| “ | Genius programmer Frau Koujiro ftw, ready! | „ |
| ~ Frau Koujiro |
Frau Koujiro (real name: Kona Furugoori) is one of the main protagonists of the visual novel and anime series Robotics:Notes. She is the creator of Kill-Ballad and the daughter of Minami Furugoori, the director of the anime Gunvarrel. She moves to Tanegashima early in the series in search of her missing mother and later joins the Robotic Research Club as the team's programmer to help realize Gunvarrel.
She is voiced by Kaori Nazuka in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Leah Clark in the English version of the anime.
Appearance[]
Frau is a teenage girl of average height with long hair that she typically ties into large pigtails. She is naturally a brunette, but opts to dye her hair blonde. Kona has a noticeably thin physique, largely attributed to her obsessive nature which causes her to neglect eating for extensive periods of time. She is also quite pale, likely a side effect of hoarding herself indoors under perpetually low-temperature air conditioning.
While in the privacy of her room, Kona leaves her hair down and wears a simple, white tank top with comfortable shorts.
Personality[]
| “ | Frau is willing to help others, but not without getting something for it in return. | „ |
| ~ Frau to Kaito |
Frau is a very anti-social girl; she prefers to stay alone in the comforts of her apartment and heavily invest her time online either for Kill-Ballad or searching for clues on her missing mother. This makes her a hikkikomori (the Japanese term for shut-in). As a result, Frau lacks even the most basic social etiquettes, stutters heavily when she speaks, frequently speaks in SMS language (e.g. fwiw, which stands for 'for what it's worth' and tbh, which stands for 'to be honest) and references Japanese memes. Frau is a dedicated fan of the anime Gunvarrel, which her mother helped produce, and does not take kindly to those who speak poorly of her mother's legacy.
One of Frau's most prominent characteristics is her blatant pervertedness. Spending much of her time playing eroge and yaoi dating sims rather than interacting with real people, Frau's mind is a twisted, convoluted mess of perverted, borderline psychotic thoughts. She is also quite volatile, frequently and rapidly switching between bored aloofness and erratic excitement, though she isn't quite as energetic as Akiho. As a result of her social ineptness, Frau can be rather insensitive at times, such as when she says that Elephant Mouse Syndrome, which temporarily gives Kaito superhuman fighting reflexes, sounds like an anime cliche, causing the usually calm Kaito to snap at her since he doesn't like people making fun of his condition.
Both a strength and weakness of Frau's is her tendency to easily become obsessive. Once she is consumed in a project, she will not stop until it is complete and, while efficient, she often forgets to sleep and eat during these phases, forcing Kaito to often bring food whenever he visits her. Frau is also a slob and her room is a perpetual mess; this is noted by Kaito, who states that her hospitality leaves a lot to be desired. Frau is also rather selfish, and even admits that she's not the kind of person to help others without expecting something in return.
Frau eventually reveals that her reason for becoming a shut-in was to create Kill-Ballad- after the disappearance of her mother and Gunvarrel's cancellation, Frau worked day and night to create a fighting game based on Gunvarrel, as she believed her mother's work and legacy would be lost if she didn't. She even stopped attending school in order to finish it. However, Frau has ended up being trapped in this lifestyle, as she finds it difficult to trust people, and so had no friends until she joined the Robot Research Club. Even then, she never knew just how much the other members really cared for her until they helped her take down a hacker who caused a robot attack in the city, which everyone blamed her for. After this incident, she becomes less of a shut-in and even starts attending school again. She also develops feelings for Kaito, becoming a love rival for Akiho as a result.
Even after she stops being a hikkikomori, Frau remains largely the same; she is still very perverted, and gets really excited and confused upon seeing the real Airi Yukifune, touching her to see if she's real and mistakenly believing her to have transformed from a 2-D image into a real person, though she doesn't know that Airi was in fact human all along. Despite her feelings for Kaito, Frau doesn't seem to mind much when she sees him confess to and kiss Akiho, even teasing Subaru about his own feelings for the latter.
Skills & Abilities[]
Despite her quirks, Kona is a brilliant computer programmer; she is highly skilled at game creation as well as hacking into other people's networked systems. She was also able to develop functioning A.I. characters of Gunvarrel's protagonists, Yuuki Rosetta and Genki Dotou.
Trivia[]
- Frau is extremely similar to Futaba Sakura:
- Both are introduced as hikikomoris, which they became after an incident involving their mother.
- Both are very sloppy and have extremely messy, dark rooms.
- Both know how unhealthy their lifestyle is, but feel trapped in it due to serious trust issues.
- Both are genius computer hackers.
- Both are socially inept and frequently speak in Internet slang.
- Both dye their hair.
- Both are the youngest members of their respective groups.
- Both have a perverted side (though Frau's is much more blatant).
- Both attempt suicide, but are stopped upon learning that there are people who care for them.
- Both have a goal separate from that of the rest of the group's i.e. to learn the truth behind their mother's disappearance/death.
- Akiho's nickname for Frau, "Frau Bow", is a reference to Frau Bow, one of the main heroines of the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
- Frau means "wife" in German.
Gallery[]
