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☣ Player
Name: Berri
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Age: 20
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☣ Character
Character Name: Furude, Rika
Character Age: Never specified, assumed to be between 10 and 12
Canon + Format: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni [Anime*]
*= However, the Anime is noted to be incomplete and missing a variety of scenes from the novel due to time restrictions, so I taking some information about Rika from Novel TIPS and Manga chapters. All formats tell the same basic story.
Background: Furude Rika lives in the quiet mountain village of Hinamizawa in Japan. The only 'modern' town nearby is about an hour's bike ride away and the local school is so small that all of the grades are smushed together into one building. Hinamizawa is noted for being a beautiful little village as well, but only a handful of tourists/outsiders ever visit.
Rika is the only daughter of the Furude family. There is a tradition/legend passed down the family that if their first born child is a girl for seven generations in a row, then she is the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, who is the village's protective deity. Furude Rika just so happens to be that special little girl. The Furude family commands a lot of respect as it is, being one of the "Three Ruling Families" that dominate the village politics (the other two are Kimiyoshi and Sonozaki) and also being the family that maintains Oyashiro-sama's shrine. However, as Oyashiro-sama's reincarnation, Furude Rika gets extra special treatment. The villagers all naturally spoil her and consider it "a blessing" when they happen across her. Many villagers call her "Rika-chama" to show their respect.
Oyashiro-sama, by the way, is a Deity guarding the village. “He”, in the past, protected them and helped them with an issue of “Demons” that co-existed in the village. Thanks to Oyashiro-sama, the villagers and the Demons (from the local Swamp) could live together peacefully. In honor of Oyashiro-sama, on June 19th, a festival called the “Watanagashi Festival” is held in “his” honor. The Furude House is deeply linked to Oyashiro-sama and his ability to protect people from the demon blood they have, due to the humans and demons co-existing. Though, a lot of that is a lie.
The Furude Family is approached by the Irie Clinic when Rika is maybe 7 or 8-- young, before hell breaks loose. Doctor Irie and Nurse Takano reveal to them that they are in Hinamizawa researching a disease called the “Hinamizawa Syndrome”. More Hinamizawa Syndrome information is here. But Rika’s family agrees to allow her participation in the research; her blood is the key to preventing the disease, so she needs to go to the clinic and donate blood for the research. Though, her mother is a bit reluctant, as she knows the constant blood donations will take their toll on her young daughter’s body.
However, all information about the research is kept secret among the family and research project members.
When she was around 5 or 7--- once again, age not specified, but later Akasaka returns to Hinamizawa with his 5-7 year old daughter and comments that she (Miyuki) is the same age as Rika was then, giving as an age frame-- Hinamizawa Village is in quite the pinch. The government wants to put Hinamizawa under water and turn the village into a dam. Though the government had offered to pay the villagers and help them move into the city, they stage an elaborate protest with Oyashiro-sama’s shrine (also called the Furude Shrine) as the base. The entire village bands together to try to convince the government not to sink their village.
Around this same time, Akasaka Mamoru also arrives in Hinamizawa. He’s a detective from Tokyo, investigating a kidnapping that may be linked to the Hinamizawa Dam project protests, but pretending to be a tourist. He meets Furude Rika at this time and she reveals for one of the first times in the series her “Frederica Bernkastel” side. Rika warns Akasaka that he needs to return to Tokyo or something awful will happen, and assures him that the Hinamizawa Dam Project will end without the village being sunk. She also predicts a chain of murders that will span for the night five years, ending in her own death.
Shortly afterwards, her predictions come true. Akasaka learns that his wife, Yukie, fell down the stairs. Though her unborn child is safely delievered, Yukie herself passes away. On that same night, June 19th, the manager of the dam construction project is murdered and dismembered. One of the killers disappears. Also like Rika predicted, the dam project is halted as a result of this tragedy.
The next year, a man and woman related to the dam project fall off a cliff while on vacation. They are the parents of Rika’s friend-to-be Houjou Satoko. Satoko’s mother’s body is never recovered. Satoko and her elder brother, Satoshi, move in with their aunt and uncle.
