Characters / My Senpai Is Annoying

Characters from My Senpai Is Annoying.

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Futaba Igarashi

Futaba Igarashi (五十嵐双葉)

Voiced by: Haruka Shiraishi (manga PV), Tomori Kusunoki (anime) (Japanese), Risa Mei (English)

The protagonist of the series; a short-statured salarywoman trying to make it big in her career.

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• A-Cup Angst: In addition to her small height, Futaba has very small breasts that she has a complex over. The fact that her best friend outside of work and her closest female colleague are both well-endowed annoys her more than a little. When she overhears Takeda saying that she doesn't have breasts, she actually scratches his face bad enough that he needs several bandages.
• Animal Motifs: Cats, showing her affectionate yet prickly nature.
• Berserk Button:
  • Under no circumstances should anyone make fun of her for having small breasts. Takeda did so, with the result that she suddenly grew Creepy Long Fingers and spoke in the Voice of the Legion.
  • Likewise, she doesn't like being reminded of her small height, especially when other characters treat her like a child.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: Played with. She's actually able to drink a lot of alcohol, but this is relative to her body weight. Therefore she can't outdrink someone as massive as Takeda, but she can keep up easily with Natsumi or Sakurai.
• Catchphrase: In response to people taking pictures of her, she yells "No photos" to them.
• Childhood Friend: She has been a childhood friend to Natsumi since middle school.
• Color Motifs: She’s most commonly associated with green, the color of her hair and eyes. She sometimes has purple items like her phone or her hair tie, which represent Takeda.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Her green eyes match her green hair.
• Cute Little Fangs: She has a single fang that reinforces her youthful appearance.
• Everyone Can See It: No matter how hard she denies it, everyone around her can tell she likes Takeda. Unfortunately, Takeda himself seems to be unaware of her affections.
• Friend to All Children: She relinquishes her scarf to help out a young girl who lost her own. Takeda is impressed upon witnessing this, and embarrasses Futaba upon recounting it to her colleagues.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Her bed is covered in various stuffed animals, which highlight her childish image, both in body and personality.
• Height Angst: She is very small, to the point she gets regularly mistaken for an elementary schooler. As such, Futaba begins to develop self-esteem issues regarding her stature, and takes offense to anyone who comments on it.
• Love Epiphany: In Chapters 199 and 200, Futaba calls Natsumi to ask her opinion on a conversation she and Takeda had over him getting a girlfriend in the future. Takeda made the comment that he already had Futaba as a "companion", and that if Futaba found someone, he'd think about it. Natsumi then asks Futaba how she felt when he made the comment, and then after a bit of Futaba's hemming and hawing, Natsumi ends the call, asking Futaba to think about it on her own; that it was important to realize her feelings herself. Chapter 200 has Futaba come to the full-blown realization that she does, indeed, love Takeda during a conversation with him the next day.
• Ma'am Shock: Inverted for her, as she actually loves it when a boy calls her "ma'am," since by doing so, he's acknowledging her as an adult.
• The Napoleon: She's as small as a child, with the appearance of one too, especially in regards to being practically flat-chested. All of this combines to make her constantly envious of the women around her who grew to have more mature bodies, and she utterly hates being demeaned as if she was a child.
• Nice Girl: She is ceaselessly nice and accommodating to everybody around her, to the point she feels horrible any time she makes a mistake that results in her coworkers and boss potentially looking bad, and will always do her best to make amends for any perceived mess-up she makes even if nobody else faults her for slipping up. Also, even if she's a massive Tsundere towards Takeda and often gets irritated by his denseness, she cherishes their friendship and feels guilty about how she often needs to rely on him, even though he's doing so willingly and happily as a Nice Guy himself.
• Oblivious to Love: Invoked. Frustrated at how she was apparently the only person in the office to not see Sakurai and Kazama's affections for each other especially after the two are now officially dating, she reassessed her feelings for Takeda with Natsumi, which led to her Love Epiphany. She also never picked up on Natsumi's hints of being attracted to her.
• Older Than They Look: She's 23, but has retained the same childlike appearance throughout her life since she entered primary school, something that ends around age 12 in Japan, and a flashback shows that she was already shorter than average back then.
• The Paralyzer: She's able to deliver a neck chop so powerful it can even knockout Takeda in a single strike.
• Prone to Tears: Part of her Womanchild mindset is that she's more emotionally vulnerable than her fellow adult co-workers, so things like disappointing the people she cares about, getting sick, being picked on, seeing a scary movie, and other worrying scenarios turn her into a blubbering mess who really wants somebody to comfort and reassure her.
• Raised by Grandparents: Every time a flashback to her childhood is shown, the only parental figure she's displayed having is her grandfather, and given how he takes being a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad and Papa Wolf to the extreme, heavily implies her parents passed away when she was young.
• Stronger Than They Look: Takeda notes she has very strong grip strength, when angry she's able to tackle Kazama to the ground, and she was capable of knocking out Takeda with a neck chop when she sought to delete embarrassing texts off his phone.
• Sweet Tooth: Futaba loves sugary foods. In one chapter, she loaded up her coffee with all the sugar cubes in the container. Takeda occasionally teases her about her fondness for sweets.
• Supreme Chef: Every single kind of food she makes has consistently been noted by everybody whose tasted them to be utterly amazing, with Takeda and Natsumi being the ones who most often get to enjoy what she makes and always singing high praises. It makes her both happy and embarrassed, especially when anybody, Takeda in particular, notes how she'd make a great wife with those skills.
• Token Mini-Moe: At 127 cm or 4'2", Futaba is by far the smallest character in the series, with even the rather short highschooler Yuuto being a few centimeters taller. Said size is something that she really hates and gets angry about whenever anybody brings it up.
• Tsundere: She utterly refuses to acknowledge that she's fallen for Takeda, no matter how often she gets depressed when she believes he doesn't see her as a woman, as when she perks back up she immediately makes excuses that she just wants him to respect her as an adult, not a potential lover.
• Womanchild: No matter how hard she tries to get people to see her as an adult despite looking like a kid, she has numerous childish traits, such as loving cute plushes, responding like a bratty kid when coddled, and overall having an attitude more in line with an Adorably Precocious Child than a proper adult woman, that make the people around her unable to help but treat her like one.

