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In the anime, Homura is only seen using her shield to reset or rewind time
until the first time she met Madoka.

Can't she rewind time for a minute, or an hour? If she could do it, I think it
would be easier for her to fight against Walpurgisnacht.

And how far is its area of effect? When she was chasing a car, she couldn't
stop time, but only a few parts were stopped and she still had to run to catch
up to it (if she could stop time, she wouldn't need to hurry).

![Homura's shield](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dkPKF.jpg)


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2014-03-04T06:57:53.130
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2019-02-26T00:36:07.420
2014-03-07T19:41:13.347
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question
madoka-magica
How powerful is Homura's shield?


According to Gen Urobuchi from his interview in Otona Anime Vol. 20:

> The weapon that looks like Homura's shield is actually a sand timer. When
> the flow of the sand is blocked, time is stopped. And when there is no sand
> on the upper part of the sand timer and then the timer is reverted, one
> month's worth of time is turned back. But before that stage is reached, only
> time stopping is possible. This means the special power of Homura is the
> ability to manipulate one month's time's worth of sand in the sand timer. As
> for the time passed and then turned back, since it was not the focus in this
> work I did not think it through very thoroughly. I think you can say that
> the world split up and became parallel worlds there.

To sum it up:

  * Homura cannot rewind time until one month of time has passed after March 16th, the start of her time loop.
  * Before then, Homura can only stop time and the sand in her sand timer from falling.
  * Homura cannot rewind short periods of time or go forward in time at all.

Besides time, her shield serves the purpose as a probably infinitely spacious
storage for all of her artillery. It should also be noted that her shield is
quite fragile and clearly not a defensive tool. It can be broken as seen in
Rebellion Story when Sayaka stabs the gear mechanism and renders it unusable.
(Then again, this is debatable, as the universe Homura created in her witch
world bended many laws of magic from the normal universe.)

To explain her constant time-stopping when she was chasing the truck in Ep. 6,
one could speculate that she was trying to conserve her magic by periodically
stopping and starting time. Perhaps the truck was moving too quickly for the
small (fixed?) period of time Homura had to move after stopping time. Note
that the average running speed of a human is 8 mph and the truck was probably
moving at about 60 mph, just at the speed limit for trucks on highways in
Japan.


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2014-03-21T03:32:02.820
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answer


I personally love this question, since I've thought about it myself! The
gradually evolving personality of Homura throughout the story(who becomes more
stoic and condescending at each timeline) complements the strangeness of the
time manipulating "shield".

> ## TL; DR version
>
> Homura can use her magical shield to:
>
>   * reverse time ( _possibly_ constrained to certain rules)
>   * stop time (for a limited amount of time)
>   * store/retrieve anything (possibly in n-dimensional space)
>   * manipulate objects in space
>   * protect herself from anticipated attacks
>   * create a shock-wave of air around her
>   * make a fashion statement (I mean, just look at it, so fabulous!)
>

>
> [![Homura's
> shield](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vUjyR.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vUjyR.png)

Homura's shield is undoubtedly the most mysterious "weapon" of all magical
girls. The shield allows Homura to travel through time repeatedly to relive
her first meeting with Madoka. The nature of temporal manipulation or it's
range have not been clearly explained in the anime/Rebellion movie. However,
it seems that it can be used only after a month of time has passed(as
described in @homura 's answer, derived from Urobuchi's interview).

[![Homura travelling back in
time](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BWeRW.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BWeRW.png)

* * *

Homura's uses her "shield" in multiple situations to stop time. This certainly
implies that the whole universe is at a stand-still(without which a lot of
anomalies would surface at possible boundaries of time manipulation).

"It's powerful" would be an **understatement** for such a device. Notice the
airplane in the background!

[![Entire city halted in time by Homura, notice the
airplane](https://i.stack.imgur.com/clJXB.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/clJXB.png)

* * *

A detailed observation of the instances of Homura's usage of the shield would
prove that it can do much more than just time manipulation(either reversing or
stopping). Homura uses it as an (infinitely large?) storage space and brings
out armaments when necessary.

[![Homura's shield as a storage
space](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VcnHl.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VcnHl.png)

* * *

Further, during her fight against the Walpurgisnacht, Homura controls and uses
a large truck in combat, which was enveloped in a purple gleam. As time and
space are connected, I think that this scene suggests **space-time
manipulation**.

Another similar space manipulation scene occurs when Homura blocks off
**Walpurgisnacht's** flames with her shield. She protects herself by
deflecting the flames in a defensive move.

[![Homura blocking flames using her
shield](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x5kQL.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x5kQL.png)

* * *

Also, in _episode 1 of Madoka Magica_ (at 19 minutes 8 seconds), Homura clears
off the fire extinguisher fumes by a blast of air using her shield...( _maybe
she set off an explosive charge to disperse the fumes, but this seems unlikely
since she stays in the same spot throughout the scene_ )

[![Homura clears off the extinguisher fumes using her
shield](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YXUZl.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YXUZl.gif)

* * *

I really love the `Madoka Magica` series. I hope I've covered all the unique
instances of Homura using her shield!


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2017-05-21T15:47:43.303
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answer


The weapon that looks like Homura's shield is actually a sand timer. When the
flow of the sand is blocked, time is stopped. And when there is no sand on the
upper part of the sand timer and then the timer is reverted, one month's worth
of time is turned back. But before that stage is reached, only time stopping
is possible. This means the special power of Homura is the ability to
manipulate one month's time's worth of sand in the sand timer. I think you can
say that the world split up and became parallel worlds there." In episode 11,
we see Homura's sand run out in the middle of her fight with Walpurgisnacht,
verifying this limitation of her time stop powers.


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