Akatsuki (Log Horizon)

Akatsuki is one of the main characters from the Log Horizon anime and light novels.

Akatsuki is one of the players trapped in the MMORPG Elder Tale. She is a Human Assassin-Tracker who joins Shiroe and Naotsugu, later becoming one of the founding members of Log Horizon. She was a member of the Akiba Raid Party, the Shibuya Raid Team, and the Akiba Guild Hall Raid Party. Her Overskill is Shadow Lurk.

In the real world, her name is Shizuka Hanekura. She is a college student attending Yamazaki Gakuen University.

Appearance
Akatsuki's original avatar in Elder Talewas a tall male Assassin with purple hair and eyes. He wore a long-sleeved purple hooded shirt with dark purple cuffs, armor on his shoulder and forehead areas, brown belted pants, knee-high boots with knee guards and a purple scarf tied around his neck.

After obtaining an Appearance Reset Potion from Shiroe, Akatsuki changed her gender and size to be closer to her real-world appearance. Now, she is a petite female Assassin but with purple eyes and long hair that she ties up in a ponytail. Her clothing is similar to her previous ones, albeit refitted to match her new stature. She now wears a sleeveless purple top, purple arm warmers, brown pants and purple boots.

Even in the real world, she was incredibly petite. She bemoans that even as a college student, people mistook her for a middle-school student and always used her as a cute mascot, something that she despised. She only recently began to accept her small stature while trying to learn an Overskill. In the real world, she has black hair and purple eyes.

Personality
Due to her short stature and youthful appearance, Akatsuki is easily mistaken for being much younger than she really is. In the real world, this made socializing with people her age very difficult, to the point that she had never once been on a date or even had a close friend. The only people who ever showed interest in her were children and pedophiles, and her younger sister gave Akatsuki her hand-me-downs to wear, which damaged her self-esteem. As a result of all this, she is very sensitive about her height and so takes great offence at being called "pipsqueak" or "shrimp".

She is a hard worker who does things tirelessly, just to be recognized based on her competence; in spite of that, her efforts never got proper recognition due to her cute appearance. To escape those preconceptions about her, she created her avatar in Elder Tale to be a tall silent man. With the Catastrophe, however, it was no longer possible to keep that disguise up.

In her efforts to prove herself, she is prone to being too serious, melancholic, and rash. Because he saved her from a "cruel and disgusting fate," Shiroe unwillingly became Akatsuki's "Lord" while she roleplays being his ninja. She is incredibly loyal to Shiroe, insisting on accompanying him whenever she can. However, she feels insecure about her ability to help him after seeing the flawless teamwork between him, Naotsugu, and Nyanta, and how they each knew what the others would do even without communicating. She also comes to develop romantic feelings for him, since he never made assumptions about her abilities based on her looks. However, it's those very feelings that further drive her insecurities, as she feels inadequate compared to his other companions and discovers that one of her romantic rivals is an actual middle-school girl.

She constantly questions her self-worth and her value to Shiroe and desperately wants him not to think of her as a child. Although they both love Shiroe, Akatsuki can't bring herself to hate Minori, as she can't help but praise the girl for being such a fantastic girl that any man would be lucky to have. Akatsuki berates herself for failing to meet her own expectations and wonders if she's even worthy of trying to get Shiroe's attention.

Despite her limited social skills, Akatsuki is shown to be disgusted by perverts; a running gag in the series has her kneeing Naotsugu in the face when he's about to say something perverted, and then asking Shiroe for permission to do what she just did, usually followed by Naotsugu telling her to ask before she does it. In spite of this, as well as the fact that Naotsugu tends to call her short names despite knowing it irritates her, the two are shown to be good friends and frequently watch each other's backs in combat. Isuzu also states that Akatsuki has a hidden sense of humor, and enjoys washing and cleaning.

After Shiroe leaves to the raid in the Depths of Palm, Shiroe leaves Akatsuki behind to protect the princess. It's during this time that her insecurities deepen even further; having never been in a raiding party, she felt lonely and unwanted, believing Shiroe left her behind because he thought she'd just be a burden. However, after taking part in the Akiba Raid Party, during which she learned an Overskill and defeated Enbart Nelles, Akatsuki regains her confidence back, and starts to view her short stature as an asset rather than a hindrance.

Equipment
Kiln-Turned Tenmoku Sword: A black ceramic blade with a beautiful pattern running down its length. The black glaze keeps it from reflecting light, making it easier to conceal. This item is produced by aficionados. During the Akiba Raid, it was broken and replaced by Haganemushi-Tatara.

Black Costume of Eternal Night: Ninja clothes in colors that melt into the darkness. Equipped with a special magical power that raises the abilities of the person wearing them in proportion to the darkness of the surrounding area. It's standard to use them with darkness spells or night-vision equipment.

Heliotrope Hairpin: An ornament that raises your luck values and magical defense. Has an effect, voluntarily activated, that destroys the pin but fans the Hate of the monsters in the area. In the language of flowers, heliotrope means "faithful heart, devoted love."

Lilac Kofurisode: A pale lilac-colored kofurisode with a cool pattern of scattered Chinese bellflowers. An original product from Yamato clothier Komachi, which makes its home in Akiba's production guild neighborhood. Komachi crafts its own traditional clothing, such as kimonos and furisodes, which are scarce in the world of Elder Tale.

Cinnabar Rouge: A pale pink lip rouge. Instead of being in stick form, it's the old-fashioned type you paint on with a fingertip. There are brighter colors and sparkling, iridescent types as well, but this one is about as much as Akatsuki can manage.

Wind Dragon's Wind Chime: A furniture item created by the artificer guild ANTIQUE. Wind Dragon scales are used as the chimes. Akatsuki uses this wind chime as a doorbell.

Haganemushi-Tatara: A reforged version of Meito-Haganemushi. Tatara specially customized this dagger to fit Akatsuki. The flavor text reads: "A legendary short sword that causes any armor it strikes to instantly rust away, earning it the name Haganemushi, or ‘metal-eating bug’. Any blade it clashes against grows duller with each blow." Tatara reforged the sword and added to the flavor text: "May this serious and righteous girl never fall to the wrong path; May both the sword and the girl support each other; to fight against evil curses and the suffering of the world."

Trivia

 * In Japanese, Akatsuki's name is the katakana transcription of 暁, which means "dawn" or "daybreak."
 * In Chinese, her name is (Xiǎo). It retains the original Japanese meaning while also doubling as a pun; it is pronounced the same way as the Chinese word for "small".
 * Akatsuki shares a birthday (July 7) with Elias Hackblade.
 * Akatsuki has taken the #1 spot in both official popularity polls; she received 1,186 votes in the first poll, and 2,278 in the second.
 * Currently, Akatsuki has by far the most character variations in the mobile game, with a total of 22 versions; 15 of them are unique outfits and 7 are reissues. In second place for most character variations is Maryelle, with 15.
 * In volume 6's illustration of Akatsuki's new outfit, her pants are leggings that extend all the way down her legs. In the anime, they were interpreted as compression shorts, and later versions of the light novel illustrations were changed to reflect that.