Application [Queen of Hearts]
Character Information
Name: Sumire Takahana
Source Canon: Venus Versus Virus (manga)
Age: 15
Role In Canon: Protagonist
Justification: n/a
History: Wikipedia | MangaFox
(Note: much of this application was originally written for hometrail, and the original version can be found here on Sumire's journal.)
In Venus Versus Virus, there are violent ghosts called "Viruses" who hunt for human souls, focusing on those with Vision - meaning, humans who have the ability to see Viruses. Sumire Takahana is a middle school girl with a strong sixth sense, and so she can occasionally see things that others can't, and as she was growing up she kept this ability to herself. As a child, she was rather shy and her older cousin Nene Mikumo was the one to protect her, although sometimes Nene could get overzealous, which really didn't do much for Sumire's shyness. Sumire had a relatively normal childhood, with easy-going parents who are very much alive, and she attended Shirogane Private Girls' Academy. Her Vision didn't manifest itself until one day when she pricked her finger on a beautiful brooch, and then she suddenly sees a Virus about to attack her, but she's saved by a mysterious girl named Lucia Nahashi. Lucia thanks Sumire for finding her mother's brooch and then gives her a flyer for "Venus Vangard," a Virus-hunting group that uses a clothing store as a front.
The next day, Sumire visits Venus Vangard, and Lucia presents her with the bill for saving her - ¥666,000! Lucia tells Sumire she can work off the bill by helping her with her job, and Sumire reluctantly agrees. So Sumire heads back to her school dormitory with a magical necklace that Lucia told her to wear, which lures out a more powerful Virus, and then Lucia arrives and admits to using Sumire as bait to finally take out that Virus. However, when Lucia accidentally shoots Sumire with one of her anti-Virus bullets, Sumire is sent into a berserker trance in which she kills the Virus with her bare hands. After she passes out, she wakes up at Lucia's store, and Lucia asks her to use her newfound powers to help destroy Viruses. Sumire is initially hesitant, but eventually agrees when she decides that she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life running away and hiding from Viruses. She moves out of her school dormitory and into Lucia's shop (and when she tells her parents about that, they're moved to tears about how grown-up and independent Sumire has become).
As the series progresses, Sumire learns more and more about her unusual Berserker abilities. Her powers are hard to control, and when she loses control, her eyes become red and her pupils cross-shaped (like those of a Virus), and she targets Lucia. Her Berserker self wants to "break" Lucia and "become one with her," and Sumire tries to fight back against those urges. She does eventually learn to control her powers to some degree, and Lucia's foster father Souichirou Nahashi invents for her a special bracelet that allows her to trigger her Berserker abilities on her own. Later on, Sumire and Lucia learn the reasons for their special abilities - they are the "Key" and "Gate," respectively, to the "True World."
The True World is the goal of the main villains in the series. They are seeking the Fragments of the True World, and Fragments are hidden within humans with Vision, and when a person loses their Fragment, they become a Virus and then hunt others with Vision in an attempt to regain what they've lost. Sumire is the Key, and she is destined to break the Gate - Lucia - to open the True World. The leader of the villains is a sorcerer named Aion, and he possesses people to remain alive throughout the centuries while collecting Fragments.
Aion possesses a high school boy named Yoshiki Kusanagi, who Sumire has a small crush on, and at the climax of the series she's manipulated by Aion and she begins to believe that the True World would be a better place for all, especially for Lucia, who had been tormented by other people because of her strange left eye. Thus, Sumire fights with Lucia in an attempt to open the path to the True World, but Lucia manages to reach out to her. Sumire was the one to bring Lucia out of her cold shell, the one who showed her the world wasn't such a bad place, and Lucia says to Sumire, "Sure, this world has knocked me around a lot… But it's also the world where I met you. I don't want to erase that. It's the world where we lived together, loved each other… And fought by each other's side. I didn't want to see that before, but now… Now I can look this world right back in the face and accept it. All of it. I bet the same goes for you too, Sumire. I mean, this is the world that let you meet all your friends… Meet him. You can't think the whole entire thing is a miserable place, right…?"
Thanks to Lucia, Sumire is brought back to her senses, and together they reject the True World, defeating Aion and saving several people in the process, including Yoshiki. Afterward, Venus Vangard reopens as a genuine clothing store, Yoshiki resolves to accept the world so he can be deserving of Sumire's forgiveness and kindness, and Sumire and Lucia pretty much live happily ever after, along with Nahashi, Lola and Layla, two telepathic preteen twins who had been raised by Nahashi's former teacher. Viruses no longer seem to be a threat, and Sumire and Lucia are stronger thanks to all their experiences together.
