When we first meet Karen, she is already in the middle of the first Squad Jam and she seems rather uncertain about it. In real life, she had been secluding herself from most people, spending her time reading and listening to music. When she first joins GGO, Karen plays as LLENN for fun, but by the arrival of the first Squad Jam she begins to take the game more seriously. She has begun hunting down monsters and other players, even gaining enough prowess that she becomes known as the “Pink Devil.” After winning the first Squad Jam, Karen is talked into playing in the second one to help her friend Pitohui. She fights fiercely to stop Pitohui from hurting herself, continuing to struggle even after losing all weapons and limbs in that final fight – and this is where we see how much inner strength Karen truly has!

Though Karen begins GGO as a relative newbie, she learns the strategy of the game quickly. We really see this come into play during the second Squad Jam. Karen mainly uses her favorite gun, P-chan, in battle but recognizes the need for skill with other weapons as well, adding other guns and a knife to her arsenal. She also uses the alliances she has made along the way, enlisting help or knowledge from others when she recognizes the need for it. Karen has learned a great deal from those around her, but she is able to use her own unique strengths to create her strategies. She plans well, using the rules of GGO to her advantage and paying attention to each detail for later use. Once she starts to take GGO seriously, Karen becomes a formidable opponent!

Karen is introverted and shy, mostly because of a complex she developed about her tall figure. She is able to overcome this through the success and growth she finds in GGO. Though Karen finds a great deal of comfort in her small avatar of LLENN, she finds herself coming out of her shell more in the real world as well. She meets with the members of SHINC after her win in the first Squad Jam, and their awe of her seems to help her be more herself. Her friend Shinohara Miyu also helps her by accepting her as she is while at the same time pushing her to find something like GGO in the first place. Karen is eventually able to meet with her friend Pitohui in real life as well, demonstrating that she is much more comfortable in her own skin now than when the anime began.

Before Karen joins in the first Squad Jam, LLENN and Pitohui have been fighting other players on their own turf and earned themselves a bit of a reputation. However, Karen is still relatively new to the way that competition combat works, and the first half of the Squad Jam is her learning from M. When M turns tail and gives up, Karen steels herself to go on alone, using her own skills to fight off the fearsome SHINC team and earn LM the win, with little help from her partner! In comparison to Kirito’s prowess in virtually everything that he comes across right from the start, Karen is a welcome change in a protagonist, showing us that you can go from a complete noob to a champion if you work hard and have the determination to succeed!