Michelle Cheung
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| Michelle Cheung | |
|---|---|
| R.O.D character | |
 Michelle's best-known papermaster skill, the bow and arrow |
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| First appearance | Read or Dream, Vol. 1 |
| Last appearance | R.O.D the TV, episode 26 |
| Created by | Hideyuki Kurata |
| Voiced by | Shoko Kikuchi (Japanese) Hunter MacKenzie Austin (English) |
| Profile | |
| Nicknames | Mi-nee, Mich |
| Age | 24 (ROD the TV) |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Detective; bodyguard to Nenene Sumiregawa (R.O.D the TV only) |
| Known relatives | Maggie Mui (younger sister), Anita King (younger sister) |
Michelle Cheung (ミシェール ・チャン Mishēru Chan?) is one of the characters in the R.O.D series of manga and anime created by Hideyuki Kurata. She is a Paper Master and one of the three "Paper Sisters" which make the central trio of the Read or Dream series of comics. She is also one of the main characters of the TV series, R.O.D the TV.
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[edit] Name Spelling
Michelle's surname has been spelled or translated as both "Chan" and "Cheung." Both are spellings for common Chinese surnames. While "Chan" is the literal translation of the katakana which the creators use to spell her name, her name is spelled "Cheung" when the creators write out her name in English, such as in the British Library's file on the Paper Sisters[1]. Also, The Paper Sisters' names are notably similar to those of the real-life actresses who starred in the 1996 Hong Kong film The Heroic Trio, Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui. Therefore, for consistency, the spelling "Cheung" is used in this article and elsewhere on Wikipedia.
[edit] Character Background
In both Read or Dream and R.O.D the TV, Michelle lives with her adopted sisters, Maggie and Anita. Together, they run a detective agency in Hong Kong, called either the Paper Sisters' Detective Company ("Dream"), or the Three Sisters' Detective Agency ("the TV"). Michelle is the oldest of the "sisters" and, as the only non-minor in the family, acts as Anita's legal guardian.
She is the effective leader of the Paper Sisters, being the one who negotiates jobs and payment for their detective work. She also keeps the sisters' arsenal of paper in an aluminum case and directs them in tactics. As part of the services offered by the detective agency, she also does translation work.
Few details are provided on Michelle's past, and the comic and TV series differ on what is provided.
Read or Dream vol. 4 reveals that Michelle used to work as an agent of Dokusensha (the same Chinese "publishing company" that appears in various R.O.D stories as the British Library's rivals). She and fellow Paper Master Maggie Mui are given a "special assignment": raise and protect young Anita King. Michelle assigns Maggie cooking and housecleaning duties and names herself the official Dokusensha liaison. They both struggle to reach out to reticent, angry, book-hating Anita, but eventually, under their nurturing of Anita, Anita reads a book that both Maggie and Michelle love, and her own papermaster powers are awakened. . At that point, Dokusensha comes to take Anita away from Maggie and Michelle, so that they can train Anita as their newest Paper Master agent. Michelle and Maggie are declared to be inferior papermasters and are fired, but paid for their "services" in awakening Anita's abilities with a blank check. Maggie and Michelle attack Dokusensha's Hong Kong Headquarters, presenting their checks; in the "amount" area on the check, they both have written "Anita." After a fight that results in the destruction of the headquarters, Michelle and Maggie rescue Anita and take her home with them. Michelle decides they can put their espionage training and combat skills to work by becoming private detectives.
In R.O.D the TV, she and the other sisters believe they met on a fateful Christmas eve; like in the manga version, she and Maggie are Paper Masters hired by Dokusensha, but in this version of the story, they are sent to investigate lost literary materials in a church, where they coincidentally meet the homeless Anita. They decide to take her in and become a "family." Later (episode 23), Junior, who has accessed the information from one of the Gentleman books, reveals to Michelle that she was genetically altered to become a Paper Master and had her memories rewritten as part of taking on her new life.
Joker also makes clear in a different conversation (where Michelle is not present) that the Christmas Eve event was orchestrated; he also notes that many "Paper Sisters" were created, but only Maggie and Michelle survived the procedure to be assigned to work with Anita, who in this version was created by the British Library and kidnapped by Dokusensha later on.
[edit] Appearance and Personality
Michelle is 25 years old and 168 cm (5'6") tall [1]. She has very long, wavy blonde hair, yellowish-green eyes (although they are described as "brown" in the aforementioned British Library file), and a voluptuous figure. A Hong Kong native, with the surname of Cheung, she is probably at least partially of Chinese descent. She wears comfortable clothing that is somewhat "girly" in nature: pastel colors; a lot of skirts and frills. Her battle uniform, made of paper, takes the appearance of a white jacket, green skirt, and green beret. Underneath the paper uniform, she wears a form fitting black "leotard" (possibly combat armor). Like her other sisters, she wears a watch with a yin-yang symbol on it, which emits a signal to and receives signals from the other watches. Michelle is very affectionate, and is seen cuddling Anita's peers (Junior and Hisami) on a number of occasions in the TV series. When she is caught doing something underhanded or is overacting, she sometimes "punishes" herself by pinching her cheek.