Harumi Takeda

Harumi Takeda (武田晴海, Takeda Harumi)

Voiced by: Takaya Kuroda (manga PV), Shunsuke Takeuchi (anime) (Japanese), Patrick Seitz (English)

Futaba’s senpai at work. He’s always looking out for her and loves spending time with her, in and out of work.

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• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: He has a near-compulsion to pet Futaba's head and ruffle her hair, whether as a sign of appreciation or (platonic) affection to her, though also because their disparate sizes make it so easy to do.
• Animal Motifs: He’s often compared to a bear due to his large and intimidating presence.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In general, Takeda is a nice guy to be around. However, should anyone do anything to hurt Futaba, he won’t hesitate to get serious. He once judo flipped a guy on his back for filming up Futaba’s skirt and he also teamed up with Futaba’s grandfather to stop a group of high schoolers who were harassing her.
• Big Eater: Has a daily 4000+ calorie intake to maintain the workout routine that gives him a Heroic Build.
  Takeda: "I'll have five Jaja King Burgers and three orders of fries."
• The Big Guy: Towers over everyone else in the office (especially Futaba), and practices judo. Comes in useful when a pervert tries to take upskirt photos of her.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Because he's an honest extrovert, he tends to blurt out everything that happens between him and Futaba on a regular basis.
• Celibate Hero: While at first glance it appears that his Oblivious to Love status also extends to being a Chaste Hero who fails to even comprehend sex appeal, let alone Futaba's self-esteem-ruining lack of it, the Beach Episode has him note that he's just like the other guys in being very aware of both the appeal in curvy bodies and how Futaba feels unconfident in her childlike appearance, he just doesn't view sex appeal anywhere near as interesting or important as the personality and actions of a woman. So rather than being completely oblivious to sex and romance, he's just waiting for the right woman to love while failing to realize Futaba is that woman.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first few chapters of the manga he actually wasn't Oblivious to Love, and he was actually a rather notable example of The Tease towards Futaba, with said teasing making it clear that he recognizes the potential for her to be in love with him. But somewhere around Chapter 10 that went away, and he became completely oblivious to her growing feelings while also being more platonic in his teasing. Said solidification of his obliviousness was retroactively applied to those early chapters when adapted into the anime.
• Chick Magnet: Several of the office ladies are attracted to Takeda and try to celebrate his major work achievements with invitations to a sake bar or karaoke club.
• Color Motifs: His signature color is purple. He’s often seen wearing a purple tie for work and wears a purple scarf during wintertime. He gets a tie from Futaba for Christmas, which is purple with a few green stripes near the bottom.
• Ditzy Genius: He's a major case of The Reliable One, having the smarts to do most of his company's work personally without too much effort, and he has the diligence necessary to keep at said work until it's done, but he's severely lacking in common sense, being so honest that he can't comprehend secrecy, never thinking to fix any personal problems until somebody else points them out and guides him through it, and he sometimes does things based on bizarre logic that can cause himself major problems.
• Friendly Rivalry: He develops a bit of a competitive streak towards Futaba's grandfather after they got off on the wrong foot, but once they settle down to chat, and especially after they team up to protect Futaba from some bullies, they develop a mutually respectful bond over how much they care about Futaba.
• Gag Penis: Yuuto inadvertently discovered when Takeda stood up in a hot-spring that all parts of his body are massive.
• Gentle Giant: He positively towers over everybody else in the office, along with every other person seen in the story besides Futaba's grandfather, and his massive body can be rather intimidating at first glance, but a single conversation with him makes it very apparent that he's a gentle and caring man, with Futaba in particular finding his presence calming and supportive. Just because he's gentle doesn't mean he's harmless, though, as he's a judo practitioner who is both capable and willing to throw his weight around if he's given a good reason to.
• Heroic Build: He's a massive man made up of solid muscle comparable to an Olympian god, which causes the Huge Guy, Tiny Girl dynamic between him and the small and childlike Futaba to be even more notable.
• Hopeless with Tech: The story zigzags this a bit, as he's shown quite capable of working complicated computer software, but when he first got a smartphone after years of using an old company phone, he was at a complete loss how to do anything more complicated than calling people, with it taking Kazama helping him out for 5 minutes before he could even send a simple text saying "thanks". The fact he's later shown with a better hang on using the smartphone implies that he flounders with new tech but is a decently fast learner with good memory for fine details.
• Hunk: He's tall with a Heroic Build, and this has attracted several office ladies at his workplace.
• The Hyena: He has a habit of belting out a hearty and enthusiastic laugh for almost any reason, ranging from general amusement to happiness at Futaba finding her footing in their job. It's one of the major things that make Futaba think he's so annoying.
• Japanese Ranguage: He's able to speak and understand English, but seems to have problems pronouncing the "v" in the Govadi brand of chocolates.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: While he isn’t Futaba’s boyfriend, Takeda displays similar personality traits to Futaba’s grandfather. Both are loud and boisterous and neither can resist tousling her hair. They also almost get into a fight because they both think they’re protecting Futaba from a creepy guy.
• Nice Guy: He doesn't have a single mean or jealous bone in his body, always being polite and courteous while lending a hand in any way he can, especially when it comes to helping his beloved kouhai. But don't mistake his kindness and submissive attitude as meaning he's a doormat, as he is perfectly capable of and willing to use his massive body to fight if it means keeping his loved ones like Futaba safe.
• Oblivious to Love: The man cannot get it through his head that Futaba has a crush on him.
• The Reliable One: A big part of why Futaba fell for him is that he takes his Nice Guy status to the extreme, being skilled enough at his job he can help in all areas, always being there to support his co-workers, and especially how much of a supportive senpai he is to her. It's to the point that he's always been something of a pillar for his company ever since he was hired, consistently working without a day of sick-leave, which makes his turn of illness in the Sick Episode quite shocking to the others.
• Through His Stomach: If asked what he finds most reliable about Futaba, he'll often lighten the mood by declaring she's a fantastic chef.
• Tsundere: While he normally exhibits an Oblivious to Love attitude when it comes to Futaba, when he receives a New Years fortune saying "the person for you is right next to you" while with Futaba, he brushes it off and tries to avoid thinking about it, hinting at the possibility that he does like Futaba romantically, but just like her he refuses to accept the idea. Also, when Futaba goes to a New Year’s party with a friend, Natsumi comments on him looking lonely without her. His response is to insist how used to her presence he is and not having her around “throws off his groove”.

