Puella Magi Wiki - User contributions [en]

Sasa Yuuki

2026-07-01T08:06:21Z

MBG159:

{{Infobox_character
|name=Sasa Yuuki
|image=[[File:Twitter_toyphel_mc_Sasa.jpg|250px]]
|jname=優木沙々 (Yuuki Sasa)
|surname=Yuuki
|magicalgirl=yes
|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.

Despite the strength of her abilities, Sasa is held back by her foolishness. 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]]
</gallery>

==Memoria Cards==
{{Magia Record Memoria Header}}
{{File:Memoria 1048 c.png}}
{{Magia Record Memoria Footer}}

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

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Yuuki]]

Sasa Yuuki

2025-04-25T04:06:58Z

MBG159: /* Personality */

{{Infobox_character
|name=Sasa Yuuki
|image=[[File:Twitter_toyphel_mc_Sasa.jpg|250px]]
|jname=優木沙々 (Yuuki Sasa)
|surname=Yuuki
|magicalgirl=yes
|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]]
</gallery>

==Memoria Cards==
{{Magia Record Memoria Header}}
{{File:Memoria 1048 c.png}}
{{Magia Record Memoria Footer}}

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

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Yuuki]]

Sasa Yuuki

2025-04-25T04:04:06Z

MBG159: /* Personality */

{{Infobox_character
|name=Sasa Yuuki
|image=[[File:Twitter_toyphel_mc_Sasa.jpg|250px]]
|jname=優木沙々 (Yuuki Sasa)
|surname=Yuuki
|magicalgirl=yes
|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.

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]]
</gallery>

==Memoria Cards==
{{Magia Record Memoria Header}}
{{File:Memoria 1048 c.png}}
{{Magia Record Memoria Footer}}

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

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Yuuki]]

Kirika Kure

2025-04-25T04:01:11Z

MBG159: /* Personality */

{{spoilers}}
<blockquote>''"Never! I refuse to go back to the way I was!"'' - Kirika Kure, chapter 4 of ''Oriko Magica''.</blockquote>

{{Infobox_character
|name=Kirika Kure
|image=[[File:SPkirika.jpg|230px]]
|jname=呉キリカ (Kure Kirika)
|surname=Kure
|magicalgirl=yes
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
|voices= Japanese ([[Magia Record]]):[[wikipedia:ja:%E4%BA%95%E5%8F%A3%E8%A3%95%E9%A6%99|Yuka Iguchi]]
}}
{{Nihongo|'''Kirika Kure'''|呉キリカ|Kure Kirika}} is one of the main original characters in [[Oriko_Magica|Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]. She tends to be the secondary protagonist of ''Oriko Magica'' installments, though she was the main protagonist of the extra episode ''Noisy Citrine'' in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]]''. Kirika also appears in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]]'' and is a playable character in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Online]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record]]'', with the later having her first animated and voice acted appearance.

==General Info==

{{Magical Girl Details
|age=14
|height=148cm
|eyes=Yellow
|hair=Brown or Black
|origin=[[Mitakihara City]]
|soulgem=Purple diamond (belt closure on back waist)
|weapon=Sickle Claws
|wish=To keep changing until she is suitable for Oriko.
|powers=Slowdown (To slow down her targets, causing them to perceive her as moving extremely fast)
|witch=Latria
|pronoun={{nihongo|''watashi''|私|}}
|relatives=Unnamed mother
|school=[[Mitakihara Middle School]], 8th grade
}}

==Personality==
Kirika is a rather eccentric, rash girl who is incredibly dedicated to her best friend, [[Oriko Mikuni]]. When it comes to Oriko, Kirika is willing to do anything she asks of, even killing magical girls, or becoming a witch to help her gain an edge in battle. Kirika is entirely dedicated to Oriko, as well as protective; even so, she is kind to Oriko, and often acts similar to a puppy dog in Oriko's presence.

To people other than Oriko, Kirika tends to be quieter and even moody. She also has bouts of childishness, such as commenting on how hungry and bored she is when in the middle of fighting with [[Mami Tomoe]].

Kirika is also somewhat unstable at times, occasionally laughing madly. However, the Kirika seen in the alternate timeline in ''Symmetry Diamond'' and ''The Last Agate'' appears to be more stable, as she isn't hunting magical girls in that timeline.

Kirika is also very touchy and serious on the subject of love, claiming that people who use terms like "crush" don't understand what "true" love is. Kirika also hates being called a child, unless the person in question is her dear Oriko.

In the past, before she met Oriko, Kirika was antisocial and quiet, even timid. She looked down on others as a way of making her feel better about herself. Kirika, however, was awed by Oriko when the girl helped her once. Kirika then became attached to Oriko, wanting to get to know her, but was afraid that Oriko wouldn't remember her, since no one would remember "someone like [Kirika]". So Kirika made her wish to "become a different [Kirika]", leading to her gaining her current personality. Despite the effects her wish has had on her, she does not regret it, and feels affirmed by it: she has a great sense of destiny, and believes that by becoming useful to Oriko, she has a purpose.

''Noisy Citrine'' further reveals that Kirika used to be a cheerful and happy child, before being betrayed by her friend [[Erika Mamiya]]. Kirika then became unhappy and started avoiding others, and so they drifted away from her.

==Story==
===Backstory===
Kirika's home-life is unknown, though it is implied she was on poor terms with her mother before making her wish. Her mother appears to be alive.

Kirika used to be a happy, cheerful girl. She had a best friend, [[Erika Mamiya]], and the two were as close as sisters. However, Erika's parents got a divorce and so she and her mother were to move away from Mitakihara City. Kirika went to buy her a toy as a gift, but along the way to deliver it, she caught Erika shoplifting from a book store. Erika then gave Kirika the bag and ran off, leaving Kirika to be framed for the shoplifting. After Erika and her mother then moved away without saying a word, Kirika became distant and antisocial, avoiding others, with others drifting away from her in return. She skipped school regularly, and had no real friends.

During her years at [[Mitakihara Middle School]], Kirika had an accident at a shopping mall where she dropped all her things, and went to pick them up while others in the line complained and told her to hurry up. Oriko then appeared, helping Kirika by picking up all of her things for her, and left almost as quickly as she appeared. Kirika, however, was awed by Oriko, and so tried to meet her again, but became disheartened, as Oriko surely would not remember "someone like [Kirika]".

Shortly afterward, she met Kyubey, who offered to give her the ability to change herself. However, she was unwilling to make the contract, and perceived her own wish as silly. Kyubey continued following her for some time, before Kirika, while telling him to go away, had a second chance encounter with Oriko and embarrassed herself. When Oriko quickly forgave her, she tried to talk more, but realized from her peers and uniform Oriko was a Shirome student and therefore out of Kirika's league. After Kyubey asked her if she wanted her background changed, Kirika thought of a proper wish: she wished to keep changing until she would be suitable for Oriko.

===Kirika in ''Oriko Magica'' and ''Sadness Prayer''===
{{Spoilerbox|
Kirika meets Oriko for the first time after her wish under poor circumstances. As a side effect of the wish, Kirika's memory of making it had been erased, along with her memory of Oriko, putting her in a rage. To blow off steam, she attacks Oriko, declaring an intent to defeat the other girl and cheer herself up. However, though Kirika initially dominates the fight, Oriko manages to scrape a victory by leading Kirika into a trap. Uncharacteristically, she spares the other girl's life and declares that Kirika will work for her from now on, and in exchange, she will tell her the truth about magical girls.

Kirika accepts the teamup, but is mostly confused and frustrated, due to Oriko's refusal to tell her much of the truth and confusing directions--mainly to share Grief Seeds, and continue attacking other magical girls. Nonetheless, she still acts in Oriko's defense, kicking her Witch-kissed uncle in the face while under the impression that he was a pervert. When Oriko tells her the truth, she is embarrassed, but Oriko quickly forgives her for it.

Things go badly south, however, when Kirika decides to engage fellow magical girl [[Komaki Asako]]. The barrier-focused girl turns out to be a very close match for Kirika, resulting in an increasingly heated battle. At its height, Kirika throws out a powerful attack to finish off Komaki, which is intercepted by [[Akira Namekata]], an innocent girl who tried to protect her friend without knowing the truth of the battle, and which cuts her in two. Horrified, she attempts to flee, but an enraged Komaki charges her with axe in hand, and Kirika swings in defense, impaling the other girl through the head on her claws. Kyubey, having found a mortally wounded Komaki much later, puts out the news that a magical girl in black killed two people.

Kirika returns home to Oriko rocked to her core by her actions, in a state of shock and occasionally seeing hallucinations of Komaki and Akira's corpses. While she had been willing to kill before, she was unaware of the weight it would place on her, and is wracked by guilt. Her guilt only worsens when she sees the handouts from Oriko's class and learns that Oriko knew Komaki personally, being reduced to a sobbing wreck and begging for forgiveness, nearly falling into despair.

However, when Oriko returns home, she finds that Kirika has brightened up considerably. She cheerfully hugs Oriko before apologizing, and when Oriko casually accepts the apology and notes a refusal to judge Kirika's actions, she grows yet more enthusiastic, declaring that she will only kill magical girls from now on. She concludes that the euphoria she feels means that this was probably the wish she forgot, and in her euphoria, claims that she can do anything for Oriko. Oriko considers a date, but upon receiving another vision, sends Kirika out to be an emissary to [[Sasa Yuuki]], currently on the run from a team of Kazamino magical girls.

Kirika successfully rescues Sasa and slays her pursuer, before introducing herself. Sasa immediately recognizes Kirika as the murderer, when Oriko arrives on the scene and offers an alliance, in the name of wiping out the Kazamino team. Kirika and Sasa are forced to work together, but fail to get along. Kirika dislikes Sasa for taking away from time that could be spent with Oriko, and begins a rant about how Oriko forgave her for her horrible actions, and how she will need to change herself further to return Oriko's feelings. Sasa, upon hearing this, is horrified at Kirika's clear and growing derangement, and resolves to either kill Kirika or flee the city. While reflecting on her feelings, Kirika realizes that she may have met Oriko before.

With Oriko's plan in motion, Kirika ambushes the Kazamino team, forcing them to scatter. She engages Mai Akane in a duel, and though the fight remains even for a time, Mai manages to deliver a lethal-looking blow, cutting her upper torso nearly in two. However, when Lina, the group leader, turns into a witch and kills Miyako, Mai collapses in anguish at the death of her friends... at which a still-living Kirika stabs her through the chest. Together with Oriko, they combine their observations, and discern that the thing that killed Sasa was using some kind of time-stop ability.

With Sasa dead, Oriko and Kirika travel to Kazamino to steal her collection of Grief Seeds. Though initially cheerful to be heading on an outing together, she notices that Oriko is troubled, and furthermore, that Oriko is lying to her. She wonders if she's still not the right person, and resolves to continue changing for Oriko. When she questions Oriko after learning that Oriko told Kyubey about Yuma, however, Oriko angrily slaps her and declares, with some uncertainty, that she is who she is and has no regrets. Satisfied with the answer, Kirika declares that she will kill anyone Oriko desires of her.

With that in mind, Kirika continues her killings of local magical girls, including two more. Kyubey attempts to question her, but Kirika turns out to be uncharacteristically good at lying, declaring that she never wished to become a murderer. Shortly afterward, while watching TV with Oriko, she notices Oriko's discomfort at a politician on the news, and asks if she should kill him. Oriko refuses, claiming that her personal grudge is of no concern to the plan, and reflects on Kirika's growing mental deterioration. While wandering around the house, Kirika, attempting to locate Oriko's family photos, finds a notebook from Oriko's father, containing a suicide note that blames Oriko for his death. Angered at the implication, she declares him an enemy and tries to hide the book, but does a poor enough job of it that Oriko quickly becomes suspicious. However, Oriko finds a stuffed toy, and, under the impression that it is what was being hidden, decides to let Kirika have it as a gift.

While in Oriko's father's rose garden, the two prepare to have tea. Kirika names all the different kinds of roses she sees in an attempt to impress Oriko, but is told that it was Oriko's father, [[Hisaomi Mikuni]], who liked roses. Kirika says there's no point knowing anything that doesn't pertain to Oriko, causing Oriko to comment that such thinking would make Kirika an ignorant child. A witch attacks them, and as Kirika fights it, Oriko prepares the tea. Kirika comments about the witch daring to try to come between herself and Oriko. Kirika ends up smashing their table and ruining it, so the two just sit together after the battle, Kirika resting in Oriko's lap.

Kirika goes out for another hunt, musing on the fact that, as much as she provides for Oriko, she cannot replace Oriko's entire support network and family. However, in her reflections, she bumps into someone and loses the stuffed toy that was a gift from Oriko. By coincidence, she runs into Mami, who finds and returns the toy to Kirika, who claims that Mami is her "savior." As thanks, Kirika treats Mami to a crepe. When Mami asks about the present, and makes the mistake of asking if Kirika likes the person who gave it to her. Kirika's attitude changes swiftly. She says that Mami throws such words around too easily, and that real love is "an infinity of limitations" While saying this, Kirika is suddenly surrounded and attacked by a witch. Mami resolves to save Kirika, but Kirika is fine. She says that she devoted herself to "her," meaning Oriko, and is willing to even kill her savior for that cause. When she transforms and attacks her, Mami realizes that this is the black magical girl responsible for the recent murders of the other magical girls in the city. Kirika, now almost completely deranged, confirms this.

