Akane Hino

Akane Hino is one of the main heroine in Smile Pretty Cure!. An unusually passionate girl, she is able to get into any mood easily, and loves to make others laugh. Her family runs an okonomiyaki restaurant, and she often helps out there. In school, she is part of the volleyball team. She was born in Osaka and thus speaks in the Kansai dialect, like Tarte from Fresh Pretty Cure!.

Her alter ego is Cure Sunny. She controls the element of Fire.

Appearance
Akane has short red hair worn in a small ponytail with long bangs on both sides of her face, held with 2 yellow hairpins on the right side. Her eyes are a matching shade of red as well. Her casual outfit consists of a loose long-sleeved orange dress-top with crisscrossing yellow stripes, red pockets and a red ribbon at the back, blue skinny jeans and red flats. her summer outfit consists of a short-sleeved wide-necked shirt under a light orange tank top, khaki shorts, white stockings and beige open toed boots. She wears her school uniform with a red tie, and a orange sweater tied around her waist.

Cure Sunny has bright orange hair, the upper part of which is worn in a single bun on top of her head with a few loose strands, while the rest is around chin-length and is let down loose. Her eyes also become a bright orange. Her tiara has one angel wing attached, and she wears it on the right side of her head. Like March, she wears her earrings on the helix of her ears. Her outfit is mainly light orange, with bright orange lining and white highlights. Her sleeves are single-layered, and the bow at her chest is small with a large frilly piece behind it. The back of her top extends out in a single pastel orange frilly piece. Her arm protectors reach past her elbows, and are decorated with orange ribbons at the top and light orange folds at the wrist. Her boots are long as well, reaching past her knees with orange ribbons at the top.

In Tiara mode, her white tiara is replaced by a golden crown worn in the center of her head. The centerpiece of her tiara is a red circle, and the angel wing at the side of her tiara turns golden as well. Her white angel wing earrings are replaced by gold ribbon-shaped earrings with orange hearts in the center, and she now wears them on her earlobes.

Personality
Being born and raised in Osaka, Akane speaks in the Kansai dialect, and refers to herself as "uchi" instead of the usual "watashi". Her catchphrase is "aka~n", the Kansai equivalent of "dame da" or "This won't do". She is also fond of saying "uchi no deban ya!" or "It's my turn now!". She possesses a boyish personality, often reflected in the way she stands or sits. However, she seems to love cute things, and has an especially soft spot for gorillas.

Akane is a passionate girl who loves making others laugh. The first impression she gives is that of the class jokester, always full of puns and jokes to make her classmates laugh. As such, she appears to be generally popular and well-liked. Her friends see her as an interesting girl who always manages to make them laugh. She has a habit of speaking her mind, which can get a little out of hand sometimes, such as when she introduced Nao, Reika and Yayoi to Miyuki as being a "female gang leader", "Miss Popular" and "crybaby" respectively, causing visible discomfort to the three. Yayoi, with her crybaby personality and fascination with superheroes, is often the target of Akane's jokes. However, there does not seem to be any ill meaning behind the teasing, and the other girls seldom take offence.

Despite all the teasing, Akane is extremely loyal to her friends. She also has a tendency to act before she thinks. For example, when she witnessed Cure Happy being defeated by an Akanbe, she remembered how Miyuki had helped her out, and immediately went to help Happy even though she had no chance of winning against the Akanbe. Her strong wish to help her friend earned her the Smile Pact and allowed her to transform into Cure Sunny.

With regards to being Pretty Cure, Akane was initially against the idea, turning down Miyuki's bold invitation. When she did become a Cure, she seems quite cool about the whole idea, ready to do her best in battle, though not overwhelmingly enthusiastic like Miyuki or Yayoi. Similar to Nao, she does not understand why Miyuki and Yayoi are so hyped up about being "superheroes", and gave Miyuki a cool reception when she insisted on the group coming up with a signature phrase. Ironically, though she loves to make puns, she was initially embarrassed by the ones made in her own Cure introductory speech.

