Characters / Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

Main Characters

Umetaro Nozaki

Voiced by: Yūichi Nakamura (Anime), Hiroki Yasumoto (Drama CD) (Japanese), Ty Mahany (English)

A high school student who is the object of Sakura's affection and also writes a shoujo manga under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno. Because of Sakura's talent with art, he recruits her as one of his assistants. Despite writing romantic stories, he has no real experience with love, mistaking Sakura's confession for an autograph request.

Nozaki is the author of Let's Fall in Love, providing the plot, the writing, and the main art. He writes based on his everyday experience with his classmates and assistants, basing the characters and some plots of the manga on them.

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• Accidental Pervert: As he operates almost exclusively in service of his manga, there are times when he's doing research on girly stuff, and as such, he comes off as a huge pervert. He is unaware of this, as he always makes the assumption that the people he talks to are also discussing his manga, even if they're completely unaware that he's a mangaka.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Ruffling Sakura’s head is how Nozaki usually shows his affection or appreciation for her.
• Bad "Bad Acting": When he tries to act as a stand-in for a role during the drama club's rehearsal, his lines are delivered in monotone and his falling looks completely fake.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Nozaki holds Ken close to his heart because he provided him with the professionalism that he seriously craved for in an editor, especially compared to Maeno. Ken happens to be the most stable person he knows, so he has a profound admiration on him.
• Becoming the Mask: Parodied - Nozaki creates shoujo manga while pretending to be a woman. When a bunch of schoolmates are reading shoujo manga, Nozaki brings his entire series for Sakura to provide to them, certain that the guys there (who were just seen sobbing up over another shoujo manga) will read it without qualms because it's written by a man like himself. Instead, they find the artwork and subject matter to be too overwhelmingly feminine and not to their interest to Nozaki's verbal frustration (though, as Sakura implied, probably also to his ambivalence).
• Berserk Button: He absolutely hates Maeno, and will go ballistic at the mere mention of him. Such an extreme emotional reaction is apparently a fairly regular pattern for the mangaka who've had to work with him.
• Best Friend: It’s implied that he thinks of Sakura as this when he mentioned that he’d be most shocked if she suddenly avoided him. And he does indeed get along the best with Sakura.
• Big Brother Instinct: In the past, other kids bullied Mayu for being too quiet, so Nozaki beat them up and swore he would protect him if he needed him. This is deconstructed, since it resulted in Mayu relying too much on Nozaki, and not working on his own flaws.
• Brutal Honesty: Pretty much always shamelessly says what he thinks.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Nozaki is a blunt, dense weirdo who's never been in love in his life, yet still managed to become a wildly successful shoujo manga creator. Bonus points for actually wearing bunny ears as "Umeko" when he and Sakura are trying to help Mikoshiba get ready for a mixer.
• Centipede's Dilemma: Nozaki has an intuitive grasp of shoujo layout and writing, but tends to have problems when he tries to use anything but his gut.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Played with. He derives logical conclusions to situations that are presented to him, only they are often not how other people would proceed given the circumstances. Overall, he always chooses an alternative to a solution, and even if there's none, he makes one up and never, ever, chooses the straight path. For instance, given the possibility of having to pretend to be a boy/girl couple, he'd always choose to be the girl even when Sakura is at his side. He's Not Quite the Right Thing incarnate.
• The Comically Serious: He can say and do the oddest things completely stone-faced.
• Domestic Abuser: He unwittingly develops this reputation among Miyako's classmates,who not only assume that he's dating her but also that he constantly cheats on her and is forcing his fetishes upon her due to misunderstanding their manga discussions.
• Face of a Thug: He occasionally comes to school looking pissed off and covered in bandages. Everyone thinks he might've been fighting, but that's how Sakura knows that he's been on deadline. The "bandages" are pain patches^note Japanese prefer patches to rubs. and the pissed-off look was just inadequate sleep.
• Forgotten First Meeting: He doesn't remember his first meeting with Sakura, due to being exhausted at the time. At least, not entirely; he still subconsciously based Mamiko's character design on Sakura.
• Generic Cuteness: Although he's hardly less attractive than fellow guys (and Kashima) in the cast, In-Universe he's described to be dull-looking. His own sister compares him to Mayu but "plainer and taller".
• Gentle Giant: Despite his 190cm height, Face of a Thug and athletic build, he is completely harmless if only a little bit dense and stoic. He also likes cooking for his assistants and even gets somewhat motherly toward them.
• Hopeless with Tech: He still carries a flip phone and refuses to switch to a smartphone like everyone else around him (except Sakura). He struggles to use a smartphone lent to him from Mikoshiba when he has to live-tweet as part of his shoujo manga author duties, and an entire anthology chapter is dedicated to him trying - and failing - to learn to draw manga on an old style, boxy monitor computer.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Huge Guy to Sakura's tiny girl, being 190 cm tall (about 6'2'', which is quite tall for men in Japan) vs 145 cm.
• Hunk: Unlike the other male characters, who fit the slim Pretty Boy look, Nozaki has a large muscular build which is sometimes discussed or pointed out. How attractive he's meant to be In-Universe, however, seems to vary; though the art-style has him look no less attractive than even the likes of Mikoshiba and Kashima, Sakura appears to be one of the few (if not only) people who explicitly finds Nozaki to be good-looking, while everyone else finds him plain (girls in particular say he's just huge and "in the way"). Occasionally however he's able to make himself more appealing, such as attracting the girls' attention when playing basketball at the sports festival and getting the art club members excited when he offers to strip down and model for them.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: He has moments when he acts quite boyfriend-like with Sakura (much to her delight) without him meaning to be or realizing the effect he has on her.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Played for Laughs. Whenever a hypothetical romance or boy/girl scenario is presented, Nozaki will unequivocally take the girl role, though this always devolves to his perception of female characters which are full of clichés. This happens regardless of whether there's a girl present, and in spite of him being the least girly character in the whole story. This later evolves into him acting a bit motherly to his subordinates, like sewing oven mitts for Sakura when he hears she's going to be doing a cooking project (which she promptly adds to her Nozaki collection after receiving them rather than using them).
• Innocently Insensitive: He is guilty of sounding rude without meaning to from time to time due to his blunt-spoken nature.
• Instant Book Deal: His path to becoming a successful mangaka despite only being in eleventh grade is discussed in-universe. It's revealed he won some awards early on in his career that helped give him the popularity he needed to get his own series. However, his young age and lack of formal art training also makes him terrible at certain things, and he's learning while on the job. For instance, he is so bad at backgrounds that he purposefully drew things at first that didn't need backgrounds. It's also why he needs people like Hori to help him with his work.
• I Resemble That Remark!: After Wakamatsu tells him about his love for "Lorelei" (who he has never ever seen or met), Nozaki says he can't do that while Wakamatsu responds back with the example of such a thing working out with someone who sent letters in an old shoujo manga. Nozaki further tries to dissolve him of it by insisting he's got to live with times instead of using that old manga as his example, after which Wakamatsu points out that Nozaki has written the exact concept as well only with text messaging and phones.
• Just Friends: In spite of her desires otherwise, Nozaki considers Sakura an integral part of his team and a person he can rely on for anything. She is a very important friend to him, at least at first....
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Nozaki's admiration for his editor, "Ken-san", is pretty extreme. Nozaki's usually dull demeanor completely brightens up and he becomes very cheery and animated when he talks about Ken. It's pretty well justified considering how bad Nozaki's experience was with Maeno as an editor.
• Married to the Job: Everything he says and does is for the sake of his manga. As such, in terms of love and relationships, he's completely off the grid, and he basically has no sense of self (this leads him to having an unfortunate revelation in a chapter where he has a day off). This is one of the reasons Sakura has such a difficult time approaching him in a significant way.
• Meaningful Name: His pen name (Yumeno Sakiko in the Japanese ordering) is based off of his sister's name (Yumeko Nozaki in the Western ordering), which is a possible tribute to her since she's the one who inspired Nozaki to go into drawing shoujo manga.
• Minor Living Alone: As shown in Chapter 33, Nozaki managed to convince his parents to let him move out and into his own apartment after his early success as a mangaka earned him enough money to do so without help from them.
• Mistaken for Gay: Exaggerated - Nozaki tells Ryousuke he draws romance manga in Chapter 133. Unfortunately, he fails to make it clear that he writes shoujo romance manga and his surface-level mentions of his manga's regular occurrences quickly makes Ryousake assume Nozaki is some sort of masochistic bisexual with that kind of stuff being featured in his manga.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Nozaki, much like the creator of this series, is a manga author. He also often writes plays for Hori in exchange of Hori drawing backgrounds for him.
• Moustache de Plume: Inverted; he uses a female Pen Name ("Sakiko Yumeno") for his manga. Particularly funny since the image his work projects is of a gentle, delicate, emotionally-sensitive woman, when in reality he's a blunt-spoken, somewhat abrasive high-school male who's never been in love in his life.
• Muscle Angst: Nozaki regrets being too muscular since he can't self-model as Pretty Boy.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Inverted. As the protagonist, Nozaki stands out as the only person in the main cast who wears his school uniform strictly to code.
• Not So Stoic: When something does break his composure, he can be just as wildly expressive as the rest of the characters.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: On more than one occasion, Nozaki has listened to Sakura describe him as the person she likes, and each time he wonders what she sees in "a guy like that".
• Oblivious to Love: Zigzagged in regards to the people around him. As a shoujo author he is pretty perceptive when it comes to the other characters. For example, he notes that Hori is biased towards Kashima in certain instances, and quickly recognizes that Seo's behavior towards Wakamatsu isn't out of hostility. Ironically, however, he can't seem to figure out that Sakura is crushing on him hard.
• Odd Friendship: With Mikoshiba. Sakura points out the two have very different personalities so it surprises her that they're friends. Nozaki admits he initially only took interest in him for character ideas. invoked
• One Head Taller: A lot taller than his admirer Sakura, among other characters.
• Pen Name: He writes under the pseudonym "Sakiko Yumeno".
• Perpetual Frowner: Due to his stoic nature, he doesn't smile terribly often.
• Real Men Cook: Despite appearing as a typical macho buff guy, he is a better cook than Sakura, much to her chagrin. His father once mistook his cooking for the mother's. Chapter 64 sees Sakura and Mikoshiba blame his frequent dessert-making for their Weight Woe fears in the chapter.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He comes off as a standard masculine character due to his athletic build and Face of a Thug, but he also unashamedly has many feminine attributes. He writes shoujo manga (albeit with a female pseudonym), has the most "feminine power" of all the males in the cast according to Word of God, and excels at just about every domestic task. He is also surprisingly driven to dress up in drag or pretend to be a girl, even when there are girls around who can do that for him.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Nozaki uses this trope to call the character inspired by Seo Oze.
• Second Year Protagonist: Technically Sakura is the protagonist, but he's still a main character (plus his name's in the title) and like her he's in his second year of high school. This allows him to both act as a mentor/big brother to first-year Wakamatsu and troublesome but close underclassman to third-year Hori.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He is the manly man who gives his advice and support (with, admittedly, mixed results) to the sensitive and naive Wakamatsu, who has been Nozaki's underclassman since middle school.
• Sequential Artist: Draws shoujo manga under a female pseudonym.
• Shipper on Deck: He is supporting in a very roundabout way of Wakamatsu/Seo. He's very hostile to the idea of the relationship actually going anywhere due to his distaste for Seo and concern for Wakamatsu's well being, and yet he blatantly uses them as a model for a side couple in his manga. He's also curious and sometimes encouraging of Hori and Kashima (especially once Hori's realized his attraction to her, to which Nozaki responds by trying to get Hori and Kashima to hang out and bond at the pool). Though, self-interest for his writing is certainly a factor in this. invoked
• Significant Anagram: Sakiko Yumeno when rearranged becomes Yumeko Nozaki, the name of Nozaki's sister and also the person who got him into shoujo manga.
• Significant Birth Date: 6 June, day of the Asian plum, or ume.
• Skewed Priorities: Nozaki most of the time prioritizes the wrong things, much to the frustration of his assistants and editor. The best example is when Hori tried to teach him how to draw backgrounds, where he tries to employ the use of boxes as an in-universe explanation for why the characters' heights are inconsistent and the perspective is off.
• Slave to PR: Though he has no fears about telling the people around him that he's a shoujo romance mangaka (though it's rarely believed), he does place some import on making his fans believe that he's actually a woman. He's at his worst in Chapter 133 where he's supposed to be tweeting on his working today and ends up being willing to pretend Ryousuke tried to flirt "her".
• The Stoic: Is completely stone-faced about 80% of the time. This is usually hilarious.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Despite their different personalities and upbringing, he and Kashima's sister Rei are very similar when it comes to predicting which boy-girl pairings are couples and other shoujo characteristics in real life.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Downplayed. He's 190 cm, has dark hair, and is considered a Hunk by a few characters (especially Sakura) but is also considered plain by many others.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Played for laughs. When he fails to get Sakura to model a sailor uniform, he attempts to try it on himself, but it doesn't fit because of his tall, muscular build. Naturally, this is for his manga work. He's willing to go as far as to wear a customised sailor suit to a potential fan sign event.
• Unknowingly in Love: Doesn't realize that he's starting to hold Sakura in special regard. He finds the prospect of her ignoring him devastating, and in Chapter 71 the gag outright points out that he unconsciously started drinking milk ^note a folk remedy to make children grow taller after Sakura hinted that she likes taller guys (which he also fails to realize specifically meant him).
• Workaholic: When Sakura asks him what he does on his days off, he lists mundane things such as cleaning his room and stocking up on his supplies, and realizes he has been "taken into the world of people who have no free time". Then she tries to take him on a "date", but he can only think about his work.
• Write What You Know: As shown in-universe, despite the Irony of being an utterly dateless guy himself, Nozaki seems to consider potential ideas for his future writings so seriously that he tries to ensure that he and his friends act them out first before putting them to paper.
• Write Who You Know: In-universe, he tends to look to real life for inspiration for his characters. For example, Mamiko's personality is based on Mikoshiba and her design is based on Sakura, while Oze and Waka are Gender Flips of Seo and Wakamatsu. Exaggerated in chapter 131, where he tells Mikorin he drew Waka's hair shorter after Wakamatsu got a haircut and whenever he's annoyed with Seo, he slacks off on drawing Oze. He then proceeds to write Oze after Seo's doings in the rest of the chapter and base a new minor character directly off of one of Wakamatsu's classmates who was looking for him.
• Younger Than They Look: His tall height and muscular build makes it easy to forget he's only in his second year of high school. Kashima's sister is convinced he's an adult, first mistaking him for a teacher and then for the school's groundskeeper. She later tells her sister off for talking impolitely to someone "8 years her senior", which naturally annoys Nozaki to no end.

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Chiyo Sakura

Voiced by: Ari Ozawa (Anime), Asuka Nishi (Drama CD) (Japanese), Juliet Simmons (English)

Our protagonist, who is in love with Nozaki. She tries confessing to him at the beginning of the manga, only to be mistaken by him as a fan of his shoujo manga. Sakura then starts helping Nozaki as his manga assistant. She is in the art club.

An excellent real-life portraitist on her own right, Sakura is considered Nozaki's main assistant, serving various functions in the manga circle, though mainly concentrating on inking.

