Akari Hoshizaki

Akari Hoshizaki is the main protagonist and a playable character from Sega's rhythm game series O.N.G.E.K.I.. She is a second-year high school student of Kanadezaka Academy. After witnessing a certain Shooter that she admired perform in Budokan along with the other team members of Asterism, she, together with them, rose among the ranks to become the school's most powerful shooters, longing to become the next Ongeki Primera. She also appears as a guest character in games other than Sega's Performai trilogy, like Re:Stage, Groove Coaster and others.
She is voiced and portrayed in live action at concerts by .
==Personality==
Akari Hoshizaki is a deterministic and hardworking young woman. She can be a bit ditzy due to her high level of enthusiasm as her February log in voice line has her say that she mistook sugar for salt while making chocolates, in addition to one of her opponent voice lines having her fall due to her excessive optimism. She is also shown to be good at knitting and tailoring. Akari is also shown to be highly supportive of others and prioritizes reasoning over direct combat as she tried to talk out her friends' problems when they were guilt-tripped and brainwashed by Setsuna into fighting Asterism.
==Biography==
===Chapter 0-1===
3 years before enrolling at Kanadezaka Academy, Akari, Yuzu and Aoi went to Budokan to witness a live Ongeki Primera performance. After they enrolled at Kanadezaka to fulfill their dreams, they settled on a name for the team to which they started as the Ponkotsu Trio (Clumsy Trio). Akari suggested the name of "Asterism", to which Aoi notes that it is based on the 3-star sign with each star representing each member. They were given a series of Ongeki duels by the RBP and Arisu Suzushima to gather enough Cheers which are a unit of power for each Ongeki performer for them, meeting and befriending several other shooters, to ensure their victory in the upcoming Shooter Fest and also to defend the school from her biological sister Setsuna Sumeragi, over the course of several days. During that time, Akari also befriended the ostentatious and cocky Rio Takase who would become her best friend by encouraging her to do her best after winning a duel against her.
===Chapter 2===
Upon being informed of how deathly underfunded Kanadezaka were, the RBP and the rest of the shooter units including Asterism plan to raise enough money for the school festival to be organised. Akari, Yuzu and Aoi worked on setting up signboards and advertisements by the roadside, where they learned to sync their beats. With the part time jobs program a success, even after being spied upon by Saki’s younger sister Mia Kashiwagi, they were able to co-organise the Shooter Fest.
===Chapter 3===
Before the School Festival began, Chinatsu snuck into Asterism’s classroom, to secretly create paper flowers with them. Though Chinatsu’s creations were all crumpled, Akari decides to entertain her idea knowing that it would be a waste to dispose all the flowers, rearranging them and using them to decorate the class.
With Akari and her friends collecting enough money for the RBP to hold the Shooter Fest, Asterism steadily managed to progress to the finals up against the Marching Pockets, a trio of middle school second year students trained to serve under Setsuna to observe Asterism’s every movement, consisting of Chinatsu Hinata who idolises Akari very much and loves to hug, the aforementioned fruits-loving Mia Kashiwagi who likes to rub on others and the brash and headstrong Tsumugi Shinonome who longs to be like grown ups. Winning against them in the finals, Asterism weren’t able to properly celebrate their victory due to Tsumugi leaving the arena from sheer disappointment and frustration. Akari, Haruna and Akane had a short break while touring the Festival, discussing about beach-house food in the classroom. But by evening that day, the Marching Pockets shared their experiences with the seniors who treated them to the special events to Asterism, who grant them their moral support. The next day, Asterism arrive at Arisu’s private beach house to meet the Marching Pockets.
===Chapter 4===
In the more action-focused fourth chapter, Akari and co. take on Setsuna who has seized power as principal from Arisu to fix the "sorry state of affairs" that Kanadezaka has fallen into. As Arisu begins to make her speech, she suddenly receives a bad feeling as Setsuna walks towards the podium. With Setsuna planning to set forth several rules, she forgot to take notice that Akane is still in power as the student council president and thus is able to hold an election campaign to vote the next principal. With a majority standing in addition to Akari wanting someone like Arisu to be in charge saying a school that is not fun is not Kanadezaka. Setsuna takes note of this and brings the RBP to a duel in where she easily defeats all of them, obtaining all their Cheer. During the battle, Akari notices a form of Ongeki completely different from the ones they’ve been using, Setsuna clarifies it as negative Ongeki, and she plans to enforcing its teachings throughout the academy to make others stronger, taking advantage of the bad emotions harbored by humans. Akane reveals that the Arisu and the student council have orchestrated the events presented in Chapter 1 of the main story for Asterism after they enrolled at Kanazaka Academy as trials to improve their Ongeki handling skills and protect the Academy from Setsuna’s return. Kaede further explains the formula behind Arisu’s management, using that to explain why Asterism quickly rose to power, considering Ongeki as a fun and friendly competition so that performers could improve each other at a mutual level.
