The Self-Reflection of Rika
Reddit Post: [reddit]
Author: u/Genprey
Previous: The Malevolence of Hanna
Related reading: Ren
For those who have not already read it, I have already done a section on Ren, whose backstory is linked to Rika's.
Rika is actually a girl I've been deliberating to do back since I first started this series, but I held off on doing so when I originally chose not to cover girls without their Doppel/Uncap, but also partly because I wanted to make sure I took my time with Rika, so that I could make sure I was ready to give her story the respect it deserves.
To sort of spoil what's coming, Rika's theme is that of the concept of normalcy and self-expression as it is applied to young teenagers. In particular, Rika is confirmed to be lesbian and part of her background briefly goes over the implications of being homosexual as an adolescent. Such an experience is something I can be knowledgeable about but not fully understand as someone who has not had a similar circumstance as Rika. For that, I wanted some extra time to make sure that I'm at least somewhat qualified to discuss this subject in a way that is thorough and respectful.
Much like certain other girls, this is less me discussing symbolism and more of me explaining Rika as a character who is going through something very real and relatable. In other words, this is going to be like reading a book on sociology, so I apologize ahead of time for that and will try not to make this super boring.
Pursuing One's Own Individuality
We, as humans, go through various stages of life. From birth through childhood, we pretty much coast along a straight path as we begin to learn and internalize social norms from our parents, teachers, and peers. During this phase, we learn what is acceptable and when it is acceptable, which end up serving as a sort of template for our personality.
Starting around middle school, as we experience physical and psychological changes to an extreme, we then begin developing individuality. This includes style (clothing, likes/dislikes, etc.), a basic idea of who we want to be when we're older, and, of course, who we seek as friends and romantic partners. From an outside perspective (i.e. as someone who has already jumped that hurdle), such a time is an interesting part of one's life, as we see youth branch out past the homogeneous schematics that we developed as young kids. This should be a wonderful part of life, but as a lot of us might know already, kids can be really cruel.
The best way to sum Rika up is that "she is herself". We can take that and apply it to many other girls, of course, but the writers go the extra mile to let us know that Rika is developing her individuality. This, unfortunately, comes with its own set of difficulties, as we see in her personal Memoria:
She's in love with all the most popular fashions, all the latest cosmetics. She loves girly fashion, but she is often treated with prejudice for her appearance. -Fashion at Full Speed!
As mentioned in the last sentence, Rika being herself is met with objection from her peers. To my knowledge, specific reasons as to why her peers didn't accept her are not mentioned, but we can assume that it's based on something as petty as not following a trend. This, of course, is due to the fact that certain teenagers have not fully matured and understood the concept of self-expression and why being different is perfectly normal.
The environments where young people socialize tend to be a vicious cycle of conformity. What starts as individuals seeking like-minded peers degrades into filtering out those who are too different from you and your group. Those who desire a social group, as any person would, then sacrifice their uniqueness in order to fit in, and the cycle continues.
With that being said, there's a bit of irony with Rika, in that she's actually "normal" by design. From her character description:
A Magical Girl who is into the latest fashion and make-up. Rika appears to be a typical girly girl, but she is actually very seriously in love. She has been secretly admiring the same person for years. A genuine person, she gets along with everyone.
...we see that she's described as being the "average girl". To add to this, the Japanese characters that make up her last name, Ayano, mean "design" and "plain", which, when put together, says "plain design".
This is something we see in Rika's design, in that her magical girl attire doesn't stray very far from the typical look of magical girls you see in other popular anime of the genre like "Sailor Moon" and "Cardcaptor Sakura". This is something that is clearly an intentional choice in design, and the statement I believed that is to be had here is that a person is best defined by their actions and personality than their appearance. Rika's appearance does little to draw our attention, but she manages to be a popular and well-liked character based on her interaction with characters like Hinano and especially Ren.
Our teenage years would be a hell of a lot easier if our peers saw each other with that in mind.
The Meaning of Love...
This leads us to another key part of Rika's character: her romantic preference and wish. As mentioned earlier, Rika is attracted to other girls, and while dressing different will land you nasty remarks, being homosexual (particularly a few years back) as a teenager tends to quite difficult. There is prejudice and bullying, which I won't really cover, as that's something I think we all are aware of, but the main thing I do want to go over is support or a lack thereof.
The primary orientation in your typical community is heterosexuality, with the ratio of those who identified as being homosexual to those as heterosexual being about 1-in-10 in Japan. Assuming Rika was raised in a traditional household consisting of a male and female parent, discovering and coming to terms with being attracted to other girls is an experience that is wildly confusing and especially difficult. Most of us probably haven't been raised with much knowledge on how a man can be attracted to another man or a woman to another woman, as human relations is a complex subject and most parents tend to either be uncomfortable or not very mindful about discussing such things with their child.
Likewise, teachers aren't all qualified to discuss the subject (as it's usually left to specialists and therapists) and I definitely wouldn't bank on most kids as a comfortable source of comfort if they ostracize someone for wearing different clothes than they.
Not only this, but falling in love is something that is extra difficult for Rika. Recall that most individuals identify as being heterosexual and add in the fact that a percentage of those who do not are possibly repressing themselves, either due to confusion or social pressure. In Rika's case, the girl she fell in love with turns out to have been interested in boys. So along with finding a girl who fits Rika's preferences, she also has to find someone with a similar orientation as her. This is what serves as the motivation behind Rika's wish.
During Rika's MGS, Rika laments that her love for her crush will forever be unrequited. It's one thing for two individuals of the same orientation to start off being uninterested in each other romantically, only to learn more of each other and fall in love later, without Rika's crush viewing her romantically, the two cannot develop a romantic relationship.