Mami defends herself as best she can, but Kirika is too fast to shoot or restrain with her ribbons. Eventually, Kirika wears her down until Mami is wounded on her leg. Mami manages to escape into the witch's barrier, away from Kirika, and sets a trap for her based on the deduction that Kirika's speed is actually an illusion. Kirika is actually slowing her enemies down with a spell, letting her seem faster and more agile than she really is. Mami shoots at her, but Kirika slows it down and dodges it. She didn't account for it to go off after it had past it, however, and the blow wounds her back (where her Soul Gem sits) quite deeply. Mami demands an explanation for the murders, but Kirika refuses to give one. Mami prepares to shoot Kirika through the head, but is stopped when Oriko appears and causes a huge explosion. In the confusion, Oriko saved Kirika and took her back home to be healed.

With major wounds, Kirika tells Oriko what she can remember of her wish. Oriko responds, tearfully, that what Kirika's done in unforgivable and she'll have to make it up to Oriko. Kirika agrees, but then they realize that her Soul Gem is cracked, effectively crippling Kirika's combat abilities. When Oriko becomes uncharacteristically morose, Kirika freaks out, and asks her if she found "it", before passing out. Upon waking up, though, Kirika remembers the truth of her wish: it was to continue changing to be a person suitable for Oriko. When Oriko returns home, having read the suicide note and spoken to her father's associates, in a state of anguish, Kirika attempts to calm her down without much initial success, as Oriko rages about her imminent demise and how she no longer wishes to be herself. However, Kirika tells Oriko that Oriko is the reason her wish came true, and that due to the nature of Kirika's wish, they still have a chance: Kirika can become a Witch. Though Oriko rejects this plan at first, Kirika tells Oriko that she will make the sacrifice happily, in the name of seeing the plan through.

With the plan set in motion, Oriko and Kirika spend their last night together at Kirika's house. Playing video games, eating snacks, and enjoying conversation, the two go on to share a bed, reflecting on how close they've become. The next morning, Kirika and Oriko head to Mitakihara Middle School, with Oriko noting that what they do next will be unforgivable, to which Kirika notes that she forgives Oriko, and accepts what will happen next. Kirika and Oriko take over Mitakihara Middle School's broadcasting room some time later, sending out a short message to the students that tells Mami and [[Homura]] that this will be the final battle. A witch's barrier then mysteriously forms around the school.

Oriko and Kirika are confronted by Homura at the heart of the barrier world. Kirika transforms into a witch, revealing that the barrier is in fact hers. Even as a witch, she helps Oriko attack Homura, who has been joined by Mami, Yuma, and Kyoko. She is defeated by them and killed. Oriko's soul gem is close to exhaustion, and when she takes a hit, Homura executes Oriko. In her final moments, she has a dream of Kirika handing her a final piece of aid, and she uses a shard of Kirika's witch body, hitting Kyubey and Madoka, before dying.

Afterwards, in the afterlife, Kirika meets Oriko in an illusion of the Mitakihara school corridor. Kirika notices that Oriko carries a big burden about her and offers to take half of her burden. Shortly after that, in an illusion of Oriko's front garden, they encounter Madoka in her goddess form, and Oriko, though noting that her journey helped her find what was truly special, apologizes deeply, and thanks Madoka for coming to them.
}}

===Kirika in ''Extra Story''===
{{Spoilerbox|
In ''Noisy Citrine'', after making a contract with Kyubey and becoming a magical girl, Kirika goes to the train station to meet Oriko, feeling that she is more worthy of Oriko's time. However, after Oriko appears on the station, Kirika finds herself unable to do it, realizing that despite contracting with Kyubey and changing her personality, she still doesn't have the courage to talk to Oriko. The next day, she tries to retry her attempt at befriending Oriko, but instead runs into her ex-friend Erika on the way. Upon remembering how she was betrayed by Erika in the past, Kirika pushes her and runs away.

Kirika and Erika meet later when Erika has been possessed by a witch. Kirika stops Erika from hanging herself, but Erika lashes out against Kirika, wanting to die, believing Kirika still hates her after Erika framed her for her shoplifting. Kirika, however, saves Erika anyway and says that she has become a different Kirika, before defeating the witch. Afterwards, Kirika forgives Erika, and tells her about her nature as a magical girl.

Several days later, after apparently befriending Oriko, she tells her about the incident. A teasing Oriko asks her how much she cares about Erika, provoking an embarrassed response as Kirika claims that she has only one special person in her life. Oriko, intrigued, asks who that person is.

In ''Symmetry Diamond'', Kirika has teamed up with Oriko to defeat Walpurgisnacht--evidently, Kriemhild Gretchen does not exist in this timeline, and therefore Oriko has no plans to kill other magical girls. Because Oriko's magic is being quickly consumed by her uncontrollable visions and she does not have much fighting ability, Kirika hunts down grief seeds for her.

Kirika is knocked out by [[Sasa Yuuki|Sasa]] after being surprised by her "impossible" magic. This causes Oriko to suspect something amiss, as She later reappears to save Oriko from being killed by Sasa and subsequently destroys Sasa's facade, before helping Oriko to bring down Sasa and her witches. She helps Oriko find Yuma a new family in the epilogue, before going on an outing together, with Kirika overjoyed to be in public with Oriko.

In ''Last Agate'', Kirika shares a cake with Oriko on the eve of Walpurgisnacht. They are last seen preparing to go up against the witch.
}}

===Kirika in [[Magia Record]]===
See [[Kirika Kure in Magia Record]]

==Powers and Abilities==
Kirika's weapons are long, curved claws worn on her wrists and hands. There are three blades on each hand usually, though she can manifest more and have five on each hand. With these, she is able to slice open her opponents with separate cuts, as well as tear apart restraining magic like Mami's ribbons. She can also lengthen the claws into long, razor-edged whips. She is a very skilled close-range fighter, and often uses her feet in combat.

She also has the ability to slow her enemies down, giving the illusion of her having exceptional acrobatic agility and speed. Kirika's ability can also be used on herself, as she shows when she slows down her own transformation into a witch. It's notable that when she first met Oriko she was gathering her fallen belongings while being told by bystanders to ''"hurry up"''; it's possible her powers were derived from this event, as she wished to change her personality in order to befriend Oriko. It is also possible that it derives from Kirika's belief that one only has a limited time with the people they love, given that it causes events to last longer.

''Noisy Citrine'' revealed that she has named two of her attacks. "Stepping Fang" is an attack in which Kirika releases her claws and throws them, in order to hit targets she cannot reach herself in time. "Vampire Fang" is a powered-up version of her normal attack, able to split a witch in half with one hit.

==Observations==
* Kirika commented in ''Oriko Magica'' that she often skipped school, which could explain her absence in ''Madoka Magica'' outside of meta reasons.
* Kirika is seen reading yuri manga in ''Noisy Citrine''.
* Unlike other girls, Kirika's soul gem is seen tucked into the folds of her casual skirt instead of being worn as a ring.

==Etymology==
* Her first name is written in katakana and has no particular meaning. When written in kanji, it can be read many different ways, ex. "fog fire" or "fog perfume".
* Her last name is written with kanji meaning "give" or "do something for", referring to her devotion to Oriko and willingness to follow her commands.

==Trivia==
* Kirika and Oriko are exactly 121 days and 3 hours apart in age. Kirika is the younger of the two.
* In the original manga, she is noted to have been born in 1996.
* Kirika is the first serial killer in the franchise, sharing a trait in common with [[Suzune Amano]]. Both characters are also doing the bidding of someone else, although the latter is unaware of this most of the time.
* Her gorging on sugar may be due to her power (slowing things down and speeding them up) which would mess up her metabolism.
* According to [[Magia Archive Volume 2|Magia Archive]] Kirika's magical girl outfit is designed to resemble a tuxedo, in contrast to Oriko's which is based on a wedding dress.
* Her hair has undergone a color change throughout the years with it bouncing between brown and black. Her hair color seems to be finalized sometime before the release of ''Sadness Prayer'', as her hair color stayed black after its release.

==Gallery==
===Official art===
<gallery position="center" captionalign="left">
Oriko_2_cover_small.jpg|[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]] cover, volume 2
File:Oriko_Another_Story_cover.jpg|[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]] cover
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_2_cover.jpg|[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]] cover, volume 2
File:Orikovol2index.png|Kirika and Oriko in their school uniforms
File:93ca03880db54f1bb262add60a8ce8e3.jpg|Extra from Sadness Prayer
File:Sadprayvol2toroanaaltcover.jpg|Alternate volume 2 cover
File:Sadnessprayervol2melonbooks.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4animate.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4.jpg
File:Kirikacover.jpg|Alternate Extra Story cover
File:extra story oriko kikira.jpg|Extra Story Gamers bonus
File:oriko kirika concepts.jpeg|Kirika concept art
Kirika soul gem p161.PNG|Bonus at the end of the original manga
File:Orikospbonus02.jpg|Bonus at the end of Sadness Prayer volume 1.
</gallery>

===Art by the artist===
<gallery>
File:Kirikarough toyphel.jpg|A rough sketch of rejected Magia Record art
File:OriKirika toyphel.jpg
File:OriKirika2 Toyphel.jpg
File:OriKiriYuma Toyphel.jpg
File:ToyphelSasachibi.jpg
File:ToyphelKiriOricake.jpg
File:ToyphelOriKiricat.jpg
</gallery>

===Manga pages===
<gallery>
File:Orikospbonus01 eng.png|Sadness Prayer, volume 1 colour page
File:SPkirika2.png|Kirika's magical girl form, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:SDkirika.jpg|Kirika's casual outfit in ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:Kirikadressedinschooluniform.png|Kirika dressed in school uniform
File:KirikaWeapons01.png|Kirika's weapons
File:Kirikabiggerclaws.png|Kirika's weapons, expanded to have five claws
File:Kirikatimespell.png|Kirika using a spell that slows down her enemies
File:20120809160606e89.jpg|Kirika as a child with her friend, Erika
File:Noisy Citrine preview color.jpeg|Kirika fighting a witch in ''Noisy Citrine''
File:Childkirika.jpg|A younger Kirika, depressed due to Erika's betrayal
File:Exchibi1.png|Chibi of Kirika and Kyubey, from ''Noisy Citrine'' chapter 1.
File:Exchibi2.png|Chibi of Kirika using Vampire Fang, from ''Noisy Citrine'' chapter 2.
</gallery>

===Madoka Magica Online===
<gallery>
File:PMMMO-Kirika.png|Kirika's closeup from ''[[Madoka Magica Online]]''
File:PMMMO-KirikaFull.png
File:PMMMO-Meguca 0222.png
File:PMMMO Kirika Card.png
File:30052467 p4.png|Equipment based on Kirika
</gallery>

===[[Kirika Kure in Magia Record|Magia Record]]===
<gallery>
File:Kirika magia record profile.png|Kirika's [[Magia Record]] profile
File:Kirika PM.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini 400200 s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Latria.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Kure]]
[[Category:Magical girls with Witches]]

Oriko Mikuni

2025-04-25T03:58:46Z

MBG159: /* Personality */

{{spoilers}}
<blockquote>''"It is human emotion that created the gods... and created the demons. It created everything."'' - Oriko Mikuni, chapter 1 of ''Oriko Magica''.</blockquote>

{{Infobox_character
|name=Oriko Mikuni
|image =[[File:orikocasual.jpg|250px]]
|jname =美国織莉子 (Mikuni Oriko)
|surname =Mikuni
|magicalgirl=yes
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
|voices= Japanese ([[Magia Record]]): [[wikipedia:ja:%E6%97%A9%E8%A6%8B%E6%B2%99%E7%B9%94|Saori Hayami]]
}}
{{Nihongo|'''Oriko Mikuni'''|美国織莉子|Mikuni Oriko}} is the titular character from ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]''. She is a magical girl with the ability to forsee the future. She also appears in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]]''. She is a playable character in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Online]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record]]'', with the latter having her first animated and voice acted appearance.

==General Info==

{{Magical Girl Details
|age=15
|height=170cm
|eyes=Green, icy-blue or grey
|hair=Ash-blonde
|origin=[[Mitakihara City]]
|soulgem=Silver-coloured circular gem (brooch on her chest)
|weapon=Crystal Ball (Vine-patterned spheres)
|witch=Sotria
|powers=Precognition
|pronoun={{nihongo|''watashi''|わたし|}}
|relatives=[[Hisaomi Mikuni]] (father), [[Yurako Mikuni]] (mother), [[Kimihide Mikuni]] (uncle), unnamed aunt (Kimihide's wife), [[Sumi Mikuni]] (aunt), [[Shuuichiro Mikuni]] (grandfather)
|school=[[Shirome Middle School]] Ninth Grade
|wish={{Q|I wish for a reason for me to live.}} (OM) 
{{Q|I want... to know my purpose in life!}} (SP)

}}

==Personality==
Oriko's ability to foresee the future gained her the understanding that magical girls can become witches, and because of that, a terrible future could await the city. Due to that vision, as well as her upbringing as the daughter of a politician, Oriko feels responsible to prevent that possible future, at all costs. Oriko smiles as she lies to Yuma, to manipulate the young girl into contracting with Kyubey. She convinces her close friend Kirika to do the dirty work of killing other magical girls. Oriko feels those means are justified by her end goal of protecting the peace she has achieved in her life with [[Kirika]], as well as bringing peace to the world. She seems to be highly influenced by her political family in her ability to exercise Machiavellian tactics with much personal charisma, all for the sake of a lofty goal.

