(picture above by Haruka - do not use without her permission)By Ganymede (James Sanghyun Han). All information accurate and gathered from various parts of the eleven-volume ここはグリーン・ウッド (Koko ha Green Wood) manga by 那州雪絵 (Nasu Yukie) and from all six episodes of the OAV series of the same name. As all info is culled from the OAV and the manga, feel free to copy spoiler and background information for use on your own website, but first PUT IT INTO YOUR OWN WORDS if you intend on doing so. If for some reason you want to copy my words exactly, link yourself to M . I . S . T.
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Shinobu, the youngest child of the Tezuka family, is apparently of wealthy samurai lineage, to judge by a flashback to his childhood home. He was born in winter in the Nagano prefecture, following his brother Akira, the firstborn, and his sister Nagisa, the middle child.
The lastborn Tezuka, born in late December - a Capricorn with a blood type of AB - grows up to become a cool/calm handsome youth with eyes and hair of the same slatey lavender color (though in Nasu Yukie's color manga art he has also been seen with white hair, and sometimes with pink, red, green, or even brown eyes). When we first meet Shinobu, he is an eleventh grader at the prestigious boys' school Ryokuto Gakuen (Ryokuto Academy), and in fact he is the student council president of the entire Academy during his eleventh grade year.
 During his time at Ryokuto Gakuen, Shinobu lives in Ryokurin Ryou/Greenwood room 211, and is best friend and roommate to Ikeda Mitsuru, who, like Shinobu, is in eleventh grade at the start of the series and who also holds a student body office (Mitsuru is dorm president of Ryokurin Ryou in his eleventh grade year). In the anime, Shinobu's voice (provided by Seki Toshihiko) is serene and sexy, a shade deeper than Mitsuru's tenor but seemingly a lot deeper due to its quieter quality and smoother timbre. His skin is paler than Mitsuru's in the anime, and in the manga his hair is more limp and straight while Mitsuru's is more wavy/fluffy (this hair difference exists in the anime as well but is much harder to discern). If one is to generalize, Mitsuru is the sun to Shinobu's cloud, the fire to Shinobu's water - Shinobu's disposition is much more quiet/closed off and less direct or forceful than Mitsuru's, but he is Mitsuru's silent leader in many ways.
Shinobu isn't a person one likes right away. He is too quiet, too much in the background to even be noticeable at times. To the uneducated he seems sly, aloof, even manipulative, and "too perfect" (though I don't know why that'd be a problem), and if people think Mitsuru's character is underdeveloped due to lack of "screen time," then Shinobu's is even more shallow. He doesn't even have the apparent charisma that Mitsuru does.
It isn't until the second OAV episode where Shinobu spends most of his time running circles around his twisted sister Nagisa's blunderings and machinations that we truly appreciate him. As a child, Nagisa tried very hard to torment her little brother, but no matter what she did, he got the best of her and made her look the fool. The rivalry is still in existence even now that they are grown, except that it really isn't a rivalry since Shinobu always bests his older sister. Consequently, Nagisa's "rivalry" with Shinobu has become something of an obsession with her (while she is merely an annoyance to Shinobu), and it doesn't help that she is a bit wacked out (a bit?) and delusional to begin with. Nagisa resents the fact that Shinobu is a "Mister Perfect," and indeed, Shinobu is something of a renaissance man, a striking antithesis of the archetypal "lastborn child," who is usually stereotyped as being spoiled and underachieving.
 In that second OAV episode, Shinobu displays all the traits that make him so lovable: his intelligence, his calm and collected nature, his clever ploys, the serene way he drives his sister bonkers and makes her attempts to humiliate him go haywire, and, at the end, his subtle but absolutely admirable form of revenge. We cannot help but adore the way he keeps his anger in check, grin at his cute smile when he gives Nagisa a non-violent but rather effective punishment, and be awed by the strength of his emotion (and his muscles ^_^) when he crushes a can in one hand, a can of the type that many people cannot crush even with two.
The "Mister Perfect" designation is appropriate here. Besides his brain power, Shinobu can sew with innate ease, and he even has strong spiritual powers that help him to detect otherwordly energies (perhaps he has a Shinto background); indeed, Shinobu really does seem like he can do anything. As student council president he runs many aspects of Ryokuto Gakuen with ease - though of course, he is human and isn't above stealing a quiet nap while on the job. He is a Capricorn like Kazuya, and they both display the same hard-working, intense nature typical to that sign, but Shinobu is a more evolved Capricorn, able to work well and be intense without the blunderings and unnecessary spurts of temper that mark Kazuya. Once educated, we realize that Shinobu's slyness is actually intelligence, his aloofness is actually quiet self-confidence and serenity, and his manipulative nature is actually his ability to get the most out of the people he knows in a way that is not at all malicious.
Shinobu is the only person who can get the better of Mitsuru and who is close enough to Mitsuru to be able to tease him on a regular basis. And Mitsuru has good taste: the intelligence, gorgeousness, and sweetly quiet nature that characterize his best friend make them truly worthy of each other's love and friendship.
M . I . S . T
Ganymede's Palace
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