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Fujinomisaki High School
Umika Konohoshi
"I-I'll probably mess up again, like before ... or a lot, actually ... a-and show you really uncool sides of me. Even so, I want to protect this place. The Rocket Research Association we all built together. I want to be able to fly from here again."
— Chapter 23, "Reunion Light Song"
Voiced by: Yurie Funato
A girl so shy she can't speak to others, who spends her days absorbed in sci-fi and longing to go into space so she can meet aliens who will read her mind and know her heart. But when she does meet a (self-proclaimed) telepathic alien who helps her overcome her difficulties and form the Rocketry Research Association, she discovers that what she's been looking for might have been on Earth all along.
- Big Sister Instinct: In chapter 46.1, Honami thinks about how much her sister has grown since founding the RRA. But then she remembers an incident from before Umika shut down and became an Elective Mute, where she (Honami) was being harassed by bullies. Umika stormed over and screamed at them to leave Hona alone. Hona then corrects herself — her sister isn't "changing" so much as she's slowly becoming the girl she used to be.
- Cannot Spit It Out: At the beginning, Umika cannot speak to another human being to save her life. By chapter 24, she's capable of holding a conversation with her classmates, even if she stammers heavily throughout the whole thing.
- Character Development: Umika must learn to grow from a near-mute introvert bookworm into the capable leader of the Rocketry Research Association to make her and Yuu's dreams come true. She has definitive improvements—to begin with, since the third volume she has been able to hold conversation, despite still stammering heavily.
- Cute Bookworm: As a shy child, Umika buried herself in sci-fi books. But this is a Manga Time Kirara series, so she's also concentrated Moe.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Umika can't speak to other people, leaving her isolated and alone. She spends her days wishing an alien would come from the stars and give her a place she could feel like she belonged. After forming the Rocketry Research Association to strike out for the stars, she slowly comes to realize she already has one.
- The Determinator: Yes, that's right — despite first appearing as a meek, shy, Elective Mute wallflower, when she's pushed out of her comfort zone she discovers she's got a spine of steel.
- After Matataki blows the girls off and refuses to help them build their rocket, Umika — despite being scared to death of conversation — shows up at Matataki's house every day in the hopes she'll finally summon up enough courage to make Matataki listen to her. She goes so far as to challenge Matataki to a bottle rocket duel for the chance to say her piece. And even though Matataki wins, she's impressed enough by Umika's determination that she lets her speak anyway, just so she can shoot down Umika's request for help. Umika just wanted to say that her goggles look cool.
- In chapter 42 & 43, after Yuu momentarily slips into yandere mode and then runs away in tears, Umika resolves to help Yuu by digging through the dirt with her bare hands to locate whatever the voice on the radio was leading them to ... and she does!
- Elective Mute: Umika was originally merely shy, but an insensitive remark by Matataki in middle school ("Don't talk to me when you've got nothing to say!") caused her to completely withdraw and shut down, to the point she can't even speak to others. Finally getting the chance to speak her mind and tell Matataki what she's always wanted to tell her ("Ra-Raimon-san ... you see, I— I think your GOGGLES are ... SUPER COOL!!") seems to have been the trigger for her to get over her psychological blockage, since she makes gradual-but-steady progress at speaking to other people after that. In chapter 46.1, Honami corroborates that Umika wasn't always so bad at speaking, when she thinks back to a time in middle school Umika shouted (clumsily) at some bullies to leave Hona alone.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Most attributes she has are conventionally feminine, starting from her Shrinking Violet tendencies; however, she's Science Fiction geek, a hobby that is usually associated with boys.
- Grew a Spine: Her desire to win over Matataki forces her to step outside of her comfort zone, and she keeps on going. By chapter 28, she's almost unrecognizable as she stands her ground and tells Matataki she still wants to be friends with her after everything that's happened.
- Hidden Depths: Despite being a mute, reclusive bookworm at the beginning of the story, she is an excellent swimmer.
- Hopeless with Tech: In chapter 14, just as Umika's sister Honami muses that Umika is growing more reliable and learning to use the family laptop for research, Umika fretfully turns to her for help because she can't get a "PFD" (she gets PDF misspelled) to print.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Before the series started, Umika couldn't speak to other people to save her life, so she spent her days wishing an alien would arrive and read her mind so they could know each other.
- Informed Attribute: Umika claims to be a devoted fan of sci-fi novels, yet in chapter 4 her ideas about space travel basically amount to Retro Rockets that move by "mysterious power", making it sound more like she's a fan of magazine covers from The '50s than actual science fiction.
- Jumped at the Call: Umika, feeling like an alien herself, is immediately on-board with flying away to the stars alongside Yuu.
