Hotaru Takegawa (竹川 蛍 Takegawa Hotaru) is the female lead in the Hotarubi no Mori E Manga and the movie adaption, Hotarubi no Mori e Movie. Hotarubi no Mori e (translation: Into the Forest of Fireflies Light) was created by Yuki Midorikawa.
She is voiced by Ayane Sakura.
Appearance[]
Hotaru has blue eyes with short brown hair and white skin. Throughout her relationship with Gin, with each summer passed Hotaru matured and changed visibly while Gin remained almost the same.
Personality[]
Hotaru is a bubbly girl who likes to think positively.
Plot[]
One summer, Hotaru, who was currently staying with her Uncle, decides to wander off and explore the land. Unknowingly, she wanders into the Spirit Forest and gets lost. Scared that she might never be found again, Hotaru drops to the floor and cries. Gin, a Spirit who lived in that forest, heard her cries and found her. He then decides to lead Hotaru out the forest. Feeling indebted to the spirit, Hotaru thanks Gin and promises that she would come back the next day. Hotaru then builds a friendly relationship with Gin, visiting him in the forest every day of each summer.
First Meeting with Gin[]
When she was 6 years old, Hotaru was lost in the forest of a mountain god. Whilst crying, she met Gin,a spirit of the forest that had appeared behind a tree, questioning why she was crying and alone. Surprised to see another person (believing he's human), she bolts up and tries to hug Gin. However, he steps to the side and lets her fall face-first into the grass. He explains that he's a spirit that can't be touched by a human and if he is, he will disappear.
Hotaru, wanting to challenge this theory, continuously tries to touch him until he gets a stick off the ground and hits her on the head with it. Believing him, Hotaru finally stops chasing him. Gin offers to guide her out of the forest and guides her by holding one side of the stick while she holds the other.
After he guides her home, she says that she'll come back to the forest the next day and introduces herself. She asks for his name but he doesn't reply. She becomes slightly afraid of him and is about to head back home until he tells her his name. When she turns around to see him, he's gone. She does indeed come back the next day and continues to visit him every summer (until he passes away).
Waiting for Summer[]
During this time, it shows that during school, Hotaru spaces out often, thinking about how Gin is doing. It shows that another male student takes notice of this and snaps her out of her daydreams. During Winter, the same student tells her there's ice and she might slip and offers to hold her hand. Here, it is hinted that he may have a crush on her, but Hotaru doesn't notice. She accepts and takes his hand which makes her think about wanting to touch Gin.
Gin wearing the scarf Hotaru gave him
There is a small cutscene where Gin is leaning against a rock in the snow, wearing the scarf that Hotaru gave to him the summer prior.
A Pre[]
Gin catching the child
Hotaru realizes that the child was human and yells out to Gin for confirmation. Gin stares blankly at her then opens his arms and tells Hotaru that he can finally touch her. She takes off the kitsune mask he had given to her and runs into his open arms, smiling. Fading away, his empty yukata fell to the ground with Hotaru sobbing into it. As his last words, Gin confesses his love to her and she replies with the same. After she had gotten up, she picked up the mask and looked at it sorrowfully.
The spirits that Gin was raised with appeared and thanked Hotaru for her time with Gin. They also thanked her for hugging him as he had always wanted to touch a human. As she waved goodbye to the spirits, she narrated while clutching the mask tightly to her chest, "I probably won't be able to look forward to summer for a long time. My chest will hurt. My tears will be overflowing. But this warmth in my hands and these summer memories will live on in my heart."
Etymology[]
- The name Hotaru means "firefly" (蛍).
- Midorikawa may have used this as a form of symbolism as 'Hotarubi no Mori e' translates into 'Into the Forest of Fireflies Light'.
- Hotaru's surname Takegawa means "bamboo" (竹) (take) and "river, stream" (川) (kawa/gawa).