This is a list of characters in Pani Poni.
Momotsuki High School Main characters (Class 1-C)
Rebecca, also referred to as "Becky" by her class, is the 11-year-old homeroom teacher of class 1-C. In the manga, she was born to an American mother and a Japanese father. In the anime, she was born to an American father and a Japanese mother, although she keeps her mother's last name.In one instance, Becky said she reverses her parental lineage and says she was born to an American mother and Japanese father. In the anime, the Aliens say she is the "second daughter of the Miyamoto family", and she has mentioned that she has a sister, although her sister does not make an appearance. After graduating from MIT at the age of ten,Becky enrolled at MIT at the age of nine, and graduated at ten with a triple major. she becomes a mathematics teacher at Momotsuki High. Normally lethargic and halfhearted, she dons a cool face to keep her genius reputation. However, when confronted with a frightening or uncomfortable situation, she hides behind a curtain where she whimpers "". After she gets permission to create a personal research lab in the school, she finds much to her surprise that students start coming to her with their problems, looking for counseling. Even after discovering what began this turn of events - a sign posted on the door saying to the effect that she was offering counseling - and taking off the sign, students still come back several times in the series for help. Her room is also used as a somewhat "home base" for class 1-C beside their own classroom. In each episode both in the anime and manga, she dons a different outfit which would seem too "cute" for a teacher but usually fits the style of clothing for a girl her age. Often she is displayed as especially childish, such as wearing pajamas designed to make the wearer look like a cat. Rebecca also displays a very protective side. Examples of this include her confronting the hijacker in the field trip episode, as well as the Matango alien which had possessed Himeko. She seems perfectly willing to lay aside her own safety for the safety of her students. At one point in the manga storyline, she is temporarily dismissed by Momotsuki High and enrolls in the class 5-2 of Momotsuki Third Elementary, where she becomes a close friend with Nozomi Ichijō, Ichijō's younger sister, and Miyabi Inugami, Inugami's younger sister.
Himeko is a wastefully energetic girl who usually calls out - a nonsensical catchphrase that has no particular meaning. She frequently annoys the other students with her antics and her inability to carry a straight train of thought. In the anime, her cowlick (the lock of hair on her head) contains a mysterious power that gives Himeko her limitless energy and is capable of movement on its own accord. After the mushroom incident of the anime, her cowlick shrinks and in order to appear as if nothing has changed, she wears a wig to mask it. Whenever this wig is pulled off, she again loses her energy, though it is returned once the wig is returned to her head. At one point in the manga storyline, Himeko is transferred to Class D after voluntarily becoming a 'free agent'. Another of Himeko's catchphrases is saying that a particular thing is "Omega" (for example, "Omega cute!"). Himeko possesses the ability to eat as much as she pleases without ever becoming fat, and is particularly fond of crabs, albeit the imitation kind. Out of all of the girls, Himeko is by far Becky's biggest fan, much to Becky's chagrin.
Rei is a girl with a heart and appearance as cold as ice. Of the girls in the class 1-C, Rei is the most mature one. Threatening bodily harm is Rei's way of enforcing order in the classroom with Himeko being her usual target (Often her threat is she will pull out Himeko's cowlick). She is the one to put Becky in her place when she gets out of hand and also the one to lure Becky out from behind the curtain with candy after she has put the fear of God into her. Rei has the second highest GPA in the entire school and works four days per week at a Chinese restaurant. However, Rei is shown to have no artistic talent. Despite her apparent coldness, Rei is often the one to teach Becky important moral lessons. She is like a big sister to Becky. She has also shown herself to have a greedy streak as when during the school festival she purposely made it so their classroom was the most popular so that she could reap the profits later, something she was unable to do since all profits went to charity. Her reason for wearing glasses appear to be contradictory in the manga. In one instance, it suggests she is nearly blind without them. In another instance, she indicates she only wears them as a disguise since students at her school are not meant to have part time jobs.
Ichijō is class 1-C's mysterious class representative whose given name is unknown, and frequently shown drinking green tea. She is always calm about everything and uses honorific speech, but is prone to erratic, questionable behavior. Her activities, at least near the beginning of the anime series, are normally limited to standing up, sitting down, and announcing that she is "the class representative, Ichijō". In later episodes in anime series, she often does the seemingly impossible without ever saying more than a word or two about it, including successfully performing an effective rain prayer twice. In others she is strongly implied to be attempting to kill the rest of the cast including trying to poison Rebecca (and successfully poisoning Mesousa), poisoning Hibiki Watanuki, and implicitly poisoning the school water supply. She has two younger sisters in the manga, the youngest one also appears in the anime episodes mysteriously; she relies on drawing on a sketchpad to communicate as she is too young to converse. In the anime series, aside from Ichijō and her sister, no one else is aware of the Aliens keeping watch over Becky.
