Kana Arima

"Nobody is looking my way. Mom and the manager abandoned me. Even my fans are fixated on my past glory. Please, somebody, look at me. I have been keeping this inside me for years. Tell me you need me, if you do, I'd work my fingers to the bone. Say that I am useful, and I'll work myself to death for you. Somebody just praising my efforts would keep me going forever. Someone. Anyone. Say it's okay for me to be here."

Kana Arima (かな) is a major supporting character in the Oshi no Ko manga series. She is a child prodigy and actress, a friend of Aqua and Ruby Hoshino, and the centre of the renewed B-Komachi. Before this, she was a popular child actor in the entertainment industry, one who always stole the show with her talent. Due to her negligence of taking others' feelings into consideration along with being difficult to work with, she got fewer jobs. This made her change her acting style to be more adaptable to survive in the industry.

Despite her predicament, she never gave up on honing her talents and even diving into different fields in the entertainment industry, such as singing. Even if the jobs she was able to land were B-grade at best, or shooting embarrassing advertisements such as the Pepper Bell ad, she would still do what she could to regain what was once lost where people needed her. This gave her leeway to encounter Aqua and Ruby, which presented her with many opportunities to achieve success and amicable relationships.

Appearance
Kana is described as a cute girl having an innocent face. She has pinkish-red hair and eyes and shoulder-length hair with blunt bangs. Due to her occupation and high cute fashion sense, she often wears a variety of outfits and hats.

Personality
Initially introduced as a cocky child actress with a sharp tongue, she was moved to tears after witnessing Aqua's performance. However, since then, she has matured and grown into a much kinder person, although her gruff manner of speaking still surfaces when she experiences intense emotions. She has consistently strived to become a better version of herself. Though things have cooled down for Kana towards stardom, being a great actress is still her main goal. Kana's acting style that at first was described as "selfish and self centered" by Akane also changed heavily into a more "adaptive" one as she slowly started losing job offers due to her standing out. To survive in this industry, she became more "easy to work with" and her acting became more adaptive towards her coworkers as she tends to work to put the spotlight on her peers.

Kana is described as a diligent, hardworking girl who is empathetic, cheerful, and confident, with an impressive sense of responsibility. She can also tend to be rude and sharp tongued at times due to her past. She continued honing her acting even when she could not find work, as mentioned above. She also puts the quality of the product above everything else, even willing to lower her acting level and risk her reputation as an actor.

When Kana was a child, people often praised her for her talents. Her ability to cry at a switch, along with her natural tendency to shine as bright as the sun and attract the attention of the audience has led to her being called a genius actor. However, this got over her head and influenced her personality leading to her becoming pompous, imperious, and extremely difficult to work with.

Due to neglecting other people and being difficult to work with, she started losing jobs as her popularity began to decline. Her mother started to pressure her and take her frustration out on her. Kana became desperate and worked hard by trying different ways to get more jobs by diving into different fields other than acting, including singing. There was relative success, but it did not last long. After her realization, she started to fix herself and became someone extremely easy to work with. Her acting, which used to hog all the spotlight to herself, transformed into someone who acts for others.

Even while in the new B-Komachi, Kana tends to put herself down. Despite being praised by others for her talents, she is not confident enough to be the center of attention. Even while the center was being decided, Kana decided to sit out and preferred to go to Karaoke alone. When ruby and Memcho, who don't appear to be good singers, check out Kana's other music videos, they are astonished at her good singing abilities. Her experience of losing work because of standing out too much seems to have impacted her self confidence a bit too much.

Despite having a low self confidence, Aqua comments how she shines the brightest when she's the center of attention. Akane also respects her as an actor and her career is impacted because of Kana's acting further solidifying her acting abilities. Even after being dejected, when Kana finds something that cheers her up even monetarily, she regains her composure and starts working even harder as seen during her first performance in JIF. She also wishes for someone to be by her side and wish her the best. She also remarked that even for once if someone said that she was useful she would work hard for that person forever which reflects how desperate she might be to get acknowledged for her talents. Her past of being neglected by the irresponsible adults around her took a blow towards her self esteem. However, Kana has time and again proved herself of being worthy by being a hard worker and continuously aiming towards giving her best no matter what.

Kana also doesn't like to depend on others as seen when the news about her coming out of the director's house was about to come out. She doesn't like to depend excessively on others and has a strong mentality. According to her, "online hate doesn't really bother her as she is used to getting cursed at since she was 5".

Even though she might seem unbothered, Kana is also really soft hearted. When Aqua distanced himself from her suddenly Kana became very upset and even cried in the street. However, even if she might get emotional she also composes herself pretty easily. She is also very strict about acting and even told off Akane not to baby Aqua. She also doesn't seem to hold grudges as she helped her fellow actor Melt (who previously was pretty bad at acting) with hiragana.

Etymology

 * The name Kana (1) is written in hiragana (かな), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (香菜, 香奈, 佳奈, 加奈, 夏菜 or 花奈), it could possibly means:
 * 香菜 - "incense, perfume" (香) (ka) and "vegetables, green" (菜) (na).
 * 香奈 - "incense, perfume" (香) (ka) and "what, apple tree" (奈) (na).
 * 佳奈 - "excellent, beautiful" (佳) (ka) and "what, apple tree" (奈) (na).
 * 加奈 - "increase" (加) (ka) and "what, apple tree" (奈) (na).
 * 夏菜 - "summer" (夏) (ka) and "vegetables, green" (菜) (na).
 * 花奈 - "flower" (花) (ka) and "what, apple tree" (奈) (na).
 * Kana's surname Arima means "exist" (有) (ari) and "horse" (馬) (ma).

Trivia

 * When Kana was a child, she released a song about bell peppers that became a hit on oricon charts but she actually hates bell pepper.
 * Kana is a relatively good singer as mentioned by Ruby Hoshino and Mem-Cho and seen by her 97 score in Karaoke.
 * As Aqua Hoshino becomes famous, Kana starts referring to him as "A-kun" or "Ah-kun".

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Арима Кана