When Mizuki Ashiya sees Izumi Sano’s high jump on television for the first time, she knows what she has to do: pack her bags, move to Japan, and disguise herself as a boy to attend the same all-boys’ school as him. And so unfolds the story of Hana-Kimi, following Mizuki’s high school days as she befriends her sports idol, meets new friends (and potential love interests like Shuichi Nakatsu), and tries to survive without revealing her true identity. Anime Trending had the pleasure of talking to Hana-Kimi voice actors Aya Yamane and Kikunosuke Toya at Anime Expo 2026 about their respective roles as Mizuki and Nakatsu, their characters’ dynamic, and why Hana-Kimi is still such a beloved story after all this time.
Questions submitted by Audrey Im and James Mizutani.
How would you describe your character’s feelings towards the other person’s character?
Aya Yamane: When Mizuki thinks of Nakatsu, she thinks, “Oh, what a good friend” — really nothing more or less than that. That’s partly because she has Sano in front of her, and she’s so focused on him, so she sees Nakatsu as a friend in the purest sense of the word. However, at the beginning of Season 2, Nakatsu confesses to Mizuki, telling her, “I like you,” in front of everyone! I think that changes their dynamic a little and how Mizuki feels as well.
Kikunosuke Toya: Nakatsu’s feelings for Mizuki change quite a bit. At the very beginning, it’s more like, “Wow, she” — or he — “is faster than me,” and he’s jealous about that. Then, after that, he gets to know her little by little, and they gradually become friends, with Nakatsu even thinking of them as best friends. Now, he really likes her, and he’s realized his feelings. Like Yamane-san said, at the beginning of Season 2, there’s this scene where he openly says that he likes her. So his feelings have evolved and continue to change quite a bit after that.
Nakatsu definitely comes to a lot of realizations about himself after Mizuki enters his life. Toya-san, how did you go about developing Nakatsu’s voice as he fell more in love with Mizuki?
Kikunosuke Toya: I think the biggest thing I did was ask myself, what is Nakatsu feeling at this exact moment? Whether he felt envious of Mizuki or whether his heart was going doki-doki because she got up close to him — whatever it was, I really tried to read into what Nakatsu was feeling at that moment in time. I used that as the main basis for developing his voice.
Yamane-san, as Mizuki’s voice actor, do you have a separate “boy persona” versus “girl persona” for your performance, or do you interpret those two “versions” of Mizuki to actually be the same?
Aya Yamane: When I was recording for the first episode, I thought it would be better to have different voices for Mizuki, so I changed it up a little bit. But then I received direction to just develop Mizuki’s character as one voice, and that I didn’t have to separate her into different personas; Mizuki is Mizuki. So I didn’t have to think about separating voices in that way.
But when I’m talking to Sano, the amount of energy in my voice is different, and when I’m talking to Nakatsu or other characters, it’s all a little bit different too. I think that’s because the way Mizuki feels about the other character naturally changes the tension within that moment. Her level of excitement or nervousness changes, so her voice naturally changes too — not based on whether she’s a girl or a boy, or whether she’s trying to act like one or the other, but just naturally depending on who she’s talking to. I think all people are like that. When we’re talking to someone we’re familiar with versus someone we’re talking to for the first time, our demeanor is different, and our voice changes. I think we’re all kind of the same that way.
Mizuki obviously takes a big leap moving to Japan to be near her favorite athlete, Sano. Why do you think she is so drawn to him, both as an idol and as a romantic interest?
Aya Yamane: When Mizuki first sees Sano on TV, she thinks, “I just have to know this person.” I think she felt some kind of fate, some kind of power, some kind of strong thing in Sano, and intuitively thought she had to meet him. I think everyone has those kinds of realizations in their life — I have to meet this person, I want to be in this profession, I have to choose this path. We make choices based on these strong impulses. For Mizuki, seeing Sano on TV is the first time she’s ever felt that kind of strong impulse in her life.
After that, she just thinks, I have to go see this person. She doesn’t actually put a lot of thought into what’s going to happen later; she just trusts that it’ll work out somehow. She may have fallen in love at first sight, but I don’t even think she says she likes him or loves him — it’s not really about that gap between love and other emotions. It’s more like she knows that if she meets him, in some massive way, her life is going to change. And so she takes hold of that impulse, and she follows it.
Toya-san, you had to learn the Osaka dialect for Nakatsu. What was the learning process like, and did this give you any challenges when interpreting his character for your performance?
Kikunosuke Toya: There was a teacher who would give me recordings of the lines in the Osaka dialect in advance. So I’d listen to all that data to prepare. Then I’d say the lines and have the teacher give me notes on how to fix them, and that’s how I recorded. While I was doing it, I thought it was quite difficult — the recording had to be in a natural Osaka dialect, but at the same time, Osaka dialect has this thing where when you get really emotional or passionate or excited, it can turn into nothing but sounds instead of actual words. If you get distracted by the dialect itself, your emotional expression can become just a sound, and I didn’t want that.
So I had to strike a good balance in my brain. I had to prioritize the emotion, but I also had to get the meaning across. I couldn’t do it well at first. It took some practice, some back and forth, but once I really started focusing on communicating Nakatsu’s emotion as my first priority, that’s when things finally started to flow naturally, and I was able to really master it.
Gender-bending has long been a popular trope in romance anime and manga, with Hana-Kimi being one of the trailblazers. What do you think it is about Hana-Kimi’s premise that entices viewers?
Aya Yamane: Well, it’s interesting because the gender-bending thing, at least in the way it happens in this story, is almost impossible in reality — it’s impossible for a girl coming from the U.S. to enter a boys’ school in Japan. When I was a child, I used to watch Mizuki’s story and wonder, “What would I do if I were her? How would I handle this situation?” I had a lot of ideas about what I would do, including thinking, “Come on, Nakatsu is way better than Sano!” [laughs] There’s this element of the story that lets you imagine so many different possibilities, and that enriches your imagination and expands what you can imagine being possible for yourself. I think that’s one of the reasons people are drawn to it.
Kikunosuke Toya: For me, with Hana-Kimi, I’m excited about the romance, but there’s also this different excitement with Mizuki of wondering, is her true identity going to be found out? Like, what, they’re not going to find out? And then, oh, she’s gonna get found out! I get excited watching that happen — and that’s a different type of thrill and emotional tension than what you get from the romance. I think those two types of emotional tension are both exciting, and they work well together.
Thank you both so much for your time! Finally, since we touched on it a little bit already — if you had to choose, Team Sano or Team Nakatsu?
Aya Yamane: Nakatsu. Nakatsu is the best. With Sano, I don’t know what he’s thinking! He doesn’t communicate what he’s thinking or feeling clearly, and it’s hard to understand that expression of love. But Nakatsu is easy to understand. He says, “I like you,” right in front of everyone, and what he’s thinking immediately comes out in his expression. I think it’s better to have someone who’s transparent like that. I definitely like that kind of person.
Kikunosuke Toya: I’m also Team Nakatsu, but since Yamane-san already talked about Nakatsu’s many amazing qualities, I’ll say some things I think are cool about Sano! Sano doesn’t usually express his feelings in a formal way — I mean, he doesn’t express his feelings that much at all. So I think it’s cool that when he finally breaks through that and tells Mizuki what he’s truly feeling, he really thinks about it and is honest. I think the gap between those two sides of him is adorable.
Hana-Kimi Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
