This page lists the characters of Kara No Kyoukai and their associated tropes.
Shiki Ryougi
"I can kill anything that exists - even if it's a god."
The female protagonist of the series, she is a beautiful teenage girl who possesses the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception", a supernatural ability that allows her to see and bring into reality the inherent mortality of everything. She is peaceful and maiden-like in appearance, but fiercely determined, ruthless, and aggressive in mannerisms.Shiki originally had both a male and female personality due to her upbringing as a member of the Ryougi clan. After recovering from a traumatic accident, Shiki discovers that she can no longer feel the her male personality's presence while also feeling an uncomfortable detachment from her memories before the accident. While she knows that she is Shiki, she does not feel that she is.In the hopes of regaining her former identity, she puts on a cold façade that is somewhere between the soft, brooding nature of the female persona and the blunt, dissolute male persona. Shiki is often very brusque, businesslike, and aloof, although she does reveal a much more human and compassionate side towards Mikiya.
Heartbroken Badass: In the seventh movie, when she thinks Mikiya is dead.
Bifauxnen: Often described as both "handsome" and "beautiful," although she definitely possesses a very feminine figure in the movies. In the novel she is described as looking and sounding fairly androgynous. This is actually compensatory behavior for her lost male persona, SHIKI.
Blood Knight: Given the right opponent, Shiki is more than happy to engage in a good old-fashioned throwdown.
Blue and Orange Morality: The only way to describe some of the distinctions that she draws between 'murder', 'slaughter', and 'massacre'. All of these are completely different things to her. Only one is remotely okay.
Bokukko: Notably uses the aggressive-masculine pronoun of ore to refer to herself in spite of being the portrait of a classical dignified Japanese lady. She goes back to using watashi in the post-credits scene of the seventh movie, indicating that she had accepted both her past and present self.
Born in the Wrong Century: Oh so very much. She might not show any desire to have been born in another century (or any desire, period, aside from killing, really), but...
...she's a modern day warrior woman who only feels alive in a fight to the death.
...her weapons of choice are the tanto (knife) and katana (sword).
...she wears a traditional kimono whenever possible.
Death Glare: "It's said that you can kill someone just by looking at them, but Shiki definitely has the potential." Indeed, she shows a Death Glare later that even makes Araya Souren pale with fear (but this last bit is only mentioned in the novels).
Dissonant Serenity: "She bends down and touches the blood flowing on the ground; streaks it across her lips. The blood drips down and her body trembles in ecstasy. The first lipstick Shiki has ever worn."
Driven to Suicide / Love Makes You Crazy: It is revealed in the seventh movie that aside from being interrupted by Araya Souren, she couldn't bring herself to kill Mikiya, as he was her (well both of her personalities') dream. As she couldn't get Mikiya out of her life, she decides to get out of his instead.
Girl with Psycho Weapon / Knife Nut: Unbelievably badass with it as well. Not that she has anything against swords though, as shown in her fight against Souren.
Good Is Old Fashioned: Okay, this is weird. It's more like "Sociopathic Hero is incredibly conservative". Shiki makes almost no use of modern conveniences except for refrigeration and electric light, almost never even answers her telephone, wears traditional clothing whenever possible, seems most comfortable in Touko's ancient, run-down office, and is utterly disgusted by drugs and casual sex (though she seems to feel that it's okay to be gay, since she questions Tomoe's sexuality in a completely neutral manner and tries to make a vulgar joke when the Kokutou siblings bring up the possibility of her dating Azaka's female classmates). She's also isolated, alienated, desperately lonely, and completely insane, and while there's no causal link between all this, there are definitely the same forces in her history at work.
I Just Want to Be Normal: After meeting Mikiya. The reason that SHIKI wanted him dead was because these feelings threatened Shiki's stability given her rather misanthropic nature.
Real Men Hate Sugar: Her male personality confirms to this teenage boy stereotype.
The Sacred Darkness: Yeah, for what is essentially the human personification of the Grim Reaper, she manages to stay away from the typical villain tropes rather well, even getting a Theme Music Power-Up reminiscent of religious chanting. It helps that she is also essentally a void goddess.
