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Founders: former Empress Jitō poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Princess Uno-no-sarara ("She, of whom the cormorants proclaim how pleasing to the eye she is"*) was born in 645 AD in Shigatsu at the Lake Biwa, which was then the capital of Japan. If asked about her name, she preferred to be called "Uno," thank you very much. Being a daughter of an Emperor, her life was predetermined from the moment of her birth. She had siblings aplenty, more female than male, though she only ever met the ones of sufficiently high enough rank to matter to the throne. Uno learned reading and writing along with her sisters, was introduced to poetry and courtly culture, but ultimately lived a sheltered life as daughters were only one thing to an Emperor: pawns in their political game, to be married off to whoever offered the highest gain for their hand. When she was 17, Uno married the current Emperor's younger brother. It was an honor, they said, she was his first wife after all, but her husband Oama was more than a decade older than her. She hated him in the beginning, simply for the fact that she was now shackled to this man that she'd never chosen. She wanted to hate him when he was nothing but polite to her, didn't impose on her, never ordered her to do things even though he could have – because he was a pawn too, Uno realized. One with more leeway, with more prestige, but a pawn nonetheless. He hated it just as much as she did. Their son, Kusakabe, was her delight. They'd needed to produce an heir, but she'd told Oama she wouldn't have another, couldn't bear to bring a daughter into the world and see her bound to the same life she lived. "If you want more children, get them elsewhere," she ordered him, and he conceded the point. Because they shared the same fate, and against both their wills had grown fond of each other. Fond enough that they took no pleasure in hurting one another. From a young age, Kusakabe was curious, bright, a bubbly, happy child that wanted to explore the world. He loved to explore the lakeside, to play hide and seek in the reeds or sit on the jetty and watch the fisherman work in the distance. Uno disliked leaving him to her ladies in waiting, even though it was improper, even though it was beneath her to be her son's nursemaid. It was a late evening when it happened. She should have seen it coming, with how much he loved the fish, but one moment he was sitting beside her, staring intently at the lake's surface, and the next he was in the water, flailing and screaming. The princess had never learned to swim. It was one of the many things that were reserved for the lowborn, the servants and commoners. She had no need to swim, it was improper – still she jumped in after him, draped in her heavy curt robes, and she was lucky, lucky that the lake was shallow enough at that side that her toes met solid ground when she slung her arms around her son. Still, the wet garments made her heavy, almost pulled her under with the unexpected weight. Uno hefted Kusakabe up, scrambled for purchase in the muddy lake, and in the next moment they were lying on the jetty, both soaked to the bone. Uno had been well-educated. She knew what magical folk were. She'd known what her husband was even before she'd been officially introduced to him. She'd had to know, because it was one of the main things that created the strife between him and his elder brother, the Emperor. The court was of two minds about the magic-practitioners. She'd been taught that while some thought of their abilities as a gift from nature itself, that it was a skill that could be honed with dedication and study, like any other, others claimed that their powers had been given to them by the gods themselves as a favor. Many an Emperor had taken affront at this, as did Oama's brother, who had ostracized most magical people from the court for daring to raise a claim that would mark them as equal to their line, the descendants of Amaterasu-o-mi-kami. A decision on the matter would need to be made, but nobody was sure yet which it would be. The magic-practitioners were gaining influence, but the Emperor's word was law. There was a silent war waging about the matter, with her husband on the opposing side, but whoever would win would pay the price for it in blood. The court ladies and guards that came rushing to their aid assumed that Uno had saved her son, and she didn't correct them. Instead, she soothed Kusakabe, who was upset and scared and confused. Uno kept silent. She taught her son to hide, to be careful about his actions, to never let anyone presume what he was. He was only 6, another pawn in other men's games, to be used as they saw fit. She couldn't protect him, doubted that even his father would be able to - wasn't willing to take the chance. She spent the following years doing her best to both hide and guide the young prince, Kusakabe remained curious and soaked up any knowledge offered to him. It was easy to distract him with games and stories of obscure