Kagari Hinata

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Kagari Hinata
Japanese Name	日向 華々莉
Age	Unknown; older than Matsuri
Weapon	Sword; chakrams

(Note: As all chapters post-volume 1 are currently only available in Japanese, most of the post-volume 1 info below comes from rough translation and interpretation of events. Thus, some of the information may be incorrect, so please do not treat anything as 100% accurate.)

Kagari Hinata (日向 華々莉, Hinata Kagari) is one of the main characters in Puella Magi Suzune Magica. She is the main antagonist and mastermind of the events of the story.

General info

• Eye colour: Red
• Hair colour: Dark purple
• Japanese pronoun: Watashi (私)
• Soul gem: Tyrian purple or red gem in the center of a butterfly on her chest.
• Wish: Currently unknown.
• Known relatives: Matsuri Hinata, her younger sister; Tsubaki Mikoto, her deceased surrogate mother; her father and her deceased mother.

Personality

Kagari is a girl with a playfully cruel nature, taking delight in teasing and tormenting her targets, to the point of sadism. She is also downright callous, showing no remorse when torturing or murdering people nor for any of the deaths she is indirectly responsible for, and shows no empathy for others. Kagari is a force to be reckoned with when she turns angry, often lashing out violently; she is also capable of holding extreme grudges, like the one she holds towards Suzune Amano for killing her caretaker, Tsubaki Mikoto, and will do anything she can to get revenge — even turning herself into a witch, if it means she can take out her targets.

In the past, Kagari is seen as more serious and easily irritated; this might come from having to take care of her sister, Matsuri Hinata, who was blind at the time. In the present, Kagari appears to have a soft spot for her, choosing to knock her unconscious and carry her to her bedroom rather than kill her like she did with Arisa; however, Kagari doesn't hesitate to try and kill Matsuri when she gets in the way of her goals.

Story

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Powers and Abilities

Kagari's magic appears to be illusionary-themed. She also has mind-manipulation powers, but no outright mind control.

With her illusion magic, she can change her appearance (as she used this to torment Suzune with an image of Tsubaki), turn invisible, and she can confuse others by using her magic to appear as someone else (as she confused Matsuri by covering Suzune with an illusion of herself).

She is also capable of altering people's memories: she used this ability to turn Suzune into a magical girl killer and erase Matsuri's memories of becoming friends with Suzune; however, the person's real memories seem to eventually come back over time, as with Matsuri just before Kagari returns, after Kyubey shows her a vision of Suzune's past, involving Tsubaki.

Kagari can also show other people visions; she used this power to show Suzune her backstory, her wish and the reason why she became a magical girl, and the start of her revenge gambit.

Kagari also appears to have some kind of super-speed power (given she was able to stab Arisa — who was using her own super-speed magic — in the back, and arrive quick enough to kill her before she killed Suzune). She also appears to be able to speed up the corruption of her soul gem somehow; she uses this ability to turn herself into a witch as a last-ditch attempt to kill Suzune and Matsuri.

She can also knock someone unconscious temporarily, an ability she once used on Matsuri.

Observations

• Kagari has a definite butterfly motif: the back of her hairstyle vaguely resembles a butterfly, the surrounding decoration of her soul gem is a butterfly, her grief seed has butterflies on it, and the symbol that appears when Suzune briefly shows the magic she absorbed to Matsuri is a butterfly.
• Present Kagari is never seen outside of her magical girl form.
  • She is never seen attending school, nor is she ever seen in a school uniform.
• Kagari's powers could be described as "plot convenient" powers. She is the one who kicked off the whole story; she was somehow able to instantly appear in the middle of Suzune's and Arisa's fight and kill the powered-up Arisa; she conjured flashback sequences explaining her backstory with her magic; and she was able to turn herself into a witch when the battle between her, Suzune and Matsuri reached a stalemate.
  • The memory-altering magic she used on Matsuri also conveniently faded away the moment Kagari arrived.
  • In a way, this makes sense if you think about it: Suzune Magica is essentially the revenge plot Kagari crafted, and as the "writer" of the plot, she'd always have some way to drive it forward.
• The book familiars of Kagari's witch (one of which ate Matsuri) have covers that resemble the design of Tsubaki's magical girl outfit.
• The outfit of the outer body of Kagari's witch resembles younger Kagari's outfit. The body also seems to be coming out of a book resembling the picture book about a witch that Tsubaki was seen reading to the twins; the body also has long, trailing strands of hair, like the picture book witch's hair.
  • The outer body also resembling a harlequin might refer to Kagari's trickster-like or insincere nature.

