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Main Characters

Shiki Ryougi

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Shiki.jpg

"I can kill anything that exists - even if it's a god."

The 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 manner.

Shiki originally had both a male and female personality due to her family, the Ryougi clan, manifesting strange Psychic Powers. However, after recovering from a traumatic accident, Shiki discovers that she can no longer feel her male personality's presence, and she has an uncomfortable detachment from her memories before the accident as well. While she knows she is Shiki Ryougi, she does not feel like she is.

In the hopes of regaining her former sense of self, she puts on a cold façade that is somewhere between the thoughtful, quiet nature of the female persona and the blunt, dissolute male persona.

'90s Anti-Hero: She's definitely got the rough outlook and personality, the overpowered abilities, and borderline psychopathy. Plus the book was written in the 90s and takes place in the 90s. What makes her stand out though is her rather conservative attire.
Action Girl: Quite possibly the strongest fighter in the series. She's incredibly skilled with the knife and even without it, she can kick a lot of ass. And that's even without mentioning her Mystic Eyes, which allow her to kill virtually anything simply by cutting along its lines of death.
Action Girlfriend: Shiki is a kniffe expert with eyes capable of seeing how to kill even a god and the love interest of the Non-Action Guy Mikiya. Mikiya can't help her in battle, but he does a good job acting as her Morality Chain.
All There in the Manual: While Shiki's relationship with her parents in the present is said to be a bit distant, in the past, Shiki's relationship with her older brother and grandfather are heavily implied to be close (the former being confirmed in one of the pamphlets). While her relationship with her brother is a little fuzzier in the present, they're still somewhat implied to be close since he had a chat with her in the hospital post-coma, though according to Nasu, she calls him a NEET nowadays.
Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She is tall, dark-haired, beautiful and aloof.
Angsty Surviving Twin: Though not a twin in the strictest sense, Shiki goes through something like this after she loses her male personality SHIKI.
Animal Motifs: Usually associated with cats. Mikiya says she reminds him of a rabbit, though.
Anti-Hero: She fights the bad guys, but is far from a nice and heroic person by nature.
Artificial Limbs: Her left arm is a prosthetic built by Touko, but good luck recognizing it as one with your naked eye. Her original was twisted off by Fujino Asagami.
Ax-Crazy: Due to her murderous impulses, she tries to feel a sense of living through killing.
Babies Ever After: She has a daughter with Mikiya in the Distant Finale, named Mana.
Badass Adorable: Most notably when she goes all dere for Mikiya.
Badass Boast: "I can kill anything that exists - even if it's a god."
Badass in Distress: In the fifth chapter, Shiki is captured by Araya at the Ogawa apartment, but she manages to escape by herself.
Badass Transplant: Her prosthetic arm is able to grab spirits.
Baritone of Strength: Her voice is rather low, and she is certainly someone whom you should not mess with.
The Berserker: When in battle, she is absolutely fueled by her bloodlust.
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. In addition she uses aggressive masculine pronouns as part of the masculine persona she adapts to compensate for SHIKI's loss.
Blood Knight: Given the right opponent, Shiki is more than happy to engage in a good old-fashioned throwdown.
Blood Lust: "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."
Blood-Splattered Innocents: She was seen covering herself in the blood of the victims of the murders of 1995-1996. However, she wasn't the killer.
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 for her.
Born in the Wrong Century: She might not show any desire to have been born in another century (or any desire, period, aside from the desire to kill, really), but she's a 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 and she uses barely any modern conveniences (the lights and refrigerator in her apartment, and a phone she doesn't actually use).
Boyish Short Hair: She likes to keep her hair short, as suits her masculine image and behaviour. In the distant future, her hair has grown longer.
Bring My Red Jacket: Shorter than the usual Badass Longcoat, but it definitely counts.
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Inverted, where it's Shiki as the Brooding Girl and Mikiya as the Gentle Boy.
