Naomi Benson-Jigen

Naomi Jigen-Benson, aka Naomi Motosuki, is the pupil of Goemon Ishikawa XIII. She was born in Canada, raised by her parents, Eli Benson and Yoko Jigen (the older sister of Daisuke Jigen, both children of Japanese expatriates), and is ethnically Japanese and African. She changed her name to the alias "Motosuki* " when she moved to Japan, for safety reasons.

* An anagram of "Jigen" when written in kanji; also sounds like the French word for snowmobile. My best friend came up with the joke, and we are both very proud of it.

Background

Naomi’s family has always been involved in neighbourhood gang affairs and Naomi grew up in a fairly dangerous environment full of petty criminals. Very early on, she started getting involved with the local street gangs, and has a “job” as a smuggler and messenger. Her parents also do similar jobs for the neighbourhood gangs to make ends meet.

Naomi has always had a devouring passion for Japan, and more specifically for the samurai. She learned Japanese and studied martial arts from a very young age. She plans to leave Canada after she graduates high school, to travel to Japan and join a dojo, looking for a martial arts master who can train her to become a samurai. However, at seventeen, she has to fast-forward her plans and leave in a hurry, after one of her side jobs goes wrong and she has to kill two men from a rival gang to defend her life. Her parents gather all the money they had put aside and put her in the first plane for Tokyo, with not much of a plan besides a list of dojos and some very good shoes. Naomi travels by foot and by hitchhiking, visiting all the dojos she can find – mostly remote ones in the mountains that still uphold the ancestral traditions surrounding martial arts. She usually settles down for a few weeks or months in a village, asking for shelter from the locals in exchange for her help in whatever their job is, and she trains in the dojo in the evenings and whenever she has free time.

After a while of traveling, she finds herself by chance in Iya in the Shikoku mountains, where Goemon lives when he is not with Lupin’s Gang. Goemon has quite a reputation there, and after seeing him fight and train, she decides that she has to become his student. It takes a lot of work to convince him - multiple arguments, hard work in the dojo, demonstration of her abilities, and challenging Goemon to a duel every other day. Goemon finally accepts when he realizes Naomi's potential and determination, and the fact that he too can learn by teaching (the main reason for his refusal being that he never considers his own learning to be complete).

In Iya, Naomi meets Kanako Misuki and Hiro Kimura, two high school students who soon become her best friends. They both hit on Naomi, thinking she’s a man, and are a bit disappointed the next day when they meet up for a sort-of-date and she shows up in a clearly feminine kimono. They laugh the incident off and quickly become friends, Hiro and Kanako welcoming Naomi in their little group. Unfortunately, Naomi ends up developping feelings for Kanako, which she does her best to repress, seeing as Kanako is straight. Meanwhile, Kanako is struggling with the discovery that she is, in fact, very much not straight, and has feelings for Naomi. Hiro just watches them pine from the bleachers and shakes his head in disappointment. Until Kanako eventually decides to make the first step and confess to Naomi. They keep their relationship a secret, because Iya's inhabitants are a very conservative community, and Kanako's parents are downright homophobic.

After a few years of studying with Goemon, Naomi meets Lupin's Gang, and takes part in some of their heists when Goemon brings her along. She gets along really well with Lupin, to the great annoyance of Goemon because she’s constantly asking Lupin questions about Goemon and of course Lupin answers them.

The Gang eventually realize that Naomi and Jigen are related, which in turn leads to a very shouty reunion between Daisuke and his sister Yoko, who haven't seen each other for more than twenty years. (I have, like, ten different scenarios for how that went down)

Five years or so after having met Goemon and started studying with him, Naomi finally leaves him and Lupin’s Gang to work on her own as a mercenary and/or bodyguard (still refusing to kill people unless strictly necessary). She later reunites with Kanako and Hiro who have gone off to Osaka to study, and with Hiro's boyfriend Milo Clarke, and they form a thieving gang of their own. 

Personality and random trivia

-Goemon's teaching is ten times harder than the one Naomi received at the dojo, but she gives herself 200% and does her best to make her master proud. She admires him enormously and wants to do everything to reach his level. She is very respectful of traditions, which are part of the samurai’s way as much as fighting; she learns Bushido code, calligraphy, music, arts... She is particularly fond of doing origami, and can often be found with dozens of folded paper animals scattered on the floor around her.

-Naomi’s first language is English. She learned Japanese from her mother Yoko and a bit at school. She is not quite fluent at the time she arrived in Japan, but speaks well enough to get by, and makes a lot of progress while in the country. She accidentally adopts Goemon’s speech pattern of formal language and outdated vocabulary. She also speaks a bit of French, as it’s taught as a second language in Canada because of Quebec.

-Naomi is more integrated in the modern world than Goemon, and she sometimes gives him a hand to use the smartphone that Lupin gave him. She owns a skateboard, and it is a common sight in the village to see Naomi skating down the road in hakama, kimono and zori, her katana in one hand and a cup of bubble tea in the other. She has one foot in Japanese tradition and the other in the modern world, and mixes the two with little regard for normalcy.

