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Main Characters
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Shun Takahata
- Portrayed by: Sota Fukushi
A boy who found boredom in his everyday life, and always seemed to love the thrill of adrenaline. Due to an unexpected turn of events, he ends up getting into a deadly game and is forced to keep his wits about him as he navigates through each bloody, messed up game.
- Anti-Hero: Over the course of his journey, he's become more and more bent on trying to defeat Kamimaro; not only because of what he did to his world and to his allies, but also because he's singlemindedly focused on taking him down for his own pleasure.
- Fingore: As a bored young boy, he curiously stuck his finger into a turning bicycle wheel, and it was severed at the knuckle. Although it was reattached successfully, a severed-finger motif occasionally shows up, likely symbolizing his desire to break free of the boring life he'd led.
- Badass Normal: Out of the main four, Shun is the least physically impressive which isn't bad when the others' achievements are taken into consideration. Even further than that, however, is Shun has never expressed a desire to become a God. He has always wanted to remain a Human and emphasized he has no need for a God. This stands out even more when every other player in Judgement Old Maid expressed a desire to be God (other than the already Godly Kamimaro or Hanna, who could not talk). Even further from a narrative standpoint, he remains the only Normal of the main four since he is the only one who does not become a God, ending his run in the game as a human.
- Cartwright Curse: Both of his love interests die in the games (one of them without him even knowing), which also fuels his anger towards Kamimaro.
- Character Development: Shun goes from an incredibly shy and justifiably scared teen in part 1 to a very cold and determined adult with Blood Knight tendencies.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Rather than take the opportunity to put down his cards and ascend to godhood, he blows himself up instead and brings down Kamimaro in the process (because Takashi has an explosion card and Kamimaro's card reflects the consequences of the person adjacent to him). With a life that defined boredom for him, his death is no less than how he would have wanted to go out.
- Heartbroken Badass: After the first round of games, he became this. His crush ended up dying at the end of the Urashima Tarou segment, and had to be reminded of her when her twin appeared during the Sports Festival segments.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Kamimaro says to Shun that the two are remarkably similar and Shun might have just become another Kamimaro. The only difference between the two, or so Kamimaro says, is that Shun expected something out of himself and Kamimaro did not. What helped this mindset is Shun formed bonds that Kamimaro did not.
- Small Town Boredom: Like any kid, he's utterly bored with his life, lamenting that nothing ever happens where he lives. Well isn't he in for the surprise of his life...
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: After all he's been through on Part 1, Shun has made it his life's mission to kill Kamimaro once and for all. Before he and Kamimaro die, he emphasizes that Kamimaro gave him so much and that Kamimaro is his only God and the one he will kill.
- Villainous Respect: In an odd way, Shun has this relationship with Kamimaro. Killing Kamimaro became his life's goal and he's thankful to Kamimaro for killing his boredom. Shun promises to be Kamimaro's friend in Hell.
- Worthy Opponent: In the end, Kamimaro does find Shun's tenacity amusing, and is downright pleased to be able to die alongside him in the Old Maid game.
Takeru Amaya
- Portrayed by: Ryunosuke Kamiki
- Abusive Parents: His mother's new squeeze regularly beat him while she stood by and drank. She hadn't wanted him, after all.
- Ax-Crazy: As you can see from this page, he's not exactly the most stable person in the room. His movie counterpart is even less mentally sound, and twice as cruel.
- Genius Bruiser: He'd be less scary if he were actually Dumb Muscle. As it is, he's fiercely intelligent and observant.
- Go Out with a Smile: Gives a self-satisfied grin before his timer runs out and he explodes in a shower of blood.
- Godhood Seeker: From the beginning, he pretty much thought he was destined for greater things, and longed to become a god. Come Part II, and he's gotten his wish.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Shun. The last battle really exemplifies it, since most of his memories have to do with how much Shun excited him over the course of the games and how broken he is inside after his death. He would also grope his crotch whenever Shun said or did something that truly excited him. Before Amaya became God and Shun showed he understood Amaya, Amaya says he loves Shun.
