Aqua

Lore & Background

Aqua first made cameo appearances in the secret endings from Kingdom Hearts II and its re-release Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, both events depicting her, Terra, and Ventus confronting Xehanort at the Keyblade Graveyard. Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix also contains an additional cutscene showing Aqua's Keyblade and armor stored in the Chamber of Repose, a hidden room in Hollow Bastion frequented by Xemnas. In Birth by Sleep, Aqua and her friends are Keyblade apprentices in the Land of Departure, where she obtains the 'Mark of Mastery' early in the game.

Under Eraqus's orders, Aqua travels to various worlds to search for a missing Xehanort and defeat the Unversed, simultaneously monitoring Terra's vulnerability to darkness and trying to retrieve Ventus when he runs away to find Terra. However, both duties bring her into conflict with her friends when she confronts Terra over his questionable activities on their quest. Aqua later reunites with her friends at the Keyblade Graveyard, where Terra is possessed by Xehanort and Ventus sacrifices his heart to prevent the creation of the χ-blade.

Aqua uses Eraqus's Keyblade to transform the Land of Departure into Castle Oblivion, leaving Ventus's catatonic body there before confronting the possessed Terra at Radiant Garden. When Xehanort unlocks his own heart to subdue a resisting Terra and sinks into the realm of darkness, Aqua dives in and salvages Terra's body, causing her to become trapped there. In the game's secret ending, Aqua meets Ansem the Wise at the realm's edge and learns from him about the heroics of Sora, whom she had encountered as a young boy during her travels.

Her time in the realm of darkness is depicted in the game's Final Mix release and Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage; in the latter, she encounters her friend Mickey Mouse by chance during the events of the first Kingdom Hearts game before remaining behind to fend off the Heartless attacking Riku.

Reader's Guide

Aqua is voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi in Japanese and Willa Holland in English. For her unnamed first appearance in the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts II, director Tetsuya Nomura stated he did not design her appearance, but had instead focused on what her story would be. Following the release of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Nomura revealed more details about Aqua such as a connection with the character Xemnas. Nomura also revealed her name as said by the Lingering Will in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, and explained that her name follows the 'water' theme brought by Kairi's name.

However, a connection with Kairi was not intended, but rather with the series' main characters whose names bear various themes. In contrast to Terra and Ventus, Aqua did not have a reference point for the character's design, leading Nomura to create a completely new character from scratch. Her outfit was based on Terra's Japanese-inspired clothes, which are meant to expand the student-and-teacher bond shown in the game. Aqua's outfit was altered three times during the game's development.

Nomura felt the open back of Aqua's outfit presented at the Tokyo Game Show 2009 was too revealing and modified the design to be more conservative. As with Terra and Ventus, the making of Aqua's outfit created issues for Nomura like how she would be able to summon her armor. To remedy this, an 'X' was added to her clothes as a means to activate her armor. When designing Aqua, Nomura was worried the character would be unpopular due to her weak connection with other Kingdom Hearts characters.

This led to a push to make the character distinctly 'strong', which Nomura also did with Xion for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, but in a different way. While Xion was also a 'brave girl', Nomura wanted to retain Aqua's feminine qualities along with her strength. After design was completed, Nomura was still unsure of how Aqua would be received. After the game's release, however, Nomura noted her popularity with fans, and referenced Megumi Toyoguchi's work as her voice actress as one of the reasons.

Toyoguchi had already worked with Nomura in Final Fantasy X-2 voicing Paine, one of the game's protagonists. While Toyoguchi used a low tone with Paine, she used a tone closer to her original voice when performing as Aqua, which Nomura praised. From the beginning of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep's development, the staff decided its story would have three plot lines centered around three different characters, with Aqua's being the last one written.

The original ending of Aqua's storyline showed her trapped in the realm of darkness, which was moved to the game's 'Last Episode' to keep the game from being too negative in tone. In terms of gameplay, Aqua was designed to be a character that players would take some getting used to. While Aqua, Terra, and Ventus' storylines can be played in any order, Nomura recommended that Aqua's be played last to understand the game's story better, pointing out the intention that Aqua would be the last character to leave the Land of Departure in her scenario.

The staff developed her movements to reflect her personality as a serious and dignified young woman. In the making of Kingdom Hearts 2.8, co-director Tai Yasue expressed the staff wanted to explore Aqua's torment in this title as she became trapped in the realm of darkness to the point they showed how the character wanted to escape from it as she became isolated.