Mana Aida ♥ Cure Heart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strongestheart) wrote2017-01-23 11:49 pm
strongestheart) wrote2017-01-23 11:49 pm
Recolle Application
PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Ken
18+?: Yes.
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
mugennoken
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A.
RESERVATION LINK: Right here!
YOUR NAME: Ken
18+?: Yes.
CONTACT:
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A.
RESERVATION LINK: Right here!
CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Mana Aida
AGE: 14 at series start, 15 at the end.
CANON: Dokidoki! Precure
NAME: Mana Aida
AGE: 14 at series start, 15 at the end.
CANON: Dokidoki! Precure
CANON HISTORY: [In this history, I liberally mix in background information for Mana from the Dokidoki! Precure movie, and insert its present day events in between arcs at the time the film came out in theaters. There's nothing in the film that contradicts it taking place within the show's continuity, and provides so much information for Mana's background that it's pretty essential for her character.]
Mana Aida is the product of a loving and hard working household, something which has carried her forward though her life and various ambitions, but that's getting a bit ahead of things here. Raised in a family owned restaurant, the Pig's Tail, Mana's early and formative years were largely influenced by her kind and loving grandmother. Carrying that kindness forward at a young age, when a doctor and photographer couple moved in next door, Mana immediately befriended their shy daughter, Rikka Hishikawa. Forming a lifelong friendship, the adventurous young Mana was quite a handful, up to and including trespassing on the estate of the extremely rich Yotsuba family... and then befriending the young heiress of the family, Alice. Together, the three friends became nearly inseparable through the years.
One day, Mana happened upon a young puppy, whom she named Mallow - because he looked like a marshmallow. Mana's life was happy and joyful, without much a care in the world, but no life can keep going like that. In grade school, a number of things happened that took a turn for the worse - Mallow was struck and killed by a car on a rainy day, Mana's grandmother passed away, and Alice ran into an incident where she beat several boys into the ground for making Mana cry. While that last incident would leave a lasting impact on her friend, Mana didn't let her actual losses consume her. If anything, they seemed to make the girl double down on the lessons passed onto her. To be loving and kind and helpful to a fault, Mana pushed past insults like the ones thrown at her by the boys Alice ended up beating up. She became a stronger person dedicated to helping those around her, finding happiness in the act of making others happy. Once reaching Junior High, ever with Rikka's encouragement and help, she ran for and became the Student Council President, her first step in a new, life's goal of one day seeking to become Japan's Prime Minister.
As Student Council President, Mana became a force to be reckoned with in terms of helping those around her to an almost damning degree. Be this by reaching far beyond necessary bounds to assist people, filling in for sports teams, being more active than need be, or generally making the teacher's jobs a LOT easier. Honestly? Her life was going pretty well, up until the day her school went on a trip for the opening of the Clover Tower, a building owned by the Yotsuba Corporation and one of the tallest in Japan, if not the world. It was there she had a chance encounter with a young pop idol that she admired named Makoto Kenzaki, received a cute trinket from what appeared to be some common souvenir salesman... and the Tower was attacked by a pair of monster crabs.
These monsters were known as Selfishness, brought forth by servants of the dark being King Selfishness. Two of these servants - Ira and Marmo - attacked the Tower, forming the monsters from the selfish thoughts of people standing in the waiting line. Mana met with a pink, rabbit-like fairy named Charle from the magical Trump Kingdom, who tried to offer her the power to fight such a monster. While she failed to accomplish this at first, Mana was saved by a mysterious warrior named Cure Sword... who was promptly blindsided by the second monster and in spite of Mana's futile efforts to help was put in dangeer, as the last living Precure of the Trump Kingdom. Mana - calling on a good luck ritual taught to her by her grandmother - miraculously managed to summon the power Charle was trying to give her, coincidentally with the trinket the salesman from earlier gave to her. She transformed into the pink Precure, Cure Heart and helped saved Cure Sword, banishing the last monster with her newfound powers.
What followed was a whirlwind of events. Rikka, after discovering what Mana had become and being put into a position of needing to help her, became Cure Diamond with the help of another fairy, Raquel. A third fairy, Lance, had made his way to Alice and after Alice reveals she'd discovered Mana's identity thanks to security cameras at Clover Tower, becomes Cure Rosetta following some trepidation with using her strength to fight again. Alice then reveals she'd caught another Precure transforming on camera - who turns out to be none other than the idol Makoto. While attempts to reach out to Makoto falter at first, a third servant of King Selfishness shows up - Bel - and sends them to the ruined Trump Kingdom, which turns out is Makoto's home. As the world is overtaken with the dark forces that drove Makoto away, they learn the girl is in their world searching for her Princess, Marie-Ange. Escaping the Trump Kingdom, the girls form together as a team - Dokidoki Precure!
It's not long before things get even weirder, as they hunt down the salesman - Joe Okada - that gave Mana the trinket that turned her into Cure Heart in the first place. At his shop, they instead find a giant egg... that hatches into a flying baby, whom Alice and Mana name "Ai-chan." Said baby turns out to have quite a plethora of powers that are both a help and nuisance for the girls. As they all grow closer - even with a few bumps in the road - they are eventually confronted by Bel again, and a threat against Ai-chan materializes their next power, a weapon known as the Love Heart Arrow. With the Arrows they're able to beat Bel back, once more, signaling a rise of stronger opposition from the Selfish servants. At the same time, they begin to discover objects called the Royal Crystals, which hold a connection to the missing Marie-Ange, all connected seemingly to things that the Princess was close to.
While searching for the Princess and the Crystals, they encounter a young girl named Regina, who claims to be the daughter of King Selfishness. Instead of just fighting them though, after a defeat Regina suddenly begins to try and invade Mana's life, and while Mana tries to befriend her, it creates problems with her other friends, especially as Regina lashes in various ways. Eventually they're forced into a corner where the Precure are nearly defeated, if not for the timely intervention of Joe - who is actually Jonathan Klondike, the fiance of Marie-Ange and a knight from the world overtaken by King Selfishness.
With a back and forth of Regina shifting her alliances, the Precure and Jonathan eventually track down what appears to be Marie-Ange suspended in crystal. This leads to a confrontation back in the Trump Kingdom with King Selfishness's forces where Regina is forced to choose between her father and Mana, and eventually Mana wins out. Mana and the others take Regina back to their world and things look like they'll turn out okay - until suddenly Regina is struck with dark power and turns against them again, beating the Precure into the ground.
That is until they're suddenly saved by a new Precure, Cure Ace, utilizing the power of Ai-chan and the Royal Crystals. Cure Ace beats Regina back and before she can defeat her, the girl is called back to King Selfishness and placed in a suspended animation for some time. Mana falls into a depression over her failure, drug out of it by the appearance of a young girl named Aguri Madoka and the imminent danger to her friends. Aguri - as one might guess at this point - is in fact Cure Ace, and proceeds to try and teach the Precure a number of lessons about what they're supposed to be doing as Precure.
Her source for this? Well, it's kind of obscured behind stories of what she is that don't quite seem to line up, but she's still there to help, so it must be fine, right? Either way, Aguri becomes a member of their group in time, and she leads them to an island to find a mirror that represents one of the legendary items of ancient Precure from ages back. There, they battle a dragon for the right to claim it, a dragon that was once one of those ancient Precure's fairies.
