Puella Magi Suzune Magica

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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.

Blurb

Note: These are all fan translations.

Volume 1: 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. What's the fate of the four girls she ambushes? And the existence of magical girls, is it good or bad? This is the spin-off's first volume!

Volume 2: 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: 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...

Plot

See also: Puella Magi Suzune Magica/Plot for a full, detailed synopsis.

Volume 1

Warning, this section contains spoilers.
Suzune Amano is a magical girl who, by day, is a cheerful, smiling student at Akanegasaki Middle School who also delivers newspapers as a part-time job. By night, however, she is a killer who murders magical girls after asking for their names. Hearing rumors about the killings and how all the victims are teenage girls, a group of magical girls — Arisa Narumi, Haruka Kanade, Chisato Shion, and Matsuri Hinata, the latter of whom is Suzune's classmate — investigate the city at night in search of clues. Chisato encounters Suzune that night and is killed by her, leaving Arisa in shock. After Suzune refuses to say why she kills magical girls, stating they are better off not knowing, Haruka and Matsuri retreat with Arisa, hearing from Kyubey about how Suzune is their natural enemy. The next day, Arisa recounts her past and how she met Chisato, and both Haruka and Matsuri attempt to talk with Suzune, but Suzune once again refuses to say anything. The day after, Haruka encounters a witch, which starts probing her memories concerning her feelings of hatred towards her sister. Meanwhile, Arisa and Matsuri encounter Suzune, who is planning on confronting Haruka, and engage in battle with her.

Volume 2

Warning, this section contains spoilers.
As Arisa and Matsuri battle with Suzune, Haruka escapes and defeats the witch tormenting her with her past memories. Despite Suzune's efforts to kill her and Arisa's and Matsuri's attempts to reach her, Haruka becomes a witch, revealing the dark secret of magical girls to Arisa and Matsuri. After Suzune defeats Haruka's witch, Kyubey appears to explain the magical girl system. Suzune departs, and Matsuri asks Kyubey about why Suzune kills magical girls. Kyubey shows her visions of Suzune's past, where she was mentored by a woman named Tsubaki Mikoto. However, Tsubaki became a witch, and thus Suzune inherited her pendant and began her hunt for magical girls. The next day, Arisa is seen truanting school, losing games in an arcade. She visits Chisato's home, meeting and running away from her father, and thus recounts the event where Chisato told Arisa her wish; upon arriving home, Arisa breaks down, regretting the fact that she became a magical girl. The next day, Matsuri tries reaching out to Arisa, explaining that she used to be blind and made a wish to see, and that she doesn't regret her wish. Arisa, however, announces her intent to kill Suzune, and departs, leaving Matsuri behind. That night, Arisa confronts Suzune in a dark alley, and they begin to fight. Meanwhile, while Matsuri debates on what to do, she is struck by sudden visions of past memories she once lost, before being approached by a mysterious girl in a magical girl outfit, who greets Matsuri with, "I'm home."

Volume 3

Warning, this section contains spoilers.
A mysterious magical girl by the name of Kagari Hinata approaches Matsuri. Matsuri questions her intentions and realizes that she is after Suzune. When Matsuri attempts to leave to intervene in Arisa and Suzune's battle, Kagari knocks her out and intervenes in the fight herself, killing Arisa to get her out of the way. Kagari shows Suzune visions of her past, where Matsuri and Kagari were taken care of by Tsubaki, how the twins went looking for Tsubaki after she disappeared, and how Kagari, upon seeing Suzune with Tsubaki's pendant and learning of Tsubaki's death through Kyubey, became a magical girl to exact revenge on Suzune, taking away Matsuri's memories of how she met and became friends with Suzune, and altering Suzune's to make her believe Tsubaki's death drove her to hunt down magical girls. In the present, Kagari beats down Suzune both physically and mentally before preparing to kill her, but Matsuri intervenes, saving Suzune and confronting Kagari on her reasons for revenge. Kagari attempts to kill Matsuri as well, but is defeated by a combination of teamwork by Suzune and Matsuri. Kagari then pulls her last resort card, turning herself into a witch. Suzune defeats Kagari's witch and saves Matsuri, before preparing to leave Yunagi City. Matsuri, upon awakening, follows Suzune, who tells Matsuri to forget about her and live on. Matsuri swears she'll never forget Suzune, Tsubaki, Kagari, and Arisa and her friends, and Suzune thanks her, before committing suicide by destroying her own soul gem. Matsuri is later seen on the roof of the school, tying Tsubaki's pendant into her hair, as she heads out with Kyubey to hunt witches.

Characters

See also: Suzune Magica Characters

Observations

"Hating someone so much you wanted to kill them" appears quite a bit in Suzune.
- Haruka wished for Kanata to be erased out of her jealousy.
- Arisa hated Suzune for killing Chisato and challenged 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's overall story is similar to the original request that became Madoka Magica, with the request asking for a bloody story where the girls dropped off one by one.
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.

Speculation

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

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).
- It's possible that the post-volume 1 jump to serialization was an intentional move on GAN's part and had nothing to do with the response. It's also possible that Suzune was simply badly paced, which is why the last third is so rushed; the poor pacing extends to the other two thirds as well.
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.

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.
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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.
The two women who work at Yunagi Newspaper with Suzune.
KagarMatsurifather.png

The Hinata twins' father. He's a minor character, only appearing in about three pages.
Chisato's father.
Arisa's mother.
Silhouettes of magical girls Suzune has killed.
Yunagi girls whose deaths Suzune was responsible for; Kanami; and a few other silhouettes.