Like most Paper Masters, Michelle is an extreme bibliomaniac, and in both Dream and the TV, she has nearly bankrupted her sisters with her book purchases on multiple occasions. Perhaps only Yomiko Readman rivals her in the compulsion to buy and collect books--in fact, one of Michelle's book-purchasing frenzies in Jin-bo Cho leads local storekeepers to believe the long-disappeared Yomiko Readman has returned.
Alhough Michelle is a focused combatant and investigator, off the job she enjoys relaxing and frequently shirks household chores. Anita often nags her to try to contribute to the housework, or at least enable others to get it done more easily (Anita's success in convincing Michelle to do something domestically useful varies).
While ostensibly bubbly, Michelle displays great focus and calm especially when on the job; she is far less troubled by Webber's sonic attacks than her sisters, which he says reflects an unusually well-balanced emotional state [2].
[edit] Powers and Skills
Michelle's preferred paper manipulation is a bow and arrow, supporting Anita's melee offense and Maggie's defensive capabilities with precise long-range attacks. Her arrows can easily pierce steel; R.O.D the TV shows her arrows skewering and destroying resilient combat automatons in episodes 12 and 13. She can alter her arrows to do other things, such as transforming an arrow or a series of arrows into a "web" to encase her target. Michelle can also make paper traps and darts. She also uses generic Paper Master maneuvers such as the creation of shields and cutting implements, but leaves this to Maggie and Anita, respectively, when fighting as a team, as their abilities in these areas are more versatile.
Michelle is also adept at using paper to make paper clothes and disguises; this is more obvious in Dream where she sometimes dresses up in "instant costumes," such as her "Yukio Michema" costume in volume 2. While all the Paper Sisters are capable of making paper clothing, she does it the most often and with the most detail. In addition to her battle uniform, one of Michelle's favorite paper outfits (appearing in both the manga and TV series) is a white form-fitting dress with a slit on one side and a Chinese-style collar.
[edit] Relationships
[edit] Anita King
Michelle and Anita care deeply for one another, but Michelle's bubbliness and Anita's hot-headed pragmatism frequently clash. While Anita is usually concerned about practical matters like buying food over books and shows a greater degree of temperance when it comes to instant gratification, Michelle tends to live for the moment and cannot resist buying any book that catches her eye. Though Michelle means well, she usually ends up in unusual situations that Anita finds foolish and troublesome. On the other hand, when Anita loses her temper, Michelle is the one who remains calm and often talks Anita down or restrains her from acting foolishly.
[edit] Maggie Mui
Michelle and Maggie share a close relationship, held strongly by their extreme love of books and of Anita. While Michelle is outspoken and bosses Maggie around somewhat, Maggie is normally reticent and content to let Michelle speak for her. However, Maggie is not shy about contradicting Michelle when she does disagree with her. Michelle is aware of Maggie's lack of confidence and does not tolerate Anita's thoughtless comments concerning Maggie's "uselessness" when Anita gets mad at her. Maggie often compliments Michelle on her warmth and strength and claims, "I'm nothing compared to Big Sis" [3].
The "flashback story" in vol. 4 of Dream shows that initially Maggie is very cold to Michelle, indicating some amount of rivalry between them, but the two grow close as they work on raising Anita. This is reflected in their telling of the story of "The Giraffe with a Shrunken Neck," which they tell to induce Anita into using her Paper Mastery.
[edit] Nenene Sumiregawa
As with Anita, Nenene can become frequently annoyed with Michelle's eccentricities; possibly the two clash as both have "alpha" personalities. However, since Michelle respects (and fears) Nenene, Michelle usually accepts whatever Nenene asks her to do. Nenene does not seem to share as close a relationship with Michelle as the other Paper Sisters and has fewer conversations with Michelle, but Nenene trusts her.
[edit] Junior
Because of Michelle's kind, nearly maternal nature, Junior quickly becomes attached to her. Perhaps he sees her as a mother-figure of sorts; Michelle is the first adult to show him the warmth and love rather than merely approval (he admits to Wendy Earhart, who had a hand in raising him, that he hoped she loved her. In fact, Michelle's warmth and bubbliness could be easily compared to Wendy's persona when she was younger, such as in the R.O.D manga and OAV. While Junior probably never knew the more bubbly Wendy, perhaps he did sense a similarity, and transferred his craving for that love to Michelle). When Junior "betrays" the Paper Sisters and their allies, separating the group into pairs, he leaves his real mother Nancy with Drake Anderson while choosing to remain with Michelle. When they rejoin, and he becomes upset because his mother is more concerned about the safety of Yomiko Readman than anything else, Michelle disciplines him as she would Anita for speaking thoughtlessly, stepping in the maternal role which Nancy is not yet ready to take. At the end of the TV series, Michelle alone takes care of him in Saitama--temporarily separating herself from her beloved sisters, who remain in Tokyo--while he recovers from the Gentleman Ressurrection Project. This suggests not only does Junior prefer to stay with Michelle, but also that the others consider her a good guardian for him while his mother recovers her memories.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official English R.O.D the TV site
- R.O.D -THE TV- Official site (Japanese)
- Read or Die Wiki: an English language wiki designed to cover all aspects of the Read or Die universe
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