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Aiko "Misato" Koizumi – Character Biography

tesseract

Level 0
Character Name: Aiko "Misato" Koizumi

[Basic Information]:


First Name: Aiko (meaning 'child of love'; her name was chosen to represent the joyousness and meaning found in the giving of unconditional love, despite the unintentional irony that nests in its juxtaposition with her grisly upbringing and internal struggles over self-love, confidence, and inner-peace).

Surname: Koizumi

Preferred Name:
Aiko tries to avoid discussing her personal life and despises her birth name. She adopted the name 'Misato' at the age of thirteen, partially adopting it from a character in the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion who she felt particularly connected to, and partially due to its connotations of beauty (her name means "beautiful knowledge"). The name makes her feel like someone different than herself, disconnected from her own tormented past. It makes her feel beautiful, and empowered, even if it is only living through the legacy of a fictional character or through an inauthentically inflated self-perception.

Gender: Female
Age: 15
Height: 55.4''
Weight: 85 lbs
Build:
Very lean and scrawny. Her ribcage is visible against her chest, like a vacuum sealed bag.

Eye Color:
Her eyes are an ethereal green, enchanting yet mysterious. They pull people in, yet they also can turn people away with their pensive, penetrating glare.

Hair Style:

Her real hair is a short, messily trimmed pixie cut. When she was thirteen she used to wear her hair long, with double ponytails that would delicately lay across her shoulders. However, in an act of rebellious ire, she shaved off all her hair. As her hair began to grow back she regretted her rash act, but still didn't want to conform to what others expected of her. Thus, she decided to cut her hair in a more stylized pixie cut, inspired by nature and mythology. However, her look was not greeted warmly by the others around her, which caused her a nervous breakdown. Her ego and self-worth were shattered. Now she wears a purple wig in most of her public appearances, part of her perpetual Misato Katsuragi cosplay. Though her natural hair is beginning to grow out of her pixie cut, she still feels worthless and has begun to fully assume the style of her cosplay character/alternate fictional identity.

Hair Color:

Natural hair: Black

Wigs:

Misato – purple

KC Moneygold Sunny-shine – blond

Fashion:
She dresses in a Misato Katsuragi costume from NGE most of the time, a costume and character which has deep personal importance to her and helps her overcome her internal anxieties and insecurities. When she takes off the costume (which she rarely has a chance to clean, due to her poverty and periodic homelessness), her clothes are a combination of old T-shirts and baggy pants, anything she can scavenge or get for a cheap price. Her clothing collection is limited because, as she spends most of her time wandering away from home, she doesn't have any space to store or carry additional clothes. When she isn't in school, she prefers to blend into her surroundings, to be one with the filth in the streets, because the looks of others cause her great anxiety and only serve to exacerbate her destructive self-consciousness. Her fashion, thus, reflects her unending struggle between desiring the attention and empathy of others, while also fearing said attention and the vulnerabilities associated with it.

Date of Birth: December, 2005

Place of Birth: Tokyo, Japan

Nationality: Japanese

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Religious Beliefs: Member of Soka Gakkai (form of Nichiren Buddhism)

Political Beliefs: Komeito (公明党)


[General Appearance]:

Appearance:

Her body is outlined by strict lines, inscribing unto her skin a deep look of hunger and lassitude. Her extremities are gaunt and gangly, awkwardly traipsing through her life, as if resisting the ebbing of time, grasping on to the comfort of her own inward invisibility, denying her humanity inside. Her face is thin and bony, with a sharp chin and a dove-wing jaw. Her eyes are delicate and thin, the dark lashes hovering angelically over their elusive emerald-green effervescence. An angular nose accentuates these features to form a cold, sterile external image. Yet, there is a constant latent melancholy in her stare that an empathetic soul could detect and, perhaps, connect with.


Personality:

Aiko's personality is complex and layered. On the surface layer, she is cold, distant, and aloof. She can come across as arrogant, self-absorbed, and heartless. This is especially true of the persona she displays in her school life, a persona that she uses as a defense mechanism against the harm others she fears would cause her if she were to open up her heart and emotions. She can come across almost absurdly distant, as if she were an exaggerated facsimile and mimicry of familiar fictional character tropes. It is as if she has absorbed this fiction as her essence, to act out a role, and, thus, to distance her self from her own truth and from the love and support of others.

