Characters / A3! Winter

A3! Main Character Index
Spring Troupe | Summer Troupe | Autumn Troupe | Winter Troupe

I wanna be on this Stage. I can't think of anything else.

Character page for the members of the Winter Troupe of A3!.

The Winter Troupe (冬組; fuyugumi) is one of the Mankai Company's four theater units, specializing in soft, subtle, and serious dramas.

The current generation is called the Reborn Winter Troupe (新生冬組 shinsei fuyugumi), led by experienced actor (on hiatus) Tsumugi Tsukioka. Their first play performed was Sympathy for the Angel. Their representative color is azure.

Note: Characters on this page all have their names listed in Western order— given names followed by surnames.

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• The Ace: Because the Winter Troupe has two members with years of stage experience and its members overall consist entirely of mature adults, they are able to work out the kinks in their acting much faster than the other groups. Compared to the previous troupes, whose main stories revolved around the characters' struggles with acting, Act 4's conflict arises more from Winter Troupe members' personal hangups and the act-off with the God Troupe.
  • Broken Ace: However, due to everyone being adults with overall Darker and Edgier Dark and Troubled Past, most of them respect each other's boundaries and try to not pry too much. It causes most of their more personal conflicts harder to be resolved.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Winter Troupe members are generally laid-back and often serve as mentor figures to the younger members of the company, yet they have been said to be terrifying on multiple occasions. Sakyo, who is often feared by other members of the company, is unnerved around Tsumugi, and Azuma also gets a kick out of teasing him. When Summer Troupe asks Azuma and Hisoka where they are heading to in Special Edition: How to enjoy midsummer, Hisoka simply tells them they are heading to a war meeting. Hisoka means Guy's bar, to discuss trip plans with the rest of the Winter Troupe, but Summer Troupe is shocked.
  • It is worth noting that, despite being a peaceful bunch who likes growing plants, the animals of Winter Troupe in A7 are mostly ferocious predators.
• Darker and Edgier: Winter Troupe tends to perform plays that are tragic or dramatic in nature. Tsuzuru remarks that Sympathy for the Angel is the first play he's written that doesn't end happily.
  • In the series of short stories in Girl's Berry 2017, Spring Troupe cooked osechi, Summer Troupe played snowball fight, Autumn Troupe went to karaoke, and then Winter Troupe got lost in a snowstorm. In [Mankai Glitter] Azuma backstage, this story is brought up and even Hisoka notes that they almost died.
• Drink-Based Characterization: According to Episode 8 Chapter 23, these are the Winter Troupe's drinks of choice:

  Tsumugi: Plum wine. Old-fashioned.

  Tasuku: Japanese sake. No frills.

  Hisoka: Sangria. Fits his sweet tooth.

  Homare: Cocktails. Not specified as to what kind, but it's bright and colorful.

  Azuma: French wine. Classy.

• Hidden Depths: And how. One of Winter Troupe defining characteristics is how there is always more into them than their exterior shows. Part of the plot of Act 8 is Tsumugi suggesting that Guy observe Winter Troupe members after making the initial impression of them. The observation result?
  Guy: I have learned that everyone differs from my initial assessment.
• Image Song: "to bloom..." in Part 1 and "Precious to Us ~Bokura no Kisetsu~" in Part 2.
• Informed Attribute: May cross over to Characterization Marches On. Early on, Winter Troupe is often shown to be not very athletically-inclined and Tasuku often complains about it, such as Azuma having low stamina and being visibly tired after a practice session in Act 4. Leader Conference 2.5 audio drama also has Tsumugi saying that Winter Troupe is not physically strong. But as the story goes on, Azuma has decent stamina and is revealed to frequent a gym to stay in shape. He does not struggle at the gym during the core training for Dance with Butterfly either. Homare is capable of pulling off advanced ballroom dance moves such as pivots and sliding doors as shown in his [Noble Adult] backstage, manages to jump and strike a pose while figure skating in Kiss&Cry in the Holy Night, pick up kung fu without a fuss in Midnight Chinatown, and hug a thief to submission in hAve A greAt trip. He also has a naturally strong core that lets him ride a skateboard well in SK∞ the Infinity × A3! and is capable of carrying Muku on his back while traversing through a blizzard in Special Edition: Snowfall Street.
• In Vino Veritas: Whenever the Winter Troupe hits the bar, the members may show interesting changes after drinking, much to Azuma's amusement. Tsumugi and Tasuku are even bigger theater nerds and will argue about acting endlessly. Homare is a Sentimental Drunk. Azuma and Hisoka Never Gets Drunk, but according to one of the mini-chats, Sakyo says that Azuma does annoying things with Homare when they get drunk.
• Irony: Winter Troupe specializes in drama, yet when you put all Winter members in a show team, they get two (three after part 2) action link skills.
• Luxurious Liquor: Winter Troupe often bonds over alcohol, usually with high-quality ones provided by Azuma, and a lot of their official artworks feature them drinking. The bloomed Tsumugi SSR from The MANKAI Dorm in Those Days - Autumn/Winter Edition event also features the entire Winter Troupe holding a glass of champagne.
• Magic Knight: Their A6 incarnations are these, specializing in both swordsmanship and magic. However, it is a bit of an Informed Attribute as Tsumugi, Hisoka, Azuma, and Homare have more emphasis on magic and none of the swordsmanship.
• Manchild: The troupe's Hidden Depths, mainly Played for Laughs. They may look calm and mature outside, but inside they are chaotic; as said by Tasuku in the official fanbook, the only thing "adult" about Winter Troupe is their average age. In one of the 5th anniversary Instelive, Tsumugi also admits that Winter Troupe may be the oldest age-wise, but is actually the most childish. Yuki calls them out multiple times to act their age. To wit, Tsumugi and Tasuku would still argue about who draws a dog better. Tsumugi's [Die by the Sword] R even had them insult each others' Zabi nerikiri until Kazu stopped them. In Azuma's [Die by the Sword] N, eager to hear Azuma's slip up in the rhyming game, Homare dragged Tasuku into eavesdropping Azuma...which didn't work because Azuma soon discovered them.
• Master of All: Befitting their The Ace status, as far as the current meta goes, Winter Troupe aces in all three attributes for teambuilding. Tsumugi, Homare, and Azuma are the best characters in Ac, Co, and Dr meta respectively (alongside Tenma and Muku from the Summer Troupe for the first two). While Tasuku, Hisoka, and Guy do not shine as much, they are still usable in numerous optimum builds without any noticeable weakness across the three attributes.
  • Full Winter Troupe build itself has multiplier across three attributes if you use Y3 cards, making it possible to clear shows with minimum SP by filling the whole team with simply every single member of Winter Troupe if you pull the banner and bloom the cards for Winter Troupe plays and anniversary events. Dr has 60% from the troupe link skill. Ac has 39% from Childhood Friends, Marshmallow Supply 2, and Rookie & Leader (Winter). Co has 15% from Freeters 3.
• Men Don't Cry: Averted, and Yuki even commented about it in Act 4. Everyone in the troupe has cried at some point, such as Hisoka recalling his memories of August and reminiscing with Chikage, the entire troupe after winning the duel act against God Troupe, Azuma visiting his old family house with Tasuku and discovering the hair comb his brother never managed to deliver as a birthday gift, Guy realizing that he is a human and not an android, and Homare's bouts of Sentimental Drunk although this is a lighthearted example compared to the others. In the anime, Tsumugi cried as Tasuku delivered the words he never managed to say when Tsumugi failed the God Troupe audition. The kicker? Homare encouraged crying your heart out when they won the duel act, and Tasuku did the same to Azuma during the visit to Azuma's old family house.
  • They also perform drama and tragedy on stage. The anime also shows Michael and Raphael, Tsumugi's and Tasuku's characters respectively, crying in the play during the duel act, and the stage play has Kota, Tasuku's character, sob into Reo's jacket at the very end.
• Poor Communication Kills: The troupe's general conflict. Everyone's unwillingness to open up to each other, Tasuku's inability to speak up after Tsumugi failed the God Troupe audition caused Tsumugi to quit acting and started a conflict between the two, Homare being Innocently Insensitive and far too blunt with his words almost broke the group up, etc. They get better.
• Significant Birth Date: They all have birthdays that fall in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter (December-February).
• Tragic Ice Character: Winter Troupe members have Darker and Edgier Dark and Troubled Past in general. They also specialize in drama and tragedy.

Tsumugi Tsukioka

Voiced by: Atsushi Tamaru
Portrayed by: Fuma Sadamoto (2023-present), Yoshihiko Aramaki (2019-2023)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play

Click ^here to see him in the stage play and movies (2019-2023)

A part-timer, Tsumugi is an acting enthusiast who participated in a couple of school-run plays before certain events led to him quitting from acting. Tsumugi joins the Winter Troupe with hopes of renewing his dream of becoming an actor, and his experience leads to his appointment as troupe leader. A mild-mannered and timid young man, he is childhood friends with Tasuku and attends to the Mankai Theater's gardens.

"...There's nothing I want more than to act on that stage with you."

Age: 24 (Part 1), 25 (Part 2), 26 (Part 3)

Height: 175cm

Birthday: December 28

Blood Type: O

Occupation: Part-timer (private tutor)

Hobbies: Gardening

Image color: Blue

Motif flower: Narcissus (Daffodil)

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• Alliterative Name: Tsumugi Tsukioka.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Most of Tsumugi's characters in plays go through unrequited love. During Act 9, Tsumugi's unrequited love towards acting is brought up.
• Affectionate Nickname: Tasuku sometimes calls him "Tsumu", a nickname from their childhood.
• Athletically Challenged: Tsumugi is stiff and clumsy and can even fall while holding onto the railing while ice skating. It gets messy when he is to perform in sports-related plays such as Dance with Butterfly and SK∞ the Infinity × A3!. Though for the latter, although he joins the skateboarding practice (and fails), he ends up playing a retired skateboarder without any skateboarding scene.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Azami and Tsumugi's coin-earning chats has Azami remark that Tsumugi has a plain, but symmetrical face that lends to crossdressing. In his MANKAI Playback card, it turns out that there is an old photograph hidden in his yearbook from when Tsumugi crossdressed for a school festival. Izumi is the only one that looked at it, but she says that he makes a cute girl. The Inner Garden event later calls upon Tsumugi to crossdress as a courtesan where a photograph of him with Homare earns compliments from Kazunari and Kumon.
  • [Recommended Camping Coffee] backstage has him crossdress as a punishment game. As he goes to shop at a convenience store as part of the punishment game, he gets hit on by several guys. Even Izumi notes that everyone's eyes are on him.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: According to Tasuku's Role Study: Raoul. The Winter Troupe heaped praise upon hearing Tsumugi sing during karaoke. His role as Chris in the Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a fitting one due to his talent.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Discussed in one of his backstage, in which he once snapped when his teacher pulled a prank. Even Tasuku was shocked.
  • In the anime, he lets his anger show in a skit between him and Tasuku, snapping and putting things out there very bluntly. Tasuku later compliments the acting, but then Tsumugi reveals that he is actually angry, much to Tasuku's shock.
• Be Yourself: The crux of Tsumugi's character development is tied to his self-esteem which is marred by his constant self-comparisons to Tasuku. Tsumugi once was confident in his own skills as an actor, but after a harsh rejection by Reni, Tsumugi gauged his lack of success by harmful comparisons with Tasuku's career. Tsumugi envied Tasuku's strong stage presence, but only learns to carry on his own strength after his failed attempt at mimicking Tasuku's acting style and Tasuku's admittance that he always envied Tsumugi's subtle style.
• Bridal Carry: Gets carried like this by Tasuku when he falls sick, much to Tsumugi's embarrassment.
• Born Lucky: According to his birthday backstage, he was once banned from a snack shop because he kept winning free snacks. Even at the present time, when it comes to said snack, he is still winning it and his streak has yet to be broken.
• Caring Gardener: A Nice Guy who loves gardening.
• Celibate Hero: He once had a girlfriend, much to Tasuku's surprise, but then decided to break up because he wanted to focus on theater and was afraid that he couldn't maintain the relationship.
• Childhood Friends: With Tasuku. Tsumugi giving up on acting put their friendship to an end until Tasuku joined the Mankai Theater troupe, where they have a chance to fix it.
• Coat Cape: Wears one in the anime opening.
• Commonality Connection: He and Masumi are both Raised by Grandparents and love their grandmas a lot, hence their friendship. This becomes important when Act 5 comes.
• Crosscast Role: Foreshadowed as early as his Cash-Earning Chat with Tsuzuru, who wants to write a female role for him. It finally happens in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden, where he plays as Yoiyama, a lady in the inner palace.
• Curtains Match the Window: Has blue eyes and hair.
• Dissonant Serenity: Tsumugi's smile may be gentle, but has been noted to be quite scary, as he can smile this way as he says disturbing things such as in Act 11. In Dance with Butterfly, he also gives such a smile as he verbally tears Tasuku.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of Episode 4. Tsumugi regains his passion in acting, patches things up with Tasuku, and proves himself in front of Reni, the president of God Troupe and the person who once mocked his acting, at the end of the act-off.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He sounds deeper than usual when he plays Lucifer in Stray Devil Blues.
• Failures on Ice: In Kiss & Cry in the Holy Night. Tasuku says that Tsumugi can't even stand up while skating, and later when they do skate, he slips while holding onto the railing.
• Flower Motifs: Narcissus. Since he was raised by his grandmother, he actually knows the meanings behind his flower (one of them is "I want you to love/like me again" and "return to my side."), and he mentions in a backstage story that he can relate to them because of the time he and Tasuku drifted apart.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Has a pet dog named Zabi at home. It is his and Tasuku's doodle too. His bag also has a dog keychain, the item he used for Mankai Memory photoshoot was a dog plushie, and his outfit in his child sprite has a dog.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Getting rejected in the audition to enter the God Troupe is a big blow to his self-esteem as an actor and for a majority of Act 4, he lacked confidence in his acting. Despite multiple characters with theatre experience including Yuzo commenting on his skill as an actor.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Once again, with Tasuku, due to their Childhood Friends status. Though it's more of theatre partners, in this case. And considering some of their interactions, one might wonder at the Hetero part, as well.
  • Their bond is to the point that Tsumugi's Image Song references Tasuku's, and vice-versa.
• Hidden Depths: This calm Nice Guy surprisingly hates to lose, as pointed out by Chikage in their cash-earning chat and Tasuku on Act 9, and is very passionate when God Troupe challenges Mankai to another act-off on the third part of the main story. He even tells Tsuzuru that he wants to "kill" himself for this play because he wants to see how far he can go as an actor and shows Reni how much he has grown.
  • Despite looking detailed and delicate, Tsumugi is very sloppy. This is lampshaded in his cash chat with Yuki, and shown in many backstage such as [Earnest Putting], in which he creates a very lopsided soft serve that becomes a hit because of how sloppy it is.
  • It is not specified which genre, but Tsumugi enjoys singing passionate Classic Rock songs whenever he goes to a karaoke.
• Hopeless with Tech: He doesn't even know what "downloading" is, nor does he know that one can send photos via phones. He has a LIME, but he is unable to use a phone's keyboard efficiently which leads to indecipherable texts. Makes one wonder how he graduated with a degree in Psychology which is typically a writing composition heavy major.
• Icy Blue Eyes: In the anime his eyes are in a lighter shade of blue compared to the game. He leads the Winter Troupe and is cool-headed and known for his calming influence.
• Image Song: "Keyword" and "CROSS LINES".
• Irony: Tsumugi is clumsy, and everyone is very worried about him when he becomes Autumn Troupe leader in the leader exchange backstage. However, by part 2, he has four action link skills.
• Informed Attribute: In-universe, Tsumugi is considered plain; his mild personality also lends to the fact that he does not stand out. By design, he's no less attractive than any other guy in the series.
• It Was a Gift: The MANKAI Dorm in Those Days - Autumn/Winter Edition reveals that the watering can he is using now was a gift from Tasuku when they were kids.
• Jack of All Trades: In one of his backstage, he says that he has always wanted to be an actor as versatile as eggs, and he lives up to it. His role (some of which are also him playing against his type) ranges from an angel, a playboy, a priest, a PE teacher, to Lucifer.
  • He is not lacking in his Link Skills either. Although his coverage of a specific attribute is not as good as several other characters (e.g. Muku in Co and Azuma in Dr), he can be in many optimal teams across the three attributes.
  • In Outside Work Conversation, Azami even mentions that Tsumugi's face may be plain but has nice features, which allows total transformation when given makeup. And boy, he isn't joking when the play for the third part of the main story comes.
• The Klutz: Tsumugi isn't just bad at physical activities, which bites back at him in Dance with Butterfly, but also very sloppy with handiwork. As he says, he never sweats the fine details.
• Lethal Klutz: Has a downplayed case of this in Bridegroom Battle Royale AGAIN! Tsumugi forgets that the vacuum cleaner provided in the competition has a wire and proceeds to clean. The cord gets tangled on nearby things and trips other participants around him.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Downplayed. In event stories, most of Tsumugi's roles are of the Anti-Villain spectrum.
  • Played straight in the stage play version, where both Keiichi and Ryohei are more malicious. Ryohei even threatens to kill Kota if he insists on defending Reo.
• Misery Builds Character: Played with. In Act 9, Tsumugi admits that he has never really gone through the pain of loss and thus doesn't really know how it feels to be lonely, how sad it is to be separated from loved ones, causing him to have a hard time acting as Lucifer. He asks Hisoka, who once watched his loved one die in front of him, for help in this case.
• My Greatest Second Chance: He gave up on acting beforehand, but joining the Mankai Company gave him another shot at pursuing acting and reconciliation with his estranged childhood friend.
• Nice Guy: Humble, soft-spoken, and one of nicest people among the cast. He's often compared to an angel, too.
• Not a Morning Person: According to one of his main page lines and often lampshaded by Tasuku. When he does get up early, he almost uses toothpaste to wash his face.
• Odd Friendship: A general summary of his relationship with Banri; they're polar opposites in terms of personality, but they simply enjoy each other's quiet company when they need to relax, preferably in cafés.
• Older Than They Look: He is often told to have a baby face and look like a student in several backstages. When he wears Hana High uniform in his Mankai Memory backstage and goes home late, a police mistakes him for a student and asks him his parents' contact.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: With Chikage in their coin-earning chats. Tsumugi has not forgotten about the flowers that Chikage has sent the Winter Troupe/Hisoka. Marigolds for My Master's Mesmerized by a Mystery and zinnias for Nocturnality. Both are associated with death, specifically the departure of loved ones.
• Private Tutor: Worked part-time as one before he returned to acting. That said, he still takes private tutoring jobs, and he also helps out with the younger members' homework.
• Raised by Grandparents: His outside work skit with Masumi has him mention that he is raised by his grandmother like Masumi was.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Homare. Tsumugi's motif color is blue, and he's a timid, gentle leader of the Winter Troupe.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Tsumugi is known to be nigh-unbeatable in this game because him being a psychology major lets him read ahead. This is also his magic in A6, in which he challenges his opponent into a game. The spell will blow the loser out of the ring, resulting in a non-lethal One-Hit Kill. Once Tsumugi activates the spell, the opponent cannot forfeit, so it is pretty much a Foregone Victory for Tsumugi due to his skills in rock-paper-scissors.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Amiable, compassionate, but also lacking in great confidence, he's the clear Sensitive Guy to Tasuku's Manly Man.
• Talking to Plants: He often does this to the plants he takes care of. According to the B's Log 2017 magazine, when he talks to the plants in the room, Tasuku may make a mistake and answer him instead.
• Team Mom: Mainly towards Winter Troupe, especially Hisoka and Homare, but there are times when he tells Banri and Juza to stop bickering. He also helps the younger members with their homework.
  • This is especially apparent in Sparkling Summer Memories event, in which he calms down a panicked Masumi and keeps the group's morale up although the theme for their performance is changed on the last minute. Later on, he even chooses to stay behind to take care of their belongings (by deliberately losing in rock-paper-scissors although he actually excels at it) just so that the younger members can have fun.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Eggs, especially omelettes. Omi uses this info to get him to eat even when performance is approaching (since he then forgets to eat from excitement) as their outside work skit shows.
• The Trickster: Can be mischievous and cheeky at times. When it comes to physical activities, he also uses his wits to make up for his lack of athleticism.
• You Remind Me of X: Masumi states in the "Midsummer Sparkle Memory" event that Tsumugi reminds him of his own grandmother, Hatsue.

