App > Caligo > Rise Kujikawa

[starswing]

>PLAYER

NAME/HANDLE: Kia
PERSONAL JOURNAL: starswing
ARE YOU OVER 16? Yes!
CONTACT: offered wing @ AIM, starswept
OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A

>CHARACTER

CHARACTER NAME: Rise Kujikawa
AGE: 16

PERSONALITY: Rise in a nutshell is... impossible to confine to a single category, and that she can admit as much is testament to how much she's grown over a year. Reaching back to the shy, subdued girl she used to be, there are times when Rise falls back into familiarity; when she first meets the Investigation Team, they're surprised to find that the peppy-seeming idol is, in truth, a quiet and tired girl. Her grandmother also mentions that Rise tends to wander off on her own from time to time; she's not always the little socialite when she needs time to get her thoughts together.

But there's that side of Rise that she strove to become in order to change herself completely. The bright, energetic idol who can rouse a crowd within seconds, who takes every step with confidence, and who flirts with her audience with a wink and a cute wave. She has no problem with the team knowing her measurements and even helpfully adds that her agency made her add an extra two cm to her bust size, and right from the start, she's so flirty and forward with Souji that Chie marks her as dangerous. This is a girl who knows what she has and knows how to use it.

But wait! We can't forget Homicide Detective Rise! The one who supports her team via scanning and analysis, who guides them safely through the dungeons, who can and will force herself almost beyond her limits in order to help where she can, and who knows when to take things seriously and fight for the truth.

So where is the real Rise in all of this?

I've been trying to become how I wanted to be. I pick a role... When I'm through with it, I continue chasing the "real me" by picking another role... when in fact those roles are all "me".

Simply put, as stated earlier, Rise is a mixture of all the above. You see her enthusiasm and bright attitude with her friends, where she's comfortably flustering Yosuke and going along wholeheartedly with participating in a beauty pageant while the other girls are still stuck on being dismayed. You see her quiet side during her heart-to-hearts with Souji, where she confesses that she's rarely ever 'alone', due to her idol status, but when she is alone, she truly is alone. You see her serious, determined side when she staggers to her feet after receiving her Persona and is the only member of the Investigation Team who joins the fight right after her own personal fight is concluded (despite how weak and exhausted she is). All of the sides she originally only displayed one at a time have come together to form a complete person-- and it's something Rise still struggles with, being scared to show her fans - the world - every single side of her, rather than the ditzy airhead they'd come to expect, but she's since gained the courage and resolve to let herself be seen for who she is.

Originally, as she confides in their leader, she didn't even want to be an idol, but due to a set of circumstances, she found herself being offered the opportunity most girls would kill for. And she accepted, for one reason only: because the shy girl who couldn't even look up from her shoes, the one who was bullied... wanted friends, and the last option was to appear on TV. Which worked, for a time, except that what she got was people wanting to befriend her on the basis of her glamorous idol self and her celebrity status. Additionally, while she decided to change herself for the better, she was soon made to portray herself as some kind of vague, fake perky object of desire. And having to smile her way through everything, even when she disliked it, was enough to fuel her Shadow. In 2011, Rise Kujikawa was running away from a self she didn't believe was real. She wanted to show the world who she was, in all her entirety, and she wanted to be accepted for it. It's part of the reason why she values friendship so highly, because the Investigation Team were the first people to see so many different (some ugly) sides of her and to accept her completely. And those bonds are why she devotes herself to helping them and how, even though she teases and occasionally hurts feelings, she is absolutely loyal to her teammates and is the first one to break down in tears when Teddie returns to them.

Rise as a teenage girl is like a lot of teenage girls, in that she likes to flirt (often without meaning anything by it, since when she does get serious, returned flirting will fluster her) and tease (especially Kanji), she's nosy (checking her teammates' measurements, asking her upperclassmen who they're making chocolate for), she enjoys shopping, and she dislikes studying. In her opinion, if it isn't something you can use later, there's no point in ever learning it enough to commit it to memory. Her excuse when it comes to English is that she can just ask for a translator, and yet if you bring up tofu, Rise can rattle off big scientific words about the coagulants in tofu and come off as perfectly knowledgeable about it. If it's stuff like math, though, expect her to drag her feet and groan about how she's no good at puzzles.

