Shoko Makinohara

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Shoko Makinohara
Younger Older Anime Light Novel Anime Light Novel
Information
Kana	牧之原 翔子
Rōmaji	Makinohara Shoko
Characteristics
Age	13 → 15 → 18 (Younger) / 17-19 (Older)
Gender	Female
Height	Younger: 4'11" (150 cm) Older: 5'3" (160 cm)
Personal Status
Status	Alive
Birthdate	April 10, 1995 (Older) / April 10, 2001 (Younger) | (Aries)
Occupation	Student
Year	Younger: 4th year in elementary school 1st year in middle school 1st-3rd year in high school Older: 2nd year in high school 2nd year in university
Affiliation	Minegahara High School
Relationships	Unnamed parents
Debut
Anime	Episode 2 (cameo) Episode 6
Light Novel	Volume 2
Voiced by
Japanese	Inori Minase
English	Risa Mei
French	Léa Goguey-Cailac
German	Melanie Olbert

“	What I think, Sakuta-kun, is that life is here for us to become kinder. I live life every day hoping I was a slightly kinder person than I was the day before.	”
	— An older Shoko to Sakuta Azusagawa

Shoko Makinohara (牧之原 翔子, Makinohara Shōko) is one of the main characters of Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai series. After helping Sakuta Azusagawa deal with his sister's Adolescence Syndrome, she became Sakuta's first crush until she suddenly disappeared.

Appearance

Shoko has two distinct appearances throughout the first seven volumes of the series.

Middle School

The current Shoko, which Sakuta calls "Makinohara", is a short young girl with long black hair with bangs and a braid around her head. She has light blue eyes. She wears a white and blue middle school uniform with a blue skirt and a red bow tie and is usually seen holding an umbrella outside.

High School

The older Shoko, which Sakuta calls "Shoko-san", has grown relatively taller. She's a beautiful girl of average height with blue eyes and dark hair, who is seen wearing the Minegahara High school uniform, which has a brown vest/blazer with a red tie, and later she is also seen wearing a white dress. When simulating a marriage with Sakuta, her dress shows a scar between her breasts, due to her eventually successful heart operation.

Upon the current Shoko's return in Rascal Does Not Dream of a Girlfriend, she is said to look identical to the "Shoko-san" that Sakuta had been seeing, many years ago by then.

Personality

Shoko is a kind and compassionate person as she voluntarily helped Sakuta Azusagawa and Kaede Azusagawa go through the hardships of Adolescence Syndrome and was also willing to adopt a cat left in the rain. She's typically helpful and kind hearted, just like the two main characters, and her everyday goal is to be a little bit more gentle than before. She's always been known for teaching Sakuta to try to be as kind as possible.

History

Shoko was born with poor health, and was hospitalized several times since beginning elementary school. Three years ago in fourth grade, Shoko's class was assigned to write down their plans for the future on a sheet of paper. While her classmates did so with ease, Shoko found herself unable to write down anything due to her heart disease.

As a Minegahara High student, Shoko first encountered a depressed Sakuta Azusagawa at the beach and listened to his story about his ordeal with Adolescence Syndrome. Sometime after their first meeting, Sakuta asked her why she chose to believe his story. Shoko replied that there were as many different worlds as there were people. After stating that it was fate that brought them together, Shoko told that she believed life was there to people to be kinder and that she lived hoping to be kinder the next day. Shoko approved his subsequent request to live like her, adding now that he knew pain others couldn't understand, he would become kinder than anyone else.

Plot

Shoko introduces herself to Sakuta and Mai

On a rainy day, a girl with the same appearance and name as Shoko was found covering a kitten in a box with her umbrella by Sakuta Azusagawa and Mai Sakurajima. Upon being asked for her contact info so that she would adopt the cat after Sakuta did, Shoko introduced her name, which surprised the former. Afterwards, she began visiting Sakuta's house every now and then to check on the cat, now called 'Hayate'.

On October 16, Shoko was called by Sakuta to confirm if she had sent a letter to come meet at Shichirigahama Beach, to which she responded that she didn't. Shoko apologized for not visiting for some time, adding that she wasn't feeling well and she would come back once she did.

