Characters / The Dangers in My Heart

Main Characters

Shared Tropes

The main protagonists. Two dorky, second-year middle school students and classmates who frequently visit the library on class break for their own privacy, starting out as just being aware that one-another exists but steadily growing closer and closer as time passes on.

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• Animal Motif: Cats (Ichikawa) and dogs (Yamada) specifically, though sometimes it’s interchangeable.
  • In their volume 3 profiles, Ichikawa answers “cat” to what animal people (Yamada) think he could be. In Yamada’s profile, she answers to large breed dogs. In addition, cats and Welsh corgis are her favorite animals.
  • Yamada frequently compares Ichikawa's behavior to that of cats; namely that they’ll pull away the closer you get to them. While it’s typically played for laughs, she uses this as an analogy to explain his Shrinking Violet personality and how they’ve built their relationship in Karte 102. It also explains why she is so cautious about progressing her relationship with him, which is different from her usual outgoing and straightforward approach in most other things; she understandably fears that pushing him too hard too fast might spook him off.
  • In Karte 3, they both make cat sounds in the library to fool Kanzaki and Hara.
  • In an extra for Karte 12, she talks to Ichikawa about a stray cat she keeps seeing that keeps distancing itself from her whenever she approaches it. However, she manages to get closer to it each time. She got as close as one meter recently… as she stands close to Ichikawa, who gets flustered and runs behind a bookcase.
    Yamada: See?
  • When asked whether she’s a cat or a dog, Ichikawa initially thinks of Yamada as a large breed of the latter. When he makes a “stay” gesture close to her, she impulsively rubs her head against his hand like a cat.
  • In Karte 37, Yoshida looks up figures of dogs and cats showing places where you can and can’t touch them, with a cat figure displayed as an example. She and Moeko draw one for Anna on the chalkboard.
  • Karte 59: Yamada wears a dog-themed apron for cooking class and Karte 89: Ichikawa gives a doggy-bone bracelet to Yamada as a gift.
• Birds of a Feather: While the duo are opposites in personality and their hobbies don’t mix that much, both of them overall are benevolent to a fault, self-conscious, anxious, Endearingly Dorky, and lacking in athletic coordination.
  • Both of them have an active imagination, even if they’re positive and negative respectively. Yamada frequently comes up with random games and quizzes to challenge Ichikawa on the spot, and he gets into them more than he initially reacts. Even on the occasion when Ichikawa deconstructs would-be scenarios like zombie apocalypses or last meals to eat, he's still adding or asking for details.
  • Both of them have self-esteem issues and feel inadequate at what they set out to do. Kyōtarō’s failure to get into the private school he wanted after elementary, and difficulty in adjusting to his first year in middle school led to his barrier-building and self-loathing nature in the present. In Karte 63, Yamada shares a history of her practicing ballet, the piano, swimming, etc. in her youth. She cried and quit immediately afterward whenever she felt that she couldn’t measure up to her peers who got in later than her, in addition to also failing a private school admission. She also believes that in her parents and loved ones’ efforts to console her after personal setbacks, they'll eventually see her as a burden after one too many.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Ichikawa is a solitary, gloomy, and awkward tsundere who’s prone to overthinking and negative thoughts, and instinctually resorts to aloof dismissal of things he actually likes if he feels they're out of his reach. Yamada is positive, playful, tactile, and very considerate. She's quick to apologize if she feels she’s done something wrong, and is too nice to outright insult someone else even out of earshot.
• The Confidant: They both become this for each other as their relationship grows. Ichikawa pays even more attention to her than her girlfriends do, and learns aspects of Yamada that not even those close to her could imagine. Likewise, she becomes the only person (aside from his sister at times) to whom he'll confess his insecurities.
• Coordinated Clothes: Yamada catches on to Ichikawa’s preference for dark clothes with skull prints, and mentions that most of her own clothes are black during their outing in Shibuya. In Karte 61.1, she wordlessly checks Ichikawa’s hoodie under his jacket to see if it has a skull (He has one behind his pants instead) and shows him skull earrings she’s wearing. When hanging out with him outside of school in bonus chapters and later the main story itself, she sometimes wears skull accessories.
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: Mostly Ichikawa, who will quickly devolve into stuttering when asked something real personal. While more than open under normal circumstances, Yamada watches her step around subjects regarding her crush on him.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Deconstructed. Yamada draws Ichikawa’s face close to hers to ward off Nanjou as he's walking into the library. It works and he leaves, but Ichikawa feels used as a result and the feeling is only worsened overnight by his own pessimism. It comes to a point where he avoids meeting or interacting with her for two days.
• Fate Drives Us Together: And It seems to really want to. Beyond them sharing the library, Ichikawa crosses paths with Yamada at a magazine shop, on the way to school, out of school, at the nurse's office, near a snack shop, and at a restaurant by sheer coincidence. Yamada and her mother even come before the Ichikawa's at a parent-teacher conference, share a seat with his mom, and interact with her while he watches from afar.
• First Love: Neither of them have dated before, or seemed to have had any real interest in any boy or girl aside from each other.
• Foil: Ichikawa is referred to as a "negative" character while Yamada is a "positive character". He has hidden positive traits while she has hidden negative traits, and they come to find that they have very similar insecurities. On a narrative level, Ichikawa's thoughts are presented to the audience and the story is told from his point of view, while Yamada’s are strictly Show, Don't Tell and we learn more about her through him.
  • Ichikawa is quite adept at certain activities (art, math, chemistry, writing, etc.) and even won several trophies for first place in these fields when he was younger. Although he doesn't acknowledge these achievements that much, thinking of them as "past glories" when brought up. Yamada tends to be incompetent, clumsy or average at best when comes to hobbies she wants to pick up, and has a childhood history quitting them when it feels she couldn't measure up to her peers. She does acknowledge this and it results in her having self-worth issues in regards to her loved ones.
• Forgotten First Meeting:
  • Episode Zero reveals that in a moment of frustration, Ichikawa cut his ornate flower from the opening ceremony apart before running away when he felt someone was watching him. It was Yamada, who still has the flower to this day without knowing it was from Ichikawa.
  • Downplayed with their encounter in the previous School Sports Festival. They both remember it, but to Yamada it was the first time she noticed Ichikawa, while to him it was just another humiliating moment in his lonely life and he doesn't care much about that particular incident.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: She’s childishly playful and he’s a pessimistic First-Person Smartass. When sharing covers and art alongside each other, Yamada is comfortably posing with a bright smile while Ichikawa has an annoyed and/or embarrassed frown.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Yamada is the most obvious when it comes to Ichikawa. She is pretty furious when Moeko inadvertently foils her attempt to get his contact details (and worse, gets them herself before Yamada could). Likewise, when Chii goes to the library to get Ichikawa to teach her she's pretty unhappy that someone else is intruding on her time with him. And pulls her away when she gets too close to his face.
  • Not nearly as obvious about it as Yamada, but Ichikawa gets quite jealous of any guy trying to get her attention. When Adachi “forgets” his language book to get Yamada to share hers, Ichikawa drops all of his usual hesitation/subtlety and just fishes Adachi’s book right out of his desk. He later asks Yamada if she would mind not sharing chocolate with the rest of the boys in the Valentine's Day arc.
• Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: He's a bit shorter than other boys. She's slightly taller than grown adults.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Quite often early in the story, Yamada unknowingly curses Ichikawa with a Raging Stiffie after getting too close to him. It later goes both ways. Ichikawa gives her an ear stimulation when he's just trying to quietly warn her to hide some candy from the librarian. In trying to keep Yamada from seeing some magazines that she models for in his bedroom, he impulsively pins Yamada to the bed and awakens her to a collarbone fetish.
• The Matchmaker: They end up pairing Kanzaki and Hara together by making cat sounds in the library.
• Missed Him by That Much: One flashback extra in Vol. 4 from their elementary school years reveals Yamada’s presence indirectly scared off a bunch of bullies who were trying to intimidate Ichikawa and his friends after they just bought a rare game card. Then they walked past each other down the road. Ichikawa noticed her and seems to think about the “mysterious huge girl“ whenever he sees the card.
• Motifs: Maturity.
  • Ichikawa is physically less mature compared to his classmates, but putting aside his hangups he displays more maturity and awareness than what's expected out of his age group, and navigates in situations they would fumble or avoid. In addition to his growth in character, he gradually develops physically overtime as the series progresses; growing a few centimeters taller and developing a bit of muscle through casual exercise.
  • Yamada is physically more developed than kids her age and already has a growing career, yet her true personality is considerably more childish than those of her peers than anyone would guess from at first glance. Or even those who do know, as Ichikawa finds out that she speaks in the third person at home. That said, she's very understanding, considerate and emotional receptive while harboring a real desire to be more grown up and responsible; even wanting to follow Ichikawa's example.
• Odd Couple: On a surface level, attractive, popular and outgoing Yamada and introverted, socially awkward and edgy Ichikawa are this. However, as the series progresses it becomes more obvious they really are similar.
• One Head Taller: Yamada is taller than Ichikawa. So much so that when they stand facing each other, Ichikawa's face is roughly somewhere between Yamada's breasts, something he always realizes fairly quickly.
• Opposites Attract: Ichikawa is nearly about the size you’d expect from a middle schooler, while Yamada has been incredibly tall for her age since elementary school. Ichikawa is grumpy, sarcastic, shy, diligent, defensive and very conscious/observant. Yamada is cheerful, outgoing, ditzy, prone to teasing, clumsy, and tends to flip-flop with her ability to read the room. He spends his time by himself, and his interests lie in non-fiction murder and manga. While she spends time chatting with her friends and eating large amounts of food in private.
  • Ichikawa reads several different manga. Yamada exclusively reads Kimi Iro Octave and her lack of real enthusiasm or knowledge for other series is very apparent.
  • Yamada enthusiastically goes off on marathons about the things she likes, such as movies, her job, and food. Ichikawa has to be pressed to admit much enthusiasm, but he's descriptive and matter-of-fact when he does before recoiling in shame.
• Perverted Sniffing: Together with Smells Sexy. Both Ichikawa and Yamada have gotten a whiff of one another, be it directly or from clothing or shampoo. Ichikawa would like to think he has a little more self control about it, while Yamada is more inclined to just go for it (Generally without him looking).
• Phoneaholic Teenager: The two frequently spend past midnight messaging each other on LINE in extra chapters, and end up making games based on who can stay up the longest.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Ichikawa is an over-thinker, more likely to pick up on situational cues than Yamada is, has better problem-solving skills, and usually bails her out/amends whatever hurdle gets thrown at them. By comparison, she’s far more extroverted, cheerful, and intimate, and is the one who initiates their interactions just for the sake of having them.
• Secret Relationship: Discussed between them Karte 28 at the end of their work-study trip. After Yamada brings up the possibility of Kanzaki and Hara dating, she follows up on how kids back in her elementary school days got together and openly held hands in the hallway. Then says that she personally finds this trope more fun and asks Ichikawa what he thinks.
  • Overall, it's downplayed. The two walk home together, begin hanging out outside of school and try to keep their level of closeness a secret from their classmates, especially at the start of their third-year to avoid Kankan's desire to throw a flashmob celebration for class couples. But they’re an unofficial couple throughout and actually question if they've been dating the whole time or not. It’s played straight by Karte 113 when they start dating for real, but ironically it’s by then that they gradually start letting people close to them know.
• Second Year Protagonist: At least until Karte 99 where they move to senior year.
• Shipper on Deck: Both of them are interested in the relationship between their classmates Kanzaki and Hara. Ichikawa claims not to care about it, while Yamada ropes him in a couple of times to help them out.
• Single-Target Sexuality:
  • Ichikawa pretty much only has his eye on Yamada, though to be fair she's also the only girl he interacts with on a regular basis. It becomes more prominent as he becomes better socialized and spends more time around other girls, such as Yamada's friends, as she's still the only person he ever shows an interest in.
  • Same for Yamada, who states to have no experience in dating. In Karte 31, Moe is surprised that Yamada is excitedly going along with her LINE-exchange plan with the class, implying that she hasn't been one for boy talk to begin with until Ichikawa came into the equation.
  • At one at the beach, Ichikawa was checking out the girls walking around. And despite what Yamada thought, he was only paying attention to them looking at Yamada more than any guys passing by.
• Twice Shy: It's pretty obvious Yamada genuinely enjoys being around Ichikawa, and Ichikawa all but admits to himself he likes, maybe even loves her. But neither of them are completely sure how the other feels and duck out when they get too affectionate. It's not until later that they put two and two together.
• We Are Not an Item: The result of being Twice Shy, they're quick to dodge any notions of being a couple to others.
  • Played With in one instance. No one ever pin-points anyone specifically, but when a couple of girls insistingly assume that Yamada has a boyfriend she vehemently denies it... to them and then to Ichikawa, who's standing right next to her pretending to mind his business.
  • When Yamada’s manager Suwa states he’s going to have a problem if Ichikawa’s relationship with her is going to interfere with her career, Ichikawa is more confused than even the least bit intimidated and tells him that they aren’t dating, leaving Suwa trying to hide his embarrassment. Ironically, Kyōtarō was just worried about him and Yamada not looking like a couple to anyone.
  • It's escalated in their third-year, specifically to avoid green-lighting Kanna's plans of throwing them a flashmob couple's celebration.
    Ichikawa: That would literally be hell.
  • Subverted after they do become a couple. Although they still intend to keep it between themselves, they start letting more and more people know when the subject comes up. Both of them immediately confirm it to Moeko when she asks.

Kyōtarō Ichikawa

Kyōtarō Ichikawa

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Shun Horie (JP), Clint Bickham (EN)

Debut: Karte 1, Episode 1 (Anime)

The main character. A dark, tortured soul who only just manages to hold back his murderous impulses.

...Or so he'd like to think.

