Mai Kawakami

Mai Kawakami (川神 舞) is one of the main characters of the Musaigen no Phantom World series. She is a second-year high school student at Hosea Academy and a special-ability wielder who fights the Phantoms along with her friends as a Phantom Hunter of Team E.

Appearance
Mai is a beautiful girl with straight waist-length sandy blonde hair that is usually tied into a side ponytail by a big blue ribbon on the left side (she sometimes wears her hair loose where it reaches down to her lower-back) with hair strands hanging on either side and bangs swept to the right side while she has pink tint at the tips, purple eyes that has beauty marks underneath each eye, she stands at a relatively tall height with a voluptuous body and large breasts. In fact, she is said to have such outstanding proportions that no one would be able to believe she isn't a model from a fashion magazine.

Mai wears a Hosea Academy school uniform for 2nd year female students, boasting a yellow shirt, a white mini-skirt with black and green trimmings, black and white knee-high socks, along with white sneakers with pink soles and laces.

Personality
Mai has a lively, upbeat and headstrong personality who is confident in her skills. She is rather active, fit, and strong; often fighting the phantoms using only her legs and sometimes hands. Even as a child, Mai possessed great strength. She is very straightforward and she is the one that will do what she has to even if it’s a bit embarrassing, but she’s also very determined to get into the phantom jobs. Mai is also very kind, somewhat motherly and protective of those she cares about, as she has even earned herself the nickname "Phantom-Hunting Mom". She is very understanding of situations and can sympathize with others.

Mai is also very supportive of her friends but doesn't particularly like people with selfish and rude personalities. She is also very close to Haruhiko Ichijo, but she does enjoy to tease him sometimes. Since she is very confident in herself and skills, Mai will usually take on opponents that she thinks she can handle by herself since she doesn't want to put her friends in danger. But since Haruhiko works well with Mai, the two often ends up working together.

Even though she lives alone, Mai has remained cheerful. She acts like a big sister to Reina Izumi, whom she deeply cares for. She also relates to Haruhiko due to their similar pasts, and she takes care of him when he becomes a young child despite that it pushes her to her limits.

Background
Mai was raised by her father where she learned Chinese self-defense from him and she also has a younger sister named Mei Kawakami. She is also one-quarter Japanese. During her time spent with Haruhiko Ichijo when he became a child, it is revealed that her mother is deceased.

When she was little, Mai stated that she was a shy and quiet girl, who usually kept her distance from her other classmates, but was later revealed to be false. As a child, Mai has always been lively and straightforward, similar to her personality now. Even as a child, she was strong. Even though she had trouble making friends, she became friends with two girls who she accepted playing with and becoming their friends. Her two friends are now known as the two girl-phantoms, who waited for Mai for revenge, upset that Mai would always experiment fighting techniques on them. However, she later sealed those phantoms with Haruhiko, hoping that one day that she could fight them again.

She now lives alone in her apartment, supporting herself through high school.

Plot
Mai is the female protagonist of the series. At the start of the series, Haruhiko Ichijo and Mai are the only members of the Phantom Hunter Club: Team E. They were the team who hadn't really earned much. Mai was usually seen finishing on Phantoms in the school whilst Haruhiko sealed them. They continued their daily routine until they met Reina Izumi, Koito Minase and Kurumi Kumamakura who joined their team later on.

Abilities
Mai's ability is called Spirit of the Five Elements. Her powers are based on the Chinese five element philosophy (Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Metal), fitting for Mai who practices a form of kempo. Her ability requires her to massage her hands over whichever body part is associated to a particular element, such as fire from her heart or water from her kidneys. She then channels a specific element into her hands, via martial arts. When in combat, she uses the element opposite of the phantom she is fighting.

Aside from that, Mai is very physically capable, allowing her to fight Phantoms toe-to-toe with her martial arts skills. She can jump to great heights and easily jump several feet in the air with a single bound, allowing her to land impressive flying kicks. She can also inflict damage to phantoms by punching or kicking them.

During volume 2, Mai was able to create a new Parole that enables her to activate her powers from a fighting stance. But the downside is that the effect is a bit weaker as she can't afford to put her palm on each organ like before, so it's more difficult to open up the meridians and have the energy flow to each limb. She also developed the ability to create a dome-shaped energy barrier as well as fire powerful projectiles from her fists. The name she gave to the application of this ability is Untouchable Battle.

Etymology

 * The name Mai means "dance" (舞).
 * Mai's surname Kawakami means "river, stream" (川) (kawa) and "god" (神) (kami).

Trivia

 * Mai has the same voice actress as Sanae Dekomori from the Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! series, another anime produced by Kyoto Animation.
 * According to the memories Haruhiko Ichijo has copied, Mai wore her first bra in fifth grade where she has a bust between 90 and 100 (Possibly 95).
 * Despite Mai's fondness for the color yellow, her eyes happen to be purple.