Suzune Amano

Suzune Amano
Japanese Name	天乃鈴音

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"Would you... tell me your name?"
— Suzune, chapter 2.

Suzune Amano (天乃鈴音, Amano Suzune) is the villainous protagonist and title character of Puella Magi Suzune Magica. She is a magical girl who hunts down and kills other magical girls.

General info

Physical features

Age: 13
Height: 152.6 cm
Weight: 42.0 kg
Eye colour: Red
Hair colour: Light silver, with a purple sheen
Blood type: O
Origins: Hohzuki City

Other

Soul Gem: Red diamond-shaped gem (necklace)
Weapon: Great Sword
Wish: "I want to become a magical girl like Tsubaki."
Ability: Can take on the magical abilities of any witch she defeats, but can only hold one power at a time (currently flame manipulation)
Witch Form: Clothette
Japanese pronoun: watashi (私)
Known relatives: Had a mother and a father, now deceased. Had Tsubaki Mikoto as a surrogate mother, also now deceased.
School: Akanegasaki Middle School, 7th grade

Personality

A girl who is a smiling, hard-working student at day, and a stoic magical girl hunter at night. She refuses to state her reasons for killing. Whenever she meets a magical girl, she asks for their name prior to killing them, and later puts writes their name on a paper and puts it in her pouch, a habit she picked up from Tsubaki.

She has a cold and callous nature and shows little remorse for killing others. Suzune is usually rather polite and respectful, even when about to kill somebody. Despite her statements that she's "doing the right thing", however, Suzune is still uncertain if she is or not.

Story

Backstory

Not much is known of her past home-life.

Suzune's parents were killed by a witch, which was defeated by magical girl Tsubaki Mikoto, who adopted Suzune to look after her. Tsubaki treated Suzune like her own daughter, and mentored her when she became a magical girl as well, leading to Suzune becoming Tsubaki's apprentice and the two defeating witches. However, Tsubaki was constantly putting Suzune's health before her own and giving all the grief seeds to Suzune first, leading to her becoming a witch when the cumulative corruption became too much for her to handle. This left Suzune distraught and she became cold, distant and solitary as a result of Tsubaki's death. After defeating Tsubaki's witch, Suzune then inherited Tsubaki's bell-and-pouch pendant and, after learning the truths of the magical girl system from Kyubey, began hunting down magical girls to prevent the births of more witches, which lead to her becoming known as a magical girl murderer.

About a month before the events of Suzune Magica, Suzune left her hometown and moved to Hohzuki City, transferring to Akanegasaki Middle School and becoming a newspaper deliverer at Yunagi Newspaper, where she presently lives at.

During Suzune Magica

One night during the start of the story, Suzune defeats a witch in an abandoned factory and meets the magical girl Kanami, who had been fighting the same witch. Kanami approaches Suzune, admired by Suzune's skilled fighting and fire magic, and the two introduce themselves. After their introductions, however, Suzune kills Kanami in a surprise attack. Suzune later reads of the discovery of Kanami's corpse in a newspaper.

Later, during the night where the Hohzuki girls are on patrol investigating rumors of a "Ripper girl" killing teenage girls, Suzune finds Chisato and asks for her name. After Chisato refuses to answer her question, Suzune stabs her through the soul gem, killing her. Arisa investigates Chisato's disappearance and comes across her stabbed by Suzune. Arisa attempts to fight Suzune as revenge, but is easily overpowered. Suzune comes close to killing her, but is interrupted by Haruka and Matsuri, who rescue Arisa and make a retreat.

Suzune continues to go to school afterwards. Haruka confronts Suzune during this time, interrogating her for the reasons why she kills. Suzune refuses to answer, brushing Haruka off and saying that "she's doing the right thing". Suzune then asks if Haruka has "ever hated someone so much that [she] wanted to kill them", and states that Haruka isn't qualified to face her if she can't answer that question.

Suzune later goes home and finds Matsuri visiting her to pass along the homework that she missed. Suzune questions why Matsuri is still kind to her after killing Chisato; Matsuri then responds that she doesn't think Suzune enjoys killing people. Suzune tells Matsuri to go home, which Matsuri does, but not before saying that if Suzune tries to kill someone again, she will stop her with all her might. Suzune is then seen putting a paper with Chisato's name on it into her pouch, before taking it off and asking out loud to Tsubaki that "she's not wrong, right?"

Suzune is later seen following Haruka after she walks out of class. Suzune follows her into an alley, but is interrupted by Arisa and Matsuri. They fight briefly before Suzune teleports away to where Haruka slumps after defeating the witch that was tormenting her; Suzune prepares to kill Haruka, but is interrupted again by Arisa and Matsuri. Arisa speaks to Haruka, trying to apologize, but Haruka rejects her apology and becomes a witch right in front of everyone. Suzune then defeats Haruka's witch while Arisa and Matsuri watch.

