Characters / The Demon Girl Next Door

A list of characters from the manga series The Demon Girl Next Door (Machikado Mazoku) and its Animated Adaptation. Beware of unmarked spoilers, especially if you are only familiar with the anime.

Yoshida household

Yuko "Shamiko" Yoshida

Voiced by: Konomi Kohara (JP), Monica Rial (EN)

Novice demon. Wears her heart on her tail. Has her own ^{transformation} power that really embarrassed her until she got used to it.

One of the two main characters of the story, along with her rival/friend Momo. A run-of-the-mill high school student, one morning she woke from a dream of her ancestor telling her to "awaken", and found she'd grown curly horns and a long demonic tail overnight. Her life would never be the same.

Yuko was extremely frail and unlucky since birth as a result of inheriting most of her family's demonic powers, and being proportionally affected more severely by the curse of the Light Clan as a result. She has little memory of her childhood due to her early illness and has suppressed most of what she did manage to remember. She would have died if not for extraordinary sacrifices made on her behalf, and even after recovering enough to leave the hospital and return to a somewhat normal life after her younger sister was born, she still got sick or passed out on a near-daily basis, having to make frequent emergency room visits, until her demonic powers and features awoke. Although her endurance remarkably improved, she remained embarrassingly weak, struggling with anything more than a few kilograms.

