Sibyl of Tomoyoko

Sibyl of Tomoyoko
Japanese Name	見神 あにま (Mikami Anima)
Age	Adult
Sex	Female
Wish	"I want to leave a lasting mark of my own, so give me the power to make that impossible reality possible."
Soul Gem	Green Philosopher's Stone symbol (on tiara in the middle of forehead)
Weapon	Gloves
Abilities	Persistance magic, various other abilities
Witch form	Dianna Mirror Nemi Luna 78
Attribute
Japanese VA	Hitomi Nabatame

Anima Mikami is an older magical girl and the mother of Soma who lives in Tomoyoko City. She is actually the eponymous "Sibyl of Tomoyoko" and a main character in Puer Magi Soma Magica: The Sibyl of Tomoyoko.

General Info

Bio

An adult magical girl who has lived within Tomoyoko City all her life. Because of her status she is known to other magical girls by her title, "The Sibyl of Tomoyoko", making her oldest, wisest, and most powerful magical girl in the city.

Anima contracted around the age of 13, living within the Northern District of Tomoyoko. At the time it wasn't known as the famous resort city it became today as that was only delegated to certain parts divided between the north, south, and central districts; the south in particular was popular for its beaches. Her area was notable for having a historical shrine as part of a northerner tourist attraction, where people went to pray and give thanks to its god. And Anima often visited it, not to worship, but to fantasize about herself having some kind of importance like the shrine. So when Kyubey discovered her there and offered to make that wish come true, she didn't hesitate to accept the contract. To make sure she'd get what she wanted, Anima's wish was made in a way that would allow her to find and decide what would end up becoming her legacy and allow nothing to stop it from being created.

The first couple of months were rough, as Anima was rejected by an existing group for being a northerner and seen as weak since she didn't have anything but her gloves to fight with. To prove her worth, Anima began working on refining her magic via research and experimentation, though loneliness and self-doubt made this training difficult, along with struggling to figure out what her legacy would be. After a few weeks, she was able to create weapons and practiced using them while tracking down Witches. One trail led her down to the south's beach port where she came across two boys: one afflicted with a witch kiss and about to commit suicide, the other trying in vain to talk him out of it. Eventually the other boy dragged his friend down to die with him and Anima quickly jumped in to save them. The boys that she saved that day were Kazuya Shinoda and Makoto Mikami, the latter being the first meeting with her future husband.

Out of a sense of pride for her successful rescue, Anima revealed her magical girl identity to them and showed off her abilities, where both became extremely fascinated with her and the world of magical girls. She befriended them and, at their insistence, went out together on various Witch hunts with Anima providing them weapons and teaching them how to fight. But this team didn't last forever, as one day Kazuya got seriously injured in battle, inevitable as she was warned about involving civilians by other magical girls and Kyubey. She looked into learning more magic and found the solution in a unique spell she discovered, making it so that her friends could instead sense magic patterns and see Witches, Familiars, barriers, and (by extension) Kyubey, helping her and the other magical girls locate them ahead of time. On occasion, Makoto and Kazuya would also provide support for Anima as she studied and refined her magic in other areas. It's because of their work that Anima would soon grow to become an incredibly powerful magical girl, and eventually become the most well-known among them in Tomoyoko.

Meanwhile Makoto's admiration for Anima grew into love, and after a few years he confessed his feelings and they got married, where this event made Anima reconsider her life as a magical girl. She became focused on having a family, which came to a head when the two had a son together named Soma. As Makoto worked with Kazuya as an educator, Anima spent her time at home raising Soma and occasionally using magic in her daily life, but this slowly led to her powers weakening. Kyubey mentioned that if she didn't upkeep her duties then her magic would disappear, and that thought frightened her deeply. Torn between that and family, Anima chose the former and made small attempts to fight again. But her waning magic and age caused several close calls, forcing her into taking up a supporting role and offering various services to other magical girls for grief seeds.

These were often enhancements, teachings, or advice, but on a few occasions Kyubey used her to convince others into contracting. While Anima knew the risks they would face, she saw these new girls as beneficial to her survival. She also used Makoto and Kazuya to scout out any girls in need as her couriers, anonymously contacting them with messages and instructions leading to a secret meeting place: the shrine where she first contracted. There she would put on an air of mystery and benevolence, unifying the districts through her services, to manipulate the perception of herself and gain their trust. And this successfully made others see her as wise and miraculous. From then on, Anima came to be known by her title as the "Sibyl of Tomoyoko", which was conceived and suggested by Kazuya.

That very title and her work made Anima believe that being the Sibyl was the destined legacy of her wish.

She became heavily engrossed with being the Sibyl more than a wife and mother to her family, enough that it concerned Makoto, but he put his feelings aside for her happiness and tried to help her and raise Soma. The Sibyl was able to survive for a long time like this as magical girls came and went. But things soon started to take a turn for the worse when she learned the truth about Witches due to a girl asking if she could purify soul gems without grief seeds. Anima never thought of using magic that way before, but her ego took over and she believed that it was something that could definitely be done. While appearing successful, Anima unfortunately failed when she was confronted by the girl's friend, informing her that the soul gem shattered and created a Witch. She tried again, this time on the friend, to prove that wasn't the case, but the stress it induced on her own soul gem made her stop. The other girl had all of her impurities rapidly fester in response, resulting in the birth of a new Witch.

