SpeciaL A Characters
Ranked first in school, Kei is the son of the CEO of Takishima Corporation. As Hikari's undefeated rival, he likes to refer to her as "Number Two", which never fails to provoke her. He has a
photographic memory and the ability to do anything right on his first try. He usually prefers to do things on his own until Hikari shows him how much fun it can be to work together with others. Kei loves Hikari, a fact that he does not deny, and has loved her since they were children. However, he has not confessed his love to her because he knows that Hikari does not understand those feelings and would think that he is referring to a love between friends. Although he is stoic most of the time and always maintains a calm facade, things involving Hikari can bring intense anxiety out of him. It always bothers him whenever Hikari pushes herself too hard or causes trouble, but her strong will and determination are the reasons why he admires and respects her. He makes several attempts to express his feelings to Hikari.
Ryuu holds the 7th position in school, although his test scores are a poor reflection of his intellectual prowess. He is in 7th place mainly because of the twins - Megumi tends to fall asleep and Jun becomes bored during the test, which results in Ryuu focusing the part of his attention on them instead of his own exam. He has been close to Megumi and Jun since they were very young; it is evident that he cares for the twins very much and that the three of them see each other as family. An even-tempered and kindhearted person, Ryuu loves animals and is good with children. He is also the first amongst the S.A to discover, by accident, Finn's true gender, a secret that few people in the world know, and appears to be developing feelings for her. He is the son of the CEO of a sports company and one of his family's clients is Yahiro's family.
Akira holds the 6th position in school and is the daughter of the owner of an airline company. She is very fond of Hikari and cute girls, but does not get along with Kei in particular. Akira is very enthusiastic about her
afternoon tea, and has even constructed her own kitchen on campus. Akira apparently loves Tadashi, but never seems to hold back when hitting him for teasing her.
Megumi is ranked 4th in school and is Jun's older twin sister. She is the daughter of a famous vocalist and music producer and shares her brother's love of music. A cute and nice girl who rarely joins in disputes, Megumi is always quiet and refuses to speak because she wants to save her voice for singing. She usually writes on a sketchpad to communicate with others, but will speak when deeply upset (usually in the form of a shout), which can generally have devastating after-effects. She rarely speaks to people normally on a consistent basis with the exception of Yahiro, who encourages her to sing. Although her singing usually has disastrous effects, Yahiro theorizes that she probably sings very well, but that it needs to be in an open area and at a great distance - eventually demonstrating that she has an amazingly beautiful voice. While he had initially ordered her to during a "game" in which she was trying to make him happy, she eventually begins to do so under her own volition and gradually develops feelings for him. Like Jun, she is very close to Ryuu; she can be fiercely protective of them both, and thinks of Ryuu as much of her family as her brother. Megumi also happens to be bad at sports and dislikes them.
Jun is ranked 3rd in school and is Megumi's younger twin brother. The son of a music producer and a talented singer, Jun loves music more than anything else, but ironically has little talent for music. Usually quiet and kindhearted, Jun has a
split personality which he has concealed from everyone except Megumi and Ryuu. Triggered whenever he is kissed by a girl or receives a lot of affection, he becomes irresistible to nearly all women and is able to charm them effortlessly. His split personality resulted from an hypnotism program that Jun watched as a child and first emerged when he was still in grade six. During a date with a girl, he changed and all the other girls around him became mesmerized by him; this led the girl Jun was dating to hate him and call him disgusting. After he begins dating Sakura, Jun's alternate personality emerges whenever he sees her; however, because Sakura accepts him regardless of his personalities, Jun is able to reciprocate her feelings for him. The only thing that can bring Jun back to his original self is by losing consciousness.
innocent and carefree, Tadashi is ranked 5th in school. His mother, a fierce and intimidating woman, is the director of the school and the primary reason why he is in the SA; she told him he would be allowed to do whatever he wanted if he became a member of the SA. He suffers from
wanderlust and frequently likes to vanish on some journey and return later for special school events. Tadashi is smarter than he looks and acts, though is usually the character who is most often comically attacked (frequently by Akira and Kei) because of his careless comments or reckless behavior. He loves Akira, but often makes rude, weird, stupid or inappropriat
e comments that provoke her to beat him up. Tadashi also seems to enjoy playing with puppets, is fond of Akira's cooking, and appears to like being beaten up by her.
Hikari is the protagonist of the story. She holds the 2nd position in school for having the best grades. Self-proclaimed as Kei Takishima's greatest competitor, she is determined to beat him in any kind of competition. Stubborn, proud and hot-headed, Hikari never backs down from a challenge, especially one from Kei, because she is constantly looking for an opportunity to surpass him, though has never done so. She is good at sports and academics, but she is very bad at teaching and cooking. Although she can handle her own in a fight (often against boys), Kei, nonetheless, gets irritated whenever she puts herself in danger. A kindhearted girl who always worries about others, Hikari sometimes lacks commonsense and tends to be unaware towards how people regard her. Her optimistic personality, straightforwardness, and tendency to always see the good in people sometimes prevents her from realizing the more subtle aspects of relationships. Although Hikari is rather sensitive to others, she is quite dense when it comes to love. She is oblivious to the romantic feelings Kei has for her, though everyone else knows that Kei is in love with her. In volume four, Hikari begins to fall in love with Kei, though she does not realize it until volume six. In chapter 38 Hikari realizes that she is the only one who calls Kei by his last name, Takashima, and tries to make herself say Kei. She tries but says other things, such as "Kero". It's not until Kei tells her facts that make her say "Kei" is she then able to call Kei by his first name, though she still says "Takishima" after her dad tells her that when she was little, she said the day she calls him "Kei" will be the day she gets married to him, which will never happen.
