Pleiades Saints
The Pleiades Saints is a team of Puellae Magi featured in Puella Magi Kazumi Magica: The Innocent Malice. Together, they fight witches in Asunaro city.
Their name is taken from the Pleiades star cluster, whose stars are named after the Pleiades of Greek mythology (a.k.a the Seven Sisters).
Members
The Pleiades Saints' current roster is composed of:
- Kazumi (かずみ)
She is the team's sharpshooter, maintaining some distance from the opponent and firing powerful magic beams when the opportunity arises.
- Kaoru (カオル)
She fights by dealing powerful kicks and ball strikes, stunning, distracting and wearing down the opponent.
- Umika Misaki (御崎 海香)
In battle, she uses her magical book to read the opponent's mind in order to figure out it's weakness and to improve the team's chances of success.
- Saki Asami (浅海 サキ)
In battle, she wields an electric rod, and can summon lightning at will from it. When transformed, her glasses become a single monocle.
- Mirai Wakaba (若葉 みらい)
Her individual abilities in battle are so far unknown.
- Satomi Usagi (宇佐木 里美)
Her individual abilities in battle are so far unknown. When transformed, her suit gives her a feline appearance, complete with cat ears, paws, and even a long tail. She also wields a cat shaped staff.
- Nico Kanna (神流 ニコ)
smartphone with an app that can read a witch's residual power wavelength and calibrate the girl's Soul Gems to track it more accurately. She is also able to quickly analyze situations, and notice subtle details the others don't. She is constantly seen with the same uninterested look on her face, which barely changes even when pierced with an arrow.
While transformed, she dons an aviator suit, complete with goggles, a harness and a parachute backpack. In accordance with her tech expertise, she is able to summon CD-like disks, which are likely throwable weapons with cutting properties.
History
Though Kazumi, Kaoru and Umika were present since the start, the Pleiades were only introduced in chapter 3. After a witch traps Kaoru and Umika inside of itself and takes off, four mysterious girl come to Kazumi's help. They introduce themselves as the Pleiades Saints, a seven-girl witch-hunting team of which Kazumi and her abducted friends are also a part of. Together, they search for Kaoru and Umika across town. While they search, the mysterious girl from previous chapters, Yuuri, attacks Kazumi, having disguised herself as Satomi to separate her from the rest of the team. Overwhelmed, Kazumi is on the verge of defeat, but her four companions intervene. Kazumi is then held at gunpoint, causing them to hesitate, but she screams out to them to attack anyway. They do so, and fire a joint attack at the mysterious girl: Fili Del Toano. It causes a large explosion, but the magical girl gets away. Kazumi is only lightly wounded.
They reunite at Umika's house for a strategy meeting. While analyzing the situation, Saki, their presumed leader, makes a breakthrough. She discovers the symbol the witch left across town was also on the back of a book, leading her to conclude the witch has possessed a bookmobile. After filling up on Kazumi's delicious food, they head out to the last stop on the bookmobile schedule to intercept it. They successfully do so, and, leaving Kazumi on the outside to strike at command, rescue Kaoru and Umika just in time. Together, the six of them bind the witch with Episodio Incrocio. However, Nico's GPS/com unit breaks, leaving them unable to give Kazumi the needed signal. Umika, thinking quickly, commands them to use candy flutes given to them by Kazumi. The sound reaches her, and the witch is destroyed by Limiti Esterni.
While they reunite and celebrate their victory, they are approached by Jubey, the "fairy" (妖精) that turned them into Puellae Magi. He cleans up their Soul Gems, and gladly accepts the last witch's Grief Seed, but refuses a couple of weird looking seeds, obtained from the pseudo-witches of Chapters 1 and 2, saying they were not real. Umika theorized they imitated the Grief Seed's power and were created by the mysterious girl from before, but before they could draw further conclusions, they are attacked by that very girl, Yuuri. She kidnaps Kazumi, and orders them to go to the Asunaro Dome at midnight if they want Kazumi back. While waiting for the deadline, they speculate on Yuuri's motivations. At the right time, they head to the dome, but due to a force barrier they can do nothing but watch as Yuuri enacts her plane. Yuuri states her objective is to seek revenge on them. She interprets the Pleiades' failure to recognize her as having been "just that insignificant" to the girls. She then removes her hat, causing a shocked Umika to recognize her, and proceeds to shove an Evil Nut, one of the awkward Grief Seeds from before, into Kazumi's forehead, while the Pleiades scream in horror.
Teamwork
Given that none of the Saints appear to be overwhelmingly powerful, their strength comes from a number of joint tactics and attacks they have developed to make their numeric advantage as effective as possible.
Their main strategy appear to be to take advantage of Kazumi's powerful magic beams. The six remaining girls engage the enemy, wearing it down and immobilizing it by casting a joint sealing spell, Episodio Incrocio (English: Crossover Episode). This makes it a sitting duck for Kazumi to finish off.
That is not their only joint attack. For situations that require a quick strike, Fili Del Toano is an option. It is a powerful attack that creates a large explosion on the target, aimed by laser beams fired from the girl's staffs.
