Yoko

Yoko is the protagonist of "Beyond", an episode of "The Animatrix", a collection of short animated films. She was voiced by Hedy Burress.
==Story==
=== Yuki goes missing ===
In Beyond Yoko is first seen in her home in the middle of a phone call while preparing a meal for her cat Yuki. Unbeknownst to Yoko, her cat has wandered out. 
Yoko looks to have the place to herself for the day as there's no one else in the building; meaning her parents are at work, the lack of siblings imply that she could be an only child, or perhaps she somehow lives independently. As she's relaxing in the full privacy of her bedroom in her small clothes whilst chatting on the phone with her friend about not wanting to go out with someone for an occasion, Yoko starts to worry that Yuki hasn't appeared - especially since the latter never misses a meal. 
After lecturing the person on the other line to make up their mind and looking at the time on her alarm clock, she hears a bell ring. This prompts Yoko to quickly hang up and run to the balcony. Opening the sliding door and looking out, Yoko calls out for Yuki twice. With no other option, Yoko sets out to find her cat. 
After asking her neighbors, Yoko comes across a few local boys. After showing them a small bell that Yuki has attached to her collar, the gang suggests that Yuki is at the "haunted house" and invite her to come along. One of the boys spot an anomaly in the form of a rainbow mixed with lightning bolts over the aforementioned building despite the weather being a sunny day. Yoko grumbles as to why Yuki, being an indoor cat, would wander off. In spite of being warned by the boys of the abandoned house being off-limits, Yoko ultimately joins them in the hopes of finding Yuki there.  
=== Exploring the House of Anomalies ===
Yoko and the boys travel to the so-called haunted house to search for her missing cat. While looking in the bushes close to the perimeter, Yoko loses sight of the gang. She then finds herself on her own to explore the area. 
Yoko first enters an opening within the ruins as she begins trekking through the area and spots a number of strange occurrences: a discarded metal soup can that's levitating inches off the ground and spinning very slowly, an emaciated stray dog eating a carcass as a black substance flows up it's body, broken light bulbs that flicker quickly, and a rain shower coming from a sunny skyline. As she ventures down a dark hallway while calling out for Yuki, Yoko gets swept up in a sudden gust of wind that bombards her with bits of newspapers and knocks her off her feet followed by the sound of static buzzing. This shocks Yoko as she picks herself up. As the neighborhood boys find amusement in playing around with the glitches of the house, Yoko gasps to hear Yuki's bell ring again. Finding her cat chasing a shadow, Yoko runs over and warmly reunites with her in a small courtyard. 
 
Scooping Yuki close in her embrace, Yoko asks her cat if she's hungry, only to be spooked by the sound of a deep growling noise. Later, Yoko lies flat on the pavement to relax with her cat. Looking down, she notices Yuki playing with another quirk the house has generated: shadows that don't align with their physical origin. Getting up, she meets with a little girl opposite from where she laid. 
The girl says she figured out how these anomalies work before assuring Yoko her cat was well looked after. As Yoko thanks the girl for looking after her cat, the two then hear the boys in the middle of their latest antics inside the building. 
=== Experiencing the Matrix for herself ===
Yoko walks in to a vast clearing within the abandoned house as the neighborhood boys have made a game of an anomaly that involves them diving and levitating via zero gravity. Pondering aloud whether the house really is haunted, Yoko looks up to see a dove's feather whirring in midair. Curious, she catches the feather in between her fingers. Then, with a single blow from her lips, Yoko experiences the zero gravity herself: her body weightlessly drifts to her side as everything around her slows to a crawl. Yoko becomes swept up in the sensation that she's in: a state of both amazement and euphoria. 
 
