Rika Nonaka

Rika Nonaka, known in Japan as Ruki Makino (牧野 留姫), is a fictional character in the anime and manga series Digimon Tamers. She is voiced by Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese), Pansy Tsang (Cantonese) & Melissa Fahn (English).

Character
Like Matt from the Digimon Adventure, the seperation of Rika's parents led to her to become emotionally detached, but because her father had actually abandoned her completely, and because she was an an only child, it affected her much more strongly and she became strongly antisocial and austere. At the beginning of the series Rika sees others, especially Digimon, merely as tools to achieve her goals. Her callousness to her partner, Renamon, begins to be replaced by friendship when she realizes both what her pride is making her into and that Renamon truly cares about her. She begins to warm up to Renamon and the other Tamers, and even begins to tutor Jeri about Digimon when she becomes a Tamer. By the end of the series, even her resentment against Ryo for defeating her has begun to resemble a mutual crush.

Rika originally viewed her mother as shallow and immature, a perception not helped by Makino not only being quite young for a mother, but remaining wrapped in modeling work during Rika's childhood and constantly gone on photo shoots. This seems to only exacerbate the feelings of abandonment Rika sustains from her father leaving the family. Her mother's constant emphasis on dressing to be attractive, meant to cheer Rika up, only manages to foster Rika's general cynicism about the world. It is not until late in the series, after Rika's life-changing journey to the Digital World, that Rika really begins to come to terms with her mother and understand her.

Though quite cold to Renamon at the start of the series, she actually treats her more as an actual partner throughout the series than either Takato or Henry do with their Digimon, who they treat almost like pets of children. Her real partnership with Renamon is the deciding factor in breaking through her personality; risking her life to save Renamon's is the first step she takes towards becoming friendly and loving to those around her.

Digimon Tamers: The Adventurers' Battle
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. In the episode, "Song of a Sakuyamon" Rika and Renamon took a leap into the D-Reaper's Chaos, resulting in Sakuyamon, Renamon's final digivolution, the "Biomerge".

Digimon Tamers: Runaway Locomon
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 cherry blossom watching 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. Rika was possessed by Parasimon, who controlled her by keeping her within memories of her father, who had left her. She was used to attack Takato and Renamon, but 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. Takato found her watching the sunset but Renamon stopped him from going to her, letting Rika be alone with the memories of her father.

Possible Couplings

 * Takato & Rika
 * Ryo & Rika
 * Henry & Rika

Trivia

 * According to, Rika's earliest designs were influenced by Trinity of The Matrix as an example of a strong female lead, before later settling on the red spiky 'pineapple-head' look instead.
 * After Rika received her D-Power and before she chose Renamon, among the shadowed Digimon who wanted Rika to tame either of them are:
 * 1st Window: Gekomon, Deramon, Minomon, Musyamon, WaruMonzaemon, a Digimon that might be Dolphmon
 * 2nd Window: Apemon, Phantomon, Bakumon, Tsubumon, Mummymon (in his human form)
 * 3rd Window: Gizamon, Tuskmon, Aquilamon, SkullMeramon (in his hat and trench coat from Adventure/ Season One), a Digimon that might be Apocalymon
 * She 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', or 'Promise Of The Setting Sun', in Runaway Digimon Express.
 * During the majority of the series, Rika's top depicts a blue broken heart symbol. In the beginning of the last arc she receives a new top from her mother in which the heart is complete. She continues to wear it for the rest of the series and in 'Runaway Locomon' possibly as a symbolization of her personality change over time.
 * In the anime seasons, Rika was the first female human who managed to bring her Digimon to the Mega level. The second was Yoshino Fujieda in Digimon Savers who made her Lalamon evolve to Rosemon. Another case may be Kari Kamiya, whose Angewomon digivolved into Magnadramon during one of the movies.(however the movie in question, Hurricane Touchdown is non-canon.
 * Rika is the narrator of Digimon Frontier in the English dub until Bokomon takes over for the last eight episodes (as a result of voice actor Melissa Fahn leaving to join the cast of Wicked).