The next year, Rika’s own parents die. Her father is struck by a mysterious illness and her mother drowns herself in a “bottomless swamp”. Her mother’s body is never recovered. Mr Kimiyoshi becomes Rika’s legal guardian, but Rika lives alone in the Furude Shrine’s store house rather than her original house. Rika also takes on the role of Oyashiro-sama’s personal miko. The villagers support Rika’s living situation, but she is not alone for long.
The next year, Satoko’s Aunt is violently beaten to death and her brother Satoshi disappears/is “spirited away”. Rika invites Satoko to live with her when her uncle flees Hinamizawa and leaves her alone. For the next year, Rika and Satoko grow very close.
Finally, the fifth year of the curse rolls around. Just as Rika predicted. Tomitake, a photographer who visits yearly, At this point, the story branches off into different “worlds”. In some “worlds”, Keiichi goes crazy and kills Rena and Mion (Onikakushi-hen). In some “worlds”, Mion’s twin sister Shion goes crazy and kills everyone (Watanagashi-hen/Meakeshi-hen). In some “worlds”, Satoko’s abusive uncle returns and Keiichi wishes everyone in the village to die (Tatarigoroshi-hen). In some “worlds”, Rena goes crazy and locks her schoolmates in the local school and burns it to the ground (Tsumihoroboshi-hen/Yoigoshi-hen). And in some “worlds”, Satoko realizes something is wrong with Rika and tries to help her, but the entire village ends up annihanilated in a volcanic gas disaster (Yakusamashi-hen).
And in all of these “worlds”, Furude Rika dies. Is murdered, actually. Kidnapped, stripped of her clothes, put into light unconsciousness, and disemboweled on the steps of the Furude Shrine. No matter what, Furude Rika will always die.
But it isn’t over when she dies. When Furude Rika dies, her invisible friend Furude Hanyuu steps in. Hanyuu is the real “Oyashiro-sama”, a horned young woman who died in the past and continues to haunt Hinamizawa. She can only be seen by Rika, who is “Oyashiro-sama’s Reincarnation”. Hanyuu collects Rika’s memories and goes to find another world. She picks a point in this world before Rika dies and gives the Rika of that world all of her previous memories so that she can try to prevent her death.
And this has been going on. For a very, very long time.
Detailed versions of the worlds can be found here.
Canon Point: Right after Tsumihoroboshi-hen, after she’s seen Keiichi remember other worlds but before Minagorashi-hen.
Personality: Furude Rika is one complicated little girl. On the outside, she's a cheerful and polite child who, while definitely having a devious side, is kind and nurturing to her friends. However, on the inside, she's sarcastic, depressed and more adult-like than most of her friends. But it's a bit more than just the standard "mature child" personality. Rika, or "Frederica" as she is sometimes called, holds the memories of many other lives, where she has died.
The cheerful Rika is often referred to as "Furude Rika". She is the untainted little girl who has no idea that her death is approaching. She is a bit devious-- assisting Satoko as she tries to play cruel tricks on Keiichi-- and is willing to cheat in order to win when participating in the Games Club games. "Furude Rika" is a bit spoiled by the Villagers, who all respect her as "The Reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama", and it is noted that she does not use honorifics on the names of others, even those older than her. However, she is still respectful enough to use last names rather than first names on adults, but will call her friends by their first names. She also speaks in a slightly formal and mature manner.
Characters often mention that Rika is “cute”; Rena in particular always wants to take her home. Rika is also noted as being quiet. She’s more of an observer than the other members of her school’s “Games Club”. When her friends are sad or in trouble, Rika is the one who goes and pets their head and quietly tries to cheer them up. In the first drama CDs, Rika is actually portrayed as being a bit monotoned, further highlighting that she is meant to be the quiet observing type who keeps her emotions in check. While she is still a very cheerful girl, Rika keeps her emotions appropriate for the situation.
But this playful, naive, and optimistic Furude Rika does not last long.
