MIZUKI DATE

Mizuki Date is my favourite character from AI: The Somnium Files, which is one of my favourite games. The image on the left is her at 12 years old, which she is for at least part of all three games, and the image on the right is her at 18 years old, in Nirvana Initiative.

Mizuki is a super interesting character. Her first appearance in AITSF is when Date finds her at the scene of a murder, holding a bloody ice pick. We later find out that Shoko Nadami, the victim, was Mizuki’s mother. Mizuki is so traumatised by the events that she loses the ability to speak, and Date has to “psync” with her (basically going into her dream) to find out what happens. There are two outcomes to the psync, which determine which route of the game you go down.

Mizuki lives with Date, and has since she was 8. Her mother was abusive, and her father was neglectful, feeling he was too busy with his company to raise her, so she was sent to stay with Date, who was friends with her parents. Mizuki and Date refer to each other as roommates, but throughout the game, especially in the Mizuki Route, we see how much they care about each other. I love their relationship! After the events of AITSF, Date adopts Mizuki, and her surname changes from Okiura to Date.

Mizuki is a great character. She’s very outspoken and doesn’t hesitate to tell Date what she thinks of him - i.e. that he’s a loser and that he sucks - and he does it right back, giving them a really fun dynamic. She gets angry easily and often makes threats of violence. She (understandably) has issues surrounding her parents and abandonment, so she kind of shoves Date away too. She’s incredibly strong, mentally and especially physically, and one of her favourite possessions is a metal pipe that she uses to fight. But despite this, she’s still just a kid, and I think her writing and voice acting conveys this really well.

In Nirvana Initiative, she gets to be a protagonist! I love this for her, even if I think she deserved a better game to be a protag of, lol. I really like (most of - the shoes and gloves are dumb) her NI design (and I'm making a cosplay of it!) and playing as her. But, without spoiling anything, I feel like the twist of the game was convoluted and kind of just there for the sake of a twist (and could have been executed WAY better), which kind of takes away from the experience of playing as her in retrospect. I enjoy her dynamic with Aiba, but given that they were both kind of written to contrast with Date, their dynamic together isn’t as good as Date and Aiba’s was. I hope that, if we get another game set after NI, Mizuki would get her own AI-Ball!