The Character sheet for all iterations of the Tamayura series, starting from the OVAs onward to Hitotose and More Aggresive.
Fuu Sawatari
- Voiced By: Ayana Taketatsu
The series heroine, Fuu, otherwise known as Potte by her friends, is a shy girl usually seen with an old-style camera in hand. As of the start of the series, she and her family had just moved back to Takehara, her father's hometown, a place she had avoided returning to for a long time due to his sudden death several years prior.
This, as well as the resurgence in her love for photography, all point to Fuu finally coming to terms with her father's passing, as well as finally moving forward and finding her own path in life.
Among her friends, Fuu's love of photography represents the sense of sight.
- Childhood Friends: With both Kaoru and Chihiro.
- Cloudcuckoolander: While her group of friends all display some weirdness at one time or another, Fuu is more prone to odd mental wanderings. Also she seems to disregard her own safety when trying to take pictures.
- Club President: Come ~ More Aggressive.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Fuu's tendencies give rise to her nickname, Potte, an onomatopoeic device for falling objects.
- Cuteness Proximity: Around Momoneko-sama.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
- Disappeared Dad: Fuu's deceased father provides a driving force for the story.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Fuu and her friends all met before as kindergarteners (circa 1999) at Shiomichi, but all were too young to remember it.
- Girlish Pigtails: Prior to moving to Takehara
- In-Series Nickname:
- Potte, given to her by Sayomi, during Fuu's first visit to Takehara when Fuu, Kaoru and Sayomi were still little.
- Fuu-nyon, used by Chihiro.
- New Transfer Student: During the OVA and the first episode of ~ Hitotose.
- No Social Skills: Fuu's inherent shyness when meeting new people reduces her speech to an incoherent stream of words.
- #1 Dime: The train ticket with no apparent destination, which was sent by Shihomi to Fuu when they first started to correspond with each other.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt
- Shrinking Violet: Gradually grows out of this.
- So Proud of You: Several times people tell Fuu what her father would have thought or felt about her.
- Tell Me About My Father: A large part of the anime is about Fuu researching or discovering things about her father.
- Verbal Tic: ~ Na no de.
- Episode 6 of the second season confirms that Fū's deceased father did the exact same thing when he was still alive. Perhaps she picked it up from her dad when she was younger, and it stuck?
Kaoru Hanawa
- Voiced By: Kana Asumi
A native of Takehara, Kaoru is Fuu's first friend, having befriended the latter when Fuu visited the town as a child. When Fuu suddenly stopped visiting Takehara in the wake of her father's death, this made her very concerned for her friend, as Fuu stopped communicating altogether. Needless to say, Kaoru was glad when Fuu and her family finally moved to Takehara permanently, doubly so since her friend seemed to be okay now.
Kaoru loves experimenting and making home-made fragrances, and by the end of ~Hitotose, had decided to study perfume-making when she graduates. Although come ~Sotsugyou Shashin she decided to keep it as a hobby and became wedding organizer instead.
Due to her sensitive nose, and love of creating potpourri fragrances, Kaoru represents the sense of smell.
- Childhood Friends: With both Potte and Norie.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
- Forgotten First Meeting: The girls all met before as kindergarteners (circa 1999) at Shiomichi, but all were too young to remember it.
- In-Series Nickname: Kao-tan, used by Norie.
- Berserk Button: Unfortunately, Kaoru doesn't like the nickname, and will often rebuke Norie for doing so. Not that it stops the latter.
- Meaningful Name: Kaoru's name is written in hiragana (かおる); when written in kanji (馨), it means "fragrance".
- Straight Man: For her group of friends.
Maon Sakurada
- Voiced By: Yuko Gibu
Norie's classmate, Maon is a quiet girl who prefers to communicate through her whistles. Because they're initially in different classes, she only befriends both Fuu and Kaoru through Norie, and even then only after she gets interested in the photo of Potte's father that was displayed at Hinomaru.
