Nui Harime

Scissors proficiency

Heart Rip

Regenerative healing factor

### Hobby

Flirting and/or taunting at Ryuko and Satsuki.Manipulating Ryuko (while under the guise of a student).

### Goals

Aid Ragyo Kiryuin's goal with the Life Fibers.Prevent Ryuko from defeating Ragyo (both failed)

### Crimes

Mass murderRape

Conspiracy

Attempted genocide

“ DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW VALUABLE MY ARMS ARE HOW?! I'M THE GRAND COUTURIER! „ ~ Nui after her arms have been cut off during her fight with Ryuko.

**Nui Harime** is the secondary antagonist of the 2013 anime *Kill La Kill*. She is the Grand Couturier in service to Ragyo Kiryuin as one of her top two subordinates, alongside Rei Hōōmaru. She is also the one who killed Ryūko's and Satsuki's father, Sōichirō Kiryūin disguised as Isshin Matoi.

She is voiced by Yukari Tamura in the Japanese dubbed version, and Stephanie Sheh (who also voiced Airy in *Bravely Default*) in the English dubbed version.

## Biography

Nui was a Life Fiber-infused human that was born from an artificial womb. Prior to the show's main story, she fought with Ryuko's father Isshin Matoi, and he succeeded in cutting her right eye out with two pieces of the scissors blade. She then murders him, and then nonchalantly mentions to Ryuko that she killed her father in the main show. Nui is a Lolita-like young woman who seemingly has a bubbly like personality. However, underneath that facade is a very sociopathic individual who is greatly sadistic. This true version of her only ever surfaces when the odds are against her. If the situation is greater than she can handle, she would drop the facade, and act aggressively. It is also shown that she may hold hard grudges. One of the main reasons that she targets Ryuko and tries to kill her is most likely her still being enraged that her father cut out her eye.

As of episode 22, Ryuko manages to cut Nui's arms off. At first, Nui was not really horrified, because she assumed that they would just simply regenerate back onto her. However, to her horror, her arms did not regenerate, and to add salt on her wounds, Ryuko stomps on her arms. This ultimately causes Nui to drop her bubbly facade and try to kill her as revenge.

During Nudist Beach's attack on the Original Life Fiber, Nui remained in Honnōji Academy, furiously working to complete Shinra-Koketsu. After the Original Life Fiber was seemingly destroyed, Nui emerged on the academy's highest tower to mock her enemies' efforts and unveil the completed "ultimate Kamui". As Ragyō admired the new outfit, she used Life Fibers to give Nui a new pair of arms. Nui accepts the gift even though it isn't as durable as the natural ones. Later, Ragyō dons Shinra-Koketsu and absorbs Rei into herself, activating the "Absolute Domination" ability, later freezing the heroes.

Ragyō later summons the Original Life Fiber at Honnōji Academy. She moved to attack Mako, who continued to shout words of encouragement to Ryūko and Senketsu, but her attack was blocked by Ira, who seemingly succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter. When Senketsu managed to free Rei from Shinra-Koketsu, thereby disabling its "Absolute Domination" field, Nui moved to defend the transmitter needed to activate all of the Life Fibers around the world. She and her clones managed to keep the Nudist Beach forces at bay until a recovered Ira dropped from the sky and made an opening for Aikiro and Tsumugu to destroy the transmitter.

Ragyō called on Nui to "cast off her body". Nui cuts off her own head, allowing her (and her clones) to merge with the remains of the Original Life Fiber. Manifesting as an enormous, distorted version of Nui's head, the entity fused with Ragyō, healing her wounds and empowering her even further than before. Nui was last heard expressing her happiness before the final battle against Ragyō ensues.

Nui Harime lost most of her consciousness from absorbing the Original Life Fiber and/or Shinra-Koketsu. With Shinra-Koketsu being absorbed by Senketsu while safely returning Ryuko back to Earth and incinerated along with the former, she is mostly dead from that point.

## Appearance

Nui Harime seems to be a young teenage girl of medium height. She has long blond hair styled in drill-like pigtails, with smaller locks framing her face. Her eyes are sapphire blue, with highlights that resemble a smiling face.

Nui wears a richly adorned pink lolita-styled dress with matching boots and fingerless gloves. She accentuates her ensemble with a parasol, a large pink hair bow and a purple eyepatch, which covers the eye she lost in her battle against Isshin Matoi.

Her design has a prominent heart motif, such as on her collar, the center of her bow, her earrings, and even the highlights on her pigtails.

