Phanuel, Angel of Hope
played by Issendai

Nickname: Mie-chan

Alias: Mie Suzuki

Gender: Female

Age: 29

Birth Date: May 13, 1973

Birthplace: A suburb near Tokyo

Blood Type: O

Family: Mother and father, whom she still lives with. As the only child of only children, she will have to take care of her parents when they grow old, a fact which both she and her parents keep in the front of their minds.

Hair: Whichever shade of red is most fashionable these days.

Eyes: Brown

Body: Short--5'2"--and slender. Small-breasted, small-hipped. She's certainly pretty, even pixielike when she's happy, but she's no one to be noticed in a crowd.

Marks: None.

Clothing: Whatever JJ and Junon tell her to wear. Her style is cute and tidy; she has the unthreatening, little-girl glamour look down pat. She wears a lot of pink and peach. However, she doesn't get many chances to get out of her navy-blue elevator-girl uniform.

Most Prized Possession: Her CD player and collection of CDs, the one small expensive indulgence she allows herself.

Hobbies: None. She used to read English literature, but she doesn't have the concentration for reading anything substantial any more. Nowadays she mostly listens to CDs and reads fashion mags.

Occupation: Elevator girl at a Tokyo department store. She spends four hours of every day staring a few inches in front of her face and pressing elevator buttons while piping the same litany of goods and services over and over again. The other four hours of her work day she spends sitting in a little customer-service booth and piping the same answers to the same stupid questions over and over again. She has been doing this since she finished junior college at 20. She's now 29, and her supervisors are not-so-gently hinting that it's time to quit and become a housewife.

Food: Tiramisu and creme brulee. Failing that, purin.

Fears: Turning 30 and finding that her life has ended. Turning 30 and finding that her life has never begun.

Goals: Marriage--by 30, like a proper Japanese woman. One or two children. A house of her own in the suburbs. A husband who makes enough money to keep herself and, eventually, her parents comfortably. Security.

Positive Characteristics: Mie is sweet, affable, and cooperative.

Negative Characteristics: Mie is passive passive passive passive passive. She is not empty-headed; she is just empty.

Personality: Mie is a normal young Japanese woman... and nothing else. She reads women's magazines to tell her what to be, because otherwise she is nothing. Years ago she was bright and expressive and interested in being unique, but that tactic didn't work, and the price of failure for her is very, very high.

History: Past - I am so very, very behind on the history of the angels that this section will have to wait to be filled in. Phanuel was the Archangel of Hope and Penance, one of the four Angels of the Presence who stood in the presence of God. She was in charge of the souls who were waiting for judgement and living in the afterlife as well.

Present - Mie was an obedient, if uninspired, student who graduated at the usual time and went on to a junior college to study English. When she finished, she got a job as an elevator girl in a big depaato in downtown Tokyo, thinking it would be an ideal place to find a husband. She desperately needed a husband. Not only did she have no career prospects, since she was expected to marry and quit by 30; she was also the only child of poor parents who needed her to carry on their name and support them in their old age. At first her father insisted that she find a man who was willing to take her family name. When omiai after omiai failed, he dropped that requirement and insisted only that the man have a college degree. Now, with his daughter approaching the end of her marriageable years, all he asks is that her fiancee not be Korean or burakumin. Mie knows that if she fails, she will be left with a purposeless future and heavy debts. She is very close to failure.

The reason Mie is failing isn't fully clear. She's pretty enough--fair-skinned, nicely dressed, soft-spoken, with wide, expressive eyes. She knows all the things she should to be a good wife. However, she's not the sort of woman to take to husband-catching; it doesn't interest her. She has systematically peeled away everything extraneous in order to catch a husband. That has left her with... nothing. The widest, most expressive eyes are worthless if all they express is flat, mirrorlike resignation. She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that men must sense this and turn away. However, she doesn't know how to get back what she used to have, and she's afraid that whatever lies behind her inner walls is not the sort of thing that would bring her a husband, so rather than digging deeper in, she just tries harder to be what she's supposed to be.