Tina Foster

Tina Foster is a regular supporting character in the ani-manga romance series, Ai Yori Aoshi. Though born as an American, she has spent so much of her life in Japan, she often has trouble remembering how to speak English. Though more comfortable in Japan, she feels completely at home in neither world, save for the friendship of Hanabishi Kaoru, a man she secretly (or not so secretly) fell deeply in love with, not knowing he was already betrothed to the woman she knew as their landlady, Sakuruba Aoi. Physically and emotionally forward, Tina will never be shy about letting those she cares about know it in no uncertain terms.

Tina had met Kaoru at college soon after he bolted from his abusive family, and their mutual loneliness made them close friends, even if Kaoru found her to be a handful, behavior-wise. Both were members of the photography club, for which Tina has shown real talent. She left Japan with her family and came back not long after Kaoru was reunited with Aoi and had moved into a cottage on the same grounds as her house. Tina was among the first of the small house's unintended tenants, the other being Minazuki Taeko. Basically, she could not be turned away without revealing the relationship between Aoi and Kaoru. Tina was a beloved friend if something of a social bulldozer to Kaoru. Tina had an outspoken admiration for Aoi, in her training as a Yamato Nadeshiko, the ideal Japanese woman, something Tina could obviously never be. While she could and did press the buttons of Kagurazaki Miyabi, Aoi's guardian and mentor, who she knew only as the household manager, her best clashes were reserved for her arch-nemesis (Or some would say, best friend) Miyuki Mayu, a rich, well-mannered girl who was also lost between the two cultures. Tina was often the catalyst for events or the helper in situations where her less forward Japanese friends felt constrained from doing or saying something. She was a menace in the bath, playfully groping other women and sometimes Kaoru as well. This said, she was not as worldly as some might have thought. Once, when questioned by underaged Minazuki Chika and her friends about her sex life, even Tina was flustered by their forwardness and presumption. The heavy implication was that she had nothing to speak of in that regard.

When her family asked her to return to America, Tina finally confessed her love for Kaoru in no uncertain terms. It was then he chose to reveal the secret of his and Aoi's engagement. Tina was disappointed and yet heartened that a storybook romance like theirs could actually exist in the modern world, though even this was tempered by his comment that, had he never met Aoi again, they could have been. Ironically (or not so much) the hardest good-bye was to Mayu, with the implication they would miss their clashes. Tina did return in time to aid her friends when they were all evicted from the house, and in recovering Aoi from her father. The series epilogue, Tina travels and meets with all her old friends four years later, and is very happy to find Aoi and Kaoru a happy if not-rich couple.

Tina has a strong fan-following that feels she and not Aoi should have ended up with Kaoru.