Rika has long blue hair in a hime cut, fitting her image as a miko. Her eyes are fairly droopy and purple, and she is the shortest character of all. On school days, Rika wears a white short sleeved shirt with a pink bow, a navy-blue skirt, navy suspenders, white socks and red or brown shoes. On free days, she wears a green sundress, with a white bow in the front and white sandals. During the Watanagashi Festival, she wears a traditional miko uniform, complete with a ornate hoe topped with tassels.
Rika often seems wise beyond her years. As a very young child during Himatsubushi-hen (which is set in June of 1978), she predicted her own death in June of 1983 to the visiting Akasaka Mamoru.
Rika has a tendency to speak using "cute" phrases; including sound effects and nonsense words such as "nipaa", "mii", cat sounds and saying "pachi pachi" (clap clap) while clapping her hands, all of which drives the cute-loving Ryūgū Rena wild. To add to her "cute" and feminine manner, Rika refers to herself with the pronoun "boku", which, although generally used by boys, is considered extremely cute when used by young Japanese girls. She does not address anyone with honorifics, and always greets people using their first names. In Japanese culture, this would be considered incredibly rude and even sometimes degrading, but nobody seems to mind when Rika does such.
When revealing her True Personality, Rika's cuteness disappears and she turns cynical and more mature. She switches pronouns from "boku" to "watashi" and her voice drops to something more resembling a grown woman's than a child's. This is the persona Rika uses when thinking and when speaking to Hanyū, so it can be assumed it is her real personality, which she keeps under wraps to avoid scaring her friends. Rika's second character song, S.A.G.A. ~Rinne no Hate ni~, is sung almost entirely with her True Personality. This personality is also considerably bold and occasionally rude to people.
The first time her True Personality is shown is in Himatsubushi-hen, when she warns Akasaka to go back with his wife and save her from dying.
It appears that over the hundreds of worlds she has been through, Rika's True Personality has become understandably somewhat distorted and sly, as she seems to derive some pleasure out of taunting people, such as Akasaka, with knowledge that she should not have.
Rika used to resist her fate with much greater enthusiasm, but over time she was mentally worn down and eventually resigned to her fate. As a result, she seems to have almost no interest in anything, as she has been through everything many times already (save for Sonozaki Mion's whimsical club activities, which seem to be one of her few pleasures in life), and she welcomes any kind of change, good or bad.
The TIPS reveal that when her parents were still alive, she showed no emotion, only reacting to something unexpected. This greatly concerned her mother, who couldn't understand Rika no matter how hard she tried, and made their relationship difficult.
Furude Hanyuu
Rika is the only person able to see Hanyū for most of the series, as Hanyū doesn't appear to the viewer until Minagoroshi-hen and does not exist in the physical world until Matsuribayashi-hen. Hanyū is something of Rika's "guardian angel", and has been with her since she was born. Since Rika is the eighth generation of first-born daughters and thus the true reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, she is the only one who can see Hanyū. Even though she finds Hanyū annoying sometimes, Rika cares deeply about her. Rika is a constant reminder of Hanyū's own daughter, Ouka Furude, as mentioned in Kai, since both are very similar in appearance. As a result, Hanyū's motherly instinct often kicks in whenever Rika seeks help.
Hanyū's first form appears to be a floating, translucent young girl with purple hair, violet eyes, and a pair of black or dark purple horns on her head (the left one is chipped slightly). When angry or channeling her god powers, her eyes turn a glowing red. In this spirit form, she wears an outfit reminiscent of one worn by a Shinto shrine maiden, with red hakama (long, split trousers), a white haori (kimono jacket), and a pair of long, pink furisode-like sleeves.
The second form that Hanyū takes is her visible form, which is physically identical to her ethereal form except that she can no longer float and she is solid rather than transparent. Here, on her school days, she wears a school outfit with a red plaid skirt, a short sleeved white blouse, a blue vest with a blue bow, white socks and brown shoes. During her free days, she wears a pink jumper similar to Rika's dress, differing in that the jumper has pockets, its straps are thicker and have buttons, and has no ribbon. In this form, her horns remain intact.
