Konori Shindou

Konori Shindou is a side character in Mai Ball. She is a first-year student at  Kijiyama North High School  and is in Class 1-C with her best friend, Mai. She becomes one of the coaches of the girls' football team alongside Kunimitsu and Chako.

Background
 Konori and Mai hang out together both at and outside school, often eating lunch together. Mai always relies on her to help her through exam season. After seeing her well-presented lesson notes, Reika woos Konori into joining her team to be another coach. Despite knowing next to nothing about football, she is often the best at viewing the team calmly and objectively.

Appearance
Konori has short black hair and wears a small hairclip to keep her fringe aside. She has blue eyes.

Personality
She is generally very calm and has a good understanding of what the other girls in the team are thinking. She is also an excellent student. Does have a strange side however, as shown whenever she meets Midori Inukai.  

Chronology
Konori becomes an assistant coach for Kijikita after Reika manages to woo her, despite her not knowing anything about football. Her insight can be vital though, as she is the only coach who is both female and the same age as the other players, so she can often see the game through their eyes better than Kunimitsu and Chako can.

Main Article: Kijikita vs. Seirin

 Although Kijikita take a 5-0 lead against Seirin, once Reika goes off injured they end up conceding 4 goals in quick succession. This is due to the girls being unable to focus, as Kunimitsu has carried Reika off the field in his arms, rather than using the stretcher, which led to the other players becoming very envious. After Seirin win a corner at the end of the game, Konori realises that this event is the reason why Kijikita's play has dropped off, which Kunimitsu and Chako had failed to take note of. Konori quickly shouts out that the princess carry “doesn't count.” This immediately wakes up the Kijikita players, removing their envy and allowing them to focus on the game again. Konori's action ends up ensuring that Kijikita see out the win and progress to the next round.

 When Mai and Konori go round to Kiiro's house on the weekend to study, she meets Midori, Kiiro's little sister, for the first time. She is immediately won over with Midori's cuteness and polite nature and seems to fall in love with her, as she happily does anything that Midori asks her to. Midori is so far the only character who makes Konori slip out of her usually calm disposition.

Main Article: Kijikita vs. Kijinan II

While Mai is having her nosebleed seen to during the final versus Kijikita, Mai finally confesses to Kunimitsu, in full view of Konori, who does her best to stop anyone else seeing it. Following the one-year timeskip in the final chapter, Konori is seen keeping score as Kijikita take on Franklin. She also visits the Miyano bathhouse with her teammates, later going to karaoke with Akane, Aoi and Yuika despite having no pocket money left.

Trivia

 * Mai says that Konori gets very “Rinka-like” when around Midori.
 * She seems to bow to peer pressure easily, as shown when Reika woos her into joining the club, when Kiiro and Mai goof off studying under her watch, and when Midori tempts her into trying kimonos on despite her initial objections.

Relationships
Mai Miyano: Konori and Mai seem to have been good friends for a long time, and are the only named characters who are in Class 1-C. They hang out at school and on the weekends.

Reika Hakurai: After seeing Konori's well-presented notebook, Reika immediately works on tempting Konori to join the team as a coach, despite the fact that she knows nothing about football. Reika obviously sees something in her that no-one else has noticed.

Kiiro Inukai: Although Konori and Kiiro are part of the same team, they do not seem to hang out too much. They do meet up later on in the story, which may be due to their friendships with Mai.

Midori Inukai: Konori absolutely adores Midori and would quite happily do anything that she asks.