Nanaka Haibara

Nanaka Haibara
榛原 七香 Haibara Nanaka
Character Information
Gender	Female
Age	17
Status	Alive
Date of Birth	February 6
BWH	77-56-78
Blood Type	B
Height	151 cm (4'11")
Weight	40 kg
Job	Mademoiselle I-wanna-win
School	Misato Hisagi High School
Seiyū	Chinatsu Akasaki
Manga Debut	Chapter 76

Nanaka Haibara (榛原七香, Haibara Nanaka) is an expert Shogi player who recently came back to Japan from overseas and the twelfth capture target in the series.

Appearance

Nanaka has orange hair that is shaped like a mushroom and orange eyes.

The only attire she is seen wearing thus far is her normal school uniform, black stockings and half-length boots.

Personality

Nanaka is a sharp-tempered schoolgirl who is in search for "that person" who can rival her in Shogi. It is later revealed, "that person" is none other than Tenri Ayukawa (actually Diana) who won in a match with Nanaka. She says, after being defeated, she felt a gap inside her heart ever since, which had her possessed by a runaway spirit. This gap was created when Nanaka's pride was broken by the loss in a Shogi game against Tenri, who she deemed as a complete beginner of the game.

Her pride also showed when she sleeplessly trained under Keima Katsuragi's supervision. Her pride also makes her persistent and very honest, which is visible throughout the arc.

Abilities

Checkmate!

Nanaka is an expert Shogi player. This can be seen as she effortlessly beats the chairman of Maijima's Shogi club. Despite being a Shogi expert, she still loses to Keima Katsuragi and Diana. The reason she is outmatched by the two is because Keima has lots of experience playing Shogi in his games, along with his own God-like game-playing skills from playing galge for years. Diana on the other hand is a Goddess, along with being considered as the smartest Goddess among the Jupiter sisters.

While she has lost to Tenri Ayukawa, Nanaka "lost" to her was only because Diana was the one playing the game. Undeniably, Nanaka was not aware of this.

Character History

Shogi Girl Arc

After the summer holidays, Keima Katsuragi returned to school, overjoyed that he had much more free time to play his games than during the holidays. However, it was soon interrupted by Elucia de Lute Ima who asks Keima to join Chihiro Kosaka's band to become the drummer.

Keima firmly declines and says he will only be involved with the real world if it involves the spirit hunt. Just as he is about to leave, Elsie's spirit sensor activates, indicating a spirit is nearby. Not noticing anyone around, they hear someone calling out "Keima".

They soon discover a girl under a bench nearby, looking for "Keima". Elsie tells the girl that Keima is standing right there, to which girl replied she was not talking about that. It seems she lost one of her shogi piece "Keima" (knight in shogi). The conversation was soon interrupted when the shogi club members came to accept the girl's challenge, and the girl reveals herself as Nanaka Haibara.

Nanaka went with the club members to the shogi clubroom and was able to defeat the chief of the shogi club without breaking a sweat. As Nanaka left the clubroom, she commented in dissatisfaction that only "that person" could ever be her opponent.

Nanaka crying over her loss.

As Keima and Elsie return home, they discussed about how they should start the conquest, while Keima ponders where he saw Nanaka's uniform before. In front of his house, he notices Tenri hiding behind the café signboard and realizes Nanaka is from Tenri's school.

As Tenri explains that she is being chased by someone, Nanaka reappears and demands for a shogi rematch. Tenri (actually Diana) was the opponent that Nanaka was talking about. This shows Diana's intelligent side, most likely due to her being a goddess.

She still cannot believe that she lost to someone like Tenri. Keima intervenes. He insists on taking Tenri's place and used Nanaka's missing "Keima" shogi piece that he found as a wager for the match. Nanaka reluctantly accepts and the battle starts. Nanaka tells Keima that she had a gap in her heart because of losing to Tenri.

