Puella Magi Oriko Magica: The Complete Omnibus Edition

by Magica Quartet, Kuroe Mura (Artist)

Explore Oriko’s magical adventure in this eye-catching deluxe omnibus edition!

Oriko, a magical girl with the gift of foresight, knows the fate that awaits all who accept Kyubey’s offer of supernatural powers. But when she is struck with a terrible vision of the future—of the devastation caused by a single powerful witch—she decides to prevent that person from becoming a magical girl in the first place. To draw Kyubey away from the girl’s potential, Oriko directs him instead to Yuma, an orphan who is all too eager to gain powers that will enable her to protect herself—powers that will ultimately lead to her own destruction . . .

Genres: Manga

472 pages, Paperback

Published December 13, 2022

About the author

A group collaboration consisting of director Akiyuki Shinbou, writer Gen Urobuchi, the original character designer Ume Aoki, and the producer Atsuhiro Iwakami.

Reviews

[Devinne W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puella Magi Oriko Magica manages, somehow, to be even more dark and grim than your average Madoka Magica story. In this arc, the Puella Magi face off against a duo of evil Magical Girls: Oriko, the daughter of a disgraced politician who’s gifted with the power of foresight, and Kirika, a former wallflower whose wish transformed her into a killer with an obsessive attachment to her partner. Our principal cast is on the case, with particular focus on Kyoko, who becomes mentor and guardian to Yuma, who loses her parents to a Witch, and Mami, who struggles to outsmart her extremely clever, preternaturally tough opponents. Even more than other works in the franchise, Oriko Magica stresses how the Magical Girls are the creations of broken homes; how their adult supports and friendship networks are torn from them and they’re forced to form relationships with each other, despite Kyubey’s plotting and the constant threat of Witches and other menaces.


Kuroe Mura’s art style is drastically different either from Aoki’s original designs or Hanokage’s standard manga, which takes some getting used to. Besides the odd-looking character models, the violence is far more graphic than anything else in the series; this and other elements (like Kirika, who at one point peruses Crime and Punishment) read like a lost Magical Girl season of Psycho-Pass. Nor are the protagonists safe from harm, as the gruesome finale proves. But Mura more than makes up for it with her thrilling action scenes (Mami’s big showdown with Kirkia is one of the best fights in the whole series) and strikingly rendered backstories – Oriko in particular becomes a convincingly tragic villain. A respectable addition to the franchise, with this omnibus edition adding a spin-off, Extra Story, further probing its antagonists’ backstories.

[Chaeli Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the first two original Oriko books, I felt like there was writing problems. The writing, at the beginning, was written in a way that was hard to understand. It was sometimes hard to figure out which word bubble went first. One of the characters, Yuma, sometimes speaks in 3rd person. These issues, however, could be translation errors rather than writing errors. Also, the art style was messy and hard to follow. Most of the characters were asymmetrical and the art was often really hard to follow. When it came to the story, I felt there were plot holes that didn’t seem to go with the original Madoka Magica (as Oriko Magica is a spin-off), although it is possible that it’s because of the story being an alternate timeline. Despite the flaws, the ending and many parts throughout were well written, the ending made me a bit teary-eyed. I did enjoy the story.


The Oriko Magica Extra Story, which is an alternate story to the main Oriko Magica, is much better, both in writing and art. The writing still had some parts where it was hard to follow but was much better. The art seemed to be digitally drawn rather than hand-drawn (as the Extra Story came out 2 years after the original story), and was symmetrical and easy to follow. I wish the Extra Story was longer, as it felt a bit fast-paced. I also enjoyed this story.


Overall, I did enjoy the book and its characters and now I want to read Oriko Magica: Sadness Prayer, which is the prequel to the original story.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's more of a 3.5. The art style, as MANY have pointed out, is quite jarring. Some frames are exquisitely beautiful, to the point where I don't mind some characters seem to be drawn older than the 13 they are. Some are so disruptive that it was hard to concentrate on the events going on.

But this is another alternate timeline Homura story slightly connected to our main plot line.

It's weird that Oriko is the titular character, but she isn't on the cover. I genuinely thought Yuma was Oriko until I began reading. And speaking of Yuma, how horrifying is it to have an ACTUAL LITERAL child contract with Kyubey? Knowing what these girls go through and how suffer and then bringing a CHILD into that?

I did enjoy the story, even though I didn't really connect with Oriko or Kiriko (I feel like the narrative held them just at arms length so that they'd be more mysterious when Kiriko is actually interesting and Oriko is working to prevent something Homura should've taken an immediate interest in.

The last few panels of the final battle though? What a gut punch. That will stay with me for a long time.

[Ilyana Kunzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a madoka magica story so it’s gonna be fantastic obviously. ANOTHER TRAGIC TOXIC LESBIAN DUO 😔 But this story is complex in the sense that is gets the reader to empathize with all characters and their motivations, no matter if they’re protagonist or antagonist. My only complaint is that the ending was difficult to follow, and I’m not really sure if they entered another timeline or what, but the snippets of random characters lives kind of confused me

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this one was a little hard to follow at some points. It was still an interesting story, just not my favorite of the Puella Magi stories. It had some great twists though, especially with that post-fight scene in the last chapter. The art style was different and took a bit of getting used to, but was still compelling

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was hard to tell who was talking at times. I'm not familiar with the characters and the artist seems to change the way they draw them. It was difficult to enjoy the story, I couldn't get past my frustrations with the art.

[Linsey Riggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I did like the characters introduced within this story, it was hard to follow and at sometimes felt very rushed. The last section especially was confusing since I couldn’t tell it was a different timeline or not as both Oriko and Kirika seemed to die before the last part.

[jk✩ · Rating 2 out of 5]

⎯ ✩✩ ⎯

I have no idea what was going on, let alone which character was Oriko. But hey, Kyoko cameoed in this one so that's cool!