Akiko Tanabe

Tatsumi Tanabe (brother)

**Akiko Tanabe** (田辺 秋子, *Tanabe Akiko*?) is the daughter of Tatsurou Tanabe and Kiyomi Tanabe and the bratty 8th grader younger sister of Tatsumi Tanabe who likes to pretend she's young and innocent to coddle up to Junichirou Kubota.

## Appearance

Akiko is a short girl with short brown hair that has star hairbands holding up her small pigtails. According to Tatsumi Tanabe, she passes off as a third grader in physical appearance.

She wears her middle school sailor uniform. Her casual attire consists of a jacket and matching shorts, she also wears a simple hoodie.

## Personality

Akiko is a feisty young girl who is considerably more intelligent and perceptive than Tatsumi Tanabe.

She was also shown to have a crush on Junichirou Kubota (and be a little crazy about it), which shows that she seems to share the same perverse thought process as her older brother.

## Plot

Akiko came home one day to find a weird blonde girl outside her shop advertising. When she came inside she was greeted by another weird girl, who mistook Akiko for a customer. Misuzu, the weird girl, upon realising who Akiko was, put her to work in the kitchen. Akiko then saw Tomo Aizawa and was convinced she was a dude until she saw her massive boobs. Her dad then explained that the three girls; Carol, Misuzu and Tomo were working part-time over their break. Her dad then begged her not to do anything to make Misuzu mad, which freaked her out. Akiko then realised the different uniforms and confronts her brother about them. When he explains he bought them using shop funds as a business expense Akiko threatens to tell their mother, Tatsumi begs her not to. Just then, Tatsumi's friend (and Akiko's secret crush) Junichirou Kubota arrives asking why Carol was standing outside. Akiko's dad teases her about her obvious crush, before handing a water jug over to her to give to Jun. She shakily makes it over to his table and becomes flustered when he praises her for helping out around the shop. When she tells Tatsumi how he praised her, he told her that Jun probably thinks she's a 3rd-grader. Akiko then gets the idea to hug Jun and it'll just be an innocent girl hug (she's an 8th-grader). Akiko then begged her dad to let her take Jun's meal to him, but Tomo had already beaten her to it. When she notices the weird atmosphere around Jun and Tomo, Akiko now has a love rival. She challenges Tomo in front of Carol and Misuzu, both of whom have forgotten her name calling her "**Natsuko**" and "**Haruko**" she gets mad at them and corrects them yelling her name to them.

## Relationships

### Family

#### Tatsumi Tanabe

Tatsumi is Akiko's older brother whom she finds annoying.

## Etymology

* The name **Akiko** means "autumn" (秋) (**aki**) and "child" (子) (**ko**).
* Akiko's surname **Tanabe** means "field, rice paddy" (田) (**ta**) and "environs, boundary, border, vicinity" (辺) (**nabe**).

## Trivia

* Like Eddie Olston and Mr. Gundou, Akiko doesn't appear in the anime adaptation.

## Gallery

### Manga

Volume 7 illustrationAkiko in her uniform
## References

1. ↑ *Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!* Omake 7, pg13
2. ↑ *Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!* Omake 7, pg 6-15