Characters / Sakura Gari

The characters of Sakura Gari are here.

Masataka Tagami

• Accidental Pervert: He meets Katsuragi... when walking on him and Souma doing it.
• Aloof Big Brother: To Mitsugu, though they get better.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He is incredibly kind-hearted and friendly, to the point of coming across as rather passive, but if he's pushed to his Rage Breaking Point, he will lash out.
• Break the Cutie: The story bends over to break the kid. It almost succeeds.
• Brooding Older Guy, Gentle Younger Kid: The Gentle part.
• Celibate Hero: How he starts. He doesn't stay like that, obviously.
• Child by Rape: The reason why Masataka's birth mother hates him. She then pretty much "sold" him to the Tagamis when he was six.
• Happily Adopted: The Tagamis paid much more attention to Mitsugu due to his weak health, but they didn't exactly abandon Masataka either.
• The Unfavorite: He feels resentment over his younger brother Mitsugu so he often tends to act cold to him, while Mitsugu obliviously clings to him to try have his attention.
• Rape as Drama: First Souma, then Katsuragi.
• Tragic Keepsake: Takafumi's harmonica.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: As said by Souma.

Souma Saiki

• Benevolent Boss/Bad Boss: Both of these tropes are zig-zagged. Souma seems to be a good boss at first, giving Masataka a job when he desperately needed one without anyone's recommendation. He refuses to fire him despite a jealous lover recommending he do so. He treats Masataka fairly and encourages him in his personal growth, even spending time with him out of work. So despite Souma having a few perverted tendencies, he doesn't seem too bad, right? WRONG. This all goes out the window when Masataka finds out frightening facts about him. Then Souma sexually assaults him and outright rapes Masataka multiple times and blackmails him into staying in service with Takafumi's debt when Masataka tries leaving. This continues even after Takafumi is already dead, which Souma knows but intentionally hides from Masataka to make sure the latter won't leave. Then Masataka does find out and snaps, openly showing all his rage at being abused and deceived, and Souma realizes what an utterly horrible person he's been, causing him to attempt suicide out of guilt. He survives, and from that point onwards, he starts to change his ways and become much more genuinely benevolent.
• Berserk Button: DON'T touch Masataka.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's regal, cynical, soft-spoken and polite. But please, don't cross him.
• Broken Ace and Broken Bird: Genius businessman. Very cultured. Totally loaded. Beautiful. Charismatic. And a massive bundle of issues.
• Brooding Older Guy, Gentle Younger Kid: The Brooding part.
• But Not Too Foreign: Half-English, half-Japanese
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Sakurako's Cain. Sorta.
• The Casanova
• Chick Magnet and Even the Guys Want Him
• Calling the Old Man Out: "Abigail... Mother... Mother has definitely-- She has...!" She has forgiven you..."
• Cooldown Hug: To Masataka, after the torture and rape deal with Katsuragi. Somewhat subverted since at first Masataka rejects him, and it's only after Souma promises to not go beyond and keeps his word that Masataka lets him do it.
  • And again, he gives another to Masataka when he explains his backstory and issues almost at the end, which concludes with poor Masataka having an Heroic BSoD.

• Deconstruction: Arguably deconstructs the "rapist seme" character type so common in Boys' Love. Plenty of Boys' Love manga try to justify or explain this trope by making the seme a Troubled Abuser, but Sakura Gari goes out of its way to show exactly how a person can come to associate rape with love, or see it as their only option when faced with losing the person they love.
• Driven to Suicide: As a kid, he thought of giving himself as Slashed Throat due to his deals with Katsuragi but couldn't bring himself to do so. Later he tries to go the Bath Suicide way after realizing how badly he had broken Masataka.
• Entitled to Have You: Before he fell in love with Masataka, he clearly disregards Masataka's personal space and gropes him when Masataka made clear he had no interest in sex. After... he expects Masataka to fall into his arms because he likes Masataka and that Masataka should accept him despite the very unsettling discovery Masataka found. When Masataka refuses him out of fear, Souma rapes him.
• Heel Realization: Following Masataka's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he comes to realize just how awful his actions up until that point were.
• Important Haircut: When he breaks away from "Abigail" he asks Masataka to help him his hair cut short.
• Love Makes You Dumb: His affection for Masataka can bring out the idiot in him.
• Love Redeems and Ladykiller in Love: For Masataka
• Really Gets Around: He's more or less a High Class Call Boy and has slept around with many people with his consent or not.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Very, very much so.
• Troubled Abuser: His horribly fucked up view of love and sex comes from the truly horrid abuse he's been through.
• Yandere: He blackmails Masataka into staying with him when Masataka tries to run away. Souma poisons Dr.Katsuragi for hurting Masataka and eggs on the doctor's abused wife to finish him off.

