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Warning: Due to the nature of the story, all spoilers ahead are unmarked.
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In General
- Alternate Character Reading: Most of their nicknames are derived from alternate readings of, and/or by omitting certain characters from their names in kanji.
- The Atoner: At the end of first arc, much of the main cast are repentant for how they’ve mistreated each other and are trying to make amends for it.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Almost everyone is hiding their nastier qualities behind friendly faces, though how sincere those amicable personas are varies from character to character.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: The other girls frown when one of them gets affectionate with Joro.
- Easily Forgiven: The cast has done some pretty rotten things to each other out of self-interest, but that doesn’t stop them from counting on each other in times of need and continuing to spend time together. Given that they’re all guilty of something, no one really has any moral high ground over another person, leaving them with only the option of apologizing and forgiving.
- Floral Theme Naming: The girls are nicknamed after flowers (which are derived from the kanji in their real names), while the boys are nicknamed for things that help nourish flowers ("jōro" [watering can], "sun", "hose").
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Hardly anyone says their real name out loud. Even most people outside the main cast know them by their nicknames. You only ever hear their real names when they’re introduced and if Cosmos happens to address them while in samurai mode.
- Teens Are Monsters: Not irredeemable monsters, but they can still be pretty nasty. Almost every conflict is driven by one of the main cast of teenagers selfishly pursuing their own romantic desires at another person’s expense.
- Took a Level in Kindness: After everyone finally talks things through and apologizes to each other.
Nishikizuta High School
Amatsuyu Kisaragi aka “Joro”
"Joro" (Amatsuyu Kisaragi)
Voiced by: Daiki Yamashita
Our protagonist. A second-year student and wannabe harem protagonist who hides his more unpleasant side from others. He finds himself roped into matchmaking his crushes with his best friend, all while the only girl who will look his way is a creepy stalker.- Breaking the Fourth Wall: He’s the most prone to doing this in the anime.
- Bromantic Foil: The inciting incident of the plot is him realizing that he’s this to Sun-chan’s harem protagonist instead of the other way around. It ends up Double Subverted, with Sun-chan becoming this to Joro’s harem protagonist.
- Butt-Monkey: Much of the Cringe Comedy is at his expense.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: He is a firm believer of this, which is part of why he thinks Pansy's disguise is so ugly.
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: He's pretty much set to end up with Sasanqua, who as it turns out has the exact kind of scheming personality Pansy has.
- Chick Magnet: Double Subverted. At the start of the series, it turns out his love interests are actually Master of the Mixed Message and the only person in love with Joro is his Stalker with a Crush Pansy. Then Cosmos and Himawari have an Unrequited Love Switcheroo for him, Asunaro turns out to have also been a Clingy Jealous Girl towards him, and Sasanqua falls for him when he forgives her previous bullying. Plus, Anemone had a thing for him when they were in middle school.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Even after his Character Development, he still ogles the girls and hopes they wind up in compromising positions.
- Entitled to Have You: His initial attitude towards his Childhood Friend Himawari and Student Council President Cosmos.
- Evil Is Hammy: Joro is at his hammiest when he’s doing an evil monologue to himself.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Sort of. He first met Pansy in her natural appearance the year before the story starts, but doesn't recognize her at school. Once she sheds her disguise, he recognizes her instantly.
- Gratuitous English: He’s the biggest user of this in the anime.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: The conflict of the third arc is driven by his feelings of inadequacy compared to his friends, and his perception of himself as merely a background character.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Joro’s always thinking with what’s in his pants in addition to what’s in his heart. For instance, the only reasons he entertains Tampopo’s notions of arranging a romance between Pansy and Sun-chan are that she knows Pansy’s secret and she’s bribing him with risqué pictures of herself.
- Harem Seeker: At the beginning, his intent is to play Oblivious to Love like a harem anime protagonist so Cosmos and Himawari will be his harem. Although he stops making active efforts to acquire a harem after the first arc, he still has hopes of making one happen. When he tries this at the end of the competition with Hose, all the girls get upset at him. Tsubaki figures out he purposely did this to avoid them breaking up their friendship due to him dating Pansy.
- Has a Type: He prefers busty girls with long black hair. Obviously this applies to Pansy, but when Sasanqua changes her previously dyed hairstyle to her natural black, he's immediately enticed.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: As selfish as he is, deep down Joro always prioritizes the people he cares about over himself. For example, although he was also acting in self-interest, Pansy deduced that his real reason for helping Cosmos and Himawari despite his Matchmaker Crush on them is to help Sun-chan get a girlfriend because Sun-chan is his best friend. As she points out, if he didn’t care about Sun-chan as much, he wouldn’t have bothered trying to ask Pansy herself to date him after finding out about Sun-chan’s crush on her.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Beneath the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Joro does care about his friends and will go to great lengths for their sakes.
