Characters from Kouji Seo's Fuuka, a band manga which acts as a spin-off/sequel to Suzuka and A Town Where You Live.
open/close all folders
The Band
Yuu Haruna
Our protagonist.
- Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Japanese), Aaron Dismuke (English)
The manga's protagonist and the bassist/co-vocalist for the Fallen Moon and Blue Wells. He's introduced as a Loser Protagonist who is obsessed with his cell phone and interacting with people on Twitter (but not in real life). He is always viewed as an anti-social and shy guy. While on his way to buy dinner, he bumps into a girl named Fuuka Akitsuki who then broke his phone thinking that he was taking a picture of her panties.
- The Ace: Outside of the three or four early chapters where he literally has never played an instrument and the members of the band tell him he sucks, he's brilliant at playing the bass, singing and songwriting.
- Aborted Declaration of Love: Several of these occur in a row. After Koyuki corners Akitsuki and Yuu after their first big concert, Koyuki tracks him down and gives her own Anguished Declaration of Love (which was unnecessary given that she previously did so on television, which caused both her and him to suffer serious backlash from her fans). Akitsuki objects, then runs off and Yuu aborts the remainder of Koyuki's declaration to give his own Anguished Declaration of Love to Akitsuki (she's upset becuase she loves Koyuki's music, but Koyuki the person romantically loves the same guy). He never get a completely straight answer and believes it might have turned out like this trope. (It didn't)
- Affectionate Nickname: Koyuki and Yuu call each other "Tama" and "Nico" respectively. This is because as children, they were both obsessive fans of the band "The Hedgehogs," who were led by a female singer named Tama and a male bassist named Nico (who we later learn are a couple). This becomes prophetic as Koyuki becomes a singer and Yuu becomes a bassist. It also becomes confusing once the real Tama and Nico show up and become characters in the plot.
- Broken Bird: Invoked. He has a sizable harem of attractive women who are in love with him, but he openly states that he can never love again due to how his first romantic relationship ended. However, this was proven false when he admitted that he is in love with Aoi.
- Cassandra Truth: When he first meets Aoi, he tells her that he got tickets to see the Hedgehogs (a very famous and popular rock band) from the drummer of the band. Aoi scoffs at the idea that he knows someone in the band, and Yuu goes on to explain that he worked with said drummer and the band's guitarist at a local restaurant and that the keyboardist is his homeroom teacher, all of which makes Aoi believe him even less. He doesn't even tell her about the fact that his main instrument was purchased from another of the band members and was the main gigging instrument of the band's bassist.
- Childhood Friends: With the idol singer Koyuki Hinashi. Both of them keep it a secret because Koyuki's fanbase is rabid and would immediately turn on both of them if they thought they were romantically interested in each other. In fact, they both are interested, but unfortunately for Koyuki she waits too long to act on it and by then he's more interested in someone else.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Yuu starts the series as an unconfident kid who is more concerned with keeping up with Twitter than the Real World. Throughout the series, he continues to struggle with his self-esteem as he develop as a character.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Koyuki, Akitsuki, Iwami, and Aoi are all obviously interested in him, but he remains unaware of any of their affections unless they spell it out for him like Koyuki does. Both the "chick magnet" and the "clueless" parts are possibly justified due to the fact he's in fact a rock star, but at the same time was very quickly thrust into that role.
- Cannot Spit It Out: He goes with Akitsuki to see a Koyuki Hinashi concert but fails to inform her either before, during or after the concert that Koyuki is a childhood friend. Akitsuki finds out when she sees them during an apparently (not) intimate moment in the middle of the night and (justifiably) gets upset with Yuu for not telling him about her despite her constant gushing about Koyuki.
- The Cynic: He has a tendency to believe negative things are happening. Played with, as the band members are aware of this trait and exploit it to mess with him.
- Determinator: Eventually becomes this as part of his Character Development.
- First Kiss: He can't figure out how to engineer this with Akitsuki but she ends up beating him to the punch.
- Gay Moment: Invoked by Mikasa, who finds it funny how flustered Yuu gets when he does so. This isn't lost on other students who start to believe that it's true.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted. Yuu does have some talent as a singer and a bassist. However, he doesn't take to music quite as easily as Akitsuki or even his other band members. It takes a considerable amount of practice before his ability really starts improving.
- The Heart: If it wasn't for Yuu, the band would have never reformed after Akitsuki's death.. As the songwriter and co-leader and co-vocalist of the band, he keeps the band together.
