H₂O: Footprints in the Sand

H₂O's story revolves around Takuma Hirose, a blind young male junior-high school student, though the cause for his blindness is undetermined. After his mother died unexpectedly, it left a deep emotional scar on him, which caused him to become very lonely and reserved. Due to this, Takuma and his uncle move from the city out into a rural area and Takuma is enrolled into a new junior-high school. At his new school, he meets several new girls, though three of whom he gets to know the most out of anyone else; the firm and obstinate Hayami Kohinata, the kind and obliging Hinata Kagura, and the cheerful and mysterious Otoha. As Takuma interacts with these girls, his medical condition gradually begins to heal and he fully recovers.

Takuma Hirose (弘瀬 琢磨, Hirose Takuma)

Voiced by: Ami Koshimizu

Takuma is the main protagonist of the story. He has a moderately quiet personality partly because he is blind and for his condition, he carries around a white cane he named "Tomoda Chisa" (友田千紗), a pun on the word tomodachi (友達, "friend"). His mother committed suicide, which left a deep emotional scar on Takuma. To rectify this, he moves to the countryside to live with his uncle Teruo Hozumi (穂積 輝夫, Hozumi Teruo). Takuma is naturally friendly and likes to befriend everyone he meets in his new town. There is a rift between the rich and the poor, with Takuma being on the former end of the divide. In the anime, he and Hayami fall in love. His mind reverts to that of a child after it is implied to him Hayami’s family killed his mom. He recovers slowly under Hayami’s care, due to his delusion causing him to view her as his mother. He later fully recovers and even regains his eyesight after coming to terms with his mother’s death.

Hayami Kohinata (小日向 はやみ, Kohinata Hayami)

Voiced by: Harumi Sakurai

Hayami is a girl in Takuma's class who sits next to him. She has an unsociable personality and a sharp attitude towards others, not wanting to become friends with others, due to her accepting her own status as an outcast. Hayami's family was rich once because her parents are doctors. Since they charged high prices in medical examinations and were unwilling to take any patients in without the fees, the village people revolted against them, burned their house and kicked them out of the village with the exception of Hayami. Due to this, she is shunned by most of the adults and often bullied and is referred to by her schoolmates as the "cockroach" (ゴキブリ, gokiburi), but she does not fight back when being bullied. Without a home, she is poor and lives alone in an abandoned trolley on the outskirts of town, which was eventually burned down by the other adults out of hatred and later on moves in with Takuma and his uncle.

She has an intense fear of spiders. Even though she owns a bathing suit, she will not participate in swimming classes because she is poor at it. Hotaru was once Hayami's best friend, but Hotaru broke off from her out of pressure from her grandfather. They eventually reconcile due to Takuma's efforts.

In the anime, Takuma and Hayami fall in love with each other.

Hinata Kagura (神楽 ひなた, Kagura Hinata)

Voiced by: Ryōko Tanaka

Hinata is the granddaughter of the village headman and is one of the rich members of town. She is in Takuma's class and is the council president for her class. She has a kind of obliging personality, and is popular in her school. She is clumsy and tends to fall down, and once she even fell down a flight of stairs at school, though luckily Takuma was there to break her fall. She refers to Takuma as "Hirose-sama", a very polite form of expression. Her real name is actually Hotaru Kagura (神楽 ほたる, Kagura Hotaru), the younger sister to Hinata. When Hinata drowned, her grandfather forced Hotaru to become Hinata, and made the village people think that it was Hotaru that drowned. She is one of the several people-(along with her classmates) in the village that does not bully Hayami.

Otoha (音羽)

Voiced by: Mia Naruse

Otoha appears to be a normal girl, but she is in fact a spirit, and only Takuma can hear or see her. She is always cheerful, and will appear out of nowhere, clinging suddenly to Takuma. She refers to herself with the masculine pronoun boku (僕), meaning "I". She refers to Takuma as the "Promised Person" (約束の人, Yakusoku no Hito). It is revealed that Otoha is the real Hinata Kagura, who fell into a river and drowned. She took the name Otoha from Hotaru's picture book that she drew herself. Before disappearing, Otoha shows Takuma a strange world, where she is his fiancée. Just before she disappears, she confesses her love for him, but says that she is not the one he belongs with. She eventually gets reincarnated as a five year old girl.

