Rika Nonaka

Rika Nonaka (牧野) is a in the  and  series Digimon Tamers.

Appearance
At age 3, Rika was a little girl with fair skin, purple eyes, and ginger shoulder-length hair worn up in a ponytail held by a blue hair tie. She wore a yellow shirt with long sleeves and a white button in the chest, a blue dress, bloomers of undetermined color, white socks, and red shoes with white soles.

By autumn, 2000, Rika is much taller. She wears a dark green shirt with a broken skull and crossbones design in the front, a black jacket with a pocket on each side, short button-fly blue jeans, black socks, blueish gray and white steel-toed sneakers, and buckles around her waist and leg.

In 2001, Rika is described as "beautiful" by Cocoa. She wears a turquoise-turtlenecked T-shirt with a broken heart on the front, with short button-fly blue jeans, red wrist bands, white socks, red steel-toed sneakers, and buckles around her waist and leg. She usually wears her D-Power and a card case on her belt. When entering a Digital Field, she protects her eyes with sunglasses with blue oval-shaped lens.

Rika's school uniform is a white buttoned shirt, under a gray buttoned jacket with the Kagurazaka Girls' Academy's crest, a golden harp in a brown background, in the left side of the chest and a pocket on each side, a black skirt, black socks, and white shoes. When going to school she wears black shoes instead.

When fighting a Lynxmon, she wears a gray coat over her clothes.

When dressing up for a camera test, she takes her ponytail down and wears a pink and white frilly dress with buttons in the chest and multiple white ribbons on it, a white hat filled with flowers and two pink ribbons, white socks, and blue and gray sneakers. The dress is described as "beautiful" by Sugai. In the cover of Digimon Girls Festival, she wears a light blue and light pink version of this dress.

After returning to the Real World, Rika receives a new T-shirt with a full heart on the front.

In winter, Rika wears a light blue jacket with a white ruff in the neck, over her regular clothes.

In Digimon Ruki Dress Up, her underwear is a light blue strapless bra and lowleg panties, both with a white ribbon on them. She can also wear the clothes of Takato, Kazu, Kenta, and Suzie, as well as Henry and Jeri's shoes, and Rumiko's red and pink version of her top.

Rika's earliest designs were influenced by from  as an example of a strong female lead, before later settling on the red spiky "pineapple-head" look instead.

Description
Rika's personality has evolved throughout the series. Initially, she was a merciless tamer seeking only to make her partner Digimon as strong as possible, and had a rough relationship with her mother. She would criticize and blame Renamon for their losses, and treat every other Digimon as her enemy, including Guilmon and Terriermon. Though she often covered up her true feelings with a tough girl act, she showed how she really cared about Renamon at the first few instances of Renamon's Digivolutions. During a fateful fight against Harpymon, Rika showed that she was willing to risk her own life to protect Renamon. After this fight, Rika began opening up to Takato and Henry as well. She still continues to throw her sarcastic remarks here and there and displays her annoyance to Kenta and Kazu's foolery. But she also cares about Jeri, motivating and comforting her at times of need. Of all the characters in the season, Rika has arguably shown the greatest change in personality.

Etymologies
Ruki Makino (牧野 留姫)

Name used in Japanese materials. Officially romanized in Digimon Tamers: Official Encyclopedia V. Rika Nonaka
 * Ja: Makino (牧野). A Japanese surname meaning "pasture field".
 * Ja: Ruki (留姫). A feminine Japanese name meaning "reserved princess". This name is likely intentionally ironic, considering Ruki's personality.

Name used in the English dub of Digimon Tamers.
 * Rika. Derived from Ruki.
 * Nonaka. A Japanese surname meaning "in the middle of the field". This surname shares the character "no" (野) with Rika's original surname, Makino.

Story
Rika was born when her mother, Rumiko, was 18-years old.

In 2000, she was defeated by Ryo Akiyama in the Digimon Card Tournament. In autumn of the same year, she won the D-1 Grand prix without finding worthy opponents. In the same night, when she was bored, many gates to the opened in her room, and many Digimon wanted to become her Partner. However, she only wished for the strongest Digimon, and materialized in her room. Her victory in the tournament granted her the title of "Digimon Queen".