Tasuku Takato

Voiced by: Takuya Sato
Portrayed by: Ryo Kitazono (2019-present)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play and movies

A serious and stoic actor once under the God Troupe, Tasuku quit after the revelation of Reni's underhanded methods comes to light. He is a passionate actor, dedicated to his craft, but lacks social graces. He is a childhood friend of Tsumugi, and resents his abandonment of acting.

"You're acting again? Or are you gonna ditch like before?"

Age: 24 (Part 1), 25 (Part 2), 26 (Part 3)

Height: 185cm

Birthday: February 22

Blood Type: A

Occupation: Actor

Hobbies: Running, soccer

Image color: Green

Motif flower: Orchid

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• The Ace: Was one in God Troupe, receiving a lot of praises from Reni himself and also the top actor there. Haruto views him as a rival and is distraught by the fact that Tasuku is seemingly born with natural talent for acting while Haruto has to work hard to climb to the top.
  • Broken Ace: Seeing how other actors were very intent to drag him down, Tasuku felt Lonely at the Top in God Troupe. Made worse by the fact that Reni's policy of prohibiting idle chatter caused the atmosphere to be strained, and no sense of camaraderie was there. Tasuku had to steel himself to not succumb to the pressure. Unconsciously, Tasuku would also look at the empty seat beside him, sad at the fact that his Childhood Friends Tsumugi failed the audition and wasn't there with him. Not to mention, getting typecast as a Princely Young Man in his roles a lot tires him.
• Afraid of Clowns: the GRIM REAPER CIRCUS has Fuyuki and Tsumugi point out that Tasuku is afraid of clowns. In the epilogue, after having a long-winded encounter with a (maybe ghost) clown, Tsumugi teases Tasuku about it, that it is a good thing that it is not Tasuku who ran into the clown.
• Alliterative Name: Tasuku Takato.
• Affectionate Nickname: Tsumugi sometimes calls him "Taachan", a nickname from their childhood.
• Big Brother Worship: Inverted. His big brother Fuyuki admires him a lot.
• Big Little Brother: Tasuku is taller and more muscular than Fuyuki.
• Book Dumb: Subverted. Tasuku may be a top actor, but he used to copy Tsumugi's homework and was annoyed when asked to help with homework in the end of summer lines, saying that he only knew acting. However, he still managed to enter Fuyou University, which is known to be a prestigious university with high passing grade. See also Dumb Muscle.
• Born Unlucky: Downplayed; he is just bad at card games and gambling. He drew a joker right off the bat several times in a row in Old Maid and in Risky Game, lost a game of 50% chance five times in a row, which was supposed to have 3.125% chance of happening.
  • Subverted in his Halloween backstage, in which he won the first prize of a raffle, although it might be Tsumugi's luck as Tsumugi was the one who encouraged Tasuku to draw and paid the ticket for him.
• Childhood Friends: With Tsumugi. Tsumugi giving up on acting put their friendship to an end until Tasuku joined the Mankai Theater troupe where they have a chance to fix it.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Tasuku exudes Fanservice aura even while lugging a bag of rice or drinking water, drawing both male and female fans alike. In his [Premonition of Blooming], one of them gushes over him looking so cool while lugging a bag of rice and wants to walk beside him or even be that bag of rice. But Tasuku is just confused and annoyed.
• Dark Is Not Evil: His role as Black in Blooming Squadron Mankai Rangers. Tasuku also lampshades it in the login line, saying that the color does not always mean evil.
  • His character Dimbulah from Wizard's Dinner Party explores this trope. As a dark wizard, Dimbulah is bothered because everyone often thinks Dark Is Evil. However, Dimbulah tries his best to be a kind person, and saves people from a collapsing building. With everyone thanking him without prejudice, Dimbulah realizes that this trope is in effect and continues to be a good dark wizard.
• Deadpan Snarker: Tasuku has a few moments of this, especially when commenting on Homare's antics.
• Defector from Decadence: He left God Troupe because he couldn't tolerate their attempt of sabotaging Mankai, and ended up joining Mankai because God Troupe pressured other theater companies in the town.
• Does Not Like Spam: Cheese, as said by Tsumugi in the Noodle Incident in Hisoka's [Run Through the Night] backstage.
• Dumb Muscle: Subverted. Tasuku is very muscular and often fooled and played around with by the other members of Winter Troupe. The Psycho-Pass collab story has this lampshaded; Itaru suggests that Tasuku takes Route A, which requires physical strength, and Tasuku agrees because it is better than using his brains. However, he simply prefers using brawn over brains and is not lacking in the latter. Aside from being an alumnus of Fuyou University, which is known for high passing grade, he is a Gadgeteer Genius and has been said to be quite intelligent multiple times. Tasuku's [BEYOND FULL BLOOM] backstage has Itaru say that Tasuku only needs to be told how things work once and he already gets things down the pat. His backstage in the GRIM REAPER CIRCUS further adds to this that he can pull off an elaborate magic trick although Chikage only gives him simple tips.
  • Invoked in Attack☆Veludo Star Challenge, in which Tasuku chooses to play this role so that Itaru's intelligence can be highlighted.
• Endearingly Dorky: Despite being stoic and cold outside, he is actually caring and emotionally clumsy. Winter Troupe knows that and, especially Tsumugi and Azuma, gets a kick out of poking him for it. According to Tsumugi's embarrassing childhood stories, Tasuku was a huge mecha and sentai fan as a child. Also lampshaded in Bridegroom Battle Royale, in which despite his awkwardness around a kid, the audience likes him, which causes him to rank very high during "Parenting Showdown."
• The Engineer: As shown in several stories, Tasuku is great at handling machinery, be it fixing or installing them. He installs a laser trap in the dorm in Juza's [Dark Tonight] backstage and a light sensor mechanism for his hiiragi iwashi in his [A Mighty Warrior's Dignity] backstage. He also makes an umbrella capable of shooting party poppers in Hisoka's [Dark Night's Insight] backstage.
  • This trait would be carried over to his role as Grimm in Last Planet. According to the trivia lines in the 5th anniversary, Grimm does machine maintenance in his off-days.
• Even the Guys Want Him: During Winter Troupe's chat about their love lives in the main story, Tsumugi mentions that Tasuku's always been a magnet for both men and women, although Tasuku insists that the men were just fans.
• Flaw Exploitation: Tasuku unwilling to do something? Just tell him that it is for acting, and he will do it.
• Flower Motifs: The VIVID WINTER backstage story details that orchids can mean "unchanging love" and "I will never forget you." Tasuku personally interprets it as a flower that represents an enduring affection that surpasses time. Izumi commented that the orchids can represent Tasuku and Tsumugi's bond.
• Foil: To Homare. They are Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing and Force and Finesse.
  • Tasuku may seem cold and aloof outside, but is actually warm and sensitive inside. Meanwhile, Homare is warm and affectionate outside, but can be cold and insensitive inside.
    • Tasuku creates a lot of clubs and likes bonding over shared passion with others, to the point he gets carried away in his [Die by the Sword] backstage, whereas Homare tends to go off on his own when creating poems, be it getting holed up in his own room or simply reciting whatever comes up in his mind anytime, anywhere.
  • Both are socially awkward, but whereas Homare struggles to understand others, Tasuku struggles to express himself. Homare is very expressive while Tasuku understands others well.
  • Them being opposites is the main focus of Dance with Butterfly.
    • Tasuku thinks too much about himself, hence his lack of awareness towards his acting partner, whereas Homare thinks too much about Tasuku, to the point he kills his own unique acting and loses himself. This ruins their performance in the rehearsal. Interestingly, this loops back to their true nature, that Homare does so to satiate his ego whereas Tasuku struggles with the feeling of selfishness at the idea of using on-screen acting just to improve his theater acting.
    • After the disastrous rehearsal, Homare goes off alone to ponder about the issue, whereas Tasuku seeks advice from Tsumugi about it.
    • When it comes to their individual dance practice, whereas Homare believes he can evaluate his dance by himself, Tasuku is doubtful when no one evaluates his dance, as revealed in the backstage.
• Force and Finesse: The Force to Homare's Finesse. He carries a broadsword in his Last Planet cards and has an axe in his The Liar Night is Forever card.
• Friend to All Children: A lot of Tasuku's stories involve him and children. In Bridegroom Battle Royale and Blooming Squadron Mankai Rangers. He is awkward around kids and he knows it, but kids do like him.
  • He is a very gentle swimming teacher to a little boy in Elegant Vacation. Tasuku holds his hand as he teaches him how to swim, lets him go when he thinks the boy is ready to swim on his own, and avoids pushing him too hard.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Tasuku can create and remodel various stuff, but is particularly known to make shiny, glowing things. In Guy's Wizard's Tea Party backstage, Tasuku restores a broken cane and turns it into a "magic staff" courtesy of his Light 'em Up modifications on it, causing Guy to call him a magician.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Grumpy to Homare's Gleeful.
• Green and Mean: Downplayed. His motif color is green, and he may come across as cold and harsh, but he cares about everyone in his own way.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Once again, with Tsumugi, due to their Childhood Friends status. Though it's more of theatre partners, in this case. And considering some of their interactions, one might wonder at the Hetero part, as well...
  • Their bond is to the point that Tasuku's Image Song references Tsumugi's, and vice-versa.
• Hidden Depths: Tasuku is very careful and detailed, capable of handling delicate works such as repairing a pocket watch and dismantling something as tiny as a dart to install LED light on it. Tsumugi also lampshades this in his [Mission of the Strong] backstage.
  • Despite his cold exterior, Tasuku is actually very sociable. The interviewer in the Moment of Winter magazine introduces him as someone who holds social activities within Mankai, and he opens the soccer club and the swimming club, and plans to open the fitness club as well. He is also part of the repair club with Chikage and known to be a popular guy back at school.
• Honor Before Reason: A huge part of Tasuku's character is how he has his code of honor especially when it comes to acting. His reason of leaving God Troupe is because of Reni's dirty move on Mankai, and Tasuku refuses to work with someone who would ruin the stage like Reni. The main conflict in Dance with Butterfly is this. Tasuku receives an on-screen acting offer, but is unsure about accepting it throughout the majority of the story. Why? He thinks of accepting it to improve his on-stage acting, which he views as a disgrace because of how selfish the idea is.
  • During Die by the Sword, Tasuku also insists that his reason of staying in Mankai is to repay the company for accepting him when he has nowhere to go, although later it is revealed that that is not really the reason.
  • His role as Musashi in Die by the Sword is this as well. He has helped resolve the relationship between Tojiro and Orin and does not have much reason to duel Kojiro anymore, but his sense of honor prevents him from retracting the duel and leads to Kojiro's death and himself mulling over how his Death Seeker quest remains incomplete.
• Humble Hero: Tasuku says he is an amateur at machinery and often goes "no promises," yet he always ends up repairing stuff and may even create something mind-blowing.
• Ideal Hero: Despite his seemingly unapproachable nature, Tasuku is honest and righteous. When asked to continue the 24-panel comic at 7th anniversary blog relay, where he continues from the picture of a cat picking up something, Tasuku continues with the cat reporting it to the police. Some of his play characters reflect this, such as Black from Blooming Squadron Mankai Rangers and Grimm from Last Planet, who both fight For Great Justice.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: While not really obvious due to him being stoic and grumpy most of the time, he actually longs for companionship, which he cannot find in his God Troupe days. His reason of staying at Mankai is not because of paying off the debt for accepting him when God Troupe pressures other theater troupes; instead, it is because in Mankai he gets to act with Winter Troupe, a troupe full of people who will watch his acting closely.
• Image Song: "Beyond The Wall" and "Train Myself".
• It Was a Gift: The MANKAI Dorm in Those Days - Autumn/Winter Edition reveals that the soccer ball he often plays with was a gift from Tsumugi when they were kids.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Being usually blunt and naggy, he may come across as a jerk. However, his actions often say otherwise; he may complain about Hisoka sleeping everywhere, but he will carry him to his bed anyway. Also there's not many people who can read him, and off stage he's prone to Poor Communication Kills. Tsumugi takes on the role of interpreting his moods (even though them drifting apart was caused by said poor communication), and by the Die by the Sword event, the rest of Winter Troupe has gotten just as good as him at reading Tasuku.
• Lovable Jock: He is good at sports and is friendly to others, although may come off as a bit of a jerk. Notably, he's familiar with Taichi and even asks how he's doing after the two of them meet following Tasuku quitting the God Troupe, despite Taichi having only served as an ensemble cast member for the God Troupe. He is also a Friend to All Children despite his awkwardness and stoic nature.
• Lonely at the Top: Die by the Sword revealed that Tasuku once became a top actor in God Troupe, but felt lonely and empty as he was faced with the gaze of his rivals, who looked intent on dragging him down and taking his place.
• Manly Man: Tasuku is one of the tallest and buffest guys in the whole company, does not emote much and is prone to Poor Communication Kills, shows little interest in books and text, and has sports and muscle training as his hobbies. He is also very skilled with machines.
• Mr. Fanservice: His muscular build is often commented upon, and shown off quite prominently in his "About to Bloom" SR card (pre-blooming). In one of his Mini Conversations, when he gets a Shirtless Scene, Taichi gushes about how ripped he is. Of all the 24 actors in Mankai, he along with Omi is the most prone to getting Walking Shirtless Scene outfits. Case in point, his [Mankai Feature] costume has him wear almost nothing.
• Mr. Fixit: Although he often claims that he is an amateur, he is highly capable of fixing devices, including Homare's broken pocket watch in My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery. According to Tsumugi, when Tasuku was a kid, he wanted to be a scientist and build robots. He still has his old tools too.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Tasuku regularly does muscle training and is highly capable of carrying heavy objects, and is one of Hisoka's "personal taxi." In A6, Muku manages to bind Tasuku with magical threads, but Tasuku quickly tears them apart with nothing but pure muscle power and knocks Muku out with a swing of his magic sword.
• My Blood Runs Hot: Tasuku is often jokingly referred to as a human heat pack due to his high body temperature even at rest. The Instagram story reveals that his body temperature is normally at 37.3 degrees Celsius.
• Non-Indicative Name: His second Image Song Train Myself is about moving forward to achieve dreams with his friends.
• No Social Skills: Tasuku is emotionally clumsy and finds it hard to be honest with his feelings towards others, which causes him to be prone to Poor Communication Kills. And he is well aware of this; B's Log 2018 magazine interview reveals that he refuses to be a gym instructor because he doubts he can communicate well with his guests. He gets better over the course of the story.
• Old Shame: After the events of Act 1, Episode 3, anything related to his old role while still in the God Troupe has him see them in this light. Especially as he gets type-casted as a Princely Young Man in many of the plays he took part in during his time in the God Troupe. The fact that he can act in other roles without being type-casted in Mankai Company is a relief for Tasuku himself.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: A common misconception regarding Tasuku stems from this. It is not that Tasuku cannot cook; Tasuku generally avoids doing it because there are clearly better chefs than him such as Omi. More than that, Tasuku is far from being dumb; with Tsumugi and Azuma, who are known for their guile and wits, in the same troupe as him, Tasuku is simply outclassed and easily fooled around. It is worth noting that Tasuku is a Gadgeteer Genius Mr. Fixit on his own right and an alumnus of Fuyou University.
• Princely Young Man: Type-cast as this trope a lot during his time in the God Troupe.
• Real Men Cook: Tasuku is a very muscular fitness nut who can cook quite well and pass the cooking session in Bridegroom Battle Royale, although he admits that he does not cook all that much because there are better cooks than him.
• Running Gag: Tasuku is unwilling to do something (usually silly stuff), but when another character tells him it's for acting, he will end up doing it.
  • During Christmas gift exchange, he always ends up with a makeup set, much to his chagrin. Though during Resounding Chimes, Holy Night, he finally ends up with a board game instead of a makeup set.
  • Tasuku gaining muscles and struggling to wear costumes, which leads to an angry Yuki. By his [Tonight Will Be A Gibson] backstage, Yuki decides that if this happens again, Tasuku will pay the extra fabric and stuff.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The clear latter to Tsumugi's Sensitive Guy, being a workout enthusiast with a rather blunt personality.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Tasuku is a serious, stoic little brother who is emotionally clumsy. Fuyuki is a friendly, cheerful big brother who is popular among his peers.
• The Stoic: He keeps his emotions in check, but he does care deeply about his work and the people around him.
• Straight Man: Especially inside Winter Troupe, with Homare.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Minus the hair, Tasuku's older brother, Fuyuki, looks just like him.
• Super Gullible: Every April Fool's Day, he falls victim to the Winter Troupe's jokes. This includes believing that Tsumugi is getting married, Homare is quitting poetry, and Guy is an alien. According to Tsumugi, Tasuku believed in Santa well into middle school.
• Team Dad: Towards Winter Troupe. He always keeps Homare and Hisoka in check and doesn't hesitate to scold them for their antics, in contrast to Tsumugi's gentler approach.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: From what little Tsumugi and Fuyuki mention, Tasuku was an adorable mecha and sentai fanboy, and a bit of a crybaby. Downplayed that as an adult, Tasuku is a gruff fitness nut with a Hidden Heart of Gold. Despite his exterior, Tasuku cares a lot about others and can get quite passionate about his hobbies.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Homare. Although they bicker a lot, Tasuku still fixes Homare's beloved pocket watch regularly, even if it has stopped working. This act of his spurs Homare to repay his kindness in Dance with Butterfly, by being a faithful co-lead to him.

