Minor Magia Record Witches and Doppels
While the vast number of Witches created for Magia Record originated in the game, a small number of Witches were designed exclusively for the anime. Below are character pages for these Witches as posted on the official Shaft twitter account.
Маруся
ハナミチの魔女。その性質は生還。
他の地域から流れてきた魔女。人間の死体を自身に吸収することで、手下として転生させることが出来る。心優しきこの魔女は、勢力拡大ではなく蘇生手段として死体を吸収して回るが、相手が生きているかもう死んでいるのかを自分けるのがちょっと苦手。結界の中にあるランウェイの下には無数の手下がひしめき合っているが、かつてこの魔女がいた場所では、転生させる素材に困ることはなかった。
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The Witch of flower paths. Her nature is to return alive. A Witch that drifted in from a foreign region. By absorbing human corpses into herself, she can reincarnate them as her minions. This gentle-hearted Witch sets out to find and absorb corpses not to expand her sphere of influence, but simply as a means of resurrecting them. However, she’s not great at discerning whether her targets are alive or already dead. There are countless minions jostling for space beneath the runway in her Labyrinth; in this Witch’s former place of residence, she was never short on material to reincarnate. | ||||||||||
ハナミチの魔女の手下。その役割は、クランケ。
魔女のよって転生を果たした者たち。ずっと何かを訴えているが、これらの脳は死の直前と直後の記憶を繰り返しているだけなのでどうせ大したことは言っていないし、知らないままのほうがいい。
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Hanamichi Witch's Minions. Their duty is to be patients. Beings who were successfully reincarnated by the Witch. They’re constantly muttering some sort of protest to those nearby, but since their brains are simply replaying their memories from immediately before and after death on loop, they’re not saying anything very important anyway, and you’re honestly better off not knowing. | ||||||||
Slave of Anima
肉焼きの魔女。その性質は、労務。
労働のためだけに生きる犬型魔女。回し車を動力として肉を焼き続けている。何のために働いているのかはもう忘れてしまった。やがて魔女が過労死すると結界内の手下の中から適当な者を選び出し、次の魔女として回し車を回させる。
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The Witch of meat grillers. Her nature is to labor. A dog-shaped Witch who lives purely for the sake of her job. She continually grills meat by turning a wheel as a power source. She’s long since forgotten why she was working this job in the first place. When the Witch eventually dies of overwork, a suitable candidate is selected from the minions in her Labyrinth, and made to spin the wheel as the next Witch. | ||||||||||
肉焼きの魔女の手下。その役割は、下働き。魔女と共に働されている。魔女が焼いた肉の提供と皿洗いが主な仕事だが、お客がいるわけでもないので肉はこっそり捨てている。厳しい労働環境だが、肉焼きの魔女になるよりはましだと思っている。
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Minions of the Witch of meat grillers. Their role is to be subordinate workers. Their main jobs are to serve the meat grilled by the Witch and to wash the plates, but there aren’t actually any customers, so they secretly throw the meat out. It’s a harsh job environment, but in their opinion, it’s at least better than becoming the next Witch of Meat Grillers. | ||||||||
Ichizo
ヨダカの魔女。その性質は逃避。
泥の翼を持つ醜い鷹。
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The Nighthawk Witch. Her nature is to escape. An ugly hawk with wings of mud. | ||||||||||
Alina Eve
アリナ・イブ（通称）
アリナ・グレイが自身を熱病のドッペルに食わせると同時に、エンブリオイブへ感染しその体を乗っ取った姿。この状態でも、数万人程度なら一瞬で熱病のドッペルを感染させ人工魔法少女化することが可能。人工魔法少女は年齢性別を問わず魔力を行使することが出来るようになるが、従来の魔法少女同様グリーフシードで浄化しないと熱病のドッペルに体を乗っ取られ魔女化してしまう。 一見、願いという対価なしに魔法少女の運命を背負わせているようにみえるが、アリナによると「人類の繁栄がその対価」「肉体や権力に左右されない魔法という力を得られることも対価」「そもそもこれはアートなので、必ずしも対価は必要とされない」「魔力の無償配布 is GOD」ということらしい。本来、灯花とねむはエンブリオエブにワルパルギスの夜と共に自分達を回収させ、ドッペルシステムという概念を完成させるつもうだった。 |