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• Because You Were Nice to Me: Sakura fell for Nozaki because he helped her over the gate when she was late for her first day of high school.
• Big Eater: A running gag is how often she's eating or cares about food, especially sweets and snacks. In the Diet Episode she realizes she's gained weight because she's eaten Nozaki's sweets so often, and Nozaki concludes that he and Sakura became close friends because he's been feeding her. When Sakura attempts to play the bully to Nozaki, she just ends up eating his snacks and then later asks for his hamburger, making Nozaki wonder if this is her way of pestering him. When the two are pretending to be a couple at a cafe, Sakura refuses to take the hint from Mikoshiba to split her cakes and share with Nozaki because she'd rather have them all to herself. When Nozaki loses Sakura and worries about how scared and lonely she is, Mikoshiba snarks that she's snacking on something in all of his imagine spots (and hilariously enough she is in fact eating snacks when they find her). And of course, this gag is rather ironic with how tiny she is compared to everyone else.
• Black Bead Eyes: She sometimes gets them, most often in either her clueless or excited moments.
• Cannot Spit It Out: She probably wouldn't even be Nozaki's assistant at all if she just told him she liked him instead of chickening out and saying she's his fan at the beginning. Nozaki being Nozaki, of course, he takes it the wrong way. She makes the same mistake the second time. Later, she states that she wants to make Nozaki fall for her and confess first because she's afraid that if she confesses again Nozaki will just use it to mine ideas for his manga...which really isn't an unrealistic fear with him.
• Child-Like Voice: Sakura is specifically stated to look younger than she is because of her short height and the big ribbons in her hair; to emphasize this, she is the only one of the girls who speaks in a high-pitched voice.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Sakura walks into this territory whenever the prospect of anyone else showing interest in Nozaki crops up, to the point she'll deliberately steer Nozaki away from activities she thinks will make him appear attractive to others. Even if it's Mikoshiba: Chapter 76 sees Mikoshiba invite Nozaki to a mixer, the notion of which leaves Sakura terrified. Assuring Sakura that Nozaki won't be talking to any of girls, only Mikoshiba (because Mikoshiba sure as hell ain't going to be talking to any of them either) just makes her angry thinking that he wants to show off his relationship to Nozaki. In Chapter 86, when Nozaki's about to volunteer himself up as a life drawing model for Sakura's art club, Sakura vehemently blocks him from doing so, screaming that no one but her should be able to see his body shirtless.
• Covert Pervert: Despite her usual disdain for such things, sometimes her thoughts about Nozaki veer in a perverted direction, and she's even excited by the thought of someone having dirty imagine spots of her and Nozaki together. She's also quite excited when Nozaki, Mikoshiba, and Wakamatsu lose their trunks at the beach.
• Crippling Overspecialization: On the contrary, Sakura is an excellent and versatile artist... when she's drawing from real life. Sakura can do relatively realistic rendering of people and animals but otherwise is only really good at drawing what she sees. She has difficulties visualizing backgrounds and buildings, and can't draw manga styles from memory either. When Nozaki asks her to try to draw two characters from another manga standing next to his own, she draws them exactly as they looked in the reference pictures - in which one of them was sitting down and the other was playing an instrument, making the illustration look hilariously mismatched.
• The Cutie: Played with. She's tiny, adorable and has childish affectations like giant ribbons and a backpack^note Backpacks are considered an elementary-school accessory in Japan; high-school students use hand-held bags just like the rest of the cast, but her inner monologue is often incredibly sarcastic, allowing her to play the straight man as easily as she does the cute innocent girl.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sakura can sometimes slip into making sarcastic remarks while looking unimpressed, though she usually keeps it to herself.
• Everyone Can See It: Her crush on Nozaki. Not only does the entire main cast (except for Wakamatsu and Nozaki) figure it out almost instantly, but she's so blatant about it that her classmates have grown tired of hearing about it. Chapter 127 has Sakura embarrassed that her group decide to use the theme "Sakura Chiyo gives snacks to her unrequited crush" for their cooking project which quickly sees her classmates discuss about how to approach this theme without irony because the topic of Sakura having a crush on Nozaki doesn't even bear mentioning. Chapter 130 has Nozaki letting his classmates go to his house to try to convince them that he really is a mangaka, but nothing works up until Sakura's insistence over the concept being true brings them around (and really, they brought her along with them for her benefit anyway).
• Family Theme Naming: Both her name Chiyo and her brother's name Towa follow the same Numerical Theme Naming (chi for thousand, to for ten).
• Fake Relationship: Defied. When Mikoshiba tells her he needs a fake girlfriend, Sakura actively avoids continuing the conversation because she knows the standard flow would be to offer to be his fake girlfriend, and she's too into Nozaki to let that happen.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Refers to her close friend Seo by her first name and vice-versa, and she's the main character referred by their first name the most. Sakura is also giddy by the thought of Nozaki calling her this way, as seen when he says her name in his sleeptalk (because he was thinking of names for a new character) and at the cafe during their For Science! date.
  • In the English dub, everyone (who is otherwise on a last-name basis) refers to her by her first name, possibly due to limited lip movement.
• Genki Girl: Most of the time she's pretty even-tempered, but she can be quite excitable when it comes to anything related to Nozaki.
• Girl Friday: She is invaluable to Nozaki as an inker and as a friend. But she'd rather just be going out with him.
• Girlish Pigtails: Wore her hair in pigtails before entering high school, which is befitting of a very girly character.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She has no clue why people seem to find Seo so annoying even when she sees her insult people or be the worst teammate ever. And of course, she has a crush on Nozaki, who's frequently mocked in-series for being dull and not very likeable. Mikoshiba and Nozaki himself have no clue what she sees in him, though the latter doesn't realize she's talking about him.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Tiny Girl to Nozaki's Huge Guy, being only 145 cm tall (about 4'9'' and the shortest of the cast overall) compared to his 190 cm.
• Insecure Love Interest: She inevitably gets really upset when she imagines that Nozaki is thinking about or talking to other girls. Usually subverted in that if Nozaki shows interest in something, it's typically work-related, since he's always looking for ideas or references for his manga. Ironically, it seems to frustrate her even more than if he was simply just interested in other girls.
• Little Big Sister: Is about a head shorter than her younger brother.
• Magnetic Hero: Due to her friendly nature, she gets along with pretty much everyone she meets and is the only one in the main cast to have a good relationship with everyone else in the cast.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: More subtle than most examples in this series. Her blouse bow violates the Color Code for her grade; strictly speaking, she should wear a red bow like Seo does.
• Not So Above It All: She's usually more levelheaded than Nozaki, but as the series goes on it's clear that she's pretty eccentric herself, and her love for Nozaki gets in the way of her rationality whenever their "relationship" is brought into question or seems to be in "jeopardy".
• Numerical Theme Naming: Chiyo (Thousand).
• Odd Friendship: She's close friends with Seo even though they have very opposite personalities. Nozaki assumes it was as a result of an event in which they considered each other a Worthy Opponent after a fierce battle. However, they became friends solely because they sat near each other in previous classes.
• Older Than They Look: Standing 145cm tall, she is mistaken as an elementary or middle schooler. Nozaki has an Imagine Spot of her getting mistaken by middle school girls as someone from their school.
• Only Sane Woman: Tends to switch this role around with Mikoshiba, depending on the situation. She's also got the most common sense compared to the other girls in the main cast...unless Nozaki is on her mind.
• Promoted Fangirl: Nozaki thinks he's let Sakura be a lucky fan who gets to work with him on his manga, since he mistakes her love confession as a fan's request to be his assistant and then immediately has her start helping him. Though she already knows of Nozaki's manga and is a casual fan of shoujo manga, she had no idea Nozaki was the author of Let's Fall in Love since he uses a Pen Name.
• Second Year Protagonist: The protagonist, and in her second year of high school. This helps frame her relationships with her underclassman Wakamatsu and upperclassman Hori. Downplayed later when Sakura then becomes a Deuteragonist for the story.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • She's indirectly a supporter of Wakamatsu/Seo due to her shipping their genderswapped counterparts in Nozaki's manga. Once Wakamatsu tells her about his crush on Lorelei, she attempts to further the relationship by telling him that Lorelei is actually Seo, but Nozaki stops her every time.
  • She's pretty enthusiastic about Hori/Kashima, often taking note of moments between them, and even going so far as having a convoluted Imagine Spot about how they might begin to date.
• Signature Headgear: She's well known for the red polka dot ribbons she wears in her hair in-universe, creating many gag moments where they're used to identify her (much to her chagrin).
  • When Wakamatsu and Nozaki assign nicknames to screentone patterns to make them easier to remember, white-on-dark polka dots get dubbed Sakura. She immediately tears off one ribbon out of frustration.
  • Nozaki jokes that he doesn't immediately recognize her at a festival when she wears different ribbons. She starts shouting, "How do you normally recognize me?"
  • When Nozaki is asked to draw sidebars for tankoban volumes of Let's Fall in Love and writes a column about conversations with his assistants, he draws Sakura first as a floating ribbon, then as a person with a ribbon for a head. She responds with a Big "NO!".
  • When asked to make a non-alcoholic cocktail drink in Sakura's image, Ryousuke makes a glass of orange-tomato juice with strawberries on the edge of the glass which clearly represent her hair and bows. Even after he's told to base the drinks more on the girls' personalities than looks, he cannot think of anything else other than an orange drink with strawberries.
  • Chapter 100 shows the author Tsubaki herself giving Sakura this treatment, indicating Sakura's speaking off-panel by drawing a sweat-dropping polka-dot bow next to her speech bubble.
• Significant Birth Date: 27 March, the day of cherry blossoms, known in Japanese as "sakura".
• Single-Target Sexuality: In the official character bios, one section will list a character's "preferred type"; Sakura's only says "Nozaki". She says it herself in Chapter 22:
  Sakura: Chiyo Sakura, age 17! My type is someone who's 190cm with close-cropped black hair and a sharp glare. Someone my age who's a bit of an airhead but very handsome! Anyone else who does not fit that description is frankly of no interest!
• The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed - she's not the only girl in the story, but she's the only female assistant in Nozaki's circle.
• Stalker with a Crush: She's quite stalkerish to Nozaki even before the series began, to the point that she knew practically everything about him she could learn at school, and was collecting things he'd left behind. After Nozaki bites into a candy apple that she didn't seriously expect him to accept, she keeps and preserves it. She's also shown to keep tabs on his classes even when they aren't classmates.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Later chapters show her developing a habit of striking conversations by suddenly popping up behind a character, to their surprise, which is befitting of someone with stalker tendencies.
• Straight Man: She's usually the one making witty remarks to the other characters, especially Nozaki, but there are moments when her own quirks shine through...usually relating Nozaki, or eating lots of food.
• Supporting Protagonist: Nozaki may be the titular character, but the series is mainly from her point of view.
• Tareme Eyes: The only female among the main cast to have them. Fittingly, she's the most feminine out of all the main girls.
• Token Mini-Moe: The youngest looking character of the series and also the shortest at 145 cm (4'9").
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Seo's tomboy. Seo is sporty, not at all graceful and uses a rough manner of speech, while Sakura has The Cutie look, prefers cute feminine clothes (especially ribbons) and has an appreciation for romance (especially if it's related to Nozaki).
• Too Kinky to Torture: Nozaki and Mikoshiba bully her for research for Nozaki's manga; she gets overjoyed.
• Two First Names: Sakura is a common given name, but is exceedingly rare as a surname.^note The sakura here has a different kanji (佐倉) compared to the usual sakura kanji (桜), so it is more or less fine with being a surname
• Weakness Turns Her On: Or at least, Nozaki's weaknesses turn her on. It might be more because it's an aspect of Nozaki rather than an aspect she enjoys on its own.
• Weight Woe: She's occasionally shown worrying about her weight, which isn't surprising since she's a Big Eater.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: She's an avid reader of shoujo manga and often recognizes when cliche situations happen (such as illness or getting stuck in the rain), thinking them opportunities to get closer to Nozaki. What she doesn't realize, however, is that she's in a parody of one.
• Yandere: Played for Laughs with her becoming incredibly possessive and antsy when she hasn't had contact with Nozaki for a while, and is also seemingly very aggressive towards anyone who flirts with him.

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Mikoto "Mikorin" Mikoshiba

Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (Anime), KENN (Drama CD) (Japanese), Scott Gibbs (English)

One of Nozaki's assistants, mainly responsible for drawing effects and details in the backgrounds — and also the person Nozaki used as the model for the heroine of his manga. Mikoshiba acts like a playboy but in reality is a shy guy, and is often spouting flirty lines around — only to immediately get embarrassed for having said them.

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• Accidental Misnaming: When Hori realizes Mikosihba is Mamiko's model during rehearsals for a drama club production, he keeps accidentally calling him "Mamiko... shiba" for a brief period.
• Affectionate Nickname: Nozaki started calling him Mikorin in his head thanks to how adorably awkward he is, but never uses it out loud. Sakura starts using it accidentally, annoying him until he eventually gives up correcting her.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Sakura points out he's always being approached by girls rather than the other way around in the first volume's extras, he's emboldened to prove his conversational skills before her and ostensibly successfully chats up three girls...in the next panel, Sakura apparently receives a text message from him titled "I'm sorry" with the message "Please save me".
• Alliterative Name: His first and last names both start with "Miko". Doubles as a Repetitive Name.
• Always Second Best: Mikoshiba's former "rivalry" with Kashima played out exactly like this. When Mikoshiba details their past rivalry, it's shown to be hilariously one-sided in Kashima's favor, with Kashima getting better grades, being better at athletics, and better at wooing their female classmates (because Kashima can actually say the cheesy flirts that they both use with a straight face while Mikoshiba inevitably becomes beside himself in embarrassment). Even in the present, when the two's looks are compared side by side, Kashima is always referred to as the more attractive of the two.
• Attention Whore: Zig-Zagged. Mikoshiba is often looking to have his ego stroked and will become petulant if ignored, but if too much attention is paid to him he becomes overwhelmed and starts desperately looking for a way out. Despite his protestations, being Always Second Best rather fits him.
• Big Brother Instinct: The character bio says he is the least shy with males younger than him like Wakamatsu and Mayu because he likes playing the big brother role (and he's an only child).
• Buxom Beauty Standard: In Chapter 81, Wakamatsu notes that all the gal games he likes have heroines with large breasts and a lot of his figures are stacked. He also takes to Miyako much faster once she tells him she prefers boobs over butts.
• Cannot Talk to Women: Extremely awkward around girls, so the only way he can talk to them is by quoting cheesy lines from Dating Sims... which just makes him even more awkward and embarrassed.
• Celibate Hero: He's not interested in getting a girlfriend and has even attempted to get out of getting one. Mostly because he's too awkward around girls.
• The Charmer: To the outside observer he seems popular, confident, and charming. Unfortunately, he's just using dating sim quotes to hide his social awkwardness, and it often leads him to charm his way into situations that he'd rather avoid.
• Chick Magnet: His handsome and fashionable looks would make him pretty popular with the girls, but he's has never been able to talk to them properly. He began playing dating sims, which only made things worse because he starts repeating the cheesy lines the protagonists use, embarrassing himself immensely.
• Closet Geek: He usually hides his otaku hobbies well, only telling people close to him like Nozaki, Sakura and Mayu. The good thing is Sakura doesn't seem to know the implication of bishoujo figurines...
• Crippling Overspecialization: Unlike Nozaki's other assistants, he is only good at drawing pretty flowers and Manga Effects in the background. When having a drawing contest with Nozaki and Sakura, it becomes obvious he has no other artistic talents.
• Curtains Match the Window: He has red hair and red eyes.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Mikoshiba just can't say "no" when it comes to girls he's unfamiliar with or when his image is in jeopardy. Too many times he winds up with obligations that he doesn't know how to handle and ends up begging his friends to help get him out of them.
• Embarrassing Hobby: He's a Dating Sim Otaku that's embarrassed very easily, so it's pretty much a given that this applies to him. Him or someone else trying to cover for his entire room full of risqué manga, memorabilia, and games getting discovered at Nozaki's apartment has come up a few times.
• Endearingly Dorky: So very much. Underneath his playboy image is a shy and socially awkward guy which makes him more endearing than when he's flirty. Nozaki clocked his potential appeal and uses him as a model for the dorky protagonist of his massively popular manga...who is a woman.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Mikoshiba's male fanbase is almost as large as his female one.
  • In Chapter 47, a bunch of guys in the Public Bathhouse Scene get very excited trying to strip him off his Modesty Towel; then, during the camp's free time schedule, they fight over him to get him to spend time with them (although, in this context, they're only trying to use him to lure Chick Magnet Kashima into bringing girls into their rooms).
  • In Episode 7 of the anime, even the male members of the art club are delighted when Mikoshiba promises to nude model for them.
  • After failing to get Kashima to act as his pretend girlfriend in Chapter 57, a couple of guys offer themselves for the role, even hosting a contest over it (until it is stopped by Hori).
• The Fashionista: Rare among otaku characters; character bios state he actually follows fashion magazines closely.
• Fiery Redhead: He has red hair and can get feisty, especially when showing his tsun side.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Mikoto" is a unisex name, which befits a guy who was the inspiration for a shoujo heroine.
• Handsome Lech: Subverted. He acts like a shallow flirt around girls, but then he gets incredibly embarrassed even when they like it. He's too awkward to talk to girls normally most of the time and isn't interested in dating anyone, as seen when he rejects a girl confessing to him in one chapter and tries to engage as little as possible at a mixer in another.
• High-Pressure Emotion: He tends to get incredibly embarrassed after attempting to say something suave to girls, and his embarrassment is sometimes shown with smoking coming out of his head while he madly blushes.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He acts really proud and egotistical upon first meeting, but if people fail to respond in the way he wants he becomes increasingly clingy and desperate to be noticed. Sakura quickly learns how to humor him.
• In-Series Nickname: Nozaki calls him "Mikorin" for his feminine traits, though never to his face. The only one who actually addresses him as "Mikorin" is Sakura.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Downplayed. Mikoshiba is non-athletic, well-versed in flowers knowledge (including how to draw them), has the cute nickname "Mikorin", and is surprisingly bashful. His character profile also says he sometimes wears cute or pink clothes, a result of copying fashion magazines. His personality is what one would expect from a tsundere shoujo manga heroine, which is exactly why Nozaki based Mamiko off him.
• Ironic Birthday: He was born on Valentine's Day (Feb 14), so he gets chocolate instead of presents from an awful lot of people. For a shy guy like him, it might not be quite a pleasant day.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He comes off as popular with the girls, and always seems to find the right thing to say to them, but is actually quite shy around them. Consequently he usually finds himself unable to hang out around them for anything longer than a short conversation.
• Like Brother and Sister: States that this is how he feels towards Sakura, seeing her as a "little sister", enough that he cannot bring himself to ask her to be his pretend girlfriend.
• Locked Out of the Loop: By his own preference, he doesn't know the identity of the assistant in charge of drawing the backgrounds. This ends in an omake in Volume 13 where he unceremoniously discovers said assistant to be Hori, from the two of them and Sakura openly discussing factors to an upcoming color page for Nozaki's manga. It takes him a moment to realize Hori is casually talking about the manga with them, at which point he wordlessly turns his head and looks over at them (since they were all bending over painting) as it hits him.
• Luminescent Blush: Is prone to blushing furiously almost immediately after he says something embarrassing.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Platonically the feminine boy to Kashima's masculine girl, with Kashima being the popular prince charming bifauxnen and Mikoshiba essentially having the personality of a tsundere heroine, as pointed out by Nozaki.
• Mr. Fanservice: Well, there's the interesting◊ picture of him lying down seductively with his shirt fully unbuttoned in the official Fanbook, as well as the post-break Eye Catch in Episode 7 showing him posing nude (only his back is seen though). He also strips twice in the series; once in the anthology King's Game story (not by choice — he was unfortunate enough to have his number picked for all of the characters' stripping orders), and the other time when he gets jealous of Mayu and offers to model for Miyako.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: He forgoes the blazer and tie, and his shirt is always left unbuttoned.
• Odd Friendship: With Nozaki. Sakura points out that the two have very different personalities so it surprises her that they're friends. Nozaki admits he initially only took interest in Mikoshiba for character ideas.
• One of the Girls: As seen in Chapter 47, when Hori complains that Nozaki looks out of place in a group of girls, but doesn't notice at all that Mikoshiba is in the same group.
• Only Sane Man: Tends to switch this role around with Sakura, depending on the situation. He's got a level of self-awareness that allows him to at least part of the time recognize when someone's acting ridiculous.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: A frequent gag with Mikoshiba is him acting cool or suave (or worse yet, doing this as part of accepting a proposal he really would not want to do) while the panel right after shows his immediate embarrassment and regret for saying that.
• Otaku: He is secretly one, mainly on Dating Sims. He also collects bishoujo figurines. When he starts going on about how he thinks he's in love in chapter 144, Nozaki and Sakura quickly reason that he must be talking about a game character - and the next page confirms this while not even making Mikoshiba's Perverse Sexual Lust be the page's actual punchline, so expected is his Otaku-ness and inability to be around women.
• Perennially Overshadowed Birthday: Mikoshiba's birthday is on Valentine's Day, so most of his classmates give him Valentine's chocolates as his birthday present, which he resents because he'd rather get a regular gift.
• Platonic Life-Partners: He's best friends with Kashima, and the only reason he was willing to join the drama club's excursion was that she would be there too. Despite how close they are, there is no indication of romance between them.
• Shipper on Deck: He is aware of Sakura's crush on Nozaki and has more than once tried to incite romantic moments between the two (it never works, much to Sakura's chagrin). He also has shown a good deal of interest in Kashima's relationship with Hori, especially once the latter has started to become more aware of his feelings.
• Shrinking Violet: Despite being introduced as a Handsome Lech, he is actually a shy guy who consistently gets embarrassed after delivering his cheesy lines to other girls. It's a reoccurring gag about the difficulties others have to suffer through (usually by stroking his ego) to have him around other people for whatever reason in spite of his downright-pathetic insecurity.
• Significant Birth Date: 14 February, Valentine's Day. His friends have fun teasing him by giving him chocolates as birthday presents instead of regular presents.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Dating Sim quotes are the only things he can say to girls who he's unfamiliar with.
• Tsundere: Despite his Shrinking Violet personality, he shows signs of being a tsun/dere (harsh/sweet) combo. He tries to put on a cool face and be a suave ladies' man but secretly has a desire to feel needed and usually ends up blushing in complete embarrassment whenever he actually flirts with a girl. Mamiko, the main character in Nozaki's manga, was even based on his personality.
• Unmanly Secret: He enjoys wearing cute pink clothes when no one else is around. He's also inclined to hide the fact that he's an Otaku who likes Dating Sims.
• Useless Superpowers: Parodied. In one of Nozaki and Sakura's For Science!-dates he's supposed to be her Spirit Advisor ancestor who'll give her advice on how to date. Her role however is a complete Muggle who can't see or hear ghosts, making his role and ability completely useless.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He thinks more along the lines of a main character in a visual novel rather than a supporting character in a shoujo parody, not to mention that he is the inspiration for a traditional shoujo heroine.

