Puella Magi Suzune Magica: Difference between revisions

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This section may contain major spoilers!

Please refrain from reading if you are not yet familiar with all the latest media released.

Cover of the first volume.

Puella Magi Suzune Magica (魔法少女すずね☆マギカ, Mahō Shōjo Suzune Magika) is the fourth spin-off manga in the Puella Magi franchise, written and illustrated by GAN. It is one of three spin-offs that have been released after Rebellion, with the other two being Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer and Puella Magi Tart Magica: The Legend of "Jeanne d'Arc".

Unusually for a manga series, Suzune Magica was initially released as a single volume, with all other chapters being serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward. The first volume containing chapters 1 - 4 was released on November 12, 2013, and it began serialization with chapter 5 on November 22, 2013, with serialization finishing a year later on November 22, 2014. The second volume containing chapters 5 - 10 was released on June 25, 2014. The third volume containing chapters 11 - 16 was released on December 12, 2014.

Suzune Magica has been licensed in English by Yen Press. The first volume will be released on September 22, 2015.

Note: As all chapters post-volume 1 are currently only available in Japanese, most of the post-volume 1 info below comes from rough translation and interpretation of events. Thus, some of the information may be incorrect, so please do not treat anything as 100% accurate.

Blurb

Volume 1 (official English blurb): Suzune Amano lives an extraordinarily normal life as a middle school student by day and... magical-girl assassin by night?! When a group of four magical girls begins investigating the serial murders rampant in their city, they soon find themselves the next targets of Suzune! But what is the truth behind Suzune's motivations to hunt both witches and magical girls alike?

Volume 2 (fan translation of Japanese blurb): The admirable junior high school student who works as a live-in employee, Suzune. The girl who lives her everyday life always smiling has a hidden side. That is, she's a magical girl assassin. As the magical girls of the city are wiped out one by one, what's the way that's left to go amidst the despair and frustration...?

Volume 3 (fan translation of Japanese blurb): The admirable junior high school student who works as a live-in employee, Suzune. The girl who lives her everyday life always smiling has a hidden side. That is, she's a magical girl assassin. Confronted with the appearance of a new magical girl, Suzune is exposed to the anguish she kept hidden until now. Now she will invite in the final outcome...

Chapters

Chapter 1: Two sides (表裏, Hyōri)
Chapter 2: Encounter (邂逅, Kaigō)
Chapter 3: Doubt (迷い, Mayoi)
Chapter 4: Remorse (自責, Jiseki)
Chapter 5: Regret (悔恨, Kaikon)
Chapter 6: Transformation (変貌, Henbō)
Chapter 7: Truth (真実, Shinjitsu)
Chapter 8: Price (代償, Daishō)
Chapter 9: Presence (気配, Kehai)
Chapter 10: Resolution (覚悟, Kakugo)
Chapter 11: Darkness (黒暗, Kokuan, lit. "Black dark")
Chapter 12: Reunion (再会, Saikai)
Chapter 13: Recollection (記憶, Kioku)
Chapter 14
Chapter 15: Separation (隔絶, Kakuzetsu)
Chapter 16: Convergence (収斂, Shuren)

Characters

Main characters


Suzune Amano


Arisa Narumi


Chisato Shion


Haruka Kanade


Matsuri Hinata


Kagari Hinata

Supporting characters


Tsubaki Mikoto


Kanami Honoka


Mika


Kanata Kanade


Minor Characters

Observations

"Hating someone so much you wanted to kill them" appears quite a bit in Suzune Magica.
- Haruka wished for Kanata to be erased out of her jealousy.
- Arisa hated Suzune for killing Chisato, and ended up challenging her to a duel to the death.
- The whole story happened because Kagari hated Suzune for killing Tsubaki and crafted a gambit to make her life miserable, with Suzune's death to be the "climax".
Suzune Magica is similar to the original request that became Madoka Magica. The request asked for a bloody story where the girls dropped off one by one; Suzune Magica contains quite a bit of blood, and has all but one of the main characters die one by one over the course of the story.
Kyubey says at one point in volume 1, regarding Suzune hunting other magical girls, that from one point on, she suddenly started targeting magical girls and that he didn't know why. This seems inconsistent with a flashback in volume 2 where Suzune inherits Tsubaki's pendant and vows to kill all magical girls, a scene in which Kyubey is present for... until it's revealed in volume 3 that that scene was a fake memory created by Kagari; so to Kyubey, it would seem that Suzune's hunting of magical girls was sudden.
The Yunagi quartet all refer to each other by first name without any honorifics, which shows they all have a close bond with each other. Kyubey and Kagari also refer to the group as "仲間" nakama, which means a close circle of friends.
Matsuri and Kagari are very opposite to each other. They have opposing colour schemes (green and purple, which are also contrasting colours) and very opposing personalities (Matsuri is kind, forgiving, and friendly; Kagari is sadistic, vengeful, and quick to anger). Matsuri also used to be blind, whereas Kagari always had sight; but whereas Matsuri gained sight with her wish, Kagari became "blinded" by her desire for revenge on Suzune.
Suzune Magica is the first major spin-off where Kyubey is not a main antagonist or agitator of the story, and is in fact a rather minor character who only serves to exposit at certain points of the story. While Kyubey is still responsible for the magical girl system, Suzune Magica is more driven by Suzune's and Kagari's actions made out of their own decisions, rather than being directly spurred on by Kyubey like other Puella Magi antagonists.
The art style for Suzune Magica starts off as stiff and not very fluid or dynamic in volume 1. However, by volume 3, the art has evolved to be much more fluid, and the movement of the characters is much more dynamic. One reason behind the art evolution might be that volumes 2 and 3, which have the better art, underwent serialization beforehand, whereas volume 1 did not.
A lot of Suzune Magica's conflict appears to take place in alleyways, in comparison with Madoka Magica where the conflicts take place in a variety of places. Notably, the majority of Suzune Magica volume 3 takes place in an alleyway.
A few characters have magical girl outfits that expose their upper backs: Arisa, Matsuri, and Kagari.
- All the magical girls, except for Tsubaki, wear some kind of collar on their necks.

