Characters / K-On!

From the original manga

The Light Music Club/Houkago Tea Time

In General

• Absurdly Powerful Club: Consider the size of each music-related club's fiefs. Chorus and Wind Ensemble clubs, despite their numbers and prestige value to the school, share the Secondary music room (S2E17). Jazz Club, being numerically comparable to Wind, gets a classroom (S1E8, S2E5). Meanwhile, Light Music Club despite having only 4-5 people usually resides in the Preparation Room, but also has the storeroom (S2E2) and officially (S1E1) the Primary Music Room which they use as they please (S2E7). One can understand Chorus and Wind's reluctance to do them any more favors.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Mio, Mugi, and Azusa at least try to get consistent practice, but Yui and Ritsu prefer to play around. Most of the group's time together is spent enjoying tea and cake and neither Azusa nor Mio are above it all. Despite all this, they're actually really good when they perform.
• Cloudcuckoolander: While Yui (and also Mugi to a lesser extent) are straight examples, all the girls here have their own fair share of quirks.
• Comic Trio: The founding members formed a quartet variant in their first year, with Ritsu as The Leader, Mugi as The Fool, Mio as the Only Sane Man, and Yui being either the Leader or the Fool.
• The Cutie: They're all very kind-hearted and innocent girls, though Ritsu is a bit of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Didn't Think This Through: Yui and Ritsu are prone to making impulsive and spontaneous decisions.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: Yui is the sweet and ditzy cloudcuckoolander, Ritsu is the tomboyish and mischievous Deadpan Snarker, Mio is the token Ms. Fanservice, and Mugi is the Team Mom.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Yui, being the cloudcuckoolander who lives in her own world and lacks goals or has different ones, is the apathetic, with Ritsu qualifying as well: although she's less airheaded, both are still rather unfocused and Book Dumb. Mugi is more down-to-earth and focused, and definitely an optimist as she's cheerful and positive; Mio instead is the conflicted, as she tries to be serious and mature, but is a shy child at heart. Azusa, being the Only Sane Woman and the most mature one despite being one year younger, is definitely the realist, if not a lighter cynic sometimes (well, as far as a K-On character can be cynical).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Slight variation: Cloudcuckoolander Yui is sanguine/phlegmatic, Tomboy Ritsu is sanguine/choleric, Shrinking Violet Mio is melancholic/supine, The Quiet One Mugi is phlegmatic/sanguine and Only Sane Woman Azusa is supine.
• Kiddie Kid: They're in their mid-to-late teens but overall act more like preteens. Even Mio, who's usually the "mature" one of the group, acts more like a slightly more mature 12-year-old than anything.
• Musical Theme Naming: They each take their family name from a member of the defunct New Wave band P-Model. Yui Hirasawa is named after frontman and founder Susumu Hirasawa, Ritsu Tainaka is named after drummer Sadatoshi Tainaka, Mio Akiyama is named after bassist Katsuhiko Akiyama, Tsumugi Kotobuki is named after keyboardist Hikaru Kotobuki, and Azusa Nakano is named after bassist/keyboardist Teruo Nakano (though Azusa herself actually plays second guitar).
• Nice Mean And In Between: Well, as far as a character in such a series can be described as mean, as they're overall very kind girls. That said, compared to each other, Yui (who always brings happiness among them), Mugi (who always provides things to spend time together) and Mio (who, despite her shyness, is very warm and always helps studying) are nice, Ritsu (The Prankster Jerk with a Heart of Gold) is a bit mean, and Azusa is in-between due to her Tsundere tendencies and slightly standoffish behaviour at times.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: In concept, they're a school club that focuses on practicing light music. In practice, however, they're basically a group of girls who spend most of their time fooling around, only to practice every once in a while.
• Smart Jerk and Nice Moron: Averted by Mio and Ritsu's dynamic. Ritsu is the more carefree and scatterbrained one but slightly jerkish, while Mio is The Smart Girl but also the nicer one, though she can be harsh on Ritsu.
• Sweet Tooth: All of them love sweets and frequently snack on cake that Mugi brings in for them, though Mio and Mugi both tend to worry about their weight as a result.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tea. It's the solution to all of life's problems, according to Mugi. Their band eventually gets the name Houkago ("After School") Tea Time from Sawako because of it.
• True Companions: They're very close best friends.
• Woman Child: By the second manga, all founding members of Hokago Tea Time are adult women attending college. Emotionally, on the other-hand, they are still quite innocent and adorable children.

Yui Hirasawa

Voiced by: Aki Toyosaki (Japanese) and Stephanie Sheh (English)

Yui is the first character introduced, and remains the primary viewpoint character throughout the series. She is the lead guitarist and main vocalist of the band. Yui is a kind-hearted but air-headed girl who initially only joined the club because she was tempted by the offer of snacks. She initially had no musical experience whatsoever and has difficulties maintaining her attention, but shows herself to be a fast study when focused, and discovers surprising talents she herself was unaware of (such as having perfect pitch).

