Name: Watanabe Junko
Team Position: Engineer
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Year at Ace Academy: 1st Year

Appearance:

So Junko’s the typical grease monkey, meaning that she’ll likely be seen wearing some sort of jumpsuit or the ever popular white tank top/cargo pants combo that nearly every mechanic seems to own. Grease and oil stains are required and will be applied quite liberally to whatever outfit she’s in, seemingly regardless if she’s been tinkering with the GEARs or not. Oil smudges on her face will occur frequently and indiscriminately. And while not always sporting a fully equipped toolbelt, she’ll usually always have a wrench within reach. While that may seem a bit obsessive, in her defense, wrenches are handy.

Of course, that also describes most of the GEARheads in a place with a much higher than average number of ‘em. So, in hindsight, not exactly helpful information. Huh.

How about we move on to more personal characteristics? Junko’s roughly about 165cm/5’4” tall, which puts her at just above average height for women in her country, a point of pride for the girl. Or, at least, it used to be. _{Back before she joined a team of actual giants. DAMN YOU, HAMASAKI!} She’s got a boyish figure: small bust, narrow hips, poorly defined waist. Thanks genetics!

Junko’s auburn hair reaches about the middle of her back when worn down, but she almost always pulls it back into a ponytail. The bangs frame her face without being long enough to be a constant annoyance. Being natively Japanese, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she has rather typical Asian features: small nose, wide cheekbones, a generally flat face, and dark eyes. Her skin seems to be perpetually tanned, despite her extended stays indoors, waist deep in some machine or another.

Personality:

Junko’s like a puppy: fully of energy with absolutely no idea what to do with it all. She’s incredibly optimistic and tries to see the best in people. She’ll do absolutely goofy things just to get people to smile and to garner a bit of attention. She thrives on the stuff, man. Preferably praise, but any attention is better than none, really.

But don’t mark her as a fool! Junko has an absolutely brilliant mind for all things mechanical, electronical, or similar. She’s a quick study and retains information extremely well, especially when she’s interested in the subject. She’s creative, practical, and has a good sense for how things flow together. When tasked with solving a problem, the problem gets solved. Period. Yeah, she’s spontaneous and a even a bit eccentric to an extent, sure, but she’s got a strong rational mind as well. If a certain way of thinking doesn’t work, she’ll switch gears.

See, to Junko, anything can basically be broken down into a puzzle, then solved. The pieces are always there, the trick is just seeing how they fit together (or in some cases, how they could fit together better). That challenge is what drives her to do what she does. Despite how casual she may act, she’s incredibly competitive. She’s good at what she does, but she wants to be the best. Can you blame her?

The girl is human, however, just like everybody else. She’s stubborn. Yeah, she’ll accept input or feedback on her work, but don’t try to tell her HOW to do her job. That shit just don't float well with her. Like most engineers, she's a pretty independent soul, and being supervised or managed is a quick way to get her riled up.

She can get bored pretty easily as well. Especially if she can’t find something new to do or try. It can reflect in her work too. She’s a tinkerer after all, so when the itch needs scratched, she scratches. So, to spice up her life, she enjoys risks. Taking them, making others take ‘em. It’s her natural curiosity. If the words “What would happen if…” enter her mind, and she has the means to find out, she’ll find out. When it comes to her work, she's more than willing to put her pilots at risk to satisfy her curiosity. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made in the name of SCIENCE!

The girl enjoys her privacy. She’s not one to share her personal life with people. She’ll talk to just about anybody about just about anything, but if the topic starts to turn towards her, she’ll deflect, dodge, or bail. Turn the conversation towards cenorobotics or one of her little hobbies, however, and she’ll gush information.

Biography:

Like mentioned above, Junko’s pretty tight lipped about personal matters. She was born in Japan and has never left the country, though she has lived all over the nation. She doesn’t seem particularly close to her family, and while she has implied that she may have brothers, she hasn’t seen fit to share exactly how many or what their ages are.

Before the Academy, she attended some small-time high school way out in the sticks. She was always a pretty good student - not the top, yet respectable. Except in math. The girl was a whiz kid with numbers. This led to her getting roped into a mathematics club fairly early on. She surprisingly enjoyed it and made some friends there. There was some heavy crossover between that club and an engineering club that had just formed. Her new friends got her to join that as well, and Junko found herself hooked. A love for all things machine soon blossomed in the young girl’s heart.

The sponsor of the engineering club introduced the students to Cenorobotics and the world of competitive GEAR fighting. Giant. Fighting. Robots. How could she not be interested? The sponsor might have just been using it to drum up interest and membership for the club, but for Junko it was love at first sight. It was her calling. She felt it in her bones. So she did what any gal would do: she pestered, annoyed, and otherwise harassed the sponsor until he agreed to help her put together a path into the field. She’d have to bring up her grades, do quite a bit of extracurricular activities, learn a disgusting amount of technical mumbo jumbo, and if possible, she’d want to get into the prestigious ACE Academy. It would be a helluva daunting task, but she believed she could do it.

And judging by the uniform she now wears when not working in the hangar, she was right. She had been accepted into the school at literally the last possible moment. But hey, whether you win by a mile or win by an inch, a win’s a win, yeah?

She wasted absolutely no time in trying to find a team. Unfortunately, she was a bit late to the party. Many of the teams had already put together a solid support team and didn’t need any more help. Others that were seeking help tended to favor Engineers with much more experience than she had. And others still were paranoid that the novice Engineer would either tear up their equipment, or just outright steal information to sell to other teams for a more prestigious position on a team. Pilots were weird, man. Probably completely justified in their fears, but still weird.

But luckily for Junko, there’s always a super desperate team or two around, and Celestial Star just so happened to fit the bill!