Characters appearing in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?
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Main Cast
Hibiki Sakura
Hibiki Sakura
Voiced by: Fairouz Ai (Japanese), Madeleine Morris (English)
- Big Eater:
- She's often seen eating many types of foods and never really stops eating. The series even begins with her eating. When asked by Akemi about her eating habits, Hibiki says she eats a meal at least six times a day. It's explained to her multiple times that unless she is more careful about what she eats, her impressive gains will be hidden under a layer of fat no matter how strong she gets. The temptation of food is too great for Hibiki, however. Naturally, Akemi giddily assumes that Hibiki is actually trying to bulk up by overeating, much to Hibiki's dismay.
- During an eating contest in a crossover omake in Kengan Ashura, Hibiki's appetite proved so great that Tokita Ohma, another big eater and a professional fighter with ridiculously high daily calorie intake, needed to forcibly overclock his heart and metabolism in order to keep up with her.
- Born Winner: Hibiki's constantly said to have the perfect body for combat sports or bodybuilding by multiple characters. Her punching form is incredible for an amateur and her ability to eat tons of food with her large build means that if she really went all the way in her training and diet that her body could become incredibly strong. Even Machio's mentor calls her a prodigy. Unfortunately, Hibiki just wants to be thin enough to find a boyfriend and is horrified at the idea of becoming macho. She starts to change her mind about this later on.
- Character Development: Hibiki goes from hating muscular bodies to the point of revulsion to wanting a rock hard six pack herself and being a buff fitness trainer like Machio when she goes to college. She also ends up falling in love with Machio despite how she used to feel about his body and attitude towards bodybuilding at the start of the series.
- Class Representative: She won the role through a lottery. Hibiki being Hibiki, she didn't actually perform her duties and even forgot until Akemi summoned her for a student council meeting.
- Clothing Damage: This happens when she defeats Gina in arm wrestling. She doesn't even notice until it's brought to her attention.
- Cute Little Fangs: She has a snaggletooth.
- Didn't Think This Through: Hibiki decides to follow in Machio's footsteps by going to America to study to be a fitness coach, but she apparently never considered that she might have to learn to speak and read English to do that. Of course, everyone mocks her for it.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": She insists that Akemi, who starts off calling her "Sakura-san," call her "Hibiki" instead, since they're in the same year. When Akemi switches to "Hibiki-san," Hibiki insists that the "-san" isn't necessary. Akemi complies and calls her "Hibiki."
- Expressive Hair: Hibiki's pigtails will flair up when she's shocked or surprised, droop when she's fatigued or flap about once she's looking forward to a good meal, or to sexy results from a workout.
- Fangirl: Of Harnold Dogegechonnegger.
- Girlish Pigtails: They're very long, reaching her waist.
- Has a Type: Hibiki's loud and clear to everyone she talks to that she wants a pretty boy almost every time boyfriends are brought up in a conversation. She's extremely disappointed that Machio is super buff despite his good-looking face and finds his body off-putting because she finds muscle men bodies gross. She still ends up falling in love with him.
- Hidden Depths: Thanks to her Stout Strength, she has a talent for combat sports. Later on, it's shown that she also has a talent for pitching and bowling, much to the surprise of her friends.
- Ink-Suit Actor: While could be a coincidence (or not), Hibiki is very similar to her Japanese voice actress, Fairouz Ai, being the sole difference as Fairouz has short hair, compared with Hibiki's longer one.
- Innocently Insensitive: Hibiki does this when she tells Satomi how her mother complained about the disadvantages of getting older. This infuriates Satomi. She does it again during Mei's first day at the gym.
- Otaku: Hibiki and Ayaka became best friends the first day they met and discovered they're both movie buffs with similar tastes in films. Their classmates get a little annoyed over how involved their chats get over trivia and lore.
- Running Gag:
- Hibiki infuriates an older woman after she inadvertently insults them during their first day at the gym.
- Hibiki suffers a Wardrobe Malfunction whenever she's really pumped to do an exercise.
- Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: She has a cultivated tan and blonde hair, which put her in sharp contrast to her brother, who's paler than a sheet. This makes the relationship between the two even more unlikely to observers when standing side by side.
- Stout Strength: Hibiki's a heavyset girl who can achieve incredible feats in things like punching or arm wrestling. She does have some weak areas though because of this, standard chin ups remain impossible (even after she gained a lot of muscle) for her until she can lift her larger body weight. Her large bone structure also makes running harder.
