Kakeru Manabe

Kakeru has short slightly dark brown hair with two cowlicks sticking up and light brown eyes, additionally he has one piercing in his right ear. He is a second year student at Kaibara Municipal High School. Manabe has a younger half-sister named Machi Kuragi.

Kakeru is depicted as alternately lazy and charismatically energetic, strongly reminding Yuki of his older brother, Ayame Sohma, whom Kakeru refers to as "commander". Yuki also compares Kakeru's social personality and ability to make friends to Kyo Sohma's. Kakeru is expressive and wears his emotions on his sleeve. He is always restless, bold, very laid-back and cheerful, always looking for a laugh and loves napping and messing around when he should be doing council work. He is convinced that the student council is "School Defense Force; protecting students from the forces of evil". He constantly teases other people, such as calling Yuki for "Yunyun" and a "princess".

Kakeru is also quite eccentric and as noted by Yuki, he can say baffling things with a straight face on which shocks people around him.

Although he appears to constantly be happy and joyous on the outside, Kakeru actually has strong emotional insights, and at times looks down on himself, and can often get serious if he sees the need to, despite his comical and goofy personality, Kakeru is understanding of and always helps people out. He tells Yuki that the reason he came to the point where he is now is only that he stood up for himself, and through learning gentleness and understanding from other people. His open-minded personality and willingness to always stand at the same ground as other people so they can view things from the same perspective is a factor of why Yuki is later able to confide in him and why they are able to become best friends.

Kakeru was illegitimately born to his father's former partner, while Machi was the younger child and born to their father's legal wife. Since their father is very wealthy, their mothers constantly argued over whose child would become the heir to the family fortune. Kakeru was forced into an inheritance rivalry against Machi by his mother since a young age, and thus didn't have time for anything else.