Bungled Suicide: It's revealed in the seventh movie that aside from being interrupted by Souren Araya, Shiki couldn't bring herself to kill Mikiya because he was everything both of her personalities wanted. Believing they could never get Mikiya, and rather than get Mikiya out of her life, she decided to get out of his and threw herself in front of a passing car. This, however, only got SHIKI killed while Shiki ended up in a coma for two years.
Byronic Heroine: She is morally neutral, largely concerned with personal interests and only fighting the villains because they oppose those interests. She has a total disrespect of common authority, and is defined by conflict, inner and outer. She is also attractive, an introspective loner, and very cynical and jaded.
The Cameo:
- In Fate/EXTRA, as a hidden boss.
  Shiki: Sorry, but you're gonna have to die. It seems that if I kill a hundred of you guys, I get to return to my home world.
- She also appears in Fate/Grand Order as both an Assassin and Saber Servant that can potentially serve the player as her Master (so long as one can manage to unlock her). Available only during the Kara no Kyoukai event.
Chastity Couple: With Mikiya. They're clearly in love, but rarely touch each other. However, in Mirai Fukuin, the existence of their daughter confirms they do get more intimate after their marriage.
Chekhov's Gun: It is shown in the second chapter that Shiki possesses a sword and is trained in its use by her father; it is later used in the fifth chapter, though it is broken in the end.
Color Motif: Blue. Her primary kimono is blue, her eyes glow a vibrant blue when her powers activate, and most of her fights take place under the dark blue skyline of the night. The color represents both masculinity and feminity, and fits a brooding yet heroic woman like Shiki.
Convenient Coma: A big part of the overarching story; what led to and what happens during the coma, and the repercussions after the awakening.
Cool Sword: Her family katana, Kanesada Kuji, has accumulated so much mystery over its 500-year existence that it can slice through barriers and Bounded Fields simply by being drawn. However, it's broken while killing Araya when he and Shiki crash into the ground after leaping off the Ogawa Apartment Complex.
Creepy Good: Shiki is a bloodthirsty sociopath with an inclination for murder and the power to see the death of anything in existence. There's still no doubt that she's a good guy, even if it's all thanks to Mikiya keeping her in line.
Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Delivers an awesome one to the ghosts in the first movie.
- And also in the seventh movie against Shirazumi, when she actually wanted to kill him. And she didn't just kill him, she destroyed his entire existence.
Cursed with Awesome: When her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception activated for the first time, Shiki hated it and even tried to gouge out her own eyes. Once she learned how to control their power, her eyes have made her nearly invincible in battle.
Curtains Match the Window: Dark brown hair and eyes.
Deadpan Snarker: She has a rather dry sense of humor when talking to other people.
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 Souren Araya pale with fear (but this last bit is only mentioned in the novels).
Defrosting Ice Queen: Basically, her entire character arc revolves around her gradual defrosting by Mikiya.
Demoted to Extra: She doesn't have it as bad as poor Satsuki Kurogiri, but her role as co-protagonist alongside Azaka is significantly reduced in the movie adaptation of Oblivion Recorder. In the original light novel, she and Azaka had equal focus in the plot and she even got to narrate her own sections of the story as it unfolded.
Despair Event Horizon: She comes close to crossing it in the seventh chapter, where, thinking she lost Mikiya forever, she gives up on living after killing Shirazumi. A Not Quite Dead Mikiya finds and embraces her very shortly after.
Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: As a result of both losing SHIKI and spending two years alone in a void during her coma, when she wakes up she struggles with a sense of emptiness and complete apathy towards everything. This is the main reason behind her cold, standoffish personality, as well as her taste for killing - fighting to the death is the only thing that makes her feel alive.
Determinator: Shiki never lets things like major injury slow her down for long.
Devoted to You: Mikiya's dedication to Shiki is beyond belief. No matter how much she tried to push him away, even when she claimed to be a murderer, he wouldn't leave her alone. Not even attacking him with a knife affected his feelings for Shiki and he went to visit her at the hospital every week until she woke up from her coma.
Dissonant Serenity: Her reaction to finding a dismantled corpse? Calmly kneel down, touch the blood in the ground and use it to paint her lips.
Does Not Like Spam: She says multiple times that she hates sweets and cold food. This gets subverted eventually when she has Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream.
