Ima Takarabe

Takarabe's defining conversational habit is saying a vicious private thought before following it with the pleasant response she intends to present publicly. Her insults are represented with strikethroughs, creating a distinction between the hostile thoughts she expresses and the socially acceptable position she claims to mean.

Despite the abrasiveness of those comments, she is generally cheerful and participates readily in the Candidate Student Council's activities. She is also perceptive enough to notice unusual details about other people's behavior, including the distinctive way Misogi Kumagawa speaks.

Takarabe avoids fair fights when possible. She openly describes herself as a torture specialist and prefers working on opponents after someone else has immobilized them.

Takarabe specializes in torture and carries numerous small implements between her fingers for that purpose. She claims that an ordinary person subjected to her techniques would require approximately two months of hospitalization.

Her approach is deliberately opportunistic. Rather than defeating a healthy opponent through direct combat, she waits until the target has been weakened or restrained and then applies her specialty.

Takarabe is later identified as a Not Equal, placing her among the exceptionally rare people positioned outside the series' more familiar Normal, Special, Abnormal and Minus categories.

Takarabe is introduced among five Hitomasu students selected as interns for the Candidate Student Council. The group participates in the succession trials designed to identify someone capable of eventually taking Medaka's place.

Her unusual temperament becomes particularly visible during the committee trials, where her outward friendliness repeatedly contrasts with the insults she voices as private opinions.

After entering Hakoniwa Academy, Takarabe becomes involved with Kumagawa's Naked Apron Alliance and remains one of the students closest to him during the final part of his school life. Her later identification as a Not Equal reveals that she possesses a more unusual mentality than her original Normal classification suggests.

Misogi Kumagawa becomes one of the people Takarabe interacts with most extensively during the succession process and afterward. Takarabe is unusually attentive to Misogi Kumagawa's mannerisms and notices details others overlook.

Medaka Kurokami's search for a successor is what brings Takarabe to Hakoniwa as a Candidate Student Council intern.

Shori Wanizuka, Kiki Kikitsu, Tsugiha Yojirou and Kureha Hebishima are Takarabe's fellow interns from Hitomasu All-Girl Junior High.

Kiruko Tachiarai administers the voting trial in which Takarabe participates with the other candidates.