Katherine Rhi

**Katherine Rhi** is Prince Heinel's aide and a major antagonist of *Chōdenji Machine Voltes V*.

## Appearance

Katherine has pale skin, elegant black eyes, and an ovalline face. She has long, wavy amber-blonde hair that reaches her hips and is tied into a French braid bun at the top. Two wispy strings of hair hang behind her ears. She wears lipstick. Her horns are brown and sprout from the sidees of her head, being of a curved shape. Her arms and fingers are tiny and of a thin shape.

She wears a light blue dress (that appears to be white in some frames) with pink underskirts and pink frilly sleeves. It is also parted in the middle. The dress is volominous and covers her legs, and when she is on her knees, spreads around the floor, giving the image of spilled water. Around her throat is a wide pink ruffle neck collar attached to her dress, and underneath said collar are two strings. She also wears a golden necklace with a blue oval-shaped jewel. As per custom for Boazanian women, a veil hangs from each of her horns. The veil extends past her hair to near her knees. In episode 3, Heinel cuts her veil in half, but it can be assumed that she has spares as the veil re-appears in every episode regardless of what damage Katherine sustains.

Sometimes Katherine dons an exotic fan, likely from the hide of a Boazanian animal. The fan's outer feathers are baby pink, with a smaller layer of bubblegum pink near the root and purple at the core. The fan usually has four, five or six feathers depending on the frame. It's feathers heavily resembles that of a peacock's. She sometimes uses the fan to hide her face as she laughs.

In episode 30, Katherine disguises herself as a woman named "Jane" to lure Kenichi and kill him. As "Jane" Katherine dons a white sheet on her head to hide her horns, while wearing purple clothing. Despite the paper-thin disguise clearly revealing her face and some of her hair, and her voice being unchanged, it manages to fool Kenichi. It is only after the bomb explodes (thus blowing away the white sheet) that Kenichi realizes that it was Katherine all along.

## Personality

Katherine is gifted at manipulation and fond of tricking others to gauge their true intentions. She has provided many devious schemes for Prince Heinel to fight against Voltes V, having impressed him with her loyalty. She is deeply devoted to Prince Heinel, and will scrutinize things to the farthest degree to ensure his safety. She overhears Zuhl's plot to have him killed and tells him, which enrages him and Duke Zaki, and similarly foils Bergan's plan to have him killed. As a result, Emperor Zambajil's assassins deem her a nuisance and despise her. Katherine is also a sadist and laughed heartily at the thought of killing the Voltes team, and killing Zuhl after it was found out that he wanted to kill Heinel.

Despite her self-serving nature, Katherine has standards when it comes to comitting atrocities and charging into war. When Heinel ordered the execution of Giligan, she was horrified and looked away. She is also terrified of Heinel's relentless drive for war as her biggest fear is losing him. Throughout the series, she changes from a woman who supports him blindly to begging him many times to not throw his life away in an endless war. However, Heinel brushes this off as her not understanding him.

Unbeknownst to Heinel, she is in love with him. She refuses to move when Heinel brandishes a sword at her, saying she will give his life for his conquest, earning his approval. When he chooses to fight for Boazania after being exiled, she begs him to go to safety to no avail, though he orders her to save herself before leaving. Eventually, she sacrifices herself to save him and confesses her feelings, making him realize that he loves her as well.

## Biography

At the start of the series, Emperor Zu Zambajil sends his nephew, Prince Heinel, to lead an invasion against Earth on Scar Rook with legions of fleets. In truth, he wants to send Heinel away to remove a perceived threat for his rule. Aiding Heinel are Ri Katherine, Zuhl and Rui Jangal. In episode 3, Heinel punishes his underlings for failing to stop Voltes V by brandishing a sword at them, but hesitates at Katharine, though she does not move and says that she will gives her life for his cause. Heinel then compliments her research of animals and earth species and tells her she can lead the next attack.

To ensure Heinel's death, Zu Zambajil sends Duke Zaki and Zuhl to pretend aiding Heinel, but in truth to kill him if necessary. During the invasion, Ri Katherine has helped Heinel to scheme against the Voltes V, but they fail every time. Secretly, Katherine is in love with Heinel and wants him to realize her feelings.

