History Manga / Barakamon

** Yuuichirou considers himself too immature and much too absent to be able to assume the position of [[spoiler:Naru's father as he's supposed to do]], deeming himself incapable of dealing with the prospect of to approach her as a parental figure, when he knows he's been anything but. Still, it's shown that he does love her, even when he's at a complete loss on how to reach her properly.

* ParentalAbandonment: [[spoiler:Naru's dad, "Yuu" Yuujiro Kotoishi, is an errant sailor who rarely visits the island, save for Christmas time to visit Naru. Because of his narrow skill set, he argues that he can't be anything but a sailor even when his family has told him to get a job that will let him stay on land; he also states to Sensei that he's too much of a stranger to Naru to extend his interactions with her. Naru has been told all her life that her father is a "space alien", but she puts two and two together when Sensei refers to Yuu as the aforementioned "space alien". It's also shown that even when Naru doesn't know who the guy is, she has scant memories of his visits]].

** The islanders call Handa "Sensei" because he is a ''master'' calligrapher. Even Naru seems more familiar with calling him "Sensei", causing some confusion when Kawafushi comes to the island asking for him by name.

* LikeBrotherAndSister: Hiro, Tama and Miwa are as close to siblings as friends can get.

** Sensei has an awful lot more in common with the kids in the island than with the adults, seeing that he bypassed a great amount of experiences in his youth due to his sickliness and his dedication to his art.

%%commented out as a ZeroContextExample * ManicPixieDreamGirl: Naru

* OddFriendship: Kawafuji is very fond of Akki and it's shown that he likes to consult with him for ''financial advise''.
* OhCrap: For her birthday, Sensei gives Naru a ticket for her to use to have him do any one thing she wants. When he sees how excited she gets, he starts to get a little scared and is relieved that she didn't get a chance to use the ticket.

** Sensei's mom, being the source of his insecurities, is shown to be just as insecure and jumpy as he is. Though she is initially apprehensive about Naru, she quickly grows fond of the girl and even makes an effort to dote her and spend time with her when Sensei takes her to Tokyo.

* NotSoAboveItAll: Even though Hina is painfully shy at the beginning, once she opens up it's shown that she's not as reluctant to participate in Naru's mischief as she seems. She even reveals that sometimes she intentionally cried in front of Sensei because he'd always try to make her stop instead of ignoring her.

* TranquilFury: Sometimes even Naru is shown to be annoyed at how wimpy Sensei is, like when they're fishing for octopuses at the shore and Sensei can barely touch them. Naru, silently and with a DeathStare, pries the hook from Sensei, grabs the octopus by the head and puts it in the container. However, this instance makes Sensei feel bad about himself, going into a self-deprecating utterance that Naru has to correct immediately (see YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre).

** During a bout of self-deprecation, Sensei tells Naru that they would have fared better if Higashino had come to the village instead of him; [[NoJustNoReaction Naru stops him and sternly reassures Sensei]] that not only her, but the rest of their friends, love him ''because it's him'', he's special and they won't settle for ''anyone else''.

** Hina is savvy enough to fool Sensei in a variety of manners, like making him try to console her, and even winning a competition with Naru and Sensei to overcome their {{VerbalTic}}s, making Sensei buy her a fancy coat like Naru's.

* WiseBeyondHisYears: Akki is surprisingly mature, parsimonious and succinct for a middle schooler, [[https://www.tomanga.xyz/read-manga/Barakamon/58/10.htm eliciting admiration from even Hiro and Sensei]]. Out of all the children in the story (and even most of the adults), he's shown to be a clear example to follow.

* ThirdPersonPerson: By virtue of their young age, Naru, Hina and their child friends are not used to referring to themselves with the pronouns "I" and "Me", so there's some ado as to them changing this habit at school so that they don't get teased by their senior schoolmates.

* LuminescentBlush: Sensei's indication of extreme embarassment, when in a moment of cooling off he starts to murmur a song then is immediately made aware of Naru presence.
* ManChild: Sensei has an awful lot more in common with the kids in the island than with the adults, seeing that he bypassed a great amount of experiences in his youth due to his sickliness and his dedication to his art.

* ChekhovsGunman: When Naru and her grandpa come fetch Sensei in the early morning in order to catch octopus at the beach, Naru's grandpa brings protective clothing belonging to a "Yuuichiro", whom Sensei assumes is the Village Chief, whose name is Yuujiro, because of the closeness of their names. [[spoiler: This "Yuuichiro" turns out to be Yuuichiro Kotoishi, Naru's father, explaining why Naru's grandpa had his clothes under his possession]].

* ThoseTwoGuys: Yutaka and Daisuke, Kentaro's friends, are always seen together. A RunningGag in the series consists of various characters completely forgetting their names, and even calling them by made-up names.

* ThoseTwoGuys: Kenta's friends. Sensei even lampshades it during episode 4 when trying to remember their names.

* ThoseTwoGuys: Yutaka and Daisuke, Kentaro's friends, are always seen together. a RunningGag in the series consists of various characters completely forgetting their names, and even calling them by made-up names.

* NotSoDifferent: It's implied that Kanzaki is more or less the way Sensei used to be before he came to the island, only that Kanzaki is considerably more insufferable.

* CelibateHero: As far as we know, Sensei doesn't have someone special in his life, and doesn't seem interested in looking. Calligraphy is his great love. He mentions in one episode that he'll probably die alone, and later on in the episode, he says he thinks that he [[BrickJoke will literally]] [[DyingAlone die alone]] before he is saved by Miwa and Tama.

** Yurie Shirakawa is a rather manly and intimidating lady that makes Sensei give up his mochi, though she makes up for it by cooking sweet bean stew for him.