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Hotaru Hinase
Voiced by: Kana Ichinose (Audio Drama/Voiced Comic, Japanese), Kana Hanazawa (TV anime, Japanese), Dani Chambers (TV anime, English)
15-year-old Hotaru Hinase is a fairly average girl who has never been in love and doesn't even think she can fall in love, when her classmate Hananoi Saki asks her out, seemingly out of the blue.- Cannot Spit It Out: Once she realizes her feelings for Hananoi are no longer platonic, Hotaru struggles with telling him how she feels several times, leading to multiple Aborted Declaration of Loves as she realizes just how hard it is. She ends up telling him to give her just a bit more time for her to muster up the courage to do so.
- Changing Yourself for Love: Hotaru intentionally dates Hananoi hoping to invoke this trope for herself. She wants to know how to fall in love and be better with reading others' emotions regarding love to avoid her traumatic falling out with her middle school best friend from ever happening again.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Hotaru having her hair cut by her best friend in middle school in a fit of jealousy has traumatized her somewhat and is the reason why she's so apprehensive towards love.
- Freudian Excuse: For her, it's her friend cutting her long hair in a fit of jealousy in middle school after thinking Hotaru was flirting with the boy she had a crush on that has made Hotaru shy away from love entirely, subconsciouly too afraid to open herself up out of fear of what may come of it.
- Naïve Everygirl: Hotaru is admittedly unremarkable and has 0 experience with love and dating, to the point that she's not even sure if it's possible for her to love and be loved. Her inability to understand love and the jealousies that comes with it was the cause of an issue she had back in middle school. However, she is kind, thoughtful, and attentive in all other respects and seeks to do her best in whatever she tries to do. Her clear-eyed innocence is what attracted Hananoi to her in the first place.
- Oblivious to Love: Hotaru has never been in love and is not even sure if she can fall in love at the start of the manga. Her inability to see the romantic interest of others has gotten her into some trouble in the past, which is what prompts her desire to even want to start dating Hananoi in the first place.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Hotaru is just your average high school student with maybe a little less experience in the dating department than her peers. This makes her a great Audience Surrogate and allows the reader to look at Hananoi's troubling and overbearing romantic actions from a more objective standpoint, rather than the typical romanticized perspective that is the norm for the genre.
- Perennially Overshadowed Birthday: Hotaru's birthday is on Christmas Eve, but every year she spends it with her family focused on preparing for and attending her younger sister's annual figure skating pageant. However, this year Hananoi takes Hotaru out on a date to explicitly make the day special for her and treat her like a princess. Downplayed as the kind Hotaru doesn't really resent her family's tradition, however she is so moved by Hananoi's prioritization of her that this is the trigger for the Oblivious to Love Hotaru's Love Epiphany.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: In universe, this is what Hotaru's peers see her as and they are baffled as to why Hananoi, the class genius and resident hottie, has any interest in her whatsoever. It's to the point that most of the students just assume he's toying with her and when a younger student has a crush on Hananoi, her friends encourage her to go for it because Hotaru is so plain, there's no way she'd lose to her.
Saki Hananoi
Voiced by: Kōki Uchiyama (Audio Drama/Voiced Comic, Japanese), Chiaki Kobayashi (TV anime, Japanese), Blake McNamara (TV anime, English)
The titular Hananoi-kun. He is a smart, seemingly mild-mannered loner in school who also happens to be infamous for being a serial dater with some very...odd notions about love. After Hotaru shields him in the snow out of kindness and pity, he confesses to her the next day and school and asks to date her.- Broken Ace: Hananoi is at the top of his class with idol-level good looks, but has an insecurity streak and a desperation to be loved so strong that he has become an obsessive, possessive, hopeless romantic who will do just about anything to find someone who will love him, all caused by some fairly understandable parental issues. This is even lampshaded by Yao and Keigo who tell Hananoi to his face how baffled they are that someone as good-looking and smart as Hananoi is, can also be so insecure. Hananoi responds with the obvious: for all his supposed charms, he still kept getting dumped.
- Changing Yourself for Love: Hananoi starts the story off with long hair because his previous girlfriend said she liked it. When he prompts her on what she thinks, Hotaru makes a passing remark that she thinks short hair is better than long hair as it's easier to maintain. The next day Hananoi shows up to school with his hair cut and Hotaru balks, wondering why he needs to go so far for her.
