What is the name of the protagonist in From Up on Poppy Hill?

The protagonist in From Up on Poppy Hill is Umi Matsuzaki. She is a high-school student living at Coquelicot Manor in Yokohama in 1963.

Umi manages much of the boarding house while her mother studies in the United States and helps care for her younger siblings and grandmother. Each morning, she raises signal flags reading “I pray for safe voyages” in memory of her father, a naval officer killed during the Korean War.

Her life changes when she meets Shun Kazama, a student journalist involved with the Latin Quarter, the school clubhouse threatened with demolition. Umi joins Shun and student leader Shirō Mizunuma in organizing a renovation campaign to save the building. The effort becomes both a community project and the film’s central conflict.

Viewers sometimes confuse Umi with Shun because their relationship drives the story, but Umi is the principal character. Her name is also rendered as Meru in the original manga-related context; “Umi Matsuzaki” is the film character’s standard English name.