Paper Star is an agent of V.I.L.E., a VILE Academy trainee granted permission to take down her rival and former classmate, Carmen Sandiego. She can use her origami skills to turn paper into various razor-sharp weapons, most often shuriken.
Paper Star is played by actress Kimiko Glenn.
Personality[]
Paper Star is sadistic and unpredictable, taking great enjoyment out of her missions and being willing to inflict pain on others to get what she wants. Despite her cruelty, she also possesses an extremely high intellect, enough to earn favor with Maelstrom and rivaling that of Carmen Sandiego herself. Due to her capable athleticism and origami skills, she is able to easily counter Carmen in melee combat unless the latter uses trickery or spoils her paper supplies.
She also noted that Le Chevre was likely to fail the mission if she gave the Magna Carta to him, stating with sardonic humor that he was the kind of person who would end up getting caught, suggesting that she is a very good judge of character. She is sarcastic and nonchalant, cracking witticisms and making casual threats towards others both in fights and out of them. She appears to be the daring type, registering a train trip to Agra under the name "Tammy Origami" as a veiled taunt towards Carmen during her heist in Mumbai. Her personality is also marked by a disdain for protocol; she often flouts her superiors' orders in order to do things her way, and rarely gets along with others she works alongside.
Among Paper Star's quirks is an affinity for paper of all kinds; she becomes excited when she obtains new paper, regardless of type. She tends to skip as she walks, and frequently hums the same four-note melody.
As noted above, Paper Star is not above using torture tactics if it means achieving her goals and appears to show no hesitation in using them on her own ally when Le Chevre tries to refuse her. This all suggests that, much like Carmen, the only side Paper Star is truly on is her own.
Physical description[]
Paper Star is a slender, fair-skinned young Japanese woman (possibly in her late teens to early 20s) with long hair with straight bangs that had been split-dyed into two shades of blue - navy-blue (right) and aqua-blue (left). Her hair is also styled into buns that vaguely resembles horns. She also sport dark brown sanpaku-eyes, multicolored-nails, and makeup which consists of thick eyeliner and plum-purple lipstick on her plump lips.
For attire, Paper Star wears an extravagant, neon-green leather jacket with small dark silver spikes on the shoulders and around the cuffs, dark silver studs on the front and on the popped collar, as well as a blue and orange patch sewn on the right side. Under her jacket, she wears a navy-blue V.I.L.E. stealth-suit which has a design of an orange "V" on the center and a round dull-silver zipper hanging from the high collar. She also wore thigh-high dull-purple platform boots with darker-colored soles and accessorized purple utility straps: one around her right thigh and two around her left thigh, with three of them having buckles which sport a similar design to the zipper on her suit.
Biography[]
Not much is known about Paper Star's backstory. She attended VILE Academy during Carmen's make-up year, has an affinity for making very sharp origami objects, much to Shadowsan's chagrin, and is a dangerously erratic individual, much to the delight of Professor Malestrom and to the dislike of Le Chevre when he first meets her.
Carmen had her first encounter with her during the year she was held back. In the book, “Who In The World is Carmen Sandiego?”, Carmen mentions that she would give her extra origami paper when she asked for it in Shadowsan's class. Carmen once complimented her handiwork on an origami army she made, before Paper Star beheaded the army with a paper shuriken. Despite her unruly and cruel behavior, Paper Star has proven to be a prodigy, much like Carmen.
Paper Star was deployed for duty after "The Opera in the Outback Caper" was foiled by Carmen and her team. This allowed for the Faculty to send her on her first mission in "The Chasing Paper Caper", where she was assigned to steal seventeen original copies of the Magna Carta in Mumbai, India. While Carmen was doing her last surveillance check, she noticed that the security cameras were out, a paper star embedded in each of them. It was then that she realized Paper Star was nearby. When Paper Star was in the room housing the Magna Carta, she attempted to steal it but was intercepted by Carmen. She and Carmen broke out into a fight, with Paper Star having the upper hand until she ran out of origami paper. Carmen tried to strike, but Paper Star claimed the nearby brochures and folded them into more paper stars. She then took the Magna Carta and fled to a different room. Carmen followed Paper Star's incessant humming until encountering her again, then engaged a fight between the two, this time in close combat. The fight ended when Paper Star tore off a paper banner hanging on the ceiling of the museum, mummifying Carmen before yanking a security alarm and escaping. Carmen fished out a small knife and tried to tear the paper. She succeeded, and escaped herself before ACME or local law enforcement could arrive.
While she did not succeed in her mission, she did return to V.I.L.E. Academy with something much more valuable: Chase Devineaux's A.C.M.E. ID card. Thanks to her theft, Dr. Bellum was able to reverse engineer it and learn more about the detective agency.
Later, she was brought to Japan by V.I.L.E. agent Lady Dokuso, to aid her in setting a trap for former V.I.L.E. faculty member Shadowsan, who had arrived in Matsumoto. Paper Star acted as a decoy to distract Carmen while Lady Dokuso stole the wakizashi from a daisho that Shadowsan had tried to steal in his youth, thinking he had returned to Japan to complete the set.
