Yozora Mikazuki

Yozora Mikazuki is the main female character of the light novel and anime series Haganai. She is a second year student at St. Chronica's Academy and in the same class as Kodaka Hasegawa. After indirectly getting the idea from Kodaka, Yozora creates the Neighbour's Club, a club for people who don't have many friends. She is actually Kodaka's childhood friend, 'Sora', though he doesn't recognize her as he believed her to be a boy.
She is voiced by Marina Inoue in the Japanese version of the anime and Whitney Rodgers in the English version. the former of whom also voices Laura Bodewig.
==Appearance==
In Volumes 1 to 3 Yozora had long flowing, black hair that was decorated with small pink ribbons at the ends. By the end of Volume 3, Yozora cut her hair short due to the incident at the festival (she burned the lower part of her hair because of fireworks) but was shown to be growing back as the series progresses. Yozora has purple eyes and was often described as beautiful.
She is mostly depicted in her school uniform but in public, Yozora prefers to wear boyish clothes that makes her look well when she is outside. However, near the end of Volume 6, Yozora, after being shocked at the realization that it looks "sexy", she has begun to wear dark sweaters that cover most of her body. She is 162 cm tall, making her the third tallest member of the club after Kodaka and Sena.
==Personality==
Yozora is a complicated individual, to say the very least. On the surface, she comes off as a cruel, selfish, narcissistic, manipulative and at times downright abusive young woman who takes great enjoyment in teasing and tormenting the other members of the club. This is especially true in her treatment of Sena; a running gag in the series involves Yozora saying or doing something cruel to her and Sena running out of the club room crying. Her abuse of Sena is so bad that Kodaka has asked if she's the Devil on more than one occasion. Her treatment of the other members isn't much better; she fools Yukimura into working for the club as a crossdressing cosplay maid and frequently takes advantage of Maria's naivety, such as when she tricks her into running around outside completely naked. The only people safe from her abuse are Kodaka and Rika, due to the latter taking whatever insult Yozora gives her and throwing it back as a perverted comment.
She can be independent and also a loner
However, from as early as the beginning of the series, it is shown that there is a lot more to Yozora than she appears. When Kodaka first talks to her, she is shown to be talking to an 'air friend' named Tomo, implying serious loneliness issues. After Kodaka recognizes her as Sora, she tells Kodaka that she wanted to reveal to him that she was a girl but that she was wearing a skirt and was afraid he would laugh her, due to it being the first time she wore a skirt. Despite the fact that she has a tendency to strongly disagree to Sena's decisions, even she can admit to a degree when she goes too far and has apologized on a few occasions. Also, while not easily seen, Yozora can be in fact far more sensitive than she lets on, as shown when she cried tears of joy after Kodaka recognized her as Sora and after playing an Otome game recommended by Rika, which Yozora found her character all alone and started crying of sadness, seemingly seeing herself on the character in question. As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that her cold, self-centred personality is nothing more than a façade to hide her true self- a lonely, depressed and deeply insecure girl who just wants to have friends but doesn't know how to make them.
Yozora has a mild unsocial personality, she values privacy greatly and hence, dislikes parlors (which is the reason why she has kept her hair so long) and crowded areas (to the point where it will be nauseating for her). She became this way after her experience in losing "Night", a cat she and Kodaka found ten years ago under an abandoned temple, as well Kodaka's sudden disappearance during their childhood (the timing of which Yozora was unaware). As a result of these, she was traumatized by the fact of not establishing bonds with other people to avoid getting hurt, hence, she is very cautious of her well-being, which is likely one of the reasons why she doesn't have friends. Likewise, she dislikes individuals who acts friendly over their first interaction, a trait she also shares with Sena, due to the suspicion of treachery and betrayal in the end. Despite this, Yozora is shown to be very fond of children, as she acts like an older sister to Kobato and treats her notably nicer than the other members. And while she frequently takes advantage of Maria's naivety, it is shown that her manipulations have had a positive effect on Maria's personality and brought her haughty attitude down bit by bit, to the point that her sister Kate thinks Yozora is a good influence on Maria.
Yozora deeply treasures the time of being childhood friends with Kodaka in the past saying she would rather choose the time where she and Kodaka were still friends than the present, to the point that she gets angry at anyone who disrespects it. This is shown when Sena points out that their friendship is 'ancient history and that she should focus on the task assigned to her, causing Yozora to get extremely furious with Sena, to the point where it ends with her bursting into tears and leaving the clubroom. Right before this, however, she says she wishes Sena didn't exist, much to the shock of everyone, though Yozora really means she wishes Sena had never come into their lives. Sena even notes that, as much as she hates Yozora, she never wished she didn't exist. According to Kodaka, the memories of them from 10 years ago is what kept Yozora going in being her usual self.
