Maehara Shinobu is a 14-year old (originally 12 in the manga) schoolgirl who, after a bad start in which Keitaro lied about being in Tokyo University and his later failed attempts to make it up to her, develops a crush on Keitaro Urashima (or Senpai – a Japanese term for senior – as she calls him). Shinobu is also a boarder at the Hinata Inn, in room 201.
In the anime, she is first introduced as a grieving girl who has run away from home due to domestic turmoil; however, in the manga, she is already at the Hinata Inn when Keitaro arrives and her parents are still together.
She is quite skilled in both cooking and household chores — her family once owned a restaurant in town prior to their divorce (the divorce does not actually occur in the manga, merely a feud). Quiet and shy, she is overly caring of other's feelings and this contributes to her own emotional frailty. She is the first girl to fall for Keitaro. In both the anime and manga, she thinks highly of Keitaro and will often be at the verge of tears when she thinks that he is in trouble or likes someone else. Towards the end of both the manga and the anime, it becomes unclear whether she wishes for Keitaro to be with Naru or herself. Apparently, she just wants him to be happy and it seems like she is always trying to persuade herself that it shouldn't be really important for her with whom he eventually will gain his happiness (whether it will be Naru or Shinobu herself). Such kind of permanent struggle with herself makes Shinobu's role dramatically saturated, so much so that it can be considered more tragic than that of Mutsumi (and, probably, the most tragic one of all). Some thoughts of possible resemblance of the stated roles (Shinobu's and Mutsumi's) can be reinforced by the fact that in Love Hina Again, episode 3, it was Shinobu who deliberately lost to Naru a game of rock-paper-scissors with Keitaro as the prize, while in the manga, it was Mutsumi who lost her game to Naru in a similar way (when they were in Hinata Inn being children).
Shinobu's closest friend may be Su, although she is not above bashing Kaolla for her mean jokes at times. (In the anime, Kaolla got bashed over the head by Shinobu's hot water flask when the former was playfully imitating a telco officer claiming that the number to the Hinata Inn was no longer in use during Keitaro's call.)
One possible reason Shinobu has a crush on Keitaro is they actually have somewhat similar personalities, particularly in the manga where she bears the brunt of much embarrassing humor.
Up until the last issues of the manga, she is the only girl, aside from Kanako, that never beat Keitaro up for anything – in issue 13, though, she smacks him with a frying pan, so she could hold him captive aboard one of Molmol's Air Force ships that was under the command of Su and Kitsune, which had Naru kidnapped (Keitaro was aboard to try and rescue her). In the manga's tenth volume, Shinobu does go on a date with Keitaro, after she wishes that if she gets the highest grade on an exam he will go on a date with her. Shinobu ends up getting very low grades, but Keitaro goes on a date with her anyway. Shinobu gets drunk after drinking the wine that Keitaro has. While drunk, Shinobu kicked Keitaro in the legs (his foot was broken at the time) in a very Su-like manner. At the end of the date Shinobu kisses Keitaro and tells him that she really likes him and that she will do her best to fulfill her dreams.
Also in volume 9, Shinobu ends up trying to be like Naru. She grows her hair out, dresse like Naru originally did when studying, and even put wire in her hair to give her "antennas" like Naru's. Also, when Shinobu and Keitaro are studying, Naru interrupts them in a similar way as how Shinobu interrupts Naru and Keitaro when they are studying.
At the end of the manga, Shinobu is in her second year of Todai, and has developed Naru-esque violent tendencies. This is seen by the first appearance of Ema, that mirrors Keitaro's arrival to Hinata Inn (she was hidden in the bath springs when Shinobu comes to take a bath).
In the manga, she was rated the #2 most popular girl by the readers. However, she became the #1 most popular years after the manga was released.
