List of S.A characters

The following is a list of characters from the series, Special A.

Note: Names are all in Western order (given name before surname).

Special A Students

Hikari Hanazono

Hanazono Hikari (華園 光) Voiced by: Yuko Goto

• Nicknames: Number Two, Stupid Girl, Idiot
• Birthday: March 20
• Blood Type: O
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Older Brother
• Favorite Food: Rice balls

Hikari is the protagonist of the story. Self-proclaimed as Kei Takishima's greatest competitor, she is determined to beat him in any kind of competition. She holds the 2nd position in school for having the best grades. She is a kind girl who always worries about others, but sometimes lacks common sense. 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, but never does. 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. 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.

Kei Takishima

Takishima Kei (滝島 彗) Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama

• Birthday: November 22
• Blood Type: A
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Younger Brother Sui
• Favorite Food: Anything that Hikari makes no matter how disgusting it is

A smooth winner and a perfect guy, Kei is ranked first in school for having the best grades. He is the undefeated rival of Hikari and likes to refer her as "Number Two", which never fails to provoke her. Kei has the amazing ability to remember anything he reads and is able 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 is in love with Hikari, a fact that he does not deny, and has loved her since they were children, but he has not confessed his love to her is because he knows that Hikari would simply laugh off the confession. 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.

Jun Yamamoto

Yamamoto Jun (山本 純) Voiced by: Tsubasa Yonaga

• Birthday: February 14
• Blood Type: AB
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Older Sister
• Favorite Food: Salad that has Arugula in it

Jun is ranked 3rd in school and is Megumi's younger twin brother. He is the son of a music producer and a talented singer, but ironically has little talent for music. He is usually nice, but he 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 a bad boy, which is the complete opposite of his true self, and becomes irresistible to nearly all women. 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. The only thing that can bring him back to his original self is Megumi's horrible singing voice.

Megumi Yamamoto

Yamamoto Megumi (山本 芽) Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki

• Birthday: February 14
• Blood Type: AB
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Younger Brother
• Favorite Food: Strawberry, Throat Drops

Megumi is ranked 4th in school and is Jun's older twin sister. She is the daughter of a famous vocalist and music producer, but, like her brother, she does not possess any musical talent at all. A cute and nice girl who rarely joins in disputes, Megumi is always quiet and refuses to speak because of her bad singing voice. She usually writes on a sketchpad to communicate with others, but will speak when deeply upset, which can have devastating after-effects. The only person she is seen speaking normally to is Yahiro, because she harbors feelings for him. Like Jun, she is very close to Ryuu; she can be fiercely protective of her brother and Ryuu. Megumi also happens to be bad at sports and dislikes them.

Tadashi Karino

Karino Tadashi (狩野 宙) Voiced by: Hiro Shimono

• Birthday: September 9
• Blood Type: B
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Grandfather
• Favorite Food: Anything Sweet (especially food made by Akira)

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 likes Akira, but often makes rude, weird, stupid or inappropriate 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.

Akira Toudou

Toudou Akira (東堂 明) Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame

• Birthday: April 19
• Blood Type: B
• Family Composition: Father, Mother
• Favorite Food: Croissants, Chocolate Creamed Desserts, Egg Tarts

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 apparently dislikes Kei, even though they are childhood friends. 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.

Because of Akira's parents, she often played with Kei and Yahiro during her childhood days. She was surrounded by the most powerful people in kindergarten, so nobody dared to approach her, since the two are very protective. She used to envy all the other girls who were able to play freely. She was good friends with Yahiro as a child, but due to a misunderstanding resulting from Yahiro's protective and somewhat selfish behavior, she avoids him whenever possible. Her dislike of him stems from Yahiro causing her childhood friend Sayo despise her when her family had to move away; since Yahiro never told her that he had discovered Sayo had only befriended Akira because she was rich in order to protect her, Akira continues to blame Yahiro for the loss of Sayo.

