Mei Ayazuki

Mei Ayazuki is the main protagonist of Meiji Tokyo Renka. She is an ordinary student that was transported to the Meiji era and loses her memories in the process. She is able to see spirits and ghosts. The player is able to change her name in the games.

Appearance
Mei has medium length brown hair with golden-colored eyes. In her uniform, she wears a white collared blouse with a red ribbon, topped with a navy blue school blazer. She wears a high-waisted plaid school skirt.

In her Meiji outfit, she adorns a cream and blue patterned kimono top, red hakama with floral accents, and a red hair bow on the back.

Personality
Mei a typical high school girl from Tokyo. She has a friendly demeanor and is willing to help those in need, despite being ostracized by her colleagues due to her ability to be able to see the unseen. She can be rather airheaded and clumsy, often oblivious of the mannerisms and basic terms of the Meiji era. She has an enormous appetite and loves to eat, with roast beef being her favorite.

Overview
On her way home, Mei looks up at the sky, noting the red full moon. She then notices what seems like the sound of an accordion nearby. Curious to listen, she decides to follow the music and stumbles onto a festival. Her attention is quickly drawn to Charlie's magic show, where she becomes an unexpected participant to his disappearing act. After entering the box, she finds herself awake in an unknown park, noticing that it was a different park than where she was before.

Mei initially apologizes, seeing as how empty the place was, assumed that because she isn’t a good-looking girl to be an assistant, his magic show failed and everyone left. Charlie reassures her that that’s not the case, in fact, it was a success, perhaps too successful. Relieved, she asks where she is, to where Charlie responds that she’s in Hibiya Park through his magic book. She asks which way would be to go back, to which Charlie ponders the difficult question, and after looking at his book, tells her to go to Shinbashi Station, a station that Mei doesn’t recognize.

Nevertheless, she tries to excuse herself home. Charlie asks her where she’s going home to, in which she realizes she actually doesn’t know where her home is. She attempts to excuse herself regardless, only for Charlie to stop her to tell her it’s no good to go home without a home to go to. She begins to feel suspicious about him, so Charlie performs a small magic trick in front of her to prove he’s a real, innocent magician. He continues to do magic tricks for her, but Mei, her patience running thin, begins to walk away.

As she walks, she realizes the houses are different, as well as the roads. Blaming herself for being lost, she asks someone nearby for directions, only for them to refer to her to Shinbashi Station once again, and comments about her “indecent” clothing. She turns around and finds herself in front of an oncoming horse carriage, to which Charlie saves her from getting ran over. Confused, she asks why a horse carriage was there, assuming it’s one of Charlie’s magic tricks. Charlie explains to her that unfortunately it’s not; in this era, this was common. Mei doesn’t get what he means, and he continues to explain that this was an era without bullet trains and cars. In short, she was in the Meiji era. Completely dumbfounded, Mei assumes that Charlie is trying to trick her and tries to leave once again. Charlie stops her and reminds her that she doesn’t know where she lives, and worse—she doesn’t know anything else besides her name. Then, her stomach growls.

Since Charlie’s magic can’t summon any food, he comes up with an idea to infiltrate a party that’s going on in Rokumeikan, a hall where elites and the rich come to hold fancy balls. They manage to sneak in unnoticed by going under Charlie’s magic blanket. She then begins to wander around, admiring the fancy party.

She first bumps into Ougai Mori and Shunsou Hishida. After a brief conversation with the two, Charlie reappears and compliments her on how lucky she was to meet important people. He tells her that that was the famous Rintarou Mori, or more known as Ougai Mori. The man following him was the Japanese artist Shunsou Hishida, who he assumes Mei would be familiar by name, considering he was a rising artist in the industry.

She soon meets Kyouka Izumi with Otojirou Kawakami. Charlie, in the middle of it, finally breaks it to her that this is all real, and she’s in an actual time slip. Koizumi Yakumo interrupts, and Charlie mysteriously disappears. Goro Fujita appears to immediately accuse Mei of being suspicious, seeing as how she’s wearing odd-looking clothes and did not properly respond as to why she was in a very elite ball but failing to answer where she comes from. Threatening to arrest her, Mei panics, not knowing what to do.

In this part of the game, the player is then presented with a choice on how to proceed. This initial choice will determine the route of the game.

Differences in Other Versions
In Meiji Tokyo Renka: Haikara Date, the prologue is altered slightly to incorporate the arrivals of new characters: Taikan Yokoyama, Rentarou Taki, and Kouyou Ozaki.

In the live-action series, Mei wakes up in a church rather than a park.

In the anime, Mei causes trouble in the Rokumeikan due to a fox spirit, an important plot point that is not introduced in the game until very later.

Trivia

 * Just like Kyouka and Tousuke, Mei is a tamayori, a person with the ability to see spirits and ghosts.
 * Mei has a younger sister.
 * Mei's family runs an antique shop in which she used to frequent since she was very young. Here, she is able to communicate with the spirits of the items found in the shop.