Melody

Melody (センリツ, Senritsu) is a Music Hunter and one of the bodyguards of Neon Nostrade who befriends Kurapika.

Appearance
Melody is short and stocky with hair consisting of a large bald patch at the top of her head and long, straight, dark brown or maroon hair on the sides. Her front teeth are pronounced and protrude much like a rodent's. In public, Melody typically wears hats. Her clothes are simple and usually of earthy colors, though occasionally with pale pink accents. She always wears long sleeves and leggings, as the Sonata of Darkness has changed her appearance dramatically; her exposed flesh is warped and lurid enough to make Kurapika flinch. Her appearance before the Sonata changed her is unknown.

Personality
Melody is a very kind person. She is typically of a calm disposition. Due to her extraordinary hearing as well as natural astuteness, she is very perceptive and caring when it comes to the feelings of others. Her mission is to find and destroy the Sonata, so that no one else will have to suffer the fate that she has. She has a special affection for Kurapika and watches out for him.

Background
Melody is a professional Music Hunter. Her life changed as the result of one night of drinking with a friend. Having listened to a single movement of the flute solo part of the Sonata of Darkness — a piece supposedly composed by Satan himself -she was deformed. Her friend, who had played the piece, had his entire body severely mutated and died as a result. Subsequently, Melody gained supernatural hearing; she can hear things as quiet as heartbeats. Her goal is to find the sheet music for the Sonata and obliterate it, so that none suffer the same fate.

Yorknew City arc


Melody was hired with Kurapika as Neon's bodyguard; therefore, she could be classified as a Blacklist Hunter. She helps to detect the infiltrators while the new hires are being tested by pointing out the liars' heartbeats.

Melody alone can see through Kurapika's facade and calls him out on it while they're standing guard at the entrance of the auction hall; she cites the "Melody of Wrath" that his heartbeat wove when he saw a slide that showed a set of Scarlet Eyes. He admits his past and true intentions to her and she returns the favor by revealing her own past, specifically the Sonata or Darkness, and her own goals.

After the auction hall is attacked, the remaining body guards pursue the thieves ; when they come across Uvogin, Kurapika nearly loses his temper and charges into a fight. Melody calms him (and everyone else) down with a flute piece called "A Field in Spring."

When Kurapika, Gon, Killua and Leorio are hunting the Phantom Troupe, Kurapika enlists Melody's help. Melody helps Killua track down the Phantom Troupe and follow them into the city. After Kurapika captures Chrollo, she hears both of their heartbeats and becomes agitated, as the sounds of both heartbeats are horrible to her—Kurapika's a violent sound and Chrollo's one of calm acceptance of Death as a companion. She is also acutely aware of the inconsistency in Kurapika's heartbeat as he struggles internally during the hostage exchange, recognizing instantly that the Phantom Troupe are not all that inhuman, Kurapika would like to believe.

At the tail end of the arc, Kurapika and Melody leave to return to Neon. Leorio pulls Melody aside, asking her to look after Kurapika, because he "opens up to her." Melody willingly agrees, describing Leorio's own heartbeat as comforting and one of the nicest in the city. She then says that he would make a good doctor.

13th Hunter Chairman Election arc
She voted during the 13th generation Chairman Election of the Hunter Association and was also one of Gon's visitors in the hospital he was confined in.

Abilities & Powers
Being a pro-Hunter, Melody has considerable prowess as proven by the fact that she successfully retrieved an item as part of a test required in order to be hired as Nostrade's bodyguard. Contrary to her petite appearance, she is agile enough to fend off attacks from Tocino's Nen.

Nen
Melody is an Emitter, so she specializes in separating the aura from her body.

Other Skills

 * Enhanced Hearing

Melody, after listening to the Sonata of Darkness, acquired extra-sensitive hearing and uses this ability in many useful ways. She is able to track targets or hear conversations from hundreds of meters away. Melody can even differentiate one's footsteps from another, enabling her to determine the number of people in a crowd whilst picking out the sound of her target's footsteps, for example, in a city. She can hear the other's heartbeats and tell their emotional states as a result ; or fluctuations to tell whether they are lying or not. Her hearing also enables her to ascertain the skills of others from the sounds they make, such as knowing Killua is a former assassin from his steps. In the Nippon Animation anime adaption It is shown she can play the piano.

Trivia

 * Melody was inspired by the character Nausicaä from Hayao Miyazaki's manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Ashitaka from the film Princess Mononoke.


 * In the manga, one of Melody's casual outfits is the same as the uniform typically worn by Japanese kindergarten students.