As Yuko grew up in an extremely sheltered environment, she is bafflingly naive and gullible. She is fiercely protective of her family, and will do anything in her power to protect them, even if all she can do is stand in the way and be a human shield, or suffer misfortune in their place.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Her Whatever Staff can theoretically turn into anything stick-like, but Yuko's transformations often really push the limit of stick-like just because she thinks it fits. When Ryoko actually reads her the definition of a stick her wilder transformations are undone.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair is distinctly brown in the original manga, but in the Animated Adaptation she's a redhead; her personality is certainly volatile enough to suit it.
• After-School Cleaning Duty: She's often stuck on trash disposal duty, being on the school health and safety commission.
• Art Evolution: In the first few chapters of the manga, her horns were less tightly curled, and had sharper and pointier tips. The Animated Adaptation preserves the early chapters' original appearance throughout.
• Author Avatar: She has the same exceptionally poor health as Itou does, and chapters 84 & 85 are pretty blatant about Shamiko using the Whatever Staff too much and passing out being a metaphor for Itou overworking herself as a manga author.
• Bad Powers, Good People: She doesn't see any potential in her Dream Walker power, while even Momo can think of hundreds of evil uses for it as soon as she learns about it.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Downplayed. As the series progresses and she grows into her role as a demon, her attitudes slowly shift and she starts to warm to the idea of things she would have never considered before her awakening. Many of the aspects of Yuko's demonic awakening really bothered her at first—over time she either stopped caring about them, or even embraced them and ran with it, but she's far from becoming truly villainous.
  • When her mother told Yuko it would be up to her to master her powers of darkness to break the curse on their family, she felt weirded out enough to exclaim, "But doesn't that make me the bad guy?" While she reluctantly starts down the dark path out of a desire to help her family (and not being hungry all the time), it's not long before Yuko is proudly calling herself a villain without reservations. However, deep down she's still a good person at heart. Mostly. She'll never admit it.
  • Her official demon name "Shadow Mistress Yuko" and the nickname it spawned, Shamiko; at first she thought the former was corny, and the latter was a Berserk Button. Now she even signs her schoolwork with the former, and practically everyone calls her by the latter. It's gotten to the point where she barely even recognizes her original name.
  • When Ryoko praised Yuko for taking initiative towards becoming the ruler of the forces of darkness by training to fight Momo, Yuko questioned she'd ever be a leader of anything. By volume 4, she's calling herself the "Empress of Darkness," demonstrates an impressive feat of coordinating her entire network of friends and associates into action on short notice, and is looking for anyone else with useful skills, talents, or connections to bring into her circle.
  • Her Crisis Management form and the Stripperiffic outfit that comes with it initially embarrassed her to no end and she refused to transform in public. By volume 5, Yuko's using it practically anytime it might be helpful: in gym class, while taking tests, climbing multiple flights of stairs, and so on. It still embarrasses her a bit, but not enough to deter her from using it around other people, and she no longer cares much if anyone sees her in it. While she still wishes the outfit wasn't so revealing, her various attempts to change it have all ended in spectacular failures.
  • Lampshaded in one strip where her teacher quizzes her about Hegel's thesis-antithesis-synthesis model. However, Shamiko has been sleeping through class and has no idea what's going on. Later, she uses that incident to fuse together the Good Angel, Bad Angel arguing whether she should eat a parfait into one entity.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: A two-way street between her and Momo, as the two grow particularly close once they become fond of each other, even if Yuko tried to be antagonistic by the principle of her work. In the meanwhile, basically everyone Yuko meets generally feels this way towards her once she comes to befriend them.
• Body Horror: Her tail is anything but sensual, being quite painful for her if anything happens to it. Her horns actually are uncomfortably heavy and feel like they're crushing her head if she sleeps on her sides. And according to one of her own casual comments at a mixer with her classmates, she was so Delicate and Sickly from the Light Clan's curse that any hair in her childhood photos was with wigs, implying her body was all but failing on itself and rapidly degrading like a terminally-ill patient.
• Catchphrase:
  • Whenever Shamiko is "bested" by Momo, she lets out the stock Magical Girl baddie cry of "Don't think this means you've won!" Usually with tears in her eyes.
  • "I want to become an [X] demon who can [Y]!" Usually along the lines of "I want to become a strong demon who can break the curse on my family!" or "I want to become a brainy demon who can make Momo my vassal!" At the end of volume 6, she switches to "I will become a more powerful demon!" to underscore her newfound resolve.
• The Chew Toy: Much of the series' early humor is derived from the sheer number of things that went wrong for Yuko every time she set her mind to something, especially since she's the self-proclaimed villain. As the series progresses and her crew of close friends significantly increases, however, this mostly fades away as everyone else shares some of the comedy spotlight and Yuko becomes genuinely more heroic than even some of the Magical Girls.
• Cute Little Fangs: She is a very pronounced example and they are notably conspicuous at nearly all times.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She is a demon girl empowered by chaos and darkness, but she's also a good and honest girl with commendable modesty and integrity...by non-demonic standards.
  Yuko: Cheating is something we must never do!
  Lilith: You haven't forgotten that we're demons, right?
• Debt Detester: She's too honest not to repay her debts, meaning she can't fight Momo as long as she still owes her. Momo exploits this by giving her more and more things as an easy way to avoid fighting.
• Declaration of Protection: After learning about Momo's Dark and Troubled Past, she comes to understand just how much others have sacrificed just to protect her and how inadvertently selfish she was being early on with her plotting to take Momo's blood to break the Dark Clan's curse. Thus, she vows to become a demon powerful enough to protect the town so that nobody else will have to protect her.
• Defeat Catchphrase: Her "Don't think this means you've won!" after a "defeat". Other characters like Momo and Lilith will occasionally borrow it when they themselves suffer a "defeat".
• Delicate and Sickly: One dose of the Light Clan's curse on Lilith's descendants is already enough to put a person to this. Somehow she took the yet-unborn Ryoko's share of it, making her dying from it ten years ago; Seiko recalls she was "struggling with her respiratory tract" at one point. Seiko implies it would have been fatal without Sakura's intervention, and when Yuko makes contact with what's left of Sakura in her memories, she tells Yuko it was even worse than Seiko thought, with the curse ravaging her soul as well. Even that only prevents her from dying; she spent several more years in the hospital, and even after that, she often had to leave school early or miss it entirely because she was in the hospital so much, and running was out of bounds for her. Only after her demonic awakening can she be said to be somewhat healthy.
• Devil's Pitchfork: When trying to weaponize her Whatever Staff, the best she can come up with is an oversized table fork with large prongs on the end of the tines.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She gets angry and pouty when she thinks someone's pitying her, though she's fine with genuine sympathy.
• Dream Walker: This is her primary demonic power, overlapping with Dream Weaver. She can enter the dreams of basically anything capable of dreaming, as long as she and her target are both asleep, and while there, she can manifest into being virtually anything she can imagine. Thing is, she doesn't have a very good imagination. At first, she thinks that it's a pretty lame power to have, until her initial uses of it show that her dream manipulation is just a Required Secondary Power for what she's really capable of: manipulating the subconscious mind of the dreamer, as dreams are the window into the subconscious. When she finds she can do things like plant unconscious suggestions, create phobias or cravings, or even overwrite emotions to make bitter enemies into grudging friends, she realizes her abilities are a lot more dangerous than she thought and is disgusted with herself, even though her friends remind her that all she had ever used her powers for is to bring happiness to the people around her.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: A possibly unintentional one. As the manga series has gone on, the author had been drawing Yuko's horns progressively smaller and less detailed over time—the difference is particularly jarring when you compare her hefty-looking horns in the first few chapters of volume one to their rather pitiful state in volumes five and six. Apparently, this was pointed out to the author during a particularly long hiatus in the middle of volume seven, as the events of the first chapter after resuming serialization have Yuko's horns molt and regrow larger, ascribing this to a "growth spurt," to have her horns look more in line with how the author was drawing them in volumes two and three.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Her Crisis Management form◊ is embarrassingly Stripperiffic, but it does raise her pitiful physical abilities to something approaching normal.
• Embarrassing Nickname: She initially doesn't like her title as "Shadow Mistress" due to the connotations around the word 'mistress' (as in a Dominatrix, as Ryoko of all people implied). She comes to like it more when her teacher explains a mistress can just be a title of authority.
• Everyone Has Standards: Lilith and Lico attempt to goad her into being more like a demon, and even Momo pragmatically tends to think of or list off things Yuko could be doing as a demon to be, well, evil. Yuko always rejects every single one of these things. It's to the point that she could technically brainwash the entire cast into subservience and for the most part none of them would be able to do anything about it. But Yuko, being the largest Nice Girl of the entire cast, outright feels horribly guilty for even so much as considering using her dream powers to peek on Momo's past, much less actually using it for any sort of personal advantages.
• Extreme Omnivore: She is a type 1 after years of extreme poverty, perfectly willing to eat Momo's horrifying-looking attempts at cooking.
  Yuko: I was really nervous going by looks alone, but this doesn't taste bad at all!
  Momo: Y-you think so?
  Yuko: It's hard on the outside and mushy on the inside, plus I can really taste the onions and salt.
  Momo: I'm not so sure that's a good thing...
  Yuko: It's just fine! Truly terrible food makes you go numb the moment you bite into it, and your throat will force you to throw it back up right away! Anything that doesn't cause that reaction is totally edible!
• Fantastic Arousal: Inverted; things done to her tail result in disproportionately uncomfortable sensations for her, though arousal is never one of them. If something happens to the spade tip at the end of her tail, she feels it all over her body. Momo pressed a bottle of frozen water to Yuko's tail once and she broke out into uncontrollable shivering, pleading with her to stop. Later, when Momo's cat Metako latched on to her tail and started licking it, she felt like her whole body was being scraped by sandpaper.
• Forced into Evil: Not that she's very good at it, but the entire plot starts because she woke up to find her demonic features, and had her mother explain why the seal on her entire family needs to be broken. Yuko opts to try to fulfill it for everyone's sake to end the Dark Clan curse, but is so utterly helpless and ineffective at it that being an unwittingly adorable friend is more useful against Momo than being a rival.
• Gamer Chick: A trait that only becomes prominent from the fourth volume on, and so is not featured in the first season of the anime.
  • Stated to be her hobby in the first volume's character bios. Specifically mentions she loves retro RPG games (probably because her family can't afford anything newer).
  • In the first episode, after awakening, she states, "So equipped, I set out on my quest, in spite of not being happy with my starting parameters."
  • In Chapter 40, her idea of a proper vacation starts with video games. Of course, because of financial constraints, she gets her games from the 100-yen bin of the local Game-Off.
  • In chapter 47, Ryoko comments that Lilith looks like Shamiko's "2P character". When Lilith expresses confusion, Shamiko goes on an excited, long-winded rant about palette swapping.
    Yuko: "Sorry, I just love video games so much I can't help myself!"
  • When she gets a smartphone in vol. 5, she runs so many mobile games at once it tanks her battery life.
  • In chapter 78, Shamiko signs up for a gym membership and compares her height/weight/mass measurements to a stats screen.
• Godzilla Threshold: Actually using her Dream Walker ability for anything but scouting out information or trying to help tackle the mental insecurities of others is considered this. Nothing but the most extreme of hatred and violence that is unresolvable otherwise should require her true capability. And unfortunately, Suika may just cross that threshold in the future.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Her father was a demon, and she takes after him in more ways than having horns and a tail.
• Harmless Villain: Though she's nominally a demon and is supposed to defeat a magical girl to lift her family's curse, she's very weak and has absolutely zero combat skills. Momo, her supposed mortal enemy, ends up training her from time to time to help her get stronger, but Yuko isn't very interested in those sorts of things.
• Height Angst: She doesn't like people pointing out her height. While she's not short by the standards of a Manga Time Kirara series, at only 145 cm tall (or 4'9"), she's still visibly shorter than her peers.
• Hidden Buxom: Her school uniform that she wears most of the time makes her look rather modest, but when wearing anything else (and especially in her Crisis Management Form) it's apparent she's probably the most endowed of her peers.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": When Momo and Sion resurrect the Bureau of Darkness, the fax Seiko sent in the first chapter finally goes through, and her legal name is officially changed to "Shadow Mistress Yuko".
• Hopeless with Tech: The curse of living on 40,000 yen prevents her family from affording any conveniences more modern than bulky fax machines, CRT televisions, and second-hand Super Famicoms. When the curse is broken and she gets a job, she resolves to become a smart demon by getting a smartphone. The first thing she does is load it with mobile games, but doesn't understand that will drain the battery and thinks she needs a protractor to make use of them.^note Shamiko confuses computer memory with "memori", the marks on a measuring device.
• I Owe You My Life: Played straight, with Sakura's core within her keeping her alive. When Yuko found out about this state of affairs, she wanted to remove Sakura's core and restore her for Momo's sake, but in Yuko's current condition, she'd die without Sakura's core. Momo demands of Yuko to not even think about removing it until she's much stronger and doesn't need Sakura's support.
• Idiot Hair: She sports an ahoge that wiggles when she's flustered or upset.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • The standard state of her Whatever Staff is in the form of a giant fork. Then again, she is a demon, so it's not exactly thematically inappropriate.
  • In her "battle" with Ugallu, she morphs her Whatever Staff into a whisk to solidify her opponent from a miasma in Mikan.
• In-Series Nickname: Her epithet "Shadow Mistress Yuko" gets shortened to "Shamiko", and eventually she is known under that name more than her actual name. When Mikan first calls Yuko by her actual name instead of Shamiko (being a new acquaintance and all), it takes Yuko a few seconds to realize Mikan was referring to her and she even promptly lampshades how often she's called Shamiko instead.
• Informed Flaw: In Chapter 24 Yuko told Momo her "eyes are no good either". This is the only mention of her having poor eyesight; anywhere else in the series she is treated as having normal eyesight.
• Irony: Yuko would probably be a better fit for the Light Clan than Momo's current Knight in Sour Armor self, to the point that Momo going to the darkness and becoming Yuko's vassal ends up with Yuko losing the antagonistic side that made her "evil" in the first place. It's entirely being a Dark Clan demon by blood and her gradual acceptance of her role as a so-called villain that keeps her where she is.
• Jerkass Realization: Once she learns the history of Tama Town and all Momo, Sakura, and Joshua sacrificed to keep everyone safe, she cringes at what a jerk she was for the whole "I'm going to murder you and take your blood!" shtick she did when she first met Momo.
• Jerkass to One: Many of her exchanges with Momo are dripping with contempt and hostility that she doesn't really show towards anyone else. Of course, it's really not that great at being mean as it's her trying to mostly fulfill the role of a Demon versus a Magical Girl, Momo takes it all in stride, and as the series progresses it becomes incredibly obvious she considers Momo her greatest friend.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Shamiko is not a minion, but definitely has an "F" in being Evil. She's one of the nicest people you might ever meet.
• Morph Weapon: She comes into possession of a magic staff that once belonged to her father, an instrument of chaos that can change into a wide variety of things depending on what the user is focused on. When it isn't being used in a particular form for a particular use, it's an ordinary fork. When Yuko needs an actual weapon, she makes it larger; forks are what she's most familiar with.
• Mundane Utility: Being largely unathletic, she has used her "Crisis Management Form" to make Gym Class Hell or stair climbing easier. She also uses her father's "Whatchamacallit Rod" to make things like pens, cooking utensils, hand fans, shovels, and an extra-long laundry pole.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A serious, Heroic BSoD case when she realizes she legitimately brainwashed both Lico and Honyu to stop trying to kill eachother and instead resolve their differences, to a nigh-perfect outcome for both overall. To which Yuko is utterly guilt-ridden because it felt like it was to her benefit rather than theirs, until Momo talks her out of these thoughts.
• New Ability Addiction: Once Yuko can activate her Crisis Management form with her own magical power, meaning she can now transform at will and doesn't have to be scared to do it, she starts using it practically any time she has to undertake any physical exertion, as it gives her about a 20% boost in her capabilities.
• Nice Girl: Despite her (somewhat) antagonistic attitude towards Momo, she's generally sweet and kind. In fact, she doesn't even hold grudges against anyone (except Momo in some degree) and her relationship with Momo is more of a friendly rivalry instead; and she doesn't even consider using her demonic powers for malicious reasons.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: ...er, "villain" with a big set of air quotes. When she tries to enter Momo's dreams a second time, Momo's subconscious is more guarded because Momo is physically healthier— which Yuko realizes is because she started balancing Momo's diet.
• Older Than They Look: Mikan was trying to act like a Big Sister Mentor until Momo explained, "that girl is the same age as us." Yuko is the oldest among her classmates and peers, though only by a matter of months.
• One-Track-Minded Hunger: While not a Big Eater, Yuko was almost always hungry in the first three volumes due to her family's curse-induced Perpetual Poverty, and could be talked into pretty much anything by being promised a decent meal. When that aspect of the curse was broken, and she got a steady part-time job, she and her family finally weren't starving for half the month anymore. Even so, this background means she frequently morphs her Whatever Staff into dinnerware or kitchenware.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: It doesn't take long before literally everyone but Yuko's mother is calling her "Shamiko," even her own ancestor Lilith. She got so used to it that she even asked Mikan to not call her Yuko. It's played with even on the other side of the Fourth Wall; the character bios in Volume 4 refer to her as "Shamiko (Yuko Yoshida)".
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Despite being saved or tricked into helping by Momo numerous times, Yuko will often say things along these lines whenever she's "defeated" in their "battles".
• Ordinary High-School Student: Subverted. She claims herself to be this in the beginning of the series, yet as noted elsewhere, many things about her aren't ordinary. Nobody would see an extremely poor ill girl as "ordinary".
• Prehensile Tail: Yuko has a spade-tipped demonic tail that's longer than she is tall, and it can apparently be temporarily stretched even further◊. She can freely move it with conscious effort, and often pokes, prods, pats, or slaps people with its tip, or wraps her tail around them as a show of affection, though she's not capable of grasping very well with it. It's highly reactive to her emotions, and it often betrays her true feelings when she's trying to bluff, boast, or brag to save face. She finds it extremely inconvenient; it's a point of weakness as when something happens to the tip of it, she feels it all over her body, and all too often people will grab her by the tail when she's trying to get away from them.
• Prone to Tears: Yuko cries whenever she's feeling panicked or scared, which is pretty often. Her ancestor Lilith isn't much better.
• Red Baron: Yuko's mom chose "Shadow Mistress Yuko" as Yuko's epithet minutes after confirming the latter had some demonic powers restored. Yuko finds it incredibly lame.
• Refusal of the Call: On the night Yuko gained her horns and tail, Lilith asked her to "wake up" but Yuko refused. She still received "the Call", nonetheless.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Her Crisis Management form's outfit is distressingly revealing to her, as she usually dresses extremely modestly, to the point one would never otherwise know she has a surprisingly attractive figure for her age and height. Not that anyone ever points it out.
• Shrinking Violet: When she's particularly off-kilter in a conversation or a bad day, poor Yuko turns into a crying, blubbering mess of a girl that will hide behind anyone, even Momo, from whatever's considered the problem. Even outside of that she has a habit of being more on the shy side in unfamiliar situations until her Tsundere habits kick in.
• Skewed Priorities: What she considers enough of a "crisis" to warrant her "crisis management form" occasionally baffles Momo. Getting teamed up on during Volleyball is apparently much more critical than getting kidnapped by a giant snake. Granted, Momo isn't that much better in this regard, but still...
• Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: She does this while using her Dream Walker powers on anyone but herself, but not while in normal sleep. It creeps out Anri when she walks in on Yuko doing this with Mikan
• Spectral Weapon Copy: In a moment of panic she turns her Whatever Staff into a copy of Mikan's crossbow. Momo admits it's surprisingly close to the original.
• Story-Breaker Power: If Yuko had even a hint of malevolence, she could use her Dream Walker power to brainwash or even outright re-write people from the ground up inside their own subconscious. It even becomes a recurring plot point, and is used to help others with their issues as need be when something subconscious or internal needs to be tackled and/or discovered. It's to the point that not only do her friends subtly fear such powers (with Momo listing off especially dangerous possibilities), but a mountain god outright explains that her abilities are, in theory, of a scale that nothing else can match up to in the entire story. But because she's a Nice Girl, she refuses to exploit it and the one time she does out of being forced to, she feels wracked with self-conscious guilt. Not to mention she simply doesn't even have the mind or the patience to actually understand it properly anyway.
• Super Gullible: All it takes is a little fast-talk and Yuko will believe just about anything, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Momo and Seiko aren't above taking advantage of this.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Her horns cause her considerable discomfort. Their weight leaves her neck and shoulder muscles feeling stiff and sore all the time, and she can't sleep on her sides without putting painful pressure on her brain because of them.
  • Instant Expert is thoroughly averted for her. Between being a bit of a scatterbrain, a worrywart and often a terrified Shrinking Violet, potentially all at the same time, she has a habit of messing up new things she tries to learn, and usually botches the abilities and tools she gains over the course of the story until she gets time to acclimate. She doesn't know how to really cook at first, and it takes some time to work out of that with some assistance because she might just burn the food. She gets the Whatever Staff, and is so unimaginative or reckless that she's more liable to hurt herself. Even what little magic she conjures at first teeters into Epic Fail territory.
• Take Me Instead: Somehow, Yuko took on the share of her family's curse that was meant for her as-then-unborn younger sister Ryoko ten years before the Present Day. Being already frail and sickly since birth, this put Yuko in critical condition, and she only survived through extraordinary sacrifices made on her behalf.
• Team Chef: While Seiko still cooks at home, Yuko effectively cooks for Momo and Mikan. Ascended to the point of Through Her Stomach in Momo's case.
• Telepathy: She's not as good at it as her ancestor Lilith, but she does have the capability. When her spirit was being held captive by Mizuchi, she was able to telepathically call for help with her Whatever Staff as an amplifier, and then later made her staff into a psychic megaphone that "shouted" her thoughts into the minds of everyone nearby. She also has managed to use her telepathy to get phones in dreams to connect to actual phones in reality and converse that way.
• The Tell: Her tail is a dead giveaway for her emotions.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly-girl to Momo's tomboy. Momo's an unfashionable muscle-head while Yuko's a Supreme Chef cutie.
• Tsundere: Yuko's one for Momo. She'll frequently do something nice, then claim she had a nefarious reason to do it.
  Yuko: D-don't get the wrong idea, Magical Girl! All of this nourishing food is just meant to help you cultivate more blood so I can steal it later! And, um... I can't think of any other reasons!
• Unfortunate Names: She has a brief moment of embarassment when her teacher explains that "Mistress" can mean "dominatrix".
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: She's Sakura's successor as the protector of Tama Town, but nearly every other character around her is stronger than her. Momo points out it's only natural for the self-stylized "Shadow Mistress" to fight with underlings.
• Weaker in the Real World: Within a dream, she can conjure into being anything her imagination can come up with—unfortunately, with her being a bit of an airhead with an extremely sheltered upbringing, her imagination has trouble coming up with very much. Her Whatever Staff, already capable of defying the laws of nature in the real world, is practically a Reality Warper when she brings it into the dream world. Screw entropy, screw probability, screw thermodynamics, screw logic, if Yuko thinks it'll work, it'll work—the only catch being that doing the impossible in a dream is incredibly taxing on her very limited magical power and it quickly runs out; doing such things in reality is completely beyond her capacity. For now.
• What Is This Feeling?: While Yuko knows she should be having fun during the summer festival she just can't feel it until Momo and Mikan meet up with her. The idea she might be lonely never occurred to her.
• Your Worst Memory: The time when she was in the hospital dying from a double dose of the Light Clan's curse on her family. When she uses her Dream Walker powers on herself, she was trapped in this part of her memories, being attacked by syringes and IV drips in a labyrinthine hospital with no exit, to the point it took Momo to (temporarily) become Yuko's vassal to make them family, as only another family member can enter a Dream Walker's dreams, so Momo can go into Yuko's nightmare to pull her out.