When Furude Rika is killed, her ancestor and friend Furude Hanyuu collects all of her memories and puts them in the Furude Rika of another world. At this point, the naive Furude Rika "dies" and is replaced with the combination of all of the Furude Rikas before, who refers to herself as "Frederica Bernkastel".
Frederica is emo. It's probably expected, isn't it? She remembers dying dozens of times before that moment, and knows that no matter how hard she's tried to fight her fate of "Dying" she will eventually be killed anyway. She has a mild identity crisis, no longer seeing herself as "Furude Rika" because she is so tainted by her previous lives and therefore creating the identity "Frederica Bernkastel" to hide behind. More about the Furude Rika-Frederica stuff can be found in the "BERNKASTEL CRAZY" part of this extra info journal entry.
But Rika isn’t the type to sit around and sulk... all the time. She has a bad habit of raising her hopes and then having them dashed. In one of her poems, she compares this to trying to climb out of a well. The higher she climbs, the harder she falls. Rika will occasionally have a burst of inspiration where she tries her hardest to fight back-- In Meakeshi-hen, this is highlighted by an instance where Rika tries to fight Shion and give her medicatio. But after Rika fails a few times, her spirits will be dashed for a while. She is shown to be an alcoholic (she drinks “Bernkastel” wine which is actually a child’s wine made for making kids drunk enough to take their medication in the 1800s and best accompanied by spicy food, which is Rika’s favorite) and will drown her sorrows talking poetically to Hanyuu in the moonlight. When she gets in these slumps, Rika will either watch silently and not care (she does this mainly in Tatarigoroshi-hen) or try to help in very small ways (she tells Keiichi to be careful with Satoshi’s bat in Onikakushi-hen and gives him “kitty advice” in Watanagashi-hen).
On the note of her silent advice, Rika is (as mentioned) poetic. She tends to fluff up her warnings with cutesy metaphors. For example, she refers to Shion and Keiichi sneaking into the store shrine as “naughty kitties”. She is also capable of poetic statements and being incredibly cyptic; Frederica Bernkastel is originally known only for writing poems in the novel.
The cycle of death also deeply influences Rika’s psychology in very disturbing sorts of ways. One is quite obvious; Rika is used to dying and then just starting her life over. Which such a trait in mind, Rika has developed a twisted view on death in general. When she refers to her death, she refers to it as “getting passed this cursed month of June”. Rika does not view death as an ending in the story, but as a dead end in the maze. After all, she practically gets reborn in a new world; set up in the past with a new body and her memories in tact, so that she may try again. This results in Rika using death. In Meakeshi-hen, Rika commits suicide in order to avoid having to put up with Shion’s plans for torture, which is her first instance of using suicide to escape a world she doesn’t like. Rika nearly does it again in Minagorashi-hen; after deciding she can’t save Satoko, Rika grabs a knife and prepares to stab her throat in order to die and go to a world where Satoko is happy again.
This idea of escaping reality through death is also a reason why Rika sometimes things of herself as “a witch traveling between worlds”. She often makes the distinction between Rika the human and Frederica the witch, further supporting her personality crisis.
This psychology also applies to her friends. When they die, Rika assures herself that she will "see them again (in the next world)". Though, she would never try to kill her friends in order to reset a world (it doesn't work that way and she knows it). However, this does prove that her skewed view on death applies ever so slightly to people other than herself.
Another grim result of the cycle of death is Rika’s boredom and habit of recognizing patterns. She always knows what is going to happen next in a world because she has been through the world before and remembers what happens. Rika is very skilled in noticing patterns as a result, and sometimes making guesses about what to expect. This also makes Rika bored. In Minagorashi-hen, she mentions that the games the club plays are far less exciting since she’s played them before and is bored with them. She also lets herself get trapped in the loop. It takes a lot of inspiration from Keiichi in Minagorashi-hen for Rika to realize she doesn’t have to be controlled by the loop called “Fate”. Usually, Rika puts forth very little resistance. After a couple years of the cycle, her heart has gotten “tired” after all.
Finally, dark Rika has some gags with her.