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Yuzuki Seo

Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro (Anime and Drama CD) (Japanese), Joanne Bonasso (English)

Sakura's classmate and friend, who's always being chased by teachers. She also offends people on a regular basis — whether she does it on purpose or not is hard to tell. She is in the choir club and has an incredibly beautiful singing voice, enough to make people refer to her as the "Lorelei" of the choir club.

Both Seo and Wakamatsu have Gender Flipped characters based on them in Nozaki's manga.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Seo likes hanging out with Wakamatsu and favors him to some extent, but he finds her incredibly annoying. In a bit of Dramatic Irony, he has compared her unfavorably to the "ideal" Lorelei right to her face in an attempt to shame her, but she only gets happier every time he does so.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Within the manga, it seems like Tsubaki can't decide on a concrete eye color for Seo. Gold appears to be the most common, but her eyes have also been colored green, red, and brown in different illustrations. The anime chose to go with a reddish-brown.
• Anti-Role Model: She gets asked to train with the basketball team specifically because of her terrible sportsmanship and teamwork. This helps teach the teams to not be like her, as well as how to play in spite of her presence.
• Brutal Honesty: Seo has no filter at all, no matter who she's talking to. Her painfully blunt comments are usually considered rude and make people keep their distance from her.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She has a large bust, which is part of why she's considered attractive by her classmates, even if she scares them off. Ironically, her Love Interest Wakamatsu doesn't see the appeal and just thinks they're lumps of fat.
• Captain Oblivious: Nozaki pretty much calls her this. Seo has zero ability to read situations for what they are, and thus often ends up ruining the mood. She also never seems to understand (or even notice) when people get mad at her when she says things that are Innocently Insensitive.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Zigzagged - Seo doesn't really have any trouble telling Wakamatsu that she's Lorelei, because that's funny to her. However, Wakamatsu doesn't believe her. But then when it does really sink in for Wakamatsu, Seo surprisingly turns out to be very nervous about talking to him and instead starts singing to put him asleep instead of going through with it - in spite of how she's atypically willing to practice entire songs that Wakamatsu requested she sing which always quickly causes him to fall asleep soon after they start anyway. Beforehand, there were indications that Seo is very uncomfortable about the actual topic of a romance with Wakamatsu while their interactions already seem a lot like an odd couple.
• Clark Kenting: Her "competition-ready" look consists of just letting her hair down, and actually wearing socks. It manages to fool some Roman Academy students into thinking she was a new student, which she lampshades. In another bit of irony, the only person who manages to recognize her is Wakamatsu — who still doesn't know that she's Lorelei.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Kinda. When her brother teases her over Wakamatsu, she takes it as him wanting to hang out with Wakamatsu. She then takes the time the next day to ask if Wakamatsu likes hanging out with her more than her brother. Upon hearing that Wakamatsu becomes popular with the girls while she's away on a field trip, she texts him a warning, which he misreads as her being timid.
• The Confidant: Oddly enough, she appears to be a good listener, and her classmates often talk to her about their problems.
• Cute Mute: When the choir club is preparing for competitions, its seniors doll Seo up and force her to be totally silent and reserved so her usual demeanor doesn't cause the choir any trouble interacting with other schools. It works so well that she's known as "The Little Mermaid of Roman High" elsewhere.
• The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. Because of her violent playstyle, the male basketball club is terrified of her, so much so that when she has the ball, everybody is seen scrambling in fear to get out of her way. She's a regular topic in their meetings, probably because they'll take anything they can get to help deal with her.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Sakura first tells Nozaki about her friend, she says Seo tends to get chased a lot. He imagines her being chased romantically by guys. But instead, he sees her running away from two teachers, then leaping over a large construction pit to evade them. He also learns she's rather rude to people, and wonders if she's doing it on purpose.
• Everyone Can See It: She's not quite as painfully-obvious-to-anyone-around-her as Sakura, but Chapter 74 implies the Drama club all suspect she has a crush on Wakamatsu (and then, her brother suspects the same...but mistakes it for as mutual from Wakamatsu's words)
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She is so self-absorbed that she never understands or even notices whenever people get mad at her because of whatever she said or does.
• Fake Relationship: Acts as Mikoshiba's girlfriend so he can turn down a girl who confessed to him and didn't believe he was already committed. It works, though being Seo, of course, it doesn't go perfectly.
• Fetishized Abuser: Although not an official couple yet, Seo acts like a total jerk towards Wakamatsu, even getting to the point of harassing him. The narrative, however, shows that she does care — she buys him food, brings him to the cinema, and loves being with him. This dynamic inspires Nozaki to create a character who's a Gender Flip version of her.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Her ponytail is lopsidedly tied toward the left so it stays over her left shoulder easier.
• First-Name Basis: Refers to Sakura by her first name and vice-versa. They're the only pair in the main cast that does, which shows that they are good friends.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Her character profile states that many of her friends find her to be annoying, but still consider her a friend.
• Gamer Chick: Her character bios state that she likes fighting, tactical and action games as hobbies, which of course is to say the most stereotypically masculine video games.
• Gyaru Girl: Downplayed. Her character profile in Volume 4 specifically describes her fashion as "punkish Gyaru". However she's not usually one to doll up (her light hair colour is natural), she wears her school uniform fairly mundanely other than the short skirt, and she has the crude tomboy personality of The Lad-ette.
• Hated by All: Not that many people like her, understandably, given that she's an unrepentant jerkass and frequent Karma Houdini so the most they can do is simply stay away from her when they know her true nature. Sakura and Kashima are the only people to like her and genuinely consider her a friend.
• The Hedonist: Seo cares by and large about entertaining herself, even if this includes doing it at the expense of others.
• Hidden Depths: Played with. It's heavily implied that she sincerely likes Wakamatsu and is trying her best to be kind and doting towards him. The main problem, among a whole bunch of others, is that she is who she is, and that helps absolutely no one.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Invoked, played for laughs and subverted. Her attitude should have brought her an awful lot of enemies, but she rarely, if ever, receives justified retribution for her actions because she responds to neither anger nor reason. She's a Karma Houdini that never realizes she belongs to the trope.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Her attitude is seen by Nozaki as a result of being mood-blind. Probably the best example of this is when she tells Nozaki that people ask her for help all the time, that she's considerate of others and that she can read situations... all while ruining a group picture, smearing someone's calligraphy and interrupting a love confession, in that order.
  • In other occasions where she is downright rude, it's shown that she does it not to hurt others, but rather because she finds it practical, and it's the quickest solution to whatever comes to obstruct her. The problem is that what she does is not acceptable.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • She's known as the Lorelei of the Choral Club, but only by people who hear her singing over the intercom and don't realize it's actually the annoying girl who tramples on people's dreams for giggles. Well, they soon find out. This makes it an Ironic Nickname because the Germanic legend of the Lorelei precisely consists of a woman that bewitches sailors with her singing into crashing on rocks; thus, "Lorelei" is not a praise.
  • Apparently among choir competitions her nickname becomes "The Little Mermaid", because her club mates forbid her from speaking at them so that her personality doesn't come forth and ruin her image.
• It Amused Me: Annoying someone purely for her own amusement is what she does in a nutshell.
• Jerkass: She is brash, abrasive and rude, but it's hard to tell how much of what she does is malicious and how much is just being dense. On the one hand, she loves laughing at people who come to confess to Lorelei and then find out it's actually her, much to their horror. On the other hand, she's completely confused when people get angry at her for the obnoxious things she says.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite her terrible personality, Seo does still bring up some good points even in an insensitive manner (which is why her friends see her as The Confidant in the anime). For example, when Kashima asks Seo to teach her how to sing, Seo bluntly states that Kashima can either "give up now or work hard for a year and then give up", which Kashima comically remarks on.
• The Lad-ette: A more G-rated example; she's not very feminine, speaks like a boy, is incredibly blunt and abrasive, and she constantly has teachers running after her for some kind of trouble she caused. It's not for nothing that Nozaki based a male character on her.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Seo's infamously violent conduct while playing basketball comes to back to bite her when the school is doing ball games tournaments. Her class refuses flat out to let her join the basketball group since she'd surely constantly foul and cause her team to lose, so she's sullenly forced into the table tennis team.
  • She toys with Wakamatsu so much that, by the time she decides to come clean and admit to him that she's Lorelei, he doesn't believe her. Nozaki is predictably amused that she got what's coming to her.
• Love at First Note: Her beautiful voice steals the heart of many guys. This is funny for her when they find out who it belongs to.
• Love at First Sight: Parodied when she first encounters Mikoshiba. He jumps from the tree she's napping under, and the manga panel is filled with Love Bubbles as Seo stares at him in wonder... then the moment is ruined when Mikoshiba unsuccessfully lands on the ground, and she announces to her teacher she's late for class because "a stud fell from the sky". Averted afterward as she shows no romantic interest in him whatsoever, although she still affectionately calls him Ikemen (Handsome/Mr Hunk).
• Loves My Alter Ego: Several boys (like Wakamatsu) are infatuated with the mysterious Lorelei of the Choral Club. Seo herself loves to exploit this trope and crush people's dreams after they grow big enough.
• Loving Bully:
  • Towards Wakamatsu. He blurts out to her that recently she only targets him to throw the ball at his face, stalks him during lunchtime, makes him buy her things and carry her stuff... and later she takes him to a family restaurant to buy him some food and even buys him some presents. Nozaki immediately can tell that she likes him, at the very least as someone to hang out with.
  • On the platonic side of things, Seo has proven to have absolutely no qualms with pulling potentially nasty or humiliating pranks on even her closest friends just to get a kick out of it.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The masculine girl to Wakamatsu's feminine boy. Seo is the brash The Lad-ette, while Wakamatsu is very sensitive and takes shoujo manga very seriously.
• Meaningful Name: Her nickname being "Lorelei" refers to a German folktale about a water spirit whose beautiful singing voice enchants sailors so much that it causes them to crash their ships and drown. Considering Seo's general personality and how she likes to crush people's expectations by revealing herself to be Lorelei, it's even more appropriate.
• Nightmare Fetishist: She only likes horror movies just for the fact that people get brutally killed in them, whether they're hero, villain or innocent bystander. Her conversation with poor Wakamatsu after the movie they watched just involves her describing all the deaths in detail.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Doesn't wear socks.
• Odd Friendship: Nozaki once wonders how an amiable girl like Sakura manages to be friends with such a difficult girl like Seo and imagines a Worthy Opponent Defeat Means Friendship type cliche. Sakura is too polite to tell him that they just sat next to each other.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Seo is occasionally weirded out by people's shenanigans or gets hyped up, but she otherwise rarely loses her cool. Her becoming flustered and avoiding Wakamatsu in Chapter 66 when she's teased really emphasises how easily uncomfortable she is with love jokes about herself. In Chapter 102, she panics a lot when confessing to Wakamatsu about her Lorelei identity, something she was hiding from him for a long time; when he flat-out doesn't believe her, her frustration is very evident by her facial expressions.
  • Seo doesn't usually think of other people's wellbeing when doing anything. Wakamatsu is thus uncomfortable and confused when Seo starts showering him with affection and letting him pick a movie to watch.
  • Other schools call her "The Little Mermaid of Roman High", because the choir club's seniors work hard to basically turn her into a Cute Mute for the choir competitions so she doesn't cause problems by being... herself.
  • Nozaki is floored in Chapter 131 when he realizes Seo has been unselfishly practicing songs that Wakamatsu requested her to sing. Though it turns out doing nothing but singing songs to Wakamatsu has its own benefits to her...
• Pet the Dog:
  • She teases and annoys Wakamatsu on a regular basis, but also frequently treats him to dinner and gives him souvenirs from the places she visits.
  • She often makes rude remarks about Nozaki and is not above being mischievous towards Sakura, but when it's raining heavily and the two are stuck at school thanks to lacking umbrellas, she tosses them hers and simply sprints home since she lives closer to school than they do. Nozaki refuses to admit she did something nice, though he does use the idea in his manga.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: While she's not really an eyesore to begin with, Seo will get dolled up for singing performances and competitions by her fellow choir members, and the end result is her looking not only beautiful but also significantly more mature (aided by how they also force her to say absolutely nothing the entire time so she can't otherwise quickly prove this impression wrong). Many people can't even recognize that it's her, though ironically enough Wakamatsu can. (it's the only time she's wearing socks) Unfortunately, since she's doing it for a Fake Relationship with Mikoshiba when it's displayed in Chapter 57, the change is entirely cosmetic; her ill-mannered personality remains intact and she tosses his bag away after being handed it.
• Shipper on Deck: Is aware of Sakura's crush on Nozaki and occasionally encourages them in subtle ways. This being Seo, said hints aren't all that appreciative, such as the time she chooses Sakura and Nozaki in the King's Game and orders Sakura to rub his butt.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: While Seo is quite aggressive and abrasive, her older brother Ryousuke is a reasonably gentle and kind guy who's concerned for his crush Miyako, and he certainly treats her with far more care than Seo does for Wakamatsu.
• Significant Birth Date: Her birthday is July 7 or Tanabata, which is a holiday celebrating the once-a-year meeting of the deities and lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented in the sky by the stars Vega and Altair). Considering the star-crossed nature of the relationship between Seo and the numerous admirers of her voice, this is appropriate.
• Singing Voice Dissonance: As mentioned, her singing is beautiful enough to make boys fall for Lorelei and differs so dramatically from her normal rough pattern of speech that people not in the know can't tell that it's her.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to Sakura's girly girl. Seo is sporty, not at all graceful and uses a rough manner of speech, while Sakura has The Cutie look, prefers cute feminine clothes (especially ribbons) and has an appreciation for romance (especially if it's related to Nozaki).
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Brought up and subverted in Chapter 66, when Wakamatsu sees Seo running away when her affection towards him is called out. When he tells Nozaki about it, Nozaki suggests it's because she gets embarrassed when she has to deal with love personally. Wakamatsu can't believe it, unable to reconcile this seemingly girly streak with the Seo he knows. Then Nozaki compares it to a young boy getting teased over having a girl like him, and Wakamatsu finds it much easier to understand.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Feeling guilt-ridden after Chapter 102 where Wakamatsu refused to believe her genuine confession about her Lorelei identity, Seo spends most of her appearances in Chapter 103 acting nicer than usual to Wakamatsu. Wakamatsu is suspicious but the plan almost works... until her attempt to sit on his lap (after hearing Sakura did the same thing with Nozaki) makes him wonder if her bullying is just getting sneakier.
• With Friends Like These...: She seems to consider Wakamatsu a friend at the very least, including buying him dinner, watching movies together and bringing him souvenirs, but she also tramples him on the basketball court, the stress of which gives him insomnia.

