- Base-Breaking Character: All three original characters.
- Yuma is either viewed as The Woobie and Kyouko's necessary surrogate sister/adopted daughter, or a Bratty Half-Pint who should have been cut out of the story. While her situation is undoubtedly horrible, whether you find her cute seems to vary from person to person. In addition, her Rousing Speech is either her crowning moment or bizarrely out-of-character.
- Just how justified Oriko was in her actions remains a topic of debate, particularly given that she's viewed as something of a martyr by people who dislike Homura. Her portrayal in fanfic varies between A Lighter Shade of Grey to a cackling murderer. Her design gets some of this as well; some find the Pimped-Out Dress and nice hat to be probably the most beautiful outfit of any series, while others think it looks silly and refer to her as "buckethead." Much of it also ranges in terms of people who see her as a Villain Protagonist, an Anti-Hero, or just plain unlikable.
- Kirika is either Crazy Is Cool and a great deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or a pile of Wangst who's nuts for no good reason. Her relationship with Oriko was either one of the best-explored romantic relationships of the series or really, really creepy (though few would call it a very healthy one).
- Diagnosed by the Audience: Kirika shows a lot of symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder: impulsivity, wild changes in mood, intense emotional responses, self-loathing, a lack of sense of identity, and a very extreme and sensitive view of her relationships (idealizing Oriko's every action and perceiving everyone else as worthless). This is because she wished to become whatever Oriko needed, which results in her personality being rewritten on the fly to suit Oriko's current needs—though even then, she seems to have had many of these traits beforehand.
- Draco in Leather Pants: Following Rebellion, "ORIKO WAS RIGHT" ended up becoming something of a meme due to Oriko predicting that Homura would despair, and finally go to insane/irrational lengths to protect Madoka. However, Oriko was trying to kill Madoka (who quite literally made the world a better place in the anime) while viewing Homura only as an obstacle to that goal and not a danger in and of herself. Even Oriko herself acknowledged in Sadness Prayer that her cause was immoral.
- Epileptic Trees: Started the very moment the cover was revealed. The major topics were about when Oriko Magica takes place, and whether the new magical girls introduced in Oriko Magica would become witches that were seen in the anime.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Yuma also pops up in fanfic, and she appears in licensed (Japan-only) parody comics. Apparently, a lot of people thought Kyoko should have a little girl to take care of. Magia Record even has a pixelated Yuma sprite in Kyoko's transformation sequence.
- Harsher in Hindsight: See here.
- Heartwarming in Hindsight; Mami and Kyoko's interactions in Oriko Magica can be seen as this after listening to the 3rd drama CD and/or reading The Different Story spin-off. Despite their partnership ending sourly in the past, the two manage to interact in civil terms, in contrast to The Different Story and the PSP game, where their reunions were more hostile. When Mami meets up with Kyoko, she warns her about the Magical Girl killings, and Kyoko doesn't hesitate to bail Mami out when Oriko and Kirika take over the school. Then there's their victory fight against the witch Kirika, which is more poignant if you consider this is their first witch fight together in a long while.
- I Am Not Shazam: Oriko is often confused with Yuma, the little girl with green pigtails who appears of the cover of the first volume.
- Les Yay
- Oriko and Kirika, who value each other above anyone else. Not to mention that Kirika's wish was to change her personality just so Oriko would like her more, and Oriko viewed Kirika as the only person who liked her for who she was, rather than associating her with her family or her father.
- This quote confirms it:
Kirika: Treating me like a child again! Really Oriko, I-Oriko: "… Hate you"?Kirika: I love you!- This undertones Mami and Kirika's relationship.
- Oriko and Kirika, who value each other above anyone else. Not to mention that Kirika's wish was to change her personality just so Oriko would like her more, and Oriko viewed Kirika as the only person who liked her for who she was, rather than associating her with her family or her father.
- Love to Hate: Mako Chitose, given her abusive personality. Many viewed her as an even worse character than Kyousuke Kamijou.
