Mikuru Asahina

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Mikuru Asahina
Japanese	朝比奈 みくる Asahina Mikuru
Voice actor (jp)	Yuko Goto
Voice actor (en)	Stephanie Sheh

Mikuru Asahina (朝比奈 みくる, Asahina Mikuru^?) is a fictional character from the Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, voiced by Yuko Goto in the original version and Stephanie Sheh in the English dubbed edition. Mikuru is a shy and timid girl with a childish naïveté, who is also considered to be cute by many of her peers, largely due to her lolita appeal and large bust. Although she is supposedly the senior (second-year student) of the other members of the SOS Brigade, she is treated as though she were much younger. Within the novels, her beauty is such that many boys consider her to be an "untouchable flower on the mountain." Thanks to her prominent role, the SOS Brigade's horrible home movie attracted a male crowd at the school's cultural festival. Kyon suggests that many boys in the school would participate in some kind of grand retribution against any other boy who have had their way with Mikuru. Similarly, Kyon also feels protective of Asahina and vindicative against anyone romantically involved with her. This is indicated when he becomes jealous and angry towards Itsuki for acting out his role as the romantic male lead within Haruhi's film for the cultural festival.

[edit] SOS Brigade Role

Haruhi "voluntarily arrested" Mikuru when she was caught daydreaming in a second-year classroom. Mikuru is then coerced to leave the Calligraphy Club in order to join the SOS Brigade instead. Mikuru only stays after seeing that Nagato was presumably within Haruhi's club as well. According to Haruhi, Mikuru serves as the attractive girl in the story, a necessary ingredient for something extraordinary to occur. In addition to this, Haruhi regards Mikuru as her club mascot and personal dress-up doll. More disturbingly, Haruhi exploits Mikuru's sex appeal either for extortion (e.g. the computer taken from the Computer Society) or to promote SOS Brigade activities and physically forces Mikuru into various costumes, such as bunny-girl, maid or nurse costumes. Mikuru is also arbitrarily required by Haruhi to wear a specific costume while in the SOS Brigade's club room. Mikuru has also adapted a role where she brews and serves tea to members within the clubroom, regularly mentioned by Kyon as his "saving grace" in the day.

[edit] Origins

Mikuru is actually a time traveler sent to investigate the cause of the turmoil in the space-time continuum three years ago which prevents time travel beyond that point. Despite this, she seems rather uninformed or simply ignorant about the past she was sent to, as she was wondering how something so massive could float on water, which is easily explained by basic physics (Lone Island Syndrome chapter). She was the second to approach Kyon, after Yuki, about her group's interest in Haruhi. Mikuru explains her time traveling as being akin to adding another frame into a sequence of animation. Simply stated, time is not continuous, it is instead composed of multiple "time planes" with infinitesimal breaks occurring between them. This means that history should not be appreciably affected by her time traveling. Regardless, Mikuru maintains confidentiality to all exclusive information, as well as the truth of her actual age.

Mikuru also has developed a crush on Kyon and has tried to restrain it to avoid disrupting the nascent Kyon-Haruhi's relationship, which in turn helps avoid the nigh-apocalyptic situation found at the climax of the novel, "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya." Despite this, Kyon frequently remarks to himself about Mikuru, in regards to her beauty or helplessness, or the food or tea her touch graces. Because Mikuru is the most helpless member of the SOS Brigade, Kyon regards himself as her chivalric protector, and has expressed romantic interest in her, resulting in Haruhi's jealousy.

Mikuru has the ability to produce a dangerous laser beam (known as 'Mikuru Beam') from her eyes when wearing a tinted contact lens as a result of Haruhi's whims during the filming of the SOS Brigade Movie.

In the 7th novel of the series, Mikuru is sent back two weeks by Kyon to save herself. When she was looking for a place to stay, Kyon tells Tsuruya that that this Mikuru is the long lost twin sister of the Mikuru already existing on that time plane, called Michiru.

[edit] Older Mikuru

Mikuru Asahina (big) (朝比奈 みくる(大), Asahina Mikuru (Dai)^?)

An older Mikuru Asahina, from farther into the future. Referred to as Asahina-san (big) by Kyon, in order to differentiate between the older and younger versions. The younger Asahina is referred to as Asahina-san (small) (朝比奈さん(小), Asahina-san (Shō)^?) when the older Mikuru is around.

The adult Mikuru makes brief appearances by traveling back from a further time to give Kyon messages and hints which are critical to the plot. The first appearance of the adult Mikuru corroborates the younger Mikuru's claim that she is a time traveller, while producing additional evidence that Haruhi is possessed of unusual powers. While Kyon has seen both the younger and the older Mikuru at same time, the older Asahina is not allowed to reveal herself nor make her presence known to her younger self (Volume 4).

Haruhi Suzumiya v • d • e
Series:	The Melancholy (book 1) | The Sigh (book 2) | The Boredom (book 3) | The Vanishment (book 4) | The Rashness (book 5) | The Disturbance (book 6) | The Scheme (book 7) | The Anger (book 8) | The Dissociation (book 9) | The Surprise (book 10)
Characters:	List of characters | Haruhi Suzumiya | Kyon | Yuki Nagato | Mikuru Asahina | Itsuki Koizumi
Lists:	List of anime episodes | List of Haruhi Suzumiya albums | List of character song albums