If Arisa were Tank Girl, Kyoko would be Tech Girl. She's the more thoughtful, cautious half of the Office Lady team, and while Arisa favours guns Kyoko is more at home with computers. Arisa is really into 'all that warrior-battle-maid stuff' but Kyoko would really like to be just an ordinary office lady, I think.

In fact, of all the characters in Nuku Nuku, Kyoko is the one who seems the most like a normal person who caught the wrong bus or something and ended up in Loony Land. She reminds me a bit of Byers in The X-Files - you know, the Lone Gunman who always wears a suit and looks very gentle and conservative. But like Byers, of course Kyoko is where she is for a reason.

Kyoko tries to act as a moderating influence on Arisa, and this works up to a point. Arisa is pretty damn' hard to moderate, of course. On one very memorable occasion (see Phase OV) she managed to get Kyoko as carried away as she was. Kyoko with a rocket launcher on her shoulder, laughing gleefully as she pops off catnip gas grenades, is not a sight soon to be forgotten. Indeed, Kyoko lets Arisa talk her into things far too often.

Although they are very different in temperament, a lot of the lifestyle things that are true of Arisa are true of Kyoko too. Owing to the various débacles that are always occurring, her salary is wildly unreliable, and she doesn't even get Sundays off. Almost the only way Arisa and Kyoko can get a free day is by getting too badly injured to go to work. They share a small apartment with a broken air conditioner.

Kyoko has a tendency to whine when she is unhappy. I think she feels rather sorry for herself, but this is justified. She often has things awfully tough. Privately, she thinks most of the people she knows are nuts.

I find Kyoko exceptionally cute. I think it's the eyes and the shape of her face. Although Arisa is the one who looks dangerous, Kyoko should not be taken lightly. She once completely brainwashed Yoshimi in her sleep using an ingenious doohickey the workings of which I do not pretend to understand, but it had 'CD-Rom Kyoko' printed on the case, which I thought was a nice touch.

Kyoko doesn't exhibit as strong a personal dislike for Nuku Nuku as Arisa does; I think she's more scared of her, as demonstrated by her line in Phase OI: 'Are you the Terminator or something?' It's also hard to be sure why she sticks with Akiko, since she doesn't love and admire her the way Arisa does. Akiko just seems to have a knack for inspiring loyalty.

Kyoko can really act quite evil when she feels like it, and does a particularly good wicked laugh. She is one of life's losers, but I like her.

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