But on the last day of the elections, only Asterism and RBP were present at the venue. Setsuna assumes that everyone is already here and tries to cut to the polling process to which Kaede pleads her to wait but Setsuna replies saying she brought over everyone, all standing at her side. Akane was worried about the other shooters betraying them while Akari asked if it is a misunderstanding. Rio says that they were willingly serving her, and Tsubaki clarifies tells them to be able to take it seriously if Asterism want their Cheers. Akari told them to give her a reason at least but Riku says there’s no use asking, prompting a battle. Asterism managed to overpower Triedge with a furious Rio snarling of Setsuna being a liar though they did just as she said as aforementioned which is to treat their rivals as if they were steppingstones in their path to glory. Setsuna isn’t convinced, so she grabs her by the arm as a demonstration of negative emotions, dismissing it as “guidance”, not violence. However, Rio knocks away Setsuna from Akari, and comes to her favor. Telling Setsuna that she isn't getting carried away whether how strong and great she is, Setsuna complements her show of anger, and asks if she should have snapped at Akari just like earlier. Rio declares that she wouldn't be happy even if she won, which motives Akari to not forgive Setsuna. Setsuna taunts telling her to hate, detest and get angry more as the root of disproving Arisu's Ongeki, before asking her how long she can last in the following battles without bad emotions. Akari tries to surpress her surging emotions, but still felt a certain thing that couldn't be held back. Suddenly believing that using Triedge was out of the question, Setsuna lets them go while Akari still refuses to recognize such Ongeki, firm on her beliefs on Ongeki to remain as a means of having fun together. Akari declares that nobody wants to perform negative Ongeki, becoming fully charged with an Ongeki aura wrapped around her. Rio notes that Akari is getting angry due to her strong love for Ongeki more than anybody else, and naturally would be so at the dirty ways of performing it. Noting that it is a wonderful display of bad emotions as well as becoming of interest to her, Setsuna makes Akari her personal opponent, pushing her plans to fight 7evendays and Bitter Flavor to a bit later and challenges Asterism to a battle, to which she easily manages to beat flat, showing them the power of negative Ongeki which she intends to enforce the teaching of throughout Kanadezaka as she proceeds to her next step at assuming the role of the academy president.
Suddenly, the Marching Pockets who were after Asterism the entire time break into the election arena. Setsuna wasn’t pleased with her apprentices’ late arrival, so she tries to tell her to come over to her side. They try to tell Setsuna their original purpose which is to help her in her goals of blocking Arisu from assuming power as president. Setsuna claims that such feelings were baseless impressions of sentimentality, but Mia confronts her saying that Asterism and the seniors taught them important lessons through having fun in Ongeki. Preferring their Ongeki over negative Ongeki, they turn against Setsuna by giving their Cheers to Asterism, placing the pressure on their former master and forcing her to leave for the president’s office, declaring the situation a loss of interest and leaves the rest to 7evendays Holidays. Defeating them, Akari asks if they somehow have a situation, and pleads them to talk to her if they like, having Koboshi tell her what happens if they lost. Saki tries to stop her remembering it was said they must not say that, only for Mia to ask her why she called her name. Saki explains that the Marching Pockets lost at the Shooter Fest, so Setsuna was preparing to punish them, but if they were able to score a win over Asterism, Setsuna would forgive them. Mia is shocked at her older sister doing such a thing to be beneficial for the group. Koboshi says it’s sad to disagree and Tsumugi agrees that Setsuna did such behind their backs. Akari then assures that everyone is alright because they don't do as Setsuna likes and leads everyone to Setsuna's place to force her to stop. However, Haruna does not let everybody else pass, so Akari starts to worry about her. Aoi points out Haruna is also like having a situation and tries to have her talk to them for help.
==Trivia==
*Her weapon is designed after the surround speaker assembly of the O.N.G.E.K.I. cabinet, and her birthday is shared with the launch date of the first O.N.G.E.K.I. version, which was released on July 26, 2018.
*Akari’s model’s hitbox was the subject of weight jokes among players of O.N.G.E.K.I. as it was a reason to why it was impossible to get the maximum score in the 0 Lunatic charts for Sampling Masters MEGA’s 怨撃 (Ongeki, lit. “Fury Attack”) with the best as of writing being 4 hits taken (although each section has been passed without hits in separate runs) as most strategies were to use Akari’s SSR Bright card, (which would reduce the damage taken from enemies by 40%/25%/25% (40%/30%/30% when ascended) since the goal is to stack high on damage resistance) and Akari would be placed at the centre based on her default position which would make her the character you have to dodge bullets with.
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