Underneath her cold presentation, however, Oriko is shown to be much more flawed. The death of her mother at a young age, coupled with her feelings about her larger family, left her emotionally stunted, bottling up her feelings and putting on the image of a paragon and intellectual. This is only worsened after the death of [[Komaki Asako]], which shows her taking increasingly reckless and selfish actions in the name of accomplishing her goals. It is only around Kirika, whom she loves more than any other person, that she feels content to be herself, often behaving in a teasing and cheerful fashion, displaying physical affection and even goofing off.

In [[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story|''Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story'']], the pressure upon Oriko is significantly reduced due to the absence of Kreimhild Gretchen, and so she shifts to an attitude of genuine heroism.

==Story==
===Backstory===
Oriko was a child of the Mikuni family, an old family with a long history of producing highly cutthroat, ruthless politicians. However, her father Hisaomi generally lacked the will to power of his siblings, and was cut off from the family finances by Oriko's grandfather, instead becoming a lawyer. As a result, Oriko's upbringing was largely middle-class, despite living in a large manor and rubbing shoulders with major political figures (whom she found frightening). Oriko grew up in a happy home, with a loving mother and father, but showed signs of not being quite right, reading books well outside her age range and developing a fondness for ''Crime and Punishment''.

When Oriko was very young, her mother Yurako was killed in a car accident. As a result of her distrust of the rest of the family, she declared that she would no longer cry from that point onward, and would work to replace her mother's role in the family. She was a hard worker and a genuine prodigy, and her father took notice. Believing that his daughter had far greater potential than him, he entered politics and ran for the city council before moving up to a run in the National Diet, while enrolling Oriko in the top school of Shirome, where she excelled. Shortly before the series, she had a chance meeting with Kirika Kure, who became attached to her.

Unfortunately, Hisaomi realized that Oriko was beginning to display traits much like her grandfather: coldness, treating others like pawns, extreme intellect and obsession, and a willingness to cut others off when they no longer became useful. When he was caught in a political scandal, involving his mentor Kenzaburo Yaegashi offloading many crimes onto him, he was disgraced--and, now horrified of what was to come, he killed himself. As a result, Oriko endured the brunt of the scandal; the rest of the family, including her uncle, was quick to denounce his side, and after a short, ill-attended funeral, Oriko became a social pariah, with her home falling to ruin. Horrified at her father's fate, she began to wonder if her life had any real purpose, due to having been forced to endure a miserable situation as a result of his actions. It was then that Kyubey came upon her--and, wrapped in her own ennui, she wished to know the meaning of her life, and became a magical girl.

===Oriko in ''Oriko Magica'' and ''Sadness Prayer''===
When testing out her magic for the first time, Oriko sees the vision of [[Mitakihara Town|Mitakihara City]] in ruins, destroyed by the witch [[Kriemhild Gretchen]]. Oriko knows that the witch has to be stopped, but it is impossible to destroy her once she's created. She is then struck by another vision of a young girl, [[Yuma]], and proceeds to tell [[Kyubey]] about her potentials as magical girl candidate in order to distract him from attempting to make a contract with Madoka.

At school, Oriko meets [[Komaki Asako]], who initially attempts to bully her, but fails to make much of an impact. Shortly afterward, while musing on her current fate, she wanders into a Witch's barrier, and sees Komaki fighting it, learning her to be a magical girl as well--however, Komaki remains unaware of Oriko's status, simply warning her away from making a contract herself. Initially unwilling to hunt witches and expend further power, due to her power's constant low-level drain, she finds one in a chance encounter and defeats it, but is then accosted by [[Kirika Kure]], who, angered at forgetting the nature of her own wish, has decided to blow off steam by fighting Oriko. Though Kirika initially dominates the fight, Oriko manages to defeat her through using her precognition to lure Kirika into a trap. Rather than finish her off, she recruits her, telling her the realities of magical girls and asking for her aid--telling her to keep up scuffles with other magical girls, and provide her with Grief Seeds.

Over the next few days, Oriko continues to grow closer to Komaki while supported by a rather irritated Kirika, and has a chance encounter with her uncle, Kimihide. She notices a Witch's Kiss on him, and briefly considers letting him die, due to recalling that he was the first to condemn her father. Her thoughts are arrested when Kirika appears suddenly and knocks him out cold, due to believing him to be a pervert. Oriko has a vision of herself attempting to kill Madoka Kaname, before she is shot in the head by [[Homura Akemi|a mysterious protector]]. She believes that she must find out more about the protector in question. Her plans are arrested, however, when Kirika and Komaki get into a scuffle, which ends in Komaki, as well as her close friend [[Akira Namekata]], being killed by accident.

Kirika spends the next day in complete shock, horrified at her own actions and hallucinating Komaki's body. Oriko takes care of Kirika, musing on the fact that she was not, in fact, capable of killing another person, and wonders if she should find another ally. Kyubey informs her about the death, and Kirika's shock only worsens when she learns that Komaki and Oriko knew each other, nearly falling into despair. However, Oriko refuses to judge Kirika for their deaths, and after attending the funeral, she returns to find that Kirika has radically changed, openly hugging Oriko and proclaiming that she has been reborn. She declares that she can do anything for Oriko now. Oriko considers having a meal of pancakes with her, but has a vision of [[Sasa Yuuki]], and changes course, declaring that their plan is to exploit the new magical girl in town.

Together with Kirika, she forges an alliance with Sasa, who is on the run from Kazamino City with a team in hot pursuit due to her attacks on civilians. The three of them lead a surprise attack on the depleted survivors of the team, splitting them up and fighting individually. Though Kirika and Sasa are wounded, Oriko manages to convince her opponent that the fighting is pointless and they should retreat rather than take further losses, due to having endured deaths on the mission already. Unfortunately, these words strike a chord with the team's leader, who falls into despair; in the resulting chaos, the team is wiped out, and Oriko is badly wounded by an angered Sasa, who declares her intent to escape the town and replenish her Witches. Spying a young girl who had wandered into the barrier after receiving a phone call to come there, Sasa attacks... only to be blown apart by the mysterious protector of [[Madoka Kaname]]. This, as it turns out, was Oriko's plan; having seen Homura's powers in action, she realizes how they function.

Oriko and Kirika travel to Kazamino to pick up the Grief Seeds that Sasa had accumulated, and, by chance, encounter Yuma, in the process of stealing food for her guardian Kyouko. However, Oriko finds her mind dwelling on Yuma, which is only furthered when she begins having nigh-constant visions of Yuma's current actions, and even her own past. She realizes that she has begun mentally associating Yuma with herself, with Yuma's emotional outbursts being the sort of thing she swore off as a child. When [[Kyoko]] goes off to fight a witch, leaving Yuma behind at their hotel room, she speaks to Yuma and suggests that Kyoko may already be dead, playing on Yuma's fear of being alone. Yuma rushes off to find her friend, leading to a chain reaction of events that ends with her becoming contracted. Kyoko swears she's going to make Oriko pay for making Yuma into a magical girl. Meanwhile, Oriko declares that she will reject the weakness she saw in Yuma.

Though Kyubey escalates his attempts to investigate the mysterious deaths of a large number of magical girls, neither Kirika nor Oriko give him any useful information. In the meantime, Oriko has a meeting with [[Koito Asako]], who blames herself for the death of her sister and her friend, due to having known about her nightly jaunts. However, Oriko rejects the idea that Komaki's death was her fault, telling her that it was nothing but bad luck and that even if people would blame her for her sister's death, it would not matter, which cheers Koito up. While watching the news, Oriko and Kirika see Yaegashi on the news, and Kirika asks Oriko if she wants him dead--an idea which Oriko rejects, as he is a personal enemy rather than a threat to the world as a whole. Oriko muses on the need to fasttrack her plans, realizing that Kirika's sanity is deteriorating. This is only furthered when she has a vision of herself in a school, watching people be devoured by familiars and doing nothing to aid them.

While in her father's rose garden, she and [[Kirika]] prepare to have tea. A witch attacks them, and as Kirika fights it, Oriko prepares the tea. Kirika ends up smashing their table and ruining it, so the two just sit together, Kirika resting in Oriko's lap. Oriko muses to herself that if Kirika wasn't there she would have broken down long ago, and then has another vision. This tells her that she's going to have to ask Kirika to fight again, to protect their world. When Kirika acts defensive of a nearby desk, Oriko finds a plush toy inside, and gives it to Kirika as a gift, which Kirika promises to cherish.

Kyubey tells her of a lead on the murder case (the suspect being Homura Akemi), at which Oriko realizes she has found her protector, and declares the battle as good as won. While waiting for Kirika to return, Oriko muses on making up her earlier harshness, and decides to make her a cake. However, while making the cake, she has a delusion of a younger version of herself, who tells her that she has killed many people in the name of her plan. Oriko attempts to rebuke the delusion, claiming that the deaths are irrelevant in the grand cause, and claims to have outgrown that younger self. However, the younger Oriko proclaims that Kirika has already been driven completely mad, and all the things Oriko has done to herself have hit Kirika far worse. The vision proclaims that Oriko is the reason her father died. Oriko attempts to contact Kirika, but has a vision of Kirika being mortally wounded and intervenes to rescue her. Mami recognizes Oriko from [[Kyoko]]'s description, to which Oriko responds that they will meet again and Mami will "realize how foolish [she's] been". She leaves without a fight, but Mami is nonetheless stunned as she could sense very powerful magic emanating from Oriko.

Back at Oriko's house, she attempts to nurse Kirika, who refuses medical attention. Kirika also confesses that, afraid of being rejected by Oriko when they met, she wished to change her personality. Oriko tells her that she can never forgive the deception, but as both she and Kirika are smiling, it seems that they have no regrets. She then discovers that Kirika's Soul Gem has been cracked and begins crying, blaming herself for being too weak. Kirika is shocked at this, and asks if she found the thing Kirika hid, before her Soul Gem's decreased integrity causes her to pass out. Oriko, now a fugitive from the other magical girls, wanders outside and has a chance encounter with local girl Chiharu Masumi, who asks if they should go hunting for the killer. Oriko kills her in a fit of rage, and returns home to find the thing Kirika hid, which turns out to be her father's suicide note.

Outraged by the contents of the note, she has a confrontation with Yaegashi, blaming him for her father's death. However, Yaegashi tells her the truth: Hisaomi did not kill himself because of the scandal, but because he feared the idea of his own daughter being willing to reject him the way his father did. Oriko, as it turns out, is more like her cruel and cutthroat grandfather, who was also willing to sacrifice lives in the name of achieving his ideals. In shock, she leaves him and returns home, where she begins acting out, screaming and smashing nearby objects while Kirika struggles to calm her down. She declares that her vision served not to tell her to stop the Witch, but to tell her that her life had no purpose and she should hurry up and die, and that she no longer wishes to be herself. However, Kirika responds by proclaiming that she can still help Oriko achieve her dream: since her wish was to keep changing to support Oriko, her Witch form should inherit her willingness to follow Oriko's plan. Oriko tries to reject this, unwilling to harm Kirika further, but Kirika refuses, declaring her intent to see both their wishes fulfilled. Oriko breaks down sobbing, and hugs Kirika.

Now set on a plan, Oriko and Kirika decide to spend their last night alive together, with them hiding out in Kirika's house. They play videogames (which Oriko proves incompetent at), eat snacks, and talk about their lives. Oriko reflects on the night and decides it was the happiest and freest she'd ever felt, overjoyed to simply be herself. After falling asleep, the vision of her younger self returns, and claims that Oriko has no reason to try to fulfill her father's ideals, now that it has become clear that his ideals were a lie and that Oriko has failed to help anyone. However, Oriko simply acknowledges this as true, and claims that what she had described as her father's ideals were ultimately only her own ideals, and she will do what she does to ensure her own happiness rather than someone else's. The vision fades away, unable to answer this.

The next morning, Oriko has an encounter with her uncle again, and tells him that while she feared him as a child, she has let go of her feelings. She throws her bag aside, and meets up with Kirika outside of Mitakihara Middle. She declares to Kirika that what they do next will be unforgivable, even if it ends in saving the world--something Kirika simply assents to. Alongside Kirika, Oriko hijacks the announcement system at [[Mitakihara Middle School]] and gives a speech. She cryptically warns the students about the presence of witches and how magical girls must defeat them for the greater good. The school is then enveloped by a witch's barrier, as familiars attack and devour the people inside. The public broadcast results in Koito learning the truth about Oriko.