And oh can she pout. Except to call it pouting would be like calling the Titanic a rubber ducky. It doesn't matter whether she's in the wrong or the right (and it's mostly the nearly-killed-someone-with-her-spicy-cooking wrong), when Rise wants to make you feel bad, she turns on the waterworks. She's quick to tear up, though they usually tend to be the loud, dramatic tears, and the more quiet, frustrated tears come during such occasions when she loses someone important to her.

This is, of course, only one way Rise deals with unhappiness. Sometimes she'll snap back, like when Naoto accuses them of treating the murders like a game and Rise promptly retorts that the detective doesn't know a thing about them and is, in actuality, the one treating this like a game. It's a turn-the-table sort of reaction, and she also does this with Kanji when he tells her not to call her by his name and, after a remark about his rudeness, she very smoothly transitions to how he developed a nosebleed upon seeing their senpai in bathing suits. It's worth noting that Rise is very, very adept at turning the situation in her favor. It comes in handy at times, like when she uses her idol status and marketing expertise to help Kanji sell plushies as well as sell more electronics at Junes, and she even manages to convince Naoto to don a skirt, but it can also lead to some suffering for her friends. Once Rise puts her mind to something, she does not back down and charges full speed ahead. This includes matchmaking attempts, much to Kanji's chagrin.

So does this energetic little idol have any weak spots? Plenty of 'em. I've already said Rise can be a force to be reckoned with once she decides on what to do, but the path to reaching that final conclusion isn't always easy. Despite quitting her career as an idol, she comes to question this decision, displaying jealousy towards her successor, and through a lot of indecision, soul-searching and Protagonist Power, she realizes that she actually really loves her job and that being Risette did make a difference to someone-- most notably, a girl who wrote her letters after Rise did a campaign to stamp out bullying. In short, Rise tends to second-guess herself at times, and can get discouraged when she can't be of use to the people around her-- like she can't validate herself as a person if she can't do what she's needed for. She breaks down in frustration when the fog in the TV World makes her collapse while trying to hunt down the culprit, and she very nearly loses heart when Nanako is hospitalized, blaming herself for not getting her out of that world sooner.

She also doesn't always resort to subtlety. While Rise in general is a very perceptive girl who can read people and the atmosphere like a book and respond accordingly, she still does mess up when she speaks her mind. Hence why she (with all good intentions) tells Chie she has the tenacity of a weed and originally calls Kanji's plushie-sewing habit 'creepy'.

Other things include somehow becoming drunk off of non-alcoholic beverages, not actually being able to defend herself in a fight (as she's support), being unable to make a decent meal without spicing it up to magma proportions, and being more street-smart than book-smart. She may not be able to solve math problems, but her experiences in the realm of showbiz gave her some extra insight into the case-- particularly with Morooka's death, when she pointed out that the killer probably wasn't targeting people because of a grudge-- people tended to hate those they didn't even know at times, after all, so seeking out that sort of motive was pointless. She's also prepared when the team shows up to warn her about being the next kidnapping victim, informing them that she'd already watched the Midnight Channel and immediately noticed the difference between herself and her Shadow, enough to insist that the figure hadn't been her. Street smarts? A+. Book smarts?

"Duh, I knew it couldn't have been vinegar!"

... Not so much.

Her good points are her strength as support (she constantly cheers on her team during their battles, as well as provides information on the enemy), her determination to keep going even when she's scared or injured, her adaptability, her observation, her acting skills, and all those things necessary for being an idol, a detective, and a good friend. She's a cheerful girl who can be as subtle or as straightforward as she feels like being, but she's no ditz and when it comes down to it, there's hardly anyone who's as loyal as Rise once she comes to like you.