The Don: In Mirai Fukuin's preface Shiki is now in her thirties, married and a mother. She seems to have come in terms to be part of a Yakuza family and she became the Ryougi family's head.
The Dreaded: Has this reputation towards the characters in both her series and out of it. Of note, Kirie and Fujino were afraid of her during their respective fights against her (and if Fate/Grand Order and Garden of Oblivion are anything, Fujino is still scared of her even after Shiki saved her life in the third movie), and even Araya feels a sense of dread when Shiki makes her killing intent clear during their second bout together. Even Mikiya and Enjou, both of whom are explicitly in love with her, fear her to some extent (but not enough to dissuade them from loving her anyways). In the Garden of Oblivion light novel, Shizune's entire group, including Azaka, the aforementioned Fujino, and Ouji, do a collective Oh, Crap! when they see a zombified Shiki, still retaining her skills and abilities, spotting them and realizing they have to go through her in order to survive.
Dude Magnet: Mikiya, Enjou, and Shirazumi are head over heels in love with her, and even those who aren't particularly romantically interested in her note that she's very beautiful.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Carries off this vibe, what with her being an aloof, bloodthirsty Blood Knight and Sociopathic Hero.
Even the Girls Want Her: Touko flirts with her during their first meeting and says she is her type.
Everyone Has Standards: She has a taste for killing, but dislikes the way Fujino Asagami kills as she pleases and only goes to fight her when she kills someone uninvolved with her revenge.
Expository Pronoun: She originally used the watashi first-person pronoun, but switched to the overly masculine ore to remind herself and Mikiya of her dead personality SHIKI. She goes back to using watashi in the post-credits scene of the seventh movie, indicating that she has accepted both her past and present self.
Eye Scream: In the fourth movie, Shiki crushes her eyes when her mind cannot handle the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, but doesn't lose her vision. She tries to do it again later, but is stopped by Touko.
Female Fighter, Male Handler: She has this dynamic with Mikiya. Shiki is a knife-wielding expert with eyes that give her the power how to kill anything in existence while her boyfriend Mikiya is her Morality Chain who keeps her from crossing the line.
Gaussian Girl: During Mikiya's first meeting with Shiki at the start of the second movie, Shiki and her smile looked ethereal in Mikiya's eyes.
Girl with Psycho Weapon: Shiki has an obsession with large knives.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: The characteristic iridescent-blue glow is used in the movies as a shorthand to inform the viewers whenever Shiki activates her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. While this is a much rarer occurrence in the novels, several characters (including Enjou, Araya, Shirazumi, and Meruka Kuramitsu in Mirai Fukuin) describe Shiki's eyes as glowing blue whenever she makes them see the lines of death.
Good Is Old-Fashioned: Shiki makes almost no use of modern conveniences except for refrigeration and electric light, almost never even answers her telephone (and she hasn't changed the answering machine's message from its default), wears traditional clothing whenever possible, seems most comfortable in Touko's ancient, run-down office, and is utterly disgusted by drugs and casual sex. Although gender is more or less a non-issue for her for personal reasons; she questions Enjou'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.
The Grim Reaper: Seeing as she can kill everything including intangible forces, beings who are already dead, and spirits. She's even explicitly called a "Death God" by Touko during Book/Episode 5, "Paradox Spiral." Her ability to kill anything gets taken to its logical/absurd conclusion in Future Gospel, where she cuts the future. A precognitive, Meruka Kuramitsu, had set up a perfect and inescapable trap that would definitely kill Shiki — so she kills that possibility and, by extension, Kuramitsu's foresight.
Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After failing the first attempt to rescue Mikiya from Kirie Fujou and losing one arm in the process, she eats the a whole Häagen-Dazs box, which earlier she refused to touch when Mikiya brought to her.
Heartbroken Badass: In the seventh movie, Shiki is made believe Mikiya is dead when Lio claims to have killed him. Thinking she has nothing to lose, she brutally dismembers Lio before she leaves herself to die, but Mikiya turns out to be alive and gives her back the will to live.
