Akari Watanabe

* Anime
* Manga

****Akari Watanabe**** (渡辺 星, *Watanabe Akari*?) is the main female protagonist of the *More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers* manga and anime series. She is a *Gyaru* who becomes Jirō Yakuin's partner during the marriage practical, an activity held at their school to train someone to become more established when they later have a marriage partner. Her goal initially was to become a partner of Minami Tenjin in the training by acting as a perfect newlywed with Jirō. However, after spending time with Jirō and getting rejected by Minami, she truly falls in love with Jirō and has made it her priority to be together with him as a real couple.

## Appearance

Akari is a beautiful teenage girl with waist-length pink hair tied in twin buns and blue-green eyes. Her nails are manicured and often change color/style throughout the events of the series.

Akari typically wears a school uniform with light blue sleeve shirt with a blue medium bow, a dark blue skirt, brown shoes, and white and blue legging warmers. Unlike the other girls in her school, her uniform's sleeves are cut to expose her shoulders. She also wears earrings (usually in the shape of red hearts) and sports a hot pink and purple scrunchee on her left leg.

Outside of her school uniform, Akari rarely keeps her hair tied in twin buns, instead opting to wear it in different styles. While at home, Akari prefers to keep her hair down or tied in a ponytail.

## Personality

Akari was initially portrayed with a stereotypical *gyaru* personality; extroverted, brash, and confident to a point where she considered herself to be too popular to paired with someone like Jirō. However, this personality was merely a façade and was likely just a strong emotion that Akari was experiencing after being disappointed with her initial pairing with Jirō. In reality, Akari is shown to be a kind and friendly girl once someone got to know her.

    During the practical, Akari is shown to be a responsible/caring partner, often doing house chores and cooking meals for Jirō. While initially acting like this to get a high score on the practical in order to switch partners, she later does this genuinely as she slowly falls in love with Jirō. Compared with Jirō, Akari is usually the more proactive of the two in terms of housework, often doing them without being told. She also appears to be strict, as she will scold Jirō if he makes a mess in the living room or ruins her cooking.

    This type of attitude however, does not apply when it comes to her academic performance. Akari dislikes studying, often procrastinates on schoolwork, and prefers to do leisure activities while leaving her school responsibilities towards the bottom of her list of priorities. However, when she applies herself, she is able to learn the material quickly and even outscore Jirō on one of their tests, despite the fact that he was the one that was tutoring her.

While Akari appears to be mostly kind and compassionate, her patience does have limits and she is prone to getting angry, especially when it comes to Jirō's shenanigans. She will not hesitate to resort to physical violence if circumstances were to escalate such as when she kicked Jirō in the groin on two separate occasions, although she does later show remorse for doing so.

Akari is aware that she is attractive and is not afraid of using it to her advantage. She would often use her looks combined with playful touching/flirting to tease Jirō to get a reaction out of him. Despite this, she has been shown to be uncomfortable when her looks attract unwanted attention from guys. Ironically, while she often pokes fun at Jirō for being a virgin, she does not appear to have much romantic/sexual experience herself. This is evident when she assumed that Jirō had a sexual encounter with Shiori in the nurse's office, she became deeply distraught at the thought of her partner having an adult experience and "leaving her behind." Furthermore, she claimed that Jirō is the first and only person she had ever kissed. Akari even stated that she is not "easy" despite what Jirō and others think of her as a *gyaru.*

Despite being a *gyaru,* Akari's holds the idea of true love in high regard. In addition to her lack of promiscuity, Akari has expressed disgust upon learning that the marriage practical encouraged students to have as many practice partners as possible to which she compared to as having multiple marriages and divorces. When Akari began to harbour feelings for Jirō that began to conflict with her attraction to Minami, she became distressed and disliked the confusion that she was experiencing. Her pursuit of true love shows that she will stop at nothing to get together with the boy that she wants. At first, this was shown with Minami where she would act as the perfect wife to Jirō despite their initial disdain for one another. This is later shown with Jirō where she implements multiple methods to get closer to him, such as wearing a maid costume, allowing him to lie next to her in bed, and asking him out on a date. Akari appears to view kindness and reliability as the most desirable traits that she would want in a partner.

