The characters page for the Life (2002) manga.
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Ayumu Shiiba
Ayumu Shiiba
- Bullied into Depression: Ayumu began cutting herself after her middle school ex-best friend said that she hated her. Ayumu's self-harm and suicidal ideation only became worse as Manami and her Girl Posse kept bullying her.
- Driven to Suicide: Multiple times. She befriended Miki when Miki stopped her from jumping in front of a bus.
- Embarrassing First Name: "Ayumu" is a masculine-sounding name, and she doesn't think it fits her.
- Extreme Doormat: She's often pushed around by Manami and her Girl Posse, but she gets better.
- Important Haircut: She had long hair in middle school, but cut it when she graduated. It correlated with the start of her depression and self-hatred.
- Self-Harm: She began cutting herself after having a bad falling-out with best friend at the end of middle school. This aspect of her character is removed in the live-action adaptation.
Miki Hatori
Miki Hatori
- Adaptation Dye-Job: From blonde in the manga to brown in the live-action series.
- Adaptational Modesty: She works at a bunny suit cafe in the manga, but wears a more normal uniform in the J-drama.
- Delinquent Hair: Miki is one of the two characters with blonde hair in the manga. It's never mentioned if it's natural or
dyed, though the colour (combined with her "delinquent" image) give off this trope. - Japanese Delinquents: She is deemed one at her school, though she doesn't do anything besides ditch classes sometimes.
Manami Anzai
Manami Anzai
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the TV show, Manami is obviously evil from the start. In the manga, she initially seems sweet and only reveals her true personality later on.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: From blonde to brown.
- Alpha Bitch: Manami is the most popular girl in school; however, she is a huge bully.
- Ambiguous Start of Darkness: It's unknown when she became The Bully. She's introduced as a friendly, sweet girl who befriends Ayumu but she goes off the deep end when her boyfriend dumps her, and she starts thinking he's interested in Ayumu which causes her to become a terrible case of Teens Are Monsters. It's possible, and somewhat implied, she was pretending to be Ayumu's friend all along as a part of her bullying.
- Big Bad: As the main antagonist of the series and the resident bully at her school, Manami often antagonizes Ayumu and the other girls, and often trick Fumio into doing her bidding, all because of her fame and fortune. By the end of Life, her antagonism gets to the point where she forces both Toda and Hiraoka to resign, and brutally kills a friend in a wheelchair.
- Break the Haughty: By the end of the series, her pride takes a downfall when everyone at the school learns that Toda and Hiraoka have been forced to resign, the teachers catch her trying to injure Ayumu and the students turn on her. Eventually, she calmly tells Ayumu to report her crimes to the police.
- The Bully: Manami terrorizes many girls at her school. She goes above and beyond the norm of a bully, such as trying to force-feed Ayumu needles.
- Domestic Abuse: She's abusive towards her boyfriend Katsumi; she recruits someone to beat up Katsumi when she believes he cheated on her, and tries to outright kill him at one point.
- Driven to Suicide: In volume 1, she attempts to jump in front of a train. Ayumu stops her. It's difficult to say if she was actually suicidal or if she was just manipulating Ayumu by pretending to be.
- The Fake Cutie: She acts cutesy and girlish when she's truly violent and cruel.
- False Friend: She's the first person to take notice of the introverted Ayumu in high school. However, she quickly turns on her and shows her true colours after she believes Ayumu got involved with her boyfriend.
- Faux Affably Evil: She starts out as a polite person who befriends Ayumu, but drops the charade when she thinks that Ayumu had Katsumi cheat on her.
- Graceful Loser: She calmly accepts defeat after Ayumu reports her crimes to the police.
- Hated by All: At the end of Life, she loses favor with her friends at school and has become a social pariah.
- Irony: Manami gets a taste of her own medicine when Ayumu, the girl whom she ridiculed, reports her crimes to the police.
- It's All About Me: She only cares about being rich and famous, and she doesn't care what she has to do to pursue it. Even murdering a friend or force one of her school's teachers to resign. It's to the point where after her true nature is revealed, she'd rather be bullied than ignored by her classmates.
- Kick the Dog: Not only did she ridicule and mock Ayumu, but she drove Miss Toda and Miss Hiraoka into resigning and murdered at least one person.
- Manipulative Bitch: She can easily trick her father and her friends in school to do her bidding.
- Mistaken for Suicidal: Invoked. It's implied that her attempt in volume 1 wasn't an actual attempt. She was pretending to be suicidal to get Ayumu's sympathy.
- Rich Bitch: Manami's father, Fumio, is the CEO of a large corporation. She can quickly manipulate him into anything, and he's considered such a respected figure that the school complies with any of his requests for fear of negative publicity.
- Shadow Archetype: She represents what Ayumu could have been if she gave in to her threats and became a bully herself.
- The Sociopath: She's a remorseless manipulator who's willing to commit murder and drive teachers to resign.
- Teens Are Monsters: She's a high school student with a villainous personality.
- Third-Person Person: Usually refers to herself as "Mana" or "Manami". She uses it in the traditional, Japanese manner that "cute" characters do, but it's also used in the western "self-centered" way as well.
- The Unfettered: Manami is willing to do anything to secure her status as a student.
- Villainous Breakdown: After the student body learns what she did to Toda, Hiraoka and Ayumu, Manami gradually loses all sense of womanly restraint she'd shown throughout the series.
- You Monster!: After the student body finds out that Manami is the one who caused problems for Ayumu, one of the students calls her a monster.
Katsumi Sako
Katsumi Sako
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seems like a sweet teenage boy, but he's not.
- Blackmail: He ties Ayumu up, then photographs her while nude and even photographs her self-harm scars. A regular threat of his is to reveal the pictures to others. Ayumu is not the first girl he's done this to, either.
- Domestic Abuse: A rare female-on-male example with Manami. Manami gets her secret lover to beat Katsumi up after she believes he cheated on her with Ayumu.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Once he's discovered dating Toda while still going out with Manami, Manami uses a picture her friends took as an excuse to break it off with him and blackmail Toda.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Katsumi is only Manami's boyfriend due to the demand of his father in order to keep his business open with Manami's father's support.
Yuuki Sonoda
Yuuki Sonoda
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In chapter thirty-one, this is what he says to the guy that used to bully him while the guy is trying to get some mercy: "I've killed you many times over in my head." He couples it with an incredible Death Glare.
