Synopsis

Sana Kurata, a famous child actress in Tokyo, finds herself pitted against a male classmate named Akito Hayama who has gained the allegiance of all the boys in the class and convinced them to spend the school days tormenting the teacher. It seems to Sana that Akito lives solely to torment the people around him, but in attempting to rescue the class from his troublemaking, Sana discovers that she and Akito are not so different as they would seem to be.

Characters

• Sana Kurata - Sana is a well-known child actress who stars in her own TV show, called "Kodomo no Omocha" (Japanese for "Child's Toy"). She lives with her mother and her manager, Rei, whom she calls her gigolo. She is the most popular among the girls in her sixth grade class, but her friendships are strained by her busy acting career.
  
  
• Akito Hayama - Akito is a classmate of Sana's. He acts as the ringleader among the boys in class, leading them to torment the teacher on a daily basis, and although he has many lackeys, he only has one good friend: Tsuyoshi.
  
  
• Tsuyoshi Ohki - Tsuyoshi is Akito's best friend. Though he is generally shy and mild-mannered, he has a bad temper, becoming violent whenever anyone says anything about his mother. Akito is the only person capable of stopping Tsuyoshi during these fits of rage. Tsuyoshi seldom discusses his personal life, but Sana and Akito occasionally find clues that suggest that Tsuyoshi does not come from a happy family.
  
  
• Rei Sagami - Rei is Sana's manager, but she prefers to think of him as her boyfriend, or, in her own words, "gigolo." Rei, a grown man shows no indication of being attracted to Sana, but will do anything to keep her happy, even if it means playing along. He wears sunglasses at all times, per Sana's request-- she feels that if other women are allowed to see his eyes, they will fall in love with him.
  
  
• Mariko Kurata - Sana's mother, Mariko, is a famous novelist in Tokyo. Along with her elaborate headdresses, she keeps a live chipmunk named Maro-chan in her hair. Her novels are the source of some of Sana's stranger ideas, but they are also the reason interviewers are shocked by Sana's maturity: many of the precocious things Sana says are in fact taken from Mariko's novels.