List of characters from Say "I Love You".
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Main Characters
Mei Tachibana
Mei Tachibana
Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Caitlynn French (English)
The protagonist of the series.
- Big Eater: It's noted more in the manga, but Mei can pack food away without gaining a pound. In fact, Yamato knows just how much Kakeru bothered Mei based solely on the fact that Mei didn't finish the meal she was eating at the time.
- Character Development: As time goes on, Mei's personality begins to change. She becomes more accepting of the people around her, which helps her make friends again. She grows to be more social and starts to become closer to others. This is proven when Megumi befriends Asami and Aiko in order to leave Mei without friends. Despite this change in her personality, Mei continues to be as clumsy, observant and honest as she was in the beginning of the series.
- Deadpan Snarker: More so in the manga than anime, but it's definitely there.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father died of cancer, though this is only alluded to in the anime.
- Friendless Background: Her opening lines of internal dialogue are all about how she's happy to have been friendless for years. Even after she starts admitting to wanting friends, she still sometimes retreats into herself.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover
- Magnetic Heroine: Though some are initially put off by her apparent antisociability, people are progressively drawn in by Mei's kindness, honesty, non-judgemental mindset, and the fact that she manages to march to the beat of her own drum in a setting where most people would rather yield to peer pressure.
- The Quiet One: As a result of her childhood bullying.
- The Scapegoat: Mei was accused of killing the class pet in elementary school by the real culprits, who had in fact accidentally poisoned the poor animal with some bad grass.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She is quite capable of being caring and warm to other people despite her exterior.
Yamato Kurosawa
Yamato Kurosawa
Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (Japanese), Leraldo Anzaldua (English)
The male protagonist of the series who takes an interest in Mei.
- Amazon Chaser: He develops an interest in Mei after she kicks him in the face for looking up her skirt. While everyone else stands shocked and horrified, Yamato bursts out laughing and expresses admiration for Mei.
- Big Man on Campus: His popularity is off the charts. All thanks to his good looks and kind personality.
- Chick Magnet: He's reputed for being so handsome and kind that almost every girl at his school is in love with him.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Yamato punches notorious player Kakeru Hayakawa in the face after he tries (and fails) to tempt Mei into having sex with him. Another example is his pissed off reaction when he hears (untrue) rumors of Mei and Kai.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Yamato's Chronic Hero Syndrome inevitably leads to this where his female classmates are concerned. Yamato has a bad habit of sending mixed signals to girls in his effort to treat them with kindness or cheer them up when they're upset, and while his intentions are pure, he often lands himself in awkward situations because of it. This includes even taking up Aiko's offer to sleep with her at one point in their friendship on the sole basis that it would make her feel better about herself. He doesn't even think about the lingering emotional effects the one-time act would have on her later on, with her having attachment issues due being intimate.
- Extreme Doormat: God help him, but Yamato has trouble with placing boundaries.
- Freudian Excuse: It is eventually revealed that Yamato's overwhelming need to help and protect others stems from his middle school days, when he stood by and did nothing while a friend was going through relentless bullying. The friend in question wound up moving away and the two lost touch. Yamato has been subconsciously trying to make amends for his past inaction ever since, and is ashamed to acknowledge that the reason he didn't help his friend was for fear of getting bullied himself.
- Nice Guy: One of the reasons why he's so popular. Asami describes Yamato as someone who thinks of others more than anyone else, protects what should be protected, and cares for others despite having his own problems to deal with.
Tomei High School
Asami Oikawa
Asami Oikawa
Voiced by: Risa Taneda (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)
A cheerful girl who eventually becomes Mei's best friend.
- D-Cup Distress: She gets bullied because of her large breast size and is highly embarrassed and insecure about it. It doesn't help that Nakanishi goes on about them non-stop at first, which renders her in tears at one point.
- The Glomp: She's very physically effusive, and she doesn't shy away from clinging onto people she likes. One of the girls jealous of her early make fun of this, comparing her to goldfish poop (or a suckerfish, in the translation).