Ryoko Yoshida

Voiced by: Hitomi Ohwada (JP), Hilary Haag (EN)

Shutterbug and devoted little sister.

Yuko's younger sister, still in elementary school. She is extremely smart for her age, and does better than her big sister at most things, largely due to Yuko having taken her share of the curse that affects their entire lineage. In spite of that, she sees enormous potential in Yuko, more so than Yuko sees in herself, and is totally devoted to helping her big sister Take Over the World.

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• Big Sister Worship: In spite of her being well aware of her sister's hopelessness, she greatly respects Yuko and sees amazing potential in her. Her baseless faith became stronger after learning that Yuko "defeated" Momo, which got exacerbated even further after it was "confirmed" that Yuko "recruited" Momo and Mikan into her "army".
• Camera Fiend: After Yuko buys her a camera, she seems to want to take pictures of everything.
• Child Prodigy: As a fourth-grader, she is already reading kanji-heavy ancient war manuals such as Six Secret Teachings and Three Strategies of Huang Shigong. While the version she reads has been rewritten for a modern audience, reading those books requires a level of abstract thinking few people possessed in the era they were written.
• Genre Savvy: Ryoko was seconds away from forcing Sion to reveal their true nature when Lico interupts and asks for help. Ryoko points out she's read way too many books where reveals are interupted and never picked up to get distracted now, and keeps pressing Sion until they spill the beans.
• Out of Focus: By vol. 5, the cast has filled up with teenagers (and demons who look like teenagers) and all their varied plotlines, pushing poor Ryoko to the wayside. She barely has any page time and doesn't even get invited on the big camping trip, even though they're celebrating her own ancestor's (temporary) freedom from the Ancestatue. It's not until the tail end of vol. 5, when Zikiel offers to make her a magical girl, that she regains some of her former plot relevance, eventually settling as a sort of apprentice to Ogura.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
  • She's a bit too into the idea of Yuko taking over the world, obsessively pouring over books on military strategy out of a desire to be her general one day.
  • When Yuko swaps one of her books of treachery and tactics for a children's book, Ryoko still manages to find dark themes and inspiration in its simplistic story.
  • When Zikiel keeps pressuring her to become a Magical Girl, she makes a veiled threat to pour bleach into his fish tank if he doesn't stop asking.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: While she figures out that Momo is actually a Magical Girl, she believes that Yuko had actually converted Momo and Mikan into her subordinates like in a book she read rather than just being actual friends, as it should on a Schoolgirl Series. The girls don't have the heart to tell her the truth. Though, honestly, Yuko kind of has done that by becoming Momo's actual best friend, and later earning Mikan's loyalty by breaking her curse.

Seiko Yoshida

Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (JP), Shelley Calene-Black (EN)

Forever a 20-something. Keeps Lilith in her place.

Mother of Yuko and Ryoko; she's had to raise them on her own ever since her husband was sealed into a box. She never had the heart to tell her daughters what had happened to him, until someone else affected by whatever transpired on that fateful night came to her seeking answers.

She comes off as something of a a ditz, and was admittedly very clumsy before she got married, but occasionally demonstrates impressive cunning. She hasn't aged a day since becoming her husband's vassal when they got married, and still looks to be in her early 20s despite being at least in her mid-30s. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. Her past is largely unexplained and unknown.

---

• The Ageless: Hasn't aged since joining the Dark Clan.
• Almighty Mom: Once Lilith can communicate with the Yoshida family she tries using her status as "honored ancestor" to take control. It takes Seiko less than a minute to crush that idea.
• Bad Liar: She came up with a ridiculous cover story to explain her husband's disappearance. Ryoko saw right through it and assumed her father was in prison. Yuko believed every word.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: She largely stopped aging when she became her husband's vassal.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Getting a new refrigerator is apparently a life-changing event for her. She even does a New Refridgerator Dance! And then drowns her sorrows when told that the fridge won't be able to fit through their front door.
• Older Than They Look: She'd have to be in her mid-30s at minimum, though still looks to be in her early 20s. As her past has never been explained in any great detail, she and her husband could be Really 700 Years Old for all we know.
• Out of Focus: Once the curse of living on 40,000 yen is lifted and Shamiko gets a job at Cafe Asura, solving their family's financial woes, Seiko pretty much loses all relevance to the plot. Shirosawa eclipses her as the parental figure (and main employer) for the teenage cast, and she only occasionally pops up to do a "mom" thing. Even when Cafe Asura re-opens on the first floor of Banda Terrace, her involvement is minimal.
• Parental Fashion Veto: She has a somewhat subdued negative reaction to Yuko's Crisis Management form.
  Seiko: Yuko... I think you should avoid wearing that outfit you had on earlier outside from now on. You'll catch a cold.

Lilith

Voiced by: Minami Takahashi (JP), Emily Neves (EN)

Hasn't won since the dawn of time.

She is an ancient demoness and the progenitor of the Dark Clan, sealed away millennia ago. Yuko and her father are direct descendants of Lilith, though by how many generations is never specified. (It's a lot. She lost count.)

For most of the time she was sealed away, she was barely conscious and was only occasionally able to reach out to the dreams of her descendants. For reasons unknown even to her, about ten years before the Present Day she regained her full consciousness, and the ability to perceive the outside world through the Evil God Statue that is a Yoshida family heirloom. After Yuko managed to break a part of her family's curse, Lilith became able to speak through the statue and even animate it to a small extent.

She becomes part friend, part mentor, and part grandmother to Yuko once they're able to communicate; first through Yuko's dreams, then directly once she can speak again. Although she is extremely petty and self-centered, she can hardly be called unequivocally evil. She genuinely cares for her family, and wants what's best for them (or at least, what she thinks is best for them).