Miyako is known as a "bookworm", a name which she earned through her perpetual studying and which she detests, though her score is almost average. Among her class, Miyako is the one with the most realistic attitude. She will often get mad if she is unable to study due to the crazy antics that she often gets put into, which are also often against her will. She also has a very large and very shiny forehead which gets more extreme with each episode. It starts off with a simple sheen in the first episode; in the second episode, it becomes a blinding flash; by the third episode, others are actually able to style their hair in the reflection on her forehead. In a later episode, her forehead becomes so bright that the other characters are forced to don welding masks to be able to look at her. Also, she apparently possesses ESP. In some of the more strenuous events in the series, she always tries to keep a level head, though is not always able to accomplish this with sheer will power alone. In the manga storyline, she often studies abroad under the guidance of "The Professor", who also appears in the anime. She is not always seen wearing glasses as she does have contact lenses as well. After she returned from the abroad study, due to large amount of time that she missed from classes, she has earned a new nickname of or 'the leader'. She explained both in anime and manga that after long hours of studying, it is much easier on her eyes to wear glasses than contacts.
Kurumi is a girl who is above average in appearance, athletics, and academics, but who nonetheless suffers from being called plain/boring all the time. If there is even a hint that somebody has called her plain/boring, she goes off to sulk alone, often in the rabbit cage with Mesousa. She has been known to fade almost completely out of existence altogether when she gets called plain/boring or ignored too much. Kurumi is a very fast sprinter, and also played varsity basketball. She is the twin sister of Shū Momose of class 1-A who is known for his cooking skills, something that she herself does not possess. Unlike in most anime and manga where the younger sister will call her brother , Kurumi refers to her brother as , which is a much more masculine way of addressing an older brother. It might be due to this that, due to her reactions as seen in the anime, she has a fascination with how some girls in Japan are now using the pronoun , meaning "I", which is usually only said by Japanese males. It is never explained why she enjoyed this so much. From the anime episode eleven on, she is shown with her hair grown longer. Additionally, from episode nineteen on, she ties her hair in twin braids. She cuts her hair back to its original length for episode twenty-six and it magically grows throughout its progression. In the manga, she is also shown with her hair grown longer from some episodes, sometimes ties it in twin braides, but she does not cut her hair back. In later anime episodes, after experiencing much of the unrealistic events in the first half of the series, she starts to see reality in a whole new light and starts little by little to accept giant fighting robots and small talking animals to be normal occurrences in everyday life. Despite this new outlook at how crazy her life really is, the others always seem to overlook her estranged claims. When not in school, she also has a part time job at a moe café named "Étoile" though due to her not being considered moe, business is not as good as the owner would want it to be, as illustrated in the author's other manga, .
Sayaka is considered the "good girl" of the class, who usually gets taken advantage of because of her giving and devoted personality. Though her classmates often send her on errands and menial tasks, she says she does not mind it. In one episode where she is happily riding with a person in a convertible, the 1-C girls assume that she has a boyfriend, but it turns out to be Miss Igarashi, the teacher of class 1-A, whom she admires. Sayaka's nickname is . In the anime, the Aliens postulate that it was given to her by her drunken father because she was the sixth-born child in her family. The manga explains the origin of her nickname to be from Igarashi as Sayaka was the sixth Suzuki to attend the school. Sometimes Becky refers to Sayaka as "big ribbon" or "oversized" due to her hairstyle - giant pigtails tied with two large white ribbons. In the anime, she has a catchphrase where she calls someone or something "the ~~ of the year", for example, "Miss Miyamoto, you're the teacher of the year", or "Miss Miyamoto, you're the walking encyclopedia of the year".
Mesousa is a parody of the "cute mascot" type characters often seen in anime, with one huge difference: Mesousa has a severe case of depression. His lack of thumbs makes everyday tasks almost impossible, further deepening his depression. Practically useless in every way, Mesousa serves as the slapstick of the series, being blown up in one episode and having his legs broken in another, all without complaint. He also appears to be somewhat infatuated with Ichijō. Mesousa is not Becky's pet, but rather her companion who tries to help her in class such as getting and holding the footstool for her while she stands on it to write on the blackboard. His name derives from the combination of "meso meso," a Japanese phonomime for whimpering, and , which is Japanese for "rabbit".
Supporting characters (Class 1-A)