Manabu Maejima (前島 学, Maejima Manabu) is a student of 9th Grade Class 3 in 1998 in Yomiyama North Middle School. He's also a member of the Kendo club.

Manabu is a slightly tanned boy of well below average height, being the shortest boy in Class 3-3. He has black hair that is divided in the middle with several drooping locks and gray eyes.

He is only ever seen wearing the standard male uniform, with the gakuran slightly unbuttoned.

In the novel, Kōichi Sakakibara specifically describes him as being a "baby-faced warrior."

Manabu was one of the students who went on the class trip to the shrine, hoping to break the curse. He was present when Izumi Akazawa demanded that Mei Misaki apologize to the class, but like most of his peers, he did not weigh in on the situation. In "Makeup", when Kōichi walked towards the dining hall, Manabu grabbed his leg, begged for help, and told him of the fire in the dining room. Covered in blood with a massive wound on his back, Manabu had encountered Keiko Numata and just barely managed to escape the crazed innkeeper. Kōichi helped him get to safety, but was worried when the dining room exploded, afraid he might have left Manabu to die. Later in the episode, Kōichi speculates that Takako Sugiura had stabbed him. However, she comes up at that instant and denies it, saying it was "Probably that old crone."

In "Stand By Oneself", Manabu is one of the few students who gets out of the lodge, briefly shown in the backseat of Tatsuji Chibiki's car, and in the Yomiyama Hospital recovering from his stab wound and being visited by Yukito Tsuji, Yūya Mochizuki, Noboru Saruta, Kōichi, Matsuko Arita, and Daisuke Wakui.