Hisoka Mikage

Voiced by: Junta Terashima
Portrayed by: Keisuke Ueda (2019-2024)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play and movies

A mysterious young man with amnesia found collapsed in front of the theater. Hisoka is in a constant state of sleep, and has to be routinely roused to do anything. He is known for his love of marshmallows, and his oddly sharp physical attributes including his masterful command of acting.

"Zzz..zzz..."

Age: 25 (Part 1), 26 (Part 2), 27 (Part 3)

Height: 170cm

Birthday: December 3

Blood Type: AB

Occupation: Unemployed (Part 1), Part-timer (Part 2 & 3)

Hobbies: Playing with cats, people watching

Image color: Navy blue

Motif flower: Anemone

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• Agony of the Feet: He once lost his shoe during winter and had to walk barefooted. It was bad enough to make his legs go numb and he had to consider Life-or-Limb Decision.
• Animal Motifs: Penguins. He has a penguin pillow named Penpen and later on 2020 April's Fools, he is a penguin.
  • He is also likened to a stray cat by characters due to his selfish tendencies: he's content with sleeping in odd places, motivated by food (marshmallows), and likes keeping others at a distance. His physical attributes of speed and flexibility also enhance the comparisons.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His No-Sell power in A6 completely negates Yuki's poison, but he has to be sleeping to get the invulnerability. Yuki decides to push him out of the ring, and it works.
• Badass Adorable: Hisoka is Sleepy Head who gets along with cats and adores his penguin pillow...and is extremely agile and strong when he is up, especially when someone gives him marshmallows.
• Barefoot Poverty: Played with. Act 5 flashback reveals that during his Street Urchin days he had shoes, but ended up losing them when running away. As the weather was a harsh winter, he had to walk barefooted to the point his feet were frostbitten.
• The Bartender: He helps Guy in his bar in Part 3.
• Berserk Button: Downplayed. Hisoka doesn't fly into rage, but if you approach him from behind, he will instantly give you a headlock before you can react.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He may be a Sleepy Head who doesn't speak a lot, but is extremely fast and powerful when he is up.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The Little Guy with Homare, their height difference made even more apparent in the stage play. Hilarity Ensues when they are tasked to swap clothes in the 6th anniversary backstage. Homare's clothes look visibly oversized on his sprite.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: He thinks of putting marshmallows in chashu ramen in Scarlet Mirror.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's an extremely skilled actor, but is prone to sleeping and is often only motivated by marshmallows.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's uncannily good at acting, and he always places great focus on his character's backstory and intended effect, even for improvisational spots. This is all foreshadowing of the fact that he's a former spy.
• Cerebus Retcon: In Hisoka's outside work conversation with Kumon, which is available since the introduction of Rookies in 2018, Hisoka jokes about his right eye holding cursed powers. Come 2023 in the recent [A Mirage in the Moonlight] backstage, as a child, Hisoka was shunned by everyone because his right eye was believed to bring misfortune.
• Deadpan Snarker: He doesn't speak much, but when he does, his speech often has very few words and goes straight to the point.
• Determinator: He once fell off a cliff and into the water, swam his way to the shore, and survived. Then he wandered and was found sleeping in front of Mankai dorm. Before he joined the organization, he was always struggling to survive on his own. This includes him fighting against the cold weather and feeling his body going numb from the cold. At one point, after losing his shoe, he had to consider Life-or-Limb Decision as his legs were freezing and might rot, but refused to cut them off and decided to find a way to keep them warm.
• Does Not Like Spam: Meat.
• Driven to Suicide: In the past. When he and August were cornered with August dying, Hisoka thought it was pointless and decided to drink the suicide drug. However, August has switched it out with an amnesia drug.
• Foil: While Homare and Hisoka are Red Oni, Blue Oni, with Homare being the loud and energetic one and Hisoka being the quiet and lazy one, they are more alike than they seem. Both tend to keep their problems to themselves, though whereas Hisoka does it to keep others safe, Homare does it to avoid showing his weakness and being viewed as broken.
  • Whereas Hisoka is outwardly selfish, Homare is outwardly selfless. However, inside Hisoka can be very selfless whereas Homare is selfish. For all his selfishness and spoiled nature, Hisoka goes against his fear of sleeping to remember his Dark and Troubled Past and risks his newfound memory to save Izumi from Chikage.
• Food as Bribe: Give him marshmallows, and he'll get his job done ASAP. In the past, August got Hisoka to join the organization with gingerbread. Justified as Hisoka, before being recruited to the Organization, lived on the streets and was always struggling for food and often thought to be a potential thief and shooed away by store owners.
• Flower Motif: Anemones. They are symbolic of the death of a loved one. In the Risky Game event, he brings anemones with him to the cliff overlooking the sea a.k.a. August's grave site.
• Four Is Death: He's introduced in Chapter 4 of Episode 4 in Act 1, and he's thought to be dead by the Organization who took him in.
• Hidden Depths: Hisoka is cynical and wary of people since he was a kid; when he picked up a rosary on the street in his Mankai Memory backstage, he was afraid of returning it because he might get accused of stealing it. Such instance also happens in the stage version of My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery, in which he picked up Homare's broken pocket watch but kept quiet because he was afraid of being accused of stealing and even breaking it. In the Spotlight magazine he remarked that everyone in Mankai is so nice that it is worrying because the world is not filled with just nice people.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His right eye is hidden behind his bangs, befitting his mysterious nature. The Playback card reveals that it is in a lighter shade of green compared to his other eye. Although it has once been teased in a blog, later stories reveal that Hisoka is not quite fond of the eye color. His [A Mirage in the Moonlight] backstage reveals that people believe that eye is a Mark of the Supernatural and will bring bad things.
• Image Song: "Träumerei to Kuhaku" and "Nachtmusik and White Moon".
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Exceptionally good with darts and can use it to hit a tiny stain on the wall from the distance.
• Insomnia Episode: Episode 5 has Hisoka go through one. He is afraid of remembering the most painful moment in his past.
• Insult of Endearment: B's Log 2018 magazine interview reveals that he calls Homare "Arisu" because Homare's introduction was so long that Hisoka fell asleep halfway through, only hearing the "Arisu" part of Homare's name. He later learned that it was "Arisugawa," from how Tasuku called Homare, but he found it too long and settled with "Arisu." He sticks to that until now, whether when he insults Homare or show his soft side to him.
• Introverted Cat Person: Hisoka does not talk much and is often seen playing with cats. He can also speak to them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is selfish, caring mainly about sleeping and eating marshmallows (and he often complains about Homare's value pack marshmallows and prefers Azuma's fancy marshmallows), but he does care for his troupemates and the company. In Episode 5, despite his fear, he eventually lets himself fall asleep and remember his Dark and Troubled Past to confront Chikage and save Izumi.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: More that cats naturally flock to him due to his tendency to sleep anywhere, even if it's outside. Nevertheless, he certainly doesn't mind it, and often lets them sleep on top of him.
• Melancholy Moon: During Episode 4, Hisoka showed an uncharacteristic display of emotion as he gazed upon the moon and started crying. Chased by enemies with no other choices left, August pushed Hisoka off a cliff so he could survive and swim to shore. One of the last sights Hisoka remembered before his amnesia was the view of a beautiful full moon as he fell into the sea.
• Mukokuseki: Wherever Chikage and Hisoka were originally from, it's not Japan, but both can pass as Japanese.
• Mysterious Past: He's a drifter whom the company members found outside their theater, with no ID on him or any memory of his own past. It's later revealed that he and Chikage were once spies in an organization.
• Never Gets Drunk: He can drink a lot without getting drunk. In one of his backstage, he even manages to empty a bottle of Sakyo's treasured wine.
• Never Learned to Read: Sunny Blanc reveals that he was this as a kid. Hisoka wasn't even familiar with what books were and admitted his inability to read.
• Noiseless Walker: Hisoka's movements never make any sound, to the point others wonder if he practices martial arts or something. As it turns out, he was part of a spy organization.
• No One Could Survive That!: A reason why August invited him to the Organization was because Hisoka had a knack for surviving. Hisoka struggled to survive on the street since he was a kid, including starving during winter and having to face the cold weather with a missing shoe to the point he had to consider Life-or-Limb Decision. Later, he fell off a cliff and into the ocean during a winter night and was able to swim to the shore and survive, much to July's surprise. At one point in the past, Hisoka even lampshaded how he was still alive.
• No-Sell: Hisoka's A6 ability is invulnerability, but it only works as long as Hisoka is asleep. Yuki hits Hisoka with his poison ivy, which is supposed to inflict poison, but it has no effect on Hisoka. It does not protect him from Homare's Magic Music however.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Hisoka can sleep anywhere, anytime, including in a cardboard box, a washing machine, atop a tree, etc.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Twice. Hisoka was an amnesiac man who slept in front of Mankai dorm when Izumi invited him to join Mankai. He also used to be a lonely guy struggling to survive on his own on the street. Then August stumbled upon him and invited him to the organization.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Homare. Hisoka's motif color is navy blue, and he's a quiet, lazy, and sleepy guy.
  • In the My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery particularly the stage version, it is inverted however. Shiki is the red to Sagishima's blue, being far more hot-headed.
• Significant Birth Date: His birthday is in December, which was his code name in the spy organization he was in.
• Sleepy Head: There's rarely a time when he's not trying to sleep.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: With cats, although he has been shown to speak to penguins well enough to reconcile them in his [Stream Hunt] backstage.
• Street Urchin: Hisoka lived in the streets as a kid before August invited him to the Organization.
• Super-Speed: He moves incredibly fast, to the point that it is almost like he is instantly disappearing. In his [Dance with Butterfly] backstage, he manages to dodge all the plastic balls and catch all the marshmallows thrown at him, to the point Tasuku says that his agility is beyond human.
• Sweet Tooth: Considering that he eats marshmallows on a daily basis... He is also said to usually eat five bags a day, and when it drops to two bags, Homare is concerned. This comes back to bite him when his [Senribana Monogatari] backstage reveals that he has gained so much weight that it starts to interfere with his posture.
• Terse Talker: Tends to mutter just a word or two when commenting on something before falling back asleep. Straight to the point.
• That Man Is Dead: Near the end of Act 1, he finally pieces together his true identity. He'd still rather just be Hisoka Mikage the actor than the person he once was.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Hisoka has warmed up to the troupe a lot as the story progresses, but he still keeps a lot of secrets to himself to avoid causing danger to others and appreciates that Winter Troupe never pushes him further.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Marshmallows. Often exploited to make him act and practice, among other things.
• Tsundere: Hisoka often insults Homare and tells him to shut up, on top of complaining about the marshmallows he gives him, but has shown his softer side to Homare on several occasions, usually when Homare feels low. In Homare's [Mankai Memory] backstage, Homare calls him out.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With his roommate, Homare. Hisoka is often frustrated at how loud he is, he often cannot sleep in their room due to the former's sleeptalking. There are times when he wakes up just to insult Homare which leads Homare to be exasperated. Despite the insults, Hisoka still views Homare as part of his family and supports him whenever he feels low.
• Your Worst Memory: In Episode 5. Afraid of remembering the most painful moment in his past, Hisoka has been insomniac for some time after Chikage joins Spring Troupe. When Chikage kidnaps Izumi, Hisoka eventually lets himself sleep so that he can remember it and confront Chikage.