Halfway through the war, Duke Zaki conspires with Zuhl to send Heinel to his death by having the prince piloting a beast fighter while they leak information about its weak points to Big Falcon. However, Katherine overheards the plot and reports it to him, so Heinel orders Zuhl to reinforce the weak points. During the battle, Heinel destroys Zaki's ship with him inside. Later on, Katherine and Jangal also expose another plot to betray Heinel, leading to Zuhl being executed.

Eventually, Voltes V and Big Falcon reach Boazania and free Professor Goh. The Voltes team then convince the Boazanians about Zu Zambajil's tyranny. As a result, the Boazanians rebel against the Emperor, while his loyalists desert en masse to save their own skins. Despite Katherine's plead, Heinel refuses to run away and chooses to protect Boazania at all cost. When Heinel angrily orders some noble Boazanians to stay and fight for the planet, one noble tries to shoot him, but Katherine takes the bullet for him, and dies after confessing her feelings. This makes Heinel realize that he loves her as well and vow to avenge her by fighting against the Voltes team.

## Relationships

### Heinel

Katherine loves Heinel, but he doesn't know it. Heinel is convinced from his traumatic childhood that he is unworthy of love, and instead pays attention to superficial things such as royal titles. As a result, he is oblivious to Katharine being sweet to him, and only focuses on her rank as his underling. Heinel doesn't understand that she loves him, and assumes that all her actions as for the sake of the Empire. When he saved Katharine from mortal danger, he justified it by saying that it was because she would disgrace Boazanian nobility if she were to die before an Earthling.

Katharine herself is shown to be devoted to Heinel. When Heinel was punishing his comrades for being unable to defeat Voltes V, while Zuhl and Jangal cowered, she did not move when Heinel brought his sword to her head, stating that she was willing to bear any punishment from him for the sake of his conquest. As a result, Heinel's hand began shaking, unable to bring himself to harm her, though he had cut her veil. He then praised her and said that for her dedication, she can lead the next attack. Katharine always indulges his plans without question and when she gets the opppurtunity to be in charge of guiding Beastmen, she eagerly takes it. She is also violently protective of Heinel due to the multiple assassination attempts he faces due to his position, though this could also be from a place of possessiveness. Much like how Heinel prides himself in being a Boazanian noble, Katharine prides herself in being his right hand. She constantly praises him and encourages his aspirations to colonize the earth. However, when it becomes clear that Heinel is dedicated to fight to the death, Katherine becomes worried because she doesn't want him to die, and tries to save him.

When she learns that Zuhl planned to kill Heinel, she sadistically laughed at the thought of strapping a bomb to him without his knowledge and detonating it.

Katharine is also the only person Prince Heinel confessed his traumatic and humiliating backstory to, something he never did to anyone else. Throughout the series, it is shown that out of all his allies, Heinel trusts her the most.

When she hears that Heinel was sent a new assassin by the Emperor, Bergen, she becomes upset and asks Heinel if he thinks she and Jangal are of no use to him, implying feelings of jealousy/insecurity. Heinel reassures her that he does not.

When she sacrifices himself to save him and confesses her feelings, he realizes that he loves her as well.

Several pieces of supplementary material regarding *Voltes V* state that Katherine and Heinel are childhood friends.

### Jangal

Katherine and Jangal respect each other as co-workers. Apart from Heinel, they are the only ones each other trust. They both are protective of Heinel, and when they suspect that he is in danger, they often work together off-screen to save him. They also tend to gossip with each other about the Boazanians from Emperor Zu Zambajil's court. The two were close friends and when he died, Katherine shed tears.

### Giligan

When Katherine witnessed Giligan's prowess in the field, she remarked that he was a handsome man. However, when Heinel has him executed, she is forced to witness and turns away, horror-struck.

## Development

According to the Japanese Wikipedia entry for *Voltes V*, Katherine had a younger sister, Marlene de Pharoah Rii. She was originally planned to flee to the Earth and develop a faint romance with Kenichi. According to Yuki Hijiri's rough design, she was scheduled to appear in Episode 9, and the design picture depicts her wearing a dress and wearing an aristocratic outfit with two horns.

In the unaired episode, Marlene reveals to Kenichi that Katherine was born with horns but she wasn't, and Katherine hid Marlene and raised her in secret until she was found out and forced to be a slave. While the episode never aired, the script for it has been publicized.