Although a native of the island of Osaki-Shiomachi in Mitarai (where incidentally Potte's paternal grandfather also lives in), she moves to Takehara during middle school, to help overcome her shyness. While in Takehara, she lives in an apartment run by one of her aunts. At Shiomachi island her family runs a ryokan, but since she's the only child there's always the concern of whether or not she'd eventually take over running the inn, or find her own way in the world.
Aside from whistling, Maon loves listening to music, and also plays an ocarina. As such, she represents the sense of hearing among her group of friends.
- Character Tics: Maon has a habit of whistling to express her thoughts.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
- Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Maon has, amongst other things, wished to be a manga artist, puppeteer and a magician.
- Come ~More Aggressive however, she seems to have settled on combining facets of these old hobbies, to become a writer/storyteller instead.
- Forgotten First Meeting: The girls all met before as kindergarteners (circa 1999) at Shiomichi, but all were too young to remember it.
- Hime Cut
- Non-Uniform Uniform: As shown in the picture above, Maon wears a pink sweater instead of the long-sleeved blouse the rest of her friends use.
- The Quiet One: Maon only speaks on occasion and prefers whistling over speaking.
- Shrinking Violet: Prior to meeting Norie, Maon had a real hard time making friends.
Norie Okazaki
- Voiced By: Yuka Iguchi
Another Takehara native, and Kaoru's childhood friend, excitable Norie dreams of someday becoming a pastry chef. She's notable thrilled to learn that Fuu's grandmother is the proprietress of Cafe Tamayura, and what's more, an expert confectionery maker. As such she tries to visit the cafe whenever she can, to both learn grandma's secrets, as well as show off her own personal creation.
Norie is especially enamored of Fuu's younger brother Kou, which makes Komachi's near-constant presence around the boy a continuing annoyance.
Given Norie's love of sweets, she represents the sense of taste among her friends.
- Ambiguously Bi: Her infatuation with Kou doesn't change when she learns he is a boy instead of a girl. She also had a crush on a boy her age when she was younger, and playfully flirts with Kaoru from time to time.
- Cuteness Proximity: Norie just goes wild around Kou.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Averted. Among the friends, she's the one with a set goal from the beginning, which is to say becoming a professional patissier.
- Forgotten First Meeting: The girls all met before as kindergarteners (circa 1999) at Shiomichi, but all were too young to remember it.
- Genki Girl
- Girlish Pigtails: Her trademark hairstyle.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Norie and Komachi don't get along. At all.
Kazuma Sawatari
Fuu's late father.
- The Faceless: He appears as such in her photographs of him.
- Posthumous Character
Kou Sawatari
- Voiced By: Kanako Miyamoto
Fuu's younger brother, Kou is an grade-schooler who doesn't seem to have a hostile bone in his body, and is pretty much friendly to everyone he meets. When not at school, he generally helps around Cafe Tamayura, mostly with serving the dishes his mother and grandmother prepares.
While far too young to realize it, Kou's got the potential to be quite a ladies man due to his ladylike looks. Both Komachi and Norie are attracted to him, and often get into comic spats while trying to get his attention.
- Cheerful Child: Kou is generally happy and encouraged Fuu to rekindle her interests in photography.
- Disappeared Dad
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Kou looks very effeminate, and more than one character has mistaken him for Fuu's sister than her younger brother, at least at first.
Tamae Sawatari
- Voiced By: Megumi Ogata
- In-Series Nickname: Tamayu-san, among the other bikers of the Touring Club she used to be in.
Grandma Sawatari
- Voiced By: Yoshiko Matsuo
- Cool Old Lady: Fuu's grandmother.
- Miniature Senior Citizen: Fuu's grandmother is noticeably shorter than the rest of the characters.
Sayomi Hanawa
- Voiced By: Sayaka Ohara
Kaoru's older sister, Sayomi is a student in an unnamed university outside of Takehara, and as such is only able to come home during holidays or during her days off from her also-unspecified part-time work. While generally well-meaning, Sayomi's flighty nature often just ends up annoying her younger sister, especially when she ends up dragging Kaoru and the rest of her friends on her "trips".