Split Personality: To a much more complicated degree than usual. It's more of "United Independent Personalities." The Ryougi Family has the supernatural ability of dual personalities, which resulted in Shiki having both a (dominant) female side and a male side. What's interesting is that Shiki's male side dies, which gives her a connection to death while she's still alive. What's left is the hole that is her so-called "Third Personality."
The Stoic: Her disinterest in other human beings started it, but it's her connection to the Root that made her empty.
Theme Music Power-Up: Whenever Shiki begins doing something particularly epic, a suitably epic background track starts up; the music used in these scenes changes from movie to movie, if not from scene to scene, but manages to stay relatively similar overall (the tracks from her showdown with Araya Souren and her fight with Asagami Fujino are great examples).
Tomboy: Almost to the point of being a girl in biology only... However, a lot of this is a conscious front put on as a memorial to her deceased male personality. See Bokukko above.
Tomboyish Name: The "Shiki" in Ryougi Shiki is a neutral name, hence Tohno Shiki of Tsukihime.
Took a Level in Badass: Twice against Araya Souren. What's more badass than regular Shiki? That would be Shiki with a sword. And what's even more badass than that? Shiki's Third Personality.
Trademark Favorite Food: Bottled water, of all things (it's the only thing we ever see in her fridge). She says multiple times that she hates sweet food.
She's also very much associated with strawberry Häagen-Dazs ice cream, even though her male personality loathes it. As she comes to terms with his loss, however, this becomes Shiki's favourite snack.
Yamato Nadeshiko: Averted, for the most part. While she's definitely one in appearance, in truth, she's just a Dissonantly SereneBlood KnightKnife Nut. Unless you happen to meet the "Third Personality," where if she is not kicking your ass... she is this in full.
Mikiya Kokutou
"I guess it can't be helped. I'll bear your sins in your place."
An unassuming Ordinary High School Student, he is the male protagonist of the series. After initially seeing Shiki in the snow, Mikiya confronts her and becomes her only friend. He becomes more and more attracted to Shiki as she confides in him until an accident leaves Shiki in a coma for two years. After crossing paths with dollmaker Touko Aozaki, he drops out of college to work for her as an investigator.After Shiki awakens from her coma, Mikiya finds he still has feelings for her and vice versa. Their relationship continues to grow throughout the remainder of the series.
Badass Normal: In the seventh movie, Lio crushes his leg and then, just to be a complete dick, stabs it as well. And then, after refusing to take a drug that will prevent him from dying due to the effects of another drug, Lio stabs Mikiya in the face. Does any of this stop Mikiya from limping on said leg and then clawing his way to Shiki? Hell no.
Different as Night and Day: Very literally to his sister. Mikiya's Origin is Normalcy; her sister's is Taboo. Compare Shiki, who had two just as opposite personalities, and Touko, with her glasses on/glasses off personalities.
Dogged Nice Guy: To an insane extent, though he doesn't have a stalker vibe to him.
Expy: When Type-Moon designed Shiki Tohno they didn't stray very far from the design of their first male lead.
Plus, make him look like he's 14 and take away the glasses and PRESTO! Shinji Ikari.
Eye Scream: Loses an eye in the last chapter/movie courtesy of Lio-sempai.
The Fettered: For God's sake, in Remaining Sense of Pain he shelters a rapist from street justice so he can turn him over to the police instead, even though he's viscerally disgusted (see the Scary Shiny Glasses example below).
Token Good Teammate - Kokutou is a really decent guy and a devout Zen Buddhist. The people he hangs around with are...Neutral at best. He comments on how he'll just have to share the karma of Shiki's sins to be with her. Miraculously, he does this without sounding like a jackass.
Unfazed Everyman: A completely normal guy working for a magus. Nothing out of the ordinary there...
His Origin is stated to be normalcy, after all.
Weirdness Censor - Doesn't have one. In fact, Touko found it odd that he was able to find her and ask her for a job; given that she had spells around her office to make people ignore her.