Ryuu Tsuji

Tsuji Ryuu (辻 竜) Voiced by: Kazuma Horie

• Birthday: May 4
• Blood Type: A
• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Sister
• Favorite Food: Anything Spicy

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 it is stated that Jun is his favorite among the twins. He loves animals and is good with children. Ryuu is one of the few people in the world who knows Finn's real gender. He is the son of the CEO of a sports company and one of his family's clients is Yahiro's family.

Takishima Family

Sui Takishima

Takishima Sui (滝島 翠)

• Nickname: Little Takishima

Sui is Kei's younger brother and resembles a younger version of Kei. Initially, he dislikes Kei because he finds living with him disgusting and thinks of him as a robot wearing human skin. Because Sui feels very inferior to his brother, who is good at everything, he believes that he cannot reach Kei's level and he refuses to take his studies seriously. However, when he sees that even his "perfect" brother can become desperate and caring, Sui develops a huge brother complex. Sui likes to call Hikari "Stupid Girl", but approaches her frequently when he thinks that Kei needs help.

Midori Takishima

Takishima Midori (滝島 碧)

Midori is Kei and Sui's mother, who works overseas in Australia. Both of her sons inherited their looks from her. She is obsessed with shopping and longs for the day when Kei will ask her to buy something for him. In Chapter 57, she spends time with Hikari and Kei and goes shopping, but becomes discouraged that Kei still will not ask for anything in particular. Hikari tells her that he only asks for his "mommy". Her relationship with her father, President Takishima, is strained.

President Takishima

Kei's grandfather is the head of the Takishima group and is a powerful man in a business world. However, he is rarely seen by others, including his own family members. He makes his first appearance in chapter 25, when he makes a phone call to Kei's father. When Hikari speaks with him over the phone, he plants the idea in her head that Kei is burdened by her very presence. She meets him face to face in Chapter 59, when President Takishima tries to convince Hikari to transfer schools. He disapproves of Kei's relationship with Hikari and makes many attempts to separate them, such as sending Aoi, arranging marriage meetings for Hikari in London, and arranging a marriage between Kei and a girl named Alisa. President Takishima feels sick every time he even sees a picture of Hikari, though his reason behind his dislike of her remains unknown.

Satoru Takishima

Kei's and Sui's dad, age 35, who always looks young and baby-faced. He is very energetic and outgoing. Though he is the CEO of the Takishima company, he likes to escape from work and lets Kei handle his job, usually because people at business meetings tend not to take him seriously as a result of his young appearance. To Kei's chagrin, his father also frequently tends to drag his son off to meetings, occasionally in foreign places. Satoru also possesses superb fighting skills and trained in his youth to be as strong as a pro-wrestler. He is a good friend of Hikari's father.

Nagi Takishima

(滝島 凪, Takishima Nagi)

A beautiful girl with unbelievable strength, Nagi is Kei's cousin and is a year younger than him. She appears during a brief vacation the SA take at Akira's villa, where they intend to celebrate Kei's coming birthday. Extremely arrogant and full of pride, Nagi proclaims herself to be Kei's fiancée and loves him very much. However, she quickly becomes jealous of Kei and Hikari's closeness with one another and ends up acting unpleasantly towards the rest of the SA in order to get Kei's attention. Upset that Kei, the only person she feels comfortable around, cares more about Hikari, Nagi tries to get rid of Hikari, who comes to see that Nagi only wants to please someone she cares about. In the end, she becomes friends with Hikari.

Hanazono Family

Jiro Hanazono

Hanazono Jiro (華園 次郎)

Hikari's father is a carpenter and lives in the old shopping district of Tokyo. As a fan of pro-wrestling, he taught Hikari how to fight when she was a child. Through his interest in pro-wrestling, Jiro met Kei's father and they introduced their children to one another when Hikari and Kei were six years old. After Hikari was defeated by Kei, she begged her father to allow her to enroll in the same schools as Kei in order to obtain the opportunity to defeat him. Headstrong and hot-headed like his daughter, Jiro agreed and has since supported her endeavours to defeat her rival. He and Kei's father are friends.

