Yumiko Morikawa

**Charlotte Yumiko Morikawa** is a 17-year-old 1st-year student at Lavender Moon Arts. Her image colour is almond brown. She is the leader of Urania's Mirror subunit Aerglo, alongside Robyn.

## Backstory

"Lottie" Yumiko Morikawa was born an only child in central London, England, in the mid-2000s to a half Japanese mother and a Jewish mother. Her Jewish mother is her birth mother, and her biological father is a family friend. As a result, she grew up speaking both English, Japanese, and a bit of Yiddish.

Both her parents are busy office workers, so she was often left alone with her thoughts and dreams, doodling in all of her notebooks about what she could be when she's grown up.

As a child, Yumiko faced a lot of bullying in school, related to her appearance, family, and name. Many children would call her "Yummy" or ask why she was called that if she wasn't Japanese. This lead to her becoming shy and embarrassed of her name and family situation, going by her middle name, Charlotte or Lottie, to anyone who'd ask her name.

Yumiko considers herself painfully average, as she isn't particularly rich or poor, smart or dumb, or even particularly talented. Her whole life, she loved to sing, but due to her crippling stage fright, she never took lessons or nurtured her passion other than secretly singing to herself.  Instead, she stuck to quiet and hands-on work, designing and drawing cute clothes or making neon-coloured (and sometimes poisonous) macaroons.

Yumiko became obsessed with Japanese idols for their beautiful costumes and unique singing techniques through her early teen years. Not knowing what to do for 6th form, she had a small plan to make an idol group, but the project fell apart before it even left the drawing board.

After singing a small part in a school play in year 11, her parents were shocked that she had so much talent in singing and pushed her to audition for Lavander Moon Arts, if not for her singing skills, then for her drawing and creative baking skills.

Yumiko passed the second time she auditioned after being pushed several times by her parents. She still talks about how she thinks she got PTSD from the intensity of the audition process.

Finding Urania's Mirror made the shy and unconfident Yumiko truly realise her excitement for a creative career path, where her talents lie.

## Personality

It's immediately evident that Yumiko is timid. Because of her experience with bullies, she is nervous around those who she doesn't know. However, her timidness seemingly melts away whenever she meets anyone with vaguely similar interests. She can become very excitable and close with them quickly, never stopping to blabber about the next thing that captures her special interests.

Due to her spacy nature, she is constantly drifting into thought. She doodles day and night, designing cute idol outfits or crazy recipes that she think may work in the kitchen. However, this quickly becomes her downfall. When she was distracted once, she mixed rat poison into macaroons instead of coconut flakes and may or may not have killed a man.

Yumiko is a very kind and considerate friend - that is, if you're on her good side. While she can be in a perpetual honeymoon phase with the people she loves, when Yumiko's comfortable, she won't hesitate to switch and call you stinky or stupid if she doesn't agree with something. However, she blatantly lies about her true thoughts to spare feelings when she isn't as close with people.

Yumiko is embarrassed about the fact she's not very independent. It's simple for her to latch onto new friends and figures with nurturing personalities like Litzy. However, Yumiko works hard to prove her worth in Urania's Mirror by trying her best to gain confidence on stage. With Rikku and Urania's Mirror's guidance, she starts putting herself out there more often, striving to be the best version of herself she can be.

## Arcs

Overcoming stage fright

Finding self worth

Finding motivation for becoming an idol/having a creative job/not worrying about becoming a neet

## Physical Description

17-year-old Yumiko has shoulder-length soft, honey-brown hair worn in messy pigtails or loose in large ringlets. She has dewy, plum-coloured puppy-dog eyes and pale skin with a mole just below her right eye. Yumiko wears large, gold-framed glasses which slip down her nose every time she talks, which she wears mostly to cover up her mole, worried she'll get bullied for it. She has thin upturned eyebrows, which give her a concerned or scared look. She sometimes could be just sitting down, not saying anything, and people offer her tissues, thinking that she's crying.

Yumiko gives off a fragile aura, hiding in baggy clothes and long sleeves, trying to conceal her long and thin frame, standing at 169cm or 5'6 feet tall.

Yumiko wears the full winter school uniform, old school shoes, and white socks with her favourite brown garter belts, which aren't part of the uniform. Outside of the Lavander Moon Arts uniform, Yumiko doesn't consider herself to follow any specific fashion style. She wears plenty of loose-fitting and oversized fluffy jumpers and pleated skirts in soft, warm shades of pinks and browns.

## Etymology

* 'Charlotte' is of French and English origin, meaning 'free'.
* 'Yumiko' (Kanji:弓子) means 'arrow child'.
* Morikawa (Kanji:森川) means 'forest river'

## School classes

* Classical art
* Fashion & Textiles
* Designer baking
* Tap dance

## Clubs and Hobbies

Yumiko is currently part of the archery club while participating in Urania's Mirror and doing band practice.

Her hobbies include drawing, watching idol performances, knife throwing and singing. She also loves to bake whacky cakes, but she's widely known to be exceptionally bad at it.

Yumiko is often found reading, but she prefers manga to novels. She is also known to disappear mysteriously from time to time.

## Trivia

* She is played by Elsie Samuels, also known as @uramirayumi, on Instagram.
* Yumiko has several unspent criminal convictions.
* She idolises Litzy, much to the point she even tries to sing like her.
* Yumi is the youngest in Urania's Mirror, just like Elsie in real life!
* Yumi goes by her middle name, Charlotte or Lottie, in school. Only Urania's Mirror calls her by her first name.
* Yumiko isn't allowed to go on school trips without special permission for some reason.
* It's rumoured that Yumi is so abysmal at baking that she once murdered a man by feeding him her macaroons.
* Yumi likes to include Japanese lyrics in her songs to represent her Japanese side.
* Yumi is very enthusiastic about Japanese idols and wants to design Urania's Mirror outfits to be like them.
* She and Robyn often fight over silly things in Aerglo, both wanting to be the centre of their subunit.
* Cats are scared of Yumiko because they see the darkness in her eyes.
* She calls her parents every day to tell them about her idol group