Mikan Tachibana

*"Ugh, but mom!"* -Mikan when she complains to her mother.

* Manga
* Anime
* Shin Atashin'chi

Mikan Tachibana (立花 みかん) is the "I" (Atashi) in the series' title and the main protagonist of both Atashin'chi and Shin Atashin'chi. She is a 17-year old second year high school student that attends the Kusai High School in class 2C and a member of the Teddy Bear Research Society. She's voiced by Fumiko Orikasa.

Mikan is the first child of Okaa-san Tachibana and Otou-san Tachibana and her brother is Yuzuhiko Tachibana.

## Appearance

Mikan appears as a 155cm tall (5 ft) late teen with brown-hair styled in a ponytail with bangs and is usually seen with a smile. Her usual outfit in the anime consist of a punch pink sweatshirt with blue jeans and white socks along with that she wears white shoes, however, her outfits wary from episode to episode.

Her second outfit she is seen with consists of a rouge pink raglan t-shirt paired together with green camo pants and with white socks and shoes the same color.

Her pajamas in the Atashin'chi are a t-shirt completely white with light-blue stripes paired with light-blue striped pants. In Shin Atashin'chi her pajamas are complete rouge pink t-shirts and pants. Both pajamas have white socks styled with them.

In the Atashin'chi Manga, Mikan wears a white T-Shirt with blue pants in the first few Mangas before her character design changed into the one we commonly see in the anime. Strangely enough, she never wore the Manga outfit combination in any Atashin'chi episode.

## Personality

Mikan's personality is fairly similar to her mother's. She is exuberant, and clumsy at times but also unintentionally she comes off as rude sometimes. A maiden-like personality is what she uses for strangers and her classmates but around friends, her family, and the Teddy Bear Club, she shows her true personality which is the Tomboy personality. To note is that Mikan doesn't laugh as much as her friends do, despite her not laughing as much as Shimi-chan or the others, Mikan is still fun to hang out with and she can get along with mostly everyone. Around her crush Iwaki, she gets super embarrassed and does anything she possibly can to get his attention.

She dreams big and sometimes yearns to be in a different family since her family is a strange one. One of her dreams is to be a famous, well-known Teddy Bear maker and designer, which is what has gotten her into joining a hang-out club at her school called the Teddy Bear Research Society.

## Relationships

### **Family**

#### Okaa-san Tachibana

Mikan's relationship with her mother is like an average Mother And Daughter relationship. The two usually go shopping together and talk to each other a lot at home. Sometimes, as seen in Episode 004 Come home immediately! she does get a scoldings and beatings from her mother, however, the beatings are not extreme and involve lightly hitting Mikan once with a clothes hanger.

In Shin Atashinchi episode 54 "Mikan's Valentine" we can see Okaa-san making a great concern over the fact that Mikan is still single and alone and due to few misunderstandings, Okaa-san's comment about Mikan's old valentine cookies in the past has made Mikan laugh.

During Dinner, Mikan is also very straightforward with her food comments. If the same dinner food repeats for the entire week or month, she does argue with her mother about the food, which most of the time doesn't change a thing about future dinner's.

When it comes to classmates and school friends Mikan is embarrassed to show them her mother and invite people over to her own home because of that embarrassment, this is seen in Atashinchi Episode 002 Don't be surprised, 'kay?.

#### Otou-san Tachibana

Mikan's relationship with Otou-san is average. Otou-san sometimes plays pranks on Mikan, such as shutting off the bathroom's lights. But during arguments, Otou-san always understands Mikan's opinion and is almost never on Okaa-san's side. She appreaciates the gifts that he buys for them after business trips, even though it's rare for him to bring them home.

#### Yuzuhiko Tachibana

With her brother, Mikan can relate and talk to him to many things, like jokes, arguments, her day and even serious topics such as divorce. Sometimes the two do get into fights, but they're not big and usually revolve small things. When the two end up doing all-nights they help each other by making food, this is seen in Episode 118 "Yuzu in middle of the night...".

The two are extremely close and in episode 430 "Mom, Dad, and the Divorce?" they both shared extreme concern over their own families and each other as siblings, not wanting to be separated and live with only one parent and alone when Okaa-san did not talk or pay attention to Otou-san at all for an entire day.

Since small kids, the two have always been together and went to the same school in their hometowns before moving to Tokyo. Mikan was always on his side if he ever got in trouble, but over the years and them now being in separate schools and much older, that naturally changed meaning that Mikan lost her Big Sis Personality that she once had.

Mikan has stolen food from Yuzuhiko in the past when they both were kids, mainly ice cream, and this has caused Yuzuhiko to begin hiding his food from Mikan due to her stealing everything from him. Since Yuzuhiko is Mikan's younger brother, he calls her sis (Nee-Chan) and Mikan calls him with his nickname; Yuzu.

### **School**

#### Shimi-Chan

Shimi-chan and Mikan are best friends. They always hang out at school, share bentos, call each other with cellphones and talk to each other about recent events that happened. In short, they do all the things that best friends usually do with each other. In the beginning of the manga and the anime, the two weren't close at all more so they were friendly classmates, but over the time and episodes they became more and more close with one another, to the point where they're inseparable at school, except when Mikan has Bear Brigade activites which is the only time where the two do not hang out, due to the fact that Shimi-Chan has no interest in making Teddy Bears.

Shimi-Chan never judges Mikan about anything and the same can be said for Mikan, she too never judges Shimi-Chan about anything.

#### Yukarin

Yukarin is a friend of Mikan. She's not as close to her as she is with Shimi-chan, but they do get along pretty well. The three are seen together in their own friend group, whether it's being in class, shopping together, calling each other or just hanging out, Mikan, Shimi-chan and Yukarin are always together.

Yukarin is not a member of the Bear Brigade therefore she doesn't hang out with Mikan after school or has any interest in Teddy Bear Making.

#### Rio

Rio and Mikan get along well and both are in the Teddy Bear Research Society. Mikan admires Rio because of how normal, rich, and elegant her home and family is compared to her. This seen in Friend'chi.

#### Nitta

Nitta and Mikan get along really well since they both are in the Teddy Bear Research Society and Mikan shows concerns and usually agrees to Nitta when she wants to make changes to the Teddy Bear Research Society or if she wants the brigade to participate in School Festivals as seen in episodes 47 and 48 "Teddy Bear Research Society School festivals" (Part one and Part Two), where in those episodes, Mikan agrees with Nitta about doing something for the school festival to get the Bear Brigade more of a popular "club" that people can join and take seriously.

In episode 653 "Teddy Bear Research Society crisis" we can see Mikan overhearing Nitta talking about quitting something, Teddy Bear Research Society in this case, and she gathers all the members in the Teddy Bear Research Society in their club room except for Nitta, to change her mind about leaving Teddy Bear Research Society in hopes that she will stay in the club.

However, it was revealed later in the episode that Nitta was thinking about quitting cosplaying and not the Bear Brigade, which leaves Mikan and The Teddy Bear Research Society a little bit stunned but they continue to support Nitta all the way.

#### Yoshioka

Mikan's relationship with Yoshioka always differs. Most of the time they're great friends however they do get into fights a lot and Mikan makes fun of him most of the time because of him showing off his intelligence most of the time. But she tries her hardest to stay on his good side mostly because he is good friends with her crush, Iwaki.

They're extremely close together because just like with Shimi-chan, Mikan was friends with Yoshioka since Middle School. Nevertheless, the two are great friends even if their friendship is a bit rocky at times, they still respect one another and enjoy spending time together..

## **Gallery**

Pirate Mikan as seen in Story 287, "Mikan, nooto nigate"