Kyouko Kouda

**Kyouko Kouda** (幸田 香子 *Kōda Kyōko*) is the daughter of Masachika Kouda, the adoptive older sister of Rei Kiriyama and the older sister of Ayumu Kouda.

Beautiful but hot-tempered, Kyōko seems to hold a grudge against Akari Kawamoto as she has the habit of exerting a negative influence on her by discouraging her on purpose.

## Appearance

Kyouko is a beautiful young woman with bra-length blonde hair and clear blue eyes.

Her clothes are usually colored in white or light tones.

## Personality

Kyouko has a lot of pride in herself that causes her to react this way. She verbalizes this to Rei Kiriyama when she attempts to leave the Kouda house; by that point, she is sick of being treated delicately and people feeling sorry for her. Though they are in a mutually destructive relationship, it is shown that Rei and Kyouko deeply care for each other in a twisted way and cannot avoid the others' company in spite of having a mountain of regret and resentment between them. Though, she mostly looks for him to bully him like she would bully a little brother.

After a chance encounter with the Kawamoto sisters during one of her meetings with Rei, she taunts him about what she assumes is a relationship of dependency from Rei toward the family, insinuating that he's bound to ruin another household like what happened with the Kouda's. Though she says this as she was complaining about how her father Masachika Kouda halted her credit card for being secretive; Kyouko is still financially supported by her father while Rei struggles to be independent. She hungrily craves for the love she perceives she didn't get from her father, but has a caustic approach to compensate for the lack of it. She realize too late that she and Rei could have relied on each other if she had wanted it.

## Chronology

Ever since Rei Kiriyama joined the Kouda family, Kyouko tormented him.

As a child and later adolescent, she resented Rei for being better at shogi than her and she saw him as a threat to her relationship with her father Masachika Kouda, whom she desperately wanted to impress and earn his acknowledgement.

At the time, in her eyes, Rei stole her family from her, for which she abused him both physically and verbally.

In later years, after Rei moved out, she became infatuated and began a relationship with Masamune Gotou, a shogi player around her father's age where she continues the relationship, despite being aware of its inevitable end.

## Background

Kyouko tirelessly wanted to advance in shogi during her childhood in order to gain her father's attention. She resents Rei Kiriyama for being the best in shogi and that resentment is carried with her attempts to lead him into failure, even when she's being fairly cordial to him otherwise.

## Etymology

* The name **Kyouko** means "fragrance, fragrant" (香) (**kyou**) and "child" (子) (**ko**).
	+ **Kyouko** (香子) is derived from the kanji for the Lance piece in shogi, *kyousha* (香車). So far, this has only been pointed out explicitly in the second live action movie where she laments that it probably wouldn't have been her name if they were a more "normal" family that didn't have shogi integrated into their lives.
* Kyouko's surname **Kouda** means "happiness, good luck" (幸) (**kou**) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (**ta**/**da**).

## Trivia

* Kyouko works as a temp.
* Kyouko is four years older than Rei Kiriyama.
* Kyouko received a wristwatch from Masamune Gotou as a gift.
* Kyouko has been called "as beautiful as a demon", even as a child.