- Manipulative Bastard: Tries to be this at times, but is often Out-Gambitted by another, more intelligent manipulator. Ultimately, he’s most successful when he schemes to help his friends, rather than doing things solely for his benefit.
- Matchmaker Crush: At the start of the story, he has feelings for both Cosmos and Himawari, but reluctantly accepts their requests to be their Romantic Wingman for their crushes on Sun-chan.
- Oblivious to Love: Zigzagged.
- He pretends to be this as part of his Nice Guy harem protagonist façade, but he’s fully cognizant of the affection Himawari and Cosmos give him. He’s subsequently frustrated when it turns out that he was picking up mixed signals and they’re actually crushing on Sun-chan instead.
- The fourth arc has him fall into this trope more than he realized, as he neglects to consider that three of the girls he’s counting on to vote for him regarding who Pansy should be with have become his legit harem by this point.
- Although he seems oblivious in most of his interactions with Sasanqua, it’s primarily because she’s a tsundere and not in his close circle of friends. However, he does pick up on her attraction to him enough that he offers to make her his Friday girl when he takes a shot at a Marry Them All result.
- Phrase Catcher: “First, would you sit next to me?” and the words following it are said to Joro often verbatim in the prelude to an inconvenient love confession that almost always takes place on the Bench.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: At the beginning, he’s a twisted version of this, thinking he can get a harem if he mimics the Oblivious to Love Nice Guy protagonists of stories from the harem genre. Even after seeing how that way of thinking backfires, he continues to identify himself as the protagonist of a rom-com.
- Tsundere: For Pansy. He's attracted to her, but also repeatedly turned off by her manipulative and stalking behaviors. Pansy even calls him a tsundere flat out.
- Undying Loyalty: For all his flaws, one of Joro’s greatest virtues is his sincere dedication to his friends.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: After Joro stops trying to date Himawari and Cosmos and focuses more on being a better friend to them, they start developing feelings for him instead. Downplayed, as he still wants them in his harem, but he’s stopped actively pursuing a romance with them.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Zigzagged. Half of the trouble Joro runs into is the self-inflicted consequence of his own hubris. The other half of it is brought about by other people screwing him over, and it usually strikes when he’s trying to do the right thing.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: In the Beach Episode, he hopes to see a nip slip when he and Himawari are riding the water slide. A wardrobe malfunction does happen when they got to the end, but not to who Joro was hoping. Thankfully, Sun-chan steps in to cover for him.
- Xanatos Gambit: His simultaneous Love Confession to all the girls after defeating Hose. If they accept, it’s a Marry Them All situation and he finally gets the harem he’s coveted since the start of the series. If they reject it (which they do), it becomes a roundabout way of being able to Dump Them All without picking one over the other, which he knows would inevitably fracture the girls’ friendships with each other. In either case, he’s able to keep his promise of helping Pansy make some True Companions.
Sumireko Sanshokuin aka “Pansy”
"Pansy" (Sumireko Sanshokuin)
Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu
A second-year student who runs the school library and stalks Joro in her free time.- Abhorrent Admirer: For Joro. Part of his horrified reaction to getting a love confession from her is because he considers her plain, but also her personality and the way she toys with him means she may as well be ugly as sin. Even after learning about her hidden beauty, he still considers her this because she’s still a creepy Stalker with a Crush.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: She claims that the part of Joro she’s attracted to is the selfish “Hyde” persona he usually keeps hidden from others. Unusually, she turns out to mix this with Single Woman Seeks Good Man, as she can also perceive and equally love the Hidden Heart of Gold beneath his Bitch in Sheep's Clothing which is just as true to him as his nasty side.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She doesn't seem very happy when she sees Joro giving all of the girls a Love Confession, and talking about how he wanted a harem and dating the girls each day of the week.
- Hidden Buxom: When she stops binding her breasts, she's the bustiest girl in the series.
- Loners Are Freaks: She tells Joro this when they first meet, largely due to her being the target of scorn by girls at her middle school since they were jealous Hose liked her, but she kept rejecting him. Joro promises to help her get some friends. He first accomplishes this by having the Flower Dance participants practice in the library so that Pansy can spend quality time with everyone. He later affirms this by giving her and the other girls a Bait-and-Switch Sentiment confession to avoid the other girls being upset that he chose her.
