Magatsuhi

Magatsuhi (マガツヒ, God of Disaster) or also known as Giant Spider Sagako (巨大なクモ サガコ, Kyodaina kumo Sagako) is the main antagonist of the Zombie Land Saga Gaiden manga, introduced in chapter 10.

She is a malevolent divine being who causes misfortune in the human world and particularly in Saga Prefecture. She belongs to the land of Yomi, the underworld.

At the end of the spinoff manga, Tae Yamada finally manages to defeat Magatsuhi by fusing with her by forgiving herself and accepting Magatsuhi.

Human Infant
She manifests as a human girl, but wearing a mask of different entities from Japanese folklore on her head, with shaggy and disheveled hair. She wears a white robe and has nothing else to wear. Her face is similar to that of a girl with white hair.

With this form, she can use the powers of her Sagako and use the spider's limbs to immobilize or damage her opponents.

As Sagako
This Sagako was created from the Spider Egg Sagako seen in the previous chapters of the manga. Her physical appearance is inspired by a large tarantula, reaching at least 10 meters in height and 20 in length. Her limbs are quite long compared to her body, and this allows her to move quickly as well as use them as a weapon. Unlike a normal spider, this Sagako has a round head with multiple eyes and two fangs in front. In her final second stage, her eyes cover her entire body. Magatsuhi's mask can manifest on top of the Sagako's head.

Her final form, after she was defeated with her spider form, is a giant Sagako heart-shaped like her body and torso, with multiple limbs sticking out of the main body. Her eyes are empty and white, while her mouth looks torn, and she has a sinister smile. In the middle of the heart is Magatsuhi, surrounded and held by what appears to be multiple human forms.

Personality
She appears grimly in front of Higashino after he throws Doro-chan across the Saga border, vaguely explaining how Sagako work. Despite not being her intention, she makes a deal with Higashino whereby he would get a wish he wanted if he killed the Sagakos so that she could finally regain her power.

Her attitude is quite frivolous, and she doesn't talk much with people, reaching the point of not caring about the lives of some humans. When the detective stands in front of her to fulfill his wish, Magatsuhi speaks telepathically with Keiji, and whatever she told him, Keiji didn't take it very well and threatened Magatsuhi to shoot her. She ends up killing him and telling him in his last moments that if he had his wish, he would do what he wanted.

After disappearing again, she starts kidnapping women between the ages of 20 and 40 in Saga. Unlike what she was going through with Higashino, she seems to be concerned about their feelings and physical state, putting them in a sleepy state while she had them captured. However, she doesn't seem to mind separating them from their families and keeping them confined from their freedom.



Despite everything, she is still a human child, so she behaves like one. Her objective was to search for her mother, this being the reason for the kidnappings. Although she tries to finish off Eikichi and Tae when they enter her park, Eikichi tries to communicate with her in her Sagako form, getting an unintelligible response. In one last attempt, he shows her an onion, confusing her and causing her to freak out.

Tae, who seeing that they are losing the battle, sacrifices herself by receiving the Misogi power from Yuko and Eikichi, climbing to the top of the Sagako. There, she finds out that she is looking for her mother, who was Tae's mother. Magatsuhi mistakes her for her mother because of her remarkable resemblance, and in an act of forgiving herself and apologizing to Magatsuhi, her body acts like an onion and the two merge.

Natural Abilities

 *  Sagako Form
 * Agility—Her body shape and long limbs allow her to maneuver around obstacles with ease and run quite fast.
 * Limbs as a weapon—Her limbs are quite dangerous, one of the main dangers of this Sagako being to use them to easily kill whoever gets in her way.
 * Electric powers—Like the girls from Franchouchou, this Sagako would have received electrical powers at the time of the fusion, but was later discharged.
 * Telepathy—Through telepathy, Magatsuhi can communicate with her targets at a distance.


 * Human Form
 * Limb Manifestation—Magatsuhi's human form can change if she is under attack, being able to transform parts of her body into dark limbs that allow her to defend and attack.
 * Spectral apparition—She briefly appears in front of Higashino to momentarily speak to him, only to disappear moments later.

Unique Abilities

 * Curse of Saga—It seems to be the cause of all the misfortunes in Saga, mainly the Sagako. The Sagako, although they are beings of the curse, would be taking away her energy by manifesting in Saga continuously, so she entrusts Keiji to kill them so that she can recover her power. After manifesting as a spider, Sagako's manifestations disappear because she now has all the energy that allowed them to manifest. She also seems to use Saga's prosperous places to gain power.

Weaknesses

 * Hyodo Farm Onions—As she is also a being of the curse, she is susceptible to the sealing with the onions and their power. In fact, it was thanks to the power that was transmitted to Tae by Eikichi and Yuko, that she was sealed inside Tae's body.

Etymology

 * Magatsuhi-no-kami (Japanese for “kami of the force of misfortune” or “God of calamities”). In Shintoism, divine beings that cause sin, pollution, disaster, and evil. Related terms are Ōmagatsuhi-no-kami, meaning “Great Magatsuhi Kami” and “Yaso-magatsuhi-no-kami”, meaning “Countless Magatsuhi Kami”.

Trivia

 * This is the first Sagako that we see born from its early stage, this being a child raised by Tae's parents.
 * The Yomi, is the Japanese word for the land of the dead (World of Darkness). According to Shinto mythology as related in Kojiki, this is where the dead go in the afterlife. Once one has eaten at the hearth of Yomi it is (mostly) impossible to return to the land of the living. Yomi in Japanese mythology is comparable to Hades or Sheol, and is most commonly known for Izanami's retreat to that place after her death. Izanagi followed her there and upon his return he washed himself, creating Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto in the process.
 * The masks that Magatsuhi wears refer to entities from Japanese mythology.
 * A Demon Hannya mask is the first. The Hannya are female demons who were consumed by their high level of jealousy. According to legend, her origin was with a jilted young woman whose jealousy turned into rage and anger when she saw that the person she loved, a cleric, was not interested in her. It was because of that inside her, she began to harbor evil, becoming a demon, more specifically, a Hannya.
 * The Fox or Kitsune mask is the second. The Kitsune or foxes are an animal that constitutes an element of singular importance in Japanese folklore, to the point where the word is traditionally used to name that spirit of the forest in the form of a fox, whose classic function is to protect forests and villages. According to Japanese mythology, the fox is an intelligent being that has magical abilities, which are increased with age and the acquisition of knowledge.
 * The first emotion born in Tae's heart as a zombie was familial love for Sakura Minamoto, wherein she sees her as a mother figure. This was not touched upon until the very last chapter of the spin-off manga, where both Magatsuhi and Tae come to an agreement and willingly fused with each other over their craving of maternal affection.
 * Magatsuhi mentions that the Sagako are castaway children of the Saga gods, and that their source of power is human hatred. This may refer to herself as Sagako, as the daughter of the God of Saga who was abandoned in the human world.