Mayuko is in many ways a young Japanese Everywoman. She is hardworking, polite, honest, and concerned about how she is perceived by others. In fact, for much of the series, Mayuko is too concerned with how she is perceived by others, and this eventually causes her much misery. But, and this is perhaps the greatest source of her problem, Mayuko has had society’s expectations drilled into her since birth. She knows that she is expected to go to college and find a good job, but she doesn’t have a clear idea of what she wants to do with her life, so she isn’t clear on even what to do when she gets to college—which might be why she’s at cram school, since every indication is that she probably could have placed highly in the entrance exams if she had taken them straight out of high school. (The only hint we hear that she took them and didn’t do well is when NieA at one point refers to her as a “flunk-out,” but considering the source, that’s not likely to be an accurate description.) Mayuko is also too busy just keeping her head above water financially—working three jobs just to keep a meager fair on her table—that she doesn’t have the time or energy reserve to really plan for her future, a fact which starts to depress her when she realizes this. Finally, she is shy and becomes embarrassed about her lot in life when she sees how other girls carry themselves at cram school, something which makes it more difficult for her deal with the people around her as time goes on. And, perhaps worst of all, Mayuko has virtually no self-esteem; all validations for her come from external sources. All these factors are converging to lead her into despair as the series opens with crazy comedy and exploding, man-eating plants.

And then there’s the title character, NieA. It’s possible that Mayuko wouldn’t have to work quite so hard if she hadn’t been befriended by this perpetually hungry alien girl who has moved into her closet yet claims that it was Mayuko who moved into the place where she was living. It seems clear that Mayuko would have slid into a routine that would have allowed her to get by without giving too much thought to her future and perhaps even her present beyond the routine itself, but NieA is always pushing for more and dragging Mayuko along with her. For example, the almost painfully reserved Mayuko may well have managed to make enough excuses to keep Chiaki from ever coming to visit at Enohana and thus their friendship might never have been formed, but NieA showed up and made it impossible or Mayuko to demure.

While on the surface, it seems NieA is nothing more than a mischievous gremlin whose only purpose is to make Mayuko’s life more difficult and misery-filled, it becomes clear that she is actually a beacon showing the way to a happier existence. (Chiaki and Kotomi serve similar but less extreme examples.)

As mentioned above, Mayuko spends all of her time and energy on just getting by, appearing as responsible as she possibly can, and keeping up a front that she thinks will be acceptable to Chiaki and other girls at cram school. As a result, she never relaxes and never stops to take a breather or truly enjoy herself, and eventually this ends up grinding her down to the point where she slips into an ever-deepening depression. The final push comes when she wants to go on a group date that Chiaki has set up, but finds her meager wardrobe so embarrassingly inadequate that she can barely muster the courage to think about going.

Mayuko’s decaying situation is illustrated very deftly and in a way that lets the viewer sense her pain more keenly than if it had been expressed through dialogue or exposition instead of handled with the subtly that it is. In Episodes Seven and Eight, there are a series of events that mirror Episodes One and Two. In the early episodes, NieA and Mayuko argue over food, NieA’s slacker behavior, and whether or not Mayuko is giving NieA the respect she deserves as an alien with “delicate pride.” In Episode Seven and Eight, however, Mayuko either ignores NieA’s attempts to play their standard “game,” or turns it nasty as when she tries to hurt NieA’s feelings in earnest when she attacks the girl’s only real sore spot; her lack of an the hallmark alien antenna. Further, when Mayuko crashes her bike in Episode One, she quickly and energetically bounces back. When she crashes in Episode Eight, she merely lays on the road and sighs.

As with many people who are depressed, Mayuko is for a time her own worst enemy. She continues to struggle with her daily routine while being worn further down and lashing out at those who offer to help her, specifically NieA. Also like so many victims of depression, Mayuko realizes something is wrong, but she can’t figure out how to fix it.

Mayuko ends up pulling back from the chasm when Genzo brings up Mayuko’s childhood. In doing this, he makes her remember that there can be more to life than just a daily struggle, and he makes her see how taking the time to help others can have a lasting impact. Genzo also puts Mayuko along the path that will lead her to finally resolve pain she’s been carrying with her for over a decade—the unconfronted sense of loss she has felt since her father’s death. Like everything else about her childhood, Mayuko has very few conscious memories of her father, but she continues to wear his watch as a token of him.

One of the final steps to Mayuko’s recovery from depression is finally confronting her pain over losing her father. When her mother sends her some old photos from home, after failing to find notebooks with stories that Mayuko wrote a child, memories of the childhood that Mayuko spent in the bathhouse come flooding back. This coincides with the looming threat of the bathhouse’s shaky financial state finally causing its closure and Mayuko confronts both her actual loss and her fear of loss at the same time. Once she has these issues set aside, she is finally able to truly devote some time to herself and to start appreciating the world and the people around her. Rather than constantly pushing herself, Mayuko now occasionally pauses to enjoy the world around her, as shown when she picks up a fallen leaf just because she thinks it’s pretty. Rather than be stressed out by NieA’s odd behavior, Mayuko has finally started to see a little bit of the magic that both Chiaki and Genzo pointed out to her.
By the end of the series, Mayuko’s life is in balance, and, although she will still have to work hard, she is now able to actually live life instead of just struggle through it. She even understands what a joy NieA is to have around—even if she may not be thrilled by the way she keeps blowing the roof off their room.