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• Adaptational Badass: The anime has a tendency to give him more moments of awesomeness that were either downplayed in the manga or not there at all; likewise, some of his major moments of self-doubt are sometimes downplayed to make him look more impressive.
  • In the manga, when Nanjou discovers that Ichikawa has Yamada's number, he becomes a Nervous Wreck, incapable of forming a coherent sentence, and Moeko has to take him out of the place immediately. Meanwhile, in the anime, he puts himself together fairly well and gives him a Blunt "No" when Nanjou tells him, he's not going to spill the beans if he gives him her number.
  • Downplayed in the White Day's arc. In the manga, he's so insecure about his gift for White Day, that he stays the whole trip, decided he's going to throw it in the trash once he gets home, and only reconsiders at the last minute. In the anime, he's still insecure but decides to gift it much sooner and never considers throwing it away.
  • Episode 23 adds in Ichikawa giving Adachi "The Reason You Suck" Speech regarding his crush on Yamada during their mock-cavalry battle, and him head butting Adachi when the latter wants to give up the game. While he does give him a similar speech in the manga, it is much more restricted, shorter, and less open about his feelings.
• Affectionate Nickname: His family calls him "Kyou-chan” or "Kyou". Yamada tries to get in by asking if she can call him the latter but just settles for his regular first name. Probably both for her own peace of mind and because he nearly died the second time she did it. That said, Karte 101 shows that she still wants to call him this, when she marks "Kyo" down in the library while they're marking each other's heights.
• All of the Other Reindeer: He confesses to Yamada that he didn’t fit in during his first year at school because of his interest in murderer’s psychology driving off students who wanted to interact with him at the sight of the book he was reading. Episode Zero expanded on this, showing that he dropped out of the school's outdoor field trip because of that event and convinced himself that they were hoping that he would get sick.
• Angrish: His inner monologue occasionally devolves into randomly typed muttering when overwhelmed.
• Animals Hate Him: For whatever reason, probably fitting in with his cat motif, he’s frequently put at odds with Yamada’s dog Wantarou whenever they meet.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: He mostly treats his sister with a mix of annoyance and indifference but in Karte 139 he gets pissed off over the idea of Shogo, Momo's scumbag boyfriend, trying to flirt with Kana and demands an explanation to the point he briefly forgets his anxiety over being in a love hotel with Yamada.
• Bad Liar: Part of the reason Yamada and a lot of the people around him start discovering his Hidden Depths is that he's incredibly bad at hiding the good deeds he doesn't want people to notice or coming up with a good lie on the spot. Lampshaded by Moeko in Karte 53.
• Book Smart: He’s among the smartest kids in his class and scores high on tests. He ranks 2nd in finals and the school later picks him to give the farewell speech to third-year students.
• Bookworm: He's almost always reading and generally spends break time in the school library.
• Brutal Honesty: He holds no mercy towards the topic of his sister finding love, as shown during Volume 6's Q&A chapter.
  Q: Is there a possibility that a good person will appear for Onee in the future?
  Ichi: None.
• Butt-Monkey: He rarely wins when it doesn’t matter. The series’ comedy seems to be devoted to frequently making him embarrassed or somehow humiliating himself.
• Character Development: As time goes on, he becomes more comfortable and confident when talking to Yamada. He's still no social butterfly, but at the very least he can actually talk to her somewhat normally.
  • After the events of Kartes 68-70, he outright admits to his sister that he likes Yamada a lot and wants to go out with her.
• Character Narrator: He opens chapters/episodes with narration in his head. He doesn’t have true Medium Awareness; the way he narrates just seems to come with being a Chuuni. Being the only character whose thoughts are ever shown, he watches over other characters and deduces/comments on their intentions and actions for the audience's sake.
• Character Tic: He refers to himself with "Boku" while monologuing, and uses "Ore" when speaking out loud. During their outing in Shibuya, Yamada takes him actually using "Boku" as a sign of him being truthful.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: The guy can't stop trying to help people who are in trouble around him (especially Yamada) even if it goes completely against the way he perceives himself in his head.
• Chuunibyou: Downplayed, as he does have the makings of this trope with his overactive imagination and edgy interests, but he tends to keep this to himself and his chuuni tendencies don't show in his outward behavior:
  • In his head he's a dangerous, murderous soul who is only just holding back his dark intentions. He reads books on murder and the like, and when he has to participate in a school visit to a workplace he has an Imagine Spot of going to a morgue to observe an autopsy.
  • He's also prone to imagining murdering Adachi, but part of that is because he really, really doesn't like how Adachi tends to reduce Yamada to nothing more than a sexual object to be lusted over.
  • It should be noted that at the beginning of the story he is literally in year 2 of middle school (8th grade) which makes him the archetype for this trope.
  • In Karte 142, both he and Kinoshita start impersonating Commander Gendo out of finding out they are both postulating to the same school.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Regularly wears dark clothes with skulls or death motifs outside of school. He claims to wear black out of convenience when Yamada lampshades it, though he clearly has a preference.
• Covert Pervert: The main difference between the way he and the rest of the boys lust for Yamada is that he doesn't say it out loud.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: The outline of his under-eyes is drawn thicker than other characters, probably to fit with his "disturbed character" status.
• Cute Bookworm: How Yamada sees him, since to her he seems like a quiet, sweet person who just doesn't like attention.
• The Cynic: His thought process is overwhelmingly, self-destructively more negative than it is positive, and he pretty much admits that he jumps to the worst-case scenario often.
• Defrosting Ice King: His main character arc is this. From thinking of himself as an aloof loner who gets by being outwardly weird so as to not attract attention, he gradually defrosts and becomes more open thanks to his interactions and budding feelings towards Yamada. Eventually, he makes friends and can be seen hanging out mostly with Yamada's clique or some of his male friends like Adachi, but by the time of his Love Confession, his character is now a far cry from what he was in Episode 1, much to Yamada's delight.
• Deadpan Snarker: In an interesting case, he starts snarking outside of his head the more socially involved he becomes. Something he probably doesn't realize since he covers his mouth after saying something smart in Karte 67.
• Determinator: Zigzagged. He'd rather give up in the first place. But while plagued by his own doubts, he doesn’t fully give in to them and always bounces back at the last minute. There are a few times when he runs away until someone (Usually Yamada) pulls him back, showing that the effort he made wasn’t wasted. Aside from that, he grows more dedicated to sticking to whatever he decides to do. Yamada tells him that he’s this when he gets overworked and anxious from studying so much in Karte 126.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Funny considering how he tries keeping to himself, he has a habit of blurting out things that sound different from how he intended... Things that tend to make Yamada swoon.
• Endearingly Dorky: Yamada’s definition of “funny” in regards to him is this. He’s not exactly a comedian; she just finds his odd actions and choice of words to be hysterical (in a non-malicious way) when he’s not even trying to be. It’s part of why she likes him.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Rolls his eyes, clenches a random handheld object, mentally screams, and/or visualizes his male classmates' gruesome deaths at his hands in reaction to their open sexual fantasies and antics.
• Establishing Character Moment: The series opens with him by myself reading a book in class, and monologuing about being a budding serial killer with his sights on Yamada, showcasing his early Chuunibyou mindset. He also imagines cutting Adachi to pieces after the latter bumps into him. Although he admonishes himself for it, possibly a first hint that he's not this disturbed being..
• Exotic Eye Designs: Compared to everyone else’s eyes, his are concentric, blue/turquoise in color, lack the reflected shine that nearly everyone else has, and at times are drawn like Hellish Pupils. His mom and sister share the same eyes, although in the anime both of them have a flatter shade of blue and a shine he doesn’t possess.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Downplayed in regards to the hair. To prepare for delivering his schools' congratulatory address speech (reluctantly), Ichikawa has his hair cut into a bowl cut (Which still ends up covering his right eye the next day without wax). After delivering the speech he lets his hair grow back out and... still keeps his bangs over his eye. But, he left the hair at his right side un-tucked. The speech marks the point in the story where he starts to love and believe in himself more, and when he fully accepts that Yamada is in love with him
• Eyes Always Averted: Generally speaks to other people like this, except with teachers (because it would be rude). In one extra chapter, Yamada closes her eyes when she speaks to him out of a belief that if he can't see her eyes, he'd actually look at her. She's more than right.
• First-Person Smartass: He can be pretty mean inside his own head, and appears to be aware or self-conscious enough of it to not try to air out his musings verbally.
• Freakiness Shame: He thinks of scenarios where he would damage Yamada's image in part by mere association with him. He also sees his interests as this. He dubs a serial killer psychology book he brought to school as “armor” that warded other students off in his first year at middle school, though he notes to Yamada that he didn't fit in because of his hobbies and gets anxious when she comes across those books while at his house (Only she thinks it's awesome.)
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Despite becoming friends with Yamada's social circle later on, he only seems to speak individually with either Yamada herself or Moeko (Who prods him into talking). He rarely talks to either Chii or Serina without the others being around.
• Gibberish of Love: Early on, he's very prone to stuttering with speaking to Yamada. He's evolved into having normal conversations with her, but still delves into it when he's entering more romantic territory.
• Goth: Fitting with his gloomy and macabre mindset, he usually wears either black clothes, clothes with skull prints, or both outside of school. Sometimes with other accessories like chains or black wristbands. He also has a skull sticker/imprint on his phone. And for 6th grade, his sister painted his backpack with studs and a skull.
• Grew a Spine: Norio-sensei even refers to him as “very spineless” in an interview. As the story goes on, he becomes more comfortable speaking with others and engages in situations upfront that he would have previously chickened out of or had been stealthy about dealing with. His tendency to stutter and talk under his breath also gradually fades away.
• Hidden Depths: He has a very fine-tuned moral barometer under all that gloom. He's a better person than he thinks he is.
  • He won about three trophies in his youth. One for essay writing, and the other two in first place for poster drawing and an independent research project for his ward.
  • He gets the second highest scores of the whole grade of the Second Years. A fact he doesn't boast about and even purposefully downplays to avoid standing out (Though he couldn't help but lord it over Moeko in a passing comment).
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Well, he does attempt to hide it at least...
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His right eye is covered by his bangs. Deliberately. When his hair got messed up during a marathon run, Yamada says its first time she'd actually seen his right eye ...At which point he proceeds to cover it back up.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Ichikawa’s self-loathing and fear-induced preconceptions are his main enemy, and his conflict is learning to overcome the barriers he’s built for himself.
• Hope Is Scary: He is naturally pessimistic, denying to himself any signs of Yamada's crush on him. And he lampshades this trope upon wrongly assuming that she was using him as a tool and avoiding her for two days. When his confidence in his self-image and relationship with Anna begin to increase, it causes his Imaginary Friend - Nigorikawa - to manifest and act as a force to argue with him and push him to chase his newfound desires rather than give up on them out of fear.
• I Can't Believe A Girl Like You Would Notice Me: Overlapping with True Love is Exceptional. A combination of this and his own low self-esteem is why the idea that Yamada might actually like him doesn't cross his mind. In fact, he actively tries to avoid associating with her in public out of fear his Loners Are Freaks characteristics will make her look bad. That said, by about Karte 70 he admits to his sister Kana that he actually does like Yamada and wants to date her. In the same chapter when Yamada wonders aloud whether she should go through with her plan to give the boys in their class chocolate, Ichikawa manages to take hold of her sleeve and "casually" suggest she not do so.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Most evident in color pages, his eyes are turquoise.
• Important Haircut: Ichikawa prepares to deliver his school’s farewell speech by getting a bowl-cut at a barber shop, followed by Yamada and Serina helping to style it for him when it droops the day after (Serina starts with a pompadour while Yamada just gives him his usual style). After delivering the speech on ab-lib, he lets some of his hair grow out on his right side.
• Insecure Love Interest: He initially plays down whatever feelings he has towards Yamada, but eventually comes out of this thanks to her honesty and her Show, Don't Tell tendencies.
• Improperly Paranoid: On the one hand, Ichikawa's constant worries about his, Yamada's, and everyone else's social perceptions make him pretty good at reading the room, but on the other hand it makes him especially hesitant to act on what he wants out of fear of somehow damaging his or her rep or causing her opinion of him to sour.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He mentally badmouths or dismisses other people’s antics and/or whatever activity he’s forced to take part in as though he were above them, noticeably earlier on in the series. After he drops his "hidden killer" phase, the story focuses much more on the inferiority part of this trait, and he's much harder on himself. He had more confidence at a younger age, and the circumstances behind his enrollment into middle school, amongst other things, took a significant blow to his self-esteem.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although few immediately recognize the “jerk” outside of his own head. Even long after he dropped his so-called “murderous impulses”, he's dismissive, overly critical, and a smartass. Ultimately, he’s someone who can’t bring himself to not do the right thing even with any other option available and the most harm he'd do is on a mild verbal level, if even that.
• Knight in Sour Armor: It's safe to say that it’s an instinct for him to do good for others, but he’ll be mentally kicking himself for whatever reason.
• Loners Are Freaks: Seems to believe that he's one of these and that he's disliked by his classmates, imagining scenarios where he's referred to as "that freak" who sours the mood with his mere presence. In truth, they don't notice him at worst and he's had fairly normal conversations with classmates like Adachi.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: As the series progresses he slowly becomes this for both Yamada's and Adachi's social circles. Although besides Moeko, he will rarely talk to Yamada's other friends if she's not around.
• Love at First Sight: His first time seeing Yamada was a strange combination of this and Hate at First Sight according to Episode Zero; he's immediately impressed by her beauty, but when their eyes meet she returns a cold stare that made him believe she saw him as inferior, and decided to hate her. He later learns that it's just a bad habit of hers to act more composed around people by her mom's urging in childhood.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Downplayed. He has a record of saying something affectionate to Yamada when he really meant something else that she doesn't have the context for. Unlike other examples, it's doing him a favor.
  • He names "Yamada" as that “beautiful girl” his mother was talking about, while that same girl was following them. Neither Yamada nor his mom knew that he was stealthily watching the two talk to each other before.
  • When trying to tell her that she was blocking his line of sight during class without bringing up her height, he says “I could only see you” just when she was in a jealous fit about him sharing notes from Hara.
  • When Yamada asks what he told his sister about her over text, he says “We’re friends. At least for now.” Yamada saw the last part and happily thought he was teasing a Relationship Upgrade.
• Mr. Imagination: A given, considering his Chuuni-thought process. He frequently imagines slaughtering his classmates in gruesome ways earlier on for acting stupid or appearing to be jerks in his eyes. He’s moved on from that, but his negative outlook tends to make him imagine the worst case scenario to disproportionate levels.
  • That said, this also shows up in other comparatively healthier ways. Just look at Nigorikawa.
• My Greatest Failure: His failure of an admission exam to a private middle school he applied for with his friends, which resulted in him falling out of contact with them and being a long-standing blow to his self-esteem. When he meets Kinoshita and apologizes, Kinoshita has no hard feelings at all, and Kyōtarō plans on rectifying his past failure by enrolling for Shugakukan High.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Since even before his issues in middle school, Ichikawa has a habit of reverting to negative thoughts and acting dismissive or resigned around the subject of things he actually has an interest in, because he believes things that he likes to a high degree, like a video game console or Yamada, are simply out of his reach and the resulting disappointment would hurt more than not feeling strongly in the first place. This habit got worse after failing to apply for the school he wanted and during his first year in middle school; from feeling seemingly, non-verbally rejected by his newfound crush or isolated from his peers due to his hobby of reading murder psychology. He realizes this habit when Yamada tearfully confronts him over avoiding her for two days in Karte 43/Episode 9.
  Ichikawa: Even though I really wanted it, I figured I wouldn't be able to get it anyway and looked for reasons to hate it. Because letting yourself like something that much is scary.
• Nice Guy: In spite of himself, he really doesn't like seeing people down, especially Yamada.
• The Nicknamer: He comes up with some unflattering nicknames for his classmates, though he keeps them all to his internal monologue.
• Not So Above It All: Despite disliking many of the boys (Adachi in particular) for lusting over Yamada and her friends, on several occasions it's blatantly clear that she'd turned him on to the point he had to... relieve himself.
  • In spite of being an Otaku himself, he internally derides his classmates in their work-study trip for getting excited over manga. Then an illustrator shows up with a Baki manuscript and he gets internally excited while still resisting the urge to go and see. Then Yamada takes him over to see it and he expresses his excitement.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In Karte 24, he lies about getting a 40 in chemistry (Actually a 92) so that he gets picked up for Yamada's group despite being one of the best in the grade.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: While trying to guess what Yamada’s blood type is in a Karte 17 extra, he crosses out Type B based on his experience with those who have it (Like Kana) who are apprehensive about the subject. Him dismissing blood types is exactly what gives him away to Yamada.
  • He gets a glaring one on Karte 42 while reading a shoujo manga Yamada lent him and reflecting on the male love interest:
    Ichikawa: (thinking) Does Yamada like this sort of guy? Like, he's aloof and blunt but... in truth, he's incredibly nice, from time to time, he's cute, or clumsy... There's no way a guy like that exists, right?!!
  • Taken to 11 in Karte 87: When Hara insists that she and Kanzaki aren't dating, Ichikawa is surprised that the two of them still aren't going out despite spending all of their time together. Even Yamada can only stare at him blankly in disbelief.
• Oblivious to Love: Zigzagged. While Yamada’s desire for affection can fly right over his head, he is able to pick up on hints that she’s interested in him. The problem is that he's quick to rationalize them as anything else but what they ''really'' mean due to his low self-esteem.
• One of the Girls: On account of him not being openly perverted or a fool like the other boys in their eyes, Yamada's friends have no problem with Ichikawa hanging out with them. Chii occasionally makes (one-sided) gossip with him.
• Only Sane Man: He's firmly this among the named boys in his class, being the least controlled by his hormones and just having the most common sense overall.
• Otaku: He's interested in stereotypically "dark" things like murder and so on, but he's also shown to have a healthy love of manga and anime in general.
• Performance Anxiety: Unsurprisingly for him, this is his main hurdle when he’s chosen to give the congratulatory address for the school’s farewell ceremony. During the rehearsal, he speaks so low that the crowd couldn’t hear him from the mic, and he uses that as an excuse to drop out of it until Yamada encourages him to and helps him practice. A combination of that, along with overhearing Nanjou dropping by near them and seriously confessing that he likes Yamada, is what convinces and motivates Ichikawa to give the speech.
• Perpetual Frowner: His default expression is a scowl, something that seems to have been a thing even in his younger years. Throughout his graduation book, there's not one page that isn't a neutral expression.
• The Power of Love: A more down-to-earth example, and something Ichikawa himself has lampshaded after a period of time; he has repeatedly pushed past his comfort zone to do things he'd never imagine for himself under normal circumstances, simply because Yamada was there.
• P.O.V. Cam: The anime adaptation tends to shoot some scenes through Ichikawa's eyes. They even include his bangs and some Jitter Cam.
• Protectorate: To Yamada, even during his “I want to kill her” phase. He frequently assists her when she's having trouble, tries diverting unwanted attention from her, protects her from potential embarrassment, and keeps her from getting in trouble with the school with her snacking habits.
• The Quiet One: Early on, Ichikawa’s monologues made it easy to forget that he didn't actually speak that much. Maeda-Sensei is impressed that he spoke more than usual when speaking for Yamada, and Moeko was surprised that he talks at all. He becomes more comfortable with speaking over time, which led to Chii lampshading how he usually mutters to the point where it feels like he's speaking in squiggly speech bubbles.
• Raging Stiffie: Downplayed in that the reader is spared the visual of Ichikawa's pants bulging, but a few early chapters would sometimes end with Ichikawa hunched over or collapsed in a Troubled Fetal Position thanks to Yamada inadvertently overwhelming him for the day.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Like most boys his age, Ichikawa likes the idea of coming off as manly by drinking his coffee black. He finally attempts this while at an expensive restaurant with Yamada during winter break, as this coffee is all he's able to afford on such short notice. Rather, instead of telling her this he tells Yamada he's no good with sweets and tries to knock back his drink after resisting the urge to throw in some sweetener and cream. Yamada is impressed enough to let out a small "wow". During Valentine's Day some volumes after, Ichikawa has to reassure her that he actually does like his chocolate on the sweet side.
  Ichikawa: It's like a bitter soup!
• Safety in Indifference: Ichikawa instinctively criticizes and dismisses something that he actually likes as a coping mechanism because he believes he won’t be able to attain it anyway. For an early example, he puts some fashion magazines that he bought in the trash after looking at photos of Yamada, deriding them and his positive feelings toward them as pointless (He still kept them). This was a habit even before his angst started to pile up at middle school, where in his elementary days he badmouthed a gaming system that he wanted but didn’t think his family could afford.
• Selective Obliviousness: He’s very observant and good at deducing people’s intentions. Including Yamada in particular, which makes his denial of her having feelings for him all the more glaring.
• Shrinking Violet: He tends to avert his eyes when talking to others, and he generally keeps to himself. In fact, when he successfully convinced his teacher that Yamada was innocent of bringing snacks to school (against school regulations), the teacher praised him and mentioned that was the first time he heard Ichikawa speak so much.
• Single Guy Seeks Most Popular Girl: A reclusive loner who falls in love with a tall, beautiful young model.
• Situational Sociability: He speaks more casually to Yamada the more he hangs out with her, something Chii lampshades (without realizing why).
• Socially Awkward Hero: He struggles to look people in the eye when he talks to them and until he's comfortable around someone he speaks with an unsettling, creepy whine. But if Yamada needs him, then he'll go to great lengths to help her, regardless of how far out of his comfort zone it takes him.
• Sour Grapes: Spends a fair amount of time in earlier volumes trying to convince himself that he and Yamada aren't actually getting closer for his own peace of mind. It's around late Volume 3 that he starts realizing what a toxic coping mechanism it is for him.
• Stalker with a Crush: Downplayed. He may watch whatever Yamada’s doing from afar, but it’s quite often by sheer coincidence that they usually end up in the same place. In the rare times he does actually follow her, it’s usually out of concern or when Nanjou is around. And he'd curl himself up in a hole if he tried otherwise.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Ichikawa frequently has to remind himself that the Yamada he has come to know doesn't match the stereotypes he pins onto her whenever his Sour Grapes view of the world pops out. Yamada is not a superficial girl who would take a vapid stance towards him, regardless of how much he puts himself down whenever he has to interact with other people whenever she's present.
• Straight Man: The main witness and commentator toward Yamada’s weirdness, along with other characters’ antics.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Aloof and prickly on the outside, a huge, kind softie on the inside.
• Supporting Protagonist: The early chapters are all about him witnessing and reacting to Yamada's antics. As the manga progresses and Character Development starts to kick in he gains a more active role in the events of the series.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Played with. He likes to think that he's on the brink of pulling some dark shit upon his classmates, calling himself “messed up” to cope with his insecurity about his own morbid interests and make sense of his early feelings for Yamada. However, he's markedly good-natured, if a little gloomy at worst.
• Took a Level in Kindness: His unflattering nicknames and negative bias toward his classmates fade away as the series goes on.
• True Love is Exceptional: He considers himself way below Yamada's sights, and as such, always underestimates that she's indeed paying attention.
• Tsundere: Ichikawa is the last person who'll show or admit to too much attachment or positivity towards something. Even to himself; he says classic Tsundere lines to himself in his monologues. He rationalized his Love Epiphany towards Yamada as “liking” her in the vein of “not hating” her.
  • Tying into Hope Is Scary, he realizes that his tendencies to criticize-first and love-second is a defense mechanism and grows to be a bit more honest.
• Unknowingly in Love: Starts out convinced that he wants Yamada on a platter, yet is very obviously attracted to her before he even realizes it.
• Unreliable Narrator: Ichikawa Kyotaro is the manga's narrator by virtue of being the only character in the series to get an internal monologue. Early on, he leads us to believe that he's messed up in the head and has murderous intent, but this is of course contradicted by his actions that show us he's really just a shy and awkward, yet observant and considerate kid toward the girl he "wants to kill."
• Unscrupulous Hero: One flashback reveals him to have met Moeko during elementary school and witnessed a moment where a guy called her "hag" after his old group of friends started teasing the two to be dating. Once he sees her crying, he goes to the guy and makes him apologize to her. It turns out he did it because he really hated the guy and took it as a chance to torment him by convincing him that if he didn't do it, he'd be sued for defamation and be in debt for the rest of his life. Averted in the present day where his motivations are much less selfish. And Yamada is more amazed by his "sense of justice" than pretty much anything else from that story.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Some characters such as Kana, Kobayashi, and Kinoshita begin to think (incorrectly) that Ichikawa is quite the ladies' man. Karte 71 and 86 have Kana hearing some anecdotes of his life and assume that he's a Chick Magnet, and in Karte 119 she thinks he's flirting with a gal in a concert before realizing it's Yamada with her hair dyed. Kobayashi, after hearing he received chocolates for Valentine’s Day, believes he's surprisingly popular with girls without knowing who actually gave him the chocolates. Meanwhile, Kinoshita reunites with his old friend only to get introduced to his girlfriend a few seconds later with zero context on how they got together.
• Used to Be More Social: Downplayed. He was still an introvert, but he had friends whom he regularly hung out with in elementary and cram school. He also didn’t seem to have as much of a problem with speaking to others as he does now, appearing more deadpan than nervous. He lampshades it during the farewell ceremony arc, comparing his younger self's proud attitude before a crowd during an art contest to his present case of stage fright.
• Villainous Fashion Sense: Yamada notices he tends to like black when he's not in his uniform. Ichikawa wants to explain to her why but feels especially goofy trying to boil down his own limited perspective on fashion to a teen model. (Who doesn't mind at all and actually says she heard it before from tailors.)
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Downplayed, he can be socially dense and prone to bias and paranoia. However, he's also more introspective, observant and morally-tuned than his classmates and navigates through issues better than expected from a middle-schooler.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Yamada is implied to think so, having stared into his face a couple of times and teasingly comments whenever both of his eyes are visible. Yamada’s manager outright says it. (In a creepy manner, that said...)
• What Is This Feeling?:
  • He finds himself having this dilemma during the basketball incident, musing that his thoughts and actions have been out of sync the more he observed and interacted with Yamada. He figures out why after she gets hit by a basketball.
  • He exits a conversation with Adachi when the latter starts objectifying Yamada, noting himself to be feeling even more uneasy than when Adachi and the boys usually rave about sex.
• What You Are in the Dark: Most of the story surrounding Ichikawa takes place in this situation, as he often finds himself doing the exact opposite of the nefarious stuff he thinks. He's under the impression that he won't do anything good for anyone, but ends up doing good anyway.
• When He Smiles: Whenever he does crack a smile, it’s false or an awkward impulse most of the time. But there are more meaningful moments where he’s beaming with genuine joy. Most notably when seeing a Baki manuscript during work-study.
  Ichikawa: (Cheerfully turns over to Yamada in excitement) It's awesome right!?
• Why Can't I Hate You?: At first, Yamada was the main target of his murderous impulses for looking down on him in his eyes. Whenever they’re close together, he ends up helping her out with whatever she needs of his own volition and without much acknowledgment of his apparent intent to end her. This comes to a head during basketball practice, where he’s confused about his conflicting impression of her from their interactions and when he tries to retaliate against someone who threw a ball into his back... only for him to return it when it turns out Yamada did it. When she nearly gets her nose broken by a stray basketball, he realizes that he has a crush on her and drops his animosity.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He starts out under the impression he's the Villain Protagonist of some sort of psychological thriller focused on a murderous psychopath. His actions completely contradict that notion of himself. As the series advances he seems to have given up on believing that but it still appears in the character guides.