Touko Sakurai

Touko Sakurai (桜井桃子, Sakurai Tōko)

Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (manga PV), Saori Hayami (anime) (Japanese), Jennifer AuBuchon (English)

One of Futaba's senpais, a sweet and kind officelady whom is often hounded by requests of dating. Has a huge crush on Kazama but is unable to tell him straight.

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• All Just a Dream: Dreamt of having Kazama's arms wrapped around her shoulder after falling asleep on him while on a train.
• Berserk Button: Trying to give hints to Kazama about her true feelings for him? Good luck, a demon might just be right behind you.
• Big-Breast Pride: Kazama's Eating the Eye Candy towards her buxom figure is not overlooked by her, which she enjoys when he stares at her but gets aggressively defiant when he looks at other girls' breasts.
  Sakurai: The only time you look happy is when you're staring at my chest.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She has an ample bust, which is a major reason she's considered so attractive, with Kazama often being unable to resist staring at her chest. This is also an endless source of jealousy from the flat-chested Futaba.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Though she's communicated her desire repeatedly through body language, she won't say out loud how she feels for Kazama.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Not as violent as most other examples, but she very easily feels jealousy when it comes to Kazama interacting with other women, with such examples as:
  • Telling him he's not allowed to ogle or talk sweetly to any other girl besides herself.
  • Using a bit of force when her words don't deter his gaze, like quickly cracking his neck towards her breasts or smacking him in the face with a volleyball.
  • Claiming that energy drinks melt bones to Futaba and Kazama just to avert an Indirect Kiss between the two, before poking the latter's forehead when he did not get the nuance behind the act.
• Closet Geek: She is aware of cosplay and understands video game mechanics.
  • Appears to run in the family, as her father is a massive Closet Geek.
• Color Motifs: Her main color is pink, representing her sweet and feminine demeanor.
• Cool Big Sis: She's a very caring and supportive sister to her younger brother Yuuto. She also occasionally tries to act as one to Futaba.
• Death Glare: She flashes one at Kazama after hitting his face with a volleyball as punishment for staring at Natsumi's chest.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Gender inverted with her kissing Kazama when he was out cold after an attack by Futaba (he deserved it anyway). A kid captured the moment with a camera, but was immediately intercepted by her and forced to delete the photo before Kazama could see it.
• D-Cup Distress: She tries to explain how much of a hassle large breasts can be to Futaba. It's also insinuated her bust is still growing.
• Dude Magnet: She's very popular among men, with most of the male employees being deeply attracted to her.
• Everyone Has Standards: As much as she enjoys teasing Futaba, even she's visibly unsettled at Kazama showing an embarrassing photo of her and Takeda together to a reporter on live television. Even warning him with full knowledge that Futaba will kill him if she finds out. No surprise as to what happens next.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Appears to invoke this in the anime, when she and Kazama were on a train crossing, looking towards the oncoming train and starting off the signature "I..." just as it passes them as if timing her confession. This confuses Kazama into asking her if she said something, only for her to deflect and instead gleefully declare that they were going to eat ramen. Considering her Cannot Spit It Out and The Tease tendencies, this is an easy way to both tease Kazama and get her feelings off her chest at the same time.
• Marshmallow Hell: When her brother tries kabedon on her, she mistakes his actions for him wanting a hug, which she gives him. Due to him being at eye level with her breasts, he almost gets smothered by his sister’s ample bosom.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: A sequence in the anime intro has her pretend she's offended Kazuma did a Male Gaze at her chest, then laugh at his reaction.
• Nice Girl: Sakurai is unfailingly sweet, kind, and polite to everyone around her.
• Official Couple: As of Chapter 192, with Kazama.
• Passionate Sports Girl: She played in her school's volleyball team and retains skill in the game.
• Single-Target Sexuality: The sole person she has romantic feelings for is Kazama.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A reason why Sakurai fell in love with Kazama, Chivalrous Pervert tendencies aside, is because he is one of the few males in her life to not hound her with invitations to dates or eating out. Kazama is the only person among her peers aside from a handful officemates such as Igarashi and Takeda who she can feel at ease with, when her being So Beautiful, It's a Curse won't allow her to be close to anyone, both male (as she is often hit on by them) or female (due to their jealousy as she is a constant romantic rival). Not to mention Kazama bailing her out of sticky situations so many times, with him deflecting credit thinking it was just the right thing to do.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse:
  • She is not too pleased with the high frequency of date requests and drinking proposals she gets from coworkers or acquaintances, as well as unwanted attention from strangers.
  • During high school, she had trouble getting along with other female classmates because the boys they had feelings for were more interested in dating Sakurai.
• Tender Tears: Her reaction to Kazama's confession.
• The Tease: Likes to tease both Kazama and Futaba, the former being much more intimately. Much to both's embarrassment.
• Weight Woe: She's concerned about her weight increasing every year, though Kazama notices a good amount goes to her chest.