Sumire will be taken from the end of the manga.
Personality: Put simply, Sumire is a kind-hearted but shy girl. At the beginning of the series, she has a hard time saying what's on her mind and she often worries that other people are pushing her around. But despite that, she is stronger than she looks - even though she's shy, she's not a social outcast, and she has three close friends in school - Mika, Kyoko, and Shizu - and even though she's often worried she's of no use to the members of Venus Vangard, she does her best to help them and even saves them from danger a few times. She gets angry only rarely, and when she does it's usually righteous anger, and while she's not very confrontational, she will stand up for herself and others when it really counts. Also, toward very close friends she's truly comfortable around she'll reveal a teasing side of herself, although she's never malicious about her teasing.
Throughout the series she tries to reach out to Lucia, who hides her true feelings under an icy exterior, and by the end Lucia has accepted that Sumire's friendship is invaluable to her. However, Sumire doesn't have a lot of self-confidence, so she is often unaware of how much her presence helps others. Lucia's guardian, Nahashi, has this to say about Sumire: "While she may look unreliable at first glance, she has a strength at her core. One that does not rely upon her unusual gifts. She is thus, in effect, the direct opposite of Lucia, who presents a strong exterior while hiding a fragile heart." Sumire's strength comes from her own kind-hearted nature, and when her friends are hurting, she wants to help them as best she can. As such, she is a very trusting person, but that's not always a good thing. She can sometimes be gullible and easily manipulated, and she truly hates doubting those she cares about. She wants nothing more than to believe in all her friends, but when contradictions and lies come to light, her faith is shaken and she becomes despondent and more easily manipulated. Still, she's not a weak girl - even if she has to make several mistakes along the way (like nearly destroying the world), she'll eventually find her faith in her loved ones again as well as the strength to protect them.
When it comes to her strange Berserker powers, Sumire has a bit of a complex. When she loses control, she often tries to hurt Lucia, so she works hard to keep control. She worries that her powers are only for destruction, but she resolves to learn how properly and fully control them, so that she can better protect those she cares about. At several points in the series she says that using her powers sometimes makes her feel "so very, very good," and she's afraid of giving in to that temptation and losing complete control of herself. But she doesn't want to be afraid - not of herself, nor of the Viruses that hunt her and others with Vision. That is why she is determined to gain complete control of her powers, and throughout the series she becomes stronger and more confident in herself. She knows she has her moments of weakness, but she doesn't want to have to always be protected by others; rather, she, since she has the potential strength to do so, wants to be the one to protect.
Sumire may be a shy girl who's sometimes easily embarrassed, but her kind nature is what gives her strength. Her greatest desire is to protect those she cares about, and that is why she resolves to be stronger. She's a kind girl who wants to believe the best in people, and although she's still a little shy and quiet, she has become better at standing up for herself. She can be nervous and awkward around new people, especially if they have outgoing and forceful personalities, but she does try to reach out and make new friends. Really, she's pretty much a normal, if sometimes naïve, teenage girl thrown into supernatural circumstances beyond her control, but she learns to face those circumstances head-on, and in doing so becomes a stronger person while retaining her kind-hearted nature.
Abilities: Sumire's abilities are tied to how she's the Key to the True World. When she comes into contact with the Vaccine designed to destroy Viruses, her powers are triggered. While in her Berserker state, she has control over the four classical elements - earth, wind, water, and fire - as well as heightened speed and strength. She has a special bracelet that triggers this change, and the bracelet has four buttons on it, each corresponding to one of the four elements. As she and Lucia have rejected the True World by the end of the series, it's highly unlikely that she'll lose control of her powers again, as her Berserker self no longer has any reason to want to "break" Lucia, but even so, Sumire doesn't like to use her powers unless absolutely necessary.
She also has decent skills with a knife and gun, although the gun she uses isn't that harmful to anyone that's not a Virus, and while she'll be trying to avoid them, if she does get into a dangerous situation that involves fighting, she prefers going into Berserker mode and just using her bare hands.
Sample: [The mirror shows a young girl, and she appears frazzled and out of breath, as if she had been running around.]
U-Um, this is probably a weird question, but has anyone else had problems with the rabbits here? A rabbit took one of my belongings, and I had to chase it around for nearly an hour before I was able to catch it.
[She lets out a nervous giggle and rubs the back of her neck.]
I mean, they're really cute and it probably just wanted to play, but still, that was kind of annoying. But I got my stuff back, so no harm done, I guess. Anyway, I just got here, and besides that little mishap it's not been so bad here. But… [Another tense laugh.] Where exactly is "here"?
(Other samples are here, here, and here, and more additional ones are linked here.)