Oriko and Kirika are confronted by [[Homura]] at the heart of the barrier world. Oriko reveals that she knows Homura from her vision, and has been trying to change the fate of Mitakihara Town ever since she received it. Her goal is to kill [[Madoka]] before she becomes a magical girl and then a witch capable of destroying the world. This was followed by Kirika's witch attacking Homura, who has been joined by [[Mami]], [[Yuma]], and [[Kyoko]] in order to protect Oriko from being potentially injured or possibly even killed. Upon learning the truth, the other three are shocked and fight much more poorly, causing Oriko to pity their inability to accept reality. She tells Homura that they are different, because Oriko wants to save many people as opposed to Homura, who is trying to protect only Madoka. She then fights Homura.

Kirika is defeated by the other three magical girls working together, driving Oriko into a rage. She only becomes more desperate when Kyubey appears, announcing that he's managed to see through Oriko's plan: using Yuma's contract and the murder of other magical girls to distract him from Madoka's potential. Oriko's Soul Gem is close to exhaustion, but she continues to attack Homura, aiming to make her use up enough magic so that she cannot defend Madoka. When Kyoko throws her spear at Kirika's body, Oriko jumps between them and is impaled, displaying her genuine care for Kirika. Homura, holding her at gunpoint, asks why Oriko was willing to do what she did - gazing at Kirika's corpse, she declares she did it to protect her world, before Homura executes her. With the last of her strength, she throws a shard of Kirika's witch body at Homura, which misses, before finally dying. However, it turns out that Homura was not her target. Instead, Oriko hit Madoka, who had been coming to help Homura in the fight. Madoka is struck in the heart and killed instantly, causing Homura to create a new timeline.

In the afterlife, Oriko and Kirika remain together, with Kirika declaring that they will share the burden of their sins as they hold hands. When Madoka appears before them, in her true goddess form, Oriko congratulates her on having managed to set the world right. She claims to be happy to have found what she believes is most special, but expresses deep regret for her actions in life, and thanks Madoka for her forgiveness.

===Oriko in ''Extra Story''===
''Extra Story'' takes place in a timeline where Oriko, rather than seeing Kriemhild Gretchen, instead saw Walpurgisnacht, and declared that she would try to protect the city from the powerful Witch.

Oriko does not feature much in ''Noisy Citrine.'' We are given a brief flashback showing how she met Kirika at the convenience store, and then nothing else until the ending, where Oriko notices Kirika reading a letter from [[Erika Mamiya]] in her garden. She teases Kirika about how the girl who wrote the letter must be very important to her, and when Kirika claims there's only one "very important person" in her life, Oriko claims her curiosity is piqued, and pushes Kirika to tell her who that person is.

In ''Symmetry Diamond'', it is revealed that Oriko wasn't always able to use her precognition to fight effectively. During her first few weeks, her precognition was active 24/7, and would severely burn through her magic reserves. She relied on Kirika to get Grief Seeds for her, not being able to provide much in battle besides advice.

During the first chapter, Oriko meets Yuma in the park at night, after Yuma was told by her mother to leave the house and never come back. The two talk about their parents, where Yuma laments always getting scolded, and Oriko laments never getting scolded. The two come to an agreement that there's no such thing as a perfect daughter. Oriko also talks about how, ever since discovering her father's corpse in the house, she's afraid of wandering about her own house at night. As Yuma leaves, Oriko's precognition flashes, and she sees Yuma's future death, wherein she goes into cardiac arrest and dies due to her mother's abuse.

The next day, Oriko is bullied by the girls in her class, including [[Komaki Asako]]. A classmate named [[Sasa Yuuki]] offers to have lunch with Oriko, and the two go to eat outside. During lunch, Oriko is worried that Kirika didn't send a text at lunchtime like she always does. After school, Oriko tries to call Kirika, but cannot get in touch her. Oriko laments not being able to foreseeing what happened to Kirika, and only receiving useless visions due to being unable to control her own precognition. She wonders then if Yuma also feels this useless, before receiving a vision of Yuma being hurt by her mother again. Deciding to wallow in self-pity later, Oriko moves to find both Yuma and Kirika, only for to Sasa to suddenly show up. She calls out to Oriko, asking her what she's doing here, but Oriko notes that she's in a hurry and runs off, with Sasa following after.

Oriko and Sasa find Yuma at the same park where Oriko met her earlier. Oriko asks Sasa to see to her, and begins to leave to try and find Kirika. Once Oriko's back is turned, Sasa sees this as an opportunity to kill her, and forms a wand in her hand. Before she can actually attack however, Kirika appears and stops her, cutting Sasa's arm. Oriko runs over in concern for Sasa, but suddenly realizes she doesn't even know who Sasa is, as Sasa was using her brainwashing magic to make Oriko believe they were friends. Oriko and Kirika fight Sasa and her captured witches and win, with Oriko using the Grief Seeds dropped by Sasa's witches to recharge her magic. Sasa tries to take Yuma hostage, but Oriko reveals the truth about witches to Sasa. In response, Sasa destroys her own Soul Gem and dies.

Afterwards, Kyubey tries to convince Yuma to make a contract, but Oriko blasts him with magic to prevent this. She comforts Yuma, and advises her to speak up to change her life. Later, Oriko is walking with Kirika, and overhears Yuma talking with her grandparents. She now lives with them instead of her mother, showing that her future has been averted.

In ''Last Agate'', on the eve of the battle with Walpurgisnacht, Oriko makes and shares a cake with Kirika. Afterward, the two stand together and prepare to fight.

===Oriko in [[Magia Record]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record]]''

===Oriko in [[Magia Exedra]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra]]''

==Powers and Abilities==
Oriko's main power is precognition, allowing her to predict the future through internal visions. However, these visions cost her magic to have, and she cannot always control when she receives them, often leaving her unable to properly fight without risking her soul gem becoming overly corrupted. As such, Oriko commonly has Kirika hunt down witches and obtain Grief Seeds for her, minimizing the amount of magic she needs to use.

When Oriko does fight, she can summon multiple spheres, patterned with what appear to be vines. She can send these at her enemies to attack with blunt force at high speed, or attack at range by shooting beams of magic from them. In ''Symmetry Diamond'', Oriko sends out beams of magic from many of her spheres at once, in an attack she calls 'Oracle Ray'. In ''Sadness Prayer'', these spheres are also noted to emit magic that Oriko can track, though she can only sense their general position.

==Observations==
* ''Sadness Prayer'' implies that Oriko considers herself similar to [[wikipedia:Rodion_Raskolnikov|Rodion Raskolnikov]] of the Russian novel, ''[[wikipedia:Crime_and_Punishment|Crime and Punishment]].'' Both are well-educated, youthful, and arrogant, despite their state of poverty, both see themselves as entitled to do terrible things for the sake of the greater good, but ultimately are selfish and seek to validate themselves, both spend much of the story agonizing over their guilt, and both conclude the story suffering the consequences of their actions alongside the only person who ever truly loved them.
**This is reaffirmed in her personal memoria in [[Magia Record]].
==Etymology==
* Her first name means "weaver girl", and sounds similar to "oracle".
* Her last name Mikuni literally means "beautiful country".

==Trivia==
* Despite being the titular character, Oriko is not featured on the first volume cover of ''[[Oriko Magica]]''. She does, however, feature on the cover of ''Extra Story'' and the cover of ''Sadness Prayer''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first volume.
* Kirika and Oriko are exactly 121 days and 3 hours apart in age. Oriko is the older of the two.
* Oriko was the student council president and top member of her class in Shirome Middle School.
* Oriko's design is noted to be based on the imagery of a clergywoman and a weddding dress in [[Magia Archive Volume 2]].
* She shares her voice actress with [[Mabayu Aki]].

==Gallery==
===Anime===
<gallery>
File:Oriko MRA24.png|Magia Record episode 24 cameo
</gallery>

===Official art===
<gallery>
Oriko_2_cover_small.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] cover, volume 2
File:Oriko_Another_Story_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]]: Extra Story cover
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 1
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_4_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 4
File:Orikovol2index.png|Kirika and Oriko in their school uniforms, from ''Oriko Magica''
File:Orikobonus.jpg|Extra for the first volume of ''Sadness Prayer''.
File:Orikocover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol2toroanaaltcover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol3oriko.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4compilation.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4animate.jpg
File:extra story oriko kikira.jpg|Sadness Prayer volume 4 Gamers bonus
File:Oriko SD Color Page 2.jpg|Oriko and Yuma from ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:extra story oriko.jpg|Extra Story bonus.
</gallery>
===Art by the artist===
<gallery>
File:20240718 060434.jpg| Oriko, in her Final Form (Magia Record)
File:OriKirika toyphel.jpg
File:OriKirika2 Toyphel.jpg
File:OrikoillustToyphel.jpg
File:OriKiriYuma Toyphel.jpg
File:ToyphelSasachibi.jpg
File:ToyphelKiriOricake.jpg
File:ToyphelOriKiricat.jpg
File:ToyphelEvilOriko.jpg
</gallery>

===Manga pages===
<gallery>
File:Orikospbonus01 eng.png|Sadness Prayer, volume 1 colour page
File:SDChildOriko.jpg|Colour page from Sadness Prayer's third volume
File:SPoriko2.png|Oriko's magical girl form, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikoweapons.png|Oriko's weapons
File:OrikoCasulaDress.png|Oriko in casual clothes
File:ChildOriko01.png|Oriko as a child
File:Oriko saves a corpse.png|Oriko protects Kirika's corpse
File:Pressure.jpg|Oriko's stress of having to live up to people's expectations of her
File:oriko concepts.jpeg|Oriko concept art
File:OrikoSymmetryDiamondCasual.png|Oriko as she appears in ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:Little_Oriko.jpg| Oriko as a child, as seen in ''Sadness Prayer''
File:SPoriko.jpg|Oriko in school uniform, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikocolour.jpg|Oriko in colour, from ''Sadness Prayer''
</gallery>
===Games===
====[[Madoka Magica Online]]====
<gallery>
File:PMMMO-OrikoFull.png|Oriko Mikuni
File:PMMMO-Oriko.png|Skill activation cut-in
File:Oriko Cut-In.PNG
File:PMMMO Oriko Sprite.png
File:PMMMO-Meguca 0117.png
File:2013082017565459d.jpg
File:PMMMO Oriko Card.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Hat.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Dress.png
</gallery>

====[[Magia Record]]====
=====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record|Normal]]=====
<gallery>
File:Oriko magia record profile.png|Oriko's Magia Record profile
File:Oriko PM.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini 400100 s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Oriko doppel sprite.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>
=====[[Oriko Mikuni (Final ver.)|Final Ver.]]=====
<gallery>
File:Card_40044_l.png|Oriko (Final ver.)'s Magia Record profile
File:Oriko_PM_final.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini_400400_s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Doppel_400400_l.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>

====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra|Magia Exedra]]====
<gallery>
File:madodra oriko.png|[[Magia Exedra]] trailer
File:oriko_exedra.gif
File:Exedra Oriko Art.jpg|Oriko's character art
</gallery>

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Mikuni]]

Oriko Mikuni

2025-04-25T03:53:50Z

MBG159: /* Backstory */

{{spoilers}}
<blockquote>''"It is human emotion that created the gods... and created the demons. It created everything."'' - Oriko Mikuni, chapter 1 of ''Oriko Magica''.</blockquote>

{{Infobox_character
|name=Oriko Mikuni
|image =[[File:orikocasual.jpg|250px]]
|jname =美国織莉子 (Mikuni Oriko)
|surname =Mikuni
|magicalgirl=yes
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
|voices= Japanese ([[Magia Record]]): [[wikipedia:ja:%E6%97%A9%E8%A6%8B%E6%B2%99%E7%B9%94|Saori Hayami]]
}}
{{Nihongo|'''Oriko Mikuni'''|美国織莉子|Mikuni Oriko}} is the titular character from ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]''. She is a magical girl with the ability to forsee the future. She also appears in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]]''. She is a playable character in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Online]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record]]'', with the latter having her first animated and voice acted appearance.

==General Info==

{{Magical Girl Details
|age=15
|height=170cm
|eyes=Green, icy-blue or grey
|hair=Ash-blonde
|origin=[[Mitakihara City]]
|soulgem=Silver-coloured circular gem (brooch on her chest)
|weapon=Crystal Ball (Vine-patterned spheres)
|witch=Sotria
|powers=Precognition
|pronoun={{nihongo|''watashi''|わたし|}}
|relatives=[[Hisaomi Mikuni]] (father), [[Yurako Mikuni]] (mother), [[Kimihide Mikuni]] (uncle), unnamed aunt (Kimihide's wife), [[Sumi Mikuni]] (aunt), [[Shuuichiro Mikuni]] (grandfather)
|school=[[Shirome Middle School]] Ninth Grade
|wish={{Q|I wish for a reason for me to live.}} (OM) 
{{Q|I want... to know my purpose in life!}} (SP)

}}

==Personality==
Oriko's ability to foresee the future gained her the understanding that magical girls can become witches, and because of that, a terrible future could await the city. Due to that vision, as well as her upbringing as the daughter of a politician, Oriko feels responsible to prevent that possible future, at all costs. Oriko smiles as she lies to Yuma, to manipulate the young girl into contracting with Kyubey. She convinces her close friend Kirika to do the dirty work of killing other magical girls. Oriko feels those means are justified by her end goal of protecting the peace she has achieved in her life with [[Kirika]], as well as bringing peace to the world. She seems to be highly influenced by her political family in her ability to exercise Machiavellian tactics with much personal charisma, all for the sake of a lofty goal.