- Meaningful Name: Pansy in hanakotoba means “caring/thoughtful” or in her words, “my mind is filled with thoughts of you.”
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She mentions that the reason she hides her true appearance is that someone is after her, which is later revealed to be Hose.
- In the manga, after her true appearance is revealed throughout the school, she's repeatedly hounded by male students.
- The Social Expert: Which is why she’s the most effective Manipulative Bastard in the cast.
- Stalker with a Crush: To Joro, which she flatly admits to him. She’s also got a stalker herself in the form of Hose.
- Tarnishing Their Own Beauty: To avoid attracting male attention, she suppresses her breasts, has her hair in braids, puts on thick glasses, and wears a long skirt.
- Through His Stomach: One of the ways she gets Joro to warm up to her is by baking him cookies.
- Tsundere: Both before and after her Love Confession to Joro, she speaks to him with a sharp tongue.
Taiyō Ōga aka “Sun-chan”
"Sun-chan" (Taiyo Oga)
Voiced by: Yūma Uchida
A second-year student, the ace of the school’s Baseball Club, and Joro’s best friend.- All Love Is Unrequited: Laments about how most of the girls in the cast like Joro, including the ones he had a crush on (Pansy and Anemone), but learns to accept it.
- Always Someone Better: Felt jealous about how Joro had two personalities, but played it better than he did.
- Arc Villain: He’s the main antagonist of the first arc.
- Bromantic Foil: Double Subverted. The beginning of the series establishes that Joro is this to him instead of the other way around, but he plays the role straight after they repair their friendship.
- Book Dumb: While he’s socially savvy enough to be an effective Manipulative Bastard, his test-taking performance is less impressive.
- Boyfriend Bluff: When Joro fails to step up, Sun-chan makes his move and asks Pansy out to give her an excuse to reject Hose. It’s heavily implied that he still carries a torch for her and is indulging in pretending to be her boyfriend, even if he knows it’s just a diversion until Joro can work up the nerve.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: It helps that he was already legitimately friends with Joro and Himawari beforehand. It’s only a matter of everyone apologizing and atoning for their actions in order for their friendship to get back on track.
- Dumb Jock: Played with. He’s far from an ace student, but he knows how to manipulate people.
- Friendship Moment: Joro makes up with him when he says he wants their friendship to continue even after all the scheming Sun-chan did with Cosmos and Himawari towards Pansy.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: It’s the reason he created his Sun-chan persona, as he was previously ostracized and envied by others.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Towards Pansy. Despite his feelings for her, he ultimately decides to forgo their agreement to date if his team won the baseball game for Joro's sake.
- Jerk Jock: Turns out to be one for a while after Pansy exposes his plans to use Cosmos and Himawari to hurt Joro. But he becomes much nicer after making up with Joro.
- Keet: Compared to Joro, he's much more lively and outgoing. It's later revealed to just be an act he cultivated to make friends, and he's painfully shy underneath.
- Lovable Jock: What he becomes after the first arc.
- Manipulative Bastard: Tries to be one, but it backfires on him after Pansy points out how Joro was still helping him even after he used Cosmos and Himawari to get back at him for being rejected back in middle school.
- Matchmaker Crush: He exploits this in the first arc, turning Cosmos and Himawari’s unrequited crushes on him into this and pinning the blame on Joro so they’ll hate him. Then it’s revealed that he was motivated by being in the same situation Joro was in, having a crush on Anemone but being asked to set her up with Joro.
- The Not-Love Interest: By the end of the OVA, it’s apparent that Joro is the most important person in his life, the one he most admires and who is by his side at every point. He even lampshades it with an Ironic Echo to Joro’s words to Pansy at the start of the series, thinking about how he wishes the person who loves him most was a cute girl he could date instead of his male best friend.
- Oblivious to Love: He seems to be unaware of how obvious Cosmos and Himawari’s crushes on him are and brushes off their odd behavior as merely them being quirky. Then it’s subverted when it turns out that he knew exactly how they felt, and took advantage of it by pretending to be oblivious when he asked them to help him get with Pansy, knowing it would break their hearts but they could only direct their blame at Joro since they only ever told Joro about their feelings for Sun-chan.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: It’s revealed that he figured out Joro’s Bitch in Sheep's Clothing routine years ago, but never let on that he knew.
- Starter Villain: He’s the first antagonist of the series.
- Stepford Smiler: At first, his friendliness hid his secret bitter and manipulative side. After he cleans up his act, it's revealed that deep down, he's actually shy and reserved, and cultivated the Sun-chan persona to overcome this and make friends.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Fried pork skewers, specifically the ones made by Tsubaki’s family.
