Tokime Tribe
The Tokime Tribe (時女一族 Tokime Ichizoku) (Tokime Family in the NA server and Tokime Tribe in some translations) is a family-based faction from Tokime Village (時女集落) of Kirimine County (霧峰村 Kirimine-mura) consisting of magical girls who belong to said tribe.
Their base of operation in Kamihama City is Suitoku Temple, located in Sankyo Ward. In Arc 2, they initially act as one of Kamihama Magia Union's allies, but end their alliance in Chapter 3.
In the story draft notes presented at the December 2021 f4fanfes, the Tokime Tribe was described as follows:
- Faction name: Tokime Tribe
- "Girls from rural regions where traditional legends of Magical Girls still exist"
- Type: Integrity + simple honesty
- Goal: Change human sacrifice-esque tradition of making girls into magical girls
- Atmosphere: Tranquil + calm
- Ideology: Magical Girls should serve the world with pride in their hearts
- Intergroup relations: Fundamentally friendly; merry and lighthearted
- Keywords: Harmony, Rural, Old-fashioned, Folklore, Buddhist temple
Summary
It is unknown when the Tokime Tribe was founded, but it is known to have existed since ancient times. In those days, Diviners (the tribe's term for magical girls) of the Tokime Tribe fought purely to protect Japan itself. They were taught the truth of the relationship between Diviners and Devils (the tribe's term for Witches), were able to freely decide what wishes they would grant, and when they came of age, were also allowed to decide for themselves whether to leave the Tokime Village or remain. A significant number of Diviners chose to leave, which ultimately led to the creation of several branch families for the tribe that exist across Japan, with several modern magical girls having been born outside the village, such as Ryoko, Chika, and Asahi.
During the Sengoku Period, however, the Tokime Tribe's traditions were upended. During this era, all of the tribe 's Diviners were lost, and a group of warriors known as the Mikoshiba (神子柴) was sent to guard the village in absence of its Diviners. There, a woman of the Mikoshiba took over the tribe by deceiving and betraying her adopted daughter into making a wish that ensured her and her successors' reign for centuries to come. The woman and her successors cemented their control by using wishes of various Diviners to grant them various powers, such as the ability to control Witches and Familiars, and created a business of selling wishes to powerful people from all sectors of Japan, from high-ranking politicians and government officials to businessmen.
To ensure this trade, the Mikoshiba family created a system of deceit, intimidation, and exploitation to manipulate girls across the Tokime Tribe and its branch families. They glorified Diviners, demonstrating all the benefits of contracting without revealing the truth of Witches. Furthermore, they taught girls like Shizuka Tokime to be slavishly devoted to Japan above all else while rewriting the tribe 's history and traditions, and created various religious traditions and ceremonies to intimidate the villagers and pressure young girls into contracting. All of these elements created a culture that shuttled girls with magical potential into granting Mikoshiba's wishes without resistance.
After these wishes were granted, and once the Diviners were on the verge of becoming Witches, the Mikoshibas disposed of the girls by utilizing a twisted traditional coming-of-age ceremony. Rather than being free to leave the village like the Diviners of yore, the girls would be taken to the nearby river and drowned, their souls fed to an entity known by the tribe as The Wavering Deity. The Wavering Deity served to entrap the entire village in a Labyrinth, thus preventing the village from being found on any map and shielding it from outsiders who may put the Mikoshibas' reign at risk. The tribe was taught to consider the Wavering Deity as a god, ensuring that Diviners would not destroy it. With all these pieces in place, this so-called coming-of-age ceremony endured for centuries, with Shizuka being the only one known to have survived this tradition.
To ensure that this system would endure, the Mikoshibas selfishly guarded the pool of potential Diviners, such as by forbidding adolescent girls of one distant branch family from having romantic relationships with outsiders, thus ensuring that potential contractees did not leave her jurisdiction. Those who defied Mikoshiba's system and made wishes of their own free will were met with rage and vengeance. For example, after Sunao Toki contracted outside of Mikoshiba's control, the modern-day Mikoshiba threatened Sunao's family and blackmailed her into serving as Mikoshiba's personal assassin to eliminate those who put the Mikoshibas' reign at risk, such as anyone who trespassed on the Central Shrine, a critical ceremonial ground for the Tokime Village that contained proof of Mikoshiba's dealings.
However, the abusive reign of the Mikoshiba family finally came to an end after Chiharu Hiroe rescued Shizuka from the aforementioned coming-of-age ceremony. Through that incident, Shizuka finally learned the truth of the Tokime Tribe, based on what Mikoshiba had told her right before attempting to have Shizuka killed, and by seeing the remains of the Tokime Tribe's Diviners who became victims to the Mikoshibas' system in the river. Shizuka informed Chiharu and Sunao of what she had learned, which was the last straw that prompted Sunao to go against Mikoshiba's orders.
From there, Mikoshiba attempted several times to have the three girls killed by Familiars or Witches, but was thwarted every time. The trio gathered evidence of Mikoshiba's heinous system from the Central Shrine; once Mikoshiba was confronted with this, she realized there was no escape, and chose suicide via poison rather than allowing herself to be brought to justice. The death of the sole remaining Mikoshiba served as a killswitch to have the Wavering Deity destroy everything and everyone in the village, but Chiharu, Shizuka, and Sunao were able to overcome it, and thus ended the reign of the Mikoshibas forevermore.