Touko is an extremely powerful sorceress who masquerades as a puppet maker and occasionally a designer of buildings. Together with Mikiya, she runs a pseudo-detective agency that pursues cases with supernatural or abnormal elements.She is a powerful Magus, able to reproduce parts of a body that can be used in place of the part that was lost. This proves useful as she can not only reproduce the part to perfection, but can augment it with her magic as well.She is the sister of Aoko Aozaki and was the creator of the glasses that Shiki Tohno wears, as well as Shirou Emiya's new body in the True End of Heaven's Feel.
Artificial Human: As a dollmaker, she's created a number of artificial backup copies of herself. She probably was one of those backup copies before the series began.
Berserk Button: She's usually pretty calm, but if you call her a "dirty red," calmness turns to Tranquil Fury and you're dead. It's her policy. But that's not even her real Berserk Button. Calling her a rotten red is just a way of mocking her and saying she plays second fiddle to her little sister. Her realBerserk Button is her little sister herself. Lets just say their rivalry has gotten rather bad a good few times in the past.
Christmas Cake: Touko is about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She was a high school student during a fad for pop-a-point pencils (in The Eighties) and the parts of the story in which she appears take place between 1998 and 1999.
Cloning Blues: Completely averted. She just doesn't care.
Different as Night and Day: With her glasses on, she's comparatively nice. When they're off, she's much more rude. She treats her as two different personalities (but are they?). Compare Shiki, who had two just as opposite personalities, and the Kokutou siblings, with their opposite Origins.
Drives Like Crazy: The third movie. In the fifth, it's revealed that she never went to driving school.
Immortality / Nigh Invulnerability: A genius dollmaker who can create perfect copies of her own body which awaken when her current "container" is destroyed.
Marionette Master: Subverted. She does create an army of "puppets," but for a vastly different reason.
The Masquerade: She is allegedly an architectural draftsman and toy designer. Her workplace is one of the main settings; not only is this not all she does, she's barely ever shown doing it at all.
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: She is, in name or in fact, an architectural draftsman, toy designer, bunraku puppet theatre techie, magus, detective, and speech therapist.
Meganekko: Sometimes, when she has her glasses on. When they're off she tends to get... unpleasant. Was a straight example when she was younger.
Sealed Good in a Can: Has a short tenure as one in Paradox Spiral, where Araya rips out her heart but keeps her head alive to prevent her fail-safe duplicate from awakening.
Mikiya's younger sister, who is obsessed with him. She becomes an apprentice of Touko due to her rivalry against Shiki and is talented in the magic of ignition.Azaka actually likes Shiki and vice-versa, but both of them have trouble expressing it due to the fact that they have feelings for Mikiya. She is short-sighted, easily-agitated, and impulsive, but is good-natured at heart and a more-than-competent combatant. She is the protagonist of the sixth movie.
Brother-Sister Incest: Openly states that she's in love with Mikiya, her blood-related brother - during her self-intro narration, no less. She even left home, had their uncle adopt her, and enrolled at Reien Ladies' Academy in hopes that their time apart would lead Mikiya to view her as a woman rather than his little sister.
Different as Night and Day: Very literally to her brother. Azaka's origin is Taboo; her brother's is Normalcy. Compare Shiki, who had two just as opposite personalities, and Touko, with her glasses on/glasses off personalities.
Expy: Now we know where Akiha got her bro-con tendencies. The twintails she wore as a child also made her look exactly like Rin Tohsaka.
Foe Tossing Charge: Performs one of these against the big demon flower controlling Ouji. She even finishes it off with her best approximation of a Super Inazuma Kick.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Azaka actually respects Shiki, and is quite fond of her; the feeling is mutual on Shiki's part. The girls understand each other enough to laugh at and finish the punch line of each-other's jokes, and marvelously complementing each together in abilities on the battlefield. The one thing, however, that prevents them from actually openly admitting their friendship to one another is their mutual love for Mikiya.
