Besides the digital monsters, Mirei Mikagura is the only constant in the Digimon video games. The purple-haired vixen in a white button down shirt and glasses always has an analytical approach into anything she does. However, she has been an enigma to Western audiences. In Digimon World: Next Order, she helps the protagonist figure out what’s been tainting the Digital World. In Digimon Cyber Sleuth and its sequel Hacker’s Memory, she’s your digital librarian who took care of the Digilab and gave you clues for your adventure. She’s an all-seeing entity, a unique avatar that’s definitely human, but has no real body to speak of.
Mirei first showed up in Digimon World Re:Digitize, which was a Japanese-exclusive PSP game released in 2012. You play as Taigei, a 16-year-old boy who gets sucked into the digital world. Along the way, you stumble across Mirei, who has hacked the system to have two partners, an Angewomon and LadyDevimon. In typical Japanese fashion, the story gets profoundly confusing, which is probably one of the reasons it never got an official English translation.
Eventually, the Nintendo 3DS version of the game, Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode, explains where Mirei Mikaguracame from. She was a scientist working at the GIGO Company, short for Global Information Global Organization. After an experiment goes wrong, she ends up getting sucked into the digital world, unable to escape. Untethered from the physical world, she’s free to travel dimensions and spends her time protecting her new home and the humans that seem to come and go.
Her digimon partners now appear as cats, but can still be called upon when needed. After you defeat all the masters in Digimon Cyber Sleuth, you can fight the DNA Digivolved Mastermon who has the power of all seven Royal Knights.
I doubt Western fans will ever get a translated version of Digimon World Re:Digitize, so we may never get a real explanation for her inclusions in these games. She just shows up, helps watch over your Digifarm and keeps an eye on trouble. If there can be fire-breathing dinosaurs and sentient gears, a purple-haired woman really isn't that out of place.
