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This is a list of the main characters from a manga series called Kare Kano and its anime adaptation. Kare Kano is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masami Tsuda. It was serialized in LaLa from 1996 to 2005 and collected in 21 tankōbon volumes by Hakusensha.
Voiced by: Atsuko Enomoto (Japanese); Veronica Taylor (English)
Yukino Miyazawa (宮沢 雪野, Miyazawa Yukino), the female protagonist of the series, is a 15 year old who is a seemingly smart, attractive, athletic, and talented model student. Both her male and female peers express admiration for her, often asking her for help and commenting about her model-like features and characteristics.
However, her "perfect" exterior is merely a façade to hide the fact that everything she does is done solely to receive praise from others, and that she acts in a slovenly manner at home. She is a self-professed "queen of vanity", having been that way ever since childhood when her parents would praise her for the slightest actions. Yukino once practiced playing her recorder all night and ended up almost vomiting blood due to overexertion. She is described as the "anti-Girl Next Door" in an article by Newtype USA [1] because of her perfectionism and deceitfulness. With so much praise, however, she never realized her lack of real friends outside of her family and was considered by her peers as a semi-approachable "guest". Everything changes when Yukino meets Soichiro Arima, another model student, who beats her high school entrance exam score, and is even more popular and athletic than Yukino. Yukino is envious of her rival Soichiro and works hard to top his grades. When Soichiro confesses that he has a crush on her, she rejects him and laughs about it afterwards. But her observant sister Kano points out that Yukino's rivalry with him is born out of admiration. This revelation is useless, however, as Yukino accidentally lets her guard down and Soichiro discovers her real self.
After discovering that Soichiro is also maintaining a model-student façade for his own reasons, they become very good friends. Yukino resolves to abandon her fake ways and become true to herself, though she initially has some trouble letting go of her lifelong habit of pretend-perfection. Eventually, she is able to open her true self to others and earns real friends besides Soichiro. She also believes that Reiji Arima is quite handsome and wishes that Soichiro will also become that handsome. She even accepts an expensive gift from her future father-in-law. She is also depressed when she discovers that Soichiro had been lying to her about his mother and Asaba informs her of that fact. During her senior year in high school, Yukino becomes pregnant. She marries Soichiro after graduation, marrying at a young age as her parents did. Although her apparent goal in high school was to become a politician or a lawyer, it is later revealed that she wanted to be a doctor. She put the dream aside because it was financially out of her family's reach, and because Soichiro and Maho both wanted to be doctors too. After graduating high school, she becomes a housewife for a few years before going to medical school. She eventually becomes a doctor at a hospital run by the Arima family, specializing in reconstructive surgery. Sixteen years later, she is the mother of three children, a daughter named Sakura and two sons named Suoh and Ai who are fraternal twins.
Voiced by: Chihiro Suzuki (Japanese); Christopher Nicholas (English)
Soichiro Arima (有馬 総一郎, Arima Sōichirō), the male protagonist of the series, starts out as Yukino's rival at school, and ends up as her boyfriend and eventual husband . A handsome and popular boy, Soichiro excels at kendo and becomes a national champion. He is at first smitten with Yukino, unaware that she secretly hates him and constantly tries to compete with him. After unwittingly discovering that Yukino is not the model student everyone thinks she is, Soichiro blackmails her into doing his school work so that he can spend more time with her. After resolving the issue and becoming each other's first true friend, they eventually fall in love. Yukino learns that Soichiro, like her, is making an effort to "be perfect" for a reason. While Yukino is motivated by praise and vanity, Soichiro is trying to cover his "real" self, a self damaged by childhood trauma that he fears may be destructive. Yukino and Soichiro were able to find emotional sanctuary in each other. While Soichiro comes from a distinguished family of doctors, he was abandoned by his parents, who were the family's disgrace, and raised by his uncle and aunt. Fearing that he may turn "bad" like his parents, he is always trying to hide behind a mask and is constantly fighting his own demons. As with Yukino, he becomes more in touch with his true self as he falls in love with her. However, he is apprehensive of the other feelings what emerge along with his love, such as his increasing jealousy of Yukino's other friendships, her activities and her life without him. When Yukino unknowingly damages Soichiro's bond to her, he finds himself becoming jealous and afraid. So he begins to wear another facade that he hopes will fool her and protect her from his "ugly" self.
