The following contains minor spoilers for the Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie manga, now available in English through Kodansha.
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie introduces a girlfriend who's perfect in every way: Shikimori is pretty, strong and kind, so it’s little wonder she’s quickly captured the hearts of many. With an appealing character design and a lovable personality, there's a lot to love about the titular Shikimori. But there’s another girl in the same show who has qualities that make her even more lovable.
Yui Hachimitsu is short, strange, and is drawn to look like a character from a completely different show. Yet despite these imperfections, or rather because of them, she’s managed to capture the hearts of many fans -- maybe even more than Shikimori herself.
Hachimitsu Is Weird in the Best Way Possible
Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie's Hachimitsu is really weird. In a series that’s grounded in realism -- for the most part -- Hachimitsu stands out as someone who is especially cartoony from her character design to her character quirks. She’s able to bend her body around like a slinky toy, can stretch herself like bubble gum, and somehow carry things around even when her hands look like smooth nubs.
No one in the series questions this, just quietly accepting it as part of Hachimitsu's many unique quirks. In fact, her friends seem to love her precisely because she's so strange.
Hachimitsu Has a Unique Character Design
Hachimitsu looks like she belongs to a completely different show. With her unchanging blank stare, lack of pupils, and spacey smile, her appearance calls a lot of attention, especially when compared to her friends' more realistic proportions. While characters with out-of-place designs are hardly an uncommon trope, especially in anime, this is rarely ever used in effect for female characters. These types of characters are typically used largely for comedic effect, which is probably why they're often male rather than female.
Hachimitsu Has Her Own Special Role to Play
Nekozaki already plays the role of Shikimori's energetic female best friend, while Inuzuka is the supportive male best friend to Izumi. While it's clear from the get-go that Hachimitsu is a close with the others, it initially feels like she was made to be a simple comic relief character acting as filler within Izumi and Shikimori's friend group. Nothing more, nothing less.
Later chapters in the Shikimori manga soon reveal that there's more depth to Hachimitsu than meets the eye. She's hilariously bad at sports, and while this is initially played off as a running joke, it's later revealed that she finds this quite frustrating when she finds herself dragging her friends down as they practice a marathon for their school's sports festival. And while she may be bad at sports, Hachimitsu is great at video games of all kinds, something Shikimori initially seems to struggle with.
Hachimitsu's not meant to look pretty or helplessly cute, nor is she the excitable best friend or the shy little sister. She's her own unique character who plays by her own rules. She has her own unique role in Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, and the story wouldn't be the same without her.
Season 1 of Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.