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The Chief Sorceress ( 巫女長 ) is a witch, and the leader of the Magical World. However she is still only second to “the executives”, a group of long lived witches that had long abandoned their human bodies, and who seem to be the spiritual leaders of the witches, and who can, and did, overrule her.

She is never addressed by name, only by title. She is the main villain in the show, due to her secret plans being the catalyst of the story. Her beliefs about how the corrupt human world needs to be lead by witches leads her to enact an ambitious plan which involves the magic girls from Earth, especially Sasami's group. However, she is not the biggest magical threat in the story given that role belongs to Keura.

As expected of her title, all the factions of the World of Witches such as The Storytellers, the magical girls, and the witches all followed her orders, and leadership. She specially took great interest in Sasami Iwakura as her unique light magic powers were essential to her plans. She also managed to, temporarily, turn Misao Shinohara evil with her manipulation.[1]

Background

Notably, given we know witches are mortal in the Sasami: Magical Girls Club universe, and the fact that many of the witches we saw were old, or aging ladies, she was still able to get the highest leadership role in the magic world despite being among the youngest of the witches. While Itoki works under her, both seem to be very close in age as young adults. And they also seem to be, at least, evenly matched in magical power.[2]

Despite being exiled from the human world in the distant past, most witches didn’t have any resentment towards humanity as they had sealed their negative emotions inside Keura. But, The Chief Sorceress, however, was among the ones that were secretly still resentful about it.

As expected from her role, she is very knowledgeable about magic, as she was able to teach the girls to use their powers in a way Washu, as a powerless human, never could. She was also privy of witches dark secrets such as the true nature of The Black Cauldron. Befitting of her tittle, she had the most powerful and promising magical girls, The “Shining Star” team, working directly under her.

Her bigotry towards powerless human seems to extend towards the Storytellers, as she too had hid her true intentions from them, only trusting her fellow witches about her true intentions. Initially, part of her plan was to revitalize “The Executives” with Sasami’s magic, so they could lead the witches against humanity. Having failed that mission, she unleashed the highly dangerous Keura on Earth, a world ending threat that she couldn’t control, which ultimately proved her undoing.[3]

Personality

At first glance, The chief sorceress gives the impression of being a very wise, graceful, and benevolent person. However, this is a facade that hides her true personality: she is actually a very malicious, manipulative, and resentful person. Her graceful appearance, coupled with her high status, hid her true nature and her hatred of humanity. In fact, only Ginji Iwakura was suspicious of her true nature from the start.

Overall, she is very two-faced and manipulative. For example, she was easily able to sense Misao Shinohara's insecurities and lack of self-esteem, and she used this to manipulate her and turn her to her side. She showered Misao with gifts, such as a luxurious room and words of praise, and she gave her the coveted title of "The Maiden of the Dawn." However, she was ultimately only using Misao as a pawn to get to Sasami.

She also presented herself as a wise mentor and a role model to the girls of Sasami’s club, and they fell for it, admiring her for her beauty and "generosity." When she visited the human world to visit the magical girl club, she presented herself like a fairy tale princess surrounded by animals and swooned over by men (despite the fact that she secretly resented humans). Her facade was so convincing that even Washu had agreed to work under her to train magical girls,[4] and she only rebelled once The Chief Sorceress’s showed her true colors given she slowly, but surely, tried to turn the Magical girl club against humanity.

However, The chief sorceress is not portrayed as being particularly smart or good at long-term planning when it comes to her manipulative schemes. Although she is very charming when she is using someone, she never follows through after her initial "honeymoon phase." Specifically, she seems to lose interest quickly in the people she uses like toys, as she doesn't even bother following through with her lies. For example, in one humorous occasion, she invited the magical girl club to an expensive restaurant, even encouraging them to order whatever they wanted, only to leave them with the expensive bill when she left without paying.[5]

More darkly, she encouraged Misao to corrupt her soul with dark magic, possibly even risking her life, all while pretending that Misao was still on her good side. However, behind Misao's back, she had her immediately replaced with Ayane as soon as Misao failed a single mission[1]. The chief sorceress outright considered Misao a failure, despite the fact that Misao did managed to defeat her former teammates, and she had only failed because of Sasami's unique light magic powers, unpredictably, manifested themselves. In fact Sasami’s powers are a natural weakness to Misao’s own Magic.

She also showed her lack of long term planning skills in the finale after she made the poor choice of unleashing a powerful evil entity she couldn’t control, after her initial plan failed. A choice that ultimately backfired on her, and ended up dooming her.[3]

Ultimately, the chief sorceress only uses people like pawns or tools to achieve her goals.

Voice credits

Etimology

Her title in Japanese is 巫女長 which roughly translate to “Head priestess of a shrine” meaning her leadership role was more “spiritual” than political as the title “Chief Sorceress” in the english version seems to imply.

It’s hinted that the “deity” she serves are actually “The executives”. They are simply long lived witches, with litch like traits, that no longer have functional human bodies, given they fused with magic trees to, presumably, expand their lifespans.

Trivia

  • Her evil motivation is extremely similar to that of Ayeka’s variant, Romio, in Magical Project S. As such, it’s likely the chief sorceress role was inspired by Romio’s while the writers developed Sasami:Magicalgirls club . Plot-wise, the Chief Sorceress is Romio’s spiritual successor. Both are powerful magical beings that tried to harm humanity out of the disillusionment of humanity’s flaws such as pollution. and, in her case, the fact that witches had to abandon the human realm in the past. The Main difference being that Romio failed to become the leader of the magic realm, and of, convincing them, to oppose humanity; whereas the chief sorceress succeeded .
  • She also shares some of Ramia’s role in the story, as she is the reason for the variant of Misao in her universe turning evil. However, Ramia lacked her manipulative skills and had to use magic hypnosis and the hidden darkness in Misao's heart to convince her to act as her pawn. In contrast, the chief sorceress simply used her silver tongue and psychological manipulation to achieve this.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Sasami:Magical girls club: episode 22: “The Dark Tainted Heart"
  2. Sasami: Magical Girls Club Episode 23: “ "When the Dawn Breaks"
  3. 3.0 3.1 Sasami: Magical Girls Club episode 26:”Amitav's Song"
  4. Sasami: Magical Girls Club: “Episode 1” Sasami and Misao”
  5. Sasami: Magical girls club Episode 14" The chosen girls".
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