folktales, which he had taken quite the liking to. Still, Uno knew that this would only work for so long, knew that eventually Oama or somebody else would notice when her son made his scrolls float or how his room remained pleasantly cool even in the heat of summer. He needed a teacher. A man eventually came to her. She'd met him before, Kakinomoto, a young poet, a talented one at that, his prose well-known already in the walls of the capital. His wife had died in childbirth recently, not an uncommon occurrence, and he offered his services at court, as a poet, or a teacher, for her son if she'd like. It was said tentatively, and left Uno confused until she followed the man's eyes to look out of the open sliding door to where Kusakabe was playing in the secluded courtyard. The boy giggled whenever he threw his ball away and it bounced back towards him as if thrown by an unseen hand. Terror came first, then anger, then speechlessness when the poet waved his hand at the teapot on the ground beside them, and it rose by itself to serve them both. So Kakinomoto no Hitomaro became her personal poet and her son's teacher in the art of magic. Not even a year later, the war she had predicted was at their doorstep. Her husband's brother had died, his heir deemed unfit to rule by many, born to a low-ranking consort instead of a royal princess. The young man took up arms, and her husband rose against him, and Uno was wise enough not to object, knowing that it was a war of succession as much as it was a war of political agendas. Oama's troops won and he was named Heavenly Sovereign, tennou, when Kusakabe was 11 years old. The change that followed wasn't sudden, nor not sudden enough for her to think it happened immediately. Uno had never had an interest in politics. She enjoyed music and dance and poetry, had done the duties that had been hers at court, but most of her time had always been spent on raising her son. That didn't change - what changed was the world around her, the people around her. She didn't see much of her husband anymore. No, instead there were new faces at court, new concubines and ladies who gave the Emperor all the children society demanded he have and that Uno had never wanted to give him. More soldiers, more Buddhist monks... and then there were the magical folk. It should have been easy to tell the now-Emperor, that his son was one of them, that he could work miracles that Uno would have never dreamed of, that Kakinomoto wasn't only a poet and tutor, but also taught the prince how to control his magic. But the boy grew, and his father never asked, and she didn't volunteer. Kusakabe continued to explore the world, learned to discuss philosophy and astronomy, how to ride and how to swim, because no matter how unseemly it might be, Uno wouldn't see him drown. He had no patience for the court, couldn't be bothered to pay attention to long ceremonies, and didn't remember protocol well. The boy had her husband's calm nature, but none of his stubbornness and tenacity. She clung to it, knew that becoming his father's heir didn't suit him more times than it did, knew that she should push him but instead indulged her sweet, curious boy. If he was to become a game piece, too, she intended to keep him happy for as long as she was able to. Her husband had left the boy's upbringing to her, but even when the Emperor began to show more interest in the young man, Kusakabe didn't adore him in the same he adored his mother. He accompanied his father and brothers on their travels, took part in rituals, but he did it for duty and nothing else. Duty was what ruled their lives. Duty was what made him marry a princess just as beautiful as Uno had been in her youth. Duty was what made him crown prince. He still had time, Uno thought, day after day, until the morning a servant came to her with the message that her husband had fallen sick. It was a magical sickness of some sort, that much she understood. One they didn't have a cure for. They hadn't been close, husband and wife, the Emperor and his Empress, since he had ascended. Not as close as they had been when they'd still both been pawns, when they'd shared a fate and bonded over it – now, sick and bedridden as he was, Uno realized that she had missed it. He let her sit beside him, accompany him to the patio on the rare days he was well enough to rise for a few hours, read poetry to him when he was exhausted and unable to sit upright. He was 14 years her elder and dying, but he didn't look it when Uno sat beside his bed and sang lullabies to him her nursemaid had sung to her when she'd been a little girl. Time passed differently for them, the mages, and he would have survived her as her son would if he hadn't fallen sick. She told him, then, of Kusakabe, of how she had hidden him in hopes of protecting him from the world. Oama, forgive me. She called him by his given name, for the first time since he had ascended as Emperor. Her husband, weak and frail and gentle, smiled at her. "I saw, the day he was born." Of course he had, him and his magic and divinations. She should have known, that he had left the boy with her for a reason. He would make a just Emperor, their son. "No." Oama, tired, the words mumbled. "You. It was never his path. Yours." He laughed at her widened eyes, the same booming laugh he'd given when he'd told him that there would be no other children besides Kusakabe. She laid down beside him that night, shared his futon as they hadn't in over a decade, and the next, and on the morning of the third she was the only one of the two to wake. Uno-no-sarara was 41 years old when her husband died. When she became tennou.
