Characters / Kodocha

Being a child actress means having an endless list of fans and connections!^note This doesn't even cover the manga-exclusive characters, let alone the cast of season two.

With its rather lively cast, this series, both the manga and the anime, has a revolving door of recurring characters. Some of them are exclusive to the anime, while minor characters from the manga are fleshed out and given a bit more screen time in the anime.

Spoilers for certain characters have been left unmarked. Proceed with caution.

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The Kurata Household

Sana Kurata

"Our cute school-aged TV star and heroine of the series."

Voiced by: Chisa Yokoyama (OVA), Shizue Oda (Japanese), Laura Bailey (English), Marcella Silvestri (Italian, speaking), Renata Bertolas (Italian, singing)

"You know, I really try to make a point to enjoy my life. Every year I try new things, I make new friends and life just keeps getting better. I get so excited when I think about all of the great possibilities the future might bring, I mean doesn't that make you excited too?"

An exuberant and cheerful elementary school girl who also happens to be a child actress and the co-star of a TV show called "Kodomo no Omocha", known as "Child's Toy" in English. Sana is actually the adoptive daughter of the famous writer, Misako Kurata, who found her in a park when she was just a baby. Misako told her that she was adopted when she was only 5 years old but couldn't speak about it properly until she became famous and properly matured. After a while, she starts accepting larger television and movie roles that prove to strengthen her career. Because of her upbringing and celebrity status, she often views the world in a very positive light... until the moment her classmate, Akito Hayama, opens her eyes in more ways than one. Sana is as sweet and caring as she is loud and scatter-brained, but she's pretty tough as well and has her heart set out to defend her friends and family, going to great lengths to help her new friend and so-called "arch-enemy" enjoy his life.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: In the anime, after fufilling the promise to Misako of finding her birth mother and forcing Rei to reduce her schedule to allow her some free time, Sana actually considers retiring from acting all together and looks forward to finally living the life of a normal girl. Once she discovers that Akito is taking karate to find meaning to his life and once all of her co-stars and other friends start going into panic mode, she decides to continue acting.
• Action Girl: Sana's not exactly too keen on using violence, but she's often proven time and time again that she's capable of taking on and knocking out boys her own age, provided they don't have the upper hand.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the OVA, her hair is an unusually light strawberry-blonde color, as opposed to the usual light mahogany.
• All-Loving Hero: While she's known to hold childish grudges towards troublemakers and tries to put them in their place, she's not above giving those same people a second chance.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: In the anime, Sana's Genki Girl attitude is dialed up to ADHD levels.
• Attention Whore: She's totally innocent, but she definitely likes being in the spotlight. She's an actress, after all.
• Bat Deduction: Sana's thought processes clearly venture into this territory at times, with one example being how she correctly assumed how Asako was going after Rei despite there only being a few clues left on their part.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • The Archie to Naozumi's Betty and Akito's Veronica.
  • The Betty to Fuka's Veronica for Akito's Archie.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Akito, particularly since they started out as enemies. Even after they start to care for one another, their interactions aren't always peaceful.
• Berserk Button: Simply calling her "stupid" is an easy way to make her explode.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sana is not someone you should underestimate. Already having Akito in hot water after she finds out he has two of the teachers blackmailed, Sana, trembling in anger, becomes visibly disturbed and very harshly calls Akito out after he and his goons nearly drowned her friend Mami. Just flatly admitting that he doesn't care about either fact finally forces Sana to slap him.
  Sana: That's the first time I've hit someone, do you even care?
  • Later in the anime, upon suffering from a Heroic BSoD after the death of Takeshi, she publicly slaps one of the producers of her movie for making fun of him after his death.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: She's usually the boke of sorts to any stupidity that comes around, though every now and then she'll end up as the Tsukkomi, with her weapon being her rubber squeaky hammer.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: While "gentle" might be pushing it, she's very nurturing and willing to do everything she can to help those around her, especially the brooding and stoic Akito, whom she put a lot of work into just to make his life pleasant.
• Bully Hunter: She is quick to defend any of her classmates or even the teachers who are being bullied. Even if the bully is Akito himself (or used to be).
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Just as kooky as she is talented. There's a reason why she's so famous and popular, despite her young age.
• Calling Your Attacks: Expect her to add "Komawari" when calling out any of her outrageous movements, like the "Komawari Spin", the "Komawari Flip", and the "Komawari Whirlwind Twist". There's also the "Burutcha Tackle" in episode 24.
• Class Princess: She's unquestionably the highlight of her school because of her status as a cute child actress, and she relishes that, but she rarely lets that get to her head, having an overall kindhearted if "active" temperament and willing to reach out to anyone in trouble.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Routinely zig-zagged whenever the plot demands it. Sana is more than a little odd, and even she knows it. Her classmates, whether they be close friends or bullies, won't hesitate to point out how weird she is. However, she knows when to get serious when the time calls for it, and yes, there are indeed people who are somehow even crazier than her: Babbit at his worst, Noboru Toriyama, and the animated caricature of Tomoe Shinohara, among other characters. Given how much of a maniac Misako can be, Sana's personality can easily be justified.
• The Defroster: She single-handedly gave Akito a major attitude adjustment, which started by blackmailing him into behaving at school and then forcing his "crazy-stew" or "oyakodon" family into actually caring about him, loving each other, and acting like a real family. It was the best thing that she could have done for him.
• Delayed Reaction: In episode 33, there's a moment where Akito tells her to shut up while she's ranting away at him, but she continues her fast-paced rant and doesn't respond to his offense until at least seven seconds later.
• Determinator: Possessing immense empathy and a willingness to help and even defend someone she characterizes as her worst enemy, she plows through troubles and problems with a bold determination and a choice of skills from the Gekidan Komawari Theatre Group she attends.
  • No matter how many times Akito got the upper hand during their feud early on, she didn't think once to just quit, and even did some dirty tricks of her own to even the odds in her favor.
  • Even after Akito tells her to leave him alone and mind her business, she still tries to help out and forces him and his family into watching her TV movie just so they, Natsumi in particular, can see just how wrong they've been treating Akito.
  • In the anime, noticing that there's still tension between Akito and Mami months after Mami's traumatic pond dip, Sana works with Akito to help Mami see him in a positive light, not wanting two of her closest friends at odds with each other. Even after every attempt fails, she still encourages Akito to communicate with Mami, which eventually leads to Mami gaining some respect for him.
  • During the filming of The Mansion of Water, she suffered a cracked leg courtesy of Naozumi's crazed fangirls trying to keep her away from him. Not only did Sana decide to hide the extent of her injury and continue filming (partly out of sheer spite at her attackers, as she saw it as the perfect revenge), but it ended up improving the final scene, as the pain slowed her down just that much she came out of the house on fire shortly before it collapsed, making the scene that much more awesome.
• The Ditz: While she's anything but stupid, there are occasions when she can be extremely clueless.
• Dude Magnet: She has so many suitors that are interested in her, if not outright wishing to have her heart. While we all know that some of her closest friends were attracted to her (Akito, Tsuyoshi, Naozumi) there's also Toriyama, Ishida, and it's even suggested late in the anime's first season that even Gomi might have a small crush on her.
• Dub Name Change: In the Italian dub, she's known as Rossana and as such provides that region's localization with a Character Title. However, despite the title "Rossana", Sana is still used as her nickname and she is referred to as Sana more often than not.
• Emotionless Girl In the manga, when Sana was 7 years old, she had been struck with "Doll syndrome" for fifteen days when she finally learned what it means to be adopted. While the main symptom was an emotionless stone-cold face, regardless of how she was acting, she would also sleep endlessly and be completely unaware of any of the symptoms. Years later, she contracts the illness again after she hears the news that Akito is being forced to move to America.
• Entertainingly Wrong: That facts were all there when Sana should have known that Aya liked Tsuyoshi. She already knew Aya liked someone, then Aya went to her house to not only ask how Tsuyoshi was holding up after missing school but if Sana liked Tsuyoshi. What does Sana get out of all this? Simply concluding that Aya is really nice, true but wrong.. It's only when Aya blurts it out to the whole class that Sana, the same girl who figured out that her favorite actress was after her "so-called" boyfriend with only a few, less-obvious clues, finally gets it.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: As shown in the anime, she is not very good at math and even makes a rap about how much she's avoided it.
• Everyone Can See It: For a long time, Sana dismissed her friendship with Akito as a complicated friendship, but by episode 40, many other characters seem to notice the Unresolved Sexual Tension between the two. Even Akito himself seems to be aware of it (though he would never admit it) but Sana is a bit slow to understand her romantic feelings. By middle school, even the romantically clueless Tsuyoshi can see that there's something between Sana and Akito, and points out to Sana that he doesn't understand her behavior towards Akito, when she's still Oblivious to Love.
• Fiery Redhead: Reddish-brown hair, a fiery temper, and a very outgoing, enthusiastic, and passionate personality.
• First Kiss: This is a very important moment for the future of Sana and Akito's relationship, which occurs when they are on a school trip at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. Although it wasn't a first for Akito, the kiss is both surprising and terrifying for poor Sana. And it brought hilarious results in the anime, as her reaction causes a good deal of traffic accidents when they were at the top of one of the building's towers.
• Friend to All Children: Since her TV show is aimed at children three and up, children all over Japan idolize her. She equally enjoys the company of young children, including her toddler half-sister Mariko, Tsuyoshi's little sister Aono, and the self-proclaimed Sana Sisters; Mika, Yui, and Ayumi. Even with Kou (the "pint-sized Akito"), she at least attempts to be friendly and reason with him.
• Genius Ditz: Despite being a scatterbrained ditz, she's a great actress and is also able to sing and dance at a professional level. She is constantly praised for her talent.
• Genki Girl: She is super energetic and bubbly, and it's exaggerated tremendously in the anime (which has a much zanier sense of humor than the manga).
• Genre Blindness: When it comes to romance between other people, like Aya's crush on Tsuyoshi (thinking she's a worrywart or just too nice of a person when she specifically visits Sana's house to ask her how Tsuyoshi is doing) or Hisae liking a tennis-playing upperclassman in the anime (thinking she wants to start playing tennis), she'll rarely get the hint unless it's told directly.
• Girlish Pigtails: In the anime, she uses them as her daily-to-go hairstyle, switching back and forth between the pigtails and having her hair out in the second season. In the manga, however, Sana completely ditches this hairstyle choice as she grows up.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She's a cute and popular actress who always wears skirts and Girlish Pigtails with bows but is also an outspoken Bully Hunter who is not afraid to stand up to boys, and her hyper personality and violent temper are not very ladylike.
• Gratuitous English: She makes extensive use of it in the original Japanese release.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She can be fiery, Hot-Blooded, and easily offended when the moment calls for it. Even the slightest insult from Akito is enough for her to go on a rage-filled rant.
• Happily Adopted: Sana was adopted by Misako when she was barely a newborn baby. She told her about it when she was just five years old, as a way to make a promise to look for her real mother once she became famous. But when the moment arrives, Sana declines the biological mother's offer because Misako is her one and only mother.
• The Heart: She manages to inspire and help anyone in need, and never puts her work before the life and well-being of her friends.
• Heroic BSoD: Her reaction to Akito announcing that he's dating Fuka leaves her face expressionless from the shock.
  • She has a much more serious one courtesy of the "doll syndrome" in the manga, which she contracts upon learning that Akito is going to be moving to America, specifically Los Angeles. It leaves her face expressionless, prevents her from eating, makes her forget bad memories and the people associated with them, including Akito at one point, and causes her to make very hasty decisions. It wasn't even the first time this had happened.
  • In the anime, she suffers one after Takeshi literally dies in her arms. She gets so distraught that she is unable to believe or accept his death, goes all the way to his old cabin in the mountains, and nearly lets herself get trapped in a blizzard.
• He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: She starts to tear up upon seeing Akito trying not to cry and making a Security Cling onto her after fearing that his father may not survive.
• Human Hummingbird: Provides the trope's page image. Mix her Genki Girl personality and her Motor Mouth, and she becomes the almost unstoppable poster child of this in the anime.
• Idiot Hero: Rare female example. Sana is far from stupid, but along with being poor at figuring out other peoples' romances, she does almost everything thoughtlessly and on impulse.
• Idol Singer: She temporarily becomes one in the anime alongside two other girls, Mayu and Tomomi, with all of them singing on stage for Zenjiro's birthday party.
• I Have No Daughter!: Sana's greatest fear was the belief that Misako would one day become so disappointed with her that she would send her back to the Orphanage of Love where she spent some time as an infant. When she was much younger, not so long after Misako told her she was adopted, she returned from school with a bad grade and feared that her mom wouldn't love her anymore. This fear was the main reason why she was hesitant to meet her birth mother, Keiko, under the belief that Misako would want to give her away to Keiko. It turns out that Misako was just as scared that Sana would actually choose to be with Keiko and would never even think about giving up the closest thing she could ever have to a birth child.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Rei. She was nine years old when she found Rei, a homeless college flunky at the time. Fast forward to when Sana and Rei are 11 and 20, respectively, and they're at least shown to share a sibling-like bond.
• Invincible Hero: During the first arc, Sana, despite being seemingly incompetent at stopping Akito, is nearly untouchable by him and his goons. Any threats that she endures are thrown right back at them, any plans that fail, she always has a backup plan for, and any fears and temptations to quit are instantly overridden by her own pride, her all-loving nature, and her determination. After this arc, several of Sana's vulnerabilities become noticeable and eventually begin to overwhelm her, which in turn opens the door for character growth on Akito's part.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Even if it was hard for her, Sana eventually encourages Rei to patch things up and continue dating his old girlfriend, Asako.
• Kiddie Kid: Downplayed, especially in the anime, where her cheerful and energetic nature is cranked to the max. She acts mature when the time calls for it, but she's usually sillier and more childlike than her friends. Being born on March 7th, which is towards the end of the Japanese school year, she's also supposedly the youngest of her inner circle of similarly-aged friends (Gomi was hinted to have been born in May, Hisae and Tsuyoshi were born in July, Akito was born in October, Fuka was born on Christmas Eve, and Naozumi and Aya were both born on January 10th).
• Large Ham: As expected from an actress, she's very loud, hammy, and full of life.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the manga, she has a habit of forgetting unpleasant memories (and the people they involve) when she suffers from doll syndrome.
• Late for School: Coming with the territory of being a shoujo protagonist, she frequently oversleeps and is often late for school. Sometimes, she takes commercials that interfere with her scheduling, which may result in this or even force her to skip school.
• Long-Distance Relationship: At the end of the manga, She and Akito are forced into one when the Hayamas have to move to Los Angeles for a few years.
• Magic Skirt: She almost always wears skirts and dresses, especially in the anime, and despite being hyperactive, clumsy, and physically active, she almost never has a single pantyshot, though it's understandable as to why given her age. The only time it becomes averted is when she forgets to zip up her new middle school skirt in the anime.
• Malaproper: Sana tends to massacre proverbs until someone tells her that they aren't worded that way and corrects her.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She makes Akito's life so much better and helps turn him into a more considerate person, even if she still frequently annoys him.
• Meaningful Name: Her mom named her after her birthday, March (Sangatsu, Japanese for the month of March) 7th (Na).
• Modesty Shorts: She doesn't normally wear these but resorts to smugly wearing them as a temporary measure once she knows she's become a target for the boys, who proceed to cut her skirt with scissors a day later, not that she's still happy about it.
• Mood-Swinger: Oh Sana's sweet mood goes up and down, so much. She can go from calm to excited to serious to angry to excited again without warning in a matter of seconds.
• Morality Chain: To Akito. Thanks to Sana forcing him to be good and helping repair his troubled home life, Akito shows more kindness, even if he is still a bit of a grump.
• Motor Mouth: Big Time. Often called this verbatim in-universe, Sana's fast speech, especially when she gets angry, can only be compared to Excel, where the subtitles can come in Rufus-styled paragraphs in a short amount of time. In fact, one of the reasons why Discotek delayed the second season's US release was because of how often Sana quickly talks and screams over everyone else and translating everything proved to be difficult.
• Nice Girl: Despite being slightly crazy, she's a good-hearted person who really means well and wants to help everyone. However..
• Not So Above It All: Despite the above, she'll stoop low enough to try to get revenge on her target if pushed hard enough. One example has her taking a page from Akito's book by blackmailing him and forcing him to apologize and behave with a photo in his underwear (which is turned into a naked photo of him in the anime) after having Tsuyoshi pull down his pants.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Played with — Sana knew that Akito developed a crush on her, but she doesn't completely understand where the line between "love" and "friendship" ends. Because of her humiliating situation with Rei, she can't identify what "love" is unless someone reveals their feelings for her directly and thoroughly, which Akito never does.
  • Not helping was the fact that Akito had already kissed Fuka back in kindergarten and thought nothing of it, which made her assume that he was just a kiss snatcher, and she didn't want to risk making the same mistake that she made with Rei. She is still affected by it, however, because she can't stop thinking about Akito (including not realizing that he was "in love" with her even after two different timed kisses, the second of which was unambiguously out of love) and she becomes jealous and brokenhearted when he starts dating Fuka. She simply cannot explain why she feels that way at those moments. When Sana finally realizes she's in love with Akito, it's a big deal for her.
  • Even with Naozumi in the anime, when they both start dating for a few episodes, she states that she doesn't exactly know what it means to be in a real relationship. They never really act like a couple, nor does she ever refer to Naozumi as a "boyfriend" like with Rei or Takeshi, and while she claims to acknowledge him as the most important person to her, it becomes obvious to the others that she still can't keep her mind off of Akito at this point.
• Odd Friendship: How she sees her relationship with Akito for more than half of the series before she starts to realize how she really feels about him.
• Official Couple: In the manga, even though there isn't a formal announcement of it, Sana and Akito do become boyfriend and girlfriend. Akito becomes all she can think about in her head and she frequently blushes when around or thinking of him. In the anime, after a long series of events, they don't officially end up as a couple, but it's at least guaranteed that a relationship between them will start very soon.
• Out of the Inferno: While the house that "The Mansion of Water" was being filmed was burning, and Sana was still weakened from her leg... she manages to make her dramatic exit just in time (while the others were worried that Sana would die in there), and this ends up being the perfect scene of the movie.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: Sana's default reaction to Akito's "advances". She's already got a hot temper, especially when she's around Akito, so when he violates her without warning, he's practically asking for a beating.
• Plucky Girl: Definitely. Her optimism and determination are a big part of her personality. The Italian opening describes Sana as "a girl who never gives up".
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: To Akito at the end of the English dub's first episode.
  Sana: Now then... Let's start with you shutting up.
• Prefers Raw Meat: In the anime adaptation of the summer vacation, she's perfectly fine eating red, myoglobin-covered raw meat when the other girls eat what's left of the cooked meat, wolfing it down as if it were cooked.
• Precocious Crush: Even though Rei being her "boyfriend" was only part of a game that went out of control in public, she still believes that maybe he was her first crush since she didn't see him as a boy toy.
• Professional Maiden Name: Deep Clear reveals that upon marrying Akito, she's now indeed Sana Hayama, but uses her maiden name as a part of her stage name due to being an actress.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red oni to Akito's blue oni, as episode 10 best demonstrates.
• Rubber-Hose Limbs: The anime often emphasizes how much energy Sana has by making her entire body, especially her arms and legs, noodly and bouncy when she's excited or frustrated..
• Sanity Slippage: Thankfully, this was played for laughs as repeated trouble-making from Akito and his gang made her slip down this path after they made her miss a live recording, making her more and more desperate to get back at Akito. Rei even comments that she's already having a nervous breakdown at such a young age.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The Genki Girl to Akito's stoic Savvy Guy. She also has this dynamic with Naozumi, who is rather calm in comparison.
• School Idol: Downplayed, despite having all the requisites to be one, since she's a literal idol. In her elementary school class, she's idolized and respected only by the girls, while most of the boys are a bit dismissive of her due to the conflicts in early episodes, and because they see her as an Attention Whore. However, there are moments where even her male classmates appreciate her, especially when she offers sweets to all of them for Valentine's Day.
• Selective Obliviousness: Sana becomes very brokenhearted when she hears that Akito is dating Fuka. When someone explains the obvious, she tries to rationalize it away one last time.
• Sherlock Homage: She attempts to make use of this trope when she disguises herself to find Akito's weakness with Tsuyoshi. Even though she has the standard detective garb, it still a very Paper-Thin Disguise.
• Shock Value Relationship: To some extent with Naozumi after the anime's New York arc. Once they come back from America, both of them claim that they are dating, which at first seems to be to keep the media from spreading more rumors and lies and for Sana to fill the void that Akito created once he started dating Fuka. However, aside from a few hugs and despite their growing bond in New York, she doesn't treat him like a boyfriend and never refers to him as such, instead calling him a "working partner" and their situation being called "complicated". Once Sana is shown a "best couple" photo of Akito and Fuka during their time at the amusement park, Akito and the others can sense that Sana is still not happy that she's not with Akito, even if she personally tells Akito that she's happy for him. And when Naozumi breaks up with her, she's shown to be in denial and claims she sees Akito more as a brother who shared the same suffering as her when in reality, that's just how she feels about Naozumi.
• Stepford Smiler: All throughout the summer vacation months leading into My Daughter and I being published, Sana's usual cheerfulness disguises her anxiety about what the future will hold between her and Misako. Akito, unlike anyone else, is able to see through her and voluntarily sticks by her side once he realizes how scared she is.
• Strong and Skilled: While she isn't a fighter, she's much stronger than she lets on. It turns out that her Komawari acting lessons also specialized in combat training, and every once in a while she's shown to take advantage of that with her strength and evasiveness as a result. In the anime, a single flying kick to the face was enough to accidentally knock Akito out cold, and he was studying karate by this point.
• She Really Can Act: In-universe. People knew that she could act, but only Rei and Misako knew how well. Naozumi is completely charmed to the point where he can't speak when, during the shooting of their movie, he sees her in action...
• Skipping School: In the anime, her schedule for shooting television commercials took priority over her school schedule, which caused her to miss a lot of days ever since the first grade. It came at the cost of being hopeless when it comes to math. In the premiere volume of the manga, Akito's havoc in the classroom stresses her out so much that she decides to just leave abruptly.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: If she wasn't a celebrity or a total Dude Magnet, she wouldn't have had so many emotional issues. For example, to turn away the nose-bleeding Stalker with a Crush Ishida at school, she tells him that she's dating her co-star Naozumi. This ends up causing other misunderstandings in her already Unresolved Sexual Tension with Akito.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Corn flakes, the all-American breakfast!
• Tsundere: Type B. She's very nice and friendly, but don't make her angry. Just see her interactions with Akito.
• Unflinching Walk: At the climax of the shooting of The Mansion of Water, Sana walks out of the burning building literally seconds before it collapses behind her, without batting an eyelid or breaking character at all.
• Vibrant Orange: Appears in Sana's wardrobe from time to time in the anime, including the outer shirt of her summer outfit, and the skirt of her autumn/winter outfit.
• Younger Than They Look: In Deep Clear, despite being around 26 years old here, she looks like a teenager or at least in her early twenties compared to the 18 year-old Shuri Otokawa.