Souta Kazama

Souta Kazama (風間蒼太, Kazama Sōta)

Voiced by: Taku Yashiro (manga PV), Reiō Tsuchida (anime) (Japanese), Mark Allen Jr. (English)

Another one of Futaba's senpais and a good friend of Takeda. Appears cold and uninterested, but is very supportive of his friends and coworkers. Harbors a secret crush on Sakurai.

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• Aside Glance: His disbelief at seeing Futaba's (obviously fake) breasts and Takeda not noticing it had him do multiple Double Takes on Futaba and Takeda, before facing the reader as if to say You Can See That, Right?
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Has a thing for buxom girls, often staring at either Sakurai or Natsumi's chests.
• Camera Fiend: Not an extreme example, but he has a habit of whipping out his phone to take photos of cute things, usually Futaba in embarrassing situations. It never ends well for him, with one particular case giving him first-hand experience with her paralyzing neck-chop skills.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Is obviously attracted to Sakurai but between his Heroic Self-Deprecation and being an Insecure Love Interest, the only time he mentions his feelings is if Sakurai is out of earshot.
  • Averted as of Chapter 192, he could no longer hold it in after Mona told him about Sakurai's upcoming "omiai" and Takeda pushing him to pursue her.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: In one chapter where he’s on a date with Sakurai, he passes out drunk over one glass of wine. Before he passes out, he mumbles that Sakurai is ridiculously pretty.
• Celibate Hero: Sakurai is constantly throwing signals at Kazama that she wants an intimate relationship, but he fails to seize the initiative. It's not that Kazama fails to find Sakurai attractive, and unlike Takeda towards Futaba he's able to tell Sakurai wants a closer relationship, but him being an Insecure Love Interest keeps him from taking the leap and accepting that she wholeheartedly wants to be with him.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He's rather obvious about how much he loves breasts, especially with how he defaults to either glancing at a woman's chest before looking them in the face or outright only looking at it until broken from his horny trance, but no matter how blatant his perversity is, he'd never even think of indulging his desires unless he knows the woman will allow it. Sakurai both admires and is frustrated by this in equal measure, as she loves how much of a gentleman he is but dislikes how her personal inability to express how much she wants him means he never does anything even as little as accepting an Indirect Kiss because he respects her too much.
• Color Motifs: He’s associated with the color blue, which reflects his stoic nature.
• Cool Big Bro: He acts as a supportive older brother figure to Yuuto, with the two often seen playing video games or basketball together.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • Staring at Natsumi's buxom chest causes him not to take a beach volleyball match seriously. Sakurai punishes him for this with a volleyball to the face.
  • During a basketball match, Natsumi pressing her chest against Kazuma's back causes him to freeze up as she steals the basketball. A refereeing Sakurai whistles the body contact as a personal foul.
• Endearingly Dorky: Especially in the eyes of Sakurai. His treatment of their day in the aquarium stands out as he will get too nervous if he thinks of it as a date, so instead he tries to treat it as he would a video game. This earned a few good laughs from Sakurai when he tried to explain it to her, but did result in a very enjoyable and memorable day for both of them.
• Face of a Thug: As noted when he and Sakurai see a dolphin who shares his name and general expression, he has an incredibly serious and unfriendly look to him, but Sakurai knows that beneath his appearance is just a shy and endearing Nice Guy.
• Flash Step: He moves fast when playing basketball and pulls a Vanishing Drive technique to slide outside a person's field of vision, creating this effect on Natsumi.
• The Gadfly: He likes to take photos of Futaba wearing costumes, doing cute things, or sleeping on Takeda's shoulder. Much to Futaba's embarrassment, he sends the photos to coworkers in the office or post them on social media. Futaba will violently take his phone and delete said photos, but he always keeps hidden backups.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: An unorthodox example as he and Sakurai already are aware of their feelings for each other. Once he realized that he really doesn't want to lose her to anyone else after overhearing an officemate invite her to dinner which she declined in favor of going out for ramen with him, he stepped up and actually invited her for a day out in the aquarium.
• Heroic BSoD: Completely shuts down for the whole day and the next after seeing Sakurai with another man (actually her younger brother Yuuto standing on a ledge). It didn't take long to be resolved after Sakurai noticed.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Him thinking he is not worthy to be with Sakurai notwithstanding, he doesn't think he's a Nice Guy at all after Sakurai pointed out how he's helpful not only to her but also to Futaba and the rest of the office.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Is really good at origami folding, of which Futaba is a fan of, which he does during afternoon as a way to pass the time.
  • He makes his own bento, which Sakurai has commented as being very pretty.
  • Plays basketball and can sometimes be seen teaching Yuuto. Was shown to be really good at it as he was able to do an ankle breaker on Natsumi.
• Insecure Love Interest:
  • The initial reason Kazama has not advanced his relationship with Sakurai is because he believes she could easily find a better guy. He does not realize his personality and looks are the exact combination she desires most.
  • Once he gathers enough courage to begin courting Sakurai, he does so with the footing that he can become a man worthy of her. However she already acknowledges him as the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Ultimately just wants Sakurai to be happy, regardless if they end up together or not. This is what he sets as the basis for his Love Confession knowing that he will lose her forever if he does not make a move, but Sakurai scolds him for even thinking that she will be happy with anyone but him.
• Love Confession: Finally confesses to Sakurai at chapter 192, after Mona spilled out the beans on Sakurai's upcoming "omiai" (a Japanese tradition on matchmaking) forcing his hand. Her reaction? Immediately launching into an huge hug and calling him a massive dumbass in between Tender Tears as this is what she has been waiting for in years. They Do.
• Nice Guy: Beneath that stoic and detached exterior he actually has a big heart towards his other colleagues, especially towards Sakurai, and to a lesser extent, Takeda and Futaba.
• Official Couple: As of Chapter 192, with Sakurai.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Random strangers often confuse Sakurai and Kazama as a couple. Sakurai is more than happy to play along, but Kazama will immediately deny the relationship.
• Significant Name Overlap: With a dolphin, Souta-kun. This was pointed out by Sakurai in the anime, especially after the emcee's description of Souta-kun almost matching that of Kazama, after which it became sort of a proxy to him for the rest of the episode.
• The Stoic: He rarely emotes beyond a neutral stare, let alone smiles. One of the few times he does smile is when he finds out the guy he saw Sakurai with was her brother and not some guy she was on a date with. Takeda had a hard time believing Futaba when she told him about Kazama’s offscreen smile.
• Supreme Chef:
  • He makes his own bento boxes, which not only are very pretty (like the one he made for Sakurai), but are also filled with delicious well-made food.
  • He at one point made chocolate biscuits after Sakurai challenged him to outdo the ones she made for him, which he very much succeeded at, something that Sakurai found a bit embarrassing and irksome.
• Tempting Fate: Bordering on Too Dumb to Live at times, he really doesn't seem to get (or care) that he can take some of his teasing of Futaba a bit farther than he really should, such as blatantly revealing another embarrassing photo of her and Takeda to a couple of news reporters on live television. This ends as well for him as you'd realistically guess.
• Wall of Blather: Subjected Sakurai to his so-called "otaku talk" which he came to regret later on. Little did he know Sakurai hung onto every word.
• When He Smiles: Kazama being a near Perpetual Frowner means that the rare occasions he smiles come as major shocks to everybody else, such as when Futaba caught him with a massive grin during Valentine's Day, which startled her so much she called an emergency meeting to discuss with everybody else what might have made him so happy, such as potentially receiving honmei (serious) chocolate (which unbeknownst to her was exactly the reason).
  • In a very rare instance, we finally see him have the sweetest smile in his face after Sakurai reciprocated his confession.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Surprisingly for such a major example of The Stoic, he's utterly terrified by bugs to the point of fainting, like when Futaba brings over a beetle in an attempt to scare Sakurai in the manga or when Futaba obliviously lifted a cicada in front of his face in the anime.

