| Shiki Ryougi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Profile | |
| Name | Shiki Ryougi |
| Height | 5'4" (162 cm) |
| Weight | Unknown |
| Homeworld |  Japan
|
| Race | Human |
| Eye Color | Black (Normal) Magenta within blue (MEoDP) |
| Hair Color | Black (with Brown hue) |
| Weapon(s) | Knife |
| Debut | Kara no Kyoukai (Manga) Melty Blood: Actress Again (Game) |
| Voiced by | Maaya Sakamoto |
Shiki Ryougi (両儀式, Ryōgi Shiki) is the main protagonist of Kara no Kyoukai. She is a girl who possesses the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, a supernatural ability that allows the user to see the inherent mortality of everything (both living and non-living) in the form of lines. In her case, however, what she sees is the Origin of what she is observing. She assists the Garan no Dou agency in handling paranormal cases when combat is required.
Biography[]
Shiki's family, the Ryougi, are or were members of the Demon Hunter Organization. Their special skill involves creating two separate and distinct personalities within themselves. When a child is born, he or she is given a single name written in two different kanji, each one relating to each personality.
Shiki's mother and father are unnamed. While she has an older brother, Kaname Ryougi (両儀要, ?), he was unable to manifest a second personality within himself, thus making him ineligible to succeed as the head of the family. Due to Shiki's success in manifesting her second persona and her older brother's inability to do so, she was chosen as the next head of the family and began her training in combat.
When Shiki was young, her father took her to meet her dying grandfather. He told Shiki that people can only truly kill someone once in their lifetime, elaborating that those whom had killed many times are no longer human, fated to live with their guilt until their death. It is at this moment that Shiki learns to value the notion surrounding the weight and responsibility that comes with murder. Before passing away, he wished Shiki to have a peaceful death.
By the year of 1995 as Shiki reaches the age of 16, the Ryougi family had effectively retired from the task of demon hunting, becoming a family similar to the Tohnos, in that they remained as wealthy landowners. In this case, they own a large Japanese-style mansion with a grove of bamboo beyond the outer wall. Shiki also took lessons in Japanese harp, flower arrangement, calligraphy, swordsmanship, jujutsu, and dance, as well as studying cooking as a hobby.
The Legacy of Shiki Ryougi[]
- Melty Blood: Actress Again (2008)
- Melty Blood: Actress Again: Current Code (2010)
- Fate/Extra (2010-2011)
Appearance[]
Shiki has always mostly worn a wide variety of traditional kimonos ranging from colorful yukatas to high quality furisodes up to the age of sixteen. Despite being seemingly unremarkable, her kimono is a luxury item not apparent to the eye. The quality is revealed in the fine details, the haute couture being that she can perform high kicks while still wearing a kimono. She can’t actually distinguish between different Kimono types, but because she’s been in contact with nothing but high-class goods her entire life she can at least tell the difference between “good” and “bad”. At the kimono fabrics shop, she’ll pick out a material without hesitation and leave, at which point Akitaka will look at the price only to find that it costs as much as he makes in two months.
Though she had received clothing from Akitaka that would suit a girl her age, she never bothered to wear them, and because her school was one without uniforms, she stayed with her kimono. She wished to utilize a long-sleeved kimono, but instead wore a Yukata-like, single-piece kimono for ease of changing during physical education classes. Comments from her high school peers and prodding from Mikiya about her insistence on simply wearing extra clothing on top of her kimono caused her to spontaneously decide to wear something over it. She decided to buy a leather jacket, so she began a strange habit of wearing a leather jacket over a kimono during winter.
Her hair is short, and while she often used to brush her hair, it was usually unkempt after her recovery from her 2-year coma. Shiki has ink-black hair, pale skin color and black eyes described as being of "clear void". While she was known to wear wooden geta footwear as part of her casual wear, she commonly wore boots with laces as part of her default attire, especially when embarking on her assignments under the Garan no Dou agency.
While it seems that she is concerned about her attire, she does not actually care. She simply wears what she wishes, but the result ends up consistently being a kimono, laced-up boots or geta, and a red leather jacket. Her favorite outfit is the red leather jacket, but only Mikiya is oblivious to the reason as to why she loves it. She does not favor any particular red leather jacket, and insists that "I will switch to a new one if this one gets worn out".
After the case at Reien Girl's Acadamy was wrapped up, Akitaka was entrusted with the Reien uniform's safekeeping. In several years, he quietly and discreetly passed it on to Mikiya.
The original concept behind Shiki was "a juxtaposition of Eastern and Western concepts", or literally "an unhomogenized compromise between the East and the West."