Homare Arisugawa

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Portrayed by: Ryosei Tanaka (2019-present)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play and movies

An eccentric poet, Homare joins Mankai Company after seeing their street performance, and expresses an interest in theater as one of the many fine arts. Homare is a self-confident man, but cares for his roommate, Hisoka and acting as his marshmallow supplier.

"My heart is strumming, humming mandolin, toppling to the ground!"

Age: 27 (Part 1), 28 (Part 2), 29 (Part 3)

Height: 181cm

Birthday: February 12

Blood Type: AB

Occupation: Poet

Hobbies: Reading Shakespeare

Image color: Red

Motif flower: Rose

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• Accidental Hero: In hAve A greAt trip, he mistook a thief for a fan and proceeded to hug the thief. Unable to break free from the hug, the thief was captured.
• Agent Scully: Homare's first reaction at the urban legends of Mankai theater is brushing them off as nonsense. When supernatural happens around him, he often makes logical explanations of it. Fittingly, several of his roles are this, such as Nonomiya and Richard. See also Arbitrary Skepticism.
• All-Loving Hero: According to his Memory backstage, his grandfather wanted him to grow up into one. And indeed, despite his tendency to be Innocently Insensitive and Lack of Empathy, he is very affectionate and loving towards others. Though at the same time, he is quite aloof and can be very selfish.
• Aloof Ally: One of Homare's Hidden Depths is that when he is distraught and/or things are dire, he will separate himself from the group and brood in an attempt to solve things by himself. This is very prominent in the 2021 stage version of The Master Likes a Mystery, in which he stays away from troupe discussion after Azuma finds his pocket watch among the cardboards, and after a verbal beatdown by Yuzo.
  • Of note, Elegant Vacation features a very rare occasion that the paired CG characters do not really work together to solve a problem. If not for Citron wanting to tag along, Homare must have gone by himself to find Kaito.
  • In the 6th Anniversary blog, Juza writes him as a lonely person in his profile book, though Homare simply leaves it to everyone's imagination rather than straight-up agreeing or refuting it. In his [Mankai Party] backstage, he nearly forgets to ask someone to shoot his VLOG for the birthday event because he usually does it by himself.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: His father is not written in his family data in the first anniversary book. However, his father is never mentioned even once, not even when he has a very good chance to do it in his [Mankai Memory] backstage. His [Illuminate the Darkness] backstage, in which his mother debuts, provides no information about his father either. His [Mankai Feature] card finally has him talk to his mother about his father, but he says it has been a while since they last talked about his father, and his father does not seem to be living together with the family.
• Animal Motifs: Homare is often associated with various Noble Bird of Prey, with an emphasis on the noble. His first lead role, Sagishima, has the kanji for "heron" in his name. Homare has also thought of keeping an owl as a pet according to 3rd anniversary blog and in A7, he is a snowy owl. Fittingly, both birds are symbolic of solitude and self-reliance.
  • In INOSHIKACHŌ! Veludo's Hanafuda Tournament, Homare is associated with the phoenix and has the motif on his costume, including a wing-like cape.
• Animals Hate Him: Zigzagged. Homare's dog Ariel always ignores him no matter how hard he tries to get close to her and he is pained by it. In Tsumugi's [Mankai Glitter] backstage, Tsumugi's dog Zabi is shown to be indifferent to him as well. The webcomic has him try to recite a poem to nearby animals, only for them to run off. However, in several anniversary minichats, cats flock to him; at one point, Hisoka is jealous about this. Penguins are also drawn to him in Aquarium Showtime minichat, and in Muku's [Fun School Life] R, the blue butterfly that perched on his head back in his [Butterfly Garden] SSR did that again to him.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Homare is well aware that life is fleeting, unpredictable, and will never be a smooth sailing, but this is why it is fun. His 2nd Image Song Emotion highlights this, that one should not ignore the sour times because there is the positive to be gained from the negative.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Homare never believes in magic and supernaturals; even after discovering and using the Loupe of Sincerity, he is still not big about them overall. He simply brushes off the possibility of a kitsune speeding past him in a photo as blurred afterimages in his [Yugen Fox Spirit] backstage, and is initially not interested in fortunetelling in his [Sense Ruler] backstage. When he gets his prediction right on Kumon, he chalks it up to his gut feeling.
• A Sinister Clue: Inverted. He is left-handed, but is one of the nicest guys in the company. Although he has Innocently Insensitive tendencies, he is very caring and generous.
• A-Team Firing: Has a Running Gag in which he never hits the target whenever he throws something, be it darts or snowballs, because he often puts too much emphasis on the throwing pose and not the accuracy. Azuma's [Like a Beauty] backstage has him toss a hand fan and hit Tasuku instead of the actual target, though he is drunk at that time.
  • His [Sympathy for the Angel] backstage is when he does not focus on throwing pose and is instead throwing crumpled pieces of paper out of frustration, but none lands in the trash bin and he ends up littering the floor with them.
  • In the stage shuffle, him as Dewey does not hit anyone with his gunshot despite the close range.
• Athletically Challenged: In Tasuku's [Spirited Flat Serve] backstage, Homare tries to worm his way out of the mess he had set up for a game of tennis with this reason, but Izumi does not buy it. Instead, she thinks Homare does not look like someone who is this trope. She is correct. Homare is an experienced ballroom dancer, perfectly capable of figure skating and learning to skateboard quickly. He also knows his way around muscle training for singing, as shown in Spotlight: Tsukushi High and St Flora. According to his minichats from the said event, while he was still a student, he often showed off his beautiful moves in PE class and actively participated in St Flora sports events.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: In A6, Homare wastes no time launching his Magic Music as soon as he enters the ring; his opponent, Citron, is even caught off-guard by the fact that Homare strikes first immediately. Even outside the ring, his entrance involves him bothering Hisoka with his Magic Music.
  • A non-combat variant: in a game of blackjack for Risky Game role study, he hits without hesitation and keeps on hitting even when he already reaches 18. Of course, he ends with a bust.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: His singing voice impresses many in TRY! Shining Collab Stage and in his Senribana backstage, attracts the president of a music agency. His voice was said to be angelic and he was invited to join St Flora choir in middle school because of that, and thanks to him, the choir team won the national competition.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Deconstructed. Literally why Homare is such a faithful co-lead to Tasuku in Dance with Butterfly. Tasuku was the one who fixed his dearest pocket watch in My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery and continued to regularly fix it, even if it has already stopped moving. This spurs Homare to repay his kindness by responding to Tasuku's passion for theater: helping him deliver the best show ever. Unfortunately, Homare tries too hard to match Tasuku whenever he flubs and ends up destroying his own acting, causing himself to be confused and frustrated. In Guy's [Nomadic Bartender] backstage, Guy also remarks that Homare is someone who never forgets to express gratitude.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As nice as Homare is, he is fierce if deadlines are involved. His [Words Wonderfully Chilled] has an instance in which he was out of inspiration while busy chasing deadlines. Then mosquitoes buzzed around him due to the hot weather and a hole on the window screen. Homare absolutely lost it and proceeded to run around to smack the mosquitoes, all while screaming. The next day, he snapped at Matsukawa about the aircon repair.
• Big Fun: While lean on the sprites and cards, Homare is very tall and overall fun and friendly. However, there has been instances in which he is in mascot costumes or onesies with quite the gut. He has been a Beary Friendly teddy bear and a friendly hippo.
• The Big Guy: Not so much in Winter Troupe because there are Tasuku and Guy, but is one for the St Flora group. Homare towers over both Yuki and Muku, and has given them lessons in relation to athletics. In Invitation to 0, when Muku and Yuki try to practice dancing on their own, Homare asks why they did not consult him and proceeds to give dancing lessons, dragging in the rest of Tres group along the way. More recently, in Spotlight: Tsukushi High and St Flora, Homare personally trains Muku and Yuki for a choir competition in St Flora and puts them through muscle training sessions. Moreover, in Special Edition: Snowfall Street, when Muku slips on the snow and twists his ankle, Homare carries him on his back through a raging blizzard.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The Big Guy with Hisoka, their height difference made even more apparent in the stage play. While he is a Cloudcuckoolander most of the time, he is capable of showing wisdom when needed. Hilarity Ensues when they are tasked to swap clothes in the 6th anniversary backstage. Tasuku and Hisoka are worried that Homare might rip Hisoka's clothes, to the point Hisoka tells Homare to not move too much. Although Hisoka's clothes are naturally loose, they still feel tight for Homare.
• Blood Knight: Befitting his Thrill Seeker and Challenge Seeker nature, several of his play roles are this. Spider from Midnight Chinatown is first seen to be fighting and later gets excited at the appearance of Snake, whom he dubs as a Worthy Opponent. Ryuga from SK∞ the Infinity × A3! is a violent skateboarder and always up for a challenge and looks forward to beating up his opponents in a race. Similar to Spider, Ryuga also prefers strong over weak opponents. A less obvious example is Varg from ''Last Planet', a Workaholic who loves his job and is always eager to join missions such as investigating and tracking down FORTF. Varg's title is Trigger-Happy, and adlib skill name for the card is "Belligerence Suppression."
• Bolivian Army Ending: A few of his backstage stories end this way, such as his [A Heartfelt Resolution] and [Peerless LIVE] backstage. Both have Tasuku getting ready to get violent to Homare (although for the latter, it is more of Training from Hell) and end with Homare screaming, followed with Izumi wishing him luck.
• Brass Balls: Overlaps with Thrill Seeker. Brave enough to hit at 18 in a game of blackjack and bet everything on one number in a roulette in his Risky Game backstage. His [The Witness] backstage also has him very eager to meet the rumored ghost soldier in the deserted island and charging headlong to the rustling bushes in a forest at night. When he does meet the ghost soldier and compliments the sword and costume, the staffer who tries to scare him pleads at Homare to feel afraid, only for Homare to laugh at him.
  • Starring Party also has him provoking Guy while getting choked in the Phantom of the Opera play. Said line is an adlib. Homare does it to bring out Guy's emotion at reciting a particular line, and it works.
  • His Cross-Cast Role Murasakinomiya in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden tells a lie that can get her killed as a joke.
• Bring My Red Jacket: His motif color is red and he has a good amount of red outfits, and he is often the butt of the more violent jokes.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Homare is someone who is willing to get splattered with soda water for poetic inspiration, shouts poems in a cafe (which leads to Tasuku scolding him "don't act like there are no other guests around"), and chugs whiskey straight from the bottle, but his fanbase is huge and the reveal shocks everyone. Even Izumi thought work mode Homare is a different person from the usual Homare. On top of that, he has part-time work experience and is definitely not happy when Hisoka thinks he is probably fired on the first day.
• Butt-Monkey: Takes misfortune in strides, be it technical issues cutting off his poem recitation in a video or a very rare butterfly landing on his head and preventing him from seeing it. Most people in Mankai, but especially Hisoka and Tasuku, also often take jabs at him given his eccentricity. None of their remarks land though, with Homare's tendency to spin them in positive ways.
• Brutal Honesty: A huge part of Homare's character is his direct, straightforward nature and how he is not afraid to speak what is in his mind. Although he never does it in a Jerkass way, sometimes he is too direct, sometimes at the wrong time, and ends up hurting others unintentionally.
• Challenge Seeker: Homare's life philosophy is "obstacles and challenges make life fun," and he has been shown to get excited at difficult challenges on several occasions. If anything, he deliberately chooses to not check his box of wise words for preparation and instead will dive in just like that for his Instelive performance in his [Brilliance of Blooming] backstage. His [Real Leather Low Shoes] backstage has him say that he is not afraid of failing tough challenges because there is the experience to be gained.
• Character Exaggeration: His dialogue is very verbose with far more Gratuitous French in EN, whereas his dialogue in the original and the CN/TW localization are formal and very direct, often with difficult words and metaphors although he plays around with them sometimes. Homare also has the tendency to use "dear" before addressing someone in EN, unlike all the other versions. While he sounds more poetic and affectionate as a result, this tones down his Brutal Honesty, drowns his Hidden Depths including the darker aspects of his character, and causes him to be more flamboyant and Lighter and Softer than in the original and CN/TW version. Future event stories, particularly Elegant Vacation, bring his solitary, self-reliant nature to light, which has actually been hinted as early as his initial backstages but these hints become less clear because of the exaggeration. One could argue this is due to English language not having the figure of speech that can perfectly capture Homare's formal, rather archaic speech in the original.
  • Interestingly, the inversion happens as well. The exaggerated poetic nature has drowned the darker aspects of Homare's character, but the toned down Heroic Self-Deprecation in EN further drowns them. Such as in My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery, Homare simply calls himself "broken since birth" whereas all other versions has him calling himself "a defective product since birth." Another instance is in Act 4, whereas EN has Homare note that no one likes him due to his Lack of Empathy, all other versions have him note that he lacks empathy and is hated as a result.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He often baffles everyone, especially Tasuku, with his eccentricity. If anything, he sees a robber as his fan and hugs him. The robber is confused and stopped.
• Comical Overreaction: Often reacts with the angry, complaining kind. His minichat in A Love Song Dedicated to You has him getting angry at the wind for messing up his hair, for one. The stage version of Nocturnality also has him getting angry at Tsumugi forgetting to tell the Winter Troupe about the photoshoot for the play, because this leaves Homare unprepared and thus prevents him from showing off his utmost beauty. Thankfully, Omi manages to calm him down by telling him that a change of clothes and preparations are unnecessary because Homare is already charming to begin with.
• Crosscast Role: Plays as Murasakinomiya, a lady in the inner palace, in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden, and Nobara the club mama in Sunny Blanc.
