Template:Character Infobox
Sunako Nakahara (中原 スナコ Nakahara Sunako) is the female protagonist who usually locks herself away inside her room and chooses to live without any desire for life after a traumatic experience when she was rejected and told that she was hideous by her first love. Sunako is a lover of solitude, gory movies, murder, anatomical dolls and objects that reflect the "ugly" side of life as she puts it; her interests resulted in her distorted view of reality and isolation contributed to her low self-esteem.
Personality
The character of Sunako is very self-conscious, and has a fairly bad self-image of herself. She frequently calls herself ugly, and never acknowledges herself as a beautiful person. Most of the time she can be found in dark spaces or areas that are believed to be haunted. At the same time, the author shows that Sunako also has very strong convictions . This could range anywhere from defending her fellow characters to refusing to do anything she dislikes, such as making a collage of pineapples on her wall It is frequently shown in both the anime and manga, however, that Sunako has no problem compromising some values (i.e. dressing up) in order to further her own ends. Sunako's fascination with all things dark and morbid resembles that of the story's creator, albeit in a more extreme form.
In instance, a constant theme of Sunako's personality is her view of beautiful and ugly people. She sees herself as ugly, while viewing characters such as Kyohei or Noi as incredibly beautiful. Sunako's belief appears to be that while beautiful people can become ugly, ugly people can never become beautiful. In the manga Sunako often reacts violently to the presence of beauty, believing that ugly people such as her should stay in the darkness. However, the problems with Sunako's retreat from the world is that it limits her capacity for life, as well as keeping her from fairly viewing all that is around her. It can be suggested that by Sunako adopting such a severe viewpoint on "ugly" and "beautiful" people, she has become exactly the type of person that she despises. One such character similarity can be seen by comparing the person who rejected Sunako at the beginning of the manga, and Sunako herself assuming that Kyohei couldn't understand her due to his beauty.
Surprisingly, she is also an excellent cook, and also very athletic, intelligent, and a good pianist. She is also very beautiful with long black hair, fair skin, and a great body when in regular anime form. However Sunako changes becoming ugly with dry cracked skin, pimples and all in chibi form. She refers to beautiful people as "creatures of light" and "ugly" people, such as herself, as "creatures of darkness", in the translation in America. Whenever she sees a "creature of light", she gets nosebleeds, and they're usually severe when she sees Kyohei. Despite her negative attitude, once she is driven to do something, Sunako is quite capable of doing things that no one expects her to complete. There is also a possibility that she may have supernatural abilities i.e. plants wilting near her and windows shattering by an unseen force. She is also seen to be loyal to her friends, especially towards Noi and Tamao as she shown to care about them more then the boys. An example was in chapter 102 when Kyohei, Yuki, Ranmaru, and Noi accidently ate mushrooms that changed their personalities and she wasn't interested in getting the antidote for the boys but quickly changed her mind when seeing Noi might do something pervert to Takenaga while still cheering for her in becoming closer to Takenaga. Another was in chapter 111 when both Sunako and Ranmaru were kidnapped and was held for a 1 billion dollar ransom, the kidnapper plans to cut and torture Ranmaru which excites Sunako but when Tamao barges in with the ransom money she quickly shows more concern for her safety and urges her to get out while she still can. Also, despite how she acts, Sunako seems to deeply care about her housemates, going so far as trying to kill anyone who mess with them (despite the fact that she tried to kill Kyohei many times herself).
Appearance
Most of the time Sunako can be seen in super deformed mode. However, whenever she is in a situation where her inner beauty comes forth, she almost magically transforms into a beautiful young woman, much to the surprise of many onlookers. Sunako's inner beauty frequently emerges whenever her character's viewpoint is challenged, causing her to change her belief system about beauty and humanity in general. When Sunako is not in a deformed mode, she has dark long straight black hair. She is pretty tall for a average Japanese girl. Sunako looks like a model when not in chibi form. She is considered to be pretty but doesn't consider herself as one due to her low-self esteem. Sunako has lavender purple eyes with fair skin. She is usually seen wearing a grey sweater with her weird floral skirt, or her grey sweater with red jogging pants.
Background
After she was rejected by her first love, Sunako developed an obsession with darkness and a morbid fascination with blood, horror movies, and similarly dark things. She hates excessive light exposure and also does poorly in hot weather, though the latter is because she grew up in northern Japan. She has three "friends"; a skeleton called Josephine (with husband, Sergeant George) and two anatomical figures named Hiroshi-kun and Akira-kun. While she suffers from severely low self-esteem, she is actually beautiful and a frighteningly tough fighter, being able to lift someone twice her size with one hand. She is portrayed (mostly) throughout the manga and anime in Super deformed form or chibi form.
