Maka is of Caucasian and Japanese descent. She is fairly petite, being twelve to thirteen years of age in the first part, according to Spirit's statement to little Maka and Sid's flashback that she was born in the same day infant Black☆Star was taken in by Shibusen, and fourteen to fifteen years of age in the second part, and according to Giriko. Her primary outfit is a typical schoolgirl outfit and a trench coat with a cloak-like end (that constantly alters its shape in various parts of both the manga and anime), a white blouse with a yellow sweater vest, a green striped tie, a red plaid skirt, and black boots with white buckles. When using Soul, she usually wears white gloves. Her hair is ash blonde and always in pigtails, although there are certain times at her home where she will wear them in buns or straight down or sometimes styled on formal occasions. She has large green eyes.

Her soul, when viewed by Stein, has an orange-like color and has her signature pigtails. Some comments from Ragnarok and Maka herself seems to suggest that Maka's soul is quite small, especially when compared to someone else's, for example, like Black☆Star's (although her soul grows in size considerably after she grows more powerful). When Resonating with Soul, these 'ponytails' turn into wings. Her Soul Wavelength takes on the form of feathers. Unlike Soul, Maka does not have exaggerated facial expressions unless a situation calls for it or if she is under the influence of Black Blood. When in the Black Room with Soul, she wears a black dress with black gloves, black ribbons in her pigtails and black lacy heels.

As the daughter of the current Death Scythe and his former Meister, 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. Strangely enough, Maka has 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. She frequently studies to remain as a model student. She is often seen with a book, and seems to always have one on her person so that 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 her 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 states that she also writes poetry when she feels troubled. Soul also considers her stubborn, foolhardy, gloomy-natured and is quick to resort to violence. However, these traits only apply to Maka when she is upset at Soul for not acting serious enough in battle or for not following her lead. She is actually very brave, smart, confident and responsible. In Chapter 70, Soul also calls her an otaku, and this might very well be true as Maka, as if in response, coins a traditional phrase from an RPG when she sees Black Star and Tsubaki ('Black Star and Tsubaki appeared'). Despite her mature and serious demeanour, she sometimes shows some child-like girlish traits (she is secretly fond of a song called, 'The Pon Pon Dance,' in the anime and calls her notebook the, 'Maka Note').

Maka is bright, cheerful, direct and confident, smart, and hard working in stark contrast to Soul, who is very laid-back, impulsive, and impatient. She can also be very thoughtful, kind and compassionate, particularly towards Crona because she empathizes with Crona's loneliness. She is enthusiastic, but sometimes takes her enthusiasm too far and can be bossy at times. However, over time, she can admit to her mistakes and is not too proud to apologize. One example is when she had a hard time creating Soul Resonance with Black Star because she couldn't connect with his arrogant and self-centered personality. In the end, she recognized she was the one actually at fault for not simply accepting him for the way he is. She thus tells Black Star to punch her since she punched him some time ago out of anger towards his negative remarks towards her. Before that, she confessed to being selfish for wanting to grow stronger without Soul so she could better protect him because she blamed herself for his recent injuries.