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
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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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Trivia

 * Mayl's Cross Fusion animation is the same as Chaud's in Axess except for the finishing pose, which more closely matches his 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 Mayl has a Progress PET/PET III in Stream, her Cross Fusion shows her holding the Advanced PET, which is used in Axess.