Chizuru Hishiro

Chizuru Hishiro (日代 千鶴) is a third-year student at Aoba High School. Although she is very smart and always gets one of the highest scores in her grade, she is very bad at communicating and lacks social skills which is why she is always alone. However, Hishiro is determined to change herself in order to make friends and become better at socializing, though she doesn't know where to start. But after meeting Arata Kaizaki who becomes her first friend after he transferred into her class when he became a teenager, his support and influence helped her change, little at a time.

Initially, Hishiro was portrayed as a high school girl, but she is actually the Test Subject No. 001 of the ReLIFE experiment in the Kanto Region where everyone resides in. She is in fact 29 years old, and despite the fact that she did well in her jobs, her lack of social skills and tendency to finish other peoples works got her fired from all her companies, to which she was invited to become a subject by Ryō Yoake.

Appearance


Hishiro is a slender girl with an average build and height. She has straight, mid-length black hair, her bangs ending just above her eyes. She has light green eyes. She wears the 3rd year uniform with a red lapel that all third years wear and added a silver lapel pin after becoming the student representative of her class. She keeps her hair in pigtails laid on her shoulders with green bands, which were later changed to gray X-shaped pins that were a gift from Kariu and Honoka. She often has one pigtail behind her shoulder and the other in front of her shoulder.

When visiting Arata Kaizaki's place the first time, she worn her hair in a ponytail. She wore a red floral pattern yukata at the Fireworks Festival, tying her hair in a bun and keeping her new hairpins as wristbands. For her Chrismas date, per coodination by Rena Kariu and Honoka Tamarai, she wore her hair straight.

Hishiro's Pre-ReLIFE appearance looks very similar to how she looks as a third-year student during ReLIFE, the main difference being that she has longer hair tied in a ponytail with locks reaching her chin, and sharper eyes that are partially hidden by her locks. She is also taller than her Post-ReLIFE self and is seen wearing lipstick and a formal business suit when introduced.

Hishiro's hairstyle as a second-year high school student during Re-LIFE was the same as Pre-ReLIFE for much of the time. Towards the end of the school year, when her experiment was declared a failure and Ryō Yoake asked if she wants to try ReLIFE a second time, she cut her bangs and wore her hair into pigtails to start look more like a high school girl as a sign of her resolve.

Personality
Kaizaki notes she has a clever, smart atmosphere to her. Hishiro is highly intelligent, always seen getting the first place in any exam. Despite her intelligence, she is highly oblivious of her surroundings and people's feelings, openly voicing out insults, such as when she first talked to Kaizaki. She is oblivious to the point of calling Kaizaki "The Cigarette Guy" and Kariu "The Red Haired Girl who did 7.38 seconds" when she first talks to them. When she first messages Kaizaki on Lime, she sent a message that was similar to a business contact. Later she has begun to use emojis mostly involving cat symbols in her texts.

She also does not know how to smile properly, often giving a forced smile that often makes people around her take it in a not-so-friendly way. She tells Kaizaki that she wants to understand people more and make friends as she has reached the final year of school (Later shown she wanted to do so because of her ReLife Experiment). Hishiro also is shown to search the internet when she does not understand certain events and/or what she is feeling (ex: Love).

Childhood
Hishiro used to be a happy and cheerful girl when she was a child. However, due to her mother's work, Hishiro used to transfer schools a lot, which resulted in her always having to leave her friends each time she was able to make some, and start from scratch everytime. This pained Hishiro greatly, and she was even more hurt when her friends stopped contacting her after a while. As it repeated, Hishiro's feelings grew empty and numb to it, and she eventually started avoiding human contact and refrained from making friends. She felt like that nobody would remember her and that no one really acknowledged her presence either way, and she began thinking that bonds such as friendship and love were pointless ― she gave up on caring about other people completely. Throughout her life at middle and high school, she remained alone and never talked with anybody. She always worked alone and because of that, her communication skills eventually became nonexistent.