Misako Kurata

"The wise, yet wacky Aoki-award winning novelist and her pet chipmunk."

Voiced by: Sakurako Kishiro (OVA), Hana Kino (Japanese), Colleen Clinkenbeard (English), Stefania Patruno (Italian)

"Fear not my little one! Your mother loves you no matter what! No matter that your own room looks like bears live in it, dirty bears.. Or that the only thing that I've ever really seen you clean is your dinner plate. Your mother loves you and forgives you!"

Sana's adoptive mother and an award-winning novelist whose life took an interesting turn when she was in her late teens and early twenties, and she writes novels and essays based on those life experiences. Her most famous novel is "The Pimp and I", which was based on her life with her money-grubbing gambler ex-husband, Ryousuke Kashima, whom she painfully regrets marrying. Sometime after receiving the news that she couldn't conceive (it's also one of the reasons she got divorced from her leech ex-husband, too), she finds a newborn baby on a bench while taking a walk in a park. She would later adopt the baby and name her "Sana", named after the day she was born. Like Sana, she always wants to enjoy her life to the maximum, much more than Sana, in fact, given her weird antics like having Maro, her pet chipmunk, literally living in her hair. She also enjoys making her editor miserable since she doesn't like to adhere to due dates for her writing.

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• Acme Products: She owns a catalog that allows her to buy some of the craziest contraptions and devices known to man, from bizarre house decorations to weapons such as cannons. Sana occasionally uses the catalog to buy stuff as the plot demands, including the bungie jumping equipment from her challenge with Akito.
• Amicable Exes: Subverted, while she can't stand the sight of Ryousuke, he still tries to butter her up in hopes of getting some money out of her.
• Brainy Brunette: She has brown hair, is an award-winning writer, and is actually a very wise person.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Similar to Sana, except that her talent is writing instead of acting.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She makes Sana look like a normal person in comparison!
• Drives Like Crazy: Misako drives a toy car inside their house, even without thinking about running over someone who crosses her path.
• Dub Name Change: Goes by the name Katrine in the Italian dub.
• Good Parents: She loves Sana and can also give her surprisingly good advice.
• Head Pet: Maro the chipmunk, who was actually based on Obana's own pet, lives on Misako's extravagant hairdos.
• Hint System: In episode 33, Misako parodies the "hint for payment" tactic, a la Diddy's Kong Quest, when she requests 10 yen to give a frustrated Sana "motherly wisdom". Sana immediately asks for a refund, believing there's no way she'd be able to pull off that advice.
• Improbable Hairstyle: Misako purposely wanted to adopt some fun hairstyles because not long after she found out she couldn't conceive, she thought that if she couldn't be a "normal woman" anymore, then she just had to start living as a "strange" one instead, overjoying her life and expressing herself through them. One of her hairstyles even has her going as far as putting an entire Christmas tree over her head.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: In her backstory, Misako learned that her chances of successfully carrying a child were around 5%, and this was actually the main (but not sole) reason for her divorce.
• Legacy Character: The original Maro as well as a second chipmunk seemed to have passed away by the time of Deep Clear. Misako now keeps a third chipmunk, known as "Maro-Chan The Third" on her head, which has one of the doctors stop her from taking the chipmunk in the LDR during the time Sana is giving birth.
• Letting Her Hair Down: After being confronted by the reporters and journalists during the My Daughter and I fiasco, Misako lets her hair in one of her most serious moments. Her ex-husband even mentions that she looks gorgeous with her hair this way, but Misako is normally too absurd to conform to such normality.
• Mama Bear: Her brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Keiko, Sana's birth mother, makes it clear she's this. Her voice is filled with barely restrained disgust at how Keiko just left Sana abandoned on a park bench. She then gives the woman a smack in the face, making it clear that the thought of anyone endangering Sana is enough for to incite violence in her.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She's absolutely bonkers, but she's also probably both the wisest and the savviest character in the series.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Misako actually gives a few of these out. She raised Sana with an even mix of independence and rules, and rarely lets Sana back out of the consequences when she does something wrong. She delivered a subdued and absolutely scathing one to Sana's birth mother Keiko over abandoning Sana when she was a baby, regardless of how young Keiko was at the time, followed by a slap in the face.
• Series Mascot: In the manga, Misako's pet chipmunk Maro unquestionably filled this role, but in the anime, Babbit was introduced and heavily pushed him to the side.
• Shipper on Deck: After she meets Akito, She becomes absolutely thrilled at the idea of Sana and Akito forming a romantic relationship, even pointing out how Sana didn't even bother to push him away after their second kiss.
• Troll: She really enjoys messing with people, Sana and Rei included, but the special mention goes to her editor, Takezo Onda, who Misako often leaves panicking and desperate when a deadline is approaching.
• Womanchild: Her weird antics and her demeanor as a laid-back parent are the results of her deciding to live her life to the maximum as soon as she realized she couldn't conceive.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: It appears that this is what Misako was before she decided to change her lifestyle, at least in the manga. While she still tries to act the part, her on-and-off absurdity levels prevent her from fully conforming to this. On one hand, she can be wise, calm, and reserved. She's always shown in a kimono, and the first opening implies that she plays the flute. On the other hand, she can be an obstreperous nut case, and almost everything around the house is done by her maid, Shimura.

Rei Sagami

"The driver, manager, former pimp, and older brother figure."

Voiced by: Masami Kikuchi (OVA), Ryo Naitou (Japanese), John Burgmeier (English), Simone D'Andrea (Italian)

"The truth is, I owe her everything. If not for her, I wouldn't be the person I am today. So, even though she was so young, I decided that if she truly felt that strongly about me, I owed it to her to take those feelings seriously."

Sana's manager, chauffeur, and former "boyfriend". He is always cheering on Sana and taking his job seriously since he only wants to see her succeed in her entertainment career. However, there's more than meets the eye. Years ago, after a series of tragic twists (being dumped by his girlfriend, being forced to drop out of college, his parents dying in an accident and basically leaving him without a penny), he hits rock bottom and becomes a homeless person. One day on the streets, he managed to catch Sana's attention and was brought to her house as if he was an abandoned puppy. Misako decided to keep him around, giving him his first established home in a while. He has lived there since then, acting as an older brother figure to Sana. At the start, Sana looked at him as if he was her boyfriend (more precisely, a "pimp", after reading her mother's novel), but after being called out by a jealous Akito, Rei knew he couldn't keep up the charade forever. Sana gets devastated... especially when Rei's ex-girlfriend, Asako Kurumi, who also just happens to be Sana's favorite actress, appears in their lives and suddenly he realizes that his feelings for her haven't disappeared either. Even after the "heartbreak", Sana considers him as her first love crush, and they remain as close as real family members.