For one, she’s Hinamizawa’s greatest pervert. Or so she claims. Rika is shown in many gag comics to be a bit of a pervert. In a special clip for the Kai anime, she randomly gropes Mion. And on the back of the Himatsubushi-hen manga, she spies on Akasaka while he’s in a hot spring. This might also be proof that Rika is bi.
Along with being a bit of a pervert, she’s prone to teasing. Especially Hanyuu. Rika torments Hanyuu playfully in all forms of presenting the story. She likes to be a bit of a bully, but has to be careful about who she bullies and how she does it. Because after all;
Rika’s life is a huge act.
The dark personality and cute personality tie together into an act.
Rika realizes that if she suddenly started acting “her age” then her friends would be alarmed. She is, after all, hundreds of years old mentally and her cute child personality have been tainted by the memories she holds. So she pretends to be Furude Rika. She pretends that she is the same Rika as before. Rika keeps a smile and acts happy around her friends, all in an effort not to worry them. Because Rika doesn’t want them to get involved.
It’s implied that maybe, at some point, perhaps she tried. She tried to get Akasaka to come back to Hinamizawa and prevent her death, but he didn’t come. The fact she knows to hide Satoko in Takusamashi-hen suggests that Satoko has gotten hurt in the past because of Rika’s murder. Rika has become quite independent and doesn’t do much to help herself. She doesn’t want anyone to worry. And she doesn’t want her friends to realize that she’s so tainted. Deep down, she worries that she isn’t the girl they think they’re friends with, and she doesn’t want to give them any reason not to treat her like a friend.
But, even if Rika considers her happy self an act and has those identity problems, she is still that cute kid. Deep down, Rika is still a fun loving girl. When she’s with her friends and having fun, smiling, caring, and enjoying the moment... that’s all real. Rika just doesn’t realize it. She has a bunch of issues, but she is still a child at the core. Her knowledge only goes to the age of 12 at the most, after all. It just gets repeated. So no matter how old she acts, Rika will always be a child at the core.
Oh. And she has verbal tics. She often makes kitty noises ("mii~" "myao~") and says "Nipa~h" (Smi~le) on occasions, usually when she's happy or to cover up an instance where she get her "mask" slip. She also ends her sentences in "nano desu", which basically means "that is so". In the English adaptions, this has been replaced with "Yeah" and "Sir". In the case of my Rika, I replace "Nano desu" with anything that reconfirms a previous statement ("That's what I think, that is", "That would be a foolish move, for sure") . Whenever possible, I avoid using "nano desu" in English-based RP.
She also throws sound effects into her speech when she's trying to sound cute. Instead of say "A cat fell down" she might say "A nya nya kitty fell down <>bang!".
Purity Project-wise, Rika isn't likely to be very fooled by the attempts to convince her that her past is a lie. She's already adjusted to world hopping and time switching and such, so she knows it is very possible. So while she might pretend to play along as Furude Rika, Frederica Bernkastel will probably doubt it. At most, she may think she's just been switched into a new world where a different Rika existed, but will remain confident in her memories.
Appearance: Rika has long blue hair cut cleanly. She has bangs that are cut above her eyes, partially covering her eyebrows, and lets some of her long hair passed her shoulders and in front of her ears. She generally wears a school uniform on the weekdays and a green minty shaded sundress on days when she isn’t attending school.
Abilities: Rika has a tiny bit of "power" in her that Hanyuu uses for World Hopping. Rika herself does not have any abilities, outside of her assumed "Foresight", which is actually just Rika knowing what will happen in the future because she remembers.
Items/Weapons: The only items Rika may ever have on her are C-120 injections. She uses a syringe full of C-120 {the cure for the Hinamizawa Syndrime} twice in canon; once on Shion and almost on Rena. Otherwise, Rika will use whatever she finds as a weapon.
