Awai Oohoshi

Awai Oohoshi (大星 淡, Ōhoshi Awai) is a first year at Shiraitodai High School who is recognized as a successor of Teru Miyanaga and one of the monster class first year that could beat even veteran third year along with Saki Miyanaga as claimed by the commentators.

Appearance
Awai has long blonde hair and blue eyes.

She wears the standard Shiraitodai uniform.

Personality
Awai is one of the more cheery people of the Shiraitodai team who is the most cocky.

Combined Training Camp Arc
Awai was shown winning her match and moving Shiraitodai into the national tournament.

National Tournament Arc
Awai was one of the few players who sensed it when Komaki Jindai fell asleep and became possessed by a goddess and hit Yuuki Kataoka with a sanbaiman.

Final Eight Arc
Awai is shown with the rest of her teammates entering the playing hall before the final eight competition begins. After Teru Miyanaga's match, she welcomes her back and then asks why she didn't do the move that goes "whu-whu-whee". Later when Teru asks if Sumire Hirose has some sort of telling sign that gives her ability away, Awai says that she doesn't know and never really payed attention to it. She then watches Sumire's match very close to Teru. During Takami Shibuya's match she complains about those "newbie freshman". Sumire then tells her that she is in fact a newbie freshman but she tells Sumire that going by her skill level she is well above that. Awai then appears in a flashback of Seiko Matano's, not seriously listening to the explaination about Shindouji's players. She later notes that she's going to face a baiman during the east's third round. When Seiko deals in Awai makes note of this. Later when Seiko deals into a baiman, she says that its fine and she can afford to give up a counted yakuman.

On her way toward the captains match she meets Seiko. She thanks her for giving her a handicap in the match and says it was the first time she's seen her lose that bad. When Seiko asks to win back for her, Awai says that she was going to win anyway and that losing isn't in her dictionary. In her match, Awai starts by extending her lead with her passive ability. However, Shindouji's Himeko Tsuruta uses her power to hit Awai with a dealer mangan during her supposed safe zone of 5 turns. This only makes her more enthusiastic, but continued wins by Himeko and Senriyama's Ryuuka Shimizudani knock Awai down to third place. She decides to use her full power, and declares a double riichi follow by a kan and then proceeds to ron off Himeko. As she starts the next round, she again declares a  double riichi, but is then plays into Shizuno's hand and ends the first renchan in the process which cause Awai to be extra caution with her for the next renchan.

The second renchan starts with Shizuno being the dealer, trying to stop Awai from calling her double riichi by calling a pon or chi. She fails to do so which allows Awai to call a double riichi and win off  Himeko. Though Himeko does not go down without a fight, later during the East round, second hand Himeko uses her Mangan key to end Awai's turn as dealer which causes her to note how amazing Himeko is. With Ryuuka trying to preserve the use of her power, she plays into a ron instead which then forces her to use her power to gain a win against Awai. After she got hit by Shizuno, she later senses something weird due to not being able to call a kan after her double riichi. She then believes that Shizuno is behind all of this. Later the final round she manage to call a kan and win a hand which she confidently thinks that has given her first place. Before she could finish saying her score, Shizuno interrupts asking her to check the ura-dora. When she does she is greatly shocked to find out that she finished in second place behind Achiga. Shizuno then comments that this is not her territory anymore before leaving the stage.

Awai is then seen crying in the waiting room because of her finish and swears to beat Shizuno badly in the finals.

While searching for Teru, Awai goes to the roof to find her. When she does, she tells Teru to come on down and get some ice cream with her. She then climbs up to Teru and sits down with her. Awai suddenly asks Teru if Saki Miyanaga is her sister. After a while she tells Teru that Saki's match is starting. Teru then tells her that it might be tough for Saki because of the opponents. However, Awai says that she doesn't care who makes it because she will beat them no matter what.

National Championship Arc
As Takami passes by, she notices Teru and Awai playing in the dark. When asked why Awai says "because you can see the stars better". In the team room, she asks Teru if something is wrong but Teru says she is fine. Awai says she feels better than usual because Capella and Procyon is in the sky and she can feel them. She then says she has a full tank and is ready to go.

She gets super excited to see Himeko Tsuruta on television, telling Teru that she is super strong.

Watching the vanguard match and Yuuki Kataoka get a tenho, she remembers something Teru previously told her. Here she explains that Yuuki's fast hands would be a problem if she got even faster. Awai then brings attention to Kuro and her dora hoarding.

Awai visits Teru at halftime and gives her a sheet of everything her team noticed about the first half. She then tells Teru that she likes it on stage and that it feels like the milky way. After Teru's lackluster response, Awai scolds her a bit and asked to be called Stargazer Awai because it sounds cool.

Awai sees Teru come back to the player room and immediately goes to her. She complains that the interviews took too long. She watches Sumire's match and wonders if she will attack Achiga soon. She helped fix Sumire's tell so she got excited to see the outcome but to her surprise Yuu Matsumi ends up dodging Sumire's attack.

As she was watching the lieutenant match, she comments Takami has only lost to a cheap hand because she was pushing. She then says that no matter how many points are lost before her match, she will gain them back. She then teases Seiko a bit.

Playing Style/Abilities
According to Hiroko Funakubo, Awai is one Japan's most dangerous first year players aside from Saki. She is also regarded as Teru Miyanaga's successor. As pointed out by Harue Akado, Awai has a passive ability and an offensive one.

Her passive ability is called "Absolute Safety Zone" - this makes her opponents start off with hands that have a low probability of completion, normally hands with 5-6 shanten. The players' following draws are normal, however. This ability can only be beaten by abilities that manipulate a player's own starting hand, such as Takami Shibuya's Harvest Time and Himeko Tsuruta's predetermined wins. Due to her ability, Awai believes that prior to the 6th turn she should never deal-in and has a weaker defence during this time.

Her second ability is also her most offensive and dangerous one and has only been used twice in official tournaments prior to the interhigh. Her offensive ability has two components: double-riichi and kan-uradora. At the start of the hand, her hand is often already in tenpai before she draws her first tile, and so she can declare double-riichi. Prior to the last corner in the wall, she will declare a kan. Immediately after passing the last corner, her winning tile will come out from another player. The tiles she declared a kan with will become dora tiles once the kan-ura is revealed. This gives her a haneman (double-riichi 2 han + 4 kan-ura-dora) every time.

Though Awai's Absolute Safe Zone and Double Riichi + Kan Ura combination were all negated by Shizuno Takakamo's Deep Mountain ability in the South round of the second hanchan of the semifinals' captain round, she still retained her last corner abilities. She drew a concealed kan right before the corner, and the first 3, possibly even 4, tiles after the corner were all her preferred winning tile. This suggests that the last corner win is her fundamental ability.

Etymology

 * The name Awai means "pale" (淡).
 * Awai's surname Oohoshi means "big, great" (大) (o) and "star" (星) (hoshi).

Trivia

 * Awai has shown to be able to spin her entire mahjong hand 360° backwards as if all her tiles were on an axis.
 * According to Teru Miyanaga, Awai has the potential to win against her opponents not only with her usual daburu riichi with 4 kan ura dora but also with Tenhou hands, although this has not been shown in the manga yet.
 * Awai has a fondness for Teru.
 * Awai always seeks for a strong player to play with her.