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• Achievements in Ignorance: She had never seen a tuner until her second training camp when Azusa uses hers. When asked how she tunes her guitar, she demonstrates just by listening. Azusa realizes Yui has a perfect pitch, something that is extremely rare and usually found in people with a musical background, something Yui likely doesn't realize.
• All-Loving Heroine: There's not a single person in the entire manga Yui shows hate or dislike towards: She loves her fellow band members, adores her sister Ui and Azusa, gets along well with the grandma that she and Ui live close to, the list goes on.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: She tends to get very easily distracted. Taken literally in Episode 8 when she proves immune to nerves after finding a 100 yen coin on the stage.
• Ambiguously Gay: Yui tends to be very huggy and affectionate around her female classmates, especially towards Azusa, who she outright attempts to kiss multiple times. However, this is mostly played for laughs, and neither the manga nor the anime touch on Yui's sexuality. Her nature as a Cloudcuckoolander only complicates things.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: She is shown to able to pick up on things such as guitar and certain academic subjects rather quickly through brief observation, provided that she is sufficiently motivated.
  • The earliest is when Yui plays the チャルメラ melody used in ramen carts ^note technically an arrangement with the key moved from G to C, played out as C-D-E-D-C-C-D-E-D-C-D.
    1. A beginner can still easily recognize a full semitone change in pitch as such, but it's harder to determine the amount of change (1 semitone or 2?). It's also easy to mistake two consecutive notes of the same pitch as different, because the listener anticipates some pitch change and the ear is so affected by what comes before ^note the 2nd C in the C-C, for example, sounds different from the first because it is preceded by a C instead of a D.
    2. The melody is played out on the diatonic scale, while the guitar is a chromatic instrument which means the fingering changes are less intuitive than moving along the white keys (diatonic scale) of a piano.
    3. Yui's fingering was A (string)+3 (fret)=C, D+0f = D, D+2f=E, which both requires her to know the frets are worth one semitone, but most importantly that the difference between the 3rd (D) and 2nd (A) strings is 5 semitones.
    • A book and a few minutes of experimentation can resolve all but the first, and that may be what Mio assumed Yui had even if she didn't "practise", but the viewer knows "zero really is zero" and for a true first time being able to divine that much is quite impressive.
• Big Eater: She never gets fat for it, much to the dismay and envy of Mio and Mugi. In the song "Ichigo Parfait ga Tomaranai", she likens herself to a black hole when it comes to sweets.
• Book Dumb: Yui is shown to get rather poor grades in school, being weak in pretty much every academic subject. Despite this, she is a very talented guitarist who can tune her guitar by ear. And later on, things change, since she shows to be definitely able to get very high marks.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Most of the time Yui is an airhead who suffers from frequent bouts of laziness, but she can learn things pretty quickly once she puts her mind to it. Even Azusa, who's trained for years, is amazed at how good she is with the guitar, such as being able to tune it without an auto-tuner. In addition, she can achieve excellent grades when she manages to focus on studying.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite coming off as an airhead, Yui proves to be surprisingly clever and talented. Azusa's years of experience with the guitar sets up Yui as this by contrast. For example, when Yui sees Azusa's electric guitar tuner, the audience learns that Yui doesn't know what a tuner is, but she has perfect pitch, and can tune her guitar perfectly by ear. Of course, she has no idea what perfect pitch is. She's also not a great student most of the time due to her laziness, but when she focuses on schoolwork hard enough, she can get excellent grades.
• Childish Older Sibling: Yui is airy and rather irresponsible compared to her younger sister Ui.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Mostly in the first season; she's lazy, ditzy, and thrown into a position she has no experience with, but she pushes on through regardless.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She lives in her own world, is easily distracted, and can sometimes forget almost everything else each time she focuses on something new: she once temporarily forgot how to play the guitar after she was forced to study for a make-up test. She also has a very strong love for Giita and is sometimes shown talking to it as if it were a real person.
  • Unexpectedly, she has her moments where she tends to be the one who thinks about practical matters: e.g., how much their training trip will cost (ep 4), or whether they're actually allowed to use the club room as they please (ep 5). She's also the first one to recognize Sawako (ep 5).
  • There have also been times where her tendency to only be able to focus on one thing didn't show; in episode 9 of season 2, she managed to focus on both performing at a local talent show and her exams at the same time, succeeding in both pleasing her neighbor (despite not winning) and passing her exams.
• Comical Nap Drool: She falls asleep during the opening ceremony, and ends up drooling on Akira's suit.
• Companion Cube: She has a very close devotion to "Giita", though some of the ways she expresses her love for it can be downright impractical: letting Giita wear clothes and sleeping in bed with it at night is going to do a number on its strings' lifespan. It's even lampshaded in-series, with side character Himeko noting how she loves it like a boyfriend.
• Conveniently Seated: Yui sits in the window seat in the last row of the classroom, with Ritsu sitting in front of her.
• Covert Pervert: She fantasizes about getting slapped with a big wad of cash… but then again who wouldn't?
• Cuddle Bug: Generally towards Azusa, but also to everyone she's close to.
  Azusa (watching Jun receive her first glomp from Yui): "I see Jun's undergoing her baptism by Yui-Senpai."
  • In university, Yui has found her new "victim": Akira.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Ritsu's first impression of Yui, and she sure isn't wrong. Yui is quite the klutz and definitely an airhead.
• Determinator: If Yui wants to see something through to the end, she will. Her official character bio even mentions how determined and competitive she is.
• The Ditz: Played With. Yui isn't exactly stupid in the truest sense of the term, it's just that she's a cloudcuckoolander and very unfocused most of the time. That said, she does possess a fair amount of intelligence and creativity, and can be very competent and talented when the situation calls for it.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Yui's far from the smartest, but she's shown to be more alert of things when the others aren't.
  • When Mio recommends a training camp that Ritsu insists on goofing off in, Yui is the first to bring up the cost of said trip, something Mio didn't take into account.
  • Sawako broke into tears over how things didn't work out when she was younger and is upset she's still single. Ritsu tries to get her to cheer up by saying it doesn't matter who she was before, but who she is in the here and now. While that does calm her down, Yui absentmindedly, though correctly, points out she doesn't have a boyfriend in the here and now either, making her break down in tears again.
• The Empath: Yui sometimes demonstrates a weak version of this.
  • When she was young, she instinctively chose Nodoka to be her friend, and Nodoka stuck with her despite the relationship clearly being pretty one-sided in Cost versus Benefit.
  • In the first episode, Yui was rather uncomfortable with the other girls, being temporarily placated with sweets before her nervousness returning. Do note that Ritsu was sizing her up in the teacher's office, then all three of them were wearing masks and trying to say whatever is needed to get her name into their club. Yui herself was clumsily navigating through pleasantries while trying to quit. When they offered to play for her is also when they dropped their greed, and Yui relaxed enough to not only join their club, but tell them what she thought.
  • In the fourteenth episode, Yui was able to mingle with the other scary-looking bands easily, who turned out to be perfectly friendly. Remembering that she's not an unconditionally bold person when interacting with unknown people ...
  • Contrast the above with the movie when Yui was clearly nervous about the restaurant manager. Yes, he's big, he's speaking English and he's backlit, but as seen above superficialities doesn't affect Yui. The story doesn't clarify whether he's good or bad.
• Failure Is the Only Option: In season 2 - episode 8, club members try to imagine what job Yui could do later. Her ditziness always ends up messing things up.
• Family Theme Naming: She and her sister Ui have names that rhyme with each other.
• Flipping the Bird: Almost does this in the music video for the first school festival song in episode 6, but catches herself and throws a peace sign instead.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The foolish to Ui's responsible. Compared to her younger sister, she's airheaded, easily distracted, and very dependent on Ui to do everything for her when she's at home.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine with phlegmatic tendencies: she's quite outgoing, very kind and friendly, and is also cheerful and excitable despite her laziness.
• Genki Girl: Quite bubbly and always happy and cheerful, she's rather excitable (if she's not lazing around, that is)... and although she's not as hammy and loud as Ritsu, she still counts.
• The Heart: Thanks to her natural kindness and charisma, Yui is often the one who holds the entire band together when things get rough (well, as rough as things can get when it comes to a group of adorable and pure-hearted girls).
• Hidden Depths: She's somehow able to do a pretty decent impression of a sumo wrestler, complete with deepening her voice.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Yui is one of Sawako's favorite victims for her cosplay, but her sheer innocence (and adaptational difference) prevents her from being too embarrassed by it. In fact, when Sawako punishes her with the santa dress in the anime, she flashes a peace sign and looks rather cheerful about it.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Despite usually coming off as a goofy Genius Ditz, she holds no ill will towards anyone and is someone who will go the distance for those she cares for.
• Large Ham: Yui is either 100% happy or a 100% sad Drama Queen (in the very few moments she's sad), there is no middle ground. Still, Ritsu beats her in hamminess.
• Lazy Bum: Before she joined the Light Music Club, Yui was part of the Going Home Club (AKA, she always went home after class). Her time was spent reading manga, eating snacks, and just lazing around while Ui took care of the house. She's gotten better since joining the club; she spends a lot of time practicing with Giita, but her laziness still shows from time to time.
• Lead Singer Plays Lead Guitar: She's the band's lead guitarist and primary vocalist.
• Lost Food Grievance: She sees taking the strawberry from a strawberry shortcake as the equivalent to taking its crown, or even its heart or its very soul.
• Nice Girl: Yui's most noble quality is her ability to go above and beyond the distance for the people that she loves; notable examples include letting the rest of Hokago Tea Time have their fairly-earned share of the part-time-job money meant for her guitar, rehearsing for a musical festival competition to win a trip for the grandma who has been kind to her since childhood in spite of a looming midterm exam (and acing the test, no less), not to mention writing two sincere and heartfelt songs to celebrate her love and gratitude for the most precious people in her life, "U and I" for her sister Ui, and "We Met A Wonderful Angel" to give courage to Azusa.
• Never Gets Fat: When the rest of the band asks on why she never gets fat with all of those sweets, she explains that she has a high metabolism.
• The Nicknamer: Her guitar becomes "Giita", Tsumugi becomes "Mugi-chan", Ritsu becomes "Ricchan", Azusa becomes "Azu-nyan", Sawako becomes "Sawa-chan-sensei", and Mio's bass becomes "Elizabeth". Also, in the "extra" episode of the first season, she calls her pair of gloves "Tebukuro-chan".
• Not Herself: She undergoes a personality about-face due to a fever during the college arc.
• Plucky Comic Relief: How her bandmates apparently see her. Based on the way the band introduces her in the last cultural festival concert, and what Azusa says in the manga while tearfully begging her seniors to not leave her, the quality about Yui they like best is her ability to boost their morale.
• The Protagonist: Despite K-On! having an ensemble cast, Yui is considered the main character. The first season of the anime focuses on her growth as a musician, culminating in her pouring her heart out to play at the school festival.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Azusa and Nodoka's blue.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: In the manga, when Sawako has Yui dress up in a Sexy Santa Dress as punishment, Yui acts embarrassed as she shows it off. It (doesn't) help that the outfit is a two-piece that shows a lot of midriff.
• Rookie Red Ranger: The story begins with Yui signing up to the Light Music Club as lead guitarist despite no music experience.
• Stocking Filler: Yui wears black stockings in contrast to the other characters who wear socks.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She and her sister Ui look incredibly similar to the point that they could pass as twins, even though they're actually a year apart in age. The main physical difference is that Yui always wears her hair down while Ui has hers up in a ponytail.
• Sweet Tooth: She has a great fondness for sweets, which gets abused relentlessly to seduce her into joining the club. Even after she joins, Mugi keeps a lot of sweets handy for whenever the band needs Yui to do something. (Mugi seems to believe that sweets are the solution to all problems.) The scary thing is, she's often right.
• Technician vs. Performer: The Performer to Azusa's Technician. While she almost never practices and doesn't possess the musical experience and skill that Azusa does, she instead relies on her energy and charisma to entertain the audience during performances.
• Too Kinky to Torture: When Sawako forces Yui to wear a Sexy Santa Dress in episode 7 of season 1 in order to embarrass her, she instead proudly poses in it. This causes Sawako to complain that it's no fun forcing Yui to wear it because "she has no sense of embarrassment."

Ritsu Tainaka

Voiced by: Satomi Sato (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English), Jennifer Weiß (German)

Club president and drummer who has problems following her responsibilities. A rowdy and loud girl, she's been friends with Mio since they were little. Her interest in the club was primarily because, being a vacant club, she could elevate herself to president without having to be elected. While not as disorganized as Yui, she often misses deadlines or important details because she's too distracted by something else, which often leads to her and Yui being the club's troublemakers for one reason or another.

