Mashiro Munetani

## Character Voice

Lynn

**Mashiro Munetani** (宗谷 ましろ *Munetani Mashiro*), nicknamed **Shiro** that is given by Captain Akeno Misaki, is one of the protagonists of High School Fleet. She is the daughter of Mayuki Munetani, the younger sister of Mafuyu and Mashimo Munetani and the executive officer of the *Harekaze* who serves as its second in-command.

Hailing from a family that has long served the Blue Mermaids, her two older sisters currently serve in the force and her mother is the current principal of Yokosuka Girls' Marine High School where she was once a Blue Mermaid as well.

## Appearance

Mashiro is a light-skinned girl with thigh-length dark-brown hair that she often keeps her hair up in a ponytail and red eyes just like the rest of the Munetani family.

She wears the standard Yokosuka Girls' Marine High School uniform with a gold aiguillette attached to it.

At one point, when given command of the *Harekaze* by Akeno, she removed her hair tie and let her hair hang loose as a sign of self-confidence.

## Personality & Traits

While Akeno is blessed with an ungodly degree of luck, Mashiro is the complete opposite. In many instances of misfortune, she often utters: "I'm so unlucky."

Nevertheless, Mashiro excels in academics, striving hard to follow in the footsteps of Munetani women who served in the Blue Mermaids. Her intelligence and prestige earned her the favor of *Harekaze* assistant engineer Kuroki Hiromi, who personally believes she would be a better captain than Akeno.

Cool-headed and "by-the-book", she often acts as the voice of reason and maturity, a counterpart to Akeno's initial recklessness and tends to get ticked off by Akeno's action at times such as abandoning the position of commander for a brief moment during their first encounter with Musashi.

Mashiro also has ailurophobia or fear of cats. However, she eventually overcame this fear after rescuing a kitten named Tamonmaru, spending some one on one time while trapped inside the sinking *Shinbashi*.

## History

### Prologue

The Munetani family has a long and proud history of serving in the Blue Mermaids, starting with Mashiro's great-grandmother who was said to be the first Blue Mermaid. Mashiro wants to follow in her mother Mayuki's footsteps, honoring the family tradition just as her older sisters, Mashimo and Mafuyu, did.

Moved by her daughter's commitment, Mayuki gives Mashiro her hat, only for it to be blown away by the wind. For Mashiro, it began her spiral into a life of misfortune.

### Stepping Stones

Mashiro was placed as the deputy-captain of the Harekaze, much to her chagrin. While excelling in academics, she had the unfortunate fate of being off by one row when she took the exam; hence, her situation.

As deputy-captain, however, it became her duty to remind the captain, Akeno, of a captain's proper decorum. She struggled through battles she thought were impossible to win, much fewer tactics she thought were unorthodox and unnecessary. Mashiro gives Akeno a stern scolding every now and then for the ship's sake.

Mashiro began to look at life from a new point of view after being rescued from the merchant ship Shinbashi, where she was trapped with a kitten named Tamonmaru. Not only did she get over her fear of cats, but she also looked to the future without letting her misfortune getting in the way.

Over the course of the series, she began to accept and understand Akeno's method of commanding the Harekaze. When the captain even hesitated to take the helm to save the Musashi, Mashiro stepped in to convince her along with the rest of the crew.

### Always on the Deck

During the inter-school competition, Mashiro received an offer from Instructor Furushou to become the captain of the Hiei after popular demand from its crew. She struggled with the decision, costing her class a win in the boat race and alienating herself from Akeno. Before the anti-piracy operation, she came to a decision but decided to focus on the task at hand first.

When the Harekaze's way out of a crumbling seafort was blocked, Mashiro commandeered a skipper and launched it against the debris blocking the way. As she jumped toward the safety of the ship, the explosion from the skipper managed to crack the escape route open. Aboard the ship and facing her captain, she decided that she would become a captain one day but would remain in the Harekaze for now.

## Etymology

* Mashiro's surname **Munetani** means "sect" (宗) (**mune**) and "valley" (谷) (**tani**).

## Trivia

* Mashiro's favorite phrase is "All misfortune is but a stepping-stone to the future."
* Mashiro's height was originally stated to be 159cm, but was retconned to 160cm in the movie.