Sayaka Miki (Soul Magica)

Sayaka Miki is a major character in Puella Magi Madoka Magica IF and the Soul Magica series as a whole. She is classmates with and a childhood best friend of Madoka Kaname.

Appearance
Sayaka has short cyan hair and blue eyes. She typically keeps part of her hair pinned back with a pair of gold-colored clips, which are hidden by her bangs from certain angles. Outside of school, she wears a blue jacket over a white dress shirt with a yellow bow on the collar, white jean shorts with a thin black belt displaying the ff symbol on its buckle over a pair of knee-length leggings, and blue sneakers.

As a Magical Girl, she sports a sleeveless white top with blue chest armor and gold-colored trim, a blue skirt, navy blue detached sleeves under white gloves with a blue stripe at the wrist, and a white cape. For footwear, she wears long white socks with blue trim and blue belts at the top and blue ankle boots with yellow trim. She has a hairclip in the shape of ff and her top is cut to expose her belly button, where her Soul Gem rests in a mermaid's tail shape.

Personality
Sayaka is a bit tomboyish and acts heroic. She is devoted to her friends, especially when she makes the Contract right away and saves Madoka. She still has a large girlish side in that she loves classical music and is very interested in romance. Sayaka seems to have had an extremely black-and-white, idealistic vision of love, which seems to have contributed to her breakdown.

Etymology

 * Her first name is written in hiragana, which has no special meaning. The word sayaka (さやか【明か／清か, usually written in hiragana) can mean "clear", "fresh", or "bright" in Japanese.
 * The first character in her last name (美) means "beauty". The last character (樹) means "tree". Her name could also be written (幹) "tree trunk" or (神酒) "sake offered to the gods."
 * Trees are generally associated with Witches in the series, especially Walpurgisnacht, and an offering to the gods is a sacrifice. So, Sayaka Miki is a "fresh sacrifice" whose very name foreshadows her infection by Jusanbey and becoming a Witch.

History
After learning the truth about the Magical Girl Contract, she felt that she could no longer approach Kyosuke, and this wasn't helped by his obliviousness to her feelings and Hitomi's more assertive behavior that ended up with Hitomi becoming Kyosuke's girlfriend, unaware of Sayaka's feelings. This is why she falls into deep despair, a self-destructive spiral in which she refused help from others (especially Kyoko, Homura and Madoka), seeking to either die or kill to dull the pain. As a result, Jusanbey infects her Soul Gem and ultimately causes her to become a Witch. When she finally gets to listen to Kyosuke play, she actually feels glad and proud for him, and that Hitomi will make him happy.

Songs

 * Crawling in the Dark
 * Alive
 * The Curse

Duets

 * I Dreamed a Dream (Along with Oktavia von Seckendorff)
 * Ophelia (Along with Kyoko Sakura)