Kaitani Zakurow

KAITANI ZAKUROW

## Appearance

Kaitani is of small stature, and of small body size and shape, making her look like an adolescent tween girl just entering puberty. She is the shortest and smallest of the three school friends, plus that of Karii Maki. Her smallness is more than made up for by her sometimes caustic personality.

Kaitani has a round, child's face, with full childlike cheeks, and a slightly pointed chin. She almost always looks like she is blushing. She has extremely long, natural blonde hair, always worn in large, full twin tails that reach to her knees, with the twin tails ending in large corkscrews. Small bangs are at each side of her head, and partially cover her ears, and drape down alongside her cheeks. Small bangs drape across her forehead. She has large, innocent looking 'anime girl' eyes that belie her maturity. Her eyes are blood red, with dark eyelashes, and expressive (usually distressed) eyebrows. Kaitani either wears glasses, or on occasion, wears contacts, as her eyesight is not very good without them.

Kaitani has a pale pink skin tone, even all over. She has narrow shoulders, but with long, thin arms, and smaller hands. She has a modest bust, but still looks like a teenage loli. A narrow waist morphs into slightly wider hips and thighs. She has long, slim and trim 'ice skater' legs, but with small feet. One would think that she is an older child, or a tween girl, but her bratty personality gives her away, that she is probably older, and supposedly more mature, than what she looks like.

Kaitani's fashion style is strickly "Kawaii" ( super cute ). She wears clothing styles typical of an adolescent, tween girl, making her look much younger than her own age of that of a high school girl. Many times she will wear Gothic/Lolita attire, or similar. Other times she wears the female high school uniform, the same uniform that Karii Maki wears. But one thing holding Kaitani back is her aversion of seeing the female form, clothed or unclothed, her own body, or that of another girl. This distresses her greatly, and she begins a program to try and adapt herself to acceptance of this common trait, so lacking in her repressed personality.

## Personality

Since Kaitani Zakurow is Akira Asaba cross-dressed as a teenage girl, much of Kaitani's personality is a modest copy of Akira's personality. However, Kaitani's personality is similar, but not identical to Akira's. This because Kaitani has a wide and deep tsundere streak in her personality, and it affects her moreso than Akira. To put it simply, Kaitani's emotional, social, and spiritual attributes are 'hard on the outside, soft on the inside', the short definition of tsundere. This means that she will appear to be course, stiff, and unreasonable at first, but eventually, her softer side of concern, introspection, self-control, and good reasoning will come to the fore during select times and occasions. And when her softer side appears, she has tons of MOE that only adds to her attraction. The purpose of Akira presenting as Kaitani is that if he were to choose the female form of the Maniacal 'Girl', he would attract too much attention, like the way a cosplayer does. Cross-dressed as Kaitani, he can present and move around for more mundane day-to-day duties, without attracting unwanted attention. As such, Kaitani's personality comes off as a more workable and useable version.

Like Akira, Kaitani's personality seems to be two differing personalities welded together. However, while leading an average life of a sensitive and mindful girl, she nonetheless, was drawn to the lifestyles of the various villains that she would see and read about in anime and manga. Thus Kaitani would by her own choosing, be bent towards the 'dark side of the Force', although she comes into conflict with herself for doing so. By being, most of the time, 'hard on the outside', Kaitani would try to emulate the many questionable personality traits of the villains, like intimidation, boastful attitude, and threatening words and actions. However, Kaitani, as she presents these, and many more bad traits, slowly comes to find out that presenting such bad traits only makes her seem to others as foolish and conceited. Plus she many times has to break off from her bouts of intimidation towards the girls of the Maho Shoujo Club, simply because she becomes so embarrassed and resentful of her own efforts that she can not continue and has to withdraw from their company. Kaitani has such a repressed personality, as well as being a unmitigated loner, that she can barely function in normal society without having a social or emotional crisis constantly befalling her.