---

• Big Brother Instinct: He is the first to act when there is something wrong around Sana, always coming to her defense when the moment needs it. He always does it with good intentions, even if it may cost her a job.
• Butt-Monkey: Amplified in the anime. For example, when Sana gets her first kiss with Akito, Rei gets trapped in the middle of a traffic accident, which was probably the result of her shocking reaction.
• Cool Shades: As a way to commit himself to Sana, Rei sports a pair of sunglasses when he is working as her manager. Originally, it was also because Sana didn't want anyone to ever look at his "beautiful eyes".
• Crazy Jealous Guy: When it comes to Asako, he gets insanely jealous and depressed just thinking about someone even acting as Asako's boyfriend, but he is afraid to face the situation publicly since they are dating in secret.
• Devoted to You: Rei initially blamed Asako as the reason his life went down, and that she was a "bad woman" in his life. However, even sometime after they first broke up, he couldn't get her out of his mind, and he even became a fan of hers from the very start of her career. They later reconciled and secretly restarted their relationship.
• Drives Like Crazy: This applies only to the anime series. It's the consequence of Sana forcing him to drive faster because his normal driving pace is very slow.
• Dub Name Change: He's called Robby in the Italian dub.
• Even the Guys Want Him: It's implied that Sana's blonde hairdresser, Suji, has a crush on him.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Sana, who is about ten years younger than him.
• I Owe You My Life: After the bad luck storm that Rei had after the breakup with Asako, Sana appeared in his life. She saved him from being a hobo, and wanted to work for her own sake.
• Large Ham: Mostly shown in anime. He lacks an indoor voice and can be very Hot-Blooded when he's upset and tends to be more melodramatic than he has to be.
• Nice Guy: Behind those sunglasses, there's a very kind heart.
• Parental Abandonment: Rei's parents were killed in an accident not long after Asako dumped him. He thought they were rich... but they also had lots of money debts, resulting in him going homeless for a while.
• Parental Substitute: Once Sana no longer considers Rei to be her "boyfriend," he begins to treat her as if he were her "father." To the extreme of being very overprotective of her, especially around Akito.
• Pretty Boy: One of the reasons Sana "adopted" him was because he was a cute and good-looking guy. She even wanted to hide his smile and beautiful eyes... hence why he started using sunglasses.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Although Sana "adopted" him (and wanted him to be her "boy toy"), it was thanks to Misako that he has been living with them in their household ever since. He was literally begging on the streets before Sana brought him home, and then he started working for Misako as Sana's manager, bodyguard, and nanny.
• Sunglasses at Night: Rei uses sunglasses wherever he goes to show his devotion to Sana and because she thinks he looks cool with them.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sana, and it's shown in Deep Clear, at least thirteen years after the original manga's ending, that he is still working as her manager.

Chiyo Shimura

Voiced by: Hana Kino (Japanese), Melanie Mason (English), Tullia Piredda (Italian)

The maid and cook of the Kurata household. She mostly appears as a background character, though she's considered to be a part of the family.

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• Dub Name Change: In the Italian dub, she's known as Patricia.
• Farm Girl: At a young age, she was raised on a farm with a lot of chickens, which is why she had a lot more patience with Piyoko than Misako or Rei did.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Near the end of the manga She's revealed to be a close childhood friend of Misako. While Misako remembers it clearly, Shimura completely forgot about it until Misako brings it up.
• Last-Name Basis: She is always called Shimura, and is never referred to by her first name.
• Maid: Her primary function at the house. She's often seen cooking and cleaning around the house.

The Hayama Family

Akito Hayama

"Former troublemaker, arch-enemy, loyal best friend, and series deuteragonist."

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (OVA), Tatsuya Nakazaki (Japanese), Jerry Jewell (English), Monica Bonetto (ep. 1-50) and Irene Scalzo (ep. 51-102) (Italian)

"You're something else, you know that? It's like you don't even realize how much I owe you. If someone owed me the way I owe you, I'd never let them forget it for a minute but to you, it's no big deal. I guess what I mean is.. What I'm really trying to say is thank you."

A former school delinquent who caused chaos during the first month of Sana's 6th grade class. He is very stoic but also very strong. His family has some complicated matters, as his mother died when she was giving birth to him. As a result, he, his father, and his sister all distanced themselves from each other. His sister, Natsumi, felt resentful towards him, and his dad was a workaholic who wouldn't even speak to him. This eventually caused him to develop a vile attitude and rebellious behavior around his classmates and also showed severe disrespect to his teachers, going as far as blackmailing some of them. Sana calls him out for all of his "evil doings" at school and then decides to make his life better by going out of her way to help fix his family ties. Since then, he slowly started to open his heart, became Sana's closest friend, and developed strong feelings for her.

---

• Above the Influence: Subverted, during Sana's illness from doll syndrome, she undresses and invites Akito into their bed so they can "become adults". The spooked Akito knows something's wrong and sharply refuses, though it's clear that he's having trouble resisting. One nudge and a kiss from Sana later and he submits, sitting on her bed with her with his shirt off.
• Academic Athlete: He's very athletic and exceptionally good at martial arts, and despite his lack of interest in school, he and Tsuyoshi have the best grades in their class. All pretty unusual for a Troubled, but Cute delinquent.
• Affectionate Nickname: Fuka's nickname for him was "Akki" when they were in kindergarten. she frequently refers to him as such when they first start dating.
• Aloof Ally: Zig-zagged, especially during the anime's filler episodes. He's usually open to helping his friends when they really need it. Still, his stoicism, impatience toward said friends or their relatives, and his outlook on life cause him to come across as indifferent or downright mean.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: On Christmas Eve, in the middle of their mid-birthday party, Akito tries to confess his feelings for Sana. He kisses her again, but this time she is completely unaware of what the kiss meant.
• Animal Motifs: Whenever Akito is feeling mischievous (which is often), he gains a pair of ears and the tail of a leopard. Sana's also referred to him as a "Boss Monkey" and "Lone Wolf", with appropriate Imagine Spots for both, and has also imagined him as a tiny bird.
• Anti-Hero: Compared to the compassionate and squeaky clean Sana, he has a lot of flaws in his personality that stem from his early childhood and home life, including his constant brooding. While his heart can be in the right place when trying to help others, his decisions and ways of handling them still aren't the greatest.
• Arc Villain: He kicks off the series as the initial main antagonist of the first few chapters of the manga and the first three episodes of the anime. Once Sana blackmails him into surrendering and after she practically saves his life, he has a (not so noticeable) change of heart.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Akito befriends Sana despite his initial unwillingness, partially for this reason. He makes her aware of that when he thanks her months later during their summer trip.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Sana, particularly since they started out as enemies. He'll waste no time either insulting her when she's being silly or even perving on her, only for her to lash out at him.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • The Veronica to Naozumi's Betty for Sana's Archie.
  • The Archie to Sana's Betty and Fuka's Veronica.
• Berserk Button: One of the few times he'll ever show genuine emotion, let alone "Sana" levels of rage, is when anything under his pants is exposed at his expense. He flips out on Tsuyoshi for pulling down his pants (and boxers in the anime) and does the same when Natsumi shows off a baby photo of him in his diapers, both with a heavy degree of embarrassment to go with that rage.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The brooding boy to Sana's gentle girl. Even after they become friends, he's still aloof and even harsh at times.
• Brutal Honesty: Oh boy, Akito tends to deliver hard and dry truths to anyone, even if they are cruel or obscene because he dislikes sugarcoating things. While Sana is more tolerant of this, it doesn't land great results with other characters, like Mami's reaction to what he said about the school's rabbit that she looked after.
  Akito: You can't help something if it's already dead.
• Calling Your Attack: The "Hayama Chop" in episode 27.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Frequently, when alone with Sana and when he wants to be protective of her, he'll attempt to say how he really feels about her.
• Character Development: From the beginning to the end of both the manga and anime, he goes from being an angsty and mean rebel who cared less about the world to a stoic but disciplined karate student who overtly expresses his concerns and loyalty to his friends. There's also a Running Gag that has him unexpectedly show his manners, putting everyone involved in awe.
• Chick Magnet: Sana and Fuka aside, it's guaranteed that he'd be literally surrounded by fangirls if his attitude wasn't such a turn-off.
• The Comically Serious: While he can be funny in a dry way, a lot of his humor comes from his friends and associates. He'll almost always keep a straight face even in the most chaotic of situations.
• Corrupted Character Copy:
  • Akito is generally considered to be a younger, yet Darker and Edgier version of Yuu Matsuura, right down to his handsome blonde appearance. A lot of their differences come from their personalities, while Yuu is a lot friendlier despite usually being The Gadfly, Akito is harsher, brutally honest, and rarely shows emotion, let alone his true feelings. To sum it up, if Yuu is sweet on the outside but bitter on the inside, like marmalade, then Akito is the reverse. Also, they both stole the female protagonist's first kiss.
  • Their personality differences are the result of their home lives, which has caused them a great deal of angst. While Yuu was still loved by both of his parents, some misunderstandings and jumping to conclusions had him believe that the father he was living with wasn't his real father, turning him into a Stepford Smiler in public. Akito, on the other hand, never even had a mother figure as a result of her Death by Childbirth. Being associated with her death caused him to become unfairly resented by his sister and both siblings were all but ignored by his father, which caused Akito to become an openly bitter rebel.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: Ultimately averted at the end of the day. For their "middle birthday" party that takes place on Christmas Eve, Akito struggles to think of a decent gift for Sana, who gets him a toy dinosaur. After the party, he takes the time to craft a small snowman for her that will probably just melt within a few days when he had the chance to buy something much more meaningful. In the end, Sana is elated by his gift and keeps it in her freezer.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He gets this way any time Sana is with another boy or man. In fact, Tsuyoshi "joking" about asking Sana to marry him was enough to make Akito lose his cool. It becomes the catalyst for Tsuyoshi and eventually, Naozumi and Fuka realizing that Akito and Sana needed each other more than they wanted to admit. It's also ultimately how Sana herself found out that Rei was only "playing along" with her as her "boyfriend".
• Crush Blush: He eventually starts to blush on occasion whenever he and Sana are feeling a bit more than friendly towards each other, and later in the series, has moments where he actually becomes too nervous to speak to her.
• Deadpan Snarker: A subtle example given his stoic personality, but some of his snide comments fall into this, with emphasis on deadpan.
• Defrosting Ice King: Once Sana changes his heart, he starts to soften, even if it is at a relatively slow rate.
• Delinquents: He was the de facto leader of his classroom's boys, almost all of whom looked up to him due to his rebellious nature. There wasn't a teacher that would lay their fingers on him, because he had tactics to blackmail them.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: His motivation for taking up karate. Naozumi hits him with the realization that he'll never be a good match for Sana since he doesn't have a skill or talent that he's invested in like how she's dedicated her life to being a celebrity. With a little patience and a recommendation from Principal Narunaru after a compliment for his natural "karate chop", he becomes invested in trying to shoot for the Japanese Men's Team after learning how weak it is. By the time of Deep Clear, he has a part-time job as a karate instructor.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Sure, calling him a demon isn't nice at all, but it can be agreed that throwing someone, a girl in fact, in a pond and nearly having her drown for calling him that is going way too far.
• Dope Slap: His karate chop is his preferred method of showing Tsuyoshi, Sana, or Babbit that they need to chill out.
• The Dreaded: He was initially feared by everyone at his school, including the teachers. Only Sana would be brave enough to finally stand up to him.
• Dub Name Change: In the Italian dub, he's known as Eric.
• Easily Forgiven: Pointedly averted in the anime; Mami doesn't initially forgive Akito after he tried to drown her for calling him a demon, and when she learns about it Misako explicitly tells Sana it's his own fault for his abuse of her.
• The Eeyore: He's generally a stoic, moody, and irritable kid who always puts reality before fantasy, unlike his friends. This is why he gets so annoyed every time Sana, Tsuyoshi, or other characters become filled with energy, especially when Sana breaks out into songs and dances.
• Emotional Regression:
  • In the manga, He slowly starts to revert to his more demonic elementary school attitude for a short time after a series of misfortunes occur, including getting suspended from school, being unable to take his karate exam as a result, having his mind stuck on a returning Sana and becoming increasingly bitter with her for being "spoiled" and leaving him lonely. It ends with Akito giving Fuka a Death Glare after she reprimands him for fighting with some punks at the arcade, and it's not until Sana meets up with him and tearfully comforts him that it becomes swiftly reversed.
  • In the anime, the events after the arcade slightly differ and his regression is toned down drastically. Fuka is sent to a hospital after being temporarily blinded after the attack at the arcade and Akito blames himself for her getting hurt. However, upon hearing on the radio that Sana backed out of her new show because of Akito, she breaks up with him knowing that Sana and Akito still love each other. Akito is not convinced and brokenheartedly leaves to walk into the park, right near the gazebo where Sana pretended to be his mother. He worries Sana by giving her the same cruel look in his eyes that he made in his "boss-monkey" days.
• Extreme Doormat: Zig-zagged. Most of the time, he's just cold, stoic, and brutally honest, and is not exactly a doormat with Sana or his other friends. However, he lets his sister regularly insult him (in early chapters), lets Gomi and a group of older middle school bullies beat him up and frame him without tattling (towards the end of the anime's first season), and lets Fuka boss him around without any protest (during their brief relationship).
• Freudian Excuse: Koharu, his mom, died when she was giving birth to him. Natsumi resented him ever since, frequently getting angry at Akito and calling him a "demon" or "monster". In addition, Akito had a distant relationship with his father, who works long hours. This is also something that is played with in Deep Clear, since he is afraid that Sana would die in a similar manner as his mother when giving birth to their child.
• Genius Bruiser: He's physically very strong, and a surprisingly good student.
• The Gift: His karate chop is played up to be this way, which becomes one of the reasons he becomes a karate student.
• Glass Cannon: One of the reasons why he was so feared was because of his physical strength. He's stronger than most of his peers, which he's proven a few times, but it comes at the cost of his defense being hilariously pitiful that even Sana can take him out with enough force.
• Good Is Not Soft: His overall personality once he reforms. He's a supportive friend, but still not exactly the friendliest. Towards Sana, even when he's trying to make a reasonable point, his attitude usually doesn't reflect it when he has to explain himself. Heaven forbid if you even screw with Sana, or Tsuyoshi for that matter, he'll show you that he's still not exactly the nicest person around.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: He frequently stood on top of a tall shelf in his classroom wearing headphones without a care in the world, emphasizing how much of a rebel and loner he was at school. It was also to drown out the world around him, particularly the chaos that he enabled the other boys to partake in.
• Heel–Face Turn: Thanks to Sana, he went from being the big bad boss monkey of his sixth-grade class to a more caring and sympathetic Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Hidden Eyes: The usual way he expresses sadness.
• I Got Bigger: Before Sana left for filming The Mansion of Water, Akito was barely an inch taller than her, and she could easily fit into his clothes with no problem. Once she comes back he's at least one foot taller than she is.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He pretends to be indifferent or annoyed, but deep inside he really cares about his family, Tsuyoshi (who he openly defends from the other boys for calling him a Momma's Boy), and especially Sana (who he risks his own life for trying to save hers after she suffers from a Heroic BSoD towards the end of the anime's first season). After all the trouble that Akito goes through with his Freudian Excuse, he develops a heart of gold, shows greater respect to Sana, and starts treating his friends a bit better than before, even if he hasn't changed a lot on the outside.
• Kids Love Dinosaurs: Sana's first Christmas/middle birthday present to Akito was a toy dinosaur that he didn't hate. Dinosaurs are among the four things that Akito "doesn't hate", along with skiing, Sushi, and Sana, and if he "doesn't hate it", it usually means he "loves" it.
• Last-Name Basis: Although many of their friends do call them by their given name, Akito and Sana keep referring to each other by their family names, even towards the end of the series (though in the English dub, Sana almost always calls him Akito, and Akito himself makes at least three exceptions throughout the dub). However, during the time she returns from filming The Mansion of Water, it unnerves her that Akito starts referring to her as "Sana" all of a sudden, picking it up from Fuka which implied that Akito and Fuka were much closer than they were supposed to be.
• Long-Distance Relationship: At the end of the manga, He and Sana are forced into one when Akito has to move to Los Angeles for a couple of years, vowing not to cheat on her. He comes back just in time to start high school with Sana and his old friends.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Far more subdued than most examples, but he's shown to act this way exclusively around Sana, not even doing the same to Fuka when he started dating her. From kissing Sana out of nowhere three times in the anime to groping her because her chest was right in from of his face when bandaging his forehead, to flipping her skirt and potentially getting a peek at what's under just to ease the tension of Sana meeting her birth mother.
• Manly Tears: Often averted, as there are times when he looks like he's going to cry but doesn't, and even tries to force Tsuyoshi to do the same. However, upon failing to convince Sana she's not well as a result of her "doll syndrome" episode and failing to do everything to break her out of it, he starts shouting at her for not even considering how lonely he was while she left to focus on her acting career and how lonely he'll be leaving for Los Angeles. He's left breaking down crying and actually pleading with Sana to snap out of it and smile.
  • Even before that, he sheds a Single Tear while in bed after tiring himself out as a result of the run he took for not being able to keep his mind off of Sana. He does it again when his mother's spirit shows him he has more to live for.
• The Matchmaker: He was instrumental in starting Tsuyoshi and Aya's relationship, attempting to convince Tsuyoshi that Aya's better for him than Sana and telling Aya how to win Tsuyoshi over. While he genuinely helped his friend find someone who loved him and knew that Sana would be too much for Tsuyoshi to handle, his main purpose was really to keep Tsuyoshi away from Sana, so he could have her all to himself.
• Moment Killer: Almost every time he and Sana show any form of intimacy towards each other, Akito finds a way to set her off, like giving her some lip out of the blue, touching her inappropriately, or flipping her skirt.
• More Insulting than Intended:
  • Mami called Akito a demon. Akito cannot stand being called a "demon" (monster or devil in the English dub), mostly because that's what Natsumi frequently referred to him as after their mom died and it ultimately caused him to believe he was as a child.
  • In the anime, this later becomes a major plot point that ultimately shows how much Sana actually loves Akito. In episode 86, one of the productions she signs up for already drew many parallels from the way Akito used to act and it would culminate with Sana calling the character a demon. Sana is later taken out of the film just because she refused to say the word, knowing how Close to Home it would hit Akito after all she did to change his heart.
• Near-Death Clairvoyance: In the manga, Akito nearly dies of blood loss after being stabbed by Komori while attempting to rescue him. While still unconscious in the hospital, his spirit steps out of his body and walks around. He then meets the spirit of his mother, Koharu, who convinces him to stay alive and not live with the guilt and self-loathing he's endured. Moments later, his breathing resumes and his family and friends are in tears at the relief.
• Not So Above It All: Though he may act aloof and humorless, he eventually gains a penchant for teasing and playfully provoking his friends along with purposefully making less-hurtful snide remarks with a straight face. He even starts to regularly go along with Sana's antics.
• Not So Stoic:
  • He becomes extremely pissed off whenever someone exposes him without his pants on.
  • Upon gazing into Sana's eyes for the first time during their heart-to-heart, he dreamily stares at her while giving off a light, infatuated smile.
• Odd Friendship: With Tsuyoshi and Sana (though the latter is obviously more than a friend to him).
• Official Couple: In the manga, Akito enters a relationship with Sana sometime after his recovery from the hospital. In the anime while the two don't end in a relationship, once Akito gets his black belt in karate, he plans to tell Sana his true feelings, as Sana will as well, meaning it won't be long before they start a relationship there.
• Opposites Attract: As easily annoyed as he and Sana get by each other's antics, he eventually admits to her that their conflicting personalities make her fun to be around.
• Parental Neglect: Considering that his father was a widower who had to maintain his children and that his older sister had to double her role as a mother figure when she got older (not forgetting that she also felt resentful of him), Akito rarely stayed at home and often ate fast-food in the streets.
• Perpetual Frowner: A common company to his stoic traits to the point where Sana refers to him as "Mr. Stoneface" at one point. If he smiles or laughs, it's a big deal for anyone who is around.
• Pretty Boy: Whether he sees it or not, Akito is pretty handsome and his cold and stoic appearance only accentuates it. After becoming a loner, girls like Aya and Hisae started to note that he looked pretty cute and seemed mature compared to the other boys, even though his personality is a whole different story... Once he gets into middle school, he starts gaining fangirls, who like his cool attitude and his looks. As a grown-up, karate instructor, and certified doctor (specifically an acupuncture massager), his hair has grown out a little, which gets the attention of many of the women working with him... no wonder it was assumed initially that he had a love affair.
• The Quiet One: In contrast to Sana and his other talkative friends, he's not a person of many words.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue oni to Sana's red oni, as episode 10 best demonstrates.
• Reformed Bully: He eventually ended his reign over his classroom when Sana forced him to, so much that he later tells her that he's now embarrassed about the way he used to act.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Sana's Energetic Girl.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The tough and stoic Manly Man to Tsuyoshi's cheerful and innocent Sensitive Guy.
• Shipper with an Agenda: He ships Tsuyoshi and Aya, mostly because he doesn't want Tsuyoshi as a rival for Sana's affections.
• Sprouting Ears: He occasionally sprouts the ears and tail of a leopard (along with a wolf, a tanuki, and even a devil) when he's being particularly cool.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Emphasis on the "ice" part, but he has a warmer side, mainly when he's around Sana.
• The Stoic: He doesn't like to show his emotions and true feelings around other people.
• Theme Naming: Each one of the Hayama family is named after the seasons, in this case, "Aki" comes from "autumn". This is discussed in-series: Akito's mom chose her children's names precisely for that fact.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sushi, especially tuna nigiri.
• Tough Love: Often towards Tsuyoshi and, in a literal sense, Sana.
  • On a normal day, Akito can be just as harsh to Tsuyoshi as he is to everyone else and often gives him a karate chop to either shut him up or even calm him down. He openly shows concern for Tsuyoshi when he misses school after his parents get divorced, which makes him feel guilty about not being there for him. Granted, he wasn't happy when it turns out that he was visiting Fuyuki at the hospital that day. Also, despite later telling Tsuyoshi to "stop crying and be a man", he still tries to comfort him and gives him a 5-yen coin, which coincidently had the same year as Tsuyoshi's birth year.
  • As much hostility he and Sana can bring towards each other on a bad day, Akito tones down his discourtesy and aloofness once he realizes how distraught Sana has become over her fear of Misako disowning her. Once she's forced to meet her birth mother, he has to calm her down and proceeds to stay with her while going to meet her real mother.
• Troubled, but Cute: A handsome, antisocial, moody loner with Hidden Heart of Gold and Dark and Troubled Past. All traits that eventually help make him quite popular with fangirls.
• Uptight Loves Wild: He's a very quiet, stoic, and reserved boy, but has a crush on the highly hyperactive and eccentric Sana.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With most of his friends (when it comes to Sana, it's usually Belligerent Sexual Tension).
• Vocal Dissonance: Exclusive to the English dub, Akito is 11 years old, yet his voice is almost the same as and at times deeper than high school student Kyo Sohma, with whom he shares a voice actor with.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: He's shown throwing up in a bag after getting carsick during the bus trip to the zoo in episode 54 and is revealed to occasionally get carsick every once in a while.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Akito has a severe case of acrophobia, which Sana attempts to exploit in a bungee contest deciding the fate of the school. In later episodes, it's shown that Akito becomes uneasy and nauseated from being in high places and even at the site of a Ferris wheel, so much so that Sana often likes to make fun of him for it.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Possibly one of the sole benefits of his unfortunate upbringing. Akito is very mature for his age, even when compared to the brainy Tsuyoshi, but he sometimes goes too far with his Brutal Honesty. Rei even points out that while he's just a child, he talks like an adult.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • In the second episode, he makes it clear that he's ready to beat up Sana after she slapped him out of anger for the first time, and in the manga attempts to do so but is unable to outpace her. The only time that he's actually seen being threatening toward her is when he choked her a few scenes later. And the reason why she slapped him in the first place was because he tried to drown her friend Mami, another girl.
  • In the rest of the series, it's Played for Laughs and lampshaded in episode 30, but he occasionally uses the same karate chop he uses on Tsuyoshi and Babbit to calm her down.