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Name: Sato Yura Age: 58 years old Nationality: Japanese Blood status: Muggle-born Born an only child from a small fishing village off of the coast of Okinawa - Yura Sato (last name, first name) did not think that she would end up an educator, much more headmistress of a magical school. Partly because they could not afford it, and mostly because her parents needed all the help they could get to make a living. Neither of her parents were magical in the literal sense, but as kind and as caring as they were, always trying to provide the best life for her, they were as good as ethereal in her eyes. When she first performed magic by untangling a mess of fishing nets in an instance of sheer frustration, her mother perceived it a blessing from the gods. The Yura matriarch believed she and her husband had been granted favor in the form of their blessed child. She felt as though their many offerings and prayers were answered, and her constant craving for dango during her pregnancy was a sign. But they knew they had to hide her. Many people in their land could easily take advantage of young Sato, and should anything happen, they would have been powerless to stop them. So when the option to go to a magical school came, her parents could not have been happier. They supported her as she would be one of the few in the family to formally go and potentially finish school. Sato found it hard to leave her parents every day, but she told herself that this would be for her and for them. Maybe they could not have their own dreams, but they could have dreams for her and she for them. Perhaps she could give them a better life – the one they deserved. As the years went by and Sato came to be top of her class in Mahoutokoro, she fully intended to become a healer and to go home and teach others like her. Perhaps she would also settle down and help improve their village. But alas, fate or perhaps the gods had other plans. A typhoon washed over her village and her parents, part of the casualties. She had warned them that the water could get very high, and that the waves would surge across to the shore, but they were not prepared for the massive walls of sea water that came crashing down. No one could have predicted it would happen this way. Stricken with grief, and with nowhere to go, once her parents were buried, she spent her days a recluse in Mahoutokoro. She was close to graduating then, mere months away from reaching her goal. But alas, she no longer had the heart to do it. It had been washed away with everything else she knew. Every day, the old headmaster would visit her in her room, and they would sit together. She would pour tea, and they would sit there in silence until it cooled, and then he would leave. It took a week before either of them made an effort to drink any of it, a month before they exchanged more than a few words, and it took three months before she cried for her parents the for first time. She thought she could be strong, and that if she did not cry for them, she would not feel them gone. But she did, and it left a void inside of her that she did not know how to fill. When she was done, old and wizened as the old headmaster was, he asked her what she wanted to do. She looked him in the eye and said, "I want to do something. I do not know what, but I do." So they went to pet the Storm Petrels, and fed them, and then they meditated together at the highest peak on the island. They did this every day. Soon she had graduated and most of her 20s were spent teaching at the school. When she felt she was ready, she spent some years traveling the world to study healing and teaching others as well. She went all around Asia before going to Europe, but well into her 40s, she felt the need to go home - home to Mahoutokoro. Upon her return, the headmaster, aged and weakened by the years, could no longer do the things he could, so she was given the tasks to handle, as only she could accomplish the same feats he could. Finally, when he passed, he left her note, and in this note he said. "Go do something. Keep doing things. At some point, you'll know what you want to do." At 50 years old, she became headmistress of Mahoutokoro, and has found home in the school ever since.
	Sakamoto Ryouma Minaka Hirakata Keiko Takahashi Noriyuki Sato Yoshihiro Suzuki Ryotaro Tanaka Tamotsu Iwamoto Shizuka Watanabe Masaki Hongo Shintaro Shingo Ryuichi Yamaguchi Kimiko Kurosawa Yoshi Wakahisa Todoroki Noriko Sato