In 2001, one night, Rika and Renamon fight a Lynxmon at night and Rika uses a Speed card. The battle is witnessed by Takato Matsuki, who mistakes it for a dream.

Rika, early on, sees Digimon as nothing more than mere computer data built for fighting, wanting her partner, Renamon, to be the strongest Digimon in the world. She attempts to strengthen Renamon by battling any bio-emerging Digimon and having Renamon download their data after defeating them, but is frustrated at Renamon's lack of control over Digivolution. Eventually, she realizes that the two must be on equal partnership and friendship.

Rika claims that she plans to spend the rest of her life training Digimon, and has no career plans other than that. She is a bit bitter and extremely antisocial, but Takato Matsuki and Henry Wong manage to bring out the best in her. She lost a tournament to Ryo Akiyama a year before the series begins, which explains why she seems to resent him when she first meets him in the Digital World. After Ryo's disappearance, Rika wins the title "Digimon Queen". Rika takes Jeri Katou under her wing teaching her about Digimon cards and Digimon Taming when Jeri becomes a Tamer.

Even though she has begun to tolerate Takato and the others, she still is rather cold and aloof to them. While she is mostly a loner and prefers her own company, she still will talk to Renamon a lot. She used to make fun of Takato and Henry because of their emotional attachments to their Digimon, Guilmon and Terriermon, believing that such attachments make them weak, and unsuccessfully attempts to force them into battling Renamon. She continues to do so until she herself forms a small relationship with Renamon. Soon after deciding that Digimon can be both fighters and companions, Rika states that she doesn't feel like picking on Takato and Henry anymore and can't remember why she was so angry.

Rika's relationship with Renamon is unusual, more as a human contemporary than either a pet (like Guilmon was) or a playful child (like Terriermon). Renamon is very protective of Rika, preferring to follow her around as a lookout for danger than to play or eat all day as many other Tamers' Digimon do. At one point in the plot line, Rika and Renamon estrange themselves from one another because Renamon doesn't think she needs Rika to become stronger and Rika doesn't think Digimon are worth the trouble they cause. Rika's negative, independent, grouchy, dark, cynical and loner-like personality is substantially different from most of the female characters in the series. The exact reasons for this are unknown, although her mother seems unusually young and is divorced from her absent father. However, the creators of the Digimon Tamers series have noted that Rika's father's absence has nothing to do with Rika's "twisted" personality.

Rika's mother is a famous model, and constantly pushes Rika to worry more about her appearance, taking her to camera tests and buying "girly" outfits for her to wear, all of which Rika pushes away angrily. Her mother's fame and wealth are apparent by the size of their traditional Japanese house, and the private elementary school Rika attends. Rika lives with her mother and her grandmother (her father is never seen in the series as her parents are divorced, but he is shown briefly in Runaway Locomon when Rika is possessed by a Parisimon) and rarely obeys either of them. Neither ever punish her for this. Rika's grandmother tries to relate to Rika, but Rika refuses to let her.

Later, Rika's grandmother discovers Renamon's existence and dubs her Rika's "guardian angel". She seems not at all surprised that Rika is a tamer, and promises Rika that she will keep her departure to the Digital World secret from Rika's mother. Rika is shocked that her grandmother is so understanding, and from then on is kinder and more open about her feelings to her grandmother. Just before Rika's battle with the D-Reaper, Rika's mother buys Rika a T-shirt with a full heart on it to replace the broken-heart one Rika usually wears. She says it is for good luck, and has bought a pink version of it for herself. Rika is touched and smiles at her mother before leaving.

At the end of the series, Henry's father, one of the first hackers to program Digimon as a form of artificial life, is forced to trigger a program that wipes out all Digimon in the real world in order to destroy the D-Reaper, a haywire cleanup program wreaking havoc on the real world. The program works, but in the process, Renamon, Guilmon, Terriermon, and the other tamers' Digimon are forcibly de-digivolved to the point that they will be destroyed unless they return to the DigiWorld. The Digimon return to the Digiworld, leaving their tamers wondering if they will ever see them again. Rika seems torn at the parting, and sheds tears, something she rarely does because she prefers to avoid open displays of emotion, she also confesses to Renamon that she loves her, this being the first, and only time she has said this. As shown in the bonus episode Runaway Locomon, however, the tamers do reunite with their Digimon after some time (presumably via a portal to the Digital World discovered by Takato during the series' epilogue).