Pre-ReLIFE
Hishiro graduated from a decent university with excellent results and got placed in a big company. However, due to her childhood experiences, it was only a repeat of her childhood. Although she could do the job perfectly, she didn't communicate with her co-workers and would even finish their job without asking, which resulted in the other employee's value going down. Hishiro became an outcast at her company and received a lot of complains from her co-workers, as she even got the comment of being "a worthless woman", which saddened her. Because of all the employee's complaints, Hishiro was fired from her first job and got the suggestion to try to sympathize with the other adults. However, Hishiro didn't change and continued to carry the ideology that it would better if she did everything by herself and that if she was truly better than anyone else, she would be able to go anywhere else. Due to her talent and intelligence, Hishiro always easily got employed elsewhere, but it was always the same with her previous company. All of this started to repeat itself and her CV began to look weird. Eventually, companies became suspicious of Hishiro and would hesitate to employ her. At last, she couldn't get a job anywhere since she didn't meet the requirements of any company and she became a neet.

At the lowest point in her life when she had lost her self-confidence and had wondered why her life had turned out the way it had, she met Ryō Yoake after one of her failed interviews and was asked to become ReLIFE Subject No. 001 in the Kanto Region. After being explained that they would cover her living expenses and possibly find her a job after the experiment, Hishiro agreed to undergo the ReLIFE process.

2012 ReLIFE
Hishiro was made to enter Aoba High School as a second-year student along with Yoake. In order to improve her interpersonal skills and regain her feelings damaged in the past, Hishiro was put in a class with a bullied student. The plan was to make her help that student and thus make a friend. Also, it was expected for her to form a romantic relationship with Ryō. But there was no improvement, Hishiro still remained indifferent to her surroundings and only focused on her studies, she didn't even bother trying to change herself.

Yoake was criticized afterward for not lending proper support, so he got involved himself and asked Hishiro to help out the bullied student. This resulted in a disaster, however, because of Hishiro's clumsy way of trying to stop the bullying. The student was bullied even more and blamed it on Hishiro, and the student eventually transferred schools. After that incident, Hishiro's situation became much worse and she completely avoided total human contact, and Yoake was ostracized further for interfering too much in her experiment.

Hishiro's ReLIFE experiment emphasized her desire for isolation. Yoake approached her frequently to know if she had issues. As she was asked not to rely too much on the ReLIFE Staff, she denied his help. She just concentrated on the education part and totally neglected improving interpersonal relations. Towards the end of the experiment, Yoake informed that her ReLIFE experiment had been deemed a failure and that she could not get a job because of that. Although being disappointed, Hishiro admits that she did not take any efforts to change herself and only concentrated on her studies. However, Yoake suggested her to indulge in another year of ReLIFE experiment as he thinks that Hishiro would be able to succeed if she continued for one last year up to graduation. Hishiro agrees and she promises she'll succeed in it.

Determined to succeed her experiment and change, Hishiro takes a small first step by cutting her bangs and styling her hair to twin-tails, so she would look more like a high schooler. After this, she was put in the third year in Aoba High School along with Kaizaki and has changed due to his influence.

Summer Vacation Arc
Hishiro is seen attending supplementary lessons during the summer vacation. She's then seen in the group when Ohga decides to confess his feelings to Kariu. She tells she's not experienced in those matters when consulted by Ohga. She also feels irritated after hearing that Kaizaki is super experienced with women. She is later asked by Arata not to tell Kariu about Ohga's plans of confessing.

After Kariu decides to confess to Ohga, she goes Yukata shopping with her,Tamarai and Onoya. She's greatly confused as to which type of Yukata she should select as it is new for her. She then selects a Yukata based on Onoya's advice.

During the festival, she apologizes to everyone after she arrives 3 minutes late. She faces difficulties in getting around and after Yoake offers her to take his arm, she gets around with his help. During the fireworks, Kaizaki sits along with her when she tells Kaizaki that he's able to make friends quickly and feels elated when he tells she has a lot of friends as well.