After a lifetime of striving to be "perfect", Soichiro's dark side begins to manifest itself through vengeful feelings against those that hurt him in his family, and he realizes that he has the ability to be cold and cruel. One aspect is his possessiveness of Yukino, hating for anyone but himself to be close with her. Hideaki told Takefumi that the only reason Hideaki was allowed to be friends with Yukino was because Soichiro knew that Hideaki would never fall in love with Yukino, and she would never fall in love with him. When the charade reaches such a critical point that it threatens his relationship with Yukino, she steps up to save him by opening him to a true and complete love. After a number of violent outbursts (one of which has him making love to her in the school library rather suddenly, which later has him thinking it was a rape and almost drives him mad) Soichiro finally understands that to love, he must be willing to trust and be trusted, even enduring the suffering that comes out of love. Yukino is able to convince Soichiro that she truly loves him for who he is, and that she is willing to support and suffer for him. From that point on, Soichiro truly and completely opens up to Yukino, his friends, and his beloved adopted parents. Soichiro's union with Yukino has come full circle, as both are finally free from the oppression of the conflict within themselves. Even though Soichiro cannot forget the past, he no longer allows it to control and hurt himself or anyone else.
In their senior year of high school, Yukino becomes pregnant, and after getting over the initial shock, he tells her that he is happy of the news and marries her. Sixteen years later, they have three children together; their oldest child is a daughter named Sakura, a beautiful girl who resembles him in looks and talent, and their last two children are sons named Suoh and Ai, who are fraternal twins. Although his original ambition was to follow his family's profession and become a doctor, he follows his childhood dream and becomes a policeman. He eventually becomes highly decorated police inspector and is preparing to sit for the exams of a Commissioner's promotion (at the insistence of his superiors) at the age of 30.
Soichiro was also reunited with his father, Reiji Arima, a famous jazz pianist who lives in New York but returned to Japan for a concert. Reiji threatens to harm Yukino, upsetting Soichiro, and he holds a false pistol to his forehead in the center of a park. After spending 10 days together, both father and son grew fond of each other and reestablished their bond. Soichiro spends most of his time assisting his father, and Reiji rewards him by taking him to a nice dinner with Yukino. Unfortunately, he tells Soichiro to go home because he does not feel like a father and would be better off without him. When Soichiro and Yukino are ambushed by Ryoko, wanting to meet with Reiji, he comes to their aid. He leaves for New York once the event is over, but promises to return to Soichiro the following summer. Reconnecting with his father helps Soichiro deal with his problems and heal the wounds of his childhood.
Reiji Arima (有馬 怜司, Arima Reiji) is Soichiro Arima's estranged father. Reiji was the illegitimate but favored son of the Arima patriarch, whose mother tried to drown herself and take Reiji with her. Reiji kicked her in the face to save himself, a horrific memory that haunts him for the rest of his life. He was an intelligent but twisted child and teenager, and grew close to Souji over time. His relationship with Souji's wife is cold, calling her drab and old because of his jealousy that she is married to his beloved older brother. He also manages to befriend Yukino, who mistakes him for Soichiro. Although a talented musician, he grows to lead a life of a delinquent and is seduced by a beautiful gold-digger named Ryoko, who gets pregnant. Reiji names the baby Sōichirō after his brother Souji, but has nothing else to do with the child. Years later, Reiji learns Ryoko was abusing his son and had abandoned him. Unable to care for him, Reiji gives the child to Souji and moves to New York City. There he becomes a famous jazz pianist. He returns to Japan when Soichiro is in high school and "kidnaps" him to force him to spend ten days with him and later helps protect him from Ryoko. He threatens to kill her to keep her from hurting Soichiro again, eventually allowing her to live when Soichiro stops him from shooting. In the manga, it is revealed that the person Reiji looks up to and respects the most is his brother Souji and he doesn't want to look bad when he is with Souji.
Soichiro's sadistic cousin. He and the other nameless relatives are often seen in flashbacks torturing the defenseless Soichiro. They first appear in Volume 6, when Soichiro attends a family reunion. They mock him, and then become hostile when he tries to ignore them. They are then seen in Volume 13, pondering about whether or not Soichiro was attending a wedding. When he is smug to his aunt Eiko, they attempt to beat him up in a bathroom, but he fights back, and claims that it is his time for revenge. The nameless cousins visit Soichiro's school, and they attempt to befriend him, claiming that they hate Kei, but Soichiro punches one away. They then state that he is a disgrace, and this is their final appearance. Yukino claims at the end of the story that she will get revenge on them in perfectly legal ways.
