Mari Ohara

Mari Ohara is one of the nine main characters of Love Live! Sunshine!!. She is a third year at Uranohoshi Girls' High School as well as the school's chairwoman. Her image color is violet. She is a member of Guilty Kiss, a sub-unit under the reformed Aqours and was co-founder of the original group.

Background
Mari is a third year student whose parents (her mother and Italian-American father) manage a hotel chain, Ohara Hotels and Resorts, including Hotel Ohara on Awashima Island (based on the actual Awashima Hotel, currently the Wyndham Grand Awashima) where Mari lives in a suite, which proves her upbringing from a very wealthy family. She's childhood friends with Kanan Matsuura and Dia Kurosawa, knowing them since elementary school.

Due to her part Italian-American upbringing, Mari speaks with an accent and often inserts English words into her speech every few lines (in the English dub, the English words are replaced with Italian words). She also tends to speak in third-person.

She is first seen in the first episode flying in the family's helicopter, before formally appearing in Episode 3, where she becomes the chairwoman of Uranohoshi Girls' High School (despite still being a student) after her family contributed a large amount of money to the school. Season 1 Episode 6, Episode 8 and Episode 9 reveal that she, Kanan and Dia formed a school idol group two years ago while on their first year, Kanan having convinced Mari to join. However, Mari had suffered an injury right before an important performance, so Kanan and Dia decided to step down and not perform. Later on, Mari leaves Uchiura to study abroad after the three disband their school idol group. Once Mari learns the truth in Episode 9, she confronts Kanan over it, but both reconcile with the other and decide to become school idols once again, joining Aqours alongside Dia.

Personality
Mari has a cheerful, eccentric and mischievous personality, makes many jokes, and often prefers to work by herself. She always keeps her chin up when faced with hardship so as not to burden others, and is ready to try her hand at anything. However, as a half-foreigner, she does not feel that she is very suited to being a Japanese-style idol.

Despite Mari's cheerful personality, there are times when she can be serious as shown in Season 1 Episode 9.

Mari speaks with an accent, and she has a high, cheerful voice. Mari often inserts English words (Italian in the English dub) into her sentences, but when she is sad or serious, the pitch of her voice becomes lower, she loses her accent, and she uses English words less.

Clubs and Hobbies
Mari's hobbies include sports and horseback riding, and her talent is in her flexibility and singing. Her favorite genre of music is industrial metal, as stated in her official introduction and as shown in Season 2 Episode 2.

Appearance
Mari has a slim figure with light blond hair that she has tied into a braided headband with a loop on the left side and bright yellow eyes.

Other Data

 * Note: Dengeki G's Magazine is a monthly magazine that is part of the Love Live! and Love Live! Sunshine!! multimedia projects. As it is usually the first source of news for all major projects under these titles, its monthly sections will detail how the project has progressed over time. The issues are usually published a month ahead of time. For example, the July 2010 issue would've been released on 30th May 2010.

Audio

 * Does not work on iPad, or any medium that does not support the .ogg audio format.

Trivia

 * In real life, Mari's home is based on the actual Awashima Hotel, currently the Wyndham Grand Awashima.
 * Unlike the rest of Aqours, Mari wears a turquoise vest in her summer uniform and wears white socks as opposed to black socks.
 * Mari has similar features to µ's Eli Ayase and Nozomi Tojo.
 * Both Mari and Eli are blondes of the group, tallest of the group, foreigners, and third years.
 * Both Mari and Nozomi are Geminis, the bustiest of the group, fluent in English, and loves to grope their fellow members.
 * She is the tallest of all of the Aqours characters at 163 cm (or 5'4"), which is ironic since her seiyuu is the shortest of Aqours seiyuu.
 * She is the second school idol to slap her childhood friend. The first being Umi Sonoda.
 * Mari is the second character since Dia Kurosawa to run away from arranged marriages set up by her parents (in Mari's case, her mother).
 * In the Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai? PV, Mari's personality was more quiet and reserved, compared to her anime personality, where she is more loud and energetic.
 * It was stated in Mari's SIF side stories that she has liked marching bands ever since she was a little girl.

Gallery

 * Please refer to this character's Image Gallery.