Suzune explains the magical girl system to Arisa and Matsuri after the battle and leaves just before Kyubey shows her past to Arisa and Matsuri in a vision. Later that night, after having a nightmare concerning Tsubaki, Suzune patrols the alleys for magical girls. Arisa confronts her in the alley and a fight ensues. Despite Suzune having the upperhand, Arisa continues to fight until she unleashes her boost magic to its full potential despite the damage it causes to her body. Unable to keep up with her new levels of speed and strength, Suzune is defeated and would have been killed had Kagari not killed Arisa first. Kagari laughs and snaps her fingers, showing Suzune her own past in a vision. After the truth of Kagari's memory-manipulation magic is revealed, Suzune yells at her to stop until she's in tears. Suzune then attacks Kagari and a fight ensues. During the fight, Kagari messes with Suzune's mind, causing her to see Tsubaki being slashed rather than herself. Just as Kagari is about to kill Suzune, Matsuri appears and deflects the attack. The girls attack at Kagari but are unable to land any blows thanks to Kagari's manipulative magic. Kyubey appears and guides Matsuri into using her ability to track Kagari's true position and directs Suzune where to attack. Angered, Kagari turns her attacks on Matsuri but is blasted away by her energy beam. Together they are able to defeat Kagari, but not before Kagari manipulates her own memories and causes herself to become a witch instantly.

Kagari's witch form attacks, Suzune attempting to block the familiars but there are too many and some make it past her. They consume the crying Matsuri and Suzune is devastated. She attacks the familiars once more using Tsubaki's fire magic and slices the witch in half. The witch regenerates and Suzune realizes her true form is the book the witch stands on. She leaps to attack the book but is consumed by the witch as well. Inside, Suzune meets the witch's true form and destroys it with her remaining power. With both Matsuri and Suzune at their limits, and only one grief seed left, Suzune uses it to save Matsuri and goes off on her own. Matsuri awakens in her home and chases after Suzune. Suzune says to forget about her and threatens to use Kagari's magic to erase her memories of her, but Matsuri cries out she never wants to forget her friends or her. At her limit, Suzune thanks Matsuri for being her friend and crushes her own soul gem.

Suzune in Magia Record

See Suzune Amano in Magia Record

Powers

Suzune's weapon is a large two-handed sword that has the ability to use the magic of others, that Suzune has outrightly absorbed depending on what setting - as indicated by the dots on the sword - is used, she may also summon a small knife in combat which may suggest she has the ability to summon other types of blades, although this has never actually be outright stated.

One of Suzune's powers is to absorb the powers of witches through her sword after she kills them, which could range from any type of magic. This absorption power comes from how Suzune made a wish to "become a magical girl like Tsubaki"; Suzune also seems to be able to choose if she wants to absorb the powers or not. If she absorbs powers, then the new powers will overwrite the ones she already has.

Suzune has maintained fire-elemental magic, which she absorbed from Tsubaki's witch. Out of her fire-elemental powers, Suzune is seen using spells named "flame dance (舞炎, Maien)", a rain of many sword-shaped flames; "cherry flame (桜火, Sakuraka)", a torrent of powerful flames; and "heat shimmer (陽炎, Kagerō)", a teleporting spell. Kyubey mentions that Suzune has the ability to hide her presence. Suzune can also create fakes of herself to fool opponents (which dissolve into flames when destroyed), and heal herself quickly.

Suzune absorbs Kagari's memory-altering magic during the final chapter, but never uses it although she was going to use it on Matsuri to forget about her, but she refrains from doing so after.

Observations

Her magical girl outfit heavily resembles the outfit that Black Rock Shooter wears. It is unknown if BRS's outfit was an inspiration for Suzune's outfit.
Suzune appears to have a mole or birthmark under her left eye near the side of her head.
Suzune, in the present, is only ever seen smiling when she is around other people.
Suzune uses Tsubaki's charm to change her sword's appearance in the final chapter. After this change, the sword has a more curved look with a orange pommel instead of a light blue one, purple lines now run through the sword.

Etymology

"天" means "heaven(s)" or "sky".
"乃" is a kanji equivalent for the hiragana character "の", which is a particle indicating a possessive or sometimes an adjective.
"鈴" means "bell".
"音" means "sound".
Thus, "天乃" means "heavenly", and "鈴音" means "bell sound". This makes Suzune's full name translate to "heavenly bell sound" when read in eastern order.

Trivia

According to tweets from GAN:
- Suzune was initially intended to be 18 year-old.^[1]
- She was also originally designed as the villain of the story, and she is the last of the five main magical girls to be designed.^[2]
- Her colours are taken from fire: red for the flames, grey for the ash.^[3]
- Her wish was "I want to become a magical girl like Tsubaki".^[4] This was heavily implied in the manga, but the wording was never outright stated.