Plot
At the beginning of both the anime and the manga, Sunako is seen confessing her love to a faceless classmate, only to have him rebuff her cruelly, stating that he hated ugly girls. Since then Sunako has thrown off any scraps of femininity that she may have possessed, believing that it is a waste of time. Throughout the series so far Sunako has held to the belief that she is ugly, and is a "creature of the darkness". Her aunt, fearing that Sunako's unladylike ways are not only limiting her at life, but also at love, bribes four young men with a promise of free rent if they can perform a Pygmalion-esque makeover on Sunako.
For most of the manga and anime Sunako's time is spent both avoiding yet caring for these young men, as it is shown that they are almost completely incapable of performing everyday maintenance. As the storyline progresses Sunako begins to recognize beauty, even remarking that roses are pretty. So far in the manga Sunako's back story has yet to be fully revealed, but it is unsure if her fascination with the morbid and dark began with her transformation or if it was a hobby she had even before. In the anime, it is hinted that her fascination with things morbid began as a junior high student, perhaps some time after she was rejected by the mystery boy. Her mother however has let her daughter do whatever she wants, even going as far as helping Sunako hide her disturbing collection from her horrified father. As Sunako progresses in her unwilling makeover, she begins to realize her own self-worth and beauty, as well as the effect her actions have on other people, such as her aunt.
In Chapter 62, she was finally able to confront her past and her friends at a school reunion, including the cruel classmate. With that confrontation, she is finally able to move on, realizing that she has a new life and new friends.
Relationships
Kyohei Takano
Main article: Kyohei and Sunako's Relationship
When they first met, Kyohei was actually the only one out of the four to be brave enough to confront Sunako's "gloomy" aura. Kyohei's main priority (and same for the rest) was to transform Sunako into a lady, and if so her aunt, their land lady, would lower their rent. Sunako has a tendency of once she sets her eyes on Kyohei, she has an urge to want to kill him. Her reason is that "she's the only person who can kill him". She has not, however, thought of or mentioned killing Kyohei for many chapters, not even after Kyohei kissed Sunako. Recent chapters have seen her forget her first crush, and she is now more open to other people, including her peers and teachers at school. She's also having less and less nosebleeds and though protests at first, doesn't greatly mind spending time with Kyohei.
In the manga, Sunako and Kyohei's relationship begins to head in a romantic direction, although they are both completely inexperienced with those feelings and don't realise their connection. So far in the manga, Kyohei has kissed Sunako three times, the first two where either accidental or to rid her of an evil spirit but the third was entirely Kyoheis' choice although he unfortunately later decides he was just confused. But even though their relationship is considered unclear, it is obvious that the two of them developed romantic feelings for one another but just can't admit that they do have it. Kyohei and Sunako deeply cares for each other and treasures one another.
Noi Kasahara
Noi is the first female friend of Sunako in the series, making her the closest one with her at school, since most other people are scared of her. She never really gets it (or denies it when she does) when Noi implies she and Kyohei would make a good couple. Noi, in turn, admires Sunako for her toughness. When they first met, Sunako gets a nosebleed, as she sees Noi as another "creature of light." At first, Noi thought of befriending Sunako since Sunako lives with Takenaga, to find out more information and get closer to him. But as the series progressed, Noi became very fond of Sunako and eventually got more closer to her.
Mine Nakahara
Mine Nakahara is Sunako's aunt from her father's side. She is the one who ordered Kyohei, Ranmaru, Takenaga and Yuki to transform Sunako into a lady. Sunako is like a child to her, that's why she wanted the four boys to help Sunako change for better. She is very fond of Sunako and deeply cares about her. The same goes with Sunako, who is also very fond of her aunt and cares for her. This is demonstrated when Sunako acted like a real lady on her aunt's party when Mine introduced Sunako as her niece. Mine's guest at the party were very impressed at Sunako and compliments her.
Gallery
Main article: Sunako Nakahara/Gallery
Trivia
- She's a good cook
- Throughout the anime, she's mostly seen in her "chibi" form (miniature form)
- Sunakos skin is actually sensitive, according to the Chapter 2 of the manga.
- After setting her eyes on "beautiful men" she has nose bleeds.
- She's not skilled in math
- Her father has a scar from protecting Sunako from a bear when she was little.
- After being rejected from a boy she confessed to and being called ugly, she has thrown away any ounce if reality making her be secluded from others (its been 2 years)
- Her aunt is Kyohei's, Yuki's, Tanako's and Ranamru's land lady
- Her eye color is purple
- In the second episode of the anime, she saw Kyohei naked after walking in on him in the bathroom
- In episode 9, Kyohei and Sunako kissed accidentally because of playing ping pong