Rika is the type of person who, in the beginning of the
series, sees Digimon as nothing more than mere computer data, wanting her
partner, Renamon, to be the strongest Digimon ever. But she eventally realizes
that the two must be on equal partnership and friendship. She is very bitter and slightly antisocial thanks to her parents' divorce (as a result, her shirt in the beginning of the series has a blue heart broken in two), but Takato Matsuki (Takato Matsuda) and Henry Wong (Jenrya Li) manage to bring out the best in her. She lost a tournament to Ryo Akiyama two years before the series begins, which explains why she resents him. Rika takes Jeri Katou (Juri Katou) under her wing, teaching her about Digimon Taming when Jeri becomes a Tamer.
Rika's relationship with Renamon is unusual, more as a human contemporary than either a pet (like Guilmon was) or a playful child (like Terriermon). Rika's proud, independent, grouchy and cynical personality is substantially different than most of the female characters in the series. The exact reasons for this are unknown, although her mother is unusually young and her father is absent.