Wakaba Shinohara was called an "onion head" when she was little.
Her mother told her that she was the princess of the Onion
Kingdom. This bit of information tells a lot about Wakaba's personality.
She is possibly the most normal character in the series, even
though she can be pretty weird at times. She has been
Utena's friend ever since they were little (so I hear) and
she often jokingly refers to herself as Utena's girlfriend. Wakaba's
claim to fame is her strange habit of attacking Utena
near open windows. Whether to show her affection or to "pay
Utena back" for something she did, Wakaba is constantly jumping
onto her friend's back and almost causing her to
fall out of windows. Utena also carries Wakaba around on her
back a lot. At the
beginning, Wakaba has a quite obvious crush on Saionji, and
a letter she wrote to him that he tacked up on the wall
prompted Utena's first duel. Wakaba is very well-versed in
who's who at Ohtori Academy, and she serves to help the audience
become familiar with the characters. She brings Utena back
to her senses after Touga destroys her confidence, and she pretty
much tries to protect her friend against anyone trying to hurt her.
Later in the Black Rose Saga, Wakaba sneaks the expelled Saionji
into her dorm, where he is actually very nice to her (!) He even
carves her a leaf hair clip, but when
she sees it in Anthy's hair she gets very mad. She goes
to see Mikage at Nemuro Memorial Hall to get help. There, she
becomes a Black Rose Duelist, and
returns to her room to draw Saionji's sword from his chest so she can
duel Utena and kill Anthy, the girl who "stole Saionji-san's heart." Utena
is very not happy with the situation and manages to cut
the rose from Wakaba's chest without having to really
fight her. The next day, Wakaba is back to normal. Wakaba
is always around after that, helping Utena move into Akio's tower
(mostly to ogle Akio) and doing homework with her. She has no clue
about the duels or what happened when she was a duelist, but
that's probably for the better.