Characters / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War - Miko Iino

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War Main Character Index
High School Student Council (Kaguya Shinomiya | Miyuki Shirogane | Chika Fujiwara | Yu Ishigami | Miko Iino)
Second-Years | Family Members

Character sub-page for Miko Iino.

Miko Iino

Voiced by: Miyu Tomita (Japanese), Madeleine Morris (English), Desireé González (Latin American Spanish), Letícia Ida (Brazilian Portuguese)
Played by: Yuka Kageyama

Debut: Chapter 65 (Manga), Episode 12 (Anime)

A first-year student who joins the student council as its auditing officer in Shirogane's second year as president. She's also a member of the Shuchi'in Academy High School Disciplinary Committee.

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A-F

• Achievements in Ignorance: She deals a severe mental blow to Kaguya without realizing it, merely by comparing her to Shirogane.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: She can be briefly seen during the credits sequence of the anime's finale, which is set 19 chapters before her introduction.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Live Action Iino was the one who started pointing fingers during Ishigami's middle school incident and is shown to fully believe the rumors, where the manga and anime make a point to avoid that entirely.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: She doesn't show up during the first live-action movie's adaptation of the Student Council Election arc as Kaguya took her place as Shirogane's opponent for the student council presidency in her stead. She does, however, finally debut in the movie's sequel.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Her preferred method of both giving and receiving comfort (to the point that when Ishigami does it to her, she clamps his hand to her head).
• Aggressive Submissive: Iino is a Tiny Tyrannical Girl who can be be very harsh when her buttons are pushed, but she also happens to have very prominent masochistic tendicies that leave her friends worried that she'll end up in an abusive relationship.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Excluding Osaragi and Ishigami, most students in elementary and middle school couldn't stand Iino's uptight, serious, and justice-seeking personality, which led to a lot of mocking and contempt from her schoolmates. Which makes her landslide election victory in the epilogue all the sweeter.
• Always Late: Since she's juggling her responsiblities for both the student council and the public morals committee at the same time, she has a bad habit of arriving long after the wackiness of the day has gotten underway, meaning that she's often walking in on things that are wildly out of context.
• Animal Motif: Bears. She has brown hair and eyes, is a Big Eater, and can be fierce when provoked but cuddly when softened up. She uses a giant teddy bear as a bed, and in the anime adaptation of Chapter 99, there's a shot where she's represented by another teddy bear.
• Arc Villain: She's the antagonist of chapters 65-69 (Season 2 Episodes 4-6), though she isn't remotely villainous, merely acting as Shirogane's primary opponent for his reelection campaign.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After joining the student council, she realizes that reforming its members' fractured morals will be much harder than she thought.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Iino begins to consciously see Ishigami in a different way at the end of the culture festival, where he goes out of his way to show her photos of happy Shuchi'in students dancing around the bonfire, the results of her efforts to make it possible. It later becomes clear that she fell in love with him.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ishigami and Iino do not get along very well and are constantly bickering, yet they actually care about each other because of their own principles.
  • Chapter 85 is told from Iino's Childhood Friend, Osaragi's, perspective. As she herself says, some people may mistakenly believe Iino and Ishigami are just acting Like an Old Married Couple, but Osaragi states that they are actually really on bad terms, yet she also clearly sees that they are not so different.
  • In Chapter 188, Iino and Ishigami are seen insulting each other again, and Iino uses the shiritori game to ask Ishigami how his date with Tsubame went. ^ExplanationShe uses her cards to say "Date-Inquire-Senpai-Pain" Ishigami, annoyed by Iino's behavior, counters by using his cards to tell her that she is a straight-laced, overbearing, frail, come-lately loser.
• Betty and Veronica: She's the Betty to Tsubame's Veronica, with Ishigami as the Archie. She and Ishigami have been acquaintances since middle school, and she's a straight-laced, comparatively plain-looking but still attractive honors student who secretly pines for him. Ironically, their personalities fit the other role much better, as Iino is strict and aggressive as opposed to Tsubame's friendly and outgoing nature.
• Big Eater: Her hunger for justice is matched only by her hunger for actual food, and she will always take the most portions whenever food is brought into the student council room. Kaguya is stunned when she eats most of the fried rice made during the cook-off in the OVA (Chapter 96), depriving Kaguya and Shirogane of the opportunity to try each others' dishes, yet still has room for her lunchbox afterward. Shirogane takes advantage of this by putting her in charge of the food stalls during the culture festival to keep her from interfering with his Grand Romantic Gesture.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Downplayed. She seems to classify people by whether they are good or bad, though she'll still fight for someone she thinks is bad if she believes they're being treated unfairly (as shown by her constantly looking out for Ishigami).
• Brainy Brunette: She's the only brown-haired member of the main cast, and she consistently has the highest marks among the freshman class.
• Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. She still respects Fujiwara, but she's wised up to the fact that Fujiwara isn't the prodigal genius she thought she was before meeting her. When Fujiwara complains to the rest of the Council later on that they don't show her as much respect as she feels she deserves, Iino doesn't advocate for her as fiercely as she did early in her tenure.
• Bros Before Hoes: She ultimately reconciles with Osaragi by telling her that if she hated the idea of her getting together with Ishigami that much, she'd give up on him. Osaragi tells her she doesn't have to do that, but the sentiment is enough for her to rescind her attitude towards the pair anyway.
• Brutal Honesty: She is fine with openly telling people they are untrustworthy.
• But Liquor Is Quicker: Because she Can't Hold Her Liquor, the others present at Tsubame's party all agree that she should stay away from alcohol. Given the imagery used when she's being laid down on a couch, it's not hard to imagine what they're afraid might happen to her.
• Can't Hold Her Liquor: She ends up getting drunk from eating alcohol-flavored chocolates at Tsubame's Christmas party (admittedly, she was binging on them). Everyone else at the party quickly agrees that she should never be allowed to go drinking once she comes of age since it'll end up getting her into trouble. If Hayasaka's dream of the future is accurate, she develops a much stronger tolerance once she actually becomes of age.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Even though she has already openly acknowledged her feelings for Ishigami to Fujiwara and Shirogane, she still can't bring herself to admit that she's in love with him out loud due to how antagonistic their relationship normally is.
• Casual Kink: Chapter 163 reveals that she has a masochistic side when she suggests to Shirogane to hit her to prank Kaguya.
  Fujiwara: So you like pain?
  Iino: Yes. Don't you think it's calming?
  Fujiwara: Uh... sure.
• Character Development: Over time, Iino loosens up and learns to let people have fun if it's not causing any harm. Compared to her idea of forcing boys and girls to maintain 50 cm of distance from each other when she was running for student council president, she's not remotely opposed to Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship.
• Childhood Friends: She's been friends with Osaragi ever since elementary school.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Even if Iino (initially) states she hates him, the notion of Ishigami being with another woman tends to draw out her ire, even if she didn't know it at first.
  • She leverages Ishigami's guilt over her broken arm to keep him away from his crush.