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Yuu Kashima

Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (Anime), Chie Matsuura (Drama CD) (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)

A friend and rival of Mikoshiba's who is referred to as the "Prince" of the school. Despite being a bit of an airhead, Kashima can recite lines as flirty as Mikoshiba's and is very popular with girls, who are often surrounding her. She is also a talented member of the drama club.

Though not entirely based on her, Nozaki sometimes uses Kashima's princely personality to provide plots for the main Love Interest character in his manga, Saburou Suzuki.

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• The Ace: She gets high grades, is good at sports, and very popular with the girls. There's plenty of situations where she clearly displays a disposition for acting (to say nothing of all the times she belts out cheeseball flirts to high school girls and can completely make it work). Too bad she lacks the common sense to not make Hori beat the hell out of her.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair is royal blue and her eyes are bright green in the anime, but in colored manga artwork both her eyes and hair are a shade of greenish-blue.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Kashima approached Seo about taking singing lessons from her, Seo told Kashima that she'd only agree to do so if Kashima got on her knees and begged. Kashima had no issue with complying (though Seo stopped her and said it was only a joke to try and scare her away).
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Invoked in Chapter 87 when Hori helps to give Kashima a "feminine makeover" fitting her. The makeover ends up being her with a long blue wig and an overall mature and aloof look, something that winds up attracting both her male and female classmates. It's also implied that this is Hori's type as well.
• Ambiguously Bi: Her canon love interest is Hori, whom she's always seeking attention/approval from, and she's casually said she likes him (though it's not clear how much of this is actually romantic). On the other hand, she loves to flirt with the ladies and even goes on group dates with them but never takes it any further than that. Her profile lists under "ideal type" that she "thinks all girls are cute and unknown for guys", heavily implying that she genuinely likes girls in a dating/romantic sense and that she also likes guys but doesn't strongly feel anything towards them.
• Amnesiac Lover: Becomes a victim of Nozaki's hypnosis and forgets who her beloved Hori is as a result, much to the drama club's horror. Amusingly, she still acts casual around him thanks to her friendly personality, calling him "Masayan" and constantly pestering him.
• Attention Whore: She's not nasty about it, but in general she likes to be fawned upon and praised, and she can be rather shameless in her pursuit of such.
• Bifauxnen: To the point that Wakamatsu and Hori both initially mistook her for a boy. She's clearly based on typical otokoyaku actresses in Takarazuka productions, as she always plays male roles in the drama club's productions and has short hair. Her looks also make her incredibly popular with her classmates; her male classmates admire her for her "prince-like" qualities while her female classmates just want her attention. The only clues that she's actually a girl are her high voice and the skirt she wears with her uniform.
• Black Bead Eyes: Kashima is sometimes drawn with these in her particularly oblivious moments.
• Boyish Short Hair: Has very short hair, which complements her "prince" look well. She offhandedly mentions having long hair before as a child, but the fanbook otherwise states she switched on-and-off between this haircut and a bobcut during middle school.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She is clearly an excellent actor, but can't be bothered to go to drama club practice; this is why Hori needs to come by and drag her to the meetings. Her character bio states she is like this for just about everything, the reason being that because things often come easily to her, working hard is something that she isn't used to.
• Brutal Honesty: When Mikoshiba asks her to honestly tell him if he's gained weight in Chapter 64, he instead gets her telling him without hesitation that she doesn't know because she can't pay attention to every little change to him and she frankly couldn't care less about it.
• The Charmer: Perhaps her most famous talent, and it's not just her fangirls that she can turn on the charm to; it's worked on Mikoshiba and Wakamatsu as well. When they first met, it even briefly works on Sakura, who's otherwise very strictly Nozakisexual.
• Chick Magnet: She has hordes of fangirls, although they tend to cause trouble such as damaging the sets for plays.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Mildly, and in an ambiguous sense. Specifically, Kashima desperately wants Hori to recognize her as his 'favorite underclassman', and she will get petulant or pouty when others seem to be taking that spot in any way: Hilariously, she consistently sees her most ardent competition in Nozaki.
• Cloudcuckoo Lander: She has absolutely no common sense, as well as a strange train of thought that causes her to jump to weird conclusions, which she then takes as fact. Hard to say which one gets her hit by Hori more.
• Competition Freak: Kashima is prone to getting ridiculously fired up and competitive at some of the most random occasions over some of the smallest things. Thankfully, she often does so in a lighthearted fashion and she's good-natured enough to not take her wins and losses too personally, or for very long, making her cross into Spirited Competitor territory.
• Corner of Woe: Kashima gets really sulky like this whenever it seems like Hori's favoring someone else over her.
• Crosscast Role: Always cross-casts as male characters, usually princes.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Inverted. Kashima is introduced as a handsome Chick Magnet who is good at everything from sports to academics, and about 70% of her official artwork also has her sporting a suave look on her face that gives the impression of a "bad boy". It takes less than a day of knowing her for Sakura to realize that while Kashima is genuinely the cool-looking genius she's famous for being, she's also genuinely an air-headed moron.
• Ditzy Genius: She is good at almost everything, but she has an off-kilter thought process and can never seem to figure out when the things she does will get her in trouble.
• Dreadful Musician: While she's good at playing instruments themselves, singing is the only thing she is completely devoid of talent in. She's so horrible at it that she leaves Nozaki and Sakura collapsed on the floor clutching their heads. Wakamatsu once realizes that Seo is in the choral club-like Lorelei and almost starts to follow, but then hears Kashima's awful singing and assumes it's Seo. The misunderstanding lives on. She tries very hard to either improve her singing or hide it for Hori's sake, however he eventually finds out (and finds it very entertaining).
  Seo (after hearing Kashima sing): You can give up now, or you can work hard for a year and then give up.
  • Kashima once recorded herself singing for Hori to listen to in the volume 13 omakes. Judging by his shocked report the next day, she is so bad that listening to it ruined his own ability to sing the piece.
• Dude Magnet: She's usually just popular with guys in a One of the Boys kind of way, however Hori putting her in a long-haired wig for fun ends up giving her a horde of eager male fans.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: While all the characters have undergone some changes over time due to Art Evolution, Kashima looks the most different compared to how she did in her introduction. Specifically, her hair started out fairly clean-cut and flat-looking, but it got progressively messier until her wavy bangs achieved an almost spikey appearance.
• Entertainingly Wrong: There actually is a fairly reasonable train of thought-leading her to try to give Hori the role of the princess in a play or to try giving him a bridal carry. There's just two problems. One, it doesn't occur to her that everyone around her has shoujo manga as reference material for their work. Two, she never doubts her conclusions, meaning once people realize what bizarre notion she's gotten into her head they can't get it back out.
• Even the Girls Want Her: To be more precise, it's especially the girls who want her. Her male classmates admire her, but the consensus amongst the school's female population is that she's the hottest guy in her year.
• Family Theme Naming: Kashima's given name is "Yuu" and her younger sister's name is "Rei". Both are two-syllable, gender-neutral Japanese names.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Remarkably, Kashima's younger sister Rei manages to turn Kashima into the responsible sibling half. Rei being very naive and having a compulsion to publicly and inappropriately ship every boy and girl she sees interact with each other forces Kashima to play damage control and try to keep her sister's behavior in check.
  • Although, later chapters do start to question this. Chapter 137, in particular, sees Rei playing a perfect tsukkomi to Kashima's inability to sort out her own flighty feelings. In general, while Yuu is usually portrayed as Rei's handler, it would be a mistake to say either of the Kashima sisters are ever responsible.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Yuu" is a unisex name in Japan, which is fitting considering her androgynous appearance.
• Genki Girl: Technically she looks and seems more like a keet, except of course for the fact she's actually female. She's very cheery for the most part, and has all that energy she uses to run both towards and away from Hori-senpai.
• Handsome Lech: Though she is popular, after Nozaki actually meets Kashima every role he tries to write for her ends up with the Prince Charming character being an obnoxious flirt. She also sometimes forgets the names of the girls she's flirting with and handwaves it by just calling them "princess".
• Her Boyfriend's Jacket: Kashima is perfectly comfortable stealing Hori's pants after drama club activities are finished (even though they're too short for her). This is mostly so that she can lend him her skirt because she thinks appealing to his apparent girly side will make him happy. Of course, it doesn't.
• His Own Worst Enemy: There's some indications that what annoys Hori most about Kashima is her constantly playing hooky and not taking the drama club absolutely seriously, while she no doubt wants to impress him... so if she did neither of these things, she'd be both spending more time with him and not appear annoying to him.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Her singing is very loud and very off-key. This is the primary weak-point in her Aceness, to her Competition Freak aspect's disappointment...well, after her inability to keep a schedule for the drama club.
• Huge Schoolgirl: She is 1.76m tall (about 5'9"), which is about the same height as Mikoshiba^note In Japan, it's more difficult to find a girl this tall than to find a girl as short as Sakura.. At one point she says that with her flat chest, height and short hair the only girly part about her is her voice. And then she instantly starts laughing because she likes dressing and acting like a guy.
• Idiot Hero: While she's smart academically and only really the 'hero' when she's acting in plays, the rest of her Cloudcuckoo Lander personality pegs her like this.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Occasionally shown to be lacking awareness when it comes to revealing her (or others') bodies.
  • During the beach chapter, one of her wild trains of thought convinces her that Hori wants to wear her bikini, and she's basically ready to strip it off while standing in open water without a second thought.
  • In the scene following the former she also absentmindedly starts trying to pull down Hori's swim shorts for no reason other than to see if he's wearing more than one pair of swimming trunks.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Kashima may be a very accomplished actor with a lot of fangirls, but she herself is a huge fangirl for Hori. For all that she teases Hori about how his height makes it difficult for him to land roles, she likes nothing more than to watch him act. In fact once, when faced with the prospect of acting alongside him, she gets so giddy she can't think straight enough to perform properly.
• Ladykiller in Love: Somewhat. She's a proud Chick Magnet, but in the meantime she's constantly trying to get Hori's attention and worries whenever it seems like her self-proclaimed status as his "beloved kohai" is threatened.
  Kashima: (asking about Suzuki) So I'm supposed to admire this guy like the protagonist? And he's handsome, smart, great at sports, and kind, isn't that right?
  Mikoshiba: Well, yeah...
  Kashima: Then why doesn't Senpai like me?! I don't get it!
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: She's often mistaken for a boy at first glance. After meeting her, Hori and Wakamatsu spent quite a bit of time thinking she was a guy before realizing she wasn't. Sakura's brother Towa even first assumes she's a guy wearing a skirt rather than taking the skirt to mean she's actually a girl. It's worth noting that in a chapter where she briefly dresses up in a frilly dress and long wig, she looks more like a crossdressing Long-Haired Pretty Boy than a girl.
• Leg Focus: Her long legs draw attention from Hori (who has a fetish for them) multiple times, such as when he stops to admire a photo of them. However he has no idea they're hers, and Kashima's attempts to show off her legs to him fails because he's too obsessed with her face.
• Living Emotional Crutch: She's one to Mikoshiba, as she's one of the few people he's fully comfortable being around. Mikoshiba often calls her or uses her as a shield if he's panicking because of a situation he doesn't know how to handle. The only reason why Mikoshiba was even willing to go on a summer retreat was because he knew Kashima would be there, and he got distressed when he realized that he wouldn't be staying in the same room as her.
• Love Makes You Dumb: While it's left ambiguous due to how much Kashima's admiration towards Hori is actually romantic, this is still definitely the case. While Kashima is normally confident and level-headed, her common-sense still gets tossed out the window whenever she's trying to impress Hori. Naturally, the majority of her efforts wind up blowing up in her face.
• Luminescent Blush: Is very red when she finally has the guts to sing in front of Hori at karaoke. Hori finds it so endearing/entertaining he encourages her to keep singing just so he can watch her act flustered, much to the chagrin of the other characters who are covering their ears on the floor in agony.
• Made of Iron: Kashima endures Hori physically throwing her across the hall, flinging large objects at her, and kicking her to high heaven, but no matter what Kashima always walks it off with at worst a few cuts and scratches. Sometimes she even laughs about it.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She forms a platonic version of this with Mikoshiba. The latter is the model Nozaki used for his manga's heroine, Mamiko, and while Kashima is not the model for Suzuki, Nozaki occasionally uses her as inspiration for him.
• Mind-Control Eyes: When she's temporarily under Nozaki's hypnosis, her eyes have no light in them. This does not go unnoticed, as Hori (who's unaware of the hypnosis) remarks how dead her eyes look.
• Modesty Shorts: Kashima's character bio shows that she wears shorts under her skirt which makes it easy for her to change into costume during drama club activities. They're first mentioned in-series in Chapter 65 when she lies about going commando and Hori nonchalantly lifts her skirt up to check if she's wearing her shorts.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Inverted. Her attempts to get Hori to notice her legs all fail because he's so fixated on her face.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: She wears a tie instead of a ribbon like the other girls. Since ties are primarily worn by male students, it makes her look even more masculine, at least from the waist up.
• No Sense of Personal Space: At least among her close friends, It's not uncommon for her to touch, lift, or going right up in their faces, without any warning.
• Onee-sama: While Kashima is nicknamed schoolwide as the 'Prince of the School' and plays this part to her fangirls (although some also call her this term), it turns out that her putting on her a long wig ends up attracting fanboys eager to call her Onee-sama instead. She is also referred to this way by her younger Ojou sister Rei.
• One of the Boys: Sometimes people either forget Kashima is a girl, or they just think she is a boy. She also seems to have more guy friends outside of the main cast, with Hori even once commenting that the rapport she's developed with Seo and Sakura is "unusual for her".
• Only Has Same-Sex Admirers: She's a massive Chick Magnet with hordes of swooning fangirls, but doesn't generate much romantic interest from guys.
• Oxymoronic Being: The most handsome, charming and talented dude at school, with such attractiveness that he has an army of girls swooning over them and melting over every little thing he does... happens to be a girl.
• Petite Pride: Implied. What she clearly takes pride in is her status as "Prince of the School", and she points out her nearly non-existent chest as one of the things that helps her "boyish" image.
• Platonic Life-Partners: She and Mikorin are best friends with each other.
• Prince Charming: She often plays the prince in the drama club's plays, and a very cliched one you'd see in fairytales.
• Red Baron: She's popular for her charms and is widely known at school as The Prince.
• Shipper on Deck: For Sakura/Nozaki; she often encourages the former to make some progress in their relationship.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The older Kashima sister is a carefree Bifauxnen that gets along with boys well, while the younger sister is a polite Ojou and Bishoujo that's only accustomed with talking to other girls.
• Significant Birth Date: Her birthday is Halloween, which possibly reflects how she's a drama club actress who's often put into costumes.
• Slapstick: She gets a fair amount of slapstick thanks to Hori's violent Comical Overreacting to the things she does.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Discussed and then explicitly subverted in Chapter 42. Mikorin had wondered if Kashima had felt this trope applied to her, since she's lost her voice due to a cold and her voice is one of the few indications that she's a girl. Then he sees her reveling in how masculine she is now by wearing pants, killing Mikorin's suspicions. When brought up, she thinks Hori closer to the trope instead.
• Typecasting: It appears that pretty much every script Hori gets Nozaki to make for him that Kashima will inevitably be the lead actor for is "...a prince..."
• Unknown Rival: Considers Nozaki as her rival for the title of Hori's favorite kouhai. Nozaki, meanwhile, just notes that Hori regards him differently (due to him being absolutely incompetent with backgrounds) and otherwise tries to spur on Hori's feelings for Kashima.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Often surprises people with her true gender when they mistake her for a guy. One such victim is Wakamatsu — his mistaking of Kashima as a guy leads to a very awkward situation where he follows the girls to a lingerie store and sticks around, which makes Kashima wonder if he's a pervert. When Wakamatsu eventually finds out that Kashima is in fact a girl, it leaves him completely mortified by his actions.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Hori, in an odd sense. Kashima's the exact opposite of vitriolic to Hori, but she has a bad habit of messing with him or inadvertently doing things that from his perspective look like harassment (which makes her the target of his rage in return). In spite of this, they are shown to actually get along quite well in more relaxed situations.
• Vocal Dissonance: Contrary to her masculine looks, Kashima's natural speaking voice is high and easily recognizable as belonging to a girl, though she often manually lowers it when she's flirting with her fangirls or acting.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: Subverted when Kashima is hypnotized by her little sister to be completely subservient to Hori. The rest of the drama club is horrified by the change, but Hori is totally good with it to the point another drama club member dramatically scolds him for it.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: She prefers wearing guys' clothes outside of school and is occasionally mistaken for a guy as well, something that everyone else takes in stride. In one story she comes down with a cold, which causes the pitch of her voice to drop so low that she muses that she's now lost her only feminine trait, seemingly setting up a Tomboy with a Girly Streak revelation. Instead the view pans back to her gleefully wearing the male uniform to commemorate the occasion.

