Eriko Kamata

Eriko "Doc" Kamata
Information
Kanji Name	鎌田 江里子
Kana Name	かまた えりこ
Age	26
Affiliation	Lux, Class
First Appearance	ROGUE: 02 Forfeiture
Final Appearance	ROGUE: 22 Myth
Voiced by	Shizumi Niki (Japanese) Victoria Harwood (English)

“

Since informed consent is an obligation. I need... co-operation... from my test subjects.

”

Eriko Kamata is one of the Class, the group of people who live on the "Hill". This first-rate expert in Texhnolyzation came to the city of Lux to advance her studies. She is one who gave Ichise his Texhnolyzed limbs. Also, Doc is the one whom Keigo Oonishi trusts outside the Organo. She's called Doc (ドク, Doku) by most characters.

Appearance

She is an attractive woman with long blonde hair and blue sterile and piercing eyes. Eriko usually has her fringe pulled to the side. She has pale skin and a slim figure with a very feminine shape. Her dressing style is not particularly special, except for her black, tight suit, which she often wore in the series.

Personality

Eriko is quite cheerful, and loves to talk, especially on the subject of Texhnolyzation. She very much enjoys being around Keigo Oonishi and Ichise, even if they fail to be good company. More of a scientist than a doctor, she sees Texhnolyzation as a means of human evolution rather than medical treatment. While she is calmer and more sympathetic than most, Doc doesn't appear to be completely sane. She despises the people of the Class and doesn't really care for the people of Lux either. She simply wants to create the best Texhnolyze out there - one that will completely fuse with a human. While certainly genial, Doc is only interested in the pursuit and propagation of Texhnolyze technology, regardless of how it aids others. Despite her general cleverness, she occasionally shows a nervous, childish side.

Her display of strong possessiveness toward Ichise, such as desperately trying to find him after he runs away from the lab, indicates that Ichise is a vital test subject in her experiments. Ichise, who never really knew his father, adopts Doc as his "second mother". At the same time however, he lets her have sex with him whenever she repairs his Texhnolyzed limbs. In the first episodes, an important bit of symbolism is Ichise’s portrayal as a newborn. He is wrapped tightly in a body bag, a tube down his throat mirroring the umbilical cord of a foetus. Doc treats him as a young child, instructing him to say please like a mother would to her child.

A key element of Doc’s character presented in the episodes is her controlling presence. When Ichise asks for water, she commands that he say please, going on to teasingly pour water over his face. Importantly, even when she is shown not to possess physical power, she is still portrayed as having control. Even when pinned to the ground by Ichise, she is able to retain a cool composure. An important demonstration of one of her methods of maintaining control is through manipulation. This is seen when she tells Ichise that she had put the cells of his mother into his Texhnolyzed unit. She recognises that lying to Ichise is the only way to convince him to accept his new limbs. In this way, she is able to manipulate Ichise into being her test subject.

Considering her first meeting with Ichise, it can be even said that Doc is a mad scientist who treats him like a science experiment, but as we learn, she was a former member of the Class who rule Lux, and was forced out on account of her ideological differences with the new ruler. Her obsessive research into Texhnolyzation is ultimately a desire to prove her worth and regain a place amongst those she considers her equals.

Doc is portrayed as very rationalistic, a direct contrast to Ichise who is portrayed as instinctive and emotional. She sees no value in symbolic or ritualistic acts and can be seen as pragmatic in this respect. Furthermore, she is portrayed as having views that can be described as anti-nihilistic: "What do you want to do? Just screw up, having been born without meaning and now die without meaning?" Doc believes in the importance of creating our own meaning as a species. The phrase "born without meaning" suggests she feels we live in what is an inherently meaningless world, her existential worldview being that we must respond to this with an artificial evolution of humanity. This belief in the importance of evolution is a direct contrast to the surface people’s resignation to a nihilistic world. Furthermore, she tells Ichise who has been Texhnolyzed by her after losing his arm and leg that Texhnolyzation should be used for good and not for violence, but she’s pretty much alone in thinking that way. And when confronted with the reality that not only do her people have no interest in her research, but that the human race as we know it is effectively dead, she ultimately breaks down mentally in the face of the pointlessness of her entire life. It says that, in fact, her main and only goal was to have her experiments make some sense for humanity and for her to be recognized as a genius.

Doc can frequently be seen drinking red wine, from a lab beaker no less. She slides into alcoholism as her situation becomes much more depressing. After reaching the Surface world and seeing the state humanity has let itself become, Doc loses all hope. When her vision on Texhnolyzation was rejected by the Class and the above ground humans, she lost all purpose in life. Without meaning she saw no point in continuing to live and possibly killed herself (but this has never been 100% confirmed). The people she had around her turned out not to be able to relieve her pain enough. Even Ichise, who was strangely important to her, but at the same time she knew that Ran was most important to him.

Biography

It is implied that Doc committed suicide in the bathtub of their hotel suite after Ichise went back to Lux.

Gallery