Around this same period of time, two more servants of King Selfishness have reared their head. Named Leva and Gula, they've conquered other worlds in the past and prove a substantially more dangerous threat than Bel, Marmo, and Ira had been up to this point. This comes to a head when they unite their powers and nearly outright obliterate the Precure. The ancient mirror split into pieces becomes the Magical Lovely Pad for each Precure, giving them the power to defeat Leva and Gula. And... the girls never see them again, as Bel absorbs his own allies powers into rings to further his own ambitions.
As a result, Bel becomes the "boss" of his trio and forces even greater and darker powers onto Ira and Marmo, significantly raising the Precure's challenges. The girls are also faced at that time with multiple incidents of having to "raise" Ai-chan, and these two things come to a head as Bel attempts to kidnap and brainwash Ai-chan to get to the girls, but in the end Mana's bond with the baby grants them a significant boost in power that is able to defeat (although not destroy) Bel in a powered up form.
[From here, I will insert the events of the Dokidoki movie, which came out around this time.]
Mana is presented with a gift from her mother - the wedding dress Mana's grandmother were married in. Mana is immediately enamored with it ... even if it leads to some freakishly weird nightmares ... and the topic of weddings and one day getting married gets tossed back and forth between the girls. That night, Mana's town is suddenly attacked by a giant ... fish ... ship ... thing in the sky. A new opponent named Marsh appears with his own set of minions, and the girls transform to fight them. They seem to handle themselves pretty well until the enemies prove to be a lot stronger than they look, and Mana, Alice, Rikka, and Makoto are captured and separated from their fairies. While the fairies find help in what appears to be ANOTHER new, never before seen fairy, who will proceed to help get them back to their partners, the girls face something else altogether.
While Makoto is trapped in a reality where the Trump Kingdom never fell, Rikka, Alice, and Mana are put in worlds as little girls where they never met each other. Mana is the only one who immediately realizes something is wrong, not understanding why her family and friends at school don't know who Rikka or Alice are. Even Rikka's house is occupied by someone else, but... at the same time, her grandmother is there, and even her dog Mallow. Slowly, Mana becomes lulled by this false world. While Rikka and Alice are able to break free of their fake worlds, and Makoto does so as well with the aid of Cure Ace, Mana's fake reality comes to a screeching halt when she's faced with her grandmother being rushed to the hospital, and with Mallow's death... It's there that Marsh reveals his intention to have Mana live out these moments in time over and over again, to make her suffer in despair.
It's a despair Mana very nearly falls into, only to have her grandmother in that fake reality give her the encouragement to leave that world behind, and to be reunited with her friends. Galvanized, the Precure battle Marsh, who Mana begins to realize the true identity of ... and then he chomps down on her shoulder, injuring her and spilling her blood when she doesn't defend herself against him.
Turns out Marsh is in fact the spirit of Mana's dog, Mallow, warped by an evil ... magical ... sentient ... clarinet. It's ... a magical girl show, just go with it, okay?
REGARDLESS. The Doki Cures are then warped to the future. There, they are witness to Mana's wedding to some nameless loser, where everyone is there frozen in stone and it's under attack by a giant mechanical octopus. Entering said octopus, the clarinet kills Marsh all over again, and his power is used by Mana to transform into Cure Heart Engage Mode, straight up killing said evil clarinet without the slightest hint of mercy.
Returning to their own time, they're greeted by the fairy who helped their partners, who turns out to seemingly be the spirit of Mana's grandmother, escorting Mallow's Psyche into the sky.
[One weird-ass movie out of the way, we move back to the TV Series.]
Jonathan - who had taken off with the crystalized Marie-Ange - suddenly reappears, claiming they need to go to the center of the Trump Kingdom where another ancient artifact like the mirror is. This is Marie-Ange's spear, and ... this is also not Jonathan, but in fact Bel in disguise in a ploy to get the Precure to pull it from the ground, something they've been incapable of. While the girls are onto Bel pretty much immediately, they still need to recover the weapon, and ... are also unable to do so.
But Regina can! And she shows up again, now completely loyal to King Selfishness by all indications. She takes the spear and suddenly turns into an even more formidable opponent. The girls in the resulting time attempt to get through to Regina through various schemes, mostly failing, though slowly chipping away at her resolve. Eventually, Jonathan ACTUALLY returns, in in tow a third ancient artifact. This one, a crown which gives Aguri a rush of memories from Marie-Ange. She reveals to Makoto and Jonathan that the giant crystal housing Marie-Ange's body is a decoy, housing... well. Nothing. They take off to the Trump Kingdom on their own to confront Regina, leaving Mana, Rikka, and Alice to find a way after them. It's revealed that Aguri, Regina, and Ai-chan are all parts of Marie-Ange's psyche, split apart and winding up in different places after the fall of the kingdom. Within King Selfishness himself is the Trump King, but there's little that can be done to free him before the big bad himself finally awakens.
Regina initially rejects this, joining with King Selfishness and helping to launch an attack on the girls' home city. As they fight King Selfishness, Mana is able to get through to Regina and together they all launch an assault within the body of the giant monster. There, the girls are split apart under various circumstances, with Mana, Aguri, and Regina reaching the Trump King to free him. After King Selfishness's body breaks apart, Bel attempts to claim that power for his own only for it to overwhelm him and form the Proto-Selfishness, the true source of all the dark power they've been fighting. After faltering against him, and the creature attempting to corrupt Mana's heart, the other girls lend Cure Heart their power, creating "Cure Heart Parthenon Mode" which she uses to defeat the Proto-Selfishness. While it's indicated that his is a power that can never be truly destroyed, that he will be back... Mana just cheerfully bids him farewell, noting that there will always be someone to stop him.
The fight won, the girls would then go on to try and live their lives... but doing so normally isn't quite so easy, as Mana sort of blurted out her identity in front of cameras during the final battle. Their identities known, the girls end up in the spotlight rather considerably, including having their help enlisted by the Prime Minister himself. As such, the Dokidoki Precure continue to fight, and while more against disasters and the like than demonic entities from beyond, they're always out there to help and save those in need.
CANON PERSONALITY: Mana Aida wants to help you! And you, and that guy over in the corner, and... well. She's a helpful soul, really, almost always ready with the energy and ability needed to assist anyone she can in her self-appointed task. What makes a girl her age into such a Good Samaritan? Mostly, it's the environment she was raised in, help and encouragement of friends, and realizing that seeing others smile and be happy can make you feel happy as well. Everyone wins! As mentioned in her history, her desire is to be Japan's Prime Minister when she's an adult, showing the scope and bright eyed optimism of where she wants to spread her desires.
To the point of her raising: Mana comes from a loving, but hard working household. The Aidas live in the restaurant they run, so a spirit of service to others is something she's always been exposed to. Her late grandmother was also a clear and obvious influence, a kind and loving woman that Mana looked up to greatly, carrying her attitude forward through her life. A special charm the woman taught Mana when she was young also coincidentally just happened to be what triggered the activation of her first transformation into Cure Heart many years later, so in a way that influence carried her into being a Precure as well.
