Mao

Mao (マオ) is a character from the "Arifureta Shokugyō de Sekai Saikyō" series.

She is an elder of the beastman nation Verbergen and the leader of the harpies. She is also in charge of news distribution for the nation in the form of monthly magazine publications.

Appearance
As a harpy, Mao has fathered wings and talons.

Despite being tabled as an "elder" of Verbergen, Mao is actual young as compared to some of the others.

Personality
Mao likes to sensationalize the news that she reports on. She will add drama to the facts in order to captivate her subscribers. She can sometimes be hypocritical and bias when writing an article, having excluded her role in exiling the Haulia Tribe for concealing Shea well writing about the unfairness and difficulties Shea faced because of it.

Mao can be very charismatic when interviewing her subjects, in order to get them to reveal facts that they would otherwise not discuss in public.

Like most beastmen, Mao worships Kaori as a goddess after she uses her powers to restore Verbergen and heal its citizens.

Biography
Mao, along with the rest of the Verbergen elders banished the Haulia Tribe for concealing the existence of the "cursed child" Shea.

Mao was present with the other elders when they were discussing whether or not to aid Hajime Nagumo in his search for the Great Labyrinth in the Sea of Trees after he had proven that he had conquered the Labyrinth that belonged to Oscar Orcus. After Hajime severely beat up the bearmen elder, Jin Vanton, after he tried to attack him, Mao was quick to acknowledge Hajime as someone who had successfully completed one of the Labyrinths. Ultimately, the elders decided to banish Hajime from Verbergen due to his refusal to part with the exiled Haulia Tribe.

While Verbergen was recovering from the attacks of the demons and the Hoelscher Empire, Mao decided to revive the nation's monthly news publication in order to raise the morale of its citizens. She did an exposé on Hajime, Shea, and the rest of their companions since they were the ones responsible for saving the beastmen. Her article, however, left them all embarrassed as a result of her journalistic sensationalism.

When the mad god Ehit, was preparing to wipe out all life on Tortus, Mao was among Verbergen's leader that had accompanied its army to join forces with the other nations that were planning to fight back. The night before the battle, Mao paid a visit to Hajime while being escorted by the tigerman Gil and the bearman Regin Vanton. Mao revealed that Gil had actually been promoted to one of Verbergen's top generals thanks in part to Hajime's first encounter with him that would eventually lead to the salvation of all beastmen. Gil then said his piece and then gave Mao her chance to talk with Hajime one-on-one. Mao wanted to do another exposé on Hajime, to which he instantly rejected after having been humiliated from her previous work about him. Their conversation was then interrupted by one of the Heiligh Kingdom's knights that was completely enamoured with Shizuku Yaegashi. Hajime soon ordered members of the Haulia Tribe to eliminate both the knight and Mao, which immediately prompted the winged beastwoman to retreat.

Sometime after the battle of Ehit, Mao was interviewing Hajime's family while they were visiting Verbergen as part of their holiday vacation in Tortus (Hajime was not present at the time due to being in an involuntary sparring match with Shizuku's father and grandfather Koichi and Shuuzou). She managed to charm Hajime's parents' Sumire and Shuu into revealing many of Hajime's embarrassing moments from his childhood. She then attempted to stir up some controversy by trying to get them to badmouth Shea in fovour of Hajime's other wives, b Shuu and Sumire had nothing but very positive things to say about her. This lead Mao to get try and get more info into Hajime's married life, and proceeded to ask his wives about their romantic activity as a way to prove that they were having a good relationship with him. Once everyone realized about the embarrassing stuff they had just revealed in their interview, Mao decided to fly away before she could get into trouble. However, when Hajime returned to his family and learned about what had happened while he was way, he had Yue open a portal that was remotely following Mao (who was at the time conceiving the title for the article that showed an obvious bias towards Shea). Once she saw that Hajime was behind her, she attempted to appease him, but Hajime managed to retrain her and plucked the feathers from her body as punishment for her frilliness journalism at his expense.

Relationships

 * Ulfric Heipyst - Like the rest of the beastmen in Verbergen, Mao is very respectful towards Ulfric.
 * Shea Haulia - At first, Mao considers Shea to be cursed and agrees have her entire tribe banished for concealing her existence. After the Haulia Tribe frees all the beastmen that were enslaved by the Hoelscher Empire, Mao becomes very supportive of Shea, and even refers to her as."Princess" in her publications. She evens goes so for as attempting to prop Shea up as Hajime's primary lover. Shea is unhappy with Mao's hypocrisy that she displays with regards to trying to flatter Shea, despite having previously wanted to have her executed.
 * Hajime Nagumo - Hajime does not think highly of Mao's journalism due to having been embarrassed with an article she wrote about him and his companions.
 * Yue - Mao has earned Yue's ire due to her attempts to break up Yue and Hajime in order to make it look like Shea is his only lover.
 * Kaori Shirasaki - Mao idolizes Kaori for all that she has done for Verbergen's people.

Quotes

 * (To Hajime Nagumo): "I’ve already started advertising that the next issue will have an interview with you! It’s going to be titled, ‘Victory Special! A Bright Future Awaits Nagumo’s Mistresses! Follow These Easy Steps, and You Can Join His Harem as Well!’ What do you think? Doesn’t that pique your curiosity!?"

Etymology

 * The name Mao (1) is written in katakana (マオ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (真央, 真緒 or 舞桜), it could possibly mean:
 * 真央 - "real, genuine" (真) (mao) and "center" (央) (o).
 * 真緒 - "real, genuine" (真) (mao) and "thread" (緒) (o).
 * 舞桜 - "dance" (舞) (mao) and "cherry blossom" (桜) (o).