Uta Otonashi

The gentle and reliable head producer of nebul✬ STUDIOS. Uta is always kind, level-headed and looking out for everyone else -- he's been working at the agency since he was 19, when it was just started, and his older cousin is actually the founder of nebul✬. He's often the one to advise people when they need help, and a lot of people end up approaching him when they have problems or requests because of this. However, Uta never complains or rejects anything, making him a bit of a doormat -- but he does have a limit, and can be one of the most intimidating people around if you push him far enough.

Despite his friendly and kindhearted nature, Uta doesn't talk about himself much -- not his past prior to joining the agency, nor about his feelings or personal problems. Besides his job in nebul✬, he also works a day job as a middle school teacher and takes on various contract-based composing jobs for other artists and companies. Currently the producer of Floración.

Appearance
Uta is a tall young man with a slim build. He has medium grey eyes and slightly long, light pink hair that reaches just below his shoulders with long bangs parted to the left, but it's usually tied up in a bun or ponytail when he's working. Uta tends to dress in smart casual wear such as turtlenecks and jackets, but will dress down on occasion when he's not working.

Personality
Calm, collected and caring, Uta is one who often falls into the role of an advisor or teacher. This is because his gentle nature and way of looking out for everyone makes him someone who’s easy to like and listen to—and hence he has a good reputation amongst most. Uta is an extremely organised person as well; be it lesson drafts for his students or schedules for the idols in his unit, he’s always on top of matters one way or another. He's very polite with everyone, and usually acts in a refined and graceful manner.

However, Uta is also known to be rather secretive, and tends to dodge the topic of his younger days quite often. Not many know about his time prior to Nebula, and he would like to make sure it stays that way. He has a few vices as well; he has a hard time being vulnerable to others, and is very much a people-pleaser, putting his own opinions aside to cater to the needs of others. People also often depend on him for a lot of things because of how reliable and trustable he seems, and due to his inability to say “no”, he tends to have a habit of stretching himself thin and overworking.

Despite having the patience of a saint, Uta isn’t one people would want to get mad. Even he has a limit, and when he’s seriously angry, he can be extremely intimidating. He’s also very proficient in singing and dancing, things that can’t be chalked up to his music degree—and would have made for an excellent idol if he had chosen to take up that path.

History
He was born to a middle-upper class family where his parents both worked office jobs in the same company. Due to the constant high expectations placed on him when he was young as well as how strict his household was, Uta quickly grew to become a people-pleaser someone who was desperate not to let his parents down, and someone who was especially sensitive to the moods and needs of others. He was a model student throughout middle and high school, and graduated with both stellar academic grades and an excellent reputation amongst his peers. Though his parents wanted him to choose medicine or law as his course in university, a music teacher of his saw his talent in music and gave him a recommendation to a well-known university -- and thus Uta decided to give music a shot for at least a year.

He met a flimsy, carefree senior in his first year who ran into him while he was working on a song as an assignment. The senior had carelessly criticised his sound for being "censored and boring", and had instructed him to write another song. A little put off by that statement, Uta ended up redoing his piece, which the senior saw potential in and recruited him into his newly-formed idol unit in the heat of the moment. Unable to say no to someone that loud, he hesitantly joined despite not knowing much about idols, and served as both the composer and a member of the mature-themed unit APPROUGE for roughly a year.

Their unit quickly became popular due to a combination of his leader's connections in the industry as well as the unit's skill and charisma, and it was perhaps a period of his life where he could live freely and show another side to himself for the first time. However, right at their peak -- during their biggest live yet, his unit leader got involved in a sudden and tragic accident onstage. While he and the others were relatively unharmed, their unit leader had to be hospitalised and could never perform as an idol again.

Knowing that his leader was someone who deeply loved idols and the stage, Uta found himself unable to face performing again -- he couldn't bring himself to do it, not when the person who loved idols the most couldn't do it anymore. The unit eventually fell apart, and determined to forget about that phase of his life, Uta cut his unitmates off to the point where they eventually lost all contact eventually. He accepted a job as a producer in a startup talent agency his cousin had offered him, and has been working there ever since.

Relationships
TBD

Trivia

 * Uta’s first name (歌) means “song” and his last name (音無) means “soundless”.
 * When he was in an idol unit, his on-stage persona was drastically different than how he is now. He was extremely charismatic and good at fanservice, to match with the mature image of his old unit.
 * He has a younger cousin that used to work in PARAGON for a few years as a highly successful solo idol but recently left.
 * His instrument specialty is the harp, but he's been playing piano since young as well. He also knows how to play the guitar as well as a bit of violin.
 * He freezes up every time he goes on a stage.
 * Accidentally banned Sanekazu from protecting women's rights since January 29th 2020.
 * Enjoys cooking, and is good at it.