(Manga)

(Anime)

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Kanji: 茨木 のり子

Rōmaji: Ibaragi Noriko

Also Known As: Nori
                               Icy Woman (by Chuuya Nakahara)
                               Twin Dark
(alongside Chuuya Nakahara)
                               Bella Donna (by Osamu Dazai)
                               Ability User A5162 (Special Ability Department)

Namesake: Noriko Ibaragi (Japanese poet)

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Birthday: June 12

Age: 13 (Scarlet Letters)
          16 (Hanged Man Gambit)
          21 (present)

Gender: Female

Height: 155 cm (Hanged Man Gambit)
               158 cm (5'1")

Weight: 48 kg (16 years old)
                52 kg (present)

Blood type: O

Eye Color: Red

Hair Color: White

Likes: Books, music, dancing

Dislikes: Smoking, Chuuya Nakahara

PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION

Status: Alive

Ability: A Beautiful Sin

Reference: When my Beauty Shone (わたしが一番きれいだったとき,Watashi ga ichiban kirei datta toki)

Occupation: Mafioso

Affiliation: Port Mafia

RELATIONSHIPS

Family: Unnamed father †
                Unnamed mother †
                Unnamed lover †

APPEARANCES

Manga Debut: Chapter 10

Anime Debut: Episode 9

PORTRAYAL

Japanese Voice: Sayaka Ohara

English Voice: Bridget Hoffman

Stage Actor: Yuka Aimoto

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"What does it mean to love... to be loved? What's the point of it if you're just going to lose the person you love in front of your eyes?"

-Noriko Ibaragi

Noriko Ibaragi (茨木 のり子, Ibaragi Noriko) is a member of the Port Mafia as well as Chuuya's partner in Twin Dark after Dazai left the organization.

Appearance

Noriko is quite a short and petite young woman who's described as beautiful by many people. She has red eyes and striking long, straight white hair that reaches below her waist with two loose parts of it going down the front of her body. She wears a plain white hat made of fur like those worn in Russia.

Her outfit consists of a long white winter coat with black buttons that reach above her knees with its collar and the bracelet of its sleeves made of white fur. She dons her appearance with tight black pants and long white boots that go above her knees and are omitted from her ankles all the way to the top. She wears a thick beige sweater under her coat.

ɢᴀʟʟᴇʀʏ

(Scarlet Letters)

(Hanged Man Gambit)

(Wan! appearance)

Personality

(Noriko's laid-back attitude.)

Initially, Noriko is rather laid-back, always having a smile on her face regardless of the situation she is in. She seems to be dry-humored and enjoys teasing others and can be rather sadistic about it, enjoying most notably picking on her partner Chuuya Nakahara. She has a sarcastic, apathetic attitude and does not put much emotion into her words. Noriko generally tends to smirk before teasing or performing her antics towards others, placing them in uncomfortable situations. She can be proud and arrogant but has a nice, joyful, and cheery part of her. She displays childish behavior and tends to fuss and go over-the-top upon the smallest and silliest things, her eyes sparkling in the process. Such a laid-back and not serious attitude gets disapproval from the other Port Mafia members, especially her partner Chuuya which results in many unnecessary bickering between them.

Despite her relaxed exterior, she can be rather cruel towards her enemies, which is seen when she kills her very first victim after giving her false hope of helping her and also attempting to kill Atsushi Nakajima without hesitation. It is later revealed that her outwardly calm and tranquil disposition is worn as a mask, as Noriko holds an intense hatred for the world due to her tragic background and the loss of her parents and lover in the cruelest way possible. This hatred is so strong that she is in a near-constant state of anger, which is sensed by Atsushi when the two individuals hold a conversation. Her desire for revenge rendered her unable to live the normal life family had wished upon her, instead of devoting the entirety of her energy to seek revenge.