- Heroic BSoD: After Akitsuki's death, Yuu enters one of these until the point at which he decides to reform the band.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Yuu corners Iwami at school to interrogate her about how to kiss a girl. Iwami, who is completely in love with Yuu, gets flustered because she thinks (completely understandably by the circumstances) that he's talking about her and consents to it. He fails to grasp what he did and runs off, leaving her disappointed.
- Lead Bassist: Gets promoted to this from being the guy dragging the band down once he spends some time practicing and the rest of the band realizes he's a talented singer.
- Lead You Can Relate To: A black-haired, middle-class, high school boy with an average build and an unremarkable reputation, surrounded by more exuberant and distinguished individuals. He also appeals to modern audiences by being more interested in social networks than in the real world and has no idea where to take his life after he finishes high school. This ends after Fuuka dies and he overcomes his grief, he destroys his phone, quits Twitter, knows what he wants out of life, becomes willing to take risks and slum it for the sake of his dream.
- The Leader: Unquestionably the leader of the band. The rest of the band follow him almost to a fault - agreeing to sign with the label he chooses for questionable reasons, having him write all of the music and allowing him to determine if anyone else makes it into the band.
- Likes Older Women: Downplayed, but his Second Love, Fuuka Aoi, is two years older than him.
- Love Epiphany: He realizes he's been in love with Akitsuki after she saves his life (after his own aborted attempt to save her). Happens again when Koyuki tries to have sex with him, but he turns her down and realizes that he is in love with Aoi.
- Kavorka Man: Played with. He has several women who are interested in him who we are told are stunningly beautiful, yet the band's label manager specifically describes Yuu as "lacking visual appeal." She may have simply meant this in terms of his on stage presence, but the effect comes off like this.
- Oblivious to Love: Both played straight and played with. He fails to notice Akitsuki is interested in him despite her constantly hanging out with him for no real reason, fails to notice Iwami's rather simpering behavior towards him and is clueless as to why Aoi is so friendly to him. After traumatic events with his first girlfriend, it's questionable whether this is simply an inability to notice or a conscious effort to not notice, though he apparently grows out of this when he finally realized his affections for Aoi.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When he finally regains his will after Akitsuki's death, one of the first things Yuu does is smash his phone against the ground.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Runs into this problem a number of times. In terms of musical talent, he's often overshadowed the other bandmates like Sara and Mikasa. Even when he gets serious and is able to display greater musical talent, the problem of his lack of presence persists throughout the series.
- Unwanted Harem: He's initially interested in girls, but after a traumatic event, he expressly states that he's not interested in ever having a girlfriend, despite consistently attracting loads of beautiful women.
- Supporting Protagonist: Played With. Yuu is the main character and plays an important role in the band as the songwriter, bassist, and co-lead vocalist. However, he struggles for a while due not having enough presence as a vocalist. It is only due to the arrival of Aoi that the band truly starts feeling complete.
- Taking Up the Mantle: After Fuuka dies in a freak accident, Yuu steps up to the plate, taking her place as The Heart and The Leader, and takes over as the vocalist in her place.
- Took a Level in Badass: The determined, passionate Yuu from the end of the manga is utterly unrecognizable from the milequetoast boy he was before.
- Tragic Keepsake: The cell phone straps that Akitsuki and he acquired on their first date, which she dropped in the accident that she died in. Causes drama when Aoi manages to acquire one of them against his will.
Fuuka Akitsuki
The girl that started it all.
- Voiced by: Lynn (Japanese), Jill Harris (English)
A plucky girl and free-spirit who Yuu meets on his first day of school. She's the daughter of Yamato Akitsuki and Suzuka Asahina from Kouji Seo's previous work, Suzuka. She also showed up in side materials for A Town Where You Live. She's the vocalist for the Fallen Moon and the person who came up with the idea to start the band.
- Accidental Athlete: Invoked. Akitsuki is never shown doing anything particularly amazing athletically, but Nachi believes it's In the Blood because her father and mother were both star athletes. She isn't interested, despite his best efforts.
- The Ace: Has virtually no training, but picks up a microphone to sing a song and immediately draws a huge crowd who is blown away by her skills.
- Always Someone Better: She functions as this towards Yuu. Her talent for singing is acknowledged by everyone right from the get-go, and she gets pegged as a rival by Shelley Hornet. After her death, the band continues to struggle with having a lead vocalist with presence until the arrival of Aoi.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Makes a cameo appearance in the final chapter of A Town Where You Live, bumping into Yuzuki in front of the restaurant. In fact, judging by her outfit, this scene might have occurred only minutes before she meets Yuu for the first time.