Heir to the Dojo: She was chosen as the next head of the Ryougi family because of her older brother's inability to manifest his second persona, but apparently lost the position after losing her own. However, in the end she gained that position once more and ultimately succeeded as the new head.
Heroes Love Dogs: For a certain definition of "hero". While normally disinterested towards most people, she's rather affectionate towards dogs, as seen with how playfully fond she is of Shizune's dog, Akira.
His Quirk Lives On: After SHIKI's death, Shiki starts using 'ore' like SHIKI did so neither she nor Mikiya not forget SHIKI.
Hope Is Scary: Mikiya is a normal person who always believed she was a good person herself - a constant reminder that because of her upbringing, misanthropic nature, and the world she came from, she can't be normal like she secretly yearns for. This threatens both her and SHIKI's stability, resulting in her attempt to kill Mikiya.
Humanizing Tears: One of her most humanizing moments is when she cries in the finale of the film series. She thinks Lio killed Mikiya and as Lio is attacking her, Shiki sheds tears while thinking about how a life without Mikiya is meaningless for her.
I Am Not Left-Handed: While her knife skills are fearsome, being on par with a fifth dan kendo black belt like Taiga Fujimura, her full potential is only revealed while she has a sword in hand due to a self-suggestion placed on herself. Araya speculates that she could have killed him instantly if not for her previous injuries and exhaustion from being trapped outside of space.
Icy Gray Eyes: Shiki has the cold/dangerous variety of gray eyes, which turn icy blue when she activates her Mystic Eyes. Interestingly, in Melty Blood, she is one of the few characters whose eyes don't glow red (Demon) or blue (not demon) in the opening "Versus" screen of each battle.
I Just Want to Be Normal: After meeting Mikiya, Shiki started yearning for a normal life with him. This is essentially what her and SHIKI's "dream" boils down to. Touko in the fourth chapter bluntly reminds her not to dream about it as they come from the same 'side' of the world that belongs to magi and the supernatural.
Important Haircut: In the fourth movie, she cuts her long hair before she proceeds to kick some ass now that she has resolved to not give in to death.
In a Single Bound: She can easily jump from one building roof to another.
Ineffectual Loner: Shiki by nature wants to be alone, and doesn't seek the company of other people. However, Kokutou is instantly drawn to her and his sheer persistance eventually wins her over, and Azaka also actually likes Shiki very much, if only they weren't in love with the same person.
It Gets Easier: The reason Mikiya kept telling her not to kill Shirazumi, and the probable source of her Blue-and-Orange Morality above.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's an aloof and apathetic borderline sociopath. However, her better side typically shows itself when she interacts with Mikiya and Tomoe Enjou. Her sparing of Fujino and relieving her of her agonizing appendicitis is a big example as well.
Katanas Are Just Better: In the fifth movie, Shiki packs out a family katana, Kanesada Kuji, to confront her most dangerous enemy yet. Said sword is five hundred years old, acumulating enough history and thus Mystery (what powers magic in the Nasuverse) that it can slice apart Bounded Fields and barriers simply by being drawn from the scabbard. Subverted, however, when Araya realizes that it's not the katana itself that makes it so dangerous, but a self-suggestion Shiki placed upon herself to bring out the most of her fighting ability, merely triggered by wielding that particular blade.
Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: One time she fought in a really fancy dress, and technically she does all her fighting in various kimonos.
Kimono Fanservice: Of the Costume Porn kind. While the fanservice aspect of Shiki's wardrobe is never played up, there's no denying that she looks downright attractive in them.
Kimono Is Traditional: She wears nothing but kimono, except for a red leather jacket over it. While not strictly traditionalist, she's incredibly conservative.
Lady of War: That beautiful form-fitting kimono is likely the last thing you'll ever see.
Last of Her Kind: Zigzagged. While the Ryougi family definitely still thrive compared to the other three demon hunting families in the modern era, Shiki is the last of the Ryougi to have manifested a split personality through the family's paranormal methods as her daughter did not inherit this trait unlike her.
Leitmotif: In the movies, a specific tune is usually associated with her.
