kippei katakura; application
Player Information
Name: aaron
Age: 27
AIM SN: xXbananarchyXx
email: on the contact list
Have you played in an LJ based game before? yes. XD
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? co-creator
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Aishiteruze Baby!
Canon Format: manga/anime (focussed on manga)
Character's Name: Kippei Katakura (Western order)
Character's Age: 17
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. n/a
What form will your character's NV take? Kippei's NV will take the form of a moderately high-tech flip phone. Nothing particularly special.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Absolutely nothing other than a disconcerting amount of charismal
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? Kippei will have the ability to form force shields when he's afraid - essentially, an invisible barrier will form around him that's completely impenetrable by anything. The barrier will only work if he's afraid, and will only last as long as he's afraid. To start with, the barrier will only be big enough for him and one smaller person, but as his ability grows it will become large enough to accommodate 10 people (including Kippei). He'll be able to hold it as long as he's pannicking, for a maximum of 15 minutes to start and 45 minutes as it grows stronger. The drawbacks will be fatigue, dizziness, and moderate to severe bruising on his body when the barrier is beaten on. Anyone he's protecting with the barrier will not experience bruising.
Weapons: none, he wouldn't even know how to use them. XD
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Before Yuzuyu showed up, Kippei had a relatively normal Japanese schoolboy life. He grew up in a normal type of family, with his grandparents, mother and father, and older sister, and a younger brother, his father working hard to support them, his mother being generally busy with her own things, and his older sister working at a salon. He and his younger brother went through the usual process of going to school and hanging out with friends. Kippei was known as a bit of a lady-killer, with his natural charm seeming to affect every girl he came in contact with - he was popular at school and had a lot of friends, got by on charm more than smarts, and was a bit of a slacker.
Then, when Kippei was 17, his mother's younger sister, whose husband had died a short time before, disappeared, leaving her 5 year old daughter Yuzuyu behind with Kippei's family. This is when his entire life changed. Deciding that Kippei needed to grow up a little, and because everyone else was far too busy with their own things, his family arbitrarily decided that Kippei would be taking full-time care of Yuzuyu. Kippei had to grow up, and he had to do it fast.
At first Yuzuyu was very sad and didn't trust him quite yet, despite his efforts to help her with the everyday things like getting her a bento lunch, taking her to her kindergarten, and picking her up. However, it only took a few days before the two had bonded, with Yuzuyu sharing his bed at night, and relying on him, trusting him. When Yuzuyu wanted a packed lunch made by hand, Kippei asked his mother to teach him to make rice balls, and things simply went on from there. Before long, Kippei had pretty much devoted all of his spare time to taking care of the little girl, and in return, she trusted him and relied on him. Basically, the two fell in (platonic) love with each other, and are each other's most important person.
Most of Kippei's time with Yuzuyu has been the general day-to-day dramas and going through the slow process of winning her trust and adjusting to having her in his life. There have been a few notable occurrences though. One such occurrence is when a girl from Kippei's school who had feelings for him, Kyouko, took a dislike to the fact that so much of Kippei's time and devotion was spent on Yuzuyu. One day she found Yuzuyu picking flowers in the park while Kippei was getting drinks from a vending machine and told Yuzuyu that everyone secretly hated her. It took quite some time for Kippei to work out what was making Yuzuyu sad, and once he found out, his school friend (and crush) Kokoro, scouted out who the perpetrator was, and put Kippei onto her. Kippei confronted her, protective over Yuzuyu, and told her that he couldn't return her feelings and not to speak to Yuzuyu and hurt her again.
Another major step was when Kokoro, a classmate that Kippei had admired for some time, moved out on her own due to her father's remarriage after her mother died. She was extremely lonely and, through having learned to deal with Yuzu's loneliness, Kippei understood her feelings and got closer to her, finding out that she liked him back. The two attempted to start a relationship, but found that his focus on Kokoro was interfering with his ability to take care of Yuzuyu. The situation culminated in Yuzuyu deciding to walk home from kindergarten alone because she felt like a burden on Kippei, and getting very lost. After this situation Kippei and Kokoro decided that, because Kokoro was grown and had other friends, that Kippei should focus on Yuzuyu, who was young and vulnerable. The relationship was broken off, and Kippei resumed taking care of Yuzuyu properly.
The next major event that happens is that Yuzuyu's mother comes back, wanting to check up on the girl and make sure she's alright. When Kippei came to pick up Yuzuyu at her kindergarten, the teachers pulled him aside and asked him to please see if he could find the 'strange woman' who had been peeping at the children all day. Kippei discovered that it was his aunt, and he asked her if she had come to take Yuzuyu home. She told him she wasn't there for that purpose, that she was too scared to raise Yuzuyu alone, because she had hit the girl before, when she did nothing wrong. Kippei was appalled by her lack of responsibility in letting her little girl go, and told her he was taking care of Yuzuyu, but ended up agreeing not to tell the little girl about her mother showing up. He did, however, pick up Yuzuyu in a rush and carry her to a nearby train crossing, where the little girl saw her mother in the train window. Not acknowledging what she'd seen, Yuzuyu clung to Kippei in a tight hug.
This is the moment I would be pulling Kippei from, standing at the train crossing with Yuzuyu in his arms. He would turn around to head home, and find himself standing in the abandoned baseball diamond.
Point in Canon: the end of chapter 11, after he has had his first conversation with Yuzu's mother since her abandonment of Yuzu, and found out that the reason she dropped Yuzu off with his family is that she hit the girl and was afraid to raise her alone in case it happened again
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: n/a
Character Personality: Kippei is, for the most part, a very normal high school boy. Near the start of the series, he tended to be a womanizer, charming girls and leading them along, never really serious about them at all, but just enjoying the attention. As the series progresses, however, Kippei starts gaining a lot more maturity and developing into a more responsible and caring individual.