- First Kiss: Twice (kinda). She has to give Yuu mouth to mouth when he almost drowns and again gives him a real one later on.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She practically gushes over Koyuki Hinashi's music. When she finds out that Koyuki and her Love Interest are best friends, she gets more than a little jealous. It only gets worse when her worst fear is realized and Koyuki declares her love for Yuu over national television.
- Love Hurts: Gets smacked with a Love Epiphany when she sees Yuu and Koyuki talking to each other in a rather friendly manner shortly after Koyuki's public Anguished Declaration of Love to him. And in the anime, she then decides to go solo after her band's first successful gig, mostly to avoid having to see Yuu all the time.
- Luminescent Blush: Yuu believes she's just friendly and doesn't understand the romantic undertones of their holding hands and pretending to be together in order to obtain matching cell phone straps. However, when he looks over at her, she's blushing madly, indicating the opposite.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She's this for Yuu, full stop. He's a shy introvert who doesn't interact with the world outside of the internet, and she's energetic and outgoing. She pushes him repeatedly to be like this to the point of forcing him to take a distant job with her only a few chapters after they've met and pushes him into doing more and more outgoing things.
- Meaningful Name: Multiple. The characters note her name can mean something like "Summer wind" or "hot wind" which they use to describe her personality. Also, the band uses her surname's characters to create their name, "the Fallen Moon."
- Spared by the Adaptation: Her infamous death by truck is completely averted in the anime, as the truck driver stops just short of her before the plot changes.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Resembles her mother Suzuka greatly. So much so that Yuu is understandably taken aback when he meets Suzuka for the first time in the anime. Her younger sister Haruka is also shown to resemble their mother greatly in the anime, up to the blue hair.
- Tragic Dream: Her dream is to play with her band at the Budoukan. Tragically, she can't because she dies just as her band takes off. The rest of the band eventually reforms after her death, and when they get to perform at the Budoukan themselves (opening their set with one of her songs), her spirit shows up to perform with them.
- Walking Spoiler: Akitsuki dies about 40 chapters into the series in a car accident and is replaced by another character named "Fuuka." Practically every piece of spoiler text on this page has to do with the fact she's dead since it's a complete Wham Episode. She ends up being a Posthumous Character for most of the work, as she still is very much involved in the plot and character relations, despite being dead.
Kazuya Nachi
- Voiced by: Kazuyuki Okitsu (Japanese), Shawn Gann (English)
The drummer for the Fallen Moon. He's a senior at the school that the band members attend and constantly tries to get Akitsuki to join the track team because he believes she will be good at it due to genetics.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Iwami. He's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and she's a Tsundere. A significant amount of each character's on-panel time is spent arguing with each other or teasing each other over various things, including her looks. Despite his loud, repeated claims about how uninterested he is her, its clearly just a cover (whether he knows it or not). At one point, he loudly complains nobody wants to see Iwami's photos from the photo shoot, but Aoba retorts that he spent the entire shoot staring at her.
- Butt-Monkey: His primary trait. He's almost always the butt of jokes and comes off like The Friend Nobody Likes even though they obviously like him well enough given it's stated he's less talented at his instrument than everyone else is. He gets this mostly from Iwami, who treats him generally like pond scum.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The rest of the band treats him like he's mostly annoying (although Mikasa and Yuu try to hide their annoyance at his behavior) and several of the band's friends (including the Hedgehogs themselves) lament that he's not nearly as skilled as his bravado would indicate.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's mostly harmless, and when it counts he can step up, but his default personality leans heavily towards the "jerk" side, as he has a tendency to run his mouth saying rude things (that often aren't even true).
- The Matchmaker: He acts like he's doing this, but it's probably closer to The Gadfly. He can clearly see that Iwami is totally in love with Yuu, so he encourages her to go after him. Unfortunately for her, he's not very gentle about it and his idea of matchmaking involves engineering a sexual encounter.
- Stalker without a Crush: Yuu mistakes Nachi for being a Stalker with a Crush because Nachi follows Akitsuki around demanding she do "something." Yuu assumes it's romantic, but it's actually that Nachi just wants her to join the track team.
- Still the Leader: A rare agreed upon example. The bandmates all consider Nachi the leader of the band, even dropping out of high school together partly to make Nachi feel better about their pursuit of music. Most decisions ultimately still go through his approval. Nevertheless, Yuu is increasingly the one who is the decision-maker for the band and they defer to him for major decisions.