- The Lancer: Shun's right hand in later schemes, and always beside him in II.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: The kid flings Helicopter Propellers around like they were nothing. That being said he is fairly muscular, just not as much as you'd think he'd be to do some of the feats he's able to do in this manga. Another example is catching a giant blade with his teeth alone. He also jumped rope by himself for two hours straight without stopping with super fast rope swings and continued to jump just fine when the things holding the rope picked up the pace.
- Self-Made Orphan: He killed his mother and father himself when he was a child.
- Token Evil Teammate: By and large the most morally bankrupt of the five survivors and the main characters, and largely looks out for himself. And he ends up being the final opponent of the story - after gaining godhood, he begins using his power for destruction, forcing Akashi and Ushimitsu to stop him with their godhood.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: In the second part, he doesn't even bother wearing a shirt.
Yasuto Akashi
The Protagonist of Part 2.
After a heated argument with his best friend Aoyama, Akashi storms off from class and ditches school... and in good time too, because of the god games going around. However, his good fortune only lasts until nightfall, where he and several other children not attending school for whatever reason are whisked away to a "remedial class". Thus begins his own adventures in the games...
- Achievements in Ignorance: How he frames punching Sein Kami so hard that Sein went flying. It was just part of the rock, paper, scissors, and Akashi played rock.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Adopts Aoyama's "Beef or Chicken" mantra in order to keep going on during the games.
- Cartwright Curse: Every single love interest the boy had while the games went around had died. The only person who loved him romantically that didn't die was Ushimitsu, and Akashi doesn't swing that way.
- Character Development: The Akashi that debuts is whiny, bad at explaining things, judgmental, and not as focused on saving others. Akashi develops into someone who can explain the games well to others, bold, open minded, determined, and focused entirely on saving others. He goes from a "Chicken" to "Beef" as time goes on. A good example is during the Oni game, not everyone understands what he is saying. Towards the end of the series, everyone understands his explanations. If they don't, it's more due to them thinking he's lying and trying to survive over them.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Akashi deconstructs Chronic Hero Syndrome, All-Loving Hero, The Power of Friendship, and The Paragon. Many people tell Akashi he shouldn't be nice to Amaya and should stop him, but Akashi still tries to save Amaya. Akashi constantly goes out of his way to save as many people as possible, only to be heartbroken when he fails. He becomes more of a Paragon to people as he goes on in the games, but how much does that matter when everyone is dead and he can't truly bring them back? How good is it to be a Chronic Hero when everyone dies around you and it truly is to your detriment when the only thing keeping your husk of a body pushing is the feelings of friendship you obtained from people you can never bring back? When Akashi has lost his memories of most of his friends, he is at a loss as to what to do because the world can't even save him when he tried to save it. Ushimitsu also points out that when Akashi has forgotten everyone, Akashi is a being that only fights for others. When Akashi has further even lost memories of himself but is being dragged forward by the feelings his dead allies gave him, Ushimitsu describes him as no longer human. A True God, in the most heartbreaking way possible.
- Determinator: He's eager and willing to save as many people as he can, when he can. This doesn't just extend to others— he's doggedly determined to see things out to the end, even if it costs him, as we see during the knockout game with Amaya.
- The Hero Dies: He finally kicks it in the last couple of chapters of the manga. To be technical, he died a little before that, given he was just a moving husk by that point.
- Heroic Willpower: In the final battle, it's the only thing that gets him through his fight with Amaya. Despite the beat-down Amaya gives him and all the memories he lost, Akashi keeps his body going so he can finally defeat him.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Played with with Ushimitsu. While Ushimitsu has outright said he loves Akashi, Akashi does not return it in that way. They have kissed in the manga, but it's more for strategy but Ushimitsu wanted more. Ushimitsu has always been upfront about it and even mounted Akashi while clothed when being lifted into the sky after one of the games.
- Multistage Teleport: His Tomfoolery allows him to teleport to wherever he kicks his soccer ball.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: In the reset timeline, the new Akashi is chosen by Ushimitsu to kill him and take his place as God, and he hasn't given any leeway to the idea at all. He's just dead set on Akashi rising to the challenge as he had before.
- The Paragon: Doesn't start out like one but through his constant Character Development he inspires a ton of characters to stop being scared and fight back. Amaya himself says this of Akashi when he begins beating on Akashi during the memory game because Akashi is at a loss for words because he can't revive anyone, emphasizing that not even Yasuto Akashi can save the day this time.
