Eva Ushiromiya

Description \ Bio

Eva Ushiromiya is the second child of Kinzo Ushiromiya and third ranked member of the Ushiromiya family. Eva is a middle-aged fair-skinned woman. She has ginger hair that forms a straight fringe over her forehead and is tied up in a high bun held by a purple hairpin. She has black eyes in the original sound novel and purple eyes in the anime and PS3 port. Eva's family conference outfit is a black dress (dark purple in the PS3 and pachinko sprite sets) reminiscent of the Chinese cheongsam/qipao, emblazoned all over with the Ushiromiya family crest: the One-Winged Eagle. She also wears two gloves, a long right one and a shorter left one, which reveals the One-Winged Eagle tattooed on her arm. She also wears a pink bracelet, white pants and black orthopedic shoes. Eva also carries a maroon hand fan with her, which she sometimes opens up. Eva is a hard-working woman who trying to holds her own in the male-dominated society of post-war Japan. She projects an attitude of confidence and self-assurance, though this can quickly change if she loses the upper hand in a discussion. Eva is also quite cunning and will pounce on opportunities as she sees them, a trait that helped her retain the Ushiromiya name after marriage by exploiting Kinzo's dissatisfaction towards Natsuhi. Eva has a great amount of pride in the Ushiromiya family name and its history. She believes herself to be the ideal successor to the family headship, especially in comparison to her elder brother Krauss, who she views as an inferior and an unjust heir. Due to Kinzo's rejection of her efforts, she channeled her efforts towards raising her son George to be an ideal successor, hoping that he would one day wrest the headship from Krauss and his family. As a result, she assumed a great deal of personal control over George's life, signing him up for an array of supplemental lessons in academics and the arts and limiting his romantic involvements. Eva's pride in the family name also led her to develop an elitist attitude, which is shown when she looks down on Shannon's servant status and Maria's immaturity. Eva's easygoing attitude in casual conversation belies her sharp tongue and sardonic manner. While she rarely resorts to open verbal abuse as an adult, she enjoys subtly demeaning or undermine those she dislikes or looks down upon. One example of this is during the welcome tea in Legend of the Golden Witch, where she notices Shannon is unaware of the brand of the tea and proceeds to pile increasing pressure on her to undermine their host Natsuhi. When questioned on her actions, Eva replies that she was merely imparting some knowledge to the servant. While Eva herself struggled with discrimination on the basis of her gender, she does not hesitate to level the same gender roles that were imposed against her on other women such as Natsuhi and Jessica, particularly when it allows her to elevate her own son George over them. Her hypocrisy can also be seen when she criticizes Natsuhi for pressuring her daughter to become the successor despite the fact that she does the same for her son. Due to her having internalized the sexist dynamics that both Kinzo and Krauss have applied to her, Eva also has a very contentious relationship with most of the island's female residents; in addition to her already mentioned one-sided rivalry with Natsuhi and Jessica (as respectively wife and daughter of the firstborn son of the family head) and Shannon (as she sees the young servant as an unsuitable partner for her son), she does not get along very well with her younger sister Rosa either; having verbally bullied and psychologically abused her as a kid since Rosa herself has memory of it, until she was unconsciously submissive to Eva in adulthood. The only apparent exceptions to Eva's misogyny appear to be her sister-in-law Kyrie and her daughter Ange, whom Eva even asked about how her niece was staying home sick in Legend of the Golden Witch. While there is no doubt that she is a woman of considerable talents and has a quick mind (traits which have enabled her to solve the epitaph, largely by herself, and find the gold before all others in the third game), very often Eva also greatly overestimate her intelligence and underestimate and belittle that of those around her (especially her siblings). In particular her desire to succeed Kinzo as the new family head is due to her considering herself and proving in the eyes of her father as the best of his four children. While Eva publicly projects an air of confidence and strength, she has moments of sensitivity and vulnerability which she tends to only express in private with her husband Hideyoshi. It is during these periods that she can also be quite reflective and question her motivations for her actions. Despite Eva's lack of concern for the rest of her extended family, she sincerely cares about her husband Hideyoshi and her son George, and becomes frantic at the possibility that either of them may be in danger. Apart from her business pursuits and raising of George, Eva also expresses an interest in travelling and enjoys martial arts, the latter of which was disapproved of by Kinzo and Krauss for being traditionally masculine.