Aoi Hinata aka “Himawari”
"Himawari" (Aoi Hinata)
Voiced by: Haruka Shiraishi
A second-year student and Joro’s affectionate childhood friend who tends to slap him on the back when she greets him every morning. She takes him on a date to confess that she’s in love with his best friend and wants help.- Acting Unnatural: When she tries to follow Joro’s plan to matchmake her with Sun-chan, she completely fumbles her lines, reciting them stiffly or out of order.
- Bad Liar: She cannot lie convincingly when going with Joro’s matchmaking plan. The best deception she does is in the third arc, and even then Joro picks up on her tell.
- Book Dumb: She’s in the same boat as Sun-chan when it comes to academics.
- Childhood Friend: With Joro and Sun-chan.
- Childhood Friend Romance: She realizes this after Joro still goes out of his way to help hook her up with Sun-chan.
- Genki Girl: Almost always a bundle of energy, especially around Joro.
- Gift of the Magi Plot: In the third arc, she ends up using the money she was saving up for a new tennis racket to instead purchase a replacement for the Kokoro book that Joro borrowed from Pansy. In turn, he uses his own savings to get Himawari the tennis racket she gave up for him.
- A Lady on Each Arm: How she and Asunaro restrain Joro when they catch him in the OVA.
- Love Confessor: She tells Joro she’s in love with his best friend Sun-chan, shortly after Cosmos tells him the same thing.
- Master of the Mixed Message: She treats Joro very affectionately and has No Sense of Personal Space with him, and unintentionally leads him to believe that she’s in love with him when she actually likes Sun-chan. Telling him about her crush on Sun-chan and asking him to help matchmake them together does nothing to change how affectionate she is to Joro, to his frustration.
- Meaningful Name: Two that reflect her sunny disposition.
- Her family name—Hinata—is Japanese for “a sunny place”.
- Himawari means “sunflower”. Sunflowers in hanakotoba represent radiance and passionate love.
- No Sense of Personal Space: With Joro, much to his consternation. It’s part of why he assumed she was in love with him.
- Passionate Sports Girl: She's an avid tennis player and part of the school's Tennis Club.
- Reading Stage Directions Out Loud: When she tries to follow Joro’s matchmaking plan.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Cosmos at first, but it becomes a Friendly Rivalry by the time they move their affections from Sun-chan to Joro.
- The Tell: Hers is moving her eyes once to the right and twice to the left. As her childhood friend, Joro picks up on this pretty easily.
Sakura Akino aka “Cosmos”
"Cosmos" (Sakura Akino)
Voiced by: Sachika Misawa
A third-year student and Joro’s superior on the student council, who takes him on a date to ask for his assistance in pursuing her crush, his best friend.- Acting Unnatural: She’s an even worse actor than Himawari, since Cosmos talks like a samurai when she’s nervous.
- Bad Liar: Can’t lie to save her life.
- Creepy Good: Sometimes she gives off a creepy, threatening aura, but she’s ultimately a decent person.
- Ditzy Genius: In contrast to the Book Dumb Himawari and Sun-chan, Cosmos is an ace student but very lacking in common sense, making bizarre decisions and theatrical gestures like giving thousands of problems to solve for an afternoon of tutoring and practicing every angle of her meticulous plan to apologize to Joro with a science dummy. And then there’s her talking like a samurai when she’s nervous.
- Friendly Rivalry: She’s the first one to affirm that she considers Pansy both a friend and a rival, and the other girls follow suit.
- Large Ham: When she’s nervous and talks like a samurai, she gets very theatrical with her words.
- Love Confessor: The story is kicked off by her taking Joro on a date to confess to him that she’s in love… with his best friend.
- Master of the Mixed Message: She treats Joro very affectionately, and unintentionally leads him to believe that she’s in love with him when she actually likes Sun-chan. Telling him about her crush on Sun-chan and asking him to help matchmake them together does nothing to change how affectionate she is to Joro, to his frustration.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Himawari at first, but it becomes a Friendly Rivalry by the time they move their affections from Sun-chan to Joro.
- Spanner in the Works: In the second arc, she’s the one who unravels Asunaro’s scheme to isolate Joro from everyone else. Later on, she, Himawari, and Asunaro all put an unexpected obstacle in Joro’s plan to keep Hose away from Pansy by confessing their love to Joro and giving their barrette votes to Hose.
- Student Council President: With Joro as her subordinate.
