The Yamada sisters, Kyou (15) and Asu (9), are students studying in secondary and primary schools respectively. Their mother passed away and their father ran away after incurring gambling debts. Despite the difficult circumstances, both of them decide to overcome the unhappiness and welcome their days with enthusiasm and pride. Fortunately, with the change in the law system several years ago, Kyou is able to study and simultaneously take temporary jobs (such as distributing newspapers and tutoring) to make ends meet. On the other hand, Asu takes charge of household chores, prepares meals, and manages the finances to assist her older sister. Surrounding them are also good and kind neighbors such as the novelist, Saegusa-san, and the aunt at the public bath who watch over them. Although life is difficult and at times painful, the sisters are happy to have each other.
Characters and Voice Actors:
- Main:
Asu Yamada
Asu is the younger sister. She does the shopping for the family and also takes care of the cooking and cleaning. Asu is extremely fond of her big sister and tries to do everything she can to make life easier for her, since she is as yet too young to work for money herself. Asu is quite skilled; she has been chosen as class representative and is frequently consulted by her classmates when they have trouble with their homework. She claims to be tone-deaf, but manages to sing after some tutoring from neighbour Masao.
- Kaneda, Tomoko (Japanese)
Kyou Yamada
Kyou is the older sister of the two. She delivers newspapers to make money for their small family unit and has also taken up a tutoring job. She is afraid of lightning, but won't even let that stop her to take good care of her younger sister. Kyou promised her deceased mother that she would take good care of Asu and is doing everything in her power to live up to that promise.
- Sakamoto, Maaya (Japanese)
- Supporting:
Kinko Echigoya
Kinko (golden child) is the older of the two Echigoya sisters. She is a member of her school's student council, which usually keeps her busy as she often comes home late. She doesn't understand her younger sister, Ginko, too well which makes her think that her younger sister hates her. Kinko has an obsession with acquiring bargains from shops and has charged Ginko with acquiring them after her school goes out. Since they're extremely rich, Kinko is as baffled by this obsession as are the Yamada sisters.
- Shindo, Naomi (Japanese)
Ginko Echigoya
Ginko (silver child) is the younger of the Echigoya sisters. She attends the same elementary school as Asu and is also a class representative, but considerably less popular, since her personality is more domineering than Asu's. Ginko has troubles understanding her older sister. She feels that she is a constant disappointment to her older sister and that Kinko must dislike her. Eventually the troubled Ginko manages to understand her sister a little better and patch their relationship somewhat thanks to advice from Asu and her covert observations of the Yamada sisters' homelife - through a telescope. At one time, the sisters kept a pet alligator named John in their garden, who had been visited with the indignity of a bow ribbon.
- Kozakura, Etsuko (Japanese)
Genzou Hayashi
Genzou, the owner of the apartment building where the sisters live, is an older man who rarely smiles and appears gruff and forbidding. He is, however, very much concerned with the sisters' welfare and was the only one willing to take them in when their father abandoned them. In his own way, he tries to look out for the Yamada sisters. They apparently remind him of his wife and granddaughter, who were killed in an accident involving a truck. For all that he cares about the sisters, he still will collect the full rent every month.
- Mugihito (Japanese)
Masao Ichinokura
Masao is another of the Yamada sisters' neighbours at the apartment building. He is an aspiring singer who has to live off part-time jobs and is struggling to make his breakthrough. Masao already has a loyal following of fans, which supplies him with food. An encounter with Asu and her request to him to give her singing lessons so she can pass a test at school motivate him not to give up his dreams of becoming a singer.
- Kishio, Daisuke (Japanese)
Ranko Saegusa
The sisters' downstairs neighbour is a woman who constantly wears sunglasses and is apparently abysmally bad at housekeeping. It is unclear what kind of work she does, but she is apparently well-off, as could be seen when Kyō found a wallet Ranko had dropped. Asu is the only one to have seen Ranko without her sunglasses, which make her seem somewhat suspicious. Asu claims the 'neighbour onee-san' looks like a nice person without them. When she learns of the sisters' situation, she warms up to them, even lending Kyō one of her suits and fixing her makeup when the elder sister wants to look a bit more mature for Asu's school's open house.
- Hiramatsu, Akiko (Japanese)
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