Maylu Sakurai (anime)

Maylu Sakurai, known as Meiru Sakurai (桜井 メイル) in Japan, is the main heroine of the MegaMan NT Warrior anime series and the operator of Roll.EXE. She is a close childhood and best (human) friend of Lan Hikari and is often seen with him, and it is shown that she harbors feelings for him, which while mildly shown throughout the series, were brought on more strongly when others like Princess Pride and Jasmine came into the picture.

Maylu is the only one of Lan’s friends to remain a main character after the first season throughout Axess and beyond, with Dex and Yai moving and Tory’s role simply being reduced (though the latter three would later return to the regular cast in Beast and Beast+). She is the most recurring character in the series besides Lan and MegaMan.EXE, appearing in a grand majority of the episodes in the series.

Personality
Despite mostly being feminine, soft spoken, and kind, Maylu has a short and explosive temper, which is often brought on with Lan’s antics. She often feels that she depends on Lan too much and wishes that she could be the one to save him for once, showing that she cares deeply for him. She can be sarcastic and cunning at times, such as when she tricks Rush into turning into her Synchro Chip by having him do tricks and praising him before commanding him to turn into the Synchro Chip, which he did before realizing he was fooled into it.

When she eventually gains the ability to cross fuse, she seems to grow a level of fearlessness and assertiveness, as when she, Lan, and Jasmine were in a “haunted house”, she simply stops screaming in fear when she notices Jasmine latching onto Lan, and attempts to latch on herself, though she latches onto a statue instead. She later starts to explore a strange ruin full of golems by herself while Lan attempted to contact Chaud.

Maylu harbors strong romantic feelings for Lan, though she has not fully realized them herself, and often gets highly jealous when other girls such as Princess Pride and Jasmine (or any other girl) shows affection towards him. During the course of Stream, Jasmine starts hanging out with Lan more, and Maylu slowly becomes more competitive for Lan’s attention (with a bit of prodding from Anetta), which ultimately helps bring out her feelings for him, despite hiding them most of the time, and while she and Chaud attempted to find Lan and the others while traversing the parallel world of Beyondard, she eats a lunch given to her by a granny from Shirokuni Town that tastes like curry that reminds her of Lan, making her wonder how he is doing. At the end of the series, Maylu runs up to Lan after he defeats Cache and saves the world, and the two embrace while blushing, hinting that the two now acknowledge that feel the same about each other.

The English dub, due to removing the idea that Maylu has feelings for Lan, portrays her in a different light in certain scenarios, such as making her seem petty when the group goes to help Princess Pride save KnightMan.EXE and her country. During the episode, Pride hugs Lan three times, causing a reaction from Maylu each time. While in two instance the Japanese version makes it clear it's because she likes Lan, the English dub instead makes it out to be that she is jealous that only Lan is getting attention for coming to help, while deleting a third instance where Pride hugs Lan in private and Maylu sees it through an open door, causing her to storm off in jealousy.

Maylu’s favorite color is pink, as can be seen in nearly every aspect of her, including her clothes, Navi, and house.

MegaMan NT Warrior
The childhood friend of Lan Hikari, Maylu debuts as one of the victims of Mr. Match's arson attacks for the World Three, though he is stopped by a newly programmed MegaMan.EXE.

During the first half of NT Warrior, Maylu helped Lan and local bully Dex Ogreon stop the crimes of the World Three while being assisted by three mysterious NetAgents and met several new friends along the way. She participates in the N1 Grand Prix where she and Yai form a rivalry with World Three agent Maddy and Roll.EXE is temporarily corrupted by the crime syndicate. Though Mr. Higsby helps Maylu free Roll from the Super Great White Angel chip, they eliminated due to the fact that Roll ran out of energy during the fight. She cheers Lan on as he faces his rival Chaud Blaze in the finals even after the floating stadium begins to sink and the audience evacuates, leaving only Lan, Chaud, Higsby, and news reporter Ribbita on the sinking man-made island, shouting her support for him across the water, causing the rest of the audience to join her. She then helps Lan and the others revive MegaMan after he is deleted by PharaohMan.EXE, and is given the dog-program Rush from Dr. Hikari along the way.

Meiru and the others joins Netto to his trip to Jyawaii as part of his reward for making second place in the N1 Grand Prix, where she is kidnapped by a Null and takes place in an Aki cosplay contest.

MegaMan NT Warrior Axess
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Rockman.EXE Stream
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Rockman.EXE: Hikari to Yami no Program

 * This film takes place between episodes 22 and 29 of Stream. Episodes 29 and beyond are summarized after this section.

Meiru runs up and hugs Netto Hikari, congratulating him when he and Rockman.EXE win a battle in a tournament, much to Dekao Oyama's displeasure. She watches Dingo win his battle next door (still clutching Netto) and joins them and Tohru Hikawa and Chisao Oyama in checking out the Thousand Amusements building, where they (minus Dingo and Dekao) wander into a sci-fi convention and run into Mariko Ozono cosplaying. While watching the Duel Masters film Duel Masters: Curse of the Death Phoenix, Netto is called to do his NetSavior duties, and Meiru wishes him luck and goes to her tournament match with Tohru, who she was partnered with. The two win, but as she calls Netto to tell him of her victory, she is de-materialized and turned into data with the others due to the activation of Spectrum, devastating Netto.

When Rockman and Forte.EXE stop Dr. Regal and Nebula Gray, Meiru and the others are restored, as they watch confused as to what had happened to them. They all go to meet up with Netto, and she hugs him again for saving the day.

Stream cont.
She appears in episode 45.

She appears in episode 46.

Rockman.EXE Beast
She appears in episode 4.

Rockman.EXE Beast+
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List of appearances
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Trivia

 * Maylu's Cross Fusion animation is the same as Chaud Blaze's in Axess except for the finishing pose, which more closely matches his pose in Stream. Also, she is the only one of the Cross Fusion Members that does not have a visor or a mouth guard while in Cross Fusion.
 * Although Maylu has a Progress PET/PET III in Stream, her Cross Fusion sequence shows her holding the Advanced PET, which is used in Axess.
 * Despite strong signs of feelings for Lan during the anime, Maylu does not marry Lan and have a child at the end of the series like she does in the video game series, though the last scene of the anime hints at the start of a relationship.