Umi Sonoda

Sonoda Umi is one of the nine main characters in Love Live!. She is a second year in Otonokizaka High School. Her main color is dark blue. She is the leader of lily white, a sub-unit under µ's. Her solo album is called Umiiro Shoujo ni Miserarete (海色少女に魅せられて).

Background
Since she was young, Umi has been Kousaka Honoka and Minami Kotori's childhood friend thanks to Honoka inviting her to a game of hide and seek. She is also a member of the school's archery club, which she is quite good at. She believes Honoka is bossy and pushy but also realizes the perks of having an adventurous friend. Among the members of μ's, Umi takes the role of being their physical trainer.

Her father is a martial-arts trainer while her mother teaches traditional Japanese dance, and she is expected to inherit the combined dojo of both. She has a far older elder sister who has already moved out.

Personality
Umi is normally a shy girl, but she has a strong will and has some qualities of a leader. Despite this, she is content to stay reserved and always thinks logically. Umi is uncomfortable with wearing short skirts but gets used to it after their first live. Although Umi tends to be hard on others, as seen in Season 2 Episode 7 when she forces Honoka to do long training hours after she gains weight, she is especially hard on herself. She doesn't do anything remotely criminal and despises laziness.

Umi also doesn't like being awakened while sleeping; when this happens, Umi becomes annoyed and has the ability to throw "supersonic pillows" that instantly knocks out its target, according to Season 1 Episode 10. However, despite her calm and collected appearences, when it comes to playing Old Maid, she cannot hold back emotions - She panicks out when her opponent takes the non-Joker, according to Season 2 Episode 5.

Umi always speaks politely, using "です" (desu), "ます" (masu) or other polite forms of speaking in her speech.

Clubs and Hobbies
As the daughter of an iemoto mother and a shihan father, Umi excels in Kendo,, archery, calligraphy, and traditional dance. Starting from the second season, she becomes Otonokizaka High School's new student council vice president, taking the role from Toujou Nozomi. She likes reading as well.

Umi becomes the group's main lyricist, and writes the song "START:DASH!!," along with most of the rest of their songs. She also trains the members of the group before Ayase Eli takes over the role. She either created the dance steps for START:DASH!! or aided Kotori in coming up with the choreography.

Chronology
Season I = Season II =

Trivia

 * "Umi" is also the Japanese word for sea. Whenever Honoka mentions the sea and calls out "Umi", Umi thinks Honoka is calling her name out instead.
 * In the manga, which was published prior to the anime, both Umi and Honoka were portrayed to be members of the kendo club.
 * The various media in the project disagree on the relationships between the second-years. In the manga which was published earlier, Honoka is closer to Umi as the two of them are childhood friends and not Kotori, but in the anime and other newer media, the three of them are all childhood friends.
 * She didn't like to eat sticky food when she was in elementary school.
 * In early PVs, Umi and Eli were often shown together, implying they seemed closer before the story for the anime was established.

Gallery

 * Please refer to this character's Image Gallery.