- Straw Loser: Mainly in terms of his talent at his instrument. He and Yuu are generally considered the least talented of the band members. However, Yuu's difficulties are generally Played for Drama and he gradually improves over time. In contrast, Nachi's ineptness at his instrument is subject to jokes at nearly every concert they play at.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: He brings Iwami to a ramen restaurant in order to complain she's wasting all of the toilet paper. When she sees his serious tone, she assumes he's there to confess to her. An entire conversation plays out in which Nachi implausibly believes all of the aspects of the conversation are literally about poop, and Iwami thinks its about her feelings. Indeed, whenever Nachi explicitly brings up a poop-related topic, Iwami believes he's using weird metaphors. When Iwami finally accepts Nachi's "confession" he realizes the nature of the misunderstanding and moves to clarify the conversation. However, once Nachi realizes how attracted he is to her he decides to just let her believe he intended to confess.
- Virgin-Shaming: Teases Iwami for having never had sex, despite the fact that Nachi himself is never seen in the company of any other women.
Makoto Mikasa
- Voiced by: Soma Saito (Japanese), Ricco Fajardo (English)
The keyboardist for the the Fallen Moon, and previously a famous piano player. He's both Akitsuki's best friend and one of the first friends Yuu makes when he starts attending their school.
- Abusive Parents: Mikasa's father is unacccepting of his homosexuality and demands that he both become a respected concert pianist and marry a woman of his father's choosing.
- Gay Best Friend: Downplayed: he definitely has some humorous moments, but they're not particularly over-the-top or stereotypical and he mostly comes across as the reliably sane one of the bunch.
- Heroic BSoD: Much like Yuu, he has one of these following the death of someone important to him. As a result of this state, he meekly agrees when his overbearing father demands he become a respectable member of society and marry a woman.
- Hidden Depths: Outwardly he's one of the nicest characters in the series and completely comfortable with his sexuality. However, it turns out his family situation causes him a lot of inner pain that he's mostly hiding from the rest of the band.
- Mr. Fanservice: He attracts a lot of attention during the Beach Episode, not that he's interested in female attention.
- Only Sane Man: Trollishness aside, he's definitely the most mature member of the band.
- Straight Gay: Openly homosexual and does not mince words about it, but doesn't act particularly different from any of the other characters.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Zigzagged very hard. Tomomi was Makoto's teacher back in high school, but he confesses his love to her long after both of them left; he went on to continue with the band, while she left to reunite with the Hedgehogs for one final concert. Also counts as an inverse May–December Romance due to the age discrepancy, as Tomomi herself lampshaded in Chapter 163.
- The Tease: Enjoys messing with Yuu and Nachi with gay subtext to their otherwise normal conversations. A minor example, as he never takes it farther than a simple joke and he's mostly the nicest guy in the series.
Sara Iwami
- Voiced by: Mikako Komatsu (Japanese), Elizabeth Maxwell (English)
A guitarist with a cold, quiet personality who rarely speaks. She was taught how to play by her brother, who was the guitar player for the legendary band the Hedgehogs.
- Always Someone Better: Her brother is a member of a famous band, and while she is talented, she has yet to achieve his level of success.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Yuu corners her in an extremely suggestive way to try and ask for her advice on taking his relationship with Akitsuki forward. She interprets this as him asking if he can kiss her and consents. He then rushes off to find Akitsuki, leaving her bewildered.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Iwami accepts Nachi's "confession" because he had been there to support her during times of personal crisis.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Nachi. Practically all of their interaction is bickering and teasing, even though they clearly are actually friends.
- Brutal Honesty: She can be quite blunt with the advice she gives. Not even Yuu is immune to being lectured by her(though she is often apologetic afterwards).
- Everyone Can See It: She's totally in love with Yuu from the moment she realizes that he's her online pen-friend. Nachi, Mikasa and her brother all notice and try to encourage her in their own way (Nachi by being a jerkass and supposedly trying to engineer a sexual encounter), but she never really gets anywhere.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Whenever Yuu does anything she interprets as sexual towards anyone else. She's almost always wrong since he rarely means it.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She admits to Nachi that while she's been in love with Yuu for a long time, the intensity of her feelings for him couldn't match Aoi's feelings, so she's let him go and moved on.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Is so very bad at communicating with strangers in person that most people, including prospective bandmates, see her as a lot meaner than she actually is.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: She's regularly included in various fanservice panels and its commonly noted in-universe that she's very attractive, but whenever the universe (i.e. Nachi) conspires to get her in skimpy or revealing outfits, she's obviously uncomfortable with it.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: At one point before the festival, Nachi invites her to eat dinner and intends to tell her off about her use of toilet paper. His serious tone and mannerisms lead her to believe it's a Love Confession. During the entire conversation, each thinks the other is talking about the same thing, but they aren't. On Iwami's end, the misunderstanding makes sense, but Nachi is in Insane Troll Logic land and somehow believes Iwami is literally talking about pooping. Eventually she accepts his "confession" but the misunderstanding is never resolved because once Nachi realizes she's agreeing to go out with him, he decides he'd rather not tell her the true nature of the conversation.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She rapidly moves through a few layers of these when she first appears. With people she doesn't know well, she typically acts like an Ice Queen who tends to either scare people away or leave their bothersome company. To Nachi, she's openly hostile and acts like a Stepford Snarker. Her Twitter persona, "Yamato Admiral," is one of Yuu's online friend he's never met; she acts like an enthusiastic Genki Girl there. In real life, she has an obvious crush on Yuu and treats him with simpering affection. She mostly settles on a Stepford Snarker personality once she gets comfortable in the band.
