Mikuru Asahina - SOS Brigade Role

SOS Brigade Role

Mikuru is the designated "mascot" of the SOS Brigade, serving as a way to attract interest and members by using her attractive physical qualities - her cute face, trim figure, and a noticeably large bust. She was "voluntarily arrested" by Haruhi, who deemed it necessary to have an alluring moe character in the club. Her sex appeal and innocence is often exploited by Haruhi to procure resources, an example of which is the computer from the Computer Society and access of the baseball field and equipment, even though the latter was already being used by the baseball team. Although being the only upperclassman in the Brigade, she isn't treated as such. She gets along quite well with everyone except Yuki, whom she finds very intimidating and sometimes scary, despite the fact Yuki's presence is the reason Mikuru agreed to join the SOS Brigade, and she becomes more at ease around her as more time goes on, though never completely due to Yuki's alien nature. She is also very careful with Itsuki Koizumi.

Aside from being the Brigade's poster girl, Mikuru is also the club's waitress, brewing and serving tea whenever in the clubroom. By Haruhi's order, she always wears a maid outfit while doing so. Apart from the maid outfit, Mikuru has been forced to wear any outfits that Haruhi buys for her. Haruhi also sees it fit that Mikuru should not be able to dress and undress by herself most times and often does it for her, to Mikuru's considerable—and vocal—distress. So far Mikuru has worn the following outfits: maid, waitress, nurse, frog costume, cheerleader, miko, and bunny girl.

Mikuru was cast as the leading protagonist in the amateur movie The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, made by the Brigade for the school festival. She was also the vocalist for the movie's opening theme song. Aptly, she played a time-traveller sent back on an observation and protection mission. During filming, one of her abilities, the Mikuru Beam, became real as a result of Haruhi's subconsciously altering reality; the light novel expanded on this, as different colored contact lenses (a blue one being used for the original Mikuru Beam) gave her different abilities, all of which became dangerously real during the movie's production. Despite the convoluted plot and poor production quality of the movie, the movie was a hit during the school festival due to Mikuru's popularity among the male student body.

Like Yuki and Itsuki, her true purpose of being there is to monitor Haruhi. It's also evident that she has feelings for Kyon, becoming jealous and pinching Kyon when he compliments Haruhi when she was trying on clothes (which for some reason appears to aggravate Haruhi) in the manga, however, due to her situation as a time-traveller and the delicacy of the mission she is forbidden from expressing or receiving such. In one incident when she and Kyon got too friendly with each other, Haruhi's jealousy almost brought about the end of the universe. After this, Mikuru tries to refrain from getting too close to him.