Kotoura san

Plot

Haruka Kotoura is a 15-year old girl who was born with the psychic ability to read minds. During her childhood, because of not fully understanding the difference between thoughts and feelings, she often tends to blurt out people's thoughts unnecessarily. As a result, she gets ridiculed by her classmates at school and even gets abandoned by her parents after inadvertently exposing an affair between them. Concluding that she only brings people bad luck, she distances herself from everyone, making her a recluse.

But this is all until she meets Yoshihisa Manabe, a dim-witted boy with a perverted imagination, when Haruka transfers to another high school. Unfazed by Haruka's mind-reading ability, he offers her his friendship and vows to stand by her side regardless of the circumstances. He even helps her make new friends and together they form the school's ESP Research Club. As they spend more and more time together, Haruka's life begins to change completely.

Main characters

Haruka Kotoura (琴浦 春香, Kotoura Haruka)

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto Haruka is a girl who was born with the psychic ability to read minds at a young age. Because she does not understand this ability, she often blurted out what people were thinking, causing her to be resented by her classmates. Her power gets out of hand when she obliviously exposes an affair between her own parents. Her mother eventually leaves her, telling Haruka that "I should never have given birth to you." This causes Haruka to conclude that she only brings people trouble, and the best way to prevent hurting herself and others is to never associate with anyone. That is, until the day she meets Yoshihisa. Whilst typically soft-spoken and timid, she becomes incredibly flustered whenever she is exposed to Yoshihisa's lewd fantasies. She later develops feelings for Manabe. She seems to lose her psychic abilities when she is ill.

Yoshihisa Manabe (真鍋 義久, Manabe Yoshihisa)

Voiced by: Jun Fukushima Yoshihisa is a dimwitted but kindhearted boy who befriends the lonely Haruka Kotoura. Being known in school as the biggest pervert, his reputation is validated as he often fantasizes about Haruka, much to her embarrassment. He is well aware of this, and often lets her read his mind just for the sake of teasing her. However, he cares deeply about Haruka's well-being, and stands firmly by her side even when his childhood friend Hiyori Moritani and her friends bully Haruka. His sincerity becomes very evident to Haruka when Yoshihisa discovers that Hiyori was the main cause for much of Haruka's humiliation at school. He even goes so far as to call her out on it in the middle of class, claiming that Haruka only threw up earlier that week because she could read Hiyori's "wicked" thoughts. He eventually develops feelings for Kotoura.

Yuriko Mifune (御舟 百合子, Mifune Yuriko)

Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa Yuriko is the president of the school's ESP Research Club. Before the beginning of the series, Yuriko's mother is revealed to be clairvoyant (similar to Haruka Kotoura) who would often assist in police investigations. However, Yuriko's mother is accused of being a fake by the media. Yuriko's mother then commits suicide to escape the constant ridicule, which shames the rest of the family and devastates Yuriko, who believed in her mother. Since then, Yuriko has been keen to prove the existence of psychics and vindicate her mother and her family, finally finding an opportunity in Haruka. Over time however, she recognizes how selfish she is being, and instead befriends her. She has unrequited feelings for Daichi Muroto, her best friend.

Daichi Muroto (室戸 大智, Muroto Daichi)

Voiced by: Hiro Shimono Daichi is the ESP Research Club's vice president. Despite being very short, he is the same age as Yuriko Mifune, and is her childhood friend. Very intelligent, clever and perceptive, he is usually the first to see behind Yuriko's plans and question her actions, yet never does anything to disrupt them. Yuriko has romantic feelings for him, but he is oblivious to her affection. He does however view Yuriko in high regard, and respects her greatly.

Hiyori Moritani (森谷 ヒヨリ, Moritani Hiyori)

Voiced by: Yurika Kubo Hiyori is Yoshihisa's childhood friend and classmate, often nicknamed Moriya. She is in deeply in love with Yoshihisa and initially resents Haruka for gaining his attention and becoming romantically interested in Haruka, rather than herself. After Yoshihisa makes her realize what she has done to Haruka, Hiyori reconciles with Haruka and befriends her, even later joining the ESP Research Club. Out of the three girls in the ESP Society, she is the only one who cannot cook. She occasionally has a fearsome aura like a demon that is used to keep Yoshihisa's perversion in check, but she has a habit of panicking in the face of adversity despite her practices in martial arts.

Supporting characters

Zenzou Kotoura (琴浦 善三, Kotoura Zenzō)

Voiced by: Tomomichi Nishimura Haruka's apparently wealthy grandfather. One of the few people to stick by her after Kumiko disowned her. He is slightly perverted, having dirty thoughts about his kinship with Haruka.

Head priest (和尚, Oshō)

Voiced by: Yutaka Nakano A monk who is a family friend at a shrine temple in Haruka's hometown. His encounter with Haruka has led to him taken an interest in esper abilities.

Kumiko Kotoura (琴浦 久美子, Kotoura Kumiko)

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue Haruka's mother. Initially kind-hearted and caring, she becomes more and more stressed because she can't understand Haruka's special ability or deal with the situations it inadvertently caused. She reacted to her husband's increasing emotional distance by cheating on him, and when it is discovered that Haruka's father was also unfaithful, they divorce. She deals with her moral failings and weakness of character by rejecting young Haruka and disowning her. At the end of the series, she reconciles with Haruka after they both get all their pent-up feeling out of their system.

Gantetsu Ishiyama (石山 巌鉄, Ishiyama Gantetsu)

Voiced by: Takayuki Sugō A police detective. He appears to be familiar with the events that occurred surrounding Yuriko's mother, although he himself is skeptic of supernatural abilities.

Aki Tsukino (月野 亜紀, Tsukino Aki)

Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe Detective Ishiyama's partner who is a bit clumsy and usually hungry. During her childhood, she was bullied a lot because of her height, which caused her to develop a violent split personality. Tsukino later began attacking high school girls under the influence of her other personality and soon targeted Haruka. However, Haruka was able to get her feelings across to the true Tsukino, who overcomes her other side and turns herself in.

Manga

The original manga by Enokizu began serialization in Micro Magazine's Manga Goccha magazine from October 14, 2011. Seven tankōbon volumes were released between 2012 and 2015.

Anime

An anime adaptation by AIC Classic aired in Japan between January 11 and March 29, 2013 and was simulcast by Crunchyroll. The opening theme is "Sonna Koto Ura no Mata Urabanashi Desho?" (そんなこと裏のまた裏話でしょ?, You Want To Hear the Story Behind the Backstory, Right?) by Megumi Nakajima whilst the main ending theme is "Kibō no Hana" (希望の花, Flower of Hope) by Haruka Chisuga. The ending theme for episode five is "The ESP Club's Theme" (ESP研のテーマ, Īesupī Ken no Tēma) by Kana Hanazawa, Hisako Kanemoto, Jun Fukushima, Hiro Shimono and Yurika Kubo, whilst the ending theme for episode six is "Tsurupeta" (つるぺた, Flat Chest) by Kanemoto. There is an insert song in episode 11 titled "Sunao" (素直) sung by Megumi Nakajima. NIS America has licensed the series in North America under the title The Troubled Life of Miss Kotoura and released a subtitled Blu-ray collection on August 4, 2015.

Episode list

Bonus episodes

Haruka's Room (春香の部屋, Haruka no Heya) is a series of introductory web episodes that were streamed online between December 7, 2012 and January 11, 2013.