Sasa Yuuki

Sasa Yuuki
Japanese Name	優木沙々; (Yuuki Sasa)

"...I'll just have to show those rookies how strong I am. Isn't it only natural for the strong to take what they want?" - Sasa, chapter 1 of Symmetry Diamond.

Sasa Yuuki (優木沙々, Yūki Sasa) is a supporting antagonist character appearing in Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Extra Story and Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer. She is a magical girl from Kazamino City seeking to claim new territory in Mitakihara City.

General info

Physical features

Age: 15 (estimated)
Eye colour: Blue
Hair colour: Brown

Other

Soul gem: Small circular blue-grey gem on the end of the middle part of her harlequin hat. It's smaller than the other two spheres on her hat.
Weapon: Curved scythe-style staff with 5 jutting points
Wish: "For people who are better than I am to follow my every command."
Japanese pronoun: Watashi (私)
School: Unknown. She appears to be in middle school.

Personality

Sasa is a girl who at first appears cheerful and dependable, but her cheerful side masks an incredibly vicious, haughty, and possibly even vengeful side of her. She has a tendency to laugh madly at times, and generally does not act very serious. Sasa is also extremely manipulative, being able to flawlessly fool Oriko Mikuni. Sasa is also not above resorting to tricks such as begging or feigning surrender/cowardice in order to get herself out of difficult situations.

While acting as a fellow friend and classmate to Oriko in Symmetry Diamond, Sasa takes on the personality of a cheerful, chatty, yet reliable girl. She is seen putting down Komaki and her friends for teasing Oriko, and telling Oriko that she should talk to Sasa if she has any problems, claiming that she's on Oriko's side and that she thinks of Oriko as a big sister.

Despite enthusiastically controlling witches, Sasa turns out to be horrified at the fact that magical girls themselves become witches; learning this very fact in Extra Story makes her crush her soul gem while screaming how she doesn't want to become a witch herself, immediately killing herself.

In Sadness Prayer, it is revealed that Sasa is a girl who has killed many. Rina states that the number of witch victims skyrocketed due to Sasa seeking out victims to feed the witches under her control. Sasa also casually asks Kirika if she likes to brag about how many people she has killed, suggesting that Sasa feels no remorse or empathy.

Story

Backstory

Sasa's backstory is currently unknown. All that is known is that she hated people better than her, and thus made her wish because of that; is it unknown if she had any ulterior motivations or if there was any major factors behind her feelings.

Sasa in Extra Story

Sasa appears only in Symmetry Diamond.

Sasa arrives in Mitakihara City to claim its territory. She confronts and knocks out Kirika using a witch (she presumably believes Kirika is dead), and then mind-controls Oriko. Oriko subsequently believes Sasa is a fellow friend and classmate she can depend on. After finding Yuma, Oriko leaves Sasa to take care of her so she can go look for Kirika; Sasa then moves into the next phase of her plan and attempts to kill Oriko, but is interrupted by Kirika which breaks the magic she used on Oriko. Sasa, now angry, attacks the duo using witches.

After the controlled witches are defeated and Sasa's plan is thwarted, Oriko reveals to Sasa the fate of magical girls, that they eventually turn into witches. Sasa, horrified, screams how she doesn't want to become a witch and smashes her soul gem, dying.

Sasa in Sadness Prayer

Sasa makes a reappearance in Sadness Prayer following Komaki's death. It is revealed in Sadness Prayer that Sasa hails from Kazamino.

Sasa is seen having her witches defeated and being cornered by a group of magical girls led by Lina. Sasa gets away with a false soul gem and yelling for help.

She is later seen fighting with a witch against Mio, who is trying to kill her for currently unknown reasons; however, Kirika interrupts the fight by killing Mio in a surprise attack. Sasa is then confronted by both Oriko and Kirika, who recruit her in their mission to protect their world.

Later, Homura kills Sasa with a bomb while saving Madoka from her.

Powers and Abilities

Sasa's weapon is a scythe or key-like staff. She appears to be able to fire beams from it, as attempted in chapter 2 of Symmetry Diamond.

She has the ability of mind control, mind-controlling Oriko in Symmetry Diamond as part of a ploy to kill her. The limits of this ability are unknown. Sasa can also mind-control witches, likely because they're born from humans.

Kirika says in chapter 2 of Symmetry Diamond that "[Sasa] isn't much on her own" and that "[Kirika] could take her down [herself]"; this implies that Sasa is weak and easily defeated without the aid of her witches. This is backed up by the fact that Sasa is almost never seen not accompanied by a witch of some sort.

Observations

Sasa's magical girl outfit taking the form of a harlequin might refer to her manipulative/deceiving nature.
- It also may refer to how clowns use masks, and Sasa wears the mask of a kind person to deceive others.
It's suggested that Sasa did not realize that soul gems were actually souls and thought that crushing her soul gem would stop her from becoming a witch, which makes her death accidental.

Etymology

In Japanese, her surname "Yuuki" (優木) contains the characters for "gentle" (優) and "tree" (木).
- "Yuuki" could be read as "勇気", meaning courage.
- "優" can also be read as: "actor" and "superiority". The three different definitions may refer to how Sasa acts kind, but is really a vicious girl who wants to become superior to others.
The first character of her given name, "Sasa", (沙) means "sand". The second (々) is a character indicating that the previous kanji must be repeated. This would make Sasa's name "沙沙".
- "Sasa" could be read as "笹", meaning bamboo grass.
- Sasa is one of only two characters with a "々" in her name, the other being Kagari Hinata.

Gallery

Manga pages

Colored image of Sasa in her magical girl costume.
Sasa on one of the colour pages of Sadness Prayer.
Sasa's first appearance in her casual clothes.
Sasa in her casual clothes.
Sasa's casual clothes in Sadness Prayer.
Another outfit from Sadness Prayer. This one seems to be the same, but with different coloured sleeves.
Sasa in the Shirome Middle School uniform.
Sasa in a different school uniform.
Sasa's death in Symmetry Diamond.
Sasa's death in Sadness Prayer.