While to the point of her friends, Mana's boundless spirit even at a young age turned the shy Rikka and sickly, lonely Alice into not just her best of friends, but allowed them to stand up in their own right. While the quiet admiration that both hold towards Mana and her influence on their lives is obvious to the audience, they also provide an influence to Mana. Each member of her team grows into a capable, functional person and fighter by the end of the series in their own right, while Mana? For all of her ability or quick wits, without her friends she might not be utterly helpless, but she is at a loss. She is very good at inspiring people with her tenacity, she is very good at leading people and managing a team, be it of superheroes or with student politics. However, in spite of how it may seem sometimes, Mana would get nowhere without those people to work with and work to help her.
This is most clearly shown around Christmas time, in which the villains separate Mana from the rest of her team in order to try and make them topple without their leader. As it turns out, they're one hundred percent able to hold their own without her, even if they're not as strong an overall team. Mana meanwhile has been captured by one of the stupidest traps possible, helpless to escape until another friend arrives to help her in the form of Jonathan. Yet still, her friends are able to do this in large part because of the team and friendships Mana has cultivated.
Unfortunately, Mana's eternally loving and helpful spirit has plenty of downsides. First and foremost, they're to herself. Rikka's life in particular is made difficult by Mana's nature, in that she has an almost complete inability to say no to anyone asking for her assistance, and she adds assisting anyone she happens to see in distress just by happenstance. School in particular abuses this the most, from the students to clubs to even teachers, relying on Mana to perform. Be it her jumping to fulfill duties that could just as easily be handled by other students, mediating conflicts a student has no business getting in the middle of, or pinch hitting in just about any sports club that can wrangle her. The downsides can be clear; it makes Mana more than a little gullible to anyone with an issue, even if it puts her own well being at risk.
Which it has! Rikka likens her in-show to "The Happy Prince," a story by Oscar Wilde, in which the titular prince is a statue layered with gold and jewels. Said prince instructed a swallow to give himself, his golden skin, his jeweled eyes to the poor until he was stripped of everything. Mana is very akin to that, willing to give her everything for anyone, with only her friends really being able to keep her from caving herself in. Even then, it's happened - be it forcing herself in battle so thoroughly she can't take anymore, or running around being everything to everyone at school leaving her sick and unable to perform her actual duties.
Her over-excitability can also lead to her coming across as insensitive to some people's problems or issues, even if that's not what she means. Sometimes when you're upset or stressed, having someone hyper and bouncy come in and be that way can really rub you the wrong way, and it can be hard at first for Mana to understand she's doing this. When she does she'll try to make amends, but sometimes peppy people can just downright annoy others.
In wanting to be so useful to everyone, and in wanting to assist everyone, however, when she can't it's something she takes to heart. The most striking example of this was how she became after the loss of Regina, succumbing to King Selfishness's power and trying to kill them all before Cure Ace arrived on the scene. For her it's far more than a physical defeat, it crushes her heart and soul to know she failed someone so profoundly, with no true way of knowing whether or not she could be saved. For Mana Aida, you can do whatever you want to her - but if you have hurt someone near and dear to her, that is the most real and effective way to hurt her.
...well. To a degree. It's true, Mana is extremely slow to anger. In fact, one of the few people we see her actually cross with is a girl named Reina, who for some considerable time makes a lot of effort to try and make Alice's life miserable. There is one being, really, that she shows no forgiveness to. With the Proto-Selfishness, she accepted it as a part of humanity and something they all struggle with. Reina eventually becomes Alice's friend, Regina finds her way back to them. But that damned clarinet manipulated her dog's spirit, made her suffer the worst moments of her life over and over again, and then killed that dog a second time. It took her only a minute later to wiped that thing from existence, showing that even with Mana, there is a "too far" that she can be pushed.
In relation to her being easily swayed by those asking for her help, it could be argued that Mana employs a certain degree of obliviousness towards certain matters. She definitely never picked up on Rikka's feelings of jealousy towards Makoto when the girl first joined their team and started spending lots of time with Mana. She never really considers that someone could initially at all be wanting to hurt her, if they seem friendly enough. That goes a bit back to her lack of self-preservation and the need to constantly have Rikka as her keeper, as she thought nothing of Jonathan's forward nature at first while Rikka treated him like he was a creepy old man.
And yet, she can be surprisingly perceptive. After all, she's the student council president - she has to be a little bit more than just charismatic, even if she's got that down pretty well too. She studies loads to make sure that she has an answer for common questions she might get in her position, and she's never shown to be anything less than a good student, even if Rikka helps a lot in that area. But while she's extremely trusting, and while Cure Diamond tends to take tactical command in fights, she has on numerous occasions shown she's paying a lot more attention and is more savvy than her opponents - and sometimes friends - might think.
Most of the time though, this is her getting one over on Bel. When Bel had them trapped in the Trump Kingdom with no way out, she quickly surmised the answer was obvious - beat him up and make him send them back. It was enough to galvanize her team, and to throw Bel off guard by calling his bluff. (Alternately, one could look at this as an example of her being absolutely insane.) When Bel is disguised as Jonathan, while no member of the team is for a moment thrown off by his disguise, she's right there with the rest of them, choosing the perfect moment - that was only ruined by Regina's resurgence - to call him out on his shenanigans.
She's a lot more self aware of some of her faults - except maybe her blood curdling singing voice - than it may seem. She lacks a high opinion of herself, only that she wants to be the best she can be. While the last battle of the series may have her fighting Proto-Jikochuu on her own, it's only with her friends' power and trust that she can. She's aware of her own selfish traits, be it the happiness she gets from making others happy, or that her pushiness and overbearing nature can very easily rub people the wrong way. The fact of the matter is, that actually makes her extremely selfish. She cares so much, and yet has pushed past when bullies would once pick on little Mana for being a busybody, to a point she doesn't care about that at all. She's going to be what she's going to be, consequences be damned.
SKILLS/ABILITIES: At a base human level, Mana is a very athletic girl, and fairly strong for someone her age. She has terrific stamina, and is pretty good at most general middle school level sports. She can be a sharp thinker in stressful situations, and studies a lot more than you'd expect to be on top of knowledge that might be expected of her.
She's accompanied by a fairy partner in the form of a little flying rabbit named Charle. Charle, in her base form... can't do very much. But she can transform into a cellphone known as the Lovely Commune, and take various Cure Loveads to transform and empower Mana in various ways.
Primarily, with a call of "Precure, Love Link!" Mana transforms into the legendary warrior, Cure Heart. As Cure Heart all of Mana's already impressive physical skills are amplified by a rather large margin. Able to leap hundreds of feet in the air, wielding superhuman strength, speed, and durability, as a Precure Mana can be quite formidable. Additionally, there tends to be an innate battle instinct that comes with the transformation, allowing her to go toe-to-toe with monsters and demonic entities that have been fighting for centuries before she herself has ever learned to really throw a punch. She also eventually, under great duress, gains the ability to summon a pink, glowing battle aura that greatly increases her already boosted physical attributes and power.
While she is more durable, she is not invulnerable. She can take a lot of punishment before her transformation gives out, but Marsh - already a large, monster dog of untold malicious and mystical power - was able to bite right down through her skin to draw blood.
