Nodoka Manabe

Nodoka Manabe is Yui Hirasawa's childhood friend and initially a member of the Sakuragaoka High School's student council until she becomes its president later.

Character
Nodoka is a polite, smart and structured person, extraordinarily reliable and mature for her age. She is an assiduous and duteous girl, virtually the archetype of a successful student.

Nodoka is Yui's childhood friend and takes the part of the reliable person in their relationship in many ways. Since she has known Yui for so long, she knows about her shortcomings more than anyone else, besides Ui Hirasawa. Nodoka can be pretty strict on Yui and does not go easy on her when she makes mistakes or thinks for too long about a problem instead of solving it. This dry and sometimes cold side is however pretty useful since it is mostly the only way for Yui to understand the importance behind Nodoka's words. Nodoka sees Yui as a close friend despite all the trouble she gave her in the past, showing a forgiving and affectionate side. She values Yui's good sides highly and does all in her might to support them, always acting as a true friend.

Although serious, Nodoka is very kind and open-hearted in general, quickly befriending Mio Akiyama in their second year of high school, which saved the latter from enduring a whole year without knowing anybody in her class. Despite the fact that she is often troubled by the Light Music Club's president, Ritsu Tainaka, who constantly forgets to hand in important applications, Nodoka still forgives her every time and is also willing to deal with the mistake by herself, showing a remarkably selfless side. Even though the mistakes are quickly forgotten, the short outbursts of anger show that Nodoka can be quite scary when being enraged.

Nodoka is pretty ambitious and therefore usually successful in what she's doing. Her conscientiousness and dependability quickly brought her an important place within the school's student council, later becoming its president during her third year of high school. The council often benefits from her logical calculations and down-to-earth solutions. Her reliability, however, also brought her the role of the president of the Mio Akiyama Fan Club after Megumi Sokabe graduated, a role she had not originally intended to take up.

As the eldest of three siblings, Nodoka is very independent and prepares her own lunch for school, a fact that amazed Mio. On top of that, she is also a very skilled cook, having earned Yui's praise. She does not have any musical experience and is unexclusive when it comes to favourite music, listening to whatever everybody else is listening to, too. She is also very interested in travelling and wishes to leave Japan to visit famous historical places like Machu Piccu or exciting cities like London.

Nodoka is a very successful student and is especially good in math and science. Her athletic abilities are above average as well. Her weakest subjects are humanities.

Nodoka can be pretty unreasonable when she does not understand the issue. She can also get anxious about her future, as seen when she was uncertain if her choice of a university to attend in the future was the right one for her or when she was uncertain if she should study abroad or not. If she can't hold up the expectations placed on her, she is usually pretty conscience-stricken and needs the help of others to make up for it. She also appears to have a low sense of orientation in unknown areas, even with a map.

In contrast to her usual strict self, she sometimes shows rare signs of a more easygoing side, like when she states that an overnight stay inside of the school would be "fun". She also knows how to turn an awkward situation around so it's not as embarrassing for the other person anymore. Very rarely, she loses control and lets her emotions burst out, like after hearing about Yui's future plan to become a musician or after the Light Music Club learned about the student council's tradition to have a photo album for the line-up each year, which appears to be a bit embarrassing for Nodoka.

Appearance
Nodoka has medium length brown hair and brown eyes. She wears squarish, red, half-frame spectacles. As a Sakuragaoka High School student, she wears the uniform with white socks when being at school. Outside school, she is seen wearing plain casual look. She likes wearing jeans.

As a young child, she did not wear glasses.