This event horrified her and she immediately pressured Kyubey into revealing how to avoid it, but he answered that it was impossible and that no one had ever tried and succeeded. Anima decided to research more on preventing it herself, recruiting many girls to partake in a series of experiments, but each one was either accidentally killed or transformed into a Witch. Makoto stayed by her side, determined to help her avoid this fate and live to see Soma grow up, but their relationship strained as Anima became increasingly desperate and frustrated with each failure. Eventually she started to focus on Kyubey, studying his abilities under the belief that, if she could just understand his magic, then it'd unlock the secrets to stopping the transformation altogether. To keep him from resisting and warning other girls of the danger, she used her powers to keep Kyubey alive and sealed him away within the shrine. Ultimately, Anima felt she needed to make a compromise and decided to focus on only saving herself, damning every other magical girl into witching out during experiments. Her mental state even declined into a selfish and egotistical person who clinged to her title as the Sibyl, throwing fits and becoming violent towards anyone who dared to question or refused to do as she asked, accusing them of being uncaring of her plight. Makoto and Kazuya hated that they were basically luring other magical girls to their deaths, but Kazuya was too cowardly to stand up to Anima, and Makoto was lost on what to do as he feared losing her and their son getting involved.

Soma only knew that his parents would often get into heated arguments over (what he believed to be) him since his name often came up, and thought it was his fault. Even when he asked, they refused to tell Soma the truth, and instead covered it up so that he wouldn't worry about them.

One evening Makoto met up with Kazuya privately to discuss their situation. His friend confided that he couldn't take what they were doing anymore: already the city was taking notice of the large number of girls disappearing and started issuing curfews, and the remaining magical girls were becoming more wary, looking to avenge their friends, or leave the city. Makoto felt the same as Anima was no longer the person he loved, and he seriously feared something would happen to Soma if nothing was done. They discussed what to do, finding that warning away other magical girls wouldn't be enough, and contacting the police would be even worse. Makoto then came to a final conclusion: he planned to confront Anima and leave her, taking Soma with him if she refused to stop this madness. Kazuya voiced his concern over Makoto's plan and thought he should be the one to do it instead, but Makoto felt he could better reason with Anima as her husband. He left Kazuya behind with a final message to take care of Soma if anything were to happen to him.

Upon arriving home, Makoto met with Anima and gave her the ultimatum. They got into an argument where Anima accused him of abandoning her, but he refuted that he wanted to save her and that taking lives wasn't the answer. He begged her to stop and think of Soma, how they should be parents rather than murders, but Anima refused to listen and blocked him from trying to get to her son. Out of anger for her behavior, Makoto called her out for being worse than a Witch, causing Anima to lash out and kill him with her power. She quickly regretted it and was shocked at what she had just done, especially when Soma overheard and saw the aftermath, equally terrified.

As her soul gem began to blacken from despair, Anima approached Soma and said she was going to die soon, asking him for help, but he didn't know what to do nor understood what was going on. Afraid that he was going to die, Soma attempted to run, forcing Anima to restrain him with magic. Having no other choice left and with time running out, Anima used what remained of her strength to do what Kyubey did: create a contract with her son, forcibly and painfully ripping out his soul, and turn it into a soul gem, ignoring his pleas to stop. She then attempted to transfer the impurities to him and save herself, but the despair and stress on her was too much, causing Anima to turn into a Witch right in front of Soma, severely traumatizing him.

But during the transformation, Anima still consciously tried to push on and finish, even as her magic became cursed. This change in Anima's magic from hope to despair, along with the birth of the Witch in the middle of the contract process, resulted in a powerful rebound paradox: the Witch was destroyed the second Soma's contract was completed and Anima died, taking him with her and destroying their home.

Despite that, Soma (and unfortunately the Witch) continued to persist due to Anima's innate magic, and after a few months he reappeared within Tomoyoko, near another Witch's barrier, as a magical boy: unconscious, and with his memory of the events and his life heavily suppressed due to the trauma.

Personality

Prior to the contract Anima had a pessimistic personality, feeling insignificant compared to other people with nothing to offer to the world. After the contract, Anima became prideful and vain, loving all the attention and praise she got, seeing herself as perfect because of the knowledge and power she gained throughout the years. Other than her title as the Sibyl, she also loved her family and friends, but was often torn between them and her role as a magical girl.

Her personality drastically changed when she not only discovered the inevitability of turning into a Witch, but the fact that her powers were waning as she aged, and would result in everything she worked for being lost. Eventually this got worse as she struggled to find a way to prevent it, becoming an abusive, despicable, and heartless human being in the bitter end.

Powers And Abilities

The nature of Anima's wish granted her the unique ability to make her magic persist for very long periods of time, even when she doesn't use or isn't around to maintain it. The exact duration is unknown, but given how it's managed to stay on Kazuya for several years and especially after she became a Witch, her magic can potentially last forever. Since Anima is the only one capable of removing this magic from the things she enhances or makes, it's believed that it can only be stopped by itself or a greater karmic force (such as the creation and power of Witches).

Her research resulted in her learning how to create various weapons from her magic, though it's limited to only things she has knowledge and expertise of, and these weapons also required a lot of magic to strengthen and use effectively. She could also enhance other people's weapons, physical abilities, set up barriers, and heal others. The majority of Anima's strength comes from her gloves as her raw magic is far stronger than anything physical. From her palms, intense blasts of magic can be unleashed, and she can also fire laser beams from her fingertips.

Her understanding of how magic is sensed allowed her to give this power to Makoto and Kazuya, and Kyubey's power gave her a great deal of insight on the creation of magical girls and soul gems. But despite this, Anima couldn't use this knowledge effectively to find a solution in preventing the Witch transformation. In the end, she at least succeeded at creating a contract in her attempt to save herself, but at the ultimate cost of her life as the price to transfer over her impurities at the same time was far too great.

With these wide range of abilities, Anima was considered to be the strongest magical girl in Tomoyoko. Her knowledge, survivability, and Soma's contract are testament to her to work towards going beyond limitation and fate itself.