Oriko shows a gentler side in her personal nature with her close friend Kirika. She enjoys teasing Kirika, but deep down, Oriko cares greatly for her. She'll even let Kirika sleep in her lap after a battle. Oriko also shows devotion to her family, from when she was a little child helping out her father in his campaigns to now doing what she can to help make her father's dream of a peaceful world come true.

''Sadness Prayer'' explores more of her feelings and motivations from ''Oriko Magica'' and shows how she became more cold and ruthless as a result of the death of one of her close friends. In ''Symmetry Diamond'', however, where she does not commit such extreme crimes nor have her close friend die, she is much friendlier and downright heroic in comparison.

==Story==
===Backstory===
Oriko was a child of the Mikuni family, an old family with a long history of producing highly cutthroat, ruthless politicians. However, her father Hisaomi generally lacked the will to power of his siblings, and was cut off from the family finances by Oriko's grandfather, instead becoming a lawyer. As a result, Oriko's upbringing was largely middle-class, despite living in a large manor and rubbing shoulders with major political figures (whom she found frightening). Oriko grew up in a happy home, with a loving mother and father, but showed signs of not being quite right, reading books well outside her age range and developing a fondness for ''Crime and Punishment''.

When Oriko was very young, her mother Yurako was killed in a car accident. As a result of her distrust of the rest of the family, she declared that she would no longer cry from that point onward, and would work to replace her mother's role in the family. She was a hard worker and a genuine prodigy, and her father took notice. Believing that his daughter had far greater potential than him, he entered politics and ran for the city council before moving up to a run in the National Diet, while enrolling Oriko in the top school of Shirome, where she excelled. Shortly before the series, she had a chance meeting with Kirika Kure, who became attached to her.

Unfortunately, Hisaomi realized that Oriko was beginning to display traits much like her grandfather: coldness, treating others like pawns, extreme intellect and obsession, and a willingness to cut others off when they no longer became useful. When he was caught in a political scandal, involving his mentor Kenzaburo Yaegashi offloading many crimes onto him, he was disgraced--and, now horrified of what was to come, he killed himself. As a result, Oriko endured the brunt of the scandal; the rest of the family, including her uncle, was quick to denounce his side, and after a short, ill-attended funeral, Oriko became a social pariah, with her home falling to ruin. Horrified at her father's fate, she began to wonder if her life had any real purpose, due to having been forced to endure a miserable situation as a result of his actions. It was then that Kyubey came upon her--and, wrapped in her own ennui, she wished to know the meaning of her life, and became a magical girl.

===Oriko in ''Oriko Magica'' and ''Sadness Prayer''===
When testing out her magic for the first time, Oriko sees the vision of [[Mitakihara Town|Mitakihara City]] in ruins, destroyed by the witch [[Kriemhild Gretchen]]. Oriko knows that the witch has to be stopped, but it is impossible to destroy her once she's created. She is then struck by another vision of a young girl, [[Yuma]], and proceeds to tell [[Kyubey]] about her potentials as magical girl candidate in order to distract him from attempting to make a contract with Madoka.

At school, Oriko meets [[Komaki Asako]], who initially attempts to bully her, but fails to make much of an impact. Shortly afterward, while musing on her current fate, she wanders into a Witch's barrier, and sees Komaki fighting it, learning her to be a magical girl as well--however, Komaki remains unaware of Oriko's status, simply warning her away from making a contract herself. Initially unwilling to hunt witches and expend further power, due to her power's constant low-level drain, she finds one in a chance encounter and defeats it, but is then accosted by [[Kirika Kure]], who, angered at forgetting the nature of her own wish, has decided to blow off steam by fighting Oriko. Though Kirika initially dominates the fight, Oriko manages to defeat her through using her precognition to lure Kirika into a trap. Rather than finish her off, she recruits her, telling her the realities of magical girls and asking for her aid--telling her to keep up scuffles with other magical girls, and provide her with Grief Seeds.

Over the next few days, Oriko continues to grow closer to Komaki while supported by a rather irritated Kirika, and has a chance encounter with her uncle, Kimihide. She notices a Witch's Kiss on him, and briefly considers letting him die, due to recalling that he was the first to condemn her father. Her thoughts are arrested when Kirika appears suddenly and knocks him out cold, due to believing him to be a pervert. Oriko has a vision of herself attempting to kill Madoka Kaname, before she is shot in the head by [[Homura Akemi|a mysterious protector]]. She believes that she must find out more about the protector in question. Her plans are arrested, however, when Kirika and Komaki get into a scuffle, which ends in Komaki, as well as her close friend [[Akira Namekata]], being killed by accident.

Kirika spends the next day in complete shock, horrified at her own actions and hallucinating Komaki's body. Oriko takes care of Kirika, musing on the fact that she was not, in fact, capable of killing another person, and wonders if she should find another ally. Kyubey informs her about the death, and Kirika's shock only worsens when she learns that Komaki and Oriko knew each other, nearly falling into despair. However, Oriko refuses to judge Kirika for their deaths, and after attending the funeral, she returns to find that Kirika has radically changed, openly hugging Oriko and proclaiming that she has been reborn. She declares that she can do anything for Oriko now. Oriko considers having a meal of pancakes with her, but has a vision of [[Sasa Yuuki]], and changes course, declaring that their plan is to exploit the new magical girl in town.

Together with Kirika, she forges an alliance with Sasa, who is on the run from Kazamino City with a team in hot pursuit due to her attacks on civilians. The three of them lead a surprise attack on the depleted survivors of the team, splitting them up and fighting individually. Though Kirika and Sasa are wounded, Oriko manages to convince her opponent that the fighting is pointless and they should retreat rather than take further losses, due to having endured deaths on the mission already. Unfortunately, these words strike a chord with the team's leader, who falls into despair; in the resulting chaos, the team is wiped out, and Oriko is badly wounded by an angered Sasa, who declares her intent to escape the town and replenish her Witches. Spying a young girl who had wandered into the barrier after receiving a phone call to come there, Sasa attacks... only to be blown apart by the mysterious protector of [[Madoka Kaname]]. This, as it turns out, was Oriko's plan; having seen Homura's powers in action, she realizes how they function.

Oriko and Kirika travel to Kazamino to pick up the Grief Seeds that Sasa had accumulated, and, by chance, encounter Yuma, in the process of stealing food for her guardian Kyouko. However, Oriko finds her mind dwelling on Yuma, which is only furthered when she begins having nigh-constant visions of Yuma's current actions, and even her own past. She realizes that she has begun mentally associating Yuma with herself, with Yuma's emotional outbursts being the sort of thing she swore off as a child. When [[Kyoko]] goes off to fight a witch, leaving Yuma behind at their hotel room, she speaks to Yuma and suggests that Kyoko may already be dead, playing on Yuma's fear of being alone. Yuma rushes off to find her friend, leading to a chain reaction of events that ends with her becoming contracted. Kyoko swears she's going to make Oriko pay for making Yuma into a magical girl. Meanwhile, Oriko declares that she will reject the weakness she saw in Yuma.

Though Kyubey escalates his attempts to investigate the mysterious deaths of a large number of magical girls, neither Kirika nor Oriko give him any useful information. In the meantime, Oriko has a meeting with [[Koito Asako]], who blames herself for the death of her sister and her friend, due to having known about her nightly jaunts. However, Oriko rejects the idea that Komaki's death was her fault, telling her that it was nothing but bad luck and that even if people would blame her for her sister's death, it would not matter, which cheers Koito up. While watching the news, Oriko and Kirika see Yaegashi on the news, and Kirika asks Oriko if she wants him dead--an idea which Oriko rejects, as he is a personal enemy rather than a threat to the world as a whole. Oriko muses on the need to fasttrack her plans, realizing that Kirika's sanity is deteriorating. This is only furthered when she has a vision of herself in a school, watching people be devoured by familiars and doing nothing to aid them.

While in her father's rose garden, she and [[Kirika]] prepare to have tea. A witch attacks them, and as Kirika fights it, Oriko prepares the tea. Kirika ends up smashing their table and ruining it, so the two just sit together, Kirika resting in Oriko's lap. Oriko muses to herself that if Kirika wasn't there she would have broken down long ago, and then has another vision. This tells her that she's going to have to ask Kirika to fight again, to protect their world. When Kirika acts defensive of a nearby desk, Oriko finds a plush toy inside, and gives it to Kirika as a gift, which Kirika promises to cherish.

Kyubey tells her of a lead on the murder case (the suspect being Homura Akemi), at which Oriko realizes she has found her protector, and declares the battle as good as won. While waiting for Kirika to return, Oriko muses on making up her earlier harshness, and decides to make her a cake. However, while making the cake, she has a delusion of a younger version of herself, who tells her that she has killed many people in the name of her plan. Oriko attempts to rebuke the delusion, claiming that the deaths are irrelevant in the grand cause, and claims to have outgrown that younger self. However, the younger Oriko proclaims that Kirika has already been driven completely mad, and all the things Oriko has done to herself have hit Kirika far worse. The vision proclaims that Oriko is the reason her father died. Oriko attempts to contact Kirika, but has a vision of Kirika being mortally wounded and intervenes to rescue her. Mami recognizes Oriko from [[Kyoko]]'s description, to which Oriko responds that they will meet again and Mami will "realize how foolish [she's] been". She leaves without a fight, but Mami is nonetheless stunned as she could sense very powerful magic emanating from Oriko.

Back at Oriko's house, she attempts to nurse Kirika, who refuses medical attention. Kirika also confesses that, afraid of being rejected by Oriko when they met, she wished to change her personality. Oriko tells her that she can never forgive the deception, but as both she and Kirika are smiling, it seems that they have no regrets. She then discovers that Kirika's Soul Gem has been cracked and begins crying, blaming herself for being too weak. Kirika is shocked at this, and asks if she found the thing Kirika hid, before her Soul Gem's decreased integrity causes her to pass out. Oriko, now a fugitive from the other magical girls, wanders outside and has a chance encounter with local girl Chiharu Masumi, who asks if they should go hunting for the killer. Oriko kills her in a fit of rage, and returns home to find the thing Kirika hid, which turns out to be her father's suicide note.

Outraged by the contents of the note, she has a confrontation with Yaegashi, blaming him for her father's death. However, Yaegashi tells her the truth: Hisaomi did not kill himself because of the scandal, but because he feared the idea of his own daughter being willing to reject him the way his father did. Oriko, as it turns out, is more like her cruel and cutthroat grandfather, who was also willing to sacrifice lives in the name of achieving his ideals. In shock, she leaves him and returns home, where she begins acting out, screaming and smashing nearby objects while Kirika struggles to calm her down. She declares that her vision served not to tell her to stop the Witch, but to tell her that her life had no purpose and she should hurry up and die, and that she no longer wishes to be herself. However, Kirika responds by proclaiming that she can still help Oriko achieve her dream: since her wish was to keep changing to support Oriko, her Witch form should inherit her willingness to follow Oriko's plan. Oriko tries to reject this, unwilling to harm Kirika further, but Kirika refuses, declaring her intent to see both their wishes fulfilled. Oriko breaks down sobbing, and hugs Kirika.

Now set on a plan, Oriko and Kirika decide to spend their last night alive together, with them hiding out in Kirika's house. They play videogames (which Oriko proves incompetent at), eat snacks, and talk about their lives. Oriko reflects on the night and decides it was the happiest and freest she'd ever felt, overjoyed to simply be herself. After falling asleep, the vision of her younger self returns, and claims that Oriko has no reason to try to fulfill her father's ideals, now that it has become clear that his ideals were a lie and that Oriko has failed to help anyone. However, Oriko simply acknowledges this as true, and claims that what she had described as her father's ideals were ultimately only her own ideals, and she will do what she does to ensure her own happiness rather than someone else's. The vision fades away, unable to answer this.

The next morning, Oriko has an encounter with her uncle again, and tells him that while she feared him as a child, she has let go of her feelings. She throws her bag aside, and meets up with Kirika outside of Mitakihara Middle. She declares to Kirika that what they do next will be unforgivable, even if it ends in saving the world--something Kirika simply assents to. Alongside Kirika, Oriko hijacks the announcement system at [[Mitakihara Middle School]] and gives a speech. She cryptically warns the students about the presence of witches and how magical girls must defeat them for the greater good. The school is then enveloped by a witch's barrier, as familiars attack and devour the people inside. The public broadcast results in Koito learning the truth about Oriko.

Oriko and Kirika are confronted by [[Homura]] at the heart of the barrier world. Oriko reveals that she knows Homura from her vision, and has been trying to change the fate of Mitakihara Town ever since she received it. Her goal is to kill [[Madoka]] before she becomes a magical girl and then a witch capable of destroying the world. This was followed by Kirika's witch attacking Homura, who has been joined by [[Mami]], [[Yuma]], and [[Kyoko]] in order to protect Oriko from being potentially injured or possibly even killed. Upon learning the truth, the other three are shocked and fight much more poorly, causing Oriko to pity their inability to accept reality. She tells Homura that they are different, because Oriko wants to save many people as opposed to Homura, who is trying to protect only Madoka. She then fights Homura.

