Characters/Nodoka Nagasawa

Nodoka Nagasawa

Personal Information
Surname Name	Nagasawa Nodoka
Birthday (Age)	April 17th (n/a)
Type of Character	Main
Additional Information
Hair Color	Brown
Eye Color	Light Red
Height	5′ 6′′ (168cm)
Job(s)	Writer
Hobby(s)	Reading
Like(s)	Coffee Interesting stories
Dislike(s)	unknown
Family	Unnamed mother
Affiliation	Swimming Club (Chap. 3)
First Appearance	Under the Table (First Appearance) Annabel Lee (Introduction)
Notes	unknown

Nodoka is an academic superstar who humbles even Makoto in the competition for biggest brain around. Eccentric when amped on coffee, she may be the only person who loves reading more than her childhood friend Futaba - especially stories of an intimate nature, which she also writes.

— Official Lessons in Love website

Nodoka Nagasawa is part of the Main Cast of in Lessons In Love. Nodoka was the 17th girl to join Sensei's class, doing so in v0.15.0p2. She lives in Room 8 with Otoha Okakura.

Background

Little is known about Nodoka’s past. Due to her high intelligence, she became a successful writer of adult novels and is already accepted at her college of choice, attending school purely out of obligation. She also takes care of her mother, who is unable to function by herself for unspecified reasons, though only Futaba, and later Sensei, know about this.

Nodoka attended Kumon-mi Academy, where she met and befriended Futaba during her time there, and was later migrated into Kumon-mi High after her old school sunk into the ground. Originally transferred into Wakana’s class, she was willing to change into Sensei's class if he could convince Otoha to join as well. With her being successfully recruited after their talk in Birdcage, Nodoka officially became his student shortly after.

Characteristics

Nodoka is by far the most intelligent girl in the entire class and Kumon-mi. She can use complex terminology and even scientific names without issues, has a massive amount of knowledge and is very eloquent. As a result, she has a narcissistic personality and likes to show of her superiority in a rather sadistic manner as seen in her first Dorm War challenge, where she intentionally gave the wrong answers for the first few questions before crushing Makoto with absolute ease.

She also has a perverted nature that rivals, or at times surpasses, Kirin’s or Sensei’s. She is very open with her attraction to other people, talks openly about topics of this nature and has a vivid fantasy. This, combined with her intelligence, makes her an excellent writer for adult novels, using either her own fantasies or experiences as inspiration. While she admitted during Truth or Dare that her interest in sexual stuff is genuine, she mostly wants to experience it as an observer rather than an actor.

While Nodoka is usually calm and collected in her overall behavior, she goes through creative phases where she’s completely absorbed by her trains of thought, hyper-active, which is either caused or amplified by her caffeine intake, and prone to violent acts, which ends in her thrashing her side of the dorm room. No one really knows how to handle her during these phases as she is barely responsive or acts and thinks so fast that it’s hard to keep up with her.

Nodoka is also rather anti-social, though it’s not due to her inability to socialize but a lack of interest in socializing. She only shows empathy to the small pool of people she cares about, which include Futaba, Otoha and, to an extent, Sensei, and mostly spends her time with them. She also doesn’t hesitate to help and protect her friends if the need arises, which is why she was quick to act when she saw an opportunity to get Otoha out of her parents strict and suffocating homeschooling, takes on Yumi for bullying Futaba and assessed Sensei’s intentions during his first visit. She also holds grudges against those who torment her friends and isn’t satisfied until they received the punishment she thinks they deserve.

Relationships

Sensei

Nodoka and Sensei have a good relationship and can easily keep any perverted thought experiment or fantasy going for a long time. She knows how far he intents to go with all of them, but after assessing his character and intentions during his first visit in her dorm room, she sees him as a trustworthy and harmless individual, so she doesn’t mind if he gets that close with everyone. It’s also the main reason why she accepts his and Futaba’s relationship.

While she has no romantic feelings for him, she still likes him a lot, something she admitted in Things That Hurt and was later confirmed by Futaba during This Infected Wound.

Futaba

Futaba is Nodoka’s closest friend. Nodoka cares deeply for her and loves her a lot, even seeing herself as her future wife, but Futaba rejects her proposal every time since she has no interest in girls. She’s also aware of her relationship with Sensei and helped her during her visit at his house.

Otoha

Nodoka’s roommate. Nodoka cares about her well-being due to them being friends and their mutual respect for each other's passions. When her grades started to suffer due to her being home-schooled by her overbearing parents to the point where she almost had to retire as a musician, she decided to help her out of her situation and into Sensei’s class to ensure she can continue develop her talent. She’s also interested in her love life, though only to satisfy her curiosity and giving her inspiration rather then a desire to make her happy.

Rin

Due to her being friends with Otoha and becoming her girlfriend as time goes on, Nodoka and Rin are often seen together, though it’s unclear if she considers Rin as a friend or if she only spends time with her due to her relationship with Otoha.

Yumi

Nodoka despises Yumi for tormenting Futaba and adding to her insecurities and self-doubt. She’s openly hostile towards her and prevents her from getting close to Futaba when she’s around, even when she intended to apologize.

Even after Futaba accepted Yumi's apology, Nodoka still hated her and made a plan to give her the punishment she thinks she deserved, even roping in Sensei to make it as humiliating as possible. Regardless of her plan succeeding or not, she ends up being beat up by her, but she accepted that outcome and was perfectly contempt with it, probably because she predicted that it would end with Yumi being suspended.

Memorable Quotes

• "Yes, that would be me. - Nodoka Nagasawa. - I’m the haiku girl."
• "[…] You can’t figure out which Nodoka is the “real” Nodoka because she is all of those things. She’s just a girl. Not some genius or prodigy or anything like that."
  • "Okay, maybe I am a genius. But everyone can be a genius if they just spend their entire life just … living other lives via literature."

Trivia

• Despite being a writer and reading a lot, Nodoka admitted in Coloring Book that she isn’t that fond of reading.
• Nodoka has her own form of currency called Nodoka points. She hands out points for actions that appeal to her and people can exchange them for favors, though the usually only gives a few points at most and the more interesting rewards can cost thousands of points.
  • In Facetime With My Mom (Tonight), Uta tells Sensei that Sana received a million points from her, most likely out of ulterior motives on Nodoka’s part, though Sensei doesn’t think she will ever use them.
• Nodoka seems to have an interest in older women. She always tries to flirt with Wakana, had a crush on Yuki until she learned that she’s Yumi’s mother and even hit on Rika.

Gallery

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  Nodoka's summer and spring outfit

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  Nodoka's winter outfit

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  Nodoka's school uniform

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  Nodoka's swim team uniform

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  Nodoka's swimsuit

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  Nodoka's costume for the 2nd Halloween Party - Rin Rokuhara (Winter Outfit)

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  Nodoka's costume during the 3rd Halloween Party - Sada Abe

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  Nodoka's costume during the 4th Halloween Party - Nun

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  Nodoka's pajamas

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  An outfit Nodoka first wears during Amoeba (Incontrovertible Peculiarity)

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  Nodoka's gym uniform