Anna Yamada

Anna Yamada

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Hina Yomiya (JP), Katelyn Barr (EN)

Debut: Karte 1, Episode 1 (Anime)

^{Click here} to see her upon Karte 117

The main heroine. A very tall and attractive, yet sweet and cheerful girl who typically goes to the library in her spare time to eat snacks in secret. She works part-time as a model/actress known professionally as "Anna Akino".

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• Actor Allusion: Yamada's not the first tall middle school girl Hina Yomiya played; see Shinju Inui.
• Adaptational Curves: Yamada's bust in the anime is considerably larger than it was in the earlier parts of the manga.
• Always Someone Better: Throughout her childhood, whenever she took up learning activities like ballet and piano there would be other kids who showed up later than her and still excelled at them better than she did. As a result, she quit each one.
  • She later confesses to have felt this way even about her career in Karte 80, believing that there are models/actresses better, prettier and funnier than she is. She even thought about quitting until Ichikawa asked her if she liked her work; and she does.
• Apologises a Lot: Basically the natural result of a Cute Clumsy Girl having a Guilt Complex. She’s very quick to apologize to someone she feels she's troubled, even indirectly or if they're doing something on her behalf. Karte 60 is the most obvious example, where she's trying to help Ichikawa with his broken arm and keeps screwing it up, leading to this trope.
  • Ichikawa grows accustomed enough to this habit, that in Karte 137, he makes it his goal to keep her from saying "I'm sorry" on their date. And succeeds.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Downplayed. She's not that scatterbrained, but she seems to move on from subject to subject and mood to mood in a matter of seconds. One moment she'll be laughing at her friend's antics, the next she'll sneakily try and excuse herself for snacks at the library.
  Chii: Whoa, whoa, whoa! You move waaay too fast!! Are you a cat??
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Yamada is as lovely personality-wise as she is on the outside.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted when she gets smacked in the face with a basketball. She spends the rest of the chapter bleeding from the nose, and in the next few chapters, she walks around with a support bandage on her face.
  • This is also the reason she has to quit the Basketball Club, since as a model she needs to protect her face and if she was smacked in the face once, it could happen again.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Downplayed. Yamada is too nice to even lightly bad mouth someone else, even Nanjou. Which makes the jealousy-induced Death Glare she’s capable of all the more shocking.
• Bespectacled Cutie: She wears glasses when reading indoors ^note  Her eyesight's actually terrible and she's wearing contacts most of the time. Kana thinks she’s this full-time when she first sees Yamada with them on her brother’s video chat (In addition to assuming she’s around his height.)
• Big Eater: She loves her food and often gets extra large helpings or seconds. She somehow burns off the calories pretty quickly. Her first example is when she's eating a rice ball followed by a party-sized bag of potato chips right after.
  Ichikawa: (You just ate at the cafeteria didn't you..?)
  • Whenever her mom is late coming home, she helps herself to a hot pot before dinner.
  • She wins a ramen-eating contest in the same page it started in.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Something else Kana is surprised about when she meets her in person, much to her brother’s annoyance.
  Kana: (Staring at Yamada’s chest) Middle school, huh…?
  Yamada: (Oblivious) Yup!
  Kyōtarō: (Knock it off!)
• Cannot Spit It Out: While it's an issue with him as well, Ichikawa misinterprets their interactions in part because she’s verbally indirect about trying to get close to him. In the early stages of her growing crush on him, there's an instance where she opts to make an excuse about finding a bathroom rather than give any implication that she just came to talk to him. She later goes along with his (correct) assumption that she was waiting at the school gate for someone (Right after she stopped his bike to loan him her manga.)
  • In Karte 31, Yamada wants to get Ichikawa’s LINE, but doesn’t ask him straight up. Instead, she makes conversations with LINE as a subject to get him to share with her, but that all flies over his head.
  • Karte 76, she received two discount coupons for a romance movie from her agency’s office. One in her bookbag and another in her cardigan pocket. She intended on asking Ichikawa to go see it with her, but couldn’t bring it up thinking he wouldn’t be interested. Then he asked her.
• Character Tics: She tends to parrot ideas and topics from previous conversations she’s been in, particularly for trying start one of her own with Ichikawa later. In some instances it's played for drama. Like when he unwittingly reveals that he broke his arm while taking pictures for her and she mimicked his mentioning of snowfall the following day. Or when she realized their field trip intersected with the date of an audition she wanted, asking him if he thinks there's a lot of food where they're going like how he asked her in class.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Doesn't tolerate any girl that gets too familiar with Ichikawa. At worst case, to the point of visible comedic bloodlust.
  • She expresses annoyance when Hara offers to share her notes with Ichikawa after a fresh change in seating arrangement. Just prior, Ichikawa intercepted Adachi's attempt to get Yamada to share her textbook.
    Yamada: So, it's fine when you do it?
  • Him formally calling Moeko by her last name triggers her.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Ichikawa, her friends, and others who’ve met Yamada have all concluded that she’s a total oddball and get repeatedly lost trying to comprehend her behavior and sense of humor.
• Covert Pervert: After the two get their jerseys for Physical Ed. mixed up, she’s almost caught sniffing Ichikawa’s before returning it to him. Even funnier, Ichikawa resisted putting hers on despite the cold air in the room, on the grounds that he would be a pervert for doing so with the knowledge that they switched. Yamada is implied to have known about the switch since they were in class.
• Crash-Into Hello: Yamada has bumped into Ichikawa "by accident" out of the blue more than once. Ichikawa thinks she sets up a conversation in an oddly delinquent-like manner despite being friendly.
• Cuddle Bug: She's pretty affectionate with Chii, often hugging or wrapping her arms around her shoulders. She also becomes progressively more tactile with Ichikawa as they grow closer.
• Cute Clumsy Girl:
  • She’s adorably prone to screwing up what she's doing, leaving a mess, or even bumping into something. However, just as it's played for comedy, it can also be a source of true angst.
  • Yamada is at an awkward age in terms of growth, which is further exacerbated by the fact that she's already considerably taller than most girls her age. Added to the fact that she's kind of an airhead, she's an aggregate of awkwardness.
• Cuteness Proximity: Of course, Ichikawa has a hard time maintaining his composure around Yamada when she draws close, but even Ichikawa's sister Kana and Yamada's new classmates Kanna and Hanzawa from 3-1 turn into putty as soon as Yamada makes her acquaintance.
• Death Glare: Has a pretty impressive one whenever another girl gets too close to Ichikawa.
  • She also has a cold glare she gives any strangers and passerby she catches sneaking glances at her. She inadvertently feeds it to Kyōtarō in the very first chapter, which in that moment amplifies his opening chunnibuyou monologue. She ends up giving Kyōtarō another one before their date on Christmas Eve, at first thinking he was some stalker or creep (Kyōtarō's face was obscured by a facemask and parka). Anna's mother apparently coached her to keep this gesture ready in her backpocket.
• Distinguishing Mark: She has beauty marks on the left front side of her neck, which oddly look like a vampire bite. She also has one on her inner right thigh.
• The Ditz: While not stupid, she definitely comes off as kind of a scatterbrain sometimes and is considerably more childish than she appears at first glance. Chii once recalled a story where she tried to wipe off some cream on her face from the Crepe she was eating with the Crepe itself. The anime even gives her a very confident smirk as she does it.
• Dude Magnet: Aside from Ichikawa himself (who once thought that getting a boyfriend would be like breathing for her if she tried), Adachi and Nanjou (unfortunately...) also have thing for her.
  • It's also deconstructed. Yamada isn't a fan of being this (again, Nanjou, for example) to the point where it's speculated at times that she may have a case of Androphobia and her friends form a Praetorian Guard around her to keep boys at bay.
  • While being part of the Praetorian Guard, Moeko uses it to her advantage to get a "boyfwii" both in class and out. Though it's later implied that she actively does it far less when Ichikawa and Yamada start dating.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Whenever she’s set to “Yandere mode”, her eyes turn pitch black.
• Dyeing for Your Art: In-universe. Yamada gets the part of a side-character from Kimi-Iro Octave named Miria, and dyes her hair blonde for about a month during the shoot.
• Erotic Eating: Sometimes unwittingly engages in this, resulting in Something Else Also Rises when Ichikawa happens to be watching. It doesn't happen when she's eating with her friends, so it's entirely possible the only reason it looks like that is because Ichikawa has feelings for her.
• Establishing Character Moment: After Ichikawa’s perspective presents her as a popular, aloof beauty, he catches her in the library stuffing a big rice ball in her mouth. Followed by her trying to tell him something with her mouth full and being convinced that he understood a word she said. Then she whips out a party-sized bag of chips and starts humming to herself (Which sounds like a gorilla to him) while eating. All of this shows that she’s childish, goofy, and has a very large appetite.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Nico Kouda, a famous model, is just as obsessed with her as some of the boys are with her. Her female underclassmen also admire her, and she receives chocolate from first-year girls on Valentine's Day. There's also this from Karte 69.1.
  Girl #1: (Following Yamada) So she wasn't waiting for someone. I'm kind of relieved.
  Girl #2: Why's that?
  Girl #1: If it was a boy I'd hate that.^note  It was and he's right behind them.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Yamada is a kind girl who seems to get along, or at least is on friendly terms, with pretty much everyone she has ever interacted with. The only character in the whole series she doesn't seem to like or even bother treating nicely most of the time is Haruya Nanjou, a Slimeball Hopeless Suitor who pushed her arm to forcibly get her LINE and tried to manipulate Chii to get close to her. Except in his final appearance where she kindly rejects his confession, mostly out of being the one time he bothered to talk sincerely with her and didn't try anything creepy.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Kobayashi, and later Yoshida, note that Yamada has a good eye for people. It’s part of how she makes friends so easily and gets along with Ichikawa so well. Noticeably during Nanjou’s first appearance, his flirting is largely ignored by her.
• The Fashionista: A given since modeling is part of her job, but when she dresses in anything other than her school uniform she manages to make herself look that much more stunning to Ichikawa.
  • On about three separate occasions for each, Kana, Kobayashi and Ichikawa noted how particularly dressed up she was. As it happens, all scenarios involve Ichikawa being around. Kana is the only one who realized it and it further cemented the sparks between them for her.
• First-Name Basis: Whereas every other student is on Last-Name Basis, she calls her friends either by first name or an Affectionate Nickname. Ichikawa, on the other hand, is a different story and she struggles to say his first name whenever it comes up. After a sleepover at his house, she starts calling him by his first name, but still refers to him as "Ichikawa" in public.
• Funbag Airbag: Thanks to their difference in height, Yamada will sometimes accidentally graze Ichikawa in the face.
• The Gadfly: Downplayed. She gets a kick out of teasing Chii, like sitting on her lap or making Chii carry her via piggyback despite the height difference. To Chii's surprise in the latter case, Yamada didn't think she was making fun of her at all. Her sense of humor just seems to make her this without the specific intent to piss people off.
  • As she spends more time with Ichikawa he ends up being a target of her playfulness too, taking full advantage of his shyness. Especially in extra chapters. Her No Sense of Personal Space towards him becomes somewhat less out of obliviousness as well.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She keeps a number of stuffed animals in her bedroom. Bears, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, etc. Most of them are huggable-sized. Karte 104.1 shows that she has Winnie the Pooh.
• Guilt Complex: If there’s a scenario that involves her and inconveniences others, Yamada will feel responsible for it and apologize. At worst, she'll break down in tears, which sadly happens more often than not. Even when her loved ones are trying to make her feel better, she assumes that they'll eventually resent her for being a bother. The trait gets worse when she learns how Ichikawa broke his arm in Akita and loses the keychain he gave her.
• Has a Type: According to her, being funny. Which is apparently the highest form of praise in her mind. Nanjou calling her funny is the only time during a conversation with him where she reacts positively. She laughs and calls Ichikawa funny upon hearing his humorous excuse for hurling his bike into a stream, and generally finds him hilarious whether he's trying to be or not.
  • In addition, Ichikawa questions if the male lead of the manga Kimi-Iro Octave is what she’s into. Aloof and blunt, yet actually kindhearted, cute, and clumsy. He refuses to acknowledge the existence of such a man, but this all applies to him.
  • Amusingly, when she gets a seat next to Kyōtarō in their new class, Kyōtarō acts exaggeratedly standoffish to ward off suspicion about their closeness. And she gushes over it.
    Yamada: It's like the start of a shoujo manga...!
• Hidden Depths:
  • She notes in a bonus chapter near the end of Vol. 1 that her eyesight's actually terrible; she's wearing contacts daily. This explains why she's sometimes seen with glasses indoors.
  • For all her troubles with other activities, Ichikawa deems her to be a proper and natural actress. He’s shaken by her line delivery as a rebellious girl in Karte 40 and finds her ability to be heads above the other amateur actresses in a horror movie he saw.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Apart from Ichikawa being a “funny" Nice Guy, Yamada is also attracted to him physically. And appears to be less reluctant about secretly acting on it than he is.
  • She’s all but stated to have been sniffing his Phys. ed jersey under his notice, and outright shown doing it in the anime.
  • After he erases a diagram she made of where and where not to touch her in the classroom, Ichikawa notices that she’s sitting closer to him in the library than usual. ^note  In the anime this was after he indirectly called her beautiful to his mother.
  • When he whispers into her ear to hide a cough drop in the library, Yamada's whole face turns red and she jumps off her chair.
  • During a Wall Pin of Love on his bed (Which was him trying to stop her from seeing the magazines with her in it), she's particularly focused on his collarbone. Chapters later, she opens his shirt collar while they’re on a movie outing, saying he looks better with it.
  • Expresses excitement toward his physical growth, including his height and voice. In the latter case she asks him to call her more when it gets deeper.
  • While taking a bath in the Ichikawa residence, she tries squeezing out some of the men’s wash unto her fingertips until she hears Kyōtarō come in the room with clothes for her.
  • She's initially delighted when Kyōtarō picks out a swimsuit that looks "just cute" through text... then she seems to reinterpret what he meant and decides "just cute" isn't enough for her. Moeko has to stop her from picking out something much skimpier.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Easily one of the tallest students, if not the tallest, shown in the story. Clocking in at 171.9 cm, she's already taller than the average Japanese adult male. Volume 4's extra story shows she's been noticeably taller than her peers since at least fifth grade.