• Curtains Match the Window: Downplayed. Homare has red eyes and although the Sakuya and Taichi cash earning chat says that Homare can be part of the redhead brothers, Homare's hair has a little bit of purple.
• Determinator: Extremely stubborn and resilient. Even if he is a Lethal Chef and struggles to cook a meal for Izumi in his [Journey of Blooming] backstage, he willingly goes through his grandma's Training from Hell just to cook the best gratin for her. He fumbles a lot in the process as well. As tough as Tasuku's regime is in his [Hotel Compass] backstage, he manages to follow it and carry Hisoka to his room, although he ends up with muscle pain the next morning. As he says in his [The ABC of a Man Who Can] backstage, his heart is like a phoenix and will be reborn again even if it dies.
• Ditzy Genius: He is a man of many talents and can offer sound advice to his troupe mates, such as to Tsumugi in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden and Tsuzuru in The Amazing Museum, but his head is in the clouds most of the time. Homare's grandmother is a well-known haiku poet, and in The Luminous Circus Homare stated that he prefers free-form poetry, but recited a haiku at the request of his grandmother. Said haiku is well-received among the troupe members, so he really can compose proper poetry.
• Does Not Like Spam: Fish roe.
• Eccentric Artist: A huge part of Homare's character is how he does not care about what others think about his art, and that he primarily creates for himself. He will recite poems whenever, wherever he feels like it simply to use the spark of inspiration that strikes him, even if others will be baffled or annoyed. Not to mention, he is selfish when it comes to art and can offer equally selfish advice to others who pursue the way of arts.
• Eccentric Mentor: Sure, he is someone who would recite poems in the middle of a table tennis match, hug a robber to submission, and buy miso katsu marshmallows for his roommate, but he has given sound advice to others and saved the day on many occasions. Some of the younger members (such as Sakuya and Muku) also look up to him, and he enjoys mentoring and helping them although his mentoring sometimes has questionable results. If anything, he immediately told Guy to taste his "oil leak" and proved that Guy was a human and not an android.
• Evil Counterpart: Richard from Le Fantôme de l'Opéra to George from The Luminous Circus. Both manage performance arts, with Richard managing an opera house and George managing a circus troupe. However, Richard is ruthless and hellbent on killing Chris for ruining his show, likely caused by Phantom's involvements during the performance, whereas George gives up on the baby that miraculously restores his dying circus troupe out of compassion.
• Evil Is Hammy: Stage Richard after his true nature is revealed. Complete with an unhinged Evil Laugh.
• Famed In-Story: For all his eccentricity and (Iron) Butt-Monkey status in Mankai, he is a published poet and has a lot of fans. A common reaction of his fans upon seeing him or hearing a mention of his name is, "You are THAT Homare Arisugawa?" before gushing at him, which surprises Mankai people more often than not.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His right bang is way longer than his left, which adds to his eccentric nature. When this side bang is hidden for a photoshoot in Snowfall Street, it surprises everyone, both outside and In-Universe. Fujiryo, the main artist of the series, call this bang Homake^noteほま毛 or Homa-hair.
• Faster Than They Look: Homare is very tall, but Hisoka's [Dance with Butterfly] backstage shows that he is capable of dodging the plastic balls thrown at him while walking across a balance beam, until Hisoka hits him in the face with a ball, causing him to fall off. Nonetheless, everyone is impressed by his astounding agility.
• Fiery Redhead: Played with. His hair has a bit of purple and Homare does not exactly have a Hair-Trigger Temper, but is very lively and passionate and often gets fired up over various things.
• Foil: To everyone in the Winter Troupe.
  • Homare and Tsumugi are Red Oni, Blue Oni, with Homare being the loud, brazen member of the Winter Troupe and Tsumugi being the timid, gentle leader. Homare is usually very confident but he can be insecure of himself at times, whereas Tsumugi is usually insecure of himself but can be very confident at times. They are both only child, very close to their grandmothers, very passionate about something they love, and have a pet dog.
  • Homare and Tasuku are Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing and Force and Finesse. Both Tasuku and Homare are socially awkward, but whereas Homare struggles to understand others, Tasuku struggles to express himself. Homare is very expressive while Tasuku understands others well. Tasuku may seem cold and aloof outside, but is actually warm and sensitive inside. Meanwhile, Homare is warm and affectionate outside, but can be cold and insensitive inside. Tasuku also creates a lot of clubs and likes bonding over shared passion with others, to the point he gets carried away in his [Die by the Sword] backstage, whereas Homare tends to go off on his own when creating poems, be it getting holed up in his own room or simply reciting whatever comes up in his mind anytime, anywhere. Them being opposites is the main focus of Dance with Butterfly.
    • Tasuku thinks too much about himself, hence his lack of awareness towards his acting partner, whereas Homare thinks too much about Tasuku, to the point he kills his own unique acting and loses himself. This ruins their performance in the rehearsal. Interestingly, this loops back to their true nature, that Homare does so to satiate his ego whereas Tasuku struggles with the feeling of selfishness at the idea of using on-screen acting just to improve his theater acting.
    • After the disastrous rehearsal, Homare goes off alone to ponder about the issue, whereas Tasuku seeks advice from Tsumugi about it.
    • When it comes to their individual dance practice, whereas Homare believes he can evaluate his dance by himself, Tasuku is doubtful when no one evaluates his dance, as revealed in the backstage.
  • While Homare and Hisoka are Red Oni, Blue Oni, with Homare being the loud and energetic one and Hisoka being the quiet and lazy one, they are more alike than they seem. , though whereas Hisoka does it to keep others safe, Homare does it to avoid showing his weakness and being viewed as broken.
    • Whereas Hisoka is outwardly selfish, Homare is outwardly selfless. However, inside Hisoka can be very selfless whereas Homare is selfish. According to The Rad Red, Homare recites poems because he does not want the flash of inspiration he has goes to waste, and he cares less about the surroundings including how others react to his poems.
  • Both Azuma and Homare look carefree outside and often treat the troupe to a feast and alcohol and have many connection, but they struggle to form a deeper bond with others for opposite reasons. Whereas Homare is afraid of hurting others and making everyone leave him, Azuma is afraid of others leaving him and getting hurt in the process.
  • Both Guy and Homare are refined gentlemen who struggle with emotions and associate themselves with machines, but whereas Guy is quiet and not expressive, Homare is loud and extremely expressive. Guy worked as a royal attendant in the past, whereas Homare has butlers and servants serving him.
  • Outside Winter Troupe, with Kazunari. Both are artists, but whereas Kazunari worries about the value of his craft when it reaches his client's hands, Homare does not care, believing that people determine the value of one's craft without caring about the creator's feelings, so create what makes you feel satisfied.
• Force and Finesse: The Finesse to Tasuku's Force. He carries a saber in his Last Planet cards and has a knife in his The Liar Night is Forever card.
• Geek Physiques: Averted. He is a poet, but loves going out for a walk to get inspired, and is a skilled ballroom dancer specializing in waltz as well. As many stories show, he is also fit and athletic, capable of learning skateboarding quickly thanks to his strong core. On top of that, he is capable of carrying Muku on his back while going through a snowstorm and slippery terrain in the Special Edition: Snowfall Street. The CG and the bloomed card art of Elegant Vacation show that he is quite built.
  • Tasuku's [Tonight Will Be A Gibson] backstage justifies the aversion. Despite being a poet, Homare is aware that writing too much is causing him to not exercise as much and ends up worrying about his stamina. When the editorial department sends him an ab wheel, he does a workout with it and asks Tasuku to teach him how to operate the device.
• Generation Xerox: Homare views himself as a broken cyborg that can't understand others' emotions and often saddens others by accident. In My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery, it turns out that his grandfather called his grandmother "you, with a mechanical heart" because she too was incapable of understanding others' emotions well, just like Homare. Homare gets better.
  • In Luminous Circus, Homare's grandmother kept holding onto a painting even if it was already badly damaged. When Homare pointed it out and begged her to have the painting repaired, she also pointed out that Homare kept holding onto his pocket watch even if it already stopped working.
  • Homare is also a poet just like his grandmother and both of them have similar drawing skills. Invitation to 0 further highlights this in that Homare tries to draw Reinhardt with aura, only to come across as something burning to Kazunari, similar to how his grandmother tries to draw a circus tent, only to come across as an elephant to his grandfather.
  • Subverted in his antique backstage. He relies on Tasuku for repairs and according to his grandmother, this act of "relying on others" is unlike his grandfather. However, according to his grandmother, that he gets her a music box rather than buying a new pocket watch for himself is similar to his grandfather.
• Gentleman Adventurer: Homare is a refined gentleman with Old-School Chivalry attitude towards Izumi. At the same time he is often seen wandering around and about outside for poetic inspiration and more recently, making VLOGs of his adventures.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: He is intelligent and can be very gentlemanly when he wants to be, such as buying Izumi hot beverage and draping his coat over her to keep her warm in [Reflecting Upon the Season] backstage. It is only that his gentlemanly nature is often buried underneath a hefty dose of Cloudcuckoolander.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Gleeful to Tasuku's Grumpy.
• Good Is Not Nice: Homare may be kind and affectionate, but is quite aloof and can be very selfish especially when art is concerned. If anything, a good amount of his advice to others is...
  • Hard Truth Aesop: In Dance with Butterfly he advises Tasuku to be greedy and selfish to grow, because after all, Homare rashly started acting and joined Mankai for that reason. In The Luminous Circus, he also tells Kazunari to create artworks that will make him feel satisfied because people never bring the creators' feelings into consideration when judging the value of the art. And what did he tell a little boy in Elegant Vacation? "The person you can trust the most is yourself." It is delivered via a play, but still.
    • According to B's Log 2017 interview, what to do if you and your partner do not understand each other? Homare's advice: divorce immediately. Considering his past experience with love life, it is understandable why he says so.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Just look at his writings on his Mankai Party polaroid. The original and the CN/TW version often have him pepper his poems with Gratuitous English, with several other language like French, Italian, and Russian. Hilariously, the CN/TW version straight-up uses Russian when he thanks the audience in Act 8.
  • In the EN version, he mainly goes with Gratuitous French. And this is taken up a notch as it is incorporated to his speech as well.
• Growing Up Sucks: Back in middle school, he had a beautiful soprano voice and was invited to join St Flora choir. However, on the first year of high school, Homare experiences a voice change. Deprived of the soprano voice he was very proud of, he was gutted and even retired from the St Flora choir. However, he was already registered as a competitor and could not back down, so he gave his all. Although he did not win, this taught him:
  • Mono no Aware: Change is inevitable. His soprano voice is gone forever, but something that is easily lost is why it is precious. In the post-event blog, he also expresses fondness for autumn season because it is ephemeral and a reminder of impermanence, which makes it all the more beautiful.
• Guilt Complex: Homare tends to put all the blame on himself whenever things go wrong and zigzags between this and Heroic Self-Deprecation. A prime example is him blaming himself when his Brutal Honesty nearly breaks up the Winter Troupe in Act 4, which stems from a great failure from his past: upsetting his lover to the point they left him and called him a broken cyborg. Even then, when it clearly is not his fault, he still blames himself. An example is from the Troupe LIVE～WINTER 2022～. When Homare recovered from the drunkenness, he noticed Yuzo was missing and thought he went too far with his act of welcoming and entertaining Yuzo, causing the coach to leave. Actually, Yuzo left because it was getting late.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Zigzags between this and Guilt Complex. While Homare loves bragging about how awesome he is, as the story goes on, once in a while he will still refer to his "broken" nature. He is very compassionate and caring towards others however, to the point it starts to lead to his undoing in Dance with Butterfly. Despite that, he still believes that everything he has done for Tasuku's sake is just him wanting to satisfy his ego, not for Tasuku.
• Hidden Depths: Plenty.
  • Despite his noisy, affectionate, and Large Ham nature, Homare often keeps his struggles to himself and tends to go off alone to resolve them, especially if they are dire. This is to the point his troupe mates have to remind him that he is not alone in Dance with Butterfly. See also Obviously Not Fine.
  • Although already hinted in his [Premonition of Blooming] and [Poetry Afternoon] backstage, Elegant Vacation showcases more of his aloof nature. The last line for the play in the story is supposed to be having others believing in you, and you will keep trying to live up to their expectations. However, to encourage an insecure kid who struggles to swim, Homare changes the line into you having to believe in yourself first because you, not others, are the most trustworthy person and the most capable of supporting yourself.
  • Although Homare appears eager to share his poetry to others, as Spotlight materials show, Homare actually has a self-oriented attitude about creating art. This is touched in his [It's a Good Day to Get Married] backstage and expanded on the Moment of Winter magazine: Homare never aspired to be a poet; he just happened to be one after winning a poetry contest, thanks to his editor friend's push. Even with him allowed to convey his art to the audience nowadays, through publishing poems and acting (stage or Instelive), Homare finds the audience's reaction most interesting because that way he can create new forms of art, the kind of art he can never create alone. So at the end of the day, it loops back to "selfishness."
    • The Rad Red also reveals that he recites poems whenever, wherever he wants because he does not want the flash of inspiration to vanish just like that, so he cares more about self-satisfaction than anything else.
    • In Dance with Butterfly, he also tells Tasuku that it is okay to be selfish if that is what it takes to grow. After all, Homare himself joined Mankai without a second thought simply because he wanted to broaden his range in art and nothing else.
    • The Luminous Circus also has him tell Kazunari, who is stuck about the value of his art, that the recipients of an art will judge the value without caring about the creator's feelings, so simply create what makes him feel satisfied.