The Empress Jitō ascended the throne of Japan when her husband died. She took the throne in her son's stead, as her husband had seen in one of his visions, for he had been of magical descent, the same magic that also ran through their son's blood. Kusakabe, her boy who had no patience for doctrine and protocol, was always at odds with the magic-practitioners at court and their strict hierarchy. He didn't think that clerks and monks made for good teachers, thought that magic should be learned how he had: free and without shackles, in nature instead of behind closed doors, fluid as water and poetry instead of stiff and stilted, with an abundance of rules and no intuition.

While the Empress ruled, brought peace to her kingdom, he left his young family behind at court and traveled the lands with his teacher, the Empress' own court poet. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro came back at odd times, to present his poetry to the Empress, to compose eulogies and listen to her read the poems she had written to the late Emperor, the husband she hadn't realized how dearly she had loved until he'd died.

It was at one of those times when Jitō first heard of her son's idea to found a school, a real school, a place solely dedicated to learning instead of stat affairs our court duty. On another man, she would have called it a mere fancy, but she knew the gleam in Kakinomoto's eyes, knew her son's ability to infect others with his dreams.

She had dedicated most of her life to nurturing that flame, to keep it burning, his spirit unbroken. A school he wanted to build, a school he would build.

Jitō had three healthy grandchildren, there were heirs to the throne. Duty had demanded them, the same duty that had made her Empress, but she was no longer a game piece, no longer bound to others' will as she had once been, and she refused to bind Kusakabe to hers in that way.

Maybe that was her fallacy. To think that because she ruled a nation she would also rule fate. It was her path to reign, her husband had told her, not their son's. She'd taken it to mean that his destiny was another, had never questioned the will of the gods, had been glad for it, that he would keep his freedom... until the next time Kakinomoto came back. Alone. With her son's horse in tow, and his favorite scroll in his hands, and his casket carried by four soldiers following behind.

She'd taken her husband's word to mean that it was about her, not their son, had never even considered that it wasn't his path to rule because he would die long before his time.

Her world became grey with grief. Numb. One day like the other, an endless, useless litany of chores and duty, because there was always duty. Duty was the only thing that made her rise some mornings. Kakinomoto raged and pleaded, but she looked at him with empty eyes, held her grandchildren and sung to them, and still couldn't fill the emptiness side her heart.

It was early summer when they burned Kusakabe, her darling, her only child. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was winter, a blanket of white covering the world. Spring rose from beneath the snow, put the flowers in bloom, and her son's youngest learned to walk, and then it was summer, bright and hot, and suddenly a year had passed.

Jitō felt old. Court became a chore, a long row of people that all looked the same, faces that mattered not to her. Her oldest grandson, still a boy, looked more like his father and grandfather every day, but more time passed, another season, another year, and another, and she knew that while Karu was as gentle as both of them, there was none of the magic in him that had been in them. He was normal, just like her, just like his siblings would be. The spark had gone out of her life with Kusakabe.

Time seemed to pass her as it had passed her family, and the then she looked at the boy again and he was a young man, tall and proud, and looking at her with compassion in his gaze, a deep, troubled expression had belied his youth. Grandmother. He'd always called her that when they were alone, never Empress.

Nobody needed to ask her to retire. The boy was old enough now, not really, not ever in her eyes, but Jitō had done her duty. She'd done it well, even.

She watched when they made him Emperor, her grandson, as his father had never been meant to be, and breathed easier with the burden taken from her shoulders. He didn't need her anymore, he had cousins and uncles and retainers. The court would run without her, as it had continued to ruin without every Emperor before her.