Souren Araya
A former Buddhist monk who has lived for around 300 years and a previous acquaintance of Touko from the Sorcerer's Association, he is a major antagonist of the series who appears during the fifth movie.Though he may be an average Magus at face value, he is highly skilled in the creation of Boundary Fields. Over the course of the series, he sets into motion an elaborate scheme involving awakening supernatural powers in others in order to further his own goal of reaching the Origin.
A Day in the Limelight: Inverted. Despite being one of the most important characters in the series, he only appears in the fifth movie.
Actually he's in the seventh one too, but only in flashbacks.
Badass: Anyone who can give Shiki that much trouble qualifies.
Not to mention how this guy fights. Cut off his left arm? He snaps it back on. Cut off his right? Its hand will be around your throat in a few seconds. Stab him? He'll just shrug it off. Stab him in his point of death, twice? He'll smack you around the first time, and stick around to give a farewell speech the second. Not to mention his barriers and his habit of teleporting around his apartment complex. You do not mess with Araya.
Big Bad: Arguably the main antagonist of the series seeing as he's pretty much responsible for everything bad that happens to Shiki after she meets Mikiya in high school.
He is also probably Kirei Kotomine's prototype; both being deeply involved with a religious sect before turning evil, both being average magi but possess an uncanny skill in their fields, both possessing exceptional healing abilities, and both being voiced by Joji Nakata.
Evil Plan: collect and record the deaths of people and reach the Origin so he can end this world so there can be no more meaningless deaths.
Implacable Man: His Origin of stillness should give you an indication of just how implacable he is. This Origin bites him in the ass later, when, on the ground with a broken sword sticking in his chest, but with his dream of reaching the Origin a few feet away (Ryougi having been knocked unconscious by the impact), his body refuses to move.
Meaningful Name: In Buddhism, the collective unconscious of humanity, it's will to survive, and therefore the "collective pool of humankind's selfishness", is called Arayashiki. Touko points out the irony of Araya having the very same name as that which he detests.
Fridge Logic: If Araya really was a Buddhist monk, how come he of all people didn't know this (judging from his startled reaction when Touko mentioned the above)?
Nigh Invulnerability: Nigh indestructible due to his Origin of "Stillness" and having a Buddha's remains grafted onto his left arm - combined, these were even able to block the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. For a little while, at least.
Start of Darkness: A flashback/dream shows him standing in the aftermath of a bloody conflict 200 years ago, looking at the corpse of a little boy who got caught up in it. He resolves that since he cannot save anybody, he will at least collect and record the deaths of people and reach the Origin so he can end this world so there can be no more meaningless deaths.
A member of the Fujou clan, she appears as the antagonist of the first movie. As a child, she was stricken with a terminal illness and has been bedridden ever since. Her powers grant her the ability to unconsciously perpetuate the Fujou Building Suicides, which are the main focus of the first movie.
Blessed with Suck: Possesses unnaturally robust fortitude, however, this sadly only prolongs her life rather than giving her the power to overcome her sickness.
Since I’m weak, I cannot do as she said. That’s why I cannot overcome this temptation. The flash of light I felt when I was stabbed in the heart. The overwhelming torrent of death and the beat of life. I always thought I had nothing, but there is still that simple thing left in me. What’s there is death. This fear that sends a chill down my spine. I have to feel the most death I can to feel the happiness of life. For everything in my life I have ignored until now. But it probably would be impossible to die like I did that night. I probably cannot hope for such a striking end. That death pierced me like lightning, like a needle, like a sword. That’s why I will try to come as close to that as possible. I don’t have any idea right now but I still have a few days to think about it. And I’ve already decided on the method. I don’t think I even need to say this, but I think my end should be a long fall from a place overlooking the world.
Yandere: She captures Mikiya's soul because she has a huge crush on him.
Fujino Asagami
"Bend."
The main focus of the third movie, she is a classmate and friend of Azaka. Fujino is secretly a killer and her murders are seemingly a way of giving her inner peace. She has the ability to bend space/objects with her mind and later gains clairvoyance, allowing her to bend objects without needing to see them.
Cute and Psycho: Although just as dangerous as Shiki is, Fujino remains one of the more sympathetic examples of this trope in anime. Good thing Shiki decides not to kill her.