• The Illegible: It's a bit of a Running Gag that her handwriting is absolutely terrible. This is the reason why the presentation she made back in the very first chapter was discarded by Moe. One later chapter also has her asking Adachi to give Ichikawa a copy of his notes because of how messy her handwriting is.
  • This is also the reason why Kana doesn't find out earlier about Yamada, because she thought the card Yamada left when Kyōtarō was sick was so poorly written that she immediately assumed it was from a guy.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Before they became closer, she handed out empty snack bags amongst other trash for Ichikawa to throw away after she’s done eating, sometimes when it seems like she’s about to share some. Other times she handed out some of her food, like sprinkles, before or after eating the rest as a token of appreciation. She has no idea why Ichikawa's shocked when she gives him a whole bottle of Papico for giving her a ride on his bike.
  • She has the habit of giving a cold stare to anyone she doesn't know that catches her being in a more relaxed moment, as a result of her mother urging her to act more composed in public. This is actually why Ichikawa used to think she saw him as inferior.
• Kiddie Kid: Ichikawa tends to compare her playful and carefree behavior to a child around elementary or kindergarten level; like eating pre-school grade food, licking snow out of the air, and some of the games she makes up with him in general. Not helping her case is that she talks to her parents in the third person at home, something younger Japanese children do.
  • Ichikawa once stepped on a Lego brick visiting Kobayashi’s house, and initially thought her younger brothers were responsible for leaving them there. That was Yamada.
• Leitmotif: "Yamada's theme".
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Yamada considers Ichikawa to be similar to her father Yuki; both being socially awkward and quiet, having bangs that cover their face, being very harsh on themselves, etc. Ichikawa later considers cooking to make Anna happy as her boyfriend and asks Yuki for advice, and Karte 133 has him getting fussy when it comes to cooking. Again, just like Yuki.
• Living Emotional Crutch: For Ichikawa, who was in a depressing and isolated state of mind before they eventually started hanging out. His companionship and feelings for her serve as a catalyst to help him move out of his shell and slowly realize that he’s better than he gives himself credit for. Even hearing her voice calms his anxiety.
• The Load: Played for Drama in addition with laughs. Putting it nicely, Yamada is rather... clumsy in most fields. She knows it to the point of tears, and wants to avoid being seen as a burden and someone who can't be relied on.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Zigzagged. Yamada is an upbeat, weird, and attractive young girl as well as a major catalyst of positive growth in Ichikawa’s life. That said, their interactions started out as more indirect and she thought of him as just a classmate at first. It was Ichikawa's own actions in continuously helping her that gradually drew her to him. She also has her own set of issues and insecurities that he helps her reconcile with just as much. Karte 57 even has Yamada argue that all of his positive change was his own doing as much as him starting to interact with her.
• Master of None: Despite her many attributes, Yamada is not particularly noteworthy in any of her many pursuits that are not her modeling career. The fact that she is not as unreachable as others believe she is happens to be one of the main reasons Ichikawa gets through to her, and realizes that she's just a normal girl who happens to be quite beautiful.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: It's become a trend with her roles as she tries to get into acting; so far she's managed to get cast in an upcoming crime thriller as the lead detective's sharp-tongued daughter and in a minor role as a bully for a direct-to-streaming horror movie. When talking about the former role she even mentions she needs to practice extra hard for it since it requires her to say a lot of things that are incredibly out of character for her.
• Modesty Shorts: Has worn short spats on windy days.
• Motor Mouth: She gets like this at times when talking to Ichikawa about things she really likes, to the point of spoiling some of Kimi Iro Octave.
  Ichikawa: Sorry, I don't really like Natto.
  Yamada: Eh!? Tell me that a little sooner! I went and babbled a whole lot here.
  Ichikawa: Yeah, that's what made it hard to say anything.
• Ms. Fanservice: Outside of the series, Norio-sensei tends to make splash color pages of her in much saucier outfits and positions than she draws Yamada in the story itself. They typically involve active wear. Other times it’s cosplay.
• Never Gets Fat: She stays thin no matter how much she eats, despite her insisting she’s gaining weight. It helps that she works out. Ichikawa's mom even notes she's worried about her thin figure when she's over at their house for his birthday.
• Nice Girl: A considerably kind, sweet, and gentle girl who gives off a very positive vibe and is definitely down-to-earth for someone as popular as she is. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body and is a ray of sunshine to others, especially Ichikawa.
• Non P.O.V. Protagonist: While she shares the lead with Ichikawa, he's the only character in the series whose thoughts are unambiguously presented to the audience in narration boxes. Yamada's side of the story is mainly tied to Ichikawa’s perspective, and her own thoughts and feelings are conveyed through Show, Don't Tell. The most obvious she gets are occasional Imagine Spots. Other times her facial expressions and actions coincide with either Ichikawa’s thoughts or someone else’s dialogue.
• No Sense of Personal Space: One of the major reasons she's such a danger to Ichikawa's heart is because she's prone to getting right up in his face or taking his hand (usually to shove a sweet or more often a sweet wrapper into it). It doesn't seem to be calculated either; it simply seems to be the way she shows affection. It also implies that she's at that awkward point of development where she can't properly gauge her own size.
  • Played for Drama in Karte 43. She assumes that Ichikawa is angry and avoiding her for pulling a Fake-Out Make-Out with him at the library in the previous chapter. While she confronts him about it, she consciously backs away and apologizes whenever she touches him until he tells her he doesn't mind.
  • In Karte 118, Ichikawa apologizes for getting so close to her doing a concert, stating that he shouldn’t touch her so freely even when they’re now a couple. It hits her that that’s what she’s been doing the whole manga and she tries to apologize to Ichikawa, who loudly says she’s fine. It still bothers her a couple chapters after that and she makes up a mutual-face-touching session so it’s fair.
• Obliviously Beautiful: Played with. She's aware that she's pretty (she's a model and all), but she's considerably more stunning than she thinks she is. She's so overwhelming in beauty and height that she can easily make Ichikawa bend sideways, even when she's not intending to.
• Oblivious to Love: Mostly averted. She's quick to realize if a guy likes her or has any sexual interest for her. The same however can't be said about her relationship with Nico Kouda, as Yamada doesn't seem to realize how truly obsessed she is with her.
• One Head Taller: She's much taller than Ichikawa. His face is roughly the same height as her breasts. She's actually roughly as tall as older boys.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Two things can put a horrified look on Yamada's face: something interfering with her ability to snack, and another girl getting too close to Ichikawa.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Yamada eating less or withholding food at all is enough for Chii to notice when she’s acting strange (By which we mean stranger than usual).
  • She was shocked that Yamada passed up on eating some ice cream during lunch (Which Yamada delivered to Ichikawa while he was sick.)
  • At one point Chii stated she ate one carton of fries instead two (As result of her guilt from Ichikawa breaking his arm taking pictures for her).
• Positive Friend Influence: Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it isn’t. Either way, her companionship with Ichikawa has helped him enjoy going to school more and motivate him to self-improve; steadily growing past his fear of attachment and inferiority. He says as much during his confession to her.
• Phrase Catcher: "This is Yamada", whenever Ichikawa tries to predict her actions and thoughts or doubts/expects something from her, only to be immediately proven wrong.
• The Pig-Pen: Not to utter slob levels, but because there's hardly a moment when she's not snacking on something, she'll usually have crumbs all over her face.
  • She stuffs lots of candy wrappers in her pocket instead of putting them in the trash and presumably leaving evidence of her snack time in the library. Amidst the montage of the anime's ending, she leaves a trail of wrappers while running down the school hall.
  • At one point, Yamada lets Ichikawa borrow one of her shoujo manga. To his great surprise, a bunch of crumbs fall out of the pages and onto his face as he flips over to read while lying on his back.
• The Pollyanna: While she isn’t completely immune to breaking down, Ichikawa notes to his sister and in character guides that she keeps giving things her best even in spite of her clumsiness. And he tells her upfront that she’ll bounce back from any setback.
  Ichikawa: I think your parents made you a meal every time you quit because they didn't want you to stop trying. Because they knew you'd be able to bounce right back.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Yamada's only read a small handful of manga, and despite occasionally engaging in Conversational Troping with her friends and Ichikawa, most pop culture references sail over her head if they don't involve television or film. One can only guess Yamada recognized Ichikawa made himself a paper doll of Papa Eyeball in one Twitter bonus chapter because of how often reruns of GeGeGe no Kitarō air on Japanese television.
• Sexy Sweater Girl: Sweaters and other knitted clothing tend to look very good on her, let alone her indigo cardigan she uses for day to day wear.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: In Karte 42, Ichikawa confuses her holding him close to her to discourage Nanjou's advances as a sign that she'd been manipulating him all along. One later tearful apology from her for upsetting him makes him realize how wrong he was to assume that.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Other would-be suitors (to be generous…) include an unfiltered pervert and a playboy who won’t take a hint. She falls in love with Kyōtarō and actively seeks him out after a string of genuinely decent acts that he never even expected her to notice or thank him for.
• Smarter Than You Look: Yamada is a genuine goofball, but she can be more observant than she tends to act, possesses a good memory (Something acknowledged in Vol. 6's Q&A chapter), and shows moments of emotional wisdom regarding Ichikawa, verbal or otherwise. She also sets up moments to either spend time with him or goad affection from him. Later on in Karte 63, she demonstrates self-awareness; thinking about why she had been more conscious about her Guilt Complex at the time and almost comes to the conclusion that it's because she's in love.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Big time. She frequently seeks Ichikawa out, looks at him with a smile, looks for opportunities to stare at his face, lets it slip a couple of times in Extra Chapters that she thinks of their outing in Shibuya as a date, is (secretly) less resistant about acting on her physical attraction to him, and is set on marrying him one day.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: There are a few times when other girls assume she’s had experience with dating and are shocked that she doesn’t (Which annoys her). Boys that she attracts or who at least express an interest in her (aside from Ichikawa) are typically less than chivalrous, objectify her behind her back, and overall give her unwanted attention to the point where her friends have to shield her.
• Stage Name: Her pseudonym as a model/actress is "Anna Akino".
• Statuesque Stunner: Tall and profoundly beautiful, this is the reason Ichikawa has so much difficulty avoiding her; she occupies way too much of his line of sight, both literally and figuratively. According to Extra Chapter 29, she's 171.9 cm tall.
• Sweet Tooth: She loves snacking on sweets and candies. She starts going to the library partly because it's a nice, quiet place where she can snack in peace without getting in trouble (since bringing snacks to school is prohibited). The other reason is that she realizes Ichikawa is always there.
• Teach Him Anger: Despite being overall sweet and even-tempered, she starts showing jealousy when other girls get close to Ichikawa as her interest in him grows. She even shoots Moeko, one of her best friends, a Death Glare when Moeko manages to get Ichikawa's contact details before she does.
• Tender Tears: Yamada's a bit of a crybaby. Things that have made her tear up range from the understandable (e.g. wondering if she's made Ichikawa uncomfortable on some occasions) to bouts of anxiety (getting separated on a field trip) to adorably odd (not being able to taste her favorite snacks while she's recovering from a broken nose).
• Terrible Artist: In Karte 79, Chii shows Ichikawa a picture of a “one-eyed monster” (Yes, it’s him) that Anna drew while the girls were studying. He even has fish lips. Thankfully for Yamada, neither of them recognizes it as him.
• Third-Person Person: Heavily downplayed. She only refers to herself in the third person when she's at home with her parents and avoids doing so in public and at school. Because it's a somewhat childish way to refer to oneself in Japanese, she gets embarrassed when Ichikawa points it out after he overhears Yamada talking to her mother.
• Trademark Favorite Food: There's always a significant possibility that Yamada will have candy on her at any given time, and that she'll be snacking on it without regard for her surroundings, which is sometimes so egregious that Ichikawa has to cover for her.
  • Her favorite drink is Milk Tea, something she brings up in a number of extras. During their work-study trip, she wanted to get some while Chii kept her on track. Ichikawa remembers this and gets her a bottle to cheer her up when the two get separated from the group. A visit to her house reveals that she keeps that same bottle in her room.
• Tranquil Fury: Yamada doesn’t raise her voice and shares few words if at all when she’s particularly angry. She simply and calmly displays an uncharacteristically cold, sinister look in her eyes.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Played for Drama in Karte 60 where she discovers Ichikawa only got his arm injured out of wanting to take pictures of snow in Akita for her. She doesn't take the information well.
  • Episode Zero also reveals that Kyōtarō's Freakiness Shame mixed with his growing feelings for Yamada were a major factor for him skipping the first year's outdoor trip. Ironically the opposite happens in the third year where Yamada goes on the trip only for Kyōtarō's sake and almost misses the audition that she wanted to go to. Making Kyōtarō the Unwitting Instigator of Doom in this case.
• Weight Woe: She has some consciousness about her weight (though not enough to try curbing her appetite), but as Chii notes, she really never gains any, and Ichikawa gauges that she’s actually pretty light while riding his bike with him.
• Women Are Wiser: Downplayed… and Inverted. If anything she’s more socially competent than Ichikawa. But between her lacking technical skill, gaps in common sense, and overall oddness, he generally comes across as more sensible than Yamada.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: One of the very few cases of this being a Justified Trope: the story is primarily set in a middle school and she's a middle school student who works as a model. It's kind of a given. Ichikawa at one time refers to her as the prettiest girl in the ward.
• Younger than She Looks: Due to her height and occupation, Yamada appears older than she actually is; capable of passing for a high schooler (Which lands her movie roles as such) or a young adult. Her normal behavior readily reveals that she's indeed a kid still. The English dub makes her sound older than she is as well.
• What Would X Do?: In Karte 120, she confesses to wanting to follow Kyōtarō's (And Kana) example on acting grown up and responsible.