Outside of battle, they coordinate their search patterns to improve their chances of finding a witch. Along with Nico's app, this allows them to cover a wide area in just a few hours.
Trivia
- "Pleiades Saints" is a pun: "Pleiades Saints" and the Pleiades Star Cluster are pronounced the same way in Japanese and, when written, differ by only one character. Being named after a star cluster also produces another Astronomy reference.
- They seem to have all contracted with Jubey, who cleans their Soul Gems.
- Satomi's surname is meaningful, given her love for animals. Usagi means rabbit.
- Twin cat-like fangs can be seen when Satomi fully opens her mouth. Together with her cat-like appearance when transformed, and her "Meow" shouts in battle, she can be seen as the (mandatory) cat girl in the Madoka universe.
Speculation
This section may contain major spoilers for the anime!
Please refrain from reading if you haven't watched Episode 8 yet.- Given Nico's use of high tech and the ability to summon CD-like disks, it is peculated she made a wish concerning technology, for example to become a great programmer.
- Yuuri, the mysterious girl who attacks them multiple times, holds a grudge against them from their shared past, though the girls appear to have no recollection of it until Umika recognizes her face. This past is apparently a very troubled one, and Yuuri believed she was being thought of as "insignificant". Note that Yuuri indicated that her name and the mysterious ghastly letter she sent was somehow related to her identity.
- The arrow that Yuuri used could also be a clue.
- Despite being named after the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology, Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone are only part of the nine brightest stars in the cluster. The other two stars are named after their parents, Atlas and Pleione. Given that the current roster of the Saints is composed of seven members, it is speculated that two of them are missing. Since Nico states they are named after the seven sisters, it leaves those two members as the "parents", or the most important (or senior) members of the team.
It is likely those two are Yuuri, who has a past connection to the group, and the mysterious girl in Yuuri's flashbacks, who seemed to be a friend of hers.- In Greek Mythology the Pleiades were companions to the goddess Artemis and they trained under her.
- In the anime, magical girls worked alone or in small groups because the Grief Seeds they needed to clean their Soul Gems were a limited resource. Magical girls could easily clash over territory and were just as likely to compete than cooperate. When the Pleiades Saints were revealed to be a seven-member magical girl team, a number of readers wondered how that could be possible in this context. It was considered unlikely that there were enough witches in Asunaro City to support seven magical girls. Chapter 4 explained that Jubey, the fairy they contracted with, can clean their Soul Gems, meaning they don't need to compete for Grief Seeds.
- What was left unexplained was why this was done. Kyubey has never demonstrated the ability to clean Soul Gems in the anime. In fact, he actively sought to have the girls corrupt their Soul Gems and turn into witches. One probable explanation is that from what we've seen, the Pleiades had fairly minor wishes and were therefore weaker magical girls. Being weak magical girls, they wouldn't become powerful witches, and thus they wouldn't produce a lot of energy when they transformed. It is then more efficient for Jubey to let them hunt Grief Seeds for him than to try and convert them into witches.
In purely mathematical terms, a team of weak Puellae Magi capturing a more powerful witch than themselves, using team tactics to level the field, is extremely efficient when it comes to energy output.
- What was left unexplained was why this was done. Kyubey has never demonstrated the ability to clean Soul Gems in the anime. In fact, he actively sought to have the girls corrupt their Soul Gems and turn into witches. One probable explanation is that from what we've seen, the Pleiades had fairly minor wishes and were therefore weaker magical girls. Being weak magical girls, they wouldn't become powerful witches, and thus they wouldn't produce a lot of energy when they transformed. It is then more efficient for Jubey to let them hunt Grief Seeds for him than to try and convert them into witches.
- It is heavily implied that all of the Saints except Kazumi know that magical girls become witches. They seem to have accepted this fact, though it still bothers them - note Umika and Kaoru's expressions in Chapter 2 when Umika mentions that anyone can become a witch. Also note Nico and Saki's expressions when they take the witch's Grief Seed in Chapter 3, and the way Saki, Kaoru and Satomi react when Nico says Yuuri is at her limit in Chapter 4. It is very likely that they are hiding this from Kazumi.
- Going by the above theory that the Pleiades Saints used to have more members, it's possible that one of their previous members became a witch, which is how they learned that magical girls become witches. This may have also been the event that created Yuuri's desire for revenge on the Pleiades.
- While it is speculated that the Pleiades are hiding something from Kazumi, likely the true nature of witches, it is possible that Saki is hiding other facts. She has, in several occasions, said mysterious sentences about her past, and cut conversations short. In particular, a statement by Yuuri pertaining to Kazumi's relation with Saki caused an irate "shut up!" from her.
Gallery
Satomi demonstrating her ability. Good evenyan!
Kazumi's cooking is in high demand within the Pleiades.
One of Kazumi's flashbacks features the Pleiades. Notice how the girl in the witch hat resembles Yuuri: she wears stripped stockings and her witch hat isn't curved.
Nico explaining how her tracking app works.
The Pleiades, sans Kazumi, playing candy flutes. For some reason, this is also an "attack", named Mezzanote Charmante.
An "imitation" Grief Seed, a.k.a Evil Nut. Do not feed them your Incubator. Especially after midnight.
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