- Undying Loyalty: By the end of the manga he and Ushimitsu trust each other more than anyone in the world.
Kiyoshirou Ushimitsu
A mysterious young man who takes a shining to Akashi during the Kamiculum. Interested in the impact a person can leave on this earth, he aims to watch as others shine their brightest and hardest in dangerous situations.
- Achievements in Ignorance: During the 7x7 School Mysteries event, everyone relied on quick wits and their chosen weapon to at least help them survive. The challenge is in fact based around your choices and the limits of each item. Ushimitsu chooses to participate after Harakai hurts Akashi, forcing himself onto a team. Harakai is not there and ordered his team members who did participate this round to kill Akashi if they see him. Ushimitsu, Akashi-adjacent and the biggest threat on Akashi's team, is stabbed by one of them and the stabber dies because of the rules of the game. A monster shows up to explain said rule (you can not use weapons on other players) and Ushimitsu uses his weapon, a one use katana, to kill said monster. Ushimitsu, super pissed off about being stabbed AND not finding Harakai there to exact revenge upon, runs off screaming about how mad he is. He is next found fist fighting one of the monsters, Purple Old Maid, to the death. He ends up killing it with his bare hands, a feat no one else had done or will do. And all because he was pissed off and needed to relieve some stress.
- Arc Symbol: Stars and space in general. He liked to study astronomy back when he was friends with Roku-chan, his Tomfoolery has him up in space, and he likes to refer to people's potential as stars.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: Out of the three boys who got imbued with the Power of the Gods, he was the only one who got to keep them since both Amaya and Akashi kicked it after the battle ended. With them out of the way, he's now the God of the universe.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: The guy is practically superhuman, even before he gets his Tomfoolery powers.
- Geek Physiques: When he first meets Roku, he was a tall, skinny nerd with Nerd Glasses. Later hangouts led him to shed this for a leaner and more muscular body.
- Genius Bruiser: Started out as just a genius, albeit a very tall one, but worked out like a fiend to get where he is today.
- A God I Am Not: He does get his creation powers, but he barely uses them after he wins the last game. At the very most he just resets time to just before everything went to hell, but other than that he stays in the control room, merely watching as everything unfolds and rarely stepping in.
- Go Out with a Smile: Attempts to do so when he's about to be bombarded with missiles during the Demon Extermination arc, but his Tomfoolery activated just in time for him to dodge.
- Incompatible Orientation: He falls in love with Akashi fairly early, and though it's passed off as a joke the first couple of times, it's shown he really means it. Akashi, however, is straight, so he doesn't feel the same way.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Encourages Akashi to pursue Natsumegu at times.
- The Lost Lenore: Obviously Akashi, but he also had sex for the first time with a woman named Moemi during Kamiculum. When she dies in a cruel twist of fate, he mourns her loss more than he's mourned pretty much anyone else's. Not even mentioning stars or any of his typical stuff.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: The kid goes toe-toe with Lily and Amaya who are both Lightning Bruisers.
- Noble Demon: At first he seems like a copy of Amaya, but it soon develops that he has his own set of morals, most notably a great deal of respect for people who live and die with courage and nobility.
- No Place for Me There: After getting his creation powers, he believes himself unworthy of them since he feels he's not a truly good person like Akashi, and doesn't want to live in a world without the one he loves. Since he can't actually bring him back, he reverses time so that (presumably) he can rig the tournament in Akashi's favor.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Thank you for attending", a line he says whenever his opponents have the misfortune of attending his Tomfoolery, Planetarium.
- Raging Stiffie: He has one a few times throughout the story, to the point he thinks one of the factors to activate his Tomfoolery is having one. It's not, it's when he fully smiles with joy. Which ties into his flashback where he struggled with smiling.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Although he flirts with girls and sleeps with one at the start of the tournament, he quickly becomes Akashi-sexual and stays that way.
- Suicide by Cop: Ushimitsu's ultimate long-term goal at the end of the game, now that he's ascended to godhood.
- Tragic Keepsake: Roku's skateboard, which is his most prized possession. Symbolically, when he finally lets Roku go, his skateboard (now worn and overused thanks to his Tomfoolery) breaks in one last usage of Planetarium.
- Undying Loyalty: By the end of the manga he and Akashi trust each other more than anyone in the world.