- Last-Name Basis: Always refers to her friends by their last names — even Yuu, despite how close they are. This implies that she feels distanced from them, befitting her desire to leave Earth behind.
- The Load: Umika thinks of herself as this in her teary speech at the end of chapter 8, but Yuu and Haruno don't agree.
- Lonely Among People: At the start of the series, she emotionally withdraws from her classmates and ignores Haruno's initial offer of friendship, since her psychological issues get in the way of connecting with them. She'd much rather go home and enjoy sci-fi books and movies.
- Longing for Fictionland: Since Umika has trouble communicating with other humans (to say nothing of making friends), she wishes she can meet an alien who'll read her mind and befriend her without even needing to share a word—like in the Science Fiction she reads.
- Meaningful Name: Umika's last name, Konohoshi, means "little star". It's also a homophone for "this planet", which forms the basis of an extended pun in chapter 18.
- Ms. Imagination: Due to her Longing for Fictionland tendencies, Umika tends to drift off to her outer-space fantasies easily.
- Otaku: While she has not been referred to as such, she is a Science Fiction geek, after all.
- Performance Anxiety: As the leader of the Rocket Research Association, Umika must give speeches when they compete, which turns out to be the single biggest impediment on her quest to learn to communicate with others and make her dreams come true. Eventually, she starts repeatedly rewatching her disastrous attempts at public speaking to desensitize herself to the pain.
- Shrinking Violet: At the beginning, Umika is reduced to a sputtering mess whenever she has to talk to another human being, but she gets better over the course of the series.
- Situational Sociability: As early as Chapter 3, Umika realizes that she can speak more freely when she's with Yuu.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She has a habit of saying innocuous things that have major consequences on Yuu's psychological state leading up to the "bad alien" arc, such as blurting out (while feverish) that she doesn't want Yuu to do foreheadpathy with anybody else, or that she's sure Yuu is a "good alien".
- Weight Woe: In chapter 2, when Umika consults her prepared statement of things she will tell her alien friends, her weight has been hastily scribbled out with a note stating "No!"
Yuu Akeuchi
"Even if I don't know where I'm from ... as long as I have her light, I can just stay like this. I'll be Umika's beloved alien ... I have nothing to worry about, as long as I'm with her."
— Chapter 38, "Loss Dialog"
Voiced by: Seria Fukagawa
A self-proclaimed "alien" who barges into Umika's life and tries to coax her out of her shell with her powers of "foreheadpathy". Claiming to be stranded on Earth without her memories or a way home, her backstory is a mystery the Rocketry Research Association will need to unravel.
- Amusing Alien: Yuu Akeuchi is a bubbly Kirara Genki Girl who is also an (alleged) alien.
- Blank Slate: She begins the series as a tabula rasa, an amnesiac girl who lacks the bad experiences that Umika, Haruno, and Matataki had, which drove them into their current (less than stellar) mental states. As a result, she's positive and optimistic and always eager to help. However, once she begins to have bad experiences of her own, then she quickly joins their ranks as a certified basket case.
- Blithe Spirit: Yuu barges into her high school class on the first day, introduces herself as a stranded alien, and takes all her classmates' ribbing in stride with a huge grin while trying to coax Umika out of her shell. Later thoroughly subverted, as she angsts over her subconscious desire that Umika doesn't ever improve so she can continue to be a Living Emotional Crutch.
- Book Dumb: Emotional intelligence is the only kind of intelligence she possesses.
- In chapter 12, while having a meeting for a research project, she has to ask Umika what the kanji on their handouts mean.
- In the "Startest Telepath" omake, when Emihara-sensei asks if their midterm studying is going well, she declares "Yeah!" with a cheerful smile while an arrow points at her and says "Looking extremely bad."
- Break the Cutie: During the "Bad Alien" arc, the poor girl falls to pieces faster than The Alleged Car as her lack of identity and jealousy conspire to destroy her mental health and her self-image.
- Cloudcuckoolander: If Yuu isn't an alien, then she's one of these. She has a big heart but little common sense. In chapter 3, she casually mentions she scoops fish out of the ocean with a net. But she doesn't eat them (later, she claims she doesn't need food at all) and she doesn't have the facilities to keep them as pets, so she just throws them back.
- Cold Reading: She claims to have psychic powers (which Umika wholeheartedly believes), but she never says anything in one of their foreheadpathy sessions that can't be gleaned from simple contextual clues. Like when she announced Umika had a "deep longing for space" right after she noticed Umika clutching a copy of the Cosmic Dictionary.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl-type Genki Girl who helps the shy protagonist out of her shell. At first, she seems like a straight example. But during the "Bad Alien" arc (after the Cerebus Syndrome starts) all of the quirky traits that had been played for laughs or sentiment (claiming to be an alien, "foreheadpathy", her amnesia, her desire to help Umika improve) get turned into a toxic psychological mess that severely impacts her mental state and exposes the codependent undertones in her relationship with Umika.
