Hajime Ichinose

**Hajime Ichinose** (一ノ瀬 はじめ *Ichinose Hajime*) is the main protagonist of Gatchaman Crowds.

## Appearance

Hajime has grey eyes and mid-length brown hair held back by a white bird-shaped hairclip. She is usually seen in a school uniform with black shoes, skirt and stockings with a white shirt and a red neckerchief around her neck.

## Personality

Hajime is an eccentric, mischievous, and overpoweringly cheerful young woman possessed of an inexorable will and unshakeable optimism. She cares very little for formalities, often addressing people she's just met with a familiarity that might be considered rude, and she gives not a single whit about appearances or labels. In resolving a conflict, she would much prefer to talk things over and see the other side's perspective than resort to violence. Her quirky demeanor and her general difficulty in articulating her thoughts through words might be mistaken by some for air-headedness or stupidity, but in truth, her bright personality obscures both a deep well of intellect and the deliberate thought and planning behind many of her words and actions. She is also more than a little nutty about arts and crafts, and particularly notebooks.

## Abilities

Dexterity: Hajime is very dexterous, quick, and surefooted, able to perform a wide variety of acrobatic stunts and accurately hit moving targets with both thrown and other ranged weapons, though she has no formal training in marksmanship. Her physical abilities are not superhuman, however, and her strength and endurance are merely average.

## Skills

**Art**: Although the quality of art is largely subjective, Hajime is highly creative and very well-versed in illustration, interior and exterior design, papercraft, fashion, and many other kinds of arts and crafts.

**Book Learnin'**: Hajime has been well-educated by the Japanese public education system, and excels in all school subjects to the level of a recently-graduated high school senior. She is fluent in both Japanese and English.

**Charisma**: Hajime's sheer enthusiasm and amicability plus her penchant for the bold and unexpected lend her a certain aura of personal magnetism that makes her both the heart of her Gatchaman team and their de facto leader and PR manager. She is also a popular public figure of global renown on her homeworld.

**Cooking**: At least in terms of human food, Hajime is an excellent cook. Her methods of preparation may seem odd, and the product may look a little weird at first glance, but you can guarantee that it'll be delicious (to a humanoid palate).

**Wisdom**: Hajime has a very broad-minded way of seeing the world, and she is unusually observant for a human, noticing details and patterns that others might miss and easily able to pick up on the feelings and intentions of others.

## Notable Equipment

**Backpack**: Great for carrying things! Super-convenient! Amazing utility in the shape of a cute squiggly face! Full of high-quality arts and crafts materials! Wow!

### G-Suit 101

A suit of powered armor that Hajime can transform into using her NOTE. It offers plenty of protection, standing up to superhuman strength and the likes of small arms fire and small explosives with nary a scratch, but there is a sizable, glowing weak point on the back, between her shoulder-blades: her NOTE. If the NOTE is pierced or pulled out of the socket in which it is secured, Hajime will immediately be knocked out of her transformation and incur a grievous wound at approximately the spot where the NOTE is located, probably being knocked unconscious in the process. While fully clad in her G-suit, Hajime is enclosed in a sort of subspace soul-bubble from which she pilots the suit, which in turn means she is protected from toxins and environmental hazards while in the suit and can breathe indefinitely. However, blows to the suit will be registered as corresponding pain and injuries on her body, though lesser injuries than the damage (for example, if her suit's arm were cut off, she would begin bleeding heavily from the arm, but her own arm would not be cleaved from her actual body). She can choose to remove any part of or the whole suit at will, in which case her whole body returns to real space until she re-dons the full armor. Her G-suit also features rocket-boosted roller-blades that can be instinctively brought down or retracted from the backs of her ankles, and the entire thing also glows in the dark! So cool!

Lastly, her G-suit provides her with the following weapons and tools:

* **Balles Patsels**: Fired from a launcher on Hajime's left hand. Infinitely-replenished projectiles in every color of the rainbow that explode into harmless clouds of colored smoke on impact.
* **Blanc et Noir**: Twin blades holstered in the boots of Hajime's armor that can combine into a giant pair of scissors. The scissors can also be used as a large sword when closed.
* **Grand Ciseaux**: A secondary pair of scissors formed when the Wings de l'Avenir detach from Hajime's armor and combine. The Grand Ciseaux is smaller than the Blanc et Noir and is used as a short sword when closed.
* **Maste**: Gigantic strips of colored tape that Hajime can whip outward from her right hand in limitless supply. Not painful unless you try to pull it off your bare skin too fast, but very sticky and adhesive. Useful for holding things in place.
* **Petits Ciseaux**: An infinitely-replenishing supply of small blue scissors that have a bird head and a blue G logo on them, stored in compartments in Wing de l'Avenir. Used as throwing daggers, and sharp enough to embed an inch or two into steel. Hajime can cause them to drop away from whatever they are embedded in by snapping her fingers. She is also able to summon and dismiss one pair at will while untransformed.
* **Wings de l'Avenir**: A pair of retractable wings resembling swan heads that grant Hajime the power of flight.

### NOTE of the Designer

A notebook bonded to the user's soul, used to don a suit of personality-tailored power armor called a G-Suit by striking a certain pose and uttering the phrase "Bird, go!" to trigger a brief transformation sequence. As a NOTE is bound to a person's soul, it's somewhat like a phylactery, and damaging the NOTE or the glowing weak point that it manifests as on the G-Suit can result in severe injury to the bonded, including coma or death in extreme cases. Members of Hajime's Gatchaman team can communicate with each other via writing or speaking into their NOTEs, can manifest their thoughts onto its pages, and can do all this simply by telepathy while transformed. NOTEs also have an optional function called the "Amnesia Effect" that, when toggled on, erases the user and any nearby supernatural phenomena from the perception of anything unable to detect souls (though all NOTE-users and those with a sufficiently strong sixth-sense are immune to the Effect). This does not mean the wielder is a ghost, however, so impacts against objects and lifeforms will still be apparent, though not heard.

Aside from the above standard functions, the NOTE of the Designer allows Hajime to transmute any concentrated ambient energy or consciousness she cuts with her Suit's scissors into a definite physical form of her choice, with functions of her choice, though it must be of a size proportionate to the energy transmuted. This does not apply to regular living things, but rather to "loose" energy external to one's body, such as someone's beam attack or a disembodied soul. She can summon and dismiss one pair of small, hand-held scissors for this or any other purpose at will without transforming. Transmuting very high volumes or concentrations of either type requires larger scissors, which she can only access while in her armor.

### NOTE of Schadenfreude

Berg Katze's NOTE, which Hajime sealed inside herself along with Katze. Although its full powers are inaccessible, she can allow Katze to take control of her body while in her G-suit, which allows him to use his NOTE's main power: by lip-locking with a target, he can transform Hajime "completely into that person", shape-shifting to their appearance, obtaining all of their abilities, perfectly mimicking their voice and mannerisms, and learning of all their insecurities and darkest feelings (these effects may be resisted by other PCs and entities of sufficient will). While so transformed, Hajime remains within the sub-space soul bubble as mentioned in the description of her G-suit, and all the limitations and benefits thereof still apply, but she cannot use any of her own NOTE's abilities. If de-transformed, any transformations and abilities conferred via the NOTE of Schadenfreude are not retained and must be re-obtained via Katze-piloted-Hajime kissing.