---

• And I Must Scream: In human terms, Lilith's seal translates to solitary confinement with complete sensory deprivation.
• Bargain with Heaven: While on a camping trip in Outer Tama, Yuko accidentally drops a bottle into the nearby headwaters of the Tama River. This unfortunately gets the attention of the river's guardian spirit, a mizuchi sealed away into a nearby mountain 150 years ago. It really doesn't like its river being fouled, and pulls Yuko's soul into its sealed space with the intent to kill her. When it realizes she has the power to create things in sealed spaces, it instead decides to hold her soul captive for its amusement, leaving her body comatose and dying. Lilith, who is in a temporary body that was only expected to last a week, converses with the river god through a dream mirror and implores it to let Yuko go. It refuses, until Lilith comes up with a plan to sacrifice herself to get Yuko back and take her place. Rather than be stuck with Lilith instead, the mizuchi curses her with immortality by forcibly inserting a dragon jade into Lilith's vessel, then agrees to release Yuko's soul on the condition that Lilith devote herself to purifying the river by picking up trash from the riverbank every day. Forever. If she breaks the deal, she dies. (Although it later makes an exception that she can take a day off if she's sick, or the weather is bad.) She's dismayed with how far she's fallen, until passersby start thanking her for cleaning things up.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: She was willing to take Yuko's place as the river spirit's captive because Yuko was the only person to always show her kindness and respect.
• Brought Down to Normal: When she temporarily took over Yuko's body, Lilith was very surprised at how weak Yuko was and how she had almost zero stamina, sore muscles from not being used to the weight of her horns, and blurry vision. One can guess that she was quite a bit more powerful back in the day.
• Butt-Monkey: Where Yuko tends to get the lighthearted or dramatic troubles thrown on her head, Lilith will almost certainly get the harsher punishments, whether it be Momo tossing her away to end up somewhere, accidentally being forgotten by Yuko, Seiko intimidating her into compliance or various other factors. She might as well be the karmic lightning rod.
• Can't Hold Her Liquor: Less than one can of alcopop is enough to make her tipsy.
• Commuting on a Bus: After getting her new body in volume 5 but then consequently being saddled with an eternity of trash collection duty, she has somewhat fallen out of the central cast, mostly showing up when her experience or abilities are needed—or just to annoy Momo, which she can do far more effectively now that she's no longer confined to an easily-thrown statue.
• The Devil Is a Loser: The Lilith in this universe is as useless as Yuko, and does not have the illness justification.
• Distinguishing Mark: Her right horn is broken. She broke it by running into a wall in the dark, and she then got sealed before it completely grew back.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Not that she's all that evil herself, but as an actual demon that was genuinely feared at one point, it becomes clear that Yuko and Momo's situations are appalling to her. Yuko for being a weak girl that isn't actually all that fit for being evil as she eventually realizes the poor thing is really out of her depth, and Momo when she's not hating her because of the realization that Momo's not only had it rough, but could very well cease to be if she loses too much magic energy. Even Yuko points out how horrified Lilith was at the latter.
  • At least a couple cases are also Played for Laughs versus Momo. The latter's cynicism and pragmatic thinking genuinely shocks or flabbergasts Lilith, such as when Momo accuses her of cheating an exam by keeping the study material in her realm to use as she saw fit. Lilith's response?
    "... I never even thought of that. Thou art wicked."
• Evil Is Petty: She keeps a journal of every time Momo was mean to her so she can one day get revenge.
• Evil Mentor: She acts as one to Yuko, teaching her how to use her various demonic powers, yet often denigrating her modesty and integrity as unbecoming of a demon.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The outfit she wore while possessing Yuko for a second time had mismatched socks specifically because she finds it fashionable.
• Fun T-Shirt: Not a t-shirt, but whenever she's feeling lazy or isn't trying to impress anyone, she can be seen wearing a sweatshirt saying (in English)) "My blood sugar level is dangerous". Since she wears it while she's still trapped in her statue, it's possible it was offered to her at some point.
• Gone Horribly Right: Lilith pressures Yuko and Momo to make her a life-size vessel doll so she can fully experience life in the flesh again. They agree to do so, making one out of homunculus clay, and Sion Ogura estimates it'll only last a week before the body dies and Lilith's spirit is pulled back into her sealed space. However, her one-week reprieve from her familiar sealed space and its on-demand comforts ends up becoming an indefinite sentence to community service thanks to a deal with the guardian spirit of the Tama River.
• Good Feels Good: Doing nice things runs contrary to her demonic nature, but when she does, she really enjoys the feeling she gets when she's praised for it.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: Yuko and Lilith have virtually identical hairstyles, only differing in color.
• Hidden Depths: She's almost entirely useless as a mentor for Yuko in any matter physical or magical, but Lilith did exist since thousands of years ago. While she slept through much of history, she also retained much of it, making her a near-perfect historical master — something Momo gets really pissed about.
• Immortal Immaturity: Lilith in this universe acts like a bratty teen, being extremely petty, too much into fashion, and liking sugary drinks. Perhaps justified, as she was sealed in her late teens and simply never grew out of it.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: She technically has "take over the world" on her list of plans, but seeing as she's somehow more pathetic than Yuko, nobody (except Momo) really has a problem with her, or takes her seriously.
• Ironic Fear: She calls herself the "Witch of Eternal Darkness" but is afraid of the dark.
• Living Distant Ancestor: Due to being sealed away by the Light Clan as a Fate Worse than Death, she's technically still "alive" thousands of years after she was born.
• Never My Fault: Lilith genuinely thinks Momo's mean to her for absolutely no reason.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Sealed, yes, though it is somewhat questionable how evil she truly is regardless of her grandiose plans for world conquest. Even when Momo was just about ready to offer all her power to Lilith if it would save Yuko, she refused. She's petty and self-centered, yes, but maybe not that evil.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Lilith was an exhibitionist in the days before she was sealed, clearly wants Yuko to follow her example, and even designed a battle form for Momo that was so ridiculously Stripperiffic it triggered an immediate falling-to-darkness-inducing explosive outburst from her.
  Lilith: Shamiko, why do you always wear that uniform to school?
  Yuko: Because it's the rules.
  Lilith: That's how they stamp out individuality and shackle you to the collective, then. You are a demon! An embodiment of chaos! You should oppose the status quo! Go to school buck naked!
  Yuko: I'D GET ARRESTED!
• Strong Family Resemblance: She has the same hairstyle and a very similar face to Yuko. Ryoko thinks Lilith is basically Yuko's Palette Swap, and Yuko's description of her is just "me, but tan."
• Telepathy: She can project her voice into the minds of others, even from a few kilometers away. She was capable of doing so even as a sealed spirit, after her seal was partially broken with a bit of Momo's blood.
• Time Abyss: She was sealed away around five thousand years ago in the days of ancient Sumeria, yet she looks (and acts like) a teenage girl. Presumably, she was that old when sealed and just never grew beyond that, either physically or mentally.
• Trauma Button: Lilith's fear of the dark is a legacy of her initial imprisonment in the statue, as she was left in complete darkness until she learned how to control her magic.
• Truly Single Parent: Lilith created descendants with just her mana.

Joshua "Taro Yoshida"

Voiced by: Hideyuki Umezu (JP), Mark Mendehlson (EN)

All that remains is an old photo and a box.

A demon of Mesopotamian heritage. Little is known of him, other than he was good at improvising and putting whatever he had on hand to good use, had a penchant for magically making himself look like a teenager, and was a devoted father who went to great lengths to save Yuko from the afflictions of their family curse.

He is trapped in a sealed space bound within the mandarin box in the Yoshida's apartment, which they use as a table and stool due to its magical protective coating. He is still watching over his family, encouraging and cheering them on, even if they don't know it.

---

• Bad Powers, Good People: Same as Yuko, though he takes it a step further with the power to rewrite memories. He uses his powers to seal away bad memories; memories of love are much more difficult, and very easy to restore.
• Catchphrase: "Ganbare!" which can be translated into "Do your best!" or "Hang in there!" depending on the context.
• Disappeared Dad: He is never seen, aside from a photograph, though Seiko has some outrageous explanations as to where he is. Turns out he was actually sealed inside the cardboard box in their house this entire time.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: He has a shorter version of Yuko and Lilith's hairstyle.
• Heroic Sacrifice: As a great demon, he was worth a lot of wish-granting points for magical girls. He allowed Sakura to seal him away so she could trade the points for the wishes she needed to protect Tama City.
• Mysterious Past: Lilith doesn't know much about his nature and background, and Seiko's not been forthcoming on the subject. He and Sakura are the only ones who know how he got sealed in the box, and neither of them are currently available.
• Narrator All Along: Near the end of the second volume of the manga, and the first season's last episode, the voice of the narrator who occasionally speaks up to give Yuko encouragement is revealed to be that of her father, who's been there all along sealed inside a cardboard box, but is still watching over her. As Yuko gets closer to Momo and Lilith, he even starts encouraging them too.
• Naturalized Name: As a middle-easterner, Joshua (pronounced "Yoshua") adopts the Japanese name Yoshida as a disguise.
• Nice Guy: Based on the fact that he's the narrator, and his direct comments towards Yuko and others, he seems to have been a good, supportive guy, especially in regards to his family. Though going by a few of those comments, he could also be rather Innocently Insensitive at times.
• Older Than He Looks: A photo from Seiko shows he isn't too different from Yuko—he is shorter than Seiko and has a babyface. He even looks like a teenager, though Seiko says he could make himself look young through magical means.
• Phenotype Stereotype: He has blond hair, like Lilith. People from the Middle East rarely have that hair colour.
• Sealed Good in a Can: He was sealed inside the box their family had been using as a table ten years ago. Seiko proceeds to rename it the Daddy Box.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He's basically a gender-bent Lilith with lighter skin.
• Stronger Than They Look: He looks pretty cute and unassuming, but he's actually considered a Greater Demon.
• Sue Donym: He cunningly adopts the Japanese name Yoshida as a disguise. Yuko lampshades how lazy an alias it is.
• Vocal Dissonance: The voice the anime gave him (which wouldn't be out of place being used for somebody's grandfather) probably is a good match for his true age, but it definitely doesn't match his appearance. His English dub voice is a good bit younger-sounding, but still sounds like a middle-aged man in contrast to his youthful appearance.

Magical Girls

Momo Chiyoda

Voiced by: Akari Kitou (JP), Genevieve Simmons (EN)

Retired magical girl. Far stronger than she looks.

A self-proclaimed retired Magical Girl with a Dark and Troubled Past, and the other main character of the series. Momo was adopted at a very young age by Sakura Chiyoda, likely because she sensed Momo's potential, and served as both a Big Sister Mom and a mentor in magic. She doesn't know her biological parents, and suspects she's an orphan.

Ten years before Present Day, shortly after Sakura left her in another town for safety, her sister disappeared from her life, and Momo spent many long years searching for Sakura's whereabouts. In the meanwhile, she apparently worked with other Magical Girls, and even saved the world with them once. During that time in active service, she saw enough very bad things to drive her to put away her wand and give up the Magical Girl life, though she still has her powers. They're handy sometimes.

When she first met (and was then attacked by) Yuko, she was merely interested in getting close to Yuko and her family for information concerning the whereabouts of her sister, and even attempted to stalk Yuko only to be thwarted by Sakura's barriers. However, while training her to use magic, Yuko revealed that she didn't have any of the malevolent feelings toward the world that Momo imagined demons would have, and Yuko just wanted everyone to get along well and be friends. In light of that, Momo genuinely tries to become her friend.

Their relationship grows deeper upon learning of their intertwined past, becoming more of a sisterly nature, though Yuko is still hung up on seeing Momo as a rival, driven to defeat her and earn her respect, and is too naive to see she has already won her love.