Although a gifted student, Yozora is frequently shown to be rather lacking in imagination; not only did she plagiarize an entire movie script, but she is rather poor at coming up with names for things; she called her air friend "Tomo-chan", which roughly translates as "Friendy", and the name "Neighbours Club" is one of the many aspects of her club proposal that don't impress Kodaka. She also names Sena's dating-game character Semoponume at random, but then keeps using it like it's a sensible name. Even her nicknames are unimaginative, from "Meat" for Sena to "Night" for her own RPG character and of course "Sora" for herself, unwittingly matching Kodaka's equally lazy nickname "Taka". Yozora is also rather naive when it comes to romance, believing that being Kodaka's childhood friend means that him loving her is inevitable and no-one else is allowed to have him. As such, after learning that Sena had known him well before she did, she is sent into a state of deep depression, to the point that she takes a break from the Neighbour's Club and goes on a trip in order to think.
Yozora falls into shock and even depression when her meticulous plans fail or even backfire, notably with the Neighbours Club itself, since it was intended for her to reconnect with Kodaka, only to have it filled with other girls, most of whom hold feelings for Kodaka, thereby she unintentionally surrounded herself with rivals for his attention. Likewise, her prank to make Yukimura crossdress backfired, as Yukimura wasn't an effeminate boy, but another beautiful girl who became an admirer of Kodaka, which turned into love. Her arch-rival Sena falls in love with Kodaka, too, and since she lacks Yozora's self-esteem issues and doubts, she beat her to initiate a romance with him (albeit, Kodaka puts it on hold due to wanting to respect and sort the feelings of each club member).
Part of Yozora's social disorders originated from Kodaka's unexpected disappearance (unexpected from her point of view), but they were made worse by her home life. Her parents had an especially vitriolic separation and divorce; Yozora's sister went with their father, while Yozora remained with her mother. Yozora's mother, however, suffered from intense mental and temper problems, thus was emotionally abusive, and often using physical violence against her daughter, which even lead to knives thrown, or even stabbed her, sometimes leading to hospital trips; despite the horrific treatment, Yozora remained with her mother due to her trauma and abandonment issues, thus couldn't force herself to "abandon" her mother. Her awful childhood is what likely contributed to her later anti-social behaviour, bullying, and cruel actions in high school.
While she displays a harsh, blunt attitude to people - though to lesser extent with Kodaka, and eventually their fellow club members - as well as remaining relatively stoic, towards cats she acts lovingly; her enamourment with cats removes her tough exterior, as she cuddles them and infantilisingly talk to them, giving affectionate remarks. Although, when someone notices her cute turn, she can become embarrassed and tries to hide her warmer side again.
Yozora tends to be competitive, so relies on things that she is best at such as school grades, puzzles, riddles, and word games, however, since Sena surpasses her in this regard, as well as athletics and general popularity, Yozora manifests "superiority" with aforementioned tricks and bullying. Sena's habit of playing erotic dating games is to the great disgust Yozora, as she finds the subject material vulgar and crass, as well as finding the dating games developing friendship into romance as something counterintuitive to the "purity" of friendship; thus also why she is disturbed and repulsed whenever Rika's sexual fantasies escalate. Despite this prude attitude, in the manga, Yozora was staying at Kodaka's place, and he accidentally caught her pleasuring herself in the bathroom, thereby showing that she does have a sex drive. Amusingly, this tied into her competitiveness, as at a subsequent Neighbour's Club meeting, the girls were bragging about how close they each were to Kodaka, which provoked Yozora to admit that he saw her "flick the bean."
A lot of Yozora's animosity with Sena is based upon jealousy, which becomes worse the more she learned. Yozora initially rejected Sena as the latter was the "school princess" who was exceedingly popular and had multiple friends, thus the opposite kind of person that the Neighbour's Club was meant for, but Yozora relented when Sena revealed that she deciphered the poster riddle, and the fact that she had no friends but "minions." Sena's more voluptuous figure is what provoked Yozora to label her as "Meat," just to undermine the superficial determinants of attractiveness as ugly fodder. Sena being the pinnacle of school grades and athletics also made Yozora upset, but she tried to deny it. A large factor in how Yozora considered herself closest to Kodaka was their past as childhood friends, but upon learning Sena and him were also childhood friends, but also when younger, it contributed into Yozora's period of a spiral into depression.
Despite the fact that she initially created the club just so she could get closer to Kodaka, Yozora does seem to treasure the Neighbor's Club deeply, as she has become considerably warmer thanks to her friends. One example would be when she decided to cancel the movie planned for the School Festival due to Rika catching a cold out of overwork, claiming that if they, the seven members of the Neighbour's Club, could not watch it together, it would be pointless, an act that was fully respected by the whole club. She also protected Kobato's club membership from Aoi Yusa. Ultimately, in spite of her many flaws, Yozora is a very selfless girl who is willing to throw away her reputation and even her very own safety to lend a helping a hand to the people who share her pain and past experiences as a neglected loner.