As she lands safely down, she rubs herself dreamily as the kids surround her in awe. Elated by what she just felt, Yoko and the boys start using the zero gravity force to float, jump high and do athletic stunts all in mid-air and can also land and fall without hitting the ground hard. Yoko herself begins to enjoy herself while doing stunts of her own such as floating off one of the boy's hand as he comments she's "light as a feather", to doing an aerial twirl with an effortless jump. Despite the inherent strangeness of the house, the group isn't fazed as they enjoy themselves and the mysterious anomaly that proves to be amusing. 
=== Detained by "Exterminators" ===
As Yoko and the group of kids continue to play around, Yuki encounters a rat that leaps out from the bushes. Soon a whole swarm of rats overwhelm the kids as Yuki darts off, prompting Yoko to chase after her again. Outside, a massive red truck crashes through the house perimeter and a team of Exterminators emerge from the vehicle. Back inside, Yoko runs up a flight of stairs in search of Yuki. Hearing her bell ring again, Yoko runs back down to find Yuki scratching against a door. Picking Yuki up, Yoko hears a voice coming from the other side. Opening the door slowly, she sees one last anomaly: on the other side is an endless black void leading to nowhere. The voice echoing from the emptiness sounds like the conversation Yoko had on the phone in her earlier that day. Just then, a light flashes on the two. Yoko clutches Yuki tight to her chest in agitation as she finds herself detained by a pair of men in Exterminator suits and forced to leave the premises. 
Just as the neighborhood kids were being removed from the building, Yoko is the last one to be led out. She then breaks free from the Exterminator's grip and starts yelling at the clean up team that there's no bugs or hazards inside, just a place where the kids can have fun. Her screeching protests only irk the men to restrain the girl by force. Yoko cries out as they resort to pulling her by the hair. The Agent leading the cleaners gives the order to "seal the area off now". 
The Exterminators begin the operation by hosing the building down in gas. 
=== The Next Day... ===
Sometime passes and the abandoned house full of quirks and glitches is converted into a parking lot. From the other side, Yoko shows up and looks through the fence. Hearing a glass break, she sees the neighborhood kids from the day before try to access the glitches, but to no avail. Yoko makes her way over as the kids leave to find something better to do. Within a few weeds, Yoko finds the soup can that was levitating inside the house. Picking it up, Yoko ponders if anything that occurred was real or not. Letting the can fall to the pavement, Yoko's finger is cut by the jagged edges as the can magnetically rolls towards the parking lot, as if by memory or if the Matrix is persisting from being sealed off. Yoko watches her finger bleed and lets a few drops of blood fall the pavement, seeing if the laws of gravity were still in play. Yoko presumably returns to her normal life afterwards while still reflecting on what occurred. 
 
==Description==
=== Physical Appearance ===
Yoko is a young Bluepill girl with pale skin and an average yet slender build with a moderate bust and firm legs. 
She has green eyes with a dark underliner, full pink colored lips, and two-toned shoulder length orange dyed hair with the interior being aquamarine. Yoko also has an orange star tattoo on her left cheek. 
While she was alone in her apartment, Yoko had on a white sleeveless crop top with black strap linings and a yellow star graphic in the middle of her chest, light blue boyshorts, and is barefoot while lounging in her room. Yoko also wears a necklace with a diamond shaped pendant. As she heads out to find Yuki, Yoko swaps her intimate bottoms for a pair of black tight bike shorts, a red hooded jacket over her crop top with the sleeves rolled up, and a matching pair of low rise sneakers with black tips and soles. 
After the events of the haunted house, Yoko is seen the following day wearing a pink tank top with the same yellow star graphic, green capris pants and the same shoes as before. 
=== Personality ===
Yoko appears to be a regular girl right from the start. She cares for her cat Yuki a lot as she's first seen grabbing a can of tuna while on the phone. This shows how responsible and active Yoko is in the comfort of her home. Her worries begin when Yuki doesn't show up after being called, which starts Yoko's adventure. 
Yoko shows a lot of determination and risk-taking as she asks around before running off with the neighborhood boys to the abandoned house that's said to be haunted. During her search, Yoko shows curiosity for the building's anomalies she comes across all while not losing track in regaining her missing cat. However, during one such glitch involving getting blown off her feet by a gust of wind, Yoko becomes visibly agitated and flustered. This could mean she wanted to find her cat and leave as soon as possible. After she's found Yuki again, Yoko joins the boys again, succumbing to her curious nature and becomes elated after experiencing the zero gravity effects. Feeling like one of the gang, Yoko takes great pleasure in the anomalies that used to spook her. Once the Exterminators arrive on the scene, Yoko becomes fearful when they detain her and the children inside. Yoko then shows her defiant side as she breaks away from the Exterminators to protest that the house isn't dangerous to be torn down, feeling that it's a place of wonder for the kids and herself to escape the boring aspects of life. When the haunted house is converted into a parking lot, Yoko is ultimately left downtrodden but more curious if the glitches still persist. 
== Gallery ==
:Yoko/Gallery
==Appearances==
*The Animatrix - Beyond
== Trivia ==
* According to Koji Morimoto, Yoko was pitched as a concept of someone who is happy and enjoys playing inside the Matrix without pursuing the hard truth behind it.
* Morimoto photographed a reference model for Yoko to see how a girl would react to different situations.
* The endless black void Yoko finds is a glitch created by The Keymaker's mistake. This was due to the Keymaker becoming an exile and flagged for deletion when Smith became too powerful.
Category:Characters in Beyond
Category:Bluepills
Category:Protagonists
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:The Animatrix