Puella Magi Kazumi Magica



"You sure Urobuchi isn't writing this? Not bad enough that we had girls, now we have a girl ... twice. Plus, Saints at the cross. The symbolism is off the chart."

- This post about Chapter 5. (SPOILERS)

Puella Magi Kazumi Magica: The Innocent Malice is a Spin-Off Manga of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, written by Masaki Hiramatsu and illustrated by Takashi Tensugi. It runs in the monthly magazine Manga Time Kirara Forward and features a different set of characters in a new plot separate from the anime, which it may or may not have a relation to.

Kazumi Magica follows Kazumi, a young girl who wakes up in a suitcase with amnesia. Fortunately for her, she's quickly reunited with her friends, Umika and Kaoru. But when her life is in serious danger from a giant praying mantis, she unlocks her magical potential and transforms into a Magical Girl. Kazumi doesn't remember anything about who she was before she was locked in that suitcase, but as she works towards finding out more about her past self and her strange and difficult quest to fight Witches, what will the "new Kazumi" become?

Late Arrival Spoiler Warning: Puella Magi Kazumi Magica uses major plot points from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. As such, this page will have marked and unmarked spoilers for Madoka Magica that may or may not ruin your enjoyment of it if you have not seen the series already. This is in addition to the spoilers this page will have for Kazumi Magica itself. Avoiding this page is highly recommended for those who have not seen the show. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

""...the story of 'Kazumi' is " "There won't be stuff like no matter what (This is Manga Time Kirara Forward, you know)""
 * Amazon Brigade: The Pleiades Saints, a seven-member team of magical girls.
 * All There in the Manual: The collected editions have some information that isn't in the serialized chapters, such as the name of Kazumi's cat (Toto), and 's last name.
 * Kazumi's cat was later named in-story in Chapter 12.
 * Alternate Character Reading: In chapter 3, a grief seed is called a "witch's essence/seed" (魔女の実, majo no mi).
 * Which is a Call Back to Episode 8's Wham! Line.
 * In Chapter 8
 * Mirai Wakaba's name, which means "Future Young Leaf", is similar to the name of her museum, "Ashitaba (Tomorrow's Leaf) Bears".
 * "Kazumi" can be read as "thirteen". In Chapter 13
 * Animal-Eared Headband: Satomi has cat ears on her magical girl costume. Kazumi also has these on a hoodie on the cover of chapter 3.
 * : It's revealed that Kazumi is.
 * Also applies to
 * Arc Welding:
 * Art Evolution: Starting in chapter 3, the Soul Gems look the way they do in the anime. Before that, they just looked like unadorned stones. Another example is with the.
 * The first compilation volume redrew the Soul Gems and from earlier chapters so that they remained consistent.
 * Art Shift: In one panel during chapter 10 while, the art becomes simplistic and much more cartoony with the characters all white and the background all in black with no shading. This is a reference to the anime's Deranged Animation.
 * Author Appeal / Creator Thumbprint: Every chapter is named for food, all of the magical girls are Big Eaters, and three of them are also good cooks. It's a wonder Charlotte hasn't appeared.
 * Kazumi takes the Calling Your Attacks in Gratuitous Italian seen briefly in Madoka Magica and runs with it by having every magical girl in the series name their attacks and spells in Italian. The author of Kazumi would later write the screenplays of two of the Madoka Magica audio dramas, one of which has a new called attack in Italian that wasn't present in the original series. Word of God says he added another Italian-named attack in the screenplay of the other Drama CD, but it was cut from the final product.
 * Author Catchphrase: "Ciao!" It appears in the Q&A pages for the collected editions (as "Ciao, Hiramacchi!") before finally popping up in Chapter 10.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: Kazumi, at the start of chapter 1.
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: Averted with Kazumi's friends, who used their wishes to support their dreams without having them granted outright. As of Chapter 5, it's played straight with
 * It should be elaborated; in the anime, it's explained that "imbalanced" wishes have a type of Equivalent Exchange penalty. The greater a wish, the more likely for it to go awry or demand a cost that you can't afford. Someone apparently explained this to most of the cast beforehand, so they were careful to make their wishes aids to achieving their dreams as opposed for directly wishing for their dreams to be fulfilled. This also gives the benefit of the girls being able to take full responsibility for what happens afterwards, rather than taking in grief due to cruel fate.
 * Beyond the Impossible: It's possible to have two Soul Gems in the same body. Elfen Lied parallels are noted.
 * Big Bad: Yuuri, the mysterious magical girl.
 * Big Eater: Everyone.
 * Bilingual Bonus: The "Palla di Cannone" and "Limiti Esterni" attack names are Italian for "Cannonball" and "Outer Limit", respectively.
 * More appear in Chapter 3, although some of the words aren't Italian.
 * The author seems to like Calling Your Attacks in Gratuitous Italian - see Author Appeal, above.
 * His catchphrase ("Ciao") is also in Italian, and is said by Kazumi in chapter 10.
 * The Blank:.
 * Blatant Lies: From the Volume 1 Omake:
 * The author seems to like Calling Your Attacks in Gratuitous Italian - see Author Appeal, above.
 * His catchphrase ("Ciao") is also in Italian, and is said by Kazumi in chapter 10.
 * The Blank:.
 * Blatant Lies: From the Volume 1 Omake:


