Umaru Doma (土間 埋 Doma Umaru?), alternatively Umaru (うまる Umaru?), is the main protagonist of the Himouto! Umaru-chan series. She has an unknown ability to switch between two modes: an "outdoor" and "indoor" mode, which referred as a "himouto" by her older brother, Taihei Doma.
Appearance
Outdoor Persona
Umaru's design in the anime.
Umaru's 'outdoor' mode often draws attention by those who pass by her due to her attractiveness. She has pale skin with a slender figure and a small face with rosy cheeks and round, dark brown eyes. Her long, honey-blonde hair reaches her waist with two shorter strands framing each side of her face and short bangs covering her forehead. Occasionally, she wears her hair into a thin ponytail.
At school, Umaru wears her school's typical uniform which consists of a long-sleeved, button-down white shirt tucked into a red pleated skirt, along with a thin, red ribbon around her neck and brown shoes. Unlike most other students, she wear thigh-high black stockings instead of the white knee socks. In the colder months, Umaru can also been seen wearing a maroon blazer with this uniform.
Outside of school, Umaru often wears fashionable, frilly clothes that most girls her age are seen wearing.
The appearance of this persona is greatly resembles her mother.
Indoor Persona
Her true form - 'Indoor' mode - is the form of a toddler (which her voice and behavior are also like a toddler's), and is drawn in a chibi-like manner. This form is a representation of her childish, lazy, and messy, personality. She wears an orange hamster hoodie (that the face is same as one of her hamsters, Hamusaburo), a white long sleeve t-shirt, and berry-pink knee-length leggings while at home. This chibi form is sometimes referred as her "hamster form".
UMR Persona
In the video arcade as "UMR" persona, she wears a black shirt and a crimson hoodie with brown khaki shorts and black thigh highs, with a crimson cap. She also tying her back hair, and wears a dark blue mask to hide her identity from Sylphinford Tachibana.
In all of her forms, Umaru's face has very rosy cheeks.
Personality
In her 'Outdoor' mode, Umaru is described as the perfect teenage girl at school and around town. She is a student who is on top of her class due to her outstanding grades, possesses an overall charismatic feel, kind-hearted, excels in everything she does, and despite her popularity, she remains humble, thus earning the admiration by her fellow classmates and faculty alike. She also portrays a very sweet and cute personality. Her voice is calm, feminine, cute, and very refined.
In her 'Indoor' mode, Umaru is the exact opposite; she reverts to her true, chibi form, lets out her secret otaku side, and barely contributes in doing household chores; even taking care of her own hamsters, all of which she leaves to her older brother, Taihei Doma. She is very messy, lazy, eats junk food, drinks very large amounts of cola, obsessed with stuffed cat dolls, playing video games, reading manga, and watching anime. Umaru usually refers to herself in the third person, by calling her own name. Umaru also prone to whining or crying when things don't go her way, and behaves very strangely when not in public. She has a tendency to roll around, whether she's throwing a tantrum or otherwise. Even though she is very childish around her brother, she acts even more when Kirie Motoba and Takeshi Motoba (Bomber) are around and referred Umaru as "Master Komaru" (from Kirie) and "Tanukichi" (from Bomber). Umaru also more friendly and playful when Alex Tachibana and Hikari Kongo came to play with her.
In the arcade, her 'Gamer' mode is a well-known and feared gamer who goes by the initials "UMR". This personality is actually inspired by Taihei who talented at arcade (especially catching plushies machine),[3] which made UMR's appearence looks tomboy than usual, even once misintepreted as boy by Bomber.
Besides those personality, Umaru has a very strong imagination, which made her able to creating multiples personalities of her in order for suiting a person's personality that she meet.[4] Also, Umaru has an intense fear of ghosts, even though she claims she does not.[5]
Etymology
- The name of Umaru means "buried" in kanji form (埋) (u).
- To make it completed, it must add two hirigana, and it will means "to be buried, to be filled up" (埋まる) (umaru).
- Umaru's surname, Doma, means "dirt floor" (土間).
Trivia
- Umaru is based on the author, Sankaku Head's little sister.[6][7] They both looks perfect at public, and become become lazy when at home, drinking cola and eating potato chips, also having hamsters too.
- However, on December 20th 2025, Sankaku Head announced on his Youtube channel that his sister is actually has been passed away since 2017 (during the manga volume tenth or eleventh released, and before the anime season two aired), due to a rare disease she has been experienced since 2015 (during the anime season 1 airing).[8] It was the reason the manga was ended on volume twelveth in the same year (November 2017), albeit the author add another sequel with eighteen chapters.
- Unlike Taihei, Umaru does not have any interaction neither a moment with her mother, albeit their appearances looks almost same.
- The reason the author not making an interaction either a flashback of her, Taihei, and their parents, is for keeping the "siblings relationship" theme as the main theme of this series, and he afraid the theme will changed into "family relationship" if he explains more about Doma Family.[9]
- Umaru is not afraid to do anything that might cause her brother to be annoyed because she knows that he won't stay mad at her for long.
- Umaru also claims that she shows her love to her brother by whining and being/acting spoiled (as shown in the anime's opening theme).
- It is said that it is because of the way Umaru treats her brother sometimes that proves just how much of a sister she is to him; also, they have the relationship they do because that's what's right for them as the siblings they are to each other.
- In the anime, while changing from her inside form to her outside form, she has the habit of saying "Umaruuu~n", which is just a dramatized extension of her name. That SFX is also shown in the manga. When she reverts to her inside form, the SFX shown will sometimes be "N-rumau/Nuuramu", which is actually a reverse-spelling of the above "Umaruuu~n".
- Umaru has two different methods of pleading with Taihei to get her whatever she desires: While in public, her "outside mode" has her politely pleading, or guilt-tripping/pretending to cry so people will hate Taihei and he'll be forced to do/buy stuff for her; while her "inside mode" uses actual crying like a baby (which she actually looks like), yelling and throwing extremely loud tantrums until her brother surrenders. She'll also try to throw a tantrum in this form while in public, if none of her friends are around.
- Umaru has a large amount of hamster hoodies in the drawer and in the closet.[10]
- Umaru once decided to abandon her himouto lifestyle because she believed that it wasn't good to keep secrets from everyone, but also believed that her friends would hate her if she revealed it. When she began to reveal her secret, however, her friends stopped her and told her that friends shouldn't share every secret they have with each other, and that they'd never hate her. When Taihei asked her if she was going to keep showing her different selves to her friends, Umaru says she shouldn't force herself.[11]
References and Notes
- ↑ "Himouto" (干物妹) means "dried-fish little sister", which ut is a combination of "himono-onna" (干物女), meaning "dried-fish woman" who's proper in public but lazy at home; and imouto (妹), "little sister", but "himouto" can also mean "worthless lazy-bum sister".
- ↑ Himouto! Umaru-chan G; Chapter 18 (Finale)
- ↑ Bonus Chapter Volume 1 and Episode 10
- ↑ Chapter 216
- ↑ Episode 3
- ↑ Afterword: How Umaru-chan was made (Part 5) from Volume 5
- ↑ https://x.com/sankakuhead/status/1889693655088169275?t=AeIlg-hL3FLw2UuaC51PDw&s=19
- ↑ https://youtu.be/XaHCwyLNQ-Y?si=pzWBNlBG1-yASaZ0
- ↑ https://youtu.be/yPfSIK8CwJk?si=113lJaGhB9Hq-ajL
- ↑ Chapter 31.5
- ↑ Chapter 116, 117, and OVA 2.