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OOC INFO;

NAME: coco
AGE: 23
CONTACT: vanilladome
CHARACTERS IN GAME: n/a

IC INFO;

CHARACTER NAME: Nanami Kiryuu
AGE: 13
CANON Revolutionary Girl Utena
CANON POINT
HISTORY: Wikia + Plot Summary
PERSONALITY:

Like the other cast members of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nanami has a degree of deceit to her initial appearance. She is presented as an ally to Anthy — a pretty and regal aid to Anthy's vicious bullying. Sidelong glances and cracks in her face imply her intentions are far more malicious, however. In fact, Anthy's bullying was a ploy for Nanami to move in and invite her to a dance, one in which she arranged for Anthy's public humiliation in front of the entire school body. Nanami isn't a typical school bully, however — she doesn't wish for Anthy to suffer because she is innately cruel. Instead, Anthy is a distraction from her brother's affections for her — a figure that tears his attention away from her.

Nanami's fixation on her brother is deep as a knife wound. She claims he's the best man in the world, his smile reserved for her only. She is overtly affectionate with him, throwing herself on him at any given chance. Touga can receive her coldly at times, hinting towards his maturation. Nanami is still a child, and she wants very much to remain that way — before Nanami's duel with Utena, she asks him for a kiss, to which he replies that they "aren't children anymore". Nanami's vision of her big brother is childlike, that of a hero that can do no wrong, and she wants to live in that fantasy forever — where her brother can bail her out of all the world's badness, like a knight to a princess. She wants to preserve his glowing smile.

She will go to extreme lengths to do this. Nanami is cutthroat and indiscriminate when it comes to those who try to get close to her brother — her disdain of Anthy and Utena stems from believing they want to steal him from her. Her cruelty is juvenile. When she was a child, she spent all day finding a cat for her brother's birthday — a present he received warmly. But when he took to it and began spending time with him, she grew to hate him. Eventually, she put him in a box and threw him in a river. She felt no blame for this — in her eyes, the cat came between her and her brother, so it was his fault. Her hatred is also her innocence, and her passion is fantasy.

Her maliciousness works subtly. She has no qualms with using and manipulating people — she has a gaggle of lackeys who do her dirty work for her, and they state that Nanami "doesn't like to get her own hands dirty". She's a bully with a network and a system, and her exploits range from mischievous pranks to abuse — the latter of which is typically reserved for Anthy. Nanami knows how to give people what she wants so they'll do her bidding for her, and she is quick to take advantage of a power imbalance that exists between her and another. Tsuwabuki — an elementary school student who 'saves' her from a horse trampling — is deeply infatuated with Nanami, so she allows him to 'date' her so he'll do her dirty work, such as chasing off aggressive suitors or helping her cheat on a test, all at the snap of a finger. She treats him as one might furniture — getting him to carry her around places and using him as an easel for art class.

Nanami is prone to the histrionic — within her lies the deep melodrama of a teenage girl's day to day life, where minor inconveniences become devastating tragedies and misunderstandings occur because of her hastiness — she often believes people are conspiring against her, or are even out to kill her, including her own brother. She is as quick to cry as she is to disrespect another, especially when her ego or dignity is on the line. She is a socialite, someone who uses her social standing to her advantage — she throws parties for self-centered reasons like unveiling a designer accessory she received. Her life is a comedy of errors, and she is the tragic figure at the center of it — someone who is attacked by wild animals semi-regularly.

She is subject to her self-image, as well as how she's viewed in the public eye — her dramaturgical idealization of herself is seen in ways she mystifies herself and others. She is always aware of the audience at hand, and assumes all eyes are on her at any given time, a source of both confidence and insecurity. When she's sent a cowbell she's told is a designer necklace, she leans into it, absorbing the attention she receives because of its ridiculousness. To Nanami, if she boldly wears it and acts as if nothing is wrong, she won't be able to be embarrassed — her stubborn gall will make he impervious to it. She begins to wear other cow themed items, grazes in the school's park, and adds moos to her speech — she brands herself as a cow in an attempt to convince herself and everyone else that her love for the cowbell is sincere. Eventually, she completely transforms into a cow — a metaphor for her pride, as well as her selfish unawareness of her surroundings. Utena points out that she's in a cowfield grazing to Nanami's surprise — she failed to even realize the cowbell was intended for a cow.