Natsumi Kurobe

Natsumi Kurobe (黒部夏美, Kurobe Natsumi)

Voiced by: Saori Onishi (manga PV), Reina Aoyama (anime) (Japanese), Erica Schroeder (English)

Futaba’s childhood friend and close confidant. A sporty girl who likes to tease Futaba.

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• Ambiguously Brown: She’s the only dark-skinned character in the cast. It seems like her skin tone is natural, as she was noticeably dark even as a primary schooler; and when wearing a decently revealing swimsuit, there's not even the slightest hint of a tan line anywhere on her.
• Animal Eyes: To go along with her yellow eyes, her eyes are normally drawn slitted like a cat's as a reference to her mischievous nature.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She has a fairly large bust, which tends to be why men are attracted to her. Futaba is deeply envious of her due to it, and even the well-endowed Sakurai is sometimes jealous.
• Childhood Friend: She has been a childhood friend to Futaba since middle school. On Natsumi's end, it looks to be an unrequited Childhood Friend Romance.
• Cool Big Sis: She frequently ends up acting as an older sister figure to characters who look younger than her, whether its her best friend Futaba (even though Futaba is actually older by about a year) or the genuinely young Yuuto (whose Precocious Crush she is fully aware of, but despite being The Tease to him, she tries to teach him helpful life lessons and expects him to eventually settle on a girl his age).
• Color Motifs: She’s associated with yellow. Her eyes are yellow and her attire have a lot of yellow.
• Everyone Has Standards: While she sees no problems in being The Tease to Yuuto and riling up his hormonal emotions, when Yuuto starts expressing a genuine desire to court her she experiences a mixture of concern and sadness, as she believes that he deserves to find love with a girl his age and thinks getting together with an older woman like her would be wasting his youth.
• Friendly Rivalry: In competitive hobbies with Kazama, whom she shares a lot in common with. Both love video games and were star players in high school basketball. None of this escapes Sakurai's attention.
• The Gadfly: She greatly enjoys playfully teasing Futaba, especially when it comes to her friend’s blatant crush, often setting up scenarios to have Futaba and Takeda run into each other in a romantic way. She tends to grow devil horns and a spiked tail when doing this. She also likes piling on her attitude as The Tease to Yuuto whenever other people are around, because his blushing face and stuttering out of embarrassment is cute and funny to her.
• Gamer Chick: She loves to play arcade games with Futaba. When she was in school, she would skip classes just to play at the arcade. A scene where she's in her apartment in episode 4 shows that she has a decent PC rig with three big monitors.
• Gayngst: While she's Ambiguously Bi rather than gay, she still displays this in a bonus comic. Natsumi never communicates this to Futaba, but she agonized over Futaba's innocent comment about not caring if Natsumi dated someone, as long as she's happy. To Natsumi, it was confirmation that Futaba would never feel romantically towards her, since she doesn't even feel jealous at the thought of her best friend being "stolen away" by another person.
• Has a Type: Tiny and kind. They're among the reasons why she befriended and is very affectionate towards both Futaba and Yuuto.
• Hidden Depths: She confides to Yuuto that she treasures Futaba a great deal more than she shows, and she's lonely hurting by the fact that she is unable to be around Futaba every day like they did during school. Her friendship with Yuuto is partly an attempt by Natsumi to fill that void.
• I Am Not Pretty: She's a mental variant, as she's fully aware that she's both beautiful and sexy in appearance, and has zero qualms about flaunting it, especially towards the hormonal Yuuto; but she thinks her rough and rowdy Tomboy personality makes her unattractive as a lover, being completely oblivious to the fact she's a caring and supportive person to the people she likes, which is the true reason Yuuto developed a Precocious Crush on her.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Doesn't say it to Takeda, but she mutters it under her breath watching him interact with a dolled-up Futaba.
  "If your ever make her cry, I swear you'll never see me coming."
• Shipper on Deck: She can tell that Futaba has a crush on Takeda and is constantly looking for opportunities to get them together.
• The Tease: She is aware Yuuto has a Precocious Crush on her and occasionally does something to see him blush. However, she is of the mind Yuuto will grow out of it and shows no serious intention for a May–December Romance.

