Caren

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* Purple (Mermaid)
* Brown (Human)

**Caren** (かれん Karen) is a supporting character in the anime and manga Mermaid Melody. Her name is frequently misspelled as Karen, however this is the result of incorrect translation. All official merchandise in Latin based languages lists the character's name as Caren. Her debut is marked in episode 21. The episode that centers around her is episode 67.

## History

### Pichi Pichi Pitch

Caren is Noel's younger twin sister; however, they both live in different parts of the oceans and have never met. Even so, she cares a great deal about Noel without knowing what she is really like. When she is told from her servants that her sister was captured by Gaito, she vows to find her no matter what. Even though it was not true, Caren believed that Rina abandoned Noel and let her be captured. Noel however, was in fact, sacrificing herself to let Rina escape. Due to the misunderstanding, Caren was hostile toward Rina for a long time.

Caren took part in a talent show in episode 21 where she won first prize (a plasma TV), which is the first time the other mermaids really took notice of her. She appeared again in Taro's welcoming party and makes Taro falsely suspect she is Sara, the mermaid he fell in love with years ago and tries to follow her. He never actually manages to ask her about it on that episode however.

When Caren appears before the other mermaid princesses: Lucia, Hanon, and Rina, she saves them from the Water Demons with her extraordinary singing voice. Delighted that they found another mermaid princess, Lucia asks Caren to join them, but she refuses, insulting them in the process.

After the misunderstanding between Rina and Caren is resolved, Caren still refuses to join the other princesses and instead goes on to look for her sister on her own.

Caren finally finds Gaito's moving castle thanks to the help of Lucia, Hanon and Rina, who were also searching for the castle. Caren is stuck in a black mist just after the Black Beauty Sisters are defeated and is almost captured, however she is saved by the other princesses, which leads to the castle disappearing again.

Eventually Caren stops her hostility toward the mermaids but does not join them until they go fight against Sara, the Water Demons and Gaito. When they find the kidnapped Noel and Coco, Caren immediately swims as fast as she can to rescue Noel and hugs her, even going as far as calling her 'Onee-sama', a respectful way of calling an older sister. In a way, Caren's main goal to rescue Noel was finally over. She later helps to defeat Gaito, along with the other six mermaids.

### Pure

Caren returns to her kingdom to rebuild it with its mermaids. Afterwards, she and her twin sister help Rina rebuild her kingdom. She also finds a love interest in Subaru and they are shown researching the mysterious temperature rise in the Antarctic Ocean. Caren also has a penguin friend name Pipi who helps her contact the other princesses to save Lucia and the Legendary glacier.

Caren's attitude sees a big change in the second season; she loosens up a little and becomes more caring to the other princesses. She comes to help them in the summer vacations where we find that she also has interest in beach volleyball.

### Manga

The manga history of Caren is similar to the two anime seasons. Her kingdom gets attacked by Gaito's forces and she meets the main trio (Lucia, Hanon and Rina) in a mermaids contest that was hosted. Caren appears to have a huge dislike to Rina when they first met due to a misunderstanding. She gets kidnapped by Gaito and when she is free, Noel sacrifices herself again. She and the 3 remaining Mermaid Princesses keep on fighting together until they free Noel and Coco in the end and Sara.

### Aqua

Caren appears in Rukia's first encounter with a force of a villain. She comes to her rescue to save her successfully.

## Personality

Caren is a very mysterious character. Most of the time, she is calm and mature; however, she acts coldly towards the other mermaid princesses when they first meet. Other than that, she is very loyal to her friends and loves her sister, Noel, very much, long before she even met her. Her caring side can be shown towards her feelings for Subaru, whom she loves but decides not to pursue because she worries that her being a mermaid princess and often having to fight against evil would put his life in danger.

By the start of the second season, though slightly still arrogant, she is much kinder and more open to having fun and much closer to the other mermaid princesses.

On a side note, she seems to love eating human food, especially okonomiyaki as shown in episode 35 and Pure episode 19.

## Appearance

Caren has long, dark purple hair with curled ends, and her eyes are purple, just like her hair. Caren is also taller than most of the other mermaid princesses. She has a birthmark on her left cheek.

## Forms and Aspects

Caren, just like the other mermaid princesses, has three forms. This includes her human, mermaid and idol forms.

### Human Form

In her human form, Caren has dark purple hair with ringlets and pale skin as well as medium brown eyes. Caren like other mermaid princesses wears a necklace around her neck carrying a purple shell, containing her precious, purple pearl. Her hair in human form is darker than her hair in her mermaid form.

### Mermaid Form

 File:Karen05.png
Caren follows the trend of all the other mermaid princesses, two pearl bracelets around her right wrist and long dark purple tail.

### Idol Form

 File:Super Idol Karen.png
Lastly, there is her idol form called 'Purple Pearl Voice'. Her costume is a white short strapless dress with black purple ruffles down the one side and it is above knee length with purple trim at top. Her bow is the same color as her hair, but in a darker shade. Her gloves are white with purple cuffs that extend to her mid arm and her high-heeled boots have the same colors. She has a purple seashell barrette in her hair. Her idol form is very similar to Noel's form, due to them being twins.

## Powers

 File:Karen - cuti hot pitch ch12.jpeg
In the anime, Caren shouts 'Purple Pearl Voice!' to transform. In the manga, she can transform at will with no incantation. In her idol form, like Lucia and the others, Caren can use her singing voice to get rid of enemies. In manga, at the end of her songs, she uses 'Cutie Hot Pitch' whereas in the anime, she uses Lucia's 'Love Shower Pitch!'

### List of songs sung by Caren

* Legend of Mermaid
* Aurora no Kaze ni Notte
* Kodou
* Kibou no Kaneoto

## Transformations

Caren transforms by saying "Purple Pearl Voice".

Mermaid Melody - Karen's Sea TransformationMermaid Melody - Karen's Super Idol Transformation
## Trivia

* Caren has a lot of similar characterestics with Noel (such as the idol dress design) due to being twins.
* Caren sang a solo version of Legend of Mermaid in episode 26.

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1. ↑ The airing dates of the anime episodes roughly correlate to their in-universe dates. From this, it can be inferred that Caren likely turned 18 around Episode 46. As the series ended shortly before the 2005 new year, Caren did not reach her 19th birthday during the series.