Sayaka Doi is a supporting protagonist who appears in Studio Ghibli's film after When Marnie Was There. She and her family originally lived in Tokyo but ended up moving to Kissakibetsu (a rural seaside town in the Kushiro Wetlands of Hokkaido) sometime during summer vacation.
History[]
Sayaka's first seen when she and her family move into an old mansion in Kissakibetsu that's referred to as "the marsh house," which is also the house that Anna's biological maternal grandmother, Marnie had grown up in. Sayaka ends up moving into Marnie's old bedroom and discovers Marnie's old diary.
Sayaka discovers Anna (originally from Sapporo but staying in town with relatives) and initially assumes that she's Marnie, but after Sayaka invites Anna inside of the mansion, Anna makes it clear to Sayaka that she's not actually Marnie. Sayaka's a little disappointed by this, but the two girls soon start hanging out together and become good friends.
Later on, Sayaka discovers some pages that were missing from Marnie's diary and looks over them. The missing pages that she found contain all sorts of passages about Kazuhiko (Marnie's childhood friend who eventually became her husband) and the town's old/abandoned silo (which Marnie was deeply afraid of when she was alive). As she's looking over the pages, Sayaka suddenly remembers how Anna was heading up to the silo just as a big rainstorm was about to start. Realizing that something terrible could happen to her friend (especially with just how bad the storm was), Sayaka gets her older brother, Takeshi, to help her look for Anna. The siblings do manage to find Anna (after she's fallen unconscious and developed a fever) and are able to get her to her aunt and uncle's house before anything worse can happen.
When Sayaka comes to visit Anna after she's recovered from her fever, she's happy that her friend's okay. Sayaka also reveals how the missing pages of Marnie's diary were what helped her to realize that she had gone to the abandoned silo, and Anna's grateful to Sayaka and Takeshi for saving her. Sayaka also reveals an old painting she found -- when the two girls notice that it has Hisako's name written on the back of it, they go to question her on it.
Hisako (a painter who's also a longtime resident of Kissakibetsu) confirms that she make the painting for Marnie, who was an old friend of hers from when they were very young children. When Anna and Sayaka ask her to tell them anything/everything else she knows about Marnie's life, Hisako agrees to tell them (but also warns them that it's a very sad story) -- once she's done, both Sayaka and Anna are driven to tears (but are still glad to know Marnie's story).
At the end of the movie, both she and Anna are bummed about Anna having to go back home to Sapporo, but they promise to keep in touch and Anna hopes to come back to Kissakibetsu next summer -- Sayaka also reveals to Anna how she had put Marnie's diary and the painting back to where she had originally found them and promises to keep what they had learned about Marnie a secret.
During the end credits, when Setsu and Kiyomasa are driving Anna and her mother, Yoriko, to the train station so they can get back home to Sapporo, Anna waves goodbye Sayaka in the process.
Appearance[]
Sayaka is a slender young girl and a little younger than Anna. Sayaka has light brown hair tied in pigtails and teal eyes. She also has big round glasses and wears a yellow halter dress with orange stripes on the top and orange wavy stripes fading to sage green to orange. She wears white socks and strapped hot pink buckle shoes.
Personality[]
Sayaka's a very friendly and upbeat girl. She clearly cares a lot about the people around her, such as when she and Takeshi were looking for Anna during the rainstorm, Sayaka was worried that Anna (who's asthmatic) could really sick or something (such as catching pneumonia).
Relatives[]
- Unnamed mother
- Takeshi Doi (older brother)
Etymology[]
- The name Sayaka means "color" (彩) (saya) and "fragrance, fragrant" (é¦) (ka).
Trivia[]
- Her Japanese voice is Hana Sugisaki and shared with Mary Smith from Studio Ponoc's Mary and the Witch's Flower.
- Sayaka is similar and based on Yu Yan from The Swan Princess series also she met Odette from the first time and help to stop Fang and save Mei Li.
- When Hisako was telling them Marnie's story near the end of the movie, Sayaka didn't know what a sanatorium was until Anna explained it to her -- as Anna notes, a sanatorium is (to put it as simply as possible) "a place where you go to get better."
- While not directly stated or touched upon at any point in the movie, it's clear that Sayaka's family must be fairly wealthy, for at least two reasons:
- 1.) They were able to purchase Marnie's old house (a large western-style mansion) and have all sorts of renovations done on it.
- 2.) As Sayaka explains to Anna after they first meet, the Dois are originally from Tokyo, which is one of the most expensive cities to live in (not just in Japan but in the whole world).