That is without the intervention of a certain "furball" (a name that apparently hurts Kyubey more than Homura's firearms). Wishes are an absolute power...but also not very thorough. Having wished for her crush to fall in love with her, Rika starts off happy...but shortly after, feels empty:
It's okay if I'm only dreaming, or even if it's all an illusion. Put aside any thoughts of guilt or deception. Just for now, I want to take in this sweet smell for a little longer, and let it cloud my senses. -Love Smells Like This
As described in this Memoria, Rika is aware that the love she's experiencing with her crush is artificial, being the result of her wish. There is a lot of emphasis put on the sense of smell here, and that's because the scent of something only gives a vague, sometimes false, idea of what something actually is. Some things, for example, might smell sweet, but actually be bitter or poisonous.
As depicted in the illustration of this Memoria, holding hands and walking with your partner is something a lot of us know that lovers do, however, such a thing is only surface-level if there is no feeling or emotion to it. I can hold hands with a female friend, but because we don't view each other romantically, this is likely an empty act performed as a way to get a couples discount at IHOP.
Although Rika genuinely loves her crush and Rika's crush loves her back (as per her wish), Rika steadily finds it difficult to maintain the relationship as it's missing a core part of love.
Being in Love and Loving Someone
Love is...a complicated thing, and I feel like I should clear up that I'm no Dr. Love, rather, a twenty-something-year-old dude who hasn't dated since highschool. With that in mind, there are 2 aspects of love that are rather difficult to distinguish. That is: being in love and loving somebody.
Being in love specifically refers to shallow affection, which isn't necessarily negative. Things like "puppy dog crushes" and "young love" could be considered as individual(s) "being in love", in that they may not fully understand their partner or object of affection. As a 10-year-old, I was "in love" with my teacher until I learned the implication behind the title "Mrs." the hard way. Further, young people will naturally seek out love among their peers, but such a relationship may not last if they discover that they really aren't meant for each other in that way.
This is the area Rika stands. Between feeling guilty about her wish, she begins to come to terms with the fact that, despite loving her crush, the girl she likes doesn't organically romantically love her in return. "To love someone" is to mutually understand and accept their characteristics and is paired with the desire to make them happy as they would equally want to make you. Put simply, true love is a two-sided deal that is only achieved naturally through the understanding of one another.
Rika's wish made the unlikely happen, but without that important step. By the end of her MGS, it is because Rika loved her crush so much that she wanted to make her happy with the boy she had loved.
Mirror Mirror...
It goes without saying that realizing all this shows that Rika is capable of self-reflection, or the understanding of the weight of her thoughts and actions. Although there isn't a lot to Rika's design, her weapon, a compact mirror, ends up saying a lot about her character.
Mirrors symbolize one's true self and the truth of the world it reflects. Such a truth is not always something we want to accept, and in Rika's case, she had to come to terms with the fact that the love she had for her crush was one-sided. There is, however, positive connotations to mirrors, and something that's worth noting is the fact that the one Rika has, in particular, is a compact mirror, which implies something more personal, as it more narrowly reflects the user who is looking in it. As such, Rika's weapon also symbolizes her keen ability to reflect on herself.
If we were to look at the design on the mirror's surface, we can recognize the shape as a hexagram. In Indian culture, a hexagram is the core part of the Anahata, which represents complex emotions involved with unconditional love, rejection and compassion.
The Anahata is depicted as a lotus flower, or "Renge" in Japanese. "Ren" serves as a play on "Renge", and this is something that is brought up during the "Diary With You" event when Rika is deciding on what gift she wants to give Ren. In this same scene, Rika decides on getting May Bell flowers, which are named "Suzuran" in Japanese. "Suzuran" is phonetically similar to "Ren" and, as stated by Konomi, symbolize pure and genuine emotions in the official language of flowers.
This brings us to one last part of this section:
Rika and Ren (Christmas)
Something else to know about mirrors is their nature of reflecting light, which is very clear in Rika's final ascension art. When she met Ren, Ren was in a very dark place in her life, having made a second attempt at suicide. Showing unconditional concern, it was Rika who would serve as a guiding light for Ren to follow through her darkness.
Rika and Ren as Christmas characters is something that was likely carefully planned. Christmas, taking place during Winter, is somewhat conflicting. On one hand, it is a time where many people are happy and spend time with each other, but on the other, it is also a season that is frigid, where the sky is obscured by clouds and plant-life is killed by snow...unless you live in places like Florida. We don't get Winter down here.
Bringing our attention to the pair's personal Memoria:
Even if it's small, this is definite proof that our hearts communicate.
The light of hope that warms cold hearts. No matter how cold the night gets, I can get over it As long as this warmth is in my chest.
*...*we see that light is brought up as a source of warmth. In my analysis on Ren, I compared her to that of an angel, while Rika, as mentioned above, reflects light with her mirror.
The illustration for this Memoria depicts a conflicting scene, candles with snowmen and winter-themed imagery, but also a small flame to warm everything below it. Much like what the Memoria effect (debuff removal) would imply, this scene represents hopefulness and comfort, even among rough conditions.
Their 2nd Magia is named "Aurora Stream", referencing the phenomenon that occurs when our atmosphere mixes with particles from the universe. Such an event represents the beauty that occurs when 2 individuals are able to meet and coexist with each other.
In Rika-Ren's character description, there's a mention of them enjoying snowglobes. Being mementos of Christmas, snowglobes are everlasting and represent eternal joy, even after Christmas has long passed.
Coming next is Umika, and from there, I will move up through the Another Daze girls, although I'm not yet certain the exact order after Umika will be.