Mashiro Shiina

Mashiro Shiina (椎名 ましろ) is the main female protagonist of the story and resides in Room 202 of the Sakura Dormitory. Mashiro is a world famous artist who transferred into Suiko as a 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.

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.

Rita Ainsworth
Rita and Mashiro met when Mashiro came to Rita's grandfather's atelier when she was 6 years old. Rita eventually become jealous of Mashiro's talent and taught her how to use a computer to make manga. Rita let Mashiro move to Japan to become a manga artist, hoping that Mashiro would fail and understand how she and other painters who used to study at the atelier felt. They eventually reconciled when Rita came to Japan for the 1st time. After graduating from high school, Mashiro didn't continue her studies in college and decided to focus on her manga. She lived with Rita who was a university student in Japan in an apartment not far from Sakurasou's dormitory.

Nanami Aoyama
Mashiro considers Nanami a close friend as they both call each other by first names. Nanami also helps take care of her, especially with issues that may be construed as gender-sensitive. However, Mashiro occasionally becomes jealous of Sorata's close friendship with Nanami, interpreting Sorata's actions as romantic moves.

Later on in the story, Nanami's feelings for Sorata grew, however, seeing as Mashiro was also a factor to consider, she set aside her own feelings for Mashiro's sake. In the tenth novel, Nanami and and the residents of Sakurasou worked together to create a scenario so that Sorata and Mashiro could get back together after 4 years they broke up.

Misaki Kamiigusa
Misaki nicknamed Mashiro "Mashiron", being fond of putting "n" at the end of names. Mashiro is Misaki's equal in terms of drawing, with the only difference that Misaki draws anime frames, while Mashiro deals with manga. The two work together, and seem to get along welI in episode 23, Misaki says that she fell in love with Mashiro's eyes at first sight because Mashiro saw her the same way she (Mashiro) saw everyone else. Misaki said that she wants Mashiro to be proud of her and that she looked up to her/adored her. This moves Mashiro to tears.

Yuuko Kanda
About Mashiro and competitive Yuko who will be near Sorata son. In fact, Mashiro aircraft idea on how to deal with Yuuko case arising times, With Plan to Be More terrible Reservations "Reservations C" , its separating cut.

Chihiro Sengoku
Not much can be constructed from their relationship as cousins, since they rarely talk, and the age gap as well. Also, since Chihiro practically gave the care giving jobs to Sorata, Mashiro's cousin hasn't really had the chance to bond with her.

Ayano Iida
Mashiro obeys her editor, Ayano, with whatever the latter tells her to do. Mashiro often goes to her to ask for help, be it with her manga or even her life, as evidenced when Mashiro went to her to ask for advice on why she seems to be jealous of Nanami.

Quotes

 * "This area feels weird, it's been throbbing hard since that time. When you told me not to go. When you held me so tight. It won't go away. Your voice is still in my ear. What happened to me? Is this...love? " Mashiro to Sorata in Episode 12
 * "Sorata no baka" means "Stupid Sorata." Frequently said by Mashiro when she is upset with Sorata.
 * "Iro iro ippai arigatou" means "Thank you very much for everything". She shouted this during the Nyaboron presentation.
 * "Sorata likes the part of me that loves to draw manga. Which part of you does Jin like?" to Misaki in Episode 16
 * "Sorata ni kirawarete made Sakurasou ni itakunai! " means "I don't want to stay in Sakurasou if it makes you hate me" to Sorata in Episode 22
 * "Hey, what color do you want to be?" in Episode 1 and Episode 24
 * "Plan A", which is a reference to Sorata asking Mashiro to take care of herself.
 * "Plan B", which is a reference to Jin suggesting that Sorata and Mashiro should date.
 * "Plan C", which is a reference to annihilate Aoyama Nanami via cutting.
 * "Asa wa mou konai wa." translated means, "The morning no longer comes." from Episode 1

Trivia

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