Mayl Sakurai

"Whether Lan is by my side or not, he will always light my path."

- Mayl

Mayl Sakurai, known as Meiru Sakurai (桜井 メイル) in Japan, is the main heroine of the Mega Man Battle Network series and the operator of Roll.EXE. She is Lan Hikari's best friend and love interest and close friends and classmates of Yai Ayanokoji and Dex Oyama, the four of them forming a close knit group.

Overview
Mayl is a half-Netopian girl with fair skin, short maroon hair, and brown eyes. Her outfit consists of an aqua-colored shirt, blue vest, pink skirt, black thigh high socks, and dark red shoes.

Throughout the series, Mayl acts as Lan's emotional support, worrying about him constantly and supplying him with Roll Navi Chips to aid him. It is strongly hinted that Mayl has romantic feelings for Lan, much to the dismay of Dex, who has feelings for her, though it is never made clear that Lan knows this or feels the same until the end of the series, where they marry and have a child. Mayl feels that Lan is always the one protecting her and feels like a burden to him, and seeks to become stronger with Roll so that they may be the ones to save Lan and MegaMan for once, participating in events such as the Battle Chip GP and the Eagle Tournament to do so. She eventually becomes a much more competent NetBattler, though Lan to still often comes to her rescue.

20 years after the events of Mega Man Battle Network 6 it is revealed that Mayl and Lan have married and are living in Lan's old house with their son Patch.

Mega Man Battle Network
During the event where Lan has to save Mayl before the bus explodes, Mayl sent Roll to stop ColorMan.EXE from detonating the bus. Her Navi wasn't strong enough to beat ColorMan, but still manages to hold him off till MegaMan arrives. After this event, Mayl played a lesser role in the game until near the end, when she saw Lan entering a secret entrance towards Wily's Lab. Mayl tells everyone that she knew about it, and heads to Wily's Lab. Before Lan and MegaMan battle MagicMan.EXE, Mayl and Roll helped MegaMan by making the path visible.

Mega Man Battle Network 3
Mayl along with Dex, Yai and Lan enter the N1 Grand Prix, and manages to pass the first round. Because of Roll's speed, she lost the Virus Battle in the 2nd round. For some reason she didn't accompany Lan during his last mission, whereas in other games she usually accompanies him. The other times she doesn't are in 4 and 5, but that was because she didn't meet the requirement (such as being part of the Liberation Team).

Mega Man Battle Network 4
She enters the tournament that Lan enters; however, unlike Dex and Lan, she enters the tournament secretly and makes it to the 2nd tournament, passing Dex, before losing to Lan in the Eagle Tournament. Before the match with Lan, Mayl's NetNavi, Roll, was kidnapped by a generic lovesick Navi, who hides her somewhere in the net and summons viruses to guard her. When MegaMan arrives to rescue Roll, she is seen controlling the viruses with love. When Mayl battles Lan, she and Roll prove to be stronger than in the previous games. Roll's attacks are weak, but her speed and ability to summon viruses make up for it. After the match, her reason for entering the tournament is revealed (which is that she wanted to impress Lan).

Mega Man Battle Network 5
Mayl loses Roll early in the game. Roll is later saved by MegaMan.

Mega Man Battle Network 6
She returns, along with the rest of Lan's old friends, and helps defeat WWW. She was the first one to actually send Lan an E-Mail and gave him his first Mega Chip. In the epilogue, it is revealed that she and Lan married as adults and had a son named Patch. She is then presumably known as Mayl Hikari.

Anime
In the anime, Maylu and Roll are shown to be more competent fighters from the start, though they get better as the show goes on. Maylu's feelings for Lan are much more pronounced in the anime than in the video games, and is seen throwing herself on Lan in every intro starting with Axess, often wearing dresses to get Lan's attention, and begins to a romantic rivalry with Jasmine in Stream. At the end of the series finale, Maylu throws herself onto Lan, the two blushing at each other, hinting that they may share their feelings by the end of the series.

A personality trait exclusive to the anime of Maylu's short and explosive temper. Though most often soft spoken and gentle like her video game counterpart, Maylu quickly has fits of rage if the situation bothers her, such as when she forces Lan to go on a date with her instead of experimenting with Cross Fusion, Jasmine being over to try some of Lan's mother's cake while she and Lan were doing homework together, and when BubbleMan steals her limited edition basket with his Miniroid in it, though this ends with her crying when the bow came off of the basket. Lan has shown to be afraid of her temper, and quickly falls in line with her demands when she explodes.

Trivia

 * In Mega Man ZX, a Mayl doll occasionally appears as one of the various toys found at Area H.
 * If the player goes to her house in the first game, there is a scene when Lan walks in on her while she is dressing. In the same game, MegaMan also says "Don't you feel weird in a girl's house?" if the player presses the L button while Lan is in Mayl's house.
 * Mayl plays piano, with the electric piano being her favorite.
 * She likes to shop.
 * In Mega Man Battle Network 5, a Mr. Prog on her home page says that Mayl has started writing music on her PC.
 * A girl similar to Mayl appears inside of the piano monster in Powerpuff Girls Z's episode 19.
 * Coincidentally, Mayl does piano lessons in the series, and the girl is within the piano monster in Power Puff Girls Z's episode 19.