Despite this, however, what Aiko desires most in her life is a deep and enduring friendship, a goal which she has given up all hopes for achieving due to her apparently insurmountable internal struggles with self-esteem and anxiety. In her personal life, she is a loving, caring, and empathetic person who protects the ones she loves the most. She can be unrelentingly loyal, to the extent that it breaks her down, both mentally and physically. Her value of loyalty, however, causes her much distress and introspection. She constantly wonders why she can be so loyal, and the answers to these questions are what seem most troubling to her:

Is it out of selflessness and unconditional love? Or is it out of a selfish desire for validity and adulation from others? And if it is this selfish form of loyalty, then does that mean all her actions are self-absorbed and reliant on the opinions of others? Can she ever break free from those constraints and think for and achieve happiness for her own self? Or is happiness in her fulfillment of loyalty to others?

These are the type of questions that plague her internal mind, as she vacillates between justifying her self-serving defensive persona, and the persona that tries to connect with others.


Diseases/Illness:

No physical illness (except, maybe, for malnourishment).

She does struggle from mental illnesses of anxiety and depression; her personality could be described as narcissistic and neurotic.

Character Voice:

Aiko's voice is gentle and cloud-like. It is typically monotonous when she is reflecting her defensive persona. However, when she opens herself up or when she is emotionally distressed and self-pitying, her voice reverberates a fiery acrimony.

Equipment:

She doesn't have much on her typical day, due to her familial estrangement. However, she typically carries a backpack with the image of Lynn Minmay on it from Super-Dimension Fortress Macross. She also brings to school a dull, grey metallic lunch tin, undecorated and unspectacular.

Hobbies:

Though shy to admit it, she is a nerd when it comes to anime and science. She has a vast knowledge on the mecha genre of anime and has recently started to pick up drawing in a desire to recreate her favorite characters and, potentially, her favorite animated scenes. Ever since watching a bootlegged VHS of the DAICON IV opening animation, she has been enamored with the storytelling and energetic artistic creativity that the medium has to offer. In addition to this, she also spends free time researching astrophysics and the history of science at the library.

She also has a hobby in occasionally DJ'ing and singing, which she does under her alternate personality 'KC Moneygold Sunny-shine.'

Serious Problems/Flaws/Addictions/Disorders/Disabilities:

Aiko has many flaws as a human, just like everyone else. She is prone to obsessive-compulsive tendencies and neuroticism. Her depression and insecurities regarding her likability and physical attractiveness have caused her to sometimes try out alcohol, which helps numb her emotional pains. She struggles to self-actuate and form a future for herself in her own image, rather than the image of others. She is prone to self-violence and has, on numerous occasions, ended up in close-calls with death.

Skills:

Despite her flaws, Aiko has many fabulous skills, which, sadly, she often looks past when judging herself from the perspective of others' opinions. She is notably extremely talented in maths and the sciences, partially due to natural ability and another part having to do with it as a way to bottle up and excuse her lack of will to form personal relationships. She is a skilled DJ and singer, with her most prominent social life (although a blatantly superficial one) being within the local nightclub scene.

Family:
Hajime Koizumi [Father] – Deceased
Etsu Yamamoto [Mother] – Missing, presumed dead
Maimi Koizumi [Sister] – Living in Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture
Jun Hano [Aunt] – Living in Karakura, Japan



[Backstory]:

Aiko Koizumi was born to a family of kimono artisans that hailed from the famed Nishijin textile district of Kyoto, Japan. Her family specialized in the careful art of making Nishijin-ori (西陣織), beautiful decorative fabrics that bore the heart of tradition, hard-work, and commitment. Her father Hajime was skilled in this craft, taught to him by his late grandfather Isao. Hajime met Aiko's mother, Etsu Yamamoto, by way of a trade exhibition at Kyodai, the national university in Kyoto. Etsu was a student of literature and biomechanics, seeking to become an engineer at the forefronts of medicine. However, Etsu, interested in Hajime's craft and charmed by his enchanting nature, began to spend summers and, eventually, years at the Koizumi residence in Nishijin, all while pursuing her doctorate degree at Kyodai. From these visits sprouted a complicated relationship, culminating in the birth of their first daughter, Maimi, in 1992. It was at this point that both Etsu and Hajime decided upon marriage, and arrangements were made. They married the next year upon Etsu's graduation. However, Hajime's family had wished and expected of her to settle down in Nishijin, forget her aspirations in medicine, and become devoted to familial and artisan life. This, to Etsu, was unacceptable. Before their marriage, Hajime had promised to her that she would be able to go after her own goals, to achieve and fulfill her own happiness, and that he would support her in those ambitions no matter what his family said. Despite this, Hajime fell to the pressure of his family roots, leading to tensions between the newly weds, starting immediately after their ceremony. Etsu's love for Hajime kept her trapped in the debilitating relationship, and she tragically sacrificed her own will to individuality in order to maintain the false hope of an unfulfilling love.