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• A-Cup Angst: She has the smallest bust of the original four and is very conscious about it, especially since her best friend and immediate Foil Mio has the largest bust.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Somewhat. The anime endings tend to portray her as a Perpetual Frowner, despite her extroverted hammy and jokey personality in the canon material.
• All Drummers Are Animals: Downplayed. Ritsu is the most extroverted girl in the band and will do things she wants to do (sometimes to the dismay of Mio). However, she's not as extreme as other examples of the trope.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Although to a lesser extent than Yui.
• Attention Whore: Ritsu is very outgoing, loud, boisterous, definitely hammy and quite attention-seeking. Although she isn't actually self-absorbed as most examples, since she's generally pretty kind.
• Authority in Name Only: She's nominally the club president, but slacks off with her responsibilities. She attended her first club president meeting halfway through Season 2, which takes place during her senior year.
• Berserk Button: Don't ever accuse her of being unfeminine to her face.
  • She mentions that even thinking about having to move one's fingers frenetically to play guitar and bass and keyboards "makes me want to scream!"
• Birds of a Feather: With Ayame, at college.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: The Boke to Mio's Tsukkomi.
• Boyish Short Hair: She sees her hair as symbolic of her tomboyish attitude; during the trip to Kyoto, she notices that the more girly Mio and Mugi have long hair, and wonders if growing her own hair out will make her more feminine.
• The Bully: Ritsu really enjoys abusing Mio's many phobias. She usually realizes when she goes too far, but when she doesn't, either she gets a Cranial Eruption or Mio crawls into her Corner of Woe.
• Camera Fiend: One Ura-On segment is devoted to this trait of hers.
• Character Catchphrase: In the dub — "What are you, a grade schooler?"
• Childhood Friends: She and Mio have been friends ever since they were children.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: In the anime Ritsu starts showing this behavior toward Mio at one point (Episode 11).
• Cloudcuckoolander: Not to Yui's extent, since she's definitely more grounded, but she's still lazy and rather unfocused, as she prefers having fun than practicing. She's also rather forgetful.
• Club President: Subverted: while Ritsu simply joined the club to jump at the chance to become President without getting elected in the first place, her position rarely comes up again. Club decisions are mostly done in democratic fashion, as opposed to her telling the others what to do, and when it comes to doing the necessary paperwork and such, she more often than not forgets about it, much to Nodoka's annoyance.
• Cranial Eruption: Very often when she annoys/scares Mio.
• Deadpan Snarker: Definitely more of a snarker than deadpan, but she's very sarcastic, if not a bit mischievous, and loves playing jokes... especially, when they scare Mio.
• Dumb and Drummer: Downplayed. Ritsu isn't particularly stupid, just lazy and forgetful. Although the reason she plays the drums is because she thinks playing the guitar or keyboard is too complicated and would frustrate her.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Her bangs which spill out from the side of her hair-band weren't drawn as prominently in first chapters of the manga.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Subverted: in spite of her tomboyish personality, she cooked a nice dinner for the whole band after they came to her house to help her with her sewing assignment for Home Ec.
• Forehead of Doom: So much that it's the only thing audiences can make of her from the back of the stage.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine with choleric tendencies. Ritsu is very energetic, athletic and tomboyish, a bit brash and quick to take action, very energetic and rather mischievous and sarcastic.
• Gamer Chick: One panel in the manga implies she was playing Persona 3 when she should've been studying.
  • She also gets bored and plays video games with Ui while Mio and Mugi were helping Yui cram for her make-up exam. Ui kicks her ass.
• Genki Girl: The drums just fit her.
• Hypocritical Humor: She frequently partakes in antics with Yui, but often criticises her for the things she herself would do. Sometimes, she'll complain about what Yui is doing even when she is doing the same thing. Mio often calls her out on her hypocrisy.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Coincidentally enough, Ritsu looks like Cassandra Lee Morris if she's in high school.
• Iron Butt Monkey: She takes a lot of physical abuse from Mio. Granted, she often brings it upon herself, but sometimes it borders on Disproportionate Retribution.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed, she's not a big jerk. Still, she's lazy, irresponsible, sarcastic and kind of a bully towards Mio, but she's a good person and wants to make her friends happy. This is best shown when Mugi says that she's a kind person who's determined to make her friends happy, and that she would be popular with the girls if she were a guy; Ritsu doesn't take this compliment well and hits her, which in all fairness was what Mugi wanted all along.
• Large Ham: Boisterous, very outgoing, and prone to making dramatic pronouncements about trivial things, which results in her being punched by Mio when she enters Azusa's classroom. Yeah, she fits the trope to a T.
  Mio: "Don't scare the freshmen!"
  • Episode 3, Drummer! shows that even when she's sad she has to lay it on thick. She spends a moment sobbing in the corner while adding onomatopoeic "Hiku Hiku" noises to indicate that she's indeed crying. Note that these sound effects can generally be found in Manga.
• The Leader: She created the band, she dictates the direction and moods of the band, she's the club president and she schedules their gigs. This is noteworthy, as it's not very common that the drummer leads the band, as she's not the "face" of the band (a role shared by Mio and Yui).
• Letting Her Hair Down: The first time she lets her hair down in the manga, Mio doesn't recognize her.
• Loving Bully: One moment she can be exploiting Mio's fears, the next she can be encouraging her to get over them.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Ritsu's entire relationship with Mio is based on her desire to help Mio emerge from her shell.
• Meaningful Name: The kanji for her name (律) is one of the characters making up the Japanese word for "rhythm" (律動, read as "ritsudou"). This is quite fitting for the drummer of the group.
• Nice Girl: Despite her hamminess and somewhat rude attitude (and, of course, bullying towards Mio) she's a kind and friendly girl, and naturally has a good heart like the others.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Ritsu always wears her school uniform differently from the rest of the club (during the colder months, her jacket is always unbuttoned and during the warmer months, she doesn't wear the yellow vest).
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Oh yes. She's normally unkempt and boyish, but... Look at her when she plays the role of Juliet.
• The Prankster: Is she ever. Very playful and a bit of a bully, being always ready to play jokes, especially if they scare Mio.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The loud and playful red oni to Mio's quiet and shy blue.
• Through His Stomach: In one of her Image Songs she sings about cooking dinner for "the person I love".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The brash and energetic Tomboy to Mio's Girly Girl.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She rarely wears skirts or dresses when not wearing her school uniform, refuses to tuck her shirt in unless explicitly told to do so◊, and has relatively bad manners compared to the other girls (for example, holding her chopsticks in her mouth). On the other hand, she's pretty good at sewing and seems to fret over her hair as much as a teenage girl would. Really she might even lean more towards being a "lazy" girl more than being a pure tomboy (that is she doesn't take being feminine seriously but still appreciates some things about her gender).
• Unkempt Beauty: While she normally dresses casual, if not boyish, Ritsu is actually very pretty. She just has to let her hair down and be a bit more feminine.
• Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: She is forced to play Juliet and has troubles playing the character, because she's not really girly.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Has been friends with Mio since elementary school, but scares and teases her all the time.

Mio Akiyama

Voiced by: Yōko Hikasa (Japanese) and Cristina Valenzuela (English)

The extremely shy bassist and backup vocalist whenever Yui can't sing. Ritsu's friend since childhood, her shyness and being easily spooked makes her a prime target for Ritsu's playful prodding, much to her annoyance. Otherwise she's a very organized and mature girl who has to keep the rest of the club on-task when they start drifting into their less serious tendencies.

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• Accidental Celebrity: Mio becomes a celebrity at school after accidentally showing her panties on stage. She even garners her own fan club over it.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Like Azumanga Daioh's Sakaki, she subverts the usual stereotype by appearing cool and aloof on the surface but actually being very shy. She also tries to be The Stoic, but her many phobias will usually turn her into a cowering, nervous mess.
• Author Avatar: To a degree. While not much is known about Kakifly, he did publish a photo of his instrument collection in the first manga volume, showing off several left-handed bass guitars.
• Berserk Button: Ritsu's tomfoolery in general gets under Mio's skin, especially if it's at her expense.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's a shy sweetheart, but can be rather harsh towards Ritsu when she punishes her because of her childish attitude.
• Birds of a Feather: With Sachi at university.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: The Tsukkomi to Ritsu's Boke. She even administers dope slaps when appropriate.
• Broken Ace: She's smart, attractive, popular, and talented, but is far too shy to enjoy the most out of it.
• Butt-Monkey: Is she ever. Especially, she's Ritsu and Sawako's favourite target.
• Character Tics: Before beginning a performance, she always holds her guitar pick in her mouth and flips her hair back over her shoulder.
• The Chew Toy: Her fears and anxieties get milked for all they're worth, especially by Ritsu and Sawako. Sometimes she could really use a hug.
• Classical Anti-Hero: A pure-hearted and extremely cute girl who tries to be mature and serious, but suffers from her anxieties and is very shy.
• Comfort Food: She takes to munching on Pocky after Akira made fun of their band name. Ritsu warns about gaining weight from this.
• The Cutie: Although all characters qualify, she's very likely to stand out, as her shyness makes her even more adorable. The only character able to make her lose her cuteness is Ritsu, who always annoys her; otherwise, she's a total sweetheart without a mean bone in her body, who is just as kind as Yui and Mugi, albeit very shy.
• Defiled Forever: A Running Gag of the series is that everytime Mio's Ms. Fanservice status is exploited, she will remark that "no one will want to marry her anymore".
• Does Not Like Men: In the manga, she famously shouted "Men are animals!" when she thought Ritsu had a boyfriend.
• Even the Girls Want Her: The school has a fan club devoted to her, and it is packed.
• Fainting: With the subtypes Emotional (when she has anxiety attacks) and Monster (when she gets too scared).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic: she tries to be serious and mature but is overly shy, anxious and with many phobias and insecurities. However, she tends more towards supine when she overcomes her issues, becoming more balanced and developing a more playful and cheerful side.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: She'll go through every effort to move on from the Panty Shot incident, but her friends and Sawako won't let her. When she tried to prevent Azusa from seeing it, she was promptly restrained.
• Gag Censor: Her infamous Panty Shot is represented with a striped rice bowl in the anime.
• Going to See the Elephant: Mio is unexpectedly the most excited about going to Summer Fest out of all the members in the club.
• Grew a Spine: In the college arc, Ayame is able to convince her to both look and feel good wearing nice clothes, which motivates her to start losing weight to fit into more cute outfits instead of from personal shame. Ritsu notes that this is probably a lot healthier for her than Sawako forcibly dressing her up (not that Ayame's intentions were pure either).
• Hime Cut: Long hair with sidetails and even bangs make for a picture perfect lady and thus ideal for the face of the band much to Mio's dismay since she lacks certain character traits such as eternal composure.
• Informed Attractiveness: Mio is supposedly the most beautiful of the girls, to the point that she's the series' Ms. Fanservice and her looks are often exploited to generate publicity for the band. However, her character design isn't any more attractive than her friends', aside from being somewhat taller.
• Informed Deformity: She at one points remarks about how she has "cold man hands" after it's shown she makes onigiri much bigger than Azusa and expresses disappointment for it. The thing is that Azusa's hands are smaller because she's a year younger, and is shorter than her peers as well, while Mio's hands are drawn similarly if not exactly the same as the rest of the girls her age, and not just in the club.
• Irony: For someone who thinks men are animals, her lyrics sure are heavy on the theme of confessing to a boy or hoping to be noticed by a boy. Then again, they might not be about boys after all.
• Jerkass to One: Downplayed. She and Ritsu are undoubtedly friends, and Mio, being a genuinely Nice Girl, is very kind to her friends, but Ritsu is also the person she's most likely to whack on the head or make snide and snarky comments on due to her immaturity.
• Lead Bassist: Became this after the Panty Shot incident and her popularity skyrocketed.
• Lost Food Grievance: The poor girl breaks down and starts crying once her strawberry is taken. At least Mugi apologized...
• Moe: In-universe: Yui and Ritsu think she's extremely cute when she wears a Meido outfit and when she cries.
  Yui and Ritsu: "Moe Moe Kyun~!"
  • Also, her lyrics are so sickeningly sweet Ritsu and Sawako can't handle it.
• Ms. Fanservice: To her horror, this is exploited mercilessly by Sawako (and to a lesser extent, Ritsu) for the sake of the band's publicity; what can she do when she is a beautiful, shy, classically Japanese looking girl and is considered adorable whenever her attempts to try looking cool ends in tears?
• Nice Girl: She may be a scaredy-cat, but Mio is very kind, warm, helpful and considerate towards others, and loves her friends. She can sometimes lose her temper if Ritsu pushes her buttons too much, though.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: At first, Mio believes this to be true, since she has anxiety issues and is content with being in the background. Unfortunately for her, this backfires spectacularly (see Ms. Fanservice above) and she becomes the band's face.
• Not So Above It All:
  • During their Beach Episode band camp, only Mio is eager to begin practicing, all while Ritsu, Yui and Mugi flee to the beach immediately. It doesn't take long for Mio to relent too, and they end up losing the whole day playing at the beach.
  • After having been all business while scolding Yui and Ritsu again and again on the Kyoto trip, she finally cracks when they get lost and run into Nodoka's group... and she starts laughing hysterically! This marks a turning point in her development, now that the band's voice of reason has been transferred to their adorable kohai Azusa.
  • In the midst of a heat wave, she finds a fan and positions it so that it blows in front of everyone... except Ritsu. Mio is aware of it.
• Only Sane Woman: Before Azusa came and took over that role. Azusa may be slightly standoffish, but is undoubtedly calmer and less prone to lose her cool; instead, Mio tries to be stoic and is undoubtedly more mature than Yui or Ritsu, but she's far too anxious.
• Palm on Cheek Pose: To be expected for such a shy girl.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Reliable One and shy blue oni to Ritsu's forgetful and mischievous red oni.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: She's been forced into her share of costumes, not to mention tripping over a cord and landing in a panty-exposing position during the band's first performance in front of the whole school.
• Shrinking Violet: Shy around strangers and suffers crippling anxiety over performing in front of crowds. Decided to play bass so that she won't attract much attention, which backfires spectacularly when she becomes the band's face.
• Sickeningly Sweet: The song lyrics she writes are so saccharine that they drive Ritsu and Sawako nuts, though Yui and Mugi actually like them.
• Statuesque Stunner: The tallest in her group, and she's also considered the most attractive even In-Universe. However, this is only in comparison to her friends and also largely by Japanese standards, since she's 160 cm (a bit more than 5 feet two inches) tall, which is only slightly above the average height for Japanese women. She might still grow, though.
• The Stoic: What she desperately tries to be. She tries to be aloof, mature and serious, but she's far too emotional and adorably fails.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Subverted; Mio is not cold or aloof, she's just painfully shy. Though she tries to be stoic, serious, mature and above the childishness of her friends, with a heavy emphasis on try. But when she fails...
• Tender Tears: Looks rather serious, if not aloof, at first glance. And yet it turns out she's the biggest crybaby in the entire series.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The shy and easily startled Girly Girl to Ritsu's Tomboy.
• Tsurime Eyes: The way her eyes are drawn in the manga makes her look very much like Lucky Star's Kagami with her hair down. Her eyes in her anime character design are still tsurime, but different in style.
• Tsundere: Has shades of the Sweet type towards Ritsu. She's usually one of the nicest characters, but Ritsu's antics are enough to rile her up.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Mio considers Ritsu her best friend, but she can't stand her childish attitude and is prone to hitting her when she gets too annoying for her.
• Weight Woe: Is very sensitive about her weight even though Ritsu implies it all goes to her breasts.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • She has quite a lot of phobias, but is especially terrified of blood and blisters. Ritsu repeatedly teases her about this.
  • The anime exaggerates on these, and then some more — she also earns a fear of barnacles and even the mere thought of crayfish in the bathtub.
  • The Movie ups the ante even further; having her suitcase delayed at the London Airport luggage carousels gave her a traumatic fear of all things that "turn", be it the conveyor belts in sushi restaurants, turning lamps and even Ferris wheels like the London Eye. The poor girl just doesn't have it easy.
• Wolverine Publicity: If one were to go by all the K-On's Endings, it'd be easy to mistake Mio as the lead singer of the band. Each ED puts emphasis on Mio being both the lead singer and the front-man of After School Tea Time. Irony here is that in the show itself, she's only the backup singer and outside of the very first performance, where she had to sub in for Yui who had lost her voice, Mio has a complete aversion to singing.
  • She does take the full lead role on certain insert songs, most notably "Pure Pure Heart" from K-On!!. She also did the lead for "Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~" during the performance at the second school festival at the end of the first season but that was just because Yui left her guitar at home so she wasn't present to sing as was intended. The full album version of "Fude Pen" is sung by Yui.