Death Glare: Upon activating her psychic abilites.
Feel No Pain: Both physically and emotionally, though she keeps this a secret from everyone else so they don't think she's abnormal. She was even repeatedly raped by a gang because of her passivity and this unwillingness to tell anyone about her 'pain'. She starts getting her sensation back in fits after one of the gang hits her with a baseball bat. The pain makes her feel more alive... and murderous. They die messily. It turns out that the lack of pain was the result of her step-father medicating her as a child to seal her psychic powers before they got out of hand.
Superpower Lottery: She gains clairvoyance at the cost of her eyesight going bad (not that bad of a trade). Combined with her telekinesis, she can potentially bend (and break) anything, anywhere. Shiki even complains about it to Touko after the battle.
The central character of the fifth movie, he is a high school student who crosses paths with Shiki Ryougi after she saves him from a group of bullies. He hides out in Shiki's apartment after admitting to her that he was forced to kill his parents because of his recurring dreams of getting killed by his mother.
Badass Normal: He has his moments. Namely, delivering a gruesome Eye Scream with no regrets, cauterizing a gaping wound without hesitation, and challenging Araya head-on, even knowing he stood no chance.
Appearing in the fifth movie as an antagonist alongside Souren Araya, he is the Director of the Sponheim Abbey and an old acquaintance of both Araya and Touko from the Sorceror's Association.He has an inferiority complex regarding Touko and sided with Araya in order to defeat her to prove his superiority. In terms of raw power and ability, he is technically more powerful than either of his colleagues, but lacks the finesse and versatility to make the most of his strength.
The Dragon: To Araya, in the fifth movie at least.
Expy: Basically the most repulsive parts of Willy Wonka and Alexander De-Large rolled into one humanoid mass; combining the arrogance and bad-fashion sense of both. He even goes as far as to gleefully sing Bethoven's 9th Symphony 4th Movement, the favorite tune of Alex from A Clock Work Orange, when he tried to murder Mikiya in a chillingly sadistic torture scene.
Leitmotif: We can't give you a title, since none of the background tracks have titles, but it sounds suitably twisted and pompous.
Mad Scientist: The creator of Araya's apartment complex.
Older than They Look: Though he's really an old man, he uses his magic to give himself the appearance of a handsome young man. His real appearance comes through when he get upset however.
Playing with Fire: Has the ability to incant eight lines in under two seconds and create a thousand-degree flame. Only shown in the original novel, though.
The Cameo: Shown for just a moment in Fate/zero, episode 18, using the aforementioned fire skills to torch a village.
Ouji Misaya
Appearing in the sixth movie, she is senior at Reien Girl's Academy and known to be strict but fair. Has the power to control "fairies" thanks to Satsuki.
Brother-Sister Incest: In the novel, she's brainwashed by Kurogiri to believe that he is her brother and that she is in love with him so he can use her in his plans more easily. Though it may actually have been true, since she is adopted and it's revealed that Kurogiri really did have a sister.
Driven to Suicide: Attempts to do this in the novel to all the girls of Class D in order to punish them for their treatment of Kaori, believing as a devout Catholic that they will go to Hell for committing suicide.
Mama Bear: After finding out what happened to Kaori the resulting vengeance is not pretty at all.
Cunning Linguist: The only sorcerer in the world to be able to speak the ancient Unified Language.
Demoted to Extra: Though he is the major focus as well as the primary villain of the sixth chapter and the one who orchestrated the events at Reien Academy, his role in the movie is largely as an antagonist for Shiki to fight. Isn't it sad,Sacchin?
Foil: To Mikiya Kokutou. It's Lampshaded that the characters in "Kokutou" can also be read as "Kurogiri".
Last of His Kind: The last person capable of speaking the Unified Language.
Psychopathic Manchild: As a result of the below curse, he perceives human morality and behavior in the manner that a 10-year old would.
Parental Abandonment: Literally. After he was returned from the fairies subsequent brain damage caused his parents to consider him a freak and give him up for adoption.
