Makoto Sawatari

Makoto is a character from the Japanese visual novel Kanon, voiced by Mayumi Iizuka. She is a young girl who attacked Yuuichi Aizawa out-of-the-blue in the middle of town early on in the story. She was then carried back to Yuuichi and Nayuki Minase’s house, where she lived as a guest for the remainder of her story. Despite having lost her memories, she remembered what her name was and is sure of is that she holds a grudge against Yuuichi from the past when he visited the city back when he was younger. Makoto’s amnesia, or memory loss, is much more severe than Yuuichi’s or Ayu Tsukimiya’s, but from an entirely different source. When it comes to her opinion on taking in small animals as pets, she feels sad that pets sometimes are abandoned when their owners cannot take care of them. Due to this attitude, it takes her a while to warm up to a stray cat she finds halfway through her story which she later names Piro. Makoto is shown to love Piro very much and will often carry the cat around on her head.

From early on, it becomes obvious that Makoto has a mischievous personality, which leads to her performing various pranks. These are done exclusively on Yuichi because of her strong dislike for him, something she constantly reaffirms. Her persistent attempts at pranks on Yuuichi vary in severity, such as simply dropping food on him or once even throwing lit firecrackers in his room. As time passes and Makoto beings to feel more as a member of the Minase family rather than a stranger, she honestly grows to like Yuuichi, effectively looking beyond her latent distaste for him.

Makoto can be clueless about things that people her age should know, such as the fact that she can buy her own meat buns and manga; Yuuichi had commented once how she lacked common sense due to a lack of social experience. Like Ayu, she too has an idiosyncratic expression, “auu~”, which she says when she is frustrated or sad; likewise, it has no real meaning. Another unique speech pattern of hers is that she always refers to herself in the third person. Near the end of her story, Makoto starts to wear two bells around her right wrist and enjoys the sound they make.