Truthfully, Nanami is an innocent person — her severity comes from a lack of understanding of others, and her mistakes come from mythologizing her and her brother's relationship. She is a sheltered child, rich and kept from the atrocities of the world — when she wakes up to an egg in her bed, she assumes she's laid it, and tiptoes around the subject as she questions everyone on her fate (a metaphor for starting menarche, something Nanami is completely unaware of and ill-equipped for because of her upbringing). She begins to wonder if laying eggs is something all girls do and she's merely late to the party — she refuses to tell anyone the truth, and becomes overly attached to her egg. Later, she tries to abandon it because she feels she isn't fit to take care of it, and because her brother notes that they get along because she isn't the type to 'lay eggs'. However, she is overcome with grief, and beseeches her egg once more to beg for forgiveness. She claims she will never abandon it again. Anthy notes that passing on thoughts and wisdom to your children is a form of reincarnation — this is something Nanami is lacking. She was not given the proper information from her family to survive, and so she does what she must so they will not abandon her physically as they have emotionally. She would never treat someone she loved like that — not even her egg.

This is her empathy, her redeeming quality — she isn't as capable of the self-righteous cruelty others in Utena are. Nanami is cruel and violent, but she always regrets it somehow — whether it be because she's embarrassed or because she realizes she has hurt someone. After her duel with Utena, she cries out of guilt, remembering the regret she felt when she sent her brother's cat to death in childhood. Her violence is a childish one, something that does not live lasting wounds like the trauma Akio leaves on Utena and Anthy. She is a child reaching for power like straws on a high shelf.

Nanami is particularly unique amongst the other Duelists in that she doesn't care about Revolution. Her main goal is to preserve her relationship with her brother — she learned swordsmanship so she could stay close to him. After losing her duel with Utena, she stubbornly continued attacking her, not caring about breaking the rules and potentially being expelled. Her raison d'etre is her brother, as opposed to changing the world in some way. She'd like her world to stay exactly the way it is. She fears abandonment, afraid that in the ever-changing and fast paced world her older brother will mature out of loving her, leaving her in childhood alone.

Her raison wavers when she begins to suspect she and Touga are not related by blood. She grows to resent her brother and her own self, as her identity up until this point has centered around their closeness and likeness — now, she was nothing more than another girl swarming him for affection. She moves in with Utena and Anthy and witnesses the treachery of Anthy and Akio's relationship — disgusted, she wishes to separate herself from that kind of relationship as much as possible. When Touga advances on her, she screams that predatory romance isn't what she wants — she merely wants safety. She challenges Utena to a duel, vowing to surpass her brother and her own self — Nanami finally yearns for growth, to break the confines of her shell and discover her own reason to live. Otherwise, she has nothing left. By the end of the anime, she resigns from the student council. She has nothing left to prove to herself. She even lightens up a bit, giving Utena some unwarranted but heartfelt advice.

In the end, all girls are like Rose Brides — even Nanami. She is a victim of her own girlhood, and she wishes to navigate through adolescence as best she can. Try as she might, she is subjected to the heartbreak and trauma that comes with being a girl. She truly begins to blossom when she embraces this instead of hides from it, facing the world head on. This is Nanami's revolution.

CANON POWERS: n/a
OTHER: n/a

GAME INFO;

CRAU INFO: n/a
MAGIC ABILITY: Lactic acid production. Nanami's spit and tears will secrete as a milk substance that smells spoiled and is highly acidic — enough to melt through metal at its full potency. It's strength is directly correlated with her dignity — the more embarrassed or jilted she feels, the more powerful it will be. She can bottle the acid to be used later, and as long as she keeps the bottle sealed, it will retain the potency it had upon secretion. Exposure to oxygen causes the effectiveness to decay rapidly.
ANY WEAPONS/MAGICAL ITEMS?: Nanami fights with two weapons — a curved, scimitar-like blade and a short, concealed dagger. She'll come in with the dagger.
ANY PETS?: An egg.

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