Kirika is defeated by the other three magical girls working together, driving Oriko into a rage. She only becomes more desperate when Kyubey appears, announcing that he's managed to see through Oriko's plan: using Yuma's contract and the murder of other magical girls to distract him from Madoka's potential. Oriko's Soul Gem is close to exhaustion, but she continues to attack Homura, aiming to make her use up enough magic so that she cannot defend Madoka. When Kyoko throws her spear at Kirika's body, Oriko jumps between them and is impaled, displaying her genuine care for Kirika. Homura, holding her at gunpoint, asks why Oriko was willing to do what she did - gazing at Kirika's corpse, she declares she did it to protect her world, before Homura executes her. With the last of her strength, she throws a shard of Kirika's witch body at Homura, which misses, before finally dying. However, it turns out that Homura was not her target. Instead, Oriko hit Madoka, who had been coming to help Homura in the fight. Madoka is struck in the heart and killed instantly, causing Homura to create a new timeline.

In the afterlife, Oriko and Kirika remain together, with Kirika declaring that they will share the burden of their sins as they hold hands. When Madoka appears before them, in her true goddess form, Oriko congratulates her on having managed to set the world right. She claims to be happy to have found what she believes is most special, but expresses deep regret for her actions in life, and thanks Madoka for her forgiveness.

===Oriko in ''Extra Story''===
''Extra Story'' takes place in a timeline where Oriko, rather than seeing Kriemhild Gretchen, instead saw Walpurgisnacht, and declared that she would try to protect the city from the powerful Witch.

Oriko does not feature much in ''Noisy Citrine.'' We are given a brief flashback showing how she met Kirika at the convenience store, and then nothing else until the ending, where Oriko notices Kirika reading a letter from [[Erika Mamiya]] in her garden. She teases Kirika about how the girl who wrote the letter must be very important to her, and when Kirika claims there's only one "very important person" in her life, Oriko claims her curiosity is piqued, and pushes Kirika to tell her who that person is.

In ''Symmetry Diamond'', it is revealed that Oriko wasn't always able to use her precognition to fight effectively. During her first few weeks, her precognition was active 24/7, and would severely burn through her magic reserves. She relied on Kirika to get Grief Seeds for her, not being able to provide much in battle besides advice.

During the first chapter, Oriko meets Yuma in the park at night, after Yuma was told by her mother to leave the house and never come back. The two talk about their parents, where Yuma laments always getting scolded, and Oriko laments never getting scolded. The two come to an agreement that there's no such thing as a perfect daughter. Oriko also talks about how, ever since discovering her father's corpse in the house, she's afraid of wandering about her own house at night. As Yuma leaves, Oriko's precognition flashes, and she sees Yuma's future death, wherein she goes into cardiac arrest and dies due to her mother's abuse.

The next day, Oriko is bullied by the girls in her class, including [[Komaki Asako]]. A classmate named [[Sasa Yuuki]] offers to have lunch with Oriko, and the two go to eat outside. During lunch, Oriko is worried that Kirika didn't send a text at lunchtime like she always does. After school, Oriko tries to call Kirika, but cannot get in touch her. Oriko laments not being able to foreseeing what happened to Kirika, and only receiving useless visions due to being unable to control her own precognition. She wonders then if Yuma also feels this useless, before receiving a vision of Yuma being hurt by her mother again. Deciding to wallow in self-pity later, Oriko moves to find both Yuma and Kirika, only for to Sasa to suddenly show up. She calls out to Oriko, asking her what she's doing here, but Oriko notes that she's in a hurry and runs off, with Sasa following after.

Oriko and Sasa find Yuma at the same park where Oriko met her earlier. Oriko asks Sasa to see to her, and begins to leave to try and find Kirika. Once Oriko's back is turned, Sasa sees this as an opportunity to kill her, and forms a wand in her hand. Before she can actually attack however, Kirika appears and stops her, cutting Sasa's arm. Oriko runs over in concern for Sasa, but suddenly realizes she doesn't even know who Sasa is, as Sasa was using her brainwashing magic to make Oriko believe they were friends. Oriko and Kirika fight Sasa and her captured witches and win, with Oriko using the Grief Seeds dropped by Sasa's witches to recharge her magic. Sasa tries to take Yuma hostage, but Oriko reveals the truth about witches to Sasa. In response, Sasa destroys her own Soul Gem and dies.

Afterwards, Kyubey tries to convince Yuma to make a contract, but Oriko blasts him with magic to prevent this. She comforts Yuma, and advises her to speak up to change her life. Later, Oriko is walking with Kirika, and overhears Yuma talking with her grandparents. She now lives with them instead of her mother, showing that her future has been averted.

In ''Last Agate'', on the eve of the battle with Walpurgisnacht, Oriko makes and shares a cake with Kirika. Afterward, the two stand together and prepare to fight.

===Oriko in [[Magia Record]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record]]''

===Oriko in [[Magia Exedra]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra]]''

==Powers and Abilities==
Oriko's main power is precognition, allowing her to predict the future through internal visions. However, these visions cost her magic to have, and she cannot always control when she receives them, often leaving her unable to properly fight without risking her soul gem becoming overly corrupted. As such, Oriko commonly has Kirika hunt down witches and obtain Grief Seeds for her, minimizing the amount of magic she needs to use.

When Oriko does fight, she can summon multiple spheres, patterned with what appear to be vines. She can send these at her enemies to attack with blunt force at high speed, or attack at range by shooting beams of magic from them. In ''Symmetry Diamond'', Oriko sends out beams of magic from many of her spheres at once, in an attack she calls 'Oracle Ray'. In ''Sadness Prayer'', these spheres are also noted to emit magic that Oriko can track, though she can only sense their general position.

==Observations==
* ''Sadness Prayer'' implies that Oriko considers herself similar to [[wikipedia:Rodion_Raskolnikov|Rodion Raskolnikov]] of the Russian novel, ''[[wikipedia:Crime_and_Punishment|Crime and Punishment]].'' Both are well-educated, youthful, and arrogant, despite their state of poverty, both see themselves as entitled to do terrible things for the sake of the greater good, but ultimately are selfish and seek to validate themselves, both spend much of the story agonizing over their guilt, and both conclude the story suffering the consequences of their actions alongside the only person who ever truly loved them.
**This is reaffirmed in her personal memoria in [[Magia Record]].
==Etymology==
* Her first name means "weaver girl", and sounds similar to "oracle".
* Her last name Mikuni literally means "beautiful country".

==Trivia==
* Despite being the titular character, Oriko is not featured on the first volume cover of ''[[Oriko Magica]]''. She does, however, feature on the cover of ''Extra Story'' and the cover of ''Sadness Prayer''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first volume.
* Kirika and Oriko are exactly 121 days and 3 hours apart in age. Oriko is the older of the two.
* Oriko was the student council president and top member of her class in Shirome Middle School.
* Oriko's design is noted to be based on the imagery of a clergywoman and a weddding dress in [[Magia Archive Volume 2]].
* She shares her voice actress with [[Mabayu Aki]].

==Gallery==
===Anime===
<gallery>
File:Oriko MRA24.png|Magia Record episode 24 cameo
</gallery>

===Official art===
<gallery>
Oriko_2_cover_small.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] cover, volume 2
File:Oriko_Another_Story_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]]: Extra Story cover
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 1
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_4_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 4
File:Orikovol2index.png|Kirika and Oriko in their school uniforms, from ''Oriko Magica''
File:Orikobonus.jpg|Extra for the first volume of ''Sadness Prayer''.
File:Orikocover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol2toroanaaltcover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol3oriko.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4compilation.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4animate.jpg
File:extra story oriko kikira.jpg|Sadness Prayer volume 4 Gamers bonus
File:Oriko SD Color Page 2.jpg|Oriko and Yuma from ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:extra story oriko.jpg|Extra Story bonus.
</gallery>
===Art by the artist===
<gallery>
File:20240718 060434.jpg| Oriko, in her Final Form (Magia Record)
File:OriKirika toyphel.jpg
File:OriKirika2 Toyphel.jpg
File:OrikoillustToyphel.jpg
File:OriKiriYuma Toyphel.jpg
File:ToyphelSasachibi.jpg
File:ToyphelKiriOricake.jpg
File:ToyphelOriKiricat.jpg
File:ToyphelEvilOriko.jpg
</gallery>

===Manga pages===
<gallery>
File:Orikospbonus01 eng.png|Sadness Prayer, volume 1 colour page
File:SDChildOriko.jpg|Colour page from Sadness Prayer's third volume
File:SPoriko2.png|Oriko's magical girl form, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikoweapons.png|Oriko's weapons
File:OrikoCasulaDress.png|Oriko in casual clothes
File:ChildOriko01.png|Oriko as a child
File:Oriko saves a corpse.png|Oriko protects Kirika's corpse
File:Pressure.jpg|Oriko's stress of having to live up to people's expectations of her
File:oriko concepts.jpeg|Oriko concept art
File:OrikoSymmetryDiamondCasual.png|Oriko as she appears in ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:Little_Oriko.jpg| Oriko as a child, as seen in ''Sadness Prayer''
File:SPoriko.jpg|Oriko in school uniform, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikocolour.jpg|Oriko in colour, from ''Sadness Prayer''
</gallery>
===Games===
====[[Madoka Magica Online]]====
<gallery>
File:PMMMO-OrikoFull.png|Oriko Mikuni
File:PMMMO-Oriko.png|Skill activation cut-in
File:Oriko Cut-In.PNG
File:PMMMO Oriko Sprite.png
File:PMMMO-Meguca 0117.png
File:2013082017565459d.jpg
File:PMMMO Oriko Card.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Hat.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Dress.png
</gallery>

====[[Magia Record]]====
=====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record|Normal]]=====
<gallery>
File:Oriko magia record profile.png|Oriko's Magia Record profile
File:Oriko PM.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini 400100 s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Oriko doppel sprite.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>
=====[[Oriko Mikuni (Final ver.)|Final Ver.]]=====
<gallery>
File:Card_40044_l.png|Oriko (Final ver.)'s Magia Record profile
File:Oriko_PM_final.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini_400400_s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Doppel_400400_l.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>

====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra|Magia Exedra]]====
<gallery>
File:madodra oriko.png|[[Magia Exedra]] trailer
File:oriko_exedra.gif
File:Exedra Oriko Art.jpg|Oriko's character art
</gallery>

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Mikuni]]

Oriko Mikuni

2025-04-25T03:53:07Z

MBG159: /* Oriko in Oriko Magica and Sadness Prayer */

{{spoilers}}
<blockquote>''"It is human emotion that created the gods... and created the demons. It created everything."'' - Oriko Mikuni, chapter 1 of ''Oriko Magica''.</blockquote>

{{Infobox_character
|name=Oriko Mikuni
|image =[[File:orikocasual.jpg|250px]]
|jname =美国織莉子 (Mikuni Oriko)
|surname =Mikuni
|magicalgirl=yes
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
|voices= Japanese ([[Magia Record]]): [[wikipedia:ja:%E6%97%A9%E8%A6%8B%E6%B2%99%E7%B9%94|Saori Hayami]]
}}
{{Nihongo|'''Oriko Mikuni'''|美国織莉子|Mikuni Oriko}} is the titular character from ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]''. She is a magical girl with the ability to forsee the future. She also appears in ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer]]''. She is a playable character in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Online]]'' and ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record]]'', with the latter having her first animated and voice acted appearance.

==General Info==

{{Magical Girl Details
|age=15
|height=170cm
|eyes=Green, icy-blue or grey
|hair=Ash-blonde
|origin=[[Mitakihara City]]
|soulgem=Silver-coloured circular gem (brooch on her chest)
|weapon=Crystal Ball (Vine-patterned spheres)
|witch=Sotria
|powers=Precognition
|pronoun={{nihongo|''watashi''|わたし|}}
|relatives=[[Hisaomi Mikuni]] (father), [[Yurako Mikuni]] (mother), [[Kimihide Mikuni]] (uncle), unnamed aunt (Kimihide's wife), [[Sumi Mikuni]] (aunt), [[Shuuichiro Mikuni]] (grandfather)
|school=[[Shirome Middle School]] Ninth Grade
|wish={{Q|I wish for a reason for me to live.}} (OM) 
{{Q|I want... to know my purpose in life!}} (SP)

}}

==Personality==
Oriko's ability to foresee the future gained her the understanding that magical girls can become witches, and because of that, a terrible future could await the city. Due to that vision, as well as her upbringing as the daughter of a politician, Oriko feels responsible to prevent that possible future, at all costs. Oriko smiles as she lies to Yuma, to manipulate the young girl into contracting with Kyubey. She convinces her close friend Kirika to do the dirty work of killing other magical girls. Oriko feels those means are justified by her end goal of protecting the peace she has achieved in her life with [[Kirika]], as well as bringing peace to the world. She seems to be highly influenced by her political family in her ability to exercise Machiavellian tactics with much personal charisma, all for the sake of a lofty goal.

Oriko shows a gentler side in her personal nature with her close friend Kirika. She enjoys teasing Kirika, but deep down, Oriko cares greatly for her. She'll even let Kirika sleep in her lap after a battle. Oriko also shows devotion to her family, from when she was a little child helping out her father in his campaigns to now doing what she can to help make her father's dream of a peaceful world come true.

