OOC INFORMATION Player: Leca Age: 32 Personal Journal:leca Contact Info: lecanis@ aim, plurk, gmail Other Characters: Fang
IC INFORMATION Characters Name: Mikado Ryuugamine (omg I remembered to use Western order!) Age: 16 Canon: Durarara!! Canon Point: Near the end of book 6 of the light novels Species: Human Gender: Male Orientation: Straight, probably. He has canon romantic feelings for a female, who he is not-quite-dating because of circumstances, but that’s all the experience shown for him. I hate to declare young characters absolutely straight or gay without more experience than that or direct statements, but I think it would take a lot to make him even think about sexuality beyond his feelings for Anri.
History: Mikado’s history started out as a fairly typical story: a small-town boy growing up with his parents, in a place that seemed perfectly big and adventurous enough to him as a child. He didn’t lack anything in particular, and he had a best friend in elementary school he was very close to. He didn’t travel - not even for school trips - and he thought that he would live out his life content in his hometown. That is, until the day he looked around himself and realized that there wasn’t anything there for him to explore anymore. His best friend Masaomi had moved away by this point, and Mikado found himself lonely and bored.
The next part of the story wasn’t that strange either. Acquiring a computer and discovering the vast wide world of the internet, Mikado took part in chat groups and expanded his horizons via the information available there. He also kept in touch with Masaomi through chatting, so that it seemed as if he hadn’t lost his best friend after all. As he heard more about Masaomi’s life in the big city - even though he would later find out a lot of details had been omitted - he romanticized what living there would be like.
It was this romanticization of events elsewhere that caused Mikado’s story to take a rather uncommon turn. While he was in middle school, he and a group of online friends started to become interested in stories and rumors surrounding gangs in the area of Ikebukuro, the same place where his best friend lived. The little group decided to start their own rumor about a gang called the Dollars. The name of the entirely fictional group was a play on words related to “being lazy” or “doing nothing”, and meant to be nothing but a joke, a little experiment to see how far the rumor would go. When, however, the “dollars” rumor became more and more popular, Mikado and his little group of online friends took it one step further: creating a Dollars website and sending around a password to sign up for the organization.
The Dollars took off, despite having begun as a joke, and eventually Mikado’s fellow founders cut ties with both the group and Mikado himself, disappearing into the vastness of the internet without a trace. Since he didn’t have their real life information, Mikado had no way to re-establish contact, and he was left the sole founding member of an organization that existed mostly in a place he had never been. Until, that is, his best friend talked him into heading to Ikebukuro himself to attend high school.
Even though Mikado had heard stories about Ikebukuro and seen it on television and in other media, he didn’t have a full understanding for the nature of the city until he arrived there, moving into his own apartment and getting ready to begin his high school career. He was immediately overwhelmed by the crowds and the violence of the place, his ears filled with Masaomi’s warnings about people and places that could be dangerous. His best friend’s advice to him was just to live a normal life and not come into contact with any unsavory elements, but of course for Mikado that was impossible, as he would soon learn.
Mikado would find himself living two different lives: an everyday high school existence where he spent time with his best friend Masaomi and a girl named Anri who was his fellow class representative... and his involvement with the Dollars, which he was brought deeper into as he learned more about what his online prank had manifested in the real world. Ikebukuro’s underworld proved to be full of interesting people - not all of them human! - and one by one, Mikado became acquainted with a courier who was really a headless fairie, an information broker who had actually known him online for quite some time, an exceptionally strong debt collector, and other fellow Dollars members who each had their own motivations and goals.
Mikado’s first actual attempt to mobilize the Dollars for his own purposes happened when he found out about a situation involving human experimentation and the company Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Though his information about the situation turned out to be incomplete, he met with an executive from that company in hopes of finding justice for a young girl who seemed to have been killed and then had her body used as a host for the head of the Headless Rider, who was in fact seeking her lost head. Mikado, after meeting both the girl and the Headless Rider, as well as others acquainted with the situation, made his move with the expectation of being backed up by the Dollars he summoned by text message.
