Otoko Hotaruzuka

Otoko Hotaruzuka
Japanese name:	蛍塚音子
Also known as:	Neko (nickname)
Portrayals
Japanese VA:	Junko NodaWP Yuhko KaidaWP (Kara no Kyoukai)
Appearances
Primary franchise:	Fate
Appears in:	Chibichuki! Fate/hollow ataraxia Fate/school life Fate/stay night Kara no Kyoukai Today's Menu for Emiya Family
Characteristics
Species:	Human
Gender:	Female
Height:	171cm
Weight:	56kg
Family members
Father:	Mr. Hotaruzuka

Otoko Hotaruzuka (蛍塚音子, Hotaruzuka Otoko^?) is the daughter of the owner of Copenhagen in Fuyuki.

Profile

Background

Otoko went to highschool with Taiga Fujimura, keeping a close friendship since then. During the Fourth Holy Grail War, Rider stole a barrel of wine from their bar meant for the Fujimura family, prompting Taiga to track down the culprit out of friendship. Five years before the Fifth Holy Grail War, Shirou Emiya came to start working for them. He took any job given to him, even including working while both she and her father were out sick.

Personality

Otoko is a serious minded person, although her behavior might seem childish at times. She is always busy with her business, unable to stand lazy people, and she really cares about it, but can be overly generous when money is involved. She has a good relationship with her father, and Shirou claims that they are well-balanced due to her like of spicy foods and his like of sweet foods. She dislikes her first name, Otoko (音子^?), being phonetically identical to the word male (男(オトコ), otoko^?), so instead prefers to be called by her nickname, Neko (ネコ^?). She feels attached to Shirou and always addresses him by a pet name, "Emiyan (エミヤん^?)". She is very protective of him, not wanting him to follow the wrong path in life. She considers Taiga to be a bad influence on her hard-working employee.

Appearance

Studio Deen^WP's character sheet of Otoko in Fate/stay night.

Otoko in Fate/school life, illustrated by Eiichirou Mashin.

Taiga Fujimura and Otoko as students in Today's Menu for Emiya Family, illustrated by TAa.

Taiga Fujimura, Reikan Ryuudou and Otoko as students in in Today's Menu for Emiya Family, illustrated by TAa.

Role

Fate/stay night

Shirou and Otoko

Neko only briefly appears on the first day of the Holy Grail War should Shirou choose work over helping Issei Ryuudou. After scolding her father for his lack of assertion in getting enough people to work when only Shirou shows up, the three end up doing the work of five people. As he is leaving, she asks which of the other employees told him about the work that night, calling the man an idiot for pushing his work onto a boy and calling Shirou an idiot for taking up any job he is given. She reminisces about how he took care of the store alone while they were sick, telling him that she is worried about how he pushes himself and to tell Taiga to come see her.

Kara no Kyoukai

Differing from the Otoko of hollow ataraxia, she described as a "beautiful, mature lady drug dealer." Looking only to be a few years older than Mikiya Kokutou, she is unremarkably dressed other than her red winter coat. During Mikiya's search for the origin of the Bloodchip drug made by Lio Shirazumi and the relation to the murders committed by Lio in the guise of Shiki Ryougi, he decides to check with a contact he had made when searching for a friend of Gakuto, having had searched for the friend's usual drug dealers. Deciding that someone he had previously contacted, even if only once to obtain a phone number, is his best shot, he calls her to arrange to speak with her in person. Meeting far outside of the city's commercial district, he finds an old, abandoned apartment that requires him to climb the fire escape to even enter the second floor due to it being boarded up.

Upon knocking on the window, he is answered by Otoko, who asks if he was followed due to wishing for none to know that someone lives in that apartment. Motioning for him to sit under her kotatsu^WP that lacks any heat due to the apartment having no electricity, she can tell that he wonders how she is able to sell her product as a woman, explaining that gender does not matter as long as she can supply it. Candidly speaking with him in comparison to the persona she puts out over the phone, she mentions that he seems different than she pictured him. As she moves on to the business, the way she carries herself changes as they get to his reason for seeing her. He asks about the murder of the four men the previous night, and she surprises him by describing Shiki killing four muggers when she happened upon the fight while walking to sell drugs to a love hotel.

When he inquires about the culprit, she explains that she witnessed the murder, but could not see the actual killer clearly or the muggers being struck down due to the darkness. She realizes that he must know the girl due to his worry over it, but decides to drop it when he refuses to answer. Not knowing that Shiki simply incapacitated them, she advices him that the culprit is dangerous, explaining her playfulness and ruthlessness in the murder of the muggers to be worse than any of the people she has ever met in her questionable trade. Mikiya cannot concur with her due to the strangeness of the situation, and she asks if he has any other business with her. He asks about the strangeness of her being the first witness to the otherwise planned murders, but she says dealers and junkies are those who would never report to the police in the first place and that the bodies are normally abandoned away from their area activity.

She begins to become somewhat annoyed at his line of questioning as he theorizes the "murder" she had witnessed was something different than those of the previous and current killing sprees. She eventually does agree that it is strange, and she can only laugh when he goes silent as she asks about his next line of thought. Although she teases him about wanting to prove the innocence of the culprit, he moves on to his next manner of business, the Bloodchips. She impassionately rants about the state of narcotics briefly, discussing potency and dependence. After calming, she explains that she does not sell such drugs that work on the process of making the customer physically dependent and that she doesn't get along with those who do sell it. She explains the state of the market of the drug and how it is sold. Having heard enough information, Mikiya thanks her and prepares to leave. She warns him that it is bad to get involved with main dealer due its status of being almost like a cult. He asks her for the dealer's name as his final question, which greatly shocks him.

In the film, he instead meets her coincidentally while searching for the drug. Having purchased the "red stuff" to check it out, she refuses to answer his inquires and leaves due to wishing to have no connection to it. He later meets with her again, persistent in knowing any details about it. After she violently demands to know what he wants with her by holding a knife to his throat, he explains that her being the only drug dealer not to sell it means that she may be able to answer his questions. They have a brief conversation about the murder and the state of the drug, ending with her telling him the dealer's name.

Today's Menu for Emiya Family

When Shirou stopped by Copenhagen, Neko asked him to help her deliver some crates of beer to the Ryuudou Temple. After finishing the delivery, Shirou notices some vegetables on the table and mentions they would taste good in sandwich, catching Neko and Reikan's interest. While Shirou was making sandwiches, she and Reikan reminisce about their youth alongside Taiga. Afterwards, they eat the sandwiches.

Development

The drug dealer in Kara no Kyoukai has no name within the either the novel or film series, but the name was written on materials at a ufotable cafe exhibition for the film. Nasu refers to character's appearance under a new design in hollow ataraxia as a "transmigration" of the "cool big-sis" into Otoko.