Sanae Karasawa

Sanae Karasawa (空澤 早苗) is a side character in the Ohayou, Ibarahime manga. She is the wife of Takashi, the mother of Shizu, and Tetsu's wealthy employer who entrusts him to take care of her daughter. Despite initially fearing and neglecting her daughter due to her supernatural condition, she has always held a very strong love for Shizu.

History
When Sanae was in high school, she became best friends with Akira and she also met and fell in love with her future husband, Takashi. Even though she had only met him once, she developed a long-standing crush on him since he had helped her out. Sanae eventually confessed her love to him, and what really caught Takashi's attention was that Sanae was the first person who had spoken and confessed to him without knowing that he was a Karasawa― an influential and famous name. They soon became a couple and eventually married, having one daughter named Shizu between them. Around that time, Akira also had her first-born, Tetsu, to which Sanae and Akira occasionally met up and let their children play together.

On the day of the entrance ceremony for elementary school students, Sanae hoped that Shizu would have a great time at school, since she herself had formed many wonderful memories at school. However, Shizu was possessed by a spirit to which Sanae and her husband suspected that she had dissociative identity disorder and took her to the hospital. None of the treatments worked though, as she would rave and lash out physically. But it all stopped one day; to which they were finally able to take Shizu out of the hospital. However, one day when Sanae was spending some time with Shizu, another spirit was able to possess her body. Although there was no harm done, Sanae grew terrified of her since she thought that the calm Shizu was someone "pretending to be Shizu". From there on, Sanae couldn't even recognize Shizu anymore and struggled to face her in fear that the Shizu she saw wasn't truly her own daughter.

Sick of Sanae suffering and doctors and relatives looking accusingly at her due to Shizu's eccentricities, Takashi made the ultimate decision to banish and isolate Shizu to the outbuilding on the hill and forbidding her from leaving the house. Although being unsure of these decisions, Sanae couldn't act on her desires to protect Shizu since she was still absolutely terrified of her. However, she had also always loved and cared for deeply, which is why constantly hired housekeepers to take care of Shizu in her stead, though most of them quit very quickly. When she hired Tetsu to take care of her, she began giving him ample compensation in hopes that he would stay by Shizu's side.

Appearance
Sanae is an adult woman with slightly droopy and green eyes with a yellow tint, a youthful appearance, and fair skin, who is noted for being very beautiful. She has long, black hair with a blue-purplish tint which reaches down to her lower back, and side-parted bangs which mainly drapes over the left side of her face with two locks of hair tucked behind her ears, laid on her shoulders.