Sorcière de gré, pucelle de forcenote
Maria the Virgin Witch (純潔のマリア Junketsu no Maria, lit. "Maria the Virgin") is a Seinen manga series written and illustrated by Masayuki Ishikawa. It was serialized in Kodansha's Good! Afternoon magazine from 2008 to 2013, and compiled into three volumes. An anime adaptation by Production I.G and under the direction of Goro Taniguchi (of s-CRY-ed and Code Geass fame) premiered on January 2015, and is currently available for streaming on Funimation's site
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Set in France during The Hundred Years War, it follows Maria, who is one of the most powerful witches of her era. She hates conflict and does anything in her power to prevent any more fighting. This attracts the ire of the Heavens, who give her an ultimatum - the moment she loses her virginity, her magic will be gone as well.
Maria The Virgin Witch provides examples of:
- Above Good and Evil: Archangel Michael was to kill Maria for messing with the order, but gives her a second chance.
- Action Girl: Maria and most witches. Special props to Viv who takes on Michael for Maria's sake.
- Ambiguously Evil: Bernard is a cunning and ruthless monk that manipulates Maria to try to benefit the French, though his goals appear to be benevolent. He moves into full evil when he basically suggests Galfa rape Maria to destroy her Virgin Power.
- Ambiguously Human: Lolotte the camp follower in Galfa's crew is apparently a normal person concerned wholly with getting paid. So how the hell she is capable of lifting a full grown man like Galfa in full armor with a single hand, slinging him over her shoulder and sauntering off singing a merry tune without any effort?
- Artistic License – History: Witch-burning was not actually a thing in the Middle Ages; while burning at the stake was a punishment carried out against heretics, the Catholic Church's official stance was that supernatural witches did not exist, and opposed blaming witches for natural disasters. Likewise, the corruption unfortunately affecting the medieval Church was not as severe as depicted here, nor most of its priests were greedy, self-serving fanatics.
- Artistic License – Religion: No Christian would freak out over the fact that the protagonist is a witch virgin called Mary, let alone clerics as Bernard and Gilbert.
- Archangel Michael: Bit of a Knight Templar in this work.
- An Arm and a Leg: Galfa loses part of his left arm from a cannon fire in episode seven. He gets an Artificial one later..
- Attempted Rape: Galfa tries to pull this on Maria. He thankfully fails, but threatens to rape her later in front of Joseph. Maria is understandably traumatized in the first attempt.
- Badass Adorable: Maria is a cute witch, as described by Ann, and is immensely powerful, even seen by the other witches.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: In-universe Priapos doesn't have a penis because Maria has little knowledge of the male anatomy.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted after Maria is beaten by Galfa and held by the church. She's noticeably badly bruised.
- Berserk Button: Do not say Artemis is an old lady who doesn't interest you. And while she may be willing to tease Maria until doomsday, trying to harm Maria will send Artemis into blind fury where she's liable to castrate whoever tries.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Galfa's prosthetic arm features retractable blades at the hand.
- Blasphemous Boast: Maria delivers one to Michael:Maria: Let your father know that I'll forgive him, just this once!
- Break the Cutie: Maria's reputation being tarnished along with Galfa's rape attempt leaves Maria's confidence in herself shattered, with her unable to perform magic after it. The church getting their hooks into her does little to help matters.
- Break the Haughty: Galfa is left broken after Joseph takes him in their fight and is seen feebly protesting he didn't lose, which absolutely nobody buys.
- Burn the Witch!: When Maria is held by the Church, the people construct a stake and straw for her. Only Edwina's intervention saves her.
- Butt-Monkey: Priapos and Joseph both get it a bit, though Ezekiel gets the worse
- Canon Foreigner: Not immediately apparent to anime-only watchers, but quite a bit of the characters introduced are anime-only, introduced by the screenplay writer to create an over-arching plot for the show (especially since the manga had a looser, episodic structure to it). See Brother Bernard and Galfa? They're native only to the adaptation.
- Cheerful Child: Ann.
- Corrupt Church: The church is interested in little else but control and dominance, with Bernard being quite representative of such.
- Crossover Cosmology: Christian Angels exists side by side with Norse Valkyries and Greek Gods.
- Cute Witch: Maria is mostly this, but has a little Hot Witch going on too. The other witches too.
- Familiar: As per witchcraft tradition, each witch appears to have one. They are demons that can take the form of animals and humans.
- Fanservice: Maria is shown bathing outside and sleeping naked in episode 1 alone.
- Flying Broomstick: The witches use their staffs for this purpose.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Turns out many of the supernatural beings become weaker the more the humans forget about them. This was shown with the green creatures visiting Maria who are mentioned to be much weaker compare to their past selves. Then it turns out that the shadowy being following Maria was actually Cernunnos who is so forgotten he doesn't even have a physical form any more.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Maria is a bit more Tsundere than most, but she makes free medicine for people, and just wants to stop war so people will be safe again.
- Heroic BSoD: After her reputation is destroyed by the church, her near rape and her magic failing her, poor Maria is understandably shattered for a while.