Licked by the Dog: In Oblivion Recorder, Azaka's roommate's pet collie becomes attached to Shiki.
Lightning Bruiser: Strong and fast enough to take on the animalistic cannibal Lio Shirazumi, who can move faster than the human eye and tear apart people with his bare hands.
Limited Wardrobe: Shiki is shown to own three of the same jacket.
Loners Are Freaks: She's isolated, alienated, desperately lonely, and not quite mentally stable.
Loss of Identity: After she wakes up from her two year coma, while Shiki knows she is Shiki Ryougi, she does not feel that she is due to being unable to connect herself to the "her" from her memories and losing her Split Personality.
Love Makes You Crazy: Her growing feelings and desire to be normal threatened her grip on the world, given her rather misanthropic nature. She eventually tried to kill him and when she realized she couldn't bring herself to do it, she tried to kill herself instead. To quote, she decided that if she can't make him go away, she'll make herself go away instead.
Love Redeems: Mikiya's love for Shiki is the reason why she represses her murderous impulses.
Mafia Princess: The Ryougi family are prominent Yakuza, although she is very indifferent to her family's business and doesn't particularly like or dislike it. What she didn't like was being groomed to be their future head.
Magical Eye: Her defining ability is the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception which allow her to perceive the nature of death as lines and dots over everything. Tracing or stabbing these lines will break them apart or flat out destroy them.
Major Injury Underreaction: She appears to be completely apathetic to being hurt. Sacrificing her left arm appears to be a fair tradeoff for winning to her, and gnawing her own thumb off to get free doesn't seem to bother her either.
Mask of Sanity: She's a murderous psychopath who finds pleasure from killing, but thanks to her detached and stoic demeanor, as well as Mikiya's influence, she often appears more sane than she actually is.
Meaningful Name: Ryougi means "two equal sides of opposites", and while Shiki can be translated to "method" or "equation", it's more accurate to say that the name was derived from "Shikigami".
Misanthrope Supreme: Growing up with a complicated case of Split Personality that gave her awareness of her other self's thoughts made Shiki realize from a young age how ugly humans can be. This led Shiki to hate and reject humans until Mikiya came along.
Mistaken for Murderer: She is suspected to have a connection with the murders of 1995-1996. Her appearing covered in blood at the crime scenes doesn't make her look like an innocent. However, at the end the real culprit is revealed to be Lio Shirazumi.
Moving Beyond Bereavement: Most of Kara no Kyoukai is devoted to Shiki's blundering attempts to come terms with the death of her second personality, SHIKI, which occurred as a result of her failed suicide.
Muggle–Mage Romance: With Mikiya. One of the main conflicts at the start of their relationship was that Shiki couldn't believe someone of the world she came from could ever be with someone as normal as Mikiya.
Multi-Gendered Split Personalities: Shiki's entire bloodline is capable of developing this if a specific ritual is performed when they're infants, though she's the heir of the family rather than her older brother because he was unable to manifest his second personality. Shiki's male personality SHIKI was killed during the car accident that left her in a coma two years ago; a major plot point is Shiki accepting SHIKI's loss and moving on.
My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Though not an actual sibling, Shiki does something like this for her male personality by adopting his masculine behaviour and speech patterns after losing him.
Noble Demon: Shiki is a Sociopathic Hero Blood Knight with a bit of Blue-and-Orange Morality, but she has standards and a kind of sense of responsibility. She loves killing people who are worth killing, but dislikes killing those who won't effectively fight back.
Nobody Touches the Hair: She says she dislikes just thinking about someone else touching her hair. Although, according to Nasu and Takeuchi in an interview in the movie pamphlets, Kaname Ryougi, her older brother, was the only one she actually allowed to touch and fix her hair. Not even Mikiya was allowed this privilege.
Nominal Hero: A firm anti-heroine. If Shiki's enemies weren't all evil, and if it wasn't for Mikiya, she would have no virtues at all.
"Not So Different" Remark: A rare case where the hero says this to the villain. Shiki keeps telling Fujino how similar they are as well-intentioned but equally sociopathic killers with supernatural abilities, though Fujino doesn't want to admit it till the end of their fight.