---

• Anger Born of Worry: Putting Yuko in danger is the quickest way to make her mad, even if that person is Yuko herself.
  Momo: Don't do such reckless things when I'm not watching, especially after an all-nighter!
  Yuko: Momo, are you mad?
  Momo: I'm not mad.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: It's not clear how much money Sakura left her, but it's a lot.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: The revelation that Momo's adoptive big sister who raised her also saved Yuko's life, yet sealed away Yuko's father, becomes the thread that binds them together as true friends.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Just to highlight how un-Magical Girl she is, if someone like Lico manages to one-up her or worse, she'll borrow Yuko's "Don't think this means you've won" catchphrase, albeit usually with a lot more genuine spite in it.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She scores highly on her exams, but she abhors responsibility and otherwise treats schoolwork with contempt.
• Butt-Monkey: She ends up being this more often as more and more characters start mercilessly teasing either her aloofness or her affection for Yuko.
• Calling Your Attacks: Her Magical Incantation is "Fresh Peach Heart Shower!" She finds it pretty embarrassing.
• Child Soldier: She first became a Magical Girl when she was 5, and managed to save the world when she was 9. Even before becoming a Magical Girl, she was the result of a Ukrainian science experiment that produced child super-soldiers, and it is implied that she was fighting Sakura before surrendering.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She gets grumpy whenever she sees Yuko and Mikan acting close, something Lilith notices and teases her for. She mostly grows out of it after learning to open up to others a bit more.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Normally Momo is the Only Sane Man of the cast, but the moment you mention working out or muscles? This trope comes out in full force. One of the extras even has Momo transform for the sole reason of making a protein shake for Yuko.
• Covered in Scars: Her body has a lot of scars due to ether bodies being faster to heal but easier to scar than a normal one, the most prominent ones being four parallel scars on her left hip that look like claw marks.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She's born an orphan, started being a Magical Girl—Child Soldier in all but name—no older than five, literally had no relatives for the past ten years, and got PTSD from traumatic events in her Magical Girl days. She had a hard and troubling time, probably even worse than Yuko. To top it all off, Metako reveals through his memories that Momo was the result of some sort of Ukrainian science experiment to produce child super-soldiers, having been named Operation 27 before gaining the name Momo, and it is hinted from the Ukrainian dialogue that she was fighting Sakura and Suika before she surrendered, so her childhood could have been even worse than previously thought.
• Decoy Backstory: Momo thinks she grew up in a normal orphanage before meeting Sakura; in truth, Sakura asked Joshua to seal away her memories of having been the result of a Ukrainian experiment to produce Tyke Bombs and overwrite them with that more consistent of an orphan.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Her own motive, no less. She spontaneously fell to darkness again due to a buildup of negative emotions. She finds their trigger so embarrassing she genuinely considered staying fallen rather than admitting them. What was it? She missed her chance to eat Yuko's cooking.
  Lilith: And you fell to darkness just because of that?
  Momo: Here's to my petty and boring life...
  • In a later chapter, she falls to darkness because Mikan, Lilith, and Yuko all find her "Fresh Peach Second Harvest" outfit Impossibly Tacky Clothes.
• Empty Fridge, Empty Life: Her empty fridge sadly matches her empty house. Specifically, despite living in a Big Fancy House, her fridge only contains a small amount of processed food.
• Eviler than Thou: She's supposed to be a heroic Magical Girl. Instead she is arguably more evil than the actual demons trying to make a blood sacrifice of her, thanks to being far more pragmatic, manipulative and ultimately just plain mean to those she dislikes. It's to the point that Lilith compliments her on this.
• Fake Memories: Momo thinks she grew up in a normal orphanage before meeting Sakura; in truth, Sakura asked Joshua to seal away her memories of having been a Child Soldier and overwrite them.
• Fangirl: Of Tamasakura, the local mascot. She claims she's not a fan of Tamasakura despite knowing a ton of trivia on her, collecting her merchandise, going to movies about her... Tamasakura actually just reminds Momo of her vanished adoptive older sister. And she's right—Shirasawa designed Tamasakura based on Sakura's core, moments before it sealed itself in Yuko's body.
  Momo: It's not like I like her. I just care enough that it impacts my daily life.
• Frozen Dinner of Loneliness: Not literally frozen dinners, but before Mikan (and later Yuko) starts cooking for her, she's so lonely and lethargic that she nearly exclusively eats convenience-store lunch boxes. On even more lethargic days she gets by by just eating junk food all day, to Yuko's utter ire.
• Happily Adopted: She was adopted by Sakura, but seems to look up to her less like a mom and more as a big sister.
• Heroic Neutral: She's kinda retired from the whole Magical Girl scene, but she'll still jump in if there's trouble in front of her.
• I Didn't Tell You Because You'd Be Unhappy: Momo never told Mikan about Sakura's disappearance, despite them being longtime friends who both mentored under Sakura, and Mikan is understandably distraught when she finally finds out.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Her attempts to create a new Magical Girl outfit can best be described as "a roller-skating ninja." Not even Yuko could think of anything nice to say about it.
• Informed Ability: Since this series is a non-combat Magical Girl series, "Fresh Peach Heart Shower", her Finishing Move, is frequently alluded to but never shown on-screen.
• Innocently Insensitive: Momo's bluntness combined with Yuko's Tsundere-ness means Momo has a habit of unwittingly torpedoing Yuko's attempts to covertly slide into the "friend" part of Friendly Rival.
• Jerkass to One: While Momo's pretty chill to everyone, Lico's antics infuriate her to the point of barely contained hostility.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: A trait only appearing in the unanimated chapters. Playing with cats is one of the two things (the other being bodybuilding) she still enjoys, to the point that in Chapter 48, she attempts to start a school club for exactly that purpose.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Joshua sealed her memories of her pre-Sakura childhood, and neither Momo, Yuko or Metako can restore them. In addition, there are things around her battle with Suika she doesn't consciously remember, that have severe audio and visual static, which may have something to do with Suika's memory-wiping skills.
• Lethal Chef: In her untransformed state, Momo simply can't cook anything without strange and bizarre things happening to either the ingredients or the final product, and only Yuko can stomach her culinary handiwork. Apparently her cooking hasn't improved a bit from when she was 5 years old.
• Liminal Being: She was temporarily both light and dark aligned when she became Yuko's vassal. Athough she went back to the light shortly after, the experience put her about as close to the border of light and dark as she can possibly get.
• Magic Wand: She has one called Heartful Peach Morphing Stick which looks like an archetypical magical girl wand. It changes her clothing by Gorgeous Garment Generation, and she uses it instead of getting dressed in a normal manner to keep her scars hidden.
• Minor Living Alone: She lives alone in a large house. She apparently inherited it from Sakura along with a rather sizable fortune.
• Mukokuseki: She is apparently Ukrainian, but she has the same Kirara-style Generic Cuteness as the largely-Asian cast, and if she's supposed to be Caucasian then nobody ever comments on it.
• Mundane Utility: Since she rarely has much to do in recent times, and Yuko is too weak and hopeless to be a threat, most of the time she uses her Magical Girl powers for random lowkey situations, such as saving hot-dog-octopi from falling on the ground or making special protein shakes.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Zigzagged with Muscles Are Meaningful. Her incredible strength is a result of her magic power supplementing her physical abilities, though she also needs genuine muscle to increase her power, hence her obsession with training. Except that Mikan confirms that Momo's strength is absurd even taking all that into account.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When she realizes Yuko used to be a lethally sick girl who is barely recovered and still not really primed for physical activity at all, Momo is horrified that she made the girl go through Training from Hell without a single consideration about it.
• Not So Above It All: Early series Momo is The Stoic and generally only ever eccentric about cats or weight training. As Yuko befriends her more and more, and Momo becomes more willing to do what she needs for Yuko's sake, she starts letting more of her emotions out — and becomes almost as prone to being frustrated, quirky, or just plain weirded out as the rest of the girls around her to the zany situations they end up in.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: The only vow she asks of Yuko in exchange for becoming her vassal is that Yuko won't leave her.
• Required Secondary Powers: To stop the dump truck without damaging it or injuring the driver, her magic would have to nullify momentum, too, besides granting her super-strength.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Momo is a heroic Magical Girl who helps and trains even her rival Yuko.
• Secretly Selfish: At least part of the reason she got close to Yuko was in the hopes of getting information on her missing sister. Yuko is completely understanding when the truth comes out.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran:
  • She has been a magical girl since the age of four. While what happened on her battles was never mentioned, Mikan reflected she was a Genki Girl when she was younger. At Present Day she emotes very little, admits she has no goals in her life, and seems to have given up taking care of herself, if her eating habits are any indication. From what's revealed later, she doesn't seem to have had any trouble with being a magical girl up through age nine; her change in outlook appears to have come either from her encounter with Suika or something soon afterward.
  • Additionally, there's a fair case that she was like this when she first met Sakura, before she became a magical girl, and ending up this way again was the last thing Sakura would have wanted for her.
• Sherlock Scan: Thanks to her magic and her advanced capability, Momo can detect and see anything wrong around her with exceptional ease. Early in the series, for example, she can tell exactly how Yuko's body is reacting to her training, being able to deduce that she shaved off a kilogram and gained hints of muscle from a couple days of training from a casual glance, never mind being able to realize the girl's tail was strained from being unused to having it.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Momo goes through a few stages of this.
  • After Yuko asked her to become her vassal, she started dressing in black and wearing more casual attire, as opposed to always wearing her usual yellow parka over her school uniform.
  • When Yuko bought her a pair of black hairclips as an Apology Gift, she wore them from that point on, and never wore her old pink hairclips again.
  • After temporarily becoming Yuko's vassal to save her from a nightmare she couldn't wake up from, her hair ornament (which is actually part of her ether body) changes from pink to black, with a white angel wing. Also, she took to wearing the black hairclips crisscrossed on the right side of her head, instead of over her bangs.
  • When in a full fallen state, her transformation takes on a complete Evil Makeover, and the wing on her hair ornament turns into a black bat wing even when not transformed.
  • Eventually she makes her fallen form's outfit into her default transformation, getting rid of the old pink and white frilly dress, as she'd been using it since childhood and now found it embarrassing—the fallen form's outfit was more practical for the way she prefers to fight now.
• Skimpy Villains Sensible Heroes : Her fallen outfit predominantly bares her midriff. Yuko's weirdly fixated on it, and will find an excuse to touch her tummy whenever she gets the chance.
• Smells Sexy: After Momo's partial fall to darkness to save Yuko from her nightmare, and her hair ornament turns permanently black, something changes about her ether body that makes Yuko become enamored by her smell.
• Sore Loser: She utterly loathes happening to be inferior in anything versus people she genuinely dislikes. An early case is flipping out when she realizes that Lilith of all people managed to beat her in the school History exams, and accuses her of cheating with methods like sticking the study info in her sealed realm to look at them freely. Lilith hadn't even considered that.
• Stripperific: Her fallen form amounts to a short, midriff-baring top, a miniskirt, thigh-highs and shoes, and a cloak over top. Meanwhile Lilith tried to propose a new form idea for her.. and it's the most overly sexual appearance in the entire story to a literal stripper degree. Momo straight up destroyed that out of sheer rage from falling-into-darkness mode.
• Stronger Than They Look: She stops a truck from hitting Yuko during their first encounter. She is also seen lifting weights that big muscular men would be using normally, and lifts a big tire meant for mining trucks with ease. Interestingly, she claims to be one of the weaker magical girls despite her obvious strength, although Mikan states that Momo's physical strength is abnormal for magical girls.
• Sympathy for the Devil: When Momo tries to bribe Lilith for information about Sakura with an offering of an armful of junk food (considering Joshua used to carry her statue around back then the way Yuko does now), Lilith says she knows nothing. Momo immediately takes it all back. Lilith then adds she didn't know because she'd had no awareness of anything outside her sealed space, completely isolated and alone, for two thousand years. She didn't regain awareness of the outside world until after Sakura had disappeared. Momo is stunned into silence and gives the offering back to Lilith; she even cries just a little bit.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Whenever Momo has to team up with a demon besides Shamiko (Lilith, Lico, Sion Ogura in vol. 6), she gets a flinty stare and gritted teeth, and is always quick to remind them she could fling them to the horizon.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the tomboy to both Yuko and Mikan's girly-girl. Momo's muscle-headed, unfashionable, and Mikan accuses her of lacking girl power. In contrast, Yuko is a cutie with great cooking skills while Mikan is a fashionable Cool Big Sis. Cosmetically, Momo has Boyish Short Hair and rarely wears dresses and skirts while Yuko and Mikan both have long hair and more girly clothing.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: In the beginning, Momo joylessly floated through life without any friends or connections. It was only after her self-proclaimed rival Yuko entered her life that she started finding reasons to smile again.
  Momo: When I returned to this town, my acquaintances were all gone. I did all I could to look for sis, but there's so much I don't want to think back on. Somehow... my mind ended up being all "whatever." Ever since I met Shamiko, little... by little... something changed. People began gathering around me. Meals began having actual taste. I began wavering over trivial matters. The town began turning colorful. The last thing I want is losing all there is to this town.
• Transformation Sequence: She naturally has one, but she always completes it in under 10 milliseconds, making it too fast for the human eye to percieve.
• Trauma Button: Things involving her past tend to make her particularly aloof or annoyed, though Laser-Guided Amnesia thanks to Sakura for her own mental wellness doesn't help. Another that usually gets her very iffy isn't even her own trauma, but being reminded that Yuko was a severely ill girl that could've very easily died if she was younger were it not for Sakura merging with Yuko. It tends to be the one subject that makes her focus on Yuko's well-being immediately.
• Tsundere: If Yuko is an awkward attempt at being one even though she fails horribly to be mean, Momo has more traditional elements towards others that aren't Yuko, like begrudgingly accepting their help or being rather rude towards folks like Lilith and Lico in particular. But occasionally, when it comes to certain things like Yuko calling an outfit she's wearing cute, Momo reddens up and then swaps to casual clothes as she plays it off in a more meek example.
• Tyke Bomb: Chapter 77 reveals she was the subject of a Ukrainian experiment to generate super-Child Soldiers, and ended up fighting Sakura and Suika at four.
• Undying Loyalty: To Yuko, who quickly eclipsed Tama Town and even Sakura as Momo's #1 priority. She's already mentally willing to become Yuko's vassal and only hasn't done it for practical reasons.
• Unskilled, but Strong: For a Magical Girl, she is actually not particularly good at using magic. She makes up for her magical shortcomings with physical force, which is why she is obsessed with working out.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She got a sort of information registry of every Demon in Tama Town together thanks to Ogura, and handed it to Suika in the search for Sakura. 10% of the population being demons was immediately whittled down to a grand total of one primary apartment protected by Sakura and Joshua as a result.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: She's stoic and jaded now, but she used to be a traditionally peppy and cutesy Magical Girl. However, it turns out she actually started as an inversion, having been a Child Soldier who became peppy and cutesy with her childhood memories sealed and overwritten.
• When She Smiles: Yuko thinks she would look really cute smiling and makes it her mission to see it. And when it finally happens, Yuko completely breaks down sobbing in tears, both because she's happy that it happened, and because she doesn't feel she deserves it.
• You Are Not Alone: Momo had been looking for her sister for years, without success due to the Magical Girl-repelling barriers around the city. She only got close to Yuko with the intention of getting information from her family, the only members of the Dark Clan she ever managed to make contact with, and never counted on Yuko becoming someone so endearing to her in several ways. Momo felt personally responsible for Sakura sealing away Yuko's father and was so bothered by it that she didn't see the situation from the other side: Sakura saved Yuko's life, and Yuko feels she owes her a massive debt for it. When Yuko tells Momo they both have reasons to find Sakura, she'll do anything she can to help, and that Momo is not alone in her search anymore, Momo is so touched that she nearly accepts Yuko's offer to become her vassal to get around the barriers, until realizing the consequences of it.
• You Are Number 6: When she first met Sakura, she was called "Operation 27"; Sakura was the one to name her Momo.

