The President of the Zuka Club. Benio is nicknamed "Benibara-sama" at St. Lobelia's and is the most popular of the Zuka Club's ruling council. Benio is also known as "The Lady of the Red Rose", and was the anime's first openly homosexual character to be introduced. She is also one of very few people to have recognised Haruhi's gender immediately upon meeting her. A "Benibara-sama's guardian club" has been founded at St. Lobelia's just to make sure she doesn't get mobbed when walking down the aisles. There is also a (very large) fanclub devoted to her. Benio doesn't exactly help matters; she flirts with girls with the same ease as Tamaki, with whom she shares other personality traits, such as over-confidence and a melodramatic nature, though neither side would admit this. On one occasion, Benio claimed that she was following in the footsteps of her mother, who was supposedly also president of the Zuka Club in her day. This may have been nothing more than a lie meant to suck Haruhi into helping the Zuka Club with a play. This turned out (in the anime) to be a ploy in which Benio could steal what she believes is Haruhi's first kiss in front of Tamaki, as revenge for having defied the Zuka Club's beliefs. In the manga it was a ruse to show the foolishness of men. Although female, she refers to herself with the pronoun "boku," usually used only by males.
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