Akari Ōzora

Akari Ōzora (大空あかり Ōzora Akari) is one of the main characters for the Starlight Academy community who made her debut in the second half of the second season and the 4th collection of the Data Carddass Aikatsu! 2014 Series. As of Season 3, Akari is the new central protagonist, succeeding Ichigo Hoshimiya. She is a cute-type idol and her primary brand is Dreamy Crown.

Appearance
Akari has magenta eyes and honey brown hair. Her hair is in a layered bob with a bit pulled up into a curled side ponytail by a pink bow.

During her early appearances, Akari had long hair and wore a pink bow, due to the fact that she was a huge fan of Ichigo.

By Episode 96, Akari's hair remains layered, but has grown to where it's medium length.

Personality
Akari is a clumsy, somewhat nervous, yet cheerful girl. She highly admires Ichigo to the point of wanting to be an idol like her. She appears to cry and get frustrated easily, but is determined nonetheless. Akari is also quite resilient and is able to quickly recover from her mistakes.

In Episode 96, Akari has grown into someone who wants to shine with her own light. She has become a hard-working and an even more determined idol who no longer aspires to be like Ichigo. She is no longer clumsy and is still energetic and cheerful, but can be prone comedic antics from time to time, much like her mentor and predecessor.

Etymology
Ōzora (大空) Ō (大) means big and combined with Zora (空) which means sky, Ōzora means big/vast sky.

Akari (あかり) means light or brightness.

Background
Akari first became a fan of Ichigo when she was in the 4th grade. She had come across the Christmas Special television program (Episode 12) and was amazed at how Ichigo helped out her friends and brought smiles to people faces. Desiring to be like that, she mustered up the courage to help a girl struggling on the uneven beams on her school's playground and after that, began down her road of fandom. It was revealed in Episode 101 that Akari attended Ichigo's unveiling concert for the Mermaid Pisces Coord and was taken by her concert. She decided that she wanted to be an idol and auditioned for Starlight, but didn't even come close to making the cut her first time around.

Relationships

 * Ichigo Hoshimiya
 * Ichigo is Akari's mentor. Akari is a huge fan of Ichigo and at first she wanted to be like her to the point of imitating her appearance and several of her performance habits. She highly admires Ichigo and in return, Ichigo sees a light in her and guides her down her idol path.


 * Yū Hattori
 * Akari's old roommate who encourages her and helps her when she's feeling down.


 * Sumire Hikami
 * Akari´s new roommate after she had to move from her old room. Akari found Sumire to be very mysterious and beautiful and wanted to get to know her better. The two enjoy each other's company and managed to become fast friends despite Sumire being the total opposite of Akari.


 * Hinaki Shinjō
 * Akari admires Hinaki and in return Hinaki is enamored of Akari. The two are positive influences on each other and Akari continues to inspire Hinaki with her freshness.


 * Tsubasa Sena
 * Tsubasa is the creator of Akari's preferred brand, Dreamy Crown. Both are very similar and have a similar sense of determination in reaching their goals.


 * Juri Kurebayashi
 * Akari helped Juri to walk on as actress without her mother's help. They became quick friends. Akari invited her to her home on New Year's Eve for a fashion shoot near the area.


 * Miyabi Fujiwara
 * Akari became Miyabi's first friend when she transferred to Starlight Academy.

Trivia

 * Her zodiac sign is Aries.
 * Coincidentally, her birthday is the same day as April Fool's Day.
 * Her favorite foods are watermelons, chocolate, donuts, mandarin oranges, and curry.
 * Her specialty is imitation.
 * Akari is the second known idol to cut her hair.
 * She is also the second to have a side ponytail as her hair style.
 * She is the first idol to mess up her debut performance.
 * She is the third idol to make a mistake in a CG-animated performance, following Ichigo who tripped during her performance with Aoi in Episode 02 and misstepped during Soleil's performance in Episode 87, and Sakura, who broke down crying during her performance with Otome in Episode 74.
 * Interestingly, all three who made a mistake were cute-type idols.
 * She is the fourth idol overall to make a mistake, following Ichigo, Sakura, and Ran, who made a wrong move during one of her performances as a member of Tristar in Episode 37.
 * Akari is the third person to be shown in a normal school uniform.
 * She is also the third person to attend a Starlight entrance audition in a regular school uniform.
 * She is the first season two character to not share her singer.
 * She is also the first to have a new member of STAR☆ANIS as her singer.
 * She is also the second main character who doesn't share her singing voice.
 * Akari is the first known idol to perform a Dress Appeal in the anime.
 * She's the first known idol to change her basic pose after going through the changing room, and the second known overall to change her pose.
 * She is the second idol not to have a primary brand in the season she debuted, following Shion Kamiya, who debuted in season one, but had her primary brand confirmed as Futuring Girl in season two.
 * Akari is the first character to grow her hair out after cutting it and the first character to have had three different hairstyles.
 * She is the first character to use a brandless coord (non-basic) for a performance in season two.
 * She is the first idol to have trouble performing a Special Appeal.
 * She is the second idol to have the color of her school dresses change between seasons (from apricot to pink).
 * Out of all the main characters, Akari has the longest record of performances without having a preferred brand (30 episodes), beating out Mizuki Kanzaki, who wore her first Love Queen dress 27 episodes after her debut.
 * She has a habit of kissing her Aikatsu cards before her performances.
 * Akari has the fastest record of receiving her second Premium Rare Coord (5 episodes as the movie takes place between Episode 112 and Episode 113).
 * She is the first idol to have two autographs that she uses through the course of the series.
 * She is the only main idol to do performances for certain episodes in the anime adaption's second half of season 2 before being promoted to "central protagonist" for Season 3's Aikatsu! anime adaption.
 * Akari is the only idol from Season 2 who didn't have an Idol Aura in her debut performance.
 * Overall she is the fourth character not to have an aura in her debut performance.
 * Akari is one of the few main characters for the Aikatsu! anime adaption to make cameo appearances before her actual debut episode.
 * For this case, Akari made cameo appearances Episode 50 and 51 until making her Episode 76.