- Genki Girl: Yuu lives in a state of perpetual excitement. Multiple times, she's shown loudly cheering "I get it, I get it!" in response to somebody else, only for some text to point at her and say "She's doesn't get it."
- The Glomp: Yuu frequently latches herself onto her friends and squeezes them for all they're worth.
- Human Alien: Maybe Yuu, if she really is an alien like she claims. Outwardly she's indistinguishable from an ordinary high school girl.
- I Choose to Stay: In chapter 43, the voice on the crystal radio offers to tell Yuu anything she wants to know. However, Yuu declares she'll rediscover her past on her own, live on Earth with her friends, and return home on a rocket they all built together.
- Identity Amnesia: Yuu claims she's an alien with no memory of her life before she was stranded on Earth.
- Idiot Hair: Yuu has a single strand of hair sticking out of her scalp and drooping down in front of her face.
- In-Series Nickname: Matataki calls Yuu "fruitcake", or "fruit" for short. When Matataki refers to Yuu by her first name, as in chapter 39, you know things are serious.
- Informed Attribute: She claims in chapter 18 that she can't show Umika how to live on a planet she knows nothing about. However, her supposed lack of knowledge about Earth doesn't stop her from indulging in extremely human gags like wanting to take dirt from the playing field home just one chapter prior.
- Irony:
- Despite (allegedly) coming from a race of interstellar travelers, she is the clumsiest, least mechanically inclined of all four girls. She can't even cut a soda bottle apart without it flying away and smacking Umika in the face. She herself points out that if she knew her way around her spaceship, it never would've crashed in the first place.
- She's very insightful and has a lot of emotional intuition about the other three, yet she is extremely bad at understanding herself, which directly feeds into her "bad alien" phase.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Yuu calls herself "a bad alien" when she realizes she wants to be an emotional crutch for Umika rather than help her overcome her issues with Cannot Spit It Out.
- Manchurian Agent: Invoked. She has a bit of angst about whether this could be true; it motivates her to try and learn more about her origins.
- Meaningful Name: If her name is said aloud in Japanese order (Akeuchi Yuu), "uchi yuu" becomes a pun on uchuu, the Japanese word for "outer space". Coupled with "ake" (bright), "brilliant outer space" fits well with her splash page in chapter 40.
- Memento MacGuffin: As an amnesiac, the only link to her past she has is her ship's log.
- Mental Fusion: Yuu claims she has the power of "foreheadpathy", though it may just be chuunibyou nonsense.
- Motifs: Television static. Sometimes it takes the form of Painting the Medium when she's worried about being a "bad alien", other times she'll see pictures like video covers or Umika's family album full of static to represent her amnesia and loss of identity.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: She always puts on her pink school sweater is halfway down her arms and hanging off her body.
- Stepford Smiler: Yuu in the latter half of volume 3, when she becomes deeply troubled by the idea she subconsciously wants Umika to be codependent on her rather than actually improve her communication skills. Exemplified by the first page in chapter 32: the first two panels show her looking haunted and forlorn, watching Umika from outside the classroom, gently tracing her fingers on the glass like she wants to reach out and touch her, but can't. Then the fourth panel is Yuu in 4-Koma chibi-mode popping out from under Umika's desk with a giant smile that has a little heart inside her mouth, acting as cheery and peppy as ever.
- Symbolism: Her school sweater is perpetually halfway down her arms and hanging off her body. It has the effect (especially in chapter 1, when she declares "I'm the alien Akeuchi Yuu, and that's my telepathic power!") of looking like she's emerging from a cocoon ... or a Full-Body Disguise.
- Yandere: At the nadir of her "bad alien" phase, she violently throws Umika to the ground and climbs atop her, grinning wickedly, while asking what she'd do if Yuu's people turn out to be evil invaders. Fortunately it doesn't last long, and she runs off in tears before anything worse happens.
Haruno Takaragi
"Yuu-chan really seems to like it here. Say, Umika-chan, once you go into space and meet other aliens, what will you do then? [...] You know, just like Yuu-chan, I would love it if I could see lots of wonderful things and meet lots of wonderful people on this planet."
— Chapter 5, "Sunset Rocket"
Voiced by: Moe Nagamuta
The sweet, caring vice-class representative. She's more interested in encouraging others to follow their dreams than researching rockets, but the fact that Yuu has taken up residence in the lighthouse her grandfather used to maintain surprises and intrigues her. Her seemingly-endless optimism and positivity actually conceal a wounded heart, stemming from childhood abandonment issues.
