Here is a list of characters from the manga Boy's Abyss.
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Main Characters
Reiji Kurose
The boy from that city
- Played by: Towa Araki
A high school-aged boy with aspirations to leave his birth town, though various circumstances such as a rough home life keeps him weighed down from leaving.
- Abusive Parents: Reiji's father used to be violent towards his family, especially Reiji and he left his family several years ago and hasn't talked to them since. His mother is even worse emotionally, as she groomed him to be as passive as he is now and planned on committing suicide with him.
- Child by Rape: Reiji's biological father, at least according to his grandmother, is his grandfather. Considering that he was already abusing Yuko when she was a young teenager, it's not too far a stretch to say he was sexually abusing her as well.
- Driven to Suicide: As early as the second chapter. He tries again twice after, and the second attempt put him in hospital.
- The Dutiful Son: Because his older brother Kazumasa is seemingly a screaming, violent Manchild and his mother is stuck taking care of both brothers and their grandmother, Reiji feels he should either stay in school to get a respectable job or stay in town to help his mother.
- Driven to Suicide: He tries to burn himself and Sakuko alive in Esomori's old house when Sakuko tells him she doesn't want to go back to her own home. Luckily, Saki caught him just before he dropped the match.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: As Reiji lay reeling from his knife wound and just before he slips into unconsciousness, he looks his mother dead in the eye and confesses that he hates her with every fiber of his being. This is after he realized that Yuko never loved him as a son at all.
- Grew a Spine: As the story grows on, Reiji gradually becomes less passive and is able to call out several toxic people in his life, as well as articulate why he interacted with others as he did.
- Hair Color Dissonance: A lot of color illustrations give Reiji ethereal white hair, but like his mother it's actually supposed to lean towards brown.
- Horrible Judge of Character: While eventually he gets to see through most of his social circle, he still works his way back to trusting Shibasawa completely, never even suspecting that she's scheming beneath his nose.
- The Last Straw: Reiji is normally a passive person, and even when he starts developing his independence he's never biting about it. When he's told by his grandmother that he's the product of Parental Incest from Yuko and his grandfather and that he and Yuko are monsters, however, he snaps; realizing that his grandmother was a major reason why Yuko ended up as twisted and broken as she is, he gives her a wry smile and politely tells her off.
- Like Parent, Like Child: As much as Reiji comes to hate how his mother acts, he slowly starts developing her old habits by the second half of the series — in particular, her self-destructive decisions to stay with anyone who wanted her no matter how toxic the relationship might be, if only because he Hates Being Alone.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Plays this for virtually every major character excluding Esomori. Even Nagi, who he thought wasn't using him, eventually revealed that she initially saw him as a substitute for dying with Esomori.
- Loving a Shadow: The Nagi that originally occupied his mind was the beautiful, mysterious woman that saves him from his social circle's emotional pressure, and definitely not the listless and emotionally numb person she actually is. Esomori has to spell it out for him in the mid-series, but it's not until Nagi apologizes for being alive while she's losing consciousness from her beatings that Reiji truly realizes she's another human being. The boy later admits that he never wanted to hear her reasons for dying if she had some, which would allow him to continue using her as his muse for suicide. Once he realizes this, he tells Nagi that he'd like to get to know her not as the angel of death she masqueraded as, but as the real Nagi.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Reiji gets all of his looks from Yuko, but his parentage is always called into question. Ultimately, Reiji surmises that it doesn't actually matter who his dad was, since he believes that Yuko would say the answer that would hurt the most just to isolate him from anyone not named Yuko.
- Meaningful Name: In-universe meaning this time; Reiji refers to "midnight", and Yuko desired to name one of her children after some part of the nighttime so she wouldn't be afraid of it.
- Not Actually His Child: While he's obviously the child of Yuko and another man and Reiji's father is explicitly stated to be his stepfather, the stepfather didn't know that since he was together with Yuko by the time Reiji was born. He was under the impression that Reiji was his son until Yuko outright reveals the truth to hurt him and Kazumasa. Meanwhile Yuko suggests that Reiji is Esomori's son, though this too is proven to be a lie. Played with in that Yuko could have just been lying about that, but said it to hurt Mr. Kurose.
- Pinball Protagonist: Outside of a few plans, he doesn't set much, if any of the plot in motion, with the rest of his supporting cast self-destructing around him. This is deliberate, as him being passive was exactly what Yuko wanted, and the people surrounding him are far more experienced at making plans.
- Pretty Boy: Many characters comment on how he looks like his mother, and just as many talk about how good-looking and delicate he is.
- Replacement Goldfish: Reiji serves as a replacement for Esomori, according to Yuko. Yuko in particular is terrified of being abandoned and not having a "light" in her life to love her and struggle with her. As a child, she almost achieved this with Esomori, but after a string of tragedies that ended in their fallout she later used Reiji as his emotional equivalent instead.
- Single-Target Sexuality: He has displayed slight interest in other girls before (if only physically), but when it comes to romance he has eyes for Nagi and only Nagi.
- Support Your Parents: At the beginning of the story, Reiji wanted to help a mother with his NEET brother, so a thought about leaving his small town never crossed his mind.
- Unwanted Harem: There are plainly three or so women who explicitly want him, one boy who is secretly pining for him, and at least one who's nonsexually grooming him. Once Reiji starts desiring a life of his own, he gets increasingly more anxious about the attention he's been attracting.
- You Remind Me of X: Nagi sees a lot of Esomori in Reiji. She didn't used to, but after his ordeals with Yuko, Ms. Shibasawa, and Sakuko, she puts off their double suicide because they seem too similar.
Nagi Aoe
Drowned Body
- Played by: Hirako Kitano
A member of the idol group Acrylic that Reiji and Sakuko are fans of. She eventually went on hiatus from her activities after getting secretly married and worked as a cashier in Reiji's town for a while, but resumed her idol career later on. Similar to Reiji, Nagi is listless and isn't sure what to make of her own life.
- Animal Motifs: She's compared to a betta fish, one of which she keeps as a pet in her room. Similarly to her, it's in an enclosure too small for it to thrive in, is kept alone and unattended for, and is literally called Nagi. Sakuko throws it into the river after she leaves Nagi's house, which frees it, but its fate is deliberately left unknown.
- Apologizes a Lot: When she mentally breaks, she curls up into a ball and helplessly apologizes for everything. This practice began when her uncle Mao redirects her suicidal tendencies into apologizing for being alive at all.
- Birds of a Feather: There are many panels where Nagi and Reiji are positioned to directly mirror each other. They both feel trapped by something, with death being seen as an escape. It is eventually confirmed that Nagi was also manipulated and controlled by her husband in a similar way to how Reiji is by his mother.
- Break the Cutie: In Chapter 159, Nagi finally sheds her mask of stoicism and suffers a severe emotional breakdown after being physically assulted by Shibasawa for getting near Reiji again, and is reduced to a perpetually sobbing mess who can only mutter non-stop apoligies while curling in the fetal position.
- Breakup Breakout: Implied to be the case after she gets back into idol work. Eventually, she breaks off from Acryllic and begins a gravure career which gave her enough notoriety to eventually land a acting gig. At least until Chako steps into the picture...