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 263 where she has an intense stare in a panel where Ishigami is giving a head pat to a crying Maki after Kaguya brags about what she does/can do with her boyfriend, Shirogane.
  • Her response to Fujiwara indirectly describing Ishigami is to actively drag her out of the room, a far less subtle tactic than Kaguya's Death Glare.
  • The main reason she asked for lessons in playing video games? Ishigami was talking with Koromo Shiranui, a popular girl in class who gamed with him the previous night, and she didn't want to lose him because she didn't know how to play.
  • Prior to Ishigami being turned down by Tsubame, anything that implicates the pair being a couple leads her to either cry or frown.
• Clipboard of Authority: As a member of the disciplinary committee, she's often carrying a clipboard around, especially in her first few chapters where she was running for student council president.
• Closet Geek: Iino is a bookworm, and while she is not a Yaoi Fangirl like her friend, Osaragi, she is into self-insert fiction, much to her own embarrassment. She also seems to be into mobile games that she plays with Osaragi and watches VTubers.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Not to the same extreme as Fujiwara, but her poetry is rather... weird.
• Commonality Connection: Invoked. She starts playing video games specifically so she'd be able to bond with Ishigami after seeing how close he is with Shiranui.
• Cosmetic Catastrophe: Downplayed. She tries wearing makeup for the first time when she attends Tsubame's Christmas party, putting on far too much blush and lipstick. While she doesn't look bad per se, Onodera advised her to take it off by the time the party started.
• Covert Pervert: Oh, dear. For all of her talk about keeping lewd behavior and material off of campus, several lines make it obvious that she's likely more sex-crazed than the people she disciplines, just very deep in denial.
  • In the anime adaptation of chapter 70, Iino clutches her pelvic area after hearing Shirogane's fetish for black panties, implying that she actually wears that sort of color.
  • In the very next chapter/anime segment, when it seemed like Kaguya was offering to have a threesome with her and Shirogane (she was actually offering to give her a back massage), Iino's immediate reaction is to protest that she is too inexperienced/a novice, rather than calling her out for her inappropriate behavior as you'd expect.
  • In the anime adaptation of Chapter 80 (Season 2 Episode 9A), she's shown to be reading a book called Fifty Shapes of Love. ^note For those unfamiliar, Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic book series with a heavy emphasis on BDSM.
  • In the same chapter and episode, when Osaragi tries to make her rethink the likely misunderstanding, Iino instead assumes that every misunderstanding she's encountered with the student council so far was evil machinations by Kaguya, whom she imagines as some sort of sadistic dominatrix bent on taking over the student council with BDSM instead of some other generic villain she can think of... complete with an Imagine Spot of Kaguya whipping Shirogane like a slave.
  • Chapter 95 shows that she listens to "Handsome Men Encourage You" CDs on her off time, though this may just be because she's looking for any sort of validation for her work.
  • She got interested in reading what is heavily implied to be a BL magazine that Osaragi confiscated from a girl in one of the extra chapters.
  • She also seems to be a closet masochist as seen in Casual Kink above, becoming flustered when she was tied up and teased by Makki-senhai during the school festival and, much like Fujiwara, wanting to be forced and used.
  • Moreover, at times it seems Iino is into Romanticized Abuse, which worries both Osaragi and Ishigami.
    • The idea she proposes to Shirogane for a harmless birthday prank on Kaguya in Chapter 163.
      Iino: How about if I make some kind of mistake, so you slap me hard. What do you think?
      Shirogane: (horrified) Why would I do that!?
      Iino: (matter-of-factly) I think Shinomiya-senpai would be super surprised if she saw you abusing women, Shirogane.
      Shirogane: I'm sure she would, but still! I'd have to slap you as part of the surprise, right? So the practical joke would end up being true! No way! Absolutely not!
      Iino: Oh, I see. But you know, I wouldn't mind if you slapped me.
      Ishigami: What's with your weird tolerance for domestic violence!?
    • Later, in the Chapter extras:
      Fujiwara: You enjoy pain?
      Iino: Yeah. Doesn't pain make you feel safe somehow?
      Fujiwara: Huh? Um...
    • Chapter 10 of the Official Doujinshi has her elaborate on Osaragi's idea of her future home life, rewriting it into a textbook case of Romanticized Abuse with her own imaginary future self directly enabling such behavior. Osaragi stops her right there and accuses Iino of being into genuinely bad men.
    • Ishigami has pointed out several times that Iino is likely to end up in a Destructive Romance. He even describes her friendship with Fujiwara, who has a tendency to be mean to Iino and then butter her up a bit until she forgives her, as a textbook case of codependency and advises her to "break up with her".
  • Chapter 140 is an entire chapter of it. The cover has her reading a magazine that shows a shirtless boy, and she later discovers Sho Hirano, her idol, is playing a character in an upcoming movie. When she declares her intention to watch the movie "ten billion times", her expression seems to convey a different kind of excitement.
  • In the same chapter, when Tsubame invites Ishigami to her place on Christmas Eve, she's quick to suspect it's sexual in nature. And no matter how much Tsubame tries to set the record straight, Iino's thought pattern just gets more and more perverted, going from assuming she planning a threesome when Tsubame says Iino is invited too, to thinking she's setting up an orgy when Tsubame tries to explain she's inviting a bunch of other people too. Ishigami lampshades that at some point Iino should have realized Tsubame was talking about a normal Christmas party. Although Iino wasn't wrong in thinking Tsubame intended on sleeping with Ishigami that night.
  • When Kashiwagi gives Kaguya a porn DVD in Chapter 167, she recognizes the name of the lead actor.
  • In Chapter 188, Iino and Ishigami play a game of shiritori. While Iino takes an early lead and sends a very unsubtle message to Ishigami inquiring him about his date with Tsubame, she loses because she can't use a final word that doesn't sound perverted. ^ExplanationIino's final card is "-ko". The final words she thinks of are "chinko" (dick) and "manko" (pussy). This is especially notable since she could have just used her own name.
  • When Fujiwara claims that she was NTRed by Shirogane taking Kaguya from her, Iino proceeds to correct her by listing the specific subgenre.
  • As if to lampshade all of this, she becomes the president of the 69th student council at the end of the series.
• Cuddle Bug: She claims in Chapter 206 to like hugs five times more than the average person.
• Curtains Match the Windows: While they are tinted more towards the red side of the spectrum, Iino's eyes are as brown as her hair.
• Cute Bookworm: While she's never actually shown reading while at school (as doing so could potentially distract her from her duties on the student council or disciplinary committee), every single wall of her bedroom is covered in full bookcases. Her first bonding moment with Shirogane involved their shared love of poetry. She is also universally considered attractive by the student body despite her low social standing.
• The Cutie: Even as the less-than-adorable aspects of Chika's personality begin to emerge as the series progressed, conversely the audience gets to see more of Iino's cuddly, childlike side beneath her stern façade. She's naïve yet earnest, sleeps in the embrace of a giant teddy bear, and can be a softie to anyone who treats her very nicely.