Atsushi Hanazono

Hanazono Atsushi (華園　亮)

Atsushi is Hikari's older brother. He is currently a junior in high school and attends a normal high school. Unlike Hikari, he dislikes fighting and has refrained from any physical fights and yelling since he was little. This is because when they were very young, Hikari saw Atsushi beating up a boy who hit her and his facial expression was so scary to her that she fainted. However, when he feels his sister is in danger he breaks away from his peaceful nature and will not hesitate to beat someone up. Even now, Hikari still gets terrified whenever he becomes truly angry.

Other characters

Yahiro Saiga

Saiga Yahiro (雑賀 八尋)

• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Younger Brother

A carefree young man with a sinister side, Yahiro has known both Kei and Akira since they were children. He has had a crush on Akira since childhood and is very protective of her, willing to use whatever means necessary to protect her, even if she hates him for it. It is this protective nature that made him drive away Akira's only friend, Sayo, after he overheard her saying how Sayo never liked Akira and was only her friend because of Akira was rich and she enjoyed all the privileges and status that came with the friendship. Akira had believed that Yahiro had been jealous of her relationship with the "poor" kid she was playing with and never forgave Yahiro for ending her friendship with Sayo. His hatred of "poor" people comes largely from this incident, where he believes the poor exploit the rich, and this sentiment is echoed by his younger brother Chitose. Yahiro attends Kokusengakuen, another high school, and is the heir of a group that is even higher in status than the Takishima group. He gives up his feelings for Akira, telling Tadashi that if he ever makes Akira cry, he will never forgive him.

Sakura Ushikubo

Ushikubo Sakura (牛窪 桜)

Sakura is Kei's first marriage meeting (or omiai) partner to appear in the series. While she does not consider Kei her type, describing him as a "devil king", she considers him a possible marriage partner because his abilities would be advantageous to her family's business. Sakura hates dishonest people with a passion, and her family's motto is centered around honesty and punishing/loathing dishonest people. Hikari's straightforward and honest nature allows the girls to become friends. She attends the same school Yahiro does and sometimes plans stuff out with him (whether the plans be good or evil). Sakura falls in love with Jun at first sight, as he fit her ideal of someone who was a "prince", and accepted his split personality. She is now dating him. She first appears in volume 4.

Aoi Ogata

Ogata Aoi (緒方 蒼)

Aoi is a junior secretary of President Takishima, Kei's grandfather, and is nineteen years old. He has a cold and calm character, and has always been expressionless, not smiling even once. Like Kei, he has the ability to see something only once and memorize it, though his ability made him a victim of teasing as a child. He first met Kei when he was eight and Kei was five, and came to admire and deeply respect Kei, coming to see him as an almost kindred spirit. Aoi initially appears when he is sent to Japan from London, on orders to convince Kei to transfer to London, which had been planned by Kei's grandfather. When Aoi discovers what is causing Kei to hesitate, Aoi tries to eliminate the problem: Hikari. He tries to threaten her, but Kei beats him up, and then tries to bribe her but ends up having a cheque ripped to pieces by Hikari. Afterwards, he realizes that he should not pressure Kei into the situation that he is not ready for and also realizes that he is most at peace when he sees Hikari and Kei smiling.

Finn Koupe Shuzette

Finn (フィン, a.k.a "Finn Koupe Shuzette (the 2nd)")

Finn is the prince of a small country and befriends both Hikari and Ryuu. Ryuu discovers not long after meeting Finn that the prince is actually a girl; in Finn's country, the law states that the country must be ruled by a male and if the heir is a female, she will be raised as a male. Upon explaining this to Ryuu, she asks that he keeps her secret as they will be severely punished if it is revealed. Finn's ideal person is a woman with long, black hair, a sweet, yet tough personality, and one who wears a red dress. When Finn sees Hikari running away from an arranged marriage meeting, she falls for her on the spot. Finn helps Hikari, stops men from coming, and even follows Hikari to Japan. Later, the SA find out that Finn's mother fits the ideal person Finn wants. Hikari scolds Finn, saying that no one can replace her mother, but they can still be friends. In return, Hikari tells Finn that she can call her "Mom". Finn loves Hikari, but she cares deeply for Ryuu. She first appears in chapter 47. Finn's exact ranking in Hakusenkan has not been revealed, but it is known she is in C class.