- Broken Bird: Not much is known about her past, but when asked why she wants to commit suicide, she simply says that she has no reason to live. She also confesses that she has never felt 'loved', even from the few fans she has. Her apologizing for being born likely has something to do with her listless outlook.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: Nagi's celebrity status is put into jeopardy after Chako exposes her marriage to Esomori to the press on top of hitting the terminally-ill writer with a False Rape Accusation. Along the way, the press ends up digging up dirt on Nagi, discovering that she used to do junior idol gravure before she ever joined Acryllic. This controversy rapidly turns all of Nagi's former fans against her and inevitably forces the studio of Acrylic to fire her for violating their contract. By the time everything is said and done, the only job offers Nagi is getting is from porn studios looking to capitalize on her infamy.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Nagi is a survivor of a destructive earthquake that occurred over a decade prior to the events of the story that killed her parents and wiped out her hometown. While her Uncle Mao arrived in the aftermath to seemingly take care of her as a guardian, the man turned out to be a manipulative scumbag who convinced Nagi that she herself was to blame for the death of her parents then pimped her out as a junior idol in Tokyo, where she was raped on a regular basis. After making a substantial profit sexually exploiting the minor, Mao fell in love with another woman and inevitably decided to abandon Nagi so he can get hitched without a guilty conscience...but not before blithely making the kid promise not to die alone after he's gone. According to Esomori in Chapter 160, this is the prime reason why Nagi became the Extreme Doormat of a person she is now, because her desperation to avoid isolation and feel truly loved for once means that she will latch onto anyone who can give her that feeling of being wanted and won't kill herself unless somebody is willing to die with her as well. Which would explain why Nagi was so furious to learn that Esomori wanted her to live instead of dying with him, as she perceived it as him abandoning her just like Mao did.
- Extreme Doormat: According to Esomori, Nagi is actually an extremely dark example of this. Due to the fact that she doesn't know how to live for herself, she will basically capitulate to any demand made of her until somebody else steps in to override that initial commitment. Even her Sexless Marriage to Esomori only happened in the first place because he basically asked her point blank to marry him, which Nagi accepted without a hint of resistance.
- Generation Xerox: She isn't related to the Kuroses at all, but she is very much a modern day version of middle school Yuko. Her parents didn't care for her, she didn't have a good home life, she's noted to be passive and go along with what others ask of her, and she was sexually exploited in her early teens, albeit as a junior idol in Nagi's case. Esomori picked up on this when he met her. Turns out to be a case of Not So Similar, as beyond these superficial similarities their personalities are worlds apart.
- Idol Singer: Or used to be, anyway. She quit when she got married to Esomori, but she returns to the business when she finally leaves town.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: In the brief moments we get of her inner thoughts, she mentions that she's jealous of Reiji because despite everything going on in his inner circle, he is loved and sought after by them. Nagi, however, has nobody like that in her life, and has mentioned that she never received love from her parents either.
- Ms. Fanservice: She is incredibly attractive, something that multiple characters had noticed.
- One Sided Rivalry: She's not in the plot for a significant amount of time, but the time she did have left such an impression on Reiji that every woman in his life could not compare. Yuri and Sakuko recognize her as someone that they'd lose to on a normal basis, and Yuko is enraged when she learns that he'd rather die thinking of Nagi than of her.
- Pimping the Offspring: Late in the story, she's revealed to have been a junior gravure model before she even hit puberty. The flashback going into detail about this makes it very clear that she was also forced to do sex acts instead of just taking racy pictures. She wasn't pushed into it by her parents, though; Mao, her new guardian, did this.
- Really 17 Years Old: She's listed as 18 years old in her idol profiles, but she's really in her twenties.
- Sexless Marriage: According to her, despite being married, she and Esemori never once had sex. They are so disconnected that he seemingly does not even notice when she leaves town and returns to being an idol.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The only thing of note she did for the story so far is have sex with Reiji and suggest that they can commit suicide together. However, those actions made Reiji realize he could do something with his life outside of other people's expectations of him, making him and every other person in his life start stepping out of their roles.
- Spanner in the Works: Esomori brought Nagi to town to throw a wrench in Yuko's life, by taking away her passive son's role in being groomed for her.
- Stage Name: Before she joined Acrylic, Nagi used to do gravure work as "Haru Nagisa" when she was a child. Her flashback also reveals she had another stage name, "Mayu", so she could have been changing it as often as every few years or even between projects.
- Stepford Smiler: It's hard to tell with her sometimes. She is often smiling softly, but it's clear that Nagi is filled with apathy and listlessness, compared by her husband to be like a drifting corpse.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: She's Reiji's obsession precisely because she doesn't want anything out of him. While she doesn't do much for him, admittedly, she's the sole person in his life who isn't pushing him towards a particular outcome and expects him to choose his future for himself. Characters like Sakuko do genuinely want to see him escape his toxic life, but Reiji realizes that there is a Secretly Selfish element to those desires compared to the pure apathy Nagi exudes.
Sakuko "Chako" Akiyama
Click here to see her after the time skip
- Played by: Miyu Honda
Reiji's childhood friend. A novel enthusiast who attends a private girls' school.
- Animal Motifs: Pandas. She often uses pictures of pandas for LINE stickers, has a panda themed backpack, and her buns evoke panda ears.
- Big Beautiful Woman: While Sakuko may feel insecure about her body, her physique itself is not a problem. A lot of generous spreads emphasize how big her chest and hips are thanks to the weight, and part of the reason her parents want her to keep working at the tea shop is because their regulars (mostly lonely middle aged and old men) come to the shop specifically for her. Subverted when she becomes thinner as a result of anorexia.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Likes Reiji and wants him to escape town with her, but while Reiji cares for her a lot, he isn't in love with her. Sakuko later admits that she was never in love with him in the early manga, but only grew attracted to him after she felt trapped in town.
- Cute Little Fangs: She has two very small fangs on the corners of her mouth. While they're most commonly seen in super deformed art of her, it appears she has them normally as well.
- Death Seeker: By the time she wakes up from her anorexia-induced collapse, Sakuko's developed a genuine desire to get away from all the things that she hates, wailing that she didn't die like she thought she would.
- Defiled Forever: Defied. One of the things she hates about Esomori's novels is an underlying theme that all of his heroines want to be corrupted and "stained", and tells him as much when she gives him her critique on his latest book.
- Does Not Like Spam: Halfway into the story, Sakuko develops a severe rejection of her family's cooking. There's nothing actually wrong with it, but after Sakuko began to doubt her own claims of staying in town with her family forever, she couldn't stomach anything her mother made anymore. It got to the point where she was passing out in class because she wasn't eating proper meals.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: She'd like to attend a college in Tokyo and has the grades to do so (with a recommendation from the teachers pending), but both of her parents intend for her to stay in town and finish her schooling there.The reason they initially give her is that they're afraid she'd be sexually assaulted in the city, but they also want her to help out in the family tea shop.
- Got Over Rape Instantly: Gen attempts to rape her when both are shacked up in Shibasawa's apartment. Sakuko is scared the whole confrontation, but she immediately gets over it when Reiji (who was trying to pull Gen off of her) promises to die with her in Tokyo.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Later chapters show Sakuko to be an extremely petty person when she's jealous. She even tries to pass the selfie she took with Esomori off as him having an affair, if only to get what she considers a one-up on the comparatively successful Nagi and to make any kind of mark on Esomori.
- Heel Realization: She's well aware that she hasn't been a good friend to Reiji, but after Shino'oka gives her a pep talk Sakurako realizes that Reiji is still in dire need of help that she cannot provide. She sadly mumbles for someone to save Reiji in her sleep.
- I Choose to Stay: Played for drama. After the disaster that was her and Reiji's elopement and Sakuko realizing that Reiji had zero hopes for leaving town, she decides to acquiesce to her parents' demands and stay in town, giving up her desire to move out after high school. Considering how toxic being there is for every named character, it can only mean the worst for her.
