I am not the type of person who can easily fall in love with anime girls, but Nilou somehow managed to be a major exception.
When I first saw Nilou, I did not know her name or the game she came from, as all I had to go off of was random profile pictures. All it took was a random guess that she was from Genshin Impact and looking at this wiki to discover her identity.
My relationship with Nilou was truly love on first sight; she's a dancing girl that can control water and has a pure heart. As someone who performed on stage with a theater troupe at my school, Nilou's role is something I felt I could relate to. Being a redhead, she also reminded me of Ariel from The Little Mermaid, who I grew up with in my childhood.
Eventually, Nilou inspired me to start playing Genshin Impact, and so I created my account a little after her first rerun ended. Little did I know that I would be saving for over a year just for this girl I love.
In the middle of 4.0, I made a plan for my account, which was to pull for Yelan, who was rerunning at the time, as well as Nahida and of course Nilou. Although I'm not a meta player and wanted to play Nilou in my own way, I still wanted to have fun with blowing things up, and felt having two other characters to do this was appropriate for my account.
Eventually, I would come to realize that 168 is a cursed number, because there were exactly 168 days between the start of the Yelan and Nahida banners I pulled on, and exactly 168 days between the start of the Nahida and Nilou banners I pulled on.
The wait was long and draining, but in the end, it was worth it. About two days before the 4.8 livestream, it was revealed that Dani Chambers (Nilou's VA) would feature there. Alongside an artwork that was nothing but cute, seeing the first preview of Nilou becoming relevant in-game again after over a year made me really happy.
Then the stream happened, and I was lost in joy. Nilou rerun, Nilou skin, and Nilou summer event, all of which I witnessed with her VA. Up until this point, whether or not I would spend on this game for Nilou pulls was just a question, but with the skin announced, I just had no choice. I had fully accepted myself as a Nilou simp, something I truly take pride in.
Unlike the two previous 5-star characters I pulled for, in which I was trying to be conservative with my pulls, I spent everything for Nilou. I obtained her, the Key, and went for her constellations. C6 obtained, I have truly devoted myself to her.
