Kyoko Asechi

Overview

Role

Image Gallery

Kyoko Asechi
Kanji	阿世知 今日子
Rōmaji	Asechi Kyōko
First Appearance
Aurora Dream	Episode 1
Dear My Future	Episode 1
Profile
Gender	Female
Age (Aurora Dream)	34
Age (Dear My Future)	37
Hometown	Japan
Current Residence	Yokohama, Japan
Hair Color	Brown
Eye Color	Light brown
Relative(s)	Kintaro Asechi (Father) Kei (Mother) Jun Takigawa (Husband)
Voiced by
Japanese	Risa Hayamizu
Other

Kyoko Asechi (阿世知 今日子, Asechi Kyōko) is the head of Pretty Top and a former Prism Queen in the anime, Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream, and it's sequel, Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future. She is very focused on getting the best talent. She has a bit of an obsession with money. She was best friends and rivals with Sonata Kanzaki during her Prism Show days. She has a fairly bad relationship with her mother and works with Jun Takigawa at Pretty Top. She knows he has the ability to see who will become stars above all other stars. At the end of Dear My Future, she is happily married to Jun Takigawa (which now makes her Kyoko Takigawa).

Appearance

Kyoko has shoulder-length dark brown hair and light brown eyes. She also wears glasses. As a child, Kyoko would wear her hair up in two pigtails. As a matured Prism Star, Kyoko had long wavy hair that would reach halfway down her back.

Personality

As the manager of Pretty Top, Kyoko is a strict woman with her proteges, often chastising them if they fail to meet her standards or abide by the rules. She also happens to be a very thrifty person who is reluctant to spend more money than necessary. In reality, Kyoko is an honorable person who would never resort to dirty tricks to defeat her opponents, which was the main reason she got angry after discovering Sonata's outfit had been sabotaged. She also can be a bit boorish at times, which unfortunately causes many potential suitors to decline to marry her.

Background

Kyoko trained by Kei Asechi

As a child, Kyoko was very happy with her father where she admired his Symphonia designs that she wanted to help him complete them in order to make their family's dreams come true. What she didn't know was that in the background, her father was paying other Prism Show competitors to withdraw, making her win by default multiple times. When Sonata was her opponent, he got her stage outfit ripped, making Kyoko the winner in the end. Kyoko was furious that this had happened to Sonata, and yelled at the other competitors in the green room to find the culprit.

Sometime later, Kei and Kintaro divorced due to his obsession with the Symphonia series. Kyoko began to despise her mother for not letting her go with her father. Kyoko was promised by her father that he would come and pick her up, but he never came, no matter how long she waited. She continued to work on the art of Prism Shows.

Afterwards, her mother Kei trained her relentlessly in Prism Shows. However, she never showed her the lighter side of Prism Shows, always looking for perfection. As such, even when Kyoko won the title of Prism Queen, Kyoko was not happy and didn't smile.

Sonata and Kyoko were Prism Show rivals in their youth.

Young Sonata, who saw this, began training on her own to join Prism Shows with her. From this point on, they became rivals.

Kyoko appears on TV and challenges Sonata once again.

Sonata soon retired to become a stay-at-home mother to take care of her new-born baby, Rizumu alongside her husband, Ryutaro. The trigger that set off Sonata's leaving home actually came from Kyoko. Kyoko appeared on TV, and stated that she wanted to go against Sonata once again. With this in mind, Sonata trained harshly under Kei's guidance, which Kyoko had already rejected at this age.

Sometime after this, Kyoko established Pretty Top with Jun where she was married to a nameless man. However, before they could have their marriage ceremony, he never came to the wedding and ran away.

Role in the Plot

Kyoko as she appears in Aurora Dream

Dear My Future

Jun tried his very best to try and hide the truth about Kyoko's father from her, wanting to protect her. However, he unfortunately failed, and she learned about all of the dark secrets behind him. When she was wavering about letting Prizmmy and PURETTY participate in the fight to get Aira back, Jun brought her back to her normal self, holding her shoulders tightly when she cried, telling her that he would definitely protect her.

Kyoko later found a photo in a journal by her father, delivered to her by Jun from her mother. The photo showed a man who looked very similar to Jun, and a baby that looked almost exactly like Jun when he was an infant. This is when Kyoko realized that Jun was in fact not Kei's child, and was not her half-brother: Her family had adopted him, meaning they were not related by blood. Jun tells her after she found out that he had something important to tell her once everything was over.

Jun proposes to Kyoko, who has trouble processing what is happening.

After the Road to Symphonia, Jun proposed to Kyoko at Rizumu Amamiya and Hibiki Toudou's wedding by saying "Please marry me". Although shocked, she later accepted and wears the engagement ring he gave her. They headed to his parents' grave for him to introduce her to them and report that he was getting married to her. In the anime's final scene, they stand together in front of the grave close together with a bouquet of white roses.

Etymology

• The name Kyoko means "today, this day" (今日) (kyo) and "child" (子) (ko), which literally means "child of today" altogether.
• Kyoko's surname Asechi means "Africa, flatter, fawn upon, corner, nook, recess" (阿) (a), "world" (世) (se) and "knowledge" (知) (chi), which literally means "flattering world wisdom" altogether.
  • Her married name Takigawa means "rapid, river rapids" (滝川).