• Decomposite Character: Her original role as Shirogane's opponent during the Student Council Election arc was taken by Kaguya instead during the first live-action movie, as she was absent in the movie's adaptation of that arc. Thanks to that, her importance is heavily demoted when she finally appears in the sequel despite still being a member of Shirogane's student council in the live action's continuity. Also, unlike in the manga and the anime adaptation, Tsubame is the one who ends up receiving the heart pendant from Ishigami instead of her.
• Defeat Means Friendship: While running against Iino in the election, the previous council realizes that she isn't a bad person and sort of adopts her into their group. After Shirogane's victory and re-election as president, she is accepted into the student council as the new auditing officer. That said, it takes several months (a little over 2 years in real-world time) before she and Shirogane really become friends.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Given that her parents have been absent for most of her life due to their careers, she is starved for affection, and it's reflected in just about every aspect of her character from her hobbies (listening to CDs of guys whispering words of encouragement and reading web novels designed for self-inserts), her habit of promoting justice (as it makes her feel closer to her parents, who work in justice-related sectors), and even her sleeping habits (using a giant teddy bear as a bed because lying in its arms gives her the feeling of a princess carry). She is also very quick to warm up to people who give her even the most basic of compliments, even if it's clear that they don't have the best of intentions.
• Determinator: No matter what Kaguya bribes Iino with, she will not bend. In fact, adversity only makes her fiercer. This is how Shirogane encourages her to speak at the election.
• Disappointed in You:
  • In Chapter 163, Fujiwara attempts to prank Iino by telling her that she and Ishigami have become a couple. Far from acting flustered, Iino's mood turns ice-cold. Fujiwara backpedals immediately, realizing that she went too far.
  Iino: (with Empty Eyes) If it were Tsubame-senpai, I'd cheer you on. But come on, Ishigami! I can't support this. I'm seriously disillusioned with you. You don't need to take care of me anymore. Don't talk to me for a while.
  Fujiwara: Miko-chan, it's a practical joke! It's just a practical joke!
  • In Chapter 174, Iino walks in on Fujiwara talking about how easy it is to manipulate her with praise and tender words. Iino is completely heartbroken and angry. She quickly forgives Fujiwara after lots of praise and tender words, however.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A bonus strip from the Season 2 DVD reveals that Iino chose to become the Financial Auditor just to spite Ishigami after he pointed out that, since he's the Treasurer, part of her job would be monitoring his work and nitpicking everything he does.
• Diving Save: To protect Ishigami when he trips off a stairwell.
• Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": After the election, she thanks Shirogane with a sulky expression on her face.
• Dude Magnet: Like the other student council girls, Iino is shown to have no difficulty getting male attention. When she told Ishigami that no one had asked her to dance with them at the French exchange event, she was lying through her teeth.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: For all of her hard efforts to keep order in the school, she's constantly mocked behind her back and thought of as an annoying tryhard. It's heavily implied that she wants some sort of validation for her work, given that she listens to encouragement CDs in her spare time and her most precious middle school memory is the mysterious "thank you" letter. Also, the trigger for her developing feelings for Ishigami during the culture festival is him showing her a video he took of everyone laughing and having fun at the bonfire that she worked so hard to get approved. That said, this is strictly limited to her classmates (outside of the council, at least), as Chapter 115 shows that all the members of the Neighborhood Association recognize her hard work and tend to dote on her. Fast-forward to the end of the story, Iino becomes much more popular and influential than in her introduction.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Her default look of jealousy. Invokes these whenever Ishigami makes progress with Tsubame and when Fujiwara pranks her by pretending to be Ishigami's girlfriend.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In Volume 6's extra pages, she is shown from the back, looking at an election poster.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Iino gets everything she ever wanted in the end — The chair of the student council president, the respect of her peers, and reform all throughout the school. And while she doesn't get together with Ishigami at the end of the manga, it's indicated that she eventually will.
• Elegant Classical Musician: She mentions during her first appearance that she's played piano ever since childhood, and one of the reasons she looks up to Fujiwara is due to her own skill with the instrument. However, she has never actually been shown playing up until the light novel. But due to a series of misunderstandings, she's literally confused with a ghost.
• Emotion Suppression: Iino has a habit of bottling up her feelings and uses unusual methods to cope with them, like writing sutras, very dark poems, and listening to all kinds of sounds.
• Entertainingly Wrong: After joining the student council and repeatedly walking in at the worst possible moment, she comes to the conclusion that the boys are sexually abusing the girls. In Chapter 80, Osaragi points out that this can't be right (it's not in Kaguya's character to use words like "manwhore", for example) and encourages Iino to re-evaluate the situation. Unfortunately, this causes her to come to the exact opposite conclusion, namely that Kaguya is an evil dominatrix who rules the student council with BDSM.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's first introduced as someone so notable even Ishigami knows who she is, and the proceeding conversation with the student council showcases her strict attitude and unwillingness to bend in the face of adversity nicely. Later, her rant about crew cuts establishes both that she's more childish than she appears, and that she has a hidden perverted streak.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: She is so beloved by the senior citizens of the school's neighborhood that she is referred to as "everyone's granddaughter". This is essential in gaining the neighborhood association's approval for the Devoted Hearts festival's bonfire.
• Everyone Can See It: A lot of characters can tell that Iino is in love with Ishigami, even when Iino hasn't realized it herself.
• Everyone Has Standards: As chaste as Iino can be, even she is creeped out by Shirogane's practice of pasting motivational posters in his room.
• Extreme Doormat: Osaragi and Ishigami worry that she's going to be walked all over in her desperate need to feel needed and loved. In Doujin Edition, her marriage fantasy sounded like a battered wife trying to justify her abuse, and in the regular series, she gets easily coerced into going places if she's complimented enough. Even her friendship with Fujiwara has shades of this; Ishigami has snarked that it's more like an abusive relationship at times with Fujiwara's willingness to embarrass Iino for fun and Iino's continued worship of her.
• Fake High: She ate a box of whiskey chocolates during Tsubame's Christmas party, but only lost consciousness when Onodera gave her a water bottle and claimed it was alcohol.
• Fatal Flaw: Naïveté. Iino's black-and-white sense of morality is consistently portrayed as detrimental to her emotional health. Any negative feelings she may hold against someone can be easily canceled out by pandering to her craving for affection, something Fujiwara exploits (besides Iino's borderline worship of her) by buttering her up whenever her bullying goes a bit too far, or after she got caught telling Ishigami how gullible she is. During the school festival, she is very nearly picked up by a pair of flirtatious boys until Ishigami intervened. This, combined with the fact that she seems to actually enjoy being abused, causes her friends to fear that she'll get trapped in an abusive relationship somewhere down the line.
• Fauxshadow: The manga set it up to make it seem like she'd confess to Ishigami herself if Tsubame rejected him, via the three-month deadline to claim the heart keychain Ishigami gave her for the lost-and-found coincidentally matching the time Tsubame has to give Ishigami a response to his Accidental Confession. She doesn't, and her crush on him goes unresolved well into their second year of high school.
