Manami Okuda

"I never know the right way to phrase things or how to express my feelings as a person. But I'm okay with that because equations and formulas always have a right answer. They're free of fussy word games and complicated emotions."

- Okuda describing her weak literature skills

Manami Okuda (奥田 愛美) is a student in Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High School, taught by Korosensei.

Appearance
Manami has black hair (sometimes with a purplish tint) styled into twin braids that reach just below her shoulder and brown eyes (dark purple in the anime). She wears glasses and has a more petite frame than most of the girls in Class 3-E.

Seven years after graduating Class 3-E, her hair is styled into a single braid, which rested over her left shoulder, instead of her usual twin braids.

Personality
Okuda is a somewhat shy and rather introverted girl. She had poor language skills, which caused her to be quite straightforward.

Despite her introversion, Okuda is a sweet and very determined girl who hopes to be useful to her friends and classmates. After meeting Koro-sensei, Okuda has turned into a much more sensible individual who can express herself more.

Toxin Time
Manami was one of the first characters to be formally introduced. She was properly introduced in Chapter 7 when she flat-out asked Korosensei to drink her poisons. The first poison was revealed to be sodium hydroxide which caused Korosensei to grow horns. The second one was thallium acetate which caused wings to grow at the back of his head. The third one was aqua regia which turned him back to normal, but instead of his usual smile, he had a poker face that resembled an emoticon. Korosensei told Okuda that as a teacher he could not overlook the safety hazards of a student creating her own poisons, but then adds that if she has time after school they would make a poison that would kill him together, which she excitedly agreed to.

While the two were creating poisons after school, Korosensei notes that Okuda's grades in science are excellent to which she responds that it is the only subject she was good at, putting emphasis on Japanese being her weakest. She states that she can't find the right words to express how she feels and that she never knows what are the right answers, as opposed to science and math where there is only one right answer and that to her, beautiful words and clever thinking with emotions are unnecessary. After that, Korosensei gives her a worksheet for homework. The next day, Okuda has her poison ready and is ready to give it to Korosensei. She gives it to him and after he drinks it, he thanks her for the "medicine" that'll allow him to evolve. He later reveals that he had her make a medicine would turn him into a liquified state and while he proceeds to fly throughout the classroom, the other students start shooting at him. When he finally settles into a corner on the ceiling he tells Manami to continue working on her language skills, explaining that no matter how good at chemistry she may be, without the necessary language skills, that skill would prove to be futile.

School Trip Time
After the mid-term exams, Class E went on a school trip to Kyoto, with the purpose of killing Korosensei. Okuda was grouped up with Nagisa Shiota, Kaede Kayano, Karma Akabane, Tomohito Sugino and Yukiko Kanzaki. While scouting the old neighborhood for assassination spots, the group was ambushed by delinquents from another school in a dark alley. The boys were overpowered and knocked unconscious while Kayano and Kanzaki were kidnapped simultaneously. Okuda managed to hide herself until the delinquents left the area and the boys began waking up. Okuda would later help the boys find the missing girls and continued to assist them and Korosensei, who later arrived to the rescue by knocking out the delinquents with the brick-sized guidebooks their teacher gave them. That night, Okuda looks on in astonishment seeing Kanzaki expertly playing an arcade game.

End of Term Time
Okuda returns to the spotlight during the end of semester exams. Joining Nagisa, Kaede, Yūma Isogai, Rio Nakamura and Kanzaki in a study session in the main campus library, they were confronted by the Five Virtuosos of Class A. Okuda stood up for her class to the top science student Natsuhiko Koyama and bore witness to the wager the Five offered to Class E. During the science exam itself, Okuda finally realizes what Korosensei meant about incorporating literature into solving complex formulas. She would later come first in the subject in the entire grade, beating out Koyama and even the overall top scorer Gakushu Asano. Along with six others, she earned the right to shoot off one of Korosensei's tentacles in the class's upcoming assassination.

Assassination Island Arc
Having ranked first in Science, Okuda was one of seven students to shoot off one of Korosensei's tentacles. In preparation for the assassination at Okinawa, she helped out distracting their target while the other students scouted the area. When the time came, she shot off a tentacle and joined in the effort to pin Korosensei down. However the class's plan failed when their teacher turned himself invincible but at the cost of his mobility. Later that night, ten of the students collapsed from an unknown virus. Okuda stayed behind with Takebayashi in treating the ill while those left standing infiltrated the mountain top hotel. While caring for the poisoned students, Okuda discussed whether the virus was contagious, though Takebayashi believed it was a targeted attack. The healthy students later returned with some antibiotics to cure their sick classmates.

Prior to leaving the island, Korosensei set up the Assassination Test of Courage, a supposedly scary attraction but it was really a way to spark romance among the students. Okuda was paired with Karma, who admitted to her that he was envious of Nagisa's talents for assassination.

Second Semester
Okuda remained in the background for much of the second semester. During the God of Death arc, she prepared a smoke bomb to cover the class's initial escape from the master assassin and was assigned to the recon team. However she and the rest of the class were captured by the assassin soon after before eventually being rescued by Karasuma and Korosensei. During careers consultation, she prepared another poison for Korosensei to drink, though this had been tampered with by Karma and Rio Nakamura, with comedic results.

In the finals, she was ranked highly in the top 50, beating her Science rival Koyama once again. At the end of the semester, Okuda and the rest of the class witnessed Kayano revealing her true identity in her assassination attempt, and later the near-suicidal battle between her and Korosensei. Everyone later heard Korosensei's backstory as the original God of Death and how he became their teacher. Okuda was among the group who later visited the recuperating Kayano in hospital prior to the start of the final semester.