Beyond the basics, she receives various Loveads over the course of the series that activate a number of powers. To start with, one activates her initial primary attack, "My Sweet Heart," a beam of healing power fired from her heart brooch which can purify monsters and their effects. Later, she receives a weapon in the form of the Love Heart Arrow, where a Loveads will activate "Heart Shoot," which is really just a more powerful version of her prior attack, this time fired off in the form of an energy arrow. This attack is also shown to be able to cure teammates status effects from monsters, clearly displaying that it only has truly harmful effects against evil creatures. Finally, she receives the Magical Lovely Pad, which is ... well. A tablet. It also has a Loveads associated with it and Mana's powers, giving her a final attack: "Heart Dynamite." This attack can purify evil creatures just as her other powers can, but seems to be the only one that has with it any notable concussive force, as she can summon multiple energy hearts around her that then explode. A very small amount of DPS to her White Mage status in the RPG party that is Dokidoki Precure, I guess you could say.
There are multiple team attacks that the Dokidoki Precure employ, and would only be functional with the corresponding team members to pull them off.
The first is the Lovely Force Arrow - combining the Lovely Heart Arrows of Cure Heart, Cure Diamond, Cure Rosetta, and Cure Sword, they can fire off one massive, purifying heart... bubble.
With those four and Cure Ace, plus the Magical Lovely Pads, they can perform the "Lovely Straight Flush." The other four Precure will summon decks of cards that are then "passed" to Cure Heart, imbued with their power. She will then send a single card combined with all their powers to strike out against their enemy, and as you might guess by now, purifying them.
Finally, after receiving a Lovead that transforms her Lovely Pad into the Magical Lovely Harp, they activate not just their final group attack, but a new transformation! The Precure will all sprout large angelic wings, and gain the attack "Royal Lovely Straight Flush." A magical circle is created around them, with a giant heart-shaped blast firing from it and having the expected effects. A bonus of their transformed state is that in addition to flight, the Precure's own powers seem to be amped up significantly. This is backed up by the fact that every time they fight with wings, their attacks are shown to be much larger, more encompassing, and largely more effective, able to take out dozens of enemy Selfish monsters in single shots.
Mana herself has two powered up forms.
The first is from the movie, wherein the spirit of her dog dying a second time allows her to achieve "Engage Mode." In this form, her dress becomes much like a wedding dress, and the resulting arrow attack she's able to unleashes straight up kills her opponent - who, admittedly, was a being of pure maliciousness and evil. So that's still fairly consistent.
The last is Parthenon Mode, the final form she takes before defeating the Proto-Selfishness. This is achieved by her teammates granting her their power, as well as the additional power of the three ancient treasures they'd collected over the course of the series. In this form, all of her amplified powers are ratcheted up by borderline absurd levels. Stopping a punch by a being capable of chucking buildings at them with no effort results in several city blocks BEHIND her blowing up from the impact while she suffers no ill effects. Her strength is such that she can launch her enemy through the Earth's atmosphere, and her speed to a degree that she can then be there to meet him before he arrives. Her "My Sweet Heart" attack is able to nullify a demonic, world-ending entity... but in the end it's still just a giant purification beam. To say that Parthenon Mode is overpowered is putting it more than a little lightly, but the requirements to access it have so many pieces and stipulations that achieving it is very difficult, not to mention terribly unlikely in almost any circumstance that would crop up in a game.
While physically powerful, as I said above, Cure Heart acts largely as the team's "White Mage," cleansing evil and assisting her team. She might be able to break something with her own two hands, but most of her special attacks focus in on purification rather than harm, and very few of them will harm someone who isn't an evil rampaging monster. She can stand on her own in a pinch, but that's why she's part of a team!
Meanwhile her fairy partner, Charle, in addition to being a floating little bunny or transformation device most of the time, does have the ability to transform into a human-looking form. In that form, she appears to be a young teenager much like Mana herself. While she's more liable to get herself in trouble this way, she has used it to help Mana with chores from time to time, but not much else.
Mana Aida is the product of a loving and hard working household, something which has carried her forward though her life and various ambitions, but that's getting a bit ahead of things here. Raised in a family owned restaurant, the Pig's Tail, Mana's early and formative years were largely influenced by her kind and loving grandmother. Carrying that kindness forward at a young age, when a doctor and photographer couple moved in next door, Mana immediately befriended their shy daughter, Rikka Hishikawa. Forming a lifelong friendship, the adventurous young Mana was quite a handful, up to and including trespassing on the estate of the extremely rich Yotsuba family... and then befriending the young heiress of the family, Alice. Together, the three friends became nearly inseparable through the years.
One day, Mana happened upon a young puppy, whom she named Mallow - because he looked like a marshmallow. Mana's life was happy and joyful, without much a care in the world, but no life can keep going like that. In grade school, a number of things happened that took a turn for the worse - Mallow was struck and killed by a car on a rainy day, Mana's grandmother passed away, and Alice ran into an incident where she beat several boys into the ground for making Mana cry. While that last incident would leave a lasting impact on her friend, Mana didn't let her actual losses consume her. If anything, they seemed to make the girl double down on the lessons passed onto her. To be loving and kind and helpful to a fault, Mana pushed past insults like the ones thrown at her by the boys Alice ended up beating up. She became a stronger person dedicated to helping those around her, finding happiness in the act of making others happy. Once reaching Junior High, ever with Rikka's encouragement and help, she ran for and became the Student Council President, her first step in a new, life's goal of one day seeking to become Japan's Prime Minister.
As Student Council President, Mana became a force to be reckoned with in terms of helping those around her to an almost damning degree. Be this by reaching far beyond necessary bounds to assist people, filling in for sports teams, being more active than need be, or generally making the teacher's jobs a LOT easier. Honestly? Her life was going pretty well, up until the day her school went on a trip for the opening of the Clover Tower, a building owned by the Yotsuba Corporation and one of the tallest in Japan, if not the world. It was there she had a chance encounter with a young pop idol that she admired named Makoto Kenzaki, received a cute trinket from what appeared to be some common souvenir salesman... and the Tower was attacked by a pair of monster crabs.
These monsters were known as Selfishness, brought forth by servants of the dark being King Selfishness. Two of these servants - Ira and Marmo - attacked the Tower, forming the monsters from the selfish thoughts of people standing in the waiting line. Mana met with a pink, rabbit-like fairy named Charle from the magical Trump Kingdom, who tried to offer her the power to fight such a monster. While she failed to accomplish this at first, Mana was saved by a mysterious warrior named Cure Sword... who was promptly blindsided by the second monster and in spite of Mana's futile efforts to help was put in dangeer, as the last living Precure of the Trump Kingdom. Mana - calling on a good luck ritual taught to her by her grandmother - miraculously managed to summon the power Charle was trying to give her, coincidentally with the trinket the salesman from earlier gave to her. She transformed into the pink Precure, Cure Heart and helped saved Cure Sword, banishing the last monster with her newfound powers.
What followed was a whirlwind of events. Rikka, after discovering what Mana had become and being put into a position of needing to help her, became Cure Diamond with the help of another fairy, Raquel. A third fairy, Lance, had made his way to Alice and after Alice reveals she'd discovered Mana's identity thanks to security cameras at Clover Tower, becomes Cure Rosetta following some trepidation with using her strength to fight again. Alice then reveals she'd caught another Precure transforming on camera - who turns out to be none other than the idol Makoto. While attempts to reach out to Makoto falter at first, a third servant of King Selfishness shows up - Bel - and sends them to the ruined Trump Kingdom, which turns out is Makoto's home. As the world is overtaken with the dark forces that drove Makoto away, they learn the girl is in their world searching for her Princess, Marie-Ange. Escaping the Trump Kingdom, the girls form together as a team - Dokidoki Precure!
