View source for Sasa Yuuki

{{Infobox_character
|name=Sasa Yuuki
|image=[[File:Twitter_toyphel_mc_Sasa.jpg|250px]]
|jname=優木 沙々<br>(Yuuki Sasa)
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
}}
<blockquote>''"...I'll just have to show those rookies how strong I am. Isn't it only natural for the strong to take what they want?"'' - Sasa, chapter 1 of ''Symmetry Diamond''.</blockquote>

{{nihongo|'''Sasa Yuuki'''|優木 沙々|Yūki Sasa}} is a supporting antagonist character appearing in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]]''. She is a magical girl from [[Kazamino City]] seeking to claim new territory in [[Mitakihara City]].

==General Info==

{{Magical Girl Details
|approxage=15
|eyes=Blue
|hair=Brown
|origin=[[Kazamino City]]
|soulgem=Small circular blue-grey gem on the end of the middle part of her harlequin hat. It's smaller than the other two spheres on her hat.
|weapon=Curved scythe-style staff with 5 jutting points
|wish={{Q|For people who are better than I am to follow my every command.}}
|pronoun={{nihongo|''Watashi''|私|}}
|school=Unknown. She appears to be in middle school.
|powers=Mind Control
}}

==Personality==
Sasa is a girl who at first appears cheerful and dependable, but her cheerful side masks an incredibly vicious, haughty, and possibly even vengeful side of her. She has a tendency to laugh madly at times, and generally does not act very serious. Sasa is also not above resorting to tricks such as begging or feigning surrender/cowardice in order to get herself out of difficult situations. She is highly willing to harm civilians, even feeding them ''en masse'' to her pet witches, which often sparks fights with other magical girls.  

While acting as a fellow friend and classmate to Oriko in ''Symmetry Diamond'', Sasa takes on the personality of a cheerful, chatty, yet reliable girl. She is seen putting down [[Komaki Asako]] and her friends for teasing Oriko, and telling Oriko that she should talk to Sasa if she has any problems, claiming that she's on Oriko's side and that she thinks of Oriko as a big sister.

Despite enthusiastically controlling Witches, Sasa turns out to be horrified at the fact that magical girls themselves become Witches; learning this very fact in ''Extra Story'' makes her crush her soul gem while screaming how she doesn't want to become a Witch herself, immediately killing herself.

Though she possesses a very powerful ability, Sasa is quite foolish. She behaves recklessly, picks fights for little reason, and regularly bites off more than she can chew. Her motivation amounts to little more than jealousy and spite, using her witches to overwhelm and murder those she resents for being better than her.

==Story==
===Backstory===
Sasa's backstory is currently unknown. All that is known is that she hated people better than her and thus made her wish because of that; it is unknown if she had any ulterior motivations or if there was any major factors behind her feelings.

===Sasa in ''Extra Story''===
Sasa appears only in ''Symmetry Diamond''.

Sasa arrives in [[Mitakihara City]] to claim its territory. She confronts and knocks out Kirika using a Witch (then presumably believes Kirika is dead), and then mind-controls Oriko. Oriko subsequently believes Sasa is a friend and fellow classmate she can depend on. After finding Yuma, Oriko leaves Sasa to take care of her so she can go look for Kirika; Sasa then moves into the next phase of her plan and attempts to kill Oriko, but is interrupted by Kirika which breaks the magic she used on Oriko. Sasa, now angry, attacks the duo using Witches.

After the controlled Witches are defeated and Sasa's plan is thwarted, Oriko reveals to Sasa the fate of magical girls, that they eventually turn into Witches. Sasa, horrified, screams how she doesn't want to become a Witch and crushes her soul gem, thinking it would prevent her Witchification, but ends up killing herself accidentally.

===Sasa in ''Sadness Prayer''===
Sasa makes a reappearance in ''Sadness Prayer'' following [[Komaki Asako]]'s death. It is revealed here that Sasa hails from Kazamino and has gotten into a conflict with Lina's group as she had been killing others with her Witches in order to feed them. In one of their conflicts Sasa had managed to kill a member of Lina's group named [[Futaba (Oriko Magica)|Futaba]], earning [[Mio]]'s hatred for her.

After being cornered by Lina's group, she gets away with a false soul gem and yelling for help from passerby to force the group to flee. Sasa then travels to Mitakihara in order to seek out more victims and find the black magical girl killer she heard about in order to take control of her and get rid of Lina's group.

She is later seen fighting with a Witch against Mio, who is trying to kill her to avenge her friend's death, however Kirika interrupts the fight by killing Mio in a surprise attack. Sasa is then confronted by both Oriko and Kirika, who recruit her in their mission to protect their world. Sasa lies to them about her reasons for being in Mitakihara and uses them in order to take out Lina's group, unaware of Oriko's actual plans.
During a stakeout with Kirika, Sasa was disturbed by the other girl's utter devotion to Oriko and secretly planned to kill her as she saw her as a liability and leave Mitakihara after they completed their plans. Oriko also requests from Sasa to find and bring to her a "[[Madoka Kaname|friend]]" of hers using one of her Witches and their barrier.