- Supreme Chef: She's shown to be a very good cook. This is justified due to her working at her brother's yakiniku restaurant.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Her natural strength and endurance are utterly insane, being able to push a world-class Strong and Skilled muscleman like Machio to get serious just to beat her in arm wrestling, and most people who see her exerting her strength understandably lose the will to face her. However, her actual stamina is so terrible that trying to support her body with her arms in any way is an exercise in futility, she often runs out of breath when trying to run, and her fighting form is utterly terrible due to lack of motivation to train or acquire proper skill.
- Wardrobe Malfunction:
- Hibiki gets a split swimsuit after warming up with Akemi's dynamic stretches routine, though it certainly didn't help that she'd gotten bigger since the last time she had worn it. The look on her face is priceless.
- Hibiki's shorts are torn when she does the leg curl. Ayaka tries to tells her about it, but Hibiki's too pumped to listen.
- The Watson: Hibiki's initial attitude about getting in shape reflects the naivete of any first time gym member or "New Year's resolutioner" that would likely say things along the lines of "I don't want to get huge, I just wanna lose some weight" or "How do I get abs?"
- Weight Woe: The reason she starts going to Silverman Gym is because she thinks she's too fat to get a boyfriend.
- What Is This Feeling?: Hibiki realizes that she felt jealousy after being thankful that Machio and Akemi weren't making out in a shed. Later, Hibiki figures out that she's in love with Machio.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Hibiki performs the Argentine backbreaker on Machio when she wants him to tell her how to get visible abs.
Akemi Soryuin
Akemi Soryuin
Voiced by: Sora Amamiya (Japanese), Sarah Wiedenheft (English)
A schoolmate of Hibiki's at the Koyo Women's Academy who goes to the Silverman Gym at the same time as she does. Shion Soryuin from Kengan Ashura is her older sister.
- The Ace: She's rich, beautiful, and "accomplished in all she does".
- Ambiguously Bi: On one hand, she once, specifically, mentions hoping to find her ideal man during an event. On the other, her muscle fetish can extend to other women as well.
- Big Fancy House: Akemi lives in a gigantic Western-style mansion, with indoor and outdoor fountains and a large chandelier in the entranceway. Even the chairs Hibiki breaks attempting weighted dips turn out to be expensive antiques.
- Born Winner: She was born into a wealthy family and was blessed with a high I.Q and above average athletic ability.
- Has a Type: Akemi likes buff men... and buff women, for that matter, if the way she reacts to the idea of Hibiki getting buff is any indication. This is said to run in the family.
- The Immodest Orgasm: Downplayed as there's no actual sex taking place, but Akemi's heavy breathing during intense workouts border on sexual moans, which tends to creep Hibiki out.
- Nice Girl: She's a polite and well mannered girl. She's a rich girl who never flaunts her wealth and is very approachable. This is shown when she invites Hibiki and Ayaka over to her mansion so they can train and when she tells Hibiki that she can ask the school to take care of her gym expanses since her sister is the chairman.
- Perpetual Smiler: She's often seen smiling.
- Practically Different Generations: Her elder sister Shion is a 35-year-old business woman, giving the sisters an approximately 20-years age gap.
- Student Council President: She's the current student council president of Koyo Women's Academy, and has held that post since her first year.
- Women Prefer Strong Men: She has repeatedly shown to have a thing for muscular men and it's noted that pretty much everyone in her family has one.
Ayaka Uehara
Ayaka Uehara
Voiced by: Shizuka Ishigami (Japanese), Morgan Garrett (English)
A high school student at Koyo Women's Academy. She is Hibiki's classmate and best friend.
- Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: She's like this almost all the time due to her being a boxer and having extremely toned abs.
- Best Friend: With Hibiki.
- Boxing Battler: Unsurprisingly for a boxing trainer and heir to a boxing gym, her fighting style is boxing based.
- Brutal Honesty: She does not hesitate to tell Hibiki that she gained weight and that she will not get a boyfriend if her waist continues to expand.
- Child Prodigy: She's shown to be a very skilled boxer, so much so that she's referred to as a prodigy.
- Curtains Match the Window: Ayaka has brown hair and brown eyes.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 102 focuses on her and her sister.
- Fangirl: Of Harnold Dogegenchonegger.
- The Gadfly: She likes to tease Hibiki about her appearance and eating habits.