As a testament to her views on true love, Akari is shown to be the jealous type and sinks into a depressive state when she sees a person she likes is involved with another girl. When she had feelings for Minami, she became upset at the thought of Minami being paired with a girl that was not her and was worried when she heard rumours that he did not want to switch partners because he was getting closer to Shiori. Akari ultimately broke down crying when she saw Minami walking with Shiori at the fireworks festival despite being told that he would not be attending due to his job. Akari's jealousy also extends to Jirō as her feelings for him grew stronger. She has visibly shown annoyance when she sees Jirō spending time with Shiori and has even silently begged him not to talk about other girls when he is in her room.

Akari gets scared easily, sometimes to the point where she needs to rely on Jirō for emotional support and refuses to be alone without him. She dislikes watching horror movies and refused to listen to one of Jirõ's scary stories despite the fact that he didn't say anything that was considered scary in the first place. She is also shown to have arachnophobia (fear of spiders), nyctophobia (fear of the dark), and astraphobia (fear of lightning and thunder).

Akari appears to have a passion for doing nail art, evidenced by the multiple nail colors/designs she wears throughout the series. It is revealed in Chapter 58 that she is planning to attend a trade school to become a nail stylist.

## History

Little is known about Akari's background prior to the start of the series. It is known that she was enrolled in Seishun Academy for a few years and that she has a pet dog back home.

At some point, Akari became friends with Sachi and Natsumi to which she has known the latter for at least two years.

## Relationships

### Jirō Yakuin

Initially, Akari and Jirō did not have a positive relationship, with Akari looking down on Jirō for being introverted and having a meek personality. Upon learning that she would be paired with him for the marriage practical, she was furious but decided to put aside those feelings after realizing that the top 10 couples who earn the most points at the end of each month have the option of switching partners.

Within the first few weeks of their pairing, Akari was often sarcastic and mean spirited towards Jirō, giving him insulting nicknames such "Repressed-kun" and "Virgin-kun."

Throughout the story, Akari seems to start caring about Jirō, and in some cases, she feels torn about her feelings for him. After she is disappointed by Minami Tenjin for not showing up at the festival, she realizes that Jirō, unlike Minami, has always been there for her, which shows that she cares about Jirō. In chapter 33, she officially admits she loves Jirō and she doesn't want to lose him.

### Minami Tenjin

Minami is Akari's former love interest. Going forward in the story, she still finds herself attracted to Minami, even if in some moments she does not treat her well, like when he does not show up for a meeting, inventing that he is busy, only to be present but with another girl.

After being gently let down by Minami and realizing that Jirō has been the one to always be there for her, Akari finally admitted to Minami that she didn't have any feelings for him anymore, but instead has fallen in love with Jirō. Minami admitted that he knew about her feelings for him which is why he intentionally distanced himself from him (due to his own tragic love story that still haunts him to this day, he didn't want to enter a relationship). He also told her that he sees her like a younger sister and supports her goal of making Jirō reciprocate her love. The pair remain on good terms with each other.

### Sachi Takamiya & Natsumi Ōhashi

Sachi and Natsumi are Akari's friends who go out of their way to help Akari date Minami Tenjin and support her. After Akari reveals that she loves Jirō Yakuin, they still help her.

### Shiori Sakurazaka

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### Shū Terafune

Shū has a crush on Akari which was first hinted after he failed to bring Minami to the fireworks festival and he attempted to make a move on her in disguise of an apology. Shū is quick to jump in on situations where he can make himself more appealing to her, often by offering assistance or by giving her extra toppings while preparing her drink. Akari on the other hand sees Shū as a nice person and appreciates whatever he does for her. It is unknown if Akari is aware that he has a crush on her but it is clear that she does not harbor any romantic feelings for him.

## Etymology

* The name **Akari** means "star" (星).
* Akari's surname **Watanabe** means "transit, ford, ferry, cross, import, deliver, diameter, migrate" (渡) (**wata**) and "environs, boundary, border, vicinity" (辺) (**nabe**).

## Trivia

* Like most of the characters, Akari's surname is derived from the name of a Japanese train station; Watanabe-dōri Station.
* Akari is one of the few characters to appear in every episode of the anime along with Jirō, Shiori, and Sadaharu.

## Gallery

### Manga

Chapter 2 CoverChapter 4 CoverChapter 54.5 Cover
### Anime

Akari's Face Model SheetAkari's manicureAkari's pedicure