She then tells that she's glad she met Kaizaki and then feels distressed that he would be separated from her after high school. After the fireworks, she asks Yoake to accompany her home, greatly shocking Kaizaki and Rena. Yoake then says he'll accompany Onoya and asks Kaizaki to take Hishiro home.

She asks Kaizaki to spend some time with her to witness Kariu and Ohga's confessions. She says she's poor in understanding things about love and friendship and wants to get a clear picture after seeing the confession. She then tells Kaizaki that even though she thought that Kariu confessing to Ohga was useless, she feels happy for them. She tells that she is still not clear about her feelings and Kaizaki asks her to make a lot of friends and find romance.

ReLIFE Support Transfer Arc
She is seen at a restaurant along with Honoka and Kariu,congratulating the latter after she tells about her successful confession. Hishiro then tells Ohga was planning to confess as well, then stops herself from telling further about it. She then tells Kariu that she was watching her confession to understand about feelings. She then leaves the shop and asks Yoake to meet her and asks him whether Kaizaki is a ReLIFE Experiment subject.

Hishiro then tells Ryo why she thinks Kaizaki is an adult because of the things she observed about his lifestyle and behaviour. She then remarks that with how stupid Kaizaki is,she finds it hard to believe he is an adult. Ryo then tells Hishiro to ask Kaizaki directly if she wants to know if he is a ReLIFE experiment. As the ReLIFE experiment will be terminated if people come to know about it, this will cause Kaizaki's experiment to be terminated and he will lose memories of Hishiro, which shocks her greatly. Hishiro is then complimented by Ryo that she has started caring about others and that she smiles more, and wished he could see more of her progress.However as her second term supervisor would not be him, he regrets not being able to view her progress further. He then asks the new supervisor to show themselves. Onoya then greets Hishiro saying she'll be her new supervisor, which burns Hishiro's brain.

Hishiro is seen with Onoya and Ryo complaining about having to skip her supplementary classes. She then tells them she would rather cut her classes than continue their conversation. She then tells that she thought Ryo was the kind of person to go out with Onoya and that he was a creep. She then tells that going out with a guy 11 years younger was strange remembering her earlier discussion with Ryo. Hishiro then bluntly asks whether Ryo has been fired from his job and will be a NEET. She then bombards Ryo with questions to see whether he'll let anything slip about Kaizaki and compliments his guard being solid.

She refuses to believe Ryo when he says that she's wrong about Kaizaki being an adult. Onoya then asks Hishiro why she is so concerned about this. She asks Hishiro if she is just curious and if she started having this feeling after seeing Onoya get close to Kaizaki. Onoya then asks if Hishiro expects Kaizaki to be an adult, so that she would no longer need to suppress her love for him. Onoya then expresses that it would be interesting to monitor Hishiro, earning an intimidating glare from the latter.

She is then seen in bed wondering why she cares so much whether Kaizaki is an adult and then decides that it is meaningless to think about it. She can't stop thinking about this fact even though she considers it meaningless.

On the starting day final term of school, she greets Kaizaki and Ryo on the way to school. They are alarmed seeing that she has a frightening appearance. She then takes Kaizaki by the arm telling Ryo she wants to talk to him in private, her actions shocking the both of them.

After a while Kaizaki asks her to let go of his arm, to which Hishiro responded that why it bothers him when it's her and not when Onoya does the same. Kaizaki responds saying that people would think they were going out to which Hishiro responds by asking whether it would troubling for him if others thought like that. It is then revealed Hishiro searched the internet to find out what it means to be in love. She then asks Kaizaki if she's flourishing as a person and to touch her. When Kaizaki responds saying they should be going out to do that, she asks to go out with her and touch her. Kaizaki asks her to take it slow and that she'll recognize about love gradually. Hishiro thinks to herself that if it did occur to her naturally, she would not have become a ReLIFE subject.

School Festival Arc
After reaching class, she has a chat with Onoya on LIME with the latter asking why she acted that way with Kaizaki. Hishiro replies that she tried to act with him to find out in order to find out if she really loved Kaizaki as Onoya suggested. She says that she could not figure it out and Onoya asks her to try her best.

