Yui Hirasawa Trivia


 * Her guitar is a Gibson Pre-'08 Les Paul Standard '50s in Heritage Cherry Sunburst. She names it Giita, which quite literally means "guitar". In 2008, Gibson gave the "Standard" name to a new design of Les Paul, while the old Standard was renamed the Traditional; worth noting because the manga started in 2007. She uses D'Addario EXL145 strings on it, oddly heavy strings for her and the music she plays. Of course, being Yui, she likely has no idea there are different sizes of strings, as she didn't even know they had to be changed at first. In the manga, its pickup selector switch is always set to the "Treble" position, which means only the Bridge Pickup is being used, which is usually well suited for lead guitar. In the anime, it's always set to the middle position, which uses both pickups, giving a more full sound, well suited for the low, Power Chord-heavy riffs Yui tends to play. Gibson's page for the Les Paul Traditional, the same guitar with a new name.
 * Her surname is taken from Japanese electropop-artist and P-Model founder Susumu Hirasawa (平沢進).
 * The kanji of her given name (唯) has the reading "tada", which is a word meaning "only; merely; just; simply"; as in "She is the only one who can do that."


 * Yui has a habit of naming and talking to inanimate objects as if they were people, a trend that gradually spreads to her bandmates and their instruments. She is especially fond of her guitar, which she calls "Giita". Yui later names Mio's bass "Elizabeth" (a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of that name and the word "bass") without permission, which annoys Mio (at first). She also inspires Azusa to name her own guitar "Muttan" (which sounds like Mustang, the name of her guitar). Finally, Yui gives the name "Bukuro-chan" to the gloves Ui gave her for Christmas.


 * Yui is apparently allergic to air conditioning, though she can't stand overly hot or cold temperatures in general. Yui also easily gets carsick, but is immune to heat strokes.
 * Yui appears to be ticklish under her arms and on her feet.
 * Yui, who is unable to write proper lyrics at first, is the one who writes Ho-Kago Tea Time's last song to be officially performed, U&I. The song is dedicated to her sister, Ui, when she realized how precious Ui is to her; Ui had caught a cold and this inspired Yui to write the lyrics. Yui also wrote Gohan wa Okazu with Ui's help.
 * Yui can't resist cute dogs. Every time she sees one, she holds its head and calls it cute. Her favorite breed is pugs.
 * Yui had to learn to sing and play the guitar simultaneously. She was trained by Sawako to do this, losing her voice in the process, ultimately forcing Mio to sing the lead part at the club's first school fair.
 * Yui seems to possess or have perfect pitch. Both in the manga and the anime, Azusa ask Yui of she uses a tuner when tuning her guitar but she doesn't know what even a tuner is and Yui shows to Azusa that she tone her guitar by ear. It also shows in the manga only, that she noticed her guitar tunings dropped by a half tone while tuning her wearing out guitar.
 * Yui has the second largest hands out of Ho-Kago Tea Time, after Mio.
 * The Light Music Club is the first school club Yui has joined in her life.
 * Yui has a habit of hugging people when she feels like it, often without the other person's consent.
 * Popular fan theory suggests that Yui is the female counterpart to John Lennon of The Beatles. Much like Lennon, Yui is a musical prodigy despite never learning how to read sheet-music and shares Lennon's eccentric yet kind and idealistic personality. Yui learned how to play the guitar properly from the resident left-handed bassist of her band, Mio, in the same way that Lennon learned to play guitar from Paul McCartney, the left-handed bassist of The Beatles. Lennon and Yui also both share lead vocal duties with their band's bassists. Finally, despite being the lighthearted Yin to Mio/McCartney's disciplined Yang, both Yui and Lennon share a warm respect for their respective bands' lead bassist that is fondly and mutually returned.