Rika dislikes wearing dresses, and does not own any lower clothing besides jeans (as noted by her grandmother), and is convinced that there is nothing more important than being the best.

As the season goes on, Rika seems to grow attached to Impmon. In episode 20 "Out of the Blue", Rika tells Henry she is worried about Impmon being alright after the previous battle against a Deva. For when he left, he was tired out and hurt from the battle when he didn't even stand a chance against the Deva. Also in the episode Janyu's Ark, Rika and Renamon left the Ark in search of Impmon. Once she came back she was carrying Impmon in her hands just making it to the Ark before it left towards the real world. During the series, there are multiple times Rika is shown being worried about Impmon. She also becomes more attached to Calumon. In episode 10 "The Icemon Cometh", she is shown to find him irritating by the way she coldly tells him to go away. However in the following episode "Much ado About Musyamon", although she angrily tells him to leave her room when he visits her during the night (going as far as to call him an "overgrown rat"), she is visibly touched by his attempts to cheer her up. Then later in episode 30 "The Imperfect Storm" and episode 39 "Song of Sakuyamon", she greets him warmly and affectionately upon finding him. During the battle with Beelzemon, she tries to comfort Suzie, who is upset that Lopmon can't digivolve but fails. In episode 46 "When is a Mon Justimon?", she shows concern for Alice after losing Dobermon. She seems to have a side to her that develops as the series progresses. This side is caring, concerned about others and a good person altogether. According to the movie Runaway Locomon, Rika's birthday is May 9, this makes her one of the six DigiDestined to have their birthdays known. The others being Sora, Zoe, Takuya, Marcus and Kristy.

With Takato, Henry and their partners on vacation in Okinawa, it was up to Rika and Renamon to keep the peace in Shinjuku as Digimon continued to appear at a rapid pace. When Digimon started appearing all over the world, Omnimon appeared to transport Rika and Kyubimon, along with Henry and Gargomon, to the battle site where Takato and Growlmon were fighting the true enemy: Mephistomon. Rika was present when the battle continued into an alternate dimension where the Tamers' Digimon combined their attacks to create the "Trinity Burst" attack to defeat Gulfmon and put a halt to the chaos in the Real World.

Rika's family and friends were planning a party for her and she was less than enthusiastic when Takato spilled the beans to her, after suggesting they go together when they actually happened "later" as Rika describes. The appearance of Locomon called her into action, along with Renamon, jumping onto one of Locomon's carriages with Takato. Taken over by a Parasimon which tricked her into attacking Takato and Renamon with memories of her father, Rika was freed when Guilmon destroyed the Parasimon controlling her. She Bio-Merged with Renamon to Sakuyamon to help defeat the Parasimon invasion in Tokyo. Following their defeat, Rika attended her birthday party thrown by her friends, only to leave just after blowing the candles out and being asked to sing karaoke. Takato found her watching the sunset but Renamon stopped him from going to her, letting Rika be alone with the memories of her father.

At some point, the Old Clock Shop Man summoned the heroes of the past to the Fusion universe to help take down. While Taichi "Tai" Kamiya and Marcus Damon aid in their initial encounter with Quartzmon, Rika, wearing her broken heart top, and Mimi Tachikawa appear before Christopher Aonuma and Nene Amano in the DigiQuartz version of Hong Kong. Rika explains that they are not Digimon Hunters, and assures the former Generals that they are there to help with what is to come.

Digimon Adventure 02: Revenge of Diaboromon
During the blackout, a girl who looks like Rika is talking on the phone.

Digimon Frontier
Rika is the narrator of Digimon Frontier in the English dub until takes over for the last eight episodes (as a result of voice actor Melissa Fahn leaving to join the cast of ).

Music
Rika is the only character who actually got one of her image songs converted over to the U.S. dub, in that, during Runaway Locomon, Melissa Fahn sings "Promise", during the same sequence where Fumiko Orikasa sung "Yuuhi-no Yakusoku" in the original version.

Notes and references
牧野留姬