Tsumugi "Mugi" Kotobuki

Voiced by: Minako Kotobuki (Japanese) and Shelby Lindley (English)

The soft-spoken keyboardist who frequently provides tea and sweets in the middle of band practice. Hailing from a very wealthy family with a large business empire, she takes great delight in the more mundane aspects of middle-class life, being so separated from it normally. Extremely kind, she's always willing to use the resources she's been blessed with to help the club.

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• The Ace: Tends to be competent in most of the new things she tries, although this is usually treated as a background event. Case in point: the awesome sand castles she builds in S1's Beach Episode.
• Affectionate Nickname: Yui gives her the nickname "Mugi", which sticks so well that the other girls call her by that name more often than her real name.
• Ambiguously Gay: She is implied to have a crush on Sawako in episode 5; when asked about that by Ritsu though, she evades the question and this is never brought up again. She's also jealous of what she perceives as physical intimacy between Mio and Ritsu or Yui and Azusa, though she admits she think Ritsu would be popular with girls if she were a boy. It's not clear if she's actually a lesbian herself, or if she's just really into close interactions between the other girls because she thinks that's how "normal" girls behave.
• Badass Adorable: Played for Laughs. She's freakishly strong without sacrificing any cuteness.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Manga◊ Mugi◊ is this a little.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows:
  • Not that they make her any less charming. They apparently run in her family, as a store attendant was able to tell who her father was just by looking at her eyebrows. Her father having Big Ol' Eyebrows may be a reference to Mitsuru Umemura, president of Yamaha, who also has large eyebrows.
  • The bonus manga chapters turn her eyebrows into a gag by saying they're actually takuan pickles (pickled radishes) and if both are removed, she starts melting until they're replaced by more pickles or something similar. At one point in said bonus comics, her eyebrows are protractors, which have an interesting effect on her personality (she starts referring to everything with angles).
• But Not Too Foreign: Not explicitly spoken of in either manga or anime, but there are enough hints that point to Mugi being half-European. Fan theory posits her mother as being either Finnish or, thanks to the revelation of Sumire's own origins, Austrian.
• Cloudcuckoolander: While not at Yui's level by far, she has her fair share of moments. As some girls can attest, spending time with her one-on-one can be quite a heady experience.
• Covert Pervert: Mugi is rather less innocent and sweet than she shows. Basically, if she's not lesbian herself, she sure does seem to enjoy the semi-naughty cosplay◊ and picturing her friends in sparkly, blushy embraces a lot.
  • Her longing for more skinship, resulting in requests for hugs and being hit over the head, also makes one wonder.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Her distinctive eyebrows were drawn noticeably thinner in the earliest manga chapters.
• Fiction 500: So ludicrously rich that her family owns multiple mansions, are first-name-basis friends with The Royal House of Finland, and is so used to taking trips overseas that she happily forfeits a trip to Hawaii she won in a lucky-raffle so she can have a board-game to play with her friends.
• Flat Character: In the anime's first season, has the least focus and least development of all five girls—including Azusa, who appears in half as many episodes. Unlike Ritsu and Mio (who have each other) and Yui (who has her sister, Nodoka, and Asuza to bounce off of), Mugi never pairs off with any other characters and rarely appears outside of ensemble scenes, wherein her characterization is limited to "filthy rich Fish out of Water in the land of poor people" and "thoughtfully brought sweets for everybody".
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic, with some sanguine traits. She's The Quiet One, very gentle and soft-spoken, yet she's also cheerful and playful at the same time, and not infrequently gets excited.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Sure, she wanted it to begin with, but this may have more to do the fact that it was Ritsu who won that bear for her.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Gentle, innocent, nurturing, kind; truly the "mother" of ''Hokago Teatime''.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: She wants Ritsu to do this to her because she interprets Mio hitting Ritsu as an act of affection. Ritsu can't bring herself to do it, so they try to trick Mio into hitting her, which fails. Mugi gets her wish when she embarrasses Ritsu at the end of the episode by calling her a would-be Chick Magnet.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Despite — or possibly, because of — being incredibly rich, she gets much enjoyment out of doing mundane◊ things, such as eating fast food◊ or having pillow fights.
• Idiot Ball: Much of the pain the girls faced in Day 1 of their London trip could be avoided if Mugi was able to handle everyday conversational English as she promised and as implied by her Oujo background. Also, when they were in the sushi restaurant in a rare show of insensitivity she fails to notice the clear discomfort of the rest of the group (she being Oujo has presumably met large Caucasoids before), so instead of clearing up the situation, she uses what English skills she has to borrow a keyboard, making it even harder to back out.
• Informed Ability: When the girls discuss having to talk English abroad, she says that her conversational skills are good, but she doesn't show them. Considering how her Gratuitous English sounded, it might be a case of Minako Kotobuki not being as good at English as Mugi's supposed to be.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Highlighting her kindness and dreamy nature.
• Large Ham: While she's not as extroverted as Yui and Ritsu, every day is like a Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn romantic musical to this young lady. She really tends to get excited about things.
• Ms. Fanservice: Mugi's proportions are just as astounding as Mio's; though in her case she openly enjoys dressing up in the ridiculously fetishistic costumes that Sawako puts her in.
• Nice Girl: Like Yui, Mugi is willing to go beyond the distance to create fun, warm and happy memories with her friends, as to her there is nothing more precious than the people that she loves; being already ludicrously rich, she is more than able (and willing) to do so.
• Ojou: Mugi's initially the only one with any decent musical talent, and the first of her incredibly spacious beach houses that the club visits is mentioned to be her smallest one. (The largest is only visited after Tsumugi has graduated.) Also, visitors to her family home need official appointments. Not too common even by anime standards.
• Parody Sue: Let's see, she's a blue-eyed blonde student in a school full of brunettes and raven-haired girls, her family's so ridiculously rich this page probably broke a record by how often it's mentioned, she's one of two of the most well-endowed members, is capable of lifting and carrying instruments that are very heavy, calms everyone with sweets whenever things get hairy, and she has been a Deus ex Machina for the club at least once (having a villa the club could use to practice when they didn't have money to rent a place).
• Punny Name: Possibly. Her nickname sounds a lot like "Moog", a famous synthesizer brand.
• Shipper on Deck: Chapter 5 of the Anthology seems to suggest this.
• Signature Style: Her preference for using the Hammond organ voice on her keyboard (a specialty of the Korg Triton Extreme) is responsible for the retro-'60s sound on many of HTT's songs.
• Super-Strength: She is quite strong, as noted here◊.
  • Even better◊ examples.
    • Several fans have pointed out that the Korg Triton Extreme is a hefty piece of equipment (62 lbs/25 kg). Mugi casually slings it over one shoulder whenever the band travels, which might be normal for thick roadies but certainly not for a petite high school (now college) girl.
• Stylish Sunhats: Tsumugi wears a white sunhat with a pink belt and a golden clasp while she's at the beach.
• Tareme Eyes: Even more so than the rest of the cast.
• Tea Is Classy: She's the Token Rich Student of her club who provides the food and beverages for her band, most frequently tea and other tea snacks served in an expensive set.
• The Team Benefactor: Mugi provides the club's food and beverages as well as the venue for their training camps.
• Team Mom: While every inch as zany as her fellow club-mates, her comparative emotional maturity (rivalling that of Sawa-chan sensei) allows her to don the mantle of the nurturing mother-figure in the ensemble.
• This Explains So Much: Azusa's reaction to learning that Sumire would sneak Mugi what is implied to be Yuri manga to help her learn how normal people lived, explaining Mugi's welded-on Yuri goggles.
• Token Rich Student: She's from a ridiculously rich family (to the point that her family owns several beach houses and she's very used to going on overseas trips), and yet she attends a middle-class girls' high school. This mainly leads to jokes about how her experiences up until this point have been vastly different from her friends due to being so rich.
• Weight Woe: One of her few self-conscious personality traits is the fact she shares Mio's distaste for gaining weight and gives an equally indignant reaction when Yui mentions that she doesn't need to manage her own weight.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: At least in the manga, Mugi tends to be uncannily perceptive about certain things.
• Yuri Fan: Mugi tends to see a little more between Yui and Mio than is probably there. This eventually extends to any close interaction (regardless of context) between any two girls. In the manga, it's eventually revealed that she turned into this because, in an attempt to learn how "normal" girls interacted, she had Sumire sneak in manga for her. Said manga is heavily implied to be yuri manga.