  • He is more athletic than he seems, having a lot of experience in ballroom dancing and often appearing in sport games such as the baseball match in Act 6 and a tennis doubles in Tasuku's [Spirited Flat Serve] backstage. Homare manages to reel in a red snapper in Run! Lucky God Seven and strike a pose while figure skating in Kiss & Cry in the Holy Night, and SK∞ the Infinity × A3! reveals that his good core allows him to skateboard well. Guy lampshades this in Hisoka's [Dance with Butterfly] backstage, when Homare crosses a balance beam while dodging the plastic balls thrown at him.
    Guy: Was he hiding such athletic ability?
    • Of note, in 2022 events, he appears prominently in skateboarding- and swimming-themed event stories, being the highlight in the latter although the "vacation" aspect is more emphasized on than the "swimming" aspect. The minichat in the said event shows that he is eager to practice artistic swimming in the dorm's bath.
• Hot-Blooded: Very loud and passionate and eager to take on new challenges. He also does not fear failing tough challenges.
• I Know A Guy: Not to Azuma's extent, but he has his fair share of connection from his job and sometimes helps the company with it.
• Image Song: "Kiteretsu Poemer" and "Emotion".
• Ineffectual Loner: Implied in the magazine Spotlight. According to Homare, acting allows him to see the live reaction from the audience, unlike books, which take time to reach the audience. It is through this live reaction Homare believes he can now create an art he can never create by himself. He even lampshades this in his antique backstage.
  Homare: It is better to have allies. After all, I am not alone.
• Innocently Insensitive: Played for Drama in the Winter Troupe main scenario story and his character arc and is the main focus of My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery. He is able to read and guess on people's intentions, but he is incapable of empathizing them too well that it almost broke the group up.
• In-Series Nickname: He's often called "Arisu" by members of the troupe.
• Insufferable Genius: Downplayed. Despite often claiming to be a genius and sometimes calling others "commoners," he is overall friendly and affectionate. Moreover, he actually does not think that highly of himself and acknowledges that he has his flaws.
  Homare: Though I am a genius, I, too, am a mere son of man. Even I have my moments of weakness, you see.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Mainly in his backstage and downplayed. This includes Masumi trying to bash him with Tenma's bonsai after finding out that Homare went out with Izumi, Izumi stepping on his feet many times when dancing, thrown off a sled, getting banged up by Tasuku's training regime, beaten by Hisoka and hit in the face with konyaku and a soccer ball (which were All Just a Dream situations from Guy's and his Mankai Glitter backstage), burning his mouth by eating a piping hot dim sum skewer, and so on. His [A Heartfelt Resolution] backstage ends with a Scream Discretion Shot, which may imply that the angry Tasuku does more than dumping calligraphy ink at him in the end. According to Citron's blog, Tsuzuru mistook his head for a watermelon in a watermelon splitting game at one point.
  • Invoked in Re:Feb Magic, in which he acts as The Klutz and proceeds to trip and slam himself into Hisoka, among other things.
• Ironic Name: Varg also means "outlaw" or "robber," aside from "wolf." Varg works for the Space Police.
• Irony: Started the vow of Winter Troupe being bound by destiny and was somehow the one who forgot it and had to be reminded of it. It points to his tendency to fly solo, only to be reminded that he is not alone and could use help from others.
• It's All About Me: Zigzagged. He often brags about himself and may come across as arrogant, although is still overall friendly and affectionate. Because of such friendly and affectionate nature, it is easy to forget whom he actually creates poetry and art for. Although he will sometimes dedicate his poems to his loved ones, he cares more about creating an art form that will make him satisfied. As revealed in Spotlight material, he finds audience's reaction most interesting because it causes his craft to morph into a new form of art he can never create alone. However, for all that selfishness, he has proven to be an incredibly loving and loyal friend, which is shown in Dance with Butterfly.
  • At the same time, beneath his habit of bragging, Homare has low opinions of himself due to his grandmother telling him that he was just like a broken pocket watch, which in turn caused Homare to think that he was broken, incapable of loving, and unworthy of love. Being called a broken cyborg by his former lover only impacted his already low self-worth. While he gets better over the course of the story and learns that that was not what his grandmother meant, he still engages in Heroic Self-Deprecation every now and then.
• It Was a Gift: His pocket watch is a gift from his grandma, and he treasures it especially after learning why his grandma gives it to him. He still keeps it even after it stops working.
• I Work Alone: While Homare usually does not refuse help when offered, he tends to fly solo and solves problems by himself, leading to him forgetting to ask for help when needed. In the process, he often refuses to exactly say what problem he has. In his antique backstage, when he relies on Tasuku for repairs and mentions it in his letter to his grandmother, his grandmother is baffled.
  Homare's Grandmother: So he can rely on others.
• The Jeeves: His lead role as Sagishima in My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery is this, especially in the stage version in which he crosses over to Battle Butler. Outside theater, his household has Takao the butler who serves as this. Not that Takao is without his own moments of mischief.
• Journey to Find Oneself: What his Dancing with Myself in Dance with Butterfly is for. After killing his own unique acting in the rehearsal, Homare is told to ponder his individuality so he decides to confront himself with a lonely dance practice. His lonely dance oozes with his unique charm, unlike the one during the rehearsal with Tasuku. Although Homare does not quite find what he is supposed to find, he has fun and thinks this is what he is supposed to find.
• Lack of Empathy: A major part of his character that's featured in his subplot in Act 1 and My Master is Mesmerized by Mystery, his first play as the lead. Homare's trouble with empathy is never portrayed in a negative light, but it is presented as a hurdle in his interpersonal relationships that he has to recognize and confront. More importantly, he has to realize that even with his difficulties, he's a person who's fully deserving of love.
• Large Ham: Loves making up poems and reciting them as dramatically as possible. He even gets his own Leitmotif during these moments in the anime.
• Lethal Chef: Back in How Wonderfully Picaresque, Omi does not look pleased when he talks about keeping Homare away from the kitchen. Then Homare burns his chocolates in Valentine's Magic and admits that he rarely cooks, that cooking is not his forte in his [Blooming Journey] backstage. He struggled to learn how to cook gratin in the aforementioned backstage and succeeded at the end, and then in his [Emotional Orange] backstage, he tried to cook gratin with a tin foil and failed so badly that he was immediately appointed as the worst cook in the cooking competition he had with Winter Troupe and Izumi.
• The Lightfooted: Homare is known for his grace and excels at sports that require it, such as dancing and ice skating. His movements are light enough to surprise everyone when he manages to dodge balls thrown at him while crossing a balance beam. His role as Sagishima takes it to Noiseless Walker level in Shizuma's spin-off story.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: It is hard to see Homare's aloof nature because he is caring and affectionate especially if you read the EN localization, but even from the very start, Homare is quite the lone wolf. His [Premonition of Blooming] and [Poetry Afternoon] backstages have him claim that he is already superior without outside influence, on top of him feeling weird at Izumi's reaction at his gentlemanly side and saying that she can let others' malice affect her. As the story progresses, he certainly cherishes the Winter Troupe and the whole Mankai, although he can still be quite aloof.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: As eccentric as Homare is, despite his tendency to be Innocently Insensitive, he is overall a Nice Guy. Even at the very start, he volunteers to take care of Hisoka. As the story progresses, he even acknowledges that Hisoka is selfish and unfriendly, much to Guy's confusion, but still gladly takes care of Hisoka. He is also both rich and generous.
• Loud Sleeper Gag: There is a reason Hisoka often moves to the neighboring room or the attic to sleep. Homare snores very loudly in his sleep, which is also heard in his snoring voice clip. But more than that, Homare may talk, recite poem, or yell in his sleep and has been mistaken for being awake by several characters.
• Love Hurts: A former lover called him a "cyborg," and it left him with a low opinion of love. He cared for her and understood he hurt her, but could not change the way he was. Prior to joining the Winter Troupe, Homare believed himself to be incapable of loving and being loved because of his lack of compassionate empathy.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy: Especially towards Hisoka. Homare has made him join a tea ceremony and poetry reading, asked him to expand his palate such as trying roasted sweet potatoes in the autumn, bought him weird marshmallows like wasabi and miso katsu marshmallows, among many things.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: He is a very affectionate guy, yet his villain roles are often downright terrifying, either on the Blood Knight or even Ax-Crazy side.
  • In SK∞ the Infinity × A3!, his character, Ryuga, is The Dreaded Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who has no qualms injuring his opponents in a race, and makes an entrance by mocking Akito and Touma and starting a race, a chance he gleefully uses to knock Touma off his skateboard during the race. And he calls Touma a pathetic dog before leaving.
  • His portrayal of Dewey in the stage shuffle version of How Wonderfully Picaresque is far more malicious than Omi's, being more physical when threatening Lansky. He also enjoys waving his gun around and points it at his own head at one point, all while smiling gleefully.
  • Downplayed in Varg's case in Last Planet. Varg's title in the illustration is Trigger-Happy, complete with a Psychotic Smirk, yet he never truly shows that side of his and is part of the space police, a faithful assistant to Grimm. However, he enjoys his "work" and threatens to report Grimm if he refuses to let him join his investigation, all while smiling.
  • Downplayed in Spider from Midnight Chinatown, which features The Triads and the Tongs. He is a literal Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and a troublemaker, but appears to be more excited about fighting a Worthy Opponent than anything.
  • It is noted In-Universe that Richard from Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a complete villain. In the past he attempted to murder Erik, now the Phantom, and inflicted a burn on his face, and in the present he refused to acknowledge it.
    • In the stage version, Richard is an utterly ruthless villain, to the point Carl, for all his rivalry with Chris, draws the line when Richard causes Falling Chandelier of Doom in an attempt to kill Chris. After being confronted and choked by Erik, Richard pushes down several candelabras in a fit of rage, setting the opera house on fire all while Laughing Mad. One of the performance versions even has him strangle Carl.
  • His role in the BRIGHT WINTER audio drama etude is a victim of a sea witch who angrily tries to drown a ship everyone is on.
• Men Can't Keep House: Despite his genius status, Homare is a Lethal Chef who struggles at cleaning up. Though this may be justified considering his background; in the training line, he even says that when it comes to cleaning, he is good at calling the cleaners every three days. When he fails to keep his luggage in one suitcase in his [Illuminating a Glow Within These Hands] backstage, he asks Izumi for help...which fails anyway because he is not really listening to her and ends up with everything spilling out of his suitcase. Additionally, in Misumi's 2022/12 revival minichat, Homare tries to clean a coffee stain on a carpet, only to make the stain worse than at the start.
  • If you look properly at his desk in room 205 background, it is quite messy with the books.
• Milking the Giant Cow: In the anime and the comic series, he recites his poems with dramatic gestures.
• Momma's Boy: Very devoted to his grandmother and mother. According to memory of toys, Homare still reads and rereads a worn and torn book his mother got him when he was a child simply because it was a gift from his mother. Though a downplayed case as Homare has moved out and due to work, can only afford to go back home to check on them once in a while. It does not stop him from sending gifts whenever he gets the chance however.
• Money Dumb: In one of his birthday lines for Sakyo, he says that Sakyo tells him to not waste money, and then he asks if one million yen is that expensive. Tsumugi also has to keep him in check so that he won't be scammed into buying stuff.
• Mr. Fanservice: He is pretty lean as shown in his bloomed [Elegant Bath Time] card, in which he wears nothing but a shampoo cap and a towel. His outfit for Blooming Live 2022 also consists of a semi-transparent coat and a tank top. Then he gets to be shirtless for Elegant Vacation, both in the CG and the card, and is shown to be quite toned and built. His outfit for Mankai Feature, while not as bare as Tasuku's, is left open at the back, complete with hip windows similar to Tasuku's.
  • Invoked in his Dance with Butterfly role Arikawa, in which he tries to be one. Homare not only learns to seduce women with pickup lines and sweet nothings, but also wears an outfit has low neckline with Cleavage Window. Arikawa's dance outfit itself features very low neckline and a see-through lace top. The adlib skill of his N card is called "Attractive Dancer" too.
  • And then Homare as Nobara is a Ms. Fanservice. She wears a Sexy Slit Dress that shows a lot of her left leg. It helps that with the angle of her bloomed R card, the side view is from the left and thus the card fullbody provides a nice look of the exposed leg. And she wears stilletos.
• Musical Assassin: His A6 incarnation can cast Magic Music capable of bypassing Hisoka's No-Sell.
• My Greatest Failure: When his former romantic partner was experiencing a period of great sorrow, Homare composed a poem for them, meant to console and comfort them. But instead, Homare's actions caused his lover great pain and made them hate him, calling him a broken cyborg, and they eventually left him. Their words haunt Homare up to My Master is Mesmerized by Mystery.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Having his Last Planet SSR saying home page and training lines will hit different with that Psychotic Smirk, especially that the subtitle in the illustration is Trigger-Happy.
• Non-Idle Rich: Homare lives in a luxurious mansion and has an equally luxurious villa to boot, and can afford pricey stuff without a fuss. At the same time, Homare often works himself to the bone and runs after deadlines.
• Not Afraid to Die: How he views his play role in The Liar Night is Forever. Whether his character survives or not, it does not matter as long as it can make the story interesting. True to his words, in the play, he cuts himself to death with a glass shard as an adlib.
• Obviously Not Fine: Homare dislikes showing his weakness to others, which is lampshaded in the My Master is Mesmerized by Mystery banner rerun minichat, and tends to go off alone to hide and brood in his moments of weakness. However, when he has no choice, he often makes up Blatant Lies to assure everyone that he is fine. An instance is in The Luminous Circus, in which he is clearly nervous but insists that it is just his heart beating faster than usual.