Yuuto Sakurai

Yuuto Sakurai (桜井優人, Sakurai Yūto)

Voiced by: Yui Horie

Sakurai’s little brother. He frequently finds himself in trouble as he’s meeting up with his sister.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: His manga introduction occurred in Chapter 61, while the anime moves it earlier around where the 20-something chapters occur. Said shift in introduction timing means he also gets included in earlier content like the Beach Episode that happened before his character officially existed.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Has been teased into wearing female cosplay, which other characters find cute, much to his chagrin. The Episode 5 end-card (drawn by Akihito Tsukushi) references this by putting him in various specifically female costumes.
• The Baby of the Bunch: He's the youngest person in the major cast, being a high-schooler amongst 20-something adults, and pretty much all of them that interact with him treat him like their collective adorable little brother, Natsumi and Kazama moreso than his actual sister, doting on and supporting him through life.
• Dragged into Drag: When Sakurai sent him to buy her a Halloween costume, Natsumi ran into him at the store looking at women’s costumes. She then made him dress up in a girl’s red riding hood costume, saying he’s too cute to not trick, much to his embarrassment.
• First-Name Basis: A resulting combination of everybody viewing him like their collective younger brother and his sister already being referred to by Last-Name Basis, meaning potential for One-Steve Limit-type confusion, is that the rest of the main cast always call him by his first name, though of course with the polite addition of the "-kun" honorific. This is contrasted by how his desire to avoid looking impolite means Yuuto himself uses Last Name Basis for everybody but his sister.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: Except when interacting with his family members, he speaks very politely, such as referring to Futaba and Natsumi as "Onee-sama" during their first encounter.
• Hollywood Genetics: He has blonde hair, despite his sister having black hair, him being too much of a good and law-abiding boy to dye it into Delinquent Hair, and the Igarashi family being the only ones with unusually colored hair in the story, so where his golden locks came from is a mystery.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: He's a 15-18 year old high school boy who has the bad luck of going through a combination of frequently getting paired with girls at school, being friends with a more blatantly horny other boy who shares his fap material, and repeatedly running into the mature and alluring Natsumi who likes teasing him. As a result, he regularly gets embarrassed by his horniness and engages in masturbation often, especially when it comes to his Precocious Crush towards Natsumi.
• No Sense of Direction: As noted by his sister, Yuuto has a very poor sense of direction, which was already shown earlier by him getting lost two different times despite using a map app.
• Older Than They Look: While he is already barely taller than the child-sized Futaba despite being in high-school, when the two girls from school that he often pairs up with finally appear in-story, it becomes especially clear how he didn't go through a growth spurt yet, because the duo are around One Head Taller than him and genuinely look in their late teens despite implicitly being the same age.
• Prone to Tears: Due to both having No Sense of Direction and his general nervous excitability, he often gets brought to tears.
• Precocious Crush: He’s a teenage boy who has a crush on Natsumi, a woman in her twenties.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: While he would like it to be true, he finds it embarrassing and will deny it when other people call Natsumi his girlfriend, mainly his teasing classmates. The fact she's such a gadfly that she'll play along with the misconception just to mess with him doesn't help matters.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: He's in the range of 15-18 as a high-schooler, but he's notably quite short compared to the 20-30 aged adults around him, with the only person shorter than him being the child-like appearing Futaba. He's not angry about it like Futaba, but is hopeful that with time and effort he'll grow taller and bigger.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Aside from his blond hair, his facial features are quite similar to his sister's.

Mona Tsukishiro

Mona Tsukishiro (月城モナ, Tsukishiro Mona)

Voiced by: Aoi Koga (Japanese), Madeleine Morris (English)

