SPOILERS FOR KILL LA KILL'S ENTIRE PLOT

[redoni]

PLAYER
Name: Kiva
Age: 21
Personal Journal: thesecondfinale
E-mail: caligulasaquarium@live.ie
AIM/MSN/etc: obscureinternetreference

CHARACTER
Name: Ryuuko Matoi
Canon: Kill La Kill
Age: 17
Timeline: End of episode 15, just after Aikuro promises to tell Ryuko everything.
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: N/A

Personality:

Ryuko is a very typical hotblooded protagonist. From the beginning of the series, we learn she's a juvenile delinquent known for picking fights, getting into trouble and having a less-than-stellar family life. This shapes her up to be a rude, reckless and stubborn girl who frequently butts heads with authority figures. Despite this however, as the series progresses, she reveals herself to be a much less secure figure in herself than she appears to be and as the emotional trauma of her real identity weighs upon her and breaks her down, it shows us a more fragile and troubled side to her she purposefully ignored for far too long.

As stated earlier, Ryuko is a hotblooded, spirited young girl. She never gives up when she sets her mind to something, determined and even sometimes reckless in her pursuit of her goals. No matter how many times she is defeated, be it by the boxing club captain in episode one, the tennis club captain in episode two, Satsuki, Sanageyama or Nui, she always comes back with a renewed sense of determination in order to beat everyone she needs to beat and avenge her dad. It's especially evident in her main objective of vengeance as well, considering she spent no less than three years wandering in search of her father's murderer with little to no leads. Her fierce determination shines best when she is mind controlled by Ragyo Kiryuin, escaping control by punching herself in the face in order to snap herself out if it.

Despite her need for vengeance and tendency to be consumed by her anger however, Ryuko is by no means a bad person. If someone is in need of help, often she'll help them and do everything in her power to make sure they're okay. Although it's primarily evident in her interactions with her friend Mako, there have been times when her kindness has extended to people she hardly knows. When she was tricked by Maiko into helping her despite her intention being to steal Ryuko's godrobe, as well as the time she was also tricked by Nui into helping her when she faked a new identity and even faked the people who were harassing her using puppets, it takes very little in the way of convincing for her to decide to get involved in their business, even if at first she might ignore their plight. Her desire to do good is prominent even in her fights, where she rarely fights to kill her opponent, instead only destroying their uniforms so they can no longer fight - a courtesy they do not extend in return.

On top of her recklessness and kindness, or perhaps as a result of both traits, Ryuko also shows an incredible amount of confidence at all times - she's sometimes even borderline arrogant. Even when noone is willing to speak against Satsuki Kiryuin and the student council, even when people advise against doing so, she continues to act disrespectful to them. She'll talk down to her opponents even if they're far stronger than she is - Ryuko is completely fearless, and nothing appears to slow her down. It's this confidence, coupled with her fierce determination, that allows her to repeatedly face off against opponents she's lost to before, or to keep fighting a losing battle even when the odds seem stacked against her, and time and time again she's pulled through.

However, her confidence can act against her in certain situations. After defeating Sanageyama she was confident she could easily defeat him again, underestimating the lengths he was willing to go to in order to improve himself and best her, resulting in her defeat during their rematch. Her recklessness is also what causes her to take so much damage during fights, as even though her mind is willing, her body can find it difficult to keep up and she often finds herself taking way more damage in fights than she should. The leap from confidence to arrogance can cloud her judgement and force her to make mistakes.

Her recklessness and fearlessness are also the source of her temper, as often she'll grow more and more frustrated against opponents she can't defeat, clouding her judgement even further than her confidence does. She's also quick to become enraged if an opponent knows which buttons to press, but even outside of combat, her temper is quick to surface - if people don't cooperate with her, if people irritate her, insult her, underestimate her, deceive her...the list really goes on, but the fact is, all of these things can immediately spur her into shouting and making threats(although in a lot of situations, harmless ones.) She'd sooner express herself with her fists over her words, which can leave her vulnerable to people particularly adept at manipulating her emotions to get the better of her.

Finally, despite her confidence and outspoken nature, Ryuko is very much a troubled and lonely girl. She had no friends and was bullied from an earlier age, causing her to lash out by beating up everyone who dared cross her in order to gain respect, maybe even fear, but there was no closeness. Her mother was out of her life from the beginning and her father was so consumed with his research that he rarely spoke with her, and when they did, it was usually fighting of some kind. As a result, Ryuko is terribly lonely and in need of companionship, something she probably believed she didn't need - but Mako and her family accepting her as they did improved her a lot, making her finally feel like she was wanted and accepted. During episode 20, her loneliness and desire for love is what is played upon by Ragyo Kiryuin in order to gain control of her, rewriting her memories to make her believe she grew up with Ragyo, who acted the part of a loving and supportive mother. While she'd deny it, Ryuko is in terrible need of family and companionship to support her, and while at her current canon point she would only realize it's nice to have these things but not necessary, beneath the surface she doesn't understand how much she truly needs them instead.

Background:

Although brief, this provides a good summary of what happens in each episode.

This is also a link to her wiki page, but it's not very comprehensive.

I'm going to cover everything not covered in the links above here, and hopefully they will support the rest of her background enough for this to be acceptable. If not, I can expand on whatever is necessary!

Kill la Kill is set in japan.