- Otaku: Hibiki and Ayaka became best friends the first day they met and discovered they're both movie buffs with similar tastes in films. Ayaka even has a good amount of posters pinned up around her room. Their classmates get a little annoyed over how involved their chats get over trivia and lore.
- You Are Fat: She kickstarted the events of the series by telling Hibiki she gained weight.
Naruzo Machio
Naruzo Machio
Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese), Stephen Fu (English)
A personal trainer who works at the Silverman Gym.
- The Ace: He easily wins the bodybuilding competition, which had competitors from around the world. How? He struck a pose that had so much blinding "macho power" it made the audience feel like their clothes tore off and made all the other competitors kneel to him. Even as an amateur, he was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a professional.
- Achievements in Ignorance: He managed to reform Toyoda just by flexing, without even knowing it.
- Badass Normal: Got where he is through rigorous exercise and healthy living.
- Born Winner: If there is any real explanation for his strength, it would be that he was born with Superpowerful Genetics. Even as a teenager, he was super jacked and could benchpress a person if he wanted to.
- The Cameo: He appears in an omake, in a commercial he shot with Julius Reinhold.
- Chick Magnet: Many of the female characters have been attracted to him either because of his face or his muscles. This is downplayed when most of them lose said attraction when they see him strip due to the huge contrast between his face and his body.
- Childhood Friends: He, Nana, and Ibuki went to school together. This is omitted in the anime as Machio and Nana don't interact with each other, while Ibuki doesn't appear at all.
- Clark Kent Outfit: At first glance, Machio's a slender and handsome young man in a tracksuit. Said tracksuit usually ends up tearing to pieces the moment he strikes a bodybuilder pose, not only getting much more muscular but taller as well, though his face stays the same. He instantly shrinks back down when putting on another tracksuit. As the series goes on, he even selects body parts to hulk out just to keep the gag fresh. At one moment, he's still shown to be pretty muscular underneath the tracksuit, even when he's not going full Machio.
- Everyone Went to School Together: He went to school together with Nana and Ibuki. As aforementioned, this is omitted in the anime.
- Eyes Always Shut: His eyes are mostly kept shut.
- Fan Disservice: The combination of his face and build can be considered as such.
- Guile Hero: While he's a genuinely nice guy, a lot of the things he says are worded in the best way to motivate his members. This is best seen when he's discussing workout methods to Hibiki, where in addition to explaining how each workout affects each muscle, he also slips in how they can help with developing a sexy body, which works well at getting Hibiki fired up and motivated.
- Heroic Build: His well-built body is shown whenever he strikes a bodybuilder pose and his tracksuit ends up torn to pieces.
- Innocently Insensitive: It is clear that Machio is unaware of how inhumanly strong he was in the past when he was just an amateur bodybuilder. He attempts to comfort Hibiki and Satomi when they are struggling with their exercising by telling of his own struggles, only to accidentally brag that he was actually inhumanly strong from the beginning.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: His muscles aren't just for show, as he can sometimes perform feats of superhuman strength. He mentions early on that he started out bench pressing 100kg (220 lbs) barbells and could bicep curl 50kg (110 lbs). He also easily beat Hibiki in an arm wrestling match, though he does admit that he had to get serious to do so. In the manga, his enormous strength impresses Kaolan Wongsawat, making him wonder if he's in some underground fighting ring.
- Nice Guy: He's a dedicated and kind-hearted person who helps and supports others in the gym. When Hibiki asked him if he would laugh at her for being weak and unathletic after she barely completes three reps of 10 bench presses, he replies that he could not laugh at someone trying their best.
- Pec Flex: When triggered by any word that even remotely sounds like a muscle or pose, Machio gets the uncontrollable urge to hulk out, rip his tracksuit and start flexing his muscles while shouting bodybuilding poses. While Hibiki's initially terrified by his antics, she gradually switches to annoyance until she stops paying attention altogether.
- Perpetual Smiler: He's often seen smiling, such as when explaining an exercise or helping others.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Any newcomer not already familiar with Machio's antics will ask this of him.
- Punny Name: Of the phrase "Macho ni naru zou!", which means "Let's get macho!"
- Running Gag: He often bursts out of his tracksuit to show off his muscles. It happens so much that the joke changes from people reacting in surprise to people wondering why no one is reacting to it.
- Shameless Fanservice Guy: He has no problem walking around in public wearing just a speedo. One chapter shows he'd board a plane in just a speedo if they let him.
