Katagiri Miwa

* Child

**Katagiri Miwa** is one of the 3rd year students of Hidaka Koharu of the year 2007 and one of the Main Characters of High Score Dash.

## Profile

### Appearance

She is a young girl with messy, long blond hair. Miwa always comes to class smelling faintly of cigarettes, which Hidaka-sensei gives her a hard time over, usally she is seen wearing their high schools uniform what a ribbon around her neck but usually has a unzipped hoodie over it. She is usually called the "image of a trouble maker" from the things she does but she does look like a nice girl at first glance

As a child she had shorter blond hair and still had that cold glaze in her eyes.

### Personality

She is called the school trouble maker due to her lack of care or remorse as she has little tolerance to the people that piss her off as she has a short fuse and will pick a fight at the drop of a hat. She also has a joy of taunting others like Mizuki Emiri.

Despite her tough attituded, she inside is a very insecure girl living in fear verbally abusive father, she secretly has a love for video games and uses that as the escape she needs from her harsh reality.

## Story

### Before Dash

MIwa was born into a toxic household with a deadbeat dad that just smoked all the time. Him and her mother would always just argue and fight with each other with Miwa always being in the crossfire, because of this, even at a young age, she was always cold and distant with others. During her 3rd year of elementary school she met Yamai Shinji, an outcast usually being left alone, she alway looked down upon him, as a way to cope with her harsh reality, labeling him as a lame guy right there and then and always giving him a cold stare to make him know how she felt, also during this time she met a girl named Mirai Hoshina ,an airheaded girl with a dark secret, who somewhat took a liking into Miwa. At first she hated her, due to her thinking that she had a better life then she did, but over time she got to know her situation more and realized that she herself was going through something and yet had a smile on her face, and while she doesn’t want to admit it, Miwa loves having her around, having someone she could call a friend, and the two have almost being inseparable. Although life at home only got worse, her mom finally snapped and had enough, finally leaving the family, leaving her victim to her fathers mental abuse and guilt tripping her into staying with him. With nothing she could do, she ran away from home and came across an arcade, while not really interested at first she still decide to explore it and soon came to love everything about it, she took a liking into Darkstalkers 3, maining the character Pyro, and overtime, she become a god among men, being even knowledge by the veterans for her terrifying skill and arua, she loved it so much she that she get it on the PSP, even though she did find her safe place, life at home ever got and only put stress on her that even she started smoking like her dad, This lead up all the way until her 3rd year, were she made it to Hidaka’s class

### Dash Spin-off

She first appears in Dash: Credit 1 on there school opening ceremony, she didn’t much care for it and just hang on the roof smoking until it was over. She was disturbed however by Doi yelling in order to stop Mizuki from jumping off the roof, soon a crowd started to form and after they finally started to annoy her, she finally spoke up telling them to just let her die and telling Mizuki ifshe wanted to die she should have done it at home. Hidaka jumps on her case for ditching the ceremony and the smell of cigarettes, Miwa ignores her and taunts Mizuki with recording her death and posting it online to let people make fun of it, thanks to this Mizuki decides not to go through with it. Hidaka immediately gets back on her case demanding for the phone due to it breaking the school rules, she tries to get Hidaka to let it slide due to her stopping Mizuki nonsense, seeing that Hidaka won’t back down she drops not only the phone but also the lighter and pack of cigarettes, saying that she and Mizuki do agree on something, That Hidaka is a lame teacher and walks away. She later appears sitting quietly in her class when the other students were barring Hidaka with personal questions, were Hidaka notes that she is what they call the "image of a trouble maker" but look’s like a nice girl at first glance.

The next day, while not involved herself, she was there to witness Yami being harassed by Habu-kun and his gang while there on cleaning duty and was there to see how big of a pushover Habu-Kun was while trying to punch Yami. Before they start ganging up on them she decides to intervene, calling them weak for ganging up. Habu tries threatening her by saying that he knows what’s up with her family were she cuts him off and dares him to finish his statement, the gang leave them alone and before Yami could say anything she tells him he has weird vibes and that he was labeled lame ages ago, he says nothing and calls him useless.

