Yukiyo Misaki

Kirika or (real name Yukiyo Misaki) is Mei's aunt and the owner of the doll store, Misaki M. She is also the person who makes the dolls upstairs while the store itself is downstairs.

Appearance
Kirika has the appearance of a young woman with long dark brown hair which is placed in a blue ribbon at the back of her head. She has brown eyes and wears a white and blue shirt with a band, with a green shirt underneath. She wears black, three-quarter pants with orange shoes. In the manga she has black hair and black eyes, but the same physical appearance. The only difference is that her eyes in the manga are sad, hollow and reminds a sick woman.

Personality
According to Mei, her mother doesn't really care about her or what she does, and says she just treats her like any other one of her dolls. She's described as a "strange woman who isolates herself in the studio upstairs." Mei also said that when she asked Kirika if she can see her real mother, she was very upset and angry. Yukiyo (Kirika) didn't allow Mei to see her real mother and sister, but Mei and Misaki - her twin sister - were meeting in secret.

History
Before the start of the series, Kirika was born with a twin sister, named Mitsuyo. They both became married and her twin sister was soon pregnant with twins. These twins are revealed to be Mei and Misaki. Kirika also became pregnant with twins but she lost the pregnancy, leaving her devastated. At that time, the Fujioka family was experiencing financial difficulties. B ecause of this and the fact that Kirika was still trying to cope with the loss, Mei was given to her. Mei says that Kirika might have wanted to keep this a secret forever, but her great-aunt accidently made it slip.

Plot
Kirika is only mentioned by Mei once before she was actually seen. She is only seen briefly though, watching Kouichi as he was about to enter the store before she retreated to her studio upstairs. She also appears when Kouichi and Mei were talking and just says a few things before going back to what she was doing, in episode 4. According to Mei, Kirika made Mei's puppet eye for her after she lost her real eye, saying that "an eye with the same colour as her eye will be boring", so she made it green. In episode 12, at the end, after Mei told Kouichi she throws her phone in lake, she claimed that "she (Yukiyo) will buy other phone soon for sure. "

Trivia

 * Her home address is 4-4 Misakicho Yomiyama City.
 * Her real name, Yukiyo, is a male name. Its source is a Japanese expression meaning " A lifetime of happiness".
 * In the original novel, Kirika's dolls are a mix of female and male. Also, the doll in the coffin that looks like Mei has reddish-brown hair, and is not a life-size doll (slightly smaller ) that wears a light colored dress.