- Genki Girl: Upbeat and cheerful at all times.
- Nice Girl: She never says a harsh word about anyone - part of why she becomes Mei's closest friend (after Yamato) is because she's genuine and kind to Mei.
- Official Couple/Beta Couple: With Takeshi.
Takeshi Nakanishi
Takeshi Nakanishi
Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English)
Yamato's best friend who is interested in Asami.- Buxom Beauty Standard: A big believer in this, and it largely fuels his attraction to Asami.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Takeshi does admire Asami's breast size, but that's not his only reason for wanting to be her boyfriend.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: The main reason why Takeshi is getting absolutely nowhere with Asami at the start of the series is that his "appreciation" for large breasts comes up nearly every time he talks to or about her, and it only serves to add to her D-Cup Distress. It isn't until Mei points out that Asami is insecure about this that he makes an effort to correct the problem, though he still slips up.
- The Gadfly: Particularly early on, he enjoys riling other people up, particularly girls. In fact, it was his attempt at peeking up Mei's skirt that inadvertently kicks off the plot. Mei's foot, meet Yamato's face.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: He simply cannot stop himself from blurting out his thoughts on Asami's bust size everytime he talks to her.
- Innocently Insensitive: Due to his tendency to be straightfoward about his attraction to Asami, Takeshi more often than not tends to scare her away, not realizing that he's pushing her Trauma Button. With a little nudge from Mei, he eventually wises up to this and makes more of an effort to be respectful towards Asami.
- He falls back into this during college when another girl develops feelings for him. Nakanishi's so elated to finally have some semblance of success with women that he unthinkingly brags about it to Asami, who he is still dating.
- Official Couple/Beta Couple: With Asami.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Nakanishi indirectly introduced Yamato to Megumi and kicked off a chain of problems for Yamato and Mei's relationship.
Aiko Mutō
Aiko Muto
Voiced by: Yumi Uchiyama (Japanese), Carli Mosier (English)
A girl who had a crush on Yamato.
- Alpha Bitch: She's pretty popular, and she focuses early on trying to split Mei and Yamato up. When she comes to accept Mei, she moves on to becoming a Lovable Alpha Bitch.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Aiko ends up befriending Mei when the latter stands up for her against one of her flings' cruel taunts over her past eating disorder.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Even when she's trying to help people out, Aiko does not mince her words. One memorable instance of this is when she chews out Mei for trying to hide her distress - it's harsh, but Aiko is trying to get Mei to both acknowledge the problem and be willing to open up to both her and Asami about it.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She initially dislike Mei due to seeing her as competition for Yamato's affections, but she soon thaws enough to befriend her. She somewhat recovers from her eating disorder around the same time.
- Formerly Fat: Aiko used to be a lot chubbier than she is in the present and went through such a dramatic weight loss that her abdomen still bears some noticeable stretch marks.
- Loving a Shadow: Aiko's early spotlight showed that she long obsessed over what Yamato meant to her and her poor self-esteem, to the extent that she would think of Yamato while sleeping with someone else. Part of her development was learning to let go of the idea she had of him.
Masashi Tatekawa
Masashi Tatekawa
Aiko's boyfriend.- First Girl Wins: A gender inverted example of this towards Aiko, who he was attracted to long before she started losing weight and is now dating.
- Nice Guy: Noted to be a friendly guy.
- Second Love: To Aiko, who initially was hung up on Yamato even when she was already dating Masashi.
Kai Takemura
Kai Takemura
- Birds of a Feather: Bonds with Mei over their shared experience with bullying.
- Celibate Hero: Kai is ultimately shown to be this.
- While he did have some feelings for Mei earlier on, these were not quite strong enough for him to actually act on them, and he easily moved on.