Phenotype Stereotype: Averted. Although his name is Japanese, he was in fact born in the United Kingdom. His name was changed after he was adopted by a Japanese national.
Red Baron: Is known by such alias's as God's Word May Day and Master of Babel: Unified Language Master.
The Unfought: In the anime at least. He gets into a small scuffle with Shiki, but what happens to him afterwards is unknown. In the novel, he dies at the hands of Ouji.
Lio Shirazumi
Introduced in the second movie as an older schoolmate of Mikiya who dropped out of school because he 'found something he wanted to do,' he is in actuality the real person behind the murders of 1995-1996 and takes on a much larger role in the seventh movie.
Blond Guys are Evil: Though his first appearance suggests that he's not a natural blond, and that his exposure to magic might have changed his hair as it's known to do in other parts of the Nasuverse.
Chekhov's Gunman: First got a very minor mention in the second novel/movie.
Complete Monster: He is considered as such, since his own primal impulses tend to make him lack a considerable amount empathy and is considered to be so much of a problem that Souren Araya simply doesn't involve him in his plan.
Depraved Bisexual: Possibly. He not only lusts after Shiki, but seems to feel this way about Mikiya as well.
Expy: He can be viewed as a sort of combined Tohno SHIKI and Nero Chaos. He has Nero's gradually fading identity due to multiple contained creatures and the dying sanity and previous decency of SHIKI. Although he was somewhat psychotic even before his Origin was awakened. Hell, his motivation can even be considered the basis of Roa's: love at first sight leading to absolute insanity. Lio can be viewed as the prototype of the three in the aforementioned respects, if his character was fully fleshed-out before Tsukihime began development. Also he is possibly the inspiration for Arcueid's design (blond hair, red eyes, skirt/dress, and claws).
Genetic Memory: Araya had opened him up to his Origin, giving him access to the memory of all of his past lives; mostly carnivorous animals.
Healing Factor: Is shown to have the ability to regrow limbs.
Horror Hunger: Can't expect much else from someone whose Origin is consumption.
I Just Want to Be Special: Where Shiki wishes to have a normal life to be with Mikiya (whom outright has a normal life, no matter what he does), Lio seeks to be special in a way that makes him stand out and makes his existence matter. It's unknown weather or not this is to make him a contrast to Mikiya for Shiki, an admiration of Shiki's abilities, something to entertain his 'dull' life (when he is said to dropout of school he said to Mikiya that he "has found something that he wants to do") or something else but by the time we see him... and as the rest of the tropes illustrate... he's special
Meaningful Name: As Araya said, "You were one letter away from being a lion."
Monster Sob Story: Subverted. Even with the Horror Hunger, you might start to sympathize with him at least a bit once his backstory is fleshed out. Well, that is until the Fan Disservice throws any pity for him out the window and every viewer just starts aching to see him die.
Not so Different: Believes that he and Shiki are fundamentally similar, and that Mikiya is the only thing holding Shiki back from a murderous existence.
Suicide By Cop: Committed his later murders to get Shiki to kill him.
Villainous Crossdresser: He styles his hair like Shiki's, and wears a dress to resemble her. The fact that he looks downright frightening in a rather silly looking skirt says a lot.
Villainous BSOD: Mikiya outlines the true nature of his killings resulting in this. It backfires.
Yandere: Surprisingly averted. While part of Lio wanted to kill Shiki, it wasn't out of love as it's due to the violent impulses caused by his Origin of Consumption. If anything he actually wants Shiki to kill him as he can't handle the fact that he's turning into a mindless killer.
Shizune Seo
Azaka's roommate in the Reien Girls' Academy, and a woman who can predict the future through her eyes. She has a cameo appearance in the sixth movie, but her role is expanded upon in the Future Gospel epilogue.
Prophecy Twist: Lampshaded by Mikiya. She predicted that Mikiya would die if he gets close to Shiki, he would get killed. In a strange sort of pun, it turns out that she was referring to his "eye".
Introduced in Future Gospel: recalled out summer, she is Shiki and Mikiya's daughter. Her wish is to defeat her mother so she doesn't have to share her father's time.