Characters from low-fantasy animated film Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms.
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Main characters
Maquia
- Voiced by: Manaka Iwami (Japanese), Xanthe Huynh (English)
Meek 15 year old girl from Iorph tribe. She has a crush on Krim but never does convey her feelings. When Mezarte attacked the village, a berserk Renato caused Maquia to be separated from the rest of the clan. Unknown of Iorphs' whereabouts and overcome by loneliness, she took an abandoned baby boy she came across into her care, named him Ariel and raised him.
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: She was only 15 when she picked up Ariel, and being an Iorph she never grew to look much older. It's part of what made Ariel feel uncomfortable as he grew up − it's hard to call a woman "mom" when she looks younger than you.
- Broken Pedestal: Towards Krim, who practically abducted Maquia into his last attempt to free Leillia despite having heard everything about the matter.
- Dye or Die: She dyes her hair the same color as Ariel's to hide her Iorph heritage.
- Family Relationship Switcheroo: By the time Ariel is a teenager, she passes for his sister.
- Friendless Background: Although she has Leilla and Krim, she feels alone in her hometown.
- Important Haircut: Twice. The first one is when Mido helped Maquia dye her hair to hide her identity. The second one is when Krim abducted her and shave off her disguised brown hair, reverting back to Iorph features.
- Prone to Tears: The elder notes how she is always quick to tears.
- Shrinking Violet: At first, though character development changes this over time.
- Struggling Single Mother: Her main story arc. Unusual in that she adopted her child voluntarily.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Was the meeker less outgoing girly girl to carefee tomboyish Leillia.
Ariel
- Voiced by: Miyu Irino, Yuki Sakurai (young) (Japanese), Eddy Lee, Ryan Shanahan (teen), Barnaby Lafayette (child) (English)
- Cradle To Grave Character: Introduced as a baby and last seen as an old man on what is likely his deathbed.
- Disney Death: We are treated to a Gory Discretion Shot when a bayonet supposedly hit him fatally. The next scene reveals he only got injured in the leg.
- Gender-Blender Name: Maquia tried to name him after Leillia, but Mido's kids pointed out that's a girl's name, so she instead went with "Ariel" which is... also generally a girl's name.
- Parental Abandonment: Maquia finds him in an embrace of his dead mother, in an aftermath of an unexplained random killing.
- Peaceful in Death: He dies with a smile on his face at the end while his mother notes how he lived a fulfilling life.
Iorph
Leillia
- Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Cherami Leigh (English)
An Iorph girl and Maquia's senior with an outgoing personality, whom Maquia lost contact with after Mezarte attacked along with all other Iorphs.
- All Work vs. All Play: All play to Krim's all work during the beginning.
- Foil: To Maquia. Both also become mothers, but Leillia is denied being a mother to Medmel when she is taken away right after her birth, and she doesn't see her again until Medmel's is well into her early adulthood. Also, Leillia does nothing to try getting out of her situation, refusing to escape with Maquia before Medmel was born being ashamed to face Krim.
- Gilded Cage: During her captive time in Mezarte, she wore beautiful dresses and jewelry, and from what appeared her room was large and luxurious. That said, she was not allowed to leave or see her own daughter.
- Girl in the Tower: She gets locked up in her room after her daughter's birth.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Implied in the beginning.
- Hand on Womb: This is her response when Maquia asked why she refuses to go with the other Iorph when they come to rescue her.
- Rage Breaking Point: The stress of having been kidnapped, raped, and used as a breeding cow for Mezarte clearly take a toll on her throughout the movie. When she's told she's now useless to Mezarte, but is still being kept with them, she absolutely snaps, calling out Izor for killing her family and taking her away.
- Slipknot Ponytail: When she finally reunites with Maquia, her bun is undone and her hair billows freely, symbolizing her regained freedom as she leaves her Gilded Cage and tells her daughter to forget her so both can move on with their lives.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Before the events of the movie, she was a carefree tomboy to the meeker less outgoing girly Maquia.
- Trophy Wife: Married to the Mezarte prince entirely to produce a half-Iorph heir.
Krim
- Voiced by: Yuki Kaji (Japanese), Kevin T. Collins (English)
Maquia's quiet and intense male senior.
- All Work vs. All Play: All work to Leillia's all play during the beginning.
- Dies Wide Open: Maquia closes his eyes when she finds him leaning dead on a tree.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Krim's drive to rescue Leillia from Mezarte who captured her as a status symbol eventually leads him to abduct and imprison Maquia so she can be used by the allied nations as a rallying symbol.
- Knight Templar: He becomes increasingly focused on restoring the traditional Iorph way of life and forcing the other survivors to conform. His abduction of Maquia and attempted murder-suicide with Leillia are the end result of him refusing to let either change from who they were before the invasion.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: As a result of male Iorph both looking quite feminine and wearing their hair long.
- Shadow Archetype: He becomes this to Maquia.
- Both throughout the film are motivated by their love for another person. However, Maquia's experiences being a mother despite the troubles and tribulations it brings also have her grow as a person. Krim's love for Leillia slowly drives him insane trying to save her, leaving him a shadow of himself.
- How both make their way in a place outside of their homeland. Maquia chooses to adapt and live among other people in a changing world. While Maquia does wish to return to Iorph, she does not make it her priority because of Ariel. Krim is driven to return to the life in Iorph he lived with Leillia, and because of this he fails to change as both Maquia and especially Leillia do. This ultimately becomes his Fatal Flaw when he can't accept that Leillia has chosen her daughter over him and tries to kill both of them to maintain some semblance of his ideal.
