| ✦Overview✦ |
| “ | Now I'm really mad! | ” |
— Ai Ohto, in Episode 6
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Ai Ohto (大戸 アイ, Ōto Ai?) is the main protagonist of Wonder Egg Priority. She is a self-described shut-in who does not go to school due to severe bullying for her heterochromia and likely other things.
Appearance[]
Ai is a young girl of short height and petite figure whose most distinguishing feature is her heterochromia, which causes her left eye to be a yellowish-amber and her right eye to be a slightly darker shade of ocean blue. She has dark blue hair which she wears in a fluffy bob cut with a long ahoge swooping towards her right side. Above her left eye is a yellow triangular hair clip while her right eye is naturally covered up by her bangs.
Ai is often seen wearing a bright yellow hoodie with a sunflower design near the pockets of her hoodie and volleyball shorts when outside. She wears a striped light-pink and light-purple tank top at home. When attending middle-school, she wears the school uniform; a white dress shirt, dark navy pinafore and green tie. Her shoes of choice are white and blue platform sneakers.
Ai is generally seen with a calm and/or blank expression on her face, but has been shown to get quite emotional and expressive when in high-pressure situations. Ai also seems to come out of her shell with her friends, and often wears a small smile around them.
Gallery[]
Personality[]
Ai is a generally introverted, soft-spoken and withdrawn girl who spends most of her time alone. She dislikes being around people who have hurt her friends and is extremely brave, stoic and protective towards people that she cares about. Initially, she did not think having friends was important and put in little effort to make them. However, she eventually made friends with a transfer student named Koito Nagase, who was similarly ostracized by her peers.
Being a victim of bullying, Ai is extremely self-deprecating. When Koito committed suicide, Ai blamed herself, and committed herself to saving her. After rescuing Kurumi Saijo from the Seeno Evils and her Wonder Killer,[3] a strong sense of determination and perseverance begins to show in Ai as she declares that she will continue saving people until she can bring Koito back to life.
Ai is often seen reminiscing about the loss of Koito, and suffers from the crushing feeling of guilt from it. She is shown to have grown from it, becoming set on bringing her friend back. Indirectly, she also spawns a sense of helpfulness and kindness, seen when she helps Minami Suzuhara in confronting her inner fears and worries. This side of her is also seen in the real world with Neiru Aonuma, offering to be her friend to overcome both of their loneliness.
Ai is also rather naive, completely lacking any for of knowledge about sex and anything related. Neiru calls her hopeless for this, but also thinks the world needs someone like Ai due to her kind, caring, and selfless nature.
Background[]
Ai used to be a lonely girl without any friends. She was bullied often by her classmates for having heterochromia. Then, a girl named Koito Nagase transferred to Ai's class. Koito immediately became interested in Ai, even going out of her way to follow Ai home. The two quickly bonded and Koito became Ai's first friend
Ai believed that Koito was getting bullied out of jealousy. Ai tried her best to help out and show proof of the bullying by recording it while it happened, but she was too frightened to move when it happened and failed. Koito eventually killed herself, likely as a result of this bullying. Koito's suicide is what lead Ai to become a shut-in, avoiding school and refusing to speak to her teacher when he visits her home. It is for bringing Koito back to life that Ai accept Acca and Ura-Acca's game and begins using the Wonder Eggs gacha machine to get the egg and to get to the dream world and saved the egg girls from the Seeno Evils, Haters and the Wonder Killer. After she completed her first mission, she met Neiru Aonuma Ai likes her and tries to talk with her. Neiru ignores her. After getting injured from the dream world, Neiru got sent to the hospital where Ai visited her and offered to make friends with her. Ai also met others girls named Rika Kawai and Momoe Sawaki. Ai and the other three all became friends. After the last mission, Ai’s egg had her from another universe inside of it. In this universe, Ai never met Koito, and was manipulated by Mr. Sawaki. The two Ais manage to defeat the monster-Sawaki, but a creature with a butterfly for a head appeared, taking out other-Ai’s eye. The other Ai had saved her, and she successfully brought Koito Nagase back to life. She went to school later, but Koito didn’t know who Ai was and ignored her. Ai ran up to her, talking about how she was her friend, showing her her blue eye, and telling her she had called it pretty. Koito was confused, and the girl she was talking to asked who Ai was. Koita said she was the one Mr. Sawaki was using as a model in his painting. Ai got upset and ran away. She stayed in school for a while and then got transferred to the new school. On her way home, she saw a gacha machine and she started thinking of Neiru, so she went back to the Wonder Eggs and tried to buy the egg in the hope of bringing Neiru back to life.
Abilities[]
- Main article: Weapons
Ai's pen transforming into a mace.
Weapons: Ai wields a multi-colored ballpoint pen, which can transform into a massive elaborate weapon functionally similar to a mace. Her proficiency in the weapon is relatively underdeveloped, but the weapon itself delivers powerful blows and has allowed her to defeat multiple monsters.
Ai has also created other weapons out of objects provided to her, such as a whip from Minami’s gymnastics ribbon. As seen when she stand off against Minami’s coach, she crafts the ribbon into a long, whip-like item that can stretch and retract. The weapon can also slice things, and when she was thrown around the ribbon sliced through the solid stone pillars of the gymnasium.
She was able to utilize pen-lights lent to her by Mako and Miko, which expanded into sabers approximately two-thirds of her height. Ai also managed to get ahold of prayer beads belonging to Yae Yoshida, enabling her to see Yae's Wonder Killer.
Pomander: Ai currently has a pomander given to her by Acca and Ura-Acca. When hatched, a creature that resembles a chameleon comes out of it. She named her wonder animal Leon.[4]
Etymology[]
When read aloud, her name is homophonous with the phrase odd eye (オッドアイ, oddoai?), which is a term used in Japan to refer to heterochromia.
- The name Ai (1) is written in katakana (アイ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (愛 or 藍), it could possibly mean:
- 愛 - "love, affection".
- 藍 - "indigo".
- Ai is rendered with katakana characters, not kanji. Katakana are used when writing foreign words in Japanese. Therefore, it is a transcription of the English word eye (ア = a and イ = i).
- Ai's surname Ohto means "big, great" (大) (oh) and "door" (戸) (to).
- However, despite the fact it is written with kanji, her surname is pronounced the way odd would be if it were transcribed in katakana (オ = o and ド = do).
Trivia[]
- Ai's house number is 4-303.[5]
- All of Ai's nicknames were given by Rika Kawai.
- Ai loves omelet rice and sukiyaki.[4]
- Ai's flower is a carnation (innocence).[6]
- Ai's dominant hand is her right hand.[1]
- Ai's hobby is watching movies.[1]
- Ai bears a striking resemblance to Coraline Jones from the American 2009 Laika stop-motion animated feature film, Coraline.
Quotes[]
- (To herself) “Crosswalks are still scary even when you move with the crowd. I'm done pretending not to see! Now I'm mad!”[3]
- (To herself) “Hey, If I protect a bunch more people, will Koito come back to life? She will, right?!”[3]
- (To Minami) “You just want attention! What you really mean is that you want someone to find you and love you! So, I won't leave you alone! I can't leave you alone!”[7]
- (To herself) “I'm done with the me that craved attention. I'm going to believe! If I don't, I can't protect anyone! Can't love anyone!”[8]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Blu-ray & DVD Volume 1
- ↑ Official Wonder Egg Priority Anime Website
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Episode 1
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Episode 6
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Episode 5
- ↑ TV anime "Wonder Egg Priority" Retrospective Special
- ↑ Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Episode 2
- ↑ Wonder Egg Priority Anime: Episode 12
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