Mashiro Shiina

**Mashiro Shiina** (椎名 ましろ *Shiina Mashiro*) is the main female protagonist of *The Pet Girl of Sakurasou* and resides in Room 202 of the Sakura Dormitory. Mashiro is a world famous artist who transferred into Suiko as a 16-year-old second-year to learn how to draw. She aims to drawing manga.

Other than drawing, she is otherwise extremely reliant on others. Thus, lacking even the most basic common sense. As a result, Sorata Kanda is forced to constantly take care of Mashiro, to the point that he has to practically dress her, or she will go to school without clothing.

Unwilling to pay attention in class, Mashiro has very poor grades. However, she is able to memorize what she can see at any moment by thinking of it as a picture. In order to stay in the school without failing; she memorizes the answers for the make-up exams in an instant, and gets perfect grades on all of them.

## Appearance

Mashiro's body statistics are B79/W55/H78 in centimeters and B31/W21/H30 in inches. It has been noted many times in the series that she is very beautiful and she also has a very slim physique. She has pale skin accompanied by red eyes and long pale blonde hair that reaches her waist. She is often seen in the school uniform (which consists of a white collared short-sleeve shirt, red tie, a sky blue vest, light magenta pleated skirt with a black stripe hem, white knee-high socks, and brown dress shoes), if not, in casual clothes.

## Personality

Mashiro is an excellent artist, but is extremely terrible at everything else due to lacking any common sense. She is almost completely devoid of emotion, typically wearing a blank expression and speaking in a dreary manner. Having a soft voice, Mashiro is a girl of few words, since at times, she herself is unsure of what to think, let alone say. These traits may suggest that she is autistic.

She is eccentric, as if living in her own world. As a result, she typically reacts to situations in an unconventional manner and operates on very different morals from others. For example, at times, Mashiro gives Sorata encouraging words that leave him confused instead of motivated. Mashiro can be considered an idealistic person, able to have faith in others quite easily and is quickly convinced of another's potential based on how hard that person is trying to achieve their goal.

Despite being successful at her practices, Mashiro cares little for fame or esteem. This trait allowed her to go to Japan and become a mangaka, abandoning her painting career without regret.

Mashiro can become obsessive with her work, going nights without sleep and neglecting to eat in order to complete a project. That said, Mashiro is easily motivated by food and in particular seems to be fond of baumkuchen cakes.

At times, Mashiro allows her emotions to control her actions. This tends to be the case due to lacking any otherwise logical thinking. Such as when Mashiro wanted to learn to cook to show affection towards Sorata rather than finishing up her manga chapter. To Sorata, it seemed as if she was wasting time that she could be putting into her manga for no reason, but it was really caused by her underlying love for Sorata, and her want to please him.

## Relationships

### Sorata Kanda

Mashiro forges a close bond with Sorata, who was her first male friend as every other friend of hers in England were girls. Sorata is one of the few who are capable of making Mashiro smile. Despite their bond, Sorata is frequently frustrated by Mashiro's incompetence with basic living, but continues to look after her regardless. Eventually, Mashiro develops feelings for Sorata, and in the light novel she even claims that she cannot live without him. But she doesn't know how to express these feelings, and has a difficult time conveying her affection. For example, when Mashiro observed how Misaki showed affection to Jin by cooking and making lunch for him, Mashiro wanted to learn to cook for Sorata as well as to be closer to him. Another example would be when Mashiro suddenly disappeared from the party just to look for Sorata and give him a Baumkuchen cake that she acquired at the party, which she thought would make Sorata happy. In the last episode of an anime Mashiro kissed Sorata on the cheek.

In the eighth novel, Sorata confesses his own feelings for her and in the next novel they officially became a couple. In the tenth novel, Mashiro breaks up with Sorata because she believes their relationship is hurting them due to the fact he always compares himself to her, which hurts him and that he flares his anger on not being on par with her, which in turn, also hurts her. After breaking up, they haven't seen each other for 4 years but Mashiro still support Sorata's dream such as playing console games designed by Sorata as well as Sorata follows Mashiro's manga story. At the end of the tenth novel, 4 years have passed and Mashiro (who has become quite successful in her mangas) meets again with Sorata (who has also been quite successful in game design) where they rekindle their relationship with each other and promise to start anew.

In the end of vol 10.5, one year and nine month after they reconcile their relationship, Mashiro is still busy with her manga and Sorata is still busy with developing the game. Even so, Sorata still found time to come to Mashiro's apartment and even stayed for a long time. One day Mashiro invited Sorata to meet her parents who came back to Japan from England and Sorata also invited Mashiro to his hometown in Fukuoka to meet his parents. Its implied that they took a deeper step in their relationship.

## Trivia

* The name **Mashiro** means "Broad-minded" or "Pure White".
* Mashiro's surname **Shina** means "Virtue, Good".

## See also

* List of anime girls age 16
* The Pet Girl of Sakurasou