Honoka Tamarai

Honoka Tamarai (ほのか) is a third-year high school student at Aoba High School who is in the same class as Arata Kaizaki and the captain of the girls' volleyball club.

Appearance
Honoka is a teenage girl with a short and fairly slim build, although her body is very developed and seems to be more built up.

She has fairly droopy, aqua-colored eyes, and about chin-length hair, that is straight and brown. She wears her hair is bangs which cover her forehead, and she also keeps two blue pins in her hair.

Personality
Honoka is an outwardly cheerful person that's very caring. She's also very clumsy. Inwardly she's thoughtful. She deeply cares about her friends, especially Rena Kariu. She's a character that's as readable as an open book. How she feels is clearly shown in the anime.

History
In second grade, Akira Inukai was still a big crybaby. Because of that, Honoka always got into fights with boys in order to protect him. After an incident with a broken cup, Inukai made up his mind to be the "bad guy" so Honoka wouldn't get hurt anymore.

She always had fast reflexes, so she was very good at many different sports. Because of that, many people were jealous of her. She went to Aoba High School because it didn't have a very good volleyball team and because Inukai and Nobunaga Asaji were also going there. There, she met Rena Kariu where she told her that she was her goal and accused Honoka of not trying her best. She made Honoka serve seriously but ended up getting hit in the face. Afterwards, the two became great friends.

Rena Kariu
Kariu is her rival in volleyball as well as her best friend

Arata Kaizaki
They met each other because they both had to do make-up exams.

Chizuru Hishiro
Honoka met her through Kariu.

Akira Inukai
Childhood friend of Honoka and Nobunaga

Nobunaga Asaji
Childhood friend of Honoka and Akira who is hinted to have feelings for.

Etymology

 * The name Honoka is written in hiragana (ほのか), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (和花 or 穂香), it could possibly mean:
 * 和花 - "harmony, peace" (和) (hono) and "flower, blossom" (花) (ka).
 * 穂香 - "grain" (穂) (ho) and "fragrance, fragrant" (香) (ka).
 * Honoka's surname Tamarai means "ball, sphere, bullet, lens, jade, bulb, bead, gem, shot, jewel, shell, coin, bowl, pretty girl" (玉) (tama) and "coming/come, due, next, since, cause, become" (来) (rai).
 * Tamarai is an homage to the Tamarai Station in Ōita, Japan.

Traditional Chinese
Her name in the Traditional Chinese edition of the webcomic is "玉來 萌香"
 * Yulai means "beautiful, pure, jade, jasper" (玉) (yu) and "come/coming/incoming, arrive, crop up, nigh, occur, take place" (來) (lai).
 * Mengxiang means "cute, bud, germinate/germination, sprout/sprout forth/sprout out, people" (萌) (meng) and "fragrant, perfume/perfumed, scented, spice/spiced, sweet-smelting, incense, thus" (香) (xiang).

Trivia

 * Honoka has no sense of direction.
 * Honoka likes drinking milk with fried rice.
 * In the chapters, Honoka tells Chizuru Hishiro that she likes somebody but that somebody likes somebody else.