Yūna Kōbe (神戸 ゆうな Kōbe Yūna) is a side character in Happy Sugar Life. She is the mother of Asahi Kōbe and Shio Kōbe who is seen only in the flashbacks of her children.
Appearance[]
Yuuna is a 33 year old fair-skinned woman with straight sapphire bluish-black hair that nearly reaches to the middle of her hips with straight bangs that frame her face while there are strands that reach to her neck and blue eyes that has a sapphire tint.
As a mother, she often wears a long leaf-green buttonless cardigan with long sleeves, a white dress shirt-like blouse with a collar and a blackish grey knee-length skirt along with dark blackish-brown tassel loafers.
When she was a high schooler, she wore her sailor-styled school uniform which consists of a long white sailor-dress shirt with long sleeves and a dark teal green sailor collar with a thick white stripe nearly around the edges. It also has a short crimson red bow connected to the collar. She also wears a dark teal green skirt and is shown holding a black school handbag. Before, her hair was shorter and neck-length.
In the anime, her eyes are colored a dark warm purple and her hair was a slighter shade of blackish-warm blue. She appears in Shio Kōbe's hallucinations with scribbles over her face. In Episode 4 of Shio's hallucinations, she has a horrifying look on her face and bright fuchsia eyes that seem to glow.
Personality[]
Yuuna is a kind and meek (quiet, gentle and easily imposed on; submissive) woman who has never been passionate about anything ever since she was little. She has never chosen anything for herself as her mother chooses her clothes for her and her father chose what school she would attend. Before she was forced into a marriage, she wanted to find someone who would choose her and live a happy life together with her.
Yuuna's scary face and glowing eyes
After Asahi Kōbe's birth, Yuuna constantly doubts her ability to be a good mother and found it difficult to talk to other moms due to being significantly younger compared to them. She constantly talks of herself badly, believing that she is "no good" and "stupid".
Due to the domestic abuse inflicted by her husband, she becomes overprotective of Shio Kōbe whenever Shio acts on her own and tends to have a lot of mental breakdowns and bipolarity because of the death and abandonment of her parents and how she is forced to endure her husband's abuse.
Background[]
Yuuna initially lived an ordinary life as a school girl, but her life drastically changed for the worse after an unfortunate encounter with a boy who raped her. After Yuuna began to show signs of pregnancy and it was far too late to abort, her parents confronted the boy's father where he forced his son to marry Yuuna in order to take responsibility for impregnating her. After the arranged marriage, Yuuna began living in a new house in an unfamiliar neighborhood where her husband never came home and her parents stopped visiting her, but her mother did call to check up on her every once in a while. Eventually, Yuuna gave birth to Asahi Kōbe and raised him on her own due to the absence of his father.
Asahi and Yuuna promising to keep Shio safe
On Shichi-Go-San, Yuuna's husband returned home because his father forced him to attend and her parents also promised to meet her at the festival in order to talk. But later that day, both of her parents died in a car accident along with her husband's father. Yuuna's husband left again and took all of the inheritance money from his father's and both of her parents' deaths with him. Four years later, he returned home after he used up all the money and abused both Yuuna and Asahi because of Yuuna's inability to get a job and earn money. Soon, Yuuna gave birth to Shio Kōbe alone in the bath tub. Shio was noticeably needier than Asahi was, but she also became a symbol of hope for Yuuna and Asahi to protect.
At some point, Asahi urged Yuuna to run away with Shio and he would stay behind so that their father wouldn't try to find them. While Yuuna cried and apologized to Asahi, wishing that he didn't have to stay behind, Asahi didn't mind because she always protected him throughout his life and wanted her to protect Shio, their Moon. He promised to return to them and made a vow with Yuuna.
Eventually, Yuuna found a place for her and Shio to settle in, waiting until the day Asahi returned, but struggled to keep up with paying rent because of her inability to get a well-paying job. Shio noticed that Yuuna was slowly breaking apart and tried her best to cheer her up, but Shio's attempts at comforting Yuuna were often futile as Yuuna feared that her husband would find them again and forbade Shio from leaving the house. Yuuna adopted the mentality that she was no good, for she could not get a job and she was stupid but tried her best to go to work even if she didn't want to.