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Masayuki Hori

Voiced by: Yuki Ono (Anime), Junji Majima (Drama CD) (Japanese), Adam Noble (English)

A senior student who's also the president of the Drama Club. He helps Nozaki with his backgrounds anonymously in return for getting Nozaki to write scripts for the club's plays. He's a hard-working, good-natured guy, but he has little patience with others goofing off, messing around, or being bone-headed while working.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: A minor one, his hair in the anime is a darker brown than in the manga official coloured art.
• Affectionate Nickname: Many guys in the drama club and his friendship circle call him Hori-chan. Kashima even calls him "Hori-chan-senpai" occasionally. Seo also starts calling him Hori-chan to his slight annoyance, since he's a year older than her.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: It only takes Hori hanging out with Mikoshiba and Seo for a short while before he clues in that they were the basis for Mamiko and Oze, respectively (and his discovery about Oze quickly leads to him figuring out Wakamatsu's Waka character). When he, Mikoshiba and Wakamatsu are spending the night over at Nozaki's apartment, he also quickly realizes that Nozaki's trying to use their conversations as material for the next chapter of Let's Fall in Love.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Probably the most beleaguered of all of the assistants, as Nozaki has no idea how to properly draw backgrounds and, much to Hori's dismay, relies on him completely.
• Benched Hero: Despite his role as president and having outstanding acting skills, he no longer acts in the drama club's plays due to him being too short for lead roles and being too good for supporting roles. He doesn't mind, however, as he found he enjoys doing backstage work and prefers to help Kashima shine as an actor.
• Berserk Button: There are a few easy ways to set off the cranky Hori.
  • Kashima running away from drama club activities, amongst her many other quirky hijinks.
  • Boxes (especially if one's standing on them), thanks to Nozaki trying to Hand Wave his poor perspective drawing skills by claiming characters are standing on boxes.
  • Nozaki's poor grasp on perspective and backgrounds, and his odd ways of dealing with these kinds of problems like the aforementioned boxes.
• Big Little Brother: Inverted. His character profile states he has a younger brother in high school, and Tsubaki has described him to be someone who wears glasses and is taller than Hori. Considering Hori's short height (especially when compared to the other male characters), this isn't all that surprising.
• Brutal Honesty: Hori is pretty blunt, even if his thoughts may be less than favorable to whoever he's talking to.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: Revealed to be the case for him in Chapter 78 when he gets completely drunk by accident through eating a loaf of cake made with brandy. The same thing happens when Kashima offers him alcohol chocolate in the Volume 10 omakes, and he ends up drunk-singing with Kashima at karaoke.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Hori often complains about and loses his temper over Kashima and her behavior, but Chapter 60 shows that her avoiding him for less than a day will make him noticeably depressed. Soon after this incident he starts to actually go out of his way just so he can walk to school in the morning with her.
• Casual Kink: In Chapter 132, for one of Nozaki's usual experiments testing out potential situations out for his manga, the characters are in a classroom trying to act like classmates and Sakura takes the opportunity to enjoy asking Nozaki to sit in front of her and pass handouts behind to her. Hori doesn't get it and Kashima offers to try it with him. Hori still doesn't get it but then his expression raises a surprised look after she then teases him because he's not taking the papers...and then he clearly quite likes it when Kashima is getting sick of holding up the papers for him while he's not taking them.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: His profile states he's not interested in awards, so rather than focusing on making standout plays he focuses on making shows that he feels everyone can enjoy.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Despite her academic and theater accomplishments, Kashima lacks common sense and can't even be bothered to make it to drama club on-time. Hori always ends up making sure that she gets things done.
• Comical Overreacting:
  • The way he reacts to Kashima when she does things that exasperate him would be disturbing if it weren't so obviously meant for slapstick purposes. Examples include kicking her, tossing her like a hammer throw, and even launching a whole whiteboard at her.
  • He tends to be extremely guarded about certain aspects of his life due to his dreaming up wild theories about what might happen if Kashima found out about them. For example, he says he'd never tell Kashima if he got a girlfriend because he thinks Kashima would steal her away from him (something that Nozaki also thinks is possible).
• Competition Freak: While he's usually the one trying to keep his peers in line, Hori is easily egged on and his competitive spirit will instantaneously flare-up. Especially if it involves Kashima somehow.
• Covert Pervert: According to extra materials, Hori is the biggest closet pervert of the main cast, though he's somewhat oblivious to it and it's mostly due to the fact he's typically a very no-nonsense sort of person.
  • He's surprisingly straight-faced when he mentions his leg fetish.
  • Chapter 132 sees him really liking Kashima getting cross with him.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Subverted. Mikoshiba on several occasions has expected Hori to become possessive of Kashima, only to be proven completely wrong. On the contrary, Hori wants nothing better than to proclaim and display Kashima's greatness to the world. Later on, it is shown that what he'd be intensely bothered about is not the thought of someone else taking Kashima away, but rather someone else being able to make her shine more than he ever could.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Light brown hair and light brown eyes.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments of straight-faced snarking. It comes with the territory of being the sanest of the main seven.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Very minor example. Hori discovers he's useless at applying manga screentone because, due to him always doing the rugged jobs with his club, he can't control how much strength he's putting in and will accidentally cut straight through the paper.
• Does Not Like Spam: Hori will refuse to accept any food offered to him that is homemade, much less eat it, which his bio states is due to the fact he once got ill after eating someone's homemade chocolate. However, he makes exceptions if the person who cooked it is someone he considers to be a close friend.
• Doting Parent: Everyone thinks he acts like an obsessive proud parent towards Kashima. Despite all the physical violence he directs at her, he is genuinely proud of Kashima and in the right atmosphere will heavily lay the praise on her. He also never misses the chance to promote Kashima's image, at least as an actor.
  Hori: Kashima will always shine brightly, no matter what the circumstances. *proud smile*
  Sakura: (What a doting parent)
• Enraged by Idiocy: There's only so many stupid shenanigans Hori can put up with before he's screaming profanities.
• Generic Cuteness: Very mild case. Kashima's sister Rei doesn't consider him to be that pretty and is surprised by his short height, wondering what the infamously handsome Kashima sees in him. Due to the art-style, Hori hardly looks less attractive than the other male characters (and Kashima) even with his height.
• Has a Type: Hori being attracted to "girls with pretty legs" has been mentioned more than once in-series. Chapter 87 seems to have narrowed his type down to "Kashima".
• Height Angst: He gets very irritated when Kashima teases him about how he stopped growing a few years ago. In an omake in Volume 10 he lampshades that hanging around Kashima, Mikoshiba and Nozaki, who are significantly taller than him, doesn't help his case, which is why he asks Kashima to go shopping as just the two of them.
• Love Epiphany: The end of Chapter 87 shows Hori looking slightly worse for the wear and furiously blushing as he confides in Nozaki that he's realizing now that Kashima's his type.
• Luminescent Blush: When Hori gets drunk his whole face lights up bright red. And then it happens later while sober when he finally realizes that he's probably attracted to Kashima.
• Male Gaze: Taken to its logical conclusion when he goes to the beach - some other guys ask him to rate all of the girls' legs, which a girl expresses her disgust at hear them talk about. Hori assures her that he could never do such a thing; he was too busy staring just at legs to know the name and face attached to each pair.
• The Napoleon: 164 cm tall (about 5'4") and easily blows his fuse if the right buttons are pushed. He's also relatively strong and in charge of building stage props for the drama club.
• No-Sell: In Chapter 98, when Hori tags along with the group to a Karaoke bar, he's shown to be the one character immune to the effects of Kashima's terrible singing. He's so entranced with watching her perform (particularly enjoying her uncharacteristic embarrassment) that her lack of ability doesn't bother him at all.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: He doesn't wear the blazer, his shirt is blue, and he usually keeps his tie tucked in the shirt pocket when working.
• Not So Above It All: He's by far the most sensible of the main cast, but he has a share of small peculiarities that show their face from time to time. The most prominent is perhaps his tendency to completely derail conversations or forget about other things he should be doing when certain ideas (usually about the drama club or boosting Kashima's star profile) pop into his head. And on top of that he either thinks it's normal or doesn't even seem to realize he does it.
• Older Than They Look: Hori has a complex about looking younger than he actually is when his bangs are down (and his short stature probably doesn't help), so he spikes his hair up to look more his age.
• Only Sane Man: Aside from his Doting Parent tendencies and being prone to violent outbursts when it comes to Kashima, he's got no major quirks and is otherwise a fairly ordinary student. He also seems to be more acutely aware of the craziness surrounding him compared to the others.
• Perpetual Frowner: He's often frowning, especially in official art. A given considering all the crazy shenanigans he has to put up with.
• Say My Name: Expect a "KAASHIMAAAAAA!" from him every time the person in question pisses him off.
• Selective Obliviousness: Time and time again we're told Hori's a leg man, but despite Kashima having an impressive set of legs, he never notices anything about Kashima except her face. This is ironic since he's flat out admitted that when checking out girls he only looks at their legs and doesn't look at their faces.
• Shipper on Deck: After realizing that the sort-of pairing of Oze and Waka in Nozaki's manga are based on Seo and Wakamatsu, he falls into the trap of mixing up reality and shoujo manga and begins shipping their real-life counterparts.
• Significant Birth Date: 28 November, or the so-called Nice Knee-highs Day^note a day that the Japanese otaku associate with knee-high socks, often associated with Zettai Ryouiki. Serves as an indication for what he looks for in women.
• Single-Target Sexuality: It's actually "single target aesthetic attraction" in this case, but Hori is extremely biased towards Kashima's face. He thinks Kashima is the most handsome person he knows, and whenever the topic of a "good-looking guy" comes up, he instantly thinks of and/or inevitably compares them to her. He also doesn't seem to like it when she wears anything that covers her face. Chapter 87 finally drives this home: Hori sees Kashima as both his ideal guy and ideal girl.
• So Proud of You: Regardless of how much white hair she makes him grow with her antics, Kashima is Hori's pride and joy, and his dedication towards her is unequivocal. When all is said and done, she is very dear to him, and he does every effort possible to show her off as both an asset to the Drama Club and as a person.
• Tareme Eyes: Hori is the only male character in the entire cast thus far with eyes that distinctly droop downwards at the corners. Which is pretty ironic, considering his personality.
• Tsundere: He always beats up Kashima for making more work for everyone and in general just being really annoying, especially when it comes to her fangirls or when she "harasses" him for attention. However, in private he thinks that she's unmatched at acting, and is far more interested in supporting her talent than taking on roles himself, even though he's also very skilled. Additionally, he looks after her so much he's considered to be her "Doting Parent" in-universe. When Kashima avoids him to try Method Acting for a prince hurting from unrequited love, after managing to talk to her again (which has Kashima give the Method Acting plan up), he apparently changes trains to ensure they can come to school together every morning.
• Unkempt Beauty: Hori usually has his hair gelled back, but there are a few occasions where he's been shown with his bangs down. Kashima thinks he still looks cool that way, and Nozaki also shows his approval by drawing a girl with her bangs down get complimented by Mamiko.
• Unknowingly in Love: Although he's well aware of other people having crushes, he is extremely dense about his Kashima bias. Despite having known Kashima for over a year and holding an obvious favoritism for her, it wasn't until Chapter 87 when a classmate finally mentioned it to his face that Hori even started considering that he might be attracted to Kashima. It apparently took another week before he admitted to Nozaki, looking completely flustered about this revelation, that it was probably true.
• Unmanly Secret: Subverted. Upon finding out that he apparently reads shoujo manga,^note Hori actually uses it as basis for making backgrounds for the drama club Kashima thinks Hori wants to be treated like the manga's heroine, so she goes out of her way to make sure he gets his supposed wish, such as giving him female clothes and trying to bridal carry him. Of course, this only pisses Hori off more.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Kashima, although the vitriol comes exclusively from Hori. In his defense, Kashima tends to do him "favors" that are so out of line with his desires he sometimes wonders if she hates him. However, they've proven to otherwise be very good friends, often chatting and bouncing ideas off each other.
• When She Smiles: Kashima is in awe and almost bliss when she sees Hori genuinely smiling so much in Chapter 78, but has to keep herself together because he's also drunk on brandy cake.
• Workaholic: Not even close to being at the same extremes as Nozaki, but Hori is seldom seen doing anything that isn't related to drawing the backgrounds for Nozaki's manga or the drama club (and even the background drawing started for the sake of the drama club). Sometimes Hori's time is so split between the two he becomes sleep deprived.

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Hirotaka Wakamatsu

Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (Anime), Daisuke Namikawa (Drama CD) (Japanese), Cameron Bautsch (English)

A tenth-grader in the boys' basketball club, who used to be Nozaki's junior in the basketball club during middle school. He's a sensitive sort, and gets deeply stressed by Seo barging around his life; unfortunately, he's also pretty naive, and has no clue how to deal with her. He has a crush on Lorelei of the choir club... who, unknown to him, is actually Seo.