Speculation

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

• Kagari's butterfly motif might refer to the phenomenon known as the "butterfly effect", referring to how a small change in time leads to large consequences; Kagari in fact invokes the butterfly effect by altering Suzune's memories slightly and erasing Matsuri's of Suzune, changing their paths in life significantly and with disastrous consequences.
• It's possible that Kagari might be a sadist, or have a sadistic nature: Kagari playfully torments and sadistically teases Suzune, takes cruel delight in torturing her and attempting to kill her, laughing very madly when Suzune is supposedly about to turn into a witch, and in the flashbacks where she's planning out her revenge gambit, appears ecstatic at the thought of Suzune's despair (while wide-eyed and blushing, even).
  • Kagari seems to have even fallen in love with the idea of getting her cruel revenge on Suzune.
  • Kagari doesn't display such behaviour towards Matsuri, however, only heartless anger and rage, among attempts to kill her, and it's Matsuri defeating Kagari that makes Kagari pull out becoming a witch as a last resort. Nor does Kagari target Arisa; instead, Kagari merely kills her without blinking an eye. This indicates that Suzune is the sole target of Kagari's sadism.
  • Notably, Kagari is also wide-eyed and blushing and smiling while revealing that she tampered with Suzune's head. She also calls Suzune with the "-chan" suffix, which is a diminutive suffix that gives a cutesy or affectionate air.

Butterfly symbolism

Butterflies have many symbolic meanings in different cultures and lore.

• Butterflies are generally associated with transformation.
• Butterflies can also represent death and rebirth.
• In Japanese lore, butterflies are the personifications of souls; note that Kagari's soul gem is in the center of a butterfly's body, and over her chest as well.
  • The ancient Greek word for butterfly means "soul" or "mind".
• Two butterflies flying together represents love.
• People in Devonshire would traditionally rush to kill the first butterfly they see in a year, or else face a year of bad luck.
• In the Philippines, a lingering black butterfly or moth in the house is taken to mean that someone in the family has died or will soon die.

Trivia

• The first and third kanji for Kagari's name mean "flower"/"blossom"/"fabulous" (華) and "jasmine" (莉) respectively. The second (々) is a character indicating that the previous kanji and sound (sometimes voiced) should be repeated. This would make Kagari's name "華華莉".
  • "Kagari" could also mean a cross-stitch (縢) or a basket made of bamboo (篝); more obscurely, it could be read as "deer hunter" (鹿狩) or "god hunter" (神狩).
  • Kagari is one of only two characters with a "々" in her name, the other being Sasa Yuuki.
  • Kagari being named after a flower matches Matsuri and Tsubaki, who are also named after flowers.
• According to tweets from GAN:
  • Kagari was designed in the middle of the story.
  • Her name was taken from the "Kagaribibana", or "cyclamen".
    • In the Japanese language of flowers, the kagaribibana can represent different things depending on the colour. Red kagaribibana represent jealousy (note that Kagari's eyes and soul gem are red-coloured, and her theme colour is purple, which is made from red) and pink kagaribibana represent shyness.
    • Kagari's name also contains the character for "jasmine", which in the Japanese language of flowers represents kindness and gracefulness.
  • She is the only main character with only a katakana name in-story because GAN could not find an opportunity to put her kanji name in.
• Kagari is the only major Suzune character without a character profile.
• Kagari is never referred to in the Japanese text by an honorific, only ever by her first or full name. This does not include Matsuri calling her "onee-chan", which means "big sister" and doesn't use Kagari's name.

Gallery

Official art

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  From 「twitterまとめ」 by GAN.

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  Volume 3 cover and bonus Kagari image.

Manga pages

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  Kagari, while stabbing Arisa.

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  Kagari's sword. There isn't a very clear shot of it.

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  Kagari's chakrams.

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  Kagari's witch. Note how it resembles a harlequin coming from a book.

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  The inside of the body of Kagari's witch. The outer body seems to be a puppet of sorts, with this silhouette of Kagari being the core or true body.

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  Kagari's grief seed. Note the butterflies.

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  Kagari's first appearance. Note how her face above the nose and her twintails are not seen.

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  Kagari reveals herself to Matsuri in her second appearance.

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  Kagari murdering Arisa.

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  Kagari toying with Suzune.

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  Kagari blocking one of Matsuri's attacks.

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  Suzune holding Kagari at sword-point.

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  Suzune killing a fake Kagari...

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  ...which changes into a fake Tsubaki to torment Suzune.

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  Young Kagari.

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  Young Kagari with her hair down.

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  Kagari bowing.

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  The back of Kagari's head. Note how the shape of her hair vaguely resembles a butterfly.

External links

• Kagari Hinata at Pixiv image repository (Japanese). Note that Kagari's tag on pixiv uses her katakana first name (カガリ).
• Kagari Hinata at Danbooru image repository (NSFW)