- The Tell: Speaking like some kind of ersatz samurai whenever she’s trying to hide her true intentions.
- Through His Stomach: During the third arc, Cosmos tries to get closer to Joro by giving him food from a quadruple-packed lunch, but Tsubaki steals her thunder. She tries again with a quintuple-packed lunch, but Joro’s too preoccupied with looking for a job to notice.
- Wall Pin of Love: Played for laughs when Cosmos has this written down in her planner for how Joro reconciles with her. It comes back to bite Joro in the ass when Asunaro snaps a picture of it and presents it as evidence that he’s cheating with three girls.
Hina Hanetachi aka “Asunaro”
"Asunaro" (Hina Hanetachi)
Voiced by: Shiori Mikami
A second-year student who runs the school’s Newspaper Club.- Accent Relapse: Asunaro usually speaks in a formal manner, but slips into her natural Tsugaru dialect when in a state of high emotion, like when Joro suggests she could be one of the girls nominated for the Flower Dance or after Cosmos exposes her scheme to isolate Joro.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Once Cosmos foils her scheme and corners her, she goes on a Motive Rant culminating in one of these to Joro.
- Arc Villain: She’s the main antagonist of the second arc.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: Although Cosmos exposes her plan and Joro rejects her, she continues to show up as an ally of the library group and offers her help to them, even if she’s upfront about the fact that she still wants Joro for herself.
- A Lady on Each Arm: How she and Himawari restrain Joro when they catch him in the OVA.
- Malicious Slander: She threatens to print a story about how Joro is a three-timing scumbag who’s stringing along three different women (which he wants but hasn’t actually achieved yet). Though she says she won’t print it after he proves he’s not dating three girls, she does it anyway claiming it was an accident. The damage is still done and Joro’s abysmal reputation forces him to keep his distance from his friends, which she wanted.
- Rescue Romance: Parodied. Her obsession with Joro stems from him saving her from a stray ball at the baseball game. From Joro’s perspective, he wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic, he just happened to be in front of her and got beaned in the head while walking towards a hot chick with huge boobs (Pansy).
- School Newspaper News Hound: She uses her role on the school newspaper as an excuse to follow Joro around.
- Shipper with an Agenda: She tags along when Tampopo ropes Joro into trying to matchmake Sun-chan with Pansy, mostly because she figures it’ll get Pansy out of the way between herself and Joro. However, she ultimately works with him and Pansy to foil Tampopo instead.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: She somehow crawled through the window unnoticed when Tampopo sat Joro down on the Bench inside the science lab to recruit him in matchmaking Pansy with Sun-chan.
Chiharu Yōki aka “Tsubaki”
"Tsubaki" (Chiharu Yoki)
Voiced by: Nao Tōyama
A second-year student whose family runs the Cheerful Skewers restaurant that was previously just a stand outside the baseball stadium. She introduces herself by kissing Joro’s hand and swearing her devotion to him after transferring into his class.- Arc Villain: Subverted; Joro predicts that she’ll be this for the third arc, but instead she helps him resolve his internal conflict and there’s No Antagonist this time.
- Childhood Friends: With Chifuyu Motoki aka Holly.
- Harem Nanny: She’s not part of Joro’s harem, but she’s levelheaded and not above the occasional flirt.
- I Kiss Your Hand: After transferring into Joro’s class and meeting him again. Sasanqua and Asunaro don’t take it well, while Himawari finds it amusing.
- Nice Girl: One of the few characters in this World of Jerkass who is always kind and polite without any manipulative agenda.
- Never a Self-Made Woman: Downplayed. After taking Joro's advice to move her food stall to a better location, her family business really takes off.
- The Not-Love Interest: Probably the only supporting role girl who isn't interested romantically in Joro. She appreciates his help at her restaurant, and even gives him a barrette to help him win against Hose.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: While just about everyone else is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing to some degree, Tsubaki is exactly as sweet and angelic as her too-good-to-be-true demeanor indicates, even if Joro doesn’t believe it at first.
- Supreme Chef: Makes and sells delicious fried pork skewers, which are Sun-chan’s favorite.
- Through His Stomach: Platonically, she curries Joro’s favor by giving him her lunch when he’s hungry, and unintentionally upstages Cosmos’s attempt to treat him with a quadruple-packed lunch.
- Undying Loyalty: In her introduction, she swears her eternal devotion to Joro with a kiss on the hand, though it’s apparently completely platonic.
- You Are Not Alone: The end of the third arc has her telling this to Joro, after he’s been struggling with Heroic Self-Deprecation and insecurity about not measuring up to his friends.
