This page lists the characters of Tsurune, with names are in Western order. Due to wiki policy, all trope names are visible and may contain spoilers, especially for the novel series. (The anime only follows the plot of volume 1.)
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Kazemai High School Archery Club
Boys
Minato Narumiya
Voiced by: Yūto Uemura (Japanese), Bryson Baugus (English)
- 10-Minute Retirement: Minato injures his thumb during the finals, and in volume 2, Masaki bans him from entering the club until it is healed. In the anime, this was changed to Masaki banning him from the club because he is unable to figure out why his team lost the national qualifiers.
- Color-Coded Characters: Green.
- Even the Guys Want Him: In the books, Nanao remarks that Minato is popular with both genders. It certainly can't be denied that several of the male characters are strongly fixated on him.
- Experienced Protagonist: He had been doing archery since elementary school.
- Friend to All Living Things: Masaki's owl and Seiya's dog both really like Minato. After news gets out that a boar broke into the hotel Minato was staying at, Nikaido says, "That's Minato for you. He's liked by all kinds of things."
- Height Angst: Seems to have a little of this, as he is somewhat annoyed by Ryohei being taller than him.
- Heroic BSoD: Masaki gets severely injured trying to protect Minato from an oncoming truck. This causes Minato to break down and he even admits if Masaki had died, he would die too.
- Mandatory Unretirement: Zigzagged. Initially he is asked by Seiya, Ryohei and Tomi-sensei to join the club as he is one of the few students at school who has archery experience. However, he refuses them and runs off. Then Ryohei manages to convince him to go to the club's first session, but he ends up running away again because of his hayake. And then finally, he decides to come back to archery in order to face his issues.
- Missing Mom: Minato's mother died from a car accident.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Shown in during the club training camp to be the only person who is competent enough to get through a shopping list. Justified as Minato has to pitch in most of the household work after his mother dies in a car accident.
- Scars Are Forever: Minato has a scar on his left hip from the same car accident that killed his mother.
Seiya Takehaya
Voiced by: Aoi Ichikawa (Japanese), Gareth West (English)
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Oh so much. While he is fairly protective of Minato in the light novels and does carry the same guilt with him, the situation is is resolved fairly quickly by Minato simply confronting him about it, he doesn't struggle with Minato relying on other people nearly as much and doesn't hate Masa-san for his involvement with Minato either. Besides this, he very clearly states he loves archery and isn't just doing it for Minato, is much less codependent and arguably pulls away from Minato himself by getting fairly close to Kaito later on.
- The Atoner: Seiya blames himself for the death of Minato's mother, so he takes it upon himself to watch over him closely.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: In an outing with the guys, Seiya admits to using a homemade spice blend whenever he eats out. He said this as he sprinkled the powder over a ramen he ordered, turning a broth into a bright red. The others were... shocked, to say the least, with Nanao and Ryohei getting the special mention.
- Cannot Tell a Joke: Light novel Seiya's jokes have thr power to instantly freeze any situation completely because of how bad they are.
- Color-Coded Characters: Blue.
- Friendship Trinket: Seiya still has the box of Pucky that Minato gave him when they first met.
- The Glasses Come Off: For more practical reasons rather than for plain looks' sake. Seiya wears contacts only when doing archery because his glasses get caught in the bowstring when he draws and the string would send them flying. Other than that, he prefers the latter because he has dry eyes.
- Green-Eyed Monster: In the anime, Seiya is jealous of Masaki for being the one to bring Minato back to archery. He even tells Masaki he hates him for this. Notably, this does not happen in the light novels.
- Heroic BSoD: After Shu's Armor-Piercing Response in episode 8, Seiya mostly keeps to himself as his performance drops drastically.
- Hidden Depths: He's a lot more cunning that he looks, such as making his own plans behind Minato's back to get him to do archery again.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Seiya blames himself for being the reason why Minato and his mother got into a car accident, which ended up killing Minato's mother.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Polite, well-tempered and most mature among all of the boys in the club despite his affluent upbringing as the only son of a doctor who owns a clinic and hospital. Judging from his quiet and introverted nature, he may have had a friendless background, save for Minato.
- My Greatest Failure: On the day Minato and his mother got into a car accident, Seiya had briefly spotted them and stopped them on the road to talk, and he believes that if he hadn't done that, then Minato's mother would have been alive.
- Nice Guy: He is quite affable, in contrast to Kaito.
- Non-Indicative Name: Seiya named his dog Bear. Ryohei actually thought Seiya owned a bear when he first heard about it.