 * Bottomless Magazines: Averted with Kazumi's summoned guns. They do run out of ammo, and fairly quickly.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy:
 * Breather Episode:
 * Bridal Carry: Nico does this for Kazumi two times in chapter 8.
 * Broad Strokes: It seemed this way at first, but was arguably subverted.
 * Broken Bird: To an extent,
 * Then in Chapter 10
 * Bullet Hell: Chapter 7 page 19 gives us this.
 * The Cameo: Silhouettes of Madoka and Kyubey are seen when Umika and Kaoru start explaining about magic.
 * Madoka makes another appearance in her Magical Girl form in one of the extra short comics in volume 1.
 * Sayaka and  appear as examples for an explanation the Pleiades give Kazumi in chapter 10.
 * The biggest is in Chapter 11 when
 * In Chapter 16,
 * Call Back: "Your wish has surpassed entropy".
 * Many of  in Chapter 5 are visual references to the anime, such as
 * Compare  in Chapter 5 with
 * first lines in Chapter 11 are pulled almost directly from episode 10.
 * For an actual in-story Call Back, Kazumi's brief flashback in Chapter 1 where she remembers that only bad guys waste food appears again in Chapter 11.
 * Chapter 12 has . There's also two more call backs to the flashbacks Kazumi has with her earring-bell from Chapter 1.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Unlike the anime, where only Mami did this, Kazumi Magica takes this trope and runs with it, complete with Gratuitous Italian. It's later revealed that
 * The Cavalry: The Pleiades Saints in Chapters 3 and 8.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Kazumi's bells.
 * Yuuri has several. All of her "clues" in Chapter 4 are explained in Chapter 5. Another one is However, the one that's easiest to miss is
 * Extremely subtle. At the beginning of Chapter 9, notice that  Now later on
 * The news article Nico is looking at in Chapter 7, which was about a Japanese kid who shot people in California.
 * Nico's wish for regeneration gives her the ability to create clones.
 * Continuity Nod: Chapter 5 has a flashback that shows Souichirou Tachibana's old restaurant.
 * The container used to hold  in Chapter 4 reappears in Chapter 10.
 * The Corruption: Like in the anime, Soul Gems still get dirty when magic is used.
 * In Chapter 4 we learn that
 * In Chapter 5
 * Covers Always Lie: Kazumi spends two chapters with long hair, after which it is cropped short by Umika and Kaoru.
 * The manga is billed as a heartfelt alternative to it's former. It does look that way for the first few chapters, but then moves into a much darker tone.
 * Crucified Hero Shot: All the Pleiades in Chapter 5.
 * Cryptic Conversation: . Kazumi is as curious as we are.
 * Cypher Language: The runes appear in Chapter 5. And then in Chapter 6
 * Chapter 9 adds some Foreshadowing:
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Kazumi may have one; a Flash Back panel in the first chapter has her standing over a number of dead bodies.
 * Chapter 10 reveals
 * Deal with the Devil: As in canon, but in Chapter 9,
 * Death Seeker:
 * Despair Event Horizon:
 * Driven to Suicide:
 * The Fair Folk: The contract-making creatures are described here as fairies. One of them, Jubey, appears at the end of Chapter 3, although he's not revealed to be one until Chapter 4.
 * Development Gag: An early series proposal for Madoka Magica also described the contract-making creatures as fairies. This may be a reference.
 * Fan Service
 * Feminine Women Can Cook: Umika, Kazumi and  are really good cooks.
 * Foreshadowing: It's pretty heavily foreshadowed that
 * More character-specific, but when the Pleiades first arrive,
 * In Chapter 6
 * Waaay back in Chapter 4, Kyuubey appears and says "Do you think that things will go well this time, Pleiades?"
 * Hotter and Sexier
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every chapter's title is taken from an unusually named food  that appears or is mentioned in it. Sometimes it actually plays a role in the plot.
 * Word of God from volume one is that he'll change the food titles if he runs out of ideas. This may have happened in Chapter 7 (although the title is close to "cherry picking", and he goes back to using food in Chapter 8).
 * Chapter 10's title is still a food pun in Japanese. See Lost in Translation.