Alina Eve (Alias) The form Alina Gray took after allowing her Doppel of Fever to devour her, while simultaneously taking over Embryo Eve's body via its infection. Even in this state, she's able to instantly spread the Doppel of Fever to about several dozen thousand people, thereby transforming them into artificial Magical Girls. Artificial Magical Girls become able to use magic regardless of age or gender, but much like the original Magical Girls, they must purify themselves with Grief Seeds to avoid being taken over by the Doppel of Fever and turning into Witches. At a glance, it may seem like they're being forced to bear the fate of Magical Girls without even a wish as collateral, but according to Alina, "humanity's prosperity itself is the collateral," "being granted magic-- a power that's completely independent of physical ability or social standing-- is also collateral," "in the first place this is Art so there doesn't even really need to be collateral," and "free-of-charge magic distribution is GOD". Originally, Touka and Nemu were intending to complete their concept of the Doppel System by making Embryo Eve absorb the two of them, in addition to Walpurgisnacht. | ||||||
Trivia
- Маруся:
- The 'hanamichi' (花道, meaning "flower path") is an extra stage section used in Japanese kabuki theater. Today, it is used in a broader sense, i.e. to refer to the stage set up across the audience in a variety of venues, such as a fashion show, music concert, or professional wrestling venue. It's also used figuratively to refer to someone's spectacular career, often referring to its conclusion.
- Mapycr's Witch name is presented with a backward R as it is a Russian and/or Ukrainian feminine name spelt as 'Маруся' (pronounced as 'Marusya'). The name is one of the derivations of the feminine name 'Maria.'
- This name likely comes from the Russian fairy tale The Fiend. In it, a young woman named Marusia meets a kind man, they fall in love with each other and she agrees to marry him. Marusia is told to learn more about the man's life and where he lives, and follows him to a church to find him eating a corpse. When he later asks if she saw him at the church, she denies having done so, to which he tells her that her father will die the next day. He repeatedly asks her if she witnessed his cannibalism, and every time she denies it he causes one of her family members dead, until he proclaims Marusia herself will die. Marusia seeks advice from her grandmother, who explains a way Marusia can come back to life, but at the cost of never being able to set foot in a church again. Upon resurrecting, she meets another kind man whom she marries, but who is bothered that she does not attend church. When he forces her to enter one, the first man discovers she is still alive and kills her new husband and son. Finally, with the help of her grandmother, she uses holy water and the "water of life" to resurrect them and kill the fiend (the first man).
- The Witch's head is in the center of a retractable lotus root. Her Witch's Kiss also resembles this, and a lotus flower is featured on the top of her Grief Seed.
- 'Kranke' is the German word for a sick/ill person, specifically women. In Japan, due to historical reasons, it is still customary to use some German terms (instead of English) in the medical field, including kranke.
- The Witch and her Familiars look very similar to each other, having identical legs and similar cloth-wrapped upper bodies and heads. Additionally, other Familiars, instances of the Witch, or mere decoration that look identical to the Witch proper hang from the trees in her Labyrinth.
- Slave of Anima:
- The word 'Anima' is originally a Latin word with multiple meanings, such as life, mind, spirit, wind, and the vital principle. The word is the etymological origin of several well-known words, e.g. 'animal' and 'animation.'
- 'Ichizo' is derived from Kenji Miyazawa's novel The Nighthawk Star. See also Speculah:Kenji Miyazawa and Magia Record.
- On the Shaft Twitter image, the fusion of Alina with Embryonic Eve is nicknamed "Alina Eve". However, in the anime the fused Witch appeared with the Runic name "Neo Dorothy Motherfucker".
- This is likely a play on Alina's Witch's name "Old Dorothy" and her habit of cursing in English.
Gallery
Маруся
Slave of anima
Ichizo
Ichizo (Source)
Alina Eve
Alina Eve (Source)
Unnamed Doppels
Shown below are various unnamed Doppels as they appeared in Episode 23. Some of these are erroneously reused designs from the ones Mitama Yakumo already had contained in her isolation jars in the Doppel Syndrome quarantine ward.