Mikan Hinatsuki

Voiced by: Tomoyo Takayanagi (JP), Christina Kelly (EN)

Extra girly magical girl.

An old friend of Momo and a fellow Magical Girl, though Mikan never completely gave it up.

She bore a curse for many years, after her father made an attempt to summon a demon that went terribly wrong as he didn't know what he was doing. The summoned demon, named Ugallu, took host in Mikan's heart, trying to fulfill its intended purpose by blindly lashing out at everyone and everything around her when it sensed her in distress. This curse was originally much worse, and nobody could even get close to her without being hurt, however, Sakura Chiyoda helped her out by using magic to suppress the curse a bit. She even devised a way to undo Mikan's curse, but was unable to carry out the plan she came up with due to...other factors. Since Sakura's battle with Ugallu already destroyed the factory owned by her father, they moved to the west using the money Sakura gave them in lieu of Hero Insurance.

Momo called on her to help protect Yuko after Yuko unwittingly took some of Momo's blood and partially broke her family's curse on accident, which drained a large amount of Momo's magical potential. Yuko and Mikan became good friends as well, though not as close friends as Momo and Yuko are.

Her family owns a fruit processing plant that specializes in making candies and confections from citrus fruits.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her eyes go from an amber orange in the manga to green in the anime.
• Bizarre Human Biology: That green ribbon she wears? It's actually a part of her ether body.
• Blessed with Suck: To some degree. Ugallu resides in her because of her mana reserves, but this is also why Sakura selected her as a Magical Girl as well.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: While she can cook a decent (edible) meal, she flavors everything she cooks or eats with citrus, meaning the food she makes is weird and offputting at worst, or sour and monotonous at best.
• Equippable Ally: Her Navigator Michael turns into an arrow during combat. Due to Michael's deadly toxin, Yuko is a bit disturbed by this.
• Friendly Enemy: Though technically she would also be Yuko's enemy due to being a magical girl, she's just as friendly to her as Momo is, and doesn't treat her any differently even after finding out that Yuko was a demon.
• I Am a Monster: Her line of thinking when she's feeling especially down. It usually takes some external intervention to snap her out of it.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: She can hit a target the size of a standard A4 piece of paper from a kilometer away, though she does so by magical assistance.
• The Jinx: Due to a curse, whenever she gets worked up, misfortune befalls the people around her, such as trash-bags exploding, strong gusts of wind or storm clouds coming out of nowhere, or a snake showing up to torment Lilith.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Momo tried to keep her sister's disappearance a secret, fearing that Mikan would lose control of her curse worrying incessantly about said disappearance. However, Mikan is surprisingly okay with this, and says it doesn't bother her because she saw how Momo tried to carry on by herself despite her sister no longer being around.
• Long-Range Fighter: Mikan's great at sniping things from afar, but she gets too nervous to hit when the target is close.
• Nice Girl: She attempts to mask it on rare occasions (because getting emotional triggers her curse), but she always tries to be cheery and helpful despite her condition. Small wonder that the one time things got unbearable for her, every named character (and even some then-unnamed characters) showed up to help.
• Skewed Priorities: When she asks Yuko to repair her door which had been smashed in and has two crossbow bolts sticking out of it, her reason isn't "it's completely unusable as a door anymore", but rather "it's not very photogenic".
• Team Mom: Probably the most well-adjusted person in the group, which is not saying much. It eventually turns into an in-series nickname after she really does become a "mom" of sort.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly-girl to Momo's tomboy. Momo's an unfashionable muscle-head while Mikan's a stylish Cool Big Sis.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Citrus fruits. She will subconsciously buy a large amount of citrus fruits every time she visits a supermarket, and has the tendency to put citrus in every kind of food.
• Truly Single Parent: Ugallu was formed out of Mikan's mana, making her a sort-of mother to Ugallu. Mikan herself objects to being called a mother, lest Mikan be seen to have gone through Teen Pregnancy.
• Valley Girl: She's rich, fashionable, critical of Momo's lack of girl power, and is sometimes localized using valley girl slang, though she doesn't have any of the negative stereotypes aspects of the trope.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Momo spends most of her time taking the brunt of Mikan's curse, while Mikan usually has to deal with Momo's largely unreasonable requests. When pressed about it, she reminds Yuko that they couldn't have remained friends for ten years if their relationship were shallow. On one side, Mikan would do just about anything for Momo, and on her part, Momo's trust in her is more or less absolute.

Sakura Chiyoda

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto (JP), Allison Sumrall (EN)

The key to so much, yet we know so little.

The biggest enigma of the series, and the most influential character of all. She has personally had a major impact on the lives of nearly everyone else in the story.

Sakura was extremely adept at manipulating seals and barriers; she is responsible for the barriers around Tama that normally keep Demons and Magical Girls from being able to interact with one another. Whatever motivated her to do something so drastic remains unknown, but at least we know her reasoning. From Yuko's limited contact with Sakura within her own subconscious, Sakura claimed she and Yuko think alike: they just want everyone to get along together.

Sakura raised Momo like a daughter, training her as a Magical Girl. Momo remembers her as being very skilled with magic, but very bad at managing her time and never getting her college coursework done before it was due. Sakura was also a mentor to Mikan, and suppressed her curse enough to at least allow other people to get near her without the demon inside her critically injuring them.

She meddled in the ancient curse afflicting the Yoshida family in an effort to save Yuko's life at Joshua's behest, sacrificing their family's luck and fortune for Yuko's health—and yet even this wasn't enough. This took a major toll on her magical abilities, and in return for her intervention, Joshua became her partner in protecting the city of Tama, in a time where things were much more dangerous than Present Day.

What exactly befell her and Joshua ten years ago is unknown; we only know the final outcome. They confronted something dangerous at the factory formerly owned by Mikan's family and Joshua got sealed into a box. Sakura destroyed the factory warehouse with her strongest attack in the fight. Afterwards, she took Joshua's box, and left it at his family's apartment with a note explaining what had happened to him—and then disappeared from public view.

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• Adoptive Peer Parent: Sakura adopted Momo when she was still in college. The dub justified the feasibility of this by making her Momo's sister-in-law.
• All-Loving Heroine: She set barriers to defend demons despite being on opposing sides. Mikan thinks she'd be far more kind to Lilith than Momo is.
• Big Good: She is an experienced Magical Girl who fights evil, protects innocent demons, and even saved Yuko's life in the past. Too bad she's been missing for years now.
• Book Dumb: Information about her is scarce, but the short note she left for Seiko about Joshua already has two errors, in addition to having fewer kanji than expected for a college student. This indicates her book smarts may be limited. Momo later confirmed that Sakura had a tendency to let her homework pile up and then rush do it all at the last possible moment.
• Cherry Blossom Girl: She is clearly cherry-blossom themed: she has "Sakura" as her first name, she has pink as her Color Motif, and even her Finishing Move ''Sakura''-ment Cannon leaves holes of that shape on walls.
• Fiction 500: The fact that she can actually purchase large amounts of land on a whim or in lieu of Hero Insurance puts her into this trope. Momo inherits her fortune, but she's too lethargic to use it.
• Give Him a Normal Life: A variation; she wanted Momo to have a normal life, so she asked Joshua to give her Fake Memories of her childhood before they met.
• Idiot Hair: She has a very small one on the top of her head, in a similar position as Yuko's.
• Practically Different Generations: The dub makes Sakura Momo's sister-in-law. At the time she was sealed, she was somewhere between 20-22^note The lowest marriagable age in Japan is 20, while Momo was 5.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation: The English dub makes her Momo's sister-in-law rather than an adoptive "sister." This potentially causes a Dub-Induced Plot Hole.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Sakura's core is sealed inside Yuko. Sakura actually did this to herself to boost Yuko's health. Yuko would die if it was removed before Yuko has the power to resist her family's curse alone.
• Supernatural Sealing: Sakura is a Magical Girl who specialized in seals, and not only about sealing per se—she is also adept at tampering other magical seals.
• Take Up My Sword: A non-lethal example: she asks Yuko to take up her role as the guardian of Tama Town while she's sealed.