The resulting “meeting” showed him just how many people had come to call themselves Dollars, but didn’t end in the conclusion he had hoped with the Pharmaceutical company. In the end, the head was still in their possession, the girl - who had after all only had plastic surgery at her own request for her own reasons - was allowed to go free, and Mikado himself was left with as many questions as answers about what to do with his “colorless and invisible” organization, as well as how to move forward with his life.
This wouldn’t, however, be the only time that Mikado tried to exert some modicum of control as the founder of the Dollars. Rather than simply settling down after this first incident, life in Ikebukuro continued to become more exciting, with a full-on gang war brewing and many individuals falling prey to a “Slasher” who was accused of being on every possible side by the others. What Mikado wanted was to make the Dollars a positive force in the world rather than a negative one, and if that couldn’t happen, to take them out of existence entirely. But when shutting down the discussion board and declaring the group disbanded did nothing to calm the wave of violence sweeping the city, he once again plunged into the underground world instead.
It turned out that Mikado’s two lives weren’t as separate as he’d thought though. While he was being concerned that his friends might get dragged into the violent situation because of him, his two closest friends had been feeling the same thing. He didn’t find out the full details at the time, but during the fight against the Dollar’s rival Yellow Scarves, he saw his friend Anri wielding a katana and his friend Masaomi wearing a Yellow Scarf himself. The three didn’t get a chance to talk about these revelations at the time, as Masaomi was seriously injured and soon after left town for his own reasons.
Masaomi’s departure left a hole in Mikado’s life, and while he and Anri continued to spend time together and grow closer, they decided to neither declare their relationship as something more than friendly nor talk about their secrets until Masaomi had returned to join them again. In the meantime, Mikado continued to try to find his place in Ikebukuro and in the Dollars, and got dragged into more dangerous situations as the Dollars continued to evolve. While the Yellow Scarves had become less of a threat in the aftermath of the original fight with them, there were many other figures in the Ikebukuro underworld who posed threats. Mikado’s loyalty to people like Celty Sturluson - the Headless Rider - and other Dollars members caused him to both be in dangerous situations and be rescued from them repeatedly.
It was the being rescued part that would eventually become a catalyst for change. After meeting a younger student at his high school who knew that Mikado was not just a member but also the founder of the Dollars, Mikado found himself in a situation where he was given a chance to create some real control within his organization. His kohai Aoba wasn’t just a Dollar, he was also the leader of Blue Square, a gang which had once been rivals of the Yellow Scarves, then later infiltrated them, and finally hidden under the Dollars umbrella. Blue Square was wreaking havoc in the name of the Dollars, and Mikado didn’t like or approve of their actions, so when they tried to forge a deal with him as founder of the Dollars, he didn’t immediately accept. It wasn’t until other factors forced his hand that he came to a decision.
Included in these factors were actions of Dollars members during a fight against a motorcycle gang from another area who had come into town to seek a bounty on Celty. The infamous “Headless Rider” or “Black Motorbike” wasn’t just a part of the Dollars, she was a personal friend to many, and thus an attack against her affected many others as well. When Dollars members acting on their own - and eventually revealed to be Aoba and Blue Square - took the fight back to the other gang’s turf, serious repercussions fell on even Dollars members who had been completely uninvolved with the matter. Anyone who was for any reason suspected of being involved with Dollars found themselves under attack, and somewhere along the way, it was suggested that kidnapping the girlfriend of the rival gang’s leader would be a way to stop the attacks.
This went against the values of not just Mikado but many other members, and at least one high-profile member of the Dollars wound up leaving because of it. In the meantime, it created a situation where the Dollars members were fighting each other over the kidnapped girl (and her friends who had been taken hostage as well) and Mikado tried to take responsibility for the actions of his organization.
