Yuna was a normal schoolgirl who dreamed of becoming an idol singer, and she entered the "Galaxy Fraulein Contest." When she won, she was on her way to becoming an idol -- but that night a fairy-looking robot named Elnar suddenly appeared in her bedroom, scaring the crap out of her! The contest had really been to determine who should be the Savior of Light and oppose the Forces of Darkness.

Her first task was to seek out Jina, Erina and Marina to allow her entry into the World of Darkness.

It seems as though she was more ditzy and less compassionate at the beginning of the first game; her character develops over the course of the Yuna series.

Back to my notes from the third game:

Yuna is really big into friendship. If she could, she would make friends with everyone in the universe. She even usually makes friends with her enemies and rivals. All her allies recognize the fact that this is her biggest weakness: if she perceives that there's any chance she can convert an enemy to the side of good, she'll risk everything to make that happen rather than fight against them.

Yuna is an unusual Anime heroine in that for the most part she doesn't take the series plot seriously at all. ^_^ The bad guy says "See this control chip? If you had this, you could save the Earth! So... you want it?" Yuna looks at her quizically and says "You'll give it to us?" Or, Elnar says "Oh no, we're caught in an nth-dimension singularity, the eternal resting place of all that is lost in the universe!" Yuna thinks for a second and says "Well, I didn't catch a word of that but I don't like this place so let's get out of here." The only time Yuna gets serious is when somebody wants to harm one of her friends; when that happens, she won't hesitate a moment to fight.

In fact -- and this is something which isn't really explained in any of the Yuna saga I've seen so far, so most of this is my theory -- there appears to be more than one Yuna. Or perhaps the Savior of Light isn't quite the same person as Yuna. Whereas Yuna usually doesn't take things very seriously and has decent but not exceptional fighting abilities, she showed in the second Yuna OAV an "alternate form" with a downright vengeful feel and extremely powerful combat capability. This transformation occurs when one of her dearest friends has just been killed (if you've seen the OAV you know who I'm talking about). Normally I would chalk it up her being severely pissed, but not only does she have a completely different look about her, she actually has a slightly different battlesuit. The parts of her suit where her skin usually shows through turn BLACK. It's not a drawing error, either; after she bursts through a wall of flame, deflects several explosions, punches the crap out of her enemy and then impales her on a huge spike, some flaps on her suit open and vent exhaust and the black parts of the suit smoothly fade away. Not only that, but in the intro to Yuna 3 there are two very quick flashes of the black outfit; they have a rather menacing look. One possibility is that this alternate form is triggered when Yuna, the Savior of Light, lets darkness surface within her (like thoughts of hatred and vengeance). Another possibility is that it's just a second-level transformation that she usually isn't adept enough to activate, and in this instance her will was strong enough to unlock it. Yet another possibility is that usually Yuna is just Yuna with a battlesuit, and that this "alternate form" is the real Savior of Light.

Dark Battlesuit	Normal Battlesuit	Dark Battlesuit
Stills from Yuna 3 OP