Name: Rio Toma

Occupation: Biologist, specializing in evolution

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Female

Age: 23

Alma Mater: University of Tokyo

Personality: Rio is a sweet, but shy girl. She's on the quieter side, preferring to let others talk instead, and often lacks the confidence to voice her own opinions. In spite of this – or perhaps because of it – Rio has excellent diplomatic skills, and knows how to say something without ruffling anyone's feathers. This skill can be used for manipulation as well, but Rio usually lacks the stomach for that. She has a tendency to overthink things, and while she knows it's often wiser to look before you leap and weigh your options, Rio worries that sometimes she takes it too far. She suffers from depression and near constant pain, though she tries to keep up appearances. Rio's a private person and tends to be slow when it comes to letting other people in, but she'll always lend a sympathetic ear if need be. 

Brief Bio: Rio was born in Okinawa, and is full-blooded Ryukyuan. She grew up playing with various American children who lived on a nearby-military base, and overall was a very bright and compassionate child, if a bit shy. After graduating high school, Rio was accepted to the prestigious University of Tokyo. Her parents were very proud of course, and Rio was practically glowing when she got off of the plane in Tokyo. Her excitement was short-lived though, as she often felt ostracized and isolated by her peers due to her thick Okinawan accent. She was miserable and lonely, and was so desperate to go back home that she finished her six-year professional degree a year early. Since then, Rio's been quieter than ever, overly conscious of how she talks and what she says. 
She'd only been home for a few months when the kaiju attacked Naha. Her family had been in town that day, celebrating her mother's birthday. They were in a restaurant, deciding whether or not they should get dessert even though they knew there was cake at the house, when the impossible crawled out of the sea and brought destruction to their little island home. Rio was paralyzed from the waist-down when a metal support beam fell on her. Her parents didn't make it. She woke up two weeks later in a hospital bed.
Broken in every sense of the word, she was given pills for her pain, pills for her depression, pills for… well, just about everything, it seemed. Rio knew she was wasting away in both body and spirit, but she couldn't find it in herself to care. The doctors said it was unlikely, but possible for her to walk again if she went through physical therapy, but honestly, she didn't see the point. When she was finally released from the hospital she'd just about given up – that is, until she saw an ad for the White Gloves on TV. Then it was like a switch flipped inside of her. She could help. She could have a purpose. Rio saw a chance to help prevent what happened to her happen to anyone else. It was a long shot, but it was the only chance Rio saw to make something of herself. She's been with the White Gloves ever since.

Other: Fluent in Japanese and English, conversational in Mandarin and Korean. Would like to learn French. No brown M&Ms