Official Couple: By the end of the story, Shiki and Mikiya are officially a couple. The epilogue from the future confirms they eventually get married.
Ojou: Technically. Her family had effectively retired from the task of demon hunting, but they remained wealthy landowners. Her actual tomboyish, blunt and aggressive personality for most of the series doesn't fit this at all, but before she lost SHIKI, the original female personality fit this perfectly.
One-Hit Kill: Her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception allow to see the Lines of Death of anything that exists; cutting along these lines results in the death of the victim.
Opposites Attract: With Mikiya. She's an aloof and ruthless Sociopathic Hero, he's a friendly and compassionate Nice Guy.
Pet the Dog: Fighting to death is the one thing that makes her excited, but there's several moments where Shiki proves to be capable of kindness and compassion. Most notably, she spares Fujino's life and gives Enjou shelter when he has nowhere to go.
Pitbull Dates Puppy: Shiki is an aloof, bloodthirsty Blood Knight and Sociopathic Hero, while her love interest Mikiya is a sweet, incredibly patient and pacifist Nice Guy. Taken to its logical extreme when Shiki once puts a knife to his throat and threatens to kill him.
Pretty in Mink: Her jacket has a fur collar.
Raised as the Opposite Gender: Shiki was raised as a male to be a suitable heir to the family business, although Shiki herself was never really into it, especially after her male personality died and she met Mikiya, leaving her household to live by herself in an apartment.
Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Shiki is a borderline psychotic sociopath who, nonetheless, is one of the "good guys" because most of the people she fights are even worse. Her sidekick and love interest Mikiya, on the other hand, is a compassionate and morally upstanding individual with whom everyone wants to be friends—including some of the villains Shiki has to fight later.
The Sacred Darkness: 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 essentially a void goddess.
Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The reason she does NOT appear beside her husband and daughter in The Adventures of El-Melloi II is because she disapproves of Mikiya’s decision to help the Yakou family and temporarily leaves Tokyo in protest.
Shatterpoint Tap: She uses her power this way, visualizing the weakpoints and mortality of her targets, then striking exactly at that point, or cutting along the lines, she obliterates them.
Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She loves the Nice Guy Mikiya, who has sworn to stay devoted to her and be by her side no matter what happens.
Slasher Smile:
Shiki: Hmph. I see, you really are quite something. In that case... (cue "Psycho" Strings) ...I'LL JUST HAVE TO KILL YOU!
Sociopathic Hero: Both the Hero and the Sociopathic played up very much. It's weird.
Split Personality: To a much more complicated degree than usual. It's not that they're a single personality that was split - they were always separate entities that happened to occur in the same body. The Ryougi family has the supernatural ability of dual personalities, which resulted in Shiki having both a (dominant) female side and a male side. Shiki ends up losing her other personality after the car accident.
The Stoic: Shiki usually has the same bored expression on her face. Her disinterest in other human beings started it, but it's her connection to the Root that made her empty.
Story-Breaker Power: Her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception allow her to "kill" pretty much anything - magic, emotions, ghosts, living people, etc. - and her powers work through projectiles, which just screams for a sniper rifle. Then we find out the full extent of her powers through her third personality in the original epilogue to the novels. It turns out Story-Breaker Power would be putting it lightly.
Strong Family Resemblance: Her facial features and dark hair greatly resembles her beautiful mother's, as shown in official character artworks and in her mother's very brief appearance in the 4th movie.
Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Shiki is often very brusque, businesslike, and aloof, although she does reveal a much more human and compassionate side towards Mikiya.
Super-Speed: Fast enough to blitz through a barrage of enemies and dodge an explosion detonated at point blank range.
Supporting Protagonist: In the fifth and sixth movies, she takes a backseat to Enjou and Azaka, respectively.
Supreme Chef: She doesn't get to show it off much unlike Shirou in Fate/stay night, but Shiki is actually a great chef par excellence as mentioned in the light novels. She was even seen cooking in her split-second cameo in Carnival Phantasm.
