Minamihara Natsuko

**Minamihara Natsuko** (*南原なつこ Minamihara Natsuko*) is a protagonist in Destiny Star PreCure and she transforms into **Cure Soul** (*キュアソウル Kyua Souru*), the maiden of the South.

## Personality

Natsuko usually appears as lazy and tired all the time, often sleeping in class. She isn't interested in a lot of things as she typically just claims that it’s too much trouble to get invested, however she just says this as she fears getting too invested in it. She is a hardcore otaku and idol fan, one of the few things she lost herself in, but hates admitting it. Her favourite group is called SECRET NIGHT, which is her biggest weakness by far. She also has a weakness for sweets, the only way to wake her up when she’s in a deep slumber as she will recognize them from the smell, which Kazuha exploits regularly. Especially proficient at metal work, has an arsenal of normal as well as strange weapons in her house and is very interested in swords. While she isn't really a fan of the PreCure thing at first, she later begins calling herself and the team "Defender(s) of justice".

## Appearance

Natsuko wears her blonde hair in a ponytail, usually held in place by an orange ribbon. She has orange bangs with yellow accents and two sections of her hair are longer in the front. Her eyes also are yellow with orange pupils.One of her most frequently worn outfits is a light yellow dress with orange accents and an orange fabric belt, together with a pair of shorts, dark brown shorts. Her black slippers are worn together with dark brown socks and wears a gold bracelet and necklace with a charm as accessories.

Her alternate colour scheme just changes the colours of her outfit, hair and eyes. Her hair is white instead of blonde, her bangs are a dark red instead of orange, the accents being white like the rest of her hair. Her eyes are light blue with darker blue pupils. Her dress is now a dark blue, the accents and belt being a light blue, the ribbon being the same colour. Otherwise, she wears white shorts, white socks and light brown slippers. She still wears the gold bracelet and necklace, but the colour of the charm has changed from an orange to a purple.

During her transformation, the letter Waw shines on her chest before her outfit appears.

When possessed by Mae, her eyes become more fox-like and fox ears and tails the colour of her hair appear.

For halloween, Natsuko dresses up as a kitsune, complete with custom-made swords by her.

When she transforms into **Cure Soul**, her hair turns darker and longer, also gaining a few accents. The colours in her eyes switch places, making her eyes mainly orange with yellow pupils. Her Cure outfit consists of a multi-layered dress with a yellow, orange and white colour scheme and multiple gold/metal accents, her PreLead can also be found on it. She also wears an orange cape fastened with a buckle in form of a flame. Her hair is still held in place by an orange ribbon. Her lower arms are covered by gold armor, likewise her white and yellow boots also have gold caps. Lastly, she wears brown tights with more gold accents.

## History

Natsuko is the current maiden of the South, one of the four maidens whose duty is to keep Monochrome sealed away. Since the knowledge of the maidens has been lost, she actually only learns of this duty after first transforming into Cure Soul. Natsuko is a single child who has been raised by her parents, but she was abducted as a child. She was able to flee after some time, not without some mental scars after what had happened. Her parents were not found again, which made her recovery that much harder and after she was deemed "healed enough", she was send to an orphanage and to school, but had trouble fitting in due to her trauma. She found comfort in anime and manga, being able to dream away into far worlds where her problems didn't exist. By chance, she came across a newly debuted SECRET NIGHT and the messages in their songs spoke to her so she became a big fan for helping her though tough times.

Natsuko didn't talk to people and they didn't talk to her, so she only hid away further and continued down her spiral of depression. Since she wasn't very liked at the orphanage, she immediately grabbed the chance to move into the dorms at South Cross Middle School, where she was put into a room alone, which didn't really help her situation.

In her third year there, she meets a customer at the café she works at and for some reason, this girls stands out to her. She later reencounters this girl as her classmate, Tsunashi Momo, who had recently transferred in. As Momo's only familiar face in school, she starts to follow Natsuko around and befriend her, which annoys Natsuko, but nothing she does ever deters Momo. Eventually, she starts to soften up due to constantly spending time with Momo.

(TBA)

After befriending Momo and becoming Cure Soul, she starts breaking the cycle. Natsuko starts talking to others more, becoming especially close with her dorm mates, joining them for their regular gaming/movie nights and becoming a kind of mother figure, looking after them and supplying them with food (usually prepared by Momo), being inspired by Sanada Fuyuka, a senpai that she is very close to.

During the final episode, there is a glimpse at where Natsuko's life is leading. Her graduation from middle school, saying goodbye to Sumire, moving into a dorm with Fuyuka again and starting to work on voice acting projects and her contacting some mysterious people. Momo is still in her class.

