Mahou Shoujo:Roanapur: Riri

Brilliant Lily in costume

Riri is a character in Mahou Shoujo:Roanapur, played by ShadowWhispers.

YAMADA Riri (山田 凛珠)

Magical Girl Name: Brilliant Lily Real Name: LEE Hyun-Ok (리휸옥)

Defining Moment: Broke out of a North Korean prison camp after her parents died there. Works as a master thief and occasional demon hunter in the much nicer world of Roanapur.

Badass Type: Smartass

Flavas:

• Profession: Ninja -- Riri is a thief by trade; sneaking into places she shouldn't be is her primary skill. Plus she knows enough martial arts to protect herself.
• Meta: BRING IT -- Riri has a reputation for both succeeding even at impossible tasks, and for blowing ordinary ones dramatically. (This flava makes her objectively worse, but infinitely more hilarious; it's a given for her character role!)
• Meta: Hidden Technique! ____ no jutsu! -- Like any master ninja, Riri can pull new tricks out of nowhere at dramatically appropriate times!
• Style: Kawari no jutsu -- Riri can survive otherwise damaging attacks by replacing herself with a suitable substitute before the blow ever strikes.
• Supernatural: Bad Company -- Til the day I die.

Gear: Kodachi: Weapon +1, Master Thief Costume: Armor: +2

Backstory

YAMADA Riri acts so Japanese it's almost painful to watch; she dresses in cosplay-esque school uniforms, adds honorifics to people's names even when speaking English, and peppers random Japanese words in her speech. If she didn't look the part you'd guess she was an American anime fan trying desperately to get cred, but she's got all the right features and the accent to match. While she'd be a little weird, she'd fit in just fine in any prefectural middle school in Tokyo; just an ordinary Japanese girl.

Of course, she's not. While she was born in Japan, it was to a pair of Zainichi Koreans: descendants of peninsular natives dragged to the island when the Empire conquered them before World War II. While their predecessors had refrained from participating in the Repatriation process, Hyun-Ok's parent's, devoted members of the Japanese Communist Party, were lured by propaganda to move with their young daughter in one of the last waves to return to North Korea.

Unfortunately for the Lee family, after posing for a series of propaganda pictures, they were shuffled off to Camp 22: Haengyong Political Prison. With the press benefits gone, there was no more benefit to keeping untrustworthy former foreigners around, and so the family was locked away from where their outsider ways could corrupt the people. What followed was a decade of torturous existence in the worst of conditions, under constant threat of torture and death.

When her mother starved and her father was shot, the threat of being sent to the kippumjyo "Pleasure Division" and the sense of nothing to lose (especially with the fall of the Soviet Union cutting aid to North Korea--a sure death sentence for many of her fellow prisoners in the famines to follow), Hyun-Ok made a desperate dash for freedom--and surprised herself by making it across the border into Russia. Forced to hide and live on the edge of society lest she be deported back to her death, she learned to the same skills she'd had to get out of the concentration camp to steal enough to survive, which eventually brought her to the attention of the Russian criminal establishment. Useful enough to not give up as an asset but problematic enough to not want to keep in the country, they shipped the young thief to Roanapur as a "contractor", and even set her up with doctored documents as a Japanese expatriate.

Of course, this places the newly-renamed Riri in a delicate position: Hotel Moscow could reveal her documents as a fake at any time, so they have her more or less by the short hairs for any request they make, but the more crimes she commits for them (and others), the less likely it is that she'll ever be able to find formal asylum anywhere that would protect her from the fate that would await her if deported. Fortunately, life in Roanapur agrees with Riri. Its criminal anarchy is like a paradise compared to the horrible world she grew up in, and even when work is scarce she never has to worry about starving. Thus, in spite of her situation, she's nothing but optimistic and cheerful. Even being recruited to fight Demons as a magical girl hasn't dented her enthusiasm; if anything, it's made her more forward looking.

Relationships

NPC

• Guillarme Dufour: A fence specializing in unloading objects of art, he's one of Riri's outside contacts. Guillarme used to be a legitimate professor of the arts until he looked a little too closely into a forged painting and ended up crossing the wrong set of people; forced to flee his native France, he's carved out a new niche in Roanapur helping the criminal underbelly understand when they've got something worth selling or when they've been duped. Riri is a modestly frequent visitor to the little gallery that serves as his front, not only to get appraisals or unload merchandise but also just because she likes art. For his part, the frenchman, not knowing her story, largely thinks of her as a sad example of the state of the city and treats her with a certain amount of pitying kindness.
• Yuri Kovalchek: Riri's primary handler within Hotel Moscow, Yuri is a former KGB officer who was responsible for intelligence work regarding North Korea. He largely resents the fact that he's been given the duty of "babysitting" this outsider thief, so he and Riri have a bit of a cold relationship; he only talks to her when he has a message from his superiors or a job for her to do, and she makes faces at him behind his back. She especially hates that he prefers to speak to her in Korean; she considers it an implicit threat to her cover, when in fact it's just because their respective accents make communicating in English difficult.
• Janjai: A waitress at the restaurant where Riri works a day job bussing tables. She has a small soft spot for the "poor naive clumsy kid" who shares some of her shifts, and tries to keep her out of trouble at work by keeping the peace between Riri and the boss when Riri does something wrong. For her part, Riri thinks Janjai is just about the coolest grown-up at her workplace.

PC

• Julie: (Antagonistic) Things got off to a bad start when one of Julie's "clean up" operations ended up taking out one of Riri's clients right before they were supposed to meet. The idea of someone in a high place gunning you down one day has a particularly disquieting resonance to her given her upbringing and Julie's entire ideals are paradoxically horrifying to someone whose personal views on people who uphold the law come from what are essentially concentration camp guards.
• Cynthia: (Antagonistic) Cynthia scares the crap out of Riri, both because of her tendency to cause fires and because she represents a very dark glimmering of what might have happened to Riri herself if she hadn't escaped. As a result, Riri tends to be a little prickly on those occasions when the two end up hunting the same demons; she's stuck between pity for the other girl and a sort of "survivor's guilt" wrapped around her escape. As a result Cynthia's one of the few people in Roanapur that can put a real dent in Riri's normal cheer.
• Susan: (Friendly) Riri met Susan when they both happened to be breaking into the same apartment; as Sue put stolen keys to use opening the front door, Riri was climbing in the window. After a few tense moments, the inherent absurdity of the situation helped break the standoff and forge a friendship based on shared professional insight. Since then, the two have worked a few jobs that required a pair of people, competed when jobs conflicted, and taken to meeting now and again just to have tea and catch up.
• Noriko: (return--Friendly) Riri reacts well to Noriko's affection; she either doesn't notice the patronizing edge or just ignores it. She's a little nervous about the risk for her secrets, but not enough to want to avoid the other girl's attention, and besides, being friends with the "other" Japanese ex-pats is good for her cover!
• Ingrid: (return--Friendly) While Riri initially thought Janjai's well-dressed friend was a little intimidating, Ingrid's friendliness won her over pretty quick. Now if only she could avoid embarrassing herself around the two cool older girls!