• Favouritism Flip-Flop: She ignores Ishigami when he tells her that her habit of enforcing the rules by ordering everyone around will cause people to stop listening to her in Chapter 72, only to immediately agree with Fujiwara's assessment when she says the same thing. Naturally, Ishigami lampshades this.
• Fetish: Crew cuts. It seemed like her desire to make the hairstyle mandatory because it would reflect properly on the students, but Chapter 68 has her admit that she likes the style and it makes her heart beat faster. However, she did have evidence that it helps with a school's moral standing; shorter hair=less morning maintenance=less tardiness.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: While she stated she was a fan of Sho Hirano, 140 shows she's quite the fangirl of him. Even willing to watch a movie that he's starring in, in her own words, ten billion times just for him.
• First Girl Wins: Downplayed. Iino has known Ishigami since at least middle school (in comparison to Tsubame, who never interacted with him before the series proper), and by the end of the series it's all but stated that the two will get together at some point in the near future.
• Flowers of Romance: Back in middle school, she received an anonymous letter of encouragement from one of her classmates that had a flower enclosed. It's unknown if the sender meant for it to be romantic, but she clearly views it as such (she had it laminated and keeps it as a good luck charm). It's heavily implied and later confirmed that it was sent by Ishigami.
• Foil: She's more or less Kaguya's opposite when it comes to getting her crush to fall for her. While Kaguya was an outwardly ruthless person who learned to use her inner goodness and relied on subtle manipulation, Iino is an outwardly good person who learns to use her inner ruthlessness and relies on bold power plays. Another key difference is how they react to Fujiwara talking about their love interests; Kaguya only gave a Death Glare when Fujiwara talks about Shirogane, but Iino actively drags her out of the room when she starts talking about Ishigami.
• For Great Justice: Iino is all about promoting justice and morality, tends to classify people by whether they are good or bad, and is planning on attending law school when she graduates. According to her character profile in one of the volume extras, it's a habit she developed in order to feel closer to her often-absent mother and father (who do humanitarian aid and work as a judge respectively).
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The conflicted. She's obsessed with rules and tries to be as serious and mature as possible, but this often contrasts with her childish and naive side. She becomes more of a cynic later due to her overly dogmatic and strict nature.
• Four Temperament Example: Choleric: despite her appearance, she's obsessed with rules and strict even to the point of being aggressive, and yet she does have a good heart and is loyal and caring to her friends.
• Freudian Excuse: When Iino was little, she thought her busy parents would have more time for her if the human race straightened out. Thus began her one-girl crusade against immorality.
• Friendless Background: A bit downplayed, since Osaragi was her friend, though probably her Only Friend, since elementary school. This changes after she joins the student council, giving her opportunities to befriend others like Onodera as well. However, she still relies a bit too much on Osaragi, who herself notes that Iino should become more independent. This becomes a problem when her best friend starts to support Ishigami and Tsubame's relationship, despite being aware that Iino has started to like Ishigami romantically, and Iino has no one else to open up to.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: She really isn't, but she spent some time afraid that the rest of the council saw her as this, as shown when she asked what they thought of her during the 10 yen game, and when she expressed concern that there was a student council group chat that she wasn't invited to. Her thinking this is probably because she not only is the only newcomer to the student council after Shirogane's re-election, but she ran against Shirogane with a platform that he and his colleagues disapproved of, and she often butts heads with Ishigami. Amongst other students, though, this is very much the case until she matures and becomes much more respected by the time she succeeds Shirogane as Council President.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: One chapter is dedicated to Shirogane realizing that he and Iino are this, having scarcely interacted one-on-one despite being the main opponent in his reelection campaign. They eventually develop a healthier Senpai-Kohai relationship than the one Iino already had with Fujiwara, with Shirogane eventually becoming her most staunch supporter when she finally comes to terms with the fact that she likes Ishigami.

G-P

• The Gadfly: Progressively becomes one as she and Shirogane become closer as friends. It even extends to his father.
• Gamer Chick: Invoked. When she finds herself unable to follow Ishigami and Shiranui's conversations, she asks Papa Shirogane to teach her how to play Apex Legends so she can more easily squeeze herself into Ishigami's gradually expanding social circle. She gets a little more into it than she originally planned, but her plan goes off without a hitch.
• Geek Physique: If Chapter 117 is any indication, Iino is incredibly weak physically, easily losing to Fujiwara in an arm wrestling match. The bonus page from that chapter rates her "MP" (Muscle Point) at a measly 21, less than half of the next weakest council member (Fujiwara) at 54.
• Gender Flip: Ishidzukuri no Miko, her literary counterpart in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, was male.
• Girlish Pigtails: In a reflection of her childish naiveté, she wears her hair in the same loose pigtails she had when she was a child.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She literally uses a giant teddy bear as a bed.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Although Iino already starts seeing Ishigami differently after he openly treated her nicely at the end of the culture festival in Chapter 138, she begins to realize her feelings for him the more she sees him interact with Tsubame. Once the breakup occurs and Ishigami's name gets cleared, Iino begins treating him the same way Kaguya treated Shirogane before the pair started dating.
• Hairstyle Inertia: She had the exact same hairstyle in her childhood that she does in high school. Her Imagine Spot as an adult in Chapter 10 of the Doujin spin-off also has this style. Hayasaka's Flash Forward dream shows her finally letting her hair down in college as a sign of her loosening up.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Subverted. One epilogue chapter set in the future shows that she becomes quite the drinker after graduating... Until it's revealed that it's all just a dream that Hayasaka is having, leaving the canonicity of this dubious.
• Has a Type:
  • Physically, she is into Sho Hirano. Ironically, despite her saying Shirogane isn't her type, it's later pointed out that he actually does look kind of like Sho Hirano.^*Sho Hirano portrays Shirogane in the live action movie However, when Shirogane mentions that Sho Hirano actually looks more like Ishigami, she adamantly refuses to acknowledge their resemblance.
  • Personality-wise, she claims in Chapter 114 that she wants a man who always looks after her, understands how she feels, and comes to her rescue when she's in distress. In Chapter 190, she also claims that she likes smart and serious people who follow the rules. While the latter doesn't hold true to Ishigami mostly, the former is a spot-on description of what he has done for Iino. In the same chapter, despite Ishigami not fitting her preferences, Iino admits tearfully that she felt terrible after hearing about Ishigami going out on a date with Tsubame.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: She felt bad in Chapter 75 just because she didn't collect as many bellmarks as everyone else despite being the one to suggest it in the first place.
• Hero-Worshipper: She's looked up to Fujiwara ever since childhood. Likely because Fujiwara is loved by her peers and Iino, well - isn't. After seeing more and more of her shenanigans over time, however, Iino's support wanes towards the start of the next year, and after becoming the new Student Council President she declines to invite Fujiwara as a member of her council despite remaining friends.