To sum it up in the wise words of her grandmother, a woman Rise greatly admires, she's like tofu. "Tofu looks weak and fragile, but it's actually pretty resilient. Even though it stands out because it's not like any other food, it can be mixed in with any recipe or flavor." She may look like a tiny, frail thing, but much like tofu, her resilience keeps her coming back from nearly every situation with either a smile or a determined expression. And when it comes to aforementioned situation, Rise's right there adapting almost immediately.

WHERE THEY ARE NOW? Having made a promise to Souji, Rise's honored it and returned to showbiz. It hasn't been easy, given that Kanami seems to be the next new sensation, but with the support of her manager and her fans, she's certainly started to make a comeback as the new and improved Rise. In short, she's gotten much more vocal with her agency about the 'self' she presents to her audience and as such, has been performing as someone much less ditzy and airheaded as 'Risette' originally came off as. Additionally, she insisted on continuing her work while remaining in Inaba, in order to continue to look after her grandmother and to spend another year with her friends. She's now a second-year at Yasogami, and when she isn't busy working on commercials or struggling to write lyrics for her music, she's helping out with the family business, Marukyu Tofu. She tends to make more trips to the city these days for her work, but rest assured, Rise's there when you need her.

>SAMPLES

FIRST PERSON ACTION, JOURNAL, OR PHONE SAMPLE:
[Phone Call;]

Ooh, you sound sleepy! Were you napping? Sorry! [ and from the cheery tone, she doesn't sound apologetic at all. ] ... Eh? A reason? Aww, Senpai, do I need a reason to call you? What if I just like hearing your voi-- aha! That was a yawn, wasn't it? Hold tight, Senpai, I'll let you curl back up in juuust a sec!

But actually, here's a status update! We're still getting loads of new people and-- well, none of them are as cool as you, but it's strange. The more I meet them, it's not like they're from out of town, but some of them act like they're out of this world. And they don't remember how they got on the train, either. The plot thickens!

[ this includes a dramatic voice, ruined when she sighs and adopts a more serious tone. ]

... We won't let anything happen again, I know it. But until then-- I'll keep playing tour guide! It's great for Marukyu Tofu! And--

... Okay, okay, I'll let you go. Sweet dreams, Senpai. Bye-bye!

[ click. ]

THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:

The pencil should have been scrawling methodically across the paper, putting her thoughts down so she could properly arrange them into song. What the pencil was actually doing was resting between her lips while Rise cradled her chin in her palms and wondered for the umpteenth time if she should have come up with the melody first.

Not that a catchy melody would make it any easier to translate "I became an idol to make friends and that backfired so I quit but then I got thrown into a TV and had to face myself and at some point I guess we saved humanity I really love my friends by the way" into a coherent, sane song. It was all about metaphors, she knew - and she only knew because Naoto had been hellbent on stressing the difference between metaphors and smiles or similyms or whatever that other thing was - and clearing the fog away sounded poetic, didn't it?

Even if that had pretty much happened.

The pencil dropped from her lips as she unconsciously parted them in a nostalgic sigh. She still checked for the Midnight Channel every time it rained, staring at the black screen and only able to crawl back into bed with the cat when nothing showed. Of course nothing would show. It was over, all of it. The threat had been taken care of, eventually the nightmares where her friends were dragged down before her eyes would end... and of course, their leader was gone, back to the city. That part was the one that ached the most, even if she'd thrown herself into work and hung out even more with those remaining in Inaba in an attempt to deal with it.

... Kanji always complained when she dragged him shopping, though, as worth it as it was to cheerily ask him if he wanted to help pick out a cute skirt for Naoto. His reactions never failed to amuse.

Aaaand she was getting distracted, causing her to jerk up straighter and grab the pencil. She'd made a promise to Souji-- to herself, that no matter what, the Rise who became popular as an idol was going to be the same Rise who'd fought to protect Inaba with her friends. As scary as it was, there was no turning back now. Her own feelings, in her own words...

Rise steadied herself with a quick breath and just let the words come (with lots and lots of scratched-out segments and several rounds of revision in the future).

May nothing but sincere words echo far across the world...