- Cute Little Fang: As part of her wolf-girl costume in chapter 48, she sports a pair of fangs.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Team Mom. While many Kirara manga give their supporting club members a reason (however thin) for acting the way they do, it's usually a pretext to put a handful of strong personalities inside the same club room for comedy. On the other hand, after the Cerebus Syndrome starts, HoshiTele really seems to enjoy peeling away Haruno's nurturing, Fun Personified façade to reveal the messy emotional scars underneath, exposing just what kind of psychological baggage a person must have to devote themselves to making other people's dreams come true instead of their own.Haruno: You're all so earnestly looking up at the sky, and here I am with such half-baked feelings. It's like Yuu-chan says, I ...Yuu: Haruno. You're scared of seeing people getting hurt from having their dreams shattered. That's the real Haruno. Hesitant and lost.Haruno: Lost ...
- Dumb Blonde: Inverted. Haruno is the only blonde of the main cast, yet she also has the best grades among the same.
- Fun Personified: She's always looking for ways to have fun and to help others have some fun too, often with a beaming smile on her face. Whenever something happens she doesn't expect, her typical response is to go with the flow and embrace it. When Umika tackled her and Yuu to the ground in chapter 4, Haruno's response was to just throw her arms up and shout "Kyaaaa!" with a giant grin, like she was riding a roller coaster.
- The Gadfly: Haruno is generally super-sweet, but she does enjoy winding Matataki up in her low-key, tease-y way, and then playing innocent when Matataki gets angry at her.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Haruno is the only blonde among the girls of the Rocketry Research Association, and she's also the sweet, caring, optimistic Team Mom.
- Hidden Depths:
- In the volume 1 omake, Yuu does some foreheadpathy with Haruno. Haruno closes her eyes and gives Yuu a serene smile while the panel above them is filled with whole galaxies, implying there's so much more to Haruno than meets the eye. It's enough to stupefy Yuu, who looks shocked to silence at what she's seen. However, the omake may not be canon, since later in chapter 25 they say they've never done foreheadpathy with each other.
- Come chapter 48, who knew Haruno was so good at Battle Rapping she could effortlessly dethrone the champion and win the cultural festival competition?
- It's the Journey That Counts: She treasures the journey over the destination because her childhood friend Megumi suddenly stopped attending piano lessons after they lost a competition, saddling Haruno with abandonment issues. Haruno avoids having dreams of her own to escape the heartbreak of losing them, but in chapters 25/26 she realizes that's stripped her of the passion she needs to become the person she wants to be. She resolves to move past that and find "something only I can do", committing herself to having a dream like the others once again.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- When asked to describe Haruno, the first sentence out of Okuma's mouth was to say, point-blank, that she was "the girl with the biggest bosom in the universe." She's still fairly chaste (fitting the tastes of Manga Time Kirara), but judging by her extremely tight-fitting wardrobe, the girl must have serious trouble finding shirts in her size.
- In chapter 48, she dons a cute wolf girl costume that exposes her midriff in order to take part in some Battle Rapping on Umika's behalf.
- Never Be Hurt Again: She dedicates herself to making sure everybody else's dream comes true because of childhood abandonment issues. It forms the root of her psychological complex to become the Team Mom.
- Team Mom: Aside from being the most feminine, Haruno is compelled to help other people achieve their dreams.
- Vocal Evolution: Originally, Moe Nagamuta voiced Haruno with a high-pitched, genki squeal. However, as the drama started to ramp up, her voice deepened to give her dialogue more gravitas.
Matataki Raimon
"It's a plastic bottle rocket. It uses water just like yours. [But] there was no rule against using gunpowder as an accelerant though, was there? BLAST HIGH INTO THE SKY! AND PIERCE THE HEAVENS!"
— Chapter 10, "Seaside Battle"
Voiced by: Shiki Aoki
A mechanical whizz-kid and mecha otaku Umika scouts for her engineering skills, to help them build rockets. However, the grumpy jerk has zero interest in helping out or doing anything besides what interests her personally, since she's been so jaded by others mocking her hobbies. Although she throws her lot in with the Rocketry Research Association eventually, she remains the group's loveably caustic tsundere.
- Agent Scully: She is extremely skeptical about Yuu's claim of being an alien and insists on there being a rational explanation for everything. She does seem to relent in chapter 40, but given she was acting as the Team Dad to three emotional trainwrecks at the time, she may have been putting on an act.
