Ramia

Ramia
Continuity	Magical Girl Pretty Sammy Magical Project S
Voice Actors	(Japanese): Maya Okamoto (岡本 麻弥) (English): Susan Brecht (Only in Magical Girl Pretty Sammy)
Age	-Unknown. Physically, she appears to be in her early 20s. -Deceased (Novel universe)
Gender	Female
Species	Juraian
Occupation	Candidate to be queen of Juraihelm Part of Jurailheims’s leadership below the Queen(Magical Project S) “Wizard/Magician”
Affiliation	Queen candidates along Tsunami and Romio.
Relatives	Rumiya (younger brother)

Ramia (裸魅亜) is a major villain in Magical Girl Pretty Sammy and Magical Project S. She is a candidate to become the next queen of the magical kingdom of Juraihelm, but loses out to Tsunami, another candidate, who is also her foil, and supposed "friend" . Refusing to admit defeat, Ramia selects Misao Amano, her kindred spirit, and an ordinary schoolgirl, to transform into Pixy Misa, a magical girl tasked with disrupting Tsunami's inaugural process.

Overview

She holds the title of “Wizard” or “magician” as one of the more powerful magic users, and is explicitly stated to be even more powerful than Tsunami (which ads to her frustration of not being selected as queen) , and despite not being a queen, she is counted among Jurailhelm’s leaders.

In both series, Ramia is typically depicted as being quick to anger, constantly belittling Tsunami as an idiot behind her back, and showing very abusive behavior toward her younger brother, Rumiya, whom she forces to go along with her schemes along Pixy Misa and typically punishes him whenever he fails.

Magical Girl Pretty Sammy

Storyline

Ramia is one of two candidates that vie to become the new ruler of Juraihelm, but to her dismay, its 108 priests choose her competitor, Tsunami. Ramia is shocked and furious at this decision, and she later thrashes her home out of anger. Meanwhile, she sent her younger brother Rumiya down to Earth to scout a someone to become her magical girl, and when Rumiya reports back that he found who she was looking for, she orders him to transform that girl, Misao Amano, to become Pixy Misa and sew chaos.

Unfortunately, Pixy Misa is defeated by Tsunami's magical girl, Pretty Sammy. However, when Tsunami asks if she knows anything about Pixy Misa, Ramia lies and says she doesn't.

Her next scheme was to assist American software CEO Biff Standard with his goal of creating a new "standardized" utopia, imbuing his technology with her magic. Meanwhile, she uses a robotic doll of herself to fool Tsunami into think she hadn't left, which works as well as expected. As Ramia explains eventually, she wants Biff to go forward with his plan to crash the Moon and the Earth for the sole purpose of making Pretty Sammy lose all her points and thus make Tsunami lose her chance of becoming queen. However, this plan too fails thanks to Pretty Sammy and Washu working together to disable Biff's giant robot dragging the Moon down to Earth, and as a good measure, Washu uses the the robot's beam to target the building Ramia is in while this is happening.

Later, during a battle with Pretty Sammy in space, a large comet suddenly engulfs Ramia as before it crashes in Japan's Izu area. Ramia survives, albeit very weak and losing all of her memories, including her brother and even her own name. She's looked after by a man named Hiroshi, but unbeknownst to her, Hiroshi was created by an extragalactic organism that made contact with Ramia via the comet and linked with her memories, including her desire to kill Pretty Sammy and defeat Tsunami.

Ramia, having lost her identity

Rumiya comes across Ramia's diary in Juraihelm and is so touched by Ramia supposedly wanting to become queen for his sake that he goes out to find her, only that was only part of the message. Ramia actually says that she never cared about Rumiya that much and is only concerned with being queen of Juraihelm.

Eventually, Ramia finds an unconscious Rumiya in bird form after being defeated by Hiroshi, but when he wakes up, she doesn't recognize the talking bird as his brother. She only regains her memories when Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa say their names in front of her as they battle Hiroshi. Once he's defeated, Rumiya brings Ramia back to Juraihelm as she complains of headaches and doesn't remember everything that happened. Tsunami, who was worried about what happened to her, hugs Ramia and cries tears of joy at her return.

