Yukiyo Misaki

Yukiyo Misaki (三崎 幸代, Misaki Yukiyo), better known by her pseudonym Kirika (キリカ), is Mei Misaki's aunt and the owner of the doll store, Misaki M. Studio. She is also the person who makes the dolls upstairs while the store itself is downstairs.

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

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, droopy, and looks like eyes of a sick woman, making her look older.

In the live-action film, her appearance is the same as she had in the manga but she has short hair and looks a little bit young.

Personality
According to Mei, her mother doesn&apos;t really care about her or what she does, indifferent toward her school life, 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&apos;t allow Mei to see her real mother and sister, but Mei and Misaki, her twin sister, were meeting in secret. She bought Mei a mobile to be sure she doesn't go to see Mitsuyo. In the OVA, Mei said that Yukiyo feels guilty for taking away her twin sister&apos;s baby girl. She fears Mei might run away to live with Mitsuyo; because of that, she doesn&apos;t allow Mei to see Misaki. She is somewhat friendly with Kouichi and is intrigued that any boy let alone him has interest in dolls. She allows him permission to stop by anytime.

Plot
In the OVA, Yukiyo went to a doll exhibition in Tokyo. Kirika is only mentioned by Mei once before she was actually seen. She is only seen briefly though, watching Kouichi Sakakibara 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. At the end of Episode 12, after Mei tells Kouichi she threw her phone in the river, she claimed that "she (Yukiyo) will buy another phone soon for sure".

Trivia

 * Her home address is 4-4 Misakicho Yomiyama City.
 * Her real name, Yukiyo, is a masculine 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.
 * Early in the series Mei revealed the fact that the doll which resembles her was meant to resemble the child Yukiyo lost during her pregnancy.
 * Misaki calls her "Yuki".
 * Misaki also claimed in the OVA that Yukiyo and Mei's father aren't good parents as they let Mei lose an eye.