==Skills & Abilities==
===Intelligence===
Yozora is very smart, she had high results on the semestral tests, and even scored full marks on one of them (Modern Japanese). She also has quite a good understanding of people that combined with mentioned intelligence and acting skills, which lets her effortlessly outsmart and manipulate her fellow club members.
An example would be when Yozora once used her knowledge about the human body to step on Sena's center of gravity to make her immobile while pouring sunblock and flinging insults at her. Another good example would be the case where she pretended to have poor marks on her tests (note: poor by her standards) because of being busy with club activities to lure Kodaka into a trap and reveal his mediocre (compared to Yozora's) results.
Ironically, in terms of love, Yozora is very naive in this matter as she was confused when Rika introduced BL genres and finds inter-gender relations a confusing, somewhat disturbing mess, and would prefer being just friends. In fact, her disliking of Sena's eroges stems not so much from their sexual content but more because of romantic themes.
Yozora also has amazing memorization skills, as shown during her confrontation with the Student Council's treasurer, Aoi Yusa. Having memorized all of the school rules, and due to this fact, was able to save Kobato and her membership to the club in spite of her juniority, as pointed out by Aoi Yusa, who disallows letting "outsiders" enter the school's premises, and was able to save the club's existence and its club members.
Yozora also has great leadership skills. Aside from her title being the club president of the Neighbor's Club, Yozora can also effectively handle numerous student council related-duties without much effort to the point where Aoi and Kodaka had recommended her to take the position as student council president.
Due to her high-level of intelligence, she was able to slip out of any complex situations thrown at her through her sharp reasoning.
=== Physical Powers ===
In the past, Yozora was shown to be fairly strong, being able to fight bullies with Kodaka. Presently, Yozora is strong enough to grab Kodaka by his collar and hold him in such a position for a while during one of Rika's antics.
She also has good reflexes that are most often used along with her fly swatter, which she uses to punish members (most usually Sena) whenever they try something that either annoys or disgusts her.
Yozora is shown to also have low stamina, as shown when debating with Aoi whether or not their club is following school rules. This left Yozora physically and mentally exhausted to the point of near-fainting as she claims that talking with people she isn't familiar with is tiresome for her.
Yozora has also shown some level of skill in playing basketball but is still overshadowed by that of Sena's and the basketball club.
===Domestic Abilities===
In sharp contrast to Kodaka, Yozora is not really good at chores, especially cooking and has been often amazed that Kodaka can cook so well. It is revealed in the light novel that Yozora is afraid of knives (resulting in her inability to cook) as she has some trauma involving her mother trying to stab her in the past.
Yozora also once said that in home economics, she would usually be left alone and would eat some extra food that was given to her by classmates that pitied her loneliness.
===Other skills===
Yozora has poor social skills, not even being able to use her cellphone properly before and as the story progressed, this became more and more obvious. Yozora is also not good at art, as her drawing was described by Kodaka himself as "horrible".
Yozora can also sing elegantly, as shown when they all went together as the Neighbor's Club to a Karaoke Box. While there, Sena revealed that Yozora garnered all the high scores until she was able to outperform all of them, but still leaving Yozora in first place. Even Kodaka shares the same view of Yozora having a good voice.
When they were filming their movie for the cultural festival, Yozora is shown to be exceptionally talented in acting, even in the face of embarrassment. When Sena had her wear a witch costume, exposing most of her skin (especially her bottom), she was still palpable enough to pull off acting.
Yozora also shows some level of skill in gaming (e.g. video games, board games). Yozora's knack in throwing off her opponents speaks volumes in games that require some level of strategy and critical thinking.
==Gallery==
===Images===
Yozora.jpg
Yozora- Long Hair.png|Yozora with long hair
Yozora Mikazuki 2.png|Yozora after cutting her hair
Yozora Mikazuki 3.jpg
Yozora- Cat Lover.gif
Yozora and Kodaka.jpg
Sora and Taka.jpg|Sora and Taka
Neighbour's Club.jpg
==Trivia==
*Yozora is extremely similar to Haruhi Suzumiya:
**Both create a school club (the Neighbour's Club and S.O.S Brigade, respectively), and indirectly get the idea from the male leads (Kodaka Hasegawa and Kyon).
**Both pull the male leads into the club against their wills
**Both have very similar personalities, being manipulative, selfish and egotistical on the outside but lonely, depressed and insecure on the inside.
**Both are introduced with long hair but cut it during a certain point.
**Both harass a voluptuous girl in their club, partially due to perceiving them as their primary rival for their male lead's attention.
**Both met the male leads before the beginning of the series (Yozora and Kodaka were childhood friends while Haruhi met a Kyon who had traveled three years into the past).
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