Earlier, I looked at how Madoka Kaname’s theological understanding of her world determined the method she chose to save it. This is not to say that Madoka is written with Jesus in mind, but that Jesus and Madoka both fill a necessary role in the theological understanding of one’s world, that of the Christ-figure. Jones point out that, “The term Christ (‘to anoint’) in not a proper name. It is a title that acknowledges the One who functions as epiphania for one’s obsessio” (185). When the girls make their wishes, they each try and fill that role as the Christ-figure of their own respective theological worlds. With the exception of Madoka, however, all the girls end up with a monkey’s paw of their intended epiphania that leaves them in a deeper, more-perverted version of their original obsessio. Take, for instance, Kyoko Sakura.

Kyoko’s understanding of the world around her is not one of condemnation and forgiveness but one of separation and reunion, Jones’ World One. World One’s obsessio is a feeling of isolation experienced as abandonment. There is a feeling that one simply does not belong, and yet, at the same time, there is the inescapable sense that one was “made” to belong to something, somewhere. Jones explains, “It is as if the ache characterized as separation whispers that one’s nature is, in fact, to belong – to the heart of being” (111). Consequently, a nagging feeling of longing emerges, a longing for belonging, for reunion, for home. Residents of World One adopt the metaphor of alien; they are E.T., stranded in a world they do not belong to, driven by the hope of returning home. As Kyoko watches her father’s congregation dwindle away, that feeling of abandonment becomes all too real. She longs for the community that she was once a part of. If she could wish for anything in this moment, it would be to reunite with those who had abandoned her, to bring them home in a sense. So, when just such an opportunity is presented to her, Kyoko wishes for the epiphania to her obsessio, revelation.

World One’s Christ is a revealer and an evoker, one who can expose the divine truth humanity was once blind to. This Christ doesn’t change humanity’s relation to the divine, as we saw with World Four. Instead, she evokes a shift of perspective, revealing the truth that was “shrouded by the ignorance and blindness that result from separation” (187). Kyoko likely finds herself in World One because of her father. She has grown up watching him try t o fulfill this function. He believes he knows a truth that others are blind to, so as a minister, he seeks to reveal it through his teaching. It makes sense, then, that Kyoko’s instinct would be to do the same through more magical means. The Christ is twofold in Kyoko’s plan. She only need to be the Christ that reveals her own Christ, her father who first revealed the truth to her. This is not unlike the Jesus of World One. His Christhood is in his perspective, and through his orienting, we are able to see God as he saw God. Kyoko feels that she has a perspective of truth, and if others could only see as she sees, the epiphania would be right in front of them. This is why here role can be in the background, “the shadows” as she puts it, rather than the foreground. She is merely a mediator, pointing humanity in the direction of reunion and fighting off forces that point them further toward separation.

Things don’t go as Kyoko had hoped, however. When her father learns that his congregation has returned not because of his teaching but because of coercion by magical means, he denounces his daughter, plunging her into an even deeper isolation. Her father has taken her family from her. Her contract has taken her world from her. She consigns herself to life as a loner, more so an alien than ever before. She refrains from relationships, as hers have been so fleeting. As Jones puts it, “relationships feel like fragile passings in the night, or the slight wave of a hand glimpsed through the gap in roaring semis on a freeway. And even rare intimacies that occur have the strangeness of shared strangeness” (45).

Like many residents of World One, she is disenchanted with the world around her. While other magical girls find meaning in fighting witches or protecting humanity, she finds nothing to gain from this world. She simply goes on, doing what she must just to survive. Jones gives us insight into Kyoko’s mindset, the nightmare of World One:

All seems to be moving along efficiently, no apparent breakdown in its proper workings. In fact, the wages are good, and a promotion is rumored to be forthcoming. But during a strange moment, one seems pushed to ask, Why are we doing this? And from that moment on, nothing makes sense. Yet other people keep right on, some persevering, some becoming heralded for the way they do their talks. But few seem to know to what end, and even fewer still dare to ask. So the temptation is to go on living as if someone knows – though in the dark hours, the question quietly persist: Is it “a tale told by an idiot”? (48)

Deep down, Kyoko only wants to go home. Perhaps that’s why she drags Sayaka back to the church to explain where she comes from, something she could have just as done just as easily anywhere else. But as things stand now, she has no way of knowing where home is. She needs someone to show her.

Jones’ describes the Jesus of World One as “love as tearing the veil.” He explains, “The veil that shrouds our existence needs to be lifted; therefore reconciliation is a new way of seeing” (187). By tearing that veil, he reveals the path to reunion with God. As in the parables of Luke 15, Jesus is the one who shows us the way home.