- Tiny-Headed Behemoth: He's sometimes drawn with a body so huge and muscular that he looks like this:Hibiki: Why does he look like a photoshopped head on a shaved gorilla's body?!
- Your Size May Vary: Just how disproportionately large his muscular body is relative to his head tends to vary. Sometimes his body is ripped but could reasonably hide underneath his tracksuit. Other times, he's a full-blown Tiny-Headed Behemoth.
Satomi Tachibana
Satomi Tachibana
Voiced by: Yui Horie (Japanese), Leah Clark (English)
The World History teacher at Koyo Women's Academy. She likes to cosplay but would like a clean separation between her work life and private life.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: She doesn't appear in the manga until Chapter 8. In the anime, however, she appears in the first episode.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Once Gina identifies her as the cosplayer Yulia Riko, she immediately throws herself to the floor to grovel and bargain for Gina's silence. Gina is chagrined by this display and reassures Satomi that her secret is safe with her. Satomi does this again when Mei finds out she's Yulia Riko.
- Berserk Button: Satomi doesn't take well to any banter that brings up her age, and she's surrounded by her students once she signs up at the Silverman Gym:Satomi: I tried doing basic exercises at home on the weekend, but I was sore for four days straight and I can't work like that.Hibiki: I totally know what you mean! My mom is always complaining about how your body doesn't heal as fast and that it's harder to lose weight when you get older.
- Closet Geek: Satomi's secretly a famous cosplayer. This is something she doesn't want her students to find out. It becomes an important plot point when Gina finally makes the connection.
- *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": When Satomi overhears the ab wheel exercise's benefit on the abdomen, she enthusiastically comes over and goes straight for the workout without paying attention to the warning that it's not a suitable exercise for people with back problems. Before she even starts a single rep, a loud snap can be heard from her back, and she ends up paralyzed, leading the other teachers to carry her out on a stretcher:Hibiki: Getting old's scary...
Ayaka: I wonder if we'll end up the same... - Dies Wide Shut: A non-death example. While the girls play a game of Chicken in Silverman Gym's sauna, Hibiki thinks Satomi is stoically outlasting everyone. She's perceptive enough to realize while tapping out that Satomi isn't responding and promptly drags her to safety on her way out.
- Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Compared to the rest of the cast, she has a permanent case of bedroom eyes.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: When she's hanging out with her fellow single coworkers. Nana and Mei are later added to the group.
- Hot Teacher: She's a history teacher who's often subjected to fanservice moments thanks to her training and cosplay hobby.
- Named After Somebody Famous: She's named after two Japanese porn actresses, with her real name Satomi Tachibana and cosplay name Yulia Riko being swapped versions of Yuria Satomi and Riko Tachibana.
- Not What It Looks Like: She usually tries to obfuscate any hints of her cosplay hobby only for the girls or Machio to assume something even more outlandish.
- Old Maid: A bit of a sour point, but it certainly doesn't help that the friends she makes at the Silverman Gym are her students who are over a decade younger than her.
- Older Than They Look: At 29, she's over 10 years older than her students. However, she doesn't look that much older than them. At one point, she dresses up in a school uniform while at an amusement park, realizing she can still pull this look off.
- Only Sane Man: Satomi won't take part in her students' antics unless she's forced to, and is overall the most relatable member of the main cast when addressing the setting's comical obsession with machismo.
- Running Gag: An early gag has Satomi running into her students when she least expected it.
- Sensei-chan: To the point that she can pass as just another student if dressed in a school uniform.
- Spotting the Thread: Has one below her left eye. It helps clue Gina in that she is the cosplayer Yulia Riko.
- Straight Man: She's usually the tsukkomi to nearly the entire cast. She even refers to herself as such during fourth wall moments, seeing as how she's weirded out by everyone's wackier quirks. She also lampshades the lack of reaction to Machio's antics as the series progresses.
- Tempting Fate: She has a tendency of running into people she knows when she least expected it after previously hoping that this doesn't happen.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: She and Rumika suffer one when their skirts rip at the same time.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She turns into a nervous wreck once she thinks someone might make the connection between herself, her work life and her cosplay hobby. Whenever she goes along with Gina's zany schemes to try and make a name for themselves as idols, Satomi often obscures her face with a mask or a kendo helmet.
- Wrestler in All of Us:
- Junji Hirata's Super Strong Machine mask is one of many articles in Satomi's cosplay wardrobe. She can also do a no-hands variant of the wrestler's bridge.
