Characters / Rumbling Hearts

Takayuki Narumi

Voiced by: Kissho Taniyama (Japanese), Kevin M. Connolly (English)

The protagonist of the series. He began dating Haruka in high school, but fell apart after the car accident. Three years later, he's in a relationship with Mitsuki when he gets a call that Haruka is awake.

• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Takayuki to Haruka, only instead of kissing, he tries to take her on a date. While she's still comatose.
• Faux Yay: Takayuki on Shinji in episode 1. Shinji is less than amused.
• It's All My Fault: Good luck convincing him that he wasn't responsible for Haruka being in the accident.
• Mess of Woe: After Haruka's accident, he develops PTSD, and he and his apartment are visibly in shambles. Reoccurs to a lesser extent when Mitsuki stops coming over.
• Tragic Dropout: The accident took such a mental toll on him that he gave up on university entrance exams and dropped out of high school, taking a part-time job at a restaurant instead.

Haruka Suzumiya

Voiced by: Minami Kuribayashi (Japanese), Carrie Savage (English)

A shy girl with a love for picture books, she ends up in a car accident in her senior year of high school and is left in a coma for three years.

• Angst Coma: She falls unconscious again once Akane tells her that it's been three years since the accident.
• Can't Catch Up: Haruka lost three years of her life, staying the same as her friends grew up.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She spent three years in a coma, and the doctor's advice was to pretend no time had passed at all. It doesn't end well when she realizes the truth.
• Shrinking Violet: As a high-schooler, she's extremely shy and can be a bit of a doormat. She gets better after she wakes up, though she's never quite as outgoing as her sister.
• Time Skip: In-universe for her. She wakes up from her coma after three years. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize any time has passed at all.

Mitsuki Hayase

Voiced by: Chiaki Takahashi (Japanese), Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)

The sporty tomboy of the group.

• Anime Hair: Teenage Mitsuki has a ponytail down to her rear.
• Genki Girl: Before the accident, she's quite high-spirited and rowdy.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: In high school, she was the best swimmer on the team, on track to go to the Olympics if she'd wanted to. She gave it up after the car accident, partly due to the trauma hurting her performance, and partly to help Takayuki cope with his PTSD. Even though she loves Takayuki, she never truly learns to cope with the loss.
• Important Haircut: The ponytail is a relic of high school. By adulthood, she's cut her hair short.
• It's All My Fault: Holding up Takayuki so he could buy her a ring (when he was supposed to meet with Haruka for a date) left her saddled with a good deal of guilt after the accident.
• Matchmaker Crush: Initially set up Haruka with Takayuki, even though she had a crush on him for a long time.
• Stepford Smiler: After the accident. She tries desperately to present herself as aloof and put-together, and to pretend nothing is unusual about her relationship with Takayuki. It's no surprise that when Haruka wakes up, she breaks under the pressure.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Mitsuki is a sporty, more tomboyish girl compared to Haruka, so she gets the ponytail. She cuts it in the end, though.

Akane Suzumiya

Voiced by: Tomomi Uehara (Japanese), Leah Clark (English)

Haruka's younger sister, and an up-and-coming swimmer.

• Annoying Younger Sibling: As a middle-schooler, she's not particularly nice. She regularly tricks Haruka into watching horror movies with her and likes to bother whoever Haruka is with at a given moment.
• Broken Pedestal: Akane looked up to Mitsuki because Mitsuki was also a competitive swimmer, and she regularly called Takayuki "onii-chan". But after the accident, she walked in on Mitsuki naked in Takayuki's bed, and was infuriated with them for years.

Shinji Taira

Voiced by: Makoto Aoki (Japanese), David Wilson-Brown

• Beware the Nice Ones: Do not mess with his friends. He fought the man trying to take a drunken Mitsuki to a love hotel and punched Takayuki in the face for not noticing Mitsuki's pain.

Ayu Daikuuji

Voiced by: Kiyomi Asai (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)

An abrasive, mouthy coworker at the restaurant Takayuki works at.

• Catchphrase: "You can go step in cat crap!"
• Jerkass: Most of the time. She's not above giving customers attitude and regularly insults Takayuki to his face.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Every once in a while.
• Tsundere: Of the Type A variety (the very character for which the term "tsundere" was invented, in fact). She's quite abrasive to everyone, including customers. But it's thanks to her that Takayuki can get a new copy of Mayaru's Gift.

Mayu Tamano

Voiced by: Kozue Yoshizumi (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)

• The Klutz: She even has band-aids all over her face. Which makes it a little weird that it took her quite some time to find one when Takayuki cut his finger in the anime.