It was actually thanks to Seo that he eventually became one of Nozaki's assistants; he kept staying at Nozaki's apartment due to Seo-induced insomnia and Nozaki had him doing screentones to make use of the time since his other assistants couldn't do it.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Occasionally, his eyes are colored a shade of green instead of blue in manga illustrations.
• Affectionate Nickname: Seo imposes "Waka" on him. Wakamatsu finds it annoying, but it's genuinely out of affection since Seo has a soft spot for him.
• Amusing Injuries: He regularly suffers comedic injuries due to Seo. He's a frequent target to her rough plays when playing basketball, and his consistent reaction to Seo singing is to rapidly and suddenly dropping to the ground asleep in comedic fashion.
• Black Bead Eyes: He is sometimes drawn with this and other simplified facial features, to show his naivety and innocence.
• Brown Note: Listening to "Lorelei" singing (who is actually, unbeknownst to him, Seo) puts him to sleep. Like, virtually instantly. Since he's an insomniac, this is a pretty great thing for him.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Accused of having a preference for bigger busts, but it turns out he's not a believer in this. When pressed about hiding behind Seo, who has a pretty large chest, to ward off admirers, Wakamatsu questions why he would find "lumps of fat" exciting.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Distinctly divided between Seo's identities. Wakamatsu feels tormented by Seo whenever she's around him, but he also says that he can't live without "Lorelei"'s singing to help him sleep... though if Seo just wasn't around in general, he'd probably lose his insomnia.
• Chick Magnet: When Seo is away on a school trip, Wakamatsu can finally relax for once. This improves his livelihood virtually immediately which helps him socialize better, causing him to be incredibly popular overnight.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: All of his attempts at getting Seo to stay away from him just give her more reasons to hang out with him.
• Extreme Doormat: Gets taken advantage of by his seniors a lot, especially by Seo.
• Genius Ditz: Extra materials reveal that for all his naiveté, Wakamatsu is a diligent student and ranks within the top 30 of his class in terms of grades and test results.
• Gentle Giant: He boasts an impressive height of 185cm, making him the second tallest of the main cast, but he is also kind and sensitive in nature.
• Has a Type: Supposedly likes younger girls with a "sweet personality" or "beautiful heart". Ironic that he's most Ship Teased with Seo who is the exact opposite of that.
• Hero Worship: More like Senpai Worship, but his introductory chapter makes it clear that he has a great deal of respect for Nozaki from back when they played basketball together in middle school. In general he's very enthusiastic and eager-to-please toward all of his upperclassmen.
• Honor Before Reason: He tends to do what his senpai orders without thinking whether it is appropriate.
• Hunk: He's got a good face and athletic body, which girls at school appreciate when Seo isn't around to make him stress out constantly.
• Hypno Fool: When reading a book about hypnosis out loud, he managed to hypnotize himself and started acting like a dog. Although according to Sakura and Nozaki he didn't act much differently than before.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Has blue eyes, which is fitting for his naivete and all.
• The Insomniac: He suffers from chronic insomnia, and Seo-related stress makes it worse. Ironically, 'Lorelei', her singing voice, can send him off to sleep in seconds... not that he knows it's her.
• Keet: As the second tallest character in the series he's noticeably larger than the usual example, but still a little too meek to be considered a Boisterous Bruiser. Watamatsu can be very happy-go-lucky and exuberant, especially when among friends — the exception seems to be Seo, as she's confused when Kashima pretends to be Wakamatsu and depicts him as very energetic.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Circumstances regularly conspire to keep him from finding out that Lorelei is actually Seo. Even Seo actually telling him this just causes him to not believe her for a long time.
• Lovable Jock: He's on the basketball team, but is a gentle Nice Guy.
• Loving a Shadow: Played hilariously (and tragically) straight with his infatuation with Lorelei. Despite not knowing who she is nor even what her personality is like, her beautiful singing alone convinces him that she must be a lovely person. The only reason why nobody has told him the truth about Lorelei is because it'd be too tragic. (Seo herself eventually tries coming clean with him, but falls victim to Cassandra Truth.) In a further bit of irony, his profile mentions that he prefers kind, sweet younger girls—the exact opposite of Seo.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The feminine boy to Seo's masculine girl. The trope is played with in that Wakamatsu isn't that feminine, but personality-wise he's a good deal more sensitive and kind than Seo is, and also takes shoujo manga a little too much to heart.
• Mistaken for Gay: Seo being gone on a trip makes him such a bundle of love and energy that he helps everyone he can which quickly leads to many girls getting attracted to him, with one even taking advantage of this to to trick him by claiming she literally needs a boyfriend or she'll die. Hori decides to solve this by telling Wakamatsu to stop treating girls nicely. This creates new rumors about some guy who treats all the guys incredibly nicely for reasons that are speculated on...
• Mistaken for Romance: Due to him relying on shojo manga for advice on how to deal with Seo (as well as Seo’s inability to read the room), Seo thinks he has a crush on her. Him giving her a pair of gloves and following her around school only strengthen others’ belief that he has a crush on her. Only Nozaki is aware of what Wakamatsu’s goals were and how he muddied the situation with Seo.
• Morality Pet: Despite her rough treatment of him in basketball, he is the one person who can bring unexpected kindness or nice moments out of Seo. Notably, when Wakamatsu gets depressed^note over how unlikely it was that the real 'Lorelei' would be exactly like he imagined her. Lorelei is Seo. to the point where he doesn't even feel like putting up with her actions, she can't get in the mood to sing. Wakamatsu (unknowingly) revealing how much Seo favours him during their rooftop confrontation sums it up.
  Wakamatsu: At any rate, why are you only picking on me?
  Seo: Huh, I am?
  Wakamatsu: You are! You always hit me with the ball! Even during my break time! You make me run errands for you! You make me massage your shoulders! You have me carry your stuff! You took me to a family restaurant and bought me dinner! And I'm the only one who gets souvenirs!
• Naïve Newcomer: He is the youngest and newest member of Nozaki's group of assistants. He also tends to be the most clueless and takes advice from shoujo manga, which Nozaki scolds him for since it never works.
• Nice Guy: He's too gentle to tell Seo that she's annoying, leading her to think they're the best of friends or possibly even more. His way of trying to express his annoyance is to glare at her, but since he doesn't want to be rude he also greets her at the same time. And he goes out of his way to do this frequently.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: His uniform deviation is very subtle, but Wakamatsu wears button-up sweaters with his uniform, while the ones officially sanctioned by the school don't open at the front.
• Oblivious to Love: Because of Seo's brusqueness towards him, he is unaware that she is very fond of him and actively seeks his company selflessly. He's also oblivious of Sakura's crush on Nozaki for a very long time, something everyone else figured out instantly. This is in spite of how he Thinks Like a Romance Novel.
• Prone to Tears: He easily starts sobbing if he feels he's being picked on, or when feeling sorry for someone else.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Wakamatsu looks typically masculine, being a huge muscular guy who plays basketball. Since starting to work as Nozaki's assistant, Wakamatsu also has become a fairly avid reader of shoujo manga, and continues to attempt to apply their tactics to real-life much to Nozaki's great concern.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Sensitive Guy to Nozaki's Manly Man. Nozaki even extends sympathies to Wakamatsu regarding Seo because of this trope, noting that he was always more sensitive than anyone else he knew in middle school. Also rather ironic, since Wakamatsu's major hobby is manly, while Nozaki's is anything but.
• Significant Birth Date: 3 September, referred to by the Japanese as the Sleep Science Day.
• Shipper on Deck: Becomes a supporter for Sakura/Nozaki, once he finds out much later than everyone else does. He's such an enthusiastic one that Sakura, who had previously been attempting to interfere in his relationship with Seo, promises to never stick her nose in other people's relationships again.
• Sixth Ranger: The last to join Nozaki's manga assistant crew, first as the one in charge of erasing and later also taking up screentones.
• Sleepy Head: Ironically, despite Wakamatsu's otherwise chronic insomnia, listening to Seo sing will cause him to fall asleep in seconds without fail, regardless of his surroundings and/or anything else he's doing. During the summer retreat, Seo suddenly singing while bathing caused him to fall asleep face down in the hot spring and he had to be fished out.
• Split Personality: In one of the stories, putting on an eyepatch somehow causes his personality to completely 180, turning from a nervous but sweet boy to an arrogantly confident "tough-guy", with the body language to match. When he snaps out of it though, he doesn't remember any of it. It turns out the personality had been subconsciously inspired by a shoujo manga character, because of course it was.
• Stalker with a Crush: Downplayed, as Wakamatsu shows symptoms of being stalkerish in regards to his infatuation with "Lorelei", such as sometimes hiding near the Choir Club room in hopes of figuring out her identity. He also loves her songs so much that he memorizes them, to the point he can hear a small clip of one and accurately say what song and at what time mark the clip came from. Nozaki finds this creepy and incomprehensible, considering that Wakamatsu always falls asleep within seconds of listening to her sing (so managing to listen to her songs so much that he's memorized them would take him a lot longer than other people).
• Super Gullible: Highly impressionable. Not only does he read shoujo as a how-to guide in regards to human interaction, he also fails to get suspicious when people completely change their stories mid discussion so they can push off work onto him. It's this part of him that makes Seo sure that he'll never recognize her when she's all dressed up, but to his surprise, he's the only one who does know that it's her.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: He often uses tactics only seen in shoujo manga in order to solve his problems with Seo. Since he's in a manga parodying the genre instead of playing it straight, they tend to backfire. He's also not trying to romance Seo which further makes his preferred sources rather illogical.
  Wakamatsu: Senpai... where did I go wrong...?
  Nozaki: ...Probably from the moment you started using shoujo manga.
• Tsundere: Mikoshiba calls him a "new type of tsundere" because he has an antagonistic relationship with Seo while gushing over "Lorelei". Later he overhears Seo calling him a tsundere and insists that he isn't, all while posing and speaking exactly like one.

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Secondary Characters

Ken Miyamae

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese), Luis Galindo (English)

Nozaki's current supervising editor.

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• Butt-Monkey: Granted, everyone in this series has their fair share of being at the end of jokes, but he is ridiculously miserable due to Nozaki's antics and Maeno's difficult personality and is pretty up there as the one of least deserving of it.
• Commonality Connection: This is how he got his first girlfriend Matsukawa. One day, after class, despite having been supposed to do cleaning duty with her, Maeno ran off first and left all the work to Matsukawa. She then confessed to Miyamae that she loathed Maeno, which he agreed with. When recalling this to Maeno in the present, all Miyamae can say is that they dated due to having "similar interests".
• First-Name Basis: Nozaki, and by extension his friends, refer to him as Ken-san.
• Formerly Fit: He gains weight whenever Maeno is around in his life. Considering what Maeno is like, you can't really blame him. In one of the official anthologies, it's shown that Maeno being briefly hospitalized for flu alone made Ken lose half of the weight.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When he hears that Maeno's being transferred, he decides to be a little nicer to him before the time comes. In reality, Maeno was being transferred to Ken's office, and a change of editorship causes three of Maeno's mangakas to be transferred to Ken due to "the two of them being so friendly recently". Even worse is the fact that each of the mangakas have been affected by Maeno in a different way: the first one is a newbie who's still too charmed by Maeno's good looks to realize what he's like, the second one is so traumatized by Maeno's shoddy editing in one year that she's distrusting of all editors and the third one is a senior mangaka who's hellbent on getting revenge on Maeno.
• Not So Stoic: Is stoic by default but will sometimes get comically angry over Nozaki's weird manga schemes or Maeno's existence in general.
• Only Sane Man: He is the most down-to-earth character in the entire series and probably the one with the most common sense. Given he is in a comedic manga, this is a terribly unfortunate description for him.
• Perma-Stubble: Has been sporting a stubble ever since he finished college.
• Perpetual Frowner: Nearly always looks annoyed since he finds Nozaki, Maeno, and other work colleagues tiresome to deal with.
• The Reliable One: If it weren't for him, Nozaki's manga would have gone into egregiously wild tangents. Funnily enough, Nozaki tried to be as subdued as possible when he was under Maeno due to the editor's unreliability, but Miyamae in turn has to subdue Nozaki from attempting any silly plot points in the manga (which isn't unlikely to be a Secret Test of Character from Nozaki who just really relishes in having an editor that actually bothers to edit).
• Rōnin: He spent two years having to study and retake university entrance exams after high school, so Maeno is now his sempai despite them being high school classmates. Justified as the fanbook stated he caught a cold the second time he went for his exams and his university requires much higher scores than Maeno's.
• Stoic Spectacles: Wears glasses and (usually) does not often emote anything other than slight annoyance.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Sometimes feels that no one around him is sane in any way. It doesn't really help that Maeno isn't the only idiot in the editorial department, as shown in Chapter 58.
• Terrible Artist: His drawing skill is so poor that he can only manage stick figures!
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Inverted - Nozaki basically worships the ground he walks on, just because Nozaki finds him actually professional and competent at his job. Working under Maeno really traumatized Nozaki...

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Mitsuya Maeno

Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (Japanese), Ned Gayle (English)

Nozaki's previous supervising editor, currently overseeing Miyako. An obnoxiously obtrusive editor who completely lacks self-awareness, Maeno is a bundle of enthusiasm combined with bad ideas and self-congratulation.

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• Author Appeal: In-universe, he has a massive obsession with tanuki and always pushes for their inclusion in the manga of the authors under him.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: A pretty audacious example: despite checking mangaka's work and critiquing them being his job, several gags imply he nearly never read Nozaki's scripts!
• The Dreaded: He's considered terrifying to deal with when it comes to work, and is generally presented as being every manga artist's worst nightmare due to his narcissistic personality and constant In-Universe Executive Meddling. The idea of being forced to work with him again makes one of his former manga artists cry in Chapter 69 (no one actually told her she was going to have to. She was just terrified that it could happen as a punishment because her manuscript was pushing the deadline, and Maeno was just following Ken).
• Executive Meddling: In-universe, he's notorious for making his charges do wild and unnecessary edits to their manga, and is the reason why tanuki keep showing up in Miyako's works.
• Handsome Lech: He is good-looking but isn't so subtle about his perverted tastes. As he got older, his ideal woman changed from "older woman with big boobs" to "younger woman with big boobs".
• Hate Sink: Most, if not all, of the mangaka that have worked for him loathe him with a passion. And that, with good reason.
• Innocently Insensitive: It doesn't seem like he does most things to be malicious, he's just not aware of the fact that he bothers other people.
• Jerkass: He is self-centered and, when not forcing invasive changes onto his charges' works, is noted to have a history of shoddy editing jobs and shirking his duties. In a class reunion he makes everyone think that Miyamae is a hapless do-nothing who depends on him to get any work done.
• Karma Houdini: He never receives retribution for the terrible stuff he does. As a matter of fact, he stresses Miyamae so much that Maeno is the reason he's obese.
• Meaningful Name: Maeno comes from mae no, or "former", which relates to his former work relationship with Nozaki. And probably what everyone that works with him wants out of their working relationship with him.
• Narcissist: A blog that was supposed to be about the manga anthology and the work of the mangaka instead is just a blog about him. Each post features a different photo of him. Nozaki wanted him to take some reference photos of an amusement park, but he just took a bunch of selfies in an amusement park instead. He also seems to believe he is incredibly good at what he does and that his suggestions are good despite just causing a lot of annoyance and extra work.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: He is more concerned with himself than with his job, and he doesn't seem to realize how much trouble he causes for everyone. Moreover, his incompetence causes several cases of embarrassing misprints, and it's implied that he's never actually read Nozaki's manga. With the exception of Miyako, every mangaka supervised by him hates him, though Miyako barely tolerates him herself.
• Terrible Artist: He is terrible at drawing, although he can at least draw crude body-shaped figures, unlike Miyamae.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As villainous as a jerkass can be. He's seen as a hardworking, super-reliable editor to his colleagues (except Miyamae, who's known him and has had to put up with his actions since high school), when in reality he is a selfish and narcissistic slacker who is every mangaka's worst nightmare.

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Yukari Miyako

Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese), Brittany Djie (English)

Another mangaka who lives in Nozaki's apartment building.

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• Adaptational Dye-Job: Her purple hair is darkened significantly in the anime adaptation, to the point it almost looks black.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: She doesn't hold her alcohol well and warns her friends in advance that she can't drink too much at their drinking party. The friends misinterpret this as her already drinking too much at her work (which they think is a hostess club) and make it their mission to have her avoid drinking at all costs so they can save her liver. Ryousuke, unfortunately, goes offtrack in an attempt to get closer to her and accidentally gets her drunk off of cocktails, not realizing that drinking too many low-alcohol drinks will still affect her.
• Covert Pervert: Despite her sweet and polite demeanor, as Mikoshiba finds out, she has the full set of "The Male Nude" art reference books (compare to her having incomplete sets of other drawing manuals). She's also pretty quick to ask Mayu to be her shirtless model, and later mentions to Nozaki that she likes Mikoshiba's body type.
• Creator Thumbprint: Tanuki. She does have a Cuteness Proximity towards them, but Maeno's obsession with them also has a role—he makes Miyako put them in all of her manga. Even she has her limits—Miyako puts them as background critters, but Maeno wants them in the foreground.
• Extreme Doormat: Maeno has pretty much gotten his way with her manga because she's incapable of standing up to him. Maeno even manages to make her apologize for his mistake when she once tries to call him out on it.
• Horrible Judge of Character: It's hard to understand how she can work with Maeno for several years^note According to Chapter 50, she's been under him since she was 18 and yet still seems to be friendly with him. Other mangaka that are transferred to Miyamae from him are closer to Broken Birds.
• Likes Older Men: Inverted in that her college classmate assumes she's dating Nozaki and later Mikoshiba, both high school boys. She is also not above appreciating shirtless middle school and high school boys.
• Living a Double Life: A normal college student by day, a shoujo manga artist in her free time. Unfortunately, thanks to the way she acts when her other life comes up, her classmates think it's much shadier than it actually is.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Chapter 134 sees her being unable to finish her storyboards after mistaking that Ryousuke has a crush on another girl who works in a cabaret club (actually, it's her), and throughout the chapter she clearly is having trouble processing her feelings and coming to odd conclusions over the matter.
• Nice Girl: Very amicable towards everyone, including Nozaki and his assistants, and her default expression is a cheerful smile. Unfortunately, this works against her when it comes to her job, since she's too nice to stand up to Maeno and his Executive Meddling. invoked
• Oblivious to Love: Doesn't notice that her classmate Ryousuke is attracted to her. When he does try to tell her, the circumstances make him sound like he's perving on her. When he actually confesses he likes her in Chapter 134, he first says that he made a mistake that the girl he likes works in a cabaret club and she actually draws manga...and Miyako still doesn't get that he's referring to her (who minutes ago just shouted at him that she's a mangaka), so Ryousuke then just spells it out for her and says "I have...liked you...for the longest time."
• Official Couple: It takes until Chapter 134 for for her to finally knows about Ryosuke's feelings for her and respond that she's "happy" and then requires them to clear up Ryosuke making an uncharacteristically-baffling (for himself, though not the series) train of thought that has him write out monologues on a decorated whiteboard to resemble shoujo-style text bubbles in Chapter 141...but Miyako and Ryousuke have affirmed to each other that they are now dating.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The thought of Ryousuke having a girl he likes is enough to fluster and agitate her to the point where she's in danger of missing her deadline because she's too distracted to get any work done. She even notes that this has never happened before.
• Punny Name: Not her, but one of her day in the limelight chapters is titled Genkan Shoujo Miyako-san. Apart from the obvious allusion to the series title, a genkan is a traditional Japanese entryway area for an apartment, through which the other characters frequently visit her.
• Sequential Artist: Writes shorter series in Monthly Girls' Romance.
• Stepford Smiler: She's genuinely cheerful and has no issues to hide, but her habit of smiling her way out of difficult questions makes other people think she's indeed hiding something very shady or harmful.
• Two First Names: Yukari Miyako is stated to be her actual name, not just a pen name. Miyako is a feminine given name (as indicated by the "-ko" suffix), so having it as a surname is even more unusual than Sakura. Justified in that the kanji used to spell her last name is "都", which means capital; however, when spelled using "美夜子" it is a first name, and both kanji compounds have the same pronunciation: Miyako.

