Akari Watanabe | Popular snack

Akari Watanabe is the main female protagonist of the More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers manga and anime series. She is a Gyaru who becomes Jirō Yakuin's partner during the marriage practical, an activity held at their school to train someone to become more established when they later have a marriage partner. Her goal initially was to become a partner of Minami Tenjin in the training by acting as a perfect newlywed with Jirō. However, after spending time with Jirō and getting rejected by Minami, she truly falls in love with Jirō and has made it her priority to be together with him as a real couple.

Akari is a beautiful teenage girl with waist-length pink hair tied in twin buns and blue-green eyes. Her nails are manicured and often change color/style throughout the events of the series.

Akari typically wears a school uniform with light blue sleeve shirt with a blue medium bow, a dark blue skirt, brown shoes, and white and blue loose socks. Unlike the other girls in her school, her uniform's sleeves are cut to expose her shoulders. She also wears earrings (usually in the shape of red hearts) and sports a hot pink and purple scrunchie on her left leg.

Outside of school, Akari typically tends to wear revealing clothes that would expose her shoulders, chest, and legs. Most of her outfits has her wearing tube/tank tops and shorts that do not go past her upper thighs. Akari does not seem to favor wearing dresses but will do so when she is attempting to grab the attention of a boy that she likes. Akari would also rarely keep her hair tied in twin buns, instead opting to wear it in different styles. While at home, Akari prefers to keep her hair down or tied in a ponytail.

Akari also owns a large collection of accessories that vary in design and style, such as bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and scrunchies.

Akari was initially portrayed with a stereotypical gyaru personality; extroverted, brash, and confident to a point where she considered herself to be too popular to be paired with someone like Jirō. However, this personality was merely a facade and was likely just a strong emotion that Akari was experiencing after being disappointed with her initial pairing with Jirō. In reality, Akari is shown to be a kind and friendly girl once someone got to know her.

During the practical, Akari is shown to be a responsible/caring partner, often doing house chores and cooking meals for Jirō. While initially acting like this to get a high score on the practical in order to switch partners, she later does this genuinely as she slowly falls in love with Jirō. Compared with Jirō, Akari is usually the more proactive of the two in terms of housework, often doing them without being told. She also appears to be strict, as she will scold Jirō if he makes a mess in the living room or ruins her cooking.

This type of attitude however, does not apply when it comes to her academic performance. Akari dislikes studying, often procrastinates on schoolwork, and prefers to do leisure activities while leaving her school responsibilities towards the bottom of her list of priorities. However, when she applies herself, she is able to learn the material quickly and even outscore Jirō on one of their tests, despite the fact that he was the one that was tutoring her.

While Akari appears to be mostly kind and compassionate, her patience does have limits and she is prone to getting angry, especially when it comes to Jirō's shenanigans. She will not hesitate to resort to physical violence if circumstances were to escalate such as when she kicked Jirō in the groin on two separate occasions, although she does later show remorse for doing so.

Akari is aware that she is attractive and is not afraid of using it to her advantage. She would often use her looks combined with playful touching/flirting to tease Jirō to get a reaction out of him. Despite this, she has been shown to be uncomfortable when her looks attract unwanted attention from guys. Ironically, while she often pokes fun at Jirō for being a virgin, she does not appear to have much romantic/sexual experience herself. This is evident when she assumed that Jirō had a sexual encounter with Shiori in the nurse's office, she became deeply distraught at the thought of her partner having an adult experience and "leaving her behind." Furthermore, she claimed that Jirō is the first and only person she had ever kissed. Akari even stated that she is not "easy" despite what Jirō and others think of her as a gyaru.

Despite being a gyaru, Akari's holds the idea of true love in high regard. In addition to her lack of promiscuity, Akari has expressed disgust upon learning that the Marriage Practical encouraged students to have as many practice partners as possible to which she compared to as having multiple marriages and divorces. When Akari began to harbor feelings for Jirō that began to conflict with her attraction to Minami, she became distressed and disliked the confusion that she was experiencing. Her pursuit of true love shows that she will stop at nothing to get together with the boy that she wants. At first, this was shown with Minami where she would act as the perfect wife to Jirō despite their initial disdain for one another. This is later shown with Jirō where she implements multiple methods to get closer to him, such as wearing a maid costume, allowing him to lie next to her in bed, and asking him out on a date. Akari appears to view kindness and reliability as the most desirable traits that she would want in a partner. Akari's preference of these traits were developed from having a frequently absent father whom she blames for not providing enough support for her mother during times of stress.

As a testament to her views on true love, Akari is shown to be the jealous type and sinks into a depressive state when she sees a person she likes getting involved with another girl. When she had feelings for Minami, she became upset at the thought of Minami being paired with a girl that was not her and was worried when she heard rumors that he did not want to switch partners because he was getting closer to Shiori. Akari ultimately broke down crying when she saw Minami walking with Shiori at the fireworks festival despite being told that he would not be attending due to his job. Akari's jealousy also extends to Jirō as her feelings for him grew stronger. She has visibly shown annoyance when she sees Jirō spending time with Shiori and has even silently begged him not to talk about other girls when he is in her room.

Akari gets scared easily, sometimes to the point where she needs to rely on Jirō for emotional support and refuses to be alone without him. She dislikes watching horror movies and refused to listen to one of Jirõ's scary stories despite the fact that he didn't say anything that was considered scary in the first place. She is also shown to have arachnophobia (fear of spiders), nyctophobia (fear of the dark), and astraphobia (fear of lightning and thunder).

As a gyaru, Akari has a stylish fashion sense and enjoys wearing outfits where she can stand out. When Seishun Academy forced her to wear a more conservative school uniform during the winter exam period, she expressed dissatisfaction with the clothes that made her appear plain and dull. Despite being warned about dressing appropriately, Akari has continued to break the rule even if it meant that she had to continuously avoid being caught by the school's authority figures. Akari appears to have a passion for doing nail art, evidenced by the multiple nail colors/designs she wears throughout the series. It is revealed in Chapter 58 that she is planning to attend a trade school to become a nail stylist.