This is about as far as you're going to get in terms of normality, since everything else is balls to the walls crazy. It focuses on Honnouji Academy, a fictional high school located in Tokyo Bay, where new student Ryuko Matoi has just transferred in her search for her Father's murderer with nothing but a mysterious scissor shaped sword left to her by him. She soon discovers it's unlike any other school, dominated and ran by the student council, who use special outfits known as Goku Uniforms to give themselves abilities far beyond the scope of a regular human and maintain their control over the student body. Ryuko initially attempts to question the leader of the student council, Satsuki Kiryuin, over her father's death - but she's no match for the uniform enhanced students under her control. She returns to her old home, lamenting her defeat, but falls into a trap door and lands in the basement inadvertently awakening Senketsu, a unique Goku Uniform developed by her father known as a Godrobe, which forces her to wear him. It gives her more than enough power to fight back against the Academy, the council and the students, and so her quest for answers really begins.

So! Before we begin, Goku uniforms, aka those crazy outfits that give everyone super powers, and the life fibers they're made up of.(this is important, I'll expand on why later.)

Goku Uniforms are created from special material known as life fibers, which are actually parasitic entities that spawn from the Original Life Fiber, a massive entity that crashed into Earth tens of thousands of years ago. Alien in origin, they originally invaded their hosts bodies and received sustenance from their life force, but found most couldn't take the strain from having the fibers within them and died. Instead, they decided to cover their hosts instead, choosing the ancestors of today's humans as they were the species with the most well developed brains, speeding up their evolution as well. Eventually the life fibers became dormant, but left humans with the instinct to cover themselves, a side effect of having been granted the benefits of hosting the life fibers for so long.

When a life fiber bonds with its host, it attaches itself to its peripheral nervous system, which is to prevent the shock of having it bond to its organs instead as it did when it first arrived, which is what resulted in the hosts dying. Life fibers are capable of altering the DNA of their hosts to benefit them, which is how humans developed larger brains during the early stages of their evolution. It's also theorized that this is also how Goku Uniforms grant their wearers superhuman abilities - enhancing the strength of their host to ensure their survival. They also seem to be capable of directly controlling their evolution in response to outside stimuli, mostly seen in life or death situations, and manifest new abilities in their host to ensure their survival, heavily evident in the rapid growth of the series main character, Ryuko Matoi. The life fibers share their spot as the main antagonists of the series alongside Ragyo Kiryuin, who is attempting to take over the world using COVERS, an army of white suits made up of life fibers that consume their host whole and use them as a power source.

So, with that in mind, Ryuko's personal history!

Ryuko is actually the daughter of Ragyo and Soichiro Kiryuin, although she was mainly used as a test subject for Ragyo Kiryuin's experiments with life fibers, specifically attempting to fuse a human being with them on a cellular level to become one with them. Deemed a failure, Ragyo disposed of Ryuko, but her husband Soichiro was disgusted with her behavior and decided to oppose her ambitions from that point on. He took Ryuko and escaped but was pursued by goons working for Ragyo who were under the impression they died when fired upon with a rocket launcher, but the pair secretly survived. Disguising himself as an elderly scientist under the name Isshin Matoi, he raised Ryuko in secret in the hopes she would one day topple Ragyo's empire with the power of the godrobe he was developing, Senketsu.

Unfortunately this left him with little time to be a father. Ryuko and Isshin interacted very little as he was consumed with his research, and whenever they did talk, they were at complete odds. It was because of this that Ryuko grew up as a juvenile delinquent, adopting a rude, aggressive personality and getting into a lot of fights during her schooling years. One day, while Ryuko wasn't home, Nui Harime broke into Isshin's lab and attempted to kill him, as he was developing the scissors sword, a weapon capable of completely nullifying life fibers by cutting them. After a brief struggle, in which Ryuko's return distracted Nui long enough for Isshin to permanently damage one of her eyes with half of the sword(which he broke off of the complete one), she killed him and fled with the other half of the weapon. Coming upon her dying father, he told her that if she should take the remaining half of the scissor blade and take up his fight on his behalf, she would surely find his killer one day. Catching sight of Nui's silhouette wielding the other half of the blade, she dashed after it to try and catch her, but to no avail. Before she could return to her father's side, the Matoi residence exploded, demolishing it and finishing off her father. From that day on she became a wandering vagrant, searching for clues that could lead her to her father's killer.

Six months later Ryuko enrolls to Honnouji academy, and the plot kicks off.

Abilities:

HOO BOY.

Ryuuko is far stronger than a regular human being, as her entire body is infused with life fibers. This grants her superhuman strength, durability and speed, along with exceptional regenerative ability; as an example, when her heart was torn out, the life fibers connected to it simply drew it back into her body and stitched up the wound, leaving her as if nothing had happened. It also grants her a natural affinity for synchronizing with life fibers, which essentially just means she can use Senketsu without putting herself into any danger(mostly.) It also boosts her potential for growth, allowing her to become stronger in shorter amounts of time than a human could.

Then we have Senketsu, her godrobe. Senketsu is sentient clothing that feeds on the blood of it's wearer and in exchange grants them an incredible power boost, augmenting their strength, speed and resilience. It can also adapt makeshift weaponry in times of crisis, like forming claws or blades on it's surface. As mentioned previously, Senketsu is sentient, but only Ryuko can hear him speak.

In it's dormant state, it looks like this, and in it's transformed state looks like (NSFW)this.

She also comes with the scissor blade, a longsword shaped like one half of a scissor. Along with it's natural ability to depower life fibers, it can also double it's length during "Decapitation Mode", which she tends to use during her finishing attack.

Finally, she's a competent fighter. Her style is reckless, being a berserker who fights with no real pattern to her attacks aside beating down her opponent with brute strength. However, if she needs to, she can be sneaky - she cut off a section of Senketsu to cover her opponents eyes once to nullify his ability which relied on sight to work, and during a separate fight flicked some of her own blood into her opponents eyes to distract them. Despite her reckless beatdown methods, she's pretty cunning.