Komoe Tsukuyomi

Tsukuyomi Komoe (月詠 小萌 Tsukuyomi Komoe?) is a character first introduced in Toaru Majutsu no Index. She is the homeroom teacher of Year 1 Class 7 of A Certain High School. Although looking like a twelve-year-old child, she is one of the oldest adults known in the series. Beyond both her childish appearance and her demeanor lies a very competent teacher who cares for her students, and one of the few characters who knows Touma well enough before his memory loss.Tsukuyomi Komoe's surname reading is derived from the Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, an ancient moon god of Shinto in Japanese mythology. Her given name however, is an aptronym as the character (小) means small and the character (萌) means moe.With a height of only 135 centimeters, pink hair and eyes, as well as her apparent fondness to wearing cute and childish outfits (though this may be due to the fact that there aren't any adult clothes for her size), most people see Komoe as a 12 year old child. This isn't helped by the fact that Komoe often acts childishly. In volume 9, it is said by Yomikawa Aiho that Komoe, being a teacher even older than herself, looks scarily fitting in cheerleading clothes, and in the author notes that up to that point in volume 5, she was the oldest female character in the novel. It is later assumed by Accelerator, upon meeting her, that Komoe was part of an experiment of finding a way to stop cellular aging, and notes that Komoe may be a testament to the success of the experiment. However, because of her mysterious appearance despite being an actual adult, Komoe is referred to as one of the seven wonders of Academy City.This has become an urban legend in Academy City, something that even she is quite aware of; that her appearance is because she is a product of an experiment in the Imaginary Number District.Despite her childish appearance, childish voice and often childish mannerisms, it is evident that she is an adult by the fact that her apartment is littered with beer cans, cigarettes and neuropsychology books. She is also allowed to drive, despite her short stature. Komoe is such a heavy smoker that Yomikawa Aiho (also a heavy smoker), a friend and colleague of hers, states that Komoe smokes five times as she does. She contradicts her age sometimes by acting in a childish manner towards her students and having a child-like crush on Touma. Though despite her looks, she hates people mentioning the word "small" to her, yet likes people to call her "cute". According to Stiyl, Komoe's personality is much akin to that of Index: "A petite figure, extremely naïve, one who gets angry for others sake, one who cries for others sake, one who has magical knowledge, but is unable to use magic. That tearful look when she was dyed in other people’s blood was exactly the same". Despite being a heavy smoker herself, Komoe scolds Stiyl for smoking, apparently knowing full well he is underage. She is a highly competent teacher, being a teacher of chemistry, an expert in pyrokinesis, as well as being knowledgeable in the area of the Power Curriculum Program, Personal Reality and Esper development. However, Komoe knows when to not pry on the affairs of others especially regarding her students if they choose not to talk it out with her even if it is her responsibility as a teacher and an adult. She is somehow fond of taking in students with no place to go to, reasoning that is because of her “soul as an educator”, such as Himegami Aisa until she moves into a dormitory later in the series, and then Musujime Awaki. In fact, it has been stated that she actually goes out of her way to go to places where run away girls go to and allow them to live in her place a freeloader. Even in the first arc, Komoe allows Index and Touma to stay in her home without hassle. This may be slightly correlated to the fact that the freeloaders who live in her apartment end up cooking for her, making her feel like royalty, in the process. Komoe is passionate about teaching but has a weakness, that weakness being the fact that she’ll feel extremely dejected whenever she feels she has lost an opportunity to teach others, like when she is told Kamijou Touma is ignoring her lesson, crying before the entire class. She also "threatens" her students to learn occasionally, as she has a punishment game for class where they must play and win ten rounds of Poker in a row while being blindfolded. This is also shown in Volume 9 when she wanted to teach Index how to use chopsticks.