Personality

Ramia is depicted as a very bombastic and hot-blooded person. She is also very selfish, double-faced, and amoral, willing to do anything to win Jurailhelm's crown, even if it means killing countless of human lives in the process. To achieve her goals, she often tries to kill Pretty Sammy, a 10 year old girl, caring very little about collateral damage, or anything that isn't herself and her goals. Meanwhile, she successfully fools Tsunami into believing that she is a caring and loyal friend. In reality, she is very cruel, and manipulative often bullying her brother Rumiya into obeying her as her accomplice, all while attempting to sabotage her "friend's" ascension to the throne, and using an ill girl as a pawn against her will. Altough she has very few reedeeming qualities, she is often in humorous situations that give levity to her actions.

Magical Project S

Ramia and her brother Rumiya (in bird form) from the episode "First Contact"

Storyline

Ramia is once again a candidate for the throne of the magical realm of Juraihelm. At the choosing for the next queen, Ramia pledges to increase Juraihelm's decreasing population by subsidizing families with more than two children and have divorced couples punished by law; and to encourage people to pledge to imperial rule by getting more weapons, more public order, and a complaints box.

Ramia expects to be easily chosen, especially considering Tsunami's ridiculous pledge to plant flowers throughout the kingdom, but she is passed over in favor of Tsunami. Ramia, who believes Tsunami is dimwitted with pathetic magical powers, refuses to give up and decides to interfere with the deliberations by trying to defeat Tsunami's champion, Pretty Sammy. She and Rumiya go down to Earth to choose Ramia's own kindred spirit to oppose Tsunami's. They pick a girl, Misao Amano, whom Ramia proceeds to hypnotize into the evil magical girl Pixy Misa.

Pixy Misa is supposed to stir up chaos and cause Pretty Sammy to fail, allowing Ramia to become Queen after Tsunami loses her test. However, Misa often fails miserably in the plans she carries out, and Ramia usually takes out her frustration on Rumiya in various methods of physical torture, ranging from hitting on the rear with a baseball bat to strapping him to a wheel on a wall and spinning him. Tsunami, for her part, is genuinely unaware of Ramia's involvement with Pixy Misa and is very friendly towards her.

After repeated failures by Pixy Misa, Ramia decides to take matters into her own hands by going down to Earth again and assembling the Lovely Madams, a group of six newlywed (or in Mrs. Roku's case, betrothed) women whom she kidnaps and brainwashes into becoming Pixy Misa's new allies. Thy Lovely Madams introduce themselves in the middle of a battle between Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa and successfully subdue Sammy, but they are soonafter defeated by her with the help of Ginji Kawai and his "dandy power".

Then, Ramia enlists the help of Hikari, a Juraihelm girl and a childhood friend of Ryo-Ohki. She uses her magic to manipulate her into believing that Pretty Sammy is abusing Ryo-Ohki and sends her to Earth under the guise of a transfer student named Hikari Asahina to retrieve him, thereby leaving Pretty Sammy without a guardian. However, when Hikari actually manages to capture Ryo-Ohki and tries to return to Juraihelm, Ramia is too busy reading and laughing at a manga to notice her request. Pretty Sammy comes to rescue Ryo-Ohki and Hikari manages to break free from Ramia's magic and returns to Juraihelm.

When the balance of Gemini is almost restored, Ramia makes one last gamble and tells Rumiya to have Pixy Misa fight Pretty Sammy one last time, this time pumping Misa's magical power as high as it can go. Pixy Misa proceeds to create a "Hyper Love-love Monster" that causes people to hate each other and battles Pretty Sammy with increased magical prowess. However, just as Misa was about to defeat Pretty Sammy, she sees her father and becomes emotionally overwhelmed, forcing herself to untransformed back into Misao Amano. When Rumiya sees that Misao needs help, he flies back to Juraihelm to get Ramia's help, but Ramia, having lost her last chance to become queen of Juraihelm, turns white with defeat and becomes completely unresponsive.

