Have you watched Terrace House yet? The Japanese reality show has inspired several Twitter accounts and memes, and earned a devoted audience with its gentle rhythms and barely-there drama. Get in the know with ELLE.com: We're celebrating the Netflix favorite all this week.

Konbanwa! Please, put your luggage to one side and join me at the table. I’m looking forward to spending time with you. Pour yourself a glass of wine—kanpai!—but...Wait. You can't sit there! That’s Seina’s seat.

Let me explain. Before Terrace House was a Netflix original, before there even was a panel on the reality show, there was Seina Shimabukuro. Seina-san, as she’s known, lived at Terrace House four times (including the movie, which hasn't screened in the U.S.) and had cameos across all the seasons. But her legend isn’t just about longevity. She's a returning star because she's so lovable: loyal, supportive, open-hearted, sociable, and unpredictable. (There's also that magnificent Fran Fine laugh.) A viewer can rely on Seina to get things moving, whether she's encouraging her roommates to take romantic risks or being the focus of all the male attention in the house.

For a show anchored by a rotating cast of three boys and three girls, Seina’s character is as complex as all of them put together. There could be six different versions of the beloved model and yogi sitting around a table and Terrace House would still be entertaining and dramatic. For a reality show that’s all heart, Seina is the blood that courses through it, the housemate that makes it beat, the sparkle on the pink emoji.

Netflix

The first Seina-san we meet is part of the OG cast of the original season, Boys and Girls Next Door. BB Seina is a 25-year-old aspiring model with hair as long as her legs and a palpable vulnerability. Initially leaving the house to follow dreams of an international career, she returns to Terrace House after that doesn't pay off, for a total of 63 episodes. Instead of feeling like a downer, Seina’s homecoming(s) are cause for celebration, because there’s no shame in trying and failing then trying again. She always has a key to let herself in and find herself at home.

Seina brings this honesty and self-respect to her relationships, too. Never one to stray from a drunk makeout—be it a party pash with Boys and Girls roommate Makun or the infamous "vomit kiss" with Noah of Opening New Doors—when she knows what she wants, she’ll pursue it, making for some truly memorable moments. When Makun strings her along, Seina confronts him in a grand display of self-worth, a relatable rant for anyone asking themselves if shitty suitor behavior is what they deserve.



Netflix

Unlike the other roommates, who generally just do one stint in the house, we've been able to see the changes in Seina's romantic life as it ebbs and flows. Towards the end of her time on Boys and Girls, Seina meets Daiki and they get together. We get to see the romantic, gentle Seina, a Seina who is swept off her feet. But as viewers know from her most recent appearance on Opening New Doors, after a couple of years their relationship ended, leading Seina to once again return to the comfort of Terrace House, courageously seeking her “last love.”

In the panel’s words, Seina-san is Terrace House’s “leading actress,” the slow show’s dream. Practically every encounter with her propels action, if not drama, in a TV series full of sequences as nice but static as a default screensaver. Seina may be seeking love in her own life, but that doesn’t mean she can’t play cupid. When it comes to giving others the nudge, she doesn’t mince words. During a five-minute cameo in Boys and Girls in the City, Seina gives inexperienced housemates Uchi and Minori a pep talk to ensure they know they actually like one another. And just like she always does, she encourages them to go for it (all while getting her hair did, of course).

Netflix

Some might consider her ways meddling, especially in a show where people take their time to make any decision, including what to cook for dinner or whether to have a bath, but Seina never acts with malice. When Shion asks her out on a date early on his stint, Seina denies the strapping fellow, not because she isn't interested (because...who wouldn’t be), but because she's aware her roommate Tsubasa has feelings for him.



One of Seina's best qualities is her supportiveness of the women on the show. She's forever teaching them to believe in themselves. But she'll help the guys, too; her relationship with OG hopeless housemate Tecchan is particularly touching. Since she's usually older and wiser than most of the Terrace House members, Seina initially intimidates people, but eventually draws them in with sage, considered advice and genuine affection. She tells it like it is, even if they don’t want to hear it, because Seina knows it's in their best interest.

Netflix

But that's not to say she doesn't have her own vulnerabilities. Remember when she asks Shion if he’s slept with Tsubasa? Yes, they’d done the “couples dance,” he responds, before countering with a (rather rude) question about whether she'd had plastic surgery on her recent trip away. Sporting some massive glasses, she neither confirms nor denies it; rather, she admits that she’s forever trying to slow the aging process, before closing the conversation with her signature nasal laughter.

All this makes the quadruple-timer sound pretty dry, right? Well, pun intended, because she’s anything but. Seina is also the self-confessed lush of Terrace House—she loves wine as much as she loves designer labels, and is happy to drink in company or, iconically, alone.

Netflix

Seina refuses to be categorized: On a relatively conservative show, she’s the well-mannered party girl, getting to know everyone socially but refusing to pursue her crush, Noah, until he stops dating Yui. She’s also sex positive and forward as hell; while simply holding hands is a sign of a relationship on Terrace House, this season Seina became the first housemate in the show’s history to take someone home on camera after a date. (By "home," I mean to a motel, and by someone I mean Noah, her now boyfriend.) To that I can only say, go girl.



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This is why Seina-san, a true reality TV legend, can swan back into the show during Christmas dinner and requisition a specific seat at the house's table. Not because it’s a “selfish request” like she humbly claims, but because she’s the motherloving queen of Terrace House. The top spot at the table is her much-deserved throne. Even in that one move, she manages to do what she does best: Make an entrance, have a drink, offer reserved Ami some reassurance, and relocate Shion next to love interest Tsubasa so they can confirm a date. Mere minutes into her reappearance, taking her rightful place as the catalyst on a show (allegedly) about nothing, Seina Shimabukuro proves she is everything.

Stephanie Van Schilt Stephanie Van Schilt is a writer and the host of Sisteria podcast.

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