Katherine's motif is an insect, hence two horns emerging from the temporal region.

## Other media

### Books

According to the *Roman Robo Anime Climax Selection*, Katherine and Heinel were foster siblings and her mother was his wet nurse/nanny. After Heinel's grandparents died, the Ri family raised him alongside Katherine. It also states that as children, Katherine saw Heinel being bullied and felt protective of him. She is also older than him. However this is never touched on in the anime, and the anime implies otherwise as Heinel explains his backstory to her (something which would have been unnecessary if they grew up together since she would already know that). By it's nature, the Roman Robo Album takes a lot of liberties with the canon of Voltes V.

The August 1978 issue of Animage features a Prince Heinel memorial special titled "Prince Heinel Forever". Katherine makes an appearance in a few pages.

According to her profile in the Encylopedia of Monsters 53rd edition (published by Keibunsha), Katherine and Heinel are childhood friends and she adores him very much. It also states she is the authority of biogenetics in Boazania. The Encyclopedia also lists her height as 168cm and her weight as 49 kilograms.

The February 1980 issue of the 月刊OUT magazine series contains sketches of Heinel and Katherine. In the July 1980 issue of 月刊OUT, Katherine and Heinel appear in a mini comic written by Yuuki Masami. In the comic, Heinel has a gun. When Katherine asks where he got it from, he says Kenichi gave it to him. However, Katherine breaks the gun in half (presumably out of jealousy), upsetting Heinel. Meanwhile Kenichi is holding a sword. When Ippei asks where he got it from he says Heinel gave it to him. Ippei then yells that he wants something too. In the next scene, Heinel is asks Katherine what she will do for the next beast fighter, and she replies "it involves frogs". Heinel then looks through a box that says "frog", while saying "this?". The next day, while Ippei and Kenichi are having breakfast, Big Falcon announces "Beast fighter sighted" while Kenichi mutters "again?". When the Voltes team see the beast fighters, it turns out to be a group of frogs that call them "mama" ("まま").

### Video games

#### Super Robot Wars A

After the decisive battle at the Underground Castle, even if Godol is destroyed, Heinel still retaliates and tries to fight, but he is put to sleep with a tranquilizer gun by the hands of Katherine who does not want him to die. It is presumed that he fled with Katherine to some distant star. He never learns that the Gou brothers are his half-brothers.

#### Super Robot Wars R

After Heinel pilots Godor, Katherine escapes with him in a spaceship provided by Leria.

#### Super Robot Wars J

Katherine dies protecting Heinel from Bergan's attack. Heinel swears her death will not be in vain, and with Jangal, he prepares a final attack.

#### New Super Robot Wars

Katherine appears as Heinel's assistant and dies protecting him from Zuhl's attack.

#### Super Robot Wars DD

Katherine appears as a background character alongside Heinel.

## Skills

* **Knowledge**: Katherine is a skilled scientist and biologist. Heinel remarks that she has extensively studied the species of earth to create beast fighter bodies. In many episodes, she is shown to use her knowledge to manufacture beast fighters.
* **Espionage/spying**: In many episodes, Katherine spies and eavesdrops through various means, to gather information on those she deems suspicious.
* **Manipulation**: She knows Kenichi wants to see his father again and banks on it to lure him out and try to kill him.
* **Knife-wielding**: In episode 30, she reveals that she hides a dagger underneath her clothing and tries to kill Kenichi with it.
* **Piloting**: She can pilot Boazanian saucers with ease.
* **Preparation**: Episode 40 reveals that Katherine had a rocket prepared for rations that would last years in case the Boazanians lost the war in her ancestral home.