''Sadness Prayer'' explores more of her feelings and motivations from ''Oriko Magica'' and shows how she became more cold and ruthless as a result of the death of one of her close friends. In ''Symmetry Diamond'', however, where she does not commit such extreme crimes nor have her close friend die, she is much friendlier and downright heroic in comparison.

==Story==
===Backstory===
Oriko was a child of the Mikuni family, an old family with a long history of producing highly cutthroat, ruthless politicians. However, her father Hisaomi generally lacked the will to power of his siblings, and was cut off from the family finances by Oriko's grandfather, instead becoming a lawyer. As a result, Oriko's upbringing was largely middle-class, despite living in a large manor and rubbing shoulders with major political figures (whom she found scary). Oriko grew up in a happy home, with a loving mother and father, but showed signs of not being quite right, reading books well outside her age range and developing a fondness for ''Crime and Punishment''.

When Oriko was very young, her mother Yurako was killed in a car accident. As a result of her distrust of the rest of the family, she declared that she would no longer cry from that point onward, and would work to replace her mother's role in the family. She was a hard worker and a genuine prodigy, and her father took notice. Believing that his daughter had far greater potential than him, he entered politics and ran for the city council before moving up to a run in the National Diet, while enrolling Oriko in the top school of Shirome, where she excelled. Shortly before the series, she had a chance meeting with Kirika Kure, who became attached to her.

Unfortunately, Hisaomi realized that Oriko was beginning to display traits much like her grandfather: coldness, treating others like pawns, extreme intellect and obsession, and a willingness to cut others off when they no longer became useful. When he was caught in a political scandal, involving his mentor Kenzaburo Yaegashi offloading many crimes onto him, he was disgraced--and, now horrified of what was to come, he killed himself. As a result, Oriko endured the brunt of the scandal; the rest of the family, including her uncle, was quick to denounce his side, and after a short, ill-attended funeral, Oriko became a social pariah, with her home falling to ruin. Horrified at her father's fate, she began to wonder if her life had any real purpose, due to having been forced to endure a miserable situation as a result of his actions. It was then that Kyubey came upon her--and, wrapped in her own ennui, she wished to know the meaning of her life, and became a magical girl.

===Oriko in ''Oriko Magica'' and ''Sadness Prayer''===
When testing out her magic for the first time, Oriko sees the vision of [[Mitakihara Town|Mitakihara City]] in ruins, destroyed by the witch [[Kriemhild Gretchen]]. Oriko knows that the witch has to be stopped, but it is impossible to destroy her once she's created. She is then struck by another vision of a young girl, [[Yuma]], and proceeds to tell [[Kyubey]] about her potentials as magical girl candidate in order to distract him from attempting to make a contract with Madoka.

At school, Oriko meets [[Komaki Asako]], who initially attempts to bully her, but fails to make much of an impact. Shortly afterward, while musing on her current fate, she wanders into a Witch's barrier, and sees Komaki fighting it, learning her to be a magical girl as well--however, Komaki remains unaware of Oriko's status, simply warning her away from making a contract herself. Initially unwilling to hunt witches and expend further power, due to her power's constant low-level drain, she finds one in a chance encounter and defeats it, but is then accosted by [[Kirika Kure]], who, angered at forgetting the nature of her own wish, has decided to blow off steam by fighting Oriko. Though Kirika initially dominates the fight, Oriko manages to defeat her through using her precognition to lure Kirika into a trap. Rather than finish her off, she recruits her, telling her the realities of magical girls and asking for her aid--telling her to keep up scuffles with other magical girls, and provide her with Grief Seeds.

Over the next few days, Oriko continues to grow closer to Komaki while supported by a rather irritated Kirika, and has a chance encounter with her uncle, Kimihide. She notices a Witch's Kiss on him, and briefly considers letting him die, due to recalling that he was the first to condemn her father. Her thoughts are arrested when Kirika appears suddenly and knocks him out cold, due to believing him to be a pervert. Oriko has a vision of herself attempting to kill Madoka Kaname, before she is shot in the head by [[Homura Akemi|a mysterious protector]]. She believes that she must find out more about the protector in question. Her plans are arrested, however, when Kirika and Komaki get into a scuffle, which ends in Komaki, as well as her close friend [[Akira Namekata]], being killed by accident.

Kirika spends the next day in complete shock, horrified at her own actions and hallucinating Komaki's body. Oriko takes care of Kirika, musing on the fact that she was not, in fact, capable of killing another person, and wonders if she should find another ally. Kyubey informs her about the death, and Kirika's shock only worsens when she learns that Komaki and Oriko knew each other, nearly falling into despair. However, Oriko refuses to judge Kirika for their deaths, and after attending the funeral, she returns to find that Kirika has radically changed, openly hugging Oriko and proclaiming that she has been reborn. She declares that she can do anything for Oriko now. Oriko considers having a meal of pancakes with her, but has a vision of [[Sasa Yuuki]], and changes course, declaring that their plan is to exploit the new magical girl in town.

Together with Kirika, she forges an alliance with Sasa, who is on the run from Kazamino City with a team in hot pursuit due to her attacks on civilians. The three of them lead a surprise attack on the depleted survivors of the team, splitting them up and fighting individually. Though Kirika and Sasa are wounded, Oriko manages to convince her opponent that the fighting is pointless and they should retreat rather than take further losses, due to having endured deaths on the mission already. Unfortunately, these words strike a chord with the team's leader, who falls into despair; in the resulting chaos, the team is wiped out, and Oriko is badly wounded by an angered Sasa, who declares her intent to escape the town and replenish her Witches. Spying a young girl who had wandered into the barrier after receiving a phone call to come there, Sasa attacks... only to be blown apart by the mysterious protector of [[Madoka Kaname]]. This, as it turns out, was Oriko's plan; having seen Homura's powers in action, she realizes how they function.

Oriko and Kirika travel to Kazamino to pick up the Grief Seeds that Sasa had accumulated, and, by chance, encounter Yuma, in the process of stealing food for her guardian Kyouko. However, Oriko finds her mind dwelling on Yuma, which is only furthered when she begins having nigh-constant visions of Yuma's current actions, and even her own past. She realizes that she has begun mentally associating Yuma with herself, with Yuma's emotional outbursts being the sort of thing she swore off as a child. When [[Kyoko]] goes off to fight a witch, leaving Yuma behind at their hotel room, she speaks to Yuma and suggests that Kyoko may already be dead, playing on Yuma's fear of being alone. Yuma rushes off to find her friend, leading to a chain reaction of events that ends with her becoming contracted. Kyoko swears she's going to make Oriko pay for making Yuma into a magical girl. Meanwhile, Oriko declares that she will reject the weakness she saw in Yuma.

Though Kyubey escalates his attempts to investigate the mysterious deaths of a large number of magical girls, neither Kirika nor Oriko give him any useful information. In the meantime, Oriko has a meeting with [[Koito Asako]], who blames herself for the death of her sister and her friend, due to having known about her nightly jaunts. However, Oriko rejects the idea that Komaki's death was her fault, telling her that it was nothing but bad luck and that even if people would blame her for her sister's death, it would not matter, which cheers Koito up. While watching the news, Oriko and Kirika see Yaegashi on the news, and Kirika asks Oriko if she wants him dead--an idea which Oriko rejects, as he is a personal enemy rather than a threat to the world as a whole. Oriko muses on the need to fasttrack her plans, realizing that Kirika's sanity is deteriorating. This is only furthered when she has a vision of herself in a school, watching people be devoured by familiars and doing nothing to aid them.

While in her father's rose garden, she and [[Kirika]] prepare to have tea. A witch attacks them, and as Kirika fights it, Oriko prepares the tea. Kirika ends up smashing their table and ruining it, so the two just sit together, Kirika resting in Oriko's lap. Oriko muses to herself that if Kirika wasn't there she would have broken down long ago, and then has another vision. This tells her that she's going to have to ask Kirika to fight again, to protect their world. When Kirika acts defensive of a nearby desk, Oriko finds a plush toy inside, and gives it to Kirika as a gift, which Kirika promises to cherish.

Kyubey tells her of a lead on the murder case (the suspect being Homura Akemi), at which Oriko realizes she has found her protector, and declares the battle as good as won. While waiting for Kirika to return, Oriko muses on making up her earlier harshness, and decides to make her a cake. However, while making the cake, she has a delusion of a younger version of herself, who tells her that she has killed many people in the name of her plan. Oriko attempts to rebuke the delusion, claiming that the deaths are irrelevant in the grand cause, and claims to have outgrown that younger self. However, the younger Oriko proclaims that Kirika has already been driven completely mad, and all the things Oriko has done to herself have hit Kirika far worse. The vision proclaims that Oriko is the reason her father died. Oriko attempts to contact Kirika, but has a vision of Kirika being mortally wounded and intervenes to rescue her. Mami recognizes Oriko from [[Kyoko]]'s description, to which Oriko responds that they will meet again and Mami will "realize how foolish [she's] been". She leaves without a fight, but Mami is nonetheless stunned as she could sense very powerful magic emanating from Oriko.

Back at Oriko's house, she attempts to nurse Kirika, who refuses medical attention. Kirika also confesses that, afraid of being rejected by Oriko when they met, she wished to change her personality. Oriko tells her that she can never forgive the deception, but as both she and Kirika are smiling, it seems that they have no regrets. She then discovers that Kirika's Soul Gem has been cracked and begins crying, blaming herself for being too weak. Kirika is shocked at this, and asks if she found the thing Kirika hid, before her Soul Gem's decreased integrity causes her to pass out. Oriko, now a fugitive from the other magical girls, wanders outside and has a chance encounter with local girl Chiharu Masumi, who asks if they should go hunting for the killer. Oriko kills her in a fit of rage, and returns home to find the thing Kirika hid, which turns out to be her father's suicide note.

Outraged by the contents of the note, she has a confrontation with Yaegashi, blaming him for her father's death. However, Yaegashi tells her the truth: Hisaomi did not kill himself because of the scandal, but because he feared the idea of his own daughter being willing to reject him the way his father did. Oriko, as it turns out, is more like her cruel and cutthroat grandfather, who was also willing to sacrifice lives in the name of achieving his ideals. In shock, she leaves him and returns home, where she begins acting out, screaming and smashing nearby objects while Kirika struggles to calm her down. She declares that her vision served not to tell her to stop the Witch, but to tell her that her life had no purpose and she should hurry up and die, and that she no longer wishes to be herself. However, Kirika responds by proclaiming that she can still help Oriko achieve her dream: since her wish was to keep changing to support Oriko, her Witch form should inherit her willingness to follow Oriko's plan. Oriko tries to reject this, unwilling to harm Kirika further, but Kirika refuses, declaring her intent to see both their wishes fulfilled. Oriko breaks down sobbing, and hugs Kirika.

Now set on a plan, Oriko and Kirika decide to spend their last night alive together, with them hiding out in Kirika's house. They play videogames (which Oriko proves incompetent at), eat snacks, and talk about their lives. Oriko reflects on the night and decides it was the happiest and freest she'd ever felt, overjoyed to simply be herself. After falling asleep, the vision of her younger self returns, and claims that Oriko has no reason to try to fulfill her father's ideals, now that it has become clear that his ideals were a lie and that Oriko has failed to help anyone. However, Oriko simply acknowledges this as true, and claims that what she had described as her father's ideals were ultimately only her own ideals, and she will do what she does to ensure her own happiness rather than someone else's. The vision fades away, unable to answer this.

The next morning, Oriko has an encounter with her uncle again, and tells him that while she feared him as a child, she has let go of her feelings. She throws her bag aside, and meets up with Kirika outside of Mitakihara Middle. She declares to Kirika that what they do next will be unforgivable, even if it ends in saving the world--something Kirika simply assents to. Alongside Kirika, Oriko hijacks the announcement system at [[Mitakihara Middle School]] and gives a speech. She cryptically warns the students about the presence of witches and how magical girls must defeat them for the greater good. The school is then enveloped by a witch's barrier, as familiars attack and devour the people inside. The public broadcast results in Koito learning the truth about Oriko.

Oriko and Kirika are confronted by [[Homura]] at the heart of the barrier world. Oriko reveals that she knows Homura from her vision, and has been trying to change the fate of Mitakihara Town ever since she received it. Her goal is to kill [[Madoka]] before she becomes a magical girl and then a witch capable of destroying the world. This was followed by Kirika's witch attacking Homura, who has been joined by [[Mami]], [[Yuma]], and [[Kyoko]] in order to protect Oriko from being potentially injured or possibly even killed. Upon learning the truth, the other three are shocked and fight much more poorly, causing Oriko to pity their inability to accept reality. She tells Homura that they are different, because Oriko wants to save many people as opposed to Homura, who is trying to protect only Madoka. She then fights Homura.

Kirika is defeated by the other three magical girls working together, driving Oriko into a rage. She only becomes more desperate when Kyubey appears, announcing that he's managed to see through Oriko's plan: using Yuma's contract and the murder of other magical girls to distract him from Madoka's potential. Oriko's Soul Gem is close to exhaustion, but she continues to attack Homura, aiming to make her use up enough magic so that she cannot defend Madoka. When Kyoko throws her spear at Kirika's body, Oriko jumps between them and is impaled, displaying her genuine care for Kirika. Homura, holding her at gunpoint, asks why Oriko was willing to do what she did - gazing at Kirika's corpse, she declares she did it to protect her world, before Homura executes her. With the last of her strength, she throws a shard of Kirika's witch body at Homura, which misses, before finally dying. However, it turns out that Homura was not her target. Instead, Oriko hit Madoka, who had been coming to help Homura in the fight. Madoka is struck in the heart and killed instantly, causing Homura to create a new timeline.