- Badass Biker: She rides a motorcycle and has a rebellious attitude towards everything. When she and Haruno have a "date" in chapter 37, Matataki takes one look at the very girly outfit Haruno is wearing and hustles her off to change into more suitable clothing for riding a motorcycle. Haruno emerges looking like a greaser, which delights Matataki since it's her "taste".
- Character Development: Although she starts out as the least sociable character, by chapter 40 she's the one who steps up and holds the others together when they're in the doldrums.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Matataki is a Gadgeteer Genius, but she can't be bothered doing anything she's not interested in, which means her grades are precarious in non-science subjects.
- Foil: For Umika. Both of them are insular and withdrawn due to people mocking their interests when they were young, but Matataki is a bitter jerk instead of a quivering Shrinking Violet.
- Gadgeteer Genius: As the girls research rockets, they recruit the mechanically-minded Matataki, a mecha anime fan who wants to build robots, into their circle.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Matataki, an expert mechanical engineer, wears a pair of protective goggles slung up on her head everywhere she goes, even to class. It's implied she picked the habit up from Galaxy Blast, since a poster for the anime shows the hero wearing an identical pair.
- Girlish Pigtails: Inverted. Despite wearing a pair of pigtails, she's the most tomboyish member of the RRA, if not the entire cast.
- I Can't Do This by Myself: Initially Matataki was disinterested in teaching the others to make model rockets, seeing them as incompetent newbs, and preferred to handle all the engineering herself. Later, she begins to mellow out and teaches the others to improve after both her rockets fail at the model rocket competition in chapter 21, and she deliberately throws her rematch competition with the other three in chapter 28.
- Irony: Matataki became a caustic jerk due to other girls mocking her hobbies. In middle school, when Umika tried to befriend her, Matataki barked, "Don't talk to me if you've got nothing to say!" because she was sick of having to deal with other people not taking her seriously. Ironically, since Umika is also a sci-fi fan and wanted to complement the goggles Matataki wears in homage to her favorite anime, it probably would've improved both of their psychological states. But instead, they both became insular, withdrawn emotional wrecks.
- It's the Journey That Counts: Unlike Haruno, Matataki is in it to win it. She mocks the others for thinking having fun along the way is what's really important, even when Haruno tries to convince her they care about both. It's what leads Matataki to quit the association after they bungle the first model rocket competition.
- Meaningful Name: She's a fan of an anime that appears to be a parody of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and one reading of her name is Kaminarimon ("Thunder Gate"), which is very nearly the name of Gurren Lagann's two protagonists mashed together. Also, as a rocket enthusiast, the "thunder" part is quite fitting too.
- Misdirected Outburst: It's practically her middle name. She lashes out the other members of the RRA because she's hurting inside from the way nobody took her hobbies seriously when she was a child.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Frequently wears a tool belt to school.
- Otaku: She fits both Japanese and English meanings of the word. She's obsessed with mechanical engineering and once called herself a "mechanic otaku," using the Japanese meaning of the word.note On the other hand, she's clearly also heavily into mecha anime such as Ganbarion, it's at a point she said her interest is to build Humongous Mecha, and it's implied her wearing googles on her forehead is partly out of emulating Ganbarion's protagonist, who also does this.
- Second Place Is for Losers: This is Matataki's attitude when she enters a model rocket competition. Gradually she begins improving, but she's still pretty salty when she doesn't take home the gold.
- Skipping School: Probably due to her complex of never being understood, in the beginning of the series she doesn't bother to go to school, until chapter 12—which is about 7 weeks in in-universe time.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Though Matataki is a jerk who prefers to keep to herself, it's mainly because she doesn't think people will take her mechanical hobbies seriously. She viciously lashes out at the others to try and keep them at arm's length, but that only leads to a cutting and incisive rebuke when the others confront her in chapter 28.Matataki: I said so many terrible things to you ... all just to try and hurt you ... so often.Yuu: And every time you used that kind of language, you were hurting yourself the most. I think ... we could all tell.Haruno: But we also know you were the one who gave us the strongest support in building [the Rocket Research] Association.
- Team Dad: As she overcomes her emotional problems, she (very, very reluctantly) evolves into the one who keeps the others on track, and tries to pep them up after they're emotionally wrecked by chapters 39 & 40.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Any time she has to tolerate working with other people, she grits her teeth and caustically snarks her way through it.
- Tomboy Angst: Inverted. In elementary school, Matataki (who wore her goggles even then) was shunned by the other girls for being "boring" to talk to, like a boy, while they want to discuss TV dramas instead. This, however, did not make her feel she's "not girly enough"; rather it makes her feel the others don't understand her.
- Tsundere: A volume 3 omake makes Matataki the butt of jokes about translating the word tsundere into the cosmic language.
- Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: During the cultural festival arc, her response to being forced into an embarrassing maid costume to advertise their class presentation is to grab the helmet from some Ganbarion cosplay and pop it on while she hides behind her sign.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A single careless, insensitive remark to Umika in middle school caused her to become an Elective Mute nervous wreck.
- Wrench Wench: She's a Gadgeteer Genius in mechanical engineering, and she is particularly interested in building Humongous Mecha.
Akane Emihara-sensei
"That's the spirit, girls! Let's do our best to get promoted to a full club!"
— Chapter 13, "Cheer Initiation"
Voiced by: Natsumi Takamori
The Rocketry Research Association's advisor and homeroom teacher. She has a habit of making big promises to seem like a cool teacher and then underdelivering, which is how she got saddled with the position of advisor even though she knows nothing about rockets. Despite that, she tries to be as supportive as she can.
- Cool Teacher: Well, she tries. Her idea of a fun introduction on the second day of class was to do a scavenger hunt. Her students promptly complained about how childish it was.
- Dumb Jock: Initially, Matataki is skeptical towards Emihara-sensei being their advisor since she's "just" a gym teacher. Frustrated, Emihara-sensei complains that Matataki forget she teaches Japanese too.
- Flat Character: After the manga experiences some Cerebus Syndrome, the girls of the Rocket Research Association all begin to develop greater psychological depth and emotional complexity, and Emihara-sensei ... is the Sensei-chan.
- The Glomp: In chapter 11, Emihara-sensei gives Matataki a giant hug for showing up to class for the first time in forever.
- Meaningful Name: Her given name, Akane, is from the root word for "red". She often wears a red tracksuit, and as a gym teacher she's often optimistic and full of pep (typical traits of a Red Oni).
- Sensei-chan: She berates Matataki for riding a motorcycle to school, then gives her an enormous hug for finally attending class again. Later, when she fails to get the school's approval for the girls' club, she does a dogezanote and wails that she tried as hard as she could.The Girls: Asso ... cia ... tion?Emihara-sensei: Please forgive me! Sensei did her best, but a club was just not possible ...Matataki: The results of our activities are insufficient?! You said there's no chance they'll reject it! So what's our budget?Emihara-sensei: Zero.Matataki: Club room?Emihara-sensei: An empty classroom after school.Matataka: Advisor?Emihara-sensei: Me.Matataki: DISSOLVE IT!Emihara-sensei: [on her knees, clutching Matataki's skirt] I did everything I could to promote it! Don't say things like that!
- Smarter Than They Look: Although she dresses in a track suit and acts like your average gym teacher, she also teaches Modern Japanese — a fact she's quick to remind Yuu and Matataki about when they doubt her qualifications to be their advisor.
- Team Mom: Although Haruno is the Rocketry Research Association's Team Mom on an emotional level, as their advisor Emihara-sensei is the one who drives them around and chaperones them to their competitions.
Saya Kagami
"I didn't know model rockets could be so exciting ... It's like I've caught a fever!"
— Chapter 24, "Crybaby Restart"
Voiced by: Yuuko Oono
The overly-enthusiastic class representative of Umika's class.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: She's first introduced in chapter 12 of the manga, but the anime depicts her sitting behind Umika in class and moves her speaking debut up to the adaptation of chapter 5, with an anime-original scene where Yuu shows her how to "recharge her cosmic energy" (i.e. sunbathe on the balcony).
- Anime Chinese Girl: After first dressing up like a WASP at the cultural festival, she swaps her Ivy League outfit for some traditional Chinese garb in chapter 47.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: She's every bit as weird as Yuu, to the point her anime introduction makes a joke out of their similarities.
- Cool Shades: Her costume for the school festival involves a pair of aviator shades, complete with sparkles glinting off the frames. She wears them with a popped collar and a sweater tied around her neck like she just stepped off the set of an 80s college comedy.
- Genki Girl: Every line of dialogue from her is either an enthusiastic shout or an enthusiastic squeal, and in chapter 24 she's more excited over the fact that the RRA's rocket flew the highest rather than it overshot the target by 100 feet.
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: She isn't (being Japanese), but during the cultural festival her outfit absolutely nails the quintessentially New England-y, Ivy League, sweater-over-the-shoulders, just-got-back-from-the-tennis-court look.
- Wingding Eyes: Her eyes are usually comprised of angle brackets.
"Nasshii" Kinashi
"The whole volleyball club saw it! You really launched a rocket! Awesome! Best of luck, Konohoshi-san!"
— Chapter 31, "Supporting Your Dream"
Voiced by: Akari Yuino
A tall volleyball player who sits in front of Umika in class.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: She isn't introduced until chapter 31 of the manga, but she appears in the anime's first episode during the class introduction.
