Ever since the release of the most recent Walpurgisnacht Rising trailer i have found myself wondering about one of the new magical girls that has entered the story- Shi chouka!
I want to try and compile all the info we have on her , theorising on her link to the "Rubber Witch" Paola aswell as general speculation on her character based on vibes and what i feel from her, although trying to understand a charachter from a handful of short clips is a fools errand but i want to try my hand at it for fun and to look back on this post when the movie drops! ( If there arent anymore hiccups in schedueling that is 😭 )
When we were first introduced to her we were met with this scene of her pleasantly having tea with someone- her expression giving the feeling of someone who's warm and inviting, with her glasses she also has a bit of a mature vibe, reminding me alot to how Mami was introduced at the start of the show.
Outside of her appearance the enviorment here is also noteworthy- Its dominated by water and we see the presence of lilypads, keep these details in mind as we will return to them later!
Her design is kinda bottom heavy and we can see she carries around a wand as her weapon! Although we dont have a clue as to her powers or wish and why she gets this specific aesthetic we do get one neat extra detail where we can sort of see her weapon have the abbility to inflate and enlarge itself to a more threatening stature
Now aside from these speculative potential design hints we get what seems to be the biggest clue as to her identity as Paola
In the trailer we get a look at this otherwordly location that seems to resemble a witch labyrinth, sonething that should be impossible in Homuras wraith infested world.
This labyrinth looks like some sort of temple or shrine with yet again a focus on water, Whats more alarming is it seems to have a bug problem as its completely infested with these insectoid looking familliars with translucent floatie like bodies
And we can see our green girl ontop of this structure looking down on Madoka, seemingly in control of these creatures as shes seen riding ontop of one of them
Given her expression here its clear this scene is some sort of reveal where her friendly deameanor drops, why she seems to be antagonizing Madoka i cant say but what i can say is these familliars are clearly Bona!
The familliars of the rubber witch Paola these pond skater bug like creatures have one purpose and that is to carry their witch around the vast waterscape that is their labyrinth, this is beacuse the witch cannot swim by herself. They seem to have been tweaked for the movie removing the human legs for more insectoid look which overall makes them scarier but we can assume other than that they remain the same, we even see them carry out their duty as we see shichoka being carried by one of them!
These scenes seem to really confirm her being Paola aswell as some sort of antagonistic reveal, so now lets examine the witch herself to see if we can match it with what evidence we have:
Paola the rubber witch with a rebound nature
Now Paola is certainly a silly and honestly sorta pitiful witch, Its not impressive size wise with its familliars being bigger than it and it seems very at odds with its own existence being stuck in a realm filled with water when she herself does not know how to swim, it is also described as clumsy.
If we are to compare her to our girl and her appereances we can clearly make some connections
First obviously water enviorments but also remember the lilypads from her first appereance? Well Paola seems to be some sort of tadpole or frig, creatures heavily associated with lily pads, the color green is also the most populour color for frogs to be depicted in and that is our girls signature color
Then for her design her beach ball head reminds you of our girls weapon and its sphere shape aswell as caoability to inflate and also her bottom half looks like our witches floatie familliar compsnion dhe rides on.
The backround of this level in exedra clearly also depicts the same structures as we see in Wnk.
Now all of this i think is more than enough to prove they are the same being but the question i have is how did a composed mature and pretty strong looking girl give rise to such a pathetic witch
If i had to make a pure speculative guess it might be that Shichoka felt hopeless or powerless, not strong enough and drowned in her own despair ending up as a witch that depends on others and is always in danger in her own world.
We see her hangout with Kyouko aton, someone who also funnily enough cant swim, but if im right and Shichoka is someone who fears her own powerlessness and weakness it could make sense that she is fond of Kyouko, someone who mannaged to survive in Kyubeys system by her own physical and mental strength
These are mostly my thoughts on her, im pretty confident she is Paola but what that means for her charachter im not quite sure, she feels like a mix of Mami and Sayaka ( Hey blue and yellow make Green! ) With how despite seeming cool and collected she's having feelings of inadecuacy and specifically the drowning metaphors make me think of Sayaka alot.
But thats mostly it i hope you enjoyed this was fun to do and i hope im not just blabbering and sounding insane lol Also i hope i got her name right beacuse aside from Shichoka ive heard her being called Lilac too so im not rlly sure 😭
Anyway hopefully she can be a cool addition to the cast when this movie finally drops 💚