This moves Keima as it would make his conquest a lot easier if all the girls would talk about their problems and how to solve them. Game ends with Keima's victory, where Keima immediately leaves to Tenri's house. Keima's plan was to win against Nanaka and purposely lose to Tenri, making Tenri look like a tough opponent. Then have Tenri lose to Nanaka on purpose filling her gap.

However, things did not go as smoothly as hoped as Elsie blurted out that Keima makes girls fall in love with him to release the spirit, infuriating Diana, as she sees that Keima is betraying Tenri. Diana tells Keima that she will give him a divine punishment so Keima must be serious when playing shogi. Keima agrees, reminding Diana that he would not lose to a "real god".

Nanaka's third knight.

The battle of the gods seems well matched, with both sides playing powerful moves, however Diana soon got the upper hand and annihilated Keima. After the match, Nanaka wonders if she will be able to beat Tenri, who showed a remarkable game.

However, Keima lends a hand and train Nanaka so that she can defeat Tenri. The two spend after school in Keima's house where they train throughout the night. Two weeks later, Keima announces to Tenri that she will have a match with Nanaka tomorrow evening. During the match,

Diana has the upper hand and utterly crushes Nanaka. Nanaka is almost crying when Keima told her to do her best, comforting Nanaka but irritating Diana. As Diana was too focused on Nanaka and Keima's bond, she misread one of Nanaka's piece, eventually losing. That night, Nanaka celebrates the victory in Keima's house, afterwards Keima tells her that it is getting late, and she is drunk, so he walks her home. While walking on the street, the two discussed about today's match. Nanaka says that she knew she would win as she had a third "Keima" (knight) on her side. Then she says that she is not drunk and decides to kiss Keima, releasing the spirit.

Mai-High Festival Arc

Nanaka, along with the other candidates, are being captured by Vintage and was about to be executed by Lune but was postponed when Lune's superiors disagrees.Later, due to the events and actions of Keima, Runaway Spirit Squad and the goddesses, she along with the other captured targets were freed.

Later, Nanaka was shown to be in the festival and won yet another game of shogi against the Mai-High Shogi club.

Relationships

Tenri Ayukawa

Initially, Nanaka looks down on Tenri for being a little anti-social and always spaces out. However, after "Tenri" (Diana) won her in a game of shogi, Nanaka is shown to be both angry and scared towards Tenri and kept pestering Tenri for a rematch. After scoring a victory over Diana, she stops both looking down on Tenri and feeling any real sense of rivalry and they become good friends.

Quotes

• (To herself) "So after all, my only opponent is none other than that person!" (Chapter 76, p.15)
• (To Tenri Ayukawa) "A big gap has opened in my heart because I lost against you!" (Chapter 77, p.3)
• (To Keima Katsuragi) "Idiot! I can't sleep when you won't! If I can't beat you...I won't be beatin' Ayukawa, right!?" (Chapter 78, p.9)
• (Thinking) "Ayukawa is just like a computer... I got to win! I got to win!" (Chapter 79, p.6)

Etymology

• The name Nanaka means "seven" (七) (nana) and "fragrance, fragrant" (香) (ka).
  • It can also mean "seven lances", which refers to a piece in Shogi.
• Nanaka's surname Haibara means "hazelnut, filbert" (榛) (hai) and "field, plain" (原) (hara/bara).
  • Haibara comes from the Haibara Station (榛原駅, Haibara-eki).

Trivia

• Nanaka is 3/4 Japanese and 1/4 French.
• Nanaka's fandom shorthand is "77".
• The cause of the crevice in Nanaka's heart was her pride of not accepting defeat when she lost to Diana.
• Tamiki Wakaki once stated in his blog that Nanaka is his favorite character.
• Nanaka and Tenri Ayukawa are classmates.
• A girl with blond hair resembling Nanaka appears on the cover of a galge in the first Tenri Arc OVA. 
  • She also makes an official cameo in the ending of the second Tenri Arc OVA.
• Although Nanaka was living abroad until a bit before her arc, her Japanese is completely native and she even speaks in a strong Kansai accent.