7

Magical Girls work a lot, and we never see them working.

They all have a house and usually money to buy stuff too. Where do they find money to pay rent or buy food? Do they steal it?

ave
  • 544
  • 9
  • 22

1 Answers1

9

Each girl has a different situation. Girls' ages are around 13…16 years old, and they are still in school, so it's natural for them to be living with their parents. We don't know if students from all walks of life are able to attend the kind of school the girls go to, so we'll have to work with other info.

Madoka and Sayaka live with their parents in comfortable enough conditions.

About Sayaka:

She describes herself as having been born "petit bourgeois," which is French for "petty bourgeois." [Hakase's note: "petit" is French for "small/little" afaik and I'm not sure about possible negative connotation of "petty", perhaps it's a mistranslation?] This would mean that her family is at least from the middle class, but is by no means from the upper class (despite the fact that, if Japan has even less living space in the future than it does now, her family's apartment is far larger than a normal middle-class family could afford). (from Puella Magi wiki)

Homura's family and financial situation we don't know anything about. Except that she might not be having any second thoughts about stealing money from people, as she moves through timelines, collecting weapons from all sorts of armory caches, as wee see in later episodes.

She appears to live by herself.

Mami has no relatives left, and she's living in an apartment on the money she inherited from her dead parents.

"There are also no mentions of unrelated legal tutors appointed by law."

Kyouko has to break into hotels and bathhouses and steal food, as we learn from early episodes of anime.

article indicates that Kyoko gets her monetary income by breaking and busting ATM machines, she uses the stolen money to buy food and pay rent on expensive hotel rooms. (her wiki page)

Hakase
  • 9,477
  • 12
  • 57
  • 110
  • Re: your note about "petit" - Japanese borrows French _petit_ as プチ _puchi_ to just mean "small" (cf. e.g. Puchimas, which is a thing with chibi [i.e. small] Idolmaster characters). I don't know what other connotations it has in French, but they don't carry over into Japanese. プチブル _puchi-buru_ just means "middle class". – senshin Jun 19 '16 at 22:28
  • 1
    Re petit bourgeois: My trusted *Larousse* says: ‘Personne, qui appartient aux éléments les moins aisés de la bourgeoisie et qui en a les traits traditionels (étroitesse d’esprit, peur du changement, etc.)’ Loosely translated: *Person who belongs to the lowest possible elements of bourgeoisie, and who features their traditional traits (narrow-mindedness, fear of change, etc.)* So potentially, the negative connotations are given by the entire thing in French. Also, [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/petite_bourgeoisie) gives *petty bourgeoisie* as a synonym of *petite bourgeoisie.* – Jan Jun 20 '16 at 01:53
  • looks like the word "petty" originates from french "petit"… – Hakase Jun 20 '16 at 02:03
  • I think with Mami it was noted somewhere that her apartment got bigger every time Homura terminated a timeline, not that the 2 are related in any way or anything. also in the beginning Kyoko would have been like Madoka and Sayaka living with her parents until her father went mad so she's homeless. – Memor-X Jun 20 '16 at 03:13
  • as for Homura considering how it looks if we exclude that it's just SHAFT making thing look weird her place isn't a normal room. since she can alter space in the form of hiding weapons and the like in her shield then her apartment might be magically created using the same power and since she knows the truth to their bodies might not be eating at all – Memor-X Jun 20 '16 at 03:20