This is the original version of Misao Amano that would inspire all subsequent ones.
She is a shy, yet gentle girl that is best friends with Sasami Kawai, but is also forced by Ramia, and Rumiya to become her rival as the evil Magical girl Pixy Misa.
This version of Misao Amano stands out in that she has perhaps, the most tragic backstory, and the frailest constitution of all the versions of the character so far, including her Battle Programmer Shirase incarnation, and her counterpart Misao Shinohara. Despite also being part of a parody of magical girls, she is more serious, in both identities, than her Magical Project S version.
Despite her significance as Pretty Sammy’s rival and Sasami’s best friend, this version of Misao remains one of the least explored characters. She is primarily featured in the 3 Pretty Sammy OVAs, where she plays a secondary role to Sasami and her family. However, her story remains unresolved in these animations. The PlayStation 1/Windows 98 era Pretty Sammy video games were initially intended as the canonical finale to this continuity, offering a possible conclusion to her story. But their multiple endings, influenced by player choices, cast doubt on their canon status, alongside their obscurity.
This version of Misao has appeared in supplementary materials such as videoclips, manga and video games. Additionally, adaptations like the "Magical Night 1" radio play and the Pretty Sammy light novels, while heavily inspired by this universe, despite the similarities, are distinct versions of Misao separate from the OVAs.
Civilian life
Misao is a normal Japanese middle school student who lives in Tokyo[1]. However, her day to day life is shown as being generally miserable due to her loneliness and her illness, save for the time she spends with Sasami, and her family were she is genuinely happy. When she is not with Sasami, she likes to play the piano in her spare time, and she also goes to a cram school.
The song “Double Mind” Misao reveals several facts about her personal life that weren't directly stated in the OVAs. According to said song, she suffers from anemia[2], a condition that often leaves her in pain, and causes her to feel dizzy. It severely weakens her, and forces her to skip school activities like P.E or even leisure activities like walks in the beach. She can’t be too much time in the sun either due to health reasons. This makes her feel depressed and frustrated with herself to the point she wants to cry [2]as she yearns being able to play and do physical activities like Sasami.
Like her Magical Project S incarnation, she is also academically gifted, is physically weak, and has no friends besides Sasami.[3]
This however, has the side effect of making it harder for others to link her to her physically powerful alter-ego Pixy Misa. Misao herself and others, like Sasami, attributes her amnesic episodes and blackouts to her medical condition, while, in reality, she is causing chaos and mischief as Pixy Misa.
She is shown as yearning for a loving family with the mere sight of other kids having happy families being enough to make her feel depressed longing for the time her parents took care of her. This is because Misao’s home life is shown as being dysfunctional with her parents being overtly neglectful of her.
Her father, instead of simply being absent for work related reasons, disappeared without a trace, with his whereabouts left unrevealed, but it’s implied that he simply abandoned his family as Kiyone thinks he is just being “an excentric genius” instead of dead or in danger; a fact Misao doesn't dispute. Unlike her Magical Project S incarnation, were it’s shown that her parents still have close bonds with each others and temporarily separated on good terms, in this version Misao has painful memories of her parents fighting in front of her, with her mother being angry with Misao’s father prioritizing his work over family.
Misao’s mother hardly ever sees her daughter Misao, as she is usually busy with work.
As Pixy Misa
Pixy Misa is the magical girl form of Misao Amano. She is always seen being called to action by either Rumiya or Ramia using a form of which hypnosis to transform Misao without her knowledge or consent. Misao is aware Pixy Misa’s existence and the fact that she is Pretty Sammy’s rival. But Misao, mistakenly, thinks Pixy Misa is a completely different person from herself therefore she is completely unaware of her alter ego’s actions.[4]
Unlike her more comedic Magical Project S incarnation, the Pretty Sammy version of Pixy Misa is portrayed as a considerable threat on her own right, being rather competent, and somewhat more serious at her role as an evil magical girl.
She is much less likely to flee without giving a fight, she actively faces Pretty Sammy in direct combat, and even assists her love love monsters during fights[5], instead of running away at the first sign of trouble. Although she usually loses to Sammy, Pixy Misa is portrayed as being a considerable threat. She has completely defeated her rival in the past by overwhelming Sammy with her own magical powers, forcing external factors to intervene in Sammy’s favor, like Rumiya or even a comet. In the manga Tsunami had to intervene by stopping time, and she also had to use an astral body double to reverse a Sammy defeat.[4]Her considerable magical power makes her, all around, a formidable enemy.
Her Magical girl get up also resembles the party flapper style, with this version sporting a hat with a feather. Her chest decoration resembles a butterfly. During the third Ova, she gains a midriff like her Magical Project S counterpart.
To contrast Pretty Sammy’s child like innocence, she has been shown drinking alcohol, despite her very young age, as one way she deals with her sadness from her Misao side.[2]
Personality
Misao and Sasami
Misao Amano
Misao is a soft spoken shy introvert girl. She is gentle and sweet, but also has a passive laid-back demeanor so she tends to fade in the background compared to the more extroverted Sasami or her family and their antics with Tenchi. Misao is still very close to Sasami with the two being fairly close.
She has some self esteem issues as the weakness caused by her illnesses are a great source of unhappiness for her.
Albeit metaphorically, Misao has also shown some awareness of her alter ego[2], by mentioning how negative emotions surface whenever she feels sad. Misao says that she feels like “a different person” is inside her heart “whispering” to her whenever she is sad. It’s very unlikely she means this literally given Misao is not aware of having a split personality let alone the fact that she is Pixy Misa.