Natsumi Hayama

"Akito's big sister who's learned to care for her brother."

Voiced by: Michiko Neya (OVA), Akemi Okamura (Japanese), Caitlin Glass (English), Daniela Fava (Italian, Season 1), Elisabetta Spinelli (Italian, Season 2)

"Don't be stupid! What would an important girl like Sana want with you? What are you even doing here anyway? I told you I don't want you setting foot in this house until after I've gone to bed. Just looking at you makes me sick!"

Akito's older sister, who started out as one of the main reasons why he didn't enjoy his life. Ever since she was younger, she had a fierce grudge against Akito, believing he was the reason their mom was no longer with them. On the other hand, she's a huge fan of Sana, and soon after she watches Sana's TV drama film, she realizes that she was being awful to her own little brother, who didn't deserve the treatment in the very first place.

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• Big Sister Bully: Initially to Akito since she blames him for their mother's death, and she spends all the time being downright nasty and rude towards her brother, yelling at him, insulting him, and outright saying that she hates him. Though they still have a degree of sibling rivalry once in a while, she thankfully gets better.
• Broken Bird: She treated Akito like crap because of the deep emotional scars left by Koharu's death.
• Comical Overreacting: In the anime, when she's being the family's Only Sane Man, she's prone to freaking out and ranting whenever something is out of place. It usually stems from her brother doing something out of the ordinary, like wearing a mask at the dinner table or simply showing manners.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • After Sana helped them to overcome their family's issues, Natsumi starts acting more like a caring older sister to Akito, even wanting him to call her "sister".
  • Unsurprisingly, because she was already a fan of Sana, she also became this to her, especially after Sana spends the night with the Hayama family.
• Freudian Excuse: When her mother died giving birth to Akito made her very resentful of her brother, calling him a "demon".
• Heel Realization: After watching Sana's movie that resembled her brother's life, Natsumi shows an honest bit of guilt, realizes her wrongdoings, and does everything she can to redeem herself.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She accused her brother of being an endless source of trouble to the family. Given Akito's bad attitude and delinquent acts at school, she's not wrong. But she just shows him hatred and anger instead of trying to understand how he feels, at least until her Jerkass Realization.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: The reason why she treats Akito like crap, it wasn't until the mentioned Heel Realization above when the two finally reconciled.
• Misdirected Outburst: A lot of Natsumi’s abuse towards Akito in the beginning of the series stemmed from the stress she was under preparing for her high school entrance exams, while not having the necessary support from Fuyuki. Once he enters junior high, Akito completely understands what Natsumi was going through during that period.
• Missing Mom: Unlike Akito, she actually met and remembers her mother, and has brief memories of her... although The Reveal that she was a yanki didn't sit well with her.
• Theme Naming: As with the rest of the Hayama family, her first name is related to "seasons". "Natsu" comes from "summer".

Fuyuki Hayama

"The nice, if strange, hard-working father."

Voiced by: Masayuki Omoro (OVA), Takashi Matsuyama (Japanese), Randy Tallman (English), Guido Rutta (Italian)

Akito's workaholic dad, who initially guards some distance with both of his kids. While he wasn't abusive like Natsumi was, he never bothered to talk to Akito and assumed that he was doing well in school. Not long after Sana opens his eyes, he realizes he needs to spend some quality time with his children, to fix everything that was broken ever since Koharu's death.

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• Affectionate Nickname: In Japanese, Sana affectionately calls him "Hayama-chichi" ("Daddy Hayama"), instead of using honorifics.
• Bumbling Dad: A rare dramatic example. Akito's issues steam from Fuyuki's inability to raise him as a single parent without blaming him for the death of his wife Koharu.
• Cloudcuckoolander: In the anime, he seems to be on the same frequency channel as Misako's weird antics, while not being as insane and hammy. He is more down to Earth in the manga.
• The Comically Serious: He has a dry humor that allows him to keep a straight face, similar to Akito's.
• Doting Parent: Once the family issues subside, it's evident that he's immensely proud of his children and even tries to pamper them a bit (one of the few things Akito likes is sushi, so Fuyuki brings takeaway every now and then).
• Dull Surprise: Dull everything more like.
• Good Parents: When he finally realizes what his home situation is really like, he becomes one. In one episode where Akito is framed for shoplifting, his father gives a long speech about how he expects Akito to come forward with the truth about the situation. All Akito says is he didn't do it, and his father adamantly believes him just because he has that much faith in Akito.
• Japanese Delinquents: During his youth, he used to be part of a gang with his wife, to everyone's surprise.
• Papa Wolf: A bit on the "passive" side, but sometimes surfaces.
• Salaryman: His daily job which is the initial cause of why he was so aloof from his children, especially after Koharu died. This took a turn for worse when he was overdoing it, and he went to the hospital.
• Shared Family Quirks: Both he and his son are serious, polite, silent, and kind-hearted, but with a violent streak when angry. Of course, the main difference is that Akito is angry all the time, while his father is (almost) never angry.
• Theme Naming: As with the rest of the Hayama family's names, his first name is related to the seasons. "Fuyu" comes from "winter".

Koharu Hayama

Voiced by: Omi Minami (Japanese), Amber Cotton (English), Nadia Biondini (Italian)

"I always think it's so exciting whenever it's the beginning of a new season. No matter what's been happening in my life, no matter how badly things are going, it's like you get a fresh start, a second chance to dive in and do your best!"

The late matriarch of the Hayama family, who passed away while giving birth to her younger child and only son, Akito. While little is known about her, it's certainly clear that she loved her family.

