Ayu Tsukimiya  Yuichi Aizawa, the protagonist of "Kanon", meets a lively seventeen-year-old Ayu on the day after he moves to the city depicted in the game. As the story progresses, Yuichi discovers that she is trying to find something she lost, but she cannot remember what it is; Yuichi tries to help her in her search, but with no initial success. One of her most defining characteristics is the repeated utterance of her catch phrase which she mutters as an expression of various negative emotions such as frustration, anger, and fear. Her favorite food is "taiyaki", and she is seen eating the confection many times throughout "Kanon". The main focus of both "Kanon" anime is Ayu, who has also appeared in all of "Kanon"s adaptations, and has been incorporated into numerous dōjin games. Ayu makes a cameo appearance in the second episode of the "Air" anime series along with Nayuki, and Makoto Sawatari from "Kanon". Her voice actresses are Yui Horie in the Japanese versions of the visual novel and anime, and Brittney Karbowski in the English version of Kyoto Animation's "Kanon" anime, who also voiced Ayu during her cameo in "Air". A leitmotif named is associated with Ayu which is played in "Kanon" numerous times during scenes which involve her, and is also used in a similar fashion throughout Kyoto Animation's "Kanon" anime. In a review by Anime News Network, Ayu is described as a character that "persists on a degree of earnest cuteness that will endear her to some viewers." Naoki Hisaya, who wrote Ayu's story, commented in an interview that the night before he was to present the beginning of a "Kanon" scenario, he suddenly remembered wanting to write for some time about a ghost girl who waits for the protagonist to come back to her. He said that he wanted to write this no matter what and quickly drew up an outline for the premise of Ayu's scenario. At the time, Ayu's premise was the start of the entire "Kanon" story, though it was still very vague. Eventually, Hisaya was able to form her story into the style of a romance visual novel, and in the process the characters in the story started to multiply. Hisaya said that Ayu was the one character in "Kanon" that he felt he grasped the best, but noted it was very difficult to write her character due to Ayu being primarily energetic.