Jin Meiyue

Death Machine number four has entered the ring.

Born July 2, 1960; Meiyue was raised in a Chinese family that did not want to let modernization fully push out its traditions. She herself did not wholly support this belief, but she managed to keep up a contrary appearance around her family and took advantage of being able to do so later. Not much else is known about her life; her death on November 12, 1985 by an unidentified illness is one of the only exceptions.

In the afterlife, Jin Meiyue uses a façade of a young maiden from centuries past to trap or seduce targets. (Several of the other Death Machines reference her as a princess; the Futagawa twins compare her to the mythical Princess Kaguya— which was my inspiration behind her golden hair and eyes— while Scorpione poetically refers to her as "la Principessa Lunare.") However, under the surface lurks a cold, skilled fighter. Her altered left hand, which resembles a crab's pincer, is a weapon in itself; her strangely-shaped left wrist can act as a bow for her arrows. She also has powers based on light; as Cancer is ruled by the Moon, Meiyue can control lighting and shadow at nighttime.

Meiyue's family name is the Chinese character for "gold" or "metal"; it is read with a consistent pitch. Her given name consists of the character for "beauty," which is read with a falling-rising pitch; and the character for "moon," which is read with a falling pitch.

I don't know if the colors I chose are the best ones, as I said before, I drew a lot of influence in designing Meiyue from Princess Kaguya, a lunar princess of Japanese legend who I believe is described as having radiant golden hair.

I had trouble deciding on the colors for their outfits as well, and I don't think I did all that great a job of making the make-up on Meiyue's "façade form" look subtle. I thought that it seemed to help to have the façade form look like a translucent projection of thought rather than actually being there, as it sort of fixes the paradox of having the two appearances of the same person both real and side-by-side.