Kotori Otonashi

Kotori Otonashi (音無小鳥) is the daughter of a former idol and an office clerk from 765 Production, she initially appeared in THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live! as Producers' helper. She is voiced by Juri Takita.

Kotori makes most of her appearances in the dramas, and as an announcer of in-game events and real world events such as character birthdays, seasonal meetings, IM@S live events, and staff updates. Her first appearance was on THE iDOLM@STER Arcade website.

Appearance
Kotori has brown eyes and short green hair which goes down her neck. She wears a yellow microphone headset which also doubles as a hairband. She wears a white dress-shirt and black and green vest and a large purple ribbon bowtie, a black skirt with black nylon stockings, and white high-heel shoes. The facial feature that sets her apart from the other idols in the game is the mole beauty mark on her right cheek which is often covered up by her microphone piece.

Personality
The secretary of 765 Production, Kotori is open-minded and smart, but also sometimes shy.

Due to her position in the agency, at slow hours she can often doze off or start to daydream about outrageous things; she has a fujoshi side as well, as evidenced in THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE. She also spends much of her free time during workdays browsing 2chan, and because of this she is often thought of as being a pervert.

Biography
While her past has yet to be officially elaborated on, Kotori does canonically does have some connection to either being or being closely related to a former idol. In THE iDOLM@STER anime, a bit of light is shed in Episode 21 about this matter. Junichiro, both in the anime and the games, had mentioned producing an idol in the past. While this fact was usually used in a reference to Wonder Momo, the anime takes a different route by showing the picture displayed to the right. In it, Takagi, Kuroi and their respective reporters appear with an idol they produced together. While she does look similar to Kotori, the mole on her face is under her eyes, not above her chin and this woman's hair is grown out. According to an interview in the March 2012 issue of Megami magazine, the woman in the picture is Kotori's mother. THE iDOLM@STER SP takes a different approach. During the extra scene available upon producing all nine idols, it is noted that Takagi produced an idol whose image songs were "Sora" and "Hana". While this could mean he produced Kotori, it does not mean that Kotori is the only idol who had those image songs.

Etymology

 * The name Kotori means "small" (小) (ko) and "bird" (鳥) (tori).
 * Kotori's surname Otonashi means "sound" (音) (oto) and "nothing" (無) (nashi).

Trivia

 * Despite not being an idol herself, Kotori still loves to sing.
 * So far, Kotori's age and Three sizes remain unknown, though it is hinted at in a drama that she is not over the age of 25. (The sound is cut off so that one can only hear "twenty-").
 * Kotori's role in the games is more of a tutorial guide than a story character.
 * Kotori seems to have a close bond with 765 President Takagi.
 * Kotori has a small crush on Producer, often asking him to treat her to dinner or take her for a drink.
 * The habit of having delusional fantasies was added to Kotori's character because Juri Takita (Kotori's voice actress) has this habit.
 * Kotori's weight and hobbies were first revealed in a brochure promoting THE IDOLM@STER ALL STAR LIVE 2007 concert.
 * Kotori's birthdate was first seen in the booklet of THE IDOLM@STER MASTERWORK 03.
 * Juri Takita once said in an interview that Kotori's character color is Hiyoko-iro (ひよこ色), the light yellow color of chicks.