Maria Cadenzavna Eve

"I kinda like that about you. If only everyone had the guts to fight for each other like you do, the world might have been a better place."

- Maria Cadenzavna Eve

Maria Cadenzavna Eve is one of the seven main heroines of the Symphogear franchise. She was the sister of Serena Cadenzavna Eve and the Black Gungnir user. She was originally the main antagonist in Symphogear G, but she becomes one of the supporting protagonists in the entire series. She is voiced by Yoko Hikasa, who played the famous role of Mio Akiyama from K-On!.

Appearance
Maria has long, coral hair with the top styled up in two horn-like curls, with a blue flower accessories centered into each curl. The rest of her hair hangs loose down to her hips. Her eyes are blue-green. Maria is most often seen wearing a white corset-like top under a blue jacket with feathered ends, a wide open collar, and white accents secured with a bow under her chest. She also wears white short-shorts, a stocking on her left leg and dark laced up boots.

Her first stage dress is pink, green and blue while her second one is white, light blue and blue-yellow high shoes.

When she was younger, she wore a blue dress with black tights and pink ribbon near her stomach. At that time, her hair was shorter, falling just past her shoulders.

Personality
Maria is an energetic idol and a bit mysterious. She's gradually revealed to have a conflicted heart, torn between her determination to complete her mission and her unwillingness to cause others harm. While she will gladly make harsh speeches and fight other Gear users, she cannot bring herself to harm normal people unless absolutely enraged. This conflicted nature makes her easily manipulated and vulnerable at times, but at heart Maria is just a kind and sincere girl who simply wants to help and protect everyone she holds dear.

Past
Maria and Serena were originally born in Yugoslavia, a remote region of Eastern Europe. They were constantly put at risk by the flames of war fanned by territorial and ethnic disputes in the region. Eventually, Maria and Serena lost their home and family in the wars and became vagrants, wandering aimlessly and huddling together to stay alive. Sometime later, they ended up in the White Orphanage as part of the Receptor Children project.

Symphogear G
Maria made her first appearance in the second season of the anime series. She has first finished the song performance called Dark Oblivion, thus doing the rivalry with Tsubasa Kazanari's concert. When the concert was about to end, Maria Cadenzavna Eve summons a group of Noise, holding the civilians in hostage to provide worldwide broadcast to prevent Tsubasa Kazanari's Symphogear transformation. She possesses the power of Black Gungir armor. She and her group  are self-prclaimed to become the successors of Fine. With her announcement shortly done, Maria prepares to release the civilians in the concert; so, she can defeat Tsubasa Kazanari. Maria prevented Tsubasa from escaping to a better place where she can safely transform. Maria knocked Tsubasa towards a horde of Noise. Luckily, Tsubasa managed to activate the Symphogear transformation before fighting back with her. After Shirabe Tsukuyomi and Kirika Akatsuki have arrived at the stadium, She and her friends fought Chris and Hibiki. Suddenly, a huge potato-like Noise came out, causing Maria and her teammates to retreat. Maria appeared again to ambush Tsubasa Kazanari from destroying Nephilim. Dr. Ver believes that Maria is the descendant of Fine. Maria engages Tsubasa in 1-on-1 combat while Shirabe and Kirika defeat Hibiki and Shirabe to protect Ver. Nastassja soon arrives to assist Maria and the others to retreat again, thus taking Ver and Nephilim with them by stealth technology.

While Maria and Nastassja were hiding in the warehouse, Shirabe and Kirika particapated in the song performance. Maria was stressed when Dr. Ver unleashed the army/horde of Noise to attack and kill the armed forces and the group of human children. Maria and Nastassja must warn Shirabe and Kirika to back. Staying at HQ, it is revealed Hibiki and Maria's Gungnirs share the same pattern. Maria learns that her late sister was a Symphogear user, who had defeated the rampaging Nephilim prototype, who sacrificed herself to put an end to angry creature for good. After Nephilim was killed and defeated by Hibiki Tachibana (whose left arm was bitten off and regenerated), Nastassja's sickness started to develop. Maria must stay to look after the female scientist while Shirabe and Kirika started searching for Ver, who found Nephilim's heart and attacks the school before Hibiki goes into action.

After Kirika and Shirabe retreat with Dr. Ver, Maria continues to look after Nastassja. Coming to understand the kind heart, Maria notices that she can no longer play the role of Fine. It is revealed that Nastassja has merely told Maria to play the role of Finé's successor in order to reach Ver's goal. Upon realizing that Kirika has gained the new power, she and Nastassja arrived at the Sky Tower. When Maria makes a successful escape to kill dozens of Noise and human soldiers. She kidnapped and rescued Miku Kohinata from explosive death. Maria reveals to the people she is not Fine, while she is helping Ver to reach the goal.

