Komi Natsuki

Komi Natsuki is the best friend of the main heroine, Urara Kasuga.

She is portrayed as frank, breezy, and status-conscious, especially in her taste in men.

She tends to value social prestige, such as academic pedigree, when choosing boyfriends.

Her speech reflects youth trends of the time, including then-fashionable slang expressions.

Among the cast, she is one of the characters most heavily shaped by the fashions and attitudes of the serialization era.

A panel associated with her, rendered as an exaggerated comic reaction, became quietly well known among readers.

In early appearances, her twin-tails were drawn lower than in later depictions.

In the original version of the story, she also had stronger delinquent and criminal-adjacent elements than in the animated adaptation.

Adaptations

In the OVA and the Sega Saturn version, Komi Natsuki is voiced by Rumi Kasahara.

These adaptations significantly softened her characterization.

The OVA removes much of her anti-social behavior and reframes her as little more than a fad-loving gal.

Even so, her design still evokes the atmosphere of late-1990s erotic role-play venues, including an anachronistic gym uniform featuring bloomers that had already fallen out of use by that period.

Komi is sharp-tongued, practical, and emotionally tough on the surface.

She gives off the image of a worldly girl who has learned to survive by staying detached.

At the same time, she is deeply attracted to status symbols.

She seeks men with recognizable “brand value,” especially high educational credentials.

She also embodies several traits often disliked by possessive or purity-focused audiences: high standards, multiple sexual relationships, and a life outside the hero’s orbit.

Despite that, she was highly popular with readers.

Part of her appeal comes from her role as a sub-heroine in a work where the protagonist himself was often unpopular.

She makes strong use of that position by being vivid, flawed, and memorable in ways the central romance often is not.

Komi is involved in various money-making schemes.

She is described as selling underwear and other items to older men in exchange for cash or luxury-brand bags.

She also works at a date club.

Her life is closely tied to youth consumer culture, transactional relationships, and the pressures of urban trend-conscious living.

She dislikes Touma Inaba, seeing him as dull and unimpressive.

For that reason, she does not like the idea of her close friend Urara becoming involved with him.

Early in the story, Komi is used by Masato Mashu as a sexual partner without emotional commitment.

This relationship reinforces both her vulnerability and her tendency to chase status through men who exploit her.

Mashu later manipulates her ambitious nature again.

Using the pretense of dating her, he has her pass along narcotics disguised as incense to Touma Inaba.

Komi herself is not aware of the true nature of what she is delivering.

This makes her less a mastermind than a pawn, used by someone who understands her desire for validation.

Later events suggest she may have become disillusioned with seeking “brand-name” men after what happened with Mashu.

That possibility is left as an implication rather than a formal character statement.

One of Komi’s most memorable roles in the story is her involvement in helping Urara raise money for an abortion.

After Urara becomes pregnant by Touma because he failed to use contraception, Komi joins other girls in a deceptive scheme targeting men seeking sex.

This scam is portrayed as especially memorable within the series.

Komi takes part in it to help her friend, even though the method is criminal and dangerous.

During the scheme, she uses a false name meaning “Tsuruko, the completely hairless one.”

Another girl in the group uses a fake name meaning “Kuri-ko.”

The process works in several steps.

First, a target is invited to one location and made to pay in advance, under the pretense that another girl will sleep with him later.

Second, the man is sent to another location, where that second girl also gets advance payment while going on a date with him.

Third, he is told that he has supposedly been involved with a minor and that the police are close, so he must run.

Fourth, after the frightened target flees to an isolated place, the girls escape with the money.

The narrative presents this as a kind of chain scam aimed specifically at men pursuing sex.

The text also remarks that the logic resembles other exploitative social traps, such as unwanted matchmaking, intrusive personal probing, or partner-swapping arrangements.

This comment broadens the episode into a satirical observation about manipulation and desire.

The scam is eventually exposed.

Later, when Komi and Urara are walking together, they are found by the men they had deceived.

The men abduct them by car and gang-rape Komi.

During the same incident, Urara is kicked in the abdomen and miscarries.

This episode marks a brutal turning point in Komi’s arc.

Afterward, she seems to cast aside what remained of her previous innocence.

She begins smoking while still in high school.

She also changes her appearance dramatically, dyeing her hair and tanning her skin into a dark gal style.

From then on, she works in the sex industry under the alias Kaori.

She is described specifically as becoming an image-club sex worker.

In one episode, she has sex with Touma Inaba at work without realizing who he is.

Even after learning of it, her attitude toward Touma does not change.

Although Komi is portrayed as sexually active, socially fallen, and repeatedly exploited, one trait remains stable: her loyalty to female friendship.

That loyalty is one of the main reasons she stands out positively to readers.

A notable example comes when Urara’s father tries to bring Urara back to Italy.

He assumes that women’s friendships are shallow and that offering money would easily persuade Komi to betray her best friend.

Komi turns that assumption against him.

She gives him the location of Urara’s apartment room specifically when Urara is not there, frustrating his plan rather than enabling it.

That episode is structured somewhat like a mystery story.

It highlights Komi’s cleverness as well as her refusal to sell out Urara, even after everything she has been through.

Komi is a character built from traits that often attract criticism, yet she remains widely liked.

Her popularity comes from the contrast between her messy life and her emotional sincerity where it matters most.

She is glamorous, reckless, opportunistic, and frequently self-destructive.

But she is also energetic, funny, and more dependable than many “purer” characters.

Because she is not the central heroine, the story is free to make her bolder and more contradictory.

That freedom allows her to become one of the most vivid side characters in Sakura Diaries.

The ending explains that Komi eventually has a shotgun marriage with Koji Akimoto.

However, the reliability of that ending is presented as uncertain.

As a result, her ultimate fate remains somewhat ambiguous in tone.

Even so, the stated outcome frames her as someone who continues moving forward rather than disappearing from the story’s world.