Other Musicians
Koyuki Hinashi
- Voiced by: Saori Hayami (Japanese), Jeannie Tirado (English)
Yuu's Childhood Friend and an Idol Singer with a rabid, almost fanatical following. Akitsuki is one of her biggest fans and loves her work, but gets into conflict with her over Koyuki's relationship with Yuu.
- Affectionate Nickname: She and Yuu call each other "Tama" and "Nico" in reference to the Hedgehogs' band members. Becomes confusing once the real Tama and Nico appear and they are still using the nicknames.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: She tries these several times with increasing force, clarity and anguish. The first time, she pours her heart out on national television to tell Yuu she is in love with him to the distress of everyone involved and all of her (borderline psychotic) fans. It doesn't work. She then crashes his high-school concert in order to corner him after the show to deliver another one. It still doesn't work. Many, many chapters later, when her band and Yuu's band play a show together, she tells Yuu to come up to her room and practically begs him to date her.
- Ascended Fangirl: In the final arc, Koyuki joins the reformed Hedgehogs as their new vocalist, going by the name “Yuki”.
- Be a Whore to Get Your Man: She realizes that Yuu has feelings for another woman, so one day when she and Yuu are playing a concert in the same venue, after the show she invites him up to her room for ambiguous reasons. When he arrives, she's wearing nothing but a towel and within a few minutes, she's not wearing that either. She then attempts to have sex with Yuu and further tries to entice him by offering to keep their relationship purely sexual, despite explicitly admitting that the entire scenario is out of character. Unfortunately it backfires when he realizes he is refusing because of his feelings for the other woman.
- Hero of Another Story: In the series proper, the role of main heroine is taken up by Fuuka, both Akitsuki and eventually Aoi. However, Koyuki gets some focus as Yuu's childhood friend and she encourages Yuu along his journey of pursuing music.
- Idol Singer: A very famous one with a very rabid, overbearing fanbase.
- Impractically Fancy Outfit: You'd think this trope would apply while she was an Idol Singer, but its more when she forms her own band that performs rock music in maid outfits and bunny costumes. While some bands (e.g. Slipknot or Buckethead) can perform in makeup and masks, the Rabbit masks the band uses seem too large and bulky for the band to be able to actually play its music while wearing.
- Patient Childhood Love Interest: When they were younger, both Yuu and Koyuki were in love with the other. However, Koyuki moves away and continues to carry a torch for him. However, due to her position as a famous Idol Singer, she can't act on her desire to be with him when they reunite. By the time she gathers the courage to confess to him anyways, he's already fallen for someone else. Even after he becomes unattached to Akitsuki, she still can't seem to get his attention.
- Replacement Goldfish: Eventually becomes this to the Hedgehogs as off the Blue Summer Festival arc, replacing the recently-mute Tama as their new vocalist.
- Unknown Rival: To Akitsuki. She appears at the school concert, and is invited to perform with the band on stage. She does not pull any punches and tries her hardest to out-do Akitsuki since she's aware that Akitsuki also likes Yuu. This happens again in a completely different context when she "retires", but then turns out to be the lead singer of a rival band that performs under masks (due to her previous fame).
Fuuka Aoi
A singer-songwriter who Yuu meets busking on the street. She signs to the same label as the Fallen Moon. Later on she joins the band as its new co-vocalist, although the band's name changes to the "Blue Wells".
- Adapted Out: Does not appear in the anime series on account of Fuuka Akitsuki's infamous death by truck being completely averted on account of the truck driver - her father - stopping just short of Akitsuki before the plot changes.
- All Women Are Lustful: Aoi clearly intends to engineer a sexual encounter with Yuu, but he's practically chaste unless she's insanely to the point. When they get interrupted, he does nothing whatsoever to re-engineer the encounter, but Aoi is constantly trying to get him to get down.