Misao, however, is well aware of Pixy Misa’s existence. Ironically, Misao was selected to play the role of Pixy Misa for a school play as her classmates noticed her physical resemblance to her alter ego, but nobody suspected she was Pixy Misa as Misao was still as shy as ever. Not even herself.[4],
Pixy Misa
Once, she transforms, Misao becomes more cheerful, bold, and confident on herself, even arrogant. She is shown greatly enjoying her role of spreading chaos as an evil magical girl, with Pretty Sammy even remarking how she “liked being the bad girl”[1]. She is also, for the most part, extremely competent at her role, lacking the shrilling laughter, goofiness, and laziness of her Magical Project S counterpart.
As of the events of “SuperKiss” Pixy Misa started using a midriff just like her Magical Project S counterpart.
Albeit, she is not above being more laid back, and having moments of self indulgence, and air headness like when she randomly started entering homes while looking for an amnesic Ramia, or when she confused Rumiya’s desperate warnings of danger as romantic advances. She also likes teasing and playing around with her rival Pretty Sammy. Another playful trait of hers is she also likes to sprinkle random English words or phrases whenever she talks in the original Japanese dub, and French words used for the same effect in the English dub.
Pixy Misa’s is a bit of a wild card, as she has no problem teaming up with her rival Pretty Sammy if convenient, and of betraying her just as fast, acting mainly out of self interest. She, however, has shown care for Rumiya even worrying about his well being, and also has degree of loyalty towards Ramia, as her servant, although she has betrayed her too on occasion.
She also has a cruel side as she has little qualms outright killing her own love-love monsters if they stop serving her interests. Pixy Misa was also willing to crash the moon on the planet, despite being well aware of the potential loss of lives that could cause, purely out of selfish reasons.
Powers and Abilities
When Misao becomes Pixy Misa, she immediately stops suffering the debilitating symptoms of her illnesses. She becomes empowered gaining incredible magical and physical abilities.
Save for her superhuman ability to jump several meters in one leap, Pixy Misa’s physical feats, are comparable to what is achieved by top human athletes. She becomes very athletic and psychically strong, to the point she shows off high acrobatic skills, the ability to jump between rooftops, and, she even gains enough strength to carry an adult male like Biff Standard with one hand.
Weapon
Pixy Misa using her baton as a gun
Magical baton- Pixy Misa’s weapon of choice is a baton that somewhat resembles a bow in shape. She usually uses it to focus her magic, and spells, but she is also able to shapeshift it into other weapons, like a shuriken and even a rifle that shoots magical beams.[6]
Summoning
Calling Mystics (コーリング・ミステイクス, Kōringu Misuteikusu?) - Pixy Misa uses this spell to summon a Love-Love Monster, which are evil creatures made from empowered objects, or even people, to spread chaos. Misa usually has her monsters fight for her as her minions.
Offensive Attacks
Pixy Sexual Fire[6] (ピクシィ・セクシャル・ファイヤー, Pikushyi Sekusharu Faiyā?) - Pixy Misa's ultimate attack, and Misa’s equivalent to Pretty Sammy’s Pretty Coquettish Bomber. In the OVA, she only used it in the battle against Hiroshi.
Pixy Misa after using her Magical Beam spell.
Pixy Manji Dart[7] - An attack used by Misa against Hiroshi in the OVA, in which she throws her baton as a manji-shaped weapon at her opponent called "Pixy Cross Shuriken" in the English dub.
MagicalBeam[7]- This is a type of spell that resembles a grenade. Without the need of her magic baton, and only using her hands, Pixy Misa creates a small ball of green energy with her hands that quickly creates an explosion at her command, that quickly grows in size, and vaporizes her enemies.
Magical Wind[7] - Focusing her baton, and using it like a fan, Pixy Misa is able summon strong gusts of wind to push her opponents several meters away.
Other abilities
Survival in the vacuum of space[7]-In the prologue of the second OVA, Pixy Misa is briefly shown engaging PrettySammy, in a battle in space, and unlike Sammy herself, neither her nor Ramia are shown needing a space suit to survive the vacuum of space.
Levitation[7]-Pixy Misa, briefly, displayed this power during the second Ova, and using her baton as focus, she is able to hover over the skies of Akihabara, all while she is seen holding Biff Standard, and using her magic to create a giant robot.
Pixy Misa and her baton
Miscellaneous magic[6] - In accordance to her mission by Ramia, she can channel her magic to do spells that aren’t part of her usual arsenal but can serve specific functions, which can be as harmless as changing the operative systems of all computers in an area, to something as dangerous as attracting all electronics in an area to create a giant robot.
Weaknesses and limitations
As of the events of the second OVA, she stated that she was unable to undo her own spells.
While she is powerful enough to be evenly matched with Pretty Sammy, neither herself, nor Sammy, are a match for a full wizard or sorceress, like Ramia, a situation that has forced her to team up with her rival.
Reverting back to Misao renders her completely helpless, and vulnerable, even compared to other magical girls like Pretty Sammy, as her normal self can hardly exert herself due to her illness.
Trivia
She hates carrots, to the point she feels the impulse to throw away her whole school lunch if they are part of her vegetables (Happosai). But given Misao’s tendency to bottle her emotions, it’s unlikely she actually does so. [2] Ironically this is another way she is opposite to Sasami, as Sasami is known to wear carrot themed pajamas for sleeping.
Just like her counterpart in Magical Project S, she is a Tokyo resident[1]. Given that the events of the second OVA took place in Akihabara, a famous commercial district of Tokyo, and it was depicted as part of the city were both she and Sasami live.
While it wasn’t explicitly confirmed if she was Ramia’s kindred spirit in this version, supplemental material confirms the system is at play. Misao in both identities did show several similarities to Ramia. While transformed, as Pixy Misa, she was as flamboyant as Ramia, and during the events of SuperKiss, Ramia became as soft and gentle as Misao.[8]
Gallery
Misao remembers her parents before they neglected her
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