They eventually admit their feelings for one another and become a couple in chapter 53.
Chiyo Mihama is a child prodigy, having skipped five grades to 10th grade at the start of the series, yet she is still top of the class. Such grade-skipping would be unthinkable in Japan, and the series humorously explores its potential consequences. The other characters find Chiyo amazingly cute, but sometimes take advantage of both her youthfulness and her scholastic abilities. Her diminutive stature leads to her having a lack of confidence, particularly in sports where she fears she is a burden to others. Chiyo is frequently viewed with jealousy by fellow students, initially because of her intelligence, but later also because of the discovery that her family is exceedingly wealthy The stylistic rendering of Chiyo's pigtails allow for several visual gags in both the manga and anime: Osaka often imagines them to be flapping wings, or even entities independent of Chiyo herself. At home, she can almost always be found in the company of her enormous dog, Tadakichi-san. Of all of the girls, she is the only one who does not sit through college entrance exams, as she intends to study overseas, possibly in America.
Tomo Takino is extremely energetic and competitive, despite being nonathletic and a slacker at the same time. She tends to irritate everyone around her, especially Yomi, who has been her classmate since elementary school. Tomo's character is extremely impulsive and never considers nor cares about the consequences of anything she says or does. During the second trip to Chiyo's summer house, Tomo actually grabbed Chiyo's house keys and threw them into the forest because she wanted to see what would happen if they had lost them which, of course, was a very bad idea. However, on the occasions when Tomo has actually been inspired to concentrate on something, she has demonstrated that she is quite capable. She succeeded in gaining the grades needed to qualify for the same high school as Yomi, though it was only after Yomi ridiculed her and openly said that there was no way that she could do so. Once Tomo began attending high school however, she returned to her lackadaisical ways.
Koyomi Mizuhara commonly known as Yomi, is a grade-school friend and general antithesis of Tomo. She is the voice of reason of the series, carrying herself as the most mature and serious of the group. Though smart and athletic, she is constantly dissatisfied with herself due to her weight and is always trying various diets in an effort to become thinner. She can never seem to stick to these diets however, as she finds herself constantly tempted by her favorite foods. Another weakness of Yomi's character is that while she is above average in everything else, she is an awful singer, yet karaoke is one of her favorite pastimes. While usually functioning as Tomo's "straight man", she sometimes manifests a rather cruel sense of humor, such as tricking the cat-tongued Osaka into eating an extremely spicy croquette. Compared to most of her peers, Yomi uses more masculine Japanese speech patterns, especially when dealing with Tomo's antics. Yomi also has an uppercut that Tomo is usually on the receiving end of whenever she pushes Yomi too far. However, even though she likes to think that she is well above the immature behavior of some of her classmates, Yomi has demonstrated on certain occasions that she can be just as childish as the rest of the characters, such as trying to get Chiyo to infuse a shrine charm with some of her intelligence so that she could pass her college entrance exams.
Sakaki is a tall, soft-spoken girl uncomfortable with her height and busty physique. Because she is so shy, she seldom speaks, and her reticence is misinterpreted as mysterious, or cool. This reputation has been compounded by the fact that most of the school's sports teams try to recruit her every year in the story because of her natural athletic ability but, for the most part, she has no real interest in sports. In contrast to what the other students think of her, Sakaki is in reality a very emotionally sensitive person who holds a secret longing for all things cute. She loves cats, but the neighborhood cats dislike her, and her parents do not allow cats in their house because of her mother's allergies. Sakaki ends up spending a lot of time with Chiyo upon finding out that Chiyo's dog, Mr. Tadakichi, will let her pet him. This friendship actually shows the irony of their circumstances, as Sakaki wishes she looked more like Chiyo and Chiyo wishes that she looked more like Sakaki . Later in the series, Sakaki also befriends an Iriomote kitten that she meets on a side trip to Iriomote Island during a class trip to Okinawa. Later, the kitten loses its mother and proceeds to seek out Sakaki in Tokyo. Since Sakaki was in danger with the neighbor cat leader and the cat's kitty band, the kitten saves her and they soon become close friends.
Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga commonly known as Osaka is a transfer student from Osaka. Tomo, expecting her to act like the stereotypical Osakan quickly chose for her the nickname "Osaka", although Ayumu's behavior could not be more different from the "typical" Osakan. Ayumu considers her label "too simple" and "icky," but she lacks the energy or motivation to dispute it. Unlike the stereotypical Osakan, she seems slow and easily distracted, but she merely has a mind that works quite differently than most people. This makes her prone to daydreaming, absentmindedness, and non-sequiturs, but it also makes her unusually good at answering very specific types of riddles. She is also easily amused by things that most people would consider bizarre. During the Sports Festival, she had made a big deal out of running the obstacle course because she thought the event of sticking her face in flour to get a piece of candy was funny and had a giggle fit when she got there. The manga also revealed that she actually likes to run outside and play in typhoons. Her unusual way of thinking gives her a very vivid imagination and a unique way of seeing the world.