The next day, she is once again a witness of yet again Habu-Kun stupidity to where he blames Yami for his strained arm, saying that if he punched him harder his bones would have snapped. She didn’t pay any attention to this until Mirai Hoshina comes in and tries to break up and gets Habu charges at her, seeing her friend in danger Miwa rushes in and clobber's Habu and he starts bleeding. Hidaka pulls them to try and understand what happens, Yamai tries to take the blame where the others push them aside like usual, Miwa but’s in to just tell her up front that it was her as she had nothing to lose as she was gonna ditch school anyway, Hidaka refuses to let her go and starts questioning if she is the person who’s been smoking on there way to school, finally fed up with her, Miwa pushes her away, to were her PSP falls out of her pocket and is flustered when Hidaka call it by it’s name. Mirai gets on her case about borrowing the PSP but is of course is shot down on the idea. Since she did confess that it was her, Hidaka would need to call Habu’s parents and hers for a conference on what happened, with the cigarettes and PSP being things they need to talk about, calling the PSP “This Thing”, Miwa is disappointed on what she just sayed, calling her out for not trueing knowing her students and proceeds to just leave school. On her way back home she is surprised that Hidaka is coming from her house. Hidaka explains that she just wanted to give her back the PSP and didn’t think it was a good idea to leave it with her father and gives it back to her, Hidaka tries to use this opportunity to try and give her words of encouragement telling her that she here if she wants to talk. Miwa responds saying that she would if she had 1 Million Yen, She then states that she rather her not get involved with her personal life and that talking won’t solve anything, thearthing to kill her if she were to come back. She makes it back home were she is confronted with her father who tries to know if she said anything to piss off the school, but gets nothing out of her, he then yells at her for being spoiled and to buy him other box of cigarettes where she cowards to her room, trembling with fear.

A few days later, she just goes back to acting like everything is normal, and is once again hiding on the roof, playing her PSP, when a Mirai pops from below, asking why she is not having lunch. Miwa reminds her that she clearly told her not to talk to her at school, of course the airhead Mirai ignores her and mentions how she brought up that Miwa wasn’t eating at all, and that they packed her a huge box of lunch and wanted to share it with her. Miwa asks if her body health is okay, since she has been coming to school lately, Mirai responds by explaining that her body feels worse when she is just laying around doing nothing and that she loves to go to school to see the other’s and must of all, talk to Miwa. Miwa, despite not saying it out loud, tes herself that she hates this one as well, but for some reason, whenever she talks to her, her problem doesn't seem to matter. The two walk together after school, as Miwa had been hesitant about, she takes her to an arcade, Mirai reveals that it’s her first time in one and it’s the most fun she has had other than an amusement park while playing a game about walking a dog. All Miwa does is stand there gald for her friend until she catches a glimpse of Hidaka and is immediately curious and later witness Hidaka confrontation Ariu about Yami but most shocked when Hidaka steps in to take his place Yami for his match, and is surprised that she goes the same game she has on her PSP and wonders if she can actually play and is once again amazed oh the moves she pulled off, even some she never own of, but despite that, she doesn’t understand why she doesn’t like it one bit.

A few days later, Miwa is at Mirai place talking about what happened recently at the arcade, with her  trying to convince Miwa that it wasn’t Hidaka's fault, while Miwa is trying to knock sense into her saying that the school will blame her either way. While Miwa is leaving Mirai tells her to time this to themselves as she doesn’t want to get Hidaka into more trouble, brushing it aside Miwwa ask if she her body really okay saying that even she worries about her health, Mirai assures her that she is fine and that she’ll bring her a being lunchbox for tomorrow. The next day of school, surprise, Habu finally came back for the second time, to where the school starts making fun of him as Miwa walloped him and the embarrassment being the reason why he was skipping school.She is there to witness once again Habu stupidity, as he once again decides to to confront Yamai, trying to intimidate him in order to try and get some pride back after the whole thing, and yet again, before Yamai could say anything Mizuki and Sawada come and defends him telling Habu to not bully the weakling to were the whole class joins this whole joins this chant against Habu. **Miwa** decide to finally butt in and looks up at the two, Habu get intimidated telling her want she wanted with her replying “Always being bailed out by woman huh..” Habu is confused on what she meant but the words of her weren’t meant for him they were meant for Yamai but unknown to her that those last as he rushes towards Habu, and with no hesitation or words, punches him square in the face, much to her shock, it left her with no words.