Sumire Karino

Karino Sumire (狩野 菫)

Tadashi's mother, age undisclosed, is the director of Private Hakusen Academy. Little is known about her and she never appears in front of the students. A woman whose actions speak for themselves, she is strict and intimidating. She is the primary reason why Tadashi entered the SA class and has threatened to punish him if he gets a lower rank than fifth place. In the past, she frequently punished Tadashi when he failed to please her and does not hesitate to do so in the present when he offends her, often extending the punishment to the rest of the SA if she deems fit. She and her husband were really popular in school when they were still students. As Tadashi stated, his parents always had a boyfriend and girlfriend.

Alisa

Alisa is the fifteen year old granddaughter of the Takishima group's biggest stockholder. She likes to eat without limit. When Kei is trying to move the main branch of the Takishima group to Japan, one of the conditions to do so was to convince Alisa to study in Japan. To accomplish this, Kei intended to use Alisa's love of food by introducing her to Japanese food; while Alisa had been set on Mexico because she wanted to eat Mexican tacos, she realized how hard Kei had been trying and decided to study in Japan after all. Soon afterward, Kei's grandfather arranges for Kei to marry Alisa, though the arrangement is called off when Aoi takes over as the new CEO of the company. Alisa, curious to see what the girl Kei loves is like, meets with Hikari in Japan and begin to give her lessons on to be a good girlfriend. She eventually gives up when she finds that Hikari is unable to directly say that she loves Kei. What Alisa wants most is to know what it feels like for a man to say he loves her.

Iori Tokiwa

Tokiwa Iori (常盤 庵)

As of the beginning of Hikari's 2nd year of high school, she is tied 2nd place with Iori Tokiwa, the second son of the head of the Tokiwa Hospital. He also wants to get first place, so Hikari sees him as both a rival and a friend. His inclusion into the SA results in the rankings of everyone below Hikari to drop by one place. Iori works part-time in order to earn money for a dream he wants to fulfill, even if it is against school rules to do so. He has recently shown signs of a possible crush on Hikari.

Chitose Saiga

Saiga Chitose (雑賀 千歳)

• Family Composition: Father, Mother, Younger Brother

Chitose is the younger brother of Yahiro. He initially appears in Hawaii during the SA's summer vacation when Ryuu (and by extension, the rest of the SA) is forced to entertain Chitose because he is the son of a client for his family. He is close to Ryuu, much to the chagrin of the twins, and it is implied that he has known Kei for a long time. Like his older brother, he dislikes poor people, which leads him to treat Hikari differently from others at first. However, when Hikari shows genuine concern for his well-being despite how badly he treated her, Chitose quickly becomes attached to her.

Yui Oikawa

Oikawa Yui (及川 唯)

When the S.A is punished by the director of the school as a result of Tadashi lying to her, they are forced to attend a regular high school where Akira meets Yui, a girl who resembles her childhood friend Sayo. Intially wary, Akira avoids contact with her, but eventually apologizes and befriends her. However, Akira's fear that Yahiro would break up her newfound friendship results in Akira using extreme measures to protect Yui, who begins to feel awkward around her friends. Yahiro investigates her for Akira's sake and discovers that Yui stole Akira's jewellery, since her family had financial issues that were forcing them to move. He threatens her so that she will stay away from Akira; though Yui agrees, she feels that she needs to say goodbye to Akira and almost gets hit by a car. Yahiro saves her and they end up in the hospital, where Akira finds them. When Akira believes that Yahiro has hurt Yui, Yui clarifies that Yahiro saved her and apologizes to Akira for stealing her jewellery. Happy that they are still friends, Akira ends up helping Yui's family and they keep in touch.