Sunako Nakahara (中原スナコ, Nakahara Sunako) is the main female protagonist. After being cruelly rejected by her middle school crush, she began to lock herself away in her room and chose to avoid people. She 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.
Appearance[]
Sunako is a tall, beautiful, fair-skinned young woman with waist-length black dark purple hair that has square bangs hanging over her forehead or eyes, lavender purple eyes and full pink lips.
She is usually seen wearing a baggy grey sweater with a floral print skirt or red jogging sweatpants and grey shoes or her high school uniform.
Most of the time, Sunako can be seen in chibi (miniature) form. 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 chibi form, she has long straight black hair and has the figure of a model. She is considered a beautiful girl when she's at her full height, but she doesn't consider herself to be beautiful due to her low-self esteem.
Personality[]
The character of Sunako is very self-conscious and she 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 ranges anywhere from defending her fellow characters to refusing to do anything she dislikes, such as making a collage of pineapples on her wall. However, it is frequently shown in both the anime and manga that Sunako has no problem compromising some values (e.g., dressing up) in order to further her own ends. Sunako's fascination with all things dark and morbid resembles that of the series' original creator, Tomoko Hayakawa, albeit in a more extreme form.
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 Takano or Noi Kasahara 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 problem with Sunako's retreat from the world is that it limits her capacity for life, as well as keeping her from objectively viewing all that is around her. It can be suggested that, by Sunako adopting such a stark viewpoint on "ugly" and "beautiful" people, she has become exactly the type of person 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 Kyōhei couldn't understand her due to his beauty.
Surprisingly, she is an excellent cook and also very athletic, intelligent, and a skilled pianist. However, Sunako often changes, becoming ugly with dry, cracked skin and pimples in her chibi form. She refers to beautiful people as "creatures of light" and ugly people, such as herself, as "creatures of darkness" in the English translation. Whenever she sees a "creature of light," she gets nosebleeds, which are especially 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 accomplish. There is also a possibility that she may have supernatural abilities (e.g., plants wilting near her, lights going out, and windows shattering by an unseen force).
She is also seen to be loyal to her friends, especially towards Noi and Tamao Kikunoi, as she has shown to care about them more than the boys. An example was in Chapter 102 when Kyohei, Yukinojo Toyama, Ranmaru Morii, and Noi accidentally ate mushrooms that changed their personalities. She wasn't interested in getting the antidote for the boys but quickly changed her mind when she saw Noi might do something perverted to Takenaga Oda. Another was in Chapter 111 when both Sunako and Ranmaru were kidnapped and were held for a one billion dollar ransom. The kidnapper planned to cut and torture Ranmaru which excited 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 messes with them (despite the fact that she tried to kill Kyōhei many times herself).
Background[]
Sunako is the only child of her father and mother. 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 named Josephine (with husband, Sergeant George), and two anatomical figures named Hiroshi and Akira. While she suffers from severely low self-esteem, she is actually very beautiful and a frighteningly tough fighter, able to lift someone twice her size with one hand. She is portrayed mostly throughout the manga and anime in chibi form. She is currently in her first year of high school.
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 hates 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 onto the belief that she is ugly and is a "creature of the darkness." Auntie, fearing that Sunako's unladylike ways are not only limiting her in life but also in 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 housework. As the story progresses, Sunako begins to recognize beauty in the world around her, even remarking that roses are pretty. So far in the manga, her backstory has yet to be fully revealed, and 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 sometime after she was rejected by her crush. Her mother, however, has let her daughter do whatever she wants, even going so far as helping Sunako hide her disturbing collection from her easily 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, who apologized for abandoning her when she became depressed, including the cruel classmate she had confessed to and realizing he had called her ugly just to be mean. Sunako got her revenge when she pleasantly said goodbye to her old classmates and they all saw how beautiful she was, and the cruel classmate was shocked as well, with another classmate telling him he "dropped the ball on this one," meaning him being cruel to Sunako cost him his chance with her. She lost all affection for him and made him and her former classmates look like fools. After that confrontation with her past, she was 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 the only one out of the four to be brave enough to confront Sunako's "gloomy" aura. His main priority (which is shared by the others) was to transform Sunako into a lady so her aunt, their landlady, would lower their rent. Sunako has a tendency of having the urge to kill Kyohei once she sets her eyes on him. Her reasoning is that "she's the only person who can kill him." She has not, however, thought of or mentioned killing Kyohei after the start of the series, not even after he kissed her. 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 fewer and fewer nosebleeds and, though she protests at first, doesn't particularly 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 realize their connection. So far in the manga, Kyohei has kissed Sunako three times: the first two were either accidental or to rid her of an evil spirit, but the third was entirely Kyohei's 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 have developed romantic feelings for one another but just can't admit it. Kyohei and Sunako deeply care for each other and treasure 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. Sunako 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 meet, Sunako gets a nosebleed, as she sees Noi as another "creature of light." At first, Noi thought of befriending Sunako since she lives with Takenaga and she would be able to find out more information and get closer to him. But as the series progressed, Noi became very fond of Sunako and eventually got closer to her. She is also protective of Sunako and has no problem sticking up for her when she's bullied by her peers, uncaring that she and Sunako are deemed to be in different worlds by their classmates (and also by Sunako). She also is the one to remind the boys, Kyōhei specifically, that despite Sunako being incredibly strong and not acting lady-like, she is still a girl that should be protected.
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 the better. She is very fond of Sunako and deeply cares about her. The same goes for Sunako, who is also very fond of her aunt and cares for her. This is demonstrated when Sunako acted like a real lady at her aunt's party when Mine introduced Sunako as her niece. Mine's guest at the party was very impressed by Sunako and complimented her.
Etymology[]
- The name Sunako is made up of the characters su (須, "ought, by all means, necessary"); na (奈, "apple tree"); and ko (子, "child"). However, Sunako's name is written in katakana in the series.
- Nakahara is made up of the characters naka (中, "middle") and hara (原, "field, plain").
Trivia[]
- Sunako is a good cook and loves chocolate.
- Sunako was born in Hokkaido and is more accustomed to cold weather than the hot weather found in Tokyo.
- Throughout the anime, Sunako is mostly seen in her "chibi" (miniature) form.
- According to Chapter 2, Sunako's skin is actually very sensitive to products.
- Whenever Sunako sees "beautiful people", she gets nosebleeds.
- Sunako is not skilled in math, but she is good at fighting.
- In Episode 21, Mr. Nakahara suffered a huge scar on his back from protecting Sunako from a bear when she was little.
- After being rejected by a boy Sunako confessed to who called her ugly, she has secluded herself for the past 2 years.
- In Episode 2, Sunako saw Kyohei Takano naked after walking in on him in the bathroom.
- In Episode 9, Sunako and Kyohei accidentally kissed while playing ping pong.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Sunako Nakahara/Gallery