Honyu Shu

Had a bone to pick with Lico, but the whole thing was one big misunderstanding.

An 18-year-old magical girl strongly implied to be from China. She had an old grudge with Lico from her childhood. When Lico took up working for her family's diner, the success her cooking brought drove a wedge between her and her grandfather. Her grandfather, overjoyed at his diner's new success, was driven to make it big for Honyu's sake, but Honyu herself came to think her grandfather had been brainwashed by Lico.

The Navigator Zikiel took advantage of the situation, and talked her into becoming a Magical Girl to seal Lico. When she attempted to confront Lico, the fox just whacked her over the head to knock her out and left, taking a wok with her that Honyu's grandfather had given her as a birthday gift. Although she never used the wok herself, she valued it for sentimental reasons, and spent ten years tracking Lico down again to reclaim it and undo her grandfather's presumed "brainwashing."

When she finally caught up with Lico again, Honyu stormed right into the Cafa Asura and attempted to seal her away, not realizing she was in the midst of several other demons and magical girls. She only had enough magical power to make one attempt, and Shirosawa lept to Lico's defense, taking the spell and getting sealed himself. When Lico flew into a rage over her beloved Master, Yuko and Sion intervened to keep the situation from descending into bloodshed by knocking everyone else unconscious with a potion. Yuko then dove into Honyu's dreams and childhood memories to show her that her quest for vengeance had no basis in reality: her grandfather hadn't been brainwashed at all, he had just been driven to succeed for her sake, then fell into despair at losing that chance after Honyu drove Lico away. On top on that, Lico had tried to be her friend, but Honyu wasn't having any of it.

After realizing the truth, and that sealing Lico would accomplish nothing, Honyu agrees to help unseal Shirosawa, in return for Lico returning her wok and apologizing for taking it. Since her mission of vengeance was a personal one and she didn't want anyone else to get involved, she gives up some of her blood to weaken Shirosawa's seal, allowing Ugallu to break him out. Now mostly drained of her Magical Girl powers, and with her reason to become one in the first place all being a big misunderstanding, she breaks her contract with Zikiel and goes back to being a normal girl. She ends up taking a waitress job for the Cafe Asura to make up for the trouble she caused, and seems to be trying to rebuild a friendship with Lico.

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• Alternate Character Reading: Her name is written in on-yomi as "Honyu", as it is commonly done for Chinese in Japan, but to a Japanese this comes out as 'red ball' (akatama), requiring some furigana to set things straight.
• Color Motif: Hers is red, with her bright red hair and a red magical girl outfit. Two of her name's kanji mean "red".
• Demoted to Extra: After her arc in the spotlight and giving up her status as a magical girl, she only occasionally pops up as Lico's co-worker at Cafe Asura.
• The Fashionista: gives this impression in later appearances, being often seen wearing dresses with distinctly colorful patterns and motifs, including multiple necklaces.
• The Idiot from Osaka: She's written as having a pretty strong Kansai accent, translated as being rough and unrefined.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: She's after Lico specifically, and doesn't seem to have any problems with any other demons, even giving up her powers to free Shirosawa after he gets caught in the crossfire.
• Raised by Grandparents: She was in the care of her grandfather, and it's strongly implied her parents are dead.

Budo

A magical girl Momo knows, but has never appeared in the series.

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• Edible Theme Naming: In keeping with the fruit-related names for magical girls, her name means "grape".
• The Ghost: Momo and Mikan often mention her as another magical girl they know, but she has yet to appear in the series proper.
• No Sense of Direction: Every time we hear about her, she's apparently gotten herself lost in an African country.
• Noodle Incident: When we see Momo's text messaging app in chapter 89, Budo's last message casually mentions she's currently lost in a mine in Tanzania. No further context is given.

Suika Nayuta (Massive Unmarked Spoilers)

A magical girl from Momo's past.

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• Bad Boss: She keeps her navigator Uriel chained up and shocks him if he says anything other than "Yes, Ma'am."
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: She absolutely loathes the suffering of humans and does her best to comfort them, practically a crying, bawling mess over the young Ukrainian Momo's disheveled and abandoned state. Yet she will also kill all demons she sees out of the sheer consideration that they are all suffering perpetually rather than being able to be saved. Yuko herself is utterly confused about this.
• Body Horror: When Momo casts a card to "neutralize" Suika rather than kill her, it still burns away Suika's ether body. Which to our perspective looks like all of the flesh melting away into a gooey, bloody mass across the ground even if it gets most of a Gory Discretion Shot.
• Dark Is Evil: Black clothes, black spear, black fire magic, black core, black heart.
• Eating Optional: She says she hasn't eaten any solid food in over a thousand years, because she "feels sorry for the food" in the same way she "feels sorry" for the demons she's been killing.
• Edible Theme Naming: "Suika" is also a watermelon.
• Foil: To Shamiko. Shamiko is an Extreme Omnivore Big Eater who doesn't like to be pitied and finds happiness in her life despite the poor circumstances she lives in. Suika only consumes fluids and demons and pities everyone and everything around her to the point where she wants to revert all of existence back into the primordial sea because she finds everything around her too "pitiful".
• Foreshadowing: One of the first major hints that something is wrong with Suika? Her Navigator is chained up and clearly uncomfortable with their condition as they show up to obey her orders. Turns out that just like Metako, he was effectively lobotomized into single-phrase complacency via the cards.
• Knight of Cerebus: While the series always had some darker undertones, Suika ups the ante by killing innocent demons, attacking little Momo, and threatening to one day kill Yuko. Momo was a breath away from killing her just to get her to stop.
• Manipulative Bastard: She has so many wish cards lying around that she casually uses them to manipulate other people into doing things against their will.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: She hates to see other people in pain, or suffering. She believes all demons live an existence of suffering. So she intends to kill every last one of them...and then return the Earth to a time before sentient life to completely eliminate even the capacity for suffering.
• Ret-Gone: She has the power to erase all memories of a person from nearly everyone, and does so to her victims, so nobody is saddened at their disappearance. Which is why nobody seems to remember that at one point 10% of the population of Tama was some kind of demon, whereas now there are barely any left.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: She straight up threatens to kill Yuko within Momo's own Flashback when normally that sort of thing shouldn't be possible, which implies either the memory is that horrific for Momo, Suika could see into the future and would know Yuko was going to look at the story, or Suika herself is still entirely aware of the present even while sealed away and interfered.
• Time Abyss: She looks fairly young, but Metako claims she has been alive since the age of myth thousands of years ago.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The show is a cute slice-of-life about the strange residents of Tama Town and the friendships they form with the occasional drama thrown in. Contrast that with Suika, an unrepentant murderer that wants to genocide the demon race.
• Villain's Dying Grace: Her last act before being sealed is to use her last wish cards to heal Momo's wounds. Rather than being redeeming, the contrast of her honest worry with her monstrous actions just highlights how warped her mindset is.
• Villains Never Lie: She always speaks the truth because she is utterly convinced that what she's doing is right.
• Walking Spoiler: The very fact she even exists provides major details about Momo's backstory, while her actual actions in the past heavily recontextualize everything about the story from before her introduction.

Citizens of Tama City

Anri Sata

Helpful friend, or secret assassin?

Voiced by: Sayaka Senbongi (JP), Luci Christian (EN)

Yuko's classmate and one of her close friends, Anri Sata is also the most energetic person of the cast, playing soft tennis for the school. Her family runs a butcher's store at the Tamasakura Shopping District, and because of this she knows a lot about Sakuragaoka, as well as being rather adept in making people buy more of their meat.

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• Dark and Troubled Past: Something involving her family has gone horribly wrong, with the implication that amidst Suika's mass murder of the demons in the town, Anri as a demon descendant was one of the traumatized survivors who was mind-wiped of the incident. Her household still makes food for siblings that no longer exist and don't realize how abnormal it is, and her dream memories take a Mood Whiplash turn from remembering a simple croquette recipe to Suika as a meat-grinding machine trying to kill Shamiko.
• Genki Girl: The most energetic girl of the cast, also acting sporty, and she gets Yuko into many things.
• Information Broker: She acts as this (for free of course) towards Yuko, who, due to being ill for most of her life, doesn't know much about the town she lives in.
• Innocently Insensitive: Although she means well for Yuko, she has a habit of letting slip things that Yuko would rather not have mentioned, to the point where Yuko wonders if Anri secretly has it in for her. This is why Yuko sometimes says she's an assassin.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Her name comes from Satan (Sata Anri). Much like with Sion, it's not a coincidence - though only in that she's descended from a demon, as her demon ancestor was a cow demon.
• Token Human: She is the only unambiguously normal person in the cast with a normal family and no connections to the Light or Dark Clans. At least at first glance.

Sion Ogura

Perfect grades in everything but ethics.

Voiced by: Ayaka Suwa (JP), Shanae'a Moore (EN)

Another of Yuko's classmates, she's the top student of their grade. However, she is the most interested in black magic, often using morally ambiguous methods to perform scientific studies of it, and, because of this, she took to stalking Yuko and Momo for "observational purposes."