There was silence in the monastery she retired to. It was deep in the mountains, blessedly silent and so beautiful her eyes hurt with it. She had brush and ink there, re-learned the calligraphy she hadn't practiced since her youth, wrote poetry, and readied herself for when death would come to take her. She wasn't old yet, but she was tired.

It was an early spring day when Kakinomoto burst into the monastery, looking not a day older than when she had first met him, it seemed, that mad gleam in his eyes. "I found it. I've found the place."

She thought about Kusakabe's path then, the one he'd never been able to take. Looked at the man opposite her, their nation's greatest poet, at the grief for his wife he'd carried with him when they'd first sat together over tea, the grief he still wore like a blanket on some days. Now, though, now he was burning with passion, her son's passion, and Jitō wondered what else he'd seen in her future, her late husband.

A poet and a former Empress. There were people less suited to founding a school, she decided. "Show me."

Mahoutokoro was officially founded in 701 AD.

Mahotoukoro only takes students from Japan, making it one of the more exclusive magical schools in terms of location acceptance. It is also one of the few schools that accepts day students before the age of eleven. After a child displays their first sign of magic and reaches the age of seven, they are invited to the school's day program - a chance to start their education before a time of boarding. The invitation process itself is worth noting - magical families will find a potted miniature cherry blossom tree in their home and an invitation to the school. The petals will remain pink until the student starts boarding at school. At that point it can be seen that the petals are enchanted to mirror the student’s school uniform - meaning parents at home can see when their students are excelling in their academics because they always know what color their robes are. Mumajin (無魔人, muggle) families will receive their tree from a professor of the school and get a more in-depth explanation.

Mahoutokoro boasts an elite squad of giant storm petrels which act as day students' transportation every day. The petrels have hidden nests all across the country. Every morning the petrels leave their nests to pick up the day school students and fly them to the palace, which is where the petrels stay during the day. After classes end, the petrels return the students home and rest in their nearby nests. It is during the school's holiday and summer breaks that the petrels are primarily based on the school's island.

During the day school portion of the Mahoutokoro education, students are taught everything from mathematics to language skills (including introductions to other languages) to good study habits. They do not get wands until they are age eleven, but they are taught magical theory and the importance of wand precision and vocal enunciation for spellcasting. Day students are also taught the importance of the Japanese wizard's code - an important ethical guideline that all Japanese wizards should be aware of. Falling into disgrace is a very serious topic that they would be taught the year before getting their school uniforms.

A student is not considered a first-year until they start boarding at the age of eleven, when their actual magical education can begin. Every year is considered a class - there is no splitting up into different houses as can be seen in the American and UK wizarding schools. Your class dictates who you learn beside and live in the dormitories with. At the start of every school year - which lines up with other wizarding schools as starting in September with graduation in July - there is an opening ceremony, where students gather and witness the new first-year students being given their official enchanted school robes. The closing ceremony at the end of every year involves a similar act, where the oldest students are individually congratulated and celebrated as they leave the school.

During a class' first year at the school, there is a campaign among the students to choose two class representatives. These two people are in charge of upholding school rules and making sure that everyone in their year is doing alright and communicating with the professors about any needs of the student body. This prompts students to strive to do their best in classes academically and make friends from the start of their first year. Often times the people whose robes reflect their hard work end up getting voted into the position. From second year onwards, these class representatives carry out their responsibilities and are only replaced if they choose to step down (or a professor removes them from the position).

Mahoutokoro is known to emphasize a connection to nature, spirituality and healing. From the start of their education in first year, the healing properties of the different subjects are emphasized. Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Potions, Divination, History, Astronomy, and the Study of Magical Creatures are all required from first through fifth year. During first year they are also enrolled in a sports class so they can learn the rules and regulations of a variety of muggle and magical sports (duelling, Quidditch, baseball, judo, etc.). After first year, the sports class is replaced with up to two electives: Meditation, Painting, Poetry, or Language.