- Chick Magnet: He gets hit on quite a bit because of his good looks. The plus side is that this gives him a steady stream of girls to date. The downside as he states it is that most girls see his face and think he'll be more princely (or just more normal) and he seemingly disappoints them every time.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Hananoi has two: his parents essentially abandoning him in some misguided Hands-Off Parenting and him not going to console Hotaru in middle school after her hair was cut. The former has made him the affection-starved mess he is today while the latter fuels a guilt and martyr streak in him with respect to Hotaru.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: King in this respect. Hananoi actively seeks to defy this trope with everyone who isn't Hotaru to the extent that when he feels himself defrosting, he tells everyone to not get so close to him and realize they aren't actually friends. Hotaru on the other hand actively tries to get Hananoi to melt his icy walls around her friends at the very least, as she believes it'll be good for him to expand his world. After the school basketball tournament, he does end up warming up a little to the guys in his class who helped him work on his basketball skills. Just a little.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Hananoi toes the line between this and being outright Love Hungry. He is desperate for anyone to show him romantic love to make up for the love he feels he didn't receive from his parents growing up. And he's willing to go further than a normal person would (getting his ears pierced, cutting his hair in an instant, standing outside in the cold for hours, for example) to become the perfect boyfriend so that his partners will never feel the need to leave him. It doesn't work and his intenseness has scared off every girl he's ever met until now.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Hananoi tells Hotaru he likes her and wants to date. She rejects him. He proceeds to show up where she'll be and persuades her into trial dating, so that she will hopefully fall for him. During this time, he does several overly attentive, borderline obsessive acts of love to win her affection, such as cutting his long hair short just because she mentions she thinks short hair in general is better. The story takes great pains to show how this perspective is flawed, while also showing some of its mertis.
- Freudian Excuse: For him, it's his parents leaving him while they travel for work all of the time]] made him feel rejected and underloved. So his goal is to find someone who will give him the love and attention he lacked growing up.
- Friendless Background: In middle school, Hananoi was introverted and shy and his only friend was an older man he met at the nearby park who he'd go to for advice.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Hananoi tells the other guys in his class's basketball group for the sports festival this almost verbatim. He doesn't want to be friends with them, he just wants to win the tournament and needs their help to do so as basketball is a team sport.
- In Love with Love: Hananoi comes to realize this about himself, that his desire to find his One True Love had little to do with finding the person and more to do with him securing someone who will shower him with the affection and attention that he didn't receive growing up and he could do the same to.
- Insecure Love Interest: It's obvious that Hananoi's more obsessive tendencies comes from a deepseated insecurity regarding his ability to be loved by others. This is made quite explicit when his ex from the first chapter pops up to warn Hotaru away from him as he would try to track her movements, keep her from having friends with others, and question her feelings because he felt so insecure.
- Living Emotional Crutch: In Hananoi's ideal romantic situation, he is this for his partner and vice versa. When Hotaru finally realizes her love for him and tells him, his response? "I am in love with you, too. I want to be with you always. I don't need anyone else if I've got you. I don't care about my family, nor friends." Yikes.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: This is the root of Hananoi's fixation on loving and being loved. His parents have chosen to devote their time overseas as international doctors instead of staying home and raising him. The loneliness this caused made him desperate to find someone who would give him the unconditional love he grew up without.
- Loving a Shadow: After realizing the depth of his feelings for Hotaru and being confronted with an ex in public, Hananoi admits that he doesn't really think he ever loved any of the girls he dated before. He was just fixated on trying to be loved by them.
- Minor Living Alone: Due to his parents constant travel for work, Hananoi lives alone, with the occassional visit from his grandmother to see how he's doing.
- One True Love: Hananoi firmly believe in there being someone out there who is the one person who will love him, totally and unconditionally, and he has made it his mission to find them, even if that means changing things about himself to become the perfect partner for them.Hananoi: "For me, love is giving all of your love to the one person who is meant for you."
- Pretty Boy: Hananoi is model-level attractive and this is intentional on his part, as he has done everything he can (learning how to dress, switching his glasses out for contacts, changing his hairstyle) to make himself as appealing to girls as he can.
- Serial Romeo: He is infamous at school for constantly dating around and is obsessively devoted to each girl he dates, to a fault. The manga deconstructs this trope by unpacking the insecurities and unhealthy thinking that would drive a person to behave in such a way and by making Hananoi very aware of his actions. He is not simply falling in and out of love and forgetting the past girl when he moves on. He is very intentionally acting to get his partners to love him by showering them with affection and he cuts off his previous partners when they break up because for him, to love someone is to make them, and them alone, the center of your world.
