Akane Sakurada

Akane Sakurada is the main protagonist of the Castle Town Dandelion anime and manga.

Akane is the fourth oldest child and the third oldest daughter of the royal Sakurada family. Despite being a princess, Akane is extremely shy, making it hard for her to participate in the campaign and activities to the upcoming election for the nine Sakurada siblings to become the new king and the successor of their father.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Akane is part of the Heroes Coalitions as a trainee. She is also the adopted sibling of Marcus "The Kane" McGee-Sakurada and Aria "Arinah" Sakurada.

Appearance
Akane is a teenage girl with an average build, though she is quite short. Akane has been noted to be flat-chested, but beautiful as well. She has straight, long, deep-red hair that is waist-length, which she ties into low twin-tails with white ribbons at each side. She inherited her mother's face and eye shape, and she also has a similar hairstyle as her mother when she was in high school. She has red eyes, a fair and light complexion that is prone to blushing easily, and a petite frame.

She is usually seen in her school uniform, which consists of a white long-sleeved shirt and a black blazer with gold buttons and trimmings on its edges and pockets. Her tie and skirt are red to indicate that she is a first-year student. She also wears dark brown knee-length stockings with brown slip on shoes. Otherwise, she is seen with casual clothes when she is at home, and dresses and sometimes her crown at ceremonies and parties.

Personality
Even though being part of the royal family, Akane is extremely shy and the shyest one in her family, and will go to great lengths to avoid the camera's placed around the city, as she even memorized where every 200 cameras where around the city.

She hates being the center of attention and being followed by cameras all day, and as such aims to be king to get rid of the cameras, (despite how ironically she would get more attention on herself if she succeeds). She also finds it very hard to interact with the citizens in the public, and if she has to go out she needs another person with her. When she campaigns to the election, she usually stutters and speaks very quietly. However, there are times where Akane can go out by herself, but only important or meaningful situations. However, in school, the royal family is treated just like any other student. In this regard, she is able to function without embarrassment, not knowing that she has a secret fan club that loves to see her squirm. Her friend Karen stated that there weren't any other student that enjoyed school as much as Akane. As the class representative, it’s her job to motivate the class for student council functions, such as beautifying the town, even if it means being out in the public eye. She also receives strong support from her friends and classmates. As the election battle commences between the siblings, Akane has made a name for herself, despite her best efforts.

With that said, she has a very strong sense of justice and kindness, at it is reflected in her actions. She is a very caring and considerate girl who understand other people feelings, and she will help anyone with trouble even though it may attract attention. Her sense of justice pushes her to capture thieves and save cats from trees, which makes for hot headlines in the town news. More popular than she thinks, Akane doesn’t realize that there’s also a poll running on the internet that’s filled with pictures and gossip about herself and her siblings. It’s only worse when embarrassing incident after embarrassing incident occurs for Akane's shy personality. This debilitating personality trait makes it difficult to go out in public, let alone run for the throne. Due to her carelessness when using her ability, Akane sometimes exposes her underwear while it being filmed on camera, deeply embarrassing her. Due to this, she later tends to use her ability more carefully. Akane has also shown to be somewhat air-headed, carefree and dense. For example, she was completely unaware that boys where chasing after her due to her supposedly not having any skirt on. However, she has a bright and cheerful personality; especially when with people whom she is comfortable with. Akane is also very honest and supportive towards her family; cheering for their accomplishments and despite not becoming king at the end, Akane is seen being proud and happy over her older brother who became king.

Due to her extreme shyness and fear to talk in public, Akane's sisters Aoi and Kanade decided to create an alter identity called Scarlet Bloom to lessen Akane's shyness and give her more courage to go out in the public. The plan was successful, as Akane began becoming more comfortable going out in the public with red jamming glasses and a dress. When disguised as Scarlet Bloom, Akane always helped people with various obstacles and fought bad guys. Though the citizens knew it was Akane, they played along with her the whole time. However, when thinking about that she hadn't changed herself as she was disguised as Scarlet Bloom, Akane decided to reveal her identity to the public as she didn't care if she was weak; she just wanted to be someone with the strength to cast aside ones weakness. But after indirectly being explained that everyone knew her identity all along, Akane was very shocked and embarrassed.

In the past, Akane was not shy as she is now. As a child, Akane still had a very strong sense of justice as she claimed that she was a hero that would save the world. She was also quite stubborn, tomboyish, outspoken and even a bit blunt. But Akane was also very curious and adventurous, as she would go explore places by herself; she even met Ange, the princess of another country after wandering off. Her extreme shyness was later explained as she had gone to her friend's house to play, but the day ended badly. Since then, Akane has hated being in the center of attention. But currently, through her distinguished hard work and fair sense of justice, Akane continues to slowly rise in popularity in the campaign with the people of the kingdom. She is willing to sacrifice her comfort and face the humiliation she feels in the spotlight to live in peace. Due to her unique persona and charisma, Akane has a lot of admires, and her juniors at her school hold Akane in awe and admires her, as one female student wanted Akane to "scold" her. She is also very devoted to the city as she has helped it's citizens several times, and she also thinks that one should work in the campaign with their own hard work. As an older sister to her younger siblings, Akane is shown to be dependable and have responsibility as she is able to give them words of encouragement who teaches them about various things. Near the elections end, Akane has grown to be less shy, as she can freely go out by herself without feeling embarrassed; but her introverted side still remains.

Abilities
Akane's power is called...

Gravity Core ('Gurabiti Koa', "Gravity Control"), which allows her to manipulate the gravity of herself and anyone she touches. Her power also makes her able to "fly", as well as increase her speed and strength, as she can lift heavy objects with ease. This power comes in handy when fighting thieves, as Akane used her power for this reason several times in the series. When disguised as Scarlet Bloom, she used her ability many times, each time helping people with different kinds of things.

Trivia

 * She's completely unaware that she has a fan club at school.
 * Akane always gets the chore to do groceries, which is ironic as she absolutely despises it. This is a running gag in the series.
 * Her alter-ego, Scarlet Bloom, was based on a fictional television superhero named Rose Typhoon, who Akane greatly looked up to when she was younger.
 * She is the class representative.
 * Hikari, who is five years younger, outgrew Akane by the age of 13.
 * The king Akane looks up to the most is Henry IV of France.
 * Akane means "deep red", meaning that she presumably was named after her hair and eye color.