Azusa "Azu-nyan" Nakano

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese) and Christine Marie Cabanos (English)

The Light Music Club's first new member after Yui, who joins in her freshman year (with the rest in their second year). She's also the secondary guitarist. Originally starting out as a very firm and demanding member, not tolerating the club's lackidasical attitude, their propensity for social eating and slacking off eventually rub off onto her and she eases up. Still, she's a committed musician, being born and bred to musically inclined parents, and often becomes the one who needs to keep the club on task besides Mio.

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• All Just a Dream: All of them in episode 13.
• Animal-Eared Headband: A minor Running Gag is how everyone fawns over her whenever she's made to wear fake cat ears. It also ties into a general cat motif.
• Animal Motifs: Cats. The nickname that Yui thinks up for her is "Azu-Nyan," unlike the rest of the club who have a shortened named with "Chan" added, Sawako's first thought when she sees her is that she'd look good in cat ears, and she's the one Jun picks in order to watch over her aunt's cat when her grandma can't do it.
• Anti-Mentor: Azusa's skill as a guitarist is not always matched by her skills as a pedagog:
  • In S1E11, facing Yui who was already reeling from the revelation that she was supposed to replace parts on a 21st century consumer product and knowing she's weak in technical vocabulary, Azusa fed her a sentence where all the critical words are not only technical, but in katakana (that is, English). To try and put the English reader in Yui's shoes, she heard "The jingzi is warped! Your guitar's badutiaoyin would be a mess." Yeah, steam's going to come out of her head.
    • From a pedagogic point of view, Azusa also should not have accused Yui of not taking care of her guitar. Not only do such comments all but guarantee the shown defensive reaction, it devalues what Yui does do in the correct "vector" for her guitar (which she seems to feel is beneath mention). Azusa had at least two chances to look at Gitah closely, when she handled it the day she joined the club (Gitah was about 11 months old) and when they were working closely in summer camp (just a month before E11), as well as hearing it every time the club does practise. There must be a reason you didn't notice a thing, Azusa...
  • When Ritsu wants to learn to play the guitar (S2E3), Azusa brought out the lead (melody+chord+lyric, a.k.a. fake) sheet for "Fuwa Fuwa Time", and started working Ritsu towards learning its first chord, E. Again, she lets English ("fret") slip into her vocabulary. Ritsu freezes.
    • In Azusa's defense, Ritsu always insisted she's less Book Dumb than Yui, and when she realizes Ritsu is stuck, Azusa patiently adjusted Ritsu's fingers for her and advised her on how to improve her posture to bring out the sound.
    • If we must say something is wrong here, we can suggest that knowing Ritsu's weaknesses, Azusa could have deviated from the textbook recommendation of teaching chords first and gone for something melodic using only a single string. She could also have shut Yui up - though she means well and probably wasn't saying anything wrong, having to process two streams of recommendations must have ended Ritsu's patience faster than otherwise.
  • In S2E6, Azusa and Yui revisit the problem of octave tuning and warped guitar necks. This time, Azusa demonstrates the procedure. Yui picks up its essence instantly to the point of realizing what part of the procedure she can skip. One must wonder how many others could have done the same, though, since Azusa didn't define terms or explain what to listen for ... etc. Just pick, shorten string with finger at position 12, pick again.
  • In S2E16, Mugi tries playing the guitar. It seems to go well until they graduated to the F-Chord. There are 10 different ways to play a F Major chord on guitar, of which one, X-X-3-2-1-X does not require any finger to press on more than one string. Azusa somehow decides that it's a good idea to teach Mugi, a total beginner at guitar, how to play the Barre Chord version (1-3-3-2-1-1). Many guitar players spend months or even years mastering Barre Chords. Mugi did not instantly master them either and gives up on learning to play guitar (in the anime).
    • In Azusa's defense, in-story there are some factors to justify trying the barre chords, such as Mugi being extraordinarily strong and Yui liking barre chords for her own reasons (the ring's fuller, the basic fingering's reusable for other chords and she doesn't have to work around strings that shouldn't ring).
    • To begin with, some books introduce only the Barre Chord variants (another is X-8-10-10-10-8), so maybe the variants simply never occurred to her. Here's where we expect more from multi-year guitar veterans whose parents are musicians, though...
  • In the same episode, she casually uses words like Dal segno (now it's not even English, but Italian) while teaching Yui to navigate the score. Overwhelmed by unfamiliar language, Yui falls asleep. There's probably no need to use Italian there - just to call it a mark and tell Yui where to go.
    • Azusa should not have resisted Yui's efforts to make her connections with the new vocabulary. Playing is the best way to learn.
  • But moving into Idiot Ball level was with Nao in the High School! manga who was trying to demonstrate how you can build the C-Major 7 chord (C-E-G-B) on first principles of music theory, but gets stuck trying to "add" the B note. The joke is that CM7 requires only two fingers, X-3-2-O-O-O: shorten the A-string by three semitones / frets for the C, the D string two semitones for the E, the next strings are G and B in their open state (they don't have to be added), and it's OK to leave the high-E ringing as well; finally stroke while avoiding the low-E string. Clearly neither Azusa, Nao or Sawako-sensei realized this and only a last minute intervention moved Nao into digital music composing rather than leaving the club.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The only band member who wasn't an inaugural member of the current generation of the club as she was only in middle school when Ritsu restarted it, joining during the other members' second year.
• Breakout Character: She doesn't appear until midway through season one, but come season two, one could make a strong case that she's the primary viewpoint character, with many episodes told from her perspective, especially the story finale (Episode 24).
• Break the Cutie: Subverted in her first episode as a club member. The fact she can't adjust to the club's friendly-but-overdone prodding mixed with their lax attitude wears away at her spirit to be a member until she's reduced to sobbing over her decision that she can't continue by the end. However she snaps out of it when she realizes that despite that, they can still be a functional band and play together competently because of how well they understand each other and decides to stay with a renewed motivation.
• Child Prodigy: She comes from a musical family and played guitar at a young age. She completely floored the music club by demonstrating her professional-level skills. However, her musical skills don't seem to include singing, at least in the manga.
• Club President: For the new generation of the Light Music Club.
• Deuteragonist: Of Season 2. She becomes the leader of her own team of three and gets several plotlines that are separate from her seniors.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: She has a bad habit of speaking her thoughts without realizing. It's never anything offensive or serious though. More in the anime than in the manga, however; when she names her guitar "Mu-tan", Mugi thinks it's a wonderful name. In the manga, it's an instance of Mugi's "girls' mind radio reception", but in the anime, she said it out loud.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Attempts one upon hitting third-year... but this does not sit well with Ui and Jun.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: As the Only Sane Woman, Azusa generally fits the supine position, and is easily the most mature and balanced member in the group overall.
• Girlish Pigtails: She wears her hair in pigtails, emphasizing how she's the youngest of the group and her occasional naivete despite her generally serious and mature demeanor.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: In the 2011 restart, she discovers — much to her despair — that she's terrible at singing. However, she ends up getting roped into being Wakaba Girls' vocalist anyway, after Sawako offers to give her voice training. (We can only hope that it turns out better than what happened when Sawako tried training Yui's voice.)
• Iconic Sequel Character: In the manga she debuted during the original four's second year of high school. Averted in the anime, as the first season incorporated the four's first two years of high school.
• In-Series Nickname: Azu-nyan. (Literally "Azu-Meow", which was the translation used in the Hong Kong Animax Channel English dub of season 1)
• Kid Sidekick: Initially she doesn't look too different from other characters, but she's a year behind the rest of the club, is shorter than even her peers Ui and Jun, and her cuteness is frequently mentioned.
• The Leader: After the others graduated, she becomes the band leader of the New Leaf Girls.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Not that Azusa was a jerk before meeting the club, but before and especially after she joins, she proves herself to be quite strict and a stick-in-the-mud, which quickly shocks the rest of the band. The longer she hangs out with them, however, the more she loosens and learns to relax. She's not stopping being strict with them when they slack off, but she's certainly much more relaxed since then.
• Lost Food Grievance: Yui is able to tease her by implying she's going to share some of the cake Azusa just sampled.
• Nice Girl: Though she doesn't open up so easily as Yui does towards her, she's still a cute, kind and polite girl, and shares the good heart of the other members.
• Nosebleed: Suffers one upon watching Mio's Panty Shot in a video of her seniors' first performance.
• Not So Above It All: In spite of her attempts to be the lone voice of maturity in the club, Azusa is still easily placated into joining the fun with the offering of sweets and the occasional Cooldown Hug, and has taken being called the ridiculously cute nickname "Azu-nyan" in stride.
• Not So Stoic: Season 2 Episode 24 — after spending the rest of Graduation Day holding back her feelings, Azusa finally breaks down crying in front of her senior bandmates, begging them to not graduate.]]
• Older Than She Looks: Azusa's tiny and youthful appearance is better fitting of a grade-schooler than a high or even middle schooler, leading to the following hilarious moment at Customs in London Heathrow Airport:
  Yes: I am seventeen.
• Only Sane Woman: She feels this way when she sees what makes the light music club tick. It's especially apparent during the bus trip to Summer Fest. That said, she does have a bit of a temper.
  • Come Season 2, poor Azusa knows her seniors need to use their time to practice for their final performance. And they keep getting distracted... all of them.
• Passing the Torch: Became the new Club President of the light music club.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: She debuts in the anime's eighth episode and is added to the opening billboards (OBB) in the ninth.
• Prone to Sunburn: It's a Running Gag that whenever the light music club goes to practice camp by the sea, Azusa always gets sunburnt in a matter of hours and spends the remainder of the camp red as a lobster. Along with the pain, her sunburns have led to her classmates laughing at her tan lines in the changing room and even not recognizing her.
• Sixth Ranger: She joins the other members of the club when they're in their second year of high school.
• Super-Strength: While nowhere as strong as Mugi, Azusa is still possesses remarkable physial strength for her size, being able to drag a crying and screaming Yui (6 centimeters taller and 4 kilograms heavier than she is) behind her back to study for her remedial-exams with one hand.
• Tan Lines: Happens whenever she gets a bit of sun.
• Technician vs. Performer: The Technician to Yui's Performer. She's more serious about practicing compared to Yui and possesses more musical experience and skill, but Yui is better at hyping up the audience with her energy and charisma during performances.
• Token Mini-Moe: She's the youngest team member, but she's also Older Than She Looks, being rather short with a cute and cuddly appearance. Despite her serious behaviour she's still lovable and kind.
• Tsundere: Quite a Harsh type in the manga; she usually tries to shrug off Yui's acts of affection, but she always lets up in the end. This aspect of her personality is toned down in the anime, making her a very downplayed example.
• Verbal Tic: She says "desu" quite often, but doesn't put quite as much emphasis on it as Suiseiseki. She actually tends to use politer Japanese in general than the other girls.
  • In the restarted manga, she begins speaking in a much more casual (less polite) manner than she did before.