## Trivia

* She has the same voice actress as Hiyoshi Goh.
* According to the Japanese Wikipedia entry for Voltes V, her full name is **Rii Katherine de Pharoa** (as Japanese names put surnames first, in Western order this would be **Katherine de Pharoa Rii**.
	+ Her middle name may possibly be derived from the word "Pharoah", befitting to her noble heritage and similar to how Heinel's name is serived from "your highness".
* Katherine's name was changed in various dubs of Voltes V:
	+ In the English dub, she was known as **Zandra**.
	+ In the Italian and Greek dub, she was known as **Kazarin**.
* Character designer Yuki Hijiri has drawn nude/erotic art of Katherine before as fanservice in the official art book *Chodenji Machine Voltes V 1978 Tokuma Shoten*.
* Some English translations of *Voltes V* spell her surname as **Rhi** or **Rii**.
	+ Some English translations of the *Super Robot Wars* video game series spell her name as **Katharine**.
* Katherine's laugh is known as the "Ojou laugh" in anime/manga.
* Katherine is prone to doing the Yamcha death pose whenever she falls over (once in episode 30, again in episode 38, and again in episode 40).
* She has similarities with Miia and Raiza from the other *Robot Romance Trilogy* anime.
	+ According to a Japanese poll done in 2000, Katherine won the title **The Most Lovable Female Enemy** of Tadao Nagahama's works, receving 50% of the votes from readers. Other candidates for this poll were Miia from *Combattler V* (45%) and Raiza from *Tosho Daimos* (5%).
* Katherine shows signs of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD):
	+ **Fear of abandonment:** When she learns Zambajil sent Heinel a new general, she gets distressed and asks Heinel if she is of no use to him. He reassures her that he doesn't view her as useless. She goes through extreme lengths to avoid perceived abandonment, like volunteering herself for dangerous missions or killing Kenichi herself, and when Heinel is angry, she gets upset. She is also extremely distressed at the thought of losing Heinel in war and tries several times to get him to abandon his conquest for honour.
	+ **Impulsive behaviour:** In episode 30, she stages a plot to secretly kill Kenichi. She does this by sending him a letter under the alias "Jane" stating that if he wants to see his father, he must meet her at the church in the next morning (while secretly rigging the church full of explosives to trap and kill him). However her "disguise" is merely a sheet that hides her horns, and it never occured to her that the aftermath of the bomb explosion would obviously blow it off and expose them to Kenichi. As a result, Heinel had to intervene and rescue her. Even after that, she still insisted in being the one who should kill Kenichi, disobeying Heinel's orders again.
	+ **Paranoia:** She is deeply paranoid of everyone she encounters and goes through great lengths to discover their true motives, often by surveilling them without their knowledge or testing them to see how they'd react. She even spies on Heinel as he practices a blood ritual in secret room in episode 30, which nearly gets her killed as Heinel gets startled and throws a sword near her head before realizing it is her.
	+ **Black and white thinking/splitting:** She views people as either "with Heinel" or "against Heinel".
	+ **Favourite person:** She views Heinel the most important person in her life, and she seeks reassurance, approval, guidance and validation from him. When Heinel tells her that he didn't save her because he cared for her, and instead it was because it would look bad if a noble died, she becomes distraught.
	+ **Unstable self-image/alternating between devaluing and idealizing:** Seems to think nothing of her life. In episode 3, she accepts Heinel's punishment of being cut down by his sword for losing to Voltes V, saying that her life's mission is to aid his conquest. Unbeknownst to her it was a loyalty test and he only cuts her veil, before telling her that she can lead the next beast fighter attack. At the same time, she prides herself in being a noble Boazanian, and laughs at the thought of humans being capable of feeling love, because she thinks they are inferior to Boazanians.
* Katherine is a foil to Mitsuyo Go, La Gohl's second wife:
	+ Both are scientists (but while Mitsuyo specializes in technology, Katherine's strength lies in biology and nature).
	+ Both wear their hair in the same braid.
	+ Both fell in love with a man from Boazanian royalty, and dedicated their lives to their respective causes.
	+ Both gave their lives saving someone they loved.
* Katherine owns two horses.
* In the Japanese version of the show, Katherine sometimes speaks in third person.

## Further reading

* Ri Katherine's page on the Villains Wiki *(warning for spoilers and concept art)*.
* Katherine's page on the Super Robot Wars Wiki (Japanese)

1. ↑ https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1208179842&ref=list&narrowDown=%E5%85%A8%E6%80%AA%E7%8D%A3%E6%80%AA%E4%BA%BA%E5%A4%A7%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%00Tag
2. ↑ The unaired plot regarding Marlene also confirms her full last name to be de Pharoah Rii
3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20130313105622/http://users.animanga.com/voltesv/faq/trivia.html
4. ↑ Episode 40