- Ascended Fangirl: In-universe, Aoi makes it abundantly clear that she’s a huge fan of The Fallen Moon. She eventually goes on to play a surprisingly successful show at the Hedgehogs’ festival under the name “The Fallen Moon featuring Aoi Fuuka”. After that, The Fallen Moon breaks up and reforms immediately as Blue Wells, with Aoi Fuuka as their lead vocalist.
- Broken Bird: When Yuu tells her that he can't ever fall in love again, Aoi tells Yuu the exact same thing, although neither really tells the other the reason why. Ironically, neither is likely telling the truth, and their reasoning for saying it is identical in a literal sense. Both of them are referring to Akitsuki's death, although neither one of them knows about the other's relationship to Akitsuki.
- Curtains Match the Window: Official Art from the author
gives her a pair of maroon eyes to match her hair. - Dark Secret: She blames herself for Fuuka Akitsuki's death because she didn't stop her father from working on the day he accidentally hit Akitsuki with his delivery truck. For what it's worth, Suzuka doesn't buy it and believes it's neither Aoi or her father's fault and that Akitsuki was simply careless in crossing the street.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Yuu surreptitiously spots Aoi having a serious, friendly conversation with Yuuga Akagi, the handsome (and antagonistic) lead singer of the rival band Le Bard. He doesn't stick around to see what happens, but when she arrives at the concert hall the next day looking and acting extremely tired, he suspects that the reason she's so tired is that she was in Akagi's room all night. (He's wrong.)
- Fiery Redhead: Quite a hot-blooded vocalist for the Blue Wells on ocassion, which ties in with her bright maroon hair.
- First Kiss: As a Call-Back to how Fuuka Akitsuki gave hers to Yuu, by immediately taking the initiative the chapter after becoming a couple with him.
- First-Name Basis: She tries to get this way with Yuu, but he refuses due to her sharing a given name with Akitsuki. As she doesn't know that Akitsuki either was Yuu's girlfriend or the lead singer of the band she has befriended, her confusion is understandable. After somehow moving on from Akitsuki's death, he finally started calling Aoi by her first name, Fuuka.
- Foil: Although they share the same given name, Aoi and Akitsuki are very different people.
- Aoi is driven to pursue music from an earlier age whereas Akitsuki struggled for a bit to determine what path she wanted.
- Akitsuki is a big fan of Koyuki Hinashi's music, whereas Aoi dislikes her music. Although Aoi reveals that she is a fan of the Rabbitz.
- She is a good cook which contrasts with Akitsuki's Lethal Chef.
- Akitsuki was born with The Gift to the point where she could carry a below average band by herself, Aoi practiced for years and she and Yuu have to work together just to equal Akitsuki's presence even though she's two years older than them.
- Akitsuki never erred on the path she chose, while Aoi is far more flawed and struggles with inner turmoil and self-doubt.
- Akitsuki was more traditionally feminine while Aoi is tomboyish and likes wearing Hellbent For Leather.
- While both are determined they show it differently, Akitsuki is very cheery Genki Girl while Aoi acts brash and Hot-Blooded.
- Akitsuki is friendly and polite while Aoi can be a Deadpan Snarker.
- Akitsuki came from a stable nuclear family while Aoi's mother died when she was four and her father struggles to make ends meet as a part-time truck driver.
- Akitsuki fell in love with Yuu when he was still a Loser Protagonist, Aoi only fell in love with Yuu because he became a passionate, determined musician through his Character Development.
- Heroic BSoD: She has one of these and skips town once she realizes that the girl she "killed" was both the lead singer of the band she was angling to join and her new love interest's girlfriend. She is so distraught by this she throws herself in front of a truck (it's unclear whether this was intentional or not).
- Meaningful Name: For numerous reasons. She shares her name with the manga (obviously) although it's unclear if that references her or Akitsuki. Meaningful in-universe because she shares Akitsuki's given name and because Aoi's surname is used when the Fallen Moon decides to rename themselves to "The Blue Wells" to symbolize the evolution away from Akitsuki's vision of the band.
- Ms. Fanservice: Has been providing quite a lot of this ever since she became the vocalist for Blue Wells. Taken up to eleven when she and Yuu become an Official Couple, all thanks to her ocassional romantic fantasies.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. She has the same given name as Fuuka Akitsuki, which causes confusion and upset for a lot of characters. Given that she doesn't actually know Akitsuki's relationship to the band, her confusion in why nobody will call her "Fuuka" is justified.