- Odd Friendship: Develops one with Kaito of all people later in the light novels. Despite their contrasting personalities they are almost never seen without the other.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Seiya wears classes and he scored at the top of the class.
- The Strategist: Predictably ends up being the one in charge of planing.
- Stalker without a Crush: The crush part is debatable and the "stalker" part was a joke from Ryohei and Nanao, but Seiya has freely admitted he followed Minato from Kirisaki to Kazemai, despite Kirisaki being the better school of the two. One of the chat room conversations posted on Tsurune's official Twitter account also has Seiya casually mention that he can see Minato's room from his window.
- This is toned up significantly in the anime while his light novels counterpart acts more like Minato's mom than anything else.
- Student Council President: He was the student council president in middle school.
- Tranquil Fury:
- In episode 4, after the boys lose the mock tournament, they're punished to weeding the lawn. When Kaito tries to blame it on Minato, Seiya smiles and says, "Was that a personal attack?" while holding his sickle out.
- In volume 2 of the light novels, Kaito accidentally knocks off Seiya's glasses and breaks them during a confrontation with a former senpai of Seiya and Minato and Seiya's resulting stare, while not overly angry, is absolutely icy to the point it scares everyone in the room and resolves the situation all on its own.
Ryohei Yamanouchi
Voiced by: Ryōta Suzuki (Japanese), Gabriel Regojo (English)
- Apologetic Attacker: Ryohei used to do kendo but quit because he didn't like hurting his opponents (even if they are wearing protective gear). Also, when he knocks out a wild boar that nearly kills Nanao, the first thing he does is freak out about possibly killing the boar, as he loves animals.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Although all of the boys are of the same age, Ryouhei acts most like this. Both Minato and Seiya, his childhood friends, think that he acts like an "annoying youngest sibling", although he is an only child.
- Birds of a Feather: He gets along great with Nanao due to their similarly cheerful personalities.
- Color-Coded Characters: Orange.
- Everybody Hates Math: Ryohei often brings up how much trouble he has with math in social media posts and the novels.
- Friend to All Children: Ryohei hits it off with Shu's family really fast, especially with his sister, Sae.
- Friend to All Living Things: Ryohei loves animals and confesses so when he accidentally knocks out a wild boar. He freaks out about possibly killing it and spends time soothing it as help arrives.
- Hero Worship: To Minato and Seiya. He looks up to Minato's bravery and Seiya's intelligence.
- Keet: Ryohei is one of the most energetic members of the archery team next to Nanao.
- Naïve Newcomer: Ryohei is not only one of the first-years on the team, but he also has the least experience.
- One Head Taller: Ryohei is the tallest member of the group.
- Sweet Tooth: Ryohei prefers eating sweet food.
- The Watson: Because descriptions are more visual in the anime compared t the novel, Ryohei's Naïve Newcomer nature is often exploited so that the series can explain the rules and customs of kyudo to the audience.
- Youthful Freckles: His character model in the anime has a slight sprinkle of freckles on his face.
Nanao Kisaragi
Voiced by: Shogo Yano (Japanese), Clint Bickham (English)
- Animals Hate Him: Nanao mentions that Kaito's cat, Lucy, hates him.
- Animal Motifs: Nanao is associated with frogs. He has a lot of frog keychains and in chapter 1, he claims his room is full of frogs.
- Art Shift: In the light novels, his hair was tapered down to his neck. The anime changed his hairstyle a little by making it spiky at the end.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Nanao is gentle and friendly towards everyone, but even he has limits. In the novels, he scolds one of his fangirls for sneaking into their training camp, and when she insists he quit out of being jealous of the female members of the club, he tells her that he no longer trusts her and that she's basically dead to him ("I've immediately gone cold to you").
- In volume 2, Nanao almost beats up three third-year boys for mocking him and Kaito if it weren't for Ryohei intervening at the last minute.
- The Charmer: Nanao knows the right things to say to girls when they get upset without causing them to antagonize each other. He's also quite flirtatious with girls.
- Chick Magnet: Girls have flocked to him ever since he was little because of his natural charisma. In kindergarten, girls had fights over him. He even has his own fan club in high school. Only the girls in the Kyudo Club are exasperated with him.
- Color-Coded Characters: Pink.
- The Gadfly: He enjoys messing with Kaito, but at the same time, it manages to distract everyone from feeling upset.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Nanao's Catchphrase greeting is "Merha!", which is short for "merhaba" ("hello" in Turkish). In chapter 3, he suggests speaking in Russian, and the reason why he does so is because he thinks it's fun using foreign words to be unique.
