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Main Characters
Kaoruko Moeta
Kaoruko Moeta / Kaos
Voiced by: Hikaru Akao
A shy Older Than They Look high school girl whose work in a product-displaced Manga Time Kirara get panned by readers.- A-Cup Angst: Exaggerated. Moeta is sixteen and doesn't even have A-cups. She's flat as a board. Its like the poor girl never had puberty at all. Perhaps because of this, she's quite drawn to the larger chests of Ruki and Fuura.
- Ambiguously Lesbian: Her sexuality has never been clearly stated, but she keeps a large number of Joshikousei figures and she even checks under the skirts of these figures. She was also broken out of her fear of horror mangaka Fuura by noticing how pretty she was and how large her breasts were.
- Author Appeal: In-Universe, she ends up having her girls wear clothing with cats and English letters, because she thinks those things are cool. Three of her four storyboards (which are loosely based on Koyume, Ruki and Tsubasa's series) have a male character chopping wood as a display of his manliness, a display that reminds Kaos of her father.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Once she gets glasses, it only enhances her already high levels of cuteness.
- Better with Non-Human Company: She's more comfortable with animals than with people.
- Birds of a Feather: With Fuura, since not only do they both have trouble communicating with others (Kaoruko for her negativity and Fuura for her creepiness) but both are from the Touhoku regionnote .
- Catapult Nightmare: She has one about missing her deadline in Episode 12.
- Chronic Self-Deprecation: This happens very frequently because of her negativity, resulting in her negatively comparing herself to the other manga artists. For example, in the third episode she didn't eat not only because of Forgets to Eat, but also think that since she screwed up a storyboard for a gourmet manga in the beginning of that episode, she shouldn't eat.
- Closet Geek: She passes out at her first day at school because she wants to hide her overtly otaku hobbies, but can't come up with something "normal" enough to answer her classmates.
- Cute Little Fangs: Sports one that switches sides.
- Determinator: She has elements of this, as while she gets discouraged and upset very easily, she never actually gives up. She's amassed several bags full of rejected manuscripts from repeatedly trying to get her work published. Koyume notes that while Kaos hasn't gotten published (unlike Ruki and Tsubasa), her persistence is quite impressive, which makes Koyume feel somewhat inadequate.
- The Eeyore: She tends to think things very negatively. For example, the fact that messes up a few pages of Tsubasa's manuscript in the first episode already makes her considers killing herself.
- Friendless Background: Her editor suspects she didn't many have many friends when she was growing up, since she struggles to write realistic high school girls. Kaos privately agrees.
- Friend to All Living Things: She can attract all different kinds of animals, and is more comfortable with them.
- Girlish Pigtails: As the most childish member of the cast, she ties her hair into twin braids.
- I Should Write a Book About This: The Manga that finally gets published is about her adventures in the dorm, called "Comic Girls".
- Introverted Cat Person: She's one of the shyest protagonists in a Kirara series. On the other hand, the lack of cats in her environment leads to withdrawal symptoms.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: She doesn't only like cats, she even has cat withdrawal symptoms because the current apartment doesn't allow pets.
- Loser Protagonist: As her mother tells the other dormmates, Kaoruko never excels at anything. Drawing is the only thing she's somewhat at ease on, not that she is particularly good at it, either.
- Meaningful Name: A Sequential Artist with the surname Moeta who takes up the moe style.
- Nice Girl: A complete and total sweetheart once you get to know her.
- Older Than They Look: She is easily mistaken as a grade schooler. In the first episode every recurring character mistakes her as one. Also doesn't help to note she acts much more childish than her own age.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Nearly nobody in the dorm calls her Kaoruko, preferring her Pen Name Kaos instead. A rare exception is at school, when Ruki calls Kaos "Kaoruko-chan" while around other students due to not wanting to use her pen name at school, while Nijino-sensei and some of Kaos's classmates call her "Moeta-san" out of politeness. Even Kaos' mother generally calls her by her pen name.
- Otaku: Her hobbies are stereotypical of moe-enthusiast otaku: Schoolgirl Series manga, figurines collection, or seiyuu-watching, and so on.
- Otaku Surrogate: Despite being a high school girl, her interests are more similar to that of adult male Otaku. This is lampshaded when it's pointed out that her desk (which has anime figurines all over it) looks like it belongs to a 25-year-old man.
- Pen Name: Kaos/ Chaos.
- Picky Eater: Seems to be unused to eating food outside of her hometown. The eighth chapter (animated in the third episode)she in addition to Stock "Yuck!" such as natto and broccoli, she has a problem handling some more or less normal Japanese foods, such as tomatoes, cold tofu or tofu dengaku (tofu grilled with miso).