After Miku Kohinata was defeated and saved by HIbiki Tachibana, Maria decided to stay with Dr. Ver and his companions. She and the others explored Frontier together, which Dr. Ver powers himself up using the Nephilim's heart. With the moon approaching to Earth, Maria reveals the truth that Ver's vision is desirable to destroy the human race by repopulating the Earth for himself, making herself be devastated. Hoping to use the song power of Symphogear, Maria broadcasts her song around the world. Maria goes to the Control Center to confront Dr. Ver, which launched the dome where Nastassja is towards the moon. Suddenly, she was stopped by Hibiki Tachiabana from killing Ver. She believes that killing is wrong. Her Gungnir power was taken by Hibiki to revive her Symphogear armor. Depressed only once, she is visited by the spirit of her late sister, who sings alongside with her and the planet earth. Maria and the others join Hibiki to fight Nephilim in the final battle. Maria uses the Airgetlám relic Serena Cadenzavna Eve left to combine the power everyone's soul in this world to destroy Nephilim once and for all. After the final battle is over, she and the Symphogear heroines reconciled to see each other again.

Symphogear GX
She and the Symphogear heroines returned in the next season. She and her teammates attend to the wake of the late professor; while the rest of the Symphogear heroines continued their duty. Three months later, she and Tsubasa finished the song performance called Seitan Galaxy Cross in London, United Kingdom. When they were about to leave. She and Tsubasa encountered a mysterious doll-like 'Autoscorer' named Phara Suyuf who can suck the life energy out of people with the draining kiss. In an attempt to flee, she and Tsubasa were pursued by Phara, Maria noticed that Tsubasa Kaznari became the target. After Tsubasa's Symphogear armor was destroyed by the Alca-Noise (a new variation of Noise), Maria was shocked that Tsubasa was naked. She and Tsubasa arrived home to Japan. The next day, Maria arrived to rescue Hibiki and her friends. She borrows the relic from Hibiki to fight and drive off the Autoscorer named Galie Tuman. Although, Maria was badly injured. She gave the relic back to Hibiki. After Hibiki Tachibana was badly defeated by the fourth Autoscorer named Micha Jawkan. She notices that Carol's creations, Autoscorers were finishing their duties of destroying everything. Without her relic, Maria was still powerless. She allowed Shirabe and Kirika to fight back against Micha, only to let their relics to be destroyed by her.

Etymology
Maria (マリア) - Means the beautiful in Greek and comes from Miriam and Mirjam and the name from Jesus' mom: the virgin Maria.

Cadenzavna (カデンツァヴナ) - is a family name which implements polish grammar, in which female names end in "a" (example: Kowalswa, Skladowska) and male in "i" (example: Kolski, Skladowski). This comes from the Italian word Cadenzawhich is a form of music that is usually played or sung solo.

Eve (イヴ?) - English name originating from Hebrew, meaning "life" or "living one". It is most famously known as the name of the Biblical Eve, the first woman and sinner who caused humanity to be expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Trivia

 * Maria shares some similarities with Kanade;
 * Both are Gungnir users;
 * Both had a little sister;
 * Both did a duet with Tsubasa;
 * Both used the drug LiNKER to control their power;
 * Both have a bright-spirited personality and have a severe temper in battles;
 * Both are the strongest from their team.
 * Both used the same quote after the LiNKER began to fail: "So my time limit only goes this far!?"
 * Both have a unique symbol in the names of their attacks († for Maria, ∞ for Kanade).
 * But unlike Kanade, Maria plays a shy girl role when she's near her brave younger sister Serena
 * Again, unlike Kanade, Maria is not the strong and determined person she first appears to be - the cold and proud personality is just a mere shell to hide her past sorrow and weakness. This is the reason why her manifestation of Gungnir had a black cape that could deflect attacks.
 * Her lack of a cape when she used the Black Gungnir once again in Season 3, Episode 4, is most likely a sign that she has grown much more confident due to her interactions with the others.
 * It is known that Maria and Serena were born in eastern Europe and they were the children of war. The song Apple sung by her and her sister, was often sung in her town and they heard this song from their grandmother when they were young.
 * Maria is the oldest Symphogear user as she is 21. Kanade would be the second oldest being 19.
 * Maria is the only character to have a character song sung in English (Dark Oblivion).
 * Maria is the second symphogear user to own two relics, the First being Yukine Chris.
 * Interesting that both Chris and Maria have black backgrounds while spelling out their activation songs before they transform.
 * Also, both of them use alternative rock in their battle songs (although Maria uses it only in the middle of her battle song)
 * Maria's battle song genre is R&B and a bit of rock in the middle of the song.
 * The name of her Sere†Nade attack is most likely a play on both the musical term serenade and on the name of Serena, the previous user of the Airgetlám.