In the afterlife, Oriko and Kirika remain together, with Kirika declaring that they will share the burden of their sins as they hold hands. When Madoka appears before them, in her true goddess form, Oriko congratulates her on having managed to set the world right. She claims to be happy to have found what she believes is most special, but expresses deep regret for her actions in life, and thanks Madoka for her forgiveness.

===Oriko in ''Extra Story''===
''Extra Story'' takes place in a timeline where Oriko, rather than seeing Kriemhild Gretchen, instead saw Walpurgisnacht, and declared that she would try to protect the city from the powerful Witch.

Oriko does not feature much in ''Noisy Citrine.'' We are given a brief flashback showing how she met Kirika at the convenience store, and then nothing else until the ending, where Oriko notices Kirika reading a letter from [[Erika Mamiya]] in her garden. She teases Kirika about how the girl who wrote the letter must be very important to her, and when Kirika claims there's only one "very important person" in her life, Oriko claims her curiosity is piqued, and pushes Kirika to tell her who that person is.

In ''Symmetry Diamond'', it is revealed that Oriko wasn't always able to use her precognition to fight effectively. During her first few weeks, her precognition was active 24/7, and would severely burn through her magic reserves. She relied on Kirika to get Grief Seeds for her, not being able to provide much in battle besides advice.

During the first chapter, Oriko meets Yuma in the park at night, after Yuma was told by her mother to leave the house and never come back. The two talk about their parents, where Yuma laments always getting scolded, and Oriko laments never getting scolded. The two come to an agreement that there's no such thing as a perfect daughter. Oriko also talks about how, ever since discovering her father's corpse in the house, she's afraid of wandering about her own house at night. As Yuma leaves, Oriko's precognition flashes, and she sees Yuma's future death, wherein she goes into cardiac arrest and dies due to her mother's abuse.

The next day, Oriko is bullied by the girls in her class, including [[Komaki Asako]]. A classmate named [[Sasa Yuuki]] offers to have lunch with Oriko, and the two go to eat outside. During lunch, Oriko is worried that Kirika didn't send a text at lunchtime like she always does. After school, Oriko tries to call Kirika, but cannot get in touch her. Oriko laments not being able to foreseeing what happened to Kirika, and only receiving useless visions due to being unable to control her own precognition. She wonders then if Yuma also feels this useless, before receiving a vision of Yuma being hurt by her mother again. Deciding to wallow in self-pity later, Oriko moves to find both Yuma and Kirika, only for to Sasa to suddenly show up. She calls out to Oriko, asking her what she's doing here, but Oriko notes that she's in a hurry and runs off, with Sasa following after.

Oriko and Sasa find Yuma at the same park where Oriko met her earlier. Oriko asks Sasa to see to her, and begins to leave to try and find Kirika. Once Oriko's back is turned, Sasa sees this as an opportunity to kill her, and forms a wand in her hand. Before she can actually attack however, Kirika appears and stops her, cutting Sasa's arm. Oriko runs over in concern for Sasa, but suddenly realizes she doesn't even know who Sasa is, as Sasa was using her brainwashing magic to make Oriko believe they were friends. Oriko and Kirika fight Sasa and her captured witches and win, with Oriko using the Grief Seeds dropped by Sasa's witches to recharge her magic. Sasa tries to take Yuma hostage, but Oriko reveals the truth about witches to Sasa. In response, Sasa destroys her own Soul Gem and dies.

Afterwards, Kyubey tries to convince Yuma to make a contract, but Oriko blasts him with magic to prevent this. She comforts Yuma, and advises her to speak up to change her life. Later, Oriko is walking with Kirika, and overhears Yuma talking with her grandparents. She now lives with them instead of her mother, showing that her future has been averted.

In ''Last Agate'', on the eve of the battle with Walpurgisnacht, Oriko makes and shares a cake with Kirika. Afterward, the two stand together and prepare to fight.

===Oriko in [[Magia Record]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record]]''

===Oriko in [[Magia Exedra]]===
''See [[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra]]''

==Powers and Abilities==
Oriko's main power is precognition, allowing her to predict the future through internal visions. However, these visions cost her magic to have, and she cannot always control when she receives them, often leaving her unable to properly fight without risking her soul gem becoming overly corrupted. As such, Oriko commonly has Kirika hunt down witches and obtain Grief Seeds for her, minimizing the amount of magic she needs to use.

When Oriko does fight, she can summon multiple spheres, patterned with what appear to be vines. She can send these at her enemies to attack with blunt force at high speed, or attack at range by shooting beams of magic from them. In ''Symmetry Diamond'', Oriko sends out beams of magic from many of her spheres at once, in an attack she calls 'Oracle Ray'. In ''Sadness Prayer'', these spheres are also noted to emit magic that Oriko can track, though she can only sense their general position.

==Observations==
* ''Sadness Prayer'' implies that Oriko considers herself similar to [[wikipedia:Rodion_Raskolnikov|Rodion Raskolnikov]] of the Russian novel, ''[[wikipedia:Crime_and_Punishment|Crime and Punishment]].'' Both are well-educated, youthful, and arrogant, despite their state of poverty, both see themselves as entitled to do terrible things for the sake of the greater good, but ultimately are selfish and seek to validate themselves, both spend much of the story agonizing over their guilt, and both conclude the story suffering the consequences of their actions alongside the only person who ever truly loved them.
**This is reaffirmed in her personal memoria in [[Magia Record]].
==Etymology==
* Her first name means "weaver girl", and sounds similar to "oracle".
* Her last name Mikuni literally means "beautiful country".

==Trivia==
* Despite being the titular character, Oriko is not featured on the first volume cover of ''[[Oriko Magica]]''. She does, however, feature on the cover of ''Extra Story'' and the cover of ''Sadness Prayer''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first volume.
* Kirika and Oriko are exactly 121 days and 3 hours apart in age. Oriko is the older of the two.
* Oriko was the student council president and top member of her class in Shirome Middle School.
* Oriko's design is noted to be based on the imagery of a clergywoman and a weddding dress in [[Magia Archive Volume 2]].
* She shares her voice actress with [[Mabayu Aki]].

==Gallery==
===Anime===
<gallery>
File:Oriko MRA24.png|Magia Record episode 24 cameo
</gallery>

===Official art===
<gallery>
Oriko_2_cover_small.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] cover, volume 2
File:Oriko_Another_Story_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]]: Extra Story cover
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 1
File:Oriko_sadness_prayer_4_cover.jpg|[[Oriko Magica]] Sadness Prayer cover, volume 4
File:Orikovol2index.png|Kirika and Oriko in their school uniforms, from ''Oriko Magica''
File:Orikobonus.jpg|Extra for the first volume of ''Sadness Prayer''.
File:Orikocover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol2toroanaaltcover.jpg
File:Sadprayvol3oriko.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4compilation.jpg
File:Sadprayvol4animate.jpg
File:extra story oriko kikira.jpg|Sadness Prayer volume 4 Gamers bonus
File:Oriko SD Color Page 2.jpg|Oriko and Yuma from ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:extra story oriko.jpg|Extra Story bonus.
</gallery>
===Art by the artist===
<gallery>
File:20240718 060434.jpg| Oriko, in her Final Form (Magia Record)
File:OriKirika toyphel.jpg
File:OriKirika2 Toyphel.jpg
File:OrikoillustToyphel.jpg
File:OriKiriYuma Toyphel.jpg
File:ToyphelSasachibi.jpg
File:ToyphelKiriOricake.jpg
File:ToyphelOriKiricat.jpg
File:ToyphelEvilOriko.jpg
</gallery>

===Manga pages===
<gallery>
File:Orikospbonus01 eng.png|Sadness Prayer, volume 1 colour page
File:SDChildOriko.jpg|Colour page from Sadness Prayer's third volume
File:SPoriko2.png|Oriko's magical girl form, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikoweapons.png|Oriko's weapons
File:OrikoCasulaDress.png|Oriko in casual clothes
File:ChildOriko01.png|Oriko as a child
File:Oriko saves a corpse.png|Oriko protects Kirika's corpse
File:Pressure.jpg|Oriko's stress of having to live up to people's expectations of her
File:oriko concepts.jpeg|Oriko concept art
File:OrikoSymmetryDiamondCasual.png|Oriko as she appears in ''Symmetry Diamond''
File:Little_Oriko.jpg| Oriko as a child, as seen in ''Sadness Prayer''
File:SPoriko.jpg|Oriko in school uniform, from ''Sadness Prayer''
File:Orikocolour.jpg|Oriko in colour, from ''Sadness Prayer''
</gallery>
===Games===
====[[Madoka Magica Online]]====
<gallery>
File:PMMMO-OrikoFull.png|Oriko Mikuni
File:PMMMO-Oriko.png|Skill activation cut-in
File:Oriko Cut-In.PNG
File:PMMMO Oriko Sprite.png
File:PMMMO-Meguca 0117.png
File:2013082017565459d.jpg
File:PMMMO Oriko Card.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Hat.png
File:PMMMO Oriko Dress.png
</gallery>

====[[Magia Record]]====
=====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Record|Normal]]=====
<gallery>
File:Oriko magia record profile.png|Oriko's Magia Record profile
File:Oriko PM.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini 400100 s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Oriko doppel sprite.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>
=====[[Oriko Mikuni (Final ver.)|Final Ver.]]=====
<gallery>
File:Card_40044_l.png|Oriko (Final ver.)'s Magia Record profile
File:Oriko_PM_final.png|Character talk sprite
File:Mini_400400_s.png|In-Battle sprite
File:Doppel_400400_l.png|Doppel sprite
</gallery>

====[[Oriko Mikuni in Magia Exedra|Magia Exedra]]====
<gallery>
File:madodra oriko.png|[[Magia Exedra]] trailer
File:oriko_exedra.gif
File:Exedra Oriko Art.jpg|Oriko's character art
</gallery>

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Magical girls]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Mikuni]]

Hisaomi Mikuni

2025-04-25T03:52:00Z

MBG159:

{{Infobox_character
|name=Hisaomi Mikuni
|image=[[File:SPhisaomi.jpg|250px]]
|jname=美国久臣 Mikuni Hisaomi
|surname=Mikuni
|designer=[[Mura Kuroe]]
}}
<blockquote> ''"Thank you, Oriko. So what do you want as a reward?" --"Daddy, you can't give out bribes!" "Ha-ha-ha! Got me there!"'' - Hisaomi and Oriko Mikuni, [[Oriko_Magica#Chapter_3:_Love_is_infinitely_finite|Chapter 3]].</blockquote>

{{nihongo|'''Hisaomi Mikuni'''|美国久臣|Mikuni Hisaomi}} is a posthumous character from ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]''. He was a prominent politician in [[Mitakihara City]], and the father of [[Oriko Mikuni]].

==General Info==
{{Character Details
|origin=[[Mitakihara City]]
|relatives=[[Yurako Mikuni]] (wife), [[Oriko Mikuni]] (daughter), [[Kimihide Mikuni]] (brother), [[Sumi Mikuni]] (sister), [[Shuuichiro Mikuni]] (father)
}}

==Personality==
In Oriko's flashbacks, Hisaomi was shown to be a very hardworking man who promised to work for the greater good of everyone. His intention was to reform corrupt governmental policies and eventually bring peace to the entire world. This heavily inspired Oriko's goal and methods as a magical girl. However, his death revealed that he was a secretly unscrupulous man who had been falsifying fund records. He never faced punishment or tried to protect his daughter from the consequences.

He also liked roses, and kept a large garden of them behind his estate.

==Story==
Hisaomi Mikuni was forging a steady path to victory in Mitakihara's political climate. His position and affiliate party are not revealed, but he most likely had high aspirations as he sought to change the government outside of the city, as well. His wife apparently died some time before, and Oriko spent her childhood spreading the word about his campaign. He told Oriko that his work was vital to a peaceful future.

During Oriko's school years, it was discovered that Hisaomi had died by hanging himself. He was embezzling money from the city and committed suicide to escape prosecution, leaving his daughter behind as a scapegoat. While she felt betrayed by this, Oriko refers to him respectfully as "father in heaven" and states that she never fully stopped wanting to love or protect him.

In Sadness Prayer, it is revealed that his alleged crimes were in fact a setup orchestrated by [[Kenzaburo Yaegashi]]. Rather than being a man who sought to change the city for the better, his goals were to get back into the good graces of his family, as he had been cut off from his estate due to being viewed as too kind and weak for politics. Though Oriko's love for him remained genuine, her belief in his ideals was never more than an internal justification.

==Etymology==
Mikuni "美国" means "beautiful country". The kanji in his first name mean "long time" (''久'') and "attendant" (''臣'').

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Oriko%27s_parents.jpg|Hisaomi and [[Yurako]].
</gallery>

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters]]
[[Category:Deceased Characters by Surname|Mikuni]]