Katsurou Ueda

NAME: Katsurou Ueda

AGE: 16

CLASS: Freshman

APPEARANCE: Katsurou is tall, standing at a height of 1.9 meters, and lanky, if not a bit unhealthily underweight. His hair, a dull shade of brown, used to be kept fairly neat and trim in a stylized side sweep, but as of late, it's rapidly approaching the nape of his neck. He looks similar to his birth mother, with a slightly effeminate face, long lashes, and sloped cheekbones.
In terms of clothing, Katsurou doesn't have much fashion-sense. He will, invariably, pair together plaid and polka dots, claiming all the while that they share a shade of blue -- forgive the hyperbole. Rarely will he venture outside the dorms in anything other than the standard uniform and rarer still will he wear a pre-planned outfit. His entire wardrobe is fairly monochromatic and composed of mostly cargo pants and plain shirts, limiting the chances that he'll commit an inexcusable fashion faux pas.

BACKSTORY: Katsurou was born to a woman who cared more for her profession than her child, despite said child being a direct by-product of her profession, and he was given up for adoption shortly after his birth.
He was adopted relatively quickly by Rokuro and Mai Ueda and lived happily with his new family in Noshiro, not having made any lasting memories at the orphanage nor any doubts as to his heritage. It was, therefore, a slight shock to seven year old Katsurou to learn that he was in fact adopted, but due to his previously healthy relationship with his parents, he took it in stride, even taking some sort of pride in it.
Around four years old, he had a small incident where, after chasing after the family dog for a couple minutes, he suddenly collapsed. Down and out for only a few seconds, he bounded right back to his feet and seemed to have felt to ill effects, though his parents were understandably less carefree about the matter. Despite their concerns, they put off the doctor's visit.
On top of this initial incident, Katsurou had a tendency to black out for a split second, stopping in the middle of whatever he was preoccupied with, only to return to himself as though nothing had happened. Oftentimes this went unnoticed, by both himself and others, unless he'd 'paused' during a conversation or other public activity.
These more notable episodes, originally interspersed between weeks of  normal behavior and the occasional collapse, rapidly began to become the norm. His parents relented to their concerns and brought him into the doctor's office. The original diagnosis was a sleep disorder, that during sleep his brain was waking up before reaching deep sleep state, thus causing him to fall asleep during the day. The doctor placed him on a low dosed sleep aid and assured the worried family that nothing would go wrong.
Nevertheless, his parents were implacable and their concern started to seep into Katsurou. The stress compounded as they refused to tell him the purpose of all the tests (as the doctor was unsure of the effects the sleep aid would have on a developing child). It didn't take long for said stress to combine with the medications and to manifest itself physically -- stomach aches, headaches, and fatigue. He missed a considerable amount of school due to sicknesses and frequent hospital visits.
Long story short, after multiple trials and multiple errors, the diagnosis remained unclear. His doctor basically threw his hands up in defeat and said it was likely something Katsurou would grow out of.
While they did not stop completely, the reduced stress and the removal of the unnecessary medications did lessen greatly the frequency of his episodes.
He had been a social child before this fiasco and excelled in school, but his time spent in the company of white coats instead of those his own age hindered his social skills and did wonders for his intellectual development. When he returned to the social scene, he was awkward and didn't know how to act -- the decision whether to lower himself to his peers' level or to continue ahead tore at him. Realizing that his social career was a bust, he focused on his education, quickly catching up on everything he had missed and blazing ahead (e.g: he is almost fluent in Russian and English, has taken it upon himself to (try to) learn multi-variable calculus, etc). The sudden collapses and black outs did not stop completely, but they faded from his and his parents' minds for a while.
For several years, his life followed an extremely structured schedule that left little room for anything besides school, work, or sleep. His doctor theorized that the stress and his poor eating and sleeping habits were the triggers for his grand mal seizure.
While it is generally good practice to make sure that the flailing, spasming teenager is going to be all right, it is a bad idea to try to hold them down or attempt to pry open their mouths.
He was kept under observation overnight due to a head injury sustained during the fall and twice, he suffered from complex partial seizures.
His parents and his doctor discussed Yamaku and, reluctantly, he agreed -- not that his protests would have had any effect.
Physically, Katsurou struggles most with his absence seizures (the brief losses of consciousness) and the atonic seizures (the sudden loss of muscle rigidity), which have continued in spite of the medications he takes; psychologically, he's fairly used to the social gap and, while he feels that transferring to Yamaku is a superfluous cautionary action, he has resigned himself to the matter. Speaking of his medications: some of them have some possible side effects including, but not limited to, loss of appetite, weight loss, headache, depression, nausea, and insomnia.

PERSONALITY: Katsurou is not socially inclined. He tends to step on other people's toes; he makes innocent comments that almost always turn out wrong; he gets frustrated when he has to simplify his speech; and his sense of humor is an odd mixture of cerebral word play and crude self-deprecation. Preferring the company of derivatives and integrals rather than his peers, he's more than content to shut himself up in solitude with only his textbooks and notebooks. Adding other people to the equation only complicates things and he likes it better when things are streamlined. He won't run away from people and he won't immediately stick his foot in his mouth, but should conversation find him, he will join and be an active participant if he feels he has something constructive to say.
If something irritates him, Katsurou will try not to blow, but he'll fail spectacularly and start screaming at whoever or whatever has angered him. He has no patience for hypocrites, people who can't muster the common decency to make an effort to be polite, and those who want the world spoon fed to them, who want him to stoop to their level instead of them reaching for his level. Does he have a superiority complex? Possibly. Forgive the guy if he wants to reap the fruits of his labors.
Despite his short temper and seeming arrogance, Katsurou is a very bitter person, wont to moping and dwelling on his inability to control his body and life, and hides it by throwing himself headlong into his work, whatever it is at the time, and making fun of himself.

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[[ Well. I have a sinking feeling that you won't accept this on its first time around, so come at me with your pitchforks and torches to tear this baby to shreds. ]]

Unfortunately there will be no pitchforks at this time, I'm actually pretty happy with the application. Only issue that I can raise (at this point in time) is his point of origin; where is he from? In addition knowing his exact height would be a great bonus is getting a feel for this character.

I'm also pretty happy with this profile. While you can certainly add a place of origin (doesn't have to be too specific) to the profile, it's not a necessity for me. Approved 1/2.

No pitchforks to be raised in righteous fury against me? Be still my beating heart.
I'll edit it in, but he's six foot two inches, or around 1.9 meters. I've no experience whatsoever with Japan and its system of government (Prefectures? Sub-prefectures?) and I'll admit I kind of glossed over where exactly he's from. So, if you'll forgive my ignorance: instead of attempting something I know absolutely nothing about, I'll just write he's from some average city in the Akita prefecture.

Whilst it would be useful to pin down specifics in what had been asked of you. This being more toward the ability for you to draw from such if need be than others would. It is not that critical to the point that would need a definite return to revision. You may proceed with my approval knowing what had been attempted.

2/2 approved, please wait for an administrator to move this thread before continuing on.