Meryl Mei Qi

"Will you take the mission? Or will you back out?"

- Meryl Mei Qi

Meryl Mei Qi (メリル・メイ・チー) is a secondary ally featured in the ninth part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, The JOJOLands.

Meryl Mei is publically a high school principal and the owner of a small fashion boutique, but these are fronts for her true status as the leader of a small criminal gang comprising Jodio Joestar, Dragona Joestar, Paco Laburantes, and another one of her high school students.

Appearance
Meryl Mei is an imposingly tall, plump woman. She towers over the people around her, being two heads taller than Dragona and being nearly level with the doorway to Iko Iko. She has medium colored chin length hair which she wears tied into a blunt ponytail.

Meryl Mei wears a long, loose dress similar to a. It is split at the waist, has a leaf motif, and is decorated with fringes at the hips. She also wears loafers decorated with bow ties and plain stud earrings.

Personality
Meryl leads a triple life as an educator, talented fashion designer, and criminal mastermind.

Under her façade as a well-loved and respectable public figure, Meryl Mei Qi is actually a meticulous crime boss. She is publicly known as a high school principal, where she is loved by the students, all of whom gladly salute her and whom she greets in return. She is also the owner of Iko Iko, a fashion boutique in Kalihi. She personally works on many aspects of the boutique, such as designing the clothing, merchandise, and posters; Jodio admires her work and judges that she could be a successful fashion designer even in Paris or Milan if she ever put her mind to it.

However, Meryl Mei also secretly lives a life of crime as the boss of her own gang. As a crime boss, Meryl is also very cautious and doesn't want to leave any trace of her crimes. For instance, she tells her underlings to shut down their cell phones when discussing their crimes, and hides her address from them. Her shop is also a front to hide the income from her criminal business. As a crime boss, she's well connected, having spies working at Hawaii's customs and having good enough ties with the black market to be able to sell a precious diamond.

The two sides of her seem to have more overlap in personality than would initially seem, as she is seen treating her underlings like young school students, clapping her hands and singing her order for them to shut down their phones, although it's ambiguous if she's acting this way only due to them being literal high schoolers.

Background
Meryl Mei supposedly has a handsome husband and child at home, though her address is a mystery. She is primarily the principal of McKinley High School. However, she is also the boss of a criminal organization and seemingly recruits students from her school to be part of her gang.

Furthermore, she has a side business as the proprietress of the Iko Iko fashion boutique store in order to hide her illegitimate income. The designs of the fashion posters on the wall behind her in her office as well as the clothing and merchandise sold at Iko Iko are all done by Meryl Mei herself.

The JOJOLands
Meryl Mei summons Jodio, Dragona, and Paco to Iko Iko for their next mission. She makes an announcement to close the shop and then orders the three gang members to turn off their phones. Meryl Mei then shows the gang members a photograph of a natural 24-carat blue diamond on her phone, which she says has a value of at least 6 million US dollars. The crime boss's contacts among the customs officials of have let her know that a Japanese tourist has declared the diamond in his possession, and that he owns a villa on  where he will likely be staying for the next 12 days. She intends to sell the diamond on the black market, taking a cut of 18% and giving her subordinates 2%. As Jodio mulls over his role in the operation, Paco and Dragona decide on behalf of the group to undertake the task. However, Meryl Mei reveals that they will actually be going on the heist as a team of four, revealing the fourth member of the team to be the upperclassman who Jodio and Paco sold drugs to at school earlier that day. The two express their misgivings about roping in a customer but Meryl Mei assures them that he is not a drug addict and will benefit the operation.