Of course, it didn’t get him anywhere. He didn’t have any real experience in fighting, and there was no reason for anyone to listen to him, with the lack of structure within the Dollars. All he earned for his trouble was a beating and having to be rescued by Anri, which left him feeling a mixture of helplessness, guilt, and anger. Along with these feelings, he was being given certain pushes by the information broker Izaya, both overtly and under false pretenses utilizing Masaomi’s online identity.
When Mikado came to Blue Square with a new offer, he didn’t come meekly. He required that Aoba face his wrath over his previous actions, and cooly stabbed the young man’s hand with a pen after bringing him over as if he wanted him to sign a contract. This calculated act of violence was a turning point for Mikado, and this meeting marked the beginning of what would become an attempt to purge the Dollars of the darker elements within the gang. Once the agreement was made, he bandaged Aoba’s hand, sliding back into the nicer personality people were used to seeing from him. It is from just after this meeting that he’s coming into Holly Heights.
Appearance: Mikado is small, cute, and young-looking. He is often referred to in the text of the novels as being likely to be mistaken for a middle school student, and he is not particularly athletic. His posture tends to be somewhat closed-off and submissive. When not wearing his school uniform, he dresses simply and casually. When he is angry or determined, he straightens and clenches his fists. The only other time at which he seems to “forget” to hold a shy posture is when he’s looking at something he finds wonderful or amazing, whether it’s the presence of an otherworldly figure or the sheer enormity of the city itself.
Personality: Mikado’s first appearance shows him as shy, naive, nervous, and easily both startled and excited. His introduction into the city of Ikebukuro is full of conversations he can’t keep up with, wide-eyed views of the buildings and people, and trepidation about violence. He followed rather meekly along after his more experienced friend Masaomi, and it took all of his courage to volunteer to be class representative. Likewise, while he wanted to be brave and protect Anri when she was being bullied, Mikado had to work hard to convince himself to step forward and actually do so, considering his shy nature and his lack of experience with conflict. While his personality while chatting online as Tanaka Taro is a little more outgoing, he still tends to attempt to avoid arguments..
His sense of excitement and wonder can sometimes overwhelm these traits, however. When Mikado first met Celty Sturluson - known as the “Black Motorbike” and “Headless Rider” - he reacted with astonishment rather than fear. On a later meeting, he requested that she allow him to see under her helmet, and when he saw that she truly did lack a head, he proceeded to act as a friend to her rather than running away.
It is also pointed out by several people who know him that when Mikado is in dangerous situations, he’s not just afraid but also exhilarated. Of course, anyone would have an adrenaline reaction, but the fact that Mikado started the Dollars as a way to escape from “everyday life” makes it apparent that some part of him wanted more. While he didn’t understand what he was getting into at the time, there are several points where he was offered an “out” and didn’t take it.
Is this because he enjoys danger and truly does want a “non-everyday life”? Partially. It is pointed out to him that he’s smiling or obviously enjoying himself during a tense situation more than once, and he eventually has to admit that he doesn’t want to be left out or left behind.
The other main reason for his continued involvement in the underworld of Ikebukuro, however, is a sense of responsibility. For Mikado, it is a simple truth that if he hadn’t created the Dollars, many of the things which happened to his friends and other innocent parties wouldn’t have happened. While Color Gang violence in Ikebukuro was a problem before he was ever involved, the Dollars created a whole new type of gang, and had a lawless platform that allowed members to feel emboldened without feeling constrained. Despite the fact that his fellow founders cut and ran, Mikado quite simply feels that he would be wrong to do the same, and must follow things through to their conclusion.
This sense of responsibility not just for his own actions but for the actions of others that were using the name of his organization has led him to a turning point: in order to have some measure of the “happy ending” that he does crave - and the everyday life he now wishes he could return to - he has to learn to be cold, calculating, and dangerous in his own right. When he commits violence against Aoba, he has planned it out in advance, is tapping his pen in a manner that intimidates and distracts, and is presenting a smiling and self-assured countenance. When he bandages the young man’s hand immediately afterward, Mikado is right back to the kind face he shows at school or anywhere else.