Quiet, timid, and polite, Hanyū is a sweet and innocent girl, despite her tendency to refer to herself with the pronoun "boku", which is generally reserved for boys. She is easily intimidated or frightened, and will whimper "Au au, auauau…" when upset or excited. When angry however, her eyes turn red and her voice becomes stern and mature like that of a god.
Hanyū is extremely loving and carries a lot of guilt for the suffering she has caused Rika's friends. In addition, she often feels helpless or despairing due to her inability to influence the world around her in her spiritual form. All she feels she can do is apologize for her uselessness in protecting the ones she loves, which led to her habit of following those who are about to fall into paranoia or die and repeatedly saying "Gomen nasai" (I'm sorry). She is the source of the footsteps, voice and sense of being watched that Ryūgū Rena, Hōjō Satoshi and other characters under the influence of the Hinamizawa Syndrome notice throughout the series.
Hanyū is also very pessimistic, often telling Rika not to get her hopes up about the newest world, as every time she does, she only ends up getting hurt and disappointed. Instead, she encourages Rika to wait patiently for a fortunate world to come. She hopes that by dispiriting Rika, she can prolong Rika's mental life-span. Despite Rika's desperate desire to escape her fate of being killed, Hanyū seems content with repeating the worlds over and over, as long as she gets to stay by Rika's side; she is secretly happy that she gets to spend more time with Rika than anyone else.
Hanyū likes cream puffs and sweets, which she tastes through Rika, whom her senses are linked with. She also likes stalking her friends, occasionally causing their paranoia to grow stronger, and some of them outright mistake her for the vanished Satoshi, such as Keiichi in Tatarigoroshi-hen, and Sonozaki Shion in Meakashi-hen. She wants to join the club, and unbeknownst to the members, usually watches their club activities.
Hanyū dislikes spicy food and alcohol, both of which Rika likes, and often uses to punish Hanyū when she is being annoying. Contrary to the village's image of Oyashiro-sama, Hanyū hates violence and suffering, and is devastated by the horrific acts that are committed in her name. Because of this, she expresses a strong dislike for Takano, who is only attracted to the legend of Oyashiro-sama due to its bloody history. When the topic of Oyashiro-sama arises, Hanyū is especially irritated and discouraged when she hears her name used as a name of punishment and violence, declaring numerous times that she would never curse or punish anyone through torture nor "demoning away" (however, Rika does note that Hanyū loves to stay in the Saiguden, which is full of torture tools, because according to Hanyū it makes her feel "at home"). In scenes where Takano enters the Saiguden and revels in the violent history of Onigafuchi in front of the statue of Oyashiro-sama, Hanyū becomes very upset and repeatedly stomps on the floor in agitation. Since anyone at LV3 or higher of the Hinamizawa Syndrome can sense Hanyū's presence, Tomitake Jirou (LV3) and Shion (LV4) were able to hear "a child jumping up and down on the ground" in Minagoroshi-hen, Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen. The jumping noises were Hanyū stomping the floor and exclaiming, "Stop it, stop it! I would never do such a thing, I never asked anyone to torture people!"
Hanyū was once known as the demon god of Onigafuchi (Hinamizawa) under her true name, Hainiryūn Ieasomūru Jieda. She travelled with her clan to the Onigafuchi Swamp and tried to coexist with the human villagers there, but the Furude priest refused to cooperate. However, Furude Riku, the heir to the Furude shrine and inventor of the nickname "Hanyū", fell in love with Hainiryūn and married her. They had a daughter named Furude Ōka, the first in a long lines of humans to carry demon blood. When the villagers of Onigafuchi became violent towards Hainiryūn's clan and could no longer tell who was a demon and who was not, they started to suspect and blame each other. Because of this, Hanyū chose to become a sacrifice to atone for the villagers sins. She asked Ōka to kill her in what became the first Watanagashi ceremony, and by doing so, she 'buried' the villager's sins along with her.