Daijuni Middle School

Introduced in 2nd year

Chihiro Kobayashi

Chihiro “Chii” Kobayashi

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Ayaka Asai (JP), Kara Greenberg (EN)

Debut: Karte 1, Episode 1 (Anime)

Most commonly referred to as "Chii", Chihiro is Yamada's best friend, or “boyfriend” in Ichikawa’s mind because of how tactile they are.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Her friends refer to her as "Chii" and "Bayashiko".
• Armor-Piercing Question: She has a tendency to question what Ichikawa is doing around, which commonly makes him fall back into his own insecurities and wonder if he should be there in the first place.
• Characterization Marches On: In "With Her Eyes Half-Open" she referred to herself in third person (an aspect that was transferred to Moeko) and was a bit of a Butt-Monkey.
• Everyone Went to School Together: She has known Ichikawa since way before middle school, since they've pretty much shared schools for years. However, they've never been particularly close, so they're not Childhood Friends.
• Genre Blindness: One Blu-ray Extra has Chihiro mention she would like to be The Matchmaker to one of her friends. Yamada tries to grant her wish by setting up a moment with Ichikawa. She doesn't understand it.
• Hidden Depths: In many extras and small write-off conversations with Ichikawa, Yamada makes some mention of Chii messing with/collecting bugs in her spare time.
• Innocently Insensitive: She makes comments that awaken Ichikawa's insecurities, like laughing at the idea of him being interested in lighthearted Romantic Comedy mangas or wondering what he was doing with them at Yamada's house the day they were gonna make chocolates, but she never does it with bad intentions. Karte 123 is a rare instance where she realizes she did this and corrects it.
• The Lancer: The one most likely to call Yamada out when she's being particularly ditzy.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She's the only one of Yamada's social circle (and possibly the only one in the whole class) who hasn't figured out the relationship between her and Ichikawa.
• Not So Above It All: Despite being very protective of Yamada, shielding her from boys trying to get close to her, and disinterest in love talk, she was once so flattered by Nanjou-senpai asking her out that she didn't realize the only reason he did it was as a way to get Yamada to join a mixer with her. Moeko quickly points out she's being played.
• Oblivious to Love: Not in regards to herself, but while the rest of Yamada's clique slowly catches on that she has eyes for Ichikawa, Chii hasn't seemed to put two-and-two together yet. This is despite being the one person in the group to have the most interaction with Ichikawa and Yamada together early on (which is normally the catalyst for other characters to realize something is happening).
  • Yamada has mentioned in passing that girl talk with Chii typically doesn't involve talking about relationship stuff, to her annoyance.
• Phrase Catcher: “Bayashiko…” from her friends, whenever she says something that shows how out of the loop she is about a given situation.
• Praetorian Guard: She leads the other girls in protecting Yamada from the various sleazebags interested in her. She acts as the vanguard, shielding Yamada from the front.
• Rough Overalls: Chihiro sometimes wears blue overalls when outside of school. She's more youthful and Tomboyish in personality and looks compared to other girls, is part of the school's basketball team, and according to Yamada she occasionally plays with bugs.
• Saying Too Much: She occasionally gossips to Ichikawa about embarrassing stories about Yamada... right in front of Yamada herself. They also happen to include hints about Yamada's crush on Ichikawa, which neither he nor Chii herself actually notices.
• Straight Man: To her chagrin, she's the straight girl to Yamada’s wise girl, frequently appearing on the receiving end of Yamada's Gadfly tendencies or snarking at her goofy antics.
• Team Mom: Takes this role in Yamada's circle. She basically acts like Yamada's manager at school, trying to protect her image so her modeling career isn't affected. She also generally takes the leadership role when they move as a group.
• Transplant: She was originally from an unrelated 2015 one-shot gag manga called "With Her Eyes Half-Open"
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Yamada have no trouble teasing and insulting each other.

Moeko Sekine

Moeko Sekine

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Megumi Han (JP), Emi Lo (EN)

Debut: Karte 1, Episode 1 (Anime)

Most commonly referred to as "Moe", Moeko is another of Yamada's close friends. The loudest and most energetic of Yamada's circle.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. The anime has her briefly leaving Ichikawa alone with Nanjou to give him a Secret Test of Character, while in the manga she takes him out of the place immediately after Nanjou finds out Ichikawa has Yamada's number.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her friends refer to her as "Moe".
• All for Nothing: As it turns out, her Boyfriend Bluff in Karte 68 was completely unneeded because Yamada has talked about Ichikawa enough that her parents already have some idea of what kind of person he is... and how much he means to her.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: When she points out Nanjou asked Chii out in order to get to Anna, while her friends are disgusted by his actions Moeko claims his slimy scheme is one of his good points.
  • In one piece of omake, Yamada and the girls (plus Kana and Hara) play dress up with an Ichikawa dummy. Moeko's makeover on the dress-up doll has on a loose fitting cardigan and an eyebrow obstructing bowl cut in what seems to suggest Bastard Boyfriend material. Moeko gleefully remarks "<3 He looks abusive~"
• Boyfriend Bluff: In Karte 68, Anna's group of friends (and Ichikawa) arrive at Anna's house to make Valentine's Day chocolate. Anna's mother is there and surprised to see a boy in the group, and to avoid making trouble for Anna (due to her own perception of Anna's mom being strict) Moeko claims Ichikawa is her boyfriend.
• Closet Geek: She immediately recognizes Ichikawa's LINE icon as Rem from Re:Zero, which she claims is because her otaku brother is a fan of it. The fact she follows this up by saying she prefers Ram, coupled with the fact she references things like RPG mechanics and Event Flags in casual conversation hints that she's kind of an otaku herself.
• Did Not Think This Through: Despite normally being pretty clever despite appearances, her Boyfriend Bluff in Karte 68 backfires badly in that while Anna's mother is now at ease with Ichikawa's presence, Anna herself is pretty pissed off. The preview for the next chapter has Ichikawa, Moe, and Serina sitting awkwardly under Anna's Death Glare while an oblivious Chii flips through a cookbook. Moe's expression screams Oh, Crap!.
• Draw Aggro: When a boy is clearly trying to hit on Anna in the guise of "being friendly", Moeko often cuts in. Her outgoing personality makes her perfect for redirecting attention away from Anna.
• Everyone Has Standards: While everyone talks about memories of grade school, Moeko learns of just how Ichikawa came to her defense when a boy decided to call her a hag rather than admit to a crush. Ichikawa had apparently frightened him to tears with the threat of lifelong debt should he ever be taken to court for defamation. Despite seemingly liking her boys on the scoundrel side, she calls Ichikawa scum upon hearing this side of the story.
• Everyone Went to School Together: When to the same elementary school as Ichikawa, Chii and Kinoshita. In the former's case, they were in the same class in third and fourth grade (Which Ichikawa remembers and she doesn't.)
• First-Name Basis: The only one between Chii and Yoshida who calls Anna by her first name.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: His parents believe her to be the foolish sibiling to his brother's responsible sibiling. In reality, Moeko is simply unmotivated, because of the lack of faith his parents have on her.
• The Gadfly: As her friendship with Ichikawa grows, she becomes the character who would tease him the most, especially about his relationship with Anna.
• Genki Girl: Often punctuates a lot of her statements by winking and raising a peace sign the way an idol would.
• Green-Eyed Monster: While Yamada is her dear friend she admits to being jealous about her having a boyfriend, a recommendation to her dream high school, and because she doesn't have to do chores, whereas Moeko puts effort into getting a boyfriend and decent grades for her dream school with no success in either area.
• Hidden Depths: Despite seeming ditzy, she easily sees through blatant attempts to hit on Yamada and moves to cut them off.
  • She's also a genuinely nice person to her friends, which now includes Ichikawa (much to his surprise). She gives up a chance to find a boyfriend in order to help Ichikawa out of an awkward interaction with Nanjou-senpai.
• Informed Attribute: While Ichikawa frequently calls her a "slut" in his internal monologue, there's not really anything suggesting she sleeps around. She does talk about wanting a boyfriend a lot, but that only implies she's had no luck actually finding one, and she seems a lot more interested in cutesy romantic gestures than she does in sex. Once Ichikawa actually starts spending time with Anna's friends he drops the derogatory nickname in his internal monologue, implying that he realizes on some level that his earlier prejudice was unfair.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
  • During the school trip to Akita Shoten's offices, she brags to the rest of the group that she's an expert on manga, but the fact she's only able to name off world-famous series like One Piece or Attack on Titan makes Ichikawa doubt her claims. Sure enough, when the other girls try to ask her about any series published by Akita Shoten, Moeko doesn't recognize any of them.
  • She also seems to be this around Love-related issues, commonly acting like she knows a lot about the subject or at least more than her friends despite being single herself. One extra chapter has them discussing her English teacher getting a boyfriend and dismissing the idea of either of them confessing because adults don't bother with that. Sure enough, by the end of the chapter the teacher excitedly tells them that she was the one who confessed to him.
• The Nicknamer: Has a cutesy nickname for just about everyone.
  Ichikawa: "Ichi...?"
• Odd Friendship: At the start Ichikawa had probably the lowest and most disparaging opinion of Moe out of all of Yamada's friends, but - due to her being a Shipper on Deck and frequently having his back in difficult situations - she winds up being the one he gets along best with and interacts with most frequently. By Karte 122, she's the first person he trusts to get him and Yamada out of a locked room and not tell anyone about it.
• Perpetual Smiler: Her expression seems to be stuck as a semi-permanent Playful Cat Smile.
• Positive Friend Influence: Surprisingly, she becomes this for Ichikawa in Karte 117 where she tries to encourage him to apply for a better school than what he originally was going for. He returns the gesture in Karte 122 by making her promise that the two would make an effort to pass the exams of their respective schools.
• Praetorian Guard: Forms one for Anna with the rest of their circle. When walking as a group, she acts as the bannerman and walks at Anna's side, shielding her from the side. She gets the bannerman title because she's so loud and outgoing that she's able to redirect attention to her and away from Anna.
• Secret-Keeper: As of Karte 122 she's so far the only person in the school that knows of Anna and Kyōtarō's Relationship Upgrade.
• Secret Test of Character: Subjects Ichikawa to one in the anime during the mixer when Nanjou was pressuring him to give Anna's Line, keeping him in the hot seat longer than the manga depicted. Ichikawa proved his loyalty to Anna by refusing to give Nanjou her contact info, which left her satisfied, and subsequently whisks him out of the awkward situation.
• Sickening Sweethearts: Wants to have a "boyfwiend" so they can engage in stupidly romantic gestures like switching school jerseys.
• Shipper on Deck: Out of Anna's friends, she's the most aware that Ichikawa and Anna have eyes for each other and actively tries to help out.
• Slut-Shaming: Ichikawa's early nickname for her in his internal monologue is The Bitch/ The Slut, though outside of being the most chipper and talkative member of her Girl Posse and wishing she could land herself a "boyfwiend", nothing she's done really earned her the nickname, something even Ichikawa seems to realize later.
  • On a funnier note, when arguing with Adachi about him asking a magazine editor about Accidental Pervert moments and whether or not they have a basis in reality, Moeko feels like the onus is as much on the girl for making herself vulnerable to just letting someone touch her. Go figure that one.
• Smarter Than You Look: Karte 79 reveals her to be in 5th place in the whole class. Two places over Ichikawa.
• Think Nothing of It: After bailing Ichikawa out of an awkward encounter with Nanjou, she reassures him there's no need to thank her, as she was just doing what anyone else would in that situation.
• Third-Person Person: Refers to herself as "Moe".
• The Unfavorite: Implied. Moeko mentions that her older brother went to a private school since middle school but that she was always planned to go to a public middle school because her parents never expected much from her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: As the series progresses her relationship with Ichikawa develops into this. Moeko loves to tease him and make him angry while Ichikawa sees no issue in insulting her every time she annoys him, but is clear that the two care about each other and constantly have their backs in difficult situations. They even become mutual Positive Friend Influence regarding the high schools they want to apply for.
  • Even when a character overview chart is featured in a later volume where Ichikawa and Moeko would be on friendlier terms, Ichikawa refers to her as "A slut."

Serina Yoshida

Serina Yoshida

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (JP), Olivia Swasey (EN)

Debut: Karte 1, Episode 1 (Anime)

Another of Yamada's close friends who's known her since 4th grade. She's the most quiet and a bit intimidating.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Yamada refers to her as "Nyaa".
• Celibate Hero: Like Chii, Yoshida doesn't seem to show any interest in talking about boys and romance to the degree Moeko and Yamada want to. Her usual response to Moeko wishing for a "boyfwiend" out loud is some mumbled affirmation as she looks at her phone.
• Closet Geek: Excitedly remarks during the business field trip to the Akita publishing firm that she's a big fan of delinquent manga like Crows and Worst.
• Death Glare: Thanks to having a Face of a Thug, she looks like she has a mild one most times. The glare intensifies greatly when she sees something she dislikes, like Nanjou and his blatant attempts to hit on Yamada.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Yamada likes to call her "Nyaa", based on the last syllable of "Serina". When Rin overhears this and questions her about it, Yoshida sheepishly tells her to ignore it.
• Face of a Thug: Ichikawa mentally refers to her as a delinquent. Other than her sharp gaze and somewhat rougher attitude compared to the other girls, there's nothing else that suggests she actually is a delinquent, though.
• Funny Background Event: As Karte 68 goes on, she clearly begins to grasp that a) Ichikawa is joining their Valentine's chocolate-making activity, b) Yamada was the one to invite him, and c) Moeko's claiming Ichikawa is her boyfriend in a well-meaning but ill-advised ploy to put Anna's mother at ease was a terrible idea. Also d) Chii is kind of an oblivious idiot.
• Informed Attribute: Despite Ichikawa referring to her as a delinquent in his internal monologue, there's not much that suggests she actually is one other than a slightly rougher talking style and overall attitude. By all accounts it's just an aesthetic she's into.
• Inner Monologue: In Karte 132 at least. By virtue of her re-telling her perspective from the two chapters before it, Yoshida becomes the first character other than Ichikawa who's thoughts are revealed in text to the audience.
• No Social Skills: Somewhat. Serina still has common sense and can interact normally with her friends at least, but she tends to suck at acting chummy outside of them. In one extra she comes across Ichikawa at a convenience store and checks out the new wallet chain Yamada bought for him in Karte 101. By which we mean she just grabs it and starts casually counting his money; never actually bringing up the chain itself^note Although she complements his fashion sense in general., leading him to think it was a shakedown and running off. Karte 131 makes this much more evident; particularly where she tries to ask Ichikawa why he had a condom with him in a completely, deliberately nonchalant manner. Something he (and probably readers) only find out when she tells him that she was trying to afterwards; her face was completely neutral when she asked.
• Praetorian Guard: Forms one for Yamada with Chii and Moeko. When walking as a group, she acts as the rearguard, following the others from behind.
• Satellite Character: Of all of Yamada's clique, she was the one with the least screentime and only showed up alongside the others. Karte 68-70 flesh her out quite a bit, showing she has keen observation skills and, unlike most of her friends, a good head on her shoulders. She points out, for example, how Moeko's Boyfriend Bluff was doomed to fail.
• Sherlock Scan: Karte 68-70 shows off her keen observation skills. When they pay a visit to Anna's apartment, she notices how Ichikawa already knows which floor she lives on and where to find the bathroom, and correctly deduces that it's not his first time there.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Her expression in the preview for Karte 69 (after Moeko claimed Ichikawa was her boyfriend in a misguided attempt to explain why a boy was accompanying them to Anna's mother, resulting in Anna looming over them with a mighty Death Glare while an oblivious Chii continues talking about the Valentine's chocolate they were planning to make), screams this.
• Tomboy: While Yamada's friends do have this aspect to varying degrees, Yoshida comes off as being the least girly of the group. She's a big time fan of delinquent manga, and that seems to project into her demeanor and fashion sense.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She’s in the dancing club. She also has experience in styling hair and eyes it as a career option (which she's hastily states to Moeko is only an option). Amusingly, she gives Ichikawa a pompadour for the congratulatory speech, proudly declaring that no one will look down on him. And she probably means it.

