The following is a list of characters from the series, S.A.
The series focuses on Hikari Hanazono, a high school student who holds the second overall position at the elite Hakusen Academy, and her tireless efforts to challenge and hopefully defeat Kei Takishima, the first ranked student and Hikari's rival since childhood, while unaware that Kei is in love with her. Together, they form the Special A class, consisting of the seven top-ranked students of their school, along with their childhood friends Akira Toudou, Tadashi Karino, Megumi and Jun Yamamoto, and Ryuu Tsuji.
Special A Students
Hikari is the protagonist of the story. She holds the 2nd position in school for having the best grades. Self-proclaimed as Kei Takishima's greatest rival, she is determined to beat him in any kind of competition. Stubborn, proud, hard headed, kind, and good-spirited, Hikari never backs down from a challenge, especially one from Kei, and cannot turn away from someone who asks for her help. Though she has never beaten Kei at anything, she constantly looks for opportunities to surpass him and is generally unfazed when he defeats her. While she is good at sports and academics, Hikari is notably very bad at teaching and cooking. She is too strong at times, even breaking things in the process. Although she can handle her own in a fight (often against boys), Kei, nonetheless, gets irritated whenever she puts herself in danger.
A kindhearted girl who always worries about others, Hikari sometimes lacks common sense and tends to be unaware towards how people regard her. Her optimistic personality, straightforwardness, and tendency to always see the good in people prevents her from realizing how harsh and cold the real world can be sometimes. Although Hikari is rather sensitive to others, she is quite dense when it comes to love. She is oblivious to the romantic feelings Kei has for her, though everyone else knows that Kei is in love with her. In volume four, Hikari begins to fall in love with Kei, though she does not realize it until volume 6. Hikari felt that if she conveyed her feelings she would lose against Kei, believing that it is all a competition. They eventually admit they are in love with each other and become a couple in chapter 53.
Kei is ranked 1st in school, Kei is the son of the CEO of Takishima Corporation, but has been shown to be running parts of it. Handsome, calm, armed with a photographic memory, and the ability to do anything on the first try, Kei is seen as the "perfect" man. However, he is seen to carry an enormous amount of pressure due to his status as heir to the Takishima Corp. He has been Hikari's undefeated rival since childhood, he likes to refer to her as "Miss Second Place", which never fails to provoke her. He usually prefers to do things on his own until Hikari shows him how much fun it can be to work together with others. Kei loves Hikari, a fact that he does not deny, and has loved her since they were children. It always bothers him whenever Hikari pushes herself too hard or causes trouble, but her strong will and determination are the reasons why he admires and respects her. He makes several attempts to express his feelings to Hikari, though is usually thwarted by some sort of misunderstanding on Hikari's part. Kei eventually confesses to her openly in chapter 32 but Hikari, somewhat realizing she may actually be in love with him, mistakes it as a competition. Later on in chapter 52 Hikari reveals that she reciprocates his feelings; the two start dating and become a couple in the following chapter.
Jun is ranked 3rd in school and is Megumi's younger twin brother. The son of a music producer and a talented singer, Jun loves music more than anything else, and is a passionate violinist. Usually quiet and kindhearted, Jun has a split personality which he has concealed from everyone except Megumi and Ryuu. Triggered whenever he is kissed by a girl or receives a lot of affection, he becomes irresistible to nearly all women and is able to charm them effortlessly. His split personality resulted from an hypnotism program that Jun watched as a child and first emerged when he was still in grade six. During a date with a girl, he changed and all the other girls around him became mesmerized by him; this led the girl Jun was dating to hate him and call him disgusting. After he begins dating Sakura, Jun's alternate personality emerges whenever he sees her; however, because Sakura accepts him regardless of his personalities, Jun is able to reciprocate her feelings for him. The only thing that can bring Jun back to his original self is by losing consciousness.
Megumi is ranked 4th in school and is Jun's older twin sister. She is the daughter of a famous vocalist and music producer and shares her brother's love of music. She is a cute and nice girl with long curly brown hair, who rarely joins in disputes. Megumi is always quiet and refuses to speak because she wants to save her voice for singing. She usually writes on a sketchpad to communicate with others, but will speak when deeply upset (usually in the form of a shout), which generally have devastating after-effects. Her singing usually causes all who listen to her to get knocked out, however Yahiro theorizes that she probably sings very well, but that it needs to be in an open area and at a great distance. She proves this theory correct when on an involuntary date with him, she sings to him from the top of the stairs. She initially asks Yahiro out because she was trying to prevent him from sabotaging Tadashi and Akira's relationship, but eventually began to enjoy their date. They soon begin to develop feelings for each other and start dating, much to Jun and Ryuu's horror. Like Jun, she is very close to Ryuu; she can be fiercely protective of them both, and thinks of Ryuu as much of her family as her brother. Megumi also happens to be bad at sports and dislikes athletic activities.
