Kakeru Manabe

## Voices

**Kakeru Manabe** (真鍋 翔, *Manabe Kakeru*) is the older half-brother of Machi Kuragi by their mutual father's mistress.

He serves as the vice president of the student council during Yuki Sohma's presidency. Kakeru has an energetic character and sometimes claims the student council is a super-sentai–style "School Defense Force". He was the one who made up the nickname "Yunyun" for Yuki.

Although he was initially disliked by Yuki due to reminding him of both his older brother and Kyo Sohma, the pair soon become best friends.

## Appearance

Kakeru is a young man of average build and height and a pair of light brown eyes. He has short, slightly spiked dark brown hair reaching down to his nape. Additionally, he has two cowlicks sticking up from the top of his head. He is often depicted in his Kaibara High school uniform with a sweater on top.

## Personality

According to Komaki, Kakeru used to be a withdrawn, unapproachable person due to the pressure of the inheritance rivalry. He was forced into a perfectionist role as a child, which made him angry and cold; he was self-centered in his perspective and struggled to understand how anyone could see differently than him, especially people he loved. However, when Kakeru finally called it quits and found the courage to stand for himself, he suddenly became the character Yuki meets.

He is depicted as alternately lazy and charismatically energetic, strongly reminding Yuki of his older brother, Ayame Sohma, whom Kakeru refers to as "commander". Yuki also compares Kakeru's social personality and ability to make friends to Kyo Sohma's. Kakeru is expressive and wears his emotions on his sleeve. He is always restless, bold, very laid-back and cheerful, always looking for a laugh and loves napping and messing around when he should be doing council work. He is convinced that the student council is "School Defense Force; protecting students from the forces of evil". He constantly teases other people, such as calling Yuki for "Yunyun" and a "princess", as well as teasing Machi's crush on Yuki. Kakeru is also quite eccentric and as noted by Yuki, he can say baffling things with a straight face on which shocks people around him.

Although he appears to constantly be happy and joyous on the outside, Kakeru actually has strong emotional insights, and at times looks down on himself, and can often get serious if he sees the need to. He tries his best for the people he cares about, but the way he expresses himself can come off as rude and ignorant. This is the case when he thought that Tohru Honda was the only one affected by the car accident that killed her mother and Komaki's father, and confronted her and said that she was nauseating. However, thanks to Komaki's influence, Kakeru got around to see his mistakes. This is proved as, despite his comical and goofy personality, Kakeru is understanding of and always helps people out. He tells Yuki that the reason he came to the point where he is now is only that he stood up for himself, and through learning gentleness and understanding from other people. His open-minded personality and willingness to always stand at the same ground as other people so they can view things from the same perspective is a factor of why Yuki is later able to confide in him and why they are able to become best friends.