- Stalker with a Crush: After confessing his love to her, Hananoi waits outside of Hotaru's classes and wakes up at ungodly hours to walk her to school, despite her rejecting his initial advances. In middle school, this was also the case, as Hananoi would often watch Hotaru play at a park from a bench.
- Stepford Smiler: Hananoi will plaster a serene and loving smile on his face for his love interest in order to put forth the best image of himself, no matter what. This is especially the case when he's feeling insecure and possessive, as he feels like he needs to be perfect to be loved. He does not however do this with anyone else, freely showing his disinterest in others as a way to keep people from getting too close to him.
- Stereotypical Nerd: When he was younger, Hananoi was a timid and withdrawn boy that excelled in school and had no real friends, apart from an old man he spoke with at the park. He wore huge Opaque Nerd Glasses that covered up his face and in chapter 44, we see him wearing a sweater-vest over a white button shirt when he first transferred to Hotaru and Yao's school. After he decides to make giving and receiving love his primary reason for living, he actively defies the trope: he styles himself better, gets contacts, styles his hair, and pushes past his natural shyness to talk to girls, becoming a Serial Romeo in the process.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Hananoi is sweet to the point of toothache to the object of his affection, but is cold, blunt, distant, and even mean to everyone else around him. This is deliberate. He believes that people only have a limited amount of love and attention and therefore, the more people you care about, the more that love and attention becomes divided. He doesn't want that and instead wants to devote himself solely to one person and be devoted to in return. Thus, he rejects even the mildest attempt at frienship.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He is tall, has dark hair, and is widely acknowledged in universe to be idol-level good-looking to the extent that all of his and Hotaru's classmates just think he's toying with her. He also has an aloof and cold personality to everyone who isn't Hotaru.
- Troubled, but Cute: Hananoi is a widely acknowledged hottie but everyone knows he is 1) constantly dating and being dumped and 2) is an anti-social Ice King. Hotaru learns just how much trouble the "troubled" part of him is when they start dating and his obsessive and possessive tendencies rear their ugly head.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Hananoi desperately wanted the attention and approval of his parents, who traveled a lot for work, as kid. So he studied hard to get good grades and be a good obedient son. This backfires since his parents took this to mean that he was so self-sufficient, he would be fine with them not being around that much.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Bordering on Parental Abandonment. Hananoi's parents spend most of their lives overseas working as international doctors and have left the caretaking of Hananoi to his grandmother and himself. This is the catalyst of Hananoi's obsession with love and desperation to be loved by someone.
- Yandere: While he's not murderous or Ax-Crazy, Hananoi meets all other aspects, being obsessive, possessive, and exhibiting self-destructive tendencies regarding love because for him, to love someone means to become the sole focus of that entire person's world. The first few chapters sees Hananoi, in a bid to get Hotaru to date him, spend hours digging in the snow to find a hair clip she dropped earlier. Hotaru is not pleased and tells him as much when she realizes what he's doing. She later finds out that he has also installed a tracking app on his past girlfriend's phone to keep tabs on her. Hananoi's character development is about him recognizing that this mindset isn't healthy and is far more self-serving than he initially believed.
Hibiki "Kyou" Asami
Voiced by: Yurika Kubo (TV anime, Japanese), Kelly Greenshield (TV anime, English)
Hotaru's closest friend since middle school. She is an upbeat girl who supports Hotaru, despite having her reservations about Hananoi. She tells Hotaru in the first chapter that she has started dating Keigo, a boy in Hananoi's class.- Beta Couple: With Keigo; they’re both loud and boisterous when it comes to their personalities and their relationship, as compared to the reserved but gentle relationship between Hotaru and Hananoi.
- Genki Girl: She’s outgoing and friendly to pretty much everyone.
Tsukiha "Shibamu" Shibamura
Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (TV anime, Japanese), Ezra Vervin (TV anime, English)
Hotaru and Kyou's other close friend, though she only met the two in high school. She has a calm presence, like a big sister, and likes to keep her emotions to herself. Keigo Kurata
Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka (TV anime)
Kyou-chan's boyfriend who is in the same class as Hananoi and a member of the basketball team. Keigo is well liked by his peers for his extraverted and optimistic outlook.- Beta Couple: With Kyou.
Sohei Yao
Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (TV anime)
A boy from Hotaru's middle school who her then best friend had a crush on. He later joins the main story as he starts working at the same bookstore Hotaru does. Satomi Satomura