This kind of versatility and ability to evolve in order to reach his goal is a very important part of Mikado’s current personality, just as much as the fact that he still does retain enough of his earlier idealism to want to “clean Dollars up” in the first place. Exactly how far Mikado is capable of going isn’t known at this point in the series, but he’s definitely on a road to a darker place, and the fact that he is still capable of trusting (the wrong) people is both a sign he retains some innocence and a serious danger to him.
Abilites: Mikado has no supernatural or special abilities. His ability to accept and adapt to otherworldly and shocking things could be considered a natural talent: he quickly becomes used to dealing with strange situations. He has a good head for finances, considering that while he told his parents he would get a part-time job to support himself, he actually lives off a number of internet streams of income during his time in Ikebukuro. His intelligence - when he is thinking clearly enough to bring it fully to bear on a situation - is an important asset.
Other: Obviously I took Mikado from a canon point where he is changing, so I had to explain a lot about the reasons why. Sorry for the wordiness.
SAMPLES
First Person: [Mikado is somewhat relieved to find that the cell phones have a feature for anonymous texting. He spends a couple of days watching the videos that other people send out before he says anything at all, and he’s careful to glean information without engaging anyone right away himself. Now he’s decided that he might like to attempt a message of his own, but he wants to be careful about it.]
Excuse me. I apologize for any awkwardness on my part for making this type of post, but I’m a little shy. lol. Is there anyone who could give me some information? I had hoped to simply look online, but it appears that connection to the internet is not an option.
It seems that anyone is allowed to attend school here, but the classes that I attended weren’t very high quality or informational. Does anyone know if it’s possible to attend university classes instead? I would also like to know what types of other things young people in this community take part in, as well as if there are any particular individuals or organizations I should watch out for...
Oh, but I didn’t mean that in a bad way, so please don’t be offended. I just like to know what’s happening before I jump into life in a certain place, that’s really all it is.
Please do send me a text back if you don’t mind helping.
-- Tanaka Taro
Third Person:
Mikado’s eyes were very wide, as he walked down the streets of the little community that was apparently - for now at least - his new home. The styles of architecture were very strange to him, and that was enough to catch his attention for now. While he supposed the houses must seem normal and everyday for people who came from different places than himself, they weren’t anything like the homes in his own small town, and even less like anything he had seen in Ikebukuro.
Likewise, the layout of the city was very strange as well. The combination of lots of room to walk around in the residential district and so many things to do and see in the shopping and entertainment areas was almost jarring to him. He couldn’t believe that it was possible to make his way down the sidewalk without being jostled by anyone, or that even during what should have been busy times of day, he had no problem finding his way from one place to another without running into anyone.
It felt almost eerie, like a ghost town, after Ikebukuro. Yet, it didn’t feel the same as Saitama either, not when he could walk just a little ways and find almost anything he could want to buy.
It definitely felt like “another world” to someone like Mikado, who only knew a couple of places and had become used to them each in turn. Would he become used to it here, he wondered? Would, after some time, he start to appreciate the lawn and quiet neighborhood, the “families” that weren’t families at all, the lack of responsibilities that had weighed him down at home? Would he come to appreciate the strange videos everyone seemed to send out on their cell phones, the claustrophobic single chat, the lack of massive amounts of information to try to gather up and make sense of?
He wasn’t sure, but at the moment, it was almost an overwhelming thing to think about.
In fact, the teenager was so caught up in thinking about it that he’d managed to stop in the middle of one of the quiet streets, and he was jostled out of his thoughts only when one of those red cars -- and that was strange, how they were all the same -- pulled up and honked its horn at him.
Mikado flushed, stammered out a half-coherent apology, and hustled his way to the other side of the street, to stand alone on the empty sidewalk and look out over the street, wondering.