Later that night, she is confronted by her dad, asking her if she is going to college due to the test and payments he doesn’t want to go through . She states that she herself doesn’t want to do that as well and will just work when she is fresh out of school. Her dad tries to guilt trip her saying that if she were to ever leave home that she would never get a job since nobody would want to hire a dumb girl fresh from highschool. She calls him out for not having a job and quickly responds by saying that he writing a book to enter a contest to earn around 300 million yen. She then yells at him for only using there time to call her an idiot and gets mad when she talks back, saying that if she brothers him that much that she could just leave right now, he flips over the table out of anger, she backs up her statement saying that he has real problem with his temper and that being the reason why her mom left, finally having enough he runs towards but then trips on a cord, calling defeat he simply just tells her that she just shouldn’t come home late.

With her being in a bad mood, she decides to let a bit of stress out in the arcade, even being a while since she been there, she shows that she no pushover by being able to pull off a 43-win streak, with making even the veterans scared, although she knew in the back of the head, she didn’t really worry about it until she came face-to-face with Yamai, she gives him the gold stare clearly telling him to not come anywhere near them. She knew Yamai was wandering around here but it was an irrational situation she wished she didn’t get into. But like how she was, he didn’t take her warning and challenged her. Throughout the 2 rounds she was letting out her anger through towards him, due to her feeling protected in her place and thinking that Yamai was distureding her peace, with the character Pyro by using combos and even going as far as using the Smasher Hell just to push him his limit, He loses the match but when he looks behind to were the crowd gives him the thumbs up to keep going, much to her irritation, she counties to beat him 4 times in a row were he finally got to switches his character to Rikuo, much to her confusion, wer she is shocked that he plays the same cheap away she was fighting, using Combos to trap her and make her unable to move, trying to time her out. However this was the last straw, without him knowing, she got up out of anger, and like how it happened years before, she punches him across the face, starting an unlikely relationship due to their love of video games.

## Gaming

She is a very skilled gamer, she used to frequent the arcades prior to highschool, she also has a talent of fighting games, specially Vampire Savior, was able to pull off a 42 win streak with no signs of stopping.

## Relationships

### Mirai Hoshina

The two seem rather close since they were kids. Mirai is the only person that Miwa as shown actul care for, always being amazed on the fact that, despite her brain illness, she is still able to smile and have fun with anyone she meets, something Miwa wished she had. Mirai is also the only one to be able to see the softer side of Miwa, being the only one Miwa is willing to hang around with and is close with her family.

### Yamai Shinji

At best, the two are acquaintances. The two have don't seem to get along at all, even as far as their 3rd year of elementary school, she has always looked down upon by him, she refers to him as usless, ladleding as a lame guy and makes sure to make him know how she feels by giving him a cold glare as early as they knew each other. Yamai is one of the the few people to find out her love for video games, much to her dismay, knowing this, it pisses her off to the point she dowright uses violence to project how she feels to him, ironically, this start's a unlikely relationship between them due to their love of video games. As it stands, the two are still not in good terms, nor do they know each other well just yet, but the two seem that they will bond closer as the story continues.

## Etymology

Her family name Katagiri (片桐) means "'A single foxglove tree." The name Miwa (美和) mean "beautiful hamony, peace," possbily due to how she finds peace at the arcades.

## Triva

In Volume 2 Shinji ends up frustrating Miwa into ragequitting, getting puched in face and all, mirroring the first chapter of the original Hi Score Girl.

* Miwa, along with Yamai, have some severe anger issues. unlike Shinji, who prefers to bottle up his emotions until someone ''really'' pisses him off, Miwa has a shorter fuse and will pick a fight at the drop of a hat.