Asaka Mayama aka “Sasanqua”
"Sasanqua" (Asaka Mayama)
Voiced by: Shuka Saitō
The leader of a Girl Posse called the Charisma Group, consisting of gals like herself in Joro’s class.- Cannot Spit It Out: She chickens out every time she tries to tell Joro how she feels.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Sasanqua develops feelings for Joro after she’s Easily Forgiven by him despite her previous bullying of him due to the nasty gossip in the first two arcs.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: After the second arc, she gets rid of the twin pigtails and stops dyeing her hair, letting down her long, black hair that happens to be Joro’s type. She does this to make a good impression on him when apologizing for her initial bullying of him.
- Girl Posse: The Charisma Group, which bullied Joro alongside her in the first two arcs, then supported her feelings for him after they all asked him to forgive them.
- Gyaru Girl: In the first two arcs. Afterwards, she starts going by a more natural style to make a good impression on Joro.
- I Have This Friend: In the Beach Episode, she uses this when asking Joro how she should approach apologizing to him.
- Tsundere: A more traditional one for Joro than he and Pansy are for each other. She’s mostly this in regards to denying her feelings for him, and actually less abusive to him than she was when she hated him. The only time she’s truly abrasive to him after falling for him is when he offers to make her his Friday girl in a Marry Them All scenario with Pansy, Cosmos, Himawari, and Asunaro.
Kimie Kamata aka “Tampopo”
"Tampopo" (Kimie Kamata)
Voiced by: Iori Saeki
A first-year student and manager of the Baseball Club. She’s initially approached to be one of the three girls who participates in the Flower Dance, but she declines due to the unsavory rumors about their dance partner.- Accidental Misnaming: Her nickname is mispronounced Ch＊npopo (Peenpopo in the English subtitles) by some students, which she happens to overhear from Joro’s earpiece.
- Animal Motifs: Dogs. The sound of dog barking can be heard during a couple scenes with her, like when she runs away from Joro when he’s trying to tell her she’s one of the Flower Dance candidates. Dog imagery is seen when she instructs Joro to bite off some peenpopos.
- Biting the Handkerchief: While she’s yelling about “those sons of bitches” who called her Peenpopo.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The reasons she gives for why she wants Joro’s help in setting up Pansy and Sun-chan together are 1). he meets with Pansy at the library on a daily basis, 2). he is Sun-chan’s Best Friend since middle school, and 3). he’s apparently Tampopo’s slave.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: Downplayed, but she is on good enough terms with Pansy to try another matchmaking scheme with her and she’s one of the girls Joro counts on to give him a barrette vote.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: She tries to invoke this in the Recap Episode by singing the ending theme song when it plays, but Joro shoots her down.
- Fan Community Nickname: In-universe, she anticipates becoming a famous idol and refers to her hypothetical fans (or in her eyes, rubes) as the Wata Guests.
- Favors for the Sexy: She attempts to exploit this by giving Joro a picture of her dressed as a Playboy Bunny and promising more photos of her posing “this and that way” if he helps her out with her matchmaking plan.
- Glory Seeker: She wants to be more popular than Cosmos and Himawari, and her matchmaking plan is motivated by the desire to become famous as the manager of a successful baseball team. She also allows Asunaro to participate in her plan when the latter offers to write a special feature article about her for the school newspaper.
- Green-Eyed Monster: A non-romantic example, she envies Cosmos and Himawari for their popularity and thinks her plan will somehow elevate her above them.
- Groin Attack: She demands that Joro bite off the peenpopos of the boys who subjected her to Accidental Misnaming.
- Harmless Villain: The only wannabe Manipulative Bastard in the cast that even Joro can outsmart easily.
- Interim Villain: She’s hardly a threat, but she’s the closest there is to a villain in the interim between the third and fourth arcs.
- Playboy Bunny: She uses a picture of herself dressed as one to incentivize Joro into helping her.
- Playing Cyrano: After her first plan to get Pansy a boyfriend is foiled, she tries again, only this time Pansy is the one she’s feeding lines to through a conspicuous earpiece and Joro is the target. He’s not amused.
- Proud Beauty: Emphasis on the proud part. She is pretty enough that Joro is easily bribed by saucy pics of her.
- Shipper with an Agenda: The reason she conscripts Joro into matchmaking Sun-chan and Pansy for her is that she thinks there’s a mutual attraction between them (it’s actually very one-sided) and that having a girlfriend would improve Sun-chan’s baseball performance, which means more attention for her. Her secret other agenda is that Sun-chan would get in the way between Pansy and Hose.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Tampopo thinks very highly of herself and her beauty, and has aspirations for even greater fame.
