{ animus app ☆ post-rei Rika }
Player Information
Name: Berri
Personal LJ: sugarvoice
Age: 21
Contact Info: AIM & Plurk : Taiyakinoaku
Other Characters Played: n/a
Character Information
Character Name: Rika Furude
Character Series: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni
Character Age: 12
Character Gender: Female
Original Canon
Canon Point: Post Saikoroshi-hen ; she's been in her ideal world for a while now
Background Link: Rika Furude @ WTC Wiki
All Arcs / Chapters
Furude Rika lives in the quiet mountain village of Hinamizawa in Japan. The only 'modern' town nearby is about an hour's bike ride away and the local school is so small that all of the grades are smushed together into one building. Hinamizawa is noted for being a beautiful little village as well, but only a handful of tourists/outsiders ever visit.
Rika is the only daughter of the Furude family. There is a tradition/legend passed down the family that if their first born child is a girl for seven generations in a row, then she is the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, who is the village's protective deity. Furude Rika just so happens to be that special little girl. The Furude family commands a lot of respect as it is, being one of the "Three Ruling Families" that dominate the village politics (the other two are Kimiyoshi and Sonozaki) and also being the family that maintains Oyashiro-sama's shrine. However, as Oyashiro-sama's reincarnation, Furude Rika gets extra special treatment. The villagers all naturally spoil her and consider it "a blessing" when they happen across her. Many villagers call her "Rika-chama" to show their respect.
Oyashiro-sama, by the way, is a Deity guarding the village. “He”, in the past, protected them and helped them with an issue of “Demons” that co-existed in the village. Thanks to Oyashiro-sama, the villagers and the Demons (from the local Swamp) could live together peacefully. In honor of Oyashiro-sama, on the third Sunday of June, a festival called the “Watanagashi Festival” is held in “his” honor. The Furude House is deeply linked to Oyashiro-sama and his ability to protect people from the demon blood they have, due to the humans and demons co-existing. Though, a lot of that is a lie.
The Furude Family is approached by the Irie Clinic when Rika is maybe 7 or 8-- young, before hell breaks loose. Doctor Irie and Nurse Takano reveal to them that they are in Hinamizawa researching a disease called the “Hinamizawa Syndrome”. More Hinamizawa Syndrome information is here. But Rika’s family agrees to allow her participation in the research; her blood is the key to preventing the disease, so she needs to go to the clinic and donate blood for the research. Though, her mother is a bit reluctant, as she knows the constant blood donations will take their toll on her young daughter’s body.
However, all information about the research is kept secret among the family and research project members.
When she was around 5 or 7--- once again, age not specified, but later Akasaka returns to Hinamizawa with his 5-7 year old daughter and comments that she (Miyuki) is the same age as Rika was then, giving as an age frame-- Hinamizawa Village is in quite the pinch. The government wants to put Hinamizawa under water and turn the village into a dam. Though the government had offered to pay the villagers and help them move into the city, they stage an elaborate protest with Oyashiro-sama’s shrine (also called the Furude Shrine) as the base. The entire village bands together to try to convince the government not to sink their village.
Around this same time, Akasaka Mamoru also arrives in Hinamizawa. He’s a detective from Tokyo, investigating a kidnapping that may be linked to the Hinamizawa Dam project protests, but pretending to be a tourist. He meets Furude Rika at this time and she reveals for one of the first times in the series her “Frederica Bernkastel” side. Rika warns Akasaka that he needs to return to Tokyo or something awful will happen, and assures him that the Hinamizawa Dam Project will end without the village being sunk. She also predicts a chain of murders that will span for the night five years, ending in her own death.
Shortly afterwards, her predictions come true. Akasaka learns that his wife, Yukie, fell down the stairs. Though her unborn child is safely delievered, Yukie herself passes away. On that same night, June 19th, the manager of the dam construction project is murdered and dismembered. One of the killers disappears. Also like Rika predicted, the dam project is halted as a result of this tragedy.
The next year, a man and woman related to the dam project fall off a cliff while on vacation. They are the parents of Rika’s friend-to-be Houjou Satoko. Satoko’s mother’s body is never recovered. Satoko and her elder brother, Satoshi, move in with their aunt and uncle.
The next year, Rika’s own parents die. Her father is struck by a mysterious illness and her mother drowns herself in a “bottomless swamp”. Her mother’s body is never recovered. Mr Kimiyoshi becomes Rika’s legal guardian, but Rika lives alone in the Furude Shrine’s store house rather than her original house. Rika also takes on the role of Oyashiro-sama’s personal miko. The villagers support Rika’s living situation, but she is not alone for long.
The next year, Satoko’s Aunt is violently beaten to death and her brother Satoshi disappears/is “spirited away”. Rika invites Satoko to live with her when her uncle flees Hinamizawa and leaves her alone. For the next year, Rika and Satoko grow very close.
