DEPARTURE

A strange girl who never gets tired, to the point where it’s not an exaggeration to say she has superhuman levels of energy. Unusual behavior seems to run in her family of psychic mediums. Junko’s been very active ever since she was a young girl, getting into almost every sport a little girl could play to keep a lid on her hyperactivity. Without this, she would’ve spent way more time as a kid chasing frogs and just generally causing mischief to those around her.

Though she hasn’t changed much after growing up into a young woman. She still holds onto her child-like ways, life would really suck if she gave in to boring adulthood! It gets on the nerves of both friends and strangers alike, but her friends would never deny that there is something endearing about her cheerfulness.

For Junko’s family of psychic mediums growing up, you’ll either be incredibly hyperactive and lively or you’ll be mellow and placid. Junko is a perfect example of the former, while someone like her younger sister Emi is an example of the latter. This is what explains her superhuman levels of energy. Add ADHD into the equation and Junko turns out to be a bit ditzy as well. She is a bit of a trickster and is the type of person to start silly little arguments just to amuse herself. Practically all of these arguments she instigates with Forrest, who often takes the bait on purpose just to humor her.

She’s not quite sure why her behavior can be so irritating to the people around her, she actually likes her personality! Junko puts a lot of effort into brightening the day of whoever she believes needs it. Most often this involves her friends, who naturally are way different than she is. She sees her friends as people who need to let loose and relax! Ximena is stoic and often emotionless and Mortimer tends to be gloomy and serious, so this is understandable. But even the level headed and outgoing Forrest is considered a boring stick-in-the-mud to her.

Because Junko takes her role of friend group cheerleader so seriously, she feels the need to hide her negative thoughts and emotions. She loves to exaggerate her happiness and play up minor annoyances, but when it comes to sadness or anger she prefers to hide them under a smile. Even if she doesn’t feel these two emotions too often, she doesn’t like to show them in fear that it will dampen the mood or change people’s opinions of her. Junko is not always good at keeping composure though, eventually she ends up causing a scene.

Junko was born in the USA, but her family moved to their home country of Japan where she spent her primary school years, after which they moved back. She was always one to yearn for friends and connection, and her family moving around made this a bit difficult. Her family’s culture made it difficult as well. Having grown up in her mother’s psychic medium heritage from a young age she was open about ghosts and the spirits of the dead, perhaps a bit too open. Because of this, she was always considered bizarre by both her peers and adults. Ghosts are a superstition among many so Junko was a bit of a crackpot. She had several acquaintances growing up; her classmates, teammates in sports, etc… but she never had any genuinely close friends until befriending Forrest in high school.

Junko is a bit of a trend chaser. For a brief period of time she was part of the emo subculture, fashion, music and all, with the hopes of befriending people and living through exciting, new experiences. And a more recent attempt involves finding people to start a grindcore band. She genuinely enjoys both subcultures and styles of music, but her participation in them is not quite sincere.

Part I

It is thanks to Junko's desire for exciting, new experiences that she and her friends went to the Afterworld in the first place. Hearing a mysterious ghost girl mention the Afterworld sparked something in her mind: she vaguely remembered her mother mentioning such a place to her at a young age. What could be more fun than a camping trip in the land of the dead?