After the highschool graduation of Ruri and Kazuha, the Cures meet at the café Natsuko works at and watch the stars, promising to meet each other again for this anniversary before going their own ways.

Shortly after, Natsuko moves out of her dorm and into university and meets SECRET NIGHT during a VA job.

Further along, she starts working at a museum, specifically about japanese mythology.

She is later shown to be meeting up with two mysterious women in a café, who she seems to be on good terms with.

The last scene focusing on her is her happily introducing the women to her friends.

## Cure Soul

**"Burning up your souls, Cure Soul!"** (*あなたの魂を燃やす、キュアソウル！ Anata no tamashī o moyasu, Kyua Souru!*)

Natsuko transforms into **Cure Soul** (*キュアソウル Kyua Souru*), who is fire and metal crafts themed and whose main theme colour is yellow. She also has some connections to japanese and asian mythology. She is represented by Waw, the 6th letter of the Phoenician alphabet and her cardinal direction is the south. She transforms using her **PreLead**. She can summon metal weapons at will, but still receives a special weapon, the **Soul Cross Bow**. She's the team's **physically strongest fighter**.

#### Transformation

**PreCure, Soul Calling!** (プリキュアソウルコーリング!)

#### Attacks

**Soul Burning** (ソウルバーニング) - Cure Soul's first attack as well as her main finisher before obtaining her weapon.

**Shutendōji Strike** (酒呑童子・ストライク) - Cure Soul's second attack, performed with the Soul Cross Bow.

## Etymology

Minamihara (南原) - composed from "Minami", which means south and "Hara" which means field or wilderness; together forming "south field"

Natsuko (なつこ) - her name spelling in kanji would be 夏子, which means summer child

Soul (ソウル) - the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal

## Relationships

**Her parents** - she was abducted at a young age, so she doesn't really remember them, but still tries to find them to this day

**Tsunashi Momo** - she's Momo's first friend, though at first Natsuko ignores her. Their first meeting was in the café Natsuko works at. Only when Momo finds her bias towards SECRET NIGHT and gifts her merch, Natsuko opens up towards her, trusting her more.

**Kitamatsu Ruri** - Natsuko likes being around Ruri as she's a good listener, often helping her with her problems. In turn, she tries to help Ruri as much as possible for her. Still, she feels inferior to Sumire for not understanding Ruri as much as she does.

**Nishimura Sumire** - They usually get along well, with Sumire often helping Natsuko get the latest merch she wants to buy. Natsuko sometimes feels inferior to Sumire for not understanding Ruri as well as Sumire does. The two of them eventually form a strong bond when the group finds out that Natsuko doesn't have parents and how Sumire's parents neglect her, bonding over their problems with their parents. From then on, Natsuko often spends time with Sumire and Ruri.

**Azumaki Kazuha** - Natsuko is a frequent victim of Kazuha's pranks, which annoys her greatly. She's easily enraged by Kazuha's antics, leading her to chase her around a lot. Still, Natsuko doesn't hate Kazuha and finds herself enjoying their time together, glad to be together as friends.

**Sanada Fuyuka** - her senpai who is now attending South Cross High School was one of the few people to tried and approached Natsuko. She still visits the dorms sometimes and is pleased with Natsuko's development after meeting Momo and the others. She is shown to be very worried about Natsuko and acts like her older sister sometimes.

**Mae** - the two only meet by chance, as Natsuko happens to find the sword she's sealed into. Upon drawing the sword, Natsuko releases Mae who subsequently possesses her, which she doesn't know at first. Only when Mae encounters Monochrome and realises that Natsuko is a maiden, she makes herself known. While the two get along fine, Natsuko has some opinions about the methods Mae uses to achieve her goals.

## Trivia

* Her surname was originally going to be "Minamino", this was changed due to the fact that it was already Cure Rhythm's surname. However, her new surname has roughly the same meaning
* Has a weakness for sweets
* Works in a café, which is actually the place she met Momo first
* She is the oldest of her team, since both Ruri and Kazuha, who were born earlier in the year, are a year younger than the other three
* Her Cure name used to be Cure Soulburner but it was shortened to just Cure Soul
* Her Cure outfit is the most "traditional magical girl" looking out of her team
	+ Cure Soul however references a lot of japanese and east asian culture
* Can drive a motorcycle (even though she is not allowed to yet)

## Gallery

An alternative colour scheme for Natsuko, which has remained unused so far.