As Yuuna's state was gradually diminishing waiting for Asahi to return so that they could be happy, Shio begged her to take her outside so that she could find something to help fix her, but almost got in a car accident because of it. Yuuna immediately brought Shio back home and scolded her for wanting to go outside because she was afraid of losing her. For the first time in her life, Yuuna slapped Shio, but quickly broke down due to the resemblance between her actions and her husband's abuse.
"I dont need you anymore"
Soon after that incident, Yuuna decided to take Shio outside again during a rainy night and pushed Shio into an alleyway. Despite Shio begging for forgiveness and promising to be obedient, Yuuna stated that she no longer needed her and left Shio by herself. Later, Asahi returned to Yuuna after her husband died, but Yuuna told Asahi that it was already too late and everything was gone where Asahi then began to search for Shio to reunite their family again. In Chapter 40/Episode 12, Yuuna was seen standing outside of a building to see how Shio and Asahi are doing, although it is left ambiguous if this is really her or a hallucination. It is later revealed that Yunna actually poisoned her abusive husband after abandoning Shio to free Asahi and herself from the hell.
Relationships[]
Asahi Kōbe[]
- Yunna's son who was born from rape. She considered him a quiet and calm child that they tried to protect each other from his abusive father. When Yunna leaves her husband, Asahi stays behind to endure his father's abuse of treating himself as a toy and so he would not come after his mother. Asahi tries to find and convince Shio that their mother does love and care for them, once he finds her. His greatest wish is for the three of them to be a family again.
Shio Kōbe[]
Shio comforting her mother
- Shio is Yuuna's daughter whom she regarded as a more clingy child than Asahi, but with a sense of pureness to her soul (much like herself as a girl). Shio often see’s visions of her mother when she is lost, causing her to hallucinate her over her shoulder.
- After leaving Asahi and living in another apartment with Shio, she became more emotionally unstable due to the separation. When Shio runs into the street on a visit outside, Yunna slaps her because she rebelled and has a flashback to being violated by her husband and her mind collapses.
- Having an aversion to her child's violence, she decided that it would be best to leave Shio out in a crowded street. Once she did that, she told her that "I don't need you anymore." and left her alone. After leaving Shio behind, she returned to her husband's house, poisoned him and muttered to Asahi who came to the apartment to pick himself up, saying "It's too late", and she became a factor that makes him rush to search for Shio. After the death of Sato, she is seen standing alone outside the hospital where Shio was hospitalized, although whether it's truly her or the sibling’s hallucinations are left unconfirmed.
Etymology[]
Yūna is the variant transcription of Yuuna.
- The name Yūna is written in hiragana (ゆうな), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (優菜, 優奈 or 柚菜), it could possibly mean:
- 優菜 - "excellence, superiority, gentleness" (優) (yū) and "vegetables, greens" (菜) (na).
- 優奈 - "excellence, superiority, gentleness" (優) (yū) and "apple tree" (奈) (na).
- 柚菜 - "grapefruit, pomelo, citrus fruit" (柚) (yū) and "vegetables, greens" (菜) (na).
- Yuuna's surname Kōbe means "god, deity" (神) (kō) and "door" (戸) (be).
Trivia[]
- Shio Kōbe describes Yuuna as a scary, sad and kind person.
- Shio and Asahi Kōbe learned their vows from Yuuna.
- Yuuna is only featured in the flashbacks of her children and in her backstory.
Gallery[]
Manga[]
Anime[]
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| Characters | |
|---|---|
| Main Characters | Satō Matsuzaka · Shio Kōbe · Asahi Kōbe |
| Blood Relatives | Yūna Kōbe · Satō's Aunt · Yūna's Husband |
| Side Characters | Shōko Hida · Taiyō Mitsuboshi · Daichi Kitaumekawa · Sumire Miyazaki · Princess Imperial Manager |
| Minor Characters | The Painter · Rei Midorino / Kai Kurokawa · Mitori Tajima · Princess Imperial Employee · Taiyō's Mother · Shizuka Kitaumekawa · Minori Kitaumekawa · Mei Kunizuka · Reika Oboroki |