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• Creepy Good: She's...really weird, but she's always ready to help.
• Drop-In Character: Literally. She starts living in the crawlspace above Momo's apartment and popping her head through the trap door whenever she has something to contribute. Otherwise, she's content to just watch over them in secret.
• For Science!: She doesn't let unnecessary things like "ethics" get in the way of her black magic experiments.
• Lovable Coward: She wholly considers herself the non-combat type, and says that if another threat like Suika shows up in Tama town, she will do everything in her power to run for the hills. Which makes sense, since one of her two instructions when she split off from the previous Gusion was to ensure her own survival.
• Made of Magic: Her human form is actually just a projection of ether similar to a magical girl's, meaning it doesn't actually take damage. Her real form is a book.
• Missing Mission Control: In trying to preserve the last bit of the crumbling barrier on Yuko's apartment, she gets absorbed into a pocket universe within it, leaving Yuko and Momo to go in after her to rescue her.
• Mission Control: In later volumes, her plans and quick thinking become critical to the cast's success in facing various crises.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: She has a deep understanding of black magic. While she can't use the magic herself, she has successfully prepared different magical potions.
• Non-Action Guy: She's the least physical of the entire cast—Yuko, at least, runs slightly faster than Sion and attempts to be more physical, while Sion is rather content in her role as the local Mad Scientist.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Her name comes from Gusion (Ogura Sion), a demon that presides over knowledge, time, and tomes. She even signs her name as "Gu-sion" on one of her plans once. She's a descendant of the original Gusion in a sense—Gusion describes her as "a fragment of myself I left behind, the last page of my life's story." The current Sion has no notable abilities aside from Super-Speed Reading and a better than average knack for deduction.
• Secretly Selfish: One of the reasons she holes up in Yuko's attic is that she's at least some part demon and is using Yuko's apartment's barrier to hide herself. She considers it a mutually beneficial arrangement though, since she's willing and extremely eager to help Yuko and Momo with just about anything in return.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: She's the only glasses-wearing character in the cast and also the smartest of the bunch.
• Stalker without a Crush: While already an indirect friend of Yuko's, through Anri, after Yuko awakens as a demon, Sion starts taking more than a casual interest in her, watching her from the shadows. She finally invites Yuko to her black magic lab, wanting to conduct experiments on her, plants a microphone in Lilith's statue, and in the fourth volume, surreptitiously moves into the attic of Yuko's apartment complex.
• Super-Speed Reading: She can read through an entire inch-thick book in a few seconds, which tips Ryoko off that she might be not quite human.
• Teen Genius: The top student of her grade and the only potion maker in the setting.
• Wingdinglish: After Yuko heals her post-Memory Transfer she starts speaking and writing in seemingly random characters, which everyone else interprets as gibberish. It's actually encrypted Unicode. Some readers decrypted it and found that it's mostly innocuous things that you would expect someone to say in her situation, except for one passing comment where she calls Anri "the girl from the Satan clan".

Shirosawa

Voiced by: Takashi Matsuyama (JP), Rob Mungle (EN)

Walking upright is hard on his back.

As the owner and manager of the Cafe Asura in the Tama Sakura Shopping District, Shirosawa is a hakutaku—a Chinese fantastic beast who is also the mythical origin of Chinese demonology—but appears as a talking tapir. He is a joyous sort, generally, but gets Amusing Injuries frequently due to being from a species that has no combat capability.

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• Benevolent Boss: Though he pushes Yuko and Lico to work long hours, he's considerate of his employees and very protective of them.
• Covert Pervert: When he goes to the zoo with his employees, he sneaks a peek at the female tapirs, then nervously covers it up when Lico-kun asks him about it.
• Fortune Teller: It's what his species specializes in, though he himself is out of practice. Some people are just easier for him to read than others, though.
• Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Although it's painful for him to walk on two legs, he does it in order to blend in better while living among humans.
• Funny Animal: He is a talking tapir who follows a completely human way of life. By "tapir," we mean he's physiologically a tapir—to the point that he finds walking on two legs hard on his back, but still does it anyway because he believes it's A Form You Are Comfortable With.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": His surname is printed as "Misenaga" on his credit card. It's written with the kanji 店長 and separately the characters are pronounced as such, mise (shop) and naga (boss). When those two characters are put together, as a compound they have an Alternate Character Reading tenchou that means "manager".
• Morality Chain: To Lico. His presence makes her rein in her more chaotic and borderline sociopathic tendencies just to seem like a more suitable romantic interest for him.
• Non-Action Guy: His species has no combat capability. Instead, their main power is prophecy.
• The Prophecy: After learning that Yuko can dive into dreams, and seeing her Whatever Staff in action, he has a premonition that Yuko has incredible potential and was meant to fulfill some great purpose, but that she needs to be kept safe in the meanwhile.
• Taking the Bullet: In volume 5, when Honyu attempted to seal Lico away, Shirosawa jumped between them. He ended up bearing the brunt of the spell and temporarily turning into a statue. However, later it's revealed he wasn't protecting Lico—he was protecting Honyu from getting chopped up by the huge butcher's knife Lico was hiding behind her back.

Lico

Voiced by: Ayasa Itō (JP), Melissa Molano (EN)

Tricksy fox. Can't read a mood.

Shirosawa's employee and the cook at the Cafe Asura, she is a huli jing, a mischievous fox spirit and shapeshifter from Chinese folklore. Sakura left Lico in Shirosawa's care ten years ago back when he was just opening his cafe, as he mentioned he was looking for a decent cook, and she hasn't visibly aged since then. She's much older than she looks—at least 100, since she can take on a human form, but less than 200, as she only has one tail—and seems to have a Dark and Troubled Past of constantly being on the run from Magical Girls, or "miko" as she calls them.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Shirosawa thought he was just taking care of her as a personal employee and comrade of a demon. He had absolutely no idea that Lico had a crush on him the entire time — and while she does want to try to change for the better to accommodate for his tastes, her violent and trickster solutions keep him away.
• Asian Fox Spirit: She's a Huli jing, a Chinese fox-woman with shapeshifting powers.
• Bad News, Irrelevant News: She has "Good news, normal news, bad news, and news so bad you'll do a quintuple take". The bad news is that Momo's kitchen floor was wrecked. The good news is that there are now rice balls! The shockingly bad news is that Ogura seemingly died during an accident in the kitchen. And the normal news is that Ogura is actually a demon, so she might be alright.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: She has no grasp of the concepts of good and evil; she's basically a sapient animal masquerading as a humanoid and has a "law of the jungle" mindset. She does nice things to people she likes, and...not nice things to people she doesn't. She genuinely doesn't understand why Honyu was so angry when Lico stole her wok, and only returns it and apologizes when told that Shirosawa might like her more if the two made peaceful amends.
• Crying Wolf: Lico messes with Momo so often that Momo doesn't believe her even when she's being genuine.
• Everyone Has Standards: Lico loves causing mischief, but even she can only tearfully apologize after her antics accidently expose Ryo to the gruesome sight of Ogura's corpse-like husk post memory tranfer.
• Foxy Vixen: Huli jing are a species of fox-women, and she inherits their moral ambiguity.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: She has a crush on Shirosawa, but he only has eyes for his own species.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: When she discovers a secret cellar under Momo's house guarded by an entity who wants to make sure she's worthy of the "treasure" within, she takes that as proof she's allowed to pilfer everything she finds.
• Master of Disguise: Zigzagged; her shapeshifting power lets her perfectly mimic the appearance of other people, but she's a terrible actor and her habits and mannerisms give her away. When Lico tried to impersonate Yuko to get closer to Momo to learn more about her, Momo immediately saw through it because she didn't act like Yuko at all.
• Morality Chain: The thought of becoming suitable girlfriend material for Shirosawa convinces her to behave and get along with the others.
• Really 700 Years Old: She's between 100-200 years old (and apparently even she doesn't know her own age for sure), but looks like a teenager while in her preferred form.
  • Shirosawa says, "she has walked this earth a lot longer than most [demons]."
  • In her recap at the start of chapter 83, she channels her inner Stock Shoujo Heroine and proclaims herself "A fox maiden in love, age uncertain!"
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Her proper fox form is absolutely adorable. Even Momo can't resist snuggling with her.
• Schmuck Bait: She's not above using her magic to create traps or poisons to get rid of an unwanted guest, but it's really obvious at a glance when she's trying to do it.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Her preferred appearance is as pictured, a human-looking girl with fox ears and a tail, but her "real" form is a small white fluffy fox.
• Spell My Name With An S: The cast list for season two initially called her Riko, and it seems scanlators couldn't decide which one to go with since they started writing her name in untranslated hiragana. However, when episode four came out on HiDive, the subtitles continued to spell her name as Lico.
• Super-Hearing: Her hearing is ten times better than a human's. She overheard a whispered conversation between Momo and Mikan from about twenty meters away.
• Supreme Chef: She has decades of experience across many countries and with many types of cuisine, and uses her magical powers to give the food other effects.
• You Didn't Ask: Lico had been enchanting the cafe's food to give it an extra effect of relaxing the person who eats it and letting them forget their troubles for a bit. While not harmful in small amounts, eating too much of it becomes a problem. She never bothered mentioning the negative side effects of her magical cooking until it made Yuko hyperactive and forgetful after she ate a large amount of the cafe's leftovers. Even Shirosawa didn't know she was doing it.

Ugallu

Voiced by: Fairouz Ai (JP), Sarah Wiedenheft (EN)

Mikan's curse given form.

A demon originally summoned by Mikan's father to protect his family and their company during hard times. However, due to Mr. Hinatsuki's lack of expertise the summoning went poorly, and Ugallu had to latch on to the only source of mana available in order to continue to exist. That source was Mikan herself. Since that time, Ugallu has existed inside Mikan as a dispersed mist of mana; not really conscious and barely alive, but still trying to uphold the task she was summoned for by protecting Mikan. Unfortunately, since she couldn't see what was going on in the outside world, she did this by lashing out blindly whenever Mikan's emotions wavered in some way, resulting in the "curse" that has plagued Mikan's life ever since.

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• Absurdly Sharp Claws: Ugallu is capable of slashing a refrigerator apart with hers.
• Animal Motifs: Despite the mythological being her name is based on being lion-like, she actually has a strong association with dogs. She has dog-like paws, two animal-ear-like hair antennae sticking out of the sides of her head, at least once wore a paw-print shirt, and is fiercely loyal to Mikan.
• Badass Adorable: Ugallu's claws can slice through metal like butter, but in the end she's just a sweet girl who does her best to try to fulfill her duty as a familiar. She's so earnest that even when she screws up you still just want to pat her on the head and tell her she's a good familiar.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: She was intended to be a mindless familiar to protect Mikan but ended up developing a proper ego after feeding on Mikan's mana.
• Hulk Speak: She has a rather rough and simplistic way of speaking^note (She doesn't use particles in the original Japanese, doesn't use articles in the English translation, and has a limited vocabulary in both languages), along with often using her "uga" Verbal Tic when she doesn't know what to say.
• Idiot Hair: She has a sickle-shaped strand of hair sticking out the top of her head.
• Jackass Genie: Subverted: While it was originally thought that Mikan's curse was due to the demon inside of her being one of these, in reality Ugallu genuinely thought that randomly lashing out at the people around Mikan whenever she gets upset would keep her safe. Ugallu was never told how to keep Mikan safe, and she wasn't given a good enough sacrifice to have the mental capacity to determine that on her own.
• Little Bit Beastly: In her original form she was completely covered in fur aside from her head, but once she gets re-summoned into a new body she only has a little bit of fur from her forearms down to her hands, and from about mid-calf down to her feet. Later chapters seem to indicate that she can still assume her original form when necessary. And she briefly transforms into a massive lion when she tries to read another familiar's instructions.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Described as a soulless object animated by magic, when she's freed from Mikan's body she acts as her familiar and is very eager to carry out errands for her friends (despite her obvious incompetence).
• Undying Loyalty: Even if her initial summoning was so shoddy she couldn't properly manifest, she is completely loyal to Mikan, trying her best to keep her safe, being incredibly disheartened to the point of almost vanishing when she learned she was troubling Mikan instead, and once she gets a proper body she dedicates herself to learning how to live properly so she can better help Mikan.
• Verbal Tic: She has a habit of saying "uga" randomly, whether injecting it in her speech or using it as an exclamation.

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