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Mayu Nozaki

Nozaki's younger brother, currently in the last year of middle school.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Is called Maa-kun by good friend Kobayashi, whom Mayu relies on a lot.
• Ambiguously Human: Played for Laughs briefly when Mayu collapses on the floor as a reaction to his phone dying from low battery. All his nearby classmates, overhearing he's out of battery, decide to help out by... attempting to "plug" him with their phone chargers. Here, Kobayashi realizes that his classmates don't see Mayu in a flattering light.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Mayu seems to be barely willing to do anything at all if it isn't judo or leading him to do judo, but Chapter 101 sees a rare time when he's willing to help out Nozaki and his assistants with working on their manga before a deadline (because he's simply slept too much today and can't do anything more). He ends up finishing the remaining work himself after everyone else has passed out by eight in the morning.
• Bad "Bad Acting": When Hori finds Mikorin's risque manga in Chapter 121, Mayu attempts to take the fall by claiming they're his property that he likes very much...by hugging a manga, putting it on the floor and patting it affectionate, and then falling sleep on it all with his usual detached expression on his face.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: When he was young he was bullied for being quiet, so Nozaki told him to do his best, but if it was too much work he didn't have to bother. Taking that to heart, he uses the least possible effort for anything in his daily life apart from his love for judo. When his club members use judo as bait, he instantly gets top grades and became very popular, which irritates them enough to stop the plan.
• Comically Serious: Even with his usual straight-face, he sometimes does really bizarre or random things - like suddenly taking off his shirt for Miyako to "repay her with his body".
• First-Name Basis: Most characters refer to him by his first name to avoid confusion with his older brother. He also calls older characters such as Mikoshiba and Miyako by their first names - according to the official fanbook, it's because he likes older people.
• Freudian Excuse: As a child, he was often bullied for being so quiet. Nozaki said that he'd protect Mayu if the latter found it too troublesome to deal with the bullies himself. Instead of being heartwarming, it just encouraged Mayu to use his brother as a personal crutch and encouraged him to go through life trying to expend as little energy as possible.
• Gender-Blender Name: Mayu is usually a girl's name. This is because he was originally envisioned as a girl.
• Hunk: Similar to his brother, Mayu has a muscular build thanks to his judo activities and is considered attractive (if Miyako eagerly drawing him topless is anything to go by).
• Instant Expert: After seeing a few samples of his older brother's work and some of Mikoshiba's figures and manga, he can draw professional-level manga-style characters freehand with little trouble. He also quickly picks up other manga skills the assistants teach him. This plays into his Brilliant, but Lazy tendencies.
• Last Episode, New Character: None of his stories are adapted in the anime, however he gets to make one appearance with his parents when Wakamatsu runs past him at the festival in the last episode during the credits roll. There's slight emphasis put on him but he otherwise has no lines and there's no indication of who he is.
• Lazy Bum: He refuses to put effort into anything but the judo club. However, other members do admit that when he puts effort into things like his schoolwork, he tends to excel at them. Also note that his laziness is extremely calculated such that he is willing to expend energy to avoid expending more energy later.
• Likes Older Women: His friends think so anyways. When they start to wonder what kind of girl he likes, one of the ideal types that come to mind is an older woman that can provide for him...because he's lazy.
• Mistaken for Gay: In contrast to Mayu's friends, Mikoshiba's friends assume he's interested in guys after he gets brought along to a mixer. He ends up hounding girls for their boyfriends' numbers^note When he finds out they're also into judo and he wants to challenge them. and "protects" shy Mikoshiba from being pulled away by two girls by declaring that "You can't take him. He's mine."^note Following his older brother's shoujo-based advice, where the cliche has the guy do that to protect a girl from would-be harassers.
• Not So Stoic: He has occasional moments where he breaks his stoic demeanour due to some extreme circumstances, such as being overwhelmed by Sakura's indecisiveness over telling Nozaki about her crush and his joyful enthusiasism in getting to unleash his full judo prowess on Mikoshiba.
• The Quiet One: Doesn't like to talk much due to laziness. In his first appearance he only starts engaging in conversation when Sakura suggests writing his replies in a notepad (and even then he only does lazy one-word ones), and in a phone conversation with Nozaki in Chapter 47 he literally says nothing (yet Nozaki is somehow able to understand him perfectly well).
• The Stoic: Even more stoic than his brother. Dull Surprise is his default look. Moving his face into different expressions would surely be regarded as a waste of his energy.

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Ryousuke Seo

Seo's older brother. He attends the same university as Miyako and works part-time at a cafe. He has a crush on Miyako but is under the assumption that Nozaki is her abusive boyfriend due to their frequent gatherings to discuss their manga.

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• Accidental Pervert: Thinking Nozaki didn't approve of Miyako as a bunny girl (he was talking about her tanuki characters instead), he attempts to make her feel better by professing that he himself would be "really stoked if [Miyako] wore a bunny girl outfit". Miyako is understandably crept out.
• Big Brother Instinct: He explains to his fellow part-time workers that he doesn't want Seo to work at the cafe because she'll break the plates and he can't keep watch of her, leading them to think that he's being protective of his apparently clumsy sheltered sister. Of course, he knows that Seo is just too rough for the job.
• Butt-Monkey: He's a perfectly caring and friendly when you get down to it, but nonetheless the plot and jokes conspire to make sure that the poor fellow is regularly embarrassed or mistaken. In Chapter 133, Nozaki goes so far as to pretend that Ryousuke was aggressively flirting with Nozaki (who was supposed to be tweeting about his work day under his female persona) and shares Ryousuke telling about a crush he has on a fellow university student, complete with non-full photographs of him and a manga drawing that portrays Ryousuke including his face...and Miyako saw the tweets so she's avoiding him now.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Is surprised when Kashima points to the guy she likes at the cafe they work and sees that it's the short guy (Hori) instead of the tall guy. Then he starts freaking out when aforementioned tall guy turns out to be Wakamatsu aka his sister's "henchman".
• Face of a Thug: He's genuinely nice and well-behaved, but he has sharp facial features. According to Hori, he looks like a delinquent and the type that would bully his sister. This is enough to frighten Wakamatsu after realizing Ryousuke's planning on approaching him, thinking he (along with Seo) is going to pick on him, delinquent-style.
• First-Name Basis: Mostly referred by his first name in the series, including his college friends and his sister's friends (including Sakura with whom he returns the favour). Thanks to this trope, Nozaki (who only knows him through Miyako) is blissfully unaware of his relation to Seo.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Considering his unrequited crush on her, Ryousuke miraculously makes Miyako flustered multiple times without realizing what he's doing. He once casually tells her that he likes her the way she is (because he doesn't want her to be like his sister) and helps get a bit of rubbish off her back (because he's worried it's a "cursed" sticker) — both times make Miyako blush.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Has his eye on Miyako and thinks he has to get through Nozaki (and then also Maeno) to have a chance. He doesn't know until well into the series that the two are work colleagues and not dating.
• Know When to Fold Them: After "witnessing" one too many of Nozaki's assumed-Domestic Abuser moments, Ryousuke demands he stand and face him. He takes one look at Gentle Giant Nozaki at full height before asking him to sit back down.
• Messy Hair: Has shaggy messy hair which he occasionally ties up. It contributes to the cool (or cool-wannabe) university student look he has, and probably also complements his Face of a Thug even more.
• Mistaken for Romance: To a ridiculous degree. He thinks Nozaki is Miyako's boyfriend. When he comes over to her apartment and sees Maeno, he concludes that the three of them are in some kind of triangle, and when Miyamae arrives Ryousuke upgrades it to a love square.
• Official Couple: He's finally managed to confess to Miyako in chapter 134 and while her unclear answer that she's "happy" in response to it led to him to make the strange conclusion of creating a whiteboard decorated shoujo-style to put monologues onto after reading Miyako's shoujo manga in chapter 141, but Ryousuke and Miyako are officially dating.
• Secret-Keeper: He thinks he's confirmed Miyako's secret job in Chapter 91 and promises her to not tell anyone — the only issue is that he thinks she works at a nightclub instead of in the manga field. Miyako doesn't realize this and is confused when Ryousuke laments over how embarrassing her work apparently is.
• Shipper on Deck: He's under the impression that Seo and Wakamatsu have mutual feelings for each other. He sees Wakamatsu as a nice boy despite their skeptical first meeting and jokes to his sister to bring him over to their house one day, much to her confusion. He also shows interest in Kashima's relationship with Hori, although mostly to see Kashima's "girly" side.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: While his sister is quite aggressive and abrasive, Ryousuke is a reasonably gentle and kind guy who's concerned for his crush Miyako, and he certainly treats her with far more care than his sister does for Wakamatsu.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Despite their Sibling Yin-Yang, to Chiyo's surprised realization, Ryousuke and Yuzuki have both created a sign for conveying something they were nervous about stating - Ryousuke used to one to ask if Miyako's unclear response that she was happy in response to his confession that he likes her was an affirmation that they can date, and Yuzuki used one to tell Wakamatsu that she's Lorelei.
• Straight Man: Is usually the person trying to get the people around him to stop freaking out or being weird, whether it be his work colleagues raving about high school girls or his sister's group being their quirky selves. When Miyako attempts to insert him in her manga one-shot, all she's able to do is turn him into a typical tsukkomi character one would find in a gag manga.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: You probably wouldn't expected this Butt-Monkey to actually date the person he's received reoccurring Ship Tease with unlike all of the other duos...but as of chapter 141, he is!

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Yumeko Nozaki

^{Click here to see her at age 16}

Nozaki's younger sister who is a second year in the same middle school as Mayu. As a shoujo manga fangirl, she's the one who inspired Nozaki into this genre.

According to Word of God, she was the intended protagonist before Nozaki took over when Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun was in development. Volume 0 aka Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san, which stars her and two other classmates a few years after the original series, shows a glimpse of what this would have been like.

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• Ambiguously Bi: When Nozaki shows her a photo of Kashima and Mikoshiba and asks who she thinks is hotter, she picks Kashima. After Nozaki chuckles and informs her that Kashima is a girl, Yumeko still says she's the hotter one of the two, and then tells him that gender doesn't matter when you're appreciating someone's good looks.
• Big Eater: In Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san she frequently likes to snack. Miyoshi calls her out for eating too much when he finds out that all of the restaurant owners in the neighbourhood recognise her.
• Black Bead Eyes: Though frequently used for other characters in the series, Yumeko is a special case as she's only ever shown with small black dots for eyes in her special chapter which is drawn primarily in the chibi style.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: There were hints in the main manga, but Monthly Girls Nozaki-san portrays her as totally untethered from reality, obsessed with performing shojo manga tropes in real life to the detriment of her actual relationships. Even when she isn't in shojo-mode, her though processes are off: when she's reminded that Ichijo once caught her pretending to be a Magical Girl, she's painfully embarrassed... that she didn't have a spell chant prepared.
• The Cutie: Naive, innocent and a huge lover of shoujo manga.
• The Ditz: She appears to be a bit less intelligent than her brothers. For example, when Nozaki asks her about her type, she initially answers it as a long chain of tropes. When Nozaki tells her to pick just one, her answer is the least sensible one: New Transfer Student. Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san confirms that she is, in fact, very ditzy and more than a little detached from reality due to her fixation on acting out shoujo tropes in real life.
• Fangirl: A huge fan of shoujo demographic works in general, and Nozaki's own Let's Fall in Love in particular. She says she even wants to open Instant Fan Clubs as Japanese School Clubs! Her main goal in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san is to incoporate all kinds of shoujo manga tropes in her life.
• Genki Girl: Very cheerful and enthusiastic about her interests. This makes her rather unlike her stoic brothers. She is so energetic that her brief attempt at being a "Cool Beauty" in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san fails because she breaks character after a few seconds.
• Girlish Pigtails: She sports a pair of twintails and typifies the "little sister" archetype — being Nozaki's idealistic younger sister who loves reading Shojo manga. Notably, she loses these by her own high-school days, when she graduates to solo protagonist-dom.
• Idiot Hair: As a 16 year old she sometimes has a hair strand sticking up, and Monthly Girls Nozaki-san confirms that in addition to being obsessed with shojo, she's also debilitatingly stupid.
• Selective Obliviousness: She doesn't even believe her older brother works as a mangaka and refuses to accept that he is her idolized "Sakiko Yumeno", even though Nozaki himself has repeatedly told her about it, and the rest of the family is well aware of his job.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: While her brothers are stoics, she is very energetic.
• Super-Deformed: Unfortunately for Yumeko, when she finally appears in her debut chapter, everyone including her is drawn in the chibi style. Her chibi form includes the Black Bead Eyes face commonly used for Sakura, Kashima and Wakamatsu, making her actual appearance still unclear at this point.
• Terrible Artist: Unlike her brothers, she is terrible at drawing. When she submits her fanart to Monthly Shoujo Romance, Nozaki goes as far as to pretend she's three years old just to make the submission more believable. Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san shows she's barely improved as a high schooler.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: In Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san, she's obsessed with shoujo romance manga to the point of constantly trying to invoke their associated tropes in her daily life.
• Wasted Beauty: According to a couple of her male classmates in Chapter 3 of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san, Yumeko is cute when she keeps her mouth shut. It's quickly revealed that despite her good looks, her obsession with shoujo romance tropes weirds everyone out.
  Boy: Nozaki from Class B...? She's cute when she keeps her mouth shut...but when she talks, well...it's such a waste.

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Towa Sakura

Sakura's little brother, who is in his second year of middle school. He hears a lot about Nozaki from his older sister.

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• Big Little Brother: He's about a head taller than his older sister (Chiyo) Sakura, as shown in his debut chapter's intro page. Though it's not all that hard to be taller than her, especially with her circle of friends.
• Camera Fiend: After wrangling up Nozaki so he can take photos of him, he suddenly goes into professional mode, taking dozens and dozens of shots and making it a real photoshoot.
• Family Theme Naming: Both his name and his sister's name Chiyo follow the same Numerical Theme Naming (to for ten, chi for thousand).
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: While his logic turns out to be just as skewed as the rest of the cast, Towa still tries to be the more level-headed sibling of the Sakuras especially in regards to Nozaki. His debut chapter starts and ends with Sakura screaming or raving about Nozaki with the studious Towa telling her to be quiet.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Is curious to meet the guy Sakura is obsessed over but then tries to warn his sister via text that he's a pervert (thanks to misunderstanding why Nozaki is so interested in his tennis uniform). Sakura's friends mistake it for him being clingy to his sister and jealous of her crush. They reply on her behalf that "your sister is a pervert too", and he immediately backs off.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Towa (Ten).
• Shared Family Quirks: Like his sister, he becomes easily attached to Nozaki's food, as seen in the Volume 9 omake where he happily runs to Nozaki once he's offered scones.

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Rei Kashima

Kashima's younger sister, in middle school. Has been going to an all-girls' school all her schooling life, which leads to her having... interesting ideas about co-ed schools.

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• Bishoujo: Described by this exact term (a very pretty girl) by other characters. Characters are in awe of her beauty and Sakura is initially paranoid when she sees Nozaki talk to her.
• Covert Pervert: Despite being introduced as a Let's Fall in Love fan, Rei has a lot of interest in more lewd works, and her relationships delusions regularly turn outright pornographic. In one of Chapter 99's omakes, she interperets Seo denying that she and Wakamatsu are a couple as Seo saying she'd only started a physical relationship with him by force^*Which is, strictly speaking, not untrue. Later, when Nozaki accidentally hypnotizes Kashima, Rei immediately assumes that Nozaki was trying to set her and Hori up for hypnosis-themed smut and tries to help out by overwriting her own sister to become a, direct quote, "totally servile bitch".
• The Ditz: Thinks any boy-girl pairings so much as speaking to each other are dating, and her impression of co-ed schools is that the students only ever think about romance. Nozaki is baffled by what kind of shoujo manga would give her this idea, only to then find out she got the idea from his manga.
• Everyone Has Standards: She's a delusional girl who thinks real life is a shoujo manga, but even she realizes that her friend Hoshino, who involves herself in her romantic delusions, is dangerously out of touch with reality.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Is surprised when Sakura tells her the person Kashima likes (whom Rei's been very curious about) is Hori, noting he's short and not pretty.
• Fangirl:
  • She loves Let's Fall in Love so much that she remembers details Nozaki completely forgot about, and the manga is the reason why she has very skewed views of how students at co-ed schools interact. She's thrilled when Nozaki reveals he's Sakiko Yumeno.
  • Nozaki and Mikoshiba think she's a Kashima fangirl when she comes to their school and asks to see her before they find out she's her sister (doesn't help she refers to her as Onee-sama, which is exactly what Kashima's fangirls use).
• Family Theme Naming: Rei and her older sister Yuu both have two-syllable, gender-neutral Japanese given names.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Rei remarkably manages to turn Kashima into the responsible sibling half. Rei's naivety and incessant compulsion to publicly and inappropriately ship every boy and girl she sees interact with each other forces Kashima to play damage control and try to keep her sister's behavior in check.
  • Although, later chapters do start to question this. Chapter 137, in particular, sees Rei playing a perfect tsukkomi to Kashima's inability to sort out her own flighty feelings. In general, while Yuu is usually portrayed as Rei's handler, it would be a mistake to say either of the Kashima sisters are ever responsible.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: The ladylike Rei speaks very formally, including the watakushi pronoun and sama honorific.
• Hime Cut: Has the full straight bangs and side locks framing her face, which suits her Ojou demeanour.
• Informed Attractiveness: She's described as very pretty and other characters are in awe of her beauty, but in terms of design she doesn't look very different from other female characters.
• Innocently Insensitive: Is very polite but that doesn't stop her from coming off as rude to Nozaki when she 1) uses a towel to shake his hand (because her teacher forbids her from touching guys, but the others snark it looks like she thinks he's dirty), and 2) berates her older sister for not being polite to the "older" Nozaki who she thinks is 8 years older than he actually is.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Rei has long braided hair and is more feminine than her short-haired Bifauxnen older sister.
• Oblivious to Love: A What If? panel at the end of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san shows her being fawned over by an Instant Fan Club in high school. In contrast to her sister's awareness of her admirers, Rei believes the reason she keeps seeing them together is because they love each other, not her.
• Ojou: She looks and speaks like a typical well-behaved and wealthy girl who uses the formal keigo register. This is due to the fancy ladies' academy she goes to.
• Sailor Fuku: Notably the first character who isn't from an in-universe manga or game to wear one as a uniform; she wears a dark old-fashioned-looking sailor's uniform with the skirt length well below her knees, which is probably appropriate for her strict all-girls' schooling.
• Same Surname Means Related: It's not until the girl introduces herself (and hence reveals her surname) at the end of her debut chapter that Nozaki, Mikoshiba, and Sakura actually realize Kashima literally is her Onee-sama.
• Shared Family Quirks: Nozaki remarks that he can hardly tell Rei and her sister are related since they don't look nor act alike. He's instantly shown otherwise when both make similarly Innocently Insensitive comments about him. The drama club also can't help but snark, "That's Kashima-kun's sister all right", when they watch Kashima order her sister to sit still and to not get carried away nor wander around. And when Sakura tells her that Hori is the person closest to Kashima, Rei's first impulse is to ask Hori if he looks good in women's clothing.
• Shipper on Deck: Initially ships Mikoshiba and Kashima due to their dynamic and assuming they were rivals in love, but once she learns that Hori is the person Kashima's fond of, Rei is quick to support the two together. However, she tries to have their relationship play along like in Nozaki's manga, which includes her desiring to know if Hori looks good in women's clothing to match her Bifauxnen sister or hypnotizing Kashima further to be completely subservient to Hori.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The older Kashima sister is a carefree Bifauxnen that gets along with boys well, while the younger sister is a polite Ojou and Bishoujo that's only accustomed with talking to other girls.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Despite their different personalities and upbringing, she and Nozaki are very similar when it comes to predicting which boy-girl pairings are couples and other shoujo characteristics in real life.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Since she's never been to a coed school, her only point of reference for boy-girl interactions is shoujo manga, so she sees romance in every interaction and imagines love triangles where there are none. Nozaki questions what kind of dumb book she gets her ideas from — it turns out to have been Let's Fall in Love. Later appearances indicates she might be even worse than this, with thoughts that wouldn't be out of place in some sort of pornographic work (like imagining Hori taking advantage of a hypnotised Kashima and further hypnotize Kashima into being totally servile "his bitch" to Hori).