---

• Big Eater: If her high school friend Shiori is someone to go by in the anime, Koharu would get excited about the changing seasons just because of the type of food that she could eat.
• Japanese Delinquents: In the manga, she and Fuyuki used to be delinquents during their youth. Even when Natsumi was a baby, she retained some of her old teenage habits, especially in the dialect she used to speak... shredding present-Natsumi's memories of her mom to the ground.
• Death by Childbirth: Koharu died right after she gave birth to Akito. Played for the melodrama, this badly traumatized the whole Hayama family, distancing themselves from each other, for years - Fuyuki often ignored his children, Natsumi ends up abusing her brother and blames him for that fact ever since, and Akito becomes a school rebel and has a Freudian Excuse over it. This also influences Akito in Deep Clear fearing that Sana, who is pregnant, would have an equally difficult childbirth, and they fight over this. Honey Bitter's Shuri Otokawa eventually reconciled them together, and this fear is later subverted when Sana is safe and healthy after she gives birth to their daughter.
• Missing Mom: To her family, since she has been absent from their life since Akito was born. It was the catalyst for the whole Hayama family distancing from themselves ever since because they got badly traumatized by the event.
• Nice Girl: She was a total sweetie, according to the flashbacks.
• Posthumous Character: We only meet her through flashbacks and memories about her. She later appears as a ghost who interacts with a dying Akito, convincing him he still has lots to keep living for, instead of dying.
• Theme Naming: As with the rest of the Hayama family's names, her first name is related to the seasons. "Haru" comes from "spring".

The Ohki/Sasaki Family

Tsuyoshi Ohki/Sasaki

"The friendly, yet short-tempered nerd."

Voiced by: Minami Takayama (OVA), Mayumi Misawa (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English), Patrizia Scianca (Italian)

Akito's childhood best friend who had a crush on Sana. A soft-spoken and quite smart kid, who has a generally gentle personality... until you make him angry. Make him angry and his personality will not only make a complete 180, but he will throw a whole rage tornado until Akito subdues him and makes him calm down. Akito for some time declared Tsuyoshi as a rival for Sana's affection, which brings their friendship to a temporary halt. After realizing that Sana wasn't into him that way and giving up, he found love with Aya, who had a crush on him despite his "unstable mode". Due to certain circumstances that happened at home, his parents divorced, and he starts to cope with the responsibility of being the man of the house, and much more than an older brother mentor to his little sister, Aono.

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• Because You Were Nice to Me: He tends to fall in love with any girl who gives him a gift.
• Beta Couple: With Aya. In the anime, he brings up the example of his relationship with Aya to Akito, when he is trying to resolve the ambiguous situation of his relationship with Sana, before confessing his feelings to her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Tsuyoshi is normally a very kind and innocent kid, unless he, his mom, or his girlfriend Aya gets insulted.
• Big Brother Instinct: Towards his little sister. There are moments when he even questions himself if he is doing a good job as a big brother.
• Butt-Monkey: Sometimes, given how innocent he is, he's made fun of by the other boys in his class.
• Calling Your Attack: The "Sasaki Bite" in episode 27.
• Childhood Friends: He and Akito are best friends since childhood. Before Akito started bonding with Sana, he was probably Akito's only real friend.
• Disappeared Dad: Tsuyoshi's father is estranged from the family, and it's implied that he physically abused Tsuyoshi; this might be the case why he reacts so strongly to people insulting his mother.
• Ditzy Genius: While he's Book Smart and responsible, he's the most clueless character when it comes to love and romance (along with Sana herself, arguably).
• Dogged Nice Guy: Initially, towards Sana, especially because he didn't know it was just a misunderstanding he had from her affections.
• Endearingly Dorky: A soft-spoken child with Nerd Glasses who ranks among the highest in his class, enjoys math, and is quite clueless and awkward when it comes to girls and romance. The stage play takes it a step further and gives him Stereotypical Nerd clothes, completely solidifying this. Aya likes him anyway, and his kind personality (especially compared to the other guys in his class) is certainly one of the reasons.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Even if he isn't as easy to provoke as Sana is, don't insult his mother, make him angry for any other sentimental topics of his, or just catch him in a bad mood. Otherwise, beware of his blind rage!
• It's Okay to Cry: Because of the pressure he's dealing with between his parents' divorce and being the man of the house, Sana has to tell this to Tsuyoshi as a way of expressing that both she and Akito are there for him. Akito tells him the exact opposite, but still gives him his full support anyways.
• Jekyll & Hyde: As episode 9 shows, when he's been strongly provoked or in an extremely bad mood, he'll don a hostile, angry, and Ax-Crazy personality that's the complete opposite of the shy, nice, and soft-spoken kid we all know. It's something that he gets from his father and is apparently uncontrollable. Provoking him even further is when he goes into his Unstoppable Rage, which can only be stopped when Akito chops him on the head.
• Momma's Boy: He loves his mom very much, as Aya explained in front of their class. But if you tease him about it...
• Morality Pet: He started out as one for Akito, believing his bad behavior started to go too far often pleading with and eventually fruitlessly demanding him to cut it out. It's not until the first time we see Tsuyoshi's first rage-filled episode that shows that Akito does in fact have a soft side.
• Nice Guy: As long as he's not upset, who wouldn't want a friend like him?
• Noodle Incident: The anime's English dub bizarrely has Tsuyoshi mention that he has an uncle named Haru who is apparently a "boy and a girl" and isn't allowed to talk about them for some reason.
• Nose Bleed: His reaction upon seeing the "making-out" photos of the two teachers. He has another incident where he hits his face on a sliding window in Rei's moving car and is forced to stick tissues in his nose.
• Not So Above It All: He's usually among the most normal of the characters, but has a few crazy antics himself. Also, he was among the kids who bet Akito he couldn't kiss Fuka when they were in kindergarten, and when Fuka resurfaces he actually issues Akito with a death threat should he tell her what had happened
• Older Than They Look: Downplayed, as you wouldn't believe that he was older than Akito by a few months. The English dub certainly doesn't help, while Jerry Jewell gives Akito an infamously deep voice, Tsuyoshi is voiced by Greg Ayres, who gives him his normal "child" voice.
• Odd Friendship: With Akito. Their personalities couldn't be more different.
• The Pollyanna: His family situation may be almost as bad as Akito's. But unlike Akito, he is usually friendly, upbeat, and optimistic... except when he gets angry.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Sensitive Guy to Akito's Manly Man.
• Serial Romeo: Early in the series, he's shown to have a huge crush on Sana, but after it's revealed Aya has a crush on him, he suddenly decides he loves her back and they start dating, much to Sana's confusion. With him and Aya being Sickeningly Sweethearts, his initial crush on Sana is more or less forgotten, though the anime gives us a plot point about how he easily falls for different girls, because they give him gifts.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Aya. They act all lovey-dovey as if they were newlyweds after they start dating.
• Token Good Teammate: Initially, when the other boys in Sana's class were Akito and his Gang of Bullies.
• Unstoppable Rage: When he gets angry, to the point where even Babbit gets freaked out by him sometimes. That is until someone (normally Akito) calms him down with a karate chop.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Akito.
• When He Smiles: He's pretty low on the pretty boy scale, especially compared to Akito and Naozumi, but his smile is enough to make Sana go "wow" for a moment. They don't even show it directly in the manga - and only for a split-second in the anime.

Aono Ohki/Sasaki

"Tsuyoshi's cute apple and chicken-loving little sister."

Voiced by: Miwa Matsumoto (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)

Tsuyoshi's little sister, is a tiny second grader who is as bubbly as her idol Sana. She believes that any old egg can turn into a baby chick, and Sana secretly takes Aono's egg she got from a store and sneaks a baby chick into Aono's bag, having her believe that it hatched from the egg just out of kindness. Meanwhile, her mother eventually divorces her father but is still far too young to properly understand what's going on around her.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the manga, her hair color is similar to Tsuyoshi's and is often colored dark. In the anime, she's a redhead despite neither of her parents having the same hair color.
• Cheerful Child: She's almost always happy and excited.

Isao Ohki

"Tsuyoshi's scary father, a certified bald-headed jerk."

Voiced by: Yutaka Nakano (Japanese), Justin Cook (English)

Tsuyoshi's father, a stubborn and troubled man who seems to be aloof from his children. His wife divorces him and takes the two children with her, yet he doesn't show an ounce of care about their whereabouts.

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• Abusive Parents: Volume three of the manga, as well as the anime's 13th episode heavily suggests that he was this, at least towards Tsuyoshi. In the manga, it's never brought up again, since he and his wife get divorced, and Tsuyoshi moves away with his mom and his sister. Tsuyoshi's anger over people insulting his mother could possibly be related to Domestic Abuse, as well.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the anime to a degree. He's shown to at least feel somewhat guilty about everything now that he's lonely and has no one else to talk to. Towards the end of episode 13, he also tries to make amends with Tsuyoshi after the divorce. He's later shown getting arrested for defending two children that reminded him of his own.
• Baldness Angst: He slams a wooden cabinet at Akito's face and literally makes his forehead bleed just for insulting him about his baldness.
• Baldness Mockery: Which was triggered by Akito calling him a bald-headed jerk (or hairless old coot according to the subtitles). Akito even spams the nori-nori sampler with him repeating the insult on full blast, just out of spite.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: While his general attitude seems much nastier than Tsuyoshi's, he has the same anger problems that his son has.
• Parental Neglect: He seems like he doesn't really care about what has happened to either of his children once they leave with their mother. It's subverted in the anime, as he at least tries to visit Tsuyoshi later on and asks him to take of of his mother and Aono.

Jinbou Elementary / Middle School

Aya Sugita

"Tsuyoshi's lovey-dovey sweetheart."

Voiced by: Akiko Kikuchi (Japanese), Monica Rial (English), Alessandra Karpoff (Italian)

"You're wrong! You don't know what you're talking about, Tsuyoshi's not a Momma's Boy, he just really cares about her, that's all. Tsuyoshi's always been very loving towards his mom, and he's been a good brother to his sister Aono. I can tell from all of those papers he's written!"

One of Sana's closest friends at school. She is a very mild-mannered girl who is quiet and sweet, and with a good deal of common sense. She had a crush on Tsuyoshi whom she later confesses to. Thanks to a slight nudge from Akito and telling her that Tsuyoshi was one of those kids that fall in love at first "gift", she and Tsuyoshi start a relationship and later become extremely lovey-dovey.

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• Adapted Out: Despite being in the manga since the beginning, Aya is missing for some reason in the OVA while Hisae and Mami are still around.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: She nervously forces herself to tell the entire classroom that she loves Tsuyoshi after defending him, which leaves her embarrassed once it catches everyone's attention.
• Beta Couple: With Tsuyoshi. To a Sickeningly Sweethearts extent, when they don't stop talking about each other when they aren't together.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Before making her Anguished Declaration of Love, She chews out the boys for teasing Tsuyoshi about his name change, and is shown in later episodes that she can be almost just as hostile as Tsuyoshi or Sana, though much more subtle.
• Brainy Brunette: At least once it's mentioned that she gets good grades, something she has in common with her boyfriend, Tsuyoshi.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Despite her usual sweetness, she can get scary when she thinks Tsuyoshi may be interested in someone else after they start dating.
• Girl Next Door: Not literally, but personality-wise, she is the typical down-to-earth and nice girl next door.
• Hypocritical Humor: She fawns over her Celeb Crush Naozumi like most of the other girls despite her relationship with Tsuyoshi. The minute she even suspects Tsuyoshi of having his own, in this case Asako, her jealousy is enough to punch a desk in half.
• I Can Change My Beloved: She knows Tsuyoshi is romantically unstable but is determined to turn him into a devoted boyfriend. She succeeds.
• Nice Girl: She is a sweet girl who is always a supportive friend to Sana.
• The Quiet One: Compared to Sana, she is very shy, meek, and quiet. Emphasized in the English dub, where Monica Rial gives her a very soft-spoken voice.
• Satellite Character: Originally to Sana but later mostly to Tsuyoshi, after they start dating.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Tsuyoshi. As soon as they start dating, they act like a newlywed lovey-dovey couple.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She likes Tsuyoshi because he dearly loves his mother and sister.

Hisae Kamayai

"A good friend, a great listener, and sort of a traditional Tokyoite."

Voiced by: Yumiko Kikuchi (Japanese), Cynthia Cranz (English)

Sana's friend with the braided hairstyle. She's known for being sassy, tough, and competitive, especially toward the boys in her classroom. In fact, her personality is basically a toned-down version of Sana's, minus the wackiness, mood-swinging, or extreme heart of gold. Along with (eventually) Akito, she's usually the one who has to snap Sana back to reality, though she's nowhere near as harsh.

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• Forgotten Birthday: She gets mad at Sana for forgetting her twelfth birthday after promising to attend her party, as Sana became so overworked that she gets exhausted and accidentally forgets about it. Hisae then forces Aya and Mami to stop talking to Sana and begins passing notes around the classroom that she plans on ignoring her and doing the same to anyone who still talks to her.
• Only Sane Girl: She's probably the most normal and stable of all of Sana's friends and, possibly the entire cast, being one of the only characters in the entire series who's not ditzy, shy, mentally-scarred, or an absolute bully. Given the series that this is, even she's prone to some of the ridiculousness as her peers.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Well, preteen girl that is.. Aside from Naozumi, she's the one who's more prone to going ga-ga over older boys and celebrities when compared to her friends.
• The Rival: She's this to Gomi in the anime's first season, as both were the de facto second-in-commands of their respective genders in their 6th grade class. As they both reach their middle school years, the two eventually become friends and are hinted to be romantically involved by the second Christmas and Valentine's Day episodes.
• Satellite Character: Has it even worse than Aya, as she's only around just for Sana to have some friends at school. After Fuka's introduction, her appearances become less frequent.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: While not as energetic, She's a bit more abrasive, competitive, and sassy compared to Sana and her other friends, and eventually often becomes the first of the girls in her classroom to find herself quarreling with the boys, mostly Gomi. That aside, she's boy crazy (especially over celebrities), gossips a lot with her friends, and enjoys teasing and embarrasing Aya over her relationship with Tsuyoshi.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Episode 45, the first Valentine's Day episode, has Hisae working up the courage to give some chocolates to a handsome tennis player... only for said tennis player to reveal that she's actually a girl. D'OH!

Mami Suzuki

"A great friend who's trustworthy and a friend to all rabbits."

Voiced by: Azusa Nakao (Japanese), Kate Oxley (English), Emanuela Pacotto (Italian)

Sana's friend with the cute hairband. When Sana finally decided to confront Akito, Mami is among the girls who joined in to tell him off, though he later specifically targets her instead Sana because she called him a demon. He then had her thrown into the pond by the other boys out of revenge, but later regrets doing so after realizing that the incident traumatized her. He then tries to be more friendly to her, but it appeared that the damage was already done as she was too scared to even be alone in a room with him. Luckily, she eventually starts to see the good in him.

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• Animal Lover: Implied, specifically towards rabbits. She has extensive knowledge when it comes to rabbits, which is why she's usually responsible for taking care of Kurosuke and the other rabbits. She even acts as a surrogate mother for Kurosuke in particular.
• Bitch Slap: In episode 25, after being afraid of Akito throughout the entire episode, Mami angrily slaps him after making his not-so-comforting remark about the class pet, Korusuke, who was thought to have died.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Immediately after the beginning of the anime's second season, Mami disappears from the series probably to make room for the new character Fuka, as her main purpose in the story had long expired. She does come back for a few minor non-speaking appearances during the last two episodes.
• Dub Name Change: Mami is known as Marine in the Italian dub.
• More Insulting than Intended: Mami was among the first of the girls along with Sana who called out Akito, only committing the mistake of calling him a "demon", not knowing the ramifications of calling him that. It ended very badly, in the long run for both of them.
• Satellite Character: While not as bad as Hisae, most of Mami's purpose in the story revolves around Akito's past behavior or being a part of Sana's girl posse.
• Trauma Button: In the anime, being alone with Akito turned into one, as he and the other boys were responsible for nearly drowning her after she called him a monster. Every time Sana tries to mention Akito, she flees or changes the subject.