Name: Sumire Takahana
Source Canon: Venus Versus Virus (manga)
Age: 15
Role In Canon: Protagonist
Justification: n/a
History: Wikipedia | MangaFox
(Note: much of this application was originally written for hometrail, and the original version can be found here on Sumire's journal.)
In Venus Versus Virus, there are violent ghosts called "Viruses" who hunt for human souls, focusing on those with Vision - meaning, humans who have the ability to see Viruses. Sumire Takahana is a middle school girl with a strong sixth sense, and so she can occasionally see things that others can't, and as she was growing up she kept this ability to herself. As a child, she was rather shy and her older cousin Nene Mikumo was the one to protect her, although sometimes Nene could get overzealous, which really didn't do much for Sumire's shyness. Sumire had a relatively normal childhood, with easy-going parents who are very much alive, and she attended Shirogane Private Girls' Academy. Her Vision didn't manifest itself until one day when she pricked her finger on a beautiful brooch, and then she suddenly sees a Virus about to attack her, but she's saved by a mysterious girl named Lucia Nahashi. Lucia thanks Sumire for finding her mother's brooch and then gives her a flyer for "Venus Vangard," a Virus-hunting group that uses a clothing store as a front.
The next day, Sumire visits Venus Vangard, and Lucia presents her with the bill for saving her - ¥666,000! Lucia tells Sumire she can work off the bill by helping her with her job, and Sumire reluctantly agrees. So Sumire heads back to her school dormitory with a magical necklace that Lucia told her to wear, which lures out a more powerful Virus, and then Lucia arrives and admits to using Sumire as bait to finally take out that Virus. However, when Lucia accidentally shoots Sumire with one of her anti-Virus bullets, Sumire is sent into a berserker trance in which she kills the Virus with her bare hands. After she passes out, she wakes up at Lucia's store, and Lucia asks her to use her newfound powers to help destroy Viruses. Sumire is initially hesitant, but eventually agrees when she decides that she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life running away and hiding from Viruses. She moves out of her school dormitory and into Lucia's shop (and when she tells her parents about that, they're moved to tears about how grown-up and independent Sumire has become).
As the series progresses, Sumire learns more and more about her unusual Berserker abilities. Her powers are hard to control, and when she loses control, her eyes become red and her pupils cross-shaped (like those of a Virus), and she targets Lucia. Her Berserker self wants to "break" Lucia and "become one with her," and Sumire tries to fight back against those urges. She does eventually learn to control her powers to some degree, and Lucia's foster father Souichirou Nahashi invents for her a special bracelet that allows her to trigger her Berserker abilities on her own. Later on, Sumire and Lucia learn the reasons for their special abilities - they are the "Key" and "Gate," respectively, to the "True World."
The True World is the goal of the main villains in the series. They are seeking the Fragments of the True World, and Fragments are hidden within humans with Vision, and when a person loses their Fragment, they become a Virus and then hunt others with Vision in an attempt to regain what they've lost. Sumire is the Key, and she is destined to break the Gate - Lucia - to open the True World. The leader of the villains is a sorcerer named Aion, and he possesses people to remain alive throughout the centuries while collecting Fragments.
Aion possesses a high school boy named Yoshiki Kusanagi, who Sumire has a small crush on, and at the climax of the series she's manipulated by Aion and she begins to believe that the True World would be a better place for all, especially for Lucia, who had been tormented by other people because of her strange left eye. Thus, Sumire fights with Lucia in an attempt to open the path to the True World, but Lucia manages to reach out to her. Sumire was the one to bring Lucia out of her cold shell, the one who showed her the world wasn't such a bad place, and Lucia says to Sumire, "Sure, this world has knocked me around a lot… But it's also the world where I met you. I don't want to erase that. It's the world where we lived together, loved each other… And fought by each other's side. I didn't want to see that before, but now… Now I can look this world right back in the face and accept it. All of it. I bet the same goes for you too, Sumire. I mean, this is the world that let you meet all your friends… Meet him. You can't think the whole entire thing is a miserable place, right…?"
Thanks to Lucia, Sumire is brought back to her senses, and together they reject the True World, defeating Aion and saving several people in the process, including Yoshiki. Afterward, Venus Vangard reopens as a genuine clothing store, Yoshiki resolves to accept the world so he can be deserving of Sumire's forgiveness and kindness, and Sumire and Lucia pretty much live happily ever after, along with Nahashi, Lola and Layla, two telepathic preteen twins who had been raised by Nahashi's former teacher. Viruses no longer seem to be a threat, and Sumire and Lucia are stronger thanks to all their experiences together.