- She and Rumika perform a brainbuster on Jason when he tells them that girls with big butts are popular in America.
Gina Boyd
Gina Boyd
Voiced by: Nao Tōyama (Japanese), Alexis Tipton (English)
A foreign transfer student from Russia who goes to Koyo Women's Academy. Ivan Karaev from Kengan Ashura is her uncle.
- Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: She often dresses like this due to her being in combat sports.
- Book Smart: Besides athletics, she is an honor student.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Whenever Gina observes Hibiki to find out the secret of the latter's strength, she assumes that Hibiki's either Obfuscating Stupidity or is on a strict regimen. In reality, Gina's simply overthinking things.
- Foreign Cuss Word: She often swears in Russian when frustrated. An especially common swear from her is "blyat", which roughly means "fuck" in English. Needless to say, the internet had a field day with this trait.
- Funny Foreigner: She occasionally shows signs of this since she's a Occidental Otaku from Russia. This fact is frequently brought up by the other characters. A yonkoma has her intentionally asking for the other characters' stereotypical views of Russia, so she may play them out.
- Gratuitous Russian: She'll occasionally use some Russian words depending on the situation. The exact amount of Russian she uses, as well as which words, varies based on what point in the story after her introduction she is in. She starts with interjecting random Russian while speaking mostly Japanese, gradually switches to speaking mostly Russian with a little Japanese, at one point goes several chapters while saying nothing but "хорошо́ " in a Pokémon Speak manner, before eventually going back to speaking mostly Japanese with some random Russian. She even makes note that she was doing this intentionally throughout the story in, cycling through all the different Russian foreigner verbal stereotypes, to which Satomi states she was wondering what was going on there.
- Hidden Depths: Due her insane antics, her friends tend to forget she's actually really smart and a honor student. And that's before she pulls out skills she hadn't shown before.
- Horrifying the Horror: When Gina gets possessed by the vengeful spirit of Tadakatsu Toyoda, the latter peers into her memories and can only find moments of her obsession with Prime Minister Petin. In short, Toyoda thinks he just possessed someone who's already possessed.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Her name can be translated as "Gina Boyd", "Zina Boyd", or "Zina Void".
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: She makes some mistakes concerning Asian culture. For example, she thinks Hong Kong is in Japan.
- Named After Somebody Famous: She's named after two Russian porn actresses, Gina Gerson and Krystal Boyd.
- Occidental Otaku: Aside from her self-proclaimed rivalry with Hibiki, Gina traveled to and eventually stayed in Japan full-time because of her obsession with its pop culture, learning the language from anime, and having dreams of becoming an idol with the rest of the gym girls plus Satomi. Not that her ideas of what is or is not Japanese are particularly accurate; she names both kung fu movies and Yoga as Japanese things she likes, and believes that both Hong Kong and Macao are in Japan. The other characters have noted how shallow Gina's knowledge of "Japanese culture" is.
- Phenotype Stereotype: Per the trend of Russian characters in anime having white hair and light eyes.
- Secret-Keeper: Gina knows about Satomi's cosplay hobby but she keeps it a secret from the others.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Her uncle Ivan isn't too pleased when he learns that Hibiki and co. were expecting him to greet them in the same stereotypical fashion as Gina, and he spends a great deal admonishing her for tainting the great image of Mother Russia.
- Strong Family Resemblance: When the group visits Russia, it's revealed that Gina has four younger sisters that basically look like progressively smaller versions of herself, and based on the one panel they're shown in they share her intentionally stereotypical Funny Foreigner mindset. Satomi even refers to them as "authentic matryoshka".
- Unknown Rival: She thinks that she's a rival of Hibiki after the latter manages to defeat her in arm wrestling, but Hibiki couldn't care less.
- Verbal Tic: Regardless of whatever other Russian she uses, one consistent part of her vocabulary is the word "хорошо́ ", a Russian term of approval towards things. She even goes through a phase where she says nothing except this word in a similar way to Pokémon Speak.
Teachers, Colleagues, and Family
Harnold Dogegenchonegger/Barnold Shortsinator
Harnold Dogegenchonegger/Barnold Shortsinator
Voiced by: Tesshō Genda (Japanese), Cris George (English)
A famous movie star and world-class bodybuilder.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: Harnold appears at the end of Episode 8 in the anime adaptation, which focuses on the school mountain hike that happens much later than his first appearance in the manga.