Finally, the fifth year of the curse rolls around. Just as Rika predicted. Tomitake, a photographer who visits yearly, At this point, the story branches off into different “worlds”. In some “worlds”, Keiichi goes crazy and kills Rena and Mion (Onikakushi-hen). In some “worlds”, Mion’s twin sister Shion goes crazy and kills everyone (Watanagashi-hen/Meakeshi-hen). In some “worlds”, Satoko’s abusive uncle returns and Keiichi wishes everyone in the village to die (Tatarigoroshi-hen). In some “worlds”, Rena goes crazy and locks her schoolmates in the local school and burns it to the ground (Tsumihoroboshi-hen/Yoigoshi-hen). And in some “worlds”, Satoko realizes something is wrong with Rika and tries to help her, but the entire village ends up annihanilated in a volcanic gas disaster (Yakusamashi-hen).
And in all of these “worlds”, Furude Rika dies. Is murdered, actually. Kidnapped, stripped of her clothes, put into light unconsciousness, and disemboweled on the steps of the Furude Shrine. No matter what, Furude Rika will always die.
But it isn’t over when she dies. When Furude Rika dies, her invisible friend Furude Hanyuu steps in. Hanyuu is the real “Oyashiro-sama”, a horned young woman who died in the past and continues to haunt Hinamizawa. She can only be seen by Rika, who is “Oyashiro-sama’s Reincarnation”. Hanyuu collects Rika’s memories and goes to find another world. She picks a point in this world before Rika dies and gives the Rika of that world all of her previous memories so that she can try to prevent her death.
And this had been going on. For a very, very long time.
But then came Minagoroshi-hen. Rika had just left the world of Tsumihoroboshi-hen, where she witnessed a miracle; Keiichi remembered past worlds and used his memories to save Rena. Of course, Rika's murder was not prevented... but she found new determination in Minagoroshi-hen. Though the new Keiichi did not remember, he was able to prove to her how to fight fate with your own two hands. The bad end of Watanagashi-hen was prevented and Rena's mental breakdowns from Tsumihoroboshi-hen were prevented and Keiichi remained strong and sane, preventing Onikakushi-hen. The friends even band together to save Satoko from the child abuse she suffered in Tatarigoroshi-hen. And as Rika's deathdate comes around, she turns to her friends and the police for help and they nearly prevent her death at the hands of Takano...
except Keiichi got shot and ruined everything.
But Rika pulls herself together for the final world leap to Matsuribayashi-hen. In this chapter, she gets help from her friends and the police and they save Hinamizawa and herself once and for all. Rika lives passed that endless June of 1983 and enjoys the rest of her summer with her friends.
Only to be mowed down by a truck while biking back from the pool.
It seems that she is thrown into yet another world by Hanyuu because she died, but in actuality she is sent there to learn a lesson. Hanyuu is trying to teach Rika that she cannot continue to think of herself as a "witch" and to humble here. At the end of these events (the Rei arc), Rika wakes up in the hospital after her car accident and decides that this life will be her last. If she dies again then she is dead for good, but until then, she is going to protect her new life with her friends and make the absolute best out of it.
Personality: Rika Furude is a complicated little girl, tainted by memories of all of her past lives. In her canon, Rika meets her end in one "world" and then has her memories put into the Rika of another world, on an endless quest to find a world where she will not be murdered. As she deals with what having memories of another life do to her, Rika begins to call the pre-memories Rika "Furude Rika" and refers to herself as "Furuderika Bernkastel". So, her personality is best split into two parts:
Without her Memories / "Furude Rika"
The human girl Furude Rika is untainted by her own death. However, she does has to deal with and adjust to the deaths of those around her.
Firstly, Rika is well respected and has the potential to be spoiled. She was born as the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama and holds respect among all of the villagers. Rika is not pressured to use much formality on the names of her elders and compeltely drops honorifics (Akasaka notices this as strange). She is polite enough to call adults by their first names but is on a first name basis with those in her age range. In Rei it is suggested that the Furude Rika of that world is something of a bratty princess as a result. She is noted by almost every character for being "moe" and some classmates have crushes on her, which Rika shamelessly takes advantage of.
Being a manipulative trickster is part of all Furude Rikas. It's largely influenced by the "Games Club" that she attends in canon, but also simply because she knows how to get her way with her cute charms. This doesn't mean the use of puppydog eyes, though; Rika is just as capable of guiding a conversation to flow in her favor. While Rika does have some natural charm, she does make an effort to maximize her adorableness. She sprinkles cutesy sounds throughout her speech, for example. She calls a cat a "nya nya neko-san" and describes it's actions in one scene as "pitter patter fall down!". Rika is known for her catchphrase, "Nipa~h", which is essentially the sound effect for smiling.
Rika also ends all sentences with "nano desu", which is a combination of the cute "nano" sound and a polite "desu". It sums Rika up nicely, since she is both cutesy and aware of her manners.
