Oriko Mikuni

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"It is human emotion that created the gods... and created the demons. It created everything." - Oriko Mikuni, chapter 1 of Oriko Magica.

Oriko Mikuni
Japanese Name	美国 織莉子 (Mikuni Oriko)
Voiced by	Japanese (Magia Record): Saori Hayami

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 later having her first animated and voice acted appearance.

Physical features

• Age: 15
• Height: 170cm
• Eye colour: Green or icy-blue
• Hair colour: Ash-blonde
• Origins: Mitakihara City

Other

• Soul gem: Silver-coloured circular gem (broach on her chest)
• Weapon: Crystal Ball (Vine-patterned metal spheres)
• Wish: "I wish for a reason for me to live."
• Ability: Precognition
• Witch Form: Sotria
• Japanese pronoun: watashi (わたし)
• Known relatives: Hisaomi Mikuni (father), Yurako Mikuni (mother), Kimihide Mikuni (uncle), Sumi Mikuni (aunt)
• School: Shirome Middle School

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 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 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 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

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 metal 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

• A number of fans have noted similarities between Oriko and Touhou Project characters Maribel Han and Yukari Yakumo.
• Sadness Prayer implies that Oriko considers herself similar to Rodion Raskolnikov of the Russian novel, 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.

Etymology

• Her first name means "weaver girl", and sounds similar to "oracle".
• Her last name Mikuni literally means "beautiful country". It can also refer to 未来に (miku ni), meaning "to the future".

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'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.

Gallery

Official art

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  Oriko Magica cover, volume 2

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  Oriko Magica: Extra Story cover

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  Oriko Magica Sadness Prayer cover, volume 1

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  Oriko Magica Sadness Prayer cover, volume 4

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  Kirika and Oriko in their school uniforms, from Oriko Magica

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  Oriko and Yuma from Symmetry Diamond

Manga pages

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  Oriko's magical girl form, from Sadness Prayer

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  Oriko's weapons

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  Oriko in casual clothes

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  Oriko as a child

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  Oriko protects Kirika's corpse

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  Oriko's stress of having to live up to people's expectations of her

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  Oriko as she appears in Symmetry Diamond

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  Oriko as a child, as seen in Sadness Prayer

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  Oriko in school uniform, from Sadness Prayer

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  Oriko in colour, from Sadness Prayer

Madoka Magica Online

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  Oriko's closeup from Madoka Magica Online

External links

• Oriko Mikuni at Pixiv image repository (Japanese)
• Oriko Mikuni at Danbooru image repository (NSFW)