Shinichi Gomi

"Akito's former sidekick and partner-in-crime."

Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (OVA), Masanobu Hirota (Japanese), Kent Williams (English), Cinzia Massironi (Italian)

One of Akito's "pals" if you can call him that. Gomi was among the boys who answered to Akito and followed everything he did. Then Akito became a loner and left the group, which caused Gomi to resent and attempt to usurp him. Even now that Akito's been turned good, Gomi and a few of those followers still like to make fun of the other students in the class, particularly Sana, the other girls, and especially Tsuyoshi, only for Akito and Sana to take charge and show them who's boss.

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• A Day In The Lime Light: The anime has a mini-arc about his parents pressuring him into transferring from Jinbou and attending Kaimei Middle School (the same one that his father and brother both attended). While trying to ease a lot of the stress, he is beaten up by a gang of middle school bullies and is eventually forced to join them. It's probably the only time in the series where Gomi actually deserves sympathy.
• The Bully: Unlike Akito, who's instantly forced to see the error of his ways, Gomi and the other boys remain the troublemakers and primary sources of contention in their class, though nowhere near as bad, often picking on Tsuyoshi. By the time he enters middle school, he slowly becomes a better person.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Any time he and his friends stir up trouble at their school, karma always comes to bite him in the ass. He mouthes off to Ms. Mitsuya and distracts the struggling class, just to get pounded with hammers by Sana, Hisae, and another girl. Trying to take over the classroom in Akito's place and mocking him for it gets him knocked out in one punch by Akito himself. Harassing and playing pranks on Tsuyoshi knowing darn well Tsuyoshi could seriously hurt him when "triggered" usually gets him on the enraged Tsuyoshi's crosshairs or double-teamed by Sana and Akito.
• Catching Some Z's: He casually falls asleep during a church service that he and Hisae attend on Christmas Eve, complete with a stream of black Z's, much to Hisae's embarrassment.
• Delicate and Sickly: In the anime, according to his father, Gomi was physically weak and prone to getting sick when he was little, though his health had improved before the series started.
• The Dragon: He was this to Akito during the first arc of the series, as he was the most dominant of the boys after Akito.
• Dub Name Change: His first and last names were switched around for the dub, but he is always referred to as Gomi in both languages, with only his parents referring to him by his original first name "Shinichi" in the original Japanese release. This last name was also inexplicably changed from Shinichi to Senichi in the English dub. Meanwhile, in the Italian dub, he's known as George.
• Everyone's in the Loop: Hilariously averted with this guy, as he never realized how emotionally crippled Akito was until he watched the Christmas Eve TV drama that Sana dropped out of. Tsuyoshi, Aya, and Hisae are quick to point out the parallels between how everyone called him a monster and the similar scenario of what was presented during the drama. Meanwhile, Gomi has to repeatedly ask what they're all talking about.
• Gang of Bullies: He was among the Mooks of Akito's before he turned good. He's later seen reluctantly hanging out with a group of older middle school kids sometime before his elementary school graduation.
• Important Haircut: He actually gets a buzz cut once he enters middle school, though it's not something he's happy with.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Almost all of his Amusing Injuries are, in one way or another, always his own fault.
• Last-Name Basis: He is regularly referred to by his last name at school in the original release, though it becomes averted in the English dub.
• Meaningful Name: One of the translations for the Japanese word "Gomi" actually means trash or garbage, which is an accurate comparison of his personality throughout the first season. While it doesn't apply to his family, the fact that the English dub specifically gives him this as his first name makes it all the more hilarious.
• My Beloved Smother: Presumably, because he was a weak and sickly child, Gomi's parents, especially his mother, would often baby him while also giving him freedom in his school life. He was enrolled in Jinbou because the private school already has an escalator system to middle school. Once his health improved, his mother started to believe that Jinbou wasn't a good enough school for him, and she started pressuring him to apply himself at school more while at the same time holding him to the same level as his more intelligent older brother.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Gomi initially showed little remorse towards Akito about having his middle school gang beat him up or getting Akito framed and nearly expelled from school for his own shoplifting, believing that Akito was the one who ratted him out about his home life and future. Gomi then gets paranoid that Akito would actually tell the truth and completely rat on him about the shoplifting. Once it's revealed that Watanabe of class 2 was the one who squealed, Gomi actually starts to feel guilty and reluctantly clears everything up with his parents, the Hayamas, and the school.
• The Rival: Whenever the plot calls for it, he can turn into one for Akito. He tried to usurp Akito once he went soft, but was shown that he was ultimately too strong for him to take on. He later had Akito framed for shoplifting and got him pummeled by older and even stronger boys. In terms of the classroom's gender divide, he's more frequently shown to be this to Hisae, which slowly evolves into Belligerent Sexual Tension in the second season.
• Toxic Friend Influence: While it's clear that Akito's spiteful behavior was made up of his own decisions, it was Gomi who frequently took pleasure in fueling his actions further. When Akito decides to become a loner, he appoints himself as the new leader of the boys and promptly makes fun of him for it until Akito delivers one hell of a punch to him.
• The Starscream: He became pretty disgusted when Akito reformed, so he appoints himself as the boys' new leader the very next day and challenges Akito to a one-on-one fistfight.
• Vocal Dissonance: Like Akito, Gomi's voice in the English dub is clearly that of a man than an elementary school student.

The Boys of Class 3

"Those rowdy classroom distrupting monkey boys."

Itami voiced by: Keiko Amano (Japanese), Bill Townsley (English)

Yasuda voiced by: Mizue Nishimori (Japanese), Orion Pitts (English)

Kasuya voiced by: Yoshiro Matsumoto (Japanese), Chris Cason (English)

Kojima voiced by: Masaki Ishikawa (Japanese), Troy Baker (English)

Four of the many boys that helped Akito and Gomi terrorize their classroom, including Sojuro Itami (the boy with the red flat-top hair), Yukihiro Yasuda (the boy who usually wears a brightly-colored baseball cap, nicknamed Yunchi), Ryota Kasuya (The boy with the bowl cut), and Shohei Kojima (the boy with the slick dark hair). These boys all give Akito a high amount of praise and respect, but in reality, they all fear him.

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• Animal Motifs: With Akito being the "boss monkey", these dudes along with Gomi are often compared to monkeys, rowdy, mischievous, and stupid. All of them are even occasionally given monkey-like faces to cement the comparison.
• The Bully: All of them took great pleasure in spiting and tormenting their teachers and harassing their other classmates.
• Dirty Coward: When Gomi declares himself as the new "boss monkey" of the group, all of them are willing to go along with it, but as soon as Akito knocks him out, all of them come crawling back to him and admit that they always knew the knew he was the leader.
• The Ghost: Though never shown onscreen, Itami has a younger brother who is in kindergarten and is supposedly more popular than he is, getting Valentines Day chocolate from at least 10 different girls.
• Last-Name Basis: Like with Gomi, all of them are referred to by their last names.
• Mooks: They all served as this to Akito, but it's later shown that Sana can take them all on with no problem, especially once Akito backs down.
• Never Bareheaded: In his elementary school days, Yasuda always wears a baseball cap which makes him more distinguishable from his friends. It's averted once he enters middle school, as the school's dress code prevents him from wearing it.
• Recurring Extra: Not a single one of them is given any major focus when compared to Gomi. It's so bad that they aren't even named in the English dub, nor do they have their voice actors listed in said dub. Itami is debatably the easiest to recognize and as such is probably the most recurring out of all of the other boys.
• Shipper on Deck: In middle school, Yasuda seems to be unusually excited about Akito's relationship with Fuka and repeatedly tells him how lucky he is to have such a cute girlfriend.

Fuka Matsui

"The Osakan gal-pal first met in the bathroom in middle school."

Voiced by: Harumi Ikoma (Japanese), Debora Magnaghi (Italian)

The first friend Sana meets when she enters middle school, in the bathroom of all places. She previously lived in the Tokyo area before moving to Osaka, but then she moved back to start school. Although she shares a few the Osaka's stereotypes (the Boke and Tsukkomi Routine and the Kansai accent), she coupled with the class perfectly. She and Sana became best friends fast because they share some similar traits (physical and emotional). During the first days of school, she finds out that an old kindergarten classmate of hers was in the same grade and school as her — Akito Hayama, who stole her First Kiss. But as soon as she starts to know him, she starts to develop a special interest in him.

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• Academic Athlete: She is a good gymnast and a quite good student, too.
• Accent Adaptation:
  • The subs for the Discotek release of the second season give her a light New York accent that can be compared to the heavier New York accent that Funimation applied to Zenjiro's subtitles.
  • Done badly in the Italian dub. In the original, she has a Kansai accent, while her Italian voice actress gives her a blatantly fake pseudo-English accent.
• The Ace: While Sana, a trained child actress, may have all sorts of talents in the show business, Fuuka is naturally athletic, smart, and popular on the school grounds. No one has to wonder why so many of her classmates look up to her, and even Sana gets a little jealous of that aspect of Fuka.
• Adapted Out: Downplayed, because the English dub never went past episode 51, Fuka is never formally introduced in the Funimation release outside of cameos in the opening (which by default shows the second opening as the original was replaced due to Tokio's involvement), the post-ending sequence of the aforementioned episode, and a passing mention in all but name when talking about Akito's first kiss in kindergarten.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She starts showing some interest in Akito after she starts challenging him over her First Kiss grudge.
• Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Sana's Betty for Akito's Archie.
• Brainy Brunette: Looks very similar to Sana, but her hair is darker (brown instead of red) and she's also less dense than Sana. She is one of the smartest and more thoughtful students in her class.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She was first mentioned in passing after Akito first kissed Sana when two guys who knew Akito since kindergarten said he had his First Kiss then (also mentioning that it was for a bet). Of course, nobody expected her to actually show up...
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Akito, who went to kindergarten with her and was her First Kiss. She was mildly interested in Akito, and after he showed her how a good friend he could be, that same interest grew up. They eventually start dating after Akito jumps to conclusions about the "Sana was dating Naozumi"'s rumors. Of course, it didn't last.
• Control Freak: During her relationship with Akito, she often scolded him about how he was wearing their school's uniform.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Her father doesn't like Akito, and in one of the later episodes where Akito and Fuka are still dating, he blames him for Fuka's accident while she is in the hospital.
• Foil: To Sana. They have similar appearances and personalities, and both are pretty, popular, energetic, and outspoken girls. They both go from hating Akito to falling in love with him. However:
  • Fuka is Book Smart and exceptionally athletic, Sana is Book Dumb and minimally athletic.
  • Fuka is a normal (if brilliant) teenager who has never worked on TV, Sana is a famous actress, model, and idol.
  • Fuka has known Akito since kindergarten and was his First Kiss, but they were never close (before they start dating). Sana met Akito later but has a much deeper connection with him and they share an Unresolved Sexual Tension for the entire series.
  • Fuka is open about her feelings for Akito, while Sana is Oblivious to Love and doesn't realize Akito is in love with her for a long time.
• Genki Girl: To a lesser extent than Sana.
• Iconic Sequel Character: She doesn't appear until the second season, but is one of the most recognizable characters in the story, quickly becoming the new Best Friend and main romantic rival to Sana at the same time.
• The Idiot from Osaka: Subverted. Fuka lived in Osaka for a while, and she still has the Kansai accent, and while she is obnoxiously hyper (though not any less than Sana, whose personality and accent say "generic Tokyo area native character") and a bit boorish, she's quite clever, reliable, and more astute than Sana.
• Plucky Girl: Like Sana, she's usually optimistic.
• Replacement Goldfish: When Akito believed that Sana and Naozumi were together, he dated Fuka because, by a strange coincidence, she resembled Sana in both looks and personality. This is lampshaded by Fuka herself in the manga when she talks to Sana about how similar they both were. And then it's something she highlights to Akito when she wanted to understand him at the end.
• Romantic False Lead: She gets in the way of the Akito/Sana Will They or Won't They? relationship, becoming Akito's girlfriend for a while.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In middle school, she's a new classmate who immediately becomes Sana's best friend. As a result, Sana's female friends from elementary school are Demoted to Extra, except Aya who only stays around to be a Satellite Love Interest to Tsuyoshi (specifically, Hisae's appearances become greatly reduced from the New York arc onwards, and Mami completely disappears until the final two episodes of the show).
• Tsundere: Though more subtle about it than Sana.

Mitsuo Ishida

"The weird stalker with a major nasal problem."

Voiced by: Akemi Okamura (Japanese)

A fellow first-year at Jinbou Middle School who's in class 3. He's been a huge fan of Sana for years now and is frequently shown having nosebleeds as a result of his massive crush on Sana, something that begins to complicate things for her and Akito. In fact, he and Akito are driven into combat the first time they meet because of this. In the anime, he makes amends with Sana and Akito and becomes one of their new middle school friends. He is later offered to join their brand-new karate club as the assistant manager.

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• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Compared to all of the series' other characters, his eyebrows are very thick and dark.
• Knight of Cerebus: He shares this role with Mr. Sengoku to some extent, but he is indirectly responsible for many of the events that occur in the story after Sana rejects him. He eventually blabs about Sana's lie about dating Naozumi, which slowly creates a negative ripple effect for Sana, Akito, and all of their peers.
• Nose Bleed: Ishida has chronic nosebleeds when around Sana.
• Stalker with a Crush: For the first half of the middle school arc, he is shown secretly following Sana around wherever she goes.

Ms. Mitsuya and Mr. Tanaka

"Two soon-to-be-married lovestruck, yet inept teachers."

Ms. Mitsuya voiced by: Miho Nagahori (OVA), Azusa Nakao (Japanese), Ashley Gonzales (English), Loredana Nicosia (Italian)

Mr. Tanaka voiced by: Shigeru Nakahara (OVA), Mitsuo Iwata (Japanese), Chuck Huber (English), Patrizio Prata (Italian)

A fairly young couple that works in the elementary school as teachers, specifically a 6th-grade homeroom teacher and a P.E teacher respectively, and plan to marry soon. These two singlehandedly showed how much power Akito had over the school, as he caught the two "making out" in the nurse' office one day and used photos of the incident to blackmail the two teachers, forcing them to do whatever he and his goons wanted.