An eccentric coworker that tags along with the other four. Often finds herself in weird situations.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Her first appearance in the manga was in Chapter 72 before being properly introduced in 73, while the anime introduces her in Episode 2, which adapts Chapter 2 and other early chapters. This means she also gets included in every company-wide event shown in the anime, when she missed out on most of them in the manga due to first appearing so far into it.
• Big Eater:
  • She consumes a large bouquet of Valentine's Day chocolates in several seconds, to determine how it tasted compared to her own vodka chocolates.
  • She is confident she can eat more meat buns than Takeda in contest. As it turns out she likes her food cold and has a tongue sensitive to heat, so she forfeits to him.
• Born Lucky: When it comes to drawing fortunes at Japanese temples, she defies statistical odds and always pulls a "Great Luck" slip.
• But Not Too Foreign: Strangers immediately assume she's non-Japanese and a foreigner at first glance. However she has a Japanese family name, and with exception to Glorious Mother Russia traits, practices Japanese traditions.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She's considered the craziest and most mysterious worker in the office. She seems to do whatever comes to mind first and doesn't have second thoughts about her actions.
• Color Motifs: Light blue, with her eyes being the usual color coding for her in the manga. Denotes her mellow and mysterious personality.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: She's almost always seen with her eyes half-lidded, which puts emphasis on her Cloudcuckoolander personality and potentially hints at her always being drunk.
• Glorious Mother Russia: Expresses several Russophile qualities, such as speaking Russian, wearing an ushanka during winter, and putting vodka in everything. Might be half-Russian though, because of her name being spelled in katakana (often seen in foreign names), and her light blue eyes (something an East Asian won't usually have).
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: In spite of her chill Cloudcuckoolander attitude, she's a rather excitable and quirky girl with a strong fondness for vodka, to the point of carrying around a vodka bottle she claims is just filled with water and home-baking some vodka chocolate for Valentines Day.
• Mellow Fellow: She generally acts like she's half-asleep all the time, and she usually justs goes with the flow no matter how people respond to her Cloudcuckoolander antics.
• Moe: Invoked in-universe where people just can't feel but help her because of her appearance.
• Omniglot: She appears to be fluent in all human and animal languages.
• Remember the New Guy?: It's practically a Running Gag in the manga that she's an In-Universe case, just suddenly showing up and interacting with the cast like she was always there, while everybody but Sakurai (who already knew her beforehand) keeps asking her who she is and why she started hanging around them.
• Silly Love Songs: Whereas a drunken Ooishi was protesting for more Soul karaoke, she added her preference for love songs.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: She often appears without warning, and sometimes gives a short greeting before doing something weird.

Momiji Okudera

Momiji Okudera (奥寺もみじ, Okudera Momiji)

A newcomer to the office, coming right out of a black company (a Japanese term referring to an office that severely overworks and mistreats its employees). Hardworking and reliable, but is fidgety and nervous.

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• Broken Bird: Was rendered traumatized by her previous job, with her finding it tough adjusting to her new job. The main cast often do their best to help her feel welcome and supported.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Her eyes are lifeless and near-reflectionless as a representation of her soul having been crushed by her past job. It took a day full of support and compliments from her new coworkers to even gain a little life back in her stare, but she continues to lack highlights due to how thoroughly her self-esteem was crushed.
• Heal the Cutie: She's a lovable Broken Bird when introduced, and her overall character arc involves the rest of the main cast doing their best to heal her crushed soul and bring a genuinely happy smile back to her face.
• Nervous Wreck: She's prone to jittering, nervous sweating, and apologizing for things that don't need it. As somebody who worked at a black company where doing anything wrong or different from what her boss asked would get her severely punished, being afraid of messing up is an understandable feeling, even if her current job is leagues more lenient about both screw-ups and personal influence on jobs thanks to the Department Chief being such a nice, reasonable, and forgiving boss
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Sakurai notes Momiji is quite attractive and adorable, but does not wear outfits to maximize her beauty.
• Stepford Smiler: As a victim of being overworked and molded by a black company, she's hardwired to smile when interacting with others even when she's feeling miserable, but due to being so emotionally shattered the best she can produce is The Un-Smile.
• Unable to Cry: Her character bio notes that her previous job reduced her to tears so often that her tear glands effectively broke, so no matter how sad or terrified she gets she'll never cry again, meaning the only way to tell how she's feeling is by the intensity of her sweating.
• Unexpected Kindness: Was thrown off by how kind her new officemates are, such as giving her snacks and providing helpful advice, to the point that she went home confused about all the goodies she got. This is especially prominent with the big and boisterous Takeda, who she thought would be a massive bully, but turned out to be the kindest to her out of everybody.
• When She Smiles: Because she had a miserable start in the workforce that left severe psychological scars, seeing her smile and regain happiness is heartwarming for everyone.
• Workaholic: Hammered into her by her previous work, so much so that her habits carried onto her next job, including working while sick. The chief caught her looking off the entire morning, and personally drove her home while telling her to not treat herself like that.

Ojii-chan

Ojii-chan (おじいちゃん)

Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese); R. Bruce Elliott (English)

Futaba’s grandpa. An affectionate man who sometimes ends up embarrassing his granddaughter in front of others.

