Somewhere along the way, Nishi crept onto my list of all-time favorite manga characters.

She’s so sweetly adorable and so self-conscious, and though she doesn’t know it yet, her instincts are spot on. She does all the right things at the right moments, even though she’s second-guessing herself the whole time. I just can’t help but cheer for her, and them.

Gapacho

Imagine the author trying to sell that idea to an editor:

“And there’s going to be a character named Gapacho and everybody will know him and will talk about all of the funny/bizarre/amazing/stupid things he does, but he’ll never actually appear in the manga.”