Sumire will be taken from the end of the manga.
Personality: Put simply, Sumire is a kind-hearted but shy girl. At the beginning of the series, she has a hard time saying what's on her mind and she often worries that other people are pushing her around. But despite that, she is stronger than she looks - even though she's shy, she's not a social outcast, and she has three close friends in school - Mika, Kyoko, and Shizu - and even though she's often worried she's of no use to the members of Venus Vangard, she does her best to help them and even saves them from danger a few times. She gets angry only rarely, and when she does it's usually righteous anger, and while she's not very confrontational, she will stand up for herself and others when it really counts. Also, toward very close friends she's truly comfortable around she'll reveal a teasing side of herself, although she's never malicious about her teasing.
Throughout the series she tries to reach out to Lucia, who hides her true feelings under an icy exterior, and by the end Lucia has accepted that Sumire's friendship is invaluable to her. However, Sumire doesn't have a lot of self-confidence, so she is often unaware of how much her presence helps others. Lucia's guardian, Nahashi, has this to say about Sumire: "While she may look unreliable at first glance, she has a strength at her core. One that does not rely upon her unusual gifts. She is thus, in effect, the direct opposite of Lucia, who presents a strong exterior while hiding a fragile heart." Sumire's strength comes from her own kind-hearted nature, and when her friends are hurting, she wants to help them as best she can. As such, she is a very trusting person, but that's not always a good thing. She can sometimes be gullible and easily manipulated, and she truly hates doubting those she cares about. She wants nothing more than to believe in all her friends, but when contradictions and lies come to light, her faith is shaken and she becomes despondent and more easily manipulated. Still, she's not a weak girl - even if she has to make several mistakes along the way (like nearly destroying the world), she'll eventually find her faith in her loved ones again as well as the strength to protect them.
When it comes to her strange Berserker powers, Sumire has a bit of a complex. When she loses control, she often tries to hurt Lucia, so she works hard to keep control. She worries that her powers are only for destruction, but she resolves to learn how properly and fully control them, so that she can better protect those she cares about. At several points in the series she says that using her powers sometimes makes her feel "so very, very good," and she's afraid of giving in to that temptation and losing complete control of herself. But she doesn't want to be afraid - not of herself, nor of the Viruses that hunt her and others with Vision. That is why she is determined to gain complete control of her powers, and throughout the series she becomes stronger and more confident in herself. She knows she has her moments of weakness, but she doesn't want to have to always be protected by others; rather, she, since she has the potential strength to do so, wants to be the one to protect.
Sumire may be a shy girl who's sometimes easily embarrassed, but her kind nature is what gives her strength. Her greatest desire is to protect those she cares about, and that is why she resolves to be stronger. She's a kind girl who wants to believe the best in people, and although she's still a little shy and quiet, she has become better at standing up for herself. She can be nervous and awkward around new people, especially if they have outgoing and forceful personalities, but she does try to reach out and make new friends. Really, she's pretty much a normal, if sometimes naïve, teenage girl thrown into supernatural circumstances beyond her control, but she learns to face those circumstances head-on, and in doing so becomes a stronger person while retaining her kind-hearted nature.
Abilities: Sumire's abilities are tied to how she's the Key to the True World. When she comes into contact with the Vaccine designed to destroy Viruses, her powers are triggered. While in her Berserker state, she has control over the four classical elements - earth, wind, water, and fire - as well as heightened speed and strength. She has a special bracelet that triggers this change, and the bracelet has four buttons on it, each corresponding to one of the four elements. As she and Lucia have rejected the True World by the end of the series, it's highly unlikely that she'll lose control of her powers again, as her Berserker self no longer has any reason to want to "break" Lucia, but even so, Sumire doesn't like to use her powers unless absolutely necessary.
She also has decent skills with a knife and gun, although the gun she uses isn't that harmful to anyone that's not a Virus, and while she'll be trying to avoid them, if she does get into a dangerous situation that involves fighting, she prefers going into Berserker mode and just using her bare hands.
Sample: [The mirror shows a young girl, and she appears frazzled and out of breath, as if she had been running around.]
U-Um, this is probably a weird question, but has anyone else had problems with the rabbits here? A rabbit took one of my belongings, and I had to chase it around for nearly an hour before I was able to catch it.
[She lets out a nervous giggle and rubs the back of her neck.]
I mean, they're really cute and it probably just wanted to play, but still, that was kind of annoying. But I got my stuff back, so no harm done, I guess. Anyway, I just got here, and besides that little mishap it's not been so bad here. But… [Another tense laugh.] Where exactly is "here"?
(Other samples are here, here, and here, and more additional ones are linked here.)