- When He Smiles: For the majority of the manga he's usually seen with a frown on his face, but never outright smiling. But the manga makes a point of when he gives genuine smiles, especially during the Demon Extermination arc, where his Tomfoolery activates when he smiles for real.
Antagonists
The Gods
Tropes applying to all:
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: They don't quite see their creations as "people", per se; more like toys or amusing programs to mess with. In Kamimaro's case, he just felt detached from humanity from the get go. In Mana's case, since she can create and manipulate earths as she pleases, she has a point.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Entirely possible Sein Kami and Mana are in invoking this trope, since they mention that this is just what they chose to look like in this universe. This is in fact a lie however, as they are technically human children who've been Touched by Vorlons.
- It Amused Me: There wasn't really any special reason for them to be fucking with humanity or introducing them to creative powers beyond their wildest dreams. Sein and Mana just felt like doing it.
- Jerkass Gods: They all don't give much of a damn about humanity, and revel in the games as entertainment.
Kamimaro
- Archenemy: One could consider him to be this for Shun, as thanks to the games happening Shun's whole raison d'etre becomes killing him, they eventually learn that they share similar mindsets, and both are elated to die together.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Only in the sense that one of his kids who skipped school became God. Otherwise, he lost.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was just a regular human who was imbued with god powers by Sein Kami and Mana. However, he didn't actually want them, so the games were done in order to find a replacement DOHO.
- Disc-One Final Boss: We would love to say literally, but it's a manga. Shun and Amaya's confrontation with Kamimaro happens in the very last arc of Part 1, but their defeat only leads to landing in the middle of Part 2's ongoing story.
- Gasshole: Cheerfully farts whenever he feels like it. Just another layer of disgusting-ness.
- Lazy Bum: He got a stipend from his uncle, never left his apartment, and literally has no ambition or sense of morality or responsibility. Then he became God.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Kamimaro would have to be, considering that most of his games are the deadlier versions of children's games and school events.
- Stopped Caring: He'd basically dropped out of life entirely when Kami and Mana showed up on his doorstep.
- Tears of Joy: He cries heartily when Shun condemns him to death during Old Maid, as he's finally acknowledged the latter as a Worthy Opponent.
Sein Kami
- Arc Villain: Starts as the mastermind of Kamiculum, the first major arc of Part II.
- Kids Are Cruel: Unlike Mana, who acts more adult, Sein Kami looks and acts like a child and has a pretty childish mentality.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: During the Rock-Scissors-Paper match Sara takes her glasses off and lets her hair down in order to throw him off his game. He's just confused, and she figures that naturally a god would be above her charms...yeah, that's gotta be it.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: To the survivors of Kamiculum, he's not actually malicious. He gives them a taste of the powers they could possibly inherit as a god through Tomfoolery, and even gives them testing grounds to learn how to use it. But the test, like everything else in this series, is do or die, and he has them figure out how to beat it on their own before their tests kill them themselves.
Acid Mana aka "Anam"
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: As "Anam" she never had parents and so doesn't miss them, and is mostly concerned with having fun and being with her friends. Once all her friends are gone and she has nothing to do, out come the parallel earths and the "fun".
- Child Prodigy: Another colony ship lands on the planet she and the children were stranded on, containing every last bit of information about the earth. It takes 400 million years of study, but eventually she has a complete and utter understanding of the earth. Enough to recreate it perfectly, several times over.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Before her proper appearance in Part 2, she's briefly seen near the end of Part 1 in an alien costume before she blows up the room she's in.
- Exact Words: Her claims that she's not an alien are technically true, as she's a human being from a far-off future who ended up on a planet that kept her eternally young and gave her the power to create anything she wanted.
- Genius Loci: The planet she's on became a genius loci after children and their brain activity set foot on it, and wants to keep at least one of them resident and mentally active.
- Karma Houdini: From starting the games to killing her brother, she suffers no repercussions for her influence in the two parts and leaves our heroes' universe no worse for wear.
- Lack of Empathy: She has empathy...for her friends. But she doesn't have a trace of it for people on the numerous Earths she's made.
- Last of Her Kind: Unless someone on another colony planet made it, she's the last human anywhere. Well, apart from the ones she creates.