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Mikado Ryuugamine | Durarara!! | Reserved
Player: Leca
Age: 32
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: lecanis@ aim, plurk, gmail
Other Characters: Fang
IC INFORMATION
Characters Name: Mikado Ryuugamine (omg I remembered to use Western order!)
Age: 16
Canon: Durarara!!
Canon Point: Near the end of book 6 of the light novels
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Orientation: Straight, probably. He has canon romantic feelings for a female, who he is not-quite-dating because of circumstances, but that’s all the experience shown for him. I hate to declare young characters absolutely straight or gay without more experience than that or direct statements, but I think it would take a lot to make him even think about sexuality beyond his feelings for Anri.
History: Mikado’s history started out as a fairly typical story: a small-town boy growing up with his parents, in a place that seemed perfectly big and adventurous enough to him as a child. He didn’t lack anything in particular, and he had a best friend in elementary school he was very close to. He didn’t travel - not even for school trips - and he thought that he would live out his life content in his hometown. That is, until the day he looked around himself and realized that there wasn’t anything there for him to explore anymore. His best friend Masaomi had moved away by this point, and Mikado found himself lonely and bored.
The next part of the story wasn’t that strange either. Acquiring a computer and discovering the vast wide world of the internet, Mikado took part in chat groups and expanded his horizons via the information available there. He also kept in touch with Masaomi through chatting, so that it seemed as if he hadn’t lost his best friend after all. As he heard more about Masaomi’s life in the big city - even though he would later find out a lot of details had been omitted - he romanticized what living there would be like.
It was this romanticization of events elsewhere that caused Mikado’s story to take a rather uncommon turn. While he was in middle school, he and a group of online friends started to become interested in stories and rumors surrounding gangs in the area of Ikebukuro, the same place where his best friend lived. The little group decided to start their own rumor about a gang called the Dollars. The name of the entirely fictional group was a play on words related to “being lazy” or “doing nothing”, and meant to be nothing but a joke, a little experiment to see how far the rumor would go. When, however, the “dollars” rumor became more and more popular, Mikado and his little group of online friends took it one step further: creating a Dollars website and sending around a password to sign up for the organization.
The Dollars took off, despite having begun as a joke, and eventually Mikado’s fellow founders cut ties with both the group and Mikado himself, disappearing into the vastness of the internet without a trace. Since he didn’t have their real life information, Mikado had no way to re-establish contact, and he was left the sole founding member of an organization that existed mostly in a place he had never been. Until, that is, his best friend talked him into heading to Ikebukuro himself to attend high school.
Even though Mikado had heard stories about Ikebukuro and seen it on television and in other media, he didn’t have a full understanding for the nature of the city until he arrived there, moving into his own apartment and getting ready to begin his high school career. He was immediately overwhelmed by the crowds and the violence of the place, his ears filled with Masaomi’s warnings about people and places that could be dangerous. His best friend’s advice to him was just to live a normal life and not come into contact with any unsavory elements, but of course for Mikado that was impossible, as he would soon learn.
Mikado would find himself living two different lives: an everyday high school existence where he spent time with his best friend Masaomi and a girl named Anri who was his fellow class representative... and his involvement with the Dollars, which he was brought deeper into as he learned more about what his online prank had manifested in the real world. Ikebukuro’s underworld proved to be full of interesting people - not all of them human! - and one by one, Mikado became acquainted with a courier who was really a headless fairie, an information broker who had actually known him online for quite some time, an exceptionally strong debt collector, and other fellow Dollars members who each had their own motivations and goals.
Mikado’s first actual attempt to mobilize the Dollars for his own purposes happened when he found out about a situation involving human experimentation and the company Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Though his information about the situation turned out to be incomplete, he met with an executive from that company in hopes of finding justice for a young girl who seemed to have been killed and then had her body used as a host for the head of the Headless Rider, who was in fact seeking her lost head. Mikado, after meeting both the girl and the Headless Rider, as well as others acquainted with the situation, made his move with the expectation of being backed up by the Dollars he summoned by text message.