It's not long before things get even weirder, as they hunt down the salesman - Joe Okada - that gave Mana the trinket that turned her into Cure Heart in the first place. At his shop, they instead find a giant egg... that hatches into a flying baby, whom Alice and Mana name "Ai-chan." Said baby turns out to have quite a plethora of powers that are both a help and nuisance for the girls. As they all grow closer - even with a few bumps in the road - they are eventually confronted by Bel again, and a threat against Ai-chan materializes their next power, a weapon known as the Love Heart Arrow. With the Arrows they're able to beat Bel back, once more, signaling a rise of stronger opposition from the Selfish servants. At the same time, they begin to discover objects called the Royal Crystals, which hold a connection to the missing Marie-Ange, all connected seemingly to things that the Princess was close to.
While searching for the Princess and the Crystals, they encounter a young girl named Regina, who claims to be the daughter of King Selfishness. Instead of just fighting them though, after a defeat Regina suddenly begins to try and invade Mana's life, and while Mana tries to befriend her, it creates problems with her other friends, especially as Regina lashes in various ways. Eventually they're forced into a corner where the Precure are nearly defeated, if not for the timely intervention of Joe - who is actually Jonathan Klondike, the fiance of Marie-Ange and a knight from the world overtaken by King Selfishness.
With a back and forth of Regina shifting her alliances, the Precure and Jonathan eventually track down what appears to be Marie-Ange suspended in crystal. This leads to a confrontation back in the Trump Kingdom with King Selfishness's forces where Regina is forced to choose between her father and Mana, and eventually Mana wins out. Mana and the others take Regina back to their world and things look like they'll turn out okay - until suddenly Regina is struck with dark power and turns against them again, beating the Precure into the ground.
That is until they're suddenly saved by a new Precure, Cure Ace, utilizing the power of Ai-chan and the Royal Crystals. Cure Ace beats Regina back and before she can defeat her, the girl is called back to King Selfishness and placed in a suspended animation for some time. Mana falls into a depression over her failure, drug out of it by the appearance of a young girl named Aguri Madoka and the imminent danger to her friends. Aguri - as one might guess at this point - is in fact Cure Ace, and proceeds to try and teach the Precure a number of lessons about what they're supposed to be doing as Precure.
Her source for this? Well, it's kind of obscured behind stories of what she is that don't quite seem to line up, but she's still there to help, so it must be fine, right? Either way, Aguri becomes a member of their group in time, and she leads them to an island to find a mirror that represents one of the legendary items of ancient Precure from ages back. There, they battle a dragon for the right to claim it, a dragon that was once one of those ancient Precure's fairies.
Around this same period of time, two more servants of King Selfishness have reared their head. Named Leva and Gula, they've conquered other worlds in the past and prove a substantially more dangerous threat than Bel, Marmo, and Ira had been up to this point. This comes to a head when they unite their powers and nearly outright obliterate the Precure. The ancient mirror split into pieces becomes the Magical Lovely Pad for each Precure, giving them the power to defeat Leva and Gula. And... the girls never see them again, as Bel absorbs his own allies powers into rings to further his own ambitions.
As a result, Bel becomes the "boss" of his trio and forces even greater and darker powers onto Ira and Marmo, significantly raising the Precure's challenges. The girls are also faced at that time with multiple incidents of having to "raise" Ai-chan, and these two things come to a head as Bel attempts to kidnap and brainwash Ai-chan to get to the girls, but in the end Mana's bond with the baby grants them a significant boost in power that is able to defeat (although not destroy) Bel in a powered up form.
[From here, I will insert the events of the Dokidoki movie, which came out around this time.]
Mana is presented with a gift from her mother - the wedding dress Mana's grandmother were married in. Mana is immediately enamored with it ... even if it leads to some freakishly weird nightmares ... and the topic of weddings and one day getting married gets tossed back and forth between the girls. That night, Mana's town is suddenly attacked by a giant ... fish ... ship ... thing in the sky. A new opponent named Marsh appears with his own set of minions, and the girls transform to fight them. They seem to handle themselves pretty well until the enemies prove to be a lot stronger than they look, and Mana, Alice, Rikka, and Makoto are captured and separated from their fairies. While the fairies find help in what appears to be ANOTHER new, never before seen fairy, who will proceed to help get them back to their partners, the girls face something else altogether.
While Makoto is trapped in a reality where the Trump Kingdom never fell, Rikka, Alice, and Mana are put in worlds as little girls where they never met each other. Mana is the only one who immediately realizes something is wrong, not understanding why her family and friends at school don't know who Rikka or Alice are. Even Rikka's house is occupied by someone else, but... at the same time, her grandmother is there, and even her dog Mallow. Slowly, Mana becomes lulled by this false world. While Rikka and Alice are able to break free of their fake worlds, and Makoto does so as well with the aid of Cure Ace, Mana's fake reality comes to a screeching halt when she's faced with her grandmother being rushed to the hospital, and with Mallow's death... It's there that Marsh reveals his intention to have Mana live out these moments in time over and over again, to make her suffer in despair.
It's a despair Mana very nearly falls into, only to have her grandmother in that fake reality give her the encouragement to leave that world behind, and to be reunited with her friends. Galvanized, the Precure battle Marsh, who Mana begins to realize the true identity of ... and then he chomps down on her shoulder, injuring her and spilling her blood when she doesn't defend herself against him.
Turns out Marsh is in fact the spirit of Mana's dog, Mallow, warped by an evil ... magical ... sentient ... clarinet. It's ... a magical girl show, just go with it, okay?
REGARDLESS. The Doki Cures are then warped to the future. There, they are witness to Mana's wedding to some nameless loser, where everyone is there frozen in stone and it's under attack by a giant mechanical octopus. Entering said octopus, the clarinet kills Marsh all over again, and his power is used by Mana to transform into Cure Heart Engage Mode, straight up killing said evil clarinet without the slightest hint of mercy.
Returning to their own time, they're greeted by the fairy who helped their partners, who turns out to seemingly be the spirit of Mana's grandmother, escorting Mallow's Psyche into the sky.
[One weird-ass movie out of the way, we move back to the TV Series.]
Jonathan - who had taken off with the crystalized Marie-Ange - suddenly reappears, claiming they need to go to the center of the Trump Kingdom where another ancient artifact like the mirror is. This is Marie-Ange's spear, and ... this is also not Jonathan, but in fact Bel in disguise in a ploy to get the Precure to pull it from the ground, something they've been incapable of. While the girls are onto Bel pretty much immediately, they still need to recover the weapon, and ... are also unable to do so.
But Regina can! And she shows up again, now completely loyal to King Selfishness by all indications. She takes the spear and suddenly turns into an even more formidable opponent. The girls in the resulting time attempt to get through to Regina through various schemes, mostly failing, though slowly chipping away at her resolve. Eventually, Jonathan ACTUALLY returns, in in tow a third ancient artifact. This one, a crown which gives Aguri a rush of memories from Marie-Ange. She reveals to Makoto and Jonathan that the giant crystal housing Marie-Ange's body is a decoy, housing... well. Nothing. They take off to the Trump Kingdom on their own to confront Regina, leaving Mana, Rikka, and Alice to find a way after them. It's revealed that Aguri, Regina, and Ai-chan are all parts of Marie-Ange's psyche, split apart and winding up in different places after the fall of the kingdom. Within King Selfishness himself is the Trump King, but there's little that can be done to free him before the big bad himself finally awakens.
