Think of your basic magical girl. She's graceful, beautiful, and holds a strong sense of justice. She puts her duty before everything else, all the while balancing her day to day life as a seemingly average person. She performs her mission with no questions asked, and will continue to protect mankind and the balance of nature until the end of her days.

...And then there's Ichigo.

Before her involvement with the Mew Project, Ichigo was more or less a normal girl from a family with an only child. All she truly had to worry about was whether or not her object of affections would say yes or no to her invitation on a date. School was second nature, as was per the norm of the average junior high school girl. Curfew was a nuisance, and her overprotective father's nagging was even more so. When she was not struggling with her summer homework, she was out and about with her group of friends, window shopping and looking for the best accessories for her outfit or the cutest ribbons for her hair. Everything was perfectly normal for Ichigo, until one fateful day while she was out with her crush, an earthquake struck, causing a misfire from a scifi-esque weapon to hit her and four other girls instead. At that moment, Ichigo's world was turned upside down, inside out, and everything in between.

Becoming a Mew Mew is, by far, the worst thing that could have happened to Ichigo. Out of nowhere, due to an accident, she's been suddenly thrust with the responsibility of saving the world from aliens who wished to destroy the human race, and she hates it. Throughout the manga, she continuously blames her misfortune on the seemingly uncaring Shirogane, who quickly accepted the mistake as fate and essentially treats her as a toy and living weapon. The only reason why she's putting up with his mistreatment, as well as performing her task as Mew Ichigo, is because of what he told her when she initially refused to uphold her duty: once the aliens are no longer a threat, her mutated DNA would neutralize and she will return to being a normal girl.

And Ichigo would give anything to return to being a girl worthy of Aoyama-kun's affections.

Alas, her mission is a truly difficult one, and it doesn't help that Ichigo is constantly getting the short end of the stick. When she's not hunting down Chimera Anima, she's trapped in her part-time job at Café Mew Mew, functioning as the only competent waitress in the store. Minto would either be drinking tea or would disappear for some Rich Girl class, Retasu is a horrendous klutz and breaks every dish in the inventory, Bu Ling is more "live entertainment" than "waitress" (and is helping Retasu with breaking dishes), and Zakuro just scares the customers if she's not at her other job as a model. Poor Ichigo is basically the poster child of "overworked and underpaid" and can never seem to get a break from anyone. From teasing almost-kisses from Ryou to being dragged to a school at night while on a leash by Minto, to having to deal with Kisshu, it's no wonder why Ichigo tends to lose her temper more often than not, which is exactly what she's trying to not do.

Being the strongest of the Mew Mews, Ichigo also has to deal with the fact that her DNA is also the most unstable. Any sort of distress will trigger a chain reaction which will either cause her cat ears and tail to pop out or outright turn her into a cat. Her more cat-like traits are also translated into her normal form: catnaps have become a constant, fish has joined her list of favorite foods, she suddenly develops ADHD whenever anything flutters in her general line of vision, among other things. As someone who craves normalcy, Ichigo believes this is outright cruel and unfair. She sees herself as nothing more than a freak, which particularly depresses whenever the subject of Aoyama crosses her mind; how could she ever hope to be his girlfriend if he sees her as a circus attraction? There's no way he would fall for her, and all of her efforts of getting him to even notice her would all be in vain because of her unwanted duty to protect the Earth.

Despite all of this lamenting she holds, Ichigo is far from selfish. She truly has a good heart and a strong sense of justice, and while her reasoning for fighting is a bit skewed, she does it with passion and with the fate of humanity in mind. While on a hunt for Mu Aqua and subsequently fighting the Dust Waiburn, Ichigo ended up over three hours late to her date with Aoyama because she knew that if the Chimera Anima was left unchecked, there would be around four million deaths from its toxins. That wasn't the first time she put love aside for the Earth-- in fact, she disappeared from almost every date with Aoyama because a Chimera Anima was attacking, well aware that she was ultimately (in her mind) ruining her chances at being his girlfriend.

Her big heart isn't limited to humanity as a whole, however. Despite all the transgressions they give her, Ichigo truly loves her fellow Mew Mews and her commanders and would gladly do anything for them. Despite being a snooty bitch, Ichigo was the one who rounded up the other girls when Zakuro broke Minto's heart by refusing to join them in an attempt to cheer her up. Ichigo refused to fight Retasu when her powers became out of whack, and instead opted to talk to her when she discovered that Retasu felt the same despair of being turned into a freak and was no longer a normal girl. She empathizes with Shirogane once she learns that he had a hard and tragic past. Whenever any of her teammates were targeted by the aliens, Ichigo would immediately swoop in and rescue them, regardless of how poorly they treated her in the past. Ichigo's teammates are more than just allies; they're her dearest friends, and to say that she cares for them barely scratches the surface of how she truly feels for them.

All in all, Ichigo is just a twelve-year-old girly girl who has far more on her plate than she's supposed to. Her love for people knows no bounds and she's incredibly forgiving — she even cried over Kisshu as he died despite his less than poor treatment towards her, all because he was genuinely fighting for her happiness. She is able to look past a person's faults if she can feel that they're a truly good person and would do anything humane for that person simply because she cares for them that much. Ichigo is a Good Samaritan and a firm believer of justice and the good of the planet, although it's usually overshadowed by her boisterous and eccentric attitude. And yes, while her stress levels can reach a peak of exploding meters, all she truly craves for is the normalcy she once had before.

Because it fucking sucks when you turn into a cat in the middle of a date, you know what I mean?
 

POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/A