- His short-lived relationship with Rin ironically points to this, since Rin was clearly more into Kai than he was into her, given that Kai didn't really seem to put in the effort of getting to know her better, and wasn't at a point where he could be completely open and honest with her about his insecurities.
- He also has some sizeable Belligerent Sexual Tension with Megumi, but it's unknown wether or not he has feelings for her. The final chapter does reveal that she, on her part, has finally realized her own feelings for him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kai was subjected to horrific bullying when he was younger, to the point where he had to change schools for his own safety.
- Face of a Thug: Kai looks like a rough delinquent sort, but he's actually an honest and fundamentally decent young man.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Kai is a unrepentant fan of Land (most likely a pastiche of Sanrio), an in-universe franchise and associated theme park with a host of cute anthropomorphic animal mascots that has a predominantly female fanbase. Kai is such a fan that he instantly recognizes some Land merch Mei has on her person, prompting him to speak to her for the first time. This is also what immediately clues him in that Megumi, who he initially thought was a fellow Land fan he could geek out with only to quickly realize she knew nothing about the franchise's characters, is actually putting on an act.
- Scars Are Forever: Kai still bears cigarette burns from when he was bullied in middle school, which makes him uncomfortable about being seen with his shirt off.
- Ship Tease: With Megumi, whose cutesy act doesn't fool him for a moment.
- Unwanted Harem: Kai quickly gains quite the sizeable female fanclub, and is demonstrably uncomfortable with the entire situation.
Megumi Kitagawa
Megumi Kitagawa
- Attractiveness Isolation: Megumi grew up in relative poverty, and got routinely bullied as a child for her shabby clothing and unkempt appearance. She spent the next subsequent years improving her image, mainly through cosmetics, but this had the side effect of attracting the attention of her male former bullies and the ire of their girlfriends. Megumi was later scouted by a modelling agency, and built up the persona of a sweet and bubbly girl all while remaining just as bitter and resentful on the inside. This in turn means that her "friendships" with other teenagers rely completely on her disingenuous sweet persona, and she can never truly be herself.
- Break the Haughty: Megumi becomes so fixated on isolating Mei that she doesn't realize she is alienating everyone else in the process. She even turns her back on her longtime best friend Momoko because she refuses to help Megumi ruin Mei's life.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Invoked, with Angelo walking up to her at Charles de Gaulle airport and referring to her as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
- Entitled to Have You: This can pretty much sum up Megumi's attraction to Yamato; she seems to believe that her having put in every effort to improve her appearance over time means that she has "earned" Yamato far more than Mei could ever hope to, which of course completely takes out of the equation how Yamato might feel about the whole thing.
- It's Personal: Over time, Megumi's fixation with Yamato shifts to Mei, as it becomes less about getting Yamato's attention and more about isolating Mei and making her miserable.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Megumi ultimately realizes that there is no room for her in Yamato's heart, and harshly tells off other girls who imply that she could easily steal him from Mei.
- Loving a Shadow: Ultimately, Megumi isn't all that into Yamato since she actually barely knows him; the actual reason she wants Yamato is that she simply cannot understand how someone as shabby and taciturn as Mei managed to land him seemingly without having to lift a finger, while Megumi herself spent years bettering her outward image and pretending to be someone she's not in order to have friends (or at least what she thinks constitutes as friends).
- May–December Romance: While applying for modelling gigs in Paris, Megumi briefly gets together with Angelo, a professional photographer around twenty years her senior.
- Minor Living Alone: Megumi seems to earn enough as a teen model that she can afford to live in her own apartment. Her mother is around and frequently tries to check in on her daughter, who never answers any of her messages.
- Proud Beauty: Is she ever. Megumi is beautiful and fashionable and she knows it, and is even a famous amateur model.
- Ship Tease: With Kai, the one person to instantly see through Megumi's cutesy facade. It's later confirmed that she does have feelings for him.