• Hidden Buxom: Despite her short stature, Osaragi notes in the official doujin that Iino is actually rather decently endowed. Since she's very rarely seen outside of her uniform and the series usually steers clear of Fanservice, this isn't immediately obvious.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She acts a lot differently when texting, as she tends to overuse emoticons.
  • Later on, it is shown that she is an avid fan of thriller and horror books, as well as a fan and writer of poetry.
  • As Shirogane discovers, she has a rather dark sense of humor.
  • Ishigami is surprised to learn in Chapter 174, that she also is into games and likes Virtual YouTubers like Tsukino Mito and Otogibara Era.
• Hope Is Scary: She doesn't accept Shirogane's offer (of membership in the council) immediately, because she's never been anywhere close to achieving her goal and she just lost an election. Her life is changing very fast.
• Hopeless Suitor:
  • With or without crushing on Tsubame, Iino starts off with little chances of getting together with Ishigami, primarily because the latter is under the impression that she hates him. That being said, the two slowly get on good terms with each other, so Iino's chance of succeeding is still there.
  • She starts to avert this once Ishigami begins exploring his budding feelings for her, to the point that he slowly realizes that his friendship with Otomo and relationship with Tsubame were simply stepping stones for him to realize he has been treating Iino differently and not because he hates her.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Iino has extremely off-the-wall ideas about what constitutes "inappropriate behavior". Putting it in decent terms, she tends to err by excess. This largely stems from her lack of contact with the opposite sex and her vivid imagination.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Iino sees Shirogane as unjustifiably smug, lazy, and cruel. While the former is true - and his first encounter with her doesn't help his case at all - the two latter points are false. She also thinks that Fujiwara is some sort of genius. Later interactions help her see the truth, and she now has far more respect for Shirogane while her opinion of Fujiwara has shrunken.
  • She also thinks Ishigami is a lazy bum who has no real redeeming qualities. Ironically, he is one of the first people who recognize her efforts and one of the few people who keep taking care of her (without her knowledge). Due to Ishigami's Hyper-Awareness, he actually sees Iino's good points, while Iino is so oblivious, that, when prompted to compliment him, she literally can't come up with a single positive trait of his. This also changes over time, ending with her falling for him.
• Horrifying the Horror: Played for Laughs example in Chapter 66 where Kaguya shows herself to be pretty frightening when she wants to be, but by the end of the chapter Kaguya is scared of Iino because she wants Fujiwara to be her vice-president.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Not completely, but she comes pretty darn close, being the shortest member of the student council and well under both Shirogane and Ishigami.
• Hypocritical Humor: Makes it a point to try and keep the Shuuchi'in campus as chaste as possible. And yet, look at all the sex-related tropes under her folder to see how dirty her own mind is.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The anime subs spell her family name as "Iino", while the Viz translation of the manga uses "Ino" (though Chapters 68 & 69 inexplicably use the more commonly accepted double I version on all exam and election results while still having dialogue use the single I version).
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Being tempted by Kaguya's offer only makes Iino more defiant, not less.
• Innocently Insensitive: As Ishigami and Fujiwara point out, Iino isn't wrong to want to enforce the school rules, but she's often so frigid and strict about it that people find her more irritating than helpful. The chapter in which this is brought up is centered around getting her to loosen up and ignore more minor infractions.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Forms a rather odd one with Papa Shirogane in Chapter 229 as part of her bid to learn how to play shooting games.
• In Vino Veritas: During Tsubame's Christmas party, Iino gets drunk on whiskey chocolate. In her drunken rant, she complains to Ishigami how he always solely acts mean to her and wishes to be treated by him like he did during the culture festival... or how he treats Tsubame.
• Invisible Parents: Her mother is the only parent of a student council member who goes completely unseen, even in flashbacks. Given that she does humanitarian work, she's presumably out of the country for a good chunk of the series.
• Irony: Iino is a Kiddie Kid bordering on The Cutie at times who also has a stalwart, though naive, sense of justice. So who is her favorite character when she starts playing Apex Legends? Revenant.
• It's All About Me: Iino's rather naive sense of morality causes her to rarely consider what other people think or want, since she usually believes her own judgment to be flawless. It's one of the reasons Osaragi secretly resents her. Fortunately, her time with her friends and the other council members quickly makes her lose this mentality towards the final chapters, which pays off big time during Council elections.
• It Was a Gift: Back in middle school, she received an anonymous letter of encouragement with a flower enclosed. Given that most people didn't recognize her hard work back then, she came to treasure it and had the flower laminated to keep as a good luck charm. Ishigami was the one to send the letter.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • At her worst, Iino can be a shrewish stickler for the rules. That said, while some of her proposed new rules can be rather extreme (e.g. requiring boys to shave their heads), she has an understandable concern for Shuchi'in's reputation suffering due to its students' misbehavior, not to mention one that she backs up with evidence. She can actually cite the repercussions of its declining reputation, such as community associations being less willing to help the school, and can even prove how her rules might help (if students shave their heads, they won't waste time with their hair in the mornings and will be more likely to come in on time). While Shirogane has good counterarguments prepared, Iino's case is convincing enough that she almost wins the election.
  • Iino, with terrifying calmness, makes a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Osaragi, while declaring their friendship over, one that even scares Kaguya. However, while she has a tendency to see things in black-and-white that Kaguya calls her out on, she's not wrong that her so-called best friend badmouthing her behind her back and describing their friendship as in name only is not a very nice thing to do, something that the person being addressed admits.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Iino is to put it lightly rather strict and can be short-tempered and overly harsh at times, she's a very caring person who isn't strict out of meanness but rather a desire to ensure that people can learn, behind her stern image lies a lovely girl who wants the best for others even if it means that they look down on her for adherence to the rules, she even loosens up as the series goes on.
• Kiddie Kid: While Iino is very intelligent, multiple people have noted that she is far too childish and naive for her own good. The author himself notes that her child-like idealistic views leave much room for her to mature.
• Kindness Button: How do you get Iino to warm up to you? Just compliment her, as she Desperately Craves Affection (though the only person who outright abuses this is Fujiwara).
• Lawful Pushover: Iino's gullibility makes it very easy for others to trick her into letting them get away with things. She also tends to stand down if others insist on pushing back against her attempts to enforce the rules.
• Letting Her Hair Down: Principal Pescarolo has noted that Iino's loose pigtails make her look a bit on the stiffer side and encourages her to let them down for the pictures he's taking. When she similarly receives compliments when she dresses up for Tsubame's party, the consensus seems to be that Iino would be considered much more attractive if she wore her hair naturally.
• Like Brother and Sister: Her relationship with Shirogane ultimately evolves into this, with her even admitting that she sees him as an older brother in Chapter 265.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • She is seemingly the only council member who is not aware of what actually happened between Ishigami, Ogino, and Otomo, and it is never known if she was ever told later on.
  • By the end of the series, she has no idea that Ishigami was the one who gave her the flower back in middle school.
• Love Confession: One that's been even longer in the making than Shirogane's.
  "Ishigami, I- ...I need you."
