| “ | Hey you, alky! How dare you touch my butt! | „ |
| ~ Meru |
Meru (メル) is a major supporting protagonist and playable character in the 1999 video game The Legend of Dragoon. She is a cheerful, perky young dancer girl who joins Dart and the other Dragoons on their quest to follow Lloyd and stop his goal of gathering the Divine Moon Objects.
She is voiced by Tomoko Kawakami in the Japanese version of the game and by Lucy Kee in the English version.
Appearance[]
Meru is somewhat short girl with long silver hair that's tied back in a high ponytail with a large blue ribbon. She's Conversely, her eyes are red, making her the only one of the main characters with that eye color and one of the fewer ones whose eyes don't at least somewhat match their hair color.
Her main outfit is a rather revealing one, especially compared to the other main female characters, mostly consisting of a blue and gold bra top with red straps and a frilly blue skirt tied up at the front with some cloth, each with gold trims and designs on them. Other than those, she just wears a pair of sandals with blue and gold straps along the lower part of her legs and some blue wrist cuffs with gold outlines.
Ironically, her Dragoon attire that she can transform into after receiving the Blue Sea Dragoon Spirit is comparably less revealing, consisting of a blue and white suit of armor that resembles a leotard. Her usual hammer is also replaced by a much larger one.
Personality[]
One of Meru's noticeable traits is her extreme amount of energy; she's almost always enthusiastic and upbeat, both in how she speaks and in her animated body language. She gets bored easily and tends to complain about it if things ever get slow for even a little while. She's also pretty mischievous at times, such as spying on Dart and Shana more than once when they're having a private conversation, and interfering with the food preparation before a banquet that's being held in the party's honor along with Haschel due to wanting to sample some of it.
Meru's also very outspoken and quick to take action, being one of the strongest voices of opposition against the Gehrich Gang for their takeover of Donau even before the others are motivated to stand up to them. She also strongly insisted that Dart and the rest of the party let her tag along so she could guide them to the Gehrich Gang's hideout and help them rescue Lynn despite only just meeting them, as well as some of them, mostly Rose, doubting that she could be of much help. All in all, due to her perky and animated personality, she generally acts as a morale booster to the rest of the party, even though at times, she can also drive them crazy (aside from Haschel, who generally enjoys her antics, and, as mentioned before, occasionally joins in on them).
Despite initially coming off mostly as the party's, and by extension, the game's comic relief throughout Disc 2, and seeming like she's not very capable of being especially mature or serious, on Disc 3 when the party moves on to Mille Seseau, she begins to show other dimensions to her personality that were only hinted at or shown a little before. As was foreshadowed on a couple of occasions, she's really a Wingly and has been likely living for much longer than most of the other members aside from Rose. However, she was exiled from her home in the Forest of Winglies, which is hidden in the Evergreen Forest the party passes through, some time ago due to desiring to live among Humans rather than live apart from them in seclusion like others of her race prefer to do. Upon returning, she gets genuinely depressed that many of them still don't want her back, though she tries to act like it doesn't bother her, even though it clearly does, especially not being able to see her parents any time she wants.
While she's never been shy about expressing her opinions or taking action, this takes on a more serious and mature dimension when it's shown that this extends to having a more open-minded attitude towards humans than most of her brethren, strongly opposing the more bigoted beliefs of other members of her kind like the Bardel brothers, insisting that most Humans are good and that peacefully coexisting alongside them is possible. It especially bothers her that most of the others, aside from Guaraha, are at least convinced that the latter isn't possible and it's necessary for them to live separately in seclusion. It's this attitude and drive to get both sides to cooperate that allows her to play a big part in having her friends and the Winglies of her home come together to combat the threat to all of Mille Seseau that the Divine Dragon presents when she leads the party there so they can borrow the Dragon Block Staff (though this is also because the chief, Ancestor Blano, also proves to be open-minded enough to acknowledge they need each other's help). She also insists on sticking with Dart and the rest of the group not only because she genuinely enjoys being with them, but because she thinks she can give them important aid, demonstrating a certain sense of responsibility.
While it isn't always super obvious, especially at first, Meru is very caring and compassionate in her own way. She not only cares a lot about the wellbeing of her companions, but this can even extend to her enemies; for example, despite Lenus being an antagonist who helped the Gehrich Gang terrorize Tiberoa and kidnapped the real Princess Emille to steal the Moon Dagger for Lloyd, she still looked on in pity and sadness when she died after being defeated by the party, being unhappy to see another of her kind die even if she was against them. Other examples include scolding Miranda for being harsh towards one of Savan's robot-like creatures since she saw them as being the equivalent of "babies", as well as showing great remorse and shame over the atrocities that Winglies committed towards other races in the past despite having nothing to do with any of that, which thankfully, her human companions didn't hold against or judge her for either. She can also be thoughtful and considerate, such as waiting with Kongol outside of Princess Emille's room when he can't fit through the door so he won't be lonely and later suggesting to allow Dart and Shana some time alone when they're preparing to part ways as a result of the latter being too weak to accompany them on a certain leg of their quest, which she attributes to the time she's spent with the group.
Abilities[]
Meru is both a skilled dancer and battler with her usual hammer that she wields, making her a solid fighter even on her own, as demonstrated she she fought off some members of the Gehrich Gang on her own. In battle, she's very fast, to the extent she's got the single best speed of any of the party members, which gives her many turns, in some cases up to three or four times the amount of turns as the slower members like Albert and Kongol. She's also got high magical attack and defense stats, making her both quite resistant to most special attacks and quite capable of dealing damage when armed with magical attack items.
Conversely, she's got the lowest HP and weak physical attack and defense stats, making her basic attacks quite weak and herself quite vulnerable to physical attacks, especially from more powerful enemies if they concentrate on her. However, her high speed and the frequent turns she gets somewhat offset this, allowing her to attack more often and accumulate damage that way, as well as more chances to guard herself to recover HP and reduce damage. Her additions/combos are also nicely varied, with Cool Boogie being weak, but granting her high amounts of SP (Spirit Points), allowing her to quickly turn into a Dragoon very quickly, and Cat's Cradle, which is a pretty powerful non-final addition, only at the expense of offering little SP. She only has an especially powerful final addition, Perky Step, which when fully levelled up, has the single largest damage multiplier of any final addition at a whopping 600%.
When Meru acquires the Blue Sea Dragoon Spirit, she gains the ability to use ice magic, which, combined with her high magical attack power, gives her the potential to do a lot of damage. She also has good healing potential, since her second spell, Rainbow Breath, greatly heals the whole team and only expends 20 MP (Magic Points), it's only downside being it can't revive allies whose HP has been reduced to zero. All in all, despite being vulnerable to concentrated physical attacks and at least initially having weak physical attacks, Meru has many strengths that can be utilized to make her an invaluable party member.