- Pose of Supplication: She often goes into one when apologizing for wasting her editor's time.
- Prone to Tears: Extremely sensitive and cries easily. Out of the 60 frames of the fifteenth chapter, 11 have her crying.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: Inverted. She has pink hair, but she's sensitive, withdrawn and pessimistic rather than being outgoing and cheerful.
- Shrinking Violet: She's very shy. A specific indicator would be at the sixth episode, when, several months after being transferred in her current school, she still stuttered when she greets her class teacher, complete with Blank White Eyes.
- Too Kinky to Torture: In the part of the second episode that adopts the fourteenth chapter, she tells Tsubasa she wants to be scolded by a beautiful teacher.
- Verbal Tic: "Ababababa," when she's in shock. This comes pretty often.
- Write What You Know: She finally gets published with a manga called Comic Girls about her adventures in the dorm.
Koyume Koizuka
Koyume Koizuka / Koyume in Love
Voiced by: Kaede Hondo
A hyperactive girl who draws Shoujo and has two weaknesses: she's too difficult to restrain, and she sucks at drawing men.- Alliterative Name: Koyume Koizuka.
- Author Appeal: In-Universe, she often draws characters, particularly boys, in a way that strongly resembles Tsubasa.
- Creator Career Self-Deprecation: Hanzawa was a Shoujo mangakanote , and some of Koyume's traits came from Hanzawa's day working on shoujo. The most visible is their common inability in drawing men, and resorting to draw very boyly-looking girl to pass as boys.
- Expy: Of Miyako of the influential Kirara series Hidamari Sketch.
- Genki Girl: She's the most energetic of the ensemble cast, and one of Amizawa's concern is she's too difficult to restrain.
- Meaningful Name: A Sequential Artist of the Shōjo Demographic with the word for love (Koi) in her surname.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: She wears her own sweater vest with her school uniform instead of the school's official vest.
- Pen Name: Hers is "Koyume in Love" (Koizuru Koyume).
- Sweet Tooth: If she's not working, expect her to be eating something sweet. In the dorm she's seen eating doughnuts nearly constantly.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: The cast defines her as the walking shoujo manga.
- Toast of Tardiness: Deliberately invoked on the first day of school. She runs off with toast in her mouth and a heart-shaped bit of red (raspberry or strawberry) jam.
- Weaksauce Weakness: As a Shoujo mangaka, she can't draw men.
- Weight Woe: She starts to be conscious about her weight due to the large number of desserts she eats.
Ruki Irokawa
Ruki Irokawa/ Big Boobies Himeko
- Voiced by: Saori Onishi
- A-Cup Angst: Because she made a name in drawing big boobs, she's very sensitive in her lack in that department.
- Because I'm Good At It: She originally wished to be a manga artist for children's manga, since she is fond of drawing animals, but her editors felt that her art style was more appropriate for more mature demographics, and with support from fans, decided to continue.
- Childhood Friend: She's known Tsubasa since they were young.
- Computer Equals Monitor: Had this mentality prior to Kaoruko's teaching her otherwise. Exaggerated further when she had thought the "strange box" that the monitor came with was a chair.
- Covert Pervert: Subverted. She tries to keep her perverted imagine spots to herself, but the mere fact that she draws for a demographic older than the cast is enough for Koyume and Kaoruko to see her more of a Lovable Sex Maniac.
- Curtains Match the Window: Has lavender hair and eyes.
- Hopeless with Tech: It's not completely impossible to teach her to use tech, but it needs a lot of patience. For example, after the computer she ordered for coloring arrives in the fourth episode, she mistook the monitor as the computer itself while the tower as a mere chair.
- Ironic Nickname: She's flat-chested, but her editor imposed the Pen Name of "Big Boobies Himeko" on her. In a slightly deconstructed case, this is why she has A-Cup Angst.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Because her genre is the most mature of the four and she often subconsciously exudes an atmosphere of sexuality, she is seen by Kaoruko and Koyume as this.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: In the second episode, her classmates wonder if she is in a "shady profession" owing from her bouts of being underslept—from drawing manga, of course.
- Pen Name: Big Boobies Himeko.
- Security Blanket: She can't fall asleep without a certain bunny plush she owns, even after she went on two all-nighters. Kaoruko seems to work as a substitute, though.
Tsubasa Katsuki
Tsubasa Katsuki / Wing V.
- Voiced by: Rie Takahashi
- Affectionate Nickname: Ruki calls her "Tsu-chan," but switches to calling her "Tsubasa-san" around her parents for the sake of good manners.
- Author Avatar: In chapter 37, she realizes Darkness Hero's struggle against the Demon Lord is blatantly just her pouring her feelings about her mother out.