She is manipulative, pathologically self-righteous, and displays sociopathic tendencies. Noriko is obsessed with satisfying her desire for revenge and has no qualms using anyone or anything to achieve her goals. She appears unable to accept any wrongdoing on her part and insists that she deserves to obtain what she wants. Interestingly, Noriko is otherwise self-aware, acknowledging that she is "sly" and how her actions have pushed away from others. With an "otherworldy" charisma and luck, she repeatedly forms alliances with powerful Port Mafia members to gain info she needs. During her battle against Dazai, Noriko reveals that she also suffers from an inferiority complex due to her inferior physical abilities compared to her fellow Port Mafia colleagues, having been jealous of them for possessing taller or more muscular bodies than her and cursing her own for not developing further to make her more effective in combat.

Ability

(Magic manipulation.)

Her ability, A Beautiful Sin (美しい罪, Utsukushī tsumi), revolves around magic and mana manipulation, allowing her to create magical creatures made from her magical energy. Those creatures can take the form of animals, birds, in particular, that can act as her guards and shoot bullets made of magical energy on her enemies. By further manipulating her mana, she can create thin threads made from her own magic power that is strong enough to easily slice a human being into bits and pieces of mince meat and being able to easily subdue and capture others with little trouble.

    • No More (もういや, Mō iya) is an evolved form of her ability, activated due to great emotional distress. This form uses her blood rather than her magical power, causing the color of all of her attacks to change from blue to red and for scarlet patterns to appear all over her body. However, this form increases the strength of her attacks drastically such as increasing her threads' sharpness and cutting ability as well as manipulating their shapes to cages, spider webs, and rotating wheels. However, using this form for a long period of time will destroy a big amount of her blood cells.

Quotes

• (To Chuuya Nakahara) "This falling snow... it may look pretty, but it also holds a lot of pain within."

Etymology

• The name Noriko means "seaweed" (のり) (nori) and "child" (子) (ko).

• The surname Ibaragi means "thorns" (茨) (iba) and "wood" (木) (ragi).

Namesake

Noriko Ibaragi (June 12, 1926 – February 17, 2006)

During her years at the College, she lived through the turmoils of WWII, experiencing air raids and hunger. In 1945, at the age of 19, she heard the broadcast announcing Japanese defeat while working as a mobilized student in a Navy medical supplies factory. Her experiences during the war are recounted in her best-known poem, "Watashi ga ichiban kirei datta toki", which expresses her pain at having spent her youth in wartime. The poem was written twelve years later; an English translation was later set to music as "When I Was Most Beautiful" by American folk musician Pete Seeger. She graduated from the College in September 1946.

Trivia

• She and several other characters made appearances in mobile games, such as Love Heaven, Kimito Lead Puzzle 18, and Yumeiro Cast as limited-time characters.

• She joined the Port Mafia at the age of 17.

• Noriko's original face claims are Irisviel von Einzbern and  Illyasviel von Einzbern from the Fate series.

• Noriko Ibaragi is a real Japanese poet, playwright, essayist, children's literature writer, and translator. Her most notable work is her poem "When My Beauty Shone," written twelve years after the Japanese defeat in WWII.

• The evolved form of Noriko's ability, No More, is named after the poem of her real-life counterpart.

• She's able to speak in Korean which is a reference to her real-life counterpart whose works varied between Japanese and Korean.

• According to the Special Ability Department, Noriko has committed 248 murders, 308 cases of fraud, and 786 cases of extortion ever since she joined the Port Mafia.

• In Chapter 31, Dazai teases her and Chuuya of acting like "an old married couple."

• The nature of Noriko's ability is a mixture of both of her face claims and Rui from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

• She has little to no tolerance of alcohol, easily getting drunk after less than a single glass.

• Her Japanese VA Sayaka Ohara is known for her roles as Milly Ashford from Code Geass, Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail, Masaki Kurosaki from Bleach, Narasaki Sachi from Gintama, Margaret from Persona 4, Aya Tsuji from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, and many more.

• Her English VA Bridget Hoffman is known for her roles as Kanae Kocho from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Namie Yagiri and Kururi Orihara from Durarara!!×2, Nia Teppelin from Gurren Lagann, Shinobu Maehara from Love Hina, Ryoko Asakura from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and many more.