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Suzu Urano (later Houjou)
- Voiced by: Non (JP), Laura Post (ENG), Erica Langarica (LA)
A young woman from the small seaside town of Eba, she's talented at drawing but tends to be clumsy and absent-minded. She moves to Kure after Shuusaku proposes to her.
- An Arm and a Leg: She loses her right hand in an explosion that also kills Harumi.
- Distinguishing Mark: She has a distinctive mole just above her chin. It's how Shuusaku is able to remember her after they first met as children.
- Break the Cutie: She's introduced as a cheerful and carefree girl, but she goes through quite a bit of this later on as the war makes everyone's lives more difficult. It starts with the death of Harumi and the loss of her right hand and it only gets worse from there.
- Genius Ditz: Suzu herself is well aware that her head tends to be in the clouds, and she's often clumsy in her words and actions. She's also a skilled artist and can come up with creative solutions to problems caused by wartime (like using an old samurai recipe when there's only brown rice available, or making substitute charcoal bricks out of dead leaves when there's a shortage of real charcoal).
- Housewife: She becomes this after marrying Shuusaku, though since it's World War II there are a lot more challenges she has to deal with than usual, like dealing with food rations.
- I Am Not Pretty: She has this opinion of her own looks, saying her sister Sumi is much prettier than her. Her husband Shusaku and her childhood friend/crush Mizuhara both disagree.
- Important Haircut: She later cuts off her braid in an attempt to convince the other women to take her to Hiroshima after the bombing, saying that this way no one will have to do up her hair for her since she now only has one hand.
- The Klutz: Since she frequently has her head in the clouds, she can be quite clumsy at times. A Running Gag is how she'll often hit people or knock them over by accident due to not paying attention to her surroundings.
- Ms. Imagination: Suzu has a particularly vivid imagination and plays along with things it allows her to see. She mentions that it used to be even more vivid when she was a child, to the point she's not even certain which elements of her childhood she invented and which were for real—and the story deliberately leaves it ambiguous.
- The Pollyanna: Deconstructed. Suzu starts out as one, being always cheerful and optimistic, but as the war starts intruding more into her life, she starts receiving blows that become harder and harder to recover from, until it eventually breaks her completely when a time-delayed bomb kills Harumi and takes her right hand. Even if by the end of the story she remains hopeful, her cheery nature takes a few hits too many.I'm glad that... I'm glad... I'm glad...(Looks at the stump of her right hand)I don't know what I should be glad about.
- Scars Are Forever: After getting caught in an explosion that kills Harumi, she has a small scar on her face that remains there for the rest of the story along with the loss of her right hand.
Shuusaku Houjou
A young man from Kure who asks for Suzu's hand in marriage seemingly out of nowhere. He works as a clerk for the navy.
- Love at First Sight: He and Suzu only met briefly as children, but while Suzu forgot about it, she apparently made such an impression on Shuusaku that he later seeks her hand in marriage.
- The Quiet One: Downplayed. He's noted by Sumi to be very quiet during his and Suzu's wedding, and while he becomes more talkative afterwards, he's still not a person of many words.
- Strong Family Resemblance: He and his older sister Keiko are noted to look a lot alike.
Keiko Kuromura (nee Houjou)
- Voiced by: Minori Omi (JP), Kira Buckland (ENG), Queta Calderon (LA)
Shuusaku's older sister, who is widowed and comes back to live with the Houjou family with her daughter Harumi in tow. She's rather critical of Suzu.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's rather cold and critical towards Suzu at first, but gradually warms up to her as time goes on.
- The Flapper: She used to be a "modern girl" in her youth, which is the Japanese equivalent of this trope.
- The Lost Lenore: Her husband. It is implied she's equal parts jealous and happy for Suzu's and her brother's loving marriage because she misses him.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: She's Suzu's sister-in-law, and she's the only member of the Houjou family who isn't very welcoming towards her, constantly criticizing her for her clumsiness and absent-minded nature. San reveals that Keiko doesn't get along well with her parents-in-law either, due to her temperament.
- There's a huge implication that she first resents Suzu because she views her as a traditional pushover type.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Her daughter Harumi is killed by a time-delayed bomb, and her grief initially makes her blame Suzu for it.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She's very feisty and temperamental, easily lashing out at people. However, a few scenes where Suzu walks on her reveal she's just in deep grief, first over her late husband's death and her in-laws taking her son Hisao away from her, then going over the edge after her daughter Harumi is killed by a bomb.
Harumi Kuromura
- Voiced by: Natsuki Inaba (JP), Kenna Peckard (ENG), Pamela Mendoza (LA)
Keiko's daughter, who Keiko brings with her to Kure. She and Suzu quickly become friendly.
- Cheerful Child: She's a cheerful little girl most of the time. It's all the more tragic when she's killed by a time-delayed bomb.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She's a very feminine little girl, but she's also very interested in Japanese warships and is able to name them by sight. She also gets excited when she meets a real sailor and says she wants to grow up to be one. It's mentioned that her older brother taught her about ships.
- Youthful Freckles: She has freckles, and she's the youngest character in the main cast.
Rin Shiraki
- Voiced by: Nanase Iwai (JP), Karen Strassman (ENG), Rosalinda Marquez (LA)
A courtesan who Suzu becomes friends with after she gets lost and ends up in Kure's red light district.
- Demoted to Extra: In the 2016 film; aside from her first meeting with Suzu and the confirmation that she later died after a heavy air raid, none of her other scenes are present. In the extended version of the film, however, her scenes are added back in.
- Forgotten First Meeting: It turns out that Rin was the girl who had been living in Suzu's grandmother's attic and Suzu had mistaken for a Zashiki-warashi. Rin later remembers that they met, but it isn't clear if Suzu does.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: She's a courtesan, but she's still quite friendly and she easily makes friends with Suzu.
- Killed Offscreen: It's later revealed that she died after a heavy air raid on Kure that also destroyed the red light district (which, in real life, was never rebuilt).
- Never Learned to Read: She only went to school for one year, so she can make out a few katakana but nothing else. She uses a pre-written card with her own name and important personal details for all the paperwork, which she always copies when needed and is in the process of memorising.