Regina initially rejects this, joining with King Selfishness and helping to launch an attack on the girls' home city. As they fight King Selfishness, Mana is able to get through to Regina and together they all launch an assault within the body of the giant monster. There, the girls are split apart under various circumstances, with Mana, Aguri, and Regina reaching the Trump King to free him. After King Selfishness's body breaks apart, Bel attempts to claim that power for his own only for it to overwhelm him and form the Proto-Selfishness, the true source of all the dark power they've been fighting. After faltering against him, and the creature attempting to corrupt Mana's heart, the other girls lend Cure Heart their power, creating "Cure Heart Parthenon Mode" which she uses to defeat the Proto-Selfishness. While it's indicated that his is a power that can never be truly destroyed, that he will be back... Mana just cheerfully bids him farewell, noting that there will always be someone to stop him.
The fight won, the girls would then go on to try and live their lives... but doing so normally isn't quite so easy, as Mana sort of blurted out her identity in front of cameras during the final battle. Their identities known, the girls end up in the spotlight rather considerably, including having their help enlisted by the Prime Minister himself. As such, the Dokidoki Precure continue to fight, and while more against disasters and the like than demonic entities from beyond, they're always out there to help and save those in need.
CANON PERSONALITY: Mana Aida wants to help you! And you, and that guy over in the corner, and... well. She's a helpful soul, really, almost always ready with the energy and ability needed to assist anyone she can in her self-appointed task. What makes a girl her age into such a Good Samaritan? Mostly, it's the environment she was raised in, help and encouragement of friends, and realizing that seeing others smile and be happy can make you feel happy as well. Everyone wins! As mentioned in her history, her desire is to be Japan's Prime Minister when she's an adult, showing the scope and bright eyed optimism of where she wants to spread her desires.
To the point of her raising: Mana comes from a loving, but hard working household. The Aidas live in the restaurant they run, so a spirit of service to others is something she's always been exposed to. Her late grandmother was also a clear and obvious influence, a kind and loving woman that Mana looked up to greatly, carrying her attitude forward through her life. A special charm the woman taught Mana when she was young also coincidentally just happened to be what triggered the activation of her first transformation into Cure Heart many years later, so in a way that influence carried her into being a Precure as well.
While to the point of her friends, Mana's boundless spirit even at a young age turned the shy Rikka and sickly, lonely Alice into not just her best of friends, but allowed them to stand up in their own right. While the quiet admiration that both hold towards Mana and her influence on their lives is obvious to the audience, they also provide an influence to Mana. Each member of her team grows into a capable, functional person and fighter by the end of the series in their own right, while Mana? For all of her ability or quick wits, without her friends she might not be utterly helpless, but she is at a loss. She is very good at inspiring people with her tenacity, she is very good at leading people and managing a team, be it of superheroes or with student politics. However, in spite of how it may seem sometimes, Mana would get nowhere without those people to work with and work to help her.
This is most clearly shown around Christmas time, in which the villains separate Mana from the rest of her team in order to try and make them topple without their leader. As it turns out, they're one hundred percent able to hold their own without her, even if they're not as strong an overall team. Mana meanwhile has been captured by one of the stupidest traps possible, helpless to escape until another friend arrives to help her in the form of Jonathan. Yet still, her friends are able to do this in large part because of the team and friendships Mana has cultivated.
Unfortunately, Mana's eternally loving and helpful spirit has plenty of downsides. First and foremost, they're to herself. Rikka's life in particular is made difficult by Mana's nature, in that she has an almost complete inability to say no to anyone asking for her assistance, and she adds assisting anyone she happens to see in distress just by happenstance. School in particular abuses this the most, from the students to clubs to even teachers, relying on Mana to perform. Be it her jumping to fulfill duties that could just as easily be handled by other students, mediating conflicts a student has no business getting in the middle of, or pinch hitting in just about any sports club that can wrangle her. The downsides can be clear; it makes Mana more than a little gullible to anyone with an issue, even if it puts her own well being at risk.
Which it has! Rikka likens her in-show to "The Happy Prince," a story by Oscar Wilde, in which the titular prince is a statue layered with gold and jewels. Said prince instructed a swallow to give himself, his golden skin, his jeweled eyes to the poor until he was stripped of everything. Mana is very akin to that, willing to give her everything for anyone, with only her friends really being able to keep her from caving herself in. Even then, it's happened - be it forcing herself in battle so thoroughly she can't take anymore, or running around being everything to everyone at school leaving her sick and unable to perform her actual duties.
Her over-excitability can also lead to her coming across as insensitive to some people's problems or issues, even if that's not what she means. Sometimes when you're upset or stressed, having someone hyper and bouncy come in and be that way can really rub you the wrong way, and it can be hard at first for Mana to understand she's doing this. When she does she'll try to make amends, but sometimes peppy people can just downright annoy others.
In wanting to be so useful to everyone, and in wanting to assist everyone, however, when she can't it's something she takes to heart. The most striking example of this was how she became after the loss of Regina, succumbing to King Selfishness's power and trying to kill them all before Cure Ace arrived on the scene. For her it's far more than a physical defeat, it crushes her heart and soul to know she failed someone so profoundly, with no true way of knowing whether or not she could be saved. For Mana Aida, you can do whatever you want to her - but if you have hurt someone near and dear to her, that is the most real and effective way to hurt her.
...well. To a degree. It's true, Mana is extremely slow to anger. In fact, one of the few people we see her actually cross with is a girl named Reina, who for some considerable time makes a lot of effort to try and make Alice's life miserable. There is one being, really, that she shows no forgiveness to. With the Proto-Selfishness, she accepted it as a part of humanity and something they all struggle with. Reina eventually becomes Alice's friend, Regina finds her way back to them. But that damned clarinet manipulated her dog's spirit, made her suffer the worst moments of her life over and over again, and then killed that dog a second time. It took her only a minute later to wiped that thing from existence, showing that even with Mana, there is a "too far" that she can be pushed.
In relation to her being easily swayed by those asking for her help, it could be argued that Mana employs a certain degree of obliviousness towards certain matters. She definitely never picked up on Rikka's feelings of jealousy towards Makoto when the girl first joined their team and started spending lots of time with Mana. She never really considers that someone could initially at all be wanting to hurt her, if they seem friendly enough. That goes a bit back to her lack of self-preservation and the need to constantly have Rikka as her keeper, as she thought nothing of Jonathan's forward nature at first while Rikka treated him like he was a creepy old man.
And yet, she can be surprisingly perceptive. After all, she's the student council president - she has to be a little bit more than just charismatic, even if she's got that down pretty well too. She studies loads to make sure that she has an answer for common questions she might get in her position, and she's never shown to be anything less than a good student, even if Rikka helps a lot in that area. But while she's extremely trusting, and while Cure Diamond tends to take tactical command in fights, she has on numerous occasions shown she's paying a lot more attention and is more savvy than her opponents - and sometimes friends - might think.
Most of the time though, this is her getting one over on Bel. When Bel had them trapped in the Trump Kingdom with no way out, she quickly surmised the answer was obvious - beat him up and make him send them back. It was enough to galvanize her team, and to throw Bel off guard by calling his bluff. (Alternately, one could look at this as an example of her being absolutely insane.) When Bel is disguised as Jonathan, while no member of the team is for a moment thrown off by his disguise, she's right there with the rest of them, choosing the perfect moment - that was only ruined by Regina's resurgence - to call him out on his shenanigans.