  • Another instance is in the stage version of My Master is Mesmerized by Mystery, when sorting the cardboard boxes. As soon as Azuma finds the box containing a pocket watch, Homare looks more than shocked, but proceeds to smile, explain the story behind the pocket watch a bit, and quickly keep it in his pocket. He later cheerfully ushers everyone to carry the boxes away, but once everyone is gone, he takes out the pocket watch again to look at it, sadly.
• Obsessed with Food: Downplayed that Homare never thinks about it in inappropriate times, but he talks a lot about it, thinks what tea goes well with it, and has a habit of singing Ode to Food. Every Christmas he enjoys Omi's Stollen and pretty much equates the season to Omi's Stollen season. When it comes to St Flora food, he loves the apple cake that is only available in autumn and offers to treat Yuki to it if Yuki buys some for him. When Citron asks him how to have energy in winter mornings, Homare's answer is nothing but a simple croissant, because the thought of having delicious breakfast is enough motivation. Whenever Tenma is about to discard the carrots in his dish, Homare is more than happy to eat them for him. In Invitation to 0, his icebreaking session is pretty much talking about food.
• Ode to Food: Homare often gets excited about food and makes poems about it. As he has said in Tsumugi's Sanrio backstage, he is excited to browse the menu, but is even more excited when the real thing arrives. In the same backstage, Tasuku tells him to stop acting like he is the only guest in the cafe because he gets too loud.
• Old-School Chivalry: He likes to talk about how a gentleman is supposed to behave around a lady with Izumi and has shown a number of gentlemanly behavior around her, such as draping his coat over her when she feels cold and rejecting her offer to carry his belongings because he could not bear to make a lady carry heavy boxes.
  • His bloomed [Mankai Party] art? It is him during his birthday event, getting down on one knee and offering a lady a rose!
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Similar to Tasuku, due to this, Homare has a common misconception surrounding him. Contrary to popular belief, Homare is not lacking in athleticism; he is an experienced ballroom dancer whose strong core helps him learn skateboarding. On top of that, he has stopped a thief with a hug in hAve A greAt trip and carried Muku on his back through a blizzard in Special Edition: Snowfall Street. Unfortunately, the story frequently has Hisoka and Tasuku overshadow both Homare's agility and strength respectively. And they are quick to condemn Homare as weak whenever he fumbles, exacerbating this trope and the misconception. To some degree, Guy, a former royal guard, overshadows him in these aspects as well.
• Piggyback Cute: Has been shown to give a piggyback ride to Hisoka on webcomic 215. His [Bubbly and Jittery] backstage implies that he often gives this to Hisoka.
  • A dramatic example is in the Special Edition: Snowfall Street. A snowstorm causes the road to be slippery and hard to traverse, and Muku slips and twists his ankle there. Being the Papa Wolf he is, Homare gives him a piggyback ride through the snowstorm despite Muku's warning that the terrain is awfully dangerous, until they are rescued by a nearby theater troupe.
• The Pollyanna: A male example. He is very confident and optimistic; in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden, those qualities of his inspire everyone. Other characters often lampshade his optimism and positivity.
• Primary-Color Champion: His winter outfit consists of a red vest, a blue turtleneck, and a yellow jacket. And he's a good guy. Of note, guess which outfit he wears when he carries Muku on his back through a blizzard in Special Edition: Snowfall Street.
• Raised by Grandparents: Subverted. The story frequently shows Homare and his grandparents and especially his grandmother, but in his [Mankai Memory] backstage, Homare says he was raised by his grandmother, mother, and the household servants. His mother debuts in his [Illuminate the Darkness] backstage.
• Read the Freaking Manual: In Hisoka's [Run Through the Night] backstage, he skipped the washing instructions for Hisoka's new pillow and tossed it straight into the washing machine. Obviously the pillow was ruined. One could argue that this is also how he messed up his gratin in his [Emotional Orange] backstage, because he actually has the recipe for cooking gratin in a foil roast.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Averted. He has red eyes but save for his insensitive remarks at times, is nice and very affectionate.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Hisoka. Homare's motif color is red, and he's a loud, energetic, and passionate guy.
  • In the My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery particularly the stage version, it is inverted however. Sagishima is the blue to Shiki's red, being a sensible, level-headed butler.
  • Also the red to Tsumugi's blue. Homare is the loud, brazen member of the Winter Troupe.
• Renaissance Man: He is a poet with a laundry list of talents, which is prominently shown in his backstage so long as Hisoka or sometimes Tasuku is not around to turn him into a Butt-Monkey. He can sing and rap, and he carried St Flora choir in a national singing competition and had been hired as a guest instructor for the choir at a church and St Flora. B's Log 2018 magazine interview reveals that he has part time job experience as well: working at convenience stores, fast food restaurants, editorial departments, and gyaru fashion stores. In his [Elegant Bath Time] backstage, he promotes a bath set and gets his poems printed on the packaging, causing Izumi to wonder if he has a talent for business as well, and in his Nomadic Bartender SR, he shows talent in management too. And he is not lacking in sports. He has the basics of dancing under his belt and has taught his comrades multiple times over the course of the story, learns skateboarding quickly thanks to his strong core, and has a blog picture of him figure skating gracefully. He even learns delinquent combat choreography quickly under Juza's and Banri's tutelage! However, his cooking and cleaning skills leave a lot to be desired.
• Sad Clown: He is very positive and also Winter Troupe's moodmaker, being the first person to make Hisoka and Guy truly laugh, but also a man who struggles to get over his Lack of Empathy and Innocently Insensitive nature. Before My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery, he has been misunderstanding his grandmother's words and thinking that he is defective and unneeded. Lampshaded in the stage version of My Master's Mesmerized by Mystery, when Homare starts going off with his poem.
  Matsukawa: Arisugawa-san is in great form today! Has he finally regained his spirits?
  Azuma: How? He looks reluctant to me.
• Sarcasm-Blind: He hardly ever registers others' snarks towards him. In Nocturnality, when Yuki said that he was already extravagant from the neck up, he took it as a compliment. Yuki even noted that he actually wasn't complimenting Homare.
• Security Blanket: His pocket watch Christine. In his [A Tent of Dreams and Light] backstage, he admits that he is more relaxed while carrying Christine.
• Sentimental Drunk: He rambles a lot, recites poems, and cries whenever he is drunk. At one point he gets very affectionate towards Guy when he is drunk. Though as revealed by Hisoka's 6th anniversary, he is quite unnerved by this side of his.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: He recites his poems much less frequently in more serious stories like The Luminous Circus and Dance with Butterfly. His more serious backstage also has him not make his infamous noseless face expression.
• Slave to PR: Homare cares a lot about presenting himself to public and fusses over photoshoot a great deal. While Homare retains his playfulness at work or with his fanbase, it is more subdued. If anything, Spotlight: Tsukushi High and St Flora has him joke about wearing his old St Flora uniform (which looks hilariously small on him) to teach the school choir as a guest instructor. Later it turns out that he does not wear it to St Flora, and Yuki even does not expect his lesson to be that proper. In the stage version of Nocturnality, Homare gets mad when Tsumugi forgets to inform him about a photoshoot for the performance's poster, because the lack of preparation will result in him unable to show his best self to public.
• Something about a Rose: His Flower Motif. He also has an emotional attachment to roses, as revealed in his [Miraculous Blue Rose] backstage. He once gave his grandmother a rose for her birthday, but pricked his hand in the process. His grandmother only said "thanks" at it.
• Spirited Competitor: Sums up his relationship with Banri and pretty much the Autumn Troupe. Homare often invites Banri into various "battles" such as poem and tongue twister competitions. The 2022 Autumn Troupe birthday lines are mainly him inviting them to various competitions, including a chess battle with Sakyo and a rap battle with Azami.
• Statuesque Stunner: Defied. Tasuku and Hisoka were against Homare playing female roles in Act 8 because he is very tall, and Tsumugi even noted that if Homare plays a female role, it will be hard to balance their heights when standing together. Played straight later on. When Homare finally gets to play as Murasakinomiya in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden, Chikage is chosen to play the shogun, Murasakinomiya's husband, because Chikage is slightly taller than him. In Sunny Blanc, Homare gets to play as Nobara and wears high heels to top it off.
• Thrill Seeker: Considering his Brass Balls tendencies... Homare actively seeks thrills in his [The Witness] backstage and is more than happy to participate in the test of courage, and at the end of it all, he is not scared and laments that the whole test is not thrilling enough. Even his birthday wish in his [Mankai Glitter] backstage is thrill, because the supposedly scariest ghost house in the town was not thrilling enough.
  • In Elegant Vacation, he is more than happy to show off his "elegant sliding" down a very tall water slide and recites a poem along the way. As the post-show chat shows, when he asks Tsuzuru to slide with him, Tsuzuru is scared.
  • His [Emotional Orange] backstage also has him propose a punishment game for the cooking contest within Winter Troupe because it is more fun that way. Unfortunately, he is a Lethal Chef and his idea bites him back in the ass.
• Too Dumb to Live: Played for Laughs in his [Poetry Afternoon] backstage. A very angry Masumi coming at him with a bonsai pot after discovering that he went out with Izumi? Everyone tells him to run, but he doesn't and instead cheerfully tells Masumi to air his grievance. Then we hear something breaking...
• Trademark Favorite Food: Carrot. With this being Tenma's disliked food, Homare is always more than happy to eat them for him.
• Tranquil Fury: Manages to slip into this in Hisoka's [A Hymn to Deliver to You] backstage. Homare does not even let out his usual annoyed "Hisoka-kun" after Hisoka wakes him up by crashing cymbals on his ears; he just goes deathly silent and stares. Fortunately, it does not last long.
• Truth in Television: In SK∞ the Infinity × A3!, Izumi notes that Homare's naturally strong core lets him ride a skateboard well. The reveal is not as sudden as it seems, since Homare is known to have vast experience in ballroom dancing (particularly waltz, which he has learned since childhood) and dances quite a lot in the backstage stories, and has coached Winter Troupe for the dance in Dance with Butterfly. A strong core is crucial for ballroom dancing.
• Uncle Pennybags: He never hesitates to share his wealth or use it to help everyone. He once shared his vintage wine with the dorm adults in Omi's [Outdoor Flower Banquet] backstage, let Summer and Winter Troupe have a training camp at his mansion and provides Yuki with high-quality fabric in Dazzling Rose Mansion, and got everyone high-quality kimono in This is the Inner Palace, the Flower Garden.
• Unwanted Assistance: May come across as this sometimes. He always means well when lending a hand, such as trying to resolve the Winter Troupe's dispute caused by a mysterious man in the Main Story, washing Hisoka's pillow, buying limited-edition marshmallows for Hisoka, etc, but messes up more often than not. This includes him worsening the conflict (he gets better), ruining Hisoka's pillow, and buying wasabi and miso katsu marshmallows, much to Hisoka's disgust.
• Upper-Class Twit: Homare is a Ditzy Genius with a lot of wealth, but note the genius. In B's Log 2018, Hisoka assumes Homare to be one, believing that Homare never has part-time work experience and is doubtful when Homare argues that he has. Either because Homare is often ditzy or Hisoka is just insulting him for kicks, when Hisoka says Homare is probably fired on the first day, Homare is seriously offended. And Homare turns out to have multiple part-time job experience and is still on good terms with the manager of the gyaru fashion store he used to part-time at. And as many stories show, Homare is actually a well-respected Workaholic among his peer and has a huge fanbase.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Tasuku. They bicker a lot, but Homare is always happy to help Tasuku although his ideas are often not the best. His helpfulness is the main focus of Dance with Butterfly, in which he literally gives his all to support Tasuku.
  • He's also at the receiving end of Hisoka's insults which leads him to feeling indignant, but he still acts as his caretaker of sorts.
• Weirdness Magnet: Hilariously enough, Homare just so happens to have a number of supernatural things going around him in a relatively realistic world for all his Arbitrary Skepticism and Agent Scully attitude. He has found and used the Loupe of Sincerity, had a kitsune running past him at his back and "pocket watch magic" conjuring an illusion of his past, to name a few. However, Homare often comes up with logical explanation for these supernatural happenings, invoking Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane.
  • Even more hilarious is how a number of his roles is this. Higashikawa is an ordinary lobby boy in a hotel full of eccentric guests including a time traveler and one of the staffers is a murderer. Back then there was also Nonomiya, an ordinary office worker in a world where vampires existed. Then in BRIGHT WINTER audio drama, Homare plays the victim of a sea witch while everyone else plays the guests and staffers of a luxury cruiser.
  • Homare himself picks up fortunetelling in his [Sense Ruler] backstage, although he admits he was not interested in such things back then. And he gets his predictions right, even later in his line for Kumon's birthday on 2022, though in one instance he chalks it up to his gut feeling. However, if his line in [Savour the Changing Seasons] backstage is to be believed, it may be another case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane because Homare claims to have a perception beyond ordinary people. Or maybe Charles Atlas Superpower even, because in Moment of Winter, he says he tries to always be perceptive of his surroundings to seek inspiration.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Revealed to be one in his [Mankai Feature] backstage, which he later uses as an inspiration for Richard's spin-off. He always tries to impress his grandmother and make her smile. As his [Illuminate the Darkness] backstage shows, he is also this towards his mother. He gets uncharacteristically nervous around them too.
• When He Smiles: Inverted. Izumi often notes how handsome he looks whenever he is serious.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Inverted. In The Luminous Circus, his grandmother says his mother is lonely and waiting for his return, and she even tries to make him go home by promising to tell her impression of his performance at home. Later when Homare meets his mother in his [Illuminate the Darkness] backstage, he apologizes for not being able to come home often because of work.
• Workaholic: As shown in several backstages, Homare can work on multiple deadlines at once and is often seen to be wandering around and about to find inspiration to write for an upcoming magazine column. He is often still up past midnight too. It is almost a Running Gag how he is unable to participate in a particular event because of deadlines.

