- ""Hey! Ohayō gojaimasu!"
― Karen's habit on using broken Japanese.
Karen Kujō (九条 カレン Kujyō Karen) is one of the main character on Kin-iro Mosaic series.
Appearance
Karen has a long, golden hair always with a bun on the left side of her head. She wears a jacket depicting the flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On the inside, she wears a white collared shirt with a pink red-striped bow tie. Like everyone else, she conforms as she wears the standard blue skirt. She also wears a pair of long blue socks and her own shoes that also carries part of the Union Flag (also known as the Union Jack).
Personality
Karen is a carefree, happy-go-lucky person. She is half-English, half-Japanese, as hinted by her last name. She is Alice's childhood friend and she eventually follows her to Japan sometime later. She is the type of person who gets overly excited about everything. She is very charismatic and is friends with just about everyone in the class. Many people are willing to give Karen food if she ever forgets her lunch which imples that she is very useless and like a baby.
She usually speaks slightly broken Japanese (presumed to be in purpose) when communicating with her friends, but she can speak a fluent one at times when she met Isami for an autograph, which surprises Youko and Aya.
Karen has shown a large amount of affection towards Shinobu (much to Alice's dismay), but she is too dense to notice this. Karen values her friends a lot and is very loyal towards them. She is close to Youko because their personalities are somewhat similar.
When Aya first introduces herself to Karen, the latter thinks that Aya's name is "Ayaya" (Aya actually says: "綾よ" (Aya yo), which is supposed to mean (in this context), "I'm Aya"). Over time, Aya gets used to this nickname.
It has been revealed that Karen does not gain much weight despite consuming lots of food meaning she has a fast metabolism.
Like Alice, Karen is very fond of Japanese culture. She usually ends her sentences with "デスよ" (desu yo) wherever applicable.
Karen also comes from a massively rich family, consisting of her parents and herself. This often surprises her friends apart from Alice, of whom, it is assumed, has always known about Karen's wealth and may be well blessed in terms of finances herself. Karen's family wealth is expressed mostly when Karen turns up in a motor-home of grandeur size and explicit quality (the trailer being of house-like design in the interior) to meet her friends, and when Shinobou and Alice go to meet Karen at her place, which turns out to be an entire block of flats. Also, in certain flash-backs, Karen's house in England appears large (like Alice's) and richly decorated on the inside, which also suggests her family's state of wealth.
Manga
In the manga, it has been revealed that Karen simply told her father that Alice went to Japan and that she wanted to study more of the Japanese culture and her father happily allowed her to live in Japan as well.
Trivia
- She calls Aya, "Ayaya".
- She's extremely affectionate towards Shinobu.
- Karen is unaware that Alice considers her as a 'rival'.
- Karen's given name in kanji is 可憐
- Her name in kanji is the same as "pretty" in "pretty flower".
- She's good at most sports and does really well even if she doesn't know the rules.
- She seems to be a homage to Kujo Jotaro from "Jojo's Bizarre Adventures", Jotaro's mother is also from England and his father is a Japanese man named Kujo.
- Karen also similar to Kodaka Hasegawa from Haganai:
- Both are blonde (in Kodaka's case, it's mixed with brown).
- Both are transfer students.
- Both are scared because of their blonde hairs (in Karen's case, one episode only).
- Both have their childhood friends are also the main character.
- Both slowly gather friends (in Karen's case, one episode only).
- Karen also similiar to Alice Kirkland (Fem.England) From Nyotalia:
- Both are blonde.
- Both can speak English (in Kin-iro Mosaic, Karen is half British, so she can speak English).
- Both have a hair pin in the right side of their hair (Alice has 2 hairpins on her right side of her hair).
Gallery
- Main article: Karen Kujō/Image gallery.