The resulting “meeting” showed him just how many people had come to call themselves Dollars, but didn’t end in the conclusion he had hoped with the Pharmaceutical company. In the end, the head was still in their possession, the girl - who had after all only had plastic surgery at her own request for her own reasons - was allowed to go free, and Mikado himself was left with as many questions as answers about what to do with his “colorless and invisible” organization, as well as how to move forward with his life.
This wouldn’t, however, be the only time that Mikado tried to exert some modicum of control as the founder of the Dollars. Rather than simply settling down after this first incident, life in Ikebukuro continued to become more exciting, with a full-on gang war brewing and many individuals falling prey to a “Slasher” who was accused of being on every possible side by the others. What Mikado wanted was to make the Dollars a positive force in the world rather than a negative one, and if that couldn’t happen, to take them out of existence entirely. But when shutting down the discussion board and declaring the group disbanded did nothing to calm the wave of violence sweeping the city, he once again plunged into the underground world instead.
It turned out that Mikado’s two lives weren’t as separate as he’d thought though. While he was being concerned that his friends might get dragged into the violent situation because of him, his two closest friends had been feeling the same thing. He didn’t find out the full details at the time, but during the fight against the Dollar’s rival Yellow Scarves, he saw his friend Anri wielding a katana and his friend Masaomi wearing a Yellow Scarf himself. The three didn’t get a chance to talk about these revelations at the time, as Masaomi was seriously injured and soon after left town for his own reasons.
Masaomi’s departure left a hole in Mikado’s life, and while he and Anri continued to spend time together and grow closer, they decided to neither declare their relationship as something more than friendly nor talk about their secrets until Masaomi had returned to join them again. In the meantime, Mikado continued to try to find his place in Ikebukuro and in the Dollars, and got dragged into more dangerous situations as the Dollars continued to evolve. While the Yellow Scarves had become less of a threat in the aftermath of the original fight with them, there were many other figures in the Ikebukuro underworld who posed threats. Mikado’s loyalty to people like Celty Sturluson - the Headless Rider - and other Dollars members caused him to both be in dangerous situations and be rescued from them repeatedly.
It was the being rescued part that would eventually become a catalyst for change. After meeting a younger student at his high school who knew that Mikado was not just a member but also the founder of the Dollars, Mikado found himself in a situation where he was given a chance to create some real control within his organization. His kohai Aoba wasn’t just a Dollar, he was also the leader of Blue Square, a gang which had once been rivals of the Yellow Scarves, then later infiltrated them, and finally hidden under the Dollars umbrella. Blue Square was wreaking havoc in the name of the Dollars, and Mikado didn’t like or approve of their actions, so when they tried to forge a deal with him as founder of the Dollars, he didn’t immediately accept. It wasn’t until other factors forced his hand that he came to a decision.
Included in these factors were actions of Dollars members during a fight against a motorcycle gang from another area who had come into town to seek a bounty on Celty. The infamous “Headless Rider” or “Black Motorbike” wasn’t just a part of the Dollars, she was a personal friend to many, and thus an attack against her affected many others as well. When Dollars members acting on their own - and eventually revealed to be Aoba and Blue Square - took the fight back to the other gang’s turf, serious repercussions fell on even Dollars members who had been completely uninvolved with the matter. Anyone who was for any reason suspected of being involved with Dollars found themselves under attack, and somewhere along the way, it was suggested that kidnapping the girlfriend of the rival gang’s leader would be a way to stop the attacks.
This went against the values of not just Mikado but many other members, and at least one high-profile member of the Dollars wound up leaving because of it. In the meantime, it created a situation where the Dollars members were fighting each other over the kidnapped girl (and her friends who had been taken hostage as well) and Mikado tried to take responsibility for the actions of his organization.
Of course, it didn’t get him anywhere. He didn’t have any real experience in fighting, and there was no reason for anyone to listen to him, with the lack of structure within the Dollars. All he earned for his trouble was a beating and having to be rescued by Anri, which left him feeling a mixture of helplessness, guilt, and anger. Along with these feelings, he was being given certain pushes by the information broker Izaya, both overtly and under false pretenses utilizing Masaomi’s online identity.