- I Just Want to Be Special: At the heart of Sakuko's worries is a desire to be like the dark and tragic protagonists of Esomori's books, rather than the drab and unattractive book nerd she thinks she is. She thinks she's achieved this when she loses weight and tries to commit suicide with Reiji in Tokyo, but Gen gives her a brutal reminder that she's still a "boring side character". When she learns that Yuko is the basis for all of Esomori's heroines and acknowleding that Yuko messed Reiji up in a lot of ways, Sakuko decides that she's fine with dying with Reiji if only because being related to the death of the son of the woman he loved would make him unhappy— and therefore, she'd make her mark on her favorite author.
- In-Series Nickname: "Chako", given to her because she's the daughter of a tea shop owner and as a reference to "pochako" ("chubby girl").
- Secretly Selfish: She does genuinely think Reiji needs to get out and take his life for his own, but she's adamant that she wants him to escape town with her. She also admits that her friendship with Reiji started out of pity, or more accurately schaudenfreude—remaining with a friend in objectively worse social circumstances gave her somebody to look down on.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Unfortunately for everyone, Sakuko thinks like the wrong kind of romance novel—Esomori's. She gets swept up in the idea of becoming like the tragic and complex figures in his books, and even ignores the fact that she made a suicide pact with Reiji and almost got raped because she thinks the situation will grant her the narrative she wants.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Sakuko always had some inner darkness in her, but it all lets loose after her plans to leave town crumble. She's more openly manipulative, spiteful, and willing to take advantage of Reiji.
- Weight Woe: One of the things that makes her insecure is her overweight body. She's been bullied for it from an early age, and while it's died down a little it still makes her upset. It only gets worse when she figures out about Reiji having sex with Nagi and getting attention from Shibasawa, as both are thin, attractive older women. She later develops an eating disorder, resulting in her losing a lot of weight and having to drop out of school. However, she takes a lot of pride in her new skinny form, saying that she's finally become beautiful when presenting herself to Reiji.
- You Remind Me of X: Esomori compares her to his first girlfriend. Evidence in flashbacks imply this girl to be the bookish and slightly chubby Shino'oka. On Shino'oka's—now Tokiwa's— part, she hardly sees any resemblance, although that's partially because their physical similarities are totally mismatched by Sakuko's weight loss.
Yuri Shibasawa
- Voiced by: Yōko Hikasa (PV)
Played by: Rena Matsui
Reiji's homeroom teacher.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Reiji never had a crush on her to begin with, but her later obsession with him and deliberately getting Sakuko in trouble leads to Reiji briefly disliking her. While Reiji still trusts Shibasawa and admits that he did crush on her before, he prefers her as a teacher rather than as a lover.
- Always a Bigger Fish: For a long while, both Yuri and Yuko was tied neck-to-neck in the Yandere department. Come Chapter 110, and Yuri finds out how outclassed she is in the crazy category. Next we see of her, she is noping the fuck out.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: During the Tokyo arc, she only properly declares her feelings for Reiji after he hangs up from their conversation, telling the boy she loves him on the verge of tears. A few chapters later, that anguish is revealed to be the beginning of a full-on breakdown, as she desperately begs a now-absent Reiji to love her back while she's red in the face and crying loudly and then goes to a hotel to get drunk. She later makes a much more coherent confession and proposal to him, intending for this to be her last chance before leaving his life forever, but he (already having given up on himself) agrees to marry her.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Her bonus chapter exploring her childhood shows that she is pointedly unnerved by rumors of a teacher hitting on one of their students. We all know how this turned out.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Deep down, Shibasawa does want to help Reiji, but she also wants to play savior to his troubled home life, date him, and tries to buy him off of Yuko to get him out of his home. Later on in the story, Yuko graciously allows Shibasawa to be a part of her family and couple with Reiji—but Yuko's acceptance is on her playing field, and Shibasawa eventually learns that the "troubled home" she's trying to save Reiji from is way more than just a case of poverty and parental neglect.
- Berserk Button: Nagi Aoe has been this to Shibasawa ever since she stopped her and Reiji from committing a Lover's Suicide, especially after Yuko plants the idea in her head that Reiji went to Tokyo specifically to resume what he started with Nagi. When she catches Nagi and Reiji meeting one another back in town after the Toyko debacle and it seems like Nagi is about to sprint back to Reji to confess her love, Shibasawa tackles Nagi into the pavement and starts shrieking insults at her until the Idol suffers a complete mental breakdown.
- Dark Messiah:
- Saves Reiji from suicide and actively encourages him to rely on her for help at the beginning of the story. Later down the line she relies on underhanded and immoral tactics in order to try to get him out of the town.
- In Chapter 159, Shibasawa extends her savior complex to Nagi Aoe after inadvertently causing the disgraced idol to suffer a severe emotional breakdown in the middle of the street. Shibasawa brings Nagi into her family home with the intention of sheltering and comforting her until she's stable enough to return to Tokyo. But because she still perceives Nagi as romantic rival for Reiji's affections, Shibasawa makes Nagi sleep in a broom closet where she continues to coldly berate the younger woman in her care while Nagi can't do anything but sob that's she's sorry like a broken record in response.
- Determinator: She'll save Reiji, no matter what she has to do, who she has to fight against or even if Reiji doesn't want to be saved.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: As the story goes on, the lights in Shibasawa's eyes gradually begin to lose luster. She only has them back when she's pretending to be a good teacher.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Shibasawa is a manipulative Ephebophile who started a sexual relationship with one of her troubled students and is obsessed with keeping the boy to herself while isolating him away from both his friends and family while continually insisting that its for his own good and not for her own selfish and perverted reasons. But her one redeeming quality is that she is the only named character fighting over Reiji who absolutely refuses to believe that suicide is the answer and is outright sickened by characters like Yuko and Esomori who romanticize the act and drag other depressed individuals into their line of thinking.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: She keeps her hair in a low, neat ponytail when we're first introduced to her, but as she becomes obsessed with Reiji she starts Letting Her Hair Down and wearing more form-fitting clothing.
- Future Loser: Shibasawa in her high school days was a budding ping-pong athlete, a diligent student, and a decent person who was focused on her aspirations. Shibasawa nearing her thirties, however, is a teacher who gets no respect from her students, a disappointment to her mother for not settling down, and so desperate to fulfill the physical intimacy she avoided in her teens that she starts having sex with Reiji.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: After learning the true circumstances of the Kurose family, it seems like Shibasawa has a wakeup call and takes steps to actually help people, such as saving Gen's dad from hanging himself or convincing Kazumasa to leave home and search for his birth mother. Shibasawa knows that she might not stay this way forever if Reiji ever comes back to town, since she's aware she's still obsessed with the boy. Yuko puts a damper on her attempts immediately when she tells Shibasawa that Reiji's likely planning to commit suicide with Nagi, which triggers her protective instincts and her desire to monopolize Reiji as a woman. When the audience thinks she's finally about to let go, she pulls right back in for a confrontation with Nagi.
- Hidden Depths: Shibasawa was once a very talented ping-pong player, with quite a few trophies to show for it. She still has some of her chops in the present day, though it's obvious she's atrophied.
- Hot Teacher: She became more conventionally attractive after she and Reiji began sleeping together.
- I Can Change My Beloved: Deludes herself into thinking it's her duty, and hers alone, to "save" Reiji from his toxic life. While she constantly tells herself that this is a platonic feeling and that she really means well for Reiji, Yuko rather bluntly tells her that the romantic angle of the trope is what Shibasawa secretly hoped for all along—that her support and care would be rewarded with the newly emotionally healed Reiji eloping with his teacher and happily leading her out of town.
- The Jailbait Wait: With the Tokyo Arc concluding with much of her "competition" being removed from the feild, Shibasawa confesses her love for Reiji with the latter being so worn down by recent events that he reciprocates her feelings without any resistance. So after confirming that he'll turn eighteen in another two months, Shibasawa convinces Reiji to marry her as soon as he's legal while she takes steps to clean up her public image in the meantime.
