Character	Rika
Appearance	Mystic Messenger
Media	Otome Game
Type	Yandere (Minor)
Love Interest	Saeran (Platonic Love)

Rika was the founder of Rika’s Fundraising Association (RFA). She was known to be kind and charismatic. Unfortunately, V, her ex-fiancé, reported her death months ago before you joined the RFA.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

Of course, all of that was fake. Rika wasn’t dead. She didn’t commit suicide. And she was in no way kind and caring.

In fact, Rika happens to be the nastiest person in this whole game.

While she pretended to be soft and benevolent, always trying to help the people around her, she hid her insecure and twisted feelings. Everyone in the RFA had only good things to say about her. Her charisma succeeded in making the perfect illusion.

However, Rika became increasingly unstable overtime, and gradually started committing misdeeds. To keep this a secret from the RFA members so that they would remain ignorant of this ugly truth, V lied that Rika had committed suicide, and prevented them from any further contacts with her. As such, the members still retained a perfect image of Rika.

In truth, Rika had moved to an isolated place and built a religious cult named Mint Eye. Taking advantage of people who were suffering from hardships and had clouded judgements, she manipulated them into joining and building the cult, while promising them salvation.

One such victim was Saeran, who had known her since he was only a little kid.

As a child, Saeran was terribly abused by his mother. Chance had allowed Rika to extract Saeran from that horrific environment. Inevitably, this caused Saeran to trust Rika unconditionally, and made it much easier for Rika to manipulate him later on.

Since then, Rika had desired to fulfil a motherly role towards Saeran. Her desire grew so strong that it became an obsession, and she began to demand that Saeran depend on no one else but her. She refused to allow Saeran to have any close ones, and manipulated him to trust only her.

Saeran had a twin brother Saeyong, who became separated from him during their childhood. Saeran had always loved Saeyong dearly, but Rika won’t even allow this. She lied that Saeyong had abandoned him and left him with his abusive mother, planting doubts in Saeran’s mind. She led him into Mint Eye and demanded his absolute obedience. Rika regularly fed Saeran drugs to cloud his judgement and brainwash him, which resulted in Saeran’s reliance and obedience towards her.

In Saeran’s route, when you entered his life and slowly pulled him away from Rika, she was so furious she increased the abused towards Saeran. Rika had verbally and physically abused Saeran, all while dousing him with excessive amount of drugs, which finally gave rise to Saeran’s split personality. She was willing to hurt Saeran to the extreme in order to make him stay by her side.

In Saeran’s After Ending, Rika went even crazier after V decided to feed her madness. While Saeran and Saeyoung tried to run from their evil politician father and the hacking agency, Rika made a deal with their father to get the twin brothers back at her side. She was particularly fixated on Saeran, having spent a much longer time with him.

After forcing Saeran to return to her following his brief escape, she decided to keep him chained up to prevent him from running away again. She was eager to return to before, when Saeran still looked up to her, and when she could play the role of a benevolent and loving mother.

Saeran’s tender-hearted nature soon caused Rika to drop her guard and release the chains, but it was also because she knew of the extremely tight security around their premise, which would have prevented Saeran from escaping anyway.

In one of the bad ending of Saeran’s After Ending, after Saeran successfully secured Saeyoung and your escape from danger, he himself was forcefully brought back by Rika.

There, Rika chained Saeran up once again. She forced him to love her, and tried to act out her dream of being a warm, motherly figure towards Saeran. Obviously, such cruel methods only made Saeran more ill by the day, but Rika could care less about it. She will do whatever do play out those ideal scenarios she harbored in her head, no matter how much it hurt Saeran.

Honestly, Rika is the type of yandere that I couldn’t stand the most. She is so obsessed with herself and her own desires, she completely disregards everything and everyone else. Normally, I would be fine with this, as yanderes are only yanderes because they prioritize their own wants above others, including those they love. In Rika’s case however, her selfishness is so overwhelming, I almost cannot see her love for Saeran anymore.

For me, a yandere is only enjoyable when they express adequate love and care for their love interests, and the said love then gave rise to their selfish and even psychotic actions. It almost seemed like Rika had placed her love for Saeran aside, and simply treated him as nothing more than a toy or trophy to obtain. More so than her love for Saeran, she just seemed desperate to play out her dream role as a kind motherly figure for helpless persons, and Saeran just happened to be her unfortunate victim.

In short, Rika’s selfishness and severe disregard for Saeran greatly exceeded the love she showed for him, and this imbalance of a yandere is what I dislike the most.

Worse, outside of being a yandere, Rika has no redeeming qualities either. She is hypocritical, manipulative, and pretentious. All the worst qualities I hate can be found in her. Worse, Cheritz still tried to portray her to be a weak maiden, with a troubled past and a tender, vulnerable heart. Even worse, said game company also forced us players to understand her actions, and sympathize with this monster.

Oh please! Rika just went ahead and created a religious cult, tricking innocent and vulnerable people to join her wicked agenda, inflicted emotional and physical abuse on her followers, and tortured the poor helpless boy who had trusted her since he was a child. She almost blinded her would-be fiancé, and her violence resulted in the death of Saeran’s mother. All these crimes would easily put her in life sentence should law exist in the game! What is there to understand and sympathize of this devil?

Sorry for the rant. But really, I hate this character. Good that she is a yandere, and now I found an outlet to vent. But honestly, if you play this game, I don’t think you will enjoy her character. Play for the others. And, if on the off chance you actually sympathize with her, my friend, you must be the saint of all saints.