Etsu raised Maimi under her wing, emphasizing the importance of culture and education at a young age. This, mixed with Maimi's knowledge of her family's traditional craft, molded her into a strong-willed, confident, and well-balanced young woman. Etsu, however, began to break down under the pressures of motherhood, unhappiness, and self-sacrifice that ultimately yielded nothing of value to her. As Maimi grew older, Etsu began to see in her the woman she desired to be, but failed to be due to her obsequiousness to Hajime. Meanwhile, Hajime became an increasingly cruel and detestable lover, tormenting Etsu both physically and psychologically, threatening her with depriving her of money and care. He would terrorize her by insulting her worth, and questioning her loyalty to him. Soon, undercurrents of resentment, vanity, and jealously plagued their family dynamics. In March of 2005, Etsu became pregnant with her second and last daughter, Aiko. When her pregnancy was revealed to Hajime, he grew outraged, blaming Etsu for not being more careful with birth control. He even went as far as to implicating her in an extramarital affair. Such accusations filled her head and she began to fall into a deep depression. To escape her pain, she ran away from Nishijin, abandoning Maimi, whose site Etsu could barely stand, and found refuge in Tokyo as an underpaid waitress. In December of 2005, Etsu gave birth to Aiko, a child she could neither support nor emotionally care about, due to her fractured mental state. Knowing this, she left Aiko to her younger, unmarried sister, Jun Hano, in Karakura. Since then, Etsu has disappeared and severed all connections with both the Koizumi and Yamamoto families.

Jun, only 20 at the time, notified the Koizumi family about Aiko, and Hajime traveled to Karakura with Maimi to rid himself of his daughters. Maimi transferred to Karakura High School while Jun became Aiko and Maimi's official guardian. Only periodically would Hajime, aging and spiteful, visit the two sisters, just so he could make clear to them where they came from, and of Etsu's betrayal. In 2012, when Aiko was just 7 and Maimi was just short of 20, Hajime visited Jun's residence for his final time. He gathered his daughters to tell them the story of the forty-seven rōnin, illustrating the importance of loyalty and personal honor. He then told them about how their mother, Etsu, abandoned her duties, and was disloyal to him, bringing into this world two imperfect, undesirable daughters. He then killed himself in front of the family, leaving Aiko, Maimi, and Jun horrified. Maimi ran away that night, and Jun struggled from then on to support Aiko's debilitating mental state, which was sparked by her father's suicide and her sister's abandonment. Jun began to fail in her responsibilities at guardianship, resorting to heavy drinking and neglectfulness towards Aiko.

Two years later, Maimi informed the family of her happy and successful marriage in Sapporo, but that gave neither any relief from the torments and horrors they faced. By the time Aiko entered Karakura High School, she began to adopt an alternate cosplay persona to hide away her internal pain, and she distanced herself from the self-absorbed pitying of Jun. However, she constantly worries if, by doing so, she is just following in Jun's footsteps? Is Aiko just the same as Jun? Can she overcome her woes and self-hatred? This is up to Aiko and thus the journey of life continues...
 
Last edited:

Sappho

Level 0
A very well thought out character! I loved the detailed nuance of Aiko's background and upbringing, it truly allows one to resonate with her experiences and distress. It is also a creative exploration of the entire roleplaying process, in that your character has multiple identities, from which she uses to hide in herself. It is interesting and makes one wonder about the psychological aspect of assuming a role as someone else. It is like roleplaying within roleplaying. I definitely can't wait to see where you take Aiko. See you around!
 

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