Yui Tabata (田端 ゆい, Tabata Yui)

Voiced by: Mio Yasuda

Yui is a girl in Takuma's class. She has a self-aggrandizing personality and always has two male henchmen tagging along. She is very rich and often uses formal speech so as to distinguish herself from the "commoners". She is very proud and condescending, but that does not actually mean she is unkind to others. In fact, she gets along quite well with Takuma and the others, with the sole exception of Hayami. Yui's grandfather died because they were poor back then, and Hayami's parents would not give him a medical examination without the fees. This led to the village's revolt against the Kohinata family, and Yui's hatred for Hayami. She often calls Hayami a "cockroach" and along with her henchmen will bully Hayami relentlessly. However, after coming to terms with her grief and Hayami's inability to change the past, Yui lets go of her animosity and learns to be patient and accepting with Hayami. She shows concern for Hayami and saves her from being killed by one of her henchmen in the anime.

She was given a scenario in H₂O's sequel Root After and Another.

Hamaji Yakumo (八雲 はまじ, Yakumo Hamaji)

Voiced by: Yui Sakakibara

Hamaji is one of Takuma's classmates. Despite his feminine appearance and voice, he is in fact a boy who crossdresses like a girl. He has an optimistic personality, and likes to play innocent when he plays bad jokes on others. He has a little sister named Yukiji (雪路, Voiced by: Emiri Katō), and his family owns a convenience store. He appears to be bisexual, and has flirted with Takuma occasionally, but ultimately marries his best friend Maki Kumon (久門 真紀, Kumon Maki).

In the epilogue of the story, he has a child with Maki. Maki is seen holding the child at the Kagura household, who could have been mistaken to be Takuma's child due to the hairstyle, but the hair color belongs to Hamaji, therefore, making him the father. As an adult, Hamaji still crossdresses, and his feminine voice and appearance do not change.

Rin Misakura (御桜 稟, Misakura Rin)

Voiced by: Rui Takagi

Rin, like Takuma, is an exchange student from the city. She has a kind and gentle personality, and is a hard worker, but is rather clumsy. Rin is the main heroine in Makura's third game Sakura no Uta.

A manga adaptation illustrated by Kira Inugami was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's magazine Comp Ace between January 26, 2007 and February 26, 2008. Two tankōbon volumes were released: the first on December 26, 2007 and the second on March 26, 2008.

A 12-episode anime adaptation produced by Zexcs, directed by Hideki Tachibana, and written by Jukki Hanada aired in Japan between January 4 and March 21, 2008 on the Fukui TV television network. A preview video was streamed on Kadokawa Shoten's official website for their magazine Newtype on December 19, 2007. Most notably, the video contains an English narration, a rarity for Japanese trailers.[6][7] The first episode of the series was previewed on December 23, 2007 in Akihabara, Japan,[8] and the final episode was previewed on March 20, 2008, in Machida, Japan.[9] The first episode opens with a partial recitation of the poem "Footprints", and the end of the poem is recited in the second half of the final episode. The anime was licensed for release in English by Kadokawa USA,[10] but its Kadokawa Pictures USA subsidiary later closed down, therefore canceling the release.[11]

The game's opening theme is "H₂O" and the ending theme is "Tomorrow", both sung by Monet. The maxi singles for the opening and ending themes were released at Comiket 70 on August 12, 2006. Two more theme songs used in the game were "Dream" and "Footprints in the Sand", also both sung by Monet. A character song album for Otoha entitled Otoha's Ghostly Bon Festival Dance (音羽の死霊の盆踊り, Otoha no Shirei no Bon Odori), sung by Mia Naruse, was released on October 22, 2006 at the DreamParty Tokyo convention. An arrange maxi single titled H₂O: Prelude containing arranged versions of "H₂O" and "Tomorrow", was released on December 21, 2007. The game's original soundtrack came bundled with the original game as a pre-order bonus. The opening theme for the anime version is "One-winged Icarus" (片翼のイカロス, Katayoku no Ikarosu) by Yui Sakakibara and the maxi single was released on January 25, 2008. The ending theme for the anime is "Kazahane" (カザハネ) by Haruka Shimotsuki and the single was released on February 22, 2008. "Footprints in the Sand" by Monet is the ending theme in the anime's final episode.