Other Characters

The Light Music Club Adviser

Sawako "Sawa-chan" Yamanaka

Voiced by: Asami Sanada (Japanese) and Karen Strassman (English)

The Wind Instruments Club advisor, who was eventually blackmailed by Ritsu into also becoming the Light Music Club teacher on threat of exposing her past as a death metal rocker in a previous incarnation of the club. She normally tries to appear as a mature and collected teacher, but she ends up breaking her facade around the club and takes great delight in playfully using the members as canvasses for her costume designs. Beyond that, she is lonely and often dumps her lack of a love life on the other club members when she's feeling particularly down.

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• Berserk Button: She has two.
  • Anyone who calls Death Devil cute will make her very irritable.
  • Questioning or commenting on her age will make her even more irritable.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Subverted; she wears glasses and appears to be a sweet, gentle teacher on the surface, but her real personality isn't like that at all, being more of an immature Cosplay Otaku Girl instead.
• Cool Teacher: Fun Personified, friendly, and a great musician. While she tries to come across as a mature, gentle teacher while keeping her past as a death metal rocker a secret, she's still greatly admired by the students even after her cover is blown.
• Cosplay Otaku Girl: She loves to dress up the girls of the light music club. Whether they want it or not. Apparently eight episodes of Sawako indulging her fetish even made Mio all too happy to join in◊.
  • Hugely averted come second season. She did design the costumes for the Romeo and Juliet class play, but they were surprisingly tasteful.
  • It's brought back in the first OVA, where her new costume for the girls gets her thrown out of the room and a Cranial Eruption.
  • At Wakaba Girls' first summer training camp, she tries to get Nao to wear a Seashell Bra. Everybody ignores her.
• Death Glare: In the second season episode "Clean-Up!" she unleashes one on Ritsu, and it's so intimidating that it sends the entire band into a state of Color Failure.
• Destroy the Evidence: Her (allegedly) embarrasing past as a Heavy Metal musician prompted her to destroy every piece that would incriminate her present teacher persona. Unfortunately for her, a single photo survived and was found by the girls, which Ritsu uses as blackmail to make her the club's adviser.
• Establishing Character Moment: When she snaps after learning that evidence of her Heavy Metal days has survived through a single photo in an album. She immediately breaks her "gentle, wise teacher" image and changes into a rebellious rocker who's capable of impressive musica talent with Yui's guitar.
• Fun Personified: Oh yes. She's even more of a goofball than the girls.
• The Glasses Come Off: When she takes off her glasses, she essentially becomes a different person.
• Hot Teacher: She's attractive and She Cleans Up Nicely.
• I Hate Past Me: She puts a lot of effort so her Heavy Metal days would not resurface.
• Irony: Sawako strives to be an exemplary and admired teacher to her students by trying to portray what she perceives to be the exact contrary to what she is deep inside. The irony comes from the fact that she is an exemplary and admired teacher to begin with, meaning, her efforts are superfluous because she's already an awesome person.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's not so much of a jerk as she's very mischievous, and loves teasing the girls, especially Mio with the help from Ritsu; that said, she's genuinely kind, loves her students and is always ready to do her best to help them.
• Large Ham: Has her moments if she tends to chew some scenery.
• Lost Food Grievance: At one point in the manga, she threatens to stop being the club's adviser if they don't start wearing the costumes she makes. Ritsu points out to her that she won't be able to eat cake and tea if she does this, which makes her apologize immediately (while bowing very lowly).
  • She goes through withdrawals at one point when the girl's finals prevent them from having any tea parties.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: She can identify two girls who look alike by their bust size... which is how she can differentiate Yui from Ui (note that Ui is larger than her elder sister).
  • Justified in that she designed the club's costumes, and therefore would have had to have known her bust size; she would also, as a seamstress, most likely notice body proportions out of habit. Though there's no excuse for her attempt at copping feels on Azusa and Mio in episode 10...
• Nerds Are Sexy: Subverted, as she isn't as nerdy as she looks at all.
• Old Maid: Like many Sensei-chan characters, she's very insecure about being single and unmarried at her age, and often vents to the Light Music Club over her lack of a love life.
• Old Shame: She is deeply ashamed of her own days in the Light Music Club when Heavy Metal was all the rage.
• One of the Kids: While she does her best to act mature around everyone else at school, hanging out with the Light Music Club shows that she can be just as childish as they are.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Essentially, during the first episodes, her initial portrayal as a normal teacher was her Out-of-Character Moment but it all gets washed down the toilet the moment the girls bring up the photo of when she was into Heavy Metal, prompting her to make a frantic mad dash to the Light Music Club room in order to dispose of it (she thought she had eliminated every trace of those days).
• Retired Badass: Come season 2 episode 10, when she finally gets back into action, she pretty much floored everyone! She also sets the bar up high for the Light Music Club.
• Scary Musician, Harmless Music: Inverted. She seems like a gentle, caring teacher on the surface, but it's revealed that back when she was a member of the Light Music Club, her preferred musical genre was death metal.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: When she makes a mischievous smile, her glasses shine and she can look somewhat scary.
• Sensei-chan: To most of the students, she comes across as a gentle, mature and responsible teacher. After she's blackmailed into becoming the advisor to the Light Music Club, however, she displays a very different side when she's alone with them, being a lazy, immature Cosplay Otaku Girl who keeps trying to make the girls wear her costumes and vents to them about her lack of a love life. She eventually becomes so One of the Kids that Yui and Ritsu nickname her "Sawa-chan", and occasionally "Sawa-chan-sensei".
• Stepford Smiler: A humorous example — her sweet personality is a cover for her rocker past but her sweet personality is her original personality. She developed the rocker personality to appeal to a crush when she was a teenager. Yeah, she's a complicated gal. Essentially, she treats the club as a place where she can either veg out, dress up cute girls in ridiculous clothing, or eat cake.
• Tareme Eyes: Her "professional and lady-like teacher" personality has rounded eyes.
• Tsurime Eyes: When she goes into her "wild rocker" personality, her eyes become pointed.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She's afraid of ghosts.

Azusa's Trio

Ui Hirasawa

Voiced by: Madoka Yonezawa (Japanese) and Xanthe Huynh (English)

Yui's more responsible younger sister. Whereas Yui is flighty and lives with her head in the clouds, Ui takes care of the house and manages her sister on top of it. She is also highly adept herself, being able to grasp things even faster than Yui and with a better understanding of the underlying principles, no less. She and Yui share a very tight bond, despite their rather polar opposite personalities, and Ui is almost dependent on having to dote on her sister.