- White Shirt of Death: Justified as his clan wears all white. It makes a perfect canvas for the red blood when he gets it In the Back by Izol.
- Yandere: Though he seems normal at first, Leillia's imprisonment seems to have gradually driven him to insanity. During Maquia's Important Haircut scene, he appears to fantasize about stabbing her because she hadn't been helping him get Leillia back. When he finally sees Leillia again and she refuses to leave with him because she can't find her half-mortal daughter, he tries to burn the both of them to death and is only stopped by Izol shooting him.
Racine
- Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese), Lipica Shah (English)
Iorph's village elder. Maquia never knows about her whereabouts after Mezarte attacked.
- Love Hurts: One thing she used to say to Maquia was that loving someone not an Iorph will make one feel truly alone. With the implications that Barlow, a half-Iorph may be her son, she's likely speaking from personal experience.
- Really 700 Years Old: Five hundred to be accurate.
- Uncertain Doom: Krim speculates that she's dead at some point of the story, but it's never confirmed.
Mido's family
Mido
- Voiced by: Rina Sato (Japanese), Allegra Clark (English)
A single mother who took Maquia in after she found the latter in her farm.
- Glamorous Single Mother: As a foil to Maquia, who finds single-mothering much more difficult. Though she's raising multiple kids and presumably working due to a Disappeared Dad, she seems to handle it all quite easily on top of helping Maquia out with her situation, even offering to take care of Ariel when Maquia has to leave.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Disappears from the movie after Maquia leaves the village, apart from a brief mention by Lang.
Lang
- Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese), Michael Schneider, Spencer Rosen (young) (English)
Mido's eldest son who go on to become a steadfast and caring young man.
- Big Brother Mentor: Plays this to Ariel as a kid and in the military.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Lang's feelings for Maquia are not returned.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: For Maquia's sake, Lang makes sure to keep a close eye an Ariel through his career as a soldier, offering to let him go back to his pregnant wife during the attack on Mescartie, as well as helping Ariel and Dita move to his family's house after the war.
- Rank Up: Since he goes on to be a soldier in adulthood and the narrative is extremely Time Skip prone, this happens between two of his scenes.
- Took a Level in Badass: Went from a weedy farm boy to a battle-hardened commander by the end of the movie.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted as Lang is stated to have survived the war and helped Ariel and Dita move back to the village, but is presumably dead by the epilogue.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Is furious with Ariel for his drunken behavior towards Maquia.
Diol
- Voiced by: ??? (Japanese), Micah Gursoy (English)
Mido's younger son.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Lang reappears after the roughly-ten-year time skip and has a role for the rest of the story and Dita eventually marries Ariel, but Diol just ceases to exist after Maquia leaves the farm.
Mezarte
Izol
- Voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (Japanese), Marc Thompson (English)
Mezarte's general. He personally leads the attack on the Iorph to find answer to immortality.
- Lima Syndrome: He participated in Leillia's capture, yet cares much more about her than her own in-laws.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Downplayed. He is visibly disturbed at what Leillia has to endure, but he never changes his motive throughout the film, putting Mezarte's need first and foremost until the ending where he inexplicably lets Leillia go and puts himself at the mercy of Mezarte's invaders, acknowledging the empire's demise.
- Villainous Rescue: Shows up right at the moment Krim is about to set fire on both Leillia and himself, before fatally wounding him.
Medmel
- Voiced by: Misaki Kuno (Japanese), Brooklyn Nelson, Courtney Chu (young) (English)
Leillia's daughter, born to the lineage of Mezarte royal family.
- Ambiguous Situation: The other confirmed half-Iorph in the story was intially hidden due to having stopped their aging during adulthood rather than in their teens. Medmel is last seen in her late teens or early adulthood, making it entirely possible that Gave Up Too Soon came into play concerning her immortality.
- Black Sheep: To her father and grandfather. Both of them wanted her to be born only to give the family a long-living heir, so her apparent failure to inherit her mother's only enviable trait results in them wanting nothing to do with her.
- Child by Rape: Her mother is heavily implied to have been raped to conceive her.
- Hair Style Inertia: Wears two long pigtails in both her scenes, that happen years apart.
- Trophy Child: She was produced entirely so the Mezarte royal family could have a long-living heir.
Others
Dita
- Voiced by: Yōko Hikasa (Japanese), Ryan Bartley (English)
One of Ariel's childhood friend during his time with Mido's family.
- Childhood Friend Romance: With Ariel.
- Hair Style Inertia: She wears decorative beads on one side of her hair both as a child and an adult, and keeps it about chin-length as well.
- Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: Her water breaking is used to show that her baby is about to be born.
- Tsundere: She used to be one in her younger days. When she and Ariel were children, she bullied him about his vaguely Oedipal relationship with Maquia, but later tried to apologize about it while bringing him flowers. She ultimately reveals, after she and Ariel have a child together, that she always had a crush on him, and bullied him out of jealousy over his affection for his adoptive mother.
Barlow
- Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (Japanese), Daniel J. Edwards (English)
A wandering mercenary who Maquia ran into after Iorph was attacked.
- The Drifter: He calls himself one, at the very least.
- Half-Human Hybrid: He's revealed to be half-Iorph.