- Laser-Guided Karma: She finally gets arrested for her relationship with Reiji and running Yuko over. However, it's pretty much a slap on the wrist, as while she does get fired, she simply had to own up to her actions and tell them she'd take responsibility for her to avoid jail time. She also gives not one shit about any of her actions.
- Love Makes You Crazy: She was a normal, if put-upon woman before she starts her sexual relationship with Reiji. However, once she's convinced herself that she needs to involve herself in Reiji's life, she starts stalking him after school, even taking money from her aging grandfather to give Yuko a dowry for her son (that she's insisting is not actually a dowry).
- Loving a Shadow: Played with. She ultimately starts getting intimate with Reiji once he starts confiding in her about his crappy home life. However, over the course of the series it becomes clear that her feelings for Reiji lean more towards an obsession with feeling needed by somebody rather than truly loving Reiji or seeing him succeed outside of her influence.
- Old Maid: Played for drama. Being unwed and in her late 20s makes her the butt of jokes for her students, as well as a constant topic of concern from her mother. Combined with being in a dead end town and her lack of romantic options anywhere, Yuri has slowly internalized her peers' mockery and is desperate to keep anyone she can get to herself.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Has a venomous one towards Esomori when she finally meets him on his deathbed, telling him that Spring's Coffin and the suicidal atmosphere of it sickens her, that he and Yuko ought to be ashamed for dragging Reiji and Nagi respectively into their trauma, and that the two should resolve their lingering problems together whether it be making up or a lovers' suicide.
- Sanity Slippage: While she's introduced as the beleaguered yet still reliable homeroom teacher for Reiji, stopping Reiji from committing suicide with Nagi put Shibasawa on a long downward spiral.
- Sensei-chan: Played for Drama. Her students show her a lack of respect and mock her for being attractive and unmarried, but that just adds onto her much more serious insecurities and isolated mindset.
- Student/Teacher Romance: She and Reiji began sleeping together shortly after she saved him from a suicide attempt. This seems to be one-sided however, as despite her infatuation with him, Reiji does not seem interested in her romantically.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Seen wearing plain clothes at the beginning of the story, and specifically avoid skirts because the head of the school told her she couldn't compete with students in their "prime". Starts wearing longer skirts after her night with Reiji and a white Skirt Suit after chapter 40.
- Womanchild: She's better at hiding it in the early series, but over the course of the story she proves herself to be easily influenced, petty even to other teenagers, naive about romance, and irresponsible. In the late game, she even takes time to confess and propose to Reiji like a desperate schoolgirl on the day of her grandpa's funeral, when she's supposed to be at home because of her tarnished reputation.
- Yandere: Of the depraved, over-possessive Ephebophilic type.
Yuko Kurose
Click here to see her after the car crash
- Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (PV)
Played by: Reiko Kataoka
Reiji's single mother.
- Abusive Parents: Had one, married one, and became one. She was regularly beaten by her father when she was a teenager, which gave her a fear of nighttime since that's always when she had to deal with him, and her mother eventually forced her into sexual services as early as 14. While she doesn't physically batter Reiji (her step-husband did that), she emotionally batters him instead, and her blackmailing Kazumasa to stay quiet about Mr. Kurose's murder has him under her thumb, unable to leave the house.
- Aloof Older Brother: She has an older brother, but he ran out of town after a large fight with their father and she hasn't seen him since. Reiji hardly knows a thing about him, and only personally encountered him once in his childhood. His running has left their relationship in tatters, as she's extremely bitter when he does show up again, thinks he came to take Reiji and Kazu away from her when he offers to take them to the beach, and they never speak again after that incident.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She is initially shown to be a selfless single mother doing her best to take care of her family with the help of her son, not at all the manipulative and self-centered woman she will prove herself to be as the story progresses.
- Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie: With her last breaths while being strangled, Yuko asks Gen to dump her body in the town's river.
- The Chain of Harm: Her flashbacks show that her parents were fairly physically abusive to her, with her own mother trying to turn a blind eye to her father's drunken beatings. When she makes a family of her own, she wants them to stay by her, but she does this by emotionally manipulating them and occasionally keeping them in check with theats of external violence. She also does nothing to save Reiji from his beatings from his stepfather.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Bullied at school and beaten at home, and later beaten by her husband. Later chapters further showed her backstory and it is even worse; being used by her mother as the literal town's whore where she was essentially raped by nearly every adult man in the town when she was a teenager. And according to her mother, she was subjected to Parental Incest by her father, resulting in Reiji. No wonder she came out like she did in the present.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Among other things, Kazu wanted to go to Tokyo and take Reiji with him so they could earn money and get a better place for their family. It's explicitly shown that this (coupled with his Insufferable Genius attitude) was the catalyst for her announcing that Reiji's not his biological brother.
- The Dutiful Son: Yuko started prostituting herself to help pay off her father's debts. She's clearly uncomfortable with it, but she decides she has to keep doing so because she's afraid of what will happen to her parents if she stops.
- Eviler than Thou: In Chapter 110, Yuri found out that Yuko is orders of magnitude more fucked up than her. When you make the Yandere Ephebophile nope the fuck out, than you know you have crossed the threshold.
- First Love: She was Esomori's, and from the looks of things the feeling was mutual up until the suicide incident. She is the basis for every love interest in Esomori's novels.
- I Am the Noun: Many times within the story, she considers herself synonymous with "The Town"—and she hopes that Akira loves it, and her by proxy.
- I Choose to Stay: The more you learn about Yuko, the more it becomes abundantly clear that she doesn't want to leave the town and doesn't want any outside help. It's heavily implied, until outright confirmed in her own memories, that she was coerced into believing that remaining in town and settling there like her mother and great-grandmother did would give her the inner peace they said she'd have.
- Incest Subtext: Towards the middle of the series, Yuko gives off some heavy parental incest vibes. She openly talks to Reiji about normally unmentionable things like her period or of sex, she likes to sleep in his futon with him, and she becomes incredibly possessive of him. It turns out that she's been grooming Reiji to be complacent and willing to stay in town for her, and seeks to have a mutual suicide with him not unlike a lover's suicide. She even gets mad at him when his supposed last thoughts aren't about her, but of Nagi.
- Karmic Death: Yuko's final confrontation with Gen, whose life she destroyed by manipulating the kid into killing her husband and becoming the "hero" of the town, ends in her bring strangled. While she had attempted a mutual death with Reiji, she is now dying far away from him. Subverted as she's not actually dead, but she is hanging on by a slim thread.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The car accident apparently led to Yuko losing her memories of the incident, including where she attempted a murder-suicide with Reiji. Of course, she was faking it and knew the whole time.
- Manipulative Bitch: Reiji was groomed to be obedient and passive by her. Kazumasa is forced by her to remain in his room at all times and pretend to be abusive to guilt trip Reiji into remaining under her control. Gen is implied to essentially be her attack dog, employed to get rid of anything that gets in the way of her control over her son. And she has been doing this for years.
- Near-Villain Victory: After returning Nagi to Esomori, Reiji eventually gives up and stays in town to support the family. Shibasawa is out of the way, Gen tries to kill himself and doesn't reveal anything, and Kazu and the grandmother continue to be burdens on the Kurose family (although the latter is going to a caring facility some days). Essentially, despite being run over she gets what she wanted — Reiji utterly submissive to her and no other obstacles for the time being.
- Parental Favoritism: She makes it blatantly obvious that she favors Reiji over Kazumasa. It isn't because she loves him, necessarily; it's more because she projects onto him.
- Parental Substitute: She tells Gen to think of her as his own mother if he ever feels lonely, as his own mother barely interacts with him at home. He reciprocates at first, but in the present, he seems to despise her, being more than happy when he thinks she might have killed herself. Considering how manipulative and controlling she is toward her son and step-son, this is perhaps unsurprising.