Maho's dentist boyfriend. He first meets her when he watches her lecture her friends about shoplifting, and informs her that her leg is bleeding. She then remembers him from when she explored a new street that she had never been on, mistaking him for a doorman. He claims that the vision of a pretty schoolgirl in a uniform holding flowers was an incredible sight. The two quickly become friends, and she brings him treats from her family's sweet shop. When the two are in his apartment, she confesses her feelings of love to him, disturbing him. The rest of the chapter is like a wild goose chase for the two, Maho following him around. He then tells her that she mistook friendship for love, saddening her, and time passes. She meets him again after she enrolls into high school, and he says that his headaches are coming back, and Maho vows to fix them because she wants to be a doctor. Takeshi visits the cultural festival in the manga, causing Maho to shout, knowing that he will mock her. They are also seen shopping together, and Takeshi eventually goes to New York for training. This begins the Reiji arc, because Maho visits him and they attend his concert with Kazuma and Yin and Yang. Kazuma begins to sing, and they go backstage to meet Reiji, and Takeshi exclaims that Reiji resembles somebody that they know. He is not seen again for the remaining story, his cameo in the last volume is simply Maho's profile that reads MAHO TAKESHI, proving that they got married.
Soichiro's abusive mother. In junior high, she was sexually and physically abused by her stepfather, emotionally scarring her for life. She is a gold digger who chases Reiji for money. She successfully seduces him and she gets pregnant with his baby. Thanks to her, Reiji was constantly beat up by her ex-boyfriend. She demands high amounts of money for child support, but Reiji soon realizes that she is abusive and they lose contact. She often would beat and starve Soichiro as a child, even stabbing him at one point. Children would call him a monster due to his bruises. She eventually abandons him, and works at a bar. While watching television, she learns that Soichiro won a national kendo tournament, and tells her employees that he was taken away from her as a baby. She stalks Soichiro, hoping to cash in. He eventually refuses, and she ambushes him outside of school numerous times, making Yukino jealous. Thanks to his friends, he gets away. Going home from cram school, he encounters her, and she tries to hit him with her purse covered in jewels. Shizune appears in the nick of time and blocks him, telling her to go. Ryoko appears one last time trying to meet Soichiro and Reiji, and Reiji threatens to kill her, but she is saved by Soichiro.
![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help
improve it or discuss these issues on the
talk page. (
Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
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This is a list of the main characters from a manga series called Kare Kano and its anime adaptation. Kare Kano is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masami Tsuda. It was serialized in LaLa from 1996 to 2005 and collected in 21 tankōbon volumes by Hakusensha.
Voiced by: Atsuko Enomoto (Japanese); Veronica Taylor (English)
Yukino Miyazawa (宮沢 雪野, Miyazawa Yukino), the female protagonist of the series, is a 15 year old who is a seemingly smart, attractive, athletic, and talented model student. Both her male and female peers express admiration for her, often asking her for help and commenting about her model-like features and characteristics.
However, her "perfect" exterior is merely a façade to hide the fact that everything she does is done solely to receive praise from others, and that she acts in a slovenly manner at home. She is a self-professed "queen of vanity", having been that way ever since childhood when her parents would praise her for the slightest actions. Yukino once practiced playing her recorder all night and ended up almost vomiting blood due to overexertion. She is described as the "anti-Girl Next Door" in an article by Newtype USA [1] because of her perfectionism and deceitfulness. With so much praise, however, she never realized her lack of real friends outside of her family and was considered by her peers as a semi-approachable "guest". Everything changes when Yukino meets Soichiro Arima, another model student, who beats her high school entrance exam score, and is even more popular and athletic than Yukino. Yukino is envious of her rival Soichiro and works hard to top his grades. When Soichiro confesses that he has a crush on her, she rejects him and laughs about it afterwards. But her observant sister Kano points out that Yukino's rivalry with him is born out of admiration. This revelation is useless, however, as Yukino accidentally lets her guard down and Soichiro discovers her real self.
After discovering that Soichiro is also maintaining a model-student façade for his own reasons, they become very good friends. Yukino resolves to abandon her fake ways and become true to herself, though she initially has some trouble letting go of her lifelong habit of pretend-perfection. Eventually, she is able to open her true self to others and earns real friends besides Soichiro. She also believes that Reiji Arima is quite handsome and wishes that Soichiro will also become that handsome. She even accepts an expensive gift from her future father-in-law. She is also depressed when she discovers that Soichiro had been lying to her about his mother and Asaba informs her of that fact. During her senior year in high school, Yukino becomes pregnant. She marries Soichiro after graduation, marrying at a young age as her parents did. Although her apparent goal in high school was to become a politician or a lawyer, it is later revealed that she wanted to be a doctor. She put the dream aside because it was financially out of her family's reach, and because Soichiro and Maho both wanted to be doctors too. After graduating high school, she becomes a housewife for a few years before going to medical school. She eventually becomes a doctor at a hospital run by the Arima family, specializing in reconstructive surgery. Sixteen years later, she is the mother of three children, a daughter named Sakura and two sons named Suoh and Ai who are fraternal twins.