• Love Hurts: When she hears about Ishigami and Tsubame's successful date, instead of going into Clingy Jealous Girl mode, she's just plain sad, and remains so for a while afterward. Even Fujiwara, who normally struggles to read the room, picks up on the emotional anguish Iino is in. Chapter 190 has her crying when talking about the pain she felt when Ishigami talked about his date with Tsubame.
• Love Makes You Evil: Or at least scarily effective at manipulating a heartbroken Ishigami's vulnerability and feelings. Even Fujiwara is scared about how good she is at this (dubbing her EvilIino), and she was the one who urged her to do this in the first place!
• Love Martyr: Ishigami and Osaragi have both noted that she's at high risk for ending up in an abusive relationship due to her overly trusting nature and idealized views of romance.
• Maybe Ever After: Her story ends on the same note Kaguya and Shirogane's began — With her locked in a duel with Ishigami over who can force the other to confess first. Assuming it follows the same beats as their predecessors, eventually they'll get together. We'll just never see it happen for ourselves.
• Mirror Character: One reason Iino and Ishigami don't get along is that both are forthright and critical. Without other people around to mediate them, they get deadlocked in endless arguments. There's also the fact that neither tells the other how they keep each other from harm. Iino did her best to keep Ishigami from being expelled in middle school and shields him from the other public morals committee members, while Ishigami secretly (and sometimes openly) does his best to spare her from humiliation or keeps her away from suspicious people. However, since they both think true altruism doesn't need any recognition, neither of them knows and interprets the other's actions as being hostile.
• Mission Control: As she is physically the weakest member of the Student Council, she plays this role during the endgame.
• Moe: She's considered this In-Universe, with numerous comments about how cute she is, especially when her more meek side shows itself over time.
• Moral Guardians: One of the rules, if she became president, is that boys and girls would not be allowed within 50 cm of each other. That said, later chapters show that she isn't entirely opposed to romantic/sexual relationships, merely believing that students should keep their hands to themselves when on the school grounds.
• Ms. Imagination: She has a very overactive imagination, which ends up causing her to come to some very interesting conclusions when trying to figure out all the circumstances she kept walking in on.
• Ms. Vice Girl: Despite her well-intentioned ambitions and goals to put the student body on the right course, her leadership skill lacks the charisma that Shirogane has (her methods are akin to a Control Freak) and is only worsened by her lack of social skills with other students, some of which already see her as nothing more than a mild annoyance. It was only through Ishigami and Shirogane's help that the student body started to see her as a competent candidate.
• The Napoleon: Although quite diminutive, she literally drags Ishigami around through force of will (and rope). In his own words, she is "intense".
• Nerds Are Sexy: She states in Chapter 190 that her type of man is someone smarter than her. Then she teases that Shirogane would therefore fit her type very well, although she quickly notes that she's just joking, since she is aware of Shirogane's relationship with Kaguya. Iino herself is on a downplayed version of the other end, as while her grades are impressive, people mainly started asking her out simply because she was considered physically attractive.
• Never Gets Fat: Despite chowing down on nearly twice her weight in food, Iino's body somehow always retains her petite and slender proportions.
• The Nose Knows: She instantly picks up on the fact that Kaguya is wearing perfume in Chapter 143. She also is able to smell Tsubame's scent on Ishigami in Chapter 155, concluding that he slept with her. Bonus material mentions that she's like a small dog who can smell where food is.
• Obfuscating Disability: After her broken arm healed, she kept the cast on for two weeks longer than necessary. Onodera suggests that she did so because she liked having Ishigami constantly looking after her.
• Oblivious to Love: Despite her desire to be loved and her very idealistic views on love, the narration points out that Iino doesn't actually know how to love. She is constantly insecure about the people around her and doesn't realize that Ishigami in fact doesn't actually hate her and has been taking care of her since middle school without her knowledge. While in her drunken stupor, she complains about Ishigami always acting like a jerk toward her, and she shows her jealousy towards Tsubame for being treated nicely by him. After the Christmas party, she keeps guilt-tripping him for saving him which resulted in her breaking her arm, and ruins his moments with Tsubame, to the point that even Maki realizes that things won't end well if she keeps acting so stubbornly.
• Odd Friendship: Onodera, from what little is known of her personality, doesn't seem like the kind of person that'd be friends with Iino, but the two apparently grew rather close when they were on the Culture Festival committee together.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: She sleeps in the arms of a giant teddy bear while covered in her childhood blanket. The reason for this is twofold: the discomfort means she only gets about four hours of sleep a night (and can therefore devote more waking time to studying), and it gives her the feeling of a Bridal Carry.
• Official Couple: With Ishigami... eventually.
• Older Than They Look: Iino's short stature and somewhat childish outlook on the world can lead her to be mistaken for being a lot younger than she actually is, especially when shown side by side with her idol Fujiwara (who is only two months older than her).
• Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: Averted. When the topic of future careers comes up in Chapter 111, she mentions that law is a very broad subject and that she isn't sure what her focus of study would be.
• Only Sane Woman: She was forced into the role in Chapter 97 when Kashiwagi thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her based on rather weak evidence and Kaguya agrees with her.
• Parental Neglect: Iino's parents are rarely home due to their jobs (her father is a high-ranking judge and her mother does humanitarian work overseas). She doesn't seem to be bothered by it (or at the very least has convinced herself that she isn't) and developed her sense of justice to feel closer to them.
• Performance Anxiety: She suffers from stage fright, which Ishigami cites as the reason why she's never been elected. Sure enough, she ends up with just under half the vote when Shirogane's impromptu debate allows her to properly articulate herself.
• Poor Communication Kills: There would be less arguing and drama around Iino and Ishigami, if either of them openly said what they did for the other person, but since neither Ishigami nor Iino thinks that they need recognition for what they are doing, they don't get along very well and Iino believes Ishigami is solely acting like a Jerkass to her.
• Principles Zealot: She has been running for the role of student council president ever since elementary school, but her refusal to change her draconian policies (along with her crippling stage fright) keeps costing her victory. She only succeeds after listening to Kaguya's advice and listening to other students, not to mention becoming a friendlier person.
• Properly Paranoid: She refuses to drink anything Kaguya offers her because it might be poisoned. As the readers know (but Iino doesn't), Kaguya has indeed tampered with people's drinks before, though thankfully she never tried anything lethal.
• Protectorate: To Ishigami. Not that she knows, of course, since he's doing it under her nose.
• Psychological Projection: You could make a case that all her disciplinary shtick is actually just her projecting her Covert Perversion on other students.

R-W

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Calls out Osaragi on how one-sided their friendship was before officially ending things with her.
  "Hmm? Friends in name only huh? That's a pretty good way to put it. You've never really come to me for help, and you've never really opened up to me before either. Now that I have more friends of my own, I suppose I don't need to force myself to hang around you anymore either, Koba-chan. Well, let's leave it at that, then."
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Unsurprisingly, she tends to be the red to everyone else's blue, though it does invert several times.