- Pimping the Offspring: Yuko was prostituted by her parents as soon as she turned fourteen. Supposedly, this was done to her because her father had massive debts, and they saw her as an avenue for extra money. This isn't even the first time this has happened; Yuko's mother, to console the girl (and herself), tells her that she was prostituted at a young age by her parents as well.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: What she's most afraid of is the people she loves eventually abandoning her. She was deeply hurt when Esomori refused to commit lovers' suicide with her, and she was at her most frightened when her brother took Reiji outside of town for a beach trip, which she interpreted as him kidnapping Reiji and separating them forever. Kazumasa reveals that the Kuroses were mostly normal up until Kazu kept studying and encouraging Reiji to leave home with a proper job—after that, Yuko told him Reiji's not his biological brother and his father that Reiji isn't his biological child, and the rest was history.
- Rape as Backstory: Yuko's teenage years consisted of her own mother pimping her out to be raped as an underage prostitute by the adult men in the town. We later learn, at least according to Yuko's mother, that Yuko was raped by her father in addition to getting beaten by him.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Yuko was, at one point, one the most beautiful girls in her town. Her good looks made her the target of local hoodlums trying to score with her or molest her, which ends up starting a full blown gang war among delinquents from all around the area. She was also supposedly attractive enough to begin prostitution at 14 years old.
- The Sociopath: Sure her backstory was sad and fucked up, but the more the series goes on, the more we find out how messed up she is in the head. She is a highly manipulative and overpossessive woman who traps her entire family in a psychological prison of their own home. It can even be argued that her obsession with suicide is a form of narcissism as she only went through with it to gain Esemori's attention. No wonder why Esemori is so terrified of her.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: What we see of her childhood paints a picture of a friendly, good-natured girl despite the horrible home environment she had.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Downplayed. While her home life is unpleasant, her public face, at least, portrays her as a hardworking and pitiable mother, as well as a respected nurse in the town's hospital. However, neighbors whisper about her home life often and think her house brings nothing but trouble.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Her terrible home life is actually fabricated, for the most part. Kazu's not actually as abusive as she makes him out to be, and her mother isn't as helpless as she's made to be either. It's mostly just an act to make Reiji stay at home and pity her.
- Yandere: Of the high-functioning sociopath type.
Gen Minegishi
Click here to see him after the time skip
- Voiced by: Masaaki Mizunaka (PV)
Played by: Natsuki Hori
A former childhood friend of Reiji turned bully. The son of the local construction company's boss.
- Aloof Older Brother: Gen's character sheet mentions that he has a little sister, but he barely interacts with her and she's never seen in-story.
- Ambiguously Bi: Gen claims to want to have sex with Nagi and seemingly begins to do so after she says she's not in a relationship with Reiji, though stops after she tells him about her and Reiji's attempted suicide. However, the entire time, it's clear that Reiji's the one who occupies much of his mind, and even Nagi recognizes that Reiji is loved by him. He later confesses his feelings for Reiji in a very direct manner, but Reiji tells Gen that he thinks he has a crush on his mother that he simply projects onto Reiji himself. Gen also admits, from a literal closet, that the first time he came was when his senses were confused watching Reiji getting beaten by his stepfather and having Yuko pressed up behind him. A bonus drawing by Ryo, depicting a relationship chart, does however explicitly say Gen likes Reiji.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: To Reiji, in Chapter 68. In the middle of a Motive Rant, Gen threatens to kill Reiji and grant him the death he so desires, but confesses that he can't, because he loves him.
- Beady-Eyed Loser: Played with. Whereas Gen is described multiple times as being "king of the hill" thanks to his father's construction job, the Town is still just a backwater podunk that's a drain on everyone in it, Gen included, making him king shit of turd mountain for lack of a better term. That Thousand-Yard Stare permanently glued to his visage isn't just for show, as the Time Skip puts on full display just how broken he is inside when things don't go according to his Control Freak machinations.
- Cassandra Truth: Gen's last seen trying to confess his childhood crime and that of his father to the police in the live action series' finale. The policemen simply laugh him out of the room.
- Childhood Friend Romance: There was a brief window of time when Sakuko had a crush on Gen, but that's passed ever since he became a bully. Gen himself is also in love with Reiji.
- Control Freak: Like Yuko, Gen is not pleased when Reiji starts entertaining thoughts outside Gen's plans for him.
- Creepy Crossdresser: Gen coming out of Reiji's closet in Yuko's clothes and makeup is staged as unsettling. For the majority of the chapter, Gen was already hidden in the darkest parts of the Kurose family closet, with Yuko's belongings scattered around the room. When Gen finally comes out, he's completely disheveled, wearing poorly applied lipstick, and in a hastily put on piece of lingerie telling Reiji he hates himself. The following chapter, while treating Gen more sympathetically, still emphasizes the size difference between them and Reiji and outright asks him if he thinks Gen's deepest desires are disgusting, while also in the same speech admitting to having killed Yuko.
- Has a Type: If Reiji's Breaking Speech is any confirmation, Gen's type seems to be empty and broken people, or simply people who resemble Yuko. Gen admires Yuko's femininity and has been in love with Reiji for a long time, but Gen's rarely seen girlfriend (according to her character sheet) is also a dead ringer for a teenage Yuko.
- I Just Want to Be You: Gen's been supressing a very big desire—not that Gen wants to be with Yuko, but that Gen wants to be Yuko. More accurately, what Gen really wants is to be a pretty girl like Yuko.
- Incompatible Orientation: Gen turns out to be a deeply closeted boy in love with the very heterosexual Reiji.
- Love Father, Love Son: According to Reiji, Gen's true crush is not really Reiji, but Yuko. Theoretically, the reason why Reiji is the current target is because Gen couldn't mentally reconcile killing Reiji's stepfather with that love, so Gen was convinced that it was for Reiji's sake instead. Subverted once and for all when Gen makes it clear that there was an attempt to see if Reiji was right, but when it came down to it, Gen couldn't muster up any sexual feelings for Yuko.
- Loving Bully: Played for Drama; after killing Reiji's stepfather, Gen becomes more antagonistic towards Reiji, while also trying to hide his closeted feelings for the latter.
- Mirror Character: Despite being a source of much of Reiji's suffering, Gen is also a victim of Yuko's manipulation and himself feels trapped in the town.
- Mistaken for Romance: Reiji eventually comes to the conclusion that Gen might have a secret crush on Yuko after looking back on the former's behavior throughout their childhood. Reiji specifically brings up Gen going through Yuko's clothes and cigarettes sometimes, and believes that this love is the reason why Gen is obsessed with Reiji instead. In reality, the truth is far less obvious than that— Gen didn't love Yuko that way, but admired her for her femininity.
- The Runaway: Sometime during the three month timeskip, Gen stabs their girlfriend and is on the run for it. Eventually, Gen ends up sheltered by Shibasawa.
- Secretly Selfish: Gen admits that the murder of Reiji's father wasn't actually to save Reiji—it was because Gen felt humiliated and confused over orgasming to watching Reiji being abused and Yuko's body heat as she pressed herself against Gen in the closet, and the murder was to feel "normal" again. It didn't work.
- Smoking Is Not Cool: While Gen plays the part of the macho ringleader while with friends and always forces Reiji to buy cigarettes, Gen never once actually smokes, keeping all the cigarettes in a corner in his room. Notably, he starts smoking up a storm when he has nothing left to lose, he's on the run for attempted murder, and he's at his most unkempt.
- Straight Gay: Gen behaves in a traditionally masculine mannerwhile also pining for Reiji.