Lord Saiki

• Loving a Shadow: Has completely idealized his long-lost love, Souma's dead mother Abigail. To the point of periodically asking Souma, who's a dead-ringer for her, to put on her shawl and let his hair down so he can sort-of speak to her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When Souma almost goes Calling the Old Man Out on him.
• Parents as People: He isn't an evil person per se, but he hasn't been a good father to any of his children.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Subverted: while he's not a bad and horrible person, not only his health has taken a nosedive, but he's unable to handle the family business and thus Souma is the one who does so.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Him and Abigail

Lady Sakurako Saiki

• Bath Suicide: Everyone thinks she died like this. The truth is FAR uglier
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Totally averted. Her rape of young Souma is not played for laughs or excused in any way.
• Hypocrite: She despised Souma for being made heir when instead of her child, but Youya is not Lord Saiki's son.
• The Resenter: She hated Souma for being made heir over her child.
• Wicked Stepmother: Towards Souma, to incredible degrees. She also was verbally/mentally abusive to Youya/Sakurako, or at least poisoned them with her own hate.

Sakurako Saiki (Youya Saiki)

• Break the Cutie: Used to be a Cheerful Child as a toddler. Then... something horrible happened. S/he never recovered from it.]]
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Souma's Abel. Sorta.

• Clingy Jealous Girl: To her brother Souma.

• Enfante Terrible: She has just turned 15 years old, but is really screwed up.

• Little Miss Badass: Very proficient with a katana when it's needed.
• Madwoman in the Attic: After an incident during a Cherry Blossoms pasrt, Youya/Sakurako was locked away in the old house, with Katou as their only caretaker and constant company, while everyone outside the manse thought s/he had died of illness. S/he only got out when a fire broke in and Terashima died.
• My Mom Will Live Through Me: Took up the first Sakurako's name after witnessing her murder at the hands of Katsuragi and Souma.
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: Was originally Youya, Sakurako's son, but essentially took over the role of "Sakurako" after she died
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: She has red eyes, and she is a seriously messed up and dangerous person.
• The Unfavorite: Became this when Souma was aknowledged and taken in by Lord Saiki. This is what drove the original Sakurako to madness and to all the Souma abuse, as revenge for her child being shoved aside in the succesion.
• Walking Spoiler: Sorta. She appears rather early in the story, but a good part of her motivations are driven by a massive secret in the past.

Nogawa "Takafumi" Matsushita

• Big Brother Mentor: To his little brother Masataka.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Harsh and rough around the edges, but basically a kind and hardworking young man who loves his baby brother. He's also the only member of Masataka's birth family that he's more or less in contact with.
• Police Brutality: He dies as a result of being captured and subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture by the police... Which Masataka found out after Souma blackmailed him into sex.
• Sacrificial Lion: He ends up dead because of the...
• Yakuza: He gets in trouble with them, and Masataka is stuck with working off his debt... to Souma. He does keep his word and pays up. Bad thing, it still doesn't work.

Mitsugu Tagami

• Cherry Blossoms: He likes to make charms in the shape of sakura flowers. And he gives some to Masataka before he returns home, to wish him luck in his university exams.
• Innocently Insensitive: Subverted. Mitsugu clung to Masataka which caused him to reject him, but later he revealed that he was very aware of the tensions between them and even confesses that he almost wanted to die because of it. Masataka calls him foolish, but from then on they start getting along better.

Ohatsu

• Secret-Keeper: She actually did know that Souma was abused by the first Sakurako, but she kept it quiet to not tarnish the family's honor. She never forgave herself for it.
• Supreme Chef: An excellent cook, and sometimes makes Your Favorite to show affection to others.
• Team Mom: Tries to keep order among the maids and butlers.

Katou

• The Butler Did It: He and the actual Sakurako are responsible for Youya's fall to madness, but he didn't do anything besides act as Sakurako's right hand. Until the end, where he does stab Souma over Youya's death.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He's Youya's true father.
• Old Retainer: Subverted, he turns out to be way more than that. More exactly: he is Sakurako/Youya's real father as well as their caretaker.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sakurako.

