Himeko Inaba

Himeko Inaba is one of the main characters of Kokoro Connect anime and light novels.

Himeko is the vice president of the Student Cultural Society and, during the first four volumes, a classmate of Taichi and Iori's. She is exceptionally skilled at gathering and analyzing information, and, as a result, knows many private details about her fellow club members. Although she is calm and logical, Inaba has a difficult time handling awkward situations and does not like things to get out of her control.

Appearance
Inaba has shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes. Unlike most of the other girls whose uniform sweaters are colored yellow, hers is brown. In her casual attire, she is usually described as wearing something mature or plain. Inaba has been noted to have good posture, and a slim, yet long figure. Her eyes are described as being piercing, yet captivating.

Personality
With a short-temper and an intolerance for disorder, Inaba is easily the most volatile member of the Cultural Club. She tends to use vulgar language and speaks with masculine expressions in order to maintain a powerful appearance. She dislikes her given name, Himeko, because it means "princess" in Japanese, which makes her sound weak, like a child who needs to be looked after.

Despite her rough edges, Inaba is very considerate of her fellow club members; always looking out for everyone's best interests, and, though she doesn't like to show it, Inaba greatly treasures her friends and would be willing to sacrifice her own happiness to keep the group together. When dealing with a problem, Inaba typically chooses to take a very direct approach to solve it, making it a challenge for her to deal with delicate situations. Inaba is also a naturally distrustful person and worries constantly about the detrimental effects of each phenomenon.

Behind her front of arrogance and self-assurance, Inaba has proven to have very low self-esteem. This is largely attributed to her distrustful nature and social awkwardness, imperfections that she acknowledges she has but cannot accept. Due to her cold personality, it seems that Inaba does not socialize with others outside of the StuCS. She is very secretive and is even described by her fellow club members as someone mysterious because she does not like to share things about herself. However, after dating Taichi, she becomes slightly more open, but is also prone to becoming jealous when other girls interact with him.

Because she is interested in data analysis and logistics, Inaba plans to specialize in science courses and, in the future, attend a university to better understand Heartseed. By her third year, Inaba decides to major in engineering at a university, and specialize in electronics and information technology.

Key Problem
Inaba has great difficulty trusting others, and, because they hold the power to potentially betray and hurt her, this includes her friends. Rather than coming from some sort of trauma or childhood tragedy, Inaba claims to have been born with this problem and has not been able to trust others her whole life. Despite hating this part of herself, Inaba cannot help but think of others as potential enemies, regardless. This has lead to Inaba having a very poor image of herself and has contributed to her former isolation before joining the StuCS. Over the course of the series, Inaba gradually removes her defensive walls and slowly learns to love and trust her friends unconditionally.

Later, Inaba starts to realize opening up to her friends has slowly made her weaker than she used to be and that she has begun overly relying on the strength of others rather than her own.

Trivia

 * Iori affectionately nicknames her "Inaban", and later coins the name "Dereban". In the English Dub of the anime, she was called "Sukiban" instead.
 * Inaba has a habit of chewing her nails and biting her lips when she's frustrated.
 * Inaba tends to use very vulgar and masculine speech and only abstains from doing so when speaking to a stranger.
 * Of all the characters, Inaba is the only one shown to own a smartphone, which appears to be an Android phone due to the similar pattern lock system.
 * In the novels, Inaba is shown to have more perverted tendencies which includes and is not limited to: briefly contemplating S&M with Taichi, looking for pornography in her brother's room, and posing in front of her mirror in her underwear.
 * Inaba owns a desktop PC, which she apparently built herself.
 * She uses a notebook that resembles the SONY VAIO series.
 * Compared to the other StuCS members, Inaba's family is apparently very well-off and their house is described as quite big and luxurious.
 * Inaba is frequently shown to not be athletically fit. She is often outpaced by her friends and was the only one in the club who did not run the marathon and instead rode a bike to the finish line, and even then she complained it was hard work.
 * Inaba is not very good at cooking, but insists on preparing bentos for Taichi. After Yume Random, Inaba begins preparing a bento for Taichi about once per week and her skills graudually improve as a result. Apparently, her bentos are largely composed of frozen foods, but Inaba defends herself by stating that "it doesn't matter as long as it tastes good".
 * Inaba is quite frugal and does not like to waste money. In Kizu Random, one of Inaba's unleashed desires was to shoplift some pencil lead simply because the price did not make it worth paying for.