Azuma Yukishiro

Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara
Portrayed by: Kandai Ueda (2019-present)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play and movies

A beguiling man who works as a "professional cuddler." He is first seen intervening a fight between Juza, Banri, and delinquents. In Act 4, Azuma and Tsumugi are the intial members of the Winter Troupe. Elegant, calm, and a tease, Azuma is often seen with a gentle smile that masks a profound sadness.

"You can't sleep? In that case, my room is always open for visitors."

Age: ???

Height: 178cm

Birthday: January 22

Blood Type: B

Occupation: Part-timer

Hobbies: Adult coloring books

Image color: Purple

Motif flower: Camellia

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• Affectionate Nickname: Although Yuki tends to give out pretty mean nicknames for his fellow troupe-mates, he refers to Azuma as "Azu-nee". Muku also calls him this.
• Barrier Warrior: His Last Planet role, Murasaki, has a little robot friend that can conjure force fields for him. His A6 incarnation has powers revolving around barriers as well.
• Crosscast Role: Multiple times. He plays as Kazumi in the Mankai Company's Christmas event, Orin in To Die By The Blade, and as the titular Gaia in Ahh, Beautiful Gaia.
• Disc-One Nuke: His initial SSR, which is obtainable as early as the tutorial roll, will get you far in Dr teambuilding thanks to the existence of Mahjong Club + Mature Onigiri Appreciators. That aside, he is also part of almost all strongest Dr builds, such as Winter Troupe and Alone in the World + Hanasaki Academy Group + Sleep Raises a Child Well. In case you miss it, you can skip through the whole Act 1 main story and claim it for free.
• Double Entendre: He often cracks such jokes, and because of his tendency to tease along the way, it often ends up as Lampshaded Double Entendre.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Introduced helping Banri and Juza out when they were advertising their play.
• Friendless Background: In 3 Cheers for Mankai, he admits that he didn't have any friends and was always watching others' friendship from a distance when he was young. In his Mankai Memory backstage, he was bullied by his classmates for looking like a girl.
• The Gadfly: The younger troupe members (Tenma especially) think that his preferences lie towards anything that moves, even though it doesn't exactly go that extreme. He does get a kick out of teasing them and Izumi to thinking they might be right.
• Hates Being Alone: The last time he said goodbye to his family is the last time he saw them, prompting him to take a counselor-like job so he won't be alone again. Azuma tried to quit the troupe because in Episode 4, he was the only one with a single room, and he could not handle being alone when he awoke from his nightmares. However, he gets over his fear when the director reassures him that even when he is physically alone, he is tied to the Winter Troupe and the Mankai Company, which will never leave him.
• Hidden Depths: He is actually The Stoic and struggles to express intense emotion. His Spotlight magazine interview reveals that while working as a professional cuddler, he unconsciously suppresses his own emotion to deal with the various types of emotion from his clients.
• I Know A Guy: He has acquaintances from many different walks of life due to his job as a professional cuddler.
• Image Song: "Gekkoujou no Aria" and "Purity of Dawn".
• Lifesaving Misfortune: When Azuma was in the upper grades of elementary school, his brother Hajime got into college and was about to move out. His family planned a trip before Hajime moved away, and Azuma happened to be sick the day before the trip. His parents and Hajime wanted to cancel the trip, but Azuma said he would be fine, because the others were looking forward to the trip. Azuma waited for their return at home, but no one ever returned because they were caught in a car accident and had their car knocked off into a cliff. See also Serendipitous Survival.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has long, silvery hair that's often tied into a ponytail. He has stated that the hair was grown as a prayer, in the case that his brother's missing body would be found one day and the small possibility that he would be alive. He later comes to term with his grief and keeps his hair long because it represents his connection to the Mankai Company.
• Meaningful Name: His surname, Yukishiro, means Snow White. Azuma is well-known for his beauty in the dorm.
• Mellow Fellow: Very relaxed and easygoing and hardly loses his cool. In his training quotes, he admits that he has a hard time acting out anger. In his Spotlight magazine interview, he says this comes from his job as a professional cuddler, in which he ends up dealing with various emotions, including loneliness. Him being able to let it all out on stage is a huge relief for him.
• Older Than He Looks: We won't say what age he is exactly, but he has very youthful looks. During Azuma's birthday though, Sakyo says that he is younger than Azuma.
• Parental Abandonment: His parents died in a car accident. This caused him to get Past Experience Nightmares more often than not.
• Past Experience Nightmare: He often has nightmares about his Dark and Troubled Past. Azuma was the only that did not attend a trip which resulted in an accident that killed his parents and brother. He has a recurring nightmare in which his family always leaves him alone at the end.
• Platonic Prostitution: When he is first asked by Autumn troupe about what his job is, Azuma replies that he "slept with people in town", but that it's not what they're thinking about. His part-time job as a professional cuddler basically entails laying down with the client and letting them vent until the client falls asleep. Izumi likens it to being a counselor, but with more physical contact.
  Izumi: Oh, so you, like, SLEPT with people, not 'slept' with people.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Azuma's nightmares always have him say this to his family. Unfortunately, his family always leaves him at the end. His Image Song also has him say this in the lyrics.
• Renaissance Man: His work as a professional cuddler has introduced him to many different skills, such as archery, figure skating, dancing, etc.
• Safety in Indifference: He always tries to keep his relationship with others' at arm's length as he thinks that the closer he gets with others, the more lonely he'll feel when he's alone. He gets better.
• Serendipitous Survival: In Azuma's [marionette blanche] backstage, Azuma and Izumi were about to go home from a dollhouse in a mountainous region. However, Izumi accidentally left her curry plush in the photoshoot area of the dollhouse. When they found the plush and were about to return, the dollhouse staff told them to be careful because a heavy rain had just passed. If not for the coincidence, Azuma would have been caught in the rain while driving along the mountain roads. Azuma and Izumi both noted the timing and the coincidence.
• Shipper on Deck: Downplayed. He occasionally teases Tasuku and Tsumugi.
• Stepford Smiler: Outside he looks carefree and has the tendency to be The Gadfly, but inside he is a lonesome man who Hates Being Alone and has suffered a tragic Parental Abandonment that causes Past Experience Nightmare. Lampshaded by one of Homare's practice lines.
  Homare: Azuma's always smiling, but his smile always have a bit of sadness inside there...
• Stronger Than They Look: Azuma is said to have low stamina and always prefers not to do physically laborious tasks, but he actually frequents a gym and as shown in several backstage and event stories, is capable of walking long distances. Everyone is always astounded at his surprisingly good stamina.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks like his mother. In his Mankai Memory backstage, this caused him to be bullied by his classmates because he looked like a girl. Then his mother reminded him that as long as his face looked beautiful, it never mattered whether it looked like a boy's or a girl's, and encouraged him to be more confident of his looks.
• Survivor Guilt: Azuma is guilty of telling his parents and brother to go on that trip instead of convincing them to not go, because it is during that trip his parents and brother get caught in a car accident, killing his parents while leaving his brother's fate unknown.
• Tragic Keepsake: A hair comb, which was intended to be a birthday gift to him by his brother. His brother and his parents died in an accident one week before his birthday. Tasuku was able to find it when he and Azuma went to visit to Azuma's old home, before it was about to get demolished.
• The Trickster: He is very good at messing around with others. One of his backstage is even titled The Trickster of Winter Troupe, in which he makes everyone sleep (despite everyone's refusal at the start) by asking for a round of poker where the winner is allowed to make a request.
• Uncle Pennybags: We do not exactly know how rich Azuma is, but he always gets his hands on luxurious gifts and stuff (including cruise ship tickets) and is always happy to share them with everyone.
• Urban Legend Love Life: What his part-time job often gets misconstrued as. There's no evidence that he engages with his clients on an out-of-work-hours level, aside from some of them sending him small gifts like coloring books, but he likes lightly indulging the troupe's imagination in this area just for the fun of it.
• Vague Age: No one knows how old he is. It's to a point that his character page has his age written off as "???". He is known to be older than Sakyo.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Is freaked out by bugs. His explanation for not liking eggplants, according to his crossbackstage with Yuki, is even that they look like bugs.

Guy

Voiced by: Satoshi Hino
Portrayed by: Teruma (2022-present)

Click ^here to see him in the stage play

A mysterious man who seems to have come from Citron's country. First appears in the Spring Troupe's third play. He joins the Winter Troupe in Year 2.

"There is no issue. My language configuration is set to Japanese."

Age: ???

Height: 183cm

Birthday: January 13

Blood Type: B

Occupation: Royal attendant (Part 2), Bartender (Part 3)

Hobbies: Collecting records, biking

Image color: Dark green

Motif flower: Buttercup

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• Abusive Parents: His mother made no secret that she found Guy's quiet, unexpressive demeanor odd, and things only got worse when she forcibly relocated him to a foreign country and remarried a man who was verbally abusive to him. Though Guy's [Mankai Feature] backstage says that while she did not make effort to stop Guy's stepfather from abusing him, she tried to comfort Guy in her own way.
• Ambiguously Human: He says he's an android, at any rate. Subverted that he's really human.
  • His role as Erik in Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. Erik says he is a ghost, but Chris, Raoul, and Phil believe that he is a human rather than a ghost. However, it is never confirmed.
• Anger Born of Worry: In his [Duel at Dusk] backstage, an apple fell off Izumi's shopping bag. Max the dog went to chase it and did not notice a speeding car, and Guy pulled a Diving Save and scolded Max before telling that he was glad that Max was safe.
• Baritone of Strength: Sounds very deep, and is a karate practitioner and formerly a soldier. In his [A Soldier's Understanding] backstage, he fought very well in a kendo workshop and knocked a bamboo sword (which slipped off someone else's hands) away with his own before it hit Izumi.
• The Bartender: Becomes one in Act 3. In HOTEL COMPASS he named the bar "Journey" after a conversation with Syu, and it is also the name of his signature drink.
• But Not Too Foreign: He is later revealed to have been half-Japanese on his father's side.
• Caring Gardener: Learns to be one from Tsumugi.
• The Comically Serious: A good chunk of humor comes from him taking things very seriously. He is pokerfaced even when caught in the dorms' shenanigans (partly due to his Super Gullible nature), such as in Kumon's blog post for Tenma's birthday, where they dress him up for birthday celebration and take a photo of him.
• Disappeared Dad: He was separated from his biological father because of parental divorce. Guy gets to meet him again during Nomadic Bartender. His father also shows up in Guy's [Mankai Feature] backstage.
• Does Not Like Spam: Green peas. He tries to eat them to not leave any leftovers in Sakyo's Onsen Village of Hell backstage, but what happens next is him completely frozen with his "shutdown mode" face.
• Emotion Suppression: As a kid, Guy was emotionally scarred from being separated from his father, and locked away his emotions as a coping mechanism both from losing his loving father and from protecting himself against his stepfather's mental abuse. He lived his life believing he was an android due to his stepfather's insults, and his job as a soldier reinforced the need to suppress his emotions.
• Foreshadowing: Of the revelation kind. A young Guy went with his father to watch a Mankai Company play, and upon seeing Reni on the street, he felt that he has seen him before. Die by the Sword reinforced that Guy likely saw a younger Reni as an actor with the Mankai Company which is not explored until Act 3 of the Main Story.
• Gentle Giant: One of the tallest and physically strongest guys in the company and is a Nice Guy.
• Given Name Reveal: Act 8 reveals that his real name is Gai Nishiki.
• Good Parents: His biological father is one, enjoying a good chat with Guy in the bar and going as far as bringing Guy's favorite earl gray cookies to the bar in his Mankai Feature backstage.
• Good with Numbers: He excels at mental math.
• Hidden Depths: Guy is an agreeable, serious, and Super Gullible man, but out of nowhere he can convince you about something nonsensical before brushing it off as a joke.
  • He is great at handicraft, be it carving pumpkins or sewing, and this becomes a useful skill to compensate his inability to cook in his 2nd anniversary backstage. He has the tendency to use his excellent math skills for various tasks, including coloring, as revealed in Hisoka's [Yosakoi Naruko Dance] backstage. His drawing in the relay blogs has always been extremely detailed and beautiful,
• Hired Help as Family: He and Citron, and what Citron has always wanted him to be. Near the end of Act 8, when Guy declares that he will keep accompanying Citron as a friend rather than a servant, Citron admits that he has always wanted be friends with Guy.
• Honorary True Companion: His reason of joining the Winter Troupe at the beginning was to be a stand-in for them until they found someone else, make up for causing Citron to leave Mankai, and that he had nowhere to go due to Citron accusing him of a crime. The entire Winter Troupe still treated him as one of them anyway. Subverted at the end of Episode 8, in which he officially joined.
• Image Song: "DEFRAGMENTATION" and "For Your Journey ~The Bar's Secret~".
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Muku. Just like Citron, he's fond of him, and even nicknames him "Little Prince."
• Lethal Chef: Despite being an attendant, Guy has no practical knowledge of cooking. Very prominently shown in GOLDEN ENCORE audio drama, Guy does not only burn food often, but has also put cucumber and konjac into curry. He gets better during Act 3 when he becomes a bar-owner; he cooks and comes up with Journey's menu himself.
• Like a Son to Me: He considers Mika as one.
• Lightning Bruiser: He is one of the tallest guys in Mankai, capable of going through a laser trap without a fuss in Hisoka's [Quick, Quick] backstage, on top of knocking out a thug with a blow in Midnight Chinatown and saving a big dog from getting run over by a car in his [Duel at Dusk] backstage.
• Literal-Minded: He may sometimes pick up slangs this way.
• Memento Macguffin: The green good-luck charm that was given to Izumi by Citron was originally given to Guy by his father. Inside the charm is a microchip containing data about Guy that was hidden by Citron, and there's also an old, touching handwritten note by Guy's father.

  May Guy smile lots and lots.

• Mondegreen Gag: He often mishears words. Chaos ensues when he mishears Citron's slip-ups or Kazu's slangs.
• Mr. Fanservice: His Elegant Vacation card shows that he is quite ripped.
• Nice Guy: One of the nicest, gentlest guys in the company.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Has such a moment in his android set backstage. In a sci-fi interactive fiction game Itaru introduces, Guy wants to save all the robots, including the infected Jesse, so he attempts to remove the virus. Unfortunately, the choice does not work and instead ends in the virus spreading to other robots and destroying them. Guy gets the bad ending and is thoroughly distraught at it. Itaru even notes that Guy is simply too gentle.
• Only One Name: Known as Guy. His real name is Nishiki Gai.
• Real Men Cook: He used to be bad at cooking, but by Act 3 he has learned to cook so well that he opened a bar. Guy is a former soldier and royal bodyguard who practices karate.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He knows karate and was formerly a soldier, and has been working hard to improve his cooking skills. He can sew as well; he made dolls for Mika in Citron's [Royal Style] backstage and in Cosmetic Syndrome, Taichi and Yuki praised how neat his work is.
• Red Shirt Army: As a young adult, Guy belonged to one of these units. He explicitly stated that his role was as a disposable soldier, but a young Citron saved him from this role and made Guy his attendant.
• The Stoic: Barely emotes by much. Made worse with the Trauma-Induced Amnesia that he suffered after his parents divorced.
• Super Gullible: He easily believes what everyone else says and causes hilarious moments.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Tall and well-built with dark brown hair. Lampshaded in Act 8 by an audience.
  Opera Patron B: Thank YOU, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome!
• Tears of Joy: After reading his father's old note and realizing Citron's true intentions behind framing him, Guy begins to cry and refers to himself as human from then on.
• Tin Man: When Guy thought of himself as an android, he believed that he was unable to feel strong emotions, but multiple points within the story disprove it. One of the pieces of evidence being that if he only felt loyalty for Citron, he would not have had such a difficult time being left behind in Japan by the prince. To Azuma, his nightmares of the past also revealed that he could feel genuine fear, and when confronted about these nightmares by the troupe, Guy erupted in anger.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: After his parents divorced, he was taken away from his father against his will and was subjected to so much verbal abuse from his step father that he forgot about his childhood.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Although Guy's mother made no effort to stop his abusive stepfather, Guy still tries to justify her reasons for doing so in his [Mankai Feature] backstage. Hisoka thinks Guy is too kind.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Citron. Near the end of Episode 8, he pledges his loyalty towards Citron, but as a friend, rather than an attendant. His birthday lines to Citron are often about this.
• What Is This Feeling?: His Sanrio collab backstage has him meet Keroppi and question this. It is the feeling of seeing something cute.
• Wicked Stepfather: Guy's stepfather verbally abused Guy to the point Guy suppressed his emotion. Guy's [Mankai Feature] backstage reveals that Guy's mother made no effort to stop him, but Guy thought it was because his stepfather was a powerful and influential man and might even hurt her if she got in the way.
• Vague Age: Like Azuma, his age is listed as "???". Leader Conference 2.5 audio drama says that he is older than Azuma.