When Mikado came to Blue Square with a new offer, he didn’t come meekly. He required that Aoba face his wrath over his previous actions, and cooly stabbed the young man’s hand with a pen after bringing him over as if he wanted him to sign a contract. This calculated act of violence was a turning point for Mikado, and this meeting marked the beginning of what would become an attempt to purge the Dollars of the darker elements within the gang. Once the agreement was made, he bandaged Aoba’s hand, sliding back into the nicer personality people were used to seeing from him. It is from just after this meeting that he’s coming into Holly Heights.
Appearance: Mikado is small, cute, and young-looking. He is often referred to in the text of the novels as being likely to be mistaken for a middle school student, and he is not particularly athletic. His posture tends to be somewhat closed-off and submissive. When not wearing his school uniform, he dresses simply and casually. When he is angry or determined, he straightens and clenches his fists. The only other time at which he seems to “forget” to hold a shy posture is when he’s looking at something he finds wonderful or amazing, whether it’s the presence of an otherworldly figure or the sheer enormity of the city itself.
Re: Mikado Ryuugamine | Durarara!! | Reserved
Personality: Mikado’s first appearance shows him as shy, naive, nervous, and easily both startled and excited. His introduction into the city of Ikebukuro is full of conversations he can’t keep up with, wide-eyed views of the buildings and people, and trepidation about violence. He followed rather meekly along after his more experienced friend Masaomi, and it took all of his courage to volunteer to be class representative. Likewise, while he wanted to be brave and protect Anri when she was being bullied, Mikado had to work hard to convince himself to step forward and actually do so, considering his shy nature and his lack of experience with conflict. While his personality while chatting online as Tanaka Taro is a little more outgoing, he still tends to attempt to avoid arguments..
His sense of excitement and wonder can sometimes overwhelm these traits, however. When Mikado first met Celty Sturluson - known as the “Black Motorbike” and “Headless Rider” - he reacted with astonishment rather than fear. On a later meeting, he requested that she allow him to see under her helmet, and when he saw that she truly did lack a head, he proceeded to act as a friend to her rather than running away.
It is also pointed out by several people who know him that when Mikado is in dangerous situations, he’s not just afraid but also exhilarated. Of course, anyone would have an adrenaline reaction, but the fact that Mikado started the Dollars as a way to escape from “everyday life” makes it apparent that some part of him wanted more. While he didn’t understand what he was getting into at the time, there are several points where he was offered an “out” and didn’t take it.
Is this because he enjoys danger and truly does want a “non-everyday life”? Partially. It is pointed out to him that he’s smiling or obviously enjoying himself during a tense situation more than once, and he eventually has to admit that he doesn’t want to be left out or left behind.
The other main reason for his continued involvement in the underworld of Ikebukuro, however, is a sense of responsibility. For Mikado, it is a simple truth that if he hadn’t created the Dollars, many of the things which happened to his friends and other innocent parties wouldn’t have happened. While Color Gang violence in Ikebukuro was a problem before he was ever involved, the Dollars created a whole new type of gang, and had a lawless platform that allowed members to feel emboldened without feeling constrained. Despite the fact that his fellow founders cut and ran, Mikado quite simply feels that he would be wrong to do the same, and must follow things through to their conclusion.
This sense of responsibility not just for his own actions but for the actions of others that were using the name of his organization has led him to a turning point: in order to have some measure of the “happy ending” that he does crave - and the everyday life he now wishes he could return to - he has to learn to be cold, calculating, and dangerous in his own right. When he commits violence against Aoba, he has planned it out in advance, is tapping his pen in a manner that intimidates and distracts, and is presenting a smiling and self-assured countenance. When he bandages the young man’s hand immediately afterward, Mikado is right back to the kind face he shows at school or anywhere else.