- Hidden Depths: He actually knows quite a lot about kyudo and works hard at it.
- Instant Fan Club: He attracts tons of girls from the word "go" when he enters high school. They all try to follow him into the kyudo club but ultimately end up dropping out and remain at the periphery of all non-kyudo related activities Nanao does at school.
- Memento MacGuffin: Nanao treasures the baseball cap Kaito and his sisters gave him as a birthday gift and also wears it on his school bag. In the anime, during the training camp episode, the wind blows it into the river, and Minato and Kaito both resolve their differences to bring it back to him and help each other. In the novel, Kaito isn't present when Minato saves Nanao's cap, but the next morning, he thanks him for it.
Kaito Onogi
Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese), Courtland Johnson (English)
- Becoming the Mask: Nanao wonders if his current bad attitude was because he was so used to people treating him like he's scary that he ended up acting that way.
- Berserk Button: Being called "Kacchan", especially by Nanao. Also, people who don't take archery seriously.
- Color-Coded Characters: Red.
- Defrosting Ice King: His personality gradually becomes more amiable.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Nanao calls him "Kacchan", which he hates.
- Face of a Thug: Has an unfriendly looking face. His mother and aunts exploit this to make him Nanao's bodyguard/keeper, and it worked. He's also the reason why all the newcomer boys in the club left.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Has the biggest temper issues among his teammates.
- Hidden Depths: Despite his hotheaded personality, Kaito actually cares a lot about the philosophy behind kyudo, and one of his hobbies is listed as reading. In the books he's also shown to be very observant and good at reading people, as well (though he mostly just observes Seiya).
- Hot-Blooded: He takes kyudo very seriously (though to be fair, most people who do kyudo do take it seriously). This is part of the reason why he was never chosen to take part in team competitions, as his teammates are only doing it for fun.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he is unpleasant on the surface, he does have some standards. He's rude to his teammates at times, but he easily comes to their defense when other people, like the Sugawara twins, make fun of them.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Has a cat named Lucy and is fundamentally a kind person beneath his rough exterior.
- Odd Friendship: Develops one with Seiya of all people later in the light novels. Despite their contrasting personalities they are almost never seen without the other.
- Sleep Cute: In volume 2 Seiya thinks Kaito's sleeping face is like that of an angel.
- Tsundere: Frequently acts this way. Lampshaded by the other characters in the Kazemai Chat Room extras.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Minato suddenly calls Kaito by his first name in episode 12 when he asks him to stop focusing on Masaki's advice during the prefecturals, whereas up until then, he had called him by his last name.
Girls
Rika Seo
Voiced by: Yo Taichi (Japanese), Avery Smithhart (English)
- Tomboy: Seo is described as being "cooler than any boy" in chapter 3.
Noa Shiragiku
Voiced by: Ayaka Nanase (Japanese), Elissa Cuellar (English)
- Hime Cut: Her character description mentions she has a hime hair cut.
Yuuna Hanazawa
Voiced by: Miyuri Shimabukuro (Japanese), Savanna Menzel (English)
Staff
Masaki Takigawa
Voiced by: Shintarō Asanuma (Japanese), Joe Daniels (English)
- Adaptational Modesty: In the novels, he's completely shirtless in the scene where Minato first meets him.
- Cute Owl: Takes care of one he named Fuu.
- Does Not Like Spam: His least liked food is listed to be eggplants. Apparently, it's due to their texture.
- Heroic Build: Has a decently muscular build.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Right before the prefecturals, Masaki gets into a near-fatal car accident while trying to save Minato from an oncoming truck. This was changed in the anime, where Masaki gets into a car accident off-screen en route to visiting his grandfather's friend.
- Mistaken for Afterlife: Minato initially thinks he's dead after an old woman tells him that he died. Actually, it turns out a man named Takizawa had died, and she had mixed up their identities.
- Mr. Fanservice: Already in his first appearance, he provides discernible Female Gaze.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He realizes that by asking Seiya the same question that his grandfather asked him, he has taken on the same role in pushing someone to examine their relationship with archery in spite of his vow to never act in such a cold and distant manner towards his students.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: His grandfather passed away while they were giving each other the silent treatment over their differing views in archery. Masa-san has regretted that ever since, which was what prompted him to shoot ten-thousand arrows in order to honor his grandfather's spirit and make peace with himself.