One of Kippei's main personality traits is that he's very charming - it's not just a smooth way of speaking or anything he really has to try hard to do. He's pleasant to talk to, has a laid-back attitude, and the air of being trustworthy and reliable. He has a certain sincerity about him, his emotions as they are expressed are very real and he tends not to hide his intentions very often, being very open and honest - and Kippei is a very emotional person. His emotions are generally expressed with a touch of melodrama and to the extreme - when he's happy, he's excited and bouncy and will shout at random, when he's sad, he'll get teary-eyed and sniff or fall asleep on the school floor like a vagrant. When Kippei is depressed, he's very depressed, lethargic, and down. He tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, especially with his expressive eyes and face, and it's always very obvious what he's thinking and feeling. He's not a deceitful person, and he couldn't be even if he wanted to be. Kippei is also very compassionate towards others, and he can be pretty good about finding the right words to say to help someone out, at least, once he's figured out what's going on.
However, on the downside, Kippei can be a bit ditzy at times when it comes to perception. While he can tell when someone is upset, he has a hard time figuring out why, even if the reason is glaringly obvious. This is especially true with girls - he has a hard time figuring out what they're thinking or feeling, no matter their age, it applies to everyone from female classmates to his older sister and mother, to 5-year-old Yuzu. This same likely applies to boys as well, though he's not shown interacting with many of them, and seems to have a more easy-going relationship with his younger brother than he does with the many females in his life. Besides being a bit ditzy at times, he's also not the best when it comes to his studies and learning things, mostly because he tends to be a slacker - unless it's something he has a lot of interest in, like taking care of Yuzu, he doesn't expend the energy to go out of his way and be studious or diligent. He often skips classes at school, or spends a lesson sleeping, puts off his homework, and generally slacks to the point of his teachers giving up on him altogether. Generally, he'll only put effort into something if it's a thing he really cares about.
And when Kippei decides something matters to him, he really throws his whole heart into it. The most prominent example is Yuzuyu. When he's given charge of her, and decides he wants to do his best, Kippei goes all out, learning her moods, learning how to care for her and help her, even learning how to cook, starting with simple rice balls and moving up to more complicated things like tempura shrimp, cake, and octopus-shaped weiners, because he wants her to have a homemade bento. The one thing that is made crystal clear about Kippei's personality in the manga is that Yuzu comes first - she is his primary concern. He even put aside a relationship with someone he'd had a crush on for a very long time because the relationship was causing him to be late to pick Yuzu up, or causing him to be less attentive to her needs than he wanted to be. Taking care of Yuzu is very important to him, because he loves her very much and wants her to be safe and happy.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: n/a
Character Plans: I will be playing Kippei more slice-of-life than plotty in Siren's Pull. He'll likely be focussed on finding a job to support Yuzuyu (as I'll only go through with apping him if Yuzuyu is accepted - he wouldn't be fun without her) and forming friendships and relationships with people he meets in Siren's Port. He'll be quite exhausted by the effort of making ends meet without his family's support, and though he does want to go home, he won't be in any position to do much other than support people who are trying. He'll learn to cook, and probably take care of his friends. He's going to mostly be played as a fun CR character, though.
Appearance/PB:
[reference 1]
[reference 2]
[reference 3]
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[a slightly shaky video feed engages, showing Kippei's face. he looks a bit tired, but he's smiling brightly, and the camera shifts a bit, pointed down at a bento box sitting on the counter. it contains three small onigiri dusted with sesame seeds and a side dish of roasted potatoes and carrots. the whole thing looks a bit messy, but it's obvious that he worked really hard on it.
in the background, the apartment he's in is mostly dark with the only light on being in the kitchen, and Kippei flashes v-fingers at the screen of the NV, with a big grin]
I made it! It isn't even burnt or anything! Yuzuyu will like this so much.
[he gives a toothy eyes-closed grin, and then interrupts himself with a yawn, one eye squeezed shut. in the background, the morning sirens can be heard going off with a slow whine. Kippei startles slightly, and glances toward the side, frowning a bit]
I'm still not used to that.
Third Person Sample
Kippei sat on the bench at the bus stop with a thump, frowning to himself, and then leaned back, tilting his head and resting the back of his hand over his eyes in a melodramatic gesture.
"Ahhh, job hunting is way harder than I thought!" he said to himself, and shook his head, lowering his hand and giving a sheepish smile to an old lady who looked at him queerly for talking aloud. The old woman shook her head and turned her attention away, and Kippei huffed out a breath, pouting off to the side. Turning out applications had been more draining than Kippei had ever thought would be possible - not that he'd ever really given much thought to finding a job before he'd ended up here. At home, he just hadn't had the time with school and taking care of Yuzu, and adulthood seemed so far away with his carefree life. Even with Yuzuyu to watch over, his current life made his old one seem carefree.
He didn't realize he'd slouched down, head bowed and chin almost rested on his chest until his back started to hurt, and he shifted with a low whine, peering down the street. The place he was applying at was only open for another half hour, and if this bus didn't show on time, he was totally screwed! Pushing himself up, he double-checked that he had his resume and other papers, and bounced from foot to foot, eyes wide and hands tucked in his pockets. The old lady was looking at him funny again, but he didn't really care - too much pent up energy!
Sighing deeply, he kicked at a rock, and when he looked up again, the bus was peeking around the corner. Kippei punched at the air, grinning, "Yes!" Spinning on his heel, he aimed his wide grin at the old lady, and reached a hand out to her.
"Need help getting your things on the bus?" he asked, feeling generous with his relief, "I'll do it!"