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• The Ace: In the manga, which causes Nao to search for her weak spot. In fact, she somehow managed to play a song written by Nao that Sawako says you can only play if you have 3 hands! She also is better at video games than Ritsu (who probably plays them much more) and can even suggest how to solve math problems on questions one grade above her own.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Even more so than her sister. She learned guitar after only a few days of her sister letting her strum away while practicing at home and hit a home run at a batting center after overhearing some tips from a neighboring player.
• Big Little Sister: Not exactly bigger, but she's similar enough to Yui that she can pass off as her. And if Sawako is to be believed, she's bustier than Yui.
• The Caretaker: She's this to Yui, being the one who cooks their meals and assists Yui with whatever she needs help with. It's mostly Played for Laughs, and the Kyoto field trip episodes show that Ui doesn't know what to do with herself when Yui isn't around to look after. During her own field trip, she's shocked by how the meals for the class are already prepared and she doesn't have to cook anything.
• Cuddle Bug: As Nodoka said, she and her sister love cuddling up to people.
• Family Theme Naming: She and her sister Yui have rhyming names.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Yui's foolish, being more down-to-earth and very good at cooking and household chores compared to her more lazy and carefree sister.
• Gamer Chick: She defeated Ritsu at least twice in a video game while the rest were helping Yui study during Season 1.
• Instant Expert: Kyoto Animation heavily averts from this for their rendition of Ui, especially in the second season. Instead of just having her figure guitar (and music) out by "playing a few times" or even "multiple" times, on the 5th episode they revealed she played the organ when little. In addition to learning the instrument itself, this exposure to music gives Ui a chance to have learnt how to read sheet music, acquire ear-copying skills ^note b/c Fuwa Fuwa Time in-show has only a lead sheet without a fully worked out score, for Ui to mimic Yui, she must listen to how Yui renders her part and perhaps even some music theory. This change makes her perhaps the second most veteran in music after Mugi, albeit with a very long blank that drops her present skill level with the organ to passable.
• Ironic Name: The kanji for her name has rather negative meanings such as "melancholy", "sad" or "unhappy", but she's a Nice Girl who's rarely ever sad for long.
• Mature Younger Sibling: She's much more responsible and hardworking than her older sister Yui. She acts as the parental figure of the house while their parents are away, taking care of the household chores and Yui as well.
• Nice Girl: The one thing she has in common with her big sister. Kind, polite, friendly and helpful just like her, but very responsible and serious.
• Not So Above It All: Notable moment in the 2011 restart, where she trolls Azusa by untying her hair and pretending that she's actually Yui (who is actually in college). Given Yui's known behavior, Azusa actually almost falls for it.
• Passing the Torch: She joins the Light Music Club in lieu of her graduating sister.
• Promotion to Parent: Ui is shown taking care of the house and Yui as well whenever their parents are away on business trips. She's become so used to looking after Yui that she doesn't know what to do with herself when her sister is away on a school trip to Kyoto.
• Serious Business: Getting up at seven is considered oversleeping.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Ui is mature, hard-working, and wakes up on time for school (She also wakes up Yui every morning); these traits all contrast with the more airheaded and irresponsible Yui.
  • Played with in season 1 episode 12 — when Ui stood in for the sick Yui, the band couldn't see through the disguise. It was her slip of the tongue which first raises suspicions. Sawako saw through the disguise due to Ui having a larger bust-size than Yui.
  • In the manga, they're first tipped off by the fact that she keeps timing better than her sister. The slips of the tongue are the clinchers.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She and Yui look incredibly similar to the point that they could pass as twins, even though they're actually a year apart in age. The main physical difference is that Yui always wears her hair down while Ui has hers up in a ponytail and, according to Sawako, has a larger bust.
• Tender Tears: In episode 5 of season 2, when she first realizes Yui won't be home with her that night.◊
• Twin Switch: While they're not actually twins, she and Yui look similar enough that she can completely masquerade as her sister when the situation calls for it. The problem is her impersonation is spotty in some areas (such as when calling others by their last names instead of first names) and her skill at the guitar being better than her sister's.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: While she doesn't have the typical looks, she does have many of the trope's personality traits. She's mature, responsible, does the household chores, and is devoted to her family (specifically her big sister). And of course, there's tea.

Jun Suzuki

Voiced by: Yoriko Nagata (Japanese) and Michelle Ann Dunphy (English)

Azusa and Ui's friend and classmate, as well as a member of the Jazz Club. Often laments not being able to join in the fun of the club but eventually gets a shot at being a member during her senior year.

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• Ascended Extra: She was a satellite character in the first season, but come second season she's a part of Ui's Trio (together with Azusa) and even appeared in said season's opening. In the 2011 restart she becomes the third senior at the Light Music Club, along with Azusa and Ui.
• Girlish Pigtails: However, she's embarrassed to wear them around her family, so she lets her hair down at home.
• Grass is Greener: Her envy at all the fun things the Light Music Club gets to do becomes a Running Gag.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Non-romantic example, but she often complains that the Light Music Club is cool because of all the activities they do as a group (more often than not thanks to Mugi's riches) unlike the Jazz Club's activities being much less extravagant. This often becomes a point that makes her want to join the Light Music Club, but laments that her joining would somehow hurt the budget if there were more members (though she does join in her senior year).
• Hard Work Fallacy: Something Jun learns in Season 2 Episode 5. After a disastrous first impression, Jun was so put off by Light Music Club she chose the Jazz Club without even checking out their performance. Finally seeing the Live in her second year made her concede they are pretty good and certainly cohesive, but she still can't kick her image of them as lazy wierdoes who will play Kick the Can over practising. Cue Azusa and Ui visiting Jazz Club. In one session, Jun realizes while Jazz Club might have been practicing more during club hours, her seniors aren't teaching her and her underclassmen some basic tricks, while Light Music Club's members clearly know and are doing them. Learning that Light Music Club are working smarter rather than harder significantly improved Jun's impression of Light Music Club.
• Imagine Spot: She does this a lot, mostly involving the four seniors of the Light Music Club.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Played for Laughs in season 2 episode 5. She buys a dozen donuts in assorted flavors, takes one bite out of each, rolls across the floor and unintentionally headbutts Azusa. She also refuses to join the Light Music Club, but seeing how much fun Azusa is having in the club made her regret her decision, and ultimately decides to join Azusa and Ui in the club in their third year.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": She's a skilled bass player and popular in the jazz club. She is also a huge Mio fangirl.
• Messy Hair: Whenever she lets it down, especially on humid days. Bemoans this to Ui and Azusa during their sleepover. She even states that she can predict the weather depending on how messy it is.
• Satellite Character: She is solely defined around her relationship with Ui and Azusa.
• Unkempt Beauty: Not in the morning, but she looks much better without her pigtails. Assuming it's dry out.

Other Students

Nodoka Manabe

Voiced by: Chika Fujitou (Japanese) and Laura Bailey (English)

Yui's friend and classmate before she joined the band. A highly organized and responsible girl, she becomes a major player in the student council, going on to be its president in its senior year. Generally regarded as Yui's minder by the other members of the club she's also often on Ritsu's case for frequent missed deadlines concerning the club.

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• Bespectacled Cutie: Besides Sawako, she's the only character who regularly wears glasses, which add to her cuteness and fit her gentle, kind and quiet personality.
• The Bus Came Back: She makes a brief return in volume 6 chapter 8 when Yui returns to her hometown for the summer break. However, she's considering going abroad to study, so she might be going on an even longer bus trip.
• Childhood Friends: She was Yui's best friend since kindergarten, but by their last year in high school, Yui has become closer to her bandmates. Subverted in that she has since become a friend to the rest of the band, and Yui still remembers how important she is in her life enough to ask her to walk home together on their last day of school, knowing that by going to different universities, they probably won't be able to do so again.
• Nice Girl: She's a very kind, polite and friendly person. She's always been a good friend to Yui, and being a good person is basically what she shares with her; otherwise, their personalities are pratically the opposite of each other.
• Only Sane Man: The only member of the cast who is consistently level-headed and mature, and does not lose her temper like Azusa (or outright fly into panic like Mio) when trying to keep order. She's always well-balanced, kind, polite and quiet.
• Power Hair: She has short hair and is a member of the student council. This is also emphasized by her wearing a policewoman's hat in Season 1 Episode 6.
• Put on a Bus: She doesn't attend the same university as Yui. When the restarted manga began, she only appeared in a one-panel dream sequence.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She never gets too out of sorts whenever the club misses a deadline or requests something. She seems to advocate for them, despite the fact a lot of the problems are Ritsu's doing and when she was solicited for an air conditioner in the club room, she agrees to it with no muss at all, despite Yui and Ritsu planning a huge skit to try and sell her on the idea.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Yui's red.
• Social Circle Filler: Subverted. Yui doesn't ditch her once she joins the Light Music Club, and frequently hangs out with her, with or without the club.
• Student Council President: During her senior year. Prior to that she seems to fill a more junior administrative role (mostly collecting paperwork for club activities, something she often finds Ritsu screwing up).

Megumi Sokabe

Voiced by: Asumi Kodama (Japanese) and Amanda Céline Miller (English)

The former Student Council Class Representative during Yui, Ritsu, Mio and Mugi's second year and founder of the Mio Fan Club. She eventually becomes their dormmate come their college years.

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• Contrived Coincidence: Through some whiff of coincidence, upon hitting college Yui, Ritsu, Mio and Mugi — who made it their pledge to stay together — end up sharing the same dorm as Megumi.
• Fangirl: Of Mio. She was even the founder of the Mio Fan Club.
• Passing the Torch: She is succeeded by Nodoka, both in the Student Council and the Mio Fan Club.
• Stalker with a Crush: How she acted towards Mio when they first met.

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Characters from High School

Sumire Saitou

A blonde freshman who eventually joins Azusa, Ui and Jun's reformed Light Music Club. She's the drummer of the "New Leaf Girls".

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• But Not Too Foreign: Averted. Her family is from Austria, but after they moved to Japan, they changed their names because of the Kotobuki family.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Apparently. In the manga, when Mio once phoned with Mugi, the latter is yelling at a subordinate called Saitou. It's unknown if it's really Sumire, it could also be another Saitou of her family. Considering how close Mugi is to Sumire, it's likely not Sumire herself.
• Closet Key: She smuggled in yuri comics for Mugi and got a rather unexpected reaction from her.
• Expy Coexistence:
  • To Mugi, including her tea-making skills, sans the Big Ol' Eyebrows.
  • She is also a Shrinking Violet like Mio and is Sawa-chan's new favorite victim for cosplays.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Her hair color is mentioned several times, and she's one of the nicer club members.
• In-Series Nickname: Everybody's starting to call her "SuMIIre", as if her name was pronounced the way an English speaker would say it.
• Cool Big Sis: Mugi is this for her. She and Mugi grew up together, and albeit she still considers herself subservient to Mugi and her family, to Mugi, Sumire is nothing short of her little sister in all respects. As a matter of fact, it's due to Mugi's demands that Sumire is able to enjoy the same privileges that Mugi herself has.
• Meido: She has worked as a maid for the Kotobuki household and tries to hide that by pretending to be a Cute Clumsy Girl instead.
• Nice Girl: She grew up with Mugi, which says an awful lot about the kind of person Sumire is.
• Ostentatious Secret: Sumire makes it very obvious that she doesn't want anybody at school to know she's Mugi's maid.
• Shrinking Violet: She's markedly shy, and rarely does things or talks without permission.
• Something We Forgot: As a resident of the Kotobuki household, Sumire was asked by Mugi to retrieve her teasets she left behind upon graduation. Too bad Sawako caught her on her first try and jumped at the chance to try and recruit her and have her dressed up.
  • Subverted, as it was all part of Mugi's plan to get Sumire to join the Light Music Club. Mugi really had no intention of taking back the tea set, until at least Sumire graduates.

Nao Okuda

Another freshman who becomes the fifth member of Azusa's new Light Music Club. After several attempts to get a role in the "New Leaf Girls" band, she becomes the producer and songwriter.

