As the daughter of the current Death Scythe and his former Master, she has high expectations of herself. She idolizes her mother and as a result dislikes her disloyal father(as shown in the anime when she was speaking with Crona and strangely enough, said that her favorite memory of her mother was when she asked Spirit for a divorce, the reason being that she admired her mother's strong will).
She likes reading books and doing puzzles, and frequently studies to remain as a model student. She is often seen carrying a book, and seems that she has always one on her person as she can use her Maka Chop at any time. She relies a lot on books to help her understand things, and is sometimes teased by Soul, who calls her a bookworm. She seems to prefer to stay in the house and read or study, emphasized by her lack of ability to play games such as basketball (despite her athleticism), as she does not know the rules. She is also stubborn, foolhardy, gloomy-natured and is quick to resort to violence, according to Soul, at least.
Maka is bright, cheerful, direct and confident, in contrast to Soul, but can also be stubborn, short-tempered, competitive and can sometimes let her emotions get the better of her and she sometimes forgets to take into consideration of other people's feelings, which sometimes results in conflict with her peers, like the times when she argues with Soul and later has a fight with Black Star. She is enthusiastic, but sometimes takes her enthusiasm too far and can be demanding at times. However, overtime, she can admit to her mistakes and is kind and caring to her friends, and will not hesitate to do anything to help them, although she also won't hesitate to put them in line if they do something inappropriate. She is mostly known for her courage, and she is willing to throw herself at any enemy, no matter how strong they are, and she also retains a cool demeanour even when Giriko tries to intimidate her. She also has a sense of honour, shown when she tells Black Star to punch her since she punched him some time ago.
Although Maka is usually confident in herself, she can be extremely sensitive when someone scorns her abilities, and she often falls into a depression and questions on how weak she is. She admits that she is considerably weaker than Kid or Black Star. Likewise, she is also easily flattered. Nevertheless, she still fights with all of her strength and furiously attacks anyone who hurts her friends.
In battle, her determination knows no bounds, and she faces an enemy no matter how strong they are. She also displays an almost frightening ferocity and drive in battle, not afraid of punching her opponents directly in the face (which she does quite often). In her fight with Free, she even headbutts her Weapon in order to push the blade into the werewolf, and she even rushes at an enemy when she doesn't have a Weapon. Her temper is amplified in battle, and it is not unusual for her to shout and curse when something goes wrong. She used to prefer the logical approach to fights, wanting to have a proper plan of what to do in a battle. However, as the series progresses, she becomes more reckless and starts diving into battles without any plan, preferring to simply give it her all in the situation.
Maka also holds deep respect for her superiors like Stein and Shinigami, and usually never hesitates in obeying orders from Shibusen. In fact, she does not even kill Gopher for trying to assassinate her, as he is not on Shinigami's wanted list. She likes to consider herself as a model student, and abides by the rules of Shibusen and displays great politeness to her superiors. She sometimes recites the DWMA rules from memory, throwing even Shinigami himself. However, deep down, she is shown to be torn at times when she is not sure whether to obey Shibusen or go her own way. This is shown more in the anime, when Maka becomes frustrated whether or not to follow Shibusen, or go and help Crona and Marie save Stein. However, after Soul persuades her to do what she wants to do for a change, Maka proves herself to be incredibly driven, up until the point she completely ignores rules and regulations, attacking Medusa even though she knows that Shibusen had promised not to harm her. She later admits to Asura that although she tries to obey rules and orders, in the end, she is not really that good at it and prefers going her own way. In the manga, she also breaks school rules by using her father's ID in checking out forbidden books from the Library, although she sincerely apologizes for this.
When her gender changes in the Lust chapter in the book of Eibon, her personality slightly alters to match more of a male character. Although her seriousness remains, she also becomes more critical and sombre. One of her great changes in her personality though is her new weakness towards women, a lot like Soul's weakness towards women, shown when she starts to have an uncontrollable nosebleed upon meeting the Succubus. However, her original personality returns upon leaving the chapter.
Maka seems to be annoyed at the fact that her body has not developed yet (which is the center of some jokes in the series) and is even more annoyed when people tease her about it. When being told of her Grigori Soul, she gets a strong desire to become an 'angel-like' figure, and is annoyed as Soul doesn't agree with this. She has a tendency to have zero-tolerance to some of Soul's undesirable behavior, usually hitting him with a Maka Chop if he does something perverted (even if he is not the instigator. Namely, he often receives Maka Chops if Blair presses herself on him). She can be quite violent when needs arise. Overall, she seems to dislike men because of their disloyalty and perverted ways towards women. This dislike stems from her father's actions.
Dr. Stein saw her soul and told her she was a "serious person who tries hard." Since she is quite serious, she is often dismayed by the other's immature behaviour.
Her father is Shinigami-sama's current Death Scythe. Maka acts as if she hates her father (as she has caught him constantly flirting with other women) but she still loves him very much. Her mother was a Scythe Meister, as well, at one point wielding Maka's father as her own Weapon; Maka's mother, Kami, and Spirit, Maka's father, are divorced one month prior to the series.
Seeing that Maka changed quite quickly back to her original gender in the Book of Eibon, it is revealed that she is not that lustful, befitting her serious nature and dislike towards men in general.