- The Ahnold: He's a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He even gets mistaken for him by Satomi when he first shows up at the gym.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the anime, he's the one who rescues Jason and Kutaro when they're stranded at sea, as he received an SOS from Jason's smartphone. In the manga, they're rescued when a ship spots their boat.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He wears dark clothing and his presence gives him a dark and malevolent looking aura. Underneath all of this, however, is a Gentle Giant.
- Dub Name Change: In the English dub, his name was changed from "Harnold Dogegenchonegger" to "Barnold Shortsinator".
- Gentle Giant: Though he's a massive and intimidating man, he's very generous with the girls. During the bodybuilding competition, he invites them to the VIP section and he gives some of them a piggyback ride on the way there.
- In-Series Nickname: "Doge-chan". In the English dub, it's "Barnie".
- Large and in Charge: Machio's usually the biggest guy onscreen when he's in his muscular form. As Machio's mentor, however, Harnold is shown to be even bigger.
- Large Ham: In the manga, all of his speech bubbles are punctuated with rumble and its contents are written in a very aggressive bold font, reflecting his overwhelming presence.
- Mentor Archetype: He was Machio's mentor while the latter was studying in America.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed. As aforementioned, he's a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is acknowledged constantly in the series.
- Poor Communication Kills: Downplayed as Machio was lead to believe Harnold didn't want anything to do with him since he hasn't communicated in years, but Harnold explains that he just accidentally dropped the phone with all his contact information in a pool. Harnold gets in touch with Machio again after seeing the latter in a commercial for the Silverman Gym and comes to personally invite him to a bodybuilding competition overseas. In the anime, the competition takes place in Japan instead.
- Tiny-Headed Behemoth: Even more so than Machio.
Nana Uehara
Nana Uehara
Voiced by: Rina Sato (Japanese), Molly Searcy (English)
Ayaka's older sister who works as a boxing coach at the Glory Gym.
- Childhood Friends: She, Machio, and Ibuki went to school together. This is omitted in the anime as Nana and Machio don't interact with each other, while Ibuki doesn't appear at all.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 102 focuses on her and her sister.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: This is her training method at the Glory Gym.
- Everyone Went to School Together: She went to school together with Machio and Ibuki. As aforementioned, this is omitted in the anime.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: When she's hanging out with Satomi, Rumika, and Mei.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Due to her wearing a tracksuit most of the time, Hibiki doesn't recognize Nana at first when she sees her hanging out with Machio.
- Translator Buddy: Because Ibuki uses extraordinarily flowery wording when talking, Nana is the one who has to pick up the slack and translate Ibuki's gibberish into more mundane sentences.
Rumika Aina
Rumika Aina
Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (Japanese), Jessica Cavanagh (English)
Hibiki and Ayaka's homeroom teacher.
- Closet Geek: Like Satomi, she's secretly a cosplayer. When the two of them run into each other at the TDL amusement park in their joshikousei cosplay, they agree to pretend like nothing happened.
- Clothing Damage: She tears her skirt at the same time Satomi does and rips her sleeve after working on her arms.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 138 focuses on her and her efforts to build up her strength.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: When she's hanging out with her fellow single coworkers. Nana and Mei are later added to the group.
- Innocently Insensitive: She does this when she says that Yakusha's the oldest among the group and is a middle aged star.
- Old Maid: Like Satomi, she's single.
- Wardrobe Malfunction:
- She and Satomi suffer one when their skirts rip at the same time.
- She ended up ripping her sleeve after bulking up her arm.
- Wrestler in All of Us: She and Satomi perform a brainbuster on Jason when he tells them that girls with big butts are popular in America.
Yakusha Kure
Yakusha Kure
Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Natalie Hoover (English)
Akemi and Gina's homeroom teacher. She is the mother of Karura Kure from Manga/Kengan Ashura.
- Beneath the Mask: Occasionally, her inner nature as a Kure slips out, usually when she's exercising, concerned, or pissed.
- Berserk Button: She doesn't like it when someone mentions that she's the oldest among the group or refers to her as being middle aged, retorting with terrifyingly passive-aggressive threats while keeping up her smile. Just ask Rumika:Rumika: Seriously? Are you smiling and slinging threats?
- Beware the Nice Ones: While she's nice, sweet, and personable, she's also a trained assassin who happens to be very strong. This is best seen when Jason manages to actually enrage her, to which Yakusha uses Removal and starts choking him one-handed while lifting him.