- Spotting the Thread: Joro instantly notices the discrepancy in her story about what happened at the baseball game last year that motivated her Bench confession. Namely, where she claimed she was rooting for Nishikizuta in the stands wasn’t where the actual Nishikizuta students were, as she was actually rooting for Toshōbu and only went to Nishikizuta High School because she failed the entrance exam. The rest of the inconsistencies in her claim unravel from there.
Shiba Tatsuo
Shiba Tatsuo
Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka
Catcher of the Baseball Club.- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When they were kids, he pretended to be Sun-chan’s friend and then stole a prized keychain from him because he was jealous of the treatment he got.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Absolutely hated Sun-chan's natural talent at baseball, and always felt he was on a much lower playing field. As a result, he befriends Sun-chan only to stab him in the back later by talking about how he actually hated him.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: One of the few aversions in the series.
- Unknown Rival: To Sun-chan.
Ichika Botan aka “Anemone”
Voiced by: Rie Takahashi
A childhood friend of Joro, Sun-chan, and Himawari.- Face Framed in Shadow: She’s depicted this way during Sun-chan’s flashbacks in the OVA.
- First Love: Before Pansy, she was the person Sun-chan was in love with. Unfortunately for him, she took him to the Bench to ask a favor involving Joro…
- Small Role, Big Impact: As Sun-chan’s First Love and the unintentional cause for his Start of Darkness, she’s a very important character overall, but she doesn’t get directly involved in the present day plot until much later in the series.
- Unseen No More: She was alluded to in the first arc as the girl who broke Sun-chan’s heart by asking him to set her up with Joro. Anemone herself wouldn’t make an appearance in the flesh until the eighth volume of the light novels, or her cameos in the OVA.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She couldn’t have possibly known that asking Sun-chan to matchmake her with Joro would lead to his Start of Darkness and a massive Gambit Pileup in their high school years nearly destroying everyone’s friendships.
Toshōbu High School
Yasuo Hazuki aka “Hose”
"Hose" (Yasuo Hazuki)
Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama
A friendly student of Toshōbu who offers his help when Joro is in need. Except it turns out he has nothing but bad intentions for him.- The Bet: Makes one with Joro in an attempt to win Pansy. He does a lot of underhanded things to try and win, such as getting the girls from his school to give him their barrettes.
- Big Bad: Unlike the previous Arc Villains who undergo Defeat Equals Friendship (or the Bench who isn’t actually a character), Hose returns to cause trouble after his stint as the antagonist, and prior to appearing he was a Greater-Scope Villain who caused Pansy’s backstory.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Turns out to be quite a Jerkass once he reveals his intentions to destroy Joro by not only winning Pansy, but also not allowing him to contact any of her friends ever again.
- Chick Magnet: Due to his Bishie Sparkle and Nice Guy façade, lots of girls are attracted to him, most notably Cherry and Tsukimi.
- Dogged Nice Guy: For Pansy, in all the worst ways.
- Entitled to Have You: Feels this way towards Pansy. However, she absolutely hates him, transferred to a different high school and changed her appearance so as to avoid interacting with him any further. Joro inadvertently causes them to meet up again when he asked Hose for help to avoid the library being shut down.
- Gambit Pileup: Tries to one up Joro by asking all of the girls attending the baseball game to give them their barrettes. Because he's normally a Nice Guy to them, they do it without knowing the motive.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He tries to apply some Loophole Abuse to the contest by having girls from his school give him their barrettes. It looks like he's finally won, until Sun-chan shows up and essentially does the same thing for Joro with the girls from his school. He tries to break the rules, but Cosmos and Himawari tell him about the rules the same way he did to them earlier. Pansy then gives her barrette to Joro, and tells Hose to never approach her ever again.
- Identical Stranger: He looks very similar to Joro
◊, except his hair is slightly messier and has a purple tint. He later takes advantage of this by disguising himself as Joro. - Kick the Dog: He has one at the prelude to his showdown with Joro. Up until this point, he seems to be a fairly upbeat and likeable guy. He then asks to speak to Joro privately, and asks to modify their agreement. He has an evil aura around him, and says that whoever loses not only loses access to Pansy, but any of her friends as well. He then says he wants to destroy Joro and kick him while he's down while he's at it.
