A list of people who's pretty much an important part of Sanosuke's life:

Sanosuke absolutely looks up to this rurouni, especially because Kenshin was responsible for helping him get over his grief and desire for revenge, and find happiness in life. Since Kenshin was a great swordsman and fighter, and probably the first to defeat Sanosuke in a fight, Sano has great belief that Kenshin will come out of every fight victorious, and tries to prove to Kenshin as well that he's a strong and valuable member of the Kenshin-gumi. They're also the most popular yaoi pairing for fans in the RK series.^^; I prefer the standard pairings for RK (Kenshi-Kaoru and Sanosuke-Megumi), but I've read some pretty good Sano-Kenshin fics before; possibly because Sanosuke is the epitome of the macho man, and Kenshin looks a bit like a female.^^

Sanosuke admired Souzo greatly, and followed him as a teenager when Souzo led the Sekihoutai. After their betrayal, Souzo was killed trying to protect both him and Tsunan. Afterwards, Sanosuke took Souzo's last name as his own, in the only way he knew to keep Souzo alive in his memory. Souzo will play an important part in Sanosuke's training during the Kyoto arc.

There's nothing really substantial that spells out their actual relationship in the series, but there's enough hints and implications that show that they at least like each other, and they try to hide it through their cat-and-dog (fox-and-rooster?) arguments. They argue a lot, probably because they hated each other on first sight; Sanosuke thought she was responsible for the death of one of his friends, and Megumi was miffed at his callousness towards her. Nobuhiro hints that there's something going on between Megumi and Sanosuke, but he doesn't bring it to light throughout the whole RK series, which sucked de gozaru yo. There've been a couple of instances where they're sweet on each other though.

Case 1: Back during the Oniwabnshuu taking Megumi captive. Sanosuke stops her from killing herself when she thought the Kenshin-gumi was killed because of her, then proceeds to tell her off, while she looks up at him with a look on her face as if she's seeing him for the first time ^^ After Megumi goes to work as Dr. Genzai's assistant, Sanosuke mutters something about her, and then blushes and tries to act nonchalant. Everyone starts grinning, as if they just figured something out, and Megumi just smiles.

Case 2: 12th anime episode, "Lady Megumi to the rescue". A fraud doctor tries to make Megumi turn out to be a quack, and Sanosuke rushes hotly to her defense. When the whole matter was settled, Megumi goes back to healing her patients while Sanosuke nods off, standing outside her door. His friends comment, "There's some things that even a good doctor can't cure, and Sanosuke's got it." An implication that Sanosuke likes Megumi. It's enforced when Megumi calls out later on that she can try to cure anything, "as long as it isn't love sickness." Doesn't take a rurouni to figure this one out.

Implied or not, the Sanosuke-Megumi pairing is popular and probably only second to the Kenshin-Kaoru pairing. In fact, there's this funny song in the RK music CD, "Two of a Kind" where Megumi tells Sanosuke off for his vices, and Sanosuke tries to defend himself poorly.^^

Sano thinks of her as his little sister somewhat; he was the first to call her Jou-chan. He teases her a lot much in the same way Yahiko does, and he loves her like a sibling. Nothing in the series said anything about their friendship going farther than that (although in the anime, Kaoru thought that Sanosuke liked her because he gave her a gift, but that was because he thought it was her birthday), but even if Sanosuke had any feelings for Kaoru he'd back off in respect to Kenshin, as he knows what both of them feels for each other. And Kaoru's obviously in love with Kenshin, not Sanosuke.^^

Partners in crime. These two are always the first to scrounge up trouble, and when they're doing something together, they almost usully do find themselves in predicaments. Both have the same attitude; they like Kaoru, but they show it to her by teasing her mercilessly. They both like to eat, and will fight for every scrap of food that Kaoru didn't make. They both want to prove their worth to Kenshin, although Yahiko's more obvious about it than Sanosuke. And they're always sticking their noses in where they don't belong, and thinking up things that sound plausible, but really isn't when put into action; like when they spied on Misao, Kaoru, Megumi, Tae an Tsubame when they went out into town, thinking that they were holding out some food on them, and getting in trouble with the local yakuza in the process.

Misao's a bit much like Yahiko, nd these two can come up with the worst possible ideas as well; the only difference is, Misao sides with Kaoru, so sometimes they're at odds with each other. Sanosuke isn't really very close to Misao during the Kyoto arc and the Revenge arc in the manga series, but they got pretty close during the fillers after the Kyoto arc in the anime series. They're not exactly a romantic pairing either; Misao has her eyes set on Aoshi Shinomori, and she's almost as bad at it than Kaoru.

Aoshi and Sanosuke aren't really close; they won't usually have anything in common to talk about in the anime, and it's only later in the manga series before any real interaction between these two take place.

Tsunan had known Sanosuke since they were kids; they both served in the Sekihoutai, and both were the only surivors of the Sekihoutai massacre. Tsunan makes bombs (though he claims he is no longer in that business) and is an editor-in-chief of a newspaper, but he is also good with painting (wood blocks). Tsunan probably knows best how Sanosuke thinks and acts.

This two dislike each other; Saitoh attacks Sanosuke on their first meeting and beats him pretty bad, so Sanosuke is nursing a grudge against him on that. Sanosuke doesn't trust him; Saitoh's an ally, but not a friend. Saitoh couldn't care less; he thinks Sanosuke's just an inexperienced kid trying to prove himself, and he gave Saitoh the name Roosterhead / Chickenhead / Tori Atama. As they fight together though, most of Sanosuke and Saitoh's dislike for each other sort of ebbs, especally after the Kenshin and Saitoh battle, when Saitoh was apparently killed in the ensuing explosion. Sanosuke understands that Saitoh does only what he believes in: Aku Zoku San. Saitoh still thinks Sano's a Chickenhead, but concedes that Sano has good potential as a fighter. Oddly enough, the Saitoh-Sanosuke yaoi pairing has a large number of yaoi supporters; maybe cause of the "Opposites attract" notion.

This one leaves no room for doubt; Sayo dislikes Sanosuke at first, but in the end she likes Sanosuke and tells him so. Sanosuke on the other hand, is confused about Sayo right from the start; after meeting her for the first time, he keeps her necklace and looks at it from time to time. It's obvious that he likes Sayo too. It was too early to go past the "I like you" phase in their ' relationship', and if the events of the Amakusa arc in the anime did not conclude as it did (spoilers warning), both may have fallen in love with each other, which is bad for Sanosuke-Megumi fans, and a lot of Megumi fans do NOT like Sayo at all. Personally, Sayo isn't really the villain in the triangle; she's uppity in some ways, but that was how she was raised to act, and she starts to thaw after meeting Sanosuke. Also, the Sayo-Sanosuke relationship was able to do in a few episodes what the Sansuke-Megumi relationship had not been able to do the entire series, which is very frustrating for the Sanosuke-Megumi fans as well, although hope for the latter couple continues after the story arc finishes.

Sayo by the way, does not appear in the RK manga; only in the anime series.

For a smart entrepreneur of the Akabeko, she's pretty lenient in letting Sanosuke get away with all the free food, even though she knows he probably won't be able to pay him back. She'd like Sanosuke to pay up, but she's still nice to him about it. She probably does it because he helped her kick out some rowdy goons the first time he ate in the Akabeko. Spoilers.



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