This kind of versatility and ability to evolve in order to reach his goal is a very important part of Mikado’s current personality, just as much as the fact that he still does retain enough of his earlier idealism to want to “clean Dollars up” in the first place. Exactly how far Mikado is capable of going isn’t known at this point in the series, but he’s definitely on a road to a darker place, and the fact that he is still capable of trusting (the wrong) people is both a sign he retains some innocence and a serious danger to him.
Abilites: Mikado has no supernatural or special abilities. His ability to accept and adapt to otherworldly and shocking things could be considered a natural talent: he quickly becomes used to dealing with strange situations. He has a good head for finances, considering that while he told his parents he would get a part-time job to support himself, he actually lives off a number of internet streams of income during his time in Ikebukuro. His intelligence - when he is thinking clearly enough to bring it fully to bear on a situation - is an important asset.
Other: Obviously I took Mikado from a canon point where he is changing, so I had to explain a lot about the reasons why. Sorry for the wordiness.
SAMPLES
First Person: [Mikado is somewhat relieved to find that the cell phones have a feature for anonymous texting. He spends a couple of days watching the videos that other people send out before he says anything at all, and he’s careful to glean information without engaging anyone right away himself. Now he’s decided that he might like to attempt a message of his own, but he wants to be careful about it.]
Excuse me. I apologize for any awkwardness on my part for making this type of post, but I’m a little shy. lol. Is there anyone who could give me some information? I had hoped to simply look online, but it appears that connection to the internet is not an option.
It seems that anyone is allowed to attend school here, but the classes that I attended weren’t very high quality or informational. Does anyone know if it’s possible to attend university classes instead? I would also like to know what types of other things young people in this community take part in, as well as if there are any particular individuals or organizations I should watch out for...
Oh, but I didn’t mean that in a bad way, so please don’t be offended. I just like to know what’s happening before I jump into life in a certain place, that’s really all it is.
Please do send me a text back if you don’t mind helping.
-- Tanaka Taro
Third Person:
Mikado’s eyes were very wide, as he walked down the streets of the little community that was apparently - for now at least - his new home. The styles of architecture were very strange to him, and that was enough to catch his attention for now. While he supposed the houses must seem normal and everyday for people who came from different places than himself, they weren’t anything like the homes in his own small town, and even less like anything he had seen in Ikebukuro.
Likewise, the layout of the city was very strange as well. The combination of lots of room to walk around in the residential district and so many things to do and see in the shopping and entertainment areas was almost jarring to him. He couldn’t believe that it was possible to make his way down the sidewalk without being jostled by anyone, or that even during what should have been busy times of day, he had no problem finding his way from one place to another without running into anyone.
It felt almost eerie, like a ghost town, after Ikebukuro. Yet, it didn’t feel the same as Saitama either, not when he could walk just a little ways and find almost anything he could want to buy.
It definitely felt like “another world” to someone like Mikado, who only knew a couple of places and had become used to them each in turn. Would he become used to it here, he wondered? Would, after some time, he start to appreciate the lawn and quiet neighborhood, the “families” that weren’t families at all, the lack of responsibilities that had weighed him down at home? Would he come to appreciate the strange videos everyone seemed to send out on their cell phones, the claustrophobic single chat, the lack of massive amounts of information to try to gather up and make sense of?
He wasn’t sure, but at the moment, it was almost an overwhelming thing to think about.
In fact, the teenager was so caught up in thinking about it that he’d managed to stop in the middle of one of the quiet streets, and he was jostled out of his thoughts only when one of those red cars -- and that was strange, how they were all the same -- pulled up and honked its horn at him.
Mikado flushed, stammered out a half-coherent apology, and hustled his way to the other side of the street, to stand alone on the empty sidewalk and look out over the street, wondering.
OTHER
Housing Request?: None.
Did you read the rules and FAQ?: Yes!
Would you like your application to be unscreened?: Sure!
Accepted
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Re: Accepted
Re: Accepted