- Hidden Depths: Special props to Viv, who at first seems only a promiscuous, greedy witch interested only in sex and money. It turns out she's a kind, if jaded idealist who shares Maria's dreams to the point she goes after The Archangel Michael to save Maria, declaring that God and his Angels have no right to reign over the world if they don't have any knowledge of love. She ends up as one of the deepest, most compassionate characters in a series full of them.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Maria.
- The Inquisition: Gilbert becomes assigned as one, though he is uncomfortable with it.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Artemis interrupts two men near the beginning of episode 2.
- Ironic Name: The incubus, Priapos, lacks the body part to which his name would logically-refer.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Artemis, and Viv both qualify.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After seeming like he might fall into the former category for a while, Galfa is cemented firmly as this with his rape attempt of Maria, the revelation of what a cutthroat scumbag he is and his attempted murder of Joseph.
- Laughing Mad: Bernard, the bishop absolutely loses it upon hearing that Maria is a virgin witch, the irony being she is basically the Virgin Mary. It creeps out Gilbert immensely.
- Licked by the Dog: Ann makes Maria's attempts to be a scary witch fall flat.
- Magical Girl: Naturally.
- Meaningful Name: Maria is a virgin witch (i.e. the Virgin Mary), with a man named Joseph in love with her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Ezekiel breaks down crying after Michael forced her to stab Maria, though she did so non-lethally.
- Mystical Pregnancy: The series' final scenes heavily imply that Maria is already pregnant with Ezekiel, who chose her to be the latter's mother, after being demoted by Michael to be reborn as a human as punishment for defying his order and siding with Maria. This adds another allusion to the Virgin Mary for Maria's character.
- Nice Guy: Joseph is this trope par excellence. Maria is one to a lesser extent, since she is a 'sweet-type' Tsundere.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After their fight, Joseph beats Galfa into a bloody pulp until Galfa can't even stand.
- Older Than They Look: Maria and the other witches, despite looking like in their late teens to early twenties, are much older. To give you an idea, Martha, Anne's grandmother, knew Maria when they were both children.
- One Head Taller: Joseph is exactly a head taller than Maria.
- Order vs. Chaos: Maria and Michael can both be considered Order and Chaos depending how you look at it.
- Maria wants to stop the war between France and England and hates conflict (Order). Michael wants to stop her interference on the human world and let them continue on their destructive path of the war (Chaos).
- On the other hand, Maria stopping battles cause many of the soldier to resort to ransacking villages and causing more strife (Chaos). And Michael wants to stop her because of these unfortunate side effect (Order).
- Plenty of Blondes: Almost every witch shown is a blond, primarily Maria.
- The Power of Love: Upon seeing Joseph and Anne's love for Maria, even the harsh Archangel Michael finds it within himself to give Maria a second chance, albeit a harsh one.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The Anime has its own original developments, and certain characters act somewhat different, Josesph for one is more passive than his Manga self; this despite the source material having been finished for a long time before the adaptation was even announced.
- Really Gets Around: Artemis, due to her job description as a succubus, is quite proud of doing this. Viv makes zero bones about her own promiscuity, even offering to grab a suitable guy for Maria so Maria can watch Viv do the deed first.
- Sadistic Choice: Although it was merciful for Michael considering he was going to kill her, she has to choose between her own happiness (losing her virginity and gaining a family), or serve the world with her powers.
- Shown Their Work:
- Historical characters are named, such as Rodrigo de Villandrando.
- The anime features realistic depictions of medieval European combat. Even the scene where Galfa beats up a knight with his sword's pommel and crossguard while holding the blade is a pretty spot-on depiction of a real medieval sword technique.
- Historical characters are named, such as Rodrigo de Villandrando
- Shrinking Violet: Edwina. To the point that one wonders if something once deeply traumatized her.
- Sinister Minister: Bernard becomes this by the end of episode eight. He manipulates the villagers including Ann's grandma to forsake Maria. And he subtly 'hints' to Galfa that the best way for Maria to lose her virginity is for her to be raped.
- Summon Magic: Utilised by Maria to interrupt battles between the French and English.
- Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: Ezekiel is literally the spear of Michael. By his command, she transforms into a magical weapon powerful enough to slay or wound even the most powerful magical being — including witches. She can at most slightly divert her course when being used in such a fashion. In the anime, she is originally happy with her lot, but it horrifies her, first when Michael commands her to slay Maria — she instead only wounds her and then to slay Viv — she nearly kills Viv, and the wound would have been mortal if Viv's friends hadn't pulled her out of there and tended to her.
- Valkyries: Some show up to take some knights to Valhalla but Michael chases them because the knights are supposed to go to Christian Heaven.
- Villainous Breakdown / Villainous BSoD: Bernard has this when Maria talks to him, about how humans should take care of themselves.
- Virgin Power: If Maria loses her virginity, she loses her powers.
- War Is Hell: The series quite accurately depicts the horrors of protracted medieval warfare, carried out largely by mercenaries, and the brutality of mass close combat, crossbows, longbows, and early gunpowder weaponry.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Galfa in a duel with a knight, pretends to be have an injured arm, before he reveals he was faking the injury, brutally dominates his opponent, and reveals he faked it so he could bet on himself, with everyone betting against him.