Voiced by: Chihiro Suzuki (Japanese); Christopher Nicholas (English)
Soichiro Arima (有馬 総一郎, Arima Sōichirō), the male protagonist of the series, starts out as Yukino's rival at school, and ends up as her boyfriend and eventual husband . A handsome and popular boy, Soichiro excels at kendo and becomes a national champion. He is at first smitten with Yukino, unaware that she secretly hates him and constantly tries to compete with him. After unwittingly discovering that Yukino is not the model student everyone thinks she is, Soichiro blackmails her into doing his school work so that he can spend more time with her. After resolving the issue and becoming each other's first true friend, they eventually fall in love. Yukino learns that Soichiro, like her, is making an effort to "be perfect" for a reason. While Yukino is motivated by praise and vanity, Soichiro is trying to cover his "real" self, a self damaged by childhood trauma that he fears may be destructive. Yukino and Soichiro were able to find emotional sanctuary in each other. While Soichiro comes from a distinguished family of doctors, he was abandoned by his parents, who were the family's disgrace, and raised by his uncle and aunt. Fearing that he may turn "bad" like his parents, he is always trying to hide behind a mask and is constantly fighting his own demons. As with Yukino, he becomes more in touch with his true self as he falls in love with her. However, he is apprehensive of the other feelings what emerge along with his love, such as his increasing jealousy of Yukino's other friendships, her activities and her life without him. When Yukino unknowingly damages Soichiro's bond to her, he finds himself becoming jealous and afraid. So he begins to wear another facade that he hopes will fool her and protect her from his "ugly" self.
After a lifetime of striving to be "perfect", Soichiro's dark side begins to manifest itself through vengeful feelings against those that hurt him in his family, and he realizes that he has the ability to be cold and cruel. One aspect is his possessiveness of Yukino, hating for anyone but himself to be close with her. Hideaki told Takefumi that the only reason Hideaki was allowed to be friends with Yukino was because Soichiro knew that Hideaki would never fall in love with Yukino, and she would never fall in love with him. When the charade reaches such a critical point that it threatens his relationship with Yukino, she steps up to save him by opening him to a true and complete love. After a number of violent outbursts (one of which has him making love to her in the school library rather suddenly, which later has him thinking it was a rape and almost drives him mad) Soichiro finally understands that to love, he must be willing to trust and be trusted, even enduring the suffering that comes out of love. Yukino is able to convince Soichiro that she truly loves him for who he is, and that she is willing to support and suffer for him. From that point on, Soichiro truly and completely opens up to Yukino, his friends, and his beloved adopted parents. Soichiro's union with Yukino has come full circle, as both are finally free from the oppression of the conflict within themselves. Even though Soichiro cannot forget the past, he no longer allows it to control and hurt himself or anyone else.
In their senior year of high school, Yukino becomes pregnant, and after getting over the initial shock, he tells her that he is happy of the news and marries her. Sixteen years later, they have three children together; their oldest child is a daughter named Sakura, a beautiful girl who resembles him in looks and talent, and their last two children are sons named Suoh and Ai, who are fraternal twins. Although his original ambition was to follow his family's profession and become a doctor, he follows his childhood dream and becomes a policeman. He eventually becomes highly decorated police inspector and is preparing to sit for the exams of a Commissioner's promotion (at the insistence of his superiors) at the age of 30.
Soichiro was also reunited with his father, Reiji Arima, a famous jazz pianist who lives in New York but returned to Japan for a concert. Reiji threatens to harm Yukino, upsetting Soichiro, and he holds a false pistol to his forehead in the center of a park. After spending 10 days together, both father and son grew fond of each other and reestablished their bond. Soichiro spends most of his time assisting his father, and Reiji rewards him by taking him to a nice dinner with Yukino. Unfortunately, he tells Soichiro to go home because he does not feel like a father and would be better off without him. When Soichiro and Yukino are ambushed by Ryoko, wanting to meet with Reiji, he comes to their aid. He leaves for New York once the event is over, but promises to return to Soichiro the following summer. Reconnecting with his father helps Soichiro deal with his problems and heal the wounds of his childhood.