Later, when Tsunami is about to become formally inaugurated as queen of Juraihelm, Romio, the third candidate to be queen, visits Ramia, who hasn't recovered from losing. However, as soon as she pledges her help to stop Tsunami's inauguration, Ramia's fighting spirit fires back into action and she accepts Romio's help, but traps Rumiya inside a crystal after he tries talking her out of the plan.

Romio proceeds to transform Sasami's class representative Eimi Date into the magical girl "Love-Me Eimy" and have her destroy Umi no Hoshi Elementary with her two "Lovely Monsters", but they are defeated by Pretty Sammy with the help of "Overly Splendid" Oryo. Romio assures Ramia that she has a backup plan, but when it's discovered that Romio wants to destroy Earth, Ramia confronts her about it, having finally admitted that Tsunami is now queen. However, Romio betrays Ramia as she activates her "NT System" which drains Ramia's magical power (and everyone else's in Juraihelm) and causes her to collapse. Romio tells her that she's no longer needed and she'll be taking her magic while she can "dry up and blow away". However, Ramia uses the last of her magical power to free Rumiya and send him through a portal to Earth to get help from Pretty Sammy.

Pretty Sammy and Ryo-Ohki come across a weakened Ramia onboard Romio's battleship (which sprouted out of Juraihelm's palace), and she points them in the direction of the NT System. As soon as it's destroyed and Ramia's magic returns, she furiously chases after Romio and catches her in a tackle and headlock, launching both of them off of her battleship before it's destroyed by Sammy and Pixy Misa.

Ramia is present with Tsunami, Rumiya, and Ryo-Ohki as they find Sasami and Misao drifting in space after their battle with Romio. As they are about to depart, Ramia runs out of patience with Rumiya's crush on Misao and pushes the two of them together, causing Rumiya to accidentally kiss Misao on the cheek.

Several months later, when Juraihelm and Earth are almost ready to unite, Ramia can be seen intimidating the U.S. President over the phone as part of diplomatic discussions between the two planets' leaders.

Personality

While still just as obsessed with the single minded goal of becoming queen, just like her Magical Girl Pretty Sammy counterpart, and, while she also was abusive with her younger brother, Ramia is shown as being far more benevolent in Magical Project S.

In this version Ramia did expresses concern for Misao Amano, when she was being bullied by Konoha Haida and ordered Rumiya to summon Pixy Misa not just to sabotage Tsunami, but also to have her get some payback against Konoha for bullying Misao.

Also, while still being primarily selfish, Ramia did show some genuine genuine care for her brother Rumiya. For instance she did notice Rumiya had a crush on Misao, and even smiled pleased that he was growing up. Ramia pushed, and encouraged a shy Rumiya to persue his feelings for Misao during the events of the last episode. Ramia even patted him in the back to comfort him when he was crying out of happiness due to Misao’s safe return.

Ramia comforts Rumiya who is just happy Misao is safe.

There were also certain lines even she was unwilling to cross to win. For instance, her OVA counterpart did often try to outright murder Pretty Sammy, like she did during the events of “Super Kiss”, and was also perfectly willing to crash the moon on the Earth despite being well aware of the millions of casualties that would cause. On the other hand, while this version of Ramia was willing to kidnap and brainwash people for her schemes, she never attempted to directly kill anyone nor did she cause any casualties. In fact she only interacted with Sasami during the finale.

Ramia even protested against Romio’s attempts of destroying the earth, and celebrated Pixy Misa and Pretty Sammy’s victory against her despite not having anything to gain for doing so at that point.

Powers and abilities

In the Magical Project S universe, unlike magical girls like Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa who rely on magic batons, Ramia, a native of Jurailhelm, possesses innate magical powers and holds the title of “wizard”. Although her universe's soft magic system loosely defines its rules and limitations, Ramia stands out as one of the most powerful and knowledgeable magic users. Perhaps only Tsunami comes close, though Ramia claims superiority. Both Rumiya and Romio deferred to her due to her expertise in magic.

