Hanamaru Kunikida

Hanamaru Kunikida (国木田 花丸 Kunikida Hanamaru) is one of the nine main characters of Love Live! Sunshine!!. She is a first year in Uranohoshi Girls' High School. Her image color is yellow. She is a member of AZALEA, a sub-unit under Aqours.

Background
Hanamaru, known as "Maru" for short (by herself and her friends), is a first year student and the daughter of a family who has run a nearby temple for generations. She lives with her grandparents, and since she does not have a computer, she often reads a lot. Hanamaru is Ruby Kurosawa's best friend, and both are often seen near the other. She also attended the same kindergarten as Yoshiko Tsushima, also one of her friends.

Hanamaru has a distinctive verbal tic and dialect, tending to end her sentences with "zura" (ずら), as well as using "ora" as a first-person pronoun to refer to herself.

In the anime, in the first episode, Hanamaru and Ruby are quickly approached by Chika Takami, who invites them to be school idols. Confused, Hanamaru quickly dismisses the invitation. It is later revealed in Season 1 Episode 4 that Hanamaru actually was interested in school idols, especially after seeing a picture of Rin Hoshizora from µ's, but couldn't bring herself to being a school idol herself because of her appearance and lack of physical condition. She talks Ruby's sister, Dia Kurosawa, into paying attention to what her sister actually wants, which was being a school idol. After Ruby joins Aqours, she tells Hanamaru about the story of Rin and µ's, and Hanamaru finally decides to join Aqours, supporting Ruby in her endeavor.

Personality
Hanamaru is a hardworking girl who diligently works at her family's temple. She spends a lot of time reading alone and is easily distracted by books. Since she was raised as a temple girl, Hanamaru does not watch the television much, nor does she use the internet, making her outdated. Because of this, she is fascinated with modern technology, yelling her catchphrase "Mirai zura!" (未来ずら) when she sees something advanced such as a computer. She was often teased due to this, but was usually defended by her best friend Ruby; however, the first time it happened, Ruby ended up crying, causing Hanamaru to comfort her instead.

Hanamaru seems to be quite self-depreciating, calling herself a "chibi procrastinator" and "neither cute nor interesting". She aspires to be like Ruby, whom she sees as "beautiful, cute and dazzling". She is also gentle and caring for those around her. Despite her appearance, Hanamaru is also smart and not easily fooled.

Due to the fact the Second Years are considered "the heart" of Aqours, Hanamaru has some difficulty relating to the Third Years', which is shared with Yoshiko; this is due to her preferance for the indoors and for calmer activities. Season 2 Episode 2 explores this, and after a rainy evening forces the girls to stay indoors, the First and Third Years' are able to relate to the others, with Hanamaru seemingly relating to Kanan Matsuura the most.

Hanamaru is shown to have a playful and mischievous side of her; this is especially present when she teases Yoshiko's Fallen Angel behavior and her embarrassing moments (often alongside Ruby), which annoys Yoshiko all the time. She has a surprisingly large appetite, able to eat a food helping quickly and often asking for another one immediately after, and is usually seen eating sweets in the background, the most common of them being a roll of noppo bread.

In Season 1 Episode 4, Hanamaru stated that since she was little, she was a quiet girl who played off to the side.

Clubs and Hobbies
She is a gifted singer, earning her a spot in a choir. She loves reading and has a deep fondness for Japanese literature, often spending most of her time in the school library, which she helps out at. Her ambition is to become a writer some day.

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.

Etymology

 * The name Hanamaru means "flower, blossom" (花) (hana) and "round" (丸) (maru), in which her character symbol consists of a spiral and a flower.
 * Hanamaru's surname Kunkida means "country" (国) (kuni), "tree, wood" (木) (ki) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).

Trivia

 * Unlike the rest of Aqours, Hanamaru wears a yellow cardigan in her winter uniform, similar to Nico Yazawa wearing her pink cardigan as part of her summer uniform in the original Love Live!.
 * Hanamaru is the fictional artist of Maru's 4-koma, a 4-frame comic strip detailing Aqours's activities that started serialization in Dengeki G's Magazine October 2015.
 * In real life, Hanamaru's home is based on Raikoji Temple.
 * Unlike the other girls, Yoshiko calls Hanamaru "Zuramaru" (ずら丸), as a reference to the latter's verbal tic.
 * Hanamaru is the shortest of all of the Aqours characters at 152 cm (or 5'0"), which is ironic since her seiyuu is the tallest of Aqours seiyuu.

Gallery

 * Please refer to this character's Image Gallery.