Honoka Hara

Honoka Hara

Class: 2-3

Voiced by: Aki Toyosaki (JP), Natalie Rial (EN)

Debut: Karte 3, Episode 1 (Anime)

One of Ichikawa and Yamada's classmates during the second year. A nice girl who wants to go on a diet.

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• Alliterative Name: According to Word of God, her full name is Honoka Hara.invoked
• Beta Couple: With Kanzaki.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Kanzaki certainly thinks so. Hara's also gotten the occasional bonus fanservice splash page, sometimes alongside Yamada.
• Big Eater: She bonds with Yamada over their mutual love for snacks, later realizing that Yamada is more approachable than she initially thought.
• Big Fun: She occasionally expresses worry about her weight and is worried it makes her unattractive. She otherwise is a perfectly cheerful and active member of the class. She's one of the few people Ichikawa doesn't mock in his monologue for this.
• Dork in a Sweater: An adorable brown and tan sweater while joining Ichikawa and Yamada with Kanzaki on a double date.
• Formerly Fat: Downplayed, but she's notably drawn to be less chubby in later chapters than she was at the beginning of the manga. Although not enough to fall out of the Big Beautiful Woman category, possibly a case of Art Evolution, although the Volume 6 Q&A has her saying she has lost 2 kg since the beginning of the manga.
• Hidden Depths: A member of the Art Club and already a pretty impressive illustrator.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: She mentioned living in a house with two cats and knows enough about them to know when they are about to fight.
• Nice Girl: A soft-spoken sweetheart without a single mean bone in her body.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The one time she got annoyed is thanks to Kankan and her Flash Mob antics during the school trip, giving them a firm telling off that even Ichikawa was impressed.
  Ichikawa: Hara-san is strong.
• Put on a Bus: She's sent into another class during the third year.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: When she and Ichikawa are painting a cemetery backdrop for the culture festival, he sees she wrote "Yamada" on one of the gravestones and assumes she meant it as a passive-aggressive insult towards Yamada herself. In reality, she was just writing common family names down and accidentally included some of her classmates among them. As soon as she notices this she apologizes and erases them.
• Shipper on Deck: She realizes earlier than most that Ichikawa and Yamada actually get along really well when they're in the library together and roots for them.
• Twice Shy: She's sort of aware of Kanzaki's crush on her and is flattered, but lacks the confidence to make the first move herself.
• Weight Woe: As she says to Yamada in her first appearance, she isn’t too happy about her weight and has been trying to go on a diet. Which she has to remind herself when Yamada dangles some snacks at her later on.

Sho Adachi

Sho Adachi

Class: 2-3

Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (JP), Scott Gibbs (EN)

Debut: Karte 1 | Episode 1 (Anime)

One of Ichikawa and Yamada's classmates during the second year. Notable for being pretty obsessed with sex.

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• All Men Are Perverts: Adachi is often the one who initiates some sort of discussion about sex with the other boys, and he often makes some sort of crude sexual observation (such as the time Yamada straddled Chii when she was feeling down, and Adachi gleefully whispered to the other boys that it looked like they were in the cowgirl position).
• Book Dumb: He's mentioned to have rather poor grades (By his mother, who was pulling him by the ear) and he exploited that to get with Yamada's group to the workplace observation.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Downplayed. When talking about Yamada with Ichikawa, he goes on a lengthy tangent about how he realized his feelings for her were serious because he couldn't masturbate to her anymore. However, when Ichikawa asks what he likes about her he can only comment on her appearance, showing that even when he's not openly talking about sex he's still objectifying her.
  • Any chance of this being the case goes down in flames in Karte 67. While discussing rumors about the show Yamada was part of (in an earlier chapter) with the other boys, Ohta points out that if rumors are true about the show being a place for the sleazy MC to pick-up attractive young actresses, then wouldn't Adachi be upset if Yamada wound up being one of the MC's "conquests" since he likes Yamada? Adachi replies he would love it if Yamada started doing pornography since then he could "share the wealth".
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Yamada's circle of friends are well aware that he has his lecherous eyes on Yamada, and they make it clear on no uncertain terms they aren't having any of it.
  • Even Ohta and Kanzaki can get fed up with his antics. They start to wonder if he actually outright practices his tie-breaking games when they're daring each other to do something. Depending on whether you're reading the manga or watching the anime, either Kanzaki or Ohta respectively will express annoyance that Adachi baked not so subtle sex jokes into his pep speech heralding the Sports Festival.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Karte 72, he goes on a rant about how girls should be banned from giving out friend chocolates on Valentine's Day as all it does is give boys the wrong idea... right before he hears Moeko announce that she's giving out chocolates to all the boys in the class and rushes over to grab one.
• Innocently Insensitive: He seems to genuinely not get that being so blatantly interested in sex makes him undesirable to any of the more attractive girls in class. That can be chalked up to him just being in middle school and thus still very immature.
• Moment Killer: While Yamada is being comforted by Chii the day after her nose got busted, Adachi whispers to his friends that Yamada hugging Chii looks like a sex position. Downplayed in that only his friends (and an annoyed Ichikawa) likely heard the commentary.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: The trope incarnate, and overlapping with Digging Yourself Deeper and His Own Worst Enemy. Adachi basically has no filter and seems unaware that there are subjects that one should just not bring up when talking with/about girls, and even worse, that makes them cringe in his presence. The more he talks, the worse it gets.
  • That said, even he has some sense of self-preservation. Moments after declaring he'd be fine if Yamada started doing pornography, he immediately shut up the moment Anna and her friends return to class.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Actually wanted to avoid this during the mock-calvary battle in the Sports Festival and was about to throw the match and let Ichikawa claim his hat until Ichikawa shouts at him to play seriously. While its eventually played straight in that in the moment Adachi pulls off Ichikawa's bandana, he uncovers Ichikawa's first name "Kyō" on his forehead, and is already aware Yamada must have scrawled it on. He's left to digest these sour feelings alongside Ichikawa in the rain, though they go back on friendly terms once the arc is over.
• Put on a Bus: He's sent into another class during the third year.
• Temporarily a Villain: In Karte 103-106, where he finally pieces together what's going on between Ichikawa and Yamada, which leads him to challenge Ichikawa into being the respective Riders of each team in a competition of Mock Calvary Battle out of conflict between his feelings for Yamada and the friendship he has formed with Ichikawa. Thankfully they return to being on friendly terms by the end of the arc.
• Too Much Information: One of Adachi's more colorful bits of commentary includes the line "Man, I'd love to have Yamada as a sex slave." It often gets to the point where Ichikawa wonders if he ever thinks anything he doesn't say.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A one-sided example with Ichikawa. As the series progresses he starts to really like Ichikawa for helping him out with stuff (Albeit to accomplish something else that Adachi doesn't know about), while the latter tends to find Adachi's perverted antics insufferable and will commonly try to ruin any attempt of him getting close to Yamada. He nevertheless starts to consider Adachi to be a friend later on.

Ohta Chikara

Oota Chikara

Class: 2-3

Voiced by: Jun Fukushima (JP), Courtland Johnson (EN)

Debut: Karte 3, Episode 1 (Anime)

One of Ichikawa and Yamada's classmates during the second year, the third of the perverted trio with Adachi and Kanzaki. That's pretty much it for him.

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• All in the Manual: The Volume 6 Q&A reveals he lives with his grandfathers, his mother and his older brother.
• Book Dumb: He's about to say he has poor grades to go with the girl's group before Ichikawa pretends to have a poorer grade in Chemistry.
• Butt-Monkey: Based on the interactions we have seen, neither Adachi nor Kanzaki respect him much.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: In the anime, he's the one who ends up telling Adachi that Ichikawa and Yamada were on a double date on White Day with Kanzaki and Hara.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even he's grossed out by Adachi and Kanzaki's fascination with the tissues Yamada used to clean up the blood from her nose.
• Fat Best Friend: To Adachi and Kanzaki.
• Put on a Bus: He's sent into another class during the third year. Granted, he wasn't particularly relevant before anyway.
• Straight Man: His delusions aren't as strong as Adachi's.
• Satellite Character: His role is basically being friends with her nose Adachi and Kanzaki. He constantly appears alongside them when they're perving on the girls, but he never gets focus on his own. In the character guides, Ichikawa can only describe him as ”fatty”
• Small Role, Big Impact: Anime-exclusive example. He spills the beans about Ichikawa and Yamada going on a double date in White Day to Adachi, which ends up motivating him to challenge Ichikawa in the Mock Calvary Battle game in the Sports Festival.

Kenta Kanzaki

Kenta Kanzaki

Class: 2-3, later 3-1

Voiced by: Gen Satō (JP), Greg Ayres (EN)

Debut: Karte 2, Episode 1 (Anime)

One of Ichikawa and Yamada's classmates. A more-or-less Nice Guy with strange fetishes and a crush on Hara.

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• Alliterative Name: Word of God gives his full name as Kenta Kanzaki.invoked
• Always Someone Better: Ichikawa feels this way about him given he's much better at expressing his feelings towards his respective Love Interest as well as showing affection or making love gestures.
• All Men Are Perverts: Despite his crush on Hara, in Karte 67 when a discussion about Yamada's modeling and acting career veers into the possibility she might have to sleep her way to the top, Kanzaki admits being interested and gets into the conversation. He's even the one to float the idea Yamada would've gotten dragged into an orgy.
• Beta Couple: With Hara.
• Characterization Marches On: Besides Karte 3, he was much more of an unscrupulous pervert at the beginning of the manga and always joined the other boys sexualizing Yamada and the other girls. Later chapters would have him being more of a Chivalrous Pervert who's completely devoted to Hara and has no interest in other girls.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He commonly joins in Adachi and Chikara perving on the girls and is completely unashamed of his own fetishes, but when he talks with Hara or Yamada he's nothing but respectful towards them.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He pinches Chikara at the side for gushing about food with Hara, and later gives Ichikawa a prolonged and massive Death Glare when he thinks he called Hara "cute".
• Chubby Chaser: He admits part of the reason he likes Hara is that he likes girls with a little meat on them.
• Everyone Can See It: Quite a few people seem aware that he has a thing for Hara.
• Fetishes Are Weird: Exaggerated at Kanzaki's expense. While Adachi and Utto are making sleazy commentary about Anna and her group of friends, Kanzaki responds by saying he isn't into girls as pretty as Anna. When he admits that he likes them chubby like Hara-san, Chikara and Adachi bust his chops by calling him a total pervert and a walking erection, this being said seconds after discussing how great it would be to have Anna as a fuck buddy.
  • After Judo practice, Kanzaki asks if Ichikawa and Yamada are close, but Ichikawa repeatedly trails off when he tries to explain to him that he paired up with Yamada so that she wouldn't feel so uncomfortable with the smelly gi she was loaned. Misunderstanding, Kanzaki immediately shakes Ichikawa's hand saying they're in agreement: Stinky girls are the best! Even Hara cringes at this last remark.
• Only Sane by Comparison: He's much more sane and more of a gentleman than Adachi or Chikara, but he's still a huge pervert who follows their steps most of the time anyway and makes gross comments every once in a while.
• Shipper on Deck: Once he figures out in Karte 89 what is going on between Yamada and Ichikawa he immediately starts supporting them. Although he's not nearly as vocal about it as other characters
• Twice Shy: Hasn't been able to approach Hara about his crush on her.
  • Played With when they start hanging out. He's not shy about openly calling Hara cute at all, while Hara herself seems to be still reluctant to go forward with anything else.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: One of the few characters who outwardly recognizes Ichikawa's kindness beneath that prickly exterior, and can easily shoot down his Insecure Love Interest tendencies.

Haruya Nanjou

Haruya Nanjou

Class: Unknown

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (JP), Ben Mclaughlin (EN)

Debut: Karte 6, Episode 1 (Anime)

A 3rd-year student who has his eye on Yamada.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Yamada clearly wants nothing to do with him, and his persistence isn’t helping him at all.
• Accidental Hero: Ironically, many of his attempts at getting closer to Yamada have done nothing but make her and Ichikawa get closer and closer. Even his confession is what finally makes Ichikawa understand that Yamada is in love with him.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • The anime adds an extra scene where he tries to pressure Ichikawa into giving him Yamada's LINE info, while in the manga he doesn't really try to force him again after his first attempt and doesn't even seem to hold it against him the next time they met.
  • After Yamada rejects him, he acts like a Graceful Loser and simply leaves in the manga. In the anime he does make one last attempt of sabotaging the relationship by lying to her that Ichikawa gave him her number without her consent. Granted, it's such a weak lie that's debatable whether it was a true Kick the Dog moment or merely teasing the lovers.
• A Lady on Each Arm: The girls that hover around Nanjou may or may not be platonic, but Moe automatically assumes they're girlfriends who have no problem sharing him.
• Casanova Wannabe: He seems to think he's a smooth, attractive operator. However, people who are aware of his reputation aren't fooled. His style of nanpa pick-up artistry is aggressive to the point of almost counting as a verbal form of brute force, and Yamada nearly gives him her LINE just to de-escalate the encounter and get him to shut up. Zigzagged in that he seems to be popular enough to have multiple girls interesed on him, it just happened to be that none of them are part of the main cast.
• Characterization Marches On: In his first appearance he came up as more insistent with an Entitled to Have You attitude, trying to force Yamada to give him her LINE when he can't convince her. In later appearances, he comes up as a much more harmless Casanova Wannabe.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Pretty much all of his appearances have him in some way trying to get closer to Yamada without taking the hint she isn't interested.
• Everyone Has Standards: He may be a Casanova Wannabe Slimeball that has tried some rather questionable strategies to get close to Yamada but when she casually asks about his soccer practices he refused to mention that he gave up on them because of his injury, not wanting her to accept his confession out of pity
• First-Name Basis: The girls constantly seen with him refer to him as Haruya, making it more ambiguous as to how close they are to him exactly.
• Foil: To Ichikawa. He's tall, handsome and has a reputation for being a ladies' man. Ichikawa is short, gloomy and unpopular but a gentleman, unlike Nanjou-senpai.
  • Also a foil for Adachi. Both he and Adachi very obviously lust for Yamada and don't seem to have the purest intentions toward her. Unlike vulgar and awkward Adachi, Nanjou is much more tactful and silver-tongued... for all the good it does him in regards to navigating Yamada's friends.
• Friendly Enemy: With Ichikawa. They are enemies in the sense they are both interested in the same girl, but when they interact they are mostly polite towards each other. While Nanjou tries to use him to get Yamada's contact he doesn't seem to hold it against him once this fails and even playfully teases him once it becomes obvious he's the winning side. Ichikawa on the other side doesn't have a high opinion of him, but appreciates him for helping fish his bike out of the drainage ditch and even feels sorry for him in Karte 42 once Nanjou sees him having a Fake-Out Make-Out with Yamada.
• Graceful Loser: While he doesn't take a hint during most of the series that Yamada isn't interested in him, he gives up rather immediately on her after she kindly rejects his confession and even teases Ichikawa about it showing there are no hard feelings. He also tries to keep the nurse from going into the infirmary they're in to give them a moment... only for both of them to move the hell out.
• Hopeless Suitor: Towards Yamada, who finds his pickup artist-like behavior offputting and is already in love with Ichikawa.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Downplayed. He's pretty harmless in his antics most of the time to come up as that bad and is more like a recurring annoyance. However, at the end of his first appearance, he takes Yamada's arm to forcibly get her LINE contact despite her clearly not being interested.
• The Nicknamer: Refers to Ichikawa as "Bike-kun" ever since he helped fish Ichikawa's bike out of a drainage ditch.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Compared to the rest of the cast, Nanjou has surprisingly cartoony eyes for a supposed pretty boy.
• Pet the Dog: To his credit, Nanjou did help fish Ichikawa's bicycle out of a drainage ditch back in volume 1 (which unbeknownst to him, Ichikawa had flung himself as a diversionary tactic to foil his first "wooing" attempt towards Yamada).
• Put on a Bus: He graduates in Karte 85 and hasn't appeared since.
• Slimeball:
  • When he runs into Yamada walking to school on her own, he keeps pushing Yamada to give him her contact details to the point of grabbing her arm. She's on the verge of giving in when Ichikawa interferes by hurling his bike past them.
  • When his attempt to ask Yamada out fails due to Chii's interference, he asks Chii out instead and casually suggests Yamada join them. Yamada recognizes this as a blatant attempt to use Chii to get to her, and Moeko helps Chii realize she's been tricked. None of Yamada's friends have a high opinion of him, and he apparently has enough of a reputation that Ichikawa, not social at the best of times, has heard of him.
  • Later, when he runs into Ichikawa on his own at a restaurant, he invites him over to his friends' table and offers to pay for his meal. Ichikawa immediately suspects this is just a ploy to interrogate him for information on Yamada, and is proven right the moment he takes a seat.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Despite not liking Nanjou and his persistence towards Yamada, Ichikawa is quite taken aback by the look of genuine upset on his face when he catches a glimpse of Yamada holding Ichikawa close to her in the library.
• Unknown Rival: He has no idea that Ichikawa is his rival in his pursuit of Yamada... and that he's losing to Ichikawa by a nautical mile.