- Plucky Girl: She tries her hardest to succeed in the music world even when the rest of her old band called it quits because they didn't want to be professionals. She soldiers on without even recruiting a band, playing concerts with recorded backing (except on occasions where she can rope members of the Fallen Moon into playing with her).
- Shower Scene: Gets one in Chapter 147.◊ (Warning: NSFW image)
- Sixth Ranger: She's associated with the Fallen Moon in that she's technically their rival (in both the competition and in ticket sales) but she is friends with Yuu, her skill-set occupies a vacant position in the band, and she occasionally plays with them despite technically being a solo act. She's something more like a Sucksessor in that it's immediately apparent she's the perfect fit for the vacancy in the Fallen Moon, but in the members' eyes she'll always be competing with her predecessor. She eventually joins them for real, but only after they reform as the Blue Wells.
- Tsundere: Started showing hints of Type-B after entering into a relationship with Yuu, though this is more to accentuate the Clingy Jealous Girl in her, especially when Shelly Hornet briefly stayed with them to teach them english.
Yuuga Akagi
The lead singer and guitarist of the popular band Le Bard, which starts off at the same level as the Fallen Moon, but rapidly rises to prominence ahead of the Fallen Moon due to Akagi's rather pragmatic and exploitative penchant for giving the audience what it wants.
- The Cynic: He has a very calculated, cynical approach to fame and stardom. This is the source of his conflict with Yuu - Yuu cares less for popularity/record sales than he does for artistic integrity, whereas Akagi is basically a Sell-Out from the beginning who only writes and performs music whatever he thinks he can exploit to get rich and famous.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: His antagonistic personality seems deeply unpopular with his bandmates, who are all friendly with the Fallen Moon's members. As he's the handsome singer and songwriter, their opinions likely don't matter. Later, it turns out this is a serious problem when Le Bard's popularity begins to wane and can't keep it's members around because his abrasive personality.
- Jerkass: It's pretty clear that he's this given that one of the first things he says to the members of the Fallen Moon is to tell them how great it is that they can exploit a band member's death to gain fame.
- The Rival: Although his band is far more popular and signed to a much bigger label than the Fallen Moon, Yuu basically considers him and Le Bard to be this. Akagi mostly acts as though the Fallen Moon/Blue Wells are beneath his notice, but it's readily apparent this isn't true.
Shelley Hornet
A popular American singing star who occasionally encounters the Fallen Moon and the Hedgehogs. Although she's American, she learns Japanese and performs in Japan semi-regularly because when she was younger she met Tama of the Hedgehogs when she was younger, who inspired her to become a singer.
- The Ace: We are told she is the best and most popular singer in the entire world.
- Adapted Out: Does not appear in the anime series.
- Learnt English from Watching Television: Yuu is surprised to learn she speaks fluent Japanese. She responds says that she learned the language so she could watch un-dubbed anime.
- The Rival: She intends to be one to Fuuka Akitsuki, who she recognizes as talented. Unfortunately, she's unaware of the fact that Akitsuki had passed away and that Yuu was now the band leader.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: She enters a Japanese bath with Yuu completely naked. When Yuu freaks out about it, she tells him to look away, but makes no real effort to cover herself up.
- Worthy Opponent: She pegs Fuuka Akitsuki as one when she sees her sing. After Akitsuki's death, she is skeptical that either Yuu nor Aoi can match up to her.
The Hedgehogs (as a band)
A popular rock band ("Tama" on vocals, "Nico" on bass, "Hisa" on the guitar, "Nobu" on the drums, and "Tomo" on the keyboard) which is idolized by almost all of the characters in the series and who serve as a goal to reach for almost everyone.
- Always Someone Better: Pretty much everyone sees the Hedgehogs this way and measures their success based on how successful the Hedgehogs were in their prime.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job - At the beginning of the plot, Hisashi, Nobu and Tomo had all taken on regular jobs such as teacher or restaurant manager due to the band's hiatus.
- Given Name Reveal: When Hisa is explaining the history of the band, he introduces Musashi Nicholson Oda and Reika Tama, neither of whom Aoi or Yuu know. For some reason they didn't put together that the unknown band members' real names weren't actually "Tama" and "Nico." They're less surprised about learning the other band member's real names because they already were acquainted with all of them - Hisashi is Sara's brother, Yuu worked for Nobu at his beach restaurant, and Tomomi was Yuu's homeroom teacher.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted in that lots of the early dialogue involves Yuu and Koyuki referring to each other as "Nico" and "Tama," who were members of their favorite band. Eventually the actual Nico and Tama become relatively important characters, which makes things confusing. Of course, "Nico" and "Tama" aren't the band members full real names either as everyone in the band goes by a shortened name, e.g. Tomomi Yoshino goes by "Tomo", Nobuaki Yahagi goes by "Nobu", and Hisashi Iwami goes by "Hisa."