  • Shirogane had already zoned in on his love interest to begin with and for much of the story is heavily motivated to aim for the top because of it. Iino, however, never had a cemented love interest until much later in the story and (begrudgingly) accepted her lower place on the social ladder.
  • Kaguya can take drastic measures when she sets her mind on being with Shirogane. Iino, on the other hand, just waits for her chance without (openly) complaining.
  • Fujiwara's antics result in almost nobody but herself benefitting from the aftermath, while despite the headaches they give others Iino's efforts pay off for everyone else in the long run.
  • Ishigami is more active in his love hunt, while Iino, even with the excuse of a late start, doesn't make her plans openly known.
  • Osaragi is stubborn and unflinching towards her original plans, while Iino is at least willing to entertain changes in her own goals.
  • Tsubame openly shows her appreciation for Ishigami out of the gate. Iino, by contrast, only did so long after her introduction, and nowhere near as much as Tsubame.
• The Resenter: No matter how much she helped Ishigami try to win Tsubame over, she couldn't help but feel happy when he was rejected in the end anyway and thought about how much she hated Tsubame. These feelings are revealed as she explains to Shirogane how disgusted she is with herself for thinking this way about someone who has always been nice to her.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Iino has a tendency to interpret things in a sexual way, the most glaring example being when Tsubame invites Ishigami to her home on Christmas Eve, which she interprets as a sex invitation when Tsubame actually intends to invite everyone from the Culture Festival Committee to her Christmas party (which Iino interprets to be an orgy). However, Iino is completely right that Tsubame intended to have sex with Ishigami on that night. She just meant to do it when the party was over and everyone left.
• Romanticized Abuse:
  • Iino outright enjoys being harmed, and describes her ideal husband as one that takes his frustrations from working out on her. Osaragi and Ishigami are both rightly concerned.
  • In Chapter 163, when prompted for a prank idea to play on Kaguya, she nonchalantly suggested Shirogane slapping her as hard as he can for a minor paperwork mistake, claiming that she wouldn't really mind. Unsurprisingly, Shirogane turned her down.
    Ishigami: [Sweat Drop] Quit flaunting your weird acceptance of domestic violence.
• Running Away to Cry: Iino's worst time was back in middle school, where she kept getting mocked for trying to uphold discipline amongst the students. Osaragi often found Iino secretly crying in the restroom, though she managed to cheer up and found new courage when an anonymous letter (shown to be sent by Ishigami) wished for her to one day get the recognition and respect she deserves. She ultimately does by the end of the story.
• Running Gag: She has quite a few connected to her.
  • Her horrible sense of timing. She always manages to arrive at the worst possible time.
  • She has a tendency to piss off Kaguya but then unknowingly say shippy statements about Kaguya and Shirogane that instantly pleases her.
• Secret-Keeper: She reveals to Shirogane in Chapter 190 and Kaguya in 213 that she knows about their Secret Relationship, though it's never made clear when she found out.
• Security Blanket: In addition to using the "Hot Guys Encourage You" CD as relaxation, she also uses it to calm down. When Onodera sees her room for the first time, it's also revealed that she has a literal security blanket that she can't sleep without.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: As detailed extensively under Covert Pervert above, Iino's bottling up a ton of repressed sexual urges, and cracking down hard on lewd material/conduct on campus is implied to be her idea of keeping it under control.
• Shaming the Mob: She uses her presidential debate to call out the student body on how they've let the lack of discipline on school grounds turn them into entitled snobs, and as a result have lost the support of the local community and many regional businesses. She then goes on to say that Shuuchi'in needs someone like her to bring the student body's morals in line and repair the school's once-great public image. Although Shirogane had to get her to deliver her speech with confidence, it worked so well that she went from losing the election horribly to narrowly losing by 40 votes.
  "Nothing about this campaign speech is a joke! Look at this! A survey on the public images of high schools in our area! Shuuch'in's brand has been trending down with each year! There are plenty of causes! And chief among them is the strong impression that our students have poor morals! As far as the public is concerned, our grades are good but nothing else about us is! And the locals have a bad impression of us as well! We haven't been able to get any regional organizations to work with us at all lately! Take the campfire at the cultural festival. It was an established tradition until three years ago, but people started talking about students staying out late at night and littering, so the neighborhood association revoked their permission for late-night activities! That's just one of the problems this school's poor morals have caused! The poor opinion of us is a sign of the school's standards becoming too lax! We need rules to restore our moral standing!"
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Iino naturally looks beautiful, but she earns compliments at Tsubame's Christmas Eve party, where she unties her hair, wears fashionable clothes, and puts on make-up, though the latter turns out to be a Cosmetic Catastrophe, and Onodera quickly advises her to remove the make-up. We Want to Talk About Kaguya reveals that Karen and Erika gave her the idea, pointing out that an ordinarily serious person dressing up in nice clothes is a big attention-grabber.
• Shipper on Deck: Played for Laughs. Chapter 66 sees Iino accuse Kaguya of being perfect for Shirogane and vice-versa, but only in the sense that she believes them to be equally depraved. This shifts the balance of power in the room, causing Kaguya (who had been trying to convince Iino to drop out of the presidential race) to believe that Iino truly is a good girl. Every time Iino repeats the claim afterward, she instantly gets into Kaguya's good graces without even trying. After getting to know both of them and upon learning that they are indeed dating, Iino gives them her genuine blessing.
• Ship Tease: Frequently with Ishigami. After the Culture Festival arc, the teasing goes into overdrive.
• Shorter Means Smarter: She's 147 cm tall (approximately 4' 10''), and she has the highest grades in her class.
• Significant Birth Date: Her birthday is May 5th, Children's Day, reflecting her childish naivete.
• Sixth Ranger: Doesn't appear until almost 70 chapters in, and joins the council during Shirogane's second term as president.
• Sour Prude: Played with. She has a penchant for getting the wrong impression about the saucy happenings of the student council, assuming that they're just pervert horndogs. This implies that she is Not So Above It All and that she's Love Hungry, because, in reality, the student council is nowhere as kinky as she thinks it is.
• Student Council President: Iino ultimately succeeds Shirogane as Student Council President, with Chapter 275 showing her finally winning the election after almost five years.
• Subordinate Excuse: This is the primary reason why she asks Ishigami to be her vice president when she ends up succeeding Shirogane at the end of the series. Unfortunately, this more or less leaves them in the exact same situation Kaguya and Shirogane were at the beginning of the series. She constantly keeps him busy with work because she knows that he'd just go home to play video games rather than spend time with her if she didn't, while he is left with no downtime to actually talk to her about the nature of their relationship.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She basically takes Ishigami's early role of being on guard against Kaguya and one of the resident Butt Monkeys of the student council after joining.
• The Tease: As she becomes more comfortable with her Senpai-Kohai relationship with Shirogane, she begins showing a side of herself that's never really been seen before by cracking jokes at his expense about him being her type or suggesting that she'd give him honmei chocolate for Valentines Day. It's later revealed that she teases him in a way that implies romance because she knows that Shirogane would never leave Kaguya for her or anyone. She is absolutely right about Shirogane's dedication to Kaguya.