In the aftermath of the Mikoshiba family's downfall, the Tokime Tribe was forced to learn to stand upon its own two feet without the luxuries and ease of life that Mikoshiba brought. Members of the tribe now work in neighboring cities and villages to bring income and necessities to the tribe, and for long-term growth, the tribe markets their village as a tourist site and sells unique goods in markets outside of their village. Despite the tribe 's upending, its leader, Shizuka, still holds pride in her role as a Diviner and her service to her homeland; after Kyubey (known as Lord Kyūbē to the tribe) informed her and her friends about Kamihama's surplus of witches and its Doppel system, she decided to move operations there in order to replicate and expand the system so that more magical girls would be able to serve the country.
Organization
After the events of The Green Jasper Diviners, the tribe is led by Shizuka Tokime, a heiress of the main family/house (本家, honke) of the Tokime Tribe. The rest of the tribe are comprised of Members are from various branch families/houses (分家, bunke).
Members
The Mikoshiba (Dissolved)
In the Tokime Tribe Tale event, it is confirmed that the Mikoshiba tribe /family was a line of women who gained their grip over the Tokime Tribe centuries ago, after their progenitor manipulated her young adopted daughter, Suwe, into contracting with Kyubey to create a calamity-summoning sake cup. Hatsu, an heiress of the Tokime Tribe in the olden days, discovered this deceit and attempted to save Suwe, her best friend, by contracting with Kyubey behind Mikoshiba's back to create a sword that could destroy the cup and its calamities.
Unfortunately, this played right into Mikoshiba's hands; she was able to seize the sword from Hatsu and break it, weakening the blade so that it could only purge the calamities from the cup without breaking it for good. With a fragment of the sword allowing the Mikoshiba family to predict when the calamity-dispelling ritual must be carried out, and through generations of obfuscating the ritual and cowing the Tokime Tribe into fear and obedience, the Mikoshiba family lived in greed, riches, and comfort, with no compassion, shame, or conscience for the lives they destroyed for hundreds of years.
Throughout the eras, each successor of the Mikoshiba tribe adopted girls (who held no blood ties with the Tokime Tribe) called "Maibito (舞人)" - special ritual dancers - and trained them as candidates to inherit the Mikoshiba title. Given the expectations placed upon them, the Maibito were taught the truth of the Tokime Village and of the magical girl system at large, and were strictly prohibited from becoming magical girls themselves. Their main job was to attend to the Tokime Village's various religious ceremonies, such as the ritual where Diviners make contracts and the Daybreak Ceremony, and maintain the security of the Great Temple. The most recent Mikoshiba, as of Green Jasper Diviners, also maintained a group of Maibito as her private army. All of the Maibito are confirmed to be dead as collateral damage when Mikoshiba unleashed familiars in the Tokime Village.
As of Arc 2, the Hiroe family seems to be the only surviving branch of the Mikoshiba family.
Tokime Main House
- Shizuka Tokime (defects to Neo-Magius in Arc 2 Chapter 8)
Tokime Branch Houses
- Sunao Toki
- Chiharu Hiroe
- Asahi Miura (undercover member of Folklore of Zero who leaves in Arc 2 Chapter 8)
- Ryoko Natsu
- Chika Aoba
Other Branch Villages
- One village (its name unknown) serves the setting for the The Call of the Open Sea event. While it used to be home to many Diviners, much like many other Tokime branch villages, it has not seen a Diviner for a very long time, to the point where Diviners had fallen into myth until Shizuka, Chiharu, and Sunao traveled to the village. For many years, under Mikoshiba's orders, the village maintained a custom of forbidding adolescents from maintaining romantic relationships with outsiders. It was originally thought that this custom stemmed from a tragic romance that befell a young Diviner who fell in love with a foreign sailor, but the truth of the custom and of the girl's tragic love is unveiled in the event's story. The Diviner had the power to cast her voice into objects, and these enchanted items kicked off many future events. One became the origin of a Kamihama myth called the Voice of the Waves, and another was the catalyst for Tsuyu and Chizuru, two of Kamihama's historical magical girls, to unite in order to overthrow a regional tyrant.
- The Toki Village of Yukuni City - Asahi Miura's hometown - is a branch family that has grown to loathe magical girls, to the point its villagers attempted to run out Shizuka, Sunao, and Chiharu when they came to look into the origin of Asahi's scars.
Gallery
Soldiers
Tokime Branch House General Soldiers
Miyuri Yukari disguised
San Kagura disguised
Tokime Branch House Executive Soldiers
Village
Trivia
- In Nayuta Satomi's dialogue (Magical Girl Tap 4), she mentions that her father, Professor Tasuke Satomi, published a book about the Tokime Village. It sold poorly, however. While Nayuta says this was because the public is a poor judge of books, it is possible that it failed due to Mikoshiba pulling strings with the elites she made deals with, though it may also be because of some other force at hand.
- The Tokime Tribe tends to use different words when referring to magical girl topics. some examples
- Magical Girl = Diviner
- Soul Gem = Jewel
- Kyuubey = Kyūbē-sama
- Witch = Devil
- Familiars = Underlings
- Witch Kiss = Devil's Brand
- Grief Seed = Devil's Soul
- Witchification = Coming of Age Ceremony