprehensibility represented by the painting as she moves to a realm where the old rules--including gravity--no longer apply. At the same time, her own ostensibly human form shifts include wings, and what is real and what is a dream becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish.
"Have you been reading Aristotelian fiction where the hero always wins?"
Although van Vogt's works have fallen into obscurity compared to contemporaries like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, his influence can be felt across American popular culture from Star Trek to Alien. From a fandom perspective, however, van Vogt's most influential convert might be Eliezer Yudkowsky, author of the (in)famous Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a 660K epic Harry Potter fanfic in which Harry applies scientific principles as both correction and critique of the series' inconsistent worldbuilding [14].
Methods of Rationality is the first and best-known work in the "rational fic" genre--fanfiction which uses science and logic to fix perceived flaws in the original source material [15]. Yudkowsky explicitly cited The World of Null-A as a major influence on his thinking prior to posting Methods of Rationality in 2010, arguing that it was the first, and at the time, the only example of truly "rationalist fiction" he could think of [16]. Rationalist fiction does not necessarily break all of the storytelling rules that Aristotle sets out in his Poetics, but it is not dependent on them either, making it in a sense the null-A version of literature.
While the exact definition of what constitutes rationalist fiction--and by extension, rational fanfic--varies from source to source, proponents typically argue that the characters of conventional fiction act as the plot requires of them instead of thinking clearly about their situations and making the best and most sensible choices under the circumstances. Given that the Incubators consider human emotions a form of mental illness, I think it's safe to say that rational fic would be Kyubey's favorite literary genre, one the Incubators would wholeheartedly embrace.
Although it uses many of the same techniques and conventions underlying The World of Null-A, determining whether Null Magical Girl itself is a rationalist work is remarkably challenging. In the PMMM universe, seemingly irrational emotions--the very thing rational fic seeks to avoid--are powerful force capable of breaking the physical laws of the universe or re-shaping them entirely. Although emotions are fundamentally incomprehensible to Incubators, they have nonetheless managed to harness them for their own benefits via the magical girl system, thus essentially domesticating them in the process (and, in the original series, compare them to livestock without a trace of irony). One could argue that rational fics attempt a similar task by transforming otherwise "irrational" stories into more acceptable forms.
As a null magical girl, Kosane channels her inner Sherlock Holmes (complete with a deerstalker hat and magnifying glass in the accompanying illustration [17]) and applies her powers of logic and deduction to her own untenable situation and the cosmic circumstances responsible for it. After tapping into emotional energies like the Incubators fails to achieve her desired results, the only logical way out of an impossible situation is to defy logic and reason entirely. Kosane breaks the fourth wall by unleashing her ultimate special move--a shout of "Baritsu!", a reference to Sherlock Holmes' use of the allegedly Japanese martial art to escape his nemesis Professor Moriarty in a battle to the death [18]. This is hardly maneuver that a truly rational fic would celebrate--and it's worth noting that Yudkowsky specifically critiques Sherlock Holmes as a false example of rationalist fiction for what he views as a similar instances of magical thinking [16].
On the other hand, Kosane's ultimate move does not yield the results that she hopes for--instead of escaping her fate, it brings her to the reunion with Eruna she seeks to avoid. Regardless of your interpretation of Null Magical Girl's conclusion, it is not framed as a victory. By abandoning conventional narrative tropes in favor of more "realistic" outcomes, a happy, comfortable, or emotionally satisfying ending is not guaranteed for either characters or readers; there is nothing to shield them from the chaos and disorder of the universe. As one of Gosseyn's opponents sneers as Gosseyn is dragged away, "Have you been reading Aristotelian fiction where the hero always wins?"
A Coeurl By Any Other Name
The World of Null-A is not the only sci-fi classic referenced in Null Magical Girl. Originally published the July 1939 issue of Astounding, van Vogt's "The Black Destroyer" is a short story about series of encounters between enormous pitch-black cat-like telepathic alien named Coeurl and a group of human scientists exploring the ruins of Coeurl's home planet [19]. Fascinated by Coeurl's obvious intelligence, the scientists allow Coeurl into their spaceship; a murderous game of cat and mouse ensues between the hungry alien and the crew, which ultimately ends in Coeurl's defeat.
This story was later published in paperback form as the "fix-up novel" The Voyage of the Space Beagle, which incorporated it and three other tangentially related short stories in a single volume. This book was both popular and influential when it was published in Japan, with Coeurl inspiring the original design of Mughi from the Dirty Pair light novels and the Coeurls of the Final Fantasy video game franchise [20], [21]. As a general rule of thumb, any telepathic predatory cat you encounter in sci-fi or fantasy likely has a Coeurl or two somewhere in its ancestry or is a direct rip-off of the original, like the "displacer beasts" in Dungeons & Dragons, which are Coeurls with the serial numbers filed off [22].
