Kanzashi Sarashiki

Kanzashi Sarashiki is a character from the Infinite Stratos anime and light novels.

Kanzashi is a First year student at the IS Academy in Class Four, younger sister of the Student Council President, Tatenashi Sarashiki and the IS Representative Candidate of Japan.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Kanzashi is a member of the Heroes Coalitions and is part of the Dream Express.

Appearance
Kanzashi has blue hair and dark red eyes like her older sister. In oppose to Tatenashi, Kanzashi's hair curls inwards and is slightly longer, and has more petite body compared to her older sister. Her IS Academy uniform consists of the typical white and red blouse with two triangular hairpins on both sides of her head (right and left) and yellow leggings. She also wears a pair of glasses.

Personality
Kanzashi is the polar opposite of Tatenashi; while her older sister is cheerful, talkative and very forward, Kanzashi is far more reserved. She is also a hikikomori, spending most of her spare time under a blanket in her room watching anime. She is a huge fan of anime and idolizes anime heroes. She was initially very reluctant to team up with Ichika, due to being forced to work on his IS instead of making her own, but opened up to him after a large amount of persuasion.

Her withdrawn nature is largely thanks to an inferiority complex she feels towards her sister; due to Tatenashi being better than her at pretty much everything, Kanzashi is deeply insecure and often keeps her distance from her sister, a trait she shares with Houki Shinonono. Upon learning that Ichika helping her out and offering to team up with her was an order he got from Tatenashi, Kanzashi was shocked and got sent into a state of depression until Ichika snapped her out of it. After the fight with the Golem, Kanzashi learns that nobody is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes, finally gaining the courage to reconcile with her older sister.

While Kanzashis' personality is largely different from her older sister, they do share a similar sense of humor and cunning. This is shown during the Live Cosplay Changing Race when Kanzashi put in a highly revealing Princess Knight outfit among the outfits and got Laura to wear it, knowing she wouldn't want to race while wearing something so embarrassing.

Abilities
Kanzashi is a representative candidate of Japan, therefore she possess above average knowledge and skills in piloting the IS. Her genius older sister even acknowledges that she has talent. However, she didn't get a personal IS because the lab where her IS was being designed delayed the construction to built Ichika's Byakushiki instead. By that reason, Kanzashi had to customize an Uchigane provided by the IS Academy, transforming it into Uchigane Nishiki. It was eventually finished before the Tag Team Tournament in volume 7.

Trivia

 * In the Heroes Coalition fics, Kanzashi is dating Ichika Orimura.


 * Kanzashi's name means "hairpin" (kanzashi). This is probably because of her weird-looking hairpins.
 * She has a similar appearance to Yuto Sakurai
 * Ironically, the type of anime and manga that she likes is similar to Infinite Stratos. In the light novel, Kanzashi gives Ichika some manga she likes which involves robots (the IS), teenage love (Ichika's harem) and heroes (Ichika, who protects others).
 * Kanzashi is the second girl to confess her love to Ichika, the first being Houki. Interestingly, Ichika didn't respond to either of their confessions due to different reasons (Houki's was too quiet, Kanzashi's was misunderstood).
 * Both of them are quite similar as noted by Ichika: both have a older sister who are well known for being outstanding geniuses that love and support them, but they (Kanzashi and Houki) feel inferior to them (Tatenashi and Tabane respectively) and started to distance themselves from their sister as a result. Their older sisters also have similar personalities: cheerful, talkative, somewhat lecherous, prideful.