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Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san characters

Ritsuo Miyoshi

A transfer student that enters Yumeko's class.

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• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Plays the straight man to Yumeko's shoujo fantasy antics. Whenever something silly is going on in school, he'll usually be there to comment on it.
• Brutal Honesty: After seeing that Mikoshiba is wary of her, he bluntly speculates that Yumeko's shaky track record with attractive guys may have been karma from a past life.
• New Transfer Student: Miyoshi is the latest transfer student to enter Roman Academy, which piques Yumeko's interest due to the tropes that often come with it.
• Last-Name Basis: He's known by his surname to everyone save Ichijou, whom is the only person he allows to use his given name.
• Second Year Protagonist: He's the male lead of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-san, and was introduced transferring into Yumeko's class in his second year.
• What Is This Feeling?: After his first day at school ends, he realizes he's had nothing but Yumeko on his mind. He floats the idea that he may be falling in love with her, but Ichijou reveals that it's really because Yumeko's been following him around all day.

Ichijou

A popular friend of Yumeko's that knew her in middle school.

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• Ambiguously Bi: He was nearly swayed into accepting a confession from a boy who promised to be dependable. Although he takes confessions from both sides of the aisle casually, he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in anyone.
• Celibate Hero: He's not interested in romance, and despire being constantly confessed to, rejects all of them.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Both boys and girls confess to him regularly, enough that other students are more surprised by what socks the confessors are wearing than their gender.
• Indifferent Beauty: He's well-aware of the attraction he has on people, but he doesn't seem to care. Miyoshi points him out as such to Yumeko as an example of the "cool beauty" archetype she wants to emulate.
• Not So Above It All: While he's mostly level-headed, he does have a sillier side to him as well. When he caught Yumeko pretending to be a magical girl in middle school, he was more concerned that she didn't have a cutesy spell name prepared.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Defied. One of his confessions came from a teacher who wanted to become more with him, and he rejects them as much as everyone else.

Let's Fall in Love Characters

Mamiko

Voiced by: Marie Miyake (Anime), Yukari Tamura (Drama CD) (Japanese), Melissa Molano (English)

She is the heroine of Nozaki's manga. Her personality is based on Mikoshiba.

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• Damsel in Distress: As expected from a Stock Shoujo Heroine, Let's Fall in Love panels and manuscript drafts imply Mamiko is frequently targeted and has to be saved by Suzuki. Miyamae lampshades how forced this can be when Nozaki seems to be giving one of Mamiko's bullies character development in one draft, only for it to be all for naught when Suzuki comes to rescue her and "brings it to a close in three pages".
• Distaff Counterpart: Invoked, since Nozaki based her personality on Mikoshiba. It becomes obvious to Sakura once she starts reading Mamiko's scenes and realizes her tsundere tendencies closely mirror Mikoshiba's actions. Even Hori ends up realizing Mamiko had to have been based off of Mikoshiba once he actually met him.
• Naïve Everygirl: Being a typical shoujo manga protagonist, she hits most of the points: romantic, insecure about her feelings for Suzuki and too embarrassed to express them, gets pushed around by others, and comes across as innocent and inexperienced.
• No Full Name Given: Despite being the main character of Let's Fall in Love, her family name is still unknown.
• Official Couple: Is the main couple of the Let's Fall in Love manga with Suzuki aka the most popular guy at school. Nozaki finds the very idea of them being with anyone other than each other repulsive.
• Parody Sue: Her description on one page is "She's a Normal High School Student, yet she's popular. But her looks are supposed to be average!".
• The Power of Love: Nozaki, after trying to live as her for a day, concludes that the reason she is able to put effort on the things she does is because of her love for Suzuki.
• Put on a Bus: Nozaki suggests having Mamiko temporarily leave the story in order to make room for Suzuki's character development. Played for Laughs when it becomes clear he's too used to focusing on Mamiko and pretty much dumps all her typical development obstacles on Suzuki (which includes love troubles with another Suzuki).
• Seen It All: One of Nozaki's drafts/manuscripts shows Mamiko being somewhat unfazed by the girls bullying her in Chapter 67, "preparing" to tremble and getting bored from having to wait for Suzuki to find her.
• Signature Headgear: She's primarily identified by a white ribbon on the back of her head. As it turns out, Sakura was the unwitting inspiration for Mamiko's character design, since she was also wearing a white ribbon when Nozaki first met her.
• Stock Shoujo Heroine: She plays this so straight that it goes into parody; she's clumsy, innocent, and supposedly average-looking, and yet still manages to snag the most attractive guy in school.
• Tsundere: The dere (sweet) type, which Nozaki based on Mikoshiba's dere tendencies. Or as Nozaki puts it in Chapter 20, while providing some guidance for Hori when he's ill:
  Nozaki: Even though she likes Suzuki, she can't be honest with herself and always ends up saying the wrong thing, so on one hand, she feels depressed, and on the other, she's worried about the other girls' actions, thinking, "Can I trust Suzuki?" so she's torn and th-
  Sakura: So how did it go?
  Hori: In any case, I understand that this chick is really annoying.

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Saburou Suzuki

Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (Japanese), Chris Patton (English)

He is the love interest of Mamiko in Nozaki's manga.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: In colored official publications his hair is shown as blond like Mamiko's. In the cover of Nozaki's manga in the anime his hair is shown as brown.
• Adorkable: In-universe. His popularity rises in Chapter 113 because readers find him surprisingly adorable thanks to his inability to do a necktie and his confused facial expressions. This is based on Seo facing a similar problem in real life, and Nozaki lampshades how such an unexpected weakness would make the readers swoon. This also happens another time unintentionally In-Universe from Nozaki, who is annoyed that Seo is chickening out when talking to Wakamatsu and potentially deepening their relationship, so she starts singing to put him to sleep. He decides to similarly characterize the character he based on her (Oze) as a coward who is just as humorously evasive around his Love Interest, which he also did in response to people finding the Oze character cool. To his ambivalence, Miyamae told him that they've come in first in the results on a survey...with lots of people praising Oze as being very cute.
• Butt-Monkey: As a penned character, and the victim of his own author. Since Nozaki dislikes him so much, many ideas that he implements into the manga come at the expense of Suzuki. For instance, when Nozaki is told to draw chibi characters or come up with a mascot, Nozaki plans to insert a salmon mascot on Mamiko's bag... which begins taking over plots that should go to Suzuki.
• Character Development: Nozaki attempts to give Suzuki development by giving Mamiko a "break" and have Suzuki work hard in her stead. This includes taking part in school events, dealing with rivalries, having family issues, and being in love... with another Suzuki.
• Chick Magnet: Very popular with girls. Some of Nozaki's chapters play this up for drama.
• Creator's Pest: In-Universe, Nozaki seems to dislike Suzuki despite being one of the main characters of his manga. At best, he's easy to draw, but otherwise Nozaki makes fun of his name and can't think up anything else about him that he actually likes.
• Flat Character: Invoked in-universe. In spite of being the main character of the manga, Suzuki has very little character development because Nozaki made him unrealistically perfect... which in turn made him dislike Suzuki and coming up with plots for him.
• Gary Stu: In-Universe, he is a kind, handsome and popular guy who appears to hold no flaws. Miyamae once complains about this, and wants Nozaki to make up some weak points for him. Nozaki settles on... the inability to fold clothes.
• Informed Ability:
  • Discussed when Nozaki tries to defend Suzuki's supposed lack of development by saying he actually studies a lot, to which Miyamae points out that he never shows it.
  • Miyamae orders Nozaki to invoke this for Suzuki's dedicated skincare routine.
    Nozaki: He puts great effort into his skincare every day.
    [insert Imagine Spot of Suzuki with all his skincare products while bragging about how handsome he is]
    Miyamae: You'd absolutely better not draw that.
• Narcissist: When Miyamae points out that Suzuki hasn't developed at all compared to Mamiko, Nozaki helpfully points out that he spends huge amounts of time caring for his skin while talking about how pretty he is. This isn't in the manga itself and he's forbidden from ever showing it.
• Nice Guy: To fit the typical shoujo manga male protagonist mold, he's made to be a kind and gentle guy with no particular negative traits. Mostly evident in his interactions with his love interest Mamiko, as he's chivalrous towards her and treats her with care.
• Official Couple: Is the main couple of the Let's Fall in Love manga with Mamiko. Nozaki can't bear to even pair other, unrelated people named "Suzuki" with non-Mamiko girls because "Suzuki only has eyes for Mamiko!"
• Only Six Faces: Almost every male character in Let's Fall in Love is a palette swap of Suzuki because Nozaki is awful at coming up with male characters. This causes confusion later in the story, as Nozaki's classmates are reading the manga and keep confusing the boys with Suzuki. What makes it even worse is the fact that even when Nozaki is trying to come up with male characters, he inevitably gravitates towards Suzuki's appearance and personality.
• Pretty Boy: A typical pretty-boy. As the male protagonist of a shoujo manga, this is invoked since it's the norm.
• Princely Young Man: Is quite popular at school and basically a Prince Charming.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Suzuki only has eyes for Mamiko, according to Nozaki.
• Tsundere: Nozaki tests out Suzuki being a tsundere when he plays Secret Days and ponders about the heroine's crush on a tsundere suitor. He takes it to an extreme, however, by having Suzuki switch between cold and endearing between each panel on the same page, and everyone else remarks that he needs to get help with emotional stability.
• Vanilla Protagonist: In-Universe. To his creator's dismay, the Let's Fall in Love fandom finds the other male characters more interesting and tend to favor them over Suzuki, who is supposed to be the romantic lead.
• Verbal Tic: Wakamatsu suggests having Suzuki end his sentences with "gepya" in an attempt to make him less perfect. This leads to ridiculous-sounding sentences like "I'm hungry gepya", "being popular is hard gepya" and "I'll use any means necessary gepya".
• Weaksauce Weakness:
  • When Miyamae complains Suzuki is too perfect, Nozaki decides that his weakness is that he can't fold clothes, which the others think is completely useless.
  • A subplot of Chapter 25 is dedicated to his assistants thinking of other flaws to give him.
    • Sakura and Mikoshiba think either Afraid of Blood or too aggressive can be better. So Nozaki combines the two with Suzuki beating up strangers on the street, and then fainting when they start to bleed.
    • Wakamatsu, when in shock from "Seo"'s bad singing (it was actually Kashima), creates a whole list of bad points for Suzuki which start off as fairly mundane (having short legs) but quickly get ridiculous (having "gepya" as a Verbal Tic and being willing to kill anyone more attractive than himself). This pisses Nozaki off to no end.

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Oze

Voiced by: Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Japanese)

Oze is a supporting character in Nozaki's manga, his character being based off Yuzuki Seo.

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• Adorkable: In-universe. His popularity rises in Chapter 113 because readers find him surprisingly adorable thanks to his inability to do a necktie and his confused facial expressions. This is based on Seo facing a similar problem in real life, and Nozaki lampshades how such an unexpected weakness would make the readers swoon. This also happens another time unintentionally In-Universe from Nozaki, who is annoyed that Seo is chickening out when talking to Wakamatsu and potentially deepening their relationship, so she starts singing to put him asleep. He decides to similarly characterize the character he based on her (Oze) as a coward who is just as humorously evasive around his Love Interest, which he also did in response to people finding the Oze character cool. To his ambivalence, Miyamae told him that they've come in first in the results on a survey...with lots of people praising Oze as being very cute.
• Creator's Pest: In-Universe, Nozaki's own mixed feelings towards Seo sometimes gets taken out on Oze, like deliberately drawing him poorly and getting annoyed at his popularity. In the same chapter he explains this, he ends up making Oze being humorously evasive from Waka due to Seo getting nervous and putting Wakamatsu to sleep rather than talking to him and hopes this will get Oze be considered a coward to the readers. When it instead gets seen as Adorkable, he's legitimately angry at this (but also happy because his manga came in first for the recent survey).
• Distaff Counterpart: Invoked. His insensitive personality is based on Seo's, and his surname is even the kanji characters for "Seo" backward. Hori is quick to realize this when he encounters Seo after a discussion about Oze.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: In-universe. In Chapter 113, after Nozaki writes an Oze-focused chapter based on what he saw from Seo, he wins second place in the popularity poll despite being a supporting character, while the protagonist Suzuki is in third place.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As his personality is based on Seo's, he is quite rude and has no self-awareness whatsoever. However, he can be a bit nicer towards Waka at times, such as offering her his umbrella when it's raining.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Paralleling the situation between their real-life counterparts, Waka is in love with the person that talks to her on the phone, not knowing that it's Oze.
• Loving Bully: Similar to his real-life counterpart, he annoys the hell out of Waka but is implied to like her and anonymously gives her encouragement on the phone. Though since Oze deliberately aggravates Waka (unlike Seo's self-centeredness unintentionally causing Wakamatsu problems) and then also supports her anonymously, other characters have pointed out that Oze's actions are kinda messed up.
• No Full Name Given: So far, he's only known by his family name.

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Waka

Voiced by: Nozomi Masu (Japanese)

Waka is a female character of Nozaki's manga whose appearance and situation are based off of Hirotaka Wakamatsu's. She is shown to be a close friend of Mamiko.

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• Distaff Counterpart: Invoked. Her personality is based on Wakamatsu's, and her interactions with Oze specifically mirrors Wakamatsu's relationship with Seo. Her surname is even derived from his name, having the same pronunciation as Waka(matsu) while using different kanji characters. Once Hori figures out Seo inspired Oze, he immediately figures out that Wakamatsu inspired Waka.
• Hidden Buxom: Nozaki decides to translate Wakamatsu's pronounced muscles as Waka being surprisingly busty.
• Love Before First Sight: She is in love with someone who cheers her up and talks to her on the phone, not knowing that that person is the boy she can't stand, Oze.
• No Full Name Given: Like Oze, her given name has yet to be revealed.
• Tsundere: The Sweet type; like Wakamatsu, she's normally an amiable girl, while with Oze she's rather prickly.

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Utahiko Tenjouji

Suzuki's rival.

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• Adorkable: He consistently places first in popularity polls because In-Universe Let's Fall in Love readers find his attempts at villainy endearing.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted. Nozaki assumes the reason he's the most popular male character (eclipsing both protagonists) is because his readers are attracted to Utahiko's mature, aggressive personality and wealth. It turns out that they're charmed by his "elementary school-level" plans and the fact that he comes off as dumb.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: He's a minor character (Suzuki's rival) who consistently places first in In-Universe popularity polls, over the manga's actual main character Suzuki. Their creator Nozaki despairs over this fact and tries to make Suzuki more appealing to readers.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Not by design, but he makes first place in the popularity poll entirely on the strength of his incompetence as an antagonist.
• Harmless Villain: Apparently, he's not exactly The Chessmaster with one fan writing in to say he seems like the kind of guy to lose his company's money to a scam. Readers actually find him to be Adorkable.invoked
• Preppy Name: His surname "Tenjouji" of the type exclusively used by the kuge class^note Full-on-yomi surnames ending in the kanji "ji" (monastery) or "in" (nunnery), as well as names after roads of ancient Kyoto, were nearly exclusively used by the kuge class—they're all members of ancient clans such as Fujiwara or Minamoto, and different lines of the clans are distinguished by where they lived, or the temples they were the patron of. Why not the samurais? It's because their surnames are virtually indistinguishable from those used by the commoners. and is frequently used in Japanese fiction as a shorthand for people of high-class backgrounds.
• Privileged Rival: He is the scion of a wealthy family with a profitable company and is the rival to regular student Suzuki.
• Token Rich Student: He's from a wealthy family, even though the school where Let's Love takes place seems to be largely middle class.