The most obvious reference to "The Black Destroyer" in Null Magical Girl is the character of Coeurl, one of the only surviving Homo sapiens that Kosane encounters in her journey to the far future in Volume 2. It's unclear to me exactly why she is named for the psychic space cat; I initially assumed her name was a transliteration of the French word for "heart" because of her eager enthusiasm.
Coeurl is Kosane's guide to the planet Terminus, which is a reference to both its status as the last bastion for the survivors of the losing battle against Homo magica, and the home of a group of galaxy-controlling psychohistorians in Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. The latter is especially apt as Coeurl begs Kosane to revive lost "magic management technology"--aka stories--to stop the hordes of magical girls from completely taking over the universe. Kosane's plan is to create a team of non-human magical girls to counter them, a sort of last-ditch alien equivalent of the Avengers. Unlike Asimov's characters, however, Kosane completely fails in her appointed task.
The obvious counterpart to van Vogt's Coeurl in the PMMM series, of course, is Kyubey--a cat-like alien with a pair of tentacles capped with finger-like appendages, which he uses to rip souls from human bodies in a manner similar to how the original Coeurl rips the "id" from his human prey. In both cases, what initially seems like magic is revealed to have deeply practical origins: Kyubey uses harvested souls as batteries, and Coeurl craves the phosphorous present in human bones. Both Kyubey and Coeurl are described using masculine pronouns and use their advanced capacity to defy human expectations and appear where they are least expected--Kyubey through teleportation and multiple bodies, Coeurl through sophisticated vibrations capable of opening locks.
Coeurl is big and muscular with pitch-black fur, his size and proportions automatically marking him as an opponent worthy of respect. In contrast, Kyubey is small and cute, with white fur and big red eyes, with no visible teeth or claws. Both are cunning opponents who downplay their abilities in order to manipulate humans, but while Coeurl's mental landscape is dominated by rage, greed, and spite, Kyubey is precise and logical. It's hard not to look at Kyubey and see a more sophisticated, seemingly domesticated Coeurl--one who's learned to channel their considerable intelligence into more elaborate and successful schemes.
Miscellaneous
Here are a few other references scattered throughout Null Magical Girl that I was able to catch:
- Kosane compares Kyubey's disconnection of her capacity for facial recognition to an unspecified novel by Project Itoh, a Japanese science fiction writer (possibly Gyakusatsu Kikan, aka Genocidal Organ, a 2007 cyberpunk tale about augmented child-soldiers in a near-future setting) [23].
- At one point, Kosane observes Homo magica creating a Ringworld in space, likely a nod to the 1970 novel of the same title by Larry Niven [24].
- The life cycle of Homo magica could be read as a satirical take on both the moe boom and the saccharine overabundance of "cute girls doing cute things" anime in recent years.
- The Yamata no Orochi battleship is named for the a legendary eight-tailed dragon from Japanese mythology [25].
- Null Magical Girl revisits themes from author GenGen Kusano's previous works, including time travel, solar system destruction, and fan fiction, all of which likely contributed to him being tapped for this particular project [26].
It's likely that some or all of the alien species that Kosane encounters in volume 2 are allusions to other works, but if so, I have not been able to determine their origins.
Conclusion
It's unclear what relationship the events of Null Magical Girl have to the main PMMM canon going forward. While it's possible that some or all of its bombshells, such as the origins of karmic destiny, may appear in some way in future installments, it's equally likely that the light novel is a canon-divergent AU like the The Different Story, Mitakihara Anti-Materials, and Homura's Revenge! spin-off manga. Regardless of its canonical status, I hope this essay has given you a better understanding of the tropes and references underlying Null Magical Girl, and perhaps even deepened your appreciation of it as a result.
For all its status as a classic, I found The World of Null-A to be a tedious and boring slog, to the point where my nickname for it is The World of Dull-A; I can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone unless you are a completionist. Whether you like Null Magical Girl any better will depend a great deal on your tolerance of surrealism, recursive plot twists, and straight-up horror. Or to repeat Philip K. Dick's questions from earlier, "How frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order?" [11]
In 1974, Damon Knight retracted some of his earlier criticisms of van Vogt after learning about his unique writing habits:
This explains a good deal about the stories, and suggests that it is really useless to attack them by conventional standards. If the stories have a dream consistency which affects readers powerfully, it is probably irrelevant that they lack ordinary consistency [27].
Ultimately, the same is true of Null Magical Girl--its strongest feature may be precisely how it defies easy analysis, as well as the strange and surreal images that linger in the mind for a long time afterwards, like the fragments of a dream. If my experience is anything to go by, then viewed from this perspective, Null Magical Girl is a resounding success.