• Teen Genius: She has the highest grades among the freshman students since she believes she needs to be at the top of the academic ladder to hold any authority over her classmates.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Iino dreams of a man - a prince - who is always looking after her, understands how she feels, and comes to her rescue when she is in distress. Both Fujiwara and Shirogane point out that the man Iino is looking for only exists in her dreams. The Dramatic Irony is that there already is such a person in her life that fits her ideals, and has the same idea of justice and altruistic love that she has. She just doesn't see the kindness Ishigami has shown to her. When she starts to see, she doesn't realize that she's starting to love him.
• Threat Backfire: She tries to use her authority as an auditing officer to make Shirogane sit properly. This fails because he vastly outranks her, and because using her power for such petty reasons alienates the people she's supposed to work with.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: At the end of Chapter 275, five years after her first failed attempt back in middle school (and a year after finishing a close second behind Shirogane), Iino is finally elected Student Council President. To make it all the sweeter, not only does she win in a landslide (the exact opposite of her experience five years ago), but in the process, she starts to heal her wounded friendship with Osaragi.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: A 4'9" teenage girl who takes it upon herself to (aggressively) enforce the school's rules. Unlike most examples of this trope though, she genuinely does mean well, and other characters note that she isn't wrong to punish rulebreakers, but she'd be more popular with her peers if she were a little more flexible.
• Token Mini-Moe: She's far from the youngest character in the series, but she is by far the most childish of the student council members in both appearance and behavior.
• Too Clever by Half: She has a good reason for wanting the rules changed, but she doesn't explain it to people and just assumes that they know what she does about Shuchi'in's reputation. After Shirogane gets her to finally explain her motivations, the student body respects her far more than when she debuted.
• Too Much Alike: One reason she and Ishigami don't get along is that both of them are forthright and critical. Without other people around to mediate them, they just get deadlocked in endless arguments. There's also the fact that neither tells the other how they keep each other from harm. Iino did her best to keep Ishigami from being expelled in middle school and shields him from the other disciplinary committee members, while Ishigami secretly (and sometimes openly) does his best to spare her from public humiliation or keeps her away from suspicious people. However, since they both think true altruism doesn't need any recognition, neither of them knows and interprets the other's actions as being hostile and/or condescending.
• Tranquil Fury: Neither her expression nor her tone of voice evolves beyond cold dismissal as she denounces Osaragi as her friend after overhearing her tell Kaguya how much she secretly resents her. Kaguya of all people is intimidated by Iino's demeanor during this scene.
• True Love is Exceptional: Subverted. As far as she can tell, Ishigami is more or less the opposite of what she would consider being romantically ideal, but in reality, he matches up with what she looks for in a man almost perfectly.
• Tsundere: A fairly classical example of the trope, actually. Despite initially holding Ishigami in disdain for his lax attitude towards the rules, she eventually eases up around him, and even falls in love with him after seeing how caring he truly is. That said, she struggles with her budding feelings since she knows Ishigami already has eyes for Tsubame and acknowledges how bizarre it is that she of all people would fall for him. It's also a deconstruction, as Iino's consistent rough attitude towards him causes Ishigami to outright laugh at the idea of her being in love with him, while she's right there in the room. With predictable results.
  • In Chapter 96 when judging his fried rice recipe, she flip-flops on giving it a 1 or 10 before deciding on 1. Fujiwara reveals she thought it was delicious but she's too embarrassed to admit it.
  • When he passes her Kaguya's heart pendant during the cultural festival, she's clearly shaken even though she knows he was just handing it off so it could be taken to the lost and found. She's seen visiting it later waiting to be able to take it home in three months, the same time that Tsubame intends to answer his confession.
  • The flashback in Chapter 156 shows her calling him dumb that he rejected Tsubame's offer to have sex with him, and Ishigami ends up telling her to leave him alone. However, she returns and saves him from harm when he trips and she ends up breaking her arm.
  • In Chapter 174, Iino shows Ishigami her deredere side. Ishigami helps Iino with her notes and unintentionally compliments her, which leads to Iino acting nicer to him. When he does compliment her intentionally, she tells him to get back to work and then leaves to get herself some juice... and then gifts him his favorite drink when she returns. She then allows him to play video games and cheers him on.
  • In Chapter 195, Iino gives Ishigami a chocolate bar for Valentine's Day but insists that it's just a formality as a fellow student council member, all the while blushing madly and avoiding eye contact. Fortunately for her, Ishigami is in too good of a mood to realize the actual reason she's so embarrassed.
• Unkempt Beauty:
  • Numerous comments are made about how Iino doesn't wear make-up. This doesn't stop multiple people of both genders from finding her attractive anyway.
  • The Impossible girls were defined as the four girls in school whose beauty is on par with student council girls. Iino being in the student council way before this chapter implicitly ranks her as one of the seven most beautiful girls in Shuchi'in Academy.
• Uptight Loves Wild: She's strict to the point of zealotry, and yet develops feelings for Ishigami, who is far laxer about the school's rules. Contributing to this is that she's Locked Out of the Loop on what really happened to him in middle school.
• Victorious Loser: Losing to Shirogane in the election arc was probably the best thing to happen to her in the long run. Not only did it save her from being hated due to how unpopular her reforms would have been, but it also led to her becoming friends with Onodera, helped strengthen her slowly deteriorating friendship with Osaragi, and rebuilt her relationship with Ishigami.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She wants to help people but doesn't know how, so she tries to shape Shuichi'in into the sort of place that she thinks will make them happy. Her strict and stubborn approaches only serve to alienate her from anywhere else, and Iino only begins succeeding after learning to be more flexible and gradual.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: She definitely feels something beyond mere gratitude toward Ishigami after his actions during the culture festival, but can't quite put it into words. Her friends are quick to figure it out.
• When She Smiles: Osaragi is shown crying when seeing her smile after the election. The chapter is even titled "I want to make Miko Iino Smile". In Chapter 174, Ishigami also notices how nice she can be, and tells her that she should smile more often.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Iino is incorruptibly idealistic and believes that people can change for the better, even if it means she'll have to force them to change. She refuses to back down from the election even if doing so guarantees her the president's chair the next year because she wants to make change happen as soon as possible. She greatly improves on this stance by the end of the story after succeeding Shirogane as Student Council President.
• The Worf Effect: Because the events of Chapter 66 showed Iino Kaguya's ruthlessness, she became terrified of Shirogane after something he did make Kaguya cry in Chapter 70. Iino has no idea what that thing was, just that anything that made Kaguya lose composure must be horrifying. It's not.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: At the beginning of her term as auditor, Iino thought she was the protagonist of a more typical school drama, acting as an Internal Reformist for a draconian and corrupt Absurdly Powerful Student Council. As the manga had been going on for 80 chapters by this point, the reader should already know that this is completely off the mark. She ends up learning this by the end of the story.

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