Rin Kanaoya

Rin Kanaoya

Class: Unknown, 3-1

Voiced by: Yuu Serizawa (JP), Hilary Haag (EN)

Debut: Karte 14, Episode 3 (Anime)

A friend of Yoshida's from elementary school. She's the one who hit Yamada with a basketball. She later becomes a part of Ichikawa and Yamada's 3rd-year class.

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• A Day in the Limelight: Karte 17 is all about her attempts at trying to apologize to Yamada.
• Butt-Monkey: After her initial appearance, all of her appearances involve her getting caught in the way of Yamada's antics and being weirded out about them.
• Everyone Went to School Together: She went to the same school as Serina, explaining why she seems closer to her than the rest of Yamada's social circle. With that said, they weren't friends given Rin was intimidated by her group.
• Never My Fault: Downplayed. She doesn't wanna apologize to Yamada, arguing it was an accident but still feels guilty.
• The Scapegoat: At least three times Yamada has tried to cover a display of affection towards Ichikawa by directing it towards Rin.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Kanaoya accidentally hitting Yamada with a basketball is what makes Ichikawa realize that he likes Yamada and drop his murderous delusions.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's shown to be a Nice Girl who's constantly on the defensive.

Introduced in 3rd year

Yurine Hanzawa

Yurine Hanzawa

Class: 3-1

Voiced by: Reina Ueda (JP)

Debut: Karte 99

A new classmate from Ichikawa and Yamada's class in their third year.

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• The Bus Came Back: A variation. She never appeared in the manga until then but her original debut was in a 2015 one-shot manga at the same time that Chihiro, who has been a major character since the very first chapter. Meanwhile, Yurine doesn't appear in the manga until Karte 99.
• Childhood Friend: Of Chihiro. They seem to have lost contact since then, until reuniting in Class 3-1.
• The Ditz: Hanzawa made a batch of fans to cheer Yamada on during the Cultural Sports Festival, though the girls note that having the fans read "Yamada Anna, look at me" would be distracting at best. Everyone soon after agrees that Hanzawa is basically like a craftier Yamada.
• Dull Surprise: In "With Her Eyes Half-Open" Chihiro discovers she looks like she's bored with her eyes half-open every time she's actually focused on something.
• Hates Small Talk: In "With Her Eyes Half-Open", she's completely bored of Chihiro's attempts at small talk.
• In Love with Love: Hanzawa has never been in love, but likes imagining what it's like and encouraging it for the honored two.
• Perpetual Frowner: She rarely shows a lot of emotion.
• Secondary Character Title: She's the "Her" of the one-shot "With Her Eyes Half-Open" but that story actually focuses on Chihiro.
• Sixth Ranger: She joins the cast on Karte 99 and quickly becomes part of Anna's social circle.
• Shipper on Deck: She trades seats with Anna so that she can sit next to Kyōtarō. She also recognizes that the two want their relationship to be a secret and helps them keep it that way.
• Small Role, Big Impact: In Karte 110 she pretends to be Yamada so Kanna doesn't try to get in the way of Ichikawa and Yamada's conversation about her audition. This culminates in Ichikawa finally delivering his Love Confession.
• Statuesque Stunner: She almost reaches Yamada's height.
• Transplant: She was originally from an unrelated 2015 one-shot gag manga called "With Her Eyes Half-Open"

Kanna Andou

Kanna "Kankan" Andou

Class: 3-1

Voiced by: Yuka Iguchi (JP)

Debut: Karte 99

A classmate from Ichikawa and Yamada's class in their third year, who’s known for eagerly celebrating couples.

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• The Dreaded: Comedic version to Ichikawa and Yamada, who spend the year hiding any signs of closeness knowing it would give her the excuse to throw a flash mob celebration.
• The Faceless: She wears a facemask at all times. And even when it isn't on, her mouth is obscured by her hair.
• Innocently Insensitive: Her desire to throw a celebration for class couples is in good faith, but it’s also a source of discomfort for those less receptive to attention. Hara politely calls her and the class out on it when the class does throws one for her and Kanzaki by accident.
• The Matchmaker: She… tries to be this for Ichikawa and Yamada.
• Matchmaker Failure: Zigzagged. Ichikawa and Yamada are already in love with each other but her desire to throw a celebration for them does nothing but delay any actual confession and actually makes them avert being too close in public because of it.
• One-Steve Limit: She's the second character called Kanna after Ichikawa's sister.
• Shipper on Deck: She not only supports the idea of Ichikawa and Yamada dating, but wants to be there once the Relationship Upgrade happens to throw a celebration. The two aren’t too flattered or keen on that happening.
• Unwanted Assistance: She helps people confess each other’s feelings... whether they ask for it or not.

Nao Kugenuma

Nao Kugenuma

Class: 3-1

Voiced by: Yuki Kaji

Debut: Karte 99

A huge and intimidating student in Ichikawa and Yamada's 3rd year class.

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• Cannot Talk to Women: He fidgets when Moeko is sitting in his seat.
• Face of a Thug: He towers over the rest of the class and has a perpetually menacing glare, but aside from being gruff he doesn't seem all that bad.
• Flat Character: He possesses some of the least character focus out of the new students in Class 3-1.

Faculty

Maeda

Voiced by: Kenji Nomura (JP); Joe Daniels (EN)

Class 2-3's homeroom teacher and a PE teacher.

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• Nice Guy: He’s a somewhat stern, but openly friendly and understanding teacher to his students. And sheds tears when his class graduates into Year 3.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He hears out Ichikawa’s defense for Yamada on whether she brought snacks into the library, agrees with the boys' conclusion, and happily pats him on the back for speaking more than usual. He pulled some strings for Yamada’s friends (and likely Ichikawa) to end up in the same class for their 3rd year.
• Put on a Bus: He hasn't shown up since Karte 112, since he's no longer the cast's teacher for the year.

Moriya

Voiced by: Kaori Nazuka

Debut: Karte 100, Episode 22

Class 3-1's enthusiastic homeroom teacher.

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• Competition Freak: States upfront to her class that she personally wants to dominate the other teachers for the Cultural Sports festival, and browbeats Kankan for screwing up a game.
• Genki Girl: She's much more lively than Maeda.

Family

Kana Ichikawa

Kana Ichikawa

Voiced by: Yukari Tamura (JP), Genevieve Simmons (EN)

Debut: Karte 19, Episode 4

Kyōtarō's doting, more lively but-still-dorky older sister. A university student and musician.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: Inverted. She's the older sibling and annoys her younger brother with her teasingly doting personality towards him and her open awkwardness.
  Yamada: Out with your sister? She's super cute.
  Kyōtarō: Hardly. She's more like a troublesome aunt.
• Berserk Button:
  • Personality Blood Types, at least according to a flashback where she gets uncharacteristically angry when the subject is brought up.
  • Mentioning how she has been single her whole life is another easy way to get on her nerves.
• Best Friends-in-Law: She's absolutely delighted with Yamada, and they hit it off pretty much from the moment they meet.
• Characterization Marches On: The extra immediately after she finds out about Yamada's closeness to her brother has her angrily asking how the two got close before immediately changing the subject to complain about her failed love life. While her Green-Eyed Monster tendencies remained after that, in later conversations with Kyōtarō she's the one who's asking for more details rather that trying to make the conversation about her.
• Childish Older Sibling: She's much more childish and playful than the much more serious Only Sane Man Kyōtarō.
• Cool Big Sis: Kyōtarō... does not see her this way, but he admits to thinking of her as a hard-working person and she's very supportive and considerate of him (Which he's aware of, even if it crosses over to being a pain for him). The same goes for Yamada, who does see her in this light and even asks if it's okay to call her "Onee-chan".
• Dude Magnet: She so far has attracted Adachi, Shogo and is heavily implied Jin, his trainee has a crush on her as well. Sadly for her, the guys attracted to her are minors of age or gross perverts (and in Adachi's case, both).
• Expecting Someone Taller: Inverted. She's taken aback when she meets Yamada in person, as the brief video call she saw her in had her expecting a cute, bespectacled Girl Next Door rather than a towering model.
  Kana: Ain't she kinda huge...?
  Kyōtarō: (That's what I expected.)
• First-Name Basis: She calls Yamada "Anna-Chan", not wanting to feel like a stranger to her.
• The Gadfly: Towards her brother at least, to the point that one bonus chapter consists almost entirely of her teasing him while they're on a shopping trip.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: With her brother. Kana is far more openly cheerful and affectionate than he is, much to his annoyance.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's downplayed, but while she's generally very supportive of her little brother's relationship with Yamada, she does have the occasional fit of jealousy, as, despite her best efforts, she's been single all her life. When the two of them show up at the restaurant she works at on an after-school "date", she bitterly tells Kyōtarō to savor it because it's something she'll never be able to do. This is further exacerbated by the fact that she's never had a boyfriend herself.
• Innocently Insensitive: Her attempts to be supportive towards Kyōtarō don't always work. Episode Zero has her trying to hype up the field trip as an awesome experience the same day his group got creeped out by the book he was reading. She changed her tune when he decided to not go out of feeling he was going to ruin the atmosphere.
  • Subverted in Karte 54, Kana notes Yamada's acting like a girl waiting for the boy she likes, which Kyōtarō denies. She tries to back off thinking she was being this trope considering Kyōtarō's obvious feelings for Yamada without knowing it was Kyōtarō himself who she was waiting for.
  • She also invites Yamada to stay over not realizing how uncomfortable both of them would feel over that.
• No Name Given: Despite being introduced fairly early into the series, nobody ever calls her by her first name, meaning for a long time the audience only knew her as "Kyōtarō's big sister/ Onee-Chan". Karte 55 showed her name written as "香菜" in one of her old yearbooks, but since no reading was provided it was still unclear how it was supposed to be pronounced up until a promotional tweet for the anime gave her name as Kana.
• Romantic Wingman: Once Kana confirms that Yamada has a mutual interest in her brother, she becomes for this. She secretly noticed a doggie accessory around chained Yamada's waist after inviting her to their house, realized that it was one of the pair she and Kyōtarō bought in Akita that he “lost”, and left her own next to him on the couch as she left the house to leave the two alone.
  • As thanks for giving her inspiration for her lyrics (a written note of Yamada's confession to him, which she thought were lyrics he was coming up with based on a cover-up lie towards their mom.), she hands him two tickets to a live music show and leaves out with a wink. This ends up being Kyōtarō and Yamada's first post-Relationship Upgrade date.
  • As a result of the lyrics situation above, she indirectly causes their first kiss. Kana's live show has her band playing a love song from Kyōtarō (Who made adjustments to the lyrics before the show) to Yamada, who was attending the event and finds Kyōtarō in a stairway.
• Shared Family Quirks: Whilst she initially seems more socially stable and confident than Kyōtarō, it is eventually seen that she speaks with the same creepy whine as he's used to when feeling intimidated, as Kana devolves into the same unsettling speech pattern when desperately trying to make a good impression on Anna.
  • According to Kyōtarō, she too tends to self sabotage to avoid getting hurt. When she first finds out about Yamada, she assumes that her brother has an unrequited crush who's out of his league and subtly tries to let him down easily. Until she realizes that she's the same "Yamada" who visited their house and left a note when he was sick.
• Shipping Torpedo: Subverted when she discovers Kyōtarō talking with Anna. Her first reaction is to act indifferent about it, then she spends the following morning on the way home downplaying her looks and getting him to think more about a girl's inner charm, out of worry he's trying to get with someone way too out of his league and might get hurt... that is until the very second she discovers he might have a chance which turns her into...
  • Shipper on Deck: She's absolutely delighted that Kyōtarō has someone like Yamada, so much that Kyōtarō himself doesn't want his sister to meddle from fear that she'd be overly enthusiastic about it.
• So Proud of You: She's extremely supportive of Kyōtarō, is way too happy to see him improving socially and his relationship with Yamada. She's particularly proud of him in Karte 84 when he sees him making the Graduation Speech without the note she tried to bring him.
• Smarter Than You Look: To Kyōtarō's annoyance, despite her appearance and behavior she was smart enough to pass the test for Waseda University on the first try, meaning he has to hear her advice at the time of studying.
• Smug Smiler: Comes naturally with her tendency to tease her little brother.
• Springtime for Hitler: One flashback extra has Kyōtarō upset about still using his kid's bookbag in 6th grade. Kana proceeds to graffiti the bookbag with studs and a skull to convince their mom to buy him a new one....... only for Kyōtarō to love it and decide to keep the same bookbag for a while.
• Turned Off By The Jerkass: Unlike Momo, she's completely grossed out by Shogo's scummy behavior.
• The Un-Smile: She breaks out into a nervous forced smile when she's feeling particularly overwhelmed by Yamada. Kyōtarō is noticeably freaked out by it.
• Unwanted Harem: Unfortunately, all of the guys she has attracted so far are either minors or people that disgust her.

Kyōtarō's Mother

Yumiko Ichikawa

Voiced by: Chinami Nishimura (JP), Shelley Calene-Black (EN)

Debut: Karte 16 (Imagine Spot), Karte 37 (Official), Episode 4 (Anime)

Kyōtarō and Kana's mother.

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• Age-Gap Romance: One extra reveals her to be 46 years old while her husband is 59 years old.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: While waiting for their turn at a parent-teacher meeting, Anna's mother tells Anna to uncross her legs and sit up straight. Feeling self-conscious, Kyōtarō's mother mimics Anna. Kyōtarō, who's watching them from around the corner, is mortified.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: She first appears in one of Kyōtarō's paranoid Imagine Spots in Karte 16, lacking the bob haircut she has from her proper appearance in Karte 36 and so on.
• Endearingly Dorky: Mimics the change in posture of the teenage girl who’s sitting right next to her who’s being scolded by her mother for said posture. Yamada even calls her cute later on.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She interacted with Yamada at least 2 times before Kanna met her (who immediately connected the dots towards the relationship between her and Kyōtarō). If she's aware of what's going on between her and her son, she hasn't mentioned it.

Kyōtarō's Father

Yususaku Ichikawa

Voiced by: Yuto Nakano

Debut: Karte 50, Episode 11

Kyōtarō and Kana's quiet father.

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• Age-Gap Romance: One extra reveals him to be 59 years old while his wife is 46 years old.
• All in the Manual: The Volume 6 Q&A reveals him to be a university professor. The volume 10 encyclopedia reveals his first name.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He makes brief non-speaking appearances in Kartes 51 and 54 before his first proper speaking appearance during Kyōtarō's birthday in Karte 92.
• Eyes Always Shut: What his eyes look like, or how he walks or drives like this is anyone’s guess.
• The Quiet One: Something he shares with his son. He’s pretty reserved and doesn’t seem to have much to say even when he does show up.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Implied. He appears much less frequently than the rest of his family and the few times Kyōtarō mentions him imply that they don't talk too much.

Anna's Mother

Sanae Yamada

Voiced by: Yuko Minaguchi

Debut: Karte 36, Episode 8

Anna's mother. A seemingly no-nonsense business sort of lady, at least in public.

