Kanata Kitami is the male protagonist of the romantic comedy anime series Marika's Love Meter Malfunction. He is a high school boy who finds himself in an extraordinary situation, driven by his long-standing, unrequited feelings for his popular childhood friend, Marika Chitose. Described as a kind-hearted but timid and self-perceived unpopular student, Kanata has been in love with Marika for years but has never been able to muster the courage to confess his feelings, believing she is far out of his league.

The central event that defines Kanata's role in the story occurs when he makes a wish upon a shooting star. In a moment of desperation, he wishes for the ability to understand the affections of others, specifically hoping to see people's love for him manifested in a way similar to a dating simulation game. This wish is granted, and he awakens with the supernatural ability to see floating, numerical "love meters" or "affection meters" above the heads of all the women around him, from his classmates to his own mother. This ability becomes the central gimmick of the narrative, driving his actions and the comedic misunderstandings that follow.

Kanata's motivation throughout the series is twofold. Primarily, he is determined to decipher the confusing information provided by his new power to finally win Marika's heart. However, his wish immediately backfires in a way he could not have anticipated. When he looks at Marika's love meter, expecting to see a high number reflecting her famously kind behavior toward him, he is horrified to find that it is not just low, but appears completely broken, showing an extreme negative value or a melted, sludge-like display. This malfunction leads him to mistakenly believe that she harbors intense hatred or disgust for him, creating a painful paradox with the gentle and caring way she treats him in person. His secondary motivation becomes solving the mystery of Marika's contradictory signals, a quest that forms the emotional core of the plot. Unbeknownst to Kanata, the meter's malfunction is actually caused by the opposite of what it shows: Marika's love for him is so overwhelmingly powerful and obsessive that it has caused the supernatural meter to short-circuit and crash.

Regarding his key relationships, the most significant is with Marika Chitose, his childhood friend and the object of his affection. She is popular, beautiful, and the class idol, which is the primary source of his insecurity. In his attempts to navigate his romantic life using the love meters, Kanata also becomes entangled with other female classmates. These include Sayuki Toyotomi, an aloof girl who gives off a troublemaking vibe, and Kokona Mikasa, a cheerful girl who loves romantic comedies. As the story progresses, he begins to see their affection levels fluctuate, complicating his singular focus on Marika and pulling him into various awkward and comedic situations.

Throughout the series, Kanata experiences a gradual development. He starts as a boy who relies entirely on an external, supernatural crutch to interpret human emotion. While he is initially clumsy and confused by the meters, he slowly gains a better understanding of how they work and how his interactions with others can influence the displayed numbers. His personal challenge is to reconcile the data from the broken meter with Marika's real-world actions. This forces him to look beyond the superficial reading and learn to trust his own observations, with the ultimate goal of finding the courage to act on his genuine feelings rather than solely on his magical power.

In terms of notable abilities, Kanata's defining trait is the supernatural power to see love meters. This manifests as a visual indicator above a person's head that quantifies their level of affection or romantic interest in him. He is able to see these meters only above women, a limitation that is immediately established. Kanata is also described as having brown eyes and brown hair cut to ear-length, with a typical teenage physical appearance.