10 Days of Ronery – Kisaragi Mio from Tokimeki Memorial

1. Kisaragi Mio

Mio for me is the except no substitutes when it comes to shy girls in anime and games. She is the girl that really defined what I would find moe and not so moe in my early fandom days.

I didn’t first play Tokimeki Memorial until at least 2000. I am still blown away that the Playstation version came BEFORE the SNES version. I always thought it was the only way around. In my case, I first played it via SNES rom of course because at this time I knew zero Japanese and I still wasn’t importing games, but I had heard that this was “a really good game” from places like Megatokyo. Before this time I actually didn’t have a 2-D complex as well, but I did have a sort of infatuation with Kiyone from the Tenchi Muyo series but that was basically all. So, I guess Mio gave me a 2-D complex as well. orz

I kinda like Shiori nowadays. Hell, she’s pretty classic when it comes to the childhood friend/girl next door type.

I don’t think I liked Mio at first, but I know for a fact I didn’t like Shiori like everyone else probably does. No, I don’t hate Shiori I just didn’t want to win with her or anything. At first I think I just played around because Tokimeki Memorial was actually my first step into visual novels/date sims, and some how out of it I liked Mio’s archtype most.

So, for whatever reason I really liked Mio and I still do. Her shyness, intelligence, a romanticist, her glasses and hair. She’s also not very good at sports and tends to faint due to Anemia. Maybe she isn’t as moe by today’s anime standards but she is old school moe. 1994 old school moe. Mio gets number one because she is the catalyst for all my future favorite female characters and I must give credit where it is due.