Main five
A group of five high-school girls who had been friends for years. They began drifting apart by the time the story starts.
The main protagonist. A kind, calm, creatively gifted girl who was the heart of the group, Ai was the more balanced one, compared to others. She was especially close to Fuyumi and was devastated when she died, blaming herself, being wrecked with guilt for most of the film. When Chiharu began bullying her, Ai stoically endured her abuse, thinking that she deserved it. It is only after they targeted Akiko did she begin to fight back and confront them.
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The Woobie: Ai sure goes through a lot. She loses Fuyumi and blames herself, loses their friendship and all her other friends, gets bullied and abused by Chiharu, Yoko, Onko and nearly everyone else for most of the movie, gets haunted by Fuyumi's ghost, she breaks down crying near the end after holding in for most of it, showing how utterly broken she is by everything. In the end, after talking to Chiharu and Yoko through the phone and thinking Akiko has died, she races to their location, only to find that Yoko is dead too and blames herself for being too late to save her. In the end, her intense guilt makes her send her own name to the Web with no regrets, which results in her getting probably one of the dumbest deaths imaginable. - I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Fuyumi's and Yoko's deaths are this to her.
- Beware of the Nice Ones: Ai is nice, friendly, sensitive, compassionate and understanding most of the time, but can be really dangerous if pushed too far. After being ruthlessly bullied by Chiharu and others, she snaps after Onko assaults her in piano room and kills him the following night by sending his name to the Web. A bit later, she even contemplates killing Chiharu and Yoko and threatens them with it when she confronts them, despite being against it before. Though she eventually decides against it again.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Calm, kind, sensitive and thoughtful, but a real fighter when provoked, despite her tender and calm disposition, is not without a vengeful streak, but without going too much in either direction, Ai is Eclectic.
Closest thing to a main antagonist, Chiharu is tough, harsh and severe and something of a local delinquent. She is a very imposing presence as a whole, able to terrorize nearly the whole school into submission. Chiharu and Ai used to be very close, however, Chiharu became jealous of Fuyumi's closeness with Ai and secretly sent Fuyumi's name to the Web. Learning that she died, Chiharu refuses to accept that it's her fault and blames Ai for Fuyumi's death instead. With Yoko siding with her, she subsequently turns the whole school against Ai, who all begin to relentlessly bully her.
- Ambiguously Bi: Chiharu supposedly has a boyfriend in Keiji, but has an unhealthy fixation on Fuyumi at the same time, being extremely jealous of her closeness with Ai and even referring to her as "my love" once, though it might've been sarcastic.
- The Bully: The prime one of the entire school, ruling it with an iron fist, through fear and intimidation and terrorizing students and teachers alike.
- Big Bad: Chiharu is directly or indirectly responsible for everything that goes wrong in the story.
- The Dreaded: Chiharu rules the whole school through fear and intimidation and is feared or detested by nearly everyone, save the older teacher and possibly Yoko.
- Delinquent: Chiharu is a tyrannical bully, abusing and disrespecting others, even teachers. She also smokes and frequents dubious places, like a certain nightclub, where she might be involved with a drug ring.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Strong-willed, tough as nails, confrontational, fierce, foul-tempered, imposing and forceful, rebellious and stubborn, Chiharu is Choleric.
- Token Evil Teammate: Chiharu is generally the most unpleasant of the group, often being genuinely violent, tyrannical and despotic towards others. She is not without redeeming qualities, however, as she felt incredibly guilty in the end and was willing to redeem herself, even if it meant death, which is why she reconciled and agreed with Ai to send their names to the Web.
- Huge Schoolgirl: Chiharu seems to be taller than every other girl in school. Which only serves to make her more imposing.
The softest and least intense of the girls, Akiko was calm, kind and peaceful, but also mentally the weakest. After Fuyumi died, she didn't join up in bullying Ai with Chiharu and Yoko and instead opted to try and support her, wishing to salvage and bring back their friendship. However, this brought her on Chiharu's bad side who started to bully her just like Ai. Unlike Ai, however, Akiko couldn't take the heat and ended up betraying and leaving Ai to save herself from Chiharu's wrath, and, after being taken by Chiharu and Yoko to the nightclub, slipped deep into the drug addiction, drifting away from Ai and reality altogether, to the bigger tragedy.
- Addled Addict: Her state for most of the movie.
- Extreme Doormat: Her defining trait and flaw. Akiko is incredibly weak and ultimately lacks backbone.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Calm, kind and docile, normally thoughtful, understanding, sympathetic and compassionate, but ultimately lacking in character strength and weak-willed, Akiko is Phlegmatic.
Sociable, cheerful, energetic, friendly and amiable, Yoko was a popular girl in school, having many friends, apart from the other four, being the only one of the five confirmed to have other friends, fitting her social nature. After Fuyumi dies, she joins Chiharu when she begins to bully Ai, supporting and following her everywhere, for reasons unclear. However, unlike Chiharu, she never really had any real animosity nor grudge towards Ai or Akiko and never took active role in bullying, mostly just standing by and watching. She notably wasn't really happy with the situation too, but seemingly didn't want to go up against Chiharu. Being indirectly responsible for Akiko's addiction, she discreetly cared about and supported her nevertheless, as much as she could, when Chiharu wasn't looking, and was quick to accept Ai back, harboring no hard feelings, rekindling their friendship in the end.