Speculation

The theories below have not been proven yet.
Please keep in mind that they are fanmade theories, and not official material.

It seems that there are two cities featured in Suzune: Yunagi City and Hoozuki City, both of which are neighbouring cities, like Mitakihara and Kazamino in Madoka Magica. Suzune, Tsubaki, and the Hinata twins apparently lived in Hoozuki, with Suzune transferring to Yunagi later on, and Kagari following her. Why Matsuri currently resides in Yunagi, though, is unknown. Perhaps she lives somewhere near the border, or is a transfer student like Suzune.

The theories below have been proven wrong.
They are only kept here for the sake of completeness.

It is speculated that Suzune Magica had such an odd release life due to poor sales. Volume 1 was released alone with no prior serialization, unlike traditional manga; and when volume 1 didn't sell very well, serialization in Forward was started up. Volume 2 didn't do very well either, resulting in the final third (and thus volume 3) being rather rushed and full of info-dumping, and thus hastily concluded. Note that this speculation is a guess based on Suzune's odd release life and overall volume sales alone. More info on this speculation can be read on the Walpurgischan thread (you will need to scroll down a bit).
- Debunked. The serialization jump was intentional on GAN's part and had nothing to do with sales. Suzune was originally supposed to be two volumes, but urging for more plot twists led to GAN creating Kagari and the memory plot, leading to the creation of a third volume. Source

Trivia

Matsuri, Kagari and Tsubaki are all named after flowers.
All the characters' first names are spelt with katakana in the story, with kanji only appearing in the profiles at the end of the collected volumes. The only exceptions are Tsubaki, whose kanji name appears in a speech bubble in volume 3, and Kagari, whose kanji name was revealed in a tweet by GAN.
Chapter 14 is the only chapter without a title, at least in the magazine version.
Volume 1 has only four chapters, whereas volumes 2 and 3 have six chapters each.
Like some of the other Puella Magi spin-offs, Suzune Magica received mixed to negative reception. Some of this negative response is due to the story's use of too many of the series' basic cliches, too little original or distinguishing elements compared to other Puella Magi installments, general predictability of the story's direction, as well as the poor pacing and rather rushed ending.

Gallery

Front covers

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

Official art

Art of Suzune.
Art of Arisa. Note that Arisa has blue eyes here, even though the manga covers give her pink eyes.
Art of Chisato.
Art of Haruka.
Art of Matsuri.
Art of Kagari.
Art of Tsubaki in a maid outfit.
Art of Kanami.
Power ranking and elements of all characters for a hypothetical game situation. From this tweet.
Volume 1 bonus image of Suzune.
1422720685116.jpg

Volume 2 bonus material: image of Arisa and stripped version of volume 2's cover.
Volume 3 bonus image of Suzune.
Volume 3 bonus image of Matsuri.
Volume 3 cover and bonus image of Kagari.

Manga pages

Suzune's profile.
Yunagi girls' profiles.
Volume 1 bonus colour page.
Volume 1 bonus end page.
Volume 3 bonus end page.
Chapter 10 colour page.
Chapter 13 colour page 1.
Chapter 13 colour page 2.
The Yunagi magical girl quartet.
The Yunagi quartet transforming.
Silhouettes of magical girls Suzune has killed.
Yunagi girls whose deaths Suzune was responsible for; Kanami; and a few other silhouettes.

Miscellaneous

Kirara Magica series announcement pages, with the initial character designs for some of the series' characters.
Page two of the announcement.

External links

The first twelve pages of Suzune are available for official preview here. Click on the orange button. (Japanese)
Various download links for Suzune Magica on Walpurgischan.
GAN's pixiv account. (Japanese)
GAN's twitter account. (Japanese)
GAN's blog. (Japanese)
Set of official art by GAN on pixiv (doesn't include art of Kanami). (Japanese)
Unofficial tumblr for everything Suzune related.
Walpurgischan's Suzune thread.
Puella Magi Suzune Magica on TV Tropes.

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 * A lot of ''Suzune Magica''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s conflict appears to take place in alleyways, in comparison with ''Madoka Magica'' where the conflicts take place in a variety of places. Notably, the majority of ''Suzune Magica'' volume 3 takes place in an alleyway.
 * A few characters have magical girl outfits that expose their upper backs: Arisa, Matsuri, and Kagari.
+** All the magical girls, except for Tsubaki, wear some kind of collar on their necks.
 ==Speculation==