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• Adaptational Comic Relief: Downplayed. The conversation she and Ichikawa had in the manga goes a bit more in depth about the feelings of her daughter for him. In the anime the bit is shorter, so it somewhat leans more to the Amazingly Embarrassing Parents part of the instance while still clearing things up with how she really is.
• Cuteness Overload: Seeing Anna wearing a cat hoodie makes her gush at how adorable she looks, and is later seen wearing her own cat hoodie when Anna's father arrives home.
• Education Mama: What little we see of her suggests she is at least a bit of this. While waiting for their turn for a parent-teacher meeting, she tells Anna to sit up straight and fix her sitting posture. It's also suggested she handles a lot of the details of Anna's modeling career. This is later subverted once the reader learns more about her.
• Good Parents: Karte 63 has Anna reveal that when she was growing up she used to take part in various activities (including piano-playing, ballet and kendo) but would get frustrated when she couldn't do it well and got overtaken by kids who joined later, eventually quitting. Her parents were nothing but supportive and encouraging.
  • Karte 64 shows she's a doting and loving mother at home, and implies that her Education Mama aspects are a form of professional conduct outside the home. She even rushes to Anna to check on a visiting Chii (actually a disguised Ichikawa) because she remembered that Chii has allergies and Anna claimed to have eaten a hot pot with her.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: She's much, much shorter than her giant of a husband. She's also one head shorter than Anna.
• Shipper on Deck: When Anna asks her mother her opinion on her friends' visit (including Kyōtarō), her mother smiles mysteriously and says he's pretty much what she'd expected of Anna. Anna is left confused by the statement.
  • On the other hand, when she later recounts the conversation with Ichikawa himself, he has very strong suspicions about what Anna's mother meant.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Based on the glimpses we have seen of her relationship with her husband, it’s safe to say they have this relationship.

Anna's Father

Yuki Yamada

Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya

Debut: Karte 69

Anna's dad. A tall, quiet man who works as a chef at a French restaurant and plays video games in his spare time.

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• Adaptational Seriousness: Downplayed. In contrast to his wife, the anime omits or downplays some of his more comedic moments from the manga.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Downplayed. He actually likes Ichikawa and never forbids him or Anna from anything related to the other part. But it's fairly obvious that he's not too happy about where their relationship is going. Double Subverted in Karte 116 where he gives Kyōtarō and Anna's relationship his blessing before changing his mind at the very last minute and tells him to go home. Although given it hasn't been an issue since then, it was probably either just a joke or him getting anxious.
• The Dreaded: Ichikawa has been scared of him since before they properly met, and while he has gained his respect, he still gets frightened every time they meet again.
• Eyes Out of Sight: His fringe covers up his eyes, which often makes it hard to read his expression.
• Face of a Thug: He's a giant of a man and his unkempt hair casts a shadow over his face, giving him an intimidating appearance. From the way Anna talks about him, though, he sounds like a loving, doting father.
  • That said, when he actually pulls his hair back, he's actually quite handsome.
• Guilt Complex: One extra has him feel just as guilty as Anna about cutting one of Sanae's rings that was squeezing Anna's fingers, implying he has the same issue as his daughter.
• Heroic BSoD: Apparently suffers from one in Karte 70, when he realizes that the boy he once encountered at the elevator at his apartment complex wasn't named Yamada (based on the PE uniform shirt he was wearing)... but was wearing his daughter's clothes.
  • When Anna recounts her father's odd reaction to Ichikawa (the boy in question), he immediately understands what's happened and realizes at some point he'll have to meet Anna's father to clear things up.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He absolutely towers over his wife. It's pretty clear where Anna got her height from.
• Kuudere: A big part of his intimidation factor is his lack of any obvious expression. He’s not particularly emotive on the surface, but he’s delighted to have Ichikawa to play video games with him and blushes when he compliments his cooking.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Something else he seems to share with his daughter, considering the way he gets right up in Ichikawa's face when he visits their home. According to his wife, he has trouble judging distance.
• Serious Business: He barged into the girls' attempt at making Valentine's Day sweets, apparently unable to stand their attempts. As a professional chef, it's somewhat understandable.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Based on the glimpses we have seen of his relationship with his wife, is safe to say they have this relationship.
• Tall Is Intimidating: The tallest character thus far, and along with his solemn demeanor, he startles a lot of people he comes across.

Others

Nigorikawa

Nigorikawa / Lucifer Nigorikawa

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (JP), Chris Patton (EN)

Debut: Karte 42 (Nigorikawa), Karte 76 (Lucifer), Episode 9 (Nigorikawa)

The male protagonist of You Color's Octave, and a construction of Kyōtarō's self-esteem who manifests in his mind.

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• Accidental Innuendo: In-universe. When Yamada says she wants to become a grown-up. The Lucifer form finds the phrase suggestive.
• Anthropomorphic Personification:
  • Of Ichikawa's confidence, positivity, and sense of hope; popping up to either discuss treading new ground in his relationship with Yamada, or to encourage Kyotaro whenever he's on the verge of giving up.
  • Lucifer is presents himself as the personification of his libido, which is prominently Played for Laughs. But more importantly, he also claims to be the personification of Kyotaro's overall instincts; having been responsible at certain points for suggesting what he really wants and pushing him into it.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Lucifer Nigorikawa looks like a sinister, black-winged version of Nigorikawa, who claims himself to be a manifestation of Kyōtaro’s lust (Which is more of an annoyance if anything), and Kyōtarō’s thought boxes turn black with white text under his influence. Despite this, whatever power he has is boiled down to inspiring Kyōtarō to cast aside his doubts and be more assertive about what he really wants in his heart.
• Euphemism Buster: Lucifer Nigorikawa calls himself the embodiment of Kyōtarō’s libido, and grows in size in sync with his horniness. An unimpressed Kyōtarō tells him that he’s basically a dick.
• Evil Counterpart: Has one in "Lucifer Nigorikawa", which he first transforms into in Chapter 92, representing Kyōtarō's libido. However, Kyōtarō is unimpressed and he's easily defeated by Kyōtarō's sister entering the room.
• Expy: In-Universe. He looks identical to the male lead from Yamada's favorite shoujo manga, whose personality bears suspicious similarities to Kyōtarō.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: A variation. They are not a pair of Good Versus Evil angel shoulders as much as one represents his determination and the other one his lust.
• Harmless Villain: Given Kyōtarō is a Covert Pervert at worst, the Lucifer form that represents his lust has no real effect on him beyond annoying him a bit.
• Imaginary Friend: Essentially what he serves as. Manifesting in Karte 49 represents Kyōtarō's increasing confidence and self-esteem.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He exudes a lot of certainty and confidence in the romantic advice he gives to Kyōtarō, but since he's actually just a part of Kyōtarō's own brain, he himself admits he can only ever have as much of a clue as Kyōtarō himself has as to what is actually going on. Much to the latter's frustration.
• Rousing Speech: Gives Kyōtarō a short but important one in Karte 84. When Kyōtarō is panicking about giving a congratulatory speech in front of the entire school, Nigorikawa reminds Kyōtarō that he - not his teacher, sister, or even Anna - is the person who believes in him the most. Being the representation of Kyōtarō's self-confidence, it gives him a huge boost in self-esteem.
• Shipper on Deck: Spends a lot of time trying to convince Kyōtarō that Yamada returns his feelings and to push their relationship further along.
• Shirtless Scene: Has one in Karte 57 to try encouraging Kyōtarō to "expose his heart" to others.

Yuki Suwa

Yuki Suwa

Debut: Karte 80

Yamada's rather scary-looking modeling manager.

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• Advertised Extra: Is hyped up by the narration as "one of the strongest characters to ever appear" and constantly appears in the character guides but so far has only appeared in Karte 80-81 besides cameos.
• Ambiguous Gender / Ambiguously Gay: When Yuki gets a bit too close to Kyōtarō, Yamada gets just as uneasy as she does when any woman gets close to him, leaving into question whether Yuki is a woman, gay or was simply too close for her own comfort. The anime also gives them an androgynous voice which only adds to the confusion.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Yamada mentions his name along with other people at her workplace in Karte 30, to steer away from the topic of her talking about Ichikawa "a lot".
• Face of a Thug: As Ichikawa describes him as "good-looking but with scary eyes". Yamada says he’s rather nice in spite of how he appears and acts.
• Like a Daughter to Me: She refers to Yamada as this while talking with Kyōtarō, having known her since she was in 4th grade.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Once they meet, he grips Ichikawa by the chin to get a close look at his eyes.
• Red Herring: Possibly. He's introduced and teased as a character with a major role in the story but pretty much went to the background after his first appearence, by contrast the character that ended up becoming relevant that was introduced in that arc was Nico Kouda, who was treated as just another part of Yamada's modeling agency.
• Shipping Torpedo: While not against it, Yuki lets in on not completely friendly terms he's open to becoming this if Ichikawa's relationship with Yamada starts interfering with her work. This fails to make him feel bad, however, as they're not technically dating and Ichikawa realizes it means he and Yamada do look like a couple.

Nico Kouda

Nico Kouda

Debut: Karte 81

Another model in Yamada's agency, who admires her. A whole lot.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Subverted. Ichikawa thinks that an Internet Troll dubbed Pigman is one of these to Yamada, only to discover she's a very popular model with who she gets along really well with and doesn't mean any harm even if she's very obsessed with her.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Minor example. In the manga, she had no idea who Ichikawa was proclaiming himself to be, while in the anime, she's aware enough to unblock him from Twitter immediately after leaving the place.
• Adaptational Nice Girl: Unlike her manga counterpart, she does unblock Ichikawa from her Twitter account.
• Ambiguously Bi: She has a furniture drawer in her house full of condoms, but in her appearences she only seems to be attracted to Yamada. Is ambiguous whatever that drawer is for visits or did she had male lovers at some point.
• Ambiguously Evil: Despite her odd fixation on Yamada, her creepy comments in her Twitter account, and Ichikawa lavelling her as "a dangerous person", the manga itself leaves ambiguous whether she's truly a harmful individual or just a Nice Girl with some odd behavior. Some of her comments about Yamada seem like a Loony Fan with a Yandere-like obsession and the age gap between the two could paint their relationship as an attempt at grooming; however, she does deliberately keep a distance between the two and seems legitimately concerned that the Drama she's working on would force her to act in inappropriate scenes. It is also heavily implied that she left cameras on her beach house to peep on her, but this has yet to be confirmed.
• Ambiguous Situation: As noted in the above trope, it is never clarified if she truly left cameras on her beach house to peep on Yamada or if Ichikawa was just being paranoid.
• Bad Liar: She's immediately discovered about her Pigman account because of how nervous she got once Ichikawa mentioned it. In Karte 129, her intentions of peeping Yamada are quickly discovered by not justifying the pet camera in her house and accidentally revealing there were buses in the area after all despite saying otherwise before.
• Brainless Beauty: She's a very popular model that also falls for rather obvious clickbait fake news and seems to believe anything she can find on her news feed is always true.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She is introduced as a minor model in Yamada's agency who doesn't seem particulary important until Karte 123 where she happened to be the one who has a Beach House right at the moment where Ichikawa and Moeko needed one.
• Comedic Lolicon: She's attracted to a middle schooler and her behavior is treated as weird but is still Played for Laughs. Zigzagged in that is the way she behaves outside of her interactions with Yamada is what is seen as creepy in-universe rather that how she interacts with her.
• Courtly Love: She describes Anna as "the only thing that heals me every day" and as "the hope in my life". Despite that, once Yamada invites her to go to lunch with her again, she refuses and says that she would prefer to keep a distance with her idols.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time we see her is in Karte 81, where she shows up midway through one of Anna's photoshoots projecting the aura of a cool, composed beauty... for all of one page before she breaks down blubbering about how she almost missed the shoot because her taxi driver ignored her, and clinging to Yamada as a pillar of support.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: If she did leave cameras to peep on Yamada, then she earned having her beach house trashed and taken over temporarily by Kana's friends.
• Loony Fan: As her Troll account Pigman, she seems like a desperate loony fan that's very close to crossing a line if she discovers something that would break her image of Yamada. While she's far from a more stable person in real life, that doesn't seem to be the case with her relationship with Yamada.
• Loving a Shadow: Her admiration/love for Yamada only focuses on her public persona being cute, cool, composed and grown up and proclaims her to be perfect. As Kyōtarō notes, the last three parts are far from the way Yamada actually is. Yamada even admits she's been nervous around her the whole time, and her composed demeanor was just her trying to maintain her cool.
• One Degree of Separation: Karte 123 has Chihiro, Serina and Moeko realizing they can't go to a retreat without knowing someone with a Beach House, then they met Nico in the same chapter for unrelated reasons who before only had a connection with Anna and to a lesser degree Ichikawa. And guess what she was convinced to buy by the agency for a tax reduction strategy?
• Otaku: Of idols and celebrities. Once she explains to Yamada that she'd rather keep a healthy distance from her objects of admiration, Ichikawa immediately pegs Nico as one verbatim.
• The Peeping Tom: Implied. She has a pet camera in her Beach house despite having no pets and lies to the girls that there were no buses in the area so Yamada would arrive sweaty and took a shower immediately. It’s not revealed if there was a camera in the bathroom but Ichikawa quickly notes something was wrong.
• Sherlock Scan: For all of her ditziness she catches all the hints that Yamada might be getting in a relationship from her Instagram posts.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • The Pigman incident is what makes Ichikawa and Yamada realize that it can be dangerous for the two to be so open about their relationship in public.
  • She kickstarts the events of the Beach Arc by lending them their Beach House and having a drawer full of condoms, which Yamada finds, leading to her dropping one to the ground to be found by Ichikawa.
• Stepford Smiler: If the comments in her Troll account are anything to go by, she has serious issues that go against the cheerful facade she puts in front of Yamada.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: As a model, she's prone to Death Glares. And as her troll account indicates she would commonly get pissed off over very minor things to the point Ichikawa believed she was a Loony Fan, but she's otherwise a kind person that means no harm.
• Troll: She happens to have an alternative account where she leaves very creepy and sad comments about the celebrities she follows.

Kinoshita

Kinoshita

Debut: Karte 42

A childhood friend of Ichikawa’s from elementary school.

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• Cannot Talk to Women: He went to a private school for boys, so his ability to interact with girls, let alone Yamada, isn’t all that great. He quite literally turns to stone when she grips his hands to say hello. He does control himself a bit better when he's talking with Moeko but even there he reverts to Chuunibyou mode.
• Childhood Friend: He was friends with Ichikawa in elementary school, and is still amicable with him in the present.
• Chuunibyou: As noted by Moeko, he has the tendency of impersonating Commander Gendo while talking with Ichikawa and her.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He first appears in photos from Ichikawa's elementary school days. He makes his first appearance in the present in Karte 117.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He mentions that his sister is an extrovert that goes to a public school and doesn't seem to take her education very seriously, leading to him proclaim this trope. However, Moeko argues she could be repressing herself.
• Small Role, Big Impact: His re-encounter with Ichikawa is what motivates him to apply to his preferred high school option.
• Third-Person Person: Downplayed. But after getting nervous about Yamada's presence he starts to refer himself as "Kinoshita". It goes away once he calms down.
  Kinoshita: Allow me to explain! For every milligram of a girl’s scent that gets into Kinoshita’s lungs, his life is shortened by a day!

Momo

Momo

Debut: Karte 119

Primary Color's drummer and Kana's close friend

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• All Girls Want Bad Boys: When she discovers Shogo was flirting with Yamada (a middle schooler), she seems delighted at how scummy he could be.
• Ambiguously Bi: She playfully says "girl on girl can be nice too, once in a while", after mentioning she spent the night in a Love Hotel with Kana in Karte 136. She also has a canonical boyfriend called Shogo.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Kana mentions her back in Karte 93 as one of the friends she has invited to sleep at her house when she's telling her that's okay if she stays over. Later on, she became a recurring character.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • She might be The Tease but she draws the line at minors. Strangely, she seems fairly okay when the guy she's dating flirts with a minor.
  • She's very attracted to Shogo for how much of a scumbag he is, but once she believes he was flirting with Kana, one of her best friends, despite telling her before he wasn't attracted to her, she loses her usual cheery attitude and leaves the room in anger.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Since she's perpetually drinking and Yamada's hair was different, she completely forgot about their first meeting by the time they met again.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She really enjoys partying and besides the times she's sleeping or waking up, she's always drinking.
• Hidden Depths: She happens to be an excellent tutor who manages to get Moeko out of her stagnation when it comes to studying.
• Noodle Incident: She is silenced before she can explain why she was fired immediately from her part-time tutoring at a cram school.
• Smarter Than You Look: Like Kanna, despite her ditzy appearance, she's studying at Wasuda University.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In-universe. She's by far the most popular member of the band thanks to her work in three different bands, enough for the other members to charge for taking pictures with her.

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