The group ambushes Lina's group and Sasa fights Lina directly with one of her Witches. However Lina managed to destroy all of her Witches, leaving Sasa unable to fight and Lina manages to have her at her and [[Mai Akane]]'s mercy. Their fighting stops when [[Miyako Saki]] is manipulated by Oriko into denouncing Lina's actions and wanting to kill a fellow magical girl. Out of magic and driven to despair by Miyako's words, Lina turns into a Witch in front of the group and kills Miyako, forcing Sasa to work with the others and take down the Witch.
After its defeat, Sasa appeared to be shaken up with the revelation that magical girls become Witches and had lost her desire to fight Mai and instead attacked Oriko, who knew about and planned Lina's transformation. She then rants about how she can't trust anyone and that they're all out to irritate her and calls everyone selfish trash when Madoka shows up who is horrified at the situation taking place. Sasa then sics one of her Witches in order to kill her, but is suddenly killed by a bomb explosion planted by [[Homura Akemi]].

After her death, Oriko and Kirika find and locate Sasa's grief seed stash in a storage unit to take for themselves.

==Powers and Abilities==
Sasa's weapon is a scythe or key-like staff. She appears to be able to fire beams from it, as attempted in chapter 2 of ''Symmetry Diamond''.

She has the ability of mind control, mind-controlling Oriko in ''Symmetry Diamond'' as part of a ploy to kill her. The limits of this ability are unknown. Sasa can also mind-control Witches, likely because they're born from humans.

Kirika says in chapter 2 of ''Symmetry Diamond'' that "[Sasa] isn't much on her own" and that "[Kirika] could take her down [herself]"; this implies that Sasa is weak and easily defeated without the aid of her Witches. This is backed up by the fact that Sasa is almost never seen not accompanied by a witch of some sort, and how in ''Sadness Prayer'' she was unable to defeat Lina, who could still fight her despite exhausting nearly all of her magic.

==Observations==
* Sasa's magical girl outfit taking the form of a harlequin might refer to her manipulative/deceiving nature.
** It also may refer to how clowns use masks, and Sasa wears the mask of a kind person to deceive others.

==Etymology==
* In Japanese, her surname "Yuuki" (優木) contains the characters for "gentle" (優) and "tree" (木).
** "Yuuki" could be read as "勇気", meaning courage.
** "優" can also be read as: "actor" and "superiority". The three different definitions may refer to how Sasa acts kind, but is really a vicious girl who wants to become superior to others.
* The first character of her given name, "Sasa", (沙) means "sand". The second (々) is a character indicating that the previous kanji must be repeated. This would make Sasa's name "沙沙".
** "Sasa" could be read as "笹", meaning bamboo grass.
** Sasa is one of only two characters with a "々" in her name, the other being [[Kagari Hinata]].

==Gallery==
===Official Art===
<gallery>
File:Oriko_Another_Story_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]]: Extra Story cover 
File:Exsasacolour.jpg|Colored image of Sasa in her magical girl costume
File:Ch8colour.jpg|Sasa on one of the colour pages of ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Sadnessprayervol2a.jpg
File:Sadnessprayervol2zin.jpg
</gallery>

===Art by the artist===
<gallery>
File:20240721 194201.jpg|Sasa's full design as a magical girl.
File:ToyphelSasachibi.jpg
</gallery>

===Manga pages===
<gallery>
File:YuukiSasa.jpg|Sasa's first appearance in her casual clothes
File:SDsasa2.png|Sasa in her casual clothes
File:SPsasa.png|Sasa's casual clothes in ''Sadness Prayer''
File:SPsasa2.png|Another outfit from ''Sadness Prayer''. This one seems to be the same, but with different coloured sleeves
File:Shiromesasa.jpg|Sasa in the Shirome Middle School uniform
File:Sasauniform.jpg|Sasa in a different school uniform
File:Sasa with witches symmetry diamond.jpg
File:1428879223054.png|Sasa's death in ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:SasaYuuki SadnessPrayer death.png|Sasa's death in ''Sadness Prayer''
</gallery>

===Other===
<gallery>
File:Sasa, Himena, Minou, Yuuri.jpg|A drawn by [https://twitter.com/masugitune/status/1370888092094140416 Masugitune] featuring Sasa Yuuki with [[Kagari Hinata]], [[Minou in Magia Record|Minou]], and [[Yuuri]].
File:Memoria_1048_c.png|Sasa appears in the background of one of Oriko's memoria cards in [[Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story|Magia Record]]
</gallery>

===[[Sasa Yuuki in Magia Exedra|Magia Exedra]]===
<gallery>
File:Exedra Live2D 835930.png|Character talk sprite
</gallery>

==Memoria Cards==
{{Magia Record Memoria List|character=Sasa Yuuki}}

==External links==
* {{pixiv_tag|優木沙々}}

{{Character Categories|Yuuki|magicalgirl=yes|deceased=yes}}