Shinobu Maehara

Shinobu Maehara (前原 しのぶ, Maehara Shinobu?) is a 14-year-old schoolgirl who, after a bad start with Keitaro, develops a crush on him. Shinobu is a boarder at the Hinata Inn, in room 201. In the anime, she is first introduced as a grieving girl who has run away from home due to domestic turmoil; however, in the manga, she is already at the Hinata Inn when Keitaro arrives and her parents are still together. She is quite skilled in both cooking and household chores as she became the cook (in the anime, her family once owned a restaurant in town prior to their divorce). Quiet and shy, she is overly caring of others' feelings and this contributes to her own emotional frailty. She is the first girl to fall for Keitaro and in the manga attempts to avoid him because of this. In both the anime and manga, she thinks highly of Keitaro and will often be at the verge of tears when she thinks that he is in trouble or likes someone else. In the epilogue 4 years later she has since grown her hair out and has become more mature, though she retains her sincere personality. She still has a crush on Keitaro and hasn't given up on her dream of being his girlfriend . The reason Shinobu decided to leave home and live at the Hinata Inn was because of the marital problems between her father,[8] and her mother, whose names are never mentioned. In the anime, their marital problems lead to their divorce. Shinobu's parents arrive at the Hinata Inn and argue over who Shinobu should live with. However, Shinobu decides to remain at the Hinata Inn, to which her mother is against as she believes the Hinata Inn is a bad place full of rowdy young girls. They eventually concede, allowing Shinobu to remain living at the Inn.