Schism Time: Class 3-E Civil War
When term resumed, the class was still unsure of their next move after hearing Korosensei's history. The class eventually became divided over whether to continue killing their teacher, or follow Nagisa's proposal to find a way to save him. Korosensei mediated the situation by having the two sides fight each other in a team death match style paintball war. Okuda sided with Nagisa's team, and used a special pair of lenses she developed to spot the hidden Kōki Mimura, who was spying on their formations. When most of the surviving save team members launched a frontal assault to eliminate Rinka Hayami, Okuda was the first to be shot down and eliminated from the war. With the final outcome to be decided between Nagisa and Karma in melee combat, Okuda shouted out that she wanted Karma to win despite being on opposing sides, stating that she understood Karma's reasons through his fighting style. Nagisa eventually won the war with Karma's surrender.

Research Project - A Time for Resolve
When the class obtained American research data from the International Space Station, Okuda was able to decipher the jargon and translated the necessary information for the class to hear. She discovered that the chances of the antimatter exploding in lifeforms decreases according to the life form's biological size - in Korosensei's case, the chances of him self-destructing is less than 1%. A chemical had been developed to further neutralise the threat, which Okuda found to be similar to the poison she made in the first semester; specifically the one which turned Korosensei into a liquid state. Although knowing of a solution to save their teacher, the class resolved to continue killing Korosensei at least until their graduation in March.

Aftermath
Seven years later, Okuda was working along with Takebayashi as a scientist at a research lab/institution. Their research on artificial blood based on the recipes provided by Korosensei in their guidance books have impressed their supervisor to set themselves up for the future.

Abilities
Science: Okuda has been gifted with intelligence in this subject, and after learning to incorporate literature she has become even better at it. This has proven useful as Okuda could decipher the complex technical jargon and translate it for the rest of the class to understand.
 * Poison Making/Chemistry: Despite the fact that she stated that she wasn't really good with surprise attacks and expressing things in language, Okuda excels in chemistry and mathematics, being very capable of making even the most deadliest of poisons for assassinations, and potions for various situations such as a homemade smoke screen.

Kissing Techniques: According to Irina, she is the 5th best kisser from Class 3-E.

Karma Akabane
Karma and Okuda get along quite well. Karma has stated that he is interested in Okuda for her scientific prowess, citing it as a way to increase the scope of his pranks. Okuda thinks of him as a good friend, even describing him in the anime that he "wasn't all that scary" during the field trip. According to the official character book, both consider one another to be the easiest person to talk to of the opposite gender, and Karma is able to confide in her during the Test of Courage. In the canon timeskip novel, Korotan-D, Karma was really annoyed at a superstar named Jerome for flirting with Okuda. Later, he escorted her from Jerome and guarded her. It seems that she and Nagisa are Karma's closest friends from class-E, even after the timeskip, shown in Assasination Classroom graduation time extra materials by Yuusesi Matsui.

Kōtarō Takebayashi
Okuda greatly respects Takebayashi's medical knowledge, having worked alongside him in taking care of their infected classmates on Fukuma Island. Despite knowing that he is an otaku, she is one of the few girls who has not estranged him. Seven years later, they are shown to be working together. Their research on artificial blood according to the hints provided in their guidebooks by Korosensei impresses their supervisor.

Kaede Kayano
Okuda and Kayano are good friends, and are seen together at several points of the series. According to the official character booklet, Kayano is one of her closest friends.

Yukiko Kanzaki
A friend she made on the Field Trip. Because they both have a quiet and adult-like personality, they still use honorifics towards one another.

Nagisa Shiota
On her character profile in a tankobon extra, it was stated that Nagisa was one of the friends Okuda recently made.

Quotes

 * (To Korosensei) "I never know the right way to phrase things or how to express my feelings as a person. But I'm okay with that because equations and formulas always have a right answer. They're free of fussy word games and complicated emotions."
 * (Wanting to save Korosensei) "The power of science is infinite! It can be used to destroy, so surely it can be used to save!"
 * (To Natsuhiko Koyama) "W-We can too! We're aiming for the top scores in every subject at finals! Let's see you try to boss us around then!"

Etymology

 * The name Manami means "love, affection" (愛) (mana) and "beautiful" (美) (mi).
 * Manami's surname Okuda means "back, inner part, heart, interior" (奥) (oku) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).

Trivia

 * Okuda's favorite subject is Science while her least favorite was Literature.
 * Okuda's past club before joining Class E was Science Club.
 * Okuda wants to be a researcher in the future.
 * Okuda's special skill is that she can draw chemical formulas with a single brush stroke.
 * Okuda's most treasured item is a small pipette.
 * Okuda's favorite food is Honeycomb toffee.
 * Okuda reads pharmaceutical encyclopedias and organic compound dictionaries instead of picture books.
 * Okuda's Bug in Koro-Sensei Q! is she can create potions that shouldn't exist.
 * In the tankobon extras, Okuda's statistics were listed as:
 * Physical strength: 1
 * Mobility: 1.5
 * Close-range assassination: 1
 * Long-range assassination: 3
 * Academic ability: 4
 * Characteristic skill: 5 (Chemistry)
 * According to Irina Jelavić:
 * In the Kissing Techniques Scores, Okuda is ranked 5th.
 * Okuda's school rankings are:
 * First Term Midterms: 94th, 330 points
 * First Term Finals: 20th, 441 points
 * Second Term Midterms: 29th, 422 points
 * Second Term Finals: 20th, 377 points