About

Ayane Suzuki is a character from the anime MAJOR, appearing as she does in the original work. Voiced by Minori Chihara. She is a first-year student at Tomonoura Junior High School, the same school attended by Toshiya Sato, the rival of the protagonist Goro Shigeno. Her surname was established in the anime adaptation. She is characterized by her long black hair reaching down to her waist, tied in braids and secured with hairpins. She has a quiet, introverted, and shy personality, often being chided for it by her friend Yumi. Initially, she had no interest in baseball, but after her Tamagotchi was confiscated during a surprise inspection at school and Toshiya secretly retrieved it for her (in the anime, the catalyst was Toshiya saving her when she almost fell down the stairs), she began to admire him and see him as a romantic interest. She originally volunteered to be the manager of the Tomonoura Junior High baseball club, but her motives were seen through and she wasn't accepted immediately. However, while Toshiya was undergoing the selection process for Kaido High School's baseball club, she officially became the manager of the Tomonoura club. Later, she gave Toshiya homemade cookies as he left for Kaido's Yumejima training facility to support him. After that, the story enters the Yumejima arc... but unfortunately, Ayane never appears again in the original manga. To make matters worse, those cookies she likely made by hand for Toshiya were confiscated and heartlessly trampled by the Yumejima instructor, Inui. ...Don't waste food. (In the anime, this entire sequence was cut, and Ayane's gift was treated as if it never happened.) The original author, Takuya Mitsuda, stated regarding Ayane that she was a "character who didn't function because of her quiet personality." Because she exited the story during the Junior High arc, her relationship with Toshiya naturally never progressed. In the sequel, MAJOR 2nd, Toshiya married a woman named Sakaguchi and had a son, Hikaru Sato, who forms a baseball battery with the protagonist Daigo Shigeno (son of Goro and Kaoru). However, Sakaguchi is a background character whose face is obscured by mist from the mouth up, and she is already divorced from Toshiya at the start of the story. If Ayane had functioned as the heroine for Toshiya... if they had fallen in love and married, and Ayane was Hikaru's mother... such a possibility might have existed. In the anime, perhaps because the staff felt sorry for her treatment (similar to Ryoko Kawase), she continues to appear in original anime story developments after the Junior High arc. As mentioned, her screen time is significantly increased in the anime. In the early ending theme of the second series, she was portrayed alongside Kaoru Shimizu as a double heroine. In the story, when Goro asked her for directions to Mifune East Junior High, she accidentally led him to Mifune West (a role played by Yamane in the manga). In the third series (Seishu Academy arc), she enrolls at Seishu Academy. She becomes a classmate of Taiga Shimizu and the manager of the Seishu baseball club. Her hairstyle changes from braids to long, straight hair. She has grown enough to keep a scorebook as a manager from the moment she joins. Her personality also shifts from the shy, introverted girl of junior high to a more active, somewhat strong-willed, and meddlesome person (Taiga calls her "nosy"). To help Goro and the others face Katori, a master of the high-speed slider, she asked Ryoko Kawase to help them with special slider training (in the manga, Taiga handles the pitching practice for Goro alone). Initially, her feelings for Toshiya remained unchanged, but she felt slightly discouraged by his attitude toward Seishu. Seeing the baseball club's hard work, she began to view Toshiya with a sense of rivalry. Furthermore, she used to regard Goro as a "savage person," partly because he was Toshiya's rival, but after becoming a fellow member of the Seishu baseball club, that image gradually faded away. In the fourth series (Minor League arc), she continues as the manager of the Seishu baseball club, supporting Taiga, who has become the captain. In this arc, she can be seen with a unique hair arrangement—a ponytail with a sun visor—not found in the original manga. In the final episode of the fifth series (World Cup arc), she and Taiga, as current Seishu baseball club members, cheer on an exhibition match between a mixed team of Mifune Little, Mifune East, and Seishu alumni alongside Miho Nakamura. In the sixth series (Major League arc), she is still the manager of the Seishu baseball club and is seen cheering from the bench during the final tournament of high school, which marks her last appearance in the anime. She does not appear in the OVAs "MAJOR: World Series - To the Stage of Dreams" or "MAJOR: Message," which depict Goro's success in the Majors and his life as a father to Izumi and Daigo after marrying Kaoru.