She's a lot more self aware of some of her faults - except maybe her blood curdling singing voice - than it may seem. She lacks a high opinion of herself, only that she wants to be the best she can be. While the last battle of the series may have her fighting Proto-Jikochuu on her own, it's only with her friends' power and trust that she can. She's aware of her own selfish traits, be it the happiness she gets from making others happy, or that her pushiness and overbearing nature can very easily rub people the wrong way. The fact of the matter is, that actually makes her extremely selfish. She cares so much, and yet has pushed past when bullies would once pick on little Mana for being a busybody, to a point she doesn't care about that at all. She's going to be what she's going to be, consequences be damned.
SKILLS/ABILITIES: At a base human level, Mana is a very athletic girl, and fairly strong for someone her age. She has terrific stamina, and is pretty good at most general middle school level sports. She can be a sharp thinker in stressful situations, and studies a lot more than you'd expect to be on top of knowledge that might be expected of her.
She's accompanied by a fairy partner in the form of a little flying rabbit named Charle. Charle, in her base form... can't do very much. But she can transform into a cellphone known as the Lovely Commune, and take various Cure Loveads to transform and empower Mana in various ways.
Primarily, with a call of "Precure, Love Link!" Mana transforms into the legendary warrior, Cure Heart. As Cure Heart all of Mana's already impressive physical skills are amplified by a rather large margin. Able to leap hundreds of feet in the air, wielding superhuman strength, speed, and durability, as a Precure Mana can be quite formidable. Additionally, there tends to be an innate battle instinct that comes with the transformation, allowing her to go toe-to-toe with monsters and demonic entities that have been fighting for centuries before she herself has ever learned to really throw a punch. She also eventually, under great duress, gains the ability to summon a pink, glowing battle aura that greatly increases her already boosted physical attributes and power.
While she is more durable, she is not invulnerable. She can take a lot of punishment before her transformation gives out, but Marsh - already a large, monster dog of untold malicious and mystical power - was able to bite right down through her skin to draw blood.
Beyond the basics, she receives various Loveads over the course of the series that activate a number of powers. To start with, one activates her initial primary attack, "My Sweet Heart," a beam of healing power fired from her heart brooch which can purify monsters and their effects. Later, she receives a weapon in the form of the Love Heart Arrow, where a Loveads will activate "Heart Shoot," which is really just a more powerful version of her prior attack, this time fired off in the form of an energy arrow. This attack is also shown to be able to cure teammates status effects from monsters, clearly displaying that it only has truly harmful effects against evil creatures. Finally, she receives the Magical Lovely Pad, which is ... well. A tablet. It also has a Loveads associated with it and Mana's powers, giving her a final attack: "Heart Dynamite." This attack can purify evil creatures just as her other powers can, but seems to be the only one that has with it any notable concussive force, as she can summon multiple energy hearts around her that then explode. A very small amount of DPS to her White Mage status in the RPG party that is Dokidoki Precure, I guess you could say.
There are multiple team attacks that the Dokidoki Precure employ, and would only be functional with the corresponding team members to pull them off.
Mana herself has two powered up forms.
While physically powerful, as I said above, Cure Heart acts largely as the team's "White Mage," cleansing evil and assisting her team. She might be able to break something with her own two hands, but most of her special attacks focus in on purification rather than harm, and very few of them will harm someone who isn't an evil rampaging monster. She can stand on her own in a pinch, but that's why she's part of a team!
Meanwhile her fairy partner, Charle, in addition to being a floating little bunny or transformation device most of the time, does have the ability to transform into a human-looking form. In that form, she appears to be a young teenager much like Mana herself. While she's more liable to get herself in trouble this way, she has used it to help Mana with chores from time to time, but not much else.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Maya Aimoto
AU AGE: 17
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: A couple years older than Mana at series end and closer to adulthood, Maya obviously reflects that in height and proportions. She's still fairly athletic, and that shows, as she is pretty fit and well toned. Rather than the bright pink hair of Mana, Maya's is auburn, with her eyes brown to match.
Visual reference for that!
Cure Heart wouldn't be much different, her outfit simply growing to fit a young woman her age.
AU NAME: Maya Aimoto
AU AGE: 17
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: A couple years older than Mana at series end and closer to adulthood, Maya obviously reflects that in height and proportions. She's still fairly athletic, and that shows, as she is pretty fit and well toned. Rather than the bright pink hair of Mana, Maya's is auburn, with her eyes brown to match.
Visual reference for that!
Cure Heart wouldn't be much different, her outfit simply growing to fit a young woman her age.
AU HISTORY: Like Mana in some ways, Maya's family has always been very hard working, something that has filtered down to influence the girl. The difference is in what ways, and how that turned out. Born in Recolle to a Japanese-American family, Maya's parents' were dedicated career people from as early as she could remember, her mother a defense attorney and her father a long standing member of a high profile accounting firm. On the bright side, this meant that Maya was always well provided for - she's never had to want for anything material. She's always had the best food, the best clothes any girl could want.
Also the best daycares, nannies, and so forth, because. Well. Her parents were very busy, important people in their fields, which demanded long work hours and time spent even when she was small. She understood that, or at least gave the impression she did, and it's not like she was ignored - Mommy and Daddy were often just very busy. And they did instill a great many values in the girl - a strong sense of right and wrong, and the value of hard work and what you can gain from it in life. They also tried, even at a young age, drive the girl towards potential career paths down the road. Help her figure out what she could be, and perhaps attempt to influence that to a degree.
For awhile, this seemed to be the way of things. That Maya would follow in her parents footsteps and become a great professional just like her parents. However, as she emerged into her teenage years, a small bit of rebellion began to take root. Not excessive or overly pushing back against them, but the more she saw of the world around her, the more she realized that life was not what she wanted. She became a louder presence at school, she started trying to do things for herself rather than for what her parents wanted her to be. She could still be a "good girl" and be herself, she figured.
However upon reaching high school, what this has resulted in is a girl who is pretty good at a lot of different things, but not REALLY good at one thing in particular. In spite of her wish to be her own person, she hasn't really found what that is - one week she's trying out for a sports team, the next she's considering choir and immediately being shown the door because she can't carry a tune. She wants to try everything to find her place but ends up going nowhere, and this has resulted in some amount of friction with her parents as she isn't really applying herself to anything. Or anyone, really - the girl's focus has been so scattered these last few years, connections become fleeting, and in many ways a shallow mirror of the popular, focused, and powerful life of a girl she'll soon be remembering.
AU PERSONALITY: Maya hits a lot of the same chords as Mana does, but a lot of them are just slightly off. A lot of what makes Mana, well, Mana is the love and support of her friends, something she herself proclaims. This also extends to her family. Maya has never formed connections with people on the level that Mana did with Alice and Rikka - rather, none of the connections she makes are things she can hold on to. Because she can't really stay in one direction ever at any point. Sure, she might be vibrant and eager to lend a hand with whatever at any given moment, but her attention will not stay with that thing or person often for very long.
