Nobuta Tanaka

Where his friend Chosuke Takada stands thin and lanky, Tanaka carries a stocky, heavyset build topped by a rounded face. Freckles dot his lightly bronzed skin, and his eyes sit narrow beneath a crop of spiked black hair.

Tanaka treats Class 3-E as beneath him, tossing around threats like promising to kill Nagisa Shiota without weighing what such words actually mean. That bravado is hollow, though. The moment someone truly frightens him he retreats, as happened when a flash of Nagisa's killing intent sent him fleeing. Any rival who outmatches him in some way tends to prompt the same quick surrender.

Once a Class D classmate of Nagisa Shiota, Tanaka never lets his former peer forget the demotion, needling him repeatedly for landing in Class E. He is rarely seen apart from Takada, the two comfortable enough to lean on each other or ride a single two-seat bicycle together, a closeness that led classmates to wonder aloud whether the pair were dating. Supplementary material follows them past graduation: they move in as roommates, and even after Tanaka lands his first girlfriend at a university welcome party, she grows jealous enough to ask whom he would choose between herself and Takada. Venting about her to Takada during their shared baths eventually becomes a routine of theirs.