There are also a lot of clubs that the school offers for students to get involved in outside of classes. There are several muggle and magical sports clubs for those who wish to remain active after first year, and there are official school teams for Quidditch, Broom Racing and Duelling. The Quidditch team goes through intensive training, as can be attested by the alumni who are part of the Japanese National Quidditch Team. There are also clubs such as: Gardening Club, Calligraphy Club, Ikebana Club, and Tea Ceremony Club (along with several others).

At the end of a student's fifth year, there are very extensive exams for each class that they have studied. Their fifth-year exams do qualify them for some jobs, but studying through seventh year is the best way to guarantee a stable career, so it is very rare for a student to leave the school after their fifth year. Those who do leave after fifth year are usually choosing to pursue something different and smaller, like taking over a family business.

Most of the student body will remain at Mahoutokoro, moving to the third floor of the palace where their studies become more intensive and prepare them for a career outside of school. At this point, a student chooses a couple of classes to continue their education on, or have the option to enter into a Medical Magic program, which consists of several courses that will perfectly lead them into a career as a Healer, Mediwizard, Healing Potioneer, or more. There is also a popular career pathway for prospective Herbologists, who get a lot of exposure to magical plants from the school's extensive Japanese garden.

Minami Iwo Jima is the location of Mahoutokoro. This island is one of three grouped very far south of the main Japanese archipelago. For many years, the Volcanic Islands remained undetected by the mumajin world. They were first discovered in the mid-sixteenth century, but were not colonized by the Japanese until the late nineteenth-century. These islands were briefly fell under American rule during a dispute of the muggle second world war, but none of this ever impacted the school itself - which adapted to using anti-Muggle charms to prevent its discovery.

The Japanese government now considers Minami Iwo Jima as a nature reserve, and is very restrictive about letting mumajin go there. If and when Muggles are given authorization, it is for research of the wildlife and fauna during carefully scheduled summers. One of the other islands, the one known as Iwo Jima, is home to a muggle airbase, but it is no threat to the wizarding school.

The Mahoutokoro palace itself is located at the highest point of Minami Iwo Jima, meaning it is often shrouded in clouds. It was remodeled in the late fifteenth century, and is currently considered a classic Japanese castle. The castle complex consists of a main palace that connects to two smaller buildings, an enormous Japanese garden that is woven in and around the complex, and two tall towers behind the main palace. All of the structures are made of mutton-fat jade of a pale color, and each is very exquisite and detailed.

One of the towers in the complex serves as an owlery. The other tower serves as a stable for magical creatures, including a place at the top for the giant storm petrels to rest. The Japanese garden throughout the complex is expansive and home to a lot of magical fauna that you wouldn't find elsewhere on the island. It is a good spot for students to walk, relieve their stress from the day, or study outside when the weather is nice. Elective classes are taught outside in the gardens from second-year onwards.

The main palace consists of a basement level and five floors that get gradually smaller going up - it resembles an ornate pagoda. The ground floor of the main palace is home to the ceremony hall (for the opening and closing ceremonies), the dining hall, an exam hall, a study hall, and a library. The second and third floors are home to large classrooms, each one designated to a different year. The lower years (first through fifth year) on the second floor and the upper years (sixth and seventh year) on the third floor.

A perhaps unique experience is the fact that the second-floor students are assigned a single classroom per year. The teachers move among the classrooms rather than the students. With a flick of the incoming professor's wand, the classroom will have whatever is needed for that particular subject. For example, the History professor may only have a classroom of desks for the students. When the Potions professor enters next, they will transfigure the desks into workbenches, summon cauldrons, bring any necessary ingredients, etc. So although the students stay in one classroom all day, they are exposed to several different environments. There are brief breaks between each class for the professors to travel to different rooms, and for the class to briefly socialize with each other. Each classroom also has a set of stairs leading down to the basement level, where that year's dormitories are (separated by sex).

