Koiwai, Yotsuba
Summary
Yotsuba Koiwai is depicted as a petite girl with green hair styled in four pigtails, evoking the image of her namesake, a four-leaf clover. She possesses a carefree and energetic disposition, finding joy in simple daily occurrences while learning about the world around her. Her dialogue is written without kanji, lending a childlike simplicity and high-intensity tone to her speech. This vibrant energy is particularly noted by her neighbors, the Ayase family, and her father remarks on her ability to find happiness in anything, stating that nothing can truly get her down. Despite this generally upbeat nature, she does cry when deeply frightened or upset and harbors an inexplicable fear of anything resembling a bullseye. At the beginning of the series, Yotsuba displays a surprising lack of knowledge about common items and concepts, such as swings, doorbells, cicadas, and air conditioners, which both fascinate and confuse her. She is not troubled by her ignorance and occasionally mispronounces new words or creates neologisms, such as combining her name with "Box" to say "Yotsubox." She often repeats phrases spoken by adults in incongruous ways. Yotsuba enjoys drawing, though her artistic skills are not as advanced as she believes, and she is an excellent swimmer. Little is known about her life prior to the start of the series. She is an adopted child whose birthplace is unknown, though she claims to be from an island "to the left." Her adopted father, Koiwai, explains that he met her as an orphan in a foreign country and began raising her as his own, a fact that sometimes leads strangers to mistake her for a foreigner. She does not understand questions about her mother and is confused by the concept of having two sets of grandparents. Before moving to her current home, she lived in the countryside with Koiwai and his mother. While she initially tells Fuka Ayase that she is six years old, her father corrects this, revealing she is actually five. Yotsuba has never attended school and, as of the first chapter, does not understand the concept of grades. In chapter 35, she fails to comprehend repeated explanations regarding homework.