- Bifauxnen: Both Kaoruko and Koyume consider her extremely handsome, to Even the Girls Want Her levels.
- Boyish Short Hair: Her short hair makes him look like a boy. Ruki notes that it used to be longer, before Tsubasa cut it to more easily get into the mindset best suited to drawing manga. When she goes back home in the twenty-eighth chapter, animated in the tenth episode, she needs to wear hairpieces to make her hair longer in order to satisfy her Fantasy-Forbidding Mother, as the latter would prefer her to stay as an Ojou.
- Childhood Friend: She and Ruki have known each other for a long time.
- Comically Missing the Point: The boy on Koyume's color pages looks a lot like Tsubasa, something that Ruki and Kaos notice almost immediately. Tsubasa, however, wonders why the boy is so feminine.
- Dual Wielding: When faced with a deadline, Tsubasa manages to triple-wield brushes in an attempt to increase her output.
- Elegant Classical Musician: Her parents want her to learn how to play the piano, and have her play for them once she gets home.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Both Kaoruko and Koyume got charmed by her in the first episode by her boyish charms to the point of Les Yay. Tsubasa has also gotten confessions from girls in the past.
- Gender-Blender Name: Unlike rest of the ensemble cast that have names that contains highly feminine kanji, hers is the gender-neutral word for "wing."
- Heroic BSoD: Spending several days at her parents' house drains her energy so much that she's stuck acting like an Ojou until Kaos forces her to snap out of it.
- Moustache de Plume: While her real name is sexually ambiguous, she wants to project a masculine image as the genre is dominated by male authors. This is why she takes the decidedly masculine name Wing V, which comes from her name that can be literally translated as "Wing Victory-tree".
- Ms. Imagination: She has a very active imagination and enjoys acting out her characters in order to write their dialogue. Fall short of Chuunibyou by virtue of the fact that she's actually the most mature of the main quartet most of the time.
- Nice Girl: While all of the main characters are fairly pleasant, Tsubasa's kind and helpful nature often shines through, and the others often make note of it. This is especially evident when she proves fairly forgiving after Kaos makes mistakes on a few of her pages.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: For her school uniform, she leaves her shirt untucked, doesn't wear a bow tie and wears a blue hoodie.
- Oh, Crap!: In the manga, this is her reaction when, after turning in a career survey form with "Manga artist" as her sole choice, she learns that the teacher will refer to those forms when holding parent-teacher meetings.
- Ojou: She actually doesn't have the mindset for it, but she can act like that, mainly to satisfy her Fiction 500, Fantasy-Forbidding Mother, who would prefer her to be fully under this trope rather than being a Sequential Artist drawing things that don't fit the mold.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Just before her parent-teacher conference, she wears her uniform properly and puts on hair extensions.
- Parental Title Characterization: Played with. She calls her parents "Otou-sama" and "Okaa-sama," ("Father" and "Mother"), but this is less indicative of the person she is and more of the person she has to be at home.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: As part of her playing the part of a proper lady, she's seen sewing while staying at her family's home.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Secretly wants her mother to approve of her manga, but her mother pretends to look down on it to give Tsubasa more material for her manga.
Supporting Characters
Suzu Fuura
Suzu Fuura
- Voiced by: Reina Ueda
- Broken Pedestal: She was fairly close to her roommate, but the other girl left the dorm without telling Fuura or even leaving any contact information.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She looks like a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl with very pale skin. What's more, she has lower body temperature than the most.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: After her introduction, there are several scenes where the sharp-eyed can spot her. This includes the photo of the main cast in the opening sequence.
- Last-Name Basis: The main four call her "Fuura-senpai."
- Loves the Sound of Screaming: A less malicious example than most, but she clearly delights in hearing the sound of terrified screams, which is a major part of the reason for her ghost act. Kaos in particular is a favorite target.
- Meaningful Name: The first kanji of her name means "to terrify." She creates horror manga.
- Nightmare Fetishist: She writes horror manga and has a preference to horror-themed items.
- No Social Skills: Her awkwardness is part of the reason why she's often taken as a ghost despite being totally a human.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Befitting her ghostly behaviour, she has a habit of showing up whenever the cast least expects her. The sharp-eyed can actually spot her a few moments before she enters the conversation.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: With long hair and eye obscuring eyes, she looks like this trope. Subverted as she's totally a human.
Mayu Amizawa
Mayu Amizawa
- Voiced by: Minami Tsuda
- Brutal Honesty: While she's relatively polite about it, she doesn't hesitate to tell Kaos when one of her ideas isn't any good.
- Can't Hold Her Liquor: She gets drunk the most easily out of all of her friends, and is visibly intoxicated while they're still at the bar.
- Meaningful Name: An editor whose surname 編沢 has the first character for the Japanese word for editor (編輯).