- Trans Equals Gay: For most of the series, up until the final arc, Gen's been portrayed as a masculine figure and more or less a guy attracted to another guy. This changes slightly when Gen explains that they were already interested in femininity even as a child, wearing Yuko's clothes to prove it, with Gen's second solo cover being that incident. Despite that, he's usually referred to and acknowledged as a guy, and which is retained in the live action (where it never comes to that point) and the What If? romcom universe (where he is simply Reiji's closest male friend).
- Trans Tribulations: A chunk of Gen's true insecurities lay in wanting to be a woman, or pretty like Yuko. Gen had been interested in it ever since childhood, and secretly felt disgusted because it seemed like an impossible goal. Going to Tokyo only made it worse, since Gen mentions seeing confident and satisfied crossdressing guys there and hating how they couldn't do the same.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Responsible for killing Reiji's father at an unfortunately young age, and the aftermath implies it was a very messy murder.
- Tsundere: Played for drama. He's a tsundere of the harsh type for Reiji. His violent disposition and bullying is rooted in trauma from killing Reiji's father in an effort to protect him from domestic violence. Gen's behaviour has caused Reiji to avoid him constantly and is one of the reasons the latter he wants to skip town. On top of this, his confession to Reiji is even in the middle of an emotional breakdown, just after he was done brutalizing the latter and Nagi and just after he threatens to kill him.
- Unwitting Pawn: It is implied that Yuko fed into his desire to be a hero to his friends ever since he was a child. In the present, this has morphed him into a bully who believes he's doing his best for Reiji by attacking anyone who may take him away from the town, which is presumably exactly how Yuko likes it.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: A few flashbacks show Gen as a child with a strong sense of justice who always tried to defend friends. In the present, Gen is rude, controlling and violent. Notably, he considers himself to still be looking out for his friend's interest and may even see himself as the town's hero, even if his actions only seem to worsen Reiji's hopeless situation.
- We Used to Be Friends: Used to be Reiji's best friend. For his part, he still considers Reiji one, despite his behaviour. By the time gen goes to confess to the police, it looks like their friendship is back on the road to mending.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Every problem in his life is usually solved by resorting to violence. Bullies picking on your friends? Beat em up. Friend has an abusive parent? Kill him. Friend wants to die and keeps mentioning a girl he wants to kill himself with? Just beat up the girl alone and keep her away from him. Someone wants to tie your best friend down and trap them in a loveless marriage in the town? Attempt to rape her and claim her as yours so said friend can't get with her.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: While he does care for Reiji deep down, he blames the boy for his inability to cope with the fact that he killed his father and living the rest of his life without knowing Gen carries that burden. He also realized very early on that Reiji was the type of person to be utterly passive about his own suffering, and Gen got angry any time Reiji expressed gratitute towads him or weakness. This is the direct cause of Gen beginning to bully Reiji in elementary school.
- Would Hit a Girl: Has no problem physically attacking Miss Shibawasa and Nagi for their involvement with Reiji. He also attempts a murder-suicide on his girlfriend.
- Yandere: When he learns that Nagi tried to have a double suicide with Reiji, he threatened her, telling her to stay away from him and to leave as he won't allow Reiji to leave, not even by dying and that Reiji was his. He keeps a pile of cigarette packs in his bedroom that he forces Reiji to buy for him every morning. In Chapter 68, he explicitly admits pining for Reiji while in the midst of an emotional breakdown.
Secondary Characters
Kosaku Esomori/Akira Nozoe
Click hereto see him after the time skip
- Played by: Soko Wada
A popular, but secluded writer who used to live in town. He returned a year prior to the story, married to Nagi. Unlike a majority of characters he was not originally born in the town, instead moving in from Tokyo during his second year of middle school.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Town kids don't take kindly to outsiders, and Esomori was no exception. They bullied him for everything, from his lack of an accent to his coming from a city.
- Heel Realization: While Esomori does express some regrets after Reiji is initially hospitalized, he doesn't truly start reflecting on his mistakes until after he fell ill. He got a bigger reality check when Shibasawa called him out on involving Reiji and Nagi in his decades-old baggage with Yuko, intending to atone for this by ensuring someone (Saki) looks after Reiji and Chako while encouraging Nagi to live on.
- Horrible Judge of Character: The night he saw Yuko after a session with one of her clients, he ran after seeing her genuine smile at him, thinking she was fine with her situation. Turned out she smiled because she saw him as her light in the darkness, and was relieved when he seemingly came to see her.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: To Shino'oka's horror, Akira turns out to be a lot more similar to her father than she expected. Her father regularly cheated on her mother and both just had to accept it, but Akira finally gave into passion and had sex with Yuko the day before she "left town"—and this was while Akira was well into a relationship with Shino'oka. The poor girl even notes that he apologizes for his tryst the same way as her father.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Uyruu was the only major competitor for Yuko's heart. On the day Uryuu and Yuko planned to commit suicide, Akira initially saves both of them and intended on dropping them all in the river afterwards, but the latter's love for Yuko and guilt for running away from her causes him to kick only Uryuu off of her in an unconscious moment. He makes a feeble attempt to get him back, but Yuko dissuades him from doing so. In his Repressed Memories, it's suggested that he didn't actually kick him off—Yuko did, and simply encouraged him not to let go of her and help Uryuu.
- New Transfer Student: He's not originally from the town; he had to move there in middle school, and this is how he met and befriended Yuko.
- Parental Neglect: His father ran out on the family, and his mother broke so hard that she neglected to take care of herself, never mind her child.
- Pen Name: Kosaku Esomori isn't his real name—he was born Akira Nozoe, and went by that name until he made his first major writing breakthrough.
- Psychological Projection: Saki suggests that the Yuko Akira wrote about in his later novels, and the one Akira loved, was a wistful and melancholic girl who repressed her brokenness. Not all of those things applied to her, but they did to Akira. Saki theorized that this Yuko was what he hoped she'd be on the inside.
- Secretly Dying: Throughout the story, he's had a small cough and has been ill around other people, the worst being when he vomited on Sakuko's clothes after coming to Nagi's old room. By three months, he's an emaciated wreck and bedridden.
- Take Up My Sword: Esomori's Last Request is for Reiji to find Nagi and enjoy a happy future together with her as far away from the Town as humanly possible, essentially accomplishing what he never could with Yuko.
- Urban Legend Love Life: In the beginning of the story, Esomori is noted to be a celebrity with a history of women, his most recent conquest being Nagi. In-story itself, he does very little flirting, if at all, and his only significant interactions with women are with Nagi (whom he doesn't even romantically love or touch), Sakuko (who is nearly seduced but he doesn't try again in any of their later interactions), and Yuko (who he is afraid of and resentful towards, but ultimately the one person he actually loved).
Kazumasa Kurose
Reiji's older, Hikikomori step-brother. Once a star student, he suffered a breakdown during his last year of high school that resulted in him failing the college entrance exams.
- Alliterative Name: Kazumasa Kurose.
- Gene Hunting: After Shibasawa makes Kazu realize that Yuko failed him as a mother, she then points him in the direction of leaving home to get some closure on his biological mother. Kazu agrees to this, and finally gets out of the house for the first time in years to search for her. His initial attempt ended up fruitless, as he quickly ran out of money and needed to rely on the homeless population to stay afloat, but he later received her whereabouts from Ishibashi.
- Hikikomori: He's been in the house ever since he failed his college exams, which is well over a decade at this point. He'd like to get out, but the looming threat of Gen's father or Yuko killing him for blabbing about his father's murder makes him submissive to her and mentally unable to leave.
- Honor Thy Abuser: As much as he dislikes what his dad became, Kazu still feels a sense of duty towards him and wants to finally find his remains and lay him to rest.