In terms of sports, Akane is excellent at volleyball, easily beating her classmates in a friendly match. She aims to become the ace attacker of the school volleyball team, and comes down hard on herself when she is unable to perform well. She is also an independent girl, as she told Miyuki that she does not normally allow others to help her out, but gave Miyuki a chance to help her with volleyball training due to her enthusiasm and willingness. She can also be extremely focused, as she turned down Miyuki's offer to become Pretty Cure (or "kiripura" as she mistakenly calls it) as she wanted to focus on her volleyball training.

Akane's family runs an okonomiyaki restaurant, and it is probable that Akane enjoys cooking.

Also in Episode 36 you can see the love side of her life.

Attack

 * Sunny Fire - Cure Sunny charges up her Smile Pact with enough fighting spirit to make it glow and grants her power to perform the attack. When enough fighting spirit has been collected, the Smile Pact explodes in fire to form a fireball in the sky. Cure Sunny then does a run, jumps into the air, spins and blasts the fireball at the enemy in a volleyball strike.
 * Sunny Fire Burning - Is the upgrade version of Sunny Fire.
 * Fire Shoot - Her combination attack with Cure March used to fight together.

Trivia

 * The color of the circle depicted on the Japanese national flag is officially madder red ("akane"), and the translation of Japan's name "nippon" is incidentally "Land of the Rising Sun". Coincidentally, the shape of Sunny's Cure Decor is a circle.
 * Cure Sunny is the first cure to have orange theme color. However, her transformation Cure Decor is red.
 * Akane is the first Cure to come from Osaka and speak in the Kansai dialect. She is the second character overall to speak in Kansai dialect, after Tarte from Fresh Pretty Cure!.
 * The air date of Episode 2, in which Akane becomes Cure Sunny for the first time, is coincidentally the birthdate of her seiyuu Tano Asami.
 * Akane is scared of Wolfurun.
 * Like Akane, Tano Asami is also a Kansai native, born in Hyogo Prefecture.
 * Akane is the second Cure to be voiced by a Japanese pop idol, following Tsubomi (VA: Mizuki Nana) from Heartcatch Pretty Cure!.
 * Tano Asami was the main vocalist of former vocal/dance group BOYSTYLE, whose work includes anime One Piece's past opening theme "Kokoro no Chizu".
 * Cure Sunny is the second Cure to control fire, after Cure Rouge from Yes! Pretty Cure 5.
 * Overall, Cure Sunny is the third pyrokinetic in the franchise after Moerumba and Cure Rouge.
 * Cure Sunny, along with Cure March, are the only Cures to wear their earrings attached to the helix of the ear instead of at the earlobe.
 * Cure Sunny is the first Cure to have her Cure hair styled into a bun.
 * In Episode 11, Akane is shown to have a fear of heights.
 * The Hino family's okonomiyaki restaurant is named after Akane.
 * Akane shares her first name with Akane Fujita from Futari wa Pretty Cure and Max Heart, and like her, Akane Hino is skilled at cooking.
 * Akane shares her name "Hino Akane" with the female heroine from anime Cannon God Exaxxion, as well as one of the idol girls from The iDOLM@STER's Cinderella Girls series. The characters from Cannon God and The iDOLM@STER have their first names written in kanji (茜), while Smile! Akane has her first name written in hiragana (あかね). However, all their surnames are written in exactly the same way (日野).
 * Akane shares her family name with Rei Hino, aka Senshi of Fire Sailor Mars from the anime Sailor Moon.
 * Akane shares many characteristics with Aiko Seno from anime Ojamajo Doremi:
 * Aiko and Akane both came from Osaka.
 * They both speak only in the Kansai dialect.
 * They are both transfer students.
 * They both make fun of the main protagonist Doremi and Miyuki on their first day.
 * They are both magical girls.
 * Most of the episodes that revolve around her have the word "Nekketsu" (lit: Hot Blooded)
 * Cure Sunny's attack, "Sunny Fire Burning" is similar to Rouge Burning since they share burning together.
 * During the Rainbow Burst, Cure Sunny is the only Smile! Cure who gets her hair longer.