After the test for selecting the class representatives, it is seen that Hishiro has gotten lesser marks than Reina who is elected as the class rep. When Reina questions whether Hishiro deliberately lost to her, she tells her that it isn't the case. Honoka and Reina then enquire about her condition as she was not looking normal to which Hishiro says that she's fine.

Later, Reina and Ohga plan to select commitee members for organizing the school festival. Hishiro recommends herself which surprizes Onoya. She tells her as she lost her student representative role, she has to redeem herself by doing the committee work.

Hishiro then takes up most of the committee work, without asking for any of her classmates for advice. This really worries Kaizaki who tries to mediate constantly. When Hishiro gets sick by overworking herself, Kaizaki carries her to the infirmary, which humiliates her(thinking of being carried by a high school student). Kaizaki then asks her to trust more in other people which triggers her old memories of her previous jobs.

Onoya visits her in her apartment, teases her about being an old woman and asks her about how she felt when Kaizaki carried her. Afterwards she says that her friends are worried about her health and asks her to trust other people a little bit. When the funds allocated for the festival is seen missing, Kaizaki fills the rest of the amount with his own cash.

After Hishiro returns, she apologizes to everyone about keeping the money on her self for safekeeping and not working together with the others. Later when she tries to correct the tie of Kaizaki's suit(for their cafe in the festival), he swats off her hand with a horrible expression(due to his trauma because of his senpai's suicide). She leaves and is pained and hurt by Kaizaki's expression.

They try to apologize to each other on LIME but restrain themselves from doing so. Kaizaki tries to keep his distance from everyone because the end of third year is coming up which prevents Hishiro from trying to communicate with him properly. She is dressed up as a maid wearing glasses and her hair in braids by Onoya surprising Kaizaki, Reina and Honoka.After the cafe was free, she leaves to advertise for the cafe without informing Kaizaki. She is harassed by college students who find her pretty and ask for her LIME info and to accompany them around the festival. After Kaizaki is berated by Reina to not maintain his distance with everyone, he finds her with the students.

He brings her away stating that teachers are looking for her and asks her if they did something to her, irritated when he learns that they touched her. Hishiro then apologizes to Kaizaki that she should not have touched him and not ask him to touch her earlier, learning that it is an uncomfortable feeling. Kaizaki then apologizes and explains his circumstances without letting her know the full story. Hishiro is then asked by Kaizaki to accompany him around the school festival after she says that she has no one to accompany her.

Arata Kaizaki
Kaizaki was the first friend Hishiro made. He helped her out during the first day by loaning her lunch money. She comically asked him for his number by asking for his phone. He was the only person around whom she first gave a proper smile and was her first true friend. After interacting with Kaizaki, she has fallen in love with him, although she is in denial of her own feelings. She is truly hurt when Kaizaki is horrified by her trying to fix his tie due to his phobia on having his neck touched but later reconciles with him after knowing his circumstances. After the festival, Hishiro asks Kaizaki to touch her, and realizes she might be in love with him. In the process of sorting her feelings out, Hishiro finally suspects that Kaizaki is an adult and is finding ways to confirm it, like going through his belongings when she visits Kaizaki's house. In the process, she confirms her feelings for him and breaks down in the middle of the road. Due to her being unable to reciprocate her feelings(due to her being a ReLife candidate), she starts getting disinterested in her surroundings and starts distancing herself from Kaizaki. Upon Kariu and Honoka's urging, she asks him out for a Christmas date.

Ryō Yoake
He was Hishiro's supervisor in the year before the story starts and in the beginning of the current year. She has a close relationship with him as she calls him by his first name, Ryō, (although she had been asked to refer to him as this, and is thus regarded as quite obedient). During the summer festival, she held his arm to get around because she was getting dizzy due to crowd. This act greatly shocked Kaizaki to the point that he thinks she likes him but it is cleared up later. She also held him in contempt thinking that he would try to seduce Onoya, a high school student (before knowing her identity).

