
JRPG Japanese Character: Yumi!
Me and my lovely character illustrator, shugulupsketches, are ready to introduce the world to a new playable character of JRPG Japanese, Yumi!
Yumi’s design
Yumi is an elf, so she’s got lots of that earthy-colored goodness. She’s got the classic elf-green in her cape, while sporting a brown set of gloves, boots, and tunic that you can ONLY get in the village she’s from, “Erufu no Mura”.
I gave her a beautiful, blond ponytail to express that “foreign” elven beauty. To give her a more feminine look, we added pink and lace to her undershirt and decorated her cape, gloves, and tunic. Knowing Yumi, she probably sewed that pink fabric on herself after buying them from the local armor shop.
I didn’t have a lot of game references that first came to mind, since me and shugulup were able to brainstorm a look for Yumi pretty quickly. When we were having trouble with details, a quick googling or pinteresting of “RPG elf” or “RPG archer” brought up lots of ideas for us to work with.
Speaking of details, that bow of Yumi’s is – you guessed it – hand-crafted and gifted to her from her village’s carpenter.
Yumi’s name
Like all the other protags of JRPG Japanese: A Language Learning Adventure!, Yumi’s name represents the weaponry she uses, “
Where do you recruit Yumi?
In Erufu no Mura. She joins the party after she is banished from her village.
Her hometown of Erufu no Mura is pretty remote and can only be reached to an adventurer who possesses a boat. That being said, she joins the party with very little knowledge of humans, and in the beginning lacks a few social graces. We’ll see if she warms up to the party…
Yumi’s town’s name breakdown
Side-quest time! (I do this sometimes.) Let’s take a look at her village name to get some Japanese language insight! If we take “Erufu no Mura” in original Japanese, it would look like this (broken up for easier reading):
1. エルフ
Let’s start with
To double-check ourselves (because katakana doesn’t ALWAYS come from an English word!), if we copy and paste
Whew, “erufu = elf” checks out! Good job, hero!
2. の
The
In this case, which of the
If you guessed noun-modifying, that’s the most accurate! The question you can ask to double-check your work:
ENG | JPN |
Q: What KIND of village is it? | Q: どんな:what kind です:to be (English: am, is, or are) か:marks a question |
A: It’s a village of elves. | A: |
Here, it’s taking the second noun,
If you second-guessed
ENG | JPN |
Q: WHO’s village is it? | Q: 誰:who |
A: It’s the Elves’ village. | A: |
Either one is fine, but it depends on the situation.
3. 村
Yumi’s speech style
Yumi uses
Yumi uses polite language such as
Yumi will also include some feminine parts of speech, too, throwing in a sentence-ending
As a quick review, there are four playable characters in JRPG Japanese: A Language Learning Adventure!. Here’s our list of revealed playable character personality speech styles:
- Young, masculine, informal, humble: Ken
- Masculine, informal, confident: Ono
- Young, feminine, cute, confident, informal: ? (Not yet revealed)
- Feminine, formal, humble: Yumi
Yumi’s three-word personality breakdown
1. Focused: on the tasks at hand in a calm and patient manner (This makes her an excellent puzzle-solver!)
- Analytical: of herself and others, constantly striving to improve (This can come off as snarky from time-to-time!)
- Reflective: meditates and checks in with herself from time-to-time to take a deeper look at triumphs, mistakes, and struggles
I’ve given each character of JRPG Japanese a three-word personality breakdown to reflect different qualities needed for language acquisition. The qualities I’ve chosen for Yumi are focused (AKA recognizing the importance of practice, trial-and-error, and being patient with yourself), analytical (knowing and working towards your room-for-improvement areas), and reflective (taking breaks from strenuous study-time to check in with your progress).
These three qualities I bestow upon you, hero! Take heart! By having Yumi on your party, I hope she gives you a little push forward while you study and grow… but I also hope she doesn’t push you too hard!