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• Adults Are Useless:
  • With the couple paralyzed by Akito capturing a photo of their scandalous make-out session, the two were absolutely powerless in trying to stop Akito and the other boys from distrupting the class, which preventing any teaching from getting done. It's not until Sana confronts Mr. Tanaka and gets him to reveal the root of the problem that he is any help, and even then Sana just has to take matters into her own hands.
  • It gets worse in the anime, the constant disruption in the classroom meant that the class was far behind in their studies, which meant Ms. Mitsuya nearly let her entire classroom fail as a result of her and Mr. Tanaka's carelessness. Another time has the couple start their own war between the classroom's girls and the boys simply because they feel the other gender should do the cleaning in the classroom, thus wasting more time and further holding the students back from learning.
• Anger Born of Worry: It's no surprise that Mr. Tanaka would be pissed off when he finds Sana and Akito after the two went missing during their school trip. Both teachers then force them to write an apology letter as punishment.
• Extreme Doormat: They are ignored and pushed around by almost everyone.
• Last-Name Basis: Justified, as they are both school teachers. While we never learn Ms. Mitsuya's first name, it's revealed in episode 33 that Mr. Tanaka's first name is Norio.
• Prone to Tears: Both of them, yes even Mr. Tanaka, with his case being Played for Laughs. Whether it be the overwhelming chaos caused by their male students or Ms. Andoh nagging at them for being horrible and incompetent teachers. Mr. Tanaka even cries every time he plays the harmonica.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: After failing to stop Akito and the other boys, Mr. Tanaka, pulls such pathetic Puppy-Dog Eyes that Sana has to tell him to stop because he's gonna make her cry.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: While normally not as bad as Tsuyoshi and Aya, the two teachers are often seen gazing into each other's eyes and getting pretty "intimate", even in front of their students.
• Teasing the Substitute Teacher: While neither of them were substitutes, both of them, especially Ms. Mitsuya, were originally subjected to similar if not even worse treatment by the boys than most substitute teachers were in most other media (being ignored, talking back, attacked with sand balloons and paint guns, etc.)

Ms. Sumire Andoh

"The world's bossiest teacher and ace limbo dancer."

Voiced by: Ai Satou (Japanese), Julie Mayfield (English)

"The lack of discipline in this school is disgraceful. This is a place of learning, not a social club. So from now on, all talking, laughing, and dancing, well.. except for the limbo, will be strictly and totally forbidden!"

A not-so-old lady who's generally considered to be the disciplinarian of Jinbou Elementary School. Despite being the principal's right-hand woman, she freely goes behind his back to ensure that the school is kept in order. She keeps her eyes on Class 3, believing the class is made up of nothing but failures and troublemakers. She's also not particularly fond of either Sana or Akito, the former for frequently slipping through the cracks of the school's standards as the result of being a celebrity (being late for school if not skipping it outright along with low grades in math) and the latter as a result of his past behavior and general attitude (often calling her a wrinkled-old hag). In the anime, however, she becomes absolutely nuts about Zenjiro after the first time they meet and is almost always around when he is looking for a date, whether he likes it or not. She's also a pro at limbo dancing, somehow.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Ms. Andoh falls madly in love with Zenjiro sometime after the Hula competition in episode 14.
• Adaptational Job Change: In the manga, she was merely another teacher, the homeroom teacher of Class 5 in fact. In the anime, her role in the school is never directly stated, but it's heavily suggested in later episodes that she's the vice principal.
• Ascended Extra: While her role still isn't exactly huge in the anime, she goes from simply having a few appearances in the summer vacation volume in the manga, to becoming a recurring character in the anime, even being the only teacher of the elementary school staff to make recurring appearances in the second season.
• Blatant Lies: In episode 24, Ms. Andoh manages to save face with the students by claiming her proficiency exam was just a ruse to get everyone to learn a lesson about friendship. And they buy it.
• Contortionist: She is extremely flexible, which is why she's good at limbo dancing. She was also able to bend herself to sneak under Ms. Mitsuya's desk to eavesdrop on the classroom.
• Cool Teacher: Episode 24 reveals that she actually wants to be this, despite her constant nagging and determination to keep the school in order. With a bit of manipulation from the students, either forcing her into a limbo dance, pleading with her to promote Sana to middle school or even a date with Zenjiro, she can indeed turn into this.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: She claims to have the heart of an angel, but she's almost always commanding and belittling to everyone, from students, teachers, and parents, and even "tries" to be this way towards Principal Narunaru.
• Expy: She's basically a heavily exaggerated yet ironically softer version of Mrs. Kyoto, the vice principal from Marmalade Boy.
• Gratuitous English: How she introduces herself to Zenjiro during their Christmas Eve blind date-turned-limbo fest in the Japanese release.
  Ms. Andoh: Yes, my name is Andoh Polynesian Sumire! Let's Limbo! Holy Night Special! Come! Come! Together!
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Her default mood is angry and nagging, and will instantly go on rants that are on par with Sana's.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Her actions in episode 33 are a lot more justified this time around. Class 3 was turning into a complete warzone again and both of the teachers involved were unprofessionally amping it up without any regard for the school's policies. She runs off to tattle to the principal, but he disregards it as something that'll get worked out eventually. She rightfully continues to keep an eye on this class, until Zenjiro appears that is.
• I Lied: Right after telling the students that her testing plan was approved by Principal Narunaru, she immediately tells Babbit that she "may" have told a little white lie, just for their sake. He was conveniently out of town when she planned all of this.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Both her first and last names are frequently spelled differently depending on the source. Her last name can switch between "Ando", "Andou", and "Andoh", while her first name will flip back and forth between having an "I" at the end of her name, and not having one.
• Kindness Button: Just the mere mention of Zenjiro's name is enough for her to calm down and make her less aggressive. Rei and Sana even exploit this to get Sana into middle school.
• Large Ham: With a voice that sounds like a wicked witch, to say that she's over-the-top would be a complete understatement.
• Stern Teacher: Parodied and subverted, in contrast to the fun and jolly Principal Narunaru, Ms. Andoh willingly acts like a demon just for the sake of the children. Her original goal for becoming a teacher was to make children happy, but she started becoming absurdly strict towards students and other teachers alike, worrying more about arbitrary grading and enforcing the rules. To drive the point home, episode 24 has her shift between a superhero and a demonic entity with an evil laugh in less than a single minute.
• Older Than They Look: She's always shown powdering her face which always manages to crack, revealing that she is in fact a skinnier, elderly grey-haired woman with even more wrinkles.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: As if she weren't intimidating enough, she often has her glasses shining while glaring to make her look more demonic.

Mr. Sengoku

Voiced by: Daiki Nakamura (Japanese), Giorgio Bonino (Italian), Ivo De Palma (Italian)

Akito, Tsuyoshi, and Aya's homeroom teacher in middle school. He has an inexplicably intense grudge against Akito and uses any opportunity he can to torment, humiliate, and even frame the boy.

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• Big Bad: He's the closest person this series has to a genuine main antagonist, starting in the manga's middle school arc and its corresponding anime season.
• Knight of Cerebus: Along with Ishida (to an extent) and Komori, he plays a major role in shaping the rest of the series' events, specifically from Akito's perspective. Most of Sengoku's scenes have a strong sense of hostility and uncomfortableness, especially with the way he treats Akito.
• Perpetual Frowner: He can give Akito a run for his money with how often he frowns and glares.
• Resigned in Disgrace: In the anime, He forces himself to resign from the school after it's revealed by Fuka that he manipulated a lot of the events that almost led to Akito's expulsion.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr. Sengoku is clearly built on hate towards his students when he gets introduced in the series. He's pretty indifferent towards the students but is shown to at least tolerate them. Akito is a completely different story, as he becomes his favorite victim because he reminds him of a guy he knew in high school.
  • And it turns to worse when Akito reveals an embarrassing secret about him to the whole class, something he provoked him to do beforehand. He goes so far as to take Akito to the Teacher’s Room not to talk to him BUT to punch him in the stomach. Then, he got him suspended when he fought back.
  • In the manga, things got very serious once Kazuyuki Komori disappears, since Sengoku does not trust Akito and believes he is much of an evil abuser and bad student. Once he loses the function of his right hand, Sengoku's actions get straight to abuse and humiliation. Sengoku takes advantage of the situation, when in class, he ends up forcing Akito to write his group's lab work on the chalkboard with his left hand. And when he makes some progress, Sengoku forces him to do it again because he "can't understand it". The rest of the class watches this with so much discomfort (however, after Akito finished, he ends up grading it as right^note Circle marks or "Marujirushi" mean as "correct answers"). No wonder why, when Sana hears about this, she becomes absolutely pissed off to know why he did it.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Moreseo in the already zany anime series than in the manga. Unlike most of the other conflicts, he is genuinely intimidating. He doesn't show any form of over-the-top humor like many of the other characters and is almost as threatening as Akito was early in the series.

Kazuyuki Komori

A mentally unstable boy around the same age as Akito.

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• Adapted Out: He doesn't exist at all in the anime, but he has an equivalent in the form of Shota Nakao.
• Disappeared Dad: His father isn't around because of work. The manga later has Kazuyuki reveal that his father is actually in prison.
• My Beloved Smother: His mother is fiercely overprotective.

Supporting Cast

Babbit

"The annoying and amazing know-it-all of a little white bat".

Voiced by: Tomoko Hikita (Japanese), Mayumi Akado (Japanese, ep. 21-24), Chris Cason (English), Luca Bottale (Italian)

"Babbit's here to keep things rockin' and set things straight! You know it! Lemme hear you say yeah!"

A rare creature exclusive to the anime that's basically a white bat with long, pointy rabbit-like ears (hence the name, "Babbit"), Babbit serves as the mascot, narrator, and arguably the Straight Man of the anime series. He always tries to seek the attention of many of the other characters, and while he can be just as loud and rambunctious as most of the others, he usually just likes to put his two cents into everything going on around him, popping in at least once every one or two minutes. He also has an entire extended family who appears in later episodes, including an American relative and an Evil Doppelgänger.

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• Attention Whore: When he's not mocking or teasing the other characters, he's usually trying to be this. Best shown in episode 20, where he makes the contestants guess his name and gets upset when no one gets it right.
• Audience Surrogate: Sometimes. For example, in one of Sana's monologues, she suddenly starts to talk about a random movie (never mentioned before) in which she previously acted in, which was, according to Sana "very famous". Babbit comments: "Actually, I had never heard about it".
• Brutally Honest: If you thought Akito was bad, Babbit makes him look shy. Babbit will, sometimes unknowingly, spit out the truth about the other characters to tease or even outright spite them.
• Canon Foreigner: He was made specifically for the anime to have a mascot, as a request from the show's sponsor.
• Continuity Cameo: Even though he doesn't exist in the manga continuity, the anime proved popular enough to have Miho Obana draw him a couple of times as a cameo, more prominently on the group character portrait cover, which was the last color cover of the series.
• Deadpan Snarker: He wouldn't be the same narrator without his sarcastic one-liners.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Black Babbit, one of the few babbits introduced in Season 2 who's more or less around just to screw with our main Babbit.
• Eyes Always Shut: Unless he's been spooked or left in shock, his eyes are almost always closed.
• Greek Chorus: He provides commentary on some of the events of the episode, often breaking the fourth wall with the viewer and the characters themselves to comment on their actions.
• Large Ham: Even though he is supposed to be the Straight Man of the anime, he's prone to having the same amount of loud outbursts and scenery chewing as the rest of the cast.
• Lemony Narrator: On top of the commentary, he regularly breaks the fourth wall and even interacts with the characters every once in a while, sometimes blending in too well.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: He's simply a hybrid of a bat and a rabbit, though he leans more towards a bat-like appearance.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He's usually not relevant to the story, only fully interacting with the characters in small scenes and in recap episodes, but he provides comic relief with his hilarious snarking.
• Series Mascot: Of the anime, and he makes an effort to remind people of that.
• Talking Animal: A cross between a rabbit and a bat who serves as the narrator.

Zenjiro

Voiced by: Zenjiro (Japanese), Sonny Strait (English), Diego Sabre (Italian)

"Okay! Showtime! Let's give those kids at home what they want! Me and Sana, a winning team!"

Appearing exclusively in the anime series is the host of Child's Toy. He's The Chew Toy of the anime, as almost nothing ever goes right for him. While regularly sharing the stage with her, he is usually paired with Sana in related side projects, though he often tends to get the short end of the stick in most of them.

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• Accent Adaptation: Like his namesake voice actor, he speaks in an Osaka dialect in the original Japanese release. In turn, the subtitles of the Funimation release give him a very distinct New York accent.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: In episode 23, After missing lunch, Zenjiro stumbles across Sana's biological half-sister, Mariko, who just wants to see Sana. Zenjiro is forced to take care of her until she finds her mother and father and she spends the entire time annoying him to death by just being a Bratty Half-Pint. Everyone else thought she was missing, and what they didn't know is that he took Mariko to his apartment after work to call her parents. This ends with the police raiding the apartment and Zenjiro receiving a punch in the face from Mariko's father, believing he kidnapped her.
• Canon Foreigner: Like Babbit, he was made exclusively for the anime. However, unlike Babbit, he doesn't make any cameos in the manga.
• The Chew Toy: Between many of the side gigs he's forced to take on as well as the media trying to dig through his personal life, especially his almost nonexistent love life, this guy just can't catch a break. The best example of this would have to be all throughout episode 23, where he clearly had a bad day.
• Fat and Skinny: Oftens forms the skinny part of the pair whenever he's around his overweight manager Sanekichi Higashiyamoto.
• Goofy Buckteeth: His standout trait is that he has a very pronounced overbite, which is almost a rarity in anime.
• The Host: Of the In-Universe TV show, Child's Toy. He and Babbit also co-host the recap episode "Sana's Super Happy Quiz Show".
• Plucky Comic Relief: From his goofy voice, his giant buck teeth, his inability to attract women his age, and the media trying to follow him everywhere he goes, there's hardly anything about this guy that can be taken seriously.
• Thememobile: He uses a red helicopter that shares his hairstyle and ridiculously large teeth.

Naozumi Kamura

"Fellow child actor, trumpet player, and handsome dreamboat."

Voiced by: Omi Minami (Japanese), Chris Patton (English), Anna Maria Tulli (Italian)

"You know, it's nice that you think of him as a brother, but I just want to say for the record that I've never really thought of you as a sister, and I think we could be so much more than that."

A handsome child actor whose popularity is as great as Sana's. He introduces himself as a person who "knows her secret" and confesses to Sana that they share a bond and that he likes her. They first met when they were babies at a time they both coincided at Kamura Institution, the orphanage he took his last name from. They both share a bond that initially took off from the moment he started looking up to her, and when he became inspired to follow her same steps into acting. But they weren't meant to be together as Sana, oblivious to his feelings, just sees him as a friend and as a brother of sorts.