- Insufferable Genius: As a kid and teenager, Kazu was a fantastic straight-A student, but he had a habit of looking down on everyone in the town, even openly calling Yuko and his father idiots. While he meant well, he also wanted Reiji to study well enough to leave because he didn't want the family to rot in their dead end home.
- Manchild: Most of his limited appearances in the first half of the series consist of him being holed up in his room, screaming about not getting his food on time, and throwing tantrums at night. He wasn't always like this; after he failed his college exams, he started withdrawing from society and becoming more sullen. In fact he's not truly like this at all, given that most of it's an act that he's forced to do for Yuko. However, he still has parts of the trope, deferring to Yuko at any moment in fear and needing her permission to do anything (including go out or use the bathroom). However, he never manages to climb out of this mindset, since he's still shirking off finding a job at least a few months after Yuko is hospitalized.
- Momma's Boy: Kazu admits in his talk with Shibasawa that despite everything that happened in his adolescence, he still loved Yuko and didn't want to leave her. Part of the reason why he studied so hard was because he believed that even she deserved better than to rot away in the town.
- Obfuscating Insanity: His Hikikomori tendencies is largely an act after witnessing the fresh corpse of his father. While the stress of having to keep it a secret did cause his grades to slip and eventually fail his college entrance exams, from that point on he played the part out of fear for what Yuko might do to him.
- Pen Name: After finally reaching his birth mother, Kazu begins to write letters to Shibasawa under the false feminine identity "Masami Segawa". Shibasawa instructs him to do this because he doesn't have a phone to contact her with and because her parents would be less suspicious/curious about any mail she gets from him if they believe she's just contacting a girl friend.
- Put on a Bus: A rare positive version of this trope for the series as Kazu temporarily departs from the story and presumably the town as well in order to find his birth mother. He later comes back when Reiji emails him.
- Secret-Keeper: Kazu was told about Gen killing his father. Under threat of being offed himself if he confesses the crime and a newfound fear of his mother, Kazu keeps his lips sealed. The stress of keeping this secret is also why Kazu's grades slipped in high school.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: In his abyss rant, Kazu mentions that he'd like to finally lose his virginity, since he sees it as one of the obstacles keeping him pathetic, and asks Reiji for the money Shibasawa gave him so he can use it to have sex. Unfortunately, that shortsighted plan to give himself some agency is quashed before it even properly began—Yuko pacifies him by hiring a prostitute for him.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Convenience store fried chicken, as he requests it every night lest he start raising hell again. How much of him liking it being something Yuko made up is anyone's guess.
- The Un-Favourite: Yuko blatantly does not care for him, and admits as much to Reiji. There was a time when she loved him, but after he communicated his desire to leave town with Reiji once they get good enough grades, their relationship was fractured.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: All Kazu wanted to do, like any normal kid stuck in a dying town, was get out. His determination to study and get a good school or job in Tokyo, along with his encouragement for Reiji to do the same, unknowingly triggered Yuko's worst fears and set his home life spiraling down.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Flashbacks to Kazu as a child and teen pre-exams show him as a caring older brother to Reiji. By the time he was in high school, he was even pestering Reiji to get into his school so they can save up money and move to Tokyo.
Reiji's Father
Masaharu Kurose
- Asshole Victim: He was killed by a young Gen. While his death is messy and brutal, there are few reasons to afford him any sympathies after all he had done.
- Domestic Abuse: Frequently physically beats both his step-son and wife.
- Hate Sink: There's not one thing about him that the audience can sympathize with. In all of his physical appearances he's shown beating Yuko and upsetting Reiji, and skirting responsibility for the house by skipping work just to beat on Yuko some more. While he was somewhat humanized through Kazumasa's retelling of his adolescence, later revelations show him to be of questionable moral character even before the Kurose abuse, since he outright kidnapped Kazumasa and absconded to the Town in the middle of a custody battle with his ex-wife.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Both he and Yuko's father are abusive pricks with a low anger threshold. Yuko, emotionally, is no better than them.
- Only Mostly Dead: As it turns out, Gen did do a number on him, but he didn't immediately die from the stabbings. Gen recalls him alive, but weakly moaning in pain on the bathroom floor. The guy just bled out for hours before finally expiring.
- Parents as People: The way Kazumasa tells their family story, his father was a dim but loving man who at one point cared for Yuko and Reiji, and was content with his life. When Yuko told him that Reiji wasn't his child, he slowly started collapsing, fell into heavy alcoholism, and eventually morphed into the abusive jerk he was at the end of his life.
- Took the Wife's Name: Kurose is Yuko's surname, not his. He was absorbed into her family after their marriage.
Yuko's Brother
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Zigzagged. As a teenager, he was always in the middle of a fight with his father while Yuko eventually had to step up as the breadwinner and lightning rod for her father's abuse. However, when they're grown up, the brother has mellowed out and matured into a decent father to his own two children, while Yuko holds onto an immature belief that all her loved ones need to stay in town and manipulates them to get her way.
- Hypocrite: The night he leaves the Kurose household, the brother tells Yuko that he can't take her with him out of town because he feels they'd be a bigger target with two people and because he feels that, as a girl, she'd never be able to survive without someone else supporting her. Cue his visit decades later, and the brother obliviously tells her that Reiji (who was even younger than her at the time) is the perfect age to start leaving the town regularly because he's too attached to her and his home.
- It's All About Me: According to Yuko's flashback, he basically tells his sister that she'd be dead weight for him if she left together with him. He also tells her to suck it up and take her father's beatings despite leaving home for the exact same reason.
- The One Who Made It Out: He, along with Shino'oka, remain two of the only characters who have had satisfactory lives following their departure from the town. By all accounts the brother has had a happy marriage, two affectionate children, and has been content with his life.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: With the scale of the fights with his father escalating, Yuko's brother decided to run away from home before their animosity reached a point of no return.
Reiji's Grandmother
Reiji's maternal grandmother.
- History Repeats: She is also the product of her environment, having been prostituted at a young age by her own parents like she did to Yuko. She resents that she continued the pattern, but she isn't remorseful.
- Moment of Lucidity: When Kazu tells Shibasawa the true circumstances behind his father's death, Reiji's grandmother picks herself up out of bed and warns Shibasawa not to follow through with any of Yuko's plans. Later when in the hospice she holds a very stable conversation with Reiji and recounts his true parentage, further suggesting that she may have been Obfuscating Insanity this entire time.
- Parental Favoritism: Contrast to Yuko focusing her attention on Reiji, the grandmother only seems to like Kazumasa out of her grandsons. She later admits this is because she believes Reiji is a glaring reminder of her husband supposedly impregnating Yuko.
- Parental Hypocrisy: She hates Reiji for being the product of an incestuous coupling, finding it disgusting that her own daughter would carry her father's child to completion. She was oddly fine with prostituting Yuko, with an equal chance of impregnation from her many, just as skeevy clients.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Has been suffering from the later stages of dementia by the time the story starts, though much later in the story she may be Obfuscating Insanity as the rare times she speak coherently she is aware of everything that's been going on.
The Akiyama Family
- The Dog Bites Back: A detective eventually tells Reiji that Mrs. Akiyama finally snapped and stabbed Mr. Akiyama in their home. It's implied that Chako was really the one who did it, given she's seen with a knife after running away from home and she bitterly comments that Mr. Akiyama looked like he'd gotten bitten by his "dog". In that case, it's still this trope, as Mrs. Akiyama is finally taking Chako's side by taking the rap and Chako lashed out at her dad.
- Domestic Abuse: Chako's father strikes his wife at one point, and her mother is mostly afraid of angering him.
- Jerkass: While the mother is sometimes portrayed as misguided, the father is ill-tempered, stubborn, and only cares about his business and his reputation.
