Maria (Witchblade)


 * Voiced by: Nana Mizuki (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)

Maria is an antagonist in the Witchblade anime. She is part of the Second generation of sisters created by Tatsuoki Furumizu and was the first to be equipped with a Dual Cloneblade.

Her cloneblade armor is purple and red.

She appears much older than she truly is which suggests that the sisters age rapidly. She is actually younger than Rihoko. She has an obsession for cats and dogs. Plus stuffed animals.

Maria undergoes many changes throughout the series. She starts out as a hyper, mentally unstable adolescent with an extreme inferiority complex. While extremely strong and dangerous, she is little more than an insecure child desperate for attention and a mother to call her own. This changes when her actual mother, Reina Soho, rejects her. After killing Reina in a rage, her personality becomes almost catatonic. She also changes her appearance to match the deceased Reina's.

After hearing of Furumizu's plans to use her as a surrogate mother for his "perfect" clone, her disgust transforms her into a megalomaniacal psychopath who seeks power at all costs.



She kills Furumizu and seizes control of the NSWF. She pledges to transform the NSWF into an army that will secure power for herself as well as the Neogene "chosen ones".

In truth, however, Maria is the leader of the organization in name only. With no clear goal other than to obtain power at all costs, Maria becomes even more secretive and reclusive than her late "father". With the exception of Aoi, cloneblades such as Asagi view her as an insecure child trying to "act tough". As Maria drifts aimlessly, Nishida effectively runs the entire organization and continues to use its resources to hunt for the Witchblade.

Transformation
Her Cloneblade form is not quite as heavily armored as the others. Nevertheless, it is by far the strongest. In her cloneblade form she is able to extend her fingers and impale her victims multiple times. The extent of her power can be seen when she pierces Reina's armor blades with ease. In the end, Maria meets her demise while fantasizing despairingly about her mother. In her final moments, she asks the hallucination of her mother if "she still loved her". Maria barely has the chance to finish her sentence as she turns to crystal dust.