- Sensei-chan: Tomo became this after the band first broke off.
- Sixth Ranger: When Hisashi Iwami explains the band's history, it turns out that the band was formed by a sixth member of the band: Makoto Nishbe, and that Nishibe wrote their biggest hit, "Climber's High." Eventually, just before the band became successful, Nishibe left the band (on good terms) because he felt he simply wasn't up to par with the rest of the band's skills.
- Koyuki, or “Yuki” becomes this eventually.
- Soap Opera Disease: Apparently Tama has one because she announces a reunion tour and then promptly quits due to some undisclosed illness which involves the removal of her vocal cords, preventing her from performing but otherwise seeming to have little effect on her.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Nico. Most of his panels have him in dark, shadowed environments looking as cool as possible and making badass proclamations, frequently as to why Yuu sucks and/or isn't good enough at playing his bass.
- V-Formation Team Shot: The band does this when they walk to their concert. Yuu is particularly impressed.
Non-Musicians
Akira Mogami
An A&R representative (Artists and Repertoire, essentially a talent scout and manager) from a music label. Used to play Bass for Kanaria, an old three-man band that Saori Amaya once handled prior to the story.
- The Cassandra: After the audition at the Lightning Rebellion contest, Mogami tells Aoi and Haruna that the Fallen Moon needs a better vocalist and that Aoi's band isn't cut out for the music business; as such, he tells Aoi that she should leave her band and join the Fallen Moon as their primary vocalist. Both parties reject his advice out of hand as absurd. Soon afterwards, Aoi's band quits the music business because they never intended to go professional, and later, Haruna decides Aoi is a perfect fit and recruits Aoi to join the band.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He comes off as ruthless and laser-minded about profits and appeal, but he has a soft spot regarding Saori Amaya. Must have something to do with Amaya previously handling Kanaria - the band where Mogami played bass in their heyday. Indeed, when the band announce their festival that most bands can't actually play at due to Blue Wells being blacklisted, Mogami agrees to perform with Kanaria at the festival.
Saori Amaya
The seemingly-ruthless CEO of an agency that signs both Fuuka Aoi and the Band to seemingly punishing deals.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She used to be a big shot in the A&R world, but she now runs her own label with her own mysterious motives.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's extremely strict and almost cruel to the band, but once character development takes place and the band succeeds through several trials, she starts to treat them slightly better. However, she rarely does this directly and often directs Aoba to deliver her advice so she doesn't have to do it personally.
- Expy: To Shiori Amaya from A Town Where You Live. They look very similar and have the same surname, but its not confirmed that they are related (although the series clearly takes place in a shared universe with both Kimi no Iru Machi and Suzuka, since multiple characters from each have appeared in Fuuka).
- Ms. Fanservice: She's featured in several of the cheesecake cover pages and her clothes tend to come off or become unbuttoned at seemingly random times, showing off her rather adult figure. Not to mention her default outfit is a button-up shirt that can barely contain her, ahem, assets (and frequently don't).
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's Tsundere towards the band, but she completely and utterly freaks out with excitement when she hears the song Yuu wrote with Nico's riff. To her intense embarrassment, her momentary freak-out is caught on the webstream the band was using to broadcast the song.
- Tsundere: Towards the band. Really. She believes in them, and sees their potential to surpass the Hedgehogs, but she masks it behind a facade of contempt towards them. Nobody ever asks her why she signed a band to her label if she thought they were bad, or how she plans to collect the supposedly huge debt she'd get if they failed (most of them are high school dropouts).
Aoba Hinokami
The band's biggest fan. Her efforts to promote the band get her noticed by Amaya and placed as the band's tour manager.
- Cute Band Manager: She's a cute girl who is nominally the band's "manager" but she mostly just acts as the go-between for Amaya and the band and has no real power to do anything other than motivate them and relay instructions from Amaya.
- Stalker without a Crush: Yuu mistakes Aoba for for being a Stalker with a Crush (again) because an actual obsessed fan had previously caused significant strife when they posted a picture of Yuu holding hands with famous idol Koyuki Hinashi. It turns out she's just the band's biggest fan and was going to post news about their upcoming solo concert.
- Yaoi Fangirl: She realizes the band is missing a certain amount of popular appeal, so she decides to set up a photo shoot to take advantage of the fact that the band is filled with attractive young people. The very first thing she asks to shoot is pictures of Nachi and Mikasa naked in a bed together, much to Nachi's chagrin.