- In-Universe Nickname: "Rocket Serve Nasshii", in reference to her volleyball skills.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Kagami shows her a video of people launching model rockets, she laughs rudely and calls it lame without realizing her classmates have their own model rocket club. The others then pounce on her and berate her for being so thoughtless, while the caption says "Tactless Nasshii".
- Reused Character Design: Visually, she's made from the same mold as prior Kirara Yamato Nadeshiko-looking ladies like Mio Akiyama and Kon Tatsumi. Also, her utter tactlessness is reminiscent of Yoko Nishikawa, albeit Yoko's Hime Cut is purple while the anime portrays Nasshii as having black hair.
Tatsuoka Science & Engineering High School
Kei Akuzuki
"You can build a rocket full with confidence in yourself, and whether or not you call that a success depends entirely on you. There are plenty of things both you and I don't know yet. The adjustments I made to your rocket are all things I learned from my own mistakes. If you don't know, then you just don't! So keep on building and launching rockets! Then you fix your mistakes! And if you're stuck, rely on the people around you. Doing that, little by little, you'll build a solid foundation."
— Chapter 27, "Promise Mission"
Voiced by: Saho Shirasu
The Rocketry Research Association's friendly rival from Tatsuoka High, an engineering school. She heads their Space Research & Development Club.
- The Ace: She's effortlessly capable at mechanical engineering and is last years' champion at the national model rocket competition.
- Always Someone Better: She's the "someone better" to Matataki. Despite possessing similar levels of mechanical aptitude, she has the people skills and cheerfulness Matataki lacks, and her model rocket efforts seem to go off without a hitch.
- Foil: She's a foil to the four members of the Rocketry Research Association.
- She's the club president of her school's equivalent, but unlike Umika she's confident enough to give a speech in public.
- She's somewhat scatterbrained like Yuu, but she's also a Genius Ditz whereas Yuu is just The Ditz.
- She's as sweet and polite as Haruno, but she has the technical knowledge about rocketry that Haruno lacks.
- She's a model rocket otaku like Matataki, but she doesn't have Matataki's bitter, sarcastic attitude.
- Friendly Rivalry: Despite being the RRA's chief competition in model rocket competitions, Kei and the SRDC she's in charge of are both extremely nice and helpful, and she's always willing to give Umika both moral and technical advice.
- Genius Ditz: Capable of amazing mechanical feats, yet totally helpless when it comes to remembering her wallet or keeping straight how much money she owes Matataki.
- Privileged Rival: She heads the model rocketry club at a well-funded, science-focused high school and she has the kind of resources, education, and opportunities the Rocket Research Association can only dream of. Despite that, she's very approachable and always willing to give the RRA a helping hand whenever she can.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: It's not made obvious, since she rarely appears in color pages (and her character traits are usually associated with blondes in Kirara manga), but her hair is a very light pink and she's also one of the nicest, most helpful characters.
- Stellar Name: Her name, if literally translated, would be on the tone of "Comet Autumn-moon."
Neon Teruya & Michiru Yuugumo
"Neon-senpai! We have visitors coming! Can't you clean up a little?"
"Can't we just lay out candy or something?"
"They're Kei-senpai's orders, too!"
"I see someone's asking to get tickled again! Here we gooo~!"
"Kyaaa!"
"Can't we just lay out candy or something?"
"They're Kei-senpai's orders, too!"
"I see someone's asking to get tickled again! Here we gooo~!"
"Kyaaa!"
— Chapter 27, "Promise Mission"
Voiced by: Natsumi Kawaida (Neon) & Miku Itō (Michiru)
Kei's colleagues in the Space Research & Development Club.
- Camera Fiend: Michiru runs the SDRC's social media account, so she's usually depicted toting her phone around and recording everything.
- Cute Little Fang: Neon sports one, to accompany her impish personality.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: When Michiru gets uptight and fussy, Neon tickles her to put her in her place.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Both of them are experienced model rocket engineers who helped their school win the championship.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Neon is a laidback slob with yellow hair and lime green tips, Michiru is an upright control freak with dark purple hair.
- Slobs Versus Snobs:
- Neon has her collar undone and her school tie loosened, while Michiru's uniform is always neat and perfect.
- In chapter 27, Michiru chastises Neon for not cleaning up the club room for the Rocketry Research Association's visit. Neon just asks if they put out candy instead.
Family
Honami Konohoshi
"Onee-chan is in her fantasy world again."
— Chapter 6, "Explosive Mechanic"
Voiced by: Hina Yomiya
Umika's sister, who seems to have gotten all the confidence and people-skills her sibling missed out on. Often has snarky thoughts about her sister, though it's clear she does love her and wants her to improve.