- Black Eyes of Crazy: When an impressed Satomi asks if she's done sports before, Yakusha briefly opens her eyes with a gleeful smile. It turns out she possesses black sclera and white irises like the rest of the Kure Clan of assassins, making her smile more terrifying than intended. This intimidates Satomi into thinking she shouldn't pry any further.
- Eyes Always Shut: She very rarely opens her eyes.
- Naginatas Are Feminine: When Karura briefly introduces her "very normal family" in the omake of Chapter 201 of Kengan Ashura, Yakusha is presented as wielding a nanigata and smiling, in contrast to Karura's father and brother, whose faces are framed in shadow and are using more practical assassination weapons.
- Perpetual Smiler: She's almost always seen smiling.
- Punch-Clock Villain: She's a calm, friendly schoolteacher, but as a Kure, she's also a highly trained assassin. Omake material from Kengan Ashura explicitly lists her occupation as "Assassin and Teacher".
- Running Gag: People asking questions whose answer would be the truth about the Kure Clan but being intimidated into not prying further with a smile.
- Stronger Than They Look: Despite her petite figure, she can lift the heaviest dumbbell with ease and do the more intense version of the side bend with it. She can also bench press 100kg easily.
- Super Mode: Like her clan, she can use Removal, becoming strong enough to perform a Neck Lift on Jason, who is physically around twice her size.
- Tranquil Fury: She never changes her facial expression and tone of voice even when she's angry. Seeing this terrifies Rumika.
- Uninhibited Muscle Power: Like the rest of the Kure Clan, she can use Removal, allowing her to use a larger part of her muscles' strength for a short while, though which percentage is unknown.
- Worthy Opponent: She appears to view Koharu as this and wants to fight her.
Kutaro Deire
Kutaro Deire
Voiced by: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Japanese), Christopher Bevins (English)
A TV director who works for Muji TV.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: During the So Cool! Public Idol Audition, he cynically monologues about how idols are all the same nowadays, and that a group should try to do something with more "bang." Enter Hibiki, Akemi, Ayaka, Gina and Satomi, half-naked in swimsuits, being carried around by masked, absurdly buff regulars of Silverman Gym, whose performance largely consists of lifting absurdly heavy weights. "Too much bang" indeed.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: He has one whenever he's scheming about ways to get ratings thanks to his job as a TV director.
- Cool Shades: He wears a pair of pink sunglasses.
- Nothing but Skin and Bones: He's very skinny, and mentions that he never played any sports nor tried bodybuilding. In fact, he almost has a heart attack when the idol talent competition takes a turn for the wackier with the introduction of Hibiki's group. His producer seemingly gets on this by giving him a shirt with the words "Weakling" on it.
- Punny Name: When quickly pronounced in Japanese, "Deire Kutaro" sounds an awful lot like "Director", which happens to be his job.
- Schemer: As a TV director, he always concerns himself with ratings, and will capitalize on exploiting any talent that gets the crowd going. Unfortunately, that includes the wacky muscle antics from Hibiki's group; even though he thinks their performance is plain, the ratings still go up, so in a sense he gets what he wants, just not in a way he can stomach.
- Spit Take: When he sees Hibiki's group enter the talent competition in a really unconventional setup, he's shocked at the contrast between them and the earlier idol groups, not helped by his earlier rant about wanting non-normal idols:"These girls are way too unconventional!"
Jason Sgatham
Jason Sgatham
Voiced by: Yūichi Nakamura (Japanese), Ray Hurd (English)
An actor who works as Harnold Dogegenchonegger's secretary. He later becomes a trainer at the Silverman Gym on Harnold's orders to assist Machio and keep an eye on him.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: Like Harnold, Jason first appears at the end of Episode 8, whereas in the manga, he had already become a recurring character by the time the school mountain hike occurs. He's even replaced by a generic bodybuilder when Machio runs out of protein powder and said bodybuilder gives him some that he bought in bulk.
- Butt-Monkey: Most of the time, Jason gets relegated to the background and stays ignored there regardless of his attempts to gain attention. Additionally, whenever something bad and/or embarrassing happens to him, the main cast is usually apathetic when they're aware of it.
- Identical Stranger: Despite having different nationalities, he and Tadakatsu are said to look very similar, to the point that people continually mistake one for the other.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's a parody of Jason Statham.
- Out of Focus: When he becomes part of the supporting cast at Silverman Gym, he invokes this by claiming that he'll always be in the background so that no one pays too much attention to him. Unfortunately for him, he's largely ignored by the main cast as a result of this choice.
