Nina Orlando

Nina Orlando in her first year at Duel Academia

**Nina Orlando** is a main character in *Yu-Gi-Oh! RED.* She is a student of Duel Academia enrolled in the Osiris Red Dorm. Nina is a psychic duelist who uses a variety of dragon-attribute monsters in her deck.

## Design

### Appearance

Nina is a shorter, chubby girl with bright purple hair kept in two pigtails, with her bangs framing her face. She has lightly tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. She dresses in a somewhat alternative style. She wears a cropped version of the normal Osiris Red jacket with short sleeves, a black choker, a purple crop top with a fishnet collar, and black short-shorts, along with knee high brown boots. She also wears goggles on her head, and black wristbands.

As a third year, she has gotten much taller, and has filled out a bit more. Her purple hair is still in pigtails, but they aren't quite as full, and her bangs have been cut back on the left side of her face so that they only brush over her right eye. She now wears a dark purple crop top with a similar fishnet collar and choker, and long black distressed pants with several holes, inside out pockets, and black shoes, and retains the same goggles from her first year.. She also now wears the long third-year uniform jacket.

### Personality

Nina is exuberant, impulsive, and loud. She rarely thinks before she acts or speaks, preferring to barrel on ahead without considering the consequences. Nina hates standing still and is always looking for the next distraction or adventure, and cannot say no to a challenge, often issuing them herself.

Despite her straightforward nature, Nina doesn't like to talk about her feelings or to dwell on being sad or upset, even when she is. She's not very good at comforting others, and gets panicky and overwhelmed when asked to help her friends with emotional issues, or when asked to talk about her own.

### Abilities

Nina is a psychic duelist, meaning that she has the ability to give Shadow People physical form in the physical realm. She can give Shadow People enough energy to manifest in the physical realm for a short period of time, usually during the constraints of a duel.

### Etymology

Nina is a Western European name that derives from a diminutive of names such as Antonina and Giannina. Her surname, Orlando, is an Italian name that derives from the given name Orlando, an Italian form of the name German Roland, which may mean "fame" and "land."

## Biography

### History

Nina grew up in a small town in Italy with her two mothers. She was an only child, and attended regular public schools for most of her life. In middle school, Nina discovered her powers, and tried to share them with others by summoning Exploder Dragon. When the dragon exploded and nearly injured several students, Nina became the target of bullying and death threats from her fellow students. Nina decided the best way to deal with this was to never let anyone see how terrible she felt, and devote all of her energy into being as cheerful as possible. She decided to attend Duel Academia to learn more about her powers, and to get as far away as possible from people who remembered the incident.

### Duel Academia Year 1

During the first year at Duel Academia, Nina was the first-year who organized most of the gatherings among the first-years. She became fast friends with Taro Inugawa, as well as many others. Nina spent most of her year exploring and making friends with most of the Osiris Dorm, as well as snooping on many of the teachers. When the plan to find Saya's missing sister went into play, Nina was one of the spear heads. Nina was one of the group kidnapped to another dimension by Armityle, and was locked in a nightmare spell before Saki freed them.

### Duel Academia Year 2

As a second-year, Nina quickly made friends with many of the first years, eventually joining Mi-Gyeong in starting the Duel Academia Power Rangers, a team to train themselves physically and magically to prepare for any incidents like the Armityle kidnapping the year before. Nina became hyperfocused on the mission of preparing for Armityle's inevitable return, and spearheaded several "missions" to investigate. She learned from Judai the truth about Duel Academia's construction to seal away Armityle, and got his permission for the students to use their powers to fight back if necessary. When students began to go missing, Nina joined the search parties. She and the Power Rangers found Kylie Harbison sneaking into the abandoned dorm, and she and Taro went looking for help. They ended up accompanying Judai to a secret location where Armityle was trying to be reborn, and were forced to flee. Nina used her psychic duelist powers to summon a water dragon that helped them escape through an underground river, arriving in the abandoned dorm where the rest of their friends were struggling with a possessed Kylie. Nina knocked Kylie out and dragged her out of the burning abandoned dorm, after which she and the others were admitted to the nurse's office for a few days.

## Relationships

### Taro Inugawa

Taro is Nina's best friend and her partner in crime. She cares about Taro the most in the world, loving that his excitable, adventurous nature matches hers. The pair of them are nearly inseparable, and Nina is always dragging him along on her own impulsive adventures, as well as listening to his stories about his own. She's very aware of Taro's anxieties, and while she doesn't feel equipped to really help him with them, she makes sure that she's careful to respect his boundaries, and sets up their adventures to respect when he needs to step away from something that scares him.

### Saki Yamaguchi

Saki is one of Nina's best friends. She thinks Saki's anxiety about schoolwork is a little silly, and wishes she would loosen up a bit, but she greatly admires Saki's dueling skill, and considers herself one of Saki's hype men.

### Miu Ueno

Miu is one of Nina's closest friends. While Miu is sometimes annoyed by Nina's exuberance, Nina just can't help but want to tease her. Still, Nina is very respectful of Miu being more laid-back and tired than she is, and will often find other ways for Miu to participate in her games and adventures in a way that won't tire her out.

### Minato Fujita

Minato is one of Nina's closest friends. Though at first the two didn't see eye to eye, they had an unfortunate experience of having their bodies swapped by a messed up spell, which led them to understand each other better. Nina doesn't get Minato's reservedness very much, but she understands their anxieties about making friends, and goes out of her way to help Minato feel comfortable and like they belong with everyone else.

### Anani Ivanova

Anani is Nina's roommate. The two aren't incredibly close, as Anani is more quiet and slow-paced than Nina, but Nina thinks she's the prettiest person in the world and is super supportive of her, despite having trouble actually dealing with any emotional conversations.

### Mi-Gyeong Nah

Mi-Gyeong is Nina's self-proclaimed successor, and a fellow member of the Duel Academia Power Rangers. Nina loves Mi-Gyeong's drive and determination, and her willingness to not only join in Nina's adventures, but to spearhead some of her own.

### Toitoi

Toitoi is one of Nina's close friends and a fellow member of the Duel Academia Power Rangers. Nina has trouble with emotional conversations, but appreciates that Toitoi was willing to trust her enough to tell her about her fears and anxieties, and wants Toitoi to feel comfortable with who she is.

### Mylene Masson

Mylene is one of Nina's close friends and a fellow member of the Duel Academia Power Rangers. Though Mylene is more laid back than the rest of the rangers, Nina loves xir easygoing nature and willingness to join in on their shenanigans.

### Jun Manjoume

Manjoume is a professional duelist that Nina has admired for years. She's always loved his dueling, and it was his matches that inspired her to start dueling herself, and to focus on dragon-attribute monsters. When they met at Duel Academia, she was star-struck, and received advice from him on how to build multiple dragon decks so that she could still use all of her monsters. She thinks of Manjoume as something to aspire to, and wants to someday face him in a professional duel.

## Deck

Nina has multiple decks, each one focusing on a different type of dragon strategy. Her first deck was monsters only, as she didn't want to leave out any of her dragon friends. After a conversation with Jun Manjoume, she developed her current strategy of having multiple decks, one for each group of dragon friends. The following list details all of the cards she has been seen to use in the past.

Dragon Montage
* Darkblaze Dragon

## Duels

 Ji-U Kaiba Ishtar and Lindbloom Oshiro | Red Days, Chapter 15
 Ra Yellow Pair