She is a 24-year-old beastfolk (cat-eared anthropomorphic girl) living in the same rundown apartment building in the fictional city of Nyagamihara, a college student whose appearance creates a strong contrast with her actual age and lifestyle: she has a notably short, petite stature that frequently causes people to mistake her for a young child or elementary school student at first glance, despite being firmly in her mid-twenties. Her most defining trait is severe alcoholism. She spends the majority of her days drinking in her room and sleeping, often to the near-total exclusion of other activities. When she drinks outside the apartment, she has a strong tendency to wander off to distant locations while intoxicated, forcing friends or the landlord to track her down and bring her back. In one notable incident,she chugs sake at a party, wanders off, and ends up taking a cab all the way to Enoshima before being located via a GPS tracker that had been hidden in her hair and returned home. Her name itself is a deliberate pun: “Aruko” is short for arukoru, the Japanese rendering of “alcohol.”Her roommate is Kaoruko Nishi (also called Kansaineko or Kansai Neko), a fellow college student and amateur comedian from the Kansai region who is one of the more functional residents of the building. The two share a room, and Kaoruko often finds herself in the position of trying (with limited success) to look after or redirect Aruko, though her own attempts at comedy and general personality can make her an imperfect caregiver. Yaniko and other residents sometimes visit the room specifically for free drinks, treating Aruko’s constant supply of alcohol as a communal resource.She can begin experiencing withdrawal symptoms after as little as a single hour without drinking. Without external supervision she heavily neglects basic self-care: she may go days without eating proper meals or bathing. Her academic performance is correspondingly poor; despite being enrolled as a full-time college student in her mid-twenties (implying repeated years or stalled progress), she frequently skips classes for days at a time to stay drunk in the apartment.pointing toward potential liver failure within a relatively short number of years if her drinking continues unchecked. Sake is specifically shown being consumed in large quantities. When sober she is more capable of anxiety and worry; drinking is depicted as a deliberate means of suppressing those feelings. She is generally easygoing and mellow while drunk (a trait that is deconstructed as part of the problem, since it enables further neglect and wandering), though she can become irritated when others push her to improve her habits. She is willing to share her alcohol with friends and is not actively malicious, but her priorities center on maintaining her lazy, drunken routine; she will skip obligations, exploit her childlike appearance when convenient, and ignore advice in order to keep drinking. major visual and comedic gag revolves around her enormous hair. It is so voluminous that it functions as a kind of hammerspace: other residents have hidden items inside it (including gaming handhelds, GPS trackers, drugs, and even a still-lit cigarette) without her noticing. In one sequence the girls dig through the hair and discover an assortment of planted objects; a lit cigarette then ignites the alcohol that has soaked into the hair, producing an intense (sometimes described as blue) fire. Aruko remains remarkably unfazed during and after the incident, sitting calmly in the shower while Kaoruko trims the damaged sections. The hair’s exact length and volume vary by gag—sometimes simply long, sometimes large enough to drape over her entire body, sometimes expanding dramatically when wet. Given that she is a long-term college student whose attendance and performance are severely compromised by alcoholism, a fitting choice that aligns with the series’ tone and her situation would be something low-pressure or theoretically flexible that a stalled student might still be nominally enrolled in—such as literature, cultural studies, or a general liberal-arts track that does not demand strict laboratory or attendance requirements.

Aruko’s roommate and fellow college student. Tall, attractive Kansai-dialect-speaking catgirl with long multicolored brown-blonde hair. One of the more functional residents, an amateur comedian whose jokes always flop. Smokes casually. Often acts as the responsible one looking after Aruko. Maintains a relatively normal, low-drama relationship with the landlord.

a 21-year-old beastfolk freeter and extreme chainsmoker. Messy light-green/punk hair, cat ears with piercings, usually in a stained loose T-shirt and baggy pants. Lives in constant filth and poverty, spends every yen on cigarettes, and fails every attempt to quit. Chronically late on rent.

45-year-old bald, heavily built human landlord. Gruff and foul-mouthed on the surface but genuinely kind-hearted. Non-smoker who serves in the local fire brigade. Has a strong fetish for catgirls (especially Yaniko) and keeps a private sex doll, but never crosses lines. Endures constant chaos from his tenants while repeatedly helping them anyway.