Her feats support these claims. Ramia can, easily, and instantaneously teleport, herself and others, between Juraihelm and Earth, a feat beyond even Tsunami. She can also cast spells surpassing those of other Juraihelm natives, as shown when Ryo-Ohki and Rumiya were helpless to undo the curse she had cast on Misao.

Ramia possesses local reality-warping abilities . While she avoids direct combat, to maintain her facade of being on Tsunami’s side, her magic is formidable. For instance, her Team Sexy Madams, (composed of failry average women, and a very young girl) empowered by her magic, easily defeated the JSDF, the United States 7th fleet, and the United Nation’s armed forces with little effort on her part . Her"partner" Pixy Misa could easily overpower Pretty Sammy once she decided to increase her magic on a whim. All the magic users she was a magic patron of far surpassed what normal humans could handle, even with military equipment, with only Pretty Sammy having the slightest chance of stopping.

After regaining her magic, Ramia effortlessly defeated the final villain, Romio ( a mere human magical girl). She can also cast complex mental spells, forcing minions to unknowingly work for her without losing a great degree of free will and autonomy.

Weaknesses And limitations.

• Magic Absorption: Despite her immense power, Ramia, like all Jurailhelm residents, is vulnerable to having her magic absorbed. This was demonstrated when Romio's NT system drained her, and Hikari's magic-negating abilities likely pose a similar threat. Without magic, as Romio taunted, she becomes just an "eccentric lady." Indeed, drained of magic, Ramia couldn't even stand up.
• Limits of magic: While magic grants extremely potent reality altering abilities, neither magic, nor her by extension, are omnipotent.

• Lack of uniqueness: Ramia's reliance on subterfuge against Tsunami further highlights this vulnerability. While a powerful sorceress, magic user seem fairly common in Jurailhelm. For instance the Royal Guard Overly Splendid Oryo who specializes in magic combat. Thus she is forced her to play by Jurailhelm’s rules given that taking power by force is not realistically even an option for her.

Representatives and Kindred Spirits

In both animated versions of Pretty Sammy, Ramia's relationship with Tsunami echoes that of Sasami Kawaii and Misao Amano. An important part of the story is that their alter egos, Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa, are their representatives on Earth. Neither Tsunami nor Ramia can get caught getting involved in the queen selection process without instantly failing at their goals.

Just like with Sasami and Tsunami, Misao was chosen by Ramia because they are considered "kindred spirits" ("two that have the same soul" in the original japanese). This is explicitly stated in both the Pretty Sammy novels and Magical Project S. As such, Pixy Misa's and Pretty Sammy's relationship mirrors that of Tsunami and Ramia – the friend who is also secretly an enemy.

Both Ramia and Pixy Misa exude a bombastic personality, readily evident in their frequent displays of childish anger, selfishness, and unwavering arrogance. Fueled by their undeniable magical talents, they both crave the spotlight, and their flamboyant personalities always ensure they rarely get ignored. They possess more mastery over their magic powers compared to their blue-haired counterparts. They even have similar hairstyles and clothing. In the Magical Project S continuity, Rumiya even pointed out that Pixy Misa's behavior was just like his sister Ramia..

And while not obvious at first glance, Ramia also shares some traits with her champion's civilian self, Misao . Just like her shy champion, Ramia is more intellectually inclined, and academically gifted compared to Tsunami. Also, albeit rare, Ramia, just like Misao, is also prone to depressive moods when she doesn’t get her way. In the third Pretty Sammy OVA, in the brief period Ramia's powers and memories were stolen by Hiroshi, she acted meek and soft spoken exactly like Misao Amano .

She also very prone to jealousy with Tsunami; Just like Misao hides her envy towards Sasami.

Trivia.

• Although she doesn’t have a counterpart in Sasami: Magical Girls Club, her role of corrupting that version of Misao against Sasami is taken by the Chief Sorceress.