- Never Grew Up: The activity of children's minds gives the planet she's on sapience. Adult minds don't work, so the planet keeps her young and alive. She's fine with this, but she doesn't like being bored.
- Pet the Dog: One of her final actions was to allow the next-to-last survivor of her group the opportunity to reunite with perfect duplicates of his parents on an exact copy of the world they'd left behind over 400 million years ago, with no tricks or catches.
- Physical God: She's the last survivor of a group of kids who survived the crash of a colony ship on a world where Your Mind Makes It Real, and created a number of "earths" to occupy her time, including the one where the events of the manga take place.
- The Smurfette Principle: The only one of the gods that's at least in this universe a girl.
- Time Abyss: She (and the last of her friends) happens to be over 400 million years old.
- Touched by Vorlons: Bonded to a planet that than can create anything she desires.
- Truly Single Parent: Created Sein Kami so she'd have a little brother.
- The Unfought: While Kamimaro at the very least participates in one of the games and is attacked in the finale of Part 1, and Sein Kami gets his due from Akashi, no one thinks to challenge or fight Mana the same way.
Team Sunflower
Applying to all
- Arc Villain: Of the "Three Kingdom Cops and Robbers" arc, as the most experienced and deadly of the three groups that needed cooperation to take down.
Male-Female
- Broken Pedestal: When General Lily gave up on his ambitions, Male-Female was crushed, then furious.
- Facial Markings: Male-Female has a combined Venus-Mars symbol with the circle around his eye, marked in makeup. It's unclear what it, or even his chosen sobriquet, signifies to him.
Others
Allies
Part 1
Ichika Akimoto
- Portrayed by: Hirona Yamazaki
- Childhood Friend Romance: Towards the end of the second part she expresses a desire to not only help Shun kill Kami, but to go on a date with Shun in Harajuku. It has been shown in the manga that Ichika and Shun have been friends since childhood, and while romance might not have been there before, it seems the death games to some degree brought out already lingering feelings. Ichika is surprised and points out when Shouko refers to Shun by name and gives him the honorific "san" and seemed to form a more pronounced interest in Shun when he was revealed to be an adrenaline junkie like her. She describes a life without Shun to be boring, and her last request after admitting to herself that she loves Shun is to ask him to keep her heart pounding until the very end. Shun, for his part, seemed to return some of those feelings to a degree.
- Covert Pervert: Not only does danger turn her on, but when she found out Natsu-Megu wasn't wearing underwear, she immediately became creepily fascinated and started to pursue her.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The rush of adrenaline she gets from being in danger is a secret turn on for her, which she only admits in the later parts of Part I.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The group also includes Christopher Akimoto, who shares her last name.
- The Smurfette Principle: The one girl of the surviving group.
Yukio Sanada
One of the five survivors of the first round of Kamimaro's games. He used to be paired with his brother, but after his death Yukio joins Shun's group.- Ascended Extra: He becomes more prominent as a player during Part II's "Three Kingdoms Cops and Robbers" arc.
- Angsty Surviving Twin: Subverted. Even though his brother exploded right next to him, Yukio doesn't feel a thing about it. He says it's because his brother bossed him around all the time.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After the first round of games, he seemed to gel with the rest of the main group though he's not entirely friendly towards them.
- Sibling Team: With his twin brother, before the latter got turned to giblets. Best seen in the tug of war game.
Christopher "Crystal A" Akimoto
One of the five survivors of the first round of Kamimaro's games. He was first found transformed into a kokeshi doll, and joined Shun's crew after the boy saved him.- Back for the Dead: His first major appearance in Part II ends with him getting killed in Amanojaku Labyrinth.
- But Not Too Foreign: He has American heritage, and is half Japanese.
- Formerly Fat: And he'll brag about it, too! Since losing weight seems to have really helped him become an idol to the point sponsors are on his clothes once he becomes an idol.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. And it's for the better too, since Shun only saved him on the basis that he thought Ichika was the one in trouble.
Part 2
Seiichi Aoyama
- Death from Above: He loses the Pop-up-Pirate game after exiting Amanjaku Labyrinth, and as punishment he's crushed by the pirate's barrel. He at least has enough time to impart some final words onto Akashi and give him a smile before he dies.