- Scars Are Forever: Masaki has a scar on his forehead from saving Minato in volume 1.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Over 6ft tall? Check. Dark hair? Check. Is a well-built hunk to boot? Oh, yes!
- Workout Fanservice: At the end of the first episode, when Minato accidentally gets a chance to see Masaki in action.
Tomio Morioka
Voiced by: Katsumi Suzuki (Japanese), Ty Mahany (English)
- Cool Old Guy: A kind, skilled senior archer.
- Handicapped Badass: His old age and chronic back pain prevent him from taking on full-time duties of mentoring the club. When his back does feel well, he displays near flawless skill in archery.
Kirisaki High School Archery Club
Shuu Fujiwara
Voiced by: Kensho Ono (Japanese), Scott Gibbs (English)
- Big Brother Instinct: Shuu has a younger sister named Sae and he dotes on her a lot. He bonds with Ryohei over this.
- Brutal Honesty: His Armor-Piercing Response to Seiya in episode 8.
- But Not Too Foreign: He's a quarter-English because of his English grandfather. He is frequently noted to have an un-Japanese appearance, but he is the only person in his family who displays these traits as a result of Mendelian genetics.
- Color-Coded Eyes: His violet eyes denote his incredible archery skills and his noble bearing.
- Foil: To Seiya. Both young men come from distinguished backgrounds, are loners by choice, talented, well-tempered, educated, emotionally mature, and close friends of Minato. The big difference is that while Seiya is more emotional, Shuu is more stoic and avoids emotionality.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Purely phlegmatic. He is peaceful, quiet, and easy-going, yet try to downplay their emotions. He is also quite dispassionate, a very characteristic trait in phlegmatics.
- Graceful Loser: In both the anime and the novel, Shu congratulates Minato on beating him and his team at the prefectural tournament. In the anime he's smiling the whole time, too.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- When Minato developed target panic in middle school, Shu did feel sorry for him. At the same time, to his shame, he couldn't help but feel a bit superior because it made him the best archer on the team. He also believes that he might have wanted to live Minato's life since Minato was very close to his mother.
- He's also jealous of other important people in Minato's life. When he sees Minato watching Masaki, for example, he jealously thinks "It has to be me Minato is looking at with awe." This may also explain his rudeness towards Seiya.
- Lonely at the Top: Shuu has always been perceived as exceptionally talented, but that created a distance between him and other people. Lampshaded by Tomi-sensei in the novel, who says "The people who stand at the top are always lonely" in reference to Shuu.
- Lonely Rich Kid: He is presumed to come from a distinguished family, and is an estranged and introverted young man.
- Meaningful Name: The character in Shuu's name means "sorrow", and he is described as having "pale eyelashes tinged with sorrow."
- Missing Mom: Shuu inherited his grandfather's genes and looks different from the rest of his family, to the point where his mom ignores him because he looks nothing like her.
- Nice Guy: Despite his aloof, somewhat cold demeanor, Shuu is unquestionably polite, even-tempered, and easy-going. At one point, he even apologizes to Kaito for a very trivial matter.
- Princely Young Man: Shuu is often referred to as a prince, especially since he has an "un-Japanese" appearance and comes from a distinguished family.
- The Rival: Ultimately the main antagonist of Season 1. He's the primary opponent focused on in terms of Kazemai vs Kirisaki, primarily because of his connection to Minato and Seiya, and his status as the most talented of Kirisaki's team.
- The Stoic: He rarely shows what he is thinking on his face. Besides him not looking like her, his mother also finds Shu difficult to relate to because he almost never shows emotion.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Shu is stoic for the most part, but he is also well-mannered and easy-going.
- Worthy Opponent: Shuu considers Minato as the only person who understands him best and worthy enough to be his rival.
Senichi & Manji Sugawara
Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Senichi), Kōhei Amasaki (Manji) (Japanese); Greg Cote (Senichi), Anthony Hunter (Manji) (English)
Senichi
Manji
A pair of first-year twins at Kirisaki High School. Senichi is the older twin and Banji the younger.- Break the Haughty: They become more sympathetic after Manji develops target panic.
- Identical Twin Id Tag: Senichi's bangs are parted to the left, and Manji's bangs are parted to the right.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After making fun of Minato's target panic, one of them end up getting it too.
- Numerical Theme Naming: Senichi (1000) and Manji (10000).
- Trash Talk: They do this to Kazemai at the prefectural qualifiers.