"Shoko-san" arrives to help Sakuta once again

On November 27, the older Shoko appeared in front of Sakuta Azusagawa while he was grieving the loss of Kaede Azusagawa's recent memories and after his scars reopened, and brought him to his home to treat his injuries. Outside his bathroom, Shoko read excerpts from Kaede's diary out loud, revealing that Kaede had expected her former memories to return and that Sakuta would blame himself; thus, she wanted to give Sakuta happy experiences so that he wouldn't have any regrets once she regained her former self. When Sakuta berated himself for crying, Shoko stated that his sadness showed how significant Kaede's existence was and that as her big brother, he had to embrace it all. The next day, Shoko left a note telling that she went home.

On December 8, the older Shoko suddenly arrived at Sakuta's apartment. When asked about her relation to the middle-school Shoko, the older Shoko claimed that they were both the same person and that she suddenly grows older from time to time. Much to Mai's and Sakuta's consternation, Shoko decides to live with Sakuta, as she has grown rather fond of him.

Two days later, the younger Shoko comes across Sakuta at the hospital. She tells him about her history with poor health, and how to her dismay, forces her parents to comply with anything she asks of them. She is then told by Sakuta to tell her parents that she loves them. Back at Sakuta's apartment, the older Shoko tells Mai and Sakuta that she had a heart disease, so she dreamed of living long enough to become an adult. Taking her existence into account, she muses that she could be a projection of her younger self's dream.

The next day, Shoko finds the future goals sheet she was assigned in fourth grade with plans written on it, despite not having written anything previously. When presents the sheet to Sakuta and Futaba when they visit, she notes that the goals are close to what she would write down today.

In the movie's ending, she creates a new future where Sakuta and Mai still end up together at the same school, despite Sakuta's pleas that he can save her, because she realized it was because of her Sakuta experiences so much sorrow. Mai plays a character near identical to her due to her past experiences acting like instinct, and Shoko and Sakuta reunite at the same beach, after the latter recognizes her. The movie ends with Shoko replying with "Yes, Sakuta-san!"

In the eighth novel, Shoko lets Sakuta know that she's moving to Okinawa. The following novel has Shoko send back a picture of her tanned self.

Other versions

"Shoko-san" of the other future

During Mai's funeral, another "Shoko-san" appears to Sakuta who had escaped from where he was staying, having been overcome with grief. This Shoko explains to Sakuta that she was saved by a donation of Mai's heart, and helps Sakuta return to his past to prevent Mai's death. In Rascal Does Not Dream of his First Love (but not its movie adaptation), this Shoko also mentioned that she married the Sakuta of her future.

Trivia

• The name Shoko means "flying" (翔, shō) and "child" (子, ko).
• Shoko's surname, Makinohara, means "Shepard Field" (makino) and "field, plain" (原, hara). Makinohara is also a village on the western side of Suruga Bay, near Shizuoka Airport.
• It is implied that the movie Mai starred in at the end of the movie convinced people to become donors, and Shoko was saved by one of the donors.
• There are several key differences between the light novels and their anime adaptations around both versions of Shoko:
  • Shoko's heart condition was first revealed in the third novel while in the anime, this revelation is deferred until the first movie.
  • The end of the fifth novel has the older Shoko already living with Sakuta after his ordeal involving Kaede. In the final episode of the anime, the older Shoko instead leaves on the day it happened, November 27, leaving behind a note that Mai discovers on December 1 before returning to Kanazawa for filming. The same episode adapts Sakuta's journey to Kanazawa for Mai the following day, which was originally in the sixth novel. The movie instead has the older Shoko visit Sakuta on December 8 asking to stay, and Mai only agreeing to it by staying at Sakuta's apartment as well.
  • Rio Futaba has never observed the older Shoko in the anime (while in the novels, she does so once). Nevertheless, she is aware of the older Shoko existing in the same time plane as the younger one.
  • Hayate, the stray cat Shoko had found and left in Sakuta's care, was picked up by Shoko at the end of the third novel, a duration of just over a month within the storyline, while in the anime, Hayate stays in Sakuta's care until December, the time of the movie.
  • Shoko's parents also do not appear until the movie.
  • Shoko does not appear in the movie adaptation of the eighth novel - the scene in which she appears is deferred to the movie adapation of the ninth novel instead.