Lihua Lo

**Lihua Lo** is a character in *Magical Girl Policy*. She is a high school student and a huge fan of the Spirit Guard, owning a blog that follows the hero's exploits. She appears in the "Image Problems" vignette as the viewpoint character.

## Appearance

Lihua is a teenage girl in high school, estimated by Angela to be a year or two from entering college, which would place her in the 15-17 age range. She is ethnically Chinese and is shown to speak Chinese with her mother.

## Personality

Lihua is excitable and passionate. She is a massive fan of the Spirit Guard and has an online blog about the heroes and their work. Her fascination is well known to her friends and family, who consider it strange. Lihua finds this treatment puzzling, as the Spirit Guards' appearances and superhuman feats are more like anime than anything seen in real life. She can overly focus on her hobby, however, as her grades have suffered. She finds this troubling, as her mother has taught her the importance of being accepted into a good college. This emphasis on academic achievement suggests Lihua was raised using a "tiger parenting" style, which is associated with Asian cultures. Lihua also has a mischievous side, as she is seen using specific wording to avoid telling her mother she plans to put off homework, and takes advantage of her friend Niu Hong's absentmindedness when she steals her phone and returns it in a way that will have Niu believe she had simply left it behind out of forgetfulness.

## Abilities

Lihua is fluent in both Chinese and English, speaking the former at home with her mother. She has great analytical skills, being able to with reasonable accuracy deduce the Spirit Guard's motives and tactics from photographs and accounts of them in action. Angela predicts that Lihua could attain a successful career in forensics, criminal psychology, or investigative journalism.

## Biography

### Background

Lihua Lo was apparently born in China, as Taralynn Andrews describes conceiving the character as "a true Chinese immigrant". The Lo family would later immigrate to the United States, moving to Kessia City.

Lihua has been a fan of the Spirit Guard for quite some time, as her blog dedicated to the team has been read by Angela for several months. She posts images of the heroes, analyzes them, and tries to deduce their tactics and motives. Her hobby becomes an obsession and her grades in school begin to slip, much to the displeasure of her mother.

### Weeks 2-4

After weeks of unsuccessfully searching for new photos of the Spirit Guard, Lihua learns that her friend Niu Hong was at Rale Valley Mall one week ago when the monster Day LaMode attacked and was defeated by the Spirit Guard. While evacuating the mall, Niu had taken a photo of Spirit Guard Felicity, who had come outside and conjured a heart-shaped flame. Lihua wants to check out the photo and post it to her blog, but believes Niu won't want to send it to her, so Lihua covertly steals Niu's phone and emails the picture to herself. She leaves the phone at their Chemistry classroom, where the scatterbrained Niu is expected to return upon realizing her phone is missing and assume she had simply left it in class by accident.

At home, Lihua inspects the photo of Felicity on her laptop, curious as to why the normally elusive Spirit Guard would make such a spectacle. When she goes to save it, however, she discovers that all of her collections of Spirit Guard photos have been deleted along with her blog's image page. In addition to this hack, her backup hard drive had been found and had its own images wiped. A letter from Spirit Guard Valor is left with the hard drive and explains the situation: Valor has read Lihua's blog for a few months, but found that its extensive coverage of the Spirit Guard could possibly cause problems for the group if it is found by villains. She asks Lihua to discontinue the blog, and encourages her to instead apply her analytical talents toward pursuing a career that will help others. Lihua is shaken at the loss of her work and considers restarting her investigation using the letter and remaining photo, but decides to heed the advice of her mother and Valor, shelving her pursuit of the Spirit Guard in favor of her studies. She deletes the picture, but keeps the letter.

## Relationships

### Spirit Guard

Lihua has been a large fan of the Spirit Guard for some time, running a blog dedicated to documenting and analyzing the heroes' exploits. A few months ago, Angela became aware of the blog and would keep tabs on it. After the Day LaMode battle, it is determined that the blog's content could become dangerous to the heroes if allowed to spread, so measures are taken to stop Lihua's pursuit: her Spirit Guard photo libraries are wiped and a letter from Spirit Guard Valor advises Lihua to stop updating the blog. Lihua is sad to lose her hard work, but understands that her blog could be unintentionally harmful and is touched that her hero trusts her not to use the letter to further her investigation. She takes the advice of her mother and Valor, redirecting the talents she used chasing the mysteries of the Spirit Guard towards her education.

## Trivia

* Lihua is based on a friend Taralynn Andrews had during high school.
* Lihua Lo's concept and name originate from the planning stages of *Magical Girl Policy*. Andrews considered having the character or at least her name replace Kara or Vivian, but ultimately did not because she lacked confidence in her ability to properly depict a Chinese immigrant and the baggage that comes with immigration.