- Manipulative Bastard: Hides behind a Nice Guy persona most of the time. But during the contest, he reveals his true nature to Joro, and turns out to be quite a Jerkass.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Hose is only pretending to be Oblivious to Love in regards to the affection he gets from Cherry and Tsukimi, similar to how Sun-chan did with Cosmos and Himawari in the first arc. He is fully aware of their love for him and does not care, as he only wants Pansy, despite also knowing that she wants nothing to do with him.
- Shadow Archetype: Turns out he is also a scheming bastard who feels entitled to love because he passes himself off as an Oblivious to Love harem protagonist. Unlike Joro however, he doesn't care about the feelings of anyone he's using.
Momo Sakuraba aka “Cherry”
"Cherry" (Momo Sakuraba)
Voiced by: Risa Taneda
Student Council President at Toshōbu and a friend of Hose and Tsukimi.- Anguished Declaration of Love: Cosmos and Himawari convince her to let Hose know her true feelings for him, after revealing how they were in a similar situation with Sun-chan and Joro.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: While she's obviously in love with Hose, she holds her feelings back since he's interested in Pansy, and because she doesn’t want to conflict with Tsukimi.
- Matchmaker Crush: She and Tsukimi share one on Hose, who they try to set up with Pansy. Cosmos and Himawari bring her to realize that their matchmaking efforts are ultimately an excuse to not act on their true feelings. In the end, she decides to forgo this and confesses honestly to him, as well as giving Joro her barrette vote to demonstrate that she wants to be the one Hose is with.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She gives one to Pansy, yelling about why he chose her, and how she can't move forward with him because of that.
- Thanks for the Mammary: Joro deliberately does this to her in order to escape from her before she could call Hose. She hits him hard enough that he hits some recycle bins, knocking the cans down and forcing her to clean it up.
- Those Two Guys: With Tsukimi.
Runa Kusami aka “Tsukimi”
"Tsukimi" (Runa Kusami)
Voiced by: Konomi Kohara
Hose’s childhood friend and Cherry’s best friend.- Anguished Declaration of Love: Gives one to Hose after Cosmos and Himawari relate their situation towards Joro and regretting not telling him how they felt sooner.
- Childhood Friend Romance: She’s Hose’s childhood friend, much like Himawari is to Joro and Sun-chan.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Like Cherry, she's also in love with Hose, but is holding back because she knows he likes Pansy and neither of them want to fight each other. She even goes so far as to give her barrette to him, which would've ended the contest right there had both Hose and Joro not have been trying to Out Gambit each other.
- Matchmaker Crush: She and Cherry share one on Hose, who they try to set up with Pansy. Cosmos and Himawari bring her to realize that their matchmaking efforts are ultimately an excuse to not act on their true feelings. Unlike Cherry, Tsukimi retains this mindset and gives Hose her barrette vote to support his pursuit of Pansy, though she does manage to confess her true feelings to him alongside Cherry.
- Those Two Guys: With Cherry.
Kitakaze Tokushō aka “Fuu-chan”
"Fuu-chan" (Kitakaze Tokushō)
A baseball player for Toshōbu and Sun-chan’s rival. Asuka Usui aka “Mint”
"Mint" (Asuka Usui)
A Toshōbu student who admires Sasanqua. Akane Rancho aka “Lilith”
"Lilith" (Akane Rancho)
A Toshōbu student who communicates by cellphone text and hides behind her hair due to shyness.Other
The Bench
The Bench
“First, would you sit next to me?”
Joro: “Why is there a bench?!”
An omnipresent menace and omen of many romantic calamities. Nearly every Love Confession in the series takes place while sitting on the Bench.- Big Bad: In Joro’s mind, the Bench is this and his greatest enemy. The actual main antagonist spot is more appropriately filled by Hose.
- The Dreaded: By the third time it appears, Joro is terrified of it.
- Rule of Funny: The odds of people making their troublesome love confessions to Joro with the exact same words in the exact place are slim, yet somehow a bench always appears in the most nonsensical of places to make it happen. Pansy went out of her way to have bench parts express delivered to the school library for her confession to Joro, but how it shows up on the roof and in the science lab is a mystery.
- Running Gag: It’s not really a character so much as a recurring prop that Joro has taken to personifying as the harbinger of his rom-com conflicts.
- Shout-Out: Its leitmotif is a blatant “Imperial March” ripoff with some Darth Vader breathing occasionally thrown in.
Keiki Kisaragi aka “Laurier”
"Laurier" (Keiki Kisaragi)
Voiced by: Yukari Tamura
Joro’s mother.- Absurdly Youthful Mother: She wears heavy makeup to look the part. She also claims to be “forever 17,” though she’s more likely middle aged.
Marika Kisaragi aka “Jasmine”