While Mana's deeds were mostly selfless, taking joy simply at another's smile, Maya - not having very many in the way of true friends - ends up acting to feed her own search for ambition, and yet often comes up feeling somewhat hollow. She can very often exert a lot of energy and passion into a project, only to find herself feeling very little about it in the process. In truth, she's doing these things for herself, largely because there's no one else to do them for. She knows she doesn't want to be stuffed into a business suit and work a 9-5 job, but while she yearns for more, she can't quite ... figure out what it is she's yearning for precisely.
It can end up making her seem more selfish than she intends, even if it is kind of just that. She's perfectly happy - ecstatic, if she gets attention or appreciation - to help anyone wherever, but she doesn't seek it in the same ways as Mana.
A lot of reason why all of these things occur are the lack of things that Mana has - people she can support and that can support her, as Rikka and Alice always did. Without Rikka in particular, Mana would be off in six different directions at all times - Maya does not have that. She has no one to help guide her, no one to help funnel her energy, no one to help build up and make a truly personal connection with. Both Maya and Mana's parents are always busy with work, but Mana's were always there - she lived where they worked, she participated and helped and learned. While Maya's parents love her, and express that love to her, they're always just a little bit out of reach. A little bit too far away. She doesn't hold resentment for her parents, but it does leave her with a sense of longing. So while her responding, and seeking at times, praise for her actions might seem egotistical, more than anything she's just desperate for any sort of attention, something to fill in what she's missing.
On the outside though she can often come across a lot like Mana - excitable and bouncy, with energy through the roof. Some of this is just her, but some of it is her trying to be something that she thinks will attract people to her. Born of her own loneliness and lack of lasting relationships, Maya is a fair bit more cynical in her thought process than Mana. More mentally blunt, more likely to judge someone for superficial reasons. Which even she recognizes is a bad habit, and she's trying to break herself of it! But sometimes you just can't help it.
In spite of her tendency to make snap judgments and go wandering down some other path entirely, she's not necessarily shallow either. Lacking Mana's influences, feeling like she's being railroaded down one path in her life, she's struggled to express her wants and desires to a point that it makes her look more scatterbrained than she actually is. Where Mana absorbed knowledge and skills with a focused goal in mind, Maya has done this at a rapid pace but in far more random, inconsistent ways, but still obtaining it - she just has nowhere to apply it to.
In the end, Maya is... someone who is trying to build herself up but has no idea where to start. She wants to be a great, successful person! But while she's sure she knows what she doesn't want, or so she says, she's not sure what she does want. She shows confidence, but without Mana's backing or successes, doesn't really have it. She wants to give the appearance of someone who can be relied upon, but is in reality rather aimless in her direction. Mana took life by the horns - Maya's just trying to find them in the first place.
Also the best daycares, nannies, and so forth, because. Well. Her parents were very busy, important people in their fields, which demanded long work hours and time spent even when she was small. She understood that, or at least gave the impression she did, and it's not like she was ignored - Mommy and Daddy were often just very busy. And they did instill a great many values in the girl - a strong sense of right and wrong, and the value of hard work and what you can gain from it in life. They also tried, even at a young age, drive the girl towards potential career paths down the road. Help her figure out what she could be, and perhaps attempt to influence that to a degree.
For awhile, this seemed to be the way of things. That Maya would follow in her parents footsteps and become a great professional just like her parents. However, as she emerged into her teenage years, a small bit of rebellion began to take root. Not excessive or overly pushing back against them, but the more she saw of the world around her, the more she realized that life was not what she wanted. She became a louder presence at school, she started trying to do things for herself rather than for what her parents wanted her to be. She could still be a "good girl" and be herself, she figured.
However upon reaching high school, what this has resulted in is a girl who is pretty good at a lot of different things, but not REALLY good at one thing in particular. In spite of her wish to be her own person, she hasn't really found what that is - one week she's trying out for a sports team, the next she's considering choir and immediately being shown the door because she can't carry a tune. She wants to try everything to find her place but ends up going nowhere, and this has resulted in some amount of friction with her parents as she isn't really applying herself to anything. Or anyone, really - the girl's focus has been so scattered these last few years, connections become fleeting, and in many ways a shallow mirror of the popular, focused, and powerful life of a girl she'll soon be remembering.
AU PERSONALITY: Maya hits a lot of the same chords as Mana does, but a lot of them are just slightly off. A lot of what makes Mana, well, Mana is the love and support of her friends, something she herself proclaims. This also extends to her family. Maya has never formed connections with people on the level that Mana did with Alice and Rikka - rather, none of the connections she makes are things she can hold on to. Because she can't really stay in one direction ever at any point. Sure, she might be vibrant and eager to lend a hand with whatever at any given moment, but her attention will not stay with that thing or person often for very long.
While Mana's deeds were mostly selfless, taking joy simply at another's smile, Maya - not having very many in the way of true friends - ends up acting to feed her own search for ambition, and yet often comes up feeling somewhat hollow. She can very often exert a lot of energy and passion into a project, only to find herself feeling very little about it in the process. In truth, she's doing these things for herself, largely because there's no one else to do them for. She knows she doesn't want to be stuffed into a business suit and work a 9-5 job, but while she yearns for more, she can't quite ... figure out what it is she's yearning for precisely.
It can end up making her seem more selfish than she intends, even if it is kind of just that. She's perfectly happy - ecstatic, if she gets attention or appreciation - to help anyone wherever, but she doesn't seek it in the same ways as Mana.
A lot of reason why all of these things occur are the lack of things that Mana has - people she can support and that can support her, as Rikka and Alice always did. Without Rikka in particular, Mana would be off in six different directions at all times - Maya does not have that. She has no one to help guide her, no one to help funnel her energy, no one to help build up and make a truly personal connection with. Both Maya and Mana's parents are always busy with work, but Mana's were always there - she lived where they worked, she participated and helped and learned. While Maya's parents love her, and express that love to her, they're always just a little bit out of reach. A little bit too far away. She doesn't hold resentment for her parents, but it does leave her with a sense of longing. So while her responding, and seeking at times, praise for her actions might seem egotistical, more than anything she's just desperate for any sort of attention, something to fill in what she's missing.
On the outside though she can often come across a lot like Mana - excitable and bouncy, with energy through the roof. Some of this is just her, but some of it is her trying to be something that she thinks will attract people to her. Born of her own loneliness and lack of lasting relationships, Maya is a fair bit more cynical in her thought process than Mana. More mentally blunt, more likely to judge someone for superficial reasons. Which even she recognizes is a bad habit, and she's trying to break herself of it! But sometimes you just can't help it.
In spite of her tendency to make snap judgments and go wandering down some other path entirely, she's not necessarily shallow either. Lacking Mana's influences, feeling like she's being railroaded down one path in her life, she's struggled to express her wants and desires to a point that it makes her look more scatterbrained than she actually is. Where Mana absorbed knowledge and skills with a focused goal in mind, Maya has done this at a rapid pace but in far more random, inconsistent ways, but still obtaining it - she just has nowhere to apply it to.
In the end, Maya is... someone who is trying to build herself up but has no idea where to start. She wants to be a great, successful person! But while she's sure she knows what she doesn't want, or so she says, she's not sure what she does want. She shows confidence, but without Mana's backing or successes, doesn't really have it. She wants to give the appearance of someone who can be relied upon, but is in reality rather aimless in her direction. Mana took life by the horns - Maya's just trying to find them in the first place.