Maki Nishikino

Nishikino Maki is one of the nine main characters in Love Live!. She is 15 years old and a first year. Maki was born on April 19th and is an Aries. She has auburn hair and purple eyes. Her main color is red/red-pink. She is 161 centimeters tall, and her blood type is AB. She is part of BiBi, a mini idol unit. Maki is voiced by Pile.

Background
Maki comes from a wealthy family of doctors and aspires to be a doctor like her parents. Because of her wealth, it is discovered in Episode 10  that Maki's parents own a beach house. Therefore, μ's gladly insisted Maki to go ask her parents if they could use it, which they allow.

Personality
Maki has tsundere qualities and has a hard time admitting her true feelings to her peers. She's also stubborn like when she was being invited to play at the beach. During the beach episode, Maki was withdrawn from the group and not participating in playing. It wasn't until Toujou Nozomi started a pillow fight in the middle of the night that Maki began to get involved.

Clubs and Hobbies
Maki is skilled at playing the piano, and is the composer of the group. Her other hobbies are photography and stargazing.

Chronology
In Episode 1, Kousaka Honoka overheard Maki playing the piano and singing "Aishiteru Banzai!" inside one of the music rooms. Honoka asked Maki if she'd want to become a school idol, but Maki quickly declines.

In Episode 2, Honoka asks Maki to compose a song for them, but she declines. However, Honoka manages to get Maki to read the lyrics Sonoda Umi composed, but she says no again. After class, Maki remembers Honoka telling her about them training by the local shrine, and decides to take a look. While watching them train behind a wall, Nozomi sneaks up on her and grabs her breasts, causing Maki to scream. Nozomi gives Maki advice to secretly help them, and Maki decides to compose a song using Umi's lyrics. She mails the CD to Honoka's house. Maki also votes for them on an idol ranking site.

In Episode 4, Maki's student ID is found by Koizumi Hanayo, who goes to her house to return it. While there, Maki explains to Hanayo that she'll probably have to quit music in order to study medicine and inherit her family's hospital. However, Maki tells her she'll support Hanayo to become an idol. Later on, Maki goes with Hanayo up the rooftop to where μ's is practicing, along with Hanayo's friend Hoshizora Rin. Both Maki and Rin give Hanayo a push to accept μ's offer of joining, and they both decide to join as well.

In Episode 7, Hanayo tells the group about a school idol tournament called Love Live! where the top 20 idol groups compete against each other. Since the group needs the school's permission to go, Principal Minami will let them go under one condition: none of them fail the upcoming exams. Honoka, Rin, and Niko need the most help with studying, so Umi and Minami Kotori will help Honoka study, Hanayo and Maki will help Rin study, and Nozomi with Niko. After the exams are done and everyone passed, they go to the chairwoman's office where they overhear her telling Ayase Eri that the school will stop accepting new students next year and be shut down.

In Episode 8, following the events of episode 7, the chairwoman clarifies to μ's that the school will shut down if the upcoming open day is received negatively. Umi suggests to the group to get Eri to teach them how to dance. Eri agrees to their offer and puts the group into intense training, but is surprised by their willingness to continue. Nozomi tells μ's that Eri wants to join, but believes she can't because of how she treated them in the past. μ's go to Eri and formally invite her to join. Eri becomes honest with her feelings and joins, along with Nozomi who reveals that she came up with the group's name: μ's, meaning the nine goddesses of music. Coincidentally, there are nine members in μ's. The now complete group performs "Bokura no Live, Kimi to no Live" at the open day to a pleased crowd, making the open day a success.

In Episode 9, the success of the open day gets μ's an expansion to their club room, as well as the faculty reconsidering shutting down the school. After discovering they managed to reach rank #50 on the school idol ranking site, μ's decides to go to Akihabara, where they discover they're being featured as merchandise. They also discover Kotori secretly working part-time at a maid café and is known as the "Legendary Maid Minalinsky". Eri decides that Akiba is the perfect place to have a concert, so she assigns Kotori the job of writing lyrics, because she knows Akiba best. However, Kotori struggles with writing the lyrics, until Honoka and Umi help her out by having her recall her feelings while working at the café. The group then performs the song "Wonder Zone", and have a successful live concert.

In Episode 10, μ's decide to go to the beach with Maki having permission for them to use their beach house. Eri creates a rule that no one is allowed to use the honorifics "senpai" for the duration of the trip, so they can break down the barrier between upper and underclassmen. The girls spend the whole day at the beach playing, but Nozomi and Eri are quick to notice Maki not participating. At night, Nozomi initiates a pillow fight, and all of μ's except Umi play. However, a pillow hits Umi while she was sleeping, causing her to get cranky and throw "supersonic pillows" at everyone, hitting Niko, Honoka, and Eri. Just as she was about to hit Hanayo and Rin, Maki knocks Umi out with a pillow, causing her to fall back asleep. The episode ends with all the members of μ's breaking down the barrier between upper and underclassmen, and holding hands while watching the sunrise.

In Episode 11, μ's has manage to reach rank #19 on the school idol ranking site, making them eligible to apply to the Love Live! tournament. This puts pressure on μ's to keep their position. However, Niko fails to win a lottery spin to use the auditorium, causing μ's to think of where to have a concert. Honoka comes up with the idea that they can use the rooftop to hold their performance, and the group hesitantly agrees. On the day of the concert, it's raining, but the group decides to perform, anyway. They perform "No Brand Girls", but as the song finished, Honoka faints.

Following the events of episode 11, in episode 12, μ's go to Honoka's house to check on her. They discover that she's still recovering and has a sprained leg. They sadly tell Honoka that they dropped out of the Love Live! tournament, meaning their ranking was removed. Honoka blames herself for the incident, but μ's tell her that it's everyone's fault, instead. Everyone gets depressed from this event, but Honoka the most. At the rooftop, Maki, Hanayo, and Rin all announce that the school has been saved, thus the group decides to have a celebration. At the party, however, Umi and Kotori are noticed to not be in jolly spirits. Umi then reveals to μ's that Kotori is moving to a fashion boarding school for the rest of her high school career. Everyone is surprised by the announcement, but Honoka gets angry at Kotori for not telling her earlier. Kotori explains to her that she wanted to tell them but couldn't, and runs away.

The next day, on the rooftop, μ's reveals that they're planning to do a final live with everybody before Kotori leaves. But Honoka tells them that it was her fault and that none of this would've happened if it wasn't for the accident. The members tell her to stop saying that, but Honoka then says that the school is saved, therefore there's no reason to keep on performing and that's it's impossible to go against a group like A-Rise. Honoka tells them that she quits, but before she leaves, Umi slaps her cheek, saying that she didn't think that she's that kind of person and that she's the worst there is.

In Episode 13, Eri decides to put μ's on a hiatus. Niko disagrees with Eri, saying that she wants to continue being a school idol. Maki tells her that they can't continue without Honoka. Later, Maki goes into the music room and remembers Honoka clapping after playing Aishiteru Banzai! After fetching Kotori at the airport, later on in the episode, Honoka runs into the backstage of the school auditorium and slips, hurting her butt. Kotori also comes in and μ's perform Start:Dash!!, despite wearing their school uniforms, and this time with the auditorium full of people. Afterwards, Honoka tells the crowd to say "μ's Music Start!" and μ's are in the school idol ratings again.