☣ Samples
First Person Sample:
"Furude Rika"
[ Rika is sounding quite distressed. She just realized that her current living arrangements are only temporary. ]
mi~. I do not know how long I will be allowed to live here, I do not. Would anyone know where I can go to stay? I am very good at cooking and cleaning, I am practicing to be a good housewife! So I would try not to be trouble to you if you would let me stay for a bit, I promise. I will work hard to get a place of my own quite soon, so it would not have to be for long.
"Frederica Bernkastel"
tsk. For one who has traveled so often between kakera, this should not be as surprising as I seem to be. I have seen many different worlds, many of the same lives twisted down new paths and to new endings. But I suppose, that was all in the same labyrinth... Wandering different paths on a quest to find one with the ending I desire. That was a chess game with the same players stacked on the board, testing new methods of getting my king safely through the game.
But this is a different board all together. A new game. A new maze. [ giggle. ] So I suppose, all I can hope is that it is amusing, hm? It's a shame. Hanyuu isn't here and I don't even have a nice glass of wine to keep me company. Nothing but these lies to comfort me through this disaster. Of that, I am sure.
Third Person Sample:
Rika put down the cup, staring at the contents. The lightly coloured wine had been thinned and paled further by her careful choice of ice to cool it against the hot summer's night, making the effect on her small body slow and stalled. She was only just now beginning to feel her head spin with a drunken feeling and decided to stop drinking for a moment. She liked the feeling of being caught between being drunk and able to think. It helped her calmly think through tough situations.
"Hanyuu... are you there?" Her voice was low and soft, one of an adult and not suiting to her young and child-like body. She turned her head away from the open window and adjusted her sitting position on the window sill. However, she did not hear the familiar "auauauu" of her invisible friend. Perhaps then, Rika thought, their connected senses had caused Hanyuu to get drunk a before Rika. It was a shame that Hanyuu's alcohol tolerance was so low. Nothing cheered Rika's depressed and tired heart more than a chance to playfully tease Hanyuu a bit.
Her gaze returned to the moonlit sky outside the window. She stared silently, not focusing on anything in particular. Then, with a soft sigh, she lifted the wine glass to her lips again. "If she will not keep me company... at least I have my old friend." Her voice was soft, echoing in the cup that hovered near her lips. "Time is running short... at least the wine will be waiting for me..."
-
( cutesy Rika )
"mi~! Try hard, Keiichi, try hard! Clap Clap Clap." Rika was out. She had already paired up all of her cards and was the first one out of this game of Old Geezer. It was always Old Geezer. When she woke up and there was not a scheduled contest at Mion's Uncle's shop then she knew that they would play Old Geezer at club. The game could be fun, but she was sure it was more fun for her friends, who had idea which game would be picked.
Keiichi would probably win. He won this game in the past. He would lose a few rounds and then make a major comeback. Out of nine games, he would win at least six. Knowing this, playing the game got dull.
It's not new.
Rika felt her eyes narrow as dark thoughts put weight on her heart. She also knew that in most of the worlds she visited, Keiichi would be the killer. And fighting against that became dull too. Or perhaps the world wasn't dull.
It's tiring.
"Rika? Rika?"
Rika jumped back to attentiveness. The voice of Satoko drew her attention to her right; Satoko always sat at her right. In support of her startled confusion, she murmured a "mi?" in sync with her movements.
"Keiichi just won! I can't believe it! Aren't you surprised?"
Not really.
That was how she really felt. She'd seen him win so many times before.
But 'Furude Rika' has only played games with Keiichi for three days. She isn't used to seeing him win...
And so, she adjusted her reaction accordingly. A calm smile crossed her lips. "mi~ii! Keiichi would win, of course! He is a brute like boy." She commented casually. Satoko smiled and laughed a bit at her buddy's little comment and Rika's own smile softened a bit. That smile and laugh were like caffeine. Suddenly, the tired feeling in her heart faded. If Satoko could just keep smiling for a bit more then Rika could make it through the day.
Because the end isn't due for another two weeks.
She watched as Mion dealt out the cards again. A new round was starting. Rika picked up her cards and examined them. The same as ever... but with Satoko's cheerful smile and all of her friends in such good moods...
This time, I will make a new end. I will not be defeated.