## Personality

Nui has a childlike, jovial, and happy-go-lucky demeanor; always smiling, and acting very friendly and even polite with everyone, demonstrating excessive intimacy towards even Satsuki and revealing to Ryūko in a rather nonchalant way the fact that she killed her father. According to Ragyō, Nui is a free spirit and will do whatever she wants according to her whims. Her often bubbly behavior and nonchalance towards anyone that stands in her way often puts her at odds with the main cast, and can easily become bored while she playfully seeks violence to a sadistic degree.

When she finds herself injured or outmatched, she becomes more frantic, obstreperous, and aggressive, dropping all manner of her cheerful demeanor, which becomes more evident by the endgame after Ryūko cut off her arms. Nui is also known for holding heavy grudges, like Isshin for cutting her eye out and Ryūko for cutting both her arms.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Life Fibers**
	+ **Superhuman Physical Prowess**: As a Life Fibers-infused human, Nui possesses immense physical strength, speed, reflexes, durability and endurance. She is able to handle herself exceptionally well in battle, being able to effortlessly fight against the Four Devas, who were all wearing enhanced, Three-Star Goku Uniforms, fight on even grounds against Kamui-wielding fighters such as Satsuki and Ryūko and easily defeat the Nudist Beach forces. In spite of her natural strength, due to the particular nature of the Life Fibers infused to her, Nui is unable to don a Kamui, as it would have no effect on her.
	+ **Regeneration**: As a Life Fibers/human hybrid, Nui can regenerate from any wounds and even lost limbs almost instantly, regardless of their severity. The only exception to this healing power is if Nui's entire limb is cut with either the Scissor Blades or two weapons forged from Bazukan, as they nullify Life Fiber restoration.
	+ **Mon-Mignon Prêt-à-Porter**: One of Nui's unique skills allows her to create replicas of herself that can either fight her opponents or act as distractions. Although physically identical to Nui and possessing all of her abilities, the duplicates appear to be far less powerful than the original, relying mainly on their superior numbers.
	+ **Mental Refitting**: Much like Ragyō, Nui can release Life Fibers from her hands that ensnare opponents and turn them into mindless puppets.
	+ **Shapeshifting Arms**: For the final battle, Ragyō replaced Nui's lost arms with Life Fiber replicas that can alter their shape. During the final episode, Nui's new arms transformed into blades for melee combat and bat-like wings for flight.
* **Natural Abilities**
	+ ​**Infiltration and Disguise Skills**: Nui also appears to be extremely skilled when it comes to mimicry and infiltration. She was able to completely disguise herself as Shinjirō Nagita, disguising her height, hairstyle, gender, and voice almost perfectly. She was also somehow able to create fake student data for Nagita, which appeared genuine upon inspection but disappeared immediately when she discarded her disguise. The only clue to her true identity that she apparently could not change was her eyepatch, which she instead covered up. In order to support her disguise she also used lifelike puppets to imitate the One-Star students chasing Nagita, indicating that she is also skilled at puppetry and ventriloquism.
	+ **Piloting Skills**: Nui is also a skilled pilot, as seen when she hijacked Satsuki's personal helicopter and flew it back to the Kiryūin manor.
	+ **Master Sewing Skills**: Being a Life Fibers/human hybrid and the Grand Couturier, Nui has a deep knowledge of how Life Fibers clothing is made, as demonstrated when she effortlessly spotted and removed Sanageyama's uniform's Banshi, dismantling the uniform. Likewise, she altered the Kamui Junketsu to be worn by Ryūko by sewing the Kamui's Life Fibers to Ryūko's own in order for the Kamui to possess her, making it extremely difficult for it to be removed from her body. She can sew high-quality garments, especially Life Fiber-based with ease, even after losing her arms as seen by her completion of the Shinra Koketsu.
	+ **Fingernail Hooks**: The bottom edge of Nui's fingernails are lined with small hooks that can catch threads. She can use these hooks to grab and remove Banshis from uniforms.

It is also of interest to note that of the characters shown in the series thus far, she is the only one to be capable of performing reality-warping feats such as leaning upon the characteristic large red text which forms her name, and completely disregarding the space separating her from Satsuki, allowing her to run her fingers through her hair as though they were standing eye to eye, when in reality, they were many meters apart. This is most likely for artistic effect for her character rather than actual ability.

## Trivia

* Yukari Tamura previously played Nanoha Takamachi, the titular main heroine in Magical Lyrical Nanoha series.
* 'Nui' means sewing and 'Harime' means stitch, which is an interesting nod to her sewing abilities.
* There exists a fan theory that Nui somehow managed to escape death by possessing Mako Mankanshoku.
* If one looks closely at Nui's good eye, it is noticeable that the glints and glimmers in it form the shape of a grinning devil-like mask, with horns.