Arisa Narumi
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Please refrain from reading if you are not yet familiar with all the latest media released.| Arisa Narumi | |
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| Japanese Name | 成見 亜里紗 |
"I'm gonna crush you!"
— Arisa, chapter 3.
Arisa Narumi (成見 亜里紗 Narumi Arisa) is one of the main characters in Puella Magi Suzune Magica. She is the main protagonist for the first two thirds of the story.
General info
Physical features
- Age: 14-15 (estimated)
- Height: 156.2 cm
- Weight: 45.8 kg
- Eye colour: Pink
- Hair colour: Pink
- Blood type: B
Other
- Soul gem: Pink heart worn on the back of her magical girl costume.
- Weapon: Scythe
- Wish: "I want to become stronger! Strong enough to stand up to everyone!"
- Japanese pronoun: Atashi (あたし); watashi (私) pre-wish
- Known relatives: A mother.
- School: Akanegasaki Middle School. She is a second-year student.
Personality
Arisa is confident yet hotheaded, and tends to be rather brash. In the past, she used to be more self-deprecating and timid, wearing a more demure hairstyle to suit, but become more hot-headed, carefree, and outwardly self-confident some time after making her wish. As well as this, Arisa became a rule-breaker, often truanting, and even beating up other students. However, while Arisa kept up a confident facade, she was depressed because she was lonely; that is, until she met Chisato and eventually became one of the Hoozuki magical girls, where she grew out of her loneliness thanks to her new friendships.
Despite her haughty attitude, Arisa can be kind and caring at times, although she sometimes displays reluctance at this. She also appears to be rather laid-back and lazy, though she loves fights; she is also rather carefree at times.
Despite their clashing personalities, she is very close to Chisato, likely due to being Arisa's first friend. Arisa becomes very distraught after Chisato's death, becoming angrier and more hot-headed, as well as more sorrowful in private, and regressing back to her previous rule-breaking and beating up of other students; she also grows an extreme hatred towards Suzune for killing Chisato and attempts to kill her in revenge via a duel to the death.
Story
Backstory
Not much is known of Arisa's home-life.
She used to be a victim of bullying, being bullied by a trio of girls led by Mika Nishinaka. The girls did things like stuffing trash in and writing graffiti on Arisa's desk, stealing her money, and beating her up. Arisa appeared to not to have help from anyone, with people apparently avoiding her and outright saying they were glad that she was being targeted instead of them, despite pitying her and showing sympathy. When approached by Kyubey, Arisa asked for the strength to stand up to the bullies, and thus confronted and drove them off when she crushed Mika's hand in her own. Arisa then proceeded to put them in the hospital as revenge; it can be assumed that they left her alone after that.
However, Arisa became more troublesome along with her new confidence. She became a truant, often skipping school to play games in the arcade, disobeyed the rules often and did things such as ate and drank in class, and became a bully of others herself. While Arisa kept up a confident facade, she was depressed because she was still lonely; she had thought becoming strong would change that, but nothing changed.
Because of this, after confronting and being beaten by Chisato in a fight during their first meeting, Arisa asked Chisato to kill her. However, Chisato told her that Arisa's loneliness was not because of her strength, but because of her personality, and offered Arisa to join the group. Arisa refused at first, claiming she "wasn't good with people", but eventually caved and joined the Hoozuki magical girls. Thus Arisa shed her loneliness due to her new friendships, and some of her more rebellious traits due to Chisato. She holds Chisato in high regard because of their meeting.
Suzune Magica
While on her way to school with Matsuri and Chisato, Arisa complains about how school is extremely boring. She'd much rather be outside doing something active than sit inside and be forced to study.
Abilities
Arisa has superhuman strength and speed as a result of her wish. She seems mostly in control of her abilities, but sometimes loses control when she becomes emotional; for example, crushing Kyubey's head in her fist out of anger. Chisato comments in her backstory that Arisa is bad at managing her strength and speed, but how bad and how that compares to her in the present is unknown, as the fight is not shown. Suzune describes Arisa's magic as "boost magic".
She has the ability to power up her strength and speed temporarily, either as moderate boosts or maximum power boosts, at the cost of burning through a lot of her magic.
She also appears to have a teleportation power, as used once in a battle with Suzune. However, it should be noted that this only happens after Arisa has maxed out her strength and speed, and is never used before then, so it could be simply her moving so fast that it looks like she is teleporting.
Observations
- Arisa shares several traits with Kyoko: a hot-headed, abrasive attitude; laziness and disregard for school rules; Arisa even wears a hoodie at one point.
- Arisa shares several similarities with Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion: the hairstyle and hair color (though Asuka has red instead of pink), hot-headed and abrasive personality, a background involving neglect from some source leading into a desire to become "strong" and/or not lonely, and a relationship of some sort with a blue-haired girl with a contrasting personality.
- Arisa appears to like striped stockings, as her magical girl outfit has them, and she is seen wearing a pair with her casual clothes in volume 2.
- The bottom of the "shirt" of her magical girl outfit resembles a harlequin's. Since Arisa's magical girl outfit appears to be a mishmash of things, however, this point likely has no deeper meaning.
- In a flashback where she asks Chisato what her wish was, Arisa appears to be nervous, stuttering a bit.
Trivia
- The kanji for Arisa's last name, 成見, mean "forming/changing" and "look/see/sight" respectively. This might refer to how her perspective on life and others changes over the story.
- "Arisa" could alternatively be read as "Alisa".
- "Alisa" means "great happiness/joy". Ironic, given that Arisa is rarely seen being happy during the events of the story.
- According to tweets by GAN:
- Though the covers of the manga show that Arisa has pink eyes, art by GAN has shown her being drawn with blue eyes.
Gallery
Official art
Volume 2 bonus image of Arisa giving a present.
From 「twitterまとめ」 by GAN. Note that Arisa has blue eyes here, even though the manga covers give her pink eyes.
A fanmade edit of GAN's art of Arisa that fixes the incorrect eye colouring. Source
Comic featuring Arisa being harassed by a couple of men. From GAN's twitter.
Part two of the comic. From GAN's twitter.
Art of Arisa and Chisato, from GAN's twitter.
From GAN's twitter. Note that, again, she has been given blue eyes instead of pink eyes.
Fanmade edit of this art that corrects Arisa's incorrect eye colouring.
Art of Arisa in a swimsuit from GAN's twitter.
Art of Arisa in a summer outfit GAN's twitter.
Manga pages
Arisa's character profile.
Arisa in her magical girl form.
Arisa in her school uniform.
Arisa's casual clothes.
Casual clothes from the side, with the hoodie off.
Arisa challenging Suzune.
The back of the "shirt" of Arisa's magical girl outfit. Her soul gem can be seen here.
Past Arisa. Note her hairstyle.
Arisa wowed by her new power.
Arisa's new look.
Arisa in bed after Chisato's death.
Arisa's outfit at Chisato's funeral.
Arisa accuses the others of cowardice.
Arisa attacks Suzune after she kills Chisato.
Arisa charges.
Arisa breaks down, regretting becoming a magical girl.
Arisa boosts the power of her magic.
Arisa powering up to maximum.
Arisa's death: murdered by Kagari.
Coloured picture of Arisa.