The third floor operates slightly differently because students choose which subjects they will focus on. Because of this, students are found to be switching classrooms a bit more often, although the Medical Magic program students have a classroom to themselves as they learn alongside each other.

The fourth and fifth floors are designated staff areas. The fourth floor is where the professors have individual offices and living quarters. The fifth floor is where the headmaster resides.

This main palace is connected to two smaller buildings by a hallway on the ground floor (or there is a pathway through the gardens to get to these buildings). One of them acts as the day school for the children under 11 to learn. There are several classrooms in that building as well, so that the students can learn depending on when they entered the school. The other building that is connected to the main palace is the recreational building - it has several rooms that can be reserved for clubs, private study groups, indoor sports practices, etc.

There are two long scenic pathways from the castle complex down the island. One of them leads to a secluded beach, where students are occasionally escorted and can play water sports, volleyball or hang out on the sand. The other path leads to a pitch where they can play flying sports - such as Quidditch or broom racing - or other sports that take place on a turf, such as football or baseball. The Quidditch team practices over the ocean sometimes during storms as part of their gruelling and intense training.

Artist: Ashleigh Hazelwood

Mahoutokoro's uniforms are traditional Japanese fashion, representing a long-standing history of their traditional culture. They wear a plain dark kimono and hakama combo underneath of their official school robes, the latter of which are the highlight of the outfit. The robes that are presented to new students during their first year opening ceremony are enchanted. They will automatically grow to fit each student’s size and will also gradually change colors depending on how much the wearer achieves through hard work during their academic years. It is not just tradition, but also a unique trait of Mahoutokoro. It even helps teachers in Mahoutokoro see which students are truly diligent in their studies.

The enchanted robes start out as a faint pink, meaning they are new and haven't achieved anything yet at school. When the students are able to receive top grades in every class, the color of their robes will eventually change into gold. The color changing is quite similar to how some Muggle martial arts work, for example students in Karate change the color of their belts (from white as starting level to black as expert level) based on their ranks.

The colors of the robes change according to the level of achievement students reach in their academics and extracurriculars:

• Pastel Pink: Beginner, no grades yet, or a Troll-level student
• Pink: Few grades have been given, or a Dreadful/Poor-level student
• Lavender: The average color of most student's robes. Acceptable-level students
• Purple: A student of above-average ability. An Exceeds Expectations-level student
• Dark Blue: A consistently Outstanding-level student, succeeding in every class. Treated with great respect.

After a student has achieved dark blue robes and continues to exceed in classes and earn perfect marks for several months in a row, their robes will turn gold overnight. This is the greatest robe color and a high honor in the school. Maintaining this gold robe status is a very tough feat, because it means keeping perfect marks in classes and giving your all to your extracurricular activities. It is very hard to earn gold status, and very easy to lose it.

On the other hand, if a student of Mahoutokoro betrays the Japanese wizard's code by adopting illegal practices like Dark Magic or breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, they will face the "ultimate punishment." In addition to the Japanese Ministry of Magic arresting the student, they will be expelled and a spell will be used to turn their school robes permanently white. No one except the Japanese Ministry of Magic would be able to undo this particular color change.

Why the color white and not other colors? In most Asian countries, white is a spiritual color, for example, in Japanese traditional weddings the bride wears white kimonos. However, white also symbolizes death in Buddhism, which can fit perfectly with "students have died to the academy" concept in order to signify that they have been excluded from the Japanese wizarding society. So those who wear white robes would be seen as a "disgrace" forever.

The robes stop changing color once a student graduates. It is common for employers in Japan to request that graduates wear their school robes to job interviews so they know what kind of student the interviewee was in school.

*Lore by Elaine Pendrast, Marcus Iwasaki, Colette Simmons, Ashleigh Hazelwood, and Maya Galim.