Azusa Nakano

Asuza Nakano is one of the main characters from the K-On! anime and manga.

Asuza is nicknamed "Azu-nyan" by Yui Hirasawa, is a student at Sakuragaoka High School. She decided to join the Light Music Club after seeing the band's performance in the school festival and thus became Ho-kago Tea Time's rhythm guitarist. After the senior members graduated, she continued the club and became its new president, as well as the main guitarist and main vocalist of the new band, Wakaba Girls.

In the AWA fics, Asuza is a student at the AWA Academy.

Appearance
Azusa has long, straight, and seemingly thin black hair, which she wears in pigtails, and brown eyes that have a red-orange tint. Compared to Mio's black hair color, Azusa's hair looks purple-tinted in the anime. She is the shortest member of the group. Azusa's skin is a similar shade to those of the other girls, but she's sensitive to sunlight and tans easily even with heaps of sunscreen on.

Azusa wears a school uniform. The Sakuragaoka uniform consists of a navy blue blazer, a solid white buttoned shirt (under the blazer), a colored ribbon (different colors for different student years, Azusa's year is red), a light steel blue skirt, stockings or socks (Azusa's are black), and maroon shoes.

Personality
Azusa is a self-proclaimed novice guitarist who has been playing the guitar since she was in fourth grade because her parents play in a jazz band. Despite her low self-esteem and modest attitude, she is extremely talented and superior to her senior, Yui Hirasawa(who also plays guitar), in many ways.

Since she expected the Light Music Club to be a serious club with ambitious members, she is often disappointed by the laziness around her. Shortly after joining, her disappointment made her go as far as having a rage attack during a club meeting and considering leaving the club to join other bands. However, encouragement from her senior, Mio Akiyama, removed her last doubts and she joined the club for real, although she still often nags about the club's lack of activities. When doing so, she can be quite cynical and judgmental.

Over time, she slowly became used to the club's slow pace and often gets teased because of it. She has a certain weakness for sweets and can be calmed down rather easily, sometimes just from being petted. Every now and then, she is shocked about how quick she got used to the club's laziness and tries to change it.

Azusa is easily overwhelmed by good musical performances, seen when she watches the Light Music Club's concert or Sawako Yamanaka's performance speechlessly. She also gets a tan very easily, seen twice during a trip to the beach and also once during a music festival (even after applying sunscreen). The manga shows that she tans in mere seconds. She often suffers from this, like not being able to take a bath due to the sunburn, not being recognized by friends due to her drastic change in appearance or needing to hide the tan lines by wearing a longer skirt at school. Azusa is in some ways similar to Mio. Both can get embarrassed and shy (like when Sawako brings in new costumes) and mostly, they are the only ones who are assiduous and anxious to move the band to practice.

Azusa is also very smart and structured. She once created a strict daily plan for Yui to study for finals and also organized the band's graduation trip to London. She told Mio once that she loves planning things.

Although she mostly appears to be calm, she also has a eruptive nature and is easily snapped when someone makes fun of her. She can also be pretty stubborn to show no weaknesses. By the time she became the president of the Light Music Club, she also became rather bold, especially against the supervisor Sawako.

Azusa is often hugged or otherwise physically contacted by Yui (and less often, Ritsu), who considers Azusa cute due to her small size. Yui gave Azusa the nickname "Azu-nyan" after Sawako made Azusa put on cat ears.

Azusa can't stand being lonely. At the graduation of the original club members, she begged them under tears to not graduate before her since she didn't want to be lonely, despite knowing her request was selfish and immature.[10]

Azusa has a very thoughtful side and often worries with herself being capable of being good enough at the guitar or being a good president for the Light Music Club. However, she does not let her personal worries bother her in times where her leadership is needed and she does all in her might to help her friends out, so in the end, she quickly became just the kind of president her underclassmen needed.

The anime shows that Azusa is very fond of animals, yet she is distanced or even nervous in front of them at first.

Azusa can be considered to be a tsundere since she tries to hide her feelings for Yui with harshness and easily gets embarrassed when she is petted, hugged or otherwise teased by her.

Also, while nowhere as strong as Mugi, Azusa still possesses remarkable physical strength for her size, being able to drag a crying and screaming Yui (6 centimeters taller and 4 kilograms heavier than she is) behind her back to study for her remedial-exams with one hand.

Trivia

 * Her guitar is a Fender Japan '69 Reissue Mustang in Candy Apple Red, specifically the version with matching headstock color; the matching headstock color is a trait exclusive to this particular model, only made by Fender Japan. After Yui named both her own and Mio's guitars, Azusa named her own Muttan, (taking the first syllable, like Ritsu/Ri-chan; "-tan" being an alternate of "-chan") as Muttan sounds like "Mustang".  She does not have the Tremolo Arm (commonly known as a Whammy Bar) installed, though it comes standard with the guitar.
 * Her surname is taken from former P-Model keyboardist/programmer Teruo Nakano
 * The kanji of her given name, when read "azusa" as in her name, refers to either of two tree species: the Japanese cherry birch and the yellow catalpa.
 * The other girls sometimes comment on how much Azusa and Mio resemble each other (especially during the few occasions when their hair is styled the same way) to the point where they could pass for sisters.
 * Both Ui and Jun mistake Azusa for a stranger when they see her tanned for the first time. This happens twice with Ui, despite the fact that she was visiting Azusa at home and had seen the tan once before.
 * Though she claims to dislike being treated like a cat or a child, Azusa's behavior is often considered cute by the other girls (and indeed by many fans of the series) and this causes the other girls to treat her that way. Examples of her "cute behavior" include pouting when no one is willing to practice, and meowing like a cat when startled or sad, and forgetting she had animal ears on overnight.
 * Her parents used to be in a jazz band, and this musical influence encouraged her to become a musician herself.
 * Jun and Ui have described her as an anime figurine on at least two occasions.