Lan Fan

Lan Fan (ランファン, Ranfan) is a retainer of the Xing Empire's Yao Clan, a personal bodyguard of Prince Ling Yao and the grandchild of Ling's senior bodyguard, Fu. She is fiercely loyal to her prince; insults to his name cause her to fly into a rage (overwhelming her better judgment and dulling her usually sharp combat abilities) and she becomes flustered when unmasked in his presence.

Appearance
Lan Fan is a young girl with back-length black hair usually tied back in a bun with the bangs loose and framing her face, dark brown eyes, and a lean, muscular, and fairly curvaceous figure. Her usual attire consists of a black Xingese secret soldier uniform covered by a layer of body armor. On her hands and forearms, she wears fingerless gloves with forearm/hand protectors lined with small spikes along the knuckles. Lan Fan usually keeps her face hidden on missions behind a red and white mask with the Yin half of the Yin-Yang symbol on the forehead (Fu's mask bears the other half).

After losing her left arm on the battlefield, Lan Fan has a combat automail replacement built for her while abroad. It is gunmetal-colored and its shoulder attachments are shielded by what appears to be a steel variation of Xingese plate armor. For combat, it is adorned with a spike strip wound around the hand as well as a long sword blade extending from the bottom of the elbow.

Personality
Usually quiet and shy (when unmasked) in Ling's presence, Lan Fan generally keeps to herself unless prompted, and like Edward, she has a propensity for being brash when angered. Her determination and loyalty can also be blunt almost to a fault whenever Ling and his goals are involved. She worries incessantly about the young prince wandering off constantly and will be found watching him more often than not. It is also revealed in the manga she has trouble expressing proper etiquette, such as saying a simple "thank you", especially to those she would consider "lower" than Ling.

She is known for not just her creativity and skill on the battlefield, but also for her undivided loyalty to a cause she deems worthy to fight for.

Relationships
Ling Yao - As a clandestine soldier and retainer of the Yao clan, Lan Fan's duty to protect Ling is in her very blood, passed down her family line for generations. In that vein, her devotion to the young lord's safety and well-being is remarkable and she is more than willing to tend to his every command and sacrifice her life and body to protect him. Lan Fan's adherence to Ling is exceedingly strong, with the young girl becoming unnaturally flustered when unmasked in his presence and recklessly angry when he is insulted by others, and not denying that he is "very special" to her, when asked by Van Hohenheim.

Fu - Despite their familial bond, Lan Fan acts as an efficient and obedient subordinate to her grandfather, showing what appears to be a strictly professional face when on missions with him. However, even her duties as a soldier of the Yao clan cannot erase the love she has for the old man. She apologizes sorrowfully for disappointing him and cares deeply for his well-being, though she knows that in her heart and for her honor, Ling's safety comes first. Lan Fan was nearly as distraught as Ling when she witnessed her grandfather's death but managed to stay more emotionally stable. Later when she confronted Wrath (King Bradley) who was responsible for her grandfather's death, rather than seek revenge, she asked if there was anyone he ever truly loved.

Abilities
Lan Fan is an extremely skilled combatant, well-versed in the use of Xingese martial arts in both armed and hand-to-hand styles. She has been shown to be able to easily overwhelm a seasoned combatant the likes of Edward Elric and inhuman beasts like the Homunculi. Like most skilled Xingese warriors, she has the ability to sense other people's chi, giving her an edge in battle and the ability to identify the Homunculi, whose life energy is twisted by the large amount of souls trapped inside them. Lan Fan herself is particularly skilled in the use of kunai and quite partial to the use of explosives in combat. Her skills are further enhanced with her Automail which has a unique large blade protruding from the elbow, in which she was able to nearly kill the Homunculus Gluttony by herself with ease, attacking him numerous times before he could react.

Trivia

 * Lan Fan appears on the binding of manga Volume 16.
 * Her seiyū, Mizuki Nana, also played Wrath in the 2003 anime series, and Armony Eiselstein from the video game Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel.
 * Lan Fan also bears a resemblance to Tachibana from Arakawa's one shot Raiden 18.
 * Lan Fan means cold rice in Cantonese/Chinese. A joke was made during the mid-show intermissions showing a picture of Lan Fan eating a bowl of rice during one of the episodes.
 * The kanji most often used for Lan Fan's name on Japanese fanart are readable as "orchid fragrance." As Lan Fan's name is only written in katakana in the Japanese manga, this translation is probably fanon.
 * The Chinese version of the manga uses the aforementioned characters 蘭芳・兰芳, read as lán fāng in Mandarin.
 * Lan Fan has two theme songs from the Brotherhood album. The first is called "Sora Kaze," which means "sky breeze" in Japanese, and the second is called "Sotto, sotto," which means "softly, softly." Both are sung by her seiyu, Nana Mizuki.
 * Lan Fan shares the same English voice actress, Trina Nishimura, with Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan whose devotion to Eren Yeager mirrors Lan Fan's devotion to her prince.