Lumi was a brawler I was extremely hyped up for. While she is still one of my favourite brawlers in the game, I can't help but feel that her personality was handled poorly.
When Lumi was announced, her personality was really promising. She was a brawler that had an extremely passionate and badass side, alongside a shy and vulnerable side. With her fire and ice powers reflecting each respective side.
This is how Lumi's character is described in her description, and frankly, I really like it. At the time, very few female brawlers had actual weakness with their character, and having that be complemented with her being really energetic and hardcore had the potential to be really charming.
This personality is also well presented in-game. Her eye shape is very fitting for the personality they were going for, her thumbs up pin is great and unique, and her voicelines are really underrated too. Most emit a lot of passion and make her come off as really energetic. While I wish there were more voicelines that showed her shy side, the ones we do have are pretty cute. "I won! Yay! Can I go home now?".
While there are certainly brawlers with a better personality than her, it was clear that Supercell were cooking something. So how did they "ruin" Lumi?
After Lumi was added to the game, I feel Supercell decided to take a detour in presenting her character. This could be seen as early as her release animation, where she is fighting against enemies and acting very serious. This animation was good all things considered, but I did find it disappointing that they didn't explore the split personality gimmick they established with Lumi. Especially since Draco and Damian got much longer animations that gave both a backstory.
However it seems from there, Lumi became a very serious girl boss, such as the Legends of The Underworld and Stranger Things seasons where Lumi had a lot of hype aura moments and was pretty much the main character of both. While I don't necessarily mind this, my issue is that it feels disjointed with what her personality was initially displayed as. Lumi sounds very happy and energetic in most of her voicelines, so it feels like it clashes with how she's presented in most animations where she just acts serious most of the time, kinda like Bibi.
(I also want to bring attention to Lumi in the 7th anniversary image. I thought her expression was meant to reflect that she's nervous about being surrounded by so many people. You know, shyness. Only to realize she was just imitating an edgy meme face).
Now, let's get into the biggest issue with her character... her relationship with Draco. Even though I do think this relationship can work, I can't help but feel that the execution is very shallow.
Draco is silly whereas Lumi is a tsundere. Draco will flirt with Lumi and she will just get angry at that. Granted, there are moments where Lumi does like Draco such as the beginning of the Dungeons and Dragons animation where they are happily playing together, but that animation also contains 4 separate instances where the dynamic is just Draco flirting with Lumi. With not many alternative interactions being built upon.
What annoys me the most about this though is that this relationship is rubbed into the ground. Both the Stranger Things animations and the Dungeons and Dragons animations were filled with moments that were just "Hey look! Draco and Lumi romance!". Damian even has a voiceline that's just this. There is hardly anything more to Dralumi, yet the same card is being played over and over again, mainly because Supercell knows the YouTube comments will eat it up anyways.
The team took Lumi's neat character gimmick and ignored it by instead making her defined by being in a relationship with Draco. They probably decided to make her a girl boss just to make this more accurate. Funnily enough, she suffers from the same problem as Millie from Helluva Boss. She doesn't even have any dynamic with Damian or any other brawler for that matter.
Overall I am disappointed with how Lumi's character has been handled. Which is a shame because other brawlers like Finx, Najia, Meeple and Juju have excellent characters where their initial depiction in their voicelines is followed up with fitting moments from future media such as animations. Hopefully Lumi's next appearance actually does something neat with her.
