Anzu

Anzu (アンズ) / Anzu Hayashi (林 あんず) is one of the supporting characters in the Hinamatsuri series. She is also known as "best girl" to most.

Background
Anzu is a superhuman with telekinetic powers like Hina. She is initially sent to kill Hina, but loses to her in a contest of strength and abandons the mission. Unable to return to her masters because the device necessary to do so was inadvertently damaged, she joins a homeless camp in Tokyo. Later she is taken in by a couple who run a Chinese restaurant, where she learns how to cook.

Appearance
Anzu has blond hair with side ponytail.

Her first outfit was biker gang clothes that she stole from a gang. After her adoption, she starts wearing less flashy work clothes.

Personalities
Initially, Anzu was a rebellious and aggressive girl who often attacked anyone who got in her way. However, after becoming homeless and being defeated by Hina, she mellowed down and found a home within the homeless community.

Despite being somewhat temperamental and childish, Anzu is a very sweet girl who cherishes her friendships, excited at the prospect of playing games with Hina and Hitomi. She is very polite and grateful to those who show her any hospitality, such as thanking Nitta for letting her stay over by doing chores for him. Like Hina, Anzu was initially unfamiliar with society, slowly learning about its customs over time from her homeless family. As such, she has developed a great appreciation and respect for money. She also has an incredible work ethic, willing to work hard for long hours if it means helping out those she cares about.

Story
As part of the program that created Mao and later Hina, Anzu has the same basic telekinetic powers as Hina. While she is more powerful than the older Mao, she is not as powerful as the younger Hina.

Realizing the problem they created by sending Hina away, the people in charge of the project decide to send Anzu to eliminate Hina, using the same transportation method they used with Hina: a metal capsule that can collapse into a ball. Anzu lands in the middle of a street and her shell hits an object that releases her. She's standing naked in the middle of the street when a local biker gang arrive and start harassing her. Using her powers, she quickly defeats the gang, stealing clothes from the gang leader.

When word gets out that the biker gang was defeated by a little girl, Nitta takes a mild interest in the situation. Seeing her in a ramen restaurant, he recognized the clothes she was wearing as those belonging to the biker she defeated. When she attempts a dine and dash, Nitta steps up, pays her bill, then follows her. He discovers that she has powers similar to Hina and that she is looking for her.

Getting Hina, he takes her to the riverside camp that Anzu has set up just as Anzu decides that she'll have to go look for Hina since Hina isn't going to come to her. After the initial surprise of Hina showing up, Nitta intervenes and turns their duel into a rock/paper/scissors battle, where the winner of the round uses their powers to make the other look in a specific direction. After winning the first two rounds but failing to beat Hina with her powers, Hina wins a round, and easily defeats Anzu. Defeated, Anzu knows she can't just return to her home dimension and pulls out a handful of Hina's hair that she can show her bosses as proof she'd killed Hina. Before she returns home, she spends the night with Hina and Nitta and the two youngsters act like normal girls. Nitta, meanwhile, washes Anzu's clothes because they were dirty. In doing so, he did not remove the orb that created her travel egg. After she leaves the apartment, she attempts to activate it, but the washing machine destroyed its inner workings.

Stranded, Anzu fights for survival, becoming a shoplifter to obtain food. While doing this, she meets a homeless man, who teaches her how to survive by collecting cans, selling magazines, and such to make money to live on. Nitta happens to see her scrounging for cans, and offers her 40,000 yen to help her out. Initially declining the handout, she realizes that it can be used to help the others in the homeless camp where she's living. Before she can do that, Utako steps in and takes the money, distributing it among the shop keepers Anzu ripped off, then gives Anzu the leftover change after paying the shopkeepers.

Later, when the city is about to destroy the homeless camp, Utako finds a home for Anzu. Utako does so by talking with the Hayashi family, who own the Chinese restaurant "Rairaiken",  and convinces them to take in this homeless girl. Becoming her de facto parents. Anzu cannot believe how much better her life is as she has food, a home, and is now earning money, however, she insists that she work for her keep. At first, the Hayashis want her to enjoy the childhood she's already missed, but her time as a homeless person, along with the help of the homeless community, taught her that hard work increases one's own self-worth and self-respect. Bringing tears to the eyes of her new, adoptive parents. They start in training her as a greeter/waitress. The first time she looks at the menu and seeing how much a pork dish costs, her first thought is how many ramen cups she could buy with that amount. Her first customer is none other than Nitta and Sabu. When Nitta orders the pork dish, she comments that he must be very rich.

When her adoptive parents decide to retire so Anzu can finish out her teen years as a real teenager, they butt up against Anzu's work ethic. As a compromise, her adoptive father sets her up with what he started with: a ramen cart lunch wagon. Nitta, Hitomi, and, unknown to Anzu, adoptive brother are regulars. It is at this time that they formally adopt Anzu.

Abilities
Anzu can use telekinesis where she uses it to threaten others and she also has a super human speed.

Etymology

 * The name Anzu is written in katakana (アンズ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (杏, 杏子 or 杏珠), it could possibly mean:
 * 杏 - "apricot".
 * 杏子 - "apricot, apricot tree".
 * 杏珠 - "apricot" (杏) (an) and "pearl, gem, jewel" (珠) (zu).

Adoptive Name

 * The name Anzu is written in hiragana (あんず), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (杏, 杏子 or 杏珠), it could possibly mean:
 * 杏 - "apricot".
 * 杏子 - "apricot, apricot tree".
 * 杏珠 - "apricot" (杏) (an) and "pearl, gem, jewel" (珠) (zu).
 * Anzu's surname Hayashi means "forest" (林).

Trivia

 * Anzu decided to not go to school after attending for only a single day, as she felt that she wouldn't be learning anything useful.
 * Despite having psychic powers, Anzu rarely uses them to the point that it's easy to forget she has them.
 * Anzu has recently started doing volunteer work at a daycare/preschool where she visits young children and reads them ramen based stories that she personally writes and illustrates.
 * Anzu revealed her powers to a little girl named Miku to gain her trust.
 * After the Hayashis retired and closed down the restaurant, Anzu started selling Ramen from Mr. Hayashi's old push cart.
 * The Hayashis formally adopt Anzu as their daughter.
 * Her birthday is on March 25th.
 * Running the push cart for several years, Anzu has made enough to put a down payment on reopening the Rairaiken restaurant and convincing the Hayashis to come out of retirement. Nitta handled the loan as a legit businessman, not Yakuza.