Like Fuu, Sayomi likes taking pictures, but this has slowly become secondary to the hobby she picked up at college, which is to say finding scenic but secluded spots in the countryside to hike to. While the places do end up being breathtaking, the fact that they often take upwards of an hour to hike to after disembarking made these trips infamous among her younger sister's friends.
- Annoying Older Sister: Mostly due to her pushy personality, as well as how she usually drags Kaoru and her friends off in her trips, Sayomi is usually treated with a whole lot less respect than you'd expect by her younger sister.
- Cool Big Sis: What Sayomi wants to be treated as. Sadly more often than not it backfires.
- Drives Like Crazy: Sayomi definitely follows the Yukari-chan school of driving, and it's come to the point that the girls count their blessings that they were able to arrive at their destinations alive with Sayomi driving.
- The Nicknamer: It was Sayomi that gave Fuu her nickname "Potte".
- Womanchild
Chihiro Miyoshi
- Voiced By: Minako Kotobuki
Fuu's best friend from Shioiri, Chihiro is a sensitive girl who loves making stuffed toys, as well as giving goofy nicknames to the aforementioned stuffed toys. In fact, the cat-themed camera case that Fuu stores her cherished Rolei camera as well as the tag holder was made by her, as a parting gift prior to Fuu's move to Takehara.
Although introduced in the first episode of ~ Hitotose, Chihiro doesn't actually meet the rest of Fuu's new friends until she visits Takehara during the summer of Fuu's first year. Come ~ More Aggressive, Fuu and the others return the favor, this time visiting Chihiro at Shioiri for the fireworks festival there.
Among Fuu's friends, Chihiro's love of sewing and making stuffed toys represents the sense of touch.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Due to Chihiro's sensitive nature, she's fairly keyed in to Fuu's issues connected to her father's sudden death and, during Fuu's last year in Shioiri, tried her best to keep her friend from brooding too much on it.
- Childhood Friends: With Fuu.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals
- He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: Chihiro specifically mentions that she's doing the crying that Fuu should be doing, had the latter not bottled up her feelings regarding her father's passing.
- Shrinking Violet: A trait she shares with Fuu, and probably THE main reason the two became fast friends (because they were too shy to try to make friends with their other classmates in grade school). Extends a bit into the present day, when one considers the difficulty Chihiro showed in approaching Tomo-chan.
- Tender Tears: Chihiro is a very sensitive soul, and is often prone to this, even if the thing she's crying for wasn't even hers to begin with.
Momoneko-sama
- Voiced By: Yukari Fukui
- Cute Kitten: Momoneko-sama is a fluffy pink ...cat...ball...thing.
"Maestro"
- Voiced By: Joji Nakata
The owner and proprietor of the Hinomaru Photo Studio, the local and likely only shop that provides camera repair and photo developing services in town. Given Fuu's hobby, this naturally means that his place gets visited often by the girls, and serves as a secondary hangout of sorts for them. Aside from minding the shop, he also apparently runs photo tours of the area.
A classmate and close friend of Fuu's father, he opted to stay in town and take over his family's studio, unlike his friends Kazuma and Nozomu who sought out their fortunes elsewhere. Right now, he's content to look after Fuu in his own indirect way, in place of her father.
- Cool Old Guy
- Dirty Old Man: As Kaoru notes, Maestro is a little too friendly with the female customers of his shop.
- Eyes Always Shut
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's called Maestro because of his technical skill with cameras and photos.
- Even his highschool friend never refers to him as more than 'that guy from Hinomaru'.
Riho Shihomi
- Voiced By: Erino Hazuki
A professional photographer who Fuu admires and eventually befriends, Shihomi's specialty is taking pictures of the sky. The two meet for the first time after Fuu receives a ticket to one of Shihomi's exhibitions.