Pre-coma, the two personalities Shiki and SHIKI wore the same style of dress with the latter often being depicted as wearing kimonos of various warm colors. Shiki's third personality 「 」 was often depicted as having worn a light pink kimono of the furisode variety, all while lacking her signature red leather jacket despite only ever being seen during snowy nights. This third personality was known for displaying a serene and trance-like expression in all of her appearances.
Personality[]
Children born into the Ryougi family are generally male and are artificially induced with dual personalities, but Kaname was unable to manifest a second personality of his own. Shiki was confirmed to display the trait instead and was raised as the family head in his place, displaying the personalities of SHIKI (織), a male personality customarily called the "yang" personality, and Shiki (式), the female personality called the "yin" personality.
It is not the result of Dissociative Identity Disorder even though it is a dual personality, so it is more a matter of whose actions take priority. It is easy to tell which Shiki is speaking at a given time because they both have a distinct style of speaking, most notably that the female Shiki speaks politely and with reserve, referring to herself with the gender-neutral pronoun watashi (私), while the male persona has a brash personality and refers to herself with the masculine pronoun ore (オレ). The two personalities couldn't communicate to each other but they can both understand what the other is feeling. When one comes out it is like the other goes to sleep, and at the moment they switch they feel each other’s desires.
SHIKI[]
SHIKI is the personality that controls the aspect of "Denial/Negativity." He is a lost killer responsible for Shiki Ryougi's destructive impulses. He is not a pure killer, but it can instead be said that he despises his own impulses and decided to voluntarily become Shiki's subordinate personality. He has the speech and gestures of a youth. The relationship between them changes upon the entrance of Mikiya, and he decides to act as the substitute at the time of the accident and disappear.
Shiki[]
While feminine before the accident, Shiki, no longer able to feel SHIKI after waking from the coma, assumes that he has died and feels a detachment from her memories before the accident. She does not have a realistic sense of living, knowing that she is Shiki while also not feeling that she actually is Shiki. She hopes to regain herself and the "dead" SHIKI, and decides to put on a cold facade that somewhat resembles the male Shiki's, utilizing a course male speech pattern and "ore", and tries to act as the female Shiki. Touko understands the sense of detachment Shiki feels, and theorizes that the current Shiki is a third, new personality.
She has a cold, mean, heartless, and merciless personality, appearing to care about nothing, but she occasionally reacts in surprisingly feminine ways. Mikiya decides that if she were to be compared to an animal that it would be something like a rabbit. Due to being aware of her abnormality since childhood, being a killer who could not kill, she hated both herself and other people. Developing her cold personality as a result, she secretly wished to experience the happiness of a normal person. Her fate has changed drastically since encountering the materialization of that dream.
Due to her impulse to kill, she tries to feel a sense of living through killing, but never succeeds due to various accidents and benevolent obstructions. With her uncertain sense of living, he listlessly continues to go to Touko's office on a daily basis. Shiki declines Mystic Eye Killers from Touko, which would allow her to live a normal life free of seeing death if she were to wear them. It could be seen as a sign of how self abusive she is, or it can be called more like an episode that reflects her heart of clear water. While Touko put a large amount of money into constructing them, Shiki simply shoved them back, saying "Why should I do it to please you?" Her reasoning for declining is the same as refusing to wear the uniform of Reien Girls' Academy, in that she thinks it looks ridiculous on herself.
She can be said to occasionally behave like a "Stone-head-like stone head", evidence that she lives by feelings alone. She has an animalistic view towards other people, dividing them into two categories regardless of good or evil. Deciding based upon "those she can be with" and "those she cannot be with", she will stay with someone "she can be with" even if she hates them. Touko is "dislike", Azaka is "like", and Mikiya, in her own words, is "I don't know."
Strawberry ice-cream is one of the few things she is fond of, but it is also one of the things that she hates. She despises cold food, but always seems to buy it from the convenience store. Her persistence towards eating it caused Mikiya to make insensitive comments like ".... are you... are you trying to conquer your weakness...?"
She isn't exactly a dog lover but she likes them for their personality. She has a monthly allowance of 50,000 yen. If she ever needs more money beyond that, she casually puts out an “I wanna go shopping” sort of aura, and Akitaka Suzurigi will make arrangements.
「 」[]
Shiki possesses an actual third personality. 「 」, or Void (空, kara) if there is to be a pronunciation, was originally the will of the body that manifested as a personality of its own. Having always existed in the gap between Shiki and SHIKI, she hid her existence from both personalities. As she puts it herself, the third personality is Akasha, "the origin of all things" itself. This personality is housed in the body rather than the other personalities housed in the mind. Usually, a life begins connected to the Origin until the connection is severed at birth, and even if somehow a life remained unsevered, the body's personality itself should not become self-aware, but the Ryougi family's special trait allowed it to survive and survive with intelligence. Because she has no interest in anything however, she usually remains dormant within Shiki.
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