Oono, Kanako

大野加奈子

Kanako serves as the fourth president of Genshiken. Having lived in the United States since the third grade, she graduated from an American high school and joined Genshiken at the start of the Fall term. Although typically soft-spoken and prone to embarrassment, Kanako is surprisingly direct regarding one of her two primary passions: cosplay. Possessing a nice figure and a large bosom, Kanako and her cosplay activities (featuring costumes personally sewn by Tanaka, whom she begins dating) quickly become the main attraction for Genshiken at student fairs. Her other major passion is yaoi featuring muscular, middle-aged, and exceedingly bald men. One reason Kanako joins Genshiken initially is that only its members would accept her fetish. She is also close to Saki, who was the first person to discover Kanako's preference for older men.
Kanako opposes cosplay sex, arguing that it betrays the characters; however, when asked if having sex while cosplaying as a pornographic character is acceptable, she becomes very embarrassed and indicates she has already exploited that loophole. Her decision to become the next president of Genshiken stems from Saki's suggestion that she could transform it into a cosplay club (literally "Society for the Study of Cosplay" in the original Japanese). Kanako later passes the presidency to Ogiue. In the manga's relaunch, it is revealed that she is not job hunting because she is waiting for Tanaka to complete his additional schooling, implying that she may be planning to become a housewife or to assist him.