Her verbal ticks don't end with being cute. Rika is a poet and uses metaphors, though they may be cute, to get her point across. Though Rika can seem like a cutesy and playful little kid, when she breaks out the moe metaphors and slightly bigger vocabulary you should know to listen.
This is because Rika may be eleven, but she's faced a lot of hardship in her life. Her parents die while she's still young which leaves Rika to inherit the position of "head of Furude House". She has a legal guardian in Kimiyoshi but continues to live on her own; making her own meals, doing her own housework, doing all of her own shopping, etc. She is a very observant girl and, though she is active and playful, is usually playing a supportive role. Though she's young, Rika is wise beyond her years and is a very nurturing young lady. When her classmates seem troubled she will quietly come to their aid and offer advice, while trying not to be too pushy.
With her Memories / Furuderika Bernkastel
All of that was for an untainted Rika. However, as she begins regaining memories this will begin to slip into an act.
Dying constantly has an understandably negative effect on the poor girl. First off, it makes her depressed. Rika has spent at least one hundred years reliving her life endlessly and watching her friends murder or be murdered over and over. She's ruled by patterns and occasionally loses her will to fight and begins moping around. Rika is even an alcoholic and drinks the "bernkastel wine" that her father used to love. Though she's careful to only get a small buzz, Rika once states that she only feels alive when she's a bit drunk on the wine. This is why she begins adding "Bernkastel" to her name.
Rika no longer views herself as being human either. She thinks of herself as a witch. This is somewhat understable, since a human dies and "poof" that's the end, while Rika travels between worlds and retains her memories. Her humanity is a bit dulled by this. While Rika does not want to die and wants very strongly to reach a future passed June of 183, she has had two canon instances of wanting to use suicide as an escape mechanism. When her friends die, Rika tries to cheer herself up by reminding herself that she'll "see them in the next world". Death for Rika is more like a deadend in a maze than a real, full, compelte ending.
She also has pent up frustrations about only living to be eleven. Rika longs to be an adult-- a fact comically brought up in the Kira Magical Girl OVA. She mentions wanting to grow up to have boobs, for example. Though she might put up the front of being eleven, Rika has a decent amount of adult knowledge built up. She's also Hinamizawa's self-declared #1 pervert.
Though Rika identifies herself as Furuderika Bernkastel and doesn't think she is Furude Rika anymore, it is important to note that she's wrong. Deep down, Rika still is that cute girl who wants to have fun with her friends. She mentions that once she "gets the Furude Rika kite flying" it is very easy for her to keep it in the air. She really is that girl deep down, but just has to get through her trauma to see that.
Blending Them Together
---- Now this all seems like a waste of time to have read, as I'm about to tell you that the Furude Rika I'm applying for has defeated her cycle of fate. She is no longer dying constantly. So a lot of the "Furuderika Bernkastel" personality is no longer necessary. In fact, it is slowly beginning to fade out. She has gone through the events of the Rei arc, meaning that she recognizes it was a fault of hers to think she was a "witch" and is trying to be "the human girl Furude Rika" once more.
But that's just the thing with this Rika. She is in the transitioning stage between her cycle of dying and her new life. She is deconstructing from being "Furuderika Bernkastel" back to being "Furuderika". So she is exploring within herself what makes the human Furude Rika and what makes the witch Furuderika Bernkastel and attempting to make a happy medium. She's learning how to be a happy twelve year old again.
A devious, manipulative, somewhat perverted, game-loving twelve year old, that is.
Even though Rika is "deconstructing" back to Furude Rika, she is not ever likely to become that naive girl from before the cycle of rebirth. In the Kira OVAs, for example, we see Rika to still be a two-faced little girl. While she no longer struggles to be "Furude Rika", she still thinks sarcastic and snarky remarks in her head and tries not to burden her friends with this side of her. She may let a few remarks slip now and again, but usually not to anyone's face.
Similarly, the Hanyuu of the Oyashiro Rika compares the present Rika to the previous Rika, giving further insight to the types of personality traits that Rika is keeping. Hanyuu says that the previous Rika was "an honest girl who does her best as a magical girl!", while the current Rika is openingly two-faced, devious, not very honest, and thinks being a magical girl is troublesome. She's held on to her darker traits, even though she is no longer a witch.
Her witch-like traits, however, are lost.
To sum it up; Rika has given up being a witch and is trying to be a human again. But rather than just cutting off "Bernkastel" from "Furude Rika", she's blending the two personalities into a human girl, rather than a half-human, half-witch. She abandons her alcoholic habits to take care of her new body, no longer sees death as an escape route, and accepts that she really did have the potential to be "Furude Rika" inside of her after all. She's on the way to being a happy girl who has a long life ahead of her, one no longer interrupted by murder and dying.
Abilities: Furude Rika has absolutely no special abilities. Almost all of the "power" she's ever had has been used up. She's just a normal human girl.
Sample Entry: I play Rika Furude at Mayfield with this journal. One sample entry is here.