Reiji Arima (有馬 怜司, Arima Reiji) is Soichiro Arima's estranged father. Reiji was the illegitimate but favored son of the Arima patriarch, whose mother tried to drown herself and take Reiji with her. Reiji kicked her in the face to save himself, a horrific memory that haunts him for the rest of his life. He was an intelligent but twisted child and teenager, and grew close to Souji over time. His relationship with Souji's wife is cold, calling her drab and old because of his jealousy that she is married to his beloved older brother. He also manages to befriend Yukino, who mistakes him for Soichiro. Although a talented musician, he grows to lead a life of a delinquent and is seduced by a beautiful gold-digger named Ryoko, who gets pregnant. Reiji names the baby Sōichirō after his brother Souji, but has nothing else to do with the child. Years later, Reiji learns Ryoko was abusing his son and had abandoned him. Unable to care for him, Reiji gives the child to Souji and moves to New York City. There he becomes a famous jazz pianist. He returns to Japan when Soichiro is in high school and "kidnaps" him to force him to spend ten days with him and later helps protect him from Ryoko. He threatens to kill her to keep her from hurting Soichiro again, eventually allowing her to live when Soichiro stops him from shooting. In the manga, it is revealed that the person Reiji looks up to and respects the most is his brother Souji and he doesn't want to look bad when he is with Souji.
Soichiro's sadistic cousin. He and the other nameless relatives are often seen in flashbacks torturing the defenseless Soichiro. They first appear in Volume 6, when Soichiro attends a family reunion. They mock him, and then become hostile when he tries to ignore them. They are then seen in Volume 13, pondering about whether or not Soichiro was attending a wedding. When he is smug to his aunt Eiko, they attempt to beat him up in a bathroom, but he fights back, and claims that it is his time for revenge. The nameless cousins visit Soichiro's school, and they attempt to befriend him, claiming that they hate Kei, but Soichiro punches one away. They then state that he is a disgrace, and this is their final appearance. Yukino claims at the end of the story that she will get revenge on them in perfectly legal ways.
Maho's dentist boyfriend. He first meets her when he watches her lecture her friends about shoplifting, and informs her that her leg is bleeding. She then remembers him from when she explored a new street that she had never been on, mistaking him for a doorman. He claims that the vision of a pretty schoolgirl in a uniform holding flowers was an incredible sight. The two quickly become friends, and she brings him treats from her family's sweet shop. When the two are in his apartment, she confesses her feelings of love to him, disturbing him. The rest of the chapter is like a wild goose chase for the two, Maho following him around. He then tells her that she mistook friendship for love, saddening her, and time passes. She meets him again after she enrolls into high school, and he says that his headaches are coming back, and Maho vows to fix them because she wants to be a doctor. Takeshi visits the cultural festival in the manga, causing Maho to shout, knowing that he will mock her. They are also seen shopping together, and Takeshi eventually goes to New York for training. This begins the Reiji arc, because Maho visits him and they attend his concert with Kazuma and Yin and Yang. Kazuma begins to sing, and they go backstage to meet Reiji, and Takeshi exclaims that Reiji resembles somebody that they know. He is not seen again for the remaining story, his cameo in the last volume is simply Maho's profile that reads MAHO TAKESHI, proving that they got married.
Soichiro's abusive mother. In junior high, she was sexually and physically abused by her stepfather, emotionally scarring her for life. She is a gold digger who chases Reiji for money. She successfully seduces him and she gets pregnant with his baby. Thanks to her, Reiji was constantly beat up by her ex-boyfriend. She demands high amounts of money for child support, but Reiji soon realizes that she is abusive and they lose contact. She often would beat and starve Soichiro as a child, even stabbing him at one point. Children would call him a monster due to his bruises. She eventually abandons him, and works at a bar. While watching television, she learns that Soichiro won a national kendo tournament, and tells her employees that he was taken away from her as a baby. She stalks Soichiro, hoping to cash in. He eventually refuses, and she ambushes him outside of school numerous times, making Yukino jealous. Thanks to his friends, he gets away. Going home from cram school, he encounters her, and she tries to hit him with her purse covered in jewels. Shizune appears in the nick of time and blocks him, telling her to go. Ryoko appears one last time trying to meet Soichiro and Reiji, and Reiji threatens to kill her, but she is saved by Soichiro.