- Trickster Twins: A duo of identical twins who equally relish in making fun of their opponents.
Hiroki Motomura
Voiced by: Takuma Terashima (Japanese), Mike Haimoto (English)
- Nice Guy: He is kind and helpful to everyone, even those he don't know.
- Odd Friendship: With Sase. In spite of his serious nature, Hiroki has no problems with Sase's Otaku tendencies.
Daigo Sase
Voiced by: Yu Miyazaki (Japanese), Adam Gibbs (English)
- Odd Friendship: With Motomura. Despite of being interested foremost in Noririn, Sase still likes the company of the more serious Motomura.
- Otaku: An idol otaku, specifically of one idol nicknamed Noririn.
Tsujimine High School Archery Club
Eisuke Nikaidou
Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama
A second year at Tsujimine High School and the real brains behind the archery club. He went to the same middle school as Minato, Seiya, and Shuu, and holds a personal grudge against them.- The Ace: Despite his personal flaws and narcissism, Eusuke is perhaps the most capable archer out of all the boys, possibly even more so than Minato and Shuu. Several characters, including Masaki and Minato himself, comment on how skilled he is in kyudo, even without formal coaching. If he continues to perfect his skills in kyudo and receives formal guidance, he will most likely surpass Minato and Shuu.
- Adaptation Personality Change: In the anime, he is more collected and calm.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Behind his smiling facade, he harbors a special personal grudge against Minato and Shuu.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Shuu. Unlike Shuu, he takes his rivalry towards Minato on a much more personal level.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of what it means to be The Ace. As an individual, Eisuke fits the mold of the ace coming from a poor background, particularly in contrast to Shuu. However, he is an incredibly talented archer who formed a club for himself and made it to the national level without a coach's supervision. Unfortunately, he is also incredibly resentful and self-centered, only interested in winning to then retire from kyudo. If his target weren't motivated by a childish grudge fueled by his adolescent stubbornness and rebelliousness, he would likely be an incredibly talented archer.
- Hates Rich People: He and his team are relatively small and have a much less elaborate archery club, which puts him at odds with the prestigous Kazemai. He always has something to say about the privilege they have both as club members and for Minato as a student of Saionji. Shuu, who's implied to have come from a poorer background before being adopted, takes none of Nikaidou's attitude.
- It's Personal: To Nikaidou, his animosity towards Saionji's students stems from what happened to his beloved uncle when Nikaidou was a child. He loved his uncle's archery and was proud of his career, but the stigma of being rejected by an esteemed archer like Saionji, coupled with his uncle's failing health, put an indefinite hold on it. Nikaidou then makes it his personal mission to beat all of Saionji's students, especially Minato. None of them feel the same way.
- Jerkass: His superficial charm is just a facade to hide the resentment he holds towards Minato and Shuu. He only thinks about himself, winning, being the best, and getting revenge on those who have provoked his rather childish grudges. When he and Minato get stuck in the elevator, he goes as far as admitting to Minato that he only used his teammates to his advantage.
- Prone to Sunburn: Because he has a skin condition, he always wears a hoodie.
- The Rival: Towards Minato and Shuu. Although, unlike the aforementioned, he takes the rivalry on a much more personal level.
- Shoutout: It's hard to hear his voice in Japanese without thinking of Lelouch vi Britannia, considering that they share the same voice actor and some similarities in personality.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: At the end of volume 2, Nikaido gets trapped in an elevator with Minato and has a panic attack from it.
Others
Kazuyoshi Saionji
Voiced by: Tamie Kubota (Japanese), Carli Mosier (English)
- Badass Teacher: Was one of the best archers of her generation, alongside Masaki's grandfather and Tomi-sensei.
- Cool Old Lady: A senior master of archery who was always caring about her students. During the lessons she was nothing short of supportive towards her students, but also always reminded them of their limitations, like when Minato had a small injury.
- Gender Flip: She is female in the anime, but male in the novels.
- Kimono Is Traditional: Is one of the oldest characters in the cast and wears kimono in the present.
- Renowned Selective Mentor: Downplayed on the selective part, but she didn't instantly take Minato under her wing.
- So Proud of You: In the final episode she makes a rare public appearance, just so she can personally watch her dear students whom she trained since their first days of archery.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It turns out her selectiveness can have consequences. Her rejecting Nikaido's uncle years ago seemed like a small thing, but it contributed to a threefold punch of circumstances that pretty thoroughly destroyed the man's archery career, and set Nikaido on the war path to her students.