- Nice Mean And In Between: The Mean one of the three major adults. She's not completely heartless, but doesn't hold back when criticizing Kaos' work.
- Only Sane Man: Subverted. In the beginning she's portrayed the only person of the cast who has a complete lack of oddities, but eventually it turns out she is very similar to Kaoruko.
- So Proud of You: While she can give fairly harsh criticism, once Kaos does succeed in getting published, Mayu tells her how proud she is of her.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's fairly strict with Kaos, but nevertheless cares for her and tries to ensure that she doesn't give up.
- Was Too Hard on Her: She spends most of Episode 8 angsting about being too harsh in her rejections of Kaos' storyboards, partly out of a justified concern about how easily Kaos gets depressed, and partly because she's just as negative as Kaos.
Ririka Hanazono
Ririka Hanazono
- Voiced by: Aya Endo
- Affectionate Nickname: Koyume calls her "Ri-chan."
- Covert Pervert: She took a different position because she prefers "observation" than actually drawing it. So she keeps a large number of observation notes of the girls, which is implied to contain Les Yay.
- Meaningful Name: Riri sounds like lily, or the flower that the Yuri Genre is named after. She was a Yuri Genre artist and is still a Yuri Fan.
- Nice Mean And In Between: The Nice one of the three major adults, being a warm and nurturing dorm mother.
- One-Hit Wonder: She once produced a bestselling manga volume, but didn't have the motivation to make another one, since she prefers drawing for fun.
- Pen Name: When she was a Sequential Artist, her pen name was "Rika Sonoda."
- Sequential Artist: She previously drew Yuri Genre manga.
- Yuri Fan: She has been interested in Yuri Genre since high school age, and sometimes bickered with the Yaoi Fangirl Nijino about on pairings.
Miharu Nijino
Miharu Nijino
- Voiced by: Ayaka Nanase
- Closet Geek: Her sternness stems from the fact that she wants to hide her manga hobbies. The sixth episode shows this as a major dilemma for her.
- Hot Teacher: This is Kaoruko's opinion of her, spilling over to the former's manga storyboards.
- Last-Name Basis: While most people call the girls by their first names or pen names, she uses their last names and "-san" out of politeness (as well as initially not knowing of their being manga artists), and they call her "Nijino-sensei."
- Nice Mean And In Between: The In-Between one of the three major adults. She's serious and professional, but isn't quite as brutally honest as Mayu.
- Oh, Crap!: She's horrified when Kaoruko manages to find a long-lost manuscript she drew.
- Older Than They Look: Without her makeup, she looks no older than the main teenage cast, causing her friends to poke fun at her for having a babyface.
- Pose of Supplication: She goes into this after realizing Tsubasa's identity, to the point of slamming her head on the roof of the school.
- Secret-Keeper: Since the girls want to keep their status as Sequential Artist a secret, she becomes this as the only teacher who knows that particular fact.
- Stern Teacher: She's a strict teacher, and only opens up when yaoi is concerned.
- Yaoi Fangirl: She's been this since high school. She even does yaoi pairings out of Tsubasa's Shōnen manga.
Haruko Moeta
Haruko Moeta
Kaoruko's mother, who runs a sweets store.- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: She manages to embarrass Kaoruko by handing out her manga at the sweets store.
- Good Parents: She's very kind and supportive of her daughter's endeavors.
- Kimono Is Traditional: She's usually seen in a kimono.
- Last Episode, New Character: She's mentioned a few times, but only appears in the last episode.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She has Kaoruko's pink hair and also wears braids. In the manga, Kaos' friends and editor even mistake Haruko for Kaos.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: While she usually calls Kaos by her pen name, Haruko switches to "Kaoruko-chan" when offering to let her come home if she wants.
The Katsukis
The Katsukis
Tsubasa and her brother's parents.- Beware the Nice Ones: Tsubasa's mother is generally polite and even somewhat affectionate to her daughter, but Tsubasa's terrified of her mother, likening her to a "demon king."
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Downplayed. They're not completely happy about their daughter drawing manga, even if they don't overtly oppose it. Kaos realizes that it's fairly hard for Tsubasa to keep going without her parents' support. Despite that, it eventually turns out that Tsubasa's mother does read the manga, and the characters believe her dismissive attitude toward Tsubasa's work is meant to goad her to succeed.
- Honorary Uncle: A variation, given that in the anime, Ruki addresses them with the terms for "aunt" and "uncle."
- So Proud of You: She says that she respects Tsubasa's effort, even if she quickly backpedals and complains about her daughter using her as the basis for her manga's villain.
- Wham Line: Tsubasa's mother saying that she does read her daughter's work during the parent-teacher conference.
