| Kajiwara Sora 梶原 空 かじわら そら Kajiwara Sora is the unquestioned protagonist and spiritual center of Sketchbook, although she may not appear in more than a couple of strips in any given chapter. Dialogue associated with Kajiwara-san is never enclosed in speech bubbles, and is, we are probably meant to assume, not vocalized. Despite this, its sense is often understood by other characters, especially her brother Ao. As a freshman, Sora visits the art club of her unnamed Fukuoka high school and is subsequently roped into joining by the overbearing but childish supervisor, Kasugano-sensei. Interacting with the club's members and moving throughout the manga's various settings, she seems to simultaneously inhabit our common universe and her own personal, parallel world, within which she conducts her observations, investigations, and often bizarre experiments. Sora shouldn't be pigeonholed as the shy, quiet, gentle type; she's not so easily encompassed. Simply contrast the demure sweetheart of Volume 1's opening page with the exuberant lunatic of Volume 2's corresponding illustration if you want some sense of Kajiwara-san's range. Not that there's anything vague about her characterization -- quite the contrary -- it's just that disparate, even contradictory elements are equally at home in Sora's personality. Whatever she does, it's all quintessentially Kajiwara-san; one can't imagine her acting any other way. If I tried to articulate something definite about her character, I'd find myself just listing her exploits in the series -- but of course, I could exhaust all 5+ volumes presently out and still not get at the root of what makes her tick. Imaginative, philosophical, playful, affectionate, unpredictable, lazy, often idiotic, sometimes just a jerk, always inimitable, Kajiwara-san blazes her matchless, eternity-searing trail through the world of men, one "whose conquest nobody can conquer again, into whose conquest nobody in this world can enter"... Man, she sure is great. Somebody should make a fan club for her or something. -Appears on the covers of Volume 1 (holding, in one of the era's great ironies, a "Drawing Book") and of the Shucchouban (with Mike, Buchi, Haa, and Kuma). -空 (Sora) means "sky". Matsuo Bashō's companion in Oku no Hosomichi is also named Sora, but this is written using different characters (曾良). -Often wears a watch on her left wrist. -Parents wholly unaccounted for, as with all Sketchbook characters. Volume 1: |
| Torikai Hazuki 鳥飼 葉月 とりかい はづき The blond-haired Torikai Hazuki is the third freshman to join Kasugano-sensei's art club. It is significant that Hazuki is the only character aside from Kajiwara-san who regularly appears in strips by herself; she functions at times like a kind of secondary protagonist. Indeed, in her complex, involved struggles with quotidian tasks and her penchant for minor misfortune, she may resemble Sora more than any other Sketchbook character, despite ostensibly being more 'well-adjusted' than the rest of the cast. She is close friends with Asou Natsumi and, when not alone, is usually seen with her. Hazuki's vices are her most endearing traits: her weakness for a certain bank's mascot, or her well-documented stinginess -- she is frequently forced into absurd, profoundly inconvenient situations by her constitutional incapacity to spend any more than she has to. Even her approach to art is largely determined by economic considerations. All of this is further compounded by her stubborn perfectionism. On the other hand, Hazuki is kind, polite, level-headed, and caring towards animals. And, it's obviously not something particularly relevant to the strip, but she is, really, quite beautiful: ...although I guess I'm just editorializing at this point. -Hazuki appears on the cover of Volume 3. -Hazuki is credited, in the strip, with the manufacture of the tissue-box cover which serves as the avatar for the author, Kobako Totan ("Kobako" itself meaning "little box"). Volume 1: |
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