Unplanned and unknowing circumstances will may times cause Kaitani to show her 'soft on the inside' part of her. This can be seen when she went to the beach to do, according to her words, 'scientific research', by observing and noting what other teenage girls look like wearing bikini swimsuits, and how they interact with one another. Many positive personality traits were observed and noted. Therefore, at times, Kaitani does have, to a degree, some positive traits and attributes. She is scholarly, and her interests drew her into the world of intellectualism, which lead her to embrace being a 'geek and nerd', something that she is proud of. Like Akira, Kaitani can create and work with Artificial Intelligence, allowing her to adjust her own attributes to further her goals. She has the devotion, self-motivation, and self-control to pursue her goals, and to meet and even exceed them, no matter the social cost or difficulty of the project. She knows and values her self-worth, even when she disappoints herself because of her so obvious lack of social or interpersonal skills.

## Kaitani's Story

When Akria Asaba dresses as, masquerades as, and presents themselves out in public giving the appearance of a cute tween 'girl', although they are a cis-male and having a male gender identity, and they thus fulfill the role of a gender-bender, he takes the female name Kaitani Zakurow. However, 'she' is quite taken aback and shaken by not only observing other teenage females, such as Karii Maki, but is very intimidated by any social or interpersonal contact with anyone, especially girls. Why Akira chooses to present as a female, when he is so adverse to being in social contact with females, and even quite embarrassed to understanding anything intimate about girls, is a mystery not fully explained in the manga. However, he does seem to have his reasons for doing so, at least in his own mind ( see Chapter 18 ).

Paradoxically, as Kaitani spends more and more time as a male masquerading as a 'female', they see just how severely handicapped they are in social situations, and indeed, everyday life. Surprisingly, as the girls of the Maho Shoujo Club come to understand that Kaitani is actually Akria Asaba cross-dressed as a 'girl', the girls offer to help 'her' become accustomed to being with and around other females. This can be seen when Kaitani goes to the beach to do 'scientific research' on girl's appearances and social habits, and when encountering the club members, they offer to spend time with 'her' on the beach. This Kaitani does, until her social weakness and ineptitude around girls, especially when 'she' has to use the girl's toilet, gets the better of 'her', and 'she' has to leave in shame and disgust of 'herself'. That night Akria can hardly sleep because of experiencing such intimidating and intimate female social interaction. Each time that Akira becomes Kaitani, it seems as if Kaitani loses a part of her masculine part, and feminine personality traits and attributes are grafted in and become infused into her personality. In other words, like it or not, each time Kaitani appears, she is a little bit less male, and a little more female. If Kaitani could ever 'dial down' her tsundere personality streak, and embrace the soft side of herself, her feminine side, she would find out that she can attain a life of a happy and settled girl, with a bevvy of friends, female and male alike.

In Chapter 43, Akira, as Kaitani, is once again examining themselves in front of a mirror, when their big sister, who does not live with the family anymore, and is a young successful businesswoman now, bursts into Akira's bedroom. There big sis finds Kaitani, naked except for wearing a pair of girl's panties, intimately staring at themselves in the mirror. Bis sis is shocked beyond belief, but eventually calms down. Akira 'spills the beans', and tells her everything. She then declares that she always wanted a kawaii imouto (cute little sister)! This has a profound effect, therefore causing her little brother, Akira, to have to begin presenting themselves as Kaitani, big sister's own and much beloved 'cute little sister'!

As the story progresses, both male Akira, and female Kaitani, slowly learn how to become more sociable and friendly. Akira becomes more civil and unassuming toward male Minami, however, Kaitani finds that she has become closer and friendlier toward both Yui and female Karii. This even to the point that Kaitani and Yui share a night together in bed, as part of a girl's sleepover. Later, during Yui's birthday party, Kaitain is invited, and she actually comes to the party, this despite her dislike of being in social situations. Unfortunately, Kaitani is sorely teased, causing her to revert back to being the bad 'Maniacal Girl', and causing quite a disturbance to the party. Later, during a kidnapping of Yui, Akira and Minami share a deep secret between the two of them, that they both can transform into Battle Maidens, Lord Kaiserk, and Maho Curry, as well as cute, pretty teenage girls, Kaitani and Karii. As such, Kaitani begins to experience a girl-with-girl Shouji Ai / Yuri relationship with Karii.

## Trivia

In the Japanese language, the first name 'Kaitani' is a combination of both masculine and feminine names. The first name 'Kaitani' means a clear, vast ocean (M) washing up into a lush, green valley (F).

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