- Schemer: He becomes one when he teams up with Kutaro so they can set the girls up for a candid camera show during the Nikunoshima trip and at the Brawny Meat Temple.
Ibuki Sakura
Ibuki Sakura
Hibiki's eccentric older brother.- Adapted Out: He doesn't appear in the anime. Instead, he only receives a couple of passing mentions from Hibiki.
- Childhood Friends: He, Machio, and Nana went to school together. This is omitted in the anime as Ibuki doesn't appear at all.
- Chuunibyou: He's so into it that he doesn't seem to be able to talk normally and wears a black robe with demon horns in public. He's also way too old to still be acting this way, which makes the girls think stupidity must be a Sakura family trait. Despite the older single women in the group being freaked out and turned off by it, he's still so absurdly hot that they end up fighting over him.
- Everyone Went to School Together: He went to school together with Machio and Nana. As aforementioned, this is omitted in the anime.
- Hidden Depths: He's a very good singer. Ayaka and Gina are surprised when they find out while they're hanging out with Hibiki in his karaoke bar.
- Pretty Boy: This is played straight as he fits the mold completely. He's so handsome that the older women in the group start fighting over marrying him, despite how damn weird he is.
- Secretly Wealthy: Despite his eccentric personality, Ibuki's actually very rich as he owns a yakiniku restaurant, an apartment building, a karaoke bar, and he sponsors both a bodybuilding and karaoke contest. This is lampshaded by Ayaka when she wonders why no one else notices that Ibuki owns the apartment building when Hibiki gives him a birthday present.
Mei Sakaguchi
Mei Sakaguchi
A pro cosplayer who seeks to be a big star.- Adapted Out: She doesn't appear in the anime. Most noticeably, her appearance during the Nikunoshima trip is omitted. Instead, she's replaced by Yakusha.
- Berserk Button: She snaps when Hibiki inadvertently insults her for being 26 during her first day at the gym.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: When she's hanging out with Satomi, Rumika, and Nana.
- The Rival: To Satomi, in both cosplay and in love.
- Secret-Keeper: She became another person who knows about Satomi's cosplay hobby, after the latter accidentally blurted it out at the end of Chapter 83.
- Straight Man: Whereas Satomi fulfills this role for the main cast, Mei is usually this for Jason, Kutaro, Tadakatsu, and the other side characters' antics.
Tadakatsu Toyoda
Tadakatsu Toyoda
A vengeful spirit who is freed after he was sealed at the Brawny Meat Temple.- The Dreaded: He was an infamous warlord during the Sengoku period when he was alive.
- Heel–Face Turn: He joins the Silverman Gym sometime after he's purified when Machio performed an "exercism" at the temple.
- Horrifying the Horror: When he possesses Gina, he peers into her memories and can only find moments of her obsession with Prime Minister Petin. In short, Toyoda thinks he just possessed someone who's already possessed.
- Identical Stranger: Despite having different nationalities, he and Jason are said to look very similar, to the point that people continually mistake one for the other.
- Named After Someone Famous: He's named after Honda Tadakatsu, a samurai who was one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Tokugawa.
- Punny Name: The name "Toyoda" is a play on car manufacturer Toyota, much like how Honda is also the name of a Japanese car manufacturer.
- Samurai: He was one from the Sengoku period when he was alive.
Koharu Utsunomiya
Koharu Utsunomiya
A trainer who works at the Silverman Gym's Kyoto branch.- Amazonian Beauty: A bit more intimidating than most other examples. If her muscular legs didn't tip you off, you'll know she's buff when she flexes off her jumpsuit.
- Berserk Button:
- She takes challenges very seriously.
- Like most of the older women, she doesn't take being called old well.
- Distaff Counterpart: She's this to Machio, with their penchant for jumpsuits and flexing out of them.
- Fangirl: Of yakuza movies, so much so that she'll occasionally use a Hiroshima dialect when she speaks and she buys a bunch of DVDs while she's in Tokyo.
- Heroic Build: Her well-built body is shown when she strikes a bodybuilder pose and her tracksuit ends up torn to pieces.
- Super-Strength: She can effortlessly tear apart a metal lid cover.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: She uses both a Kansai dialect and a Hiroshima dialect when she speaks. The former is her real dialect since she's from Kyoto. She later reveals that her use of the latter dialect is due to her love of yakuza movies.