- Decoy Protagonist: The entire first chapter is from his perspective, but ultimately cuts away to Akashi after his Daruma-san game was completed.
- Heroic BSoD: After surviving the first round of games, he became a mess. His idealism was crushed, his mind went blank, and he could barely recognize Akashi when they reunited in Portrait of Hell.
- Hero of Another Story: Despite not being present for much of the first arc, he's constantly mentioned by other contestants and Akashi gets periodic updates on what his best friend has done in his own Games.
Hoshikawa Mei
- Affectionate Nickname: Combined with Embarrassing Nickname. Depending on how she feels about Akashi at the moment, she uses Aka-shii when happy but Akasshi when frustrated.
- The Artist: Her sketchbook and love of art are used often, with her creating perfect portraits of dead comrades to help mourn them and her love of art tying into her origin. When everyone gets Tomfoolery powers that tie into some major facet of themselves, she gets the power of creation wit her art. She also had interest in making a book with her writing and drawing.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: When she debuted, she was interested in pretty much any guy around that had something. Akashi for being a hero, Ushimitsu for being a hero, or Ootori for having money. She was also drawn less cutely at first, but as time went on combined with Art Evolution she became cuter.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: One of Mei's more defining traits is her tendency to get super mad super quickly. If someone does something she couldn't stand she'd call them a demeaning nickname and treat them harshly. Sometimes this was justified, with her losing it at Toroi for his cowardice and still trying to make moves on her. Not even Akashi, the one she loves a lot and fantasizes about often, is exempt from this. She called him Smegma during the sand dredging game when she was pissed.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Technically how she dies, with one half of her body being eaten by an enemy.
- The Nicknamer: Gave a lot of people nicknames, including giving Natsumegu the nickname Nutmeg, and the nicknames for Akashi mentioned above.
- Rape as Drama: One of her teachers tried to take advantage of her and when she pushed him off of her, he begged her not to tell anyone. This completely broke her, and it didn't help that one of her classmates tried to say Mei came onto her teacher.
- Third-Person Person: She refers to herself in the third person a lot, usually tied to how much she hates something.
Chinatsu
- Character Development: About as much as she could get, given how little she was around. She started off calm and cool; not even looking up from her game during Sky-High Hopscotch. It didn’t take long for her to begin to panic and make poor decisions, which led to her being a puddle of blood on the ground later.
- Fan Disservice: The last time we see Chinatsu in full, the reader is treated to her cleavage, her long legs, her panties, and a little bit of her butt. At the same time, she’s reaching her hand up to grab onto anything, is screaming, and is very clearly terrified of the long fall that will inevitably kill her.
- Gamer Chick: When she’s first introduced, Chinatsu is absorbed in a puzzle game, and admits that she’s obsessed with them.
- Hidden Buxom: Her early appearances don’t emphasize that part of her figure, but as she gets more time in the spotlight, it becomes clear just how massive her boobs really are.
- Ms. Fanservice: Chinatsu has long legs, large breasts, exposed cleavage, and even gets a panty shot in at the end.
- Not Enough to Bury: Heavily implied. Judging by the results of another person who fell from Sky-High Hopscotch, it’s safe to assume that Chinatsu crashed into the ground and her body was mostly reduced to a bloody paste.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt: Wears semi-opaque tights under her sweater-dress.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: Her sweater-dress starts out high on her body, but by the time she dies, it’s barely covering her boobs.
"Shiner"/Shimura
- Butt-Monkey: Shimura doesn't seem to have any luck in this series. He starts out brainwashed, gets saddled into events he's in no way prepared for, and just when the universe gives him a break by having him be a crucial character in the "Three Kingdom Cops and Robbers" game, he ends up as the first of the final 13 to die by randomly picking a card.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: He turns out to be this in the Kamiculum arc, as the reason he'd been turned into Shiner in the first place was because he was hypnotized by the tattoos on Aikou's back.
- Cowardly Lion: His true self is rather meek and vulnerable, but when he has to do the right thing he'll do it.
- Rape as Drama: Averted in that it's never really brought up, but a scene of "Shiner" and Aikou together in bed nearly naked implies this. If anything happened between them, it was because Aikou was brainwashing the kid.
Hanna
- Elective Mute: She's capable of speaking, but one of the first cards she drew Kamimaro's final game was one that would kill her if she let out one peep. Her final words are a gesture of defiance.
