Noriko

Noriko (紀子) is the daughter of the parents of a noodle restaurant that Kintaro Oe finds himself working at.

Plot
Very shy, honest and sensitive, Noriko hopes to find true love and passionately likes to prepare flower bouquets, hopefully for the one she loves. She is frequently visited by rich businessman Hiroshi Kogure, whom she starts to develop feelings for.

After being hastily proposed to by Hiroshi, Kintaro secretly intervenes with his plans after learning that Hiroshi was seeing another woman behind Noriko's back: during a horse race, Kintaro Oe protects Noriko from Hiroshi's advances, secretly re-buttoning and re-zipping her clothes and even takes on one of Hiroshi's corkscrew kisses.

After learning that Hiroshi had relations with the yakuza and planned to use his engagement with Noriko to take over and sell the noodle restaurant, Kintaro intervenes, pleading that he not ruin the livelyhood of Noriko and her family, with no avail. After trying to plead another time, Hiroshi refuses yet again, openly telling Kintaro about his disgust with Noriko. However, he did not notice that she was behind Kintaro, and whatever hopes he had of marrying her quickly disappeared after that.

After everything died down, Kintaro yet again prepared to hit the road. Before leaving, he talked with Noriko one last time, hoping that she find true love (not realizing that Noriko had prepared a bouquet for Kintaro himself) and she was glad he could help her with making the right decision.

Noriko makes an appearance in Episode 6, where she shows up at Kintaro's temporary job at an animation firm to help support the animation team with her family restaurant udon noodles (Kintaro takes note on how the animators are attracted to girls like Noriko).

Etymology

 * The name Noriko means "chronicle" (紀) (nori) and "child" (子) (ko).