- Stalker with a Crush: Mildly. Megumi is first introduced when she meets Yamato at karaoke and instantly develops an interest in him. She isn't deterred from pursuing him when Nakanishi tells her Yamato already has a girlfriend, and says as much to Yamato who pretty harshly turns her down. This still doesn't stop her and she follows him home with the intent of giving him Valentine's chocolates. And when THAT fails, she transfers to Yamato's school.
- True Love is Exceptional: While she initially has an admittedly shallow infatuation for Yamato, who in her mind's eye looks like the ideal, mild mannered "prince charming" type boyfriend who would let her get away with anything, Megumi ultimately moves past this and falls genuinely in love with Kai, who is far more rough around the edges, not to mention ready and willing to call her out on her bullshit.
Kakeru Hayakawa
Kakeru Hayakawa
A friend of Yamato.- Always Someone Better: This is Kakeru's opinion of Yamato, who doesn't actually go about trying to sleep with any girl in school and yet still gets more girls than he does, to the point where Kakeru tries to sleep with Yamato's girlfriend Mei just so that he can say he got to her first.
- The Casanova: He's only just the second most popular boy in school after Yamato.
- Really Gets Around: Kakeru is succesful in his sexual endeavors but he isn't exactly careful, which gets him in trouble with an older woman who arranges for him to get jumped on a street corner all because Kakeru left her hotel room without saying goodbye.
Chiharu Ogawa
Chiharu Ogawa
Kakeru's childhood friend, and incidentally Mei's coworker at her part-time job.- Love Martyr: To Kakeru, who she loves dearly despite the fact that he takes her utterly for granted.
- Morality Pet: In a way, to Kakeru; she's the only girl in school he hasn't tried to sleep with.
- Patient Childhood Love Interest: She and Kakeru have known each other since they were very young, and all that time she has had a crush on him.
- Supreme Chef: Chiharu has been diligently perfecting her cooking skills since she was a kid, and gives Kakeru a homemade bento everyday.
Rin Aoi
Rin Aoi
An amateur model like Megumi.- Big Sister Bully: Ren is actually the older twin, but Rin is noticeably taller than he is and picks on him any chance she gets.
- Hero Worship: Towards Megumi.
- Nice Girl: She's a sweet and kind girl who expresses heavy admiration for Megumi and develops an adorable crush on Kai.
- Statuesque Stunner: Rin is uncommonly tall, which she sometimes feels insecure about.
Ren Aoi
Ren Aoi
Rin's twin brother.- Half-Identical Twins: He and Rin have the same haircut, and he'd probably be as tall as she is if he didn't slouch.
- Mistaken for Gay: In a bout of irritation, Ren tells Rin that he hates girls, which she misconstrues as him saying that he prefers guys.
- Polar Opposite Twins: As opposed to his popular, more charismatic sister Rin, Ren is a lot more introverted and reclusive.
- Tsundere: Ren is type A towards Mei, and mainly treats his reluctant crush on her like an inconvenience at best.
Other Characters
Mrs. Tachibana
Mrs. Tachibana
Mei's unnamed mother.- Good Parents: She loves her daughter to bits and desperately wants her to be happy and well-adjusted, and they have a good relationship even if Mei initially has trouble coming to her for advice.
- Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Mei's mother is a hell of a lot more girly and outgoing than her rather blasée daughter. Aiko admits after meeting her that Mei's mother isn't at all what she expected.
Nagi Kurosawa
Nagi Kurosawa
Yamato's younger sister, an elementary schooler.- Big Brother Worship: To Yamato, which caused her classmates to accuse her of having a brother complex.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's initially very rude to Mei, but warms up to her when Mei compliments her on her sewing and gets her to open up about why she's been avoiding school.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Nagi is a talented seamstress for someone her age, and she lovingly crafts her own plush toys.
Daichi Kurosawa
Daichi Kurosawa
Yamato's older brother and a hairstylist.- The Lost Lenore: Daichi's girlfriend Suzu died sometime before the events of the main story and he still occasionally talks to her.
