Sayaka Miki

"Hey Mami. See that my wish has been granted. There's no way I'll ever regret it and right now this is the happiest moment of my life"

- Sayaka Miki

Sayaka Miki is the tritagonist of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Madoka's best friend. Like Madoka, she is also a second-year student at Mitakihara Middle School. Tomboyish, confident, and a little brash, she upholds a strong sense of justice and adopts a heroic attitude as a magical girl.

She is voiced by Eri Kitamura in the Japanese version and Sarah Williams in the English version, both of whom also voice Uni.

Plot
Sayaka is Madoka's classmate and best friend. She is a lively tomboy with strong ideals of love and lawfulness. After helping Madoka rescue Kyubey, she contracts with him to grant her wish to heal the wounded hand of Kyōsuke Kamijo, a young violinist that she is infatuated with and visits daily in the hospital. As a magical girl, Sayaka's weapon of choice is a cutlass, she can produce multiples of them at a time. She also has extraordinary regenerative ability due to the healing nature of her wish. Sayaka insists that her wish is selfless and feels that fighting witches to save people is a bonus, even after witnessing Mami's death. As Sayaka's ideals are put against the reality of her wish's consequences and the stress of fighting, her view of the world is slowly corrupted. She becomes hateful and distrustful towards others, including Madoka, whom she lashes out at and accuses of being selfish. After learning that her soul is no longer attached to her body and that her close friend Hitomi intends to become Kyōsuke's lover, she falls into isolation and refuses all help. When she overhears a conversation between two men that mock and despise their girlfriends, Sayaka reaches her limit. As she reveals her corrupted Soul Gem to Kyoko, she states that she was a fool, at which point the corruption overwhelms her and her Soul Gem transformers into a Grief Seed. Sayaka becomes Octavia von Seckendorff, an armored mermaid witch with a labyrinth similar to a concert hall. In the final timeline, Madoka in her omniscient state offers Sayaka a second chance at life, but Sayaka turns it down, saying she only wanted to see Kyousuke succeed with his violin before passing on.

Personality
"I was stupid... so stupid."

- Sayaka's last words before becoming a witch 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. However, she also has a large girlish side in that she loves classical music, and is very interested in romance.

She loves and cares deeply for Kyosuke and is extremely hurt when he chooses Hitomi. This is why she falls into deep despair, as a result corrupting her soul gem and ultimately making her a witch. When she listens to Kyosuke one last time, (unless in the new universe by some people's theories she can watch over the universe with Madoka then she may listen to Kyosuke play again), she actually feels glad and proud for him that Hitomi will make him happy. By Rebellion, she seems to have moved on from him, going so far as to refer to him as 'Captain Oblivious' for never noticing her feelings.

Sayaka is also a very righteous person; unlike Madoka who believes conflict between Magical Girls is wrong, Sayaka doesn't care if her opponent is a witch or a Magical Girl, outright saying that she became a Magical Girl not to fight witches, but so she could have the strength to do what's right and protect the people she cares about, even if it means fighting people who aren't witches. She stayed true to this even after learning about Kyoko's past, although she did feel sorry for her. By her transformation into a witch, however, she started to wonder what she had been fighting for all that time, calling herself stupid.

Trivia

 * 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."
 * Her last name can also be used as a first name.
 * 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 official Chinese translation uses (沙耶香) as the kanji for her name. The characters also have no particular meaning (沙 "sand" 耶 "question mark" 香 "fragrant") and are used mainly for their phonetic value in Japanese to represent the word sayaka as a name. No official kanji of her name exists in the original Japanese version.
 * She describes herself as having been born "petit bourgeois," which is French for "petty bourgeois." This would mean that her family is at least from the middle class, but is by no means from the upper class (despite the fact that, if Japan has even less living space in the future than it does now, her family's apartment is far larger than a normal middle-class family could afford).
 * Although her character design depicts her with a two-edged sword she is seen using a katana with a saber-like guard in the anime. The manga uses the sword from her original design.
 * According to recent interview, "Sayaka had her personality based on a 'Gen Urobuchi character'"
 * In episode 5, Madoka said she always act before thinking twice, and is easy to conflict with others. But on the other side, she is kind, courageous and willing to work hard for others. Homura commented her good side is fatal for a magical girl. Her kindness makes her ignorant, her courage makes her careless, and she'll get no return on her hard work for others.
 * When Sayaka transformed in the train in Episode 8, the fate of the two hosts was open to interpretation in the original scenario by Gen Urobuchi.
 * While Shinbo has recently confirmed that Sayaka did not kill the two men in the anime, they were in fact killed in the manga version.
 * The train conversation scene between the two hosts is actually based on a real event that Gen Urobuchi witnessed.
 * Shinbo stated in an interview that he liked Sayaka and asked Gen Urobuchi if something could be done to get her back to life but Urobuchi said that was impossible.
 * It is unknown if Gen Urobuchi had a twisted smile while he answered to Shinbo.
 * Sayaka's sword has a scabbard but was never used in the anime.
 * Sayaka's hairpin disappears when she transforms into puella magi form.
 * According to Official Guidebook, both Shinbo and Aoki think it would be better to attach something instead. Aoki has tried adding another hairband with something in star or ball shape, but that would make her look like playing in a serious fight so she gave up such idea. Urobuchi said a cloak is flashy enough, however.
 * Eri Kitamura (Sayaka) likes the company of other seiyuu, besides Ai Nonaka (Kyoko).
 * According with Gen Urobuchi, even if Sayaka won over Kyousuke, she would never be happy with him.
 * This doesnt seem to bother the yurifan crowd.
 * Her Seiyuu, Eri Kitamura also provided the voice of another Magical Girl whose first name was Miki and whose theme color was blue, in the anime series 'Fresh PreCure'
 * In an interview, when asked about Madoka's casual clothes, Shinbo said that he forgot to have a scene where Sayaka also wear casual wears. He feels a little regret.