Yuu Koutari

Yuu Koutari (神足ユウ Koutari Yuu) is a supporting character in the OVA Black★Rock Shooter and the following anime. Her other self is Strength.

Black★Rock Shooter (OVA)
Yuu has choppy tawny hair and hazel eyes. She is also very short in stature, much more so than Mato or Yomi, standing at about 146-150cm. She wears the same school uniform as the former and latter.

Black★Rock Shooter (Anime)
Yuu's hair is more combed down, and not as choppy as it was in the OVA. She now wears an orange hairclip on her left side and a different school uniform.

Black★Rock Shooter (OVA)
Yuu is excitable and perky; however, she is shown to have a dark side. She is also very possessive of Mato and even insists to give up trying to find Yomi and just assumes she will come back later, and has an awkward time whenever she is hanging out with Yomi.

Black★Rock Shooter (Anime)
Similar to her OVA incarnation, she is excitable and perky; she often teases Mato. Unlike her OVA incarnation, she is perfectly comfortable with the idea of Mato having other friends, especially poking fun at Mato about her friendship with "her tiny bird".

She is fond of skipping classes in favor of drinking coffee at the consultation room. Mato notes that she tries to be mature. Mato also says that in kindergarten, she was more hyper. In reality this is Strength's personality, who switched places with Yuu in the real world.

The real Yuu, who took Strength's place in the Otherworld, was a stoic and silent person who was constantly hurt by bullying and a neglectful family. She had knowledge of the other selves and the Otherworld. Though she seemed unaffected by pain, she was hurting heavily, which led to her swapping roles with Strength. The real Yuu was great friends with Saya and went to her house almost everyday.

Black★Rock Shooter (OVA)
Yuu first appears when Mato Kuroi gets injured during basketball practice, and she tends to Mato. She is a first year student who becomes accelerated to second year. She ends up as the main cause of Yomi Takanashi's fall into possession by the Dead Master, as her possessiveness of Mato and the fact it is difficult for the three to be as close as two of them would be which creates jealousy inside Yomi.

When Yomi vanishes, Yuu encourages Mato to cheer up, although she seems more concerned about Mato than Yomi.

After Yomi and Mato reconcile, they invite Yuu to come along with them. However, Yuu feels "left out" somehow and approaches them with a dark expression. It is implied she is the next problem Mato or Black★Rock Shooter will have to face.

Her "other self" is not explicitly shown but is implied to be Strength as the two have the same hairstyle, and Strength is shown to be ominously approaching the fighting Black★Rock Shooter and Dead Master while Yuu's dark feelings are starting to surface.

Black★Rock Shooter (2012)
Yuu and Mato had been friends since kindergarten. Mato describes her as energetic and slightly troublesome.

She is first introduced as a childhood friend of Mato. On the way home, they discuss Yomi's name. Yuu guesses correctly that Mato wants to make friends with her. She is applying for the position of team manager of the basketball club, and comments when Arata Kohata overworks Mato.

Sometime later, Mato visits Saya Irino, where she finds Yuu skipping class and drinking coffee. The three of them discuss Mato's dream.

Yuu meets Mato some days later and reminds her to come to the meeting with her. After basketball practice, she points out Mato's friendship with her new "little bird". They peek on Arata confessing to a boy in her class, but run off once Arata notices them.

Yuu accompanies Mato to her training trip. During the bus ride, she introduces herself to Arata, who seemingly had never taken notice of her. That night, Mato wakes up after dreaming of the Otherworld. Yuu talks with her about it. She brings up Saya's previous words about "someone out there bearing her pain for her."

While they go souvenir shopping, they see Arata buying a present for the boy she likes. Yuu asks Mato if she wants a boyfriend. Mato gets flustered and Yuu teases jokes about her new "Tiny Bird".

Once they return, Yuu and Mato witness Arata being made fun of due to her love letter. They empathically cry together.

Gradually, other students forget about her and stop realizing she's there. Once Mato realizes she's also starting to forget, she looks for her at the place she thought of as Yuu's home only to find the river bank. Yuu sends Mato to the Otherworld to become Black★Rock Shooter, and save Yomi. But realizes later that Mato wasn't waking up as she expected and takes her to Saya's house to ask for help. She is slapped by Saya who says that she did the wrong thing to wake up Black★Rock Shooter which could cause the other world personas to be wiped out by her true power. Saya tells her to stay and watch Mato while she goes and tries to save Mato.

It is revealed in Saya's memories that Yuu had a terrible life. She had family problems and school problems which caused Saya to want to be her friend after she saw her get bullied by a group of students. Yuu visited Saya's house almost everyday and briefly mentioned about the otherworld taking her pain  until her house was burned down. Saya assumed that she burnt down her house because of all the problems she had in her life which lead to Yuu finally telling her about the otherworld.



After Mato is trapped in Black★Rock Shooter, Yuu insists that Saya allow her to follow Mato. Yuu transports herself to the otherworld and enters Strength's body and tries to help free Mato, but is overpowered by the enraged Strength. It is then revealed that Yuu is actually Strength, who switched places with the real Yuu sometime before meeting Mato.

As Yuu, Strength's body is found by Saya near the river and brings her back to the house. Strength is seen, again, in the otherworld attempts to sacrifice herself to save Yuu and Mato, but is stopped by the fight with Insane Black★Rock Shooter. Strength is able to calm down Yuu, but slowly begins to break apart. Later, Mato finds Yuu and Strength. Mato cries with Yuu as Strength insists she calls her by her real name, Strength. Strength tells Yuu, who says she doesn't want to be alone in reality, that she is her soul and will never be alone. Strength dissolves in Yuu's hands.

The real Yuu wakes up back at Saya's house. Saya hugs her and happily cries over the fact that she's okay. Yuu looks over and sees that Mato had already left. Yuu returns to school as a new student, seeing as only Mato remembers her, and instantly assumes the worst, but she notices Mato smiling at her and smiles back. Yuu is then seen joining Mato, Yomi, and Kagari for coffee with Saya and with them on the roof of the school.

Trivia

 * Yuu's last name was never shown in the OVA.
 * Yuu is the only human in the OVA that doesn't have a figma figure yet.
 * In the anime, Yuu doesn't have a shadow; this is because she is Strength in Yuu's body.