Kaede Igarashi

A second year (later third year) student and serves as the head of the Disciplinary Committee at Ousai Academy. Compared to most of the other female characters, Kaede is upright, serious and a diligent student. As a result, she plays the straight-man-role either when Takatoshi Tsuda or Suzu Hagimura are not around or in tandem with them. On other occasions, she will find herself in the 'Boke' (funny man) role. This is true mostly around Tsuda, due in part to her interactions with the other girls. Kaede has long straight light brown hair tied into two braids that reach down her back. She has dark brown eyes, and while height is often inconsistent throughout the series she is generally depicted as being about a head shorter than Tsuda. On one occasion, Aria remarked that her twin-tails reminded her of anal beads, after which Aria and Kaede switch hairstyle for a short period of time. She often has a stern look on her face (due to her role as Head of the Disciplinary Committee), but her expression often softens considerably around people she knows. She makes her first appearance shortly after the School Council's ill-fated trip to the beach, where they were forced to spend the night in an inn after their chaperone Naruko Yokoshima got herself drunk. After being shown photos of the event by Ranko Hata, she confronts them about spending the night together and even threatens Shino Amakusa with dismissal as Student Council President. While she is eventually calmed down, the entire affair showed how seriously she took her duties. It also showed just how badly her fear of men affected her, as she could not even bear to show herself when Takatoshi opened the door to let her in. One of Kaede's defining trait is her strict, disciplined, principled attitude, making her a great fit for her role as the Head of the Disciplinary Committee. She is often seen retorting to or scolding other students whose actions are arguably in violation of the strict moral code and rules of the school. She takes these duties very seriously and acts more or less the same way even when not in school. Kaede suffers from a relatively serious case of androphobia, colloquially referred to as a "fear of men". Despite the overly comedic reason for incurring her fear of men, her symptoms are severe; her androphobia has resulted in Kaede's inability to have simple, short conversations with members of the opposite sex. When approached by men, she reflexively distances herself and she passes out when she comes into physical contact with members of the opposite sex. She has also been known to exhibit symptoms of shaking and stuttering when conversing with most males that she isn't comfortable with. These symptoms only display themselves if she is aware of the fact that the person she is coming into contact with is, in fact, male. Instances with Uomi and Tsuda have shown that her reaction is different if she does not realize the sex of the other person she is conversing with or making physical contact with. This androphobia, however, has led to her walking a more upright, principled, and defined course in life as she seeks to correct herself and carry out her duties and work as a student despite her condition.