Haruka Suzushiro

Haruka Suzushiro (珠洲城遥) is a character from the My-HiME and My-Otome anime and manga series. Her name is Haruka Armitage (ハルカ・アーミテージ Haruka Āmitēji) in the My-Otome series. She is voiced in both series by Ryōka Yuzuki.

My-HiME anime
Hot-tempered Haruka Suzushiro is a member of the Fuuka Academy Student Council. She is first introduced when interrogating Mai Tokiha. She has a tendency to mispronounce or misspell words.

She is Yukino Kikukawa's best friend and often protected the younger girl in earlier years, but also bosses her around. She has a strong (and mostly one-sided) rivalry with Shizuru Fujino, who she often refers to as "bubuzuke" (tea with rice). Much of her strong dislike of Shizuru comes from the result of the Student Council Elections in which they both ran, where Shizuru won in landslide of 817 with only 12 votes for Haruka. However, Haruka recovered from this loss and became the passionate and commanding Executive Director of the Suzushiro Executive Team, and often deals with the dirty work or otherwise humiliating tasks that the Student Council would rather not do.

When Shizuru goes missing to take care of an injured Natsuki Kuga, Yukino tracks her down with Haruka following. From their hideout they observe Shizuru stealing a kiss from the sleeping Natsuki, with Haruka giving their presence away by her shocked reaction. In a confrontation with Shizuru, Haruka declares her horror at the other girl's actions and calls her infatuation with Natsuki "disgusting" and ends up slapping Shizuru. Because Haruka is the most important person of Yukino she ends up "dying" because of Shizuru's retaliation attack on Diana. Before she "dies", however, she manages to headbutt Shizuru and reassure Yukino, to whom she gives her council badge as she fades away. Haruka is later resurrected by Mashiro and appears floating before Yukino before comically falling to the ground. By the end of the series, she passes her position in the student council to Yukino, but not before making one more spelling mistake on a warning sign. In an extended ending of the final episode, it reveals that Haruka and Shizuru have ended up in the same university, and that Shizuru has once again beaten Haruka in the top standings, much to Haruka's chagrin.

Abilities
Haruka is not a HiME, but she possesses strength near the human upper limit, able to engage Searrs Foundation soldiers in hand-to-hand combat even if only for a short time and carry a massive fish around without external assistance, along with the ability to stay up for days on end with only curry bread keeping her going. She is also of comfortable family background stemming from construction management (the name Suzushiro is written on a logo on a building being rebuilt in the final episode) as her family owns a seaside mansion large enough as to have multiple guest bedrooms, though Yukino indicates in a DVD special that Haruka's family was not always so well off.

My-HiME manga
In the My-HiME manga, Haruka is actually a HiME, and unlike many of the characters, she actually has a larger role. Her element is a massive mace that she fights with that causes heavy damage to her foes. Her Child is a large and grotesque marine creature (most resembling an angler fish) called Koumokuten. It fires destructive laser beams from its mouth. In the manga, she tag teams with her partner Yukino, who is also her Key, to form a perfectly balanced fighting pair: she handles offense while Yukino handles defense, with both of them covering each other's backs. The two are even able to combine their Childs into a single being, capable of firing an incredibly destructive laser at their opponents.

Haruka's commanding personality remains from the My-HiME anime, and she feels that Mai and Natsuki's attempts to stop the Orphan attacks are unsatisfactory and runs her own subset of HiME known as the Ori-HiME team, of which she is the commander. However, she later teams up with her rivals in order to stop the forces that threaten to invade the Academy. We learn in the manga the reason for her zealous dedication to protecting the school itself; her father was the chief construction worker who helped build the school.

During the coming of the HiME Star, Yukariko Sanada trapped both Haruka and Yukino inside her child, St. Vlas, which in turn trapped them inside a winding illusion; in it, Shizuru Fujino was revealed to have tampered with the votes to make her win the presidential election. While Haruka was initially not fooled by the illusion, she fell under its thrall once the mass began chanting her name. However, she manages to break free from the illusion (ironically from noticing the behavior of her rival, Shizuru, wasn't right) and destroy St. Vlas from the inside out, freeing both her and Yukino, though the effort causes her to fall unconscious.

She later battles against Marie Antoinette inside the HiME Star alongside Yukino and Midori Sugiura, and, despite the overwelcoming odds, the three manage to destroy the Queen's child, though the subsequent explosion seems to kill all three HiME as well. After the HiME Star is destroyed, Shizuru holds a funeral service for Haruka, only for Haruka herself, along with Yukino, to burst through the wall, the two of them, along with Midori and Marie herself, alive and well. As it turned out, the service was yet another way for Shizuru to mock Haruka, which once again riles Haruka's hackles.

My-Otome anime
In the alternate universe version of the original story, Haruka Armitage is a Brigadier General in the Aries military and President Yukino Chrysant's Otome. This is a reversal of their My-HiME anime relationship, where Yukino was the one protecting Haruka. Haruka is a very aggressive fighter who prefers to charge into a situation rather than wait it out, as shown in the second OVA. She was formerly a member of the Trias, the top three performing Pearl Otome.

Early in the story Haruka is a role model for Arika Yumemiya; on Episode 4, as Arika is struggling to save everyone from the falling spaceship in the arena where she and Nina Wáng have been dueling against each other, Haruka comes timely to her aide, and save her and the crowd. She reminds and encourages Arika about being an Otome needs "Power, Beauty and Guts", before tossing the spaceship singlehandedly. Also, an additional running gag is the fact that in order to control Haruka's often overly exuberant and aggressive attitude, some of Yukino's subordinates make it a habit to knock Haruka out with a large rock, though by the second episode the OVA they have discovered that they need a larger one (however, a large wooden hammer seemed to be just as equally as effective). As the series later goes on, she along with the other loyal Otomes come to rescue Garderobe and Arika, and demonstrates a superb fighting skills before Arika.

Haruka still retains her tendency to mispronounce words, and is often reprimanded for it by Yuki or Five Column member Sarah Gallagher in a later episode. She was classmates with Shizuru Viola, and, like in My-HiME, considered her a rival, albeit on a much friendlier note. Her Element is a ball and chain mace weapon, just like her My-HiME manga incarnation.

GEM
Her Otome title is the Continental Orb Topaz (珠洲の黄玉 Suzu no Kōgyoku).

Her weapon is a large ball and chain mace, which she fights with using her trademark aggressiveness. She is proficient at both attacking and defending with it, and her signature attack is called 'Dynamite Crusher', where she hurls her weapon with her impressive strength full force.

My-Otome manga
In the My-Otome manga, two versions of Haruka exist.

The first is Haruka Armitage. She is a low-ranking member of the Windbloom police force. Yukino is her partner. She has a dislike for Otome, but ironically enough comes to their aid often. She has a penchant for heavy artillery. The miniskirt she wears as part of her uniform often makes her the victim of blatant pantyshots, although apparently this is only visible to the reader as no character comments on this.

The second is Haruka Suzushiro revived from the dead. All the revived HiMEs from the manga have altered personalities and this one is no different, being subservient to Yukino, which comes as a disturbing discovery for the other Haruka.

Name Origins

 * The kanji in the name of Haruka's Otome GEM references her My-HiME surname, which when broken down into individual kanji, mean "Jewel" "Island" and "Castle" respectively . This is reflected in the name of her My-Otome GEM, the Continental Orb Topaz (or 珠洲の黄玉 Suzu no Kōgyoku). Her given name means far off or distant.


 * The name Armitage is a reference to a previous role played by Ryoka Yuzuki; the role of Naomi Armitage a blonde gynoid from the series Armitage III: The Poly-Matrix.