- Magnificent Bastard: White Magical Girl Oriko Mikuni uses a series of manipulations and distractions in order to murder Madoka Kaname to prevent her from inevitably becoming the witch Kriemhild Gretchen and destroying the world. Using the Black Magical Girl Kirika Kure to keep the heroines and even the cunning Kyubey busy, Oriko personally proves a match for the time-travelling Homura Akemi and manages to kill Madoka in one timeline while faking an attack at Kyubey. Wracked with guilt by what she must do, Oriko nevertheless stops at nothing, determined to save the world while outplaying everyone around her.
- Memetic Mutation:
- It's become quite popular
◊ to mix Oriko with the "Doom Paul" meme. - Also, Oriko Was Right!note
- It's become quite popular
- Moral Event Horizon: See here.
- Narm
- Madoka just saw her teacher being eaten alive, the witch familiars are attacking everyone, and has been separated from her friends... and reacts by making a cutesy face.
- Yuma's face when she screams can be considered downright silly.
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Common consensus is that while the original is very rough, Extra Story and Sadness Prayer do a lot to improve on it, being less rushed, having better art, and filling out the characters significantly more, including making Oriko far more of the Tragic Villain she was intended to be.
- Tear Jerker:
- Madoka's death. Even though it was a Foregone Conclusion due to this being a previous timeline, the last scenes had set up a Hope Spot for her survival. Also while in other timelines, only Homura was there to see her death, here we get an audience from Sayaka, Hitomi, Mami, Kyoko and Yuma. To make things more depressing, Word of God states that Homura can only turn back time after a month has passed from her discharge from the hospital, meaning that she had to dwell on her failure to save Madoka in this timeline for days or weeks.
- Kyouko's thoughts as she thinks she's about to get killed, regretting that "it sure was a rough life" and wishing she could have had a good dream once. Her being neither happy with her life nor able to accept her own death is quite depressing.
- Even if Oriko is a cold blooded murderer, learning that her father killed himself and her mother is also dead makes you feel sorry for her.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: After the Rousing Speech by Yuma, Mami promised that they will make Kyubey pay for tricking them after they beat Oriko. But then Homura rewinds time before that happened because Madoka died. Dammit, Homura. This plot point is revisited at the end of Sadness Prayer, which shows Kyouko, Mami, Yuma, and a former acquaintance of Oriko all fighting Walpurgis Night and implies they succeed.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The original manga definitely angles for Oriko as a Tragic Villain who is trying to do the right thing in the worst possible way, but the rushed pacing and scattered plot left little room for characterization beyond "deluded Knight Templar", even aside from her being the cause of the Downer Ending, and left some even viewing her Together in Death moment with Kirika as too generous for her. One of the main things Extra Story and Sadness Prayer seemingly set out to do was establish two things: in the former, that she does have the capacity to be a genuinely heroic person, and in the latter, that there were very good reasons why she wasn't a heroic person in the actual series.
- Values Dissonance: Oriko's backstory focuses heavily on the Japanese idea that a criminal parent would have a criminal child, whereas western nations ideally view each person individually. A criminal parent might be a matter of embarrassment or shame, but nowhere near the level of ostracization Oriko faced.
- Win Back the Crowd: Extra Story seems designed to do this: the plot is considerably more focused, the art is better, and it fleshes out Oriko, Kirika, and Yuma a lot more (while also giving the former two a good amount of Pet the Dog moments).
- The Woobie
- Yuma. Poor kid deserves a lot of hugs and comforting for all the trauma she's been through even before the story began.
- Jerkass Woobie: It doesn't take long for Oriko and Kirika to enter this status either.
- It's hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for Oriko when we see a flashback of her sitting all alone in a corner of her vandalized house, wrapped up in a bedsheet with teary eyes after her father, a politician, committed suicide after it's revealed that he was embezzling funds. Everyone turns against Oriko, leaving her completely alone (which is bad enough in and of itself, but it also implies that the only reason they hung around her was because of who her father was). Cue Kyubey's entrance. This is made even worse in Sadness Prayer: Oriko's father was disowned and shunned by the rest of the Mikuni family and only entered politics in the first place because he recognized Oriko could be a world leader someday and was trying to earn his father's approval again so he would sponsor Oriko, only to be betrayed by him. Oriko learning this leads to a great Despair Event Horizon where she nearly kills her grandfather and needs to be talked out of succumbing to despair by Kirika.