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• The Ace: He's able to maintain equal footing in contests of strength and endurance with a man at least half his age and the same Heroic Build.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Being both just as big as Takeda and a Doting Grandparent, he shares the same habit of affectionately rubbing her head. He gets very defensive about being the only person allowed to do so.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: He sometimes talks about embarrassing moments for Futaba. One instance involves him talking about her wetting the bed.
• Badass Biker: Him being a skilled motorcycle driver with a decently Cool Bike and a pair of Cool Shades, combined with his scruffy yet cool beard, adds strongly to both his Cool Old Guy image and badassery.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Just the thought of Futaba finding a boyfriend makes him panic over the thought of his baby girl finally growing up, so the constant Ship Tease between her and Takeda makes him adamant about trying to prevent them from becoming a couple.
• Cool Old Guy: He may be rather advanced in age, but that doesn't keep him from being a well-built and manly-acting old biker who not only is a respectable father figure to his granddaughter, if prone to embarrassing her in front of her friends, but he's a pretty chill guy overall, at least so long as he doesn't think you're a threat to Futaba.
• Doting Grandparent: He utterly adores Futaba, always taking the opportunity to dote on and gush about her when he's around, even if it embarrasses her to no end.
• Friendly Rivalry: After a little bout of outright disliking the guy due to being a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad, he develops a pretty close bond with Takeda over their shared enthusiasm, hobby interests, and care of Futaba, which is interspersed by him still disliking the possibility of them becoming an item.
• Heroic Build: He's just as much a mountain of muscle as Takeda, which is especially notable given just how old he must be as Futaba's grandfather.
• Large Ham: Being subtle or reserved seem to be things he has difficulties comprehending, as everything he says or does is full of boundless enthusiasm and exaggerated attitude, even for the most mundane of things.
• Manly Facial Hair: His bushy full chin-beard and circle mustache combine to really highlight how he exemplifies manliness in the story, sometimes reaching Testosterone Poisoning levels, being the character most prone to displaying his muscles and acting manly.
• Older Than They Look: Apparently deceptive aging runs in the family, as despite being the grandfather of 23-year-old Futaba, he looks young enough to be either her father or older brother instead. The green hair combined with his muscular build helps with obscuring his real age, especially with a flashback of Futaba growing up showing he looked exactly the same 17 years ago while she at least slightly grew and matured over the years.
• Papa Wolf: He’s fiercely protective of Futaba. In one chapter, a group of high school boys are harassing her, thinking she’s an elementary school girl dressed up as an office worker, and her grandfather hoists up two of the teens by their shirts and presumably scares them offscreen.
• Sunglasses at Night: He rarely removes his sunglasses and wears them when night fishing for a red snapper.
• Too Much Alike: He and Takeda have the same tastes, interests, and hobbies. Were it not for his Boyfriend-Blocking Dad tendencies, the two would easily become best friends. As it stands, the shared likes are rivalry contests.
• Unknown Rival: While Takeda and him have a fierce rivalry that the former is very aware of, Takeda is so majorly Oblivious to Love that he fails to comprehend the secondary aspect of Oji-chan being a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad, just thinking he's a super-competitive guy who's very protective of his granddaughter.
• Unnamed Parent: While his surname can be surmised to be Igarashi from being Futaba's grandfather, his proper name is never revealed at any point, simply being referred to as "grandpa" (or "ojii-chan" in Japanese).
• Yakuza: His similar age friends act and speak like gangsters, though immediately stop after seeing Futaba. An eavesdropping Natsumi even considers them a suspect group.

Department Chief

Department Chief (部長, Buchō)

Voiced by: Yutaka Aoyama (Japanese), Kenny James (English)

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• Benevolent Boss: He is attentive to his worker's emotions, allows them to take lunch breaks outside the office, sends everyone home before 8 PM, and authorizes sick leave without penalty. For a white collar company in Japan, these are considered MAJOR work benefits. From his talk with Okudera, it’s implied that he used to work at a company that worked its employees to the bone, and works to make sure his subordinates never have to deal with something that soul-crushing.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The reason why he has No Name Given is that every one of his employees only ever call him "chief".
• Eyes Out of Sight: He always has his eyes obscured, whether by his hair or just shadow. It makes him look rather odd because obscured eyes are usually reserved for inconsequential one-off nobodies, especially of the Jerkass kind, whereas he's a major recurring genuine Nice Guy.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Based on how Takeda quickly assumes the impressively-made cake at their Valentine's Day mini-party was his work, even mentioning past experience for that sort of thing, the Chief is apparently both highly skilled at and enjoys baking things like cakes.
  • As seen during the company picnic, he's got a pretty good voice for Enka karaoke.
  • From the way he talks while driving Okudera home from work early, he also used to work at a black company (a Japanese term referring to an office that severely overworks and mistreats its employees). He uses that experience to recognize when Okudera pushes herself too hard due to being used to forced overwork.
• No Name Given: He has no official name that anyone calls him by, not even getting mentioned in casting lists.
• Shipper on Deck: Like everyone else in the office, he supports the idea of Futaba and Takeda being a couple. He noticed her visible disappointment that Takeda went out for field work and asked if she wanted to go with him, prompting her to hastily deny her desire to be with Takeda.
• Supreme Chef: Is apparently a very good baker, as demonstrated by the professional looking cake he brought for Valentines' Day. Cue the office's shock.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Extremely rare in Japanese culture to have a boss who takes care of his employees, so much so that he is loved and respected by the office, with virtually no reports of abuse or mismanaging under his belt. He also occasionally treats his employees to stuff like delicious cake or a company picnic for doing a very good job over the year.

Ooishi

Ooishi (大石, Ōishi)

Voiced by: Yūta Odagaki (Japanese), Austin Sisk (English)

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• Accidental Misnaming: His friends often have difficulties remembering his name, usually misspeaking it as Koishi, to which he corrects them with Ooishi
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: Was rendered drunk silly with only a few sips of liquor (granted, it was high-strength vodka from Mona, but he's the only one who got smashed with so little), which resulted in him singing a Drunken Song duet with Mona.
• Eyes Always Shut: He's always seen with his eyelids closed, except when being emotional such as him going drunk.
• Hidden Depths: He used to be in a school music band, has a particular fondness for Soul, and enjoys rock collecting.
• Punny Name: His name "Ooishi" means "big rock.", and there are several thing in the story relating him to that.
  • The name people frequently misspeak it as, "Koishi", means "little rock", something he understandably dislikes given the insulting implications.
  • He enjoys rock collecting.
  • He was in a light rock band.
• Those Two Guys: Always seen with Hijikata.

Hijikata

Hijikata (土方, Hijikata)

Voiced by: Takayuki Kondō (Japanese), Luis Bermudez (English)

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• Casanova Wannabe: He views himself as The Casanova, but every girl he hits on denies his proposals, and the only reason he thinks he might have a shot with the Kazama-sexual Sakurai is because she's too nice to properly shut him down.
• Hopeless Suitor: The one woman he's absolutely adamant about trying to woo is Sakurai, but even if he wasn't a hopeless romantic, he'd never have a chance since Sakurai has only ever had eyes for Kazama.
• Manchild: Despite being an adult, Hijikata acts like a high school student, still thinking he has a shot at the popular girl and dreams of marrying gravure idols.
• Those Two Guys: Always seen with Ooishi.

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