-Naomi is still in regular contact with her parent and less regular with a few of her friends from Canada via long-distance phone calls. She went back to Canada to visit them a few time, and Yoko visited her in Japan once. However, she avoids going back to her hometown, since the local street gang still has a grudge against her and would shoot her on sight.

-Naomi is very resilient and willing, and can work herself to exhaustion when she sets a goal for herself. In fact, she has worked herself to exhaustion several times.

-Naomi has a lot of respect for authorities and elders, as long as she feels they deserve her respect. She tends to get attached to people and give her trust very easily, but she doesn’t hesitate to turn against someone when that trust is breached. 

-Naomi has virtually no concept of anxiety, nervousness or shyness, and tends to be very direct in all situations, sometimes even brash or irresponsible.  She doesn’t particularly go out to meet others (at least for social niceties), but she’s quite friendly when others make the first step. 

-Naomi is very curious, sometimes bordering on nosy, and had to learn not to pry into her master’s private life. After she meets the rest of the Gang, she starts to ask questions to Lupin whenever Goemon refuses to answer.

-Naomi  tends to wear masks a lot – metaphorically. She’s always controlling  her emotions and what she shows to people, and carefully crafting  herself a face to make sure people will see her the way she wants to be  seen. 

-When Naomi is not in a situation that requires her to maintain a serious image, she can become quite chaotic. In the village of Iya, she and her two friends are known to encourage children to misbehave and teach them tricks and shenanigans, and to sneak into all the abandoned and potentially dangerous places in the area. 

-Naomi is neuro-atypical, probably autistic. She’s a “functioning” autistic, which is to say she repressed most symptoms until they were invisible. Her passion for Japan is a specific interest. Note: I am currently in the process of doing research about autism and how to write autistic characters.

-Before coming to Japan, Naomi had studied karate and kendo, reaching black belt in both. She knows how to use guns, although she’s not very comfortable using them. Back in Canada she used to fight with wood sticks / polearms, she only acquired a sword when she came to Japan. Her samurai training covers swordsmanship as well as hand-to-hand combat and archery (not to mention the classical Japanese arts). She has an innate talent for stealth and discretion, and precise handiwork, thanks to her background working for street gangs. She is also a pretty good actress though she hasn’t had many opportunities to put that skill to use.

-Naomi has no qualms regarding illegal activities, and doesn’t value the law very much. She’s been hardened by her childhood in a violent environment, even though she doesn’t show it. She has a lot of internal dilemma regarding her morals and what she considers okay or not – killing makes her deeply uncomfortable, but she’s ready to do it in a heartbeat if it’s to defend her life or that of the people she cares about. She has settled on refusing to kill unless it’s necessary. She’s figured out very quickly that Goemon’s business when he’s not home is illegal (a quick Google search pulled up a few warrants and “wanted” mentions), but she doesn’t mind, as they share the same sense of morals. Same with Lupin (most of the time). She tries to ignore Jigen’s background, considering that a lot of what he has done was dictated by necessity at the time. She finds it ironic that she came to Japan to escape her criminal past, only to end up studying under a legendary thief.

-Whenever Goemon leaves to join Jigen and Lupin, Naomi continues to study alone at the dojo and keeps the house they share. Goemon has not told his partners about his student, or his student about his partners. This eventually led to a very embarrassing incident when Lupin and Jigen showed up at Goemon's house unannounced, brandishing guns, two hours after Goemon arrived covered with wounds and Naomi took care of him. She thought they were the ones who had tried to kill Goemon, and she almost tried to kill them, until Goemon explained the situation. Neither of them knows that Naomi and Daisuke are related. [note: that's just one of the ten different scenarios I have for how Naomi meets the Gang]

-Naomi looks very androgynous, and on top of that she has a gender-neutral first name. She rarely corrects people when they mistake her for a man. She’s bisexual, and as she grew up in a very queer household (her mother is bi and her other parent is either genderfluid or a trans woman, I haven't decided yet), she never had any trouble coming to terms with her identity – at first, she was even a bit baffled that most people found non-heterosexuality abnormal, while she considered bisexuality the default. A few years after leaving Goemon and the Gang, and re-forming Meiwaku, she comes out as genderfluid. [note: I generally use she/her for clarity's sake, but sometimes they/them if the situation calls for it.]

-Naomi has a Japanese dragon tattoo on her right shoulder, which she got while she was still in Canada. In Japan, most of the time she hides it under her clothes or under bandages, because tattoos are very badly regarded (it's a characteristic of the Yakuza). 

-Naomi’s katana is called Setsuna, which means "ephemeral" or "split second". Goemon had it made for her after she had studied with him for several years. (Or retrieved it from the Ishikawa clan’s armoury, or Naomi bought it herself, I haven't decided on that yet). The engraved kanjis on the blade say “Draw me not without reason, sheath me not without honour”.