Innocent and carefree, Tadashi is ranked 5th in school. His mother, a fierce and intimidating woman, is the director of the school and the primary reason why he is in the SA; she told him he would be allowed to do whatever he wanted if he became a member of the SA. He suffers from wanderlust and frequently likes to vanish on some journey only to return later for special school events. Often, when he is frustrated, sad, or angry, he enjoys going to a lake he had discovered when he was a child, he has only shown the lake to a few people, among them is Hikari. Tadashi is smarter than he looks and acts, though is usually the character who is most often comically attacked (frequently by Akira and Kei) because of his careless comments or reckless behavior. Tadashi also seems to enjoy playing with puppets, is fond of Akira's cooking, and appears to like provoking her. Tadashi has been in love with Akira since they were kids, but never acted on his feelings due to his carefree personality. However, he soon begins to get jealous when Akira begins to go on arranged dates with potential husbands chosen by her family, much to her dismay. He encourages her to not go on anymore dates and stay with him instead. They soon begin dating after this and are the first couple in S.A. to officially date.
Akira holds the 6th position in school and is the daughter of the owner of an airline company. Akira is motherly, strong, elegant, and is seen to love to dote on cute girls such as Hikari and Megumi. Akira is very enthusiastic about her afternoon tea, and has even constructed her own kitchen on campus. She prepares food from other countries like bagels, and tea that originated from other nations and loves to host parties when she can. Despite her strong outwards, she is shown to be very lonely as she did not have many friends growing up. Because of Akira's parents, she often played with Kei and Yahiro during her childhood days which often intimidated other kids due to their status. Due to this, she greatly treasures her S.A. friends.
Akira loves Tadashi, but never accepted her feelings due to his carefree and wild personality. This changes Akira's parents ask her to go meet with possible suitors for marriage which she does reluctantly. These dates however make her very upset and lead to her confessing her feelings to Tadashi to which he reciprocates. It is later shown that they are officially dating making them the first couple of S.A.
Ryuu holds the 7th position in school, although his test scores are a poor reflection of his intellectual prowess. He is in 7th place mainly because of the twins - Megumi tends to fall asleep and Jun becomes bored during the test, which results in Ryuu focusing the majority of his attention on them instead of his own exam. As a result, it is suggested that Ryuu could actually be on par with Hikari or Kei. He is the son of the CEO of a sports company and one of his family's clients is Yahiro's family. He has been close to Megumi and Jun since they were very young; it is evident that he cares for the twins very much and that the three of them see each other as family. An even-tempered and kindhearted person, Ryuu loves animals, going as far as to construct an animal enclosure, which includes monkeys and elephants, in his own apartment and is good with children.
Ryuu falls in love with a girl named Finn whom hails from a small country and has to hide her gender in order to become ruler one day. Ryuu eventually finds out her true gender and is the first to do so. After spending some time with her, it becomes evident that he is falling for her and the two start dating
Supporting characters
A carefree young man with a sinister side, Yahiro has known both Kei and Akira since they were children. He holds the distinction of having beaten Kei once during their childhood in a game of tag which Kei lost because Yahiro had locked the door to the roof to prevent Kei from winning. Yahiro attends Kokusen Academy, another high school, and is the heir to the Saiga Financial Group, a group that is even higher in status than the Takishima group. Despite his tendency to provoke his friends, he is kinder than he appears and seems to enjoy watching how his friends will react rather than any lasting harm.
Because Yahiro's attitude towards others often upset them, he had very few friends as a child aside from Akira and Kei; his relationships with both of them eventually became strained and distant from his overprotective attitude toward Akira, whom he harboured feelings for. After learning how Akira's friend Sayo only befriended her to take advantage of Akira's privileges and status, Yahiro used extreme measures to drive Sayo away. He never told Akira why he had done so, leading her to believe Yahiro had been motivated by jealousy, and he develops a hatred for those who exploited the wealthy. As a result, Yahiro chose not to become friends with anyone until he met Sakura; at first, he had rejected her offer to become friends with her, but complied after they realize they have a lot in common. Yahiro still is in love with Akira, but eventually accepts her offer of friendship since he realizes that she is in love with Tadashi. In order to distract him, Megumi goes on a date with him, but both have fun on the date and develop feelings for each other. Megumi and Yahiro start dating much to the dismay of Ryuu and Jun.