- The Bully: To a lesser degree than Chiharu, but Yoko counts too, as she does support Chiharu, although her abuse is more emotional/psychological than anything. That doesn't stop her from being seemingly the most popular girl in school.
- The Dragon: To Chiharu's BigBad for most of the film.
- The Ditz: Downplayed. While not actually "dumb", Yoko is the least complexed and most simple, ingenuous, laid-back and natural of the five, being the closest fit to the role.
- Delinquent: She associates with the school's biggest bully, frequents nightclub, drinks, does drugs (somewhat) and seems to be involved with a drug ring, supplying Akiko when she becomes addicted.
- Designated Villain: Somewhat. Being Chiharu's crony naturally makes Yoko something of a supporting antagonist, kind of a bully too and might potentially make her unlikable. Naturally, she's likely to be disliked by anyone Chiharu terrorizes, simply by virtue of associating with her, but she's not really all that bad herself, compared to her. She sides with Chiharu, outwardly supports her and appears to be a bit of a sycophant, and, just like her, does seem to be involved in some shady activity with the nightclub, but is markedly much nicer and less violent and abusive than her. The amount of friends she still maintains shows that she doesn't really lose in popularity, despite associating with a hardcore bully, which indicates that she is rather restrained in it and doesn't make it too bad to affect her overall image and relationships. Whereas Chiharu is near-universally feared. Yoko doesn't directly antagonize anyone and even appears to be regretful about the whole situation, remaining overall mostly friendly to Ai and Akiko in the end. She never had any hard feelings towards them and cared about Akiko's wellbeing to a degree, supplying her with drugs due to her constant nagging, but repeatedly telling her to snap out of it, checking up on her and supporting her when Chiharu wasn't looking. The only time she interacted with Ai in a remotely negative way was when Ai threatened to kill her and Chiharu on a roof, Yoko reacted in a demeaning way, like Chiharu, but it is kinda understandable, given the situation.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Emotional, cheerful, easy-going, laid-back, happy-go-lucky social butterfly, Yoko is Sanguine.
- Functional Addict: As opposed to Akiko, she may be this.
- Nice Girl: While she has her own faults, Yoko is naturally friendly, amiable and placable. While she did side with Chiharu and joined her in bullying Ai and Akiko, she was much less severe, antagonistic and hostile than her and much more openly caring, never really harboring any animosity towards anyone and never having any grudge or hard feelings. She took passive role of Chiharu's supporter, only ever mistreated anyone in her presence, her abuse being purely vocal and psychological at worst as opposed to Chiharu's physical, and was perfectly okay with everyone in her absence, interacting with both Ai and Akiko normally, never being openly hostile towards either of them. It is implied she only took Chiharu's side either out of fear or out of caring about her and not wishing to upset her.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: Compared to others, at least, she seems to be this. Despite being Chiharu's crony, Yoko is the most genuinely friendly and least genuinely antagonistic and troubled of the five, also being somewhat dimmer and more simple than others. Compared to oversensitive overthinking Ai, harsh and tense Chiharu, weak and spineless Akiko and aloof and detached Fuyumi, Yoko really is simple genuine Nice Girl and general life of the party by nature, despite getting led astray by others.
Calm, quiet, withdrawn, detached, outwardly serene and almost ethereal, Fuyumi mainly kept to herself and was an oddball of the group. Even among others, she was the most aloof. Despite her aloof and standoffish nature, she was beloved by the others, but herself preferred Ai and was especially close to her. It was her mysterious death that destroyed the group and their friendship, as the others couldn't cope with it. Fuyumi's ghost haunts the guilt-ridden Ai throughout the movie after her death.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Fuyumi is the most cold, unemotional and detached of the five.
- Driven to Suicide: Possibly.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Becoming a ghost, she naturally becomes this. Though she was mildly creepy even in life.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Gloomy, sombre, thoughtful and seemingly more than a little depressed and troubled, Fuyumi is Melancholic.
- Posthumous Character: Fuyumi is dead since the beginning of the movie, but is still a main influence on the plot, starting with, but not limited to her ghostly appearances.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her death kickstarts and drives the plot.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Fuyumi has the least amount of screentime of the five and dies in the first ten minutes of the movie, only seldom appearing as ghost afterwards, but is pivotal to the plot, her death causing the friction between the others and most of the conflict, with her presence and influence being felt all throughout it, despite being dead.
Other characters
Ai's neglectful mother who is a reporter. She knows little of her daughter's problems and seems to not even care that much about it. She has little of her daughter's innate sophistication and seems to be worried about her work more than anything else.
- Adults Are Useless: The definition of it, she is either oblivious or uncaring to the problems her daughter is facing. And her negligence eventually costs her her only child.
The main characters' teacher. He is a shady type who is goaded by Chiharu to abuse Ai.
- Adults Are Useless: Onko is outright abusive towards Ai.
Chiharu's friend/boyfriend. Keiji is a regular at a nightclub and seems to trace the Web and messages sent to it.