- Deadpan Snarker: Her role is mainly to observe her sister's clumsy incompetence and offer a few tsukkomi-like barbs from the sidelines when appropriate. However, she mostly keeps them to herself, since she knows her timid sister isn't mentally equipped to handle it.
- Mature Younger Sibling: She's far more level-headed than her sister. In a flashback, Umika cowered in fear behind an unfazed Hona while fireworks went off. Later, Umika barges in on Hona's bath to ask her for help not being scared when igniting the gunpowder for her model rocket. Hona immediately points out that it wouldn't work in a bathroom since everything is wet.
- Not So Stoic: Although Honami is ordinarily very deadpan and has it all together (much more so than her sister), she does sparkle with excitement and clutch a stuffed dolphin at the thought of going to the aquarium with their mom.
- Shared Family Quirks:
- She complains about her sister scooping up Gray-themed goods, yet she totes a pair of Gray-themed slippers around the house and wears the "Alien" T-shirt Umika bought in chapter 9.
- Although she and Umika seem like they're worlds apart, both of them have difficulties communicating with other people. In Honami's case, after watching her sister struggle with it, she found it easier to just not bother in the first place.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: In chapter 46.1, she speculates that she became a detached, emotionless young woman specifically as a reaction to witnessing her older sister's struggles.
- When She Smiles: In chapter 46.1, Honami fondly thinks about how her sister has been giving off more dazzling smiles after starting the RRA.
Mrs. Konohoshi
"[Blushing] Umika had a secret sleepover with a friend ..."
— Chapter 34, "Transparent Screen"
The mother of Umika and Honami, who works at an aquarium.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: She just wants her daughter to have friends. When Yuu appears in Umika's bedroom in the middle of the night (claiming she teleported), Mrs. Konohoshi bends over backwards to make Yuu feel welcome and gives the two of them plenty of space — even shepherding Honami on an impromtu trip to the aquarium — so her daughter and Yuu can grow their friendship.
- Irony: Her daughter is obsessed with space, and yet she works in an aquarium — the ocean being in the exact opposite direction from outer space.
- Mom Looks Like a Sister: This is a Kirara manga, so Konohoshi-san is a little taller than her middle school-aged daughter Hona, but otherwise there's zero sign of age-related differences.
- Shipper on Deck: She's very quick to (friend)ship Umika and Yuu when Yuu shows up for an impromptu sleepover in chapter 34.
- Water Is Womanly: She's a doting and nurturing mother, she works in an aquarium, and she gave both of her daughters water-themed names. Presumably, she also bought Honami her stuffed dolphin and her "Swim!" T-shirt.
Mr. Raimon
Matataki's father, from whom she got her mechanical skills.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite their volatile relationship, he leaves a (poorly-cooked) meal for Matataki when she's depressed. She then complains to herself that he's only nice at times like that.
- Dads Can't Cook: He tries to make toast for Matataki, but it's all charred and lumpy looking, so he sticks on a Post-It saying he can't make them as well as her mother does.
- Dysfunctional Family: Matataki claims a family argument over gunpowder safety involves flinging power tools at each other.
- The Faceless: All we see of him is his hand, leaving a meal for Matataki when she's depressed.
- Gadgeteer Genius: He's implied to be where Matataki got her skills from.
Akikazu Takaragi
"Your grandpa doesn't lie."
— Chapter 26, "Loser Goggles"
Haruno's grandfather, who used to tend to the lighthouse before he passed away.
- AM/FM Characterization: He's introduced asking Haruno if she wants to listen to jazz on the radio, implying he's old-fashioned but free-spirited and knows how to chill out.
- Chekhov's Hobby: In his one flashback scene, he was strongly associated with a radio playing jazz, and Haruno later mentions he used to collect and fix up antique radios ... which has more than a little connection to the mystery of Yuu's backstory. One of those radios puts the girls in touch with an alleged alien from the same race as Yuu, who claims Akikazu was part of a scholarly exchange of information between races.
- Posthumous Character: He died before the story starts, but the lighthouse he tended is central to the overarching mystery of Yuu's origins, and so is the crystal radio he may have used to contact aliens.
- The Reveal: According to the supposedly-alien voice on the crystal radio, he made contact with extraterrestrials as part of a scholarly exhange of information.
- Secret Legacy: He was a big influence on Haruno's current personality — particularly the way she tirelessly devotes herself to enabling others to follow their dreams. But, with some sadness, he says he abandoned his own dream and hid it away inside the lighthouse. When Haruno follows the trail of clues in the present day, she discovers he may have communicated with Yuu's homeworld, and that she may be following in his footsteps in more ways than she realized.