Abigail

• Death by Childbirth: Died giving birth to Souma.
• Impoverished Patrician: Her family once was old money, but they lost it all at some point. Abigail's mother still acted like they were rich.
• The Lost Lenore For Lord Saiki
• Strong Family Resemblance: She's the one Souma inherited his looks from.

Dr. Tomohiko Katsuragi

• Abusive Parents: Off-handedly mentions that his mother abused him. He also has a flashback of his teenage self tied up to a cherry tree, but not many details are given.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He appears at first to be a handsome but stoic doctor. Then we're led to believe he's a shady but not really evil guy, even getting an apparent Pet the Dog moment via supporting Masataka in public. And then we get to see what an horrible person he actually is.

• Eye Scream: When he puts Masataka's hand inside a pot of boiling tea, Masataka is finally able to react and defends himself via throwing the pot and the tea on Katsuragi's face before running away. Later, Katsuragi is seen with half his face bandaged - including his left eye.
• Hospital Hottie: Very handsome and works as a doctor.
• Humiliation Conga: The three persons he abused the most become the key to his perdition.
• Master Poisoner: Katsuragi made his own drugs and poison, using hemlock and arsenic among other things. Considering that he poisoned Lady Saiki to death and later slowly started to do the same to Lord Saiki...
• Rags to Riches: The backstory shows him as as a low-to-mid class highschool student who lived and worked in the Saiki's Big Fancy House. When we meet him, he's one of the top doctors in a local hospital and the personal physician of the Saiki clan.

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Masataka while raping him. Is given one by Souma right before his fatal Humiliation Conga.
• Two-Faced: Under the bandages covering his face, you can see the borders of the massive burns left by the boiling tea that Masataka threw at him in self-defense.
• Yandere: To Nightmare Fuel levels.

Asayo Katsuragi

• Abusive Parents: Her father beat her, according to her testimony.

• The Dog Bites Back: The cherry on top of Katsuragi's Humiliation Conga comes when she burns him alive, as her way to punish him for abusing her.
• Letting Her Hair Down and Slipknot Ponytail: When Souma has sex with her to get info about what Katsuragi did to Masataka, Asayo's long black hair (until then arranged in the traditional Japanese manner) goes loose.
• Stepford Smiler: She seems to be a sweet Yamato Nadeshiko. The truth is far sadder and uglier.
• Unwanted Spouse: Not only it's implied that Katsuragi married Asayo just because her dad owns the hospital he works at, but she clearly knows about his obsession with Souma. And her husband cruelly beats her.
  Souma: "Katsuragi truly is a man beyond redemption."
  Asayo: "It's fine... I'm his wife... in name only"

Nobuhito Terashima

• Fingore: Applied to him by Sakurako. For worse, she nonchalantly crushes his drawing hand

• Staircase Tumble: What follows his Fingore episode. But that's not what kills him...
  • Man on Fire: This is what does him in.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: A very good-looking boarding student who also is a talented illustrator.

Hiroshi Yoshino

• Crazy Jealous Guy: For Souma, again.

• Yandere: For Souma, whom he tries to stab to death.

Kanako Kawamori

• Alpha Bitch and Clingy Jealous Girl
• Arranged Marriage: What her dad wants between her and Souma. Souma seemed inclined to agree, but then the ending came.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Not that Kanako didn't dress up prettily, but seeing her in a luxurious kimono ^note which seems to be a furisode instead of a Western dress has a similar effect.

The Unnamed Maid

• Break the Cutie: We meet her already broken.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: What Sakurako put her through. She was first Bound and Gagged in Unwilling Suspension fashion, then beaten savagely, and then photographed while half-naked and still tied up.
  • Convenient Miscarriage: She was pregnant with Souma's baby and lost him/her due to this.
• Heroic BSoD: Suffers a massive meltdown upon seeing Sakurako.
• Madness Mantra: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Give it back, give it back, GIVE IT BACK!"
• The Mistress: What she was to Souma, though likely not by full will. We'll never know.

• The Ophelia: By the time we see this poor girl, her eyes look dull and her expression is vacant. She then attempts to get info about Souma's well-being after his suicide attempt and asks Masataka if he has stepped into the warehouse, but as she's speaking to him she briefly sees Sakurako around and starts screaming... The next time we see her she is smiling madly and tells Kitamura that she believes Sakurako tried to kill Souma, just like she did to her and Souma's baby. Poor, poor little girl.

Inspector Kitamura

• Cool Old Guy: Only Sane Man: Among the few people with constant common sense
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sorta. He's a rather levelheaded police inspector.