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• Ascended Extra: Especially in the anime. In the first half of the episodes, he's a recurring character who only appears occasionally. In the second half (when Sana starts to go to middle school), he is Sana's regular co-star at work and an active part of the Love Triangle, until becoming the deuteragonist in the New York story arc. He's eventually Put on a Bus before the last twelve episodes.
• Better as Friends: How Sana feels about him. He is in love with her, but she only likes him as a friend.
• Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Akito's Veronica for Sana's Archie.
• But Not Too Foreign: His fans think he is a foreign prince, although his biological roots are still a mystery. The anime plays with this as a vital plot point of the New York arc, since it's discovered that he has a Japanese mother (a failed theater actress), and an American father (a famous Broadway producer).
• Celeb Crush: He watched Sana perform from a very young age, and grew up having a huge crush on her, something that motivated him to become a child star as well to get closer to her.
• Chick Magnet: Naozumi clearly has fangirls around him (even though he only has eyes for Sana) because he is a child actor who is kind, and looks very cute and pretty.
• Devoted to You: In the special Misty Blue one-shot of Deep Clear, Shuri (the protagonist of Honey Bitter) finds out that Naozumi is still too devoted to Sana (even after a decade since he confessed his love to her). His relationship with a man is the only way he could feel "happy" in a romantic relationship... because if he fell in love with another girl, he wouldn't stop remembering his feelings towards Sana.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He shares a bond with Sana, but not as he thought it was. He thinks he is more fit than Akito because they share the same career path and a similar past background; however, Sana only looks at him as a friend or as a brother... not as a boyfriend.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Naozumi has very feminine features that make him look "pretty", so much so that he was actually mistaken for a girl by Sana at one point in the manga. There's a high chance that, if he wasn't famous and didn't dress in a masculine manner, other people would easily confuse him with a girl.
• Dub Name Change: In the Italian dub, he's known as Charles.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He has blue eyes that coincide with his naivety, and he often possesses a pure soul that cannot be shattered by any of his "evil" intentions. However, as Shuri points out in "Misty Blue", his eyes are also "painfully beautiful", and that there is a darkness that lay from time to time on his aura.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Naozumi eventually gives up his love pursuit for Sana, only to see her happy with the boy she truly loves.
• Nice Guy: He really cares about Sana. Quite a lot, actually.
• Parental Abandonment: He was abandoned at the Kamura Institution orphanage when he was just a baby. However, when he grows up, he doesn't show any interest in looking for his biological parents. And in the anime, he finds them out by accident in the New York arc; his real mother abandoned him to give more priority to her acting career in the U.S., and because he was her love child with Gary Hamilton, a famous Broadway producer.
• Pretty Boy: He's noted to have the face and hair of an angel, and being a celebrity means that he has loads of obsessive fangirls who fawn over him, including Aya, Hisae, and Mami.
• Prone to Tears: He was kind of a crybaby when he was much younger, believe it or not. He gets embarrassed about the fact because it hasn't completely gone away.
• Romantic False Lead: While Sana and Akito were always meant to be the Official Couple, he was clearly the most prominent out of Sana's other admirers and, at least for a while, an obstacle to Sana's Relationship Upgrade with Akito along with Fuka, especially in the anime. It doesn't help that he and Sana often end up playing on-screen couples due to their job.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Sana's Energetic Girl.
• Security Blanket: His trumpet, which is his go-to item any time he feels upset or stressed out.
• Spear Counterpart: To Sana, at least in social status. He's a popular male child actor and was raised in an orphanage like Sana (the same orphanage).
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The long fourteen-episode New York story arc is all about him and Sana in another city, while the series deuteragonist and main Love Interest Akito as well as most of the other characters are all Put on a Bus. Averted after they come back since his relationship with Sana doesn't last, leaving Akito to be a prominent character again.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: He grew up in the same orphanage Sana was once in, although she was there for a very brief period of time, and they never met in the orphanage. The result of his confession and Sana's realization of her feelings for Akito varies in the manga (their friendship is broken briefly, and eventually gives her up) and the anime (they start dating after the story arc in New York but he breaks up with her a few episodes later, because he eventually realizes that she didn't get over Akito and she still shares a stronger bond with Akito.

Asako Kurumi

"Drama actress extraordinaire and Rei's secret girlfriend."

Voiced by: Akemi Okamura (OVA), Azusa Nakao (Japanese), Luci Christian (English), Elda Olivieri (Italian)

Sana's favorite actress and as it turns out, Rei's high school girlfriend. Asako is "supposedly" the reason Rei went through a bad luck storm in his life after their breakup, which only happened due to her wanting to pursue and focus on an acting career in high school. Now an established drama actress, and in the middle of a TV drama film recording, she not only meets Sana but also reunites with Rei. After their reconciliation, she is dating Rei in secret. Mostly because Rei doesn't want themselves to be involved in any scandal that would harm her or Sana in one way or another.

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• Advertised Extra: Specifically in the anime's first season, where she appears frequently in advertising and is featured prominently in the first intro. Asako's only major appearances in the first season are during her introduction arc, and in episode 30.
• Cool Big Sis: She's Sana's favorite actress, but had mixed feelings about her taking Rei from her. Once all of that gets cleared up, Sana starts looking up to Asako more, such as when they start filming The Mansion of Water. Asako helps her realize her feelings towards Akito after she gets sentimentally hurt about him dating Fuka because Sana loves him.
• Dude Magnet: As expected of a famous actress, she gets the attention of many men... be it her own castmates (as Kawai, on the film set of The Mansion of Water) or other celebrities (as shown in the anime, with Takuya Kimuchi).
• Long-Distance Relationship: Her relationship with Rei after they reconcile, since Asako is an actress (who has to move around a lot) and they are supposedly dating "in secret".
• Old Flame: Her breakup with Rei happened not so long after she expressed to him that she wanted to pursue an acting career seriously. Many years after this, and after many things that happened, they reunite to clear up some misunderstandings about their breakup, mostly because they still felt something for each other ever since.
• The Scapegoat: Even though she was only responsible for breaking up with him, Rei still blamed everything else (his parent's death, becoming bankrupt and homeless) on her, just to make himself feel better.

Ryousuke Kashima

"Misako's ex-husband, the gambling, money-hungry jiggalo."

Voiced by: Kenjirou Tsuda (Japanese) Mike McFarland (English)

Misako's ex-husband, who's infamous for his gambling addiction leaving him without even a one-yen coin. He often drops by on Misako and Sana asking and attempting to manipulate them into giving him some money, only for someone to knock or even blow him out of the house.

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• Amicable Exes: Despite being divorced, he's still pretty friendly towards Misako and is even happy for her for being able to find a child, but it's more than likely because he knows she's loaded and is just simply trying to get on her good side for some cash.
• Determinator: In the anime, as many times as he keeps getting thrown out of the house, he'll eventually come back with some sort of scheme to try and get some dough out of Misako or Sana.
• Everyone Has Standards: In episode 27, even he starts to feel uncomfortable when he gets Sana involved in a shady secret society's show time business, though it turns out that they were made up of nothing but a bunch of softies who planned shows for weddings.
• Schemer: He'll pull any trick in the book just to get some money out of the Kuratas. He gives Sana a rabbit doll that she didn't even realize was a mini-bank

Shizuka Kurata

"Misako's mother, Kurata matriarch, and hot spring owner."

Voiced by: Hisako Kyouda (Japanese) Juli Erickson (English)

Misako's elderly mother, Sana's grandmother-by-adoption, and the owner of the 300-year old Kurata family hot spring in Kusatsu. She's desperately attempting to get Misako to move back to Kusatsu so she can take over the family's inn before she passes on, but Misako refuses, wanting to instead live her carefree lifestyle. She frequently plots to get Misako to marry Kusatsu-native men who are similar in stature to Ryousuke, thinking she'll be more motivated to move back with them. With all of this going on, Shizuka had previously seen Sana only three times in her life and eventually sees Sana as an equally good candidate to take over the inn.

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• Canon Foreigner: She's one of the many anime-exclusive characters.
• Cool Old Lady: She wears roller-skates in public and has some of the same ridiculous props as Misako. This is also an old woman who's willing to go to war with the yakuza to protect her granddaughter and her soon-to-be-boyfriend.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Shizuka is shorter than all of the other Kurata family members, including Sana.
• Schemer: This is sadly the only way she can keep her family's 300-year old hot spring afloat, at least under the Kurata name. She keeps attempting to find a suitor for Misako in hopes of her moving back to Kusatsu. When that fails, she goes as far as to plan an arranged marriage for Sana.
• My Beloved Smother: Shizuka is often trying to get Misako to take on the responsibilities of running the family hot springs. When this fails, Shizuka tries it on Sana. It doesn't work either.
• Shipper on Deck: Like her daughter, she supports the idea of her granddaughter and her stoic best friend becoming a couple, even giving Sana the exact same advice Misako gave her.
• Thicker Than Water: Even if they do nothing but bicker and argue when they're around each other, it's a given that Shizuka and Misako still care for each other.

Mayu Tobita

"The pretty, competitive, and harsh tween actress."

Voiced by: Kaori Asoh (Japanese), Leah Clark (English)

A fellow child actress who's extremely vain and competitive. She's jealous that she has to share the spotlight with Sana and Tomomi and becomes bitter when Sana steals almost all of her scenes and every bit of attention is put on our absent-minded heroine. She also has a crush on Naozumi, which only makes her despise Sana even more when he focuses his attention on her.

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• Alpha Bitch: She's extremely self-centered and shows little regard for anyone aside from her mother and Naozumi.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Despite her disdain for Sana, she's actually slightly amused by her antics, as shown after Sana apologizes for being a looney goofball. She eventually becomes less stuck-up and starts getting along with her.
• Evil Counterpart: To Sana. Another popular tween actress, but she's a narcissistic Alpha Bitch instead of a friendly and well-meaning Genki Girl like Sana.
• Punctuality Is for Peasants: Mayu intentionally shows up late for a recording session for this reason. She's disappointed when Sana shows up even later, except that, in Sana's case, it was accidental.
• Spoiled Brat: She's pampered by her mother who often demands the producers to make Mayu the main focus in everything she has a role in.
• Unknown Rival: Mayu is shown from the minute she meets Sana that she isn't fond of her, and Sana just doesn't get the message that doesn't like her.
• Tsundere: A pure Type A, she's mean, bossy, and very irate, however, shows her soft side around Naozumi and by the end of the episode is actually shown to respect Sana for her hyper and bubbly personality.

Tomomi Ayanohanamarukouji

"The friendly girl with the really long name."

Voiced by: Tomomi Nishimura (Japanese), Brina Palencia (English)

Another child actress who, unlike Mayu, is friendly and respectful, if not a bit persistent. She joins Sana and Mayu in forming the Three Teens group.

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• Nice Girl: Unlike Mayu, she's quiet, polite, and doesn't get into arguments or competition with the other girls. Babbit even makes a joke about her lack of attitude.
• Only Sane Woman: In the "Three Teens" group. Since Sana is a huge Cloudcuckoolander and Mayu is a huge Alpha Bitch, she's easily the most calm and normal of the three young actresses.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: In a rather literal application of the trope, her full name becomes simply Tomomi Ayano in the English dub.

Sana's Biological Family

Keiko Sakai

Voiced by: Mika Doi (Japanese), Amy Rosenthal (English), Anna Bonel (Italian)

Sana's biological mother, who gave birth to her and then gave her up when she was barely 14 years old. She fell in love with Sana's father at some point at a young age, and when it got too serious, she eventually found out she was pregnant and became too scared to tell anyone. She had the baby all on her own and was so scared that she decided to leave the baby out on a park bench. Eleven years later, now married with another daughter, she discovers that her all-but-forgotten first-born child is now one of the most iconic child actresses in Japan, and at least wants the chance to make things right.

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• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Keiko is 25 years old, while Sana is 11 when she first meets her, a 14-year gap. When comparing her to Sana, Keiko could easily be mistaken for her older sister at first glance rather than her mother.
• Apologises a Lot: The result of frequently feeling guilty about a lot of the mistakes that she made in the past while trying to be polite at the same time. Even though Sana is happy for her and tells her she doesn't have to apologize, she just felt guilty about abandoning Sana and having a great life without her.
• Happily Married: She has a wedding ring on her finger, confirming that she's married. Her husband actually turns up in the anime while looking for their daughter, Mariko. It's later revealed that Keiko found peace for the first time in her life when she met her husband, who still loved her regardless of what happened to her in the past. He's just as quiet as Keiko, until his daughter is in danger.
• Long-Lost Relative: She turns up after Misako's book, My Daughter and I is published, and was given proof of her relation after telling her about Sana's birthmarks. Even after spending time with her, Sana gently declines living with her and tells her that they can't see each other anymore, explaining that she can't view Keiko as her mother and that the mother who raised her is her real mother. Sana still thanks Keiko and tells her that she's grateful that she gave birth to her.
• Parental Neglect: While she herself is a decent mother to Mariko, Keiko herself was actually a victim of this. Her mother was hardly ever around, often working or staying with a boyfriend, and she never got the chance to meet her father. In the anime, she was alone all of the time until she met Takeshi, but she was raised in the manga by her uncle, which led to a twisted "relationship".
• Parents as People: She's not a bad person at all, but being a teenager, she couldn't raise Sana at all, and at times she can barely handle Mariko in the anime, even as a full-grown adult.
• Rape as Backstory: In the manga, it's suggested that Keiko was groomed, if not raped by her uncle, though she loved her uncle so much that she never said a word to anyone about it.
• Shrinking Violet: She's extremely timid and quiet, the exact opposite of Sana.
• Surprise Pregnancy: Keiko just assumed she was ill and didn't even know she was pregnant until she gave birth to Sana.
• Teen Pregnancy: As mentioned above, she was merely fourteen years old, barely a young teen when she had Sana.

Mariko Sakai

"Keiko's youngest daughter, an adorable little sister figure."

Voiced by: Ayaka Saitou (Japanese), Tierney Titus (English)

Keiko's younger daughter and Sana's biological half-sister, a cute and sweet toddler but a bit of a brat when around other people. Like most little girls around her age, she's a huge fan of Sana.

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• A Day in the Limelight: The anime's 23rd episode focuses on her going missing after wanting to find Sana and spend time with her. She ends up spending the day with Zenjiro, who's frantically trying to find her parents.
• Bratty Half-Pint: At least around Zenjiro, who she manages to give a very bad day.
• Unknown Relative: While Sana doesn't view Keiko as her mother, Mariko is openly acknowledged by Sana as her little sister, even if she doesn't exactly feel right about it. However, Mariko never finds out that Sana is her older sister.

Takeshi Gojo

"A mysterious, but surprise-loving, friendly guy."

Voiced by: Hiroshi Takahashi (Japanese), John Gremillion (English), Giorgio Bonino (Italian)

An actor Sana works with in the Late Night Murder Mystery series who turns out to be her's biological father and literally overnight becomes her second "boyfriend". In the anime, it was he who turned out to be Keiko's first love.

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• The Cameo: He makes small blink-and-miss appearances in episode 80, long after his arc ended. Here, his death is acknowledged by giving him a small halo around his head.
• Canon Foreigner: He's actually exclusive to the anime. While Sana having a father is inevitable even in the manga, he is never actually seen in that continuity. Takeshi, on the other hand, is actually a completely separate character from the man who impregnated Keiko in the manga.
• Fatal Method Acting: An in-universe example, as he dies in Sana's arms after succumbing to his illness.
• May–December Romance: His relationship with Keiko was this in the anime, as he was at least 30 years old when she was 14. Whether or not he actually saw Sana as a potential romantic partner before finding out that he was her daughter is up for debate.
• Long-Lost Relative: He is indeed Sana's biological father in the anime, but out of respect, no one tells this to her.

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