Isuzu_Ganbaru

It's easy to tell Isuzu is in over her head — a remarkable feat in an environment as shallow as Maru's.

It's not particularly hard to be a maid (certainly not with a body like hers, which could carry any other girl through service even without her feline features), but shutting up and looking cute has proven beyond her. Instead, Isuzu insists on proving herself — and yet, when left to her own devices, she can prove only her own nervous ineptitude. By the end of service, she's often so flustered that her guests take an early check just to let her off the hook.

Her coworkers, at least, are good-natured about it — for the most part. Those who've made it long enough to see a few maids cycle through have learned to work around the liabilities. She's a sweet girl, and at least she's trying, they say...even as they take bets on how much longer she'll last.

But it's not the approval of her peers that Isuzu seeks. Born a middle sibling, the catgirl has always struggled to define herself positively. She was never the cutest, nor the fastest, nor the smartest of the litter: some might have channeled that angst against their siblings, but Isuzu loved them too much for that. Instead, she chose to plunge the dagger into her own chest, corroding her own self-worth. At Maru's, she had hoped to find a talent of her own, even if only a simple one: she dared to see herself in the irrepressibly cheerful, cute, and coveted maids smiling out from the "Help Wanted" signs. But instead she found only confirmation of her own mediocrity.

And certainly not for lack of trying! Every night, she practices her poses in front of the mirror, doing her utmost to channel the "cute catgirl" that her feline coworkers — not to mention her little sister — seem to call on so effortlessly. For over a month, she insisted on ending every sentence with "nya" (a habit that ended only after an infuriated Kokumi started bringing a spray bottle to work). But no matter how hard she works at it, she just can't pull it off.

And yet she persists. Her progress may well be painstaking, but the only one who hasn't given up on Isuzu is herself. No, she's going to be good at something...

...or she'll die trying.