About
Madoka Titus (Japanese: まどかタイタス)[1], occasionally called Mado-Tus (まどタス, Madotasu) for short, is a nickname given to a figure consisting of a collaboration of figma Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus[2] from Gundam AGE, a 2011 TV anime in Gundam series. This “cute & macho” figure gains its own popularity, not as a derivative of Frightened Madoka. Many parody photos and illustrations have been posted to internet communities.
Origin
The idea of Madoka Titus was originated in a large offline meet-up for plastic models and figures held at Akihabara, Tokyo by dozens of Japanese Twitter users on November 23rd, 2011. In this meet-up, it became to a fad among participants to swap figures arms or legs to that of the plastic model for close combat mobile suits Gundam AGE-1 Titus which was mocked its too macho & unstylish design by Gundam fans, and on the shelf in hobby shops in those days (shown below, left). They enjoyed its ridiculous looks, and uploaded many photos of “Titus mode” figures to Twitter (shown below, center & right).[3]
This idea was soon imported to the /y/ (Alt-Figure) board in Futaba Channel (2chan). Then, Futaba user OrshieRinohanna[4] posted the picture named “The Perfect Madoka Titus” to his Twitter on December 2nd, 2011, in which Frightened Madoka, figma Madoka Kaname with the frightened faceplate, swapped all her limbs to that of the Titus and struck a muscle pose.
まどかタイタス完全版出来た http://t.co/FLxiZhGC
— オーシー・リノアーナ (@OrshieRinohanna) December 2, 2011
Spread
That very impactful picture of Madoka Titus inspired many people by its unique nature: colors unexpectedly matche but its style is quite far from the image of the magical girl. Madoka Titus gained many followers among lovers of plastic models and figures, and led the special demand for the Titus plastic model on the Japanese hobby market. Even hobby shops posted a flyer of recommending figma Madoka Kaname and HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus for making Madoka Titus (shown below).[5] Besides, many of Amazon customer reviews for HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus tells they bought it for building Madoka Titus.[6]
Madoka’s best friend Homura Akemi also is modified into Homura Sparrow (ほむスパロー, Hom-Sparrow), consisting of figma Homura Akemi and HG Gundam AGE-1 Sparrow. Naturally, other magical girls are modified in the same manner.
Parody photos and illustrations for those magical girls have been posted to Futaba and pixiv.[7]
In addition, it caught an attention on Japanese otaku blogs in January 2013 that Japanese video game news site 4Gamer reported a very famous voice actor Tomokazu Sugita[8] had Madoka Titus and Homura Sparrow in his figure display cabinet.[9]
Mr. Suguta’s figure display cabinet
Notable Examples
Photos
Tutorial
In order to fit the Titus legs to figma, it needs a small modification in the waist joint parts. However, no modification needs to change arm parts and leg parts below the knee.
Illustrations
Search Interest
External References
[1]pixiv Encyclopedia – Madoka Titus
[2]Gundam Wiki – AGE-1T Gundam AGE-1 Titus
[3]Togetter – 第6回プラモオフ画像まとめ / Posted on 11-24-2011 (Japanese)
[4]Twitter – OrshieRinohanna
[5][NSFW!!] Akiba Blog – 【まどかタイタス】 figma鹿目まどか×ガンダムAGEタイタス 「何故か売れてます！」 / 12-14-2011 (Japanese)
[6]Amazon.co.jp – Customer Reviews for HG 1/144 AGE-1T ガンダムAGE-1 タイタス (機動戦士ガンダムAGE) (Japanese)
[7]pixiv – Search results for まどかタイタス OR ほむスパロー
[8]Wikipedia – Tomokazu Sugita
[9]4Gamer.net – マフィア梶田の二次元が来い！：第139回「あけましておめでたいジオン兵士のファンタジーライフ」 / 01-11-2013 (Japanese)