Shinobu Maehara is an extremely shy young girl, though she does develop more confidence as the story progresses. She is aged 12 at the start of the story, and has short black hair, with one strand of hair subtly sticking out. In the Anime she first appears in episode 1. She is later introduced in episode 2 where we learn that her parents are divorcing and she is expected to leave town with one of them, but she prefers to become a resident at the Hinata apartments. In the manga she is already a resident at the apartments when Keitaro arrives there.
She is in seventh grade at school, but because of her shyness she does not know her fellow pupils well. In the anime even on the eve of her intended departure she hadn't told them she was leaving. Yet later on she will gain more friends from her class as seen in episode two.
She has incredible culinary skills, possibly learned from her mother who had run a restaurant, or possibly she is just naturally adept. She consistently downplays her ability, but is pleased when her cooking is praised by the Hinata residents - especially when Keitaro says "My life would sure be a lot nicer if I could look forward to eating great food like this every day". She has a tendency to sometimes put clothes that were supposed to be washed in the pot, and food ingredients in the washing machine (called "wash curry"), although she has only been shown doing this twice.
She develops a crush on Keitaro when he helps her with her studies, but feels betrayed by him when she learns he has misled her about being a Tokyo University student. Amends are made when Keitaro discovers her birthday is coming up, and the residents hold a surprise party. Her birthday is on November 15th.
Shinobu was apparently designed not to be cute, but that failed and her incredible non-cuteness instead made her cute in her own way.
She handles alcohol very badly, she once accidentally drank Keitaro's white wine and instantly got drunk on merely half a glass.