- Parental Neglect: The parents will lay down the law when they're expected to, but otherwise they don't really seem to care about what happens to Sakuko. Both mother and father barely seem worried when they find out she's ran off with Reiji, and only make a token effort to text her when she goes with Reiji to Shibasawa's apartment and later to Tokyo. In fact, Sakuko's own mother admits that while she knows she's been holed up in her room for days on end and snuck out of the house for Tokyo, the mother is reluctant to actually do anything about it because the father doesn't know what's going on with Sakuko at all and she's afraid that he'll just hit her when he learns the truth.
- Wanted a Son Instead: At the end of his big breakdown, Chako's father admits that he wished his wife never miscarried their first planned child, who was supposed to be a boy.
Mao
Nagi's estranged uncle, who she lived with after her parents died.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's formally introduced as someone who cares about his sister and wanted to do right by Nagi, but he's perfectly willing to make her feel guilty and compliant. He used to manage Nagi as a junior gravure idol, even introducing her to the person who would help pimp her out, and eventually abandoned her after marrying a wealthy actress. The only justification he has is that he might actually believe he was trying to do right by her, but even then, he'd be grossly negligent and ignorant.
- Blended Family Drama: Mao and Nagi's mom are siblings through their biological mother, but they have different fathers from different marriages. He admits he didn't have the best relationship with his folks because of this.
- Creepy Uncle: Even before she started living with Mao, she never knew him well, and her closest childhood friend got odd vibes from him. He's perfectly willing to pimp her out in Tokyo.
- Identical Stranger: Looks exactly like Reiji, but with darker hair.
- It's All About Me: By the time he exits Nagi's life, he's reaped all the benefits from Nagi's gravure career, even getting a better education with the money she earned. He admits that he wanted to get married to a girl he met and cries, because marrying her means he'd have to abandon Nagi and keep their past under wraps and he fully (albeit guiltily) intends on doing so.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: A strange case. He doesn't outright say he blames Nagi for the death of her parents and grandmother, but as he breaks down upon realizing how her parents could have died he certainly makes Nagi believe it was her fault for running away.
- Nephewism: Becomes Nagi's guardian after the disastrous 2011 Tohoku earthquake, if only because everyone else who could take care of her died during the event.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Shortly after he tells Nagi how he thinks her parents died, the girl decides to throw herself into the ocean as penance. Mao catches her in time and tells her to redirect that self-loathing, but instead of doing it in a healthy way, he tells her to apologize every waking moment of her life.
Others
Saki Shino'oka/Tokiwa
A middle school acquaintance of Esomori.
- Amicable Exes: She has no hard feelings when Akira comes to her to help get rid of his manuscripts, and when they see each other at his mother's funeral both of them are pretty civil and friendly to each other.
- The Atoner: She feels that she has to apologize to Uryuu and take care of things for Esomori because despite realizing that Yuko deliberately kept Akira from saving him because she truly loved him and wanted to have a life with him, Saki diverted his attention to writing and kept them apart out of jealousy. In addition, that made even Uryuu's death fruitless, since Akira and Yuko's failure to get together meant he died for nothing.
- Betty and Veronica: She plays the homely and approachable Betty to Yuko's Veronica. To Nozoe, Yuko is the clear winner, but he does admit that had he never met the latter he probably would have fallen for Shino'oka since they share many interests. He still thinks this way even after he dates her and takes her virginity.
- Driven to Suicide: Upon discovering Akira coming back from having had sex with Yuko—and in Shino'oka's family's garage, no less—, Shino'oka breaks the leftover betta fish jar and slices her wrist with one of the glass shards.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Despite everything, Shino'oka ended up as the best adjusted of her peers in adulthood. She got married to a good man, moved out of town, had six children, and her parents finally reconciled and are a proper couple again.
- Foil: She serves as one to Sakuko. Her home life was similarly suffocating, with a divorce instead of an overbearing and neglectful set of parents, and both secretly antagonize the Broken Bird of their stories and attempt to kill themselves. Saki, however, made it to the end of her journey realizing the harmful behavior that she and Akira displayed and eventually found her happiness elsewhere. Sakuko, on the other hand, is much more openly disdainful and dependent on Esomori and Reiji to make her the heroine of a story; and doesn't believe that she could find happiness at all by herself or in town—which is exactly where Saki was when she sliced her wrist.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Secretly this for Yuko. Shino'oka can't stand the fact that Akira is always drawn to her, but she rarely acts on this resentment until she believes she and Akira have a shot of leaving the town.
- Jerkass Realization: Has one after her suicide attempt. When talkng to Akira, Shino'oka admits that she's always somewhat resented Yuko and her closeness to the former, so Shino'oka ruefully told her that she was planning on leaving the town with Akira. Upon learning that Yuko can't leave, Shino'oka felt terrible for even saying it. The same hospital conversation also reveals that she'd been subconsciously using Akira as an outlet for her desire to leave town, much like Shibasawa and Sakuko do with Reiji in the present, and apologizes to him for it.
- Only Sane Man: Despite her initial baggage growing up, as an adult, she’s a well-adjusted adult with a happy life.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Ultimately, she is the one person who tells Sakuko what she needed to hear—that she doesn't need others to become the heroine of her life and can make her own story.
Kouji Uryuu
The leader of the town's local delinquents, once upon a time.
- Cynicism Catalyst: While Uryuu was a delinquent, he had some sense of justice, in that he'd only start picking fights with the neighboring delinquents when his own was picked on first and he was willing to fight others to protect Yuko from harm. He was already losing it after he burned down the Kurose snack shop and killed one of Yuko's clients along the way; learning about Yuko's prostitution via a porn video, at least according to Yuko, broke him completely, and afterwards slowly developed into a more hostile and violent delinquent.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: He's a rather stoic boy, but his default expression is a resigned, half-lidded face with empty dark eyes.
- Foil: Uryuu's narrative purpose is to seemingly be the ideal town guy that Nozoe isn't—he's street smart, strong, willing to accept the unsavory parts of Yuko's past, and willing to protect her no matter what. The catch is that despite this, Not only is Uryuu blind to the reality of Yuko's despair and loathing, but he still becomes a victim of the town, showing that even the people supposedly most suited for it can still get unfulfilling lives. On top of that, while he is able to have Yuko as a girlfriend, it's ONLY because the man she's actually in love with is far too broken to actually accept her, and his attempts to convince Yuko that Nozoe may have let her go only bought her closer to despair (as Nozoe simply pointed out that she wasn't actually doing it for herself, but because she was told to). Ultimately, he's never able to get her love because she never had any to give him in the first place, contrast to Yuko still clearly pining for Nozoe but their hangups cause them to split from each other.
- Go Out with a Smile: Akira notes that the last thing he saw of Uryuu was his face fixing itself in a tired, but relieved and peaceful expression before getting taken under the river currents. Esomori's repressed memories reveal that he may not have been swept away so peacefully, however.
- History Repeats: In a lot of ways, Uyruu is like Gen, but a version that grew up alongside Yuko rather than having her as an older figure. He's a boy with a penchant for fighting, resorted to violence when he tries to do the right thing, and after a particularly extreme act that ended in murder, hardened his heart and became a thug.
- Together in Death: He and Yuko planned on killing themselves by the river after their high school graduation. Judging by newspaper clippings and Yuko's own words, Uryuu ended up being the only casualty.
Ishibashi
A detective following the Kurose family's affairs.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Tied with Saki as the most put-together adult in the setting. While he gets suspicious whenever Reiji denies having contact with Nagi and Shibasawa, Ishibashi regularly checks up on Reiji, makes sure to keep him out of harm's way, and is quick to help others find their closure as he does for Kazumasa.
