Effa (Anime)

Effa (エーファ ) is Myne and Tuuli’s mother, and the wife of Gunther. She is a textile worker living in the commoner’s district of Ehrenfest.

Effa has green eyes and jade green hair, which she wears tied up and covered with a kerchief. She usually wears a tunic tied with a sash at the waist over an ankle-length skirt. Like many commoners in the Lower City, her clothing is secondhand and heavily worn.

At the start of the series, she is in her mid-20s. Effa is considered a beautiful woman by commoner standards.

A good-natured and hard-working woman, Effa is a loving wife to Gunther and supportive mother to Tuuli and Myne. She is respected by her neighbors in the Lower City as a skilled textile worker and seamstress.

Effa has a lot in common with her oldest daughter, Tuuli. Both are creative designers who have a knack for working with thread and fabric, and both are kind, considerate and practical by nature. While Effa is generally even-tempered, she sometimes becomes exasperated at Myne and Gunther’s eccentricities. She also dislikes when people are wasteful.

Like the rest of her family, Effa is deeply protective of her loved ones. Although Myne was frequently bedridden with illness and often threw tantrums, Effa cared for her tirelessly and was overjoyed when her condition improved. Later, she risked execution by defying a noble to protect Myne.

Effa is the daughter of a former commander of the gate in the City of Ehrenfest. Through her father, she met her future husband Gunther, who was a apprentice soldier under her father's command. Gunther pursued her with enthusiasm, and eventually won her consent and the blessing of her father for the marriage. The two would later raise two daughters: her oldest, Tuuli, and her youngest daughter, Myne.

Effa works in a dye shop. She is also an excellent seamstress, although she does not sew for a living. By commoner standards, which place a high value on health, strength, and household skills, she is considered a “beauty”. In addition to her work, Effa spent a lot of time caring for Myne, who was a very sickly child.

Effa is relieved when her daughter Myne awakens from her fever, and pleased when she is in good enough health to go to the market. While they pick up food for the family, Effa teaches her how to read the numerals used to price items at the market. Later, Myne becomes faint and Effa leaves her with a local merchant while she finishes the shopping.

When Myne accidentally smashes the fruits Tuuli brings home in an attempt to extract oil, Effa scolds her fiercely for wasting food. However, she is excited to use the homemade shampoo her daughter makes.

Effa spends the winter sewing clothes and helping her daughters with their winter handiwork. When Tuuli is dejected that Myne seems to be better at basket-making than her, Effa offers to teach her weaving to cheer her up, since it will be an important skill when she becomes an apprentice seamstress.

After Effa finishes Tuuli's baptism dress, Myne decides to make a flower hair ornament to complete the outfit. Effa is interested in the lace crochet technique and learns it quickly, then helps her daughter finish the accessory.

Effa is surprised by Myne's method of making tasty vegetable broth, since most people discard the water after using it to cook vegetables. However, she agrees that the result is delicious.

After Myne begins her work with Otto and makes plans to build her strength to be able to walk to the forest with the other children, she comes down with a serious fever. Effa tends to her at home and tells her a folktale about the stars, which happens to be the same story she told her daughter on Urano's first day as Myne. When she finally makes her clay tablets, Myne writes down that story and resolves to make books for the rest of her mother's tales too.

When Myne's attempt to bake her clay tablets in the family oven ends in explosive failure, Effa scolds her daughter for causing trouble.

When Myne wants to make ink for her new wood tablets, she asks Effa to use some ash from their family fireplace. Effa refuses, saying that she needs to use the ash to make soap and other supplies, but she allows Myne to clean the fireplace and gather soot.

Once Myne succeeds in making the soot into a clay crayon, she returns home to find that her wood tablets are gone: Effa had mistaken them for kindling and burned them. Unaware of her daughter's distress, she says how proud she is of Myne for helping out with the family's chores. Lutz later brings some replacement tablets made out of less flammable wood, but Effa again mistakes it for firewood, and is surprised when it begins to snap and explode in the hearth.

Not too long after Myne turns seven and joins the temple, Effa becomes pregnant. She expects the child to be born in spring.


 * Effa is a very good seamstress. Her self-made outfits like Tuuli's baptism dress were the envy of the neighborhood. She also picked up crocheting from Myne from just watching her for a short time.


 * Effa admires Benno's younger sister Corinna for her ability as a seamstress. Corinna is an influential member of the Seamstress Guild, so Effa becomes very flustered when Corinna asks to see her sewing work on Myne's baptismal dress.
 * Many of the neighborhood ladies still can't believe Effa agreed to marry Gunther. Effa was considered a very desirable marriage candidate with many options, while Gunther was considered very goofy and a dreamer.