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• Cool Big Sis: She has four younger brothers, and they're quadruplets.
• Epic Fail: Her attempts at joining clubs.
• Everybody Knew Already: Yes, everybody knows that you can't play a musical instrument.
• First-Name Basis: Strongly averted so far, as she's the only one who's not referred to by her given name. However, Sumire starts to call her by first name when their senpais are on school trip, and late in the series, Nao lampshades this trope and the rest of the band also start to call her by her first name.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: The rest of the band lose all interest in hearing her sing after she mentions that her brothers don't want to take her to karaoke anymore.
• No Name Given: Played for Laughs when the seniors realize they don't know her given name despite being in the club for a while now.
• Not So Stoic: She's stoic for most of the time and barely changes her facial expressions. However, there are some moments where she shows emotions.
• Stalker without a Crush: She spent a chapter following Ui around (and being very conspicuous about it), and she's been quietly observing and taking notes about her bandmates so that she can write customized songs for them.
• TV Genius: Admits that the only thing she's good at is studying. This may be about to pay off as she takes on her new role as the band's producer.

Characters from College

Akira Wada

Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Mugi and Megumi's dorm-mate, leader of three-girl band "OnNaGumi" with fellow dorm-mates Sachi and Ayame during their High School days, and a new member of the university Light Music Club. Like Yui, she's majoring in education and is the guitarist.

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• Birds of a Feather: The only member of her band who avert this trope because she has troubles to get along with Yui.
• Face of a Thug: It's mostly an act, and truthfully she's afraid to get a real piercing.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Yui finds out she sleeps next to a stuffed bear.
• Guilty Pleasures: She grows to like Hokago Tea Time's music, and she's far too ashamed to admit it (and thus sees it as this).
• Hidden Heart of Gold: She tries to look as intimidating as possible... with less-than-optimal results in the face of four easygoing girls.
• Hopeless Suitor: She joined her high school's Light Music Club because she had a crush on a boy named Maeda, who thinks her band only gets by on their looks. Implied to be averted.
• Important Haircut: Her response to Maeda-sempai's opinion of her was to crop her hair short and promise to become a professional musician.
• Only Sane Man: Effectively Mio and Azusa's successor in this department... and like them, she's not very effective in bringing some seriousness to her new dorm-mates.
• Right Through the Wall: Complains about how much noise the girls often make. Backfires on her spectacularly when Mio hears her singing the lyrics to Fuwa Fuwa Time for 10 days after the show.
• Rock Trio: The guitarist.
• Tomboy: Has forced herself to become one to prove her Love Interest that she's a strong woman.
• Tsundere: A Harsh type, and it seems to be the characteristic that Yui finds attractive in both Azusa and Akira. Akira even has Expressive Hair that spikes up when she's tsun-tsun and lays flat when she's dere-dere. It's spiky most of the time, of course.
• Worthy Opponent: She eventually sees Hokago Tea Time as this.

Sachi Hayashi

A member of the OnNaGumi with Akira and Ayame (and eventually of the university Light Music Club), as well as dorm-mate of Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Mugi and Megumi. She's in the same department as Mio and is like her the bassist.

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• Birds of a Feather: With Mio. Both are calm, tall, the same cup-size, and share some interests and issues.
• Character Tics: She tends to start crouching lower whenever her height is brought up as if attempting to stand out less, and Mugi finds this cute.
• Compliment Backfire: Suffers one from Ritsu after she tries to sympathize with their band "having a weird name" (which, hypocritically, Ritsu once thought would be a good name her own band) under the assumption that Akira thought it up. It was actually Sachi's idea, and hearing this hurt. For what it's worth, Akira made fun of Hokago Tea Time's name, so maybe they deserved some payback.
• Foil: She's distinctly more confident than Mio, plays the bass without standing out too much, is also quite good-looking and as her own share of (ridiculous) insecurities. Looking at this sort of personality from the outside is partially what helps Mio to find some confidence herself.
• Height Angst: She frequently shows a sensitivity to her own height, almost to the point of Single-Issue Wonk whenever words like "height," "tall," and "big" are brought up. One of her Character Tics is crouching lower when she starts to get shy.
• Hime Cut: Being Mio's foil she has this same style of hair and reflects more of the usual character traits.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Even taller than Mio and it bothers her.
• Rock Trio: The bassist.
• Single-Issue Wonk: Any time the words "big" or "tall" are brought up in reference to her, she gets a bit depressed or insinuates it as a negative trait.
• Statuesque Stunner: In contrast to her self-image, most everyone else thinks she's this.

Ayame Yoshida

The third OnNaGumi member who, along with Akira and Sachi, joins the university Light Music Club. She's also dorm-mates with Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Mugi and Megumi. She's also in the same department as Ritsu and is like her the drummer.

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• Birds of a Feather: With Ritsu. Ayame lampshades immediately that they're both similar. Of course, they get along well.
• Corrupt the Cutie: She convinces everyone to skip class and just keep chatting. This becomes another new experience that Mugi's always wanted to try.
  "I wanna school this girl in all kinds of wrong things."
• Cursed with Awesome: In-universe, of sorts: she's unable to understand Mio and Sachi's worries about fitting into nice clothes. They'd both rather dress cutely but don't have the figure for it, and it's bothersome to a girl with A-Cup Angst like hers. She immediately apologizes for making light of their insecurities after Sachi points out how people can be self-conscious about all sorts of things (like being tall...)
• Genki Girl: The main reason she made fast friends with Ritsu.
• Kick Chick: Has a tendency to kick (or punch, but mostly kick) Akira whenever she says something out of line, which is noted to be way harder than Mio ever hit Ritsu. Ritsu writes it off as just crazy-rocker antics. She also has a moment to wonder who she'll kick now that Akira's disposition has been improving.
  Ritsu: Don't turn that weapon on me.
• Rock Trio: She's the drummer.
• Skinship Grope
  Ritsu: She sure makes groping look totally normal.
• Wardrobe Wound: Suffers a pretty severe one that also serves to drive home her A-Cup Angst.
  "I feel like I've been pounded flat in more ways than one..."

Kana Yoshii

The current club president of the University Light Music Club.

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• Club President: Although her concern for trying to get more funding for the club may lead us to believe that the Club lacks a treasurer.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Mentioned by name in the flyer the first chapter of Volume 5. Introduced in Chapter 3, but her role wasn't formally confirmed until Chapter 5, and her name until Volume 5, Chapter 11.
• Retired Badass: Although the band she formed with her partner Chiyo Hirose (pronunciation unconfirmed) was said to be pro-level, they've become too busy with academics to perform publicly, not to mention Chiyo feeling embarrassed about Kana's insistence on playing in their old school uniforms.

Characters from Shuffle

The Light Music Appreciation Society

A club at a different school from Sakuragaoka.

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In General

• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: The original Light Music Club was made of four first-years, with another joining them in their second year. The Appreciation Society is made of three first-years and one second-year.
• Hero of Another Story: Their story happens concurrently with Hokago Tea Time's adventures.
• Loophole Abuse: When Maho makes the excuse that she can’t join because she’d already in another club, Yukari points out that this is the Light Music Appreciation Society, not a club, which means that Maho can join without quitting her current club.

Yukari Sakuma

The Protagonist of K-On! Shuffle, Yukari is an enthusiastic girl who decides to pick up drumming after seeing Hokago Tea Time play at their school festival.

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• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Yukari, like Yui, is a ditzy and friendly girl who is looking for a club to join. But unlike Yui, who joins her music club because she thought it would be easy to take part in, Yukari joins her club out of genuine enthusiasm.
• Fangirl: Of Ritsu, greatly enjoying her drumming when she saw HTT perform.
• Genki Girl: She combines Yui's overreactive personality with Ritsu's proactive enthusiasm. Naturally, this trope is the result.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: With Kaede, being the enthusiastic Genki Girl of the duo.
• Mistaken Identity: While infiltrating Sakuragaoka High by wearing her sister’s uniform, Yukari finds Houkago Tea Time like she intended to. Too bad she mistakes them for being the cooking club.
• Smarter Than You Look: Maho is surprised to find out Yukari scores higher grades than her and even tutors Kaede.

Kaede "Kae-chan" Shimizu

Yukari's friend from middle school. Like Yukari, she expresses an interest in joining a music club and becomes the bassist of the band.

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• Ambiguously Gay: Well, the reason she’s the bassist is because Mio’s panty shot caught her attention first... and there’s the fact she spends some time gushing about how cute her panties are.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Averted. While she's more composed than Yukari, she's just as enthusiastic as her and has no problem receiving affection from her. Then it becomes clear she’s as much of a ditz as Yukari...
• Deadpan Snarker: As Yukari is raving about Ritsu's drumming, Kaede notes that her "impact" with the drums is impressive, while slyly implying that she was lacking in skill.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: With Yukari, being more coolheaded than her.
• Heavy Sleeper: Kaede depends on Yukari to wake her up, and is even late to school when Yukari was sick and couldn’t wake her up in time.

Maho Sawabe

A classmate of Yukari and Kaede, who gets roped into joining the Light Music Appreciation Society by them. Eventually becomes the guitarist of the band.

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• Academic Athlete: Is very good at basketball, and gets high grades in school.
• Ambiguously Gay: When asked why she joined the band, she gets teased by Karin saying Maho is a ‘sucker for a pretty face’, referring to Yukari. Maho also gets flustered thinking about being alone with Kaede.
• Childhood Friends: With Karin.
• Refusal of the Call: She is reluctant to join the Appreciation Society at first and only joins after Yukari imposes Loophole Abuse on her.
• Tsundere: A Harsh type, towards Yukari. Apart from snarking at her a lot, Maho gets embarrassed thinking about telling Yukari about the fact she’s really impressed by her spirit.

Karin Shimada

Maho’s childhood friend and basketball teammate.

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• Childhood Friends: With Maho.

Riko Satou

The only member left of the previous generations of the Light Music Appreciation Society.

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• Blatant Lies: Keeps insisting that she has no experience with music despite all evidence. No one believes this.

Shinano Iwasaki

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Kurumi Sakuma

Yukari's older sister. Goes to Sakuragaoka High, the same school as Houkago Tea Time.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: Inverted. Kurumi constantly annoys Yukari, such as always going into her room without knocking.

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