 * Chapter 12 is simply called "Pleiades".
 * Chapter 13's title goes back to food puns - "Farce" is a synonym for "stuffing".
 * And Chapter 14, "Cannibalism"...Well, it sort of counts.
 * I Just Want to Be You:
 * "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
 * Important Haircut: Kazumi's long, flowing hair gets quite a trim from her friends in the second chapter. She decides it fits with the 'new Kazumi'.
 * Incredibly Lame Stealth Pun: In Chapter 9, Mirai
 * In Name Only: Initially, it appears that the only connection this series has to the anime is that the monsters are called witches. It gets increasingly subverted in later chapters, until it's very clear that it's set in the same universe.
 * I See London: In chapter 2, Kazumi forgets to form her skirt when she transforms, and her underwear is exposed.
 * Let's Split Up, Gang!: Occurs in chapter 3 to search for missing teammates.
 * Lighter and Softer: Compared to the original, Kazumi Magica comes off as far more lighthearted, with its heavier focus on comedy and Fan Service.
 * So far it can still be considered Lighter and Softer than its parent series, if only because the reader and the magical girls are already aware of the details and catches that were huge, horrible revelations to the original cast, and because The Power of Friendship is emphasized even more. It only remains to see what the death toll is to know if it really is so.
 * Lost in Translation/Stealth Pun: A lot of them, most of them being puns on the Japanese language, characters, and pronunciation. See Meaningful Name and Mythology Gag for examples.
 * The most notable example is the original Japanese title of Chapter 10. Kazumi's Magical Incantation in the original Japanese was "Chi-chin-purin", which is a portmanteau of "purin" meaning "pudding", and "Chi-Chin-Pui", a phrase equivalent to "Abracadabra" and other stock magical Incantations. The scanlators decided to translate it as Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. Then the original Japanese phrase gets used in the title of Chapter 10. The scanlators simply translated the chapter title as "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", abandoning the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming.
 * Mirai Wakaba's name, which means "Future Young Leaf", gives Kazumi the idea to the name her museum, "Ashitaba (Tomorrow's Leaf) Bears". The Ashitaba plant is also in the Angelica genus, and the museum's English name is Angelica Bears.
 * Love Triangle:
 * Magitek: The Pleiades have a smart-phone application that can upload the magical wavelengths created by witches into Soul Gems, to make it easier to track them.
 * Male Gaze: Much like its sister spinoff, the art tends towards things like low-angled shots of the girls, focusing on their legs and backsides.
 * Marshmallow Hell: In Jubey's initial appearance, Satomi gives him a big hug. The problem is he's the size of a housecat and gets smothered.
 * Meaningful Name: The Pleiades Saints, a seven-member magical girl team, named themselves after the Pleiades Star Cluster. It's a pun in Japanese; "Pleiades Saints" and "Pleiades Star Cluster" only differ by one character and are pronounced the same way. The Pleiades cluster is also known as the "Seven Sisters", which is why they chose they chose that name for their seven-member group.
 * According to the author's Q&A from the collected edition, the subtitle "innocent malice" is meant to mean "sinless spite" in Japanese.
 * Mood Whiplash: Chapter 8.
 * Mythology Gag/Continuity Nod: Possibly. A black cat (later revealed to be named Toto) is seen in Kazumi's house at the beginning of Chapter 2, and later in Chapter 4. A similar black cat is seen in the Title Sequence of Madoka, as well as some official artwork. Interestingly, the writer of Kazumi Magica wrote the screenplay of the drama CD that explained who the Title Sequence cat was.
 * Jubey looks like a black cat wearing a Kyubey mask. This may be a reference to the (Jossed) Epileptic Trees about the Title Sequence cat.
 * Note that "Ju" is ten and "Kyu" is nine in Japanese.
 * In Chapter 7
 * Chapter 5 is thematically similar to
 * So are Chapters 8 and 9.
 * And Chapter 10