Rena Kariu
Rena considers Hishiro a rival in academics. Hishiro tries to become Rena's friend by smiling at her when their eyes meet, but Hishiro's smile looking like a smirk to Rena creates a misunderstanding. After some time, due to Kaizaki's help they become friends and eat lunch together. She is considered to be one of her close friends as she discusses about confessing her feelings for Ohga with her. She also asked advises from Rena from time to time about what she really felt for Kaizaki

Honoka Tamarai
Hishiro becomes friends with Tamarai through Rena.She calls her by the nickname "Hishiron". Hishiro helps Rena mend her relationship with Honoka during the Volleyball Tournament after their tiff, earning the gratitude of both.

An Onoya
She's greatly disliked by Hishiro, mostly because of how close she gets with Kaizaki. She asks Kariu to be wary of her because she's close with Ohga as well. During the second term of her final year, she becomes Hishiro's current supervisor. She wants Hishiro and Kaizaki to end up in a relationship and pushes Hishiro towards it, though it irritates the girl.

Trivia

 * During lunch she is most often seen eating ramen. Either it is her favorite item, or she simply orders whatever people recommends to her
 * Yoake recommended ramen to her on her first day of school
 * Tamarai once suggested her to give omelet rice a try, and she ordered omelet rice the day right after.
 * During the cultural festival, when Kaizaki suggests getting something to eat, her first response was ramen (to which Kaizaki responded "that has nothing to do with the cultural festival!)"
 * She doesn't have a TV at home, opting to watch things on the internet instead.
 * She uses a black smartphone.
 * She frequently changed schools during her childhood, resulting in her lack of friends and interpersonal skills.
 * She has beauty spot on the right side on her neck.
 * She likes ice cream even when she had a fever after Onoya brought her.
 * She was asked to resign from her old jobs frequently as she had a habit of finishing other people's jobs on her own and not cooperating with others.

Quotes

 * (to Kaizaki) Don't treat me like a dummy, you dummy. (バカがバカにしないで下さい) - Report 18/Episode 2, Bonus Report for Vol. 4, Report 122, Report 198
 * In the English localization, the exact same quote is translated differently into different occurrences:
 * "Don't treat me like I'm the dumb one."
 * "Don't treat me like an idiot, idiot."
 * "Don't mock me! You're too dumb!"
 * "You lie as effortlessly as you breathe. I wonder about your integrity." (to Kaizaki)
 * "You really lie as effortlessly as you breathe." (to Kaizaki)
 * "There is nothing worse a person can do than be late! This failure can never be forgiven!"
 * "If I don't understand how a friend feels, am I not allowed to worry about them? If I don't experience what you do, am I not allowed to worry about you, my friend?
 * "This is how I talk to everyone. Don't worry about it. Does that make me unapproachable? People tell me that a lot. Even at this age, I don't have any close friends. I never thought that was a problem, but apparently the society does. I keep thinking I need to change, but I have no idea where to begin. It would help if you could tell me honestly. Am I really unapproachable?"
 * "If I can't even manage a polite smile, I'll be in trouble in the real world."
 * "I don't understand what I say that makes people so mad. I don't understand how they feel. I know that's because I haven't properly socialized. I've tried to learn. I've tried to study up on it, but I just don't know what's right."
 * "I want to defeat the me that's dragging this failure around. I don't want to forget my failure. But if I carry it with me as a bad memory and keep running away, I will never change."
 * "If you know you'll be separated, then falling in love or confessing your feelings, kind of seems pointless..."
 * "I'm well aware that I'm terrible at interacting with people."
 * "It's ineffective to deal with many problems at once."
 * "Having these warm feelings, yet it's so painful and agonizing, to think that this lively high school student could be such a worthless adult. If it is indeed the case, on one side I'm very happy, we're both adults. But on the other side, I'm going to forget about Kaizaki-san. Now that... These feelings I have for him have grown so much, there's no way I can run away from them... I'm in love with Kaizaki-san, I love him, I love him so much." (Upon realizing her feelings for Kaizaki).