- Fan Disservice: Hanna is a very attractive young woman, and during the Judgment Old Maid game, her breasts are groped while being forced to remain silent.
- And when her body is torn apart, some of her features can still be seen. Her face, her hands, and an outline of her breasts.
- Go Out with a Smile: Hanna gives everyone a confident and happy smile moments before she perishes.
- Modesty Shorts: Subverted. While she only has a pair of striped panties on under her skirt, they're boyshort panties, which cover much more than normal underwear.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's quite a looker and is in many scenarios that invoke this trope.
Natsumegu
- Character Development: Goes from a cold girl to one more willing to help and trust people.
- Death from Above: How she finally exits the story in the Three Kingdoms Cops and Robbers arc. The condition of the jail cell was that they needed to be rescued in a 24 hour period, and if they weren't, they'd be immediately killed. Since time was up just before she was rescued by Akashi, she ends up squished by the ceiling.
- Going Commando: Revealed in the sand scooping arc to not wear underwear under her skirt. This goes without saying for the rest of the games.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Averted. When she first appeared, she certainly looked and acted like someone who's just shittalking her way through the game, but it's not until after the sand-scooping competition that she reveals she's actually more than capable of what she says she can do and more.
- The Perfectionist: She used to be this. In fact, the reason she was even picked for the Kami Jr. classes was because she stopped coming to school after her perfectionist attitude alienated her classmates and left her on the day they needed to come together most.
Tenma
- Incompatible Orientation: Like so many people, Tenma develops feelings for Akashi, and spends her last words wishing to be born female in her next life.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Outed as male in Amanojaku Labyrinth. One of the rooms hides its key among wax statues of Tenma, and the goal was to find the one out of place representing the real person. Among all the idealized female figures, only one— the wax figure with a masculine physique and penis— ended up matching that description.
Toroi Akira
- Bishōnen Line: Inverted. When Toroi debuts, he is drawn in a much more serious style and looks older and overall a cool character. Once the games become horror themed he's drawn with much softer features and has much more wacky faces to go along with them.
- Character Development: Somewhat played with. He is introduced being a rather calm individual who provides a lot of support to everyone. When the next game is revealed to be a spooky school mystery event, he turns out to be a major cry baby who pisses his pants often. He even becomes suicidal, writing a heartfelt letter to the team about how he is sorry he can't help them. After getting told off by Mei, he does try to become a better man and seems to be motivated by his love for her. When he makes it to the final round of Kamiculum, he is the first up. He at first shows his cool side, then his cry baby side that pees his pants, but then musters up his courage to put out his hand after fighting off his fear. He loses and dies, but he does die changed from how he acted during School Mysteries.
- Foreshadowing: When the next game is revealed to be a horror themed one, he seems visibly uncomfortable. When a page shows what everyone is doing in their rooms, he is shown with his head in his hand and distraught. This is all foreshadowing to him outright admitting he can't participate because he's terrified.
- Hot-Blooded Sideburns: To go with his anime hair, Toroi has some wild sideburns. When he originally debuted it helped make him look more mature and cool, but when he becomes a more comedic character they help make his face look more haggard to go with his panic.
- The Leader: At least, at first. During sand dredging while Akashi and Nutmeg did most of the action for the team, great emphasis is placed on his direction and words. His calls are treated as something of great importance and he spends a lot of time posturing as a leader-like figure for his team. This ends around the time the horror games are announced but Toroi still tells everyone to go to bed and prepare. This truly fades one Toroi becomes a truly cowardly character which incidentally ties into Akashi's development into the leader-like figure he would be known to be later in the story.
Unrelated
Part 2
Roku
- The Lost Lenore: He died long before the games even started, but he fuels a lot of Ushimitsu's attitude and development.
- Manic Pixie Dream Guy: Served as one for Ushimitsu. Where the latter boy was reserved and weak, Roku showed him how to be more confident in himself and his interests and how to enjoy life.
- Tragic Bromance: Even if he had a wonderful time with Ushimitsu, he ultimately dies young, leaving Ushimitsu to mourn for years.
- Tragic Keepsake: His skateboard, which Ushimitsu uses to help activate his Tomfoolery late on.