 * The Art Shift in Chapter 10 resembles the the anime's Deranged Animation.
 * In Chapter 11,
 * No Ontological Inertia: Referred to in Chapter 7
 * Parental Abandonment / Conveniently an Orphan: Umika and Kaoru mention that their parents are working overseas, and no mention is made of the other girls having guardians. Meaning no one to question why seven teenage girls are running around outside of school.
 * People Jars:
 * Print Bonus: The collected volumes contain a few extra pages and some silly comics. It also has design info for the various antagonists and an author's Q&A.
 * Psychic-Assisted Suicide:
 * Origins Chapter:
 * Orwellian Retcon: The release of the first volume redrew some parts of the artwork, especially in Chapter 2. During serialization, the Soul Gems in that chapter initially looked like normal stones, but were redrawn as anime-style Soul Gems for the volume. In addition, the redrawn chapter reveals that Kazumi's earring-bell is her Soul Gem.
 * Our Witches Are Different: The witches of this series  are just humans who can transform into monsters (although they feed off despair). Defeating them turns them back to normal, and it's said that someone gives them this power. Chapter 4 reveals
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning:
 * Shout-Out:
 * Kazumi's Magical Incantation is "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo".
 * This was something added in the scanlation.
 * Unlimited Kazumi Works.
 * Kazumi's friends aren't the only magical girl team named after the Pleiades Cluster with an alien Team Pet. Bonus for Kazumi's Cute Witch hat, and the fact that Houkago no Pleiades is known as Wish Upon the Pleiades in English. It also appears as a cameo book title.
 * (Not) Sinister Silhouettes: A panel in the first chapter contains four silhouettes. Three of them appear to be Kaoru in her magical girl form, as well as Nico and Saki. The fourth silhouette, the one with a witch's hat, may be Mirai - she was seen wearing a similar looking witch's hat as part of her magical girl outfit in a small panel from Chapter 12.
 * Start of Darkness:
 * Story Arc: The first six chapters of Kazumi Magica can be thought of as one, connected through the primary antagonist. They can also be divided into two sub-arcs: The first three chapters are about Kazumi re-learning her role as a magical girl, and the next three are about a confrontation with the arc's Big Bad.
 * The next three chapters deal with an antagonistic magical girl, and the three chapters after that
 * Stripperific: Kazumi, the mysterious magical girl, and Mirai's Magical Girl costumes.
 * Tender Tears: Kazumi and Satomi in chapter 4.
 * Transformation Sequence
 * Transformation Trinket: The Soul Gems.
 * Two First Names: Like in the anime, the magical girls.
 * Unreliable Expositor: Subverted.
 * Might be played straight as well.
 * In Chapter 10
 * Unreliable Narrator: There are some hints that the Whole-Episode Flashback in Chapter 11 isn't entirely accurate.
 * Chapter 12
 * As revealed in Chapter 13,
 * The Un-Reveal: In Chapter 8,
 * As of Chapter 17,
 * Visual Pun: Chapter 9's BEAR HUG!
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
 * Wham Chapter: As to be expected from the spin-off to the series that delivered a WHAM line every episode.
 * Chapter 4:
 * Chapter 5:
 * Chapter 8: Comparatively minor, but.
 * Chapter 9:
 * Chapter 10:
 * Chapter 12:
 * Chapter 13:
 * Chapter 14:
 * Chapter 15:
 * Chapter 17:
 * Wham! Line: Chapter 12..
 * Chapter 17:
 * Whole-Episode Flashback: Chapter 11, which ends with a flashback in the flashback.
 * Chapter 12 continues Chapter 11's flashbacks, up until the end.
 * Yin-Yang Bomb:
 * You Are Not Alone: Said in Chapter 3.
 * Wham Chapter: As to be expected from the spin-off to the series that delivered a WHAM line every episode.
 * Chapter 4:
 * Chapter 5:
 * Chapter 8: Comparatively minor, but.
 * Chapter 9:
 * Chapter 10:
 * Chapter 12:
 * Chapter 13:
 * Chapter 14:
 * Chapter 15:
 * Chapter 17:
 * Wham! Line: Chapter 12..
 * Chapter 17:
 * Whole-Episode Flashback: Chapter 11, which ends with a flashback in the flashback.
 * Chapter 12 continues Chapter 11's flashbacks, up until the end.
 * Yin-Yang Bomb:
 * You Are Not Alone: Said in Chapter 3.
 * You Are Not Alone: Said in Chapter 3.