- Ambiguously Gay: She's never seen showing interest in men, gets extremely enthusiastic when she meets Fuu, and moves in with Chimo.
- Big Sister Mentor: She helps guide Fuu to be a better photographer due to her own experiences in the field.
- Cool Big Sis: Despite not being related to the Sawataris, Riho fills this role for Fuu.
- Put on a Bus: She disappears after the first Sotsugyō Shashin movie, when she moves to Tokyo to help out at her mentor's gallery.
- Squee: Her reaction when she and Fuu first meet.
Chimo Yakusa
- Voiced By: Miyu Matsuki
The proprietress of Hoboro, the okonomiyaki place that Potte and her friends often visit to eat out at. Given its location and the fact that the okonomiyaki are delicious as well, it's inevitable that many of the characters of the series drop by the restaurant.
It is revealed in ~ Hitotose that Chimo herself used to be an artist, but stopped after she returned to Takehara to take over the management of Hoboro. She runs the restaurant on her own, but gains a companion later on when Shihomi moves in as a semi-permanent border.
- Ambiguously Bi: She is quick to let Riho live with her, and there are subtle hints sprinkled throughout that they are indeed together. In the second Sotsugyō Shashin movie, after Riho has moved to Tokyo, she announces her engagement—to Dougou.
- Cool Big Sis
- In-Series Nickname: Hoboro-san.
- Oblivious to Love: Everyone but Chimo seems to notice how Dougou is head-over-heels attracted to her.
Komachi Shinoda
- Voiced By: Ryō Hirohashi
A grade-schooler and schoolmate of Fuu's brother Kou, Komachi is a competitive girl who initially challenged both Norie and Fuu because she though they were using their hobbies to get close to him. This is the main reason she picked up photography as a hobby (to challenge Fuu), and even participates in the "We" exhibition the girls put on at the end of the year.
Come ~ More Aggressive, Komachi's skill and confidence had grown enough that she's started to actively submit her pictures to photography magazines, much to everyone's surprise.
She started liking Kou after the Sawatari family moves to Takehara, and like many people, initially thought he was a girl. Somewhat conveniently, her grandmother lives in Shiomachi, which meant that she was around for Kou's visit to Maon's home.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Komachi takes much amusement in driving Norie up the wall.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Komachi exhibits clinginess towards Kou.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Norie and Komachi don't get along. At all.
Kazutaro Dougou
- Voiced By: Junji Majima
- Dogged Nice Guy. He gets better.
- Pungeon Master: Dougou-sensei loves making terrible puns based on local landmarks, to the dismay of his class. He'll stop if a new teacher comes.
- Sensei-chan: Dougou is a rare male variant. The girls however are decidedly bothered by this.
Kanae Mitani
- Voiced By: Ai Kayano
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
- Sixth Ranger: Newly added to the cast in ~More Aggressive~, she doesn't become as close a friend as the main characters until the end of the season.
- Verbal Tic: Has a tendency to repeat herself, reflecting her shy nature.
Mutsuko Shimokamiyama
- Voiced By: Chinami Nishimura
- Genki Girl: An grown up version.
- Sensei-chan
Manami Hoshi
- Voiced By: Megumi Nakajima
Shimako Tobita
- Voiced By: Chiwa Saitō
Tomo-chan
- Voiced By: Nao Tōyama
- Chekhov's Gunman: Is the nameless girl mentioned by Chihiro that she wanted to befriend in ~ Hitotose, but we only get to meet her in person in ~ More Aggressive.
- Genki Girl
- Motor Mouth: It's hard to stop her once she starts her barrage of questions.
- Only One Name: Aside from Maestro, she's the only recurring character whose family name is never stated, not even on the anime's website.
- This while the creators had no trouble naming random strangers who don't even appear (e.g. the contestants in the Higashikano Shrine sparkler contest).
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: With Chihiro, although it appears to move into actual romantic territory over the course of the series.
Nozomu Natsume
- Voiced By: Hikaru Midorikawa