The Daisho Caper's second confrontation between Paper Star and Carmen happens when Carmen attempts to reclaim the sword. While initially on the back foot thanks to a set of hanging paper lanterns Paper Star is able to improvise weapons out of, Carmen and her crew manage to turn the tables by drenching the lanterns in glue, making them useless for origami and tangling Paper Star up.
She is later partnered up with Tigress on a mission to infiltrate a charity Halloween party being hosted in the mansion of famous New Orleans chef, the Crawfish King, in order to abduct him so that The Cleaners could use a retinal scan app to transfer the charity money out of his account and into V.I.L.E.'s. Carmen and her team managed to rescue him before the funds could be transferred, but Paper Star discovered a secret safe in the hidden catacombs of the mansion. Using her skills, she fashioned an origami key and unlocked the safe, discovering that inside was the secret recipe for the Crawfish King's seasoning, which had been passed down to him from his great-great-grandmother. She swiped it and attempted to escape with it, but Carmen managed to distract her with a ghost story about the Crawfish King's great-great-grandmother, then startle her using Red Drone disguised as a ghost. Paper Star panicked and stumbled, dropping the recipe and falling off the balcony into the moat, where the Cleaners and Tigress arrived in an airboat to pick her up.
In the series finale episode, The Dark Red Caper, she was one of the V.I.L.E. operatives shown to still be at large on ACME's list. Two years later, ACME agents Chase, Julia, Zack, and Ivy find her tied up at the front of a museum by Carmen.
Abilities[]
Paper Star has incredible origami skills, specializing in folding paper throwing stars sharp enough to cut through stone. She is not limited to merely origami paper, and can use any paper on hand. She can use them as daggers or throwing weapons, and can fold them fast enough to make a veritable storm of razor origami art. In The Haunted Bayou Caper, she was also able to fold a sword out of kitchen-grade aluminum foil sharp enough to pierce a wooden bowl.
Naturally, Paper Star's weapons have the weaknesses of their material: in The Chasing Paper Caper, a high wind atop the train to Agra blows her weapons off course, and getting wet or being coated in glue makes her origami creations droop and lose their edges. In addition, unless Paper Star has or is able to procure paper to fold, she is forced to rely on hand-to-hand combat.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
- V.I.L.E.
- Dr. Gunnar Maelstrom - Teacher.
- Le Chevre - Colleague and Victim.
- Lady Dokuso - Mentor
Enemies[]
- Carmen Sandiego - Former Colleague, Rival, and Attempted Victim.
In other languages[]
| Language | Name | Meaning | Voice Actor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish (American) | Papelera | Paper Bin | Desireé González |
| Spanish (European) | Paperstar | - | Desiree Álvarez |
| French | Origamine | - | Emmylou Homs |
| Dutch | Paperstar | - | Fé van Kessel |
| Polish | Origamia | Origami | Jagoda Stach |
| Portuguese | Estrela de Papel | Paper Star | Isabel Queirós |
| Turkish | Paperstar | - | Ayşegül Bingöl |
| Italian | Paperstar | - | Francesca Rinaldi |
| Finnish | Paperitähti | ? | Ilona Chevakova |
| German | Paperstar | - | Peggy Pollow |
| Japanese | ペーパースター
Pēpā sutā |
Paper Star | ? |
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Productions[]
Books[]
Renders[]
Videos[]
Paper Star Attacks! - Carmen Sandiego - Netflix
Trivia[]
- Paper Star bears some resemblance to the popular singer Melanie Martinez, whether this was intentional or not is currently uncertain.
- Paper Star has a (slightly disturbing) habit of humming a high-pitched tune before striking.
- She is a foil to Carmen as Shadowsan views them both as being too reckless. But whereas he truly cares for Carmen and knew she was too moral for VILE, he probably knew that Paper Star was a psychopath and thus truly disliked her.
- Paper Star likely represents what Carmen would've become if she choose to give up her morals and fully embrace V.I.L.E.'s ideals.
- Paper Star is one of the youngest V.I.L.E. students. Since Carmen's escape, she is the youngest V.I.L.E. operative.
| Carmen Sandiego (2019) characters | ||
|---|---|---|
| Team Red | Carmen Sandiego • Player • Zack • Ivy • Shadowsan • Sonia • Hideo | |
| A.C.M.E. | The Chief • Chase Devineaux • Julia Argent • Agent Zari • A.C.M.E Agent | |
| V.I.L.E. | Faculty | Professor Maelstrom • Coach Brunt • Saira Bellum • Countess Cleo |
| Operatives | Crackle • Tigress • El Topo • Le Chevre • Dash Haber • Paper Star • Mime Bomb • The Cleaners • Cookie Booker • The Captain • Lady Dokuso • Roundabout • The Mechanic • The Driver • Neal the Eel • Moose Boy • Otter Man • Spinkick • Flytrap • Marta Contreras • The Troll | |
| Others | Dr. Pilar Marquez • Miro • Dr. Jeanine Dennam • Sharkhead Eddie • Trey Sterling • Sterling Sterling • Ibrahim Al Sibaq • Commander • Interpol Supervisor • Dexter Wolfe • Vera Cruz • Lupe Peligro • Huang Li • Xifeng • Oxtail | |