Kanbaru Suruga // Confident

[Suruga Kanbaru (神原 駿河, Kanbaru Suruga) is Koyomi Araragi's underclassman, star player of the school's basketball team and one of Hitagi Senjougahara's acquaintances from junior high school. She is often seen having her left arm covered with bandages. Many people do not know that Kanbaru hides an oddity in the form of a "sentient" left arm. It's revealed in Nisemonogatari by Deishuu Kaiki (and thought by Koyomi) that her mother's maiden name was Gaen. It's also revealed in Koimonogatari that her mother's name is Tooe Gaen. In Nekomonogatari White, it is also revealed that she used to be called Suruga Gaen].

[She is the narrator of Hanamonogatari, an arc in Orokamonogatari, and the titular protagonist of three main arcs: Suruga Monkey, Suruga Devil, and Suruga Bonehead, and four minor arcs: Suruga Court, Suruga Neat, Suruga Palace, and Suruga Speed].

[Appearance: Suruga is a girl with brown eyes and short dark bluish hair. Because of her club activities as a basketball varsity player, she boasts an athletic physique, although she admits that her breasts might not be ample enough for Araragi to notice. Her clothing style reflects her boyish personality. When she is not in the uniform of Naoetsu Private High School, she often wears sleeveless clothing and shorts. Whichever clothes she wear, she is regularly seen wearing cycling shorts, which she considers to be her underwear, much to Araragi's shock upon hearing it straight from her (as it implies that she does not wear panties)].

[Personality: She considers herself a lesbian, fujoshi, and masochist. Her hobbies include reading yaoi literature, running, and playing basketball. According to Tsubasa, Suruga's character is somewhat unsettling, describing her as "polite but inconsiderate".[2] She is shown to be quite sloppy when it comes to keeping her room clean and organized, relying on Koyomi to help her clean it on a regular basis. Despite her commonly immature nature, she shows a level-headed personality during serious situations. When confronted by Rouka Numachi about the rumor of her being a lesbian, she confirms it, but claims she likes boys too.[3] Numachi suggests she's more into girls though, judging by the way she used to look at her teammates and opponents in basketball. Suruga denies ever looking at anyone in an unseemly way while playing, though realizes in her head that she isn't quite so sure herself.[4] In terms of boys, she hasn't shown much interest towards men around her other than a certain attraction towards Koyomi, often manifested in teasing or friendly flirting. Although she initially only tried to seduce him to divert his attention from Hitagi, they later became more friendly towards each other. In her conversation with Numachi, while she claims she hasn't thought much about what type of guy she'd like, she claims she likes them "on the small side and kind." As him being short is referenced a lot more in the novels, one might presume it could refer to Koyomi. Hidden to many is her tendency to be jealous of others to the point of subconsciously wanting to harm to them. This would eventually fuel her killing intent as the Rainy Devil].

[Back in elementary school, she inherited what she thought was a monkey's paw but was really a Rainy Devil's. At this time, she had been teased at for being slow in track. Because of this, Suruga decides to use the monkey's paw to grant her wish to become the fastest among her classmates. Unexpectedly, her competitors in one race she would participate in were attacked by an unknown assailant and were absent the next day. This would soon continue for some time, and this caused Suruga to be afraid, especially upon her discovery of the novel The Monkey's Paw, which tells the story of a similar item that grants wishes for a certain price. Suruga would soon shift her focus to basketball, where she immediately shone as the school's ace player, and this caused Hitagi Senjougahara, the track ace at that time, to take notice of her talent. She and Hitagi become close friends,with Kanbaru calling their pairing the Valhalla Combo (ヴァルハラコンビ Varuhara Konbi, formed by the "varu" from Kanbaru and "hara" from Senjougahara), and she soon forgot about the monkey's paw. Immediately after she entered senior high school, she became aware of Hitagi's secret and was threatened and attacked by her, just like Koyomi was. However, unlike the persistent Araragi, Kanbaru followed Hitagi's advice and stopped talking to Hitagi since that time. She started stalking Koyomi after she discovered he was dating Hitagi.