Sympathy for the Devil: She expresses pity for Fujino and pulls a Pet the Dog moment by sparing her life and ending her terminal appendicitis.
Technical Pacifist: Limits herself to avoid killing in the end for Mikiya's sake.
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 Souren Araya and her fight with Asagami Fujino are great examples).
Tomboyish Name: The "Shiki" in Shiki Ryougi is a neutral name, hence (male) Shiki Tohno of Tsukihime.
Tomboyish Voice: She has such a low voice that she could easily pass as a teenage boy that hasn't broken his voice yet. The fact that she talks like a guy and doesn't exactly act like a lady doesn't help, not to mention her previous male personality acting like a normal teenage boy albeit inside a girl's body.
Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She is a 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, and she still frequently displays her more feminine side. For instance, Shiki likes to wear fancy kimono. Also, she at first says she doesn't like ice cream since her male personality loathes it, but it eventually becomes her favorite snack.
Took a Level in Badass: In her fight against Souren Araya, Shiki becomes exponentially more proficient and deadly once she gets her hands on a katana.
Touch the Intangible: She has a magical prosthetic arm, made by Touko, that is able to touch spirits. This comes in handy when she fights Kirie's Astral Projection.
Trademark Favorite Food: Bottled water, of all things (it's the only thing we ever see in her fridge). 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.
Tranquil Fury: Angry or not, Shiki always has the same stoic attitude.
Tsundere: Harsh type. She can be gruff towards Mikiya, but there's no doubt that she loves him. Lampshaded by her creator Nasu who refers to Shiki as a tsungire.
Tsurime Eyes: Sharp and menacing eyes, like Shiki herself.
Uptown Girl: Shiki's family are wealthy landowners while Mikiya belongs to the middle-class. Before her coma, Shiki lived in a large Japanese-style mansion with a grove of bamboo beyond the outer wall. Afterwards, she lives by herself in an apartment.
Violently Protective Girlfriend: If you hurt Mikiya, you are dead.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Azaka. They don't seem to get along because Azaka is jealous of Shiki being the woman her brother loves, but Shiki treats Azaka as an annoying little sister of sorts and Azaka likes Shiki more than she's willing to admit.
When She Smiles: The first time she shows a genuine smile during the third chapter.
Yandere: A very complicated example. When Shiki develops feelings for Mikiya, it threatens both her and SHIKI's stability because of her misanthropic nature and her frustration with knowing that she could never be normal like Mikiya. This culminates in Shiki trying to kill Mikiya with a knife when he refuses to get out of her life. However, it's subverted as Shiki couldn't bring herself to kill Mikiya and tried to kill herself instead.

Mikiya Kokutou

Voiced by: Kentarō Itō (drama CD), Kenichi Suzumura (anime), Eri Kitamura (Child in the sixth movie)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Mikiya.jpg

"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.

Actual Pacifist: His exact Origin is unknown, but is described as "one that will never hurt others, more so than anyone else."
All-Loving Hero: He's a compassionate and morally upstanding individual who is able to bring out the best of people, including those like Shiki.
Babies Ever After: He and Shiki have a daughter named Mana in the Distant Finale.
Badass Pacifist: He's no fighter, but he still gets plenty of awesome moments just with an sheer amount of determination and courage. Other characters note how Mikiya is actually very strong despite being so normal thanks to his unbreakable will alone.
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Inverted, where it's Mikiya as the Gentle Boy and Shiki as the Brooding Girl.
Chastity Couple: With Shiki. They're obviously a couple by the end, but they never even kiss onscreen. However, in "Mirai Fukuin" it's revealed that in the distant future, they actually do have a daughter.
Clueless Chick-Magnet: Mikiya attracts plenty of ladies, but since his sights are firmly set on Shiki he doesn't even notice it. Although to be fair, aside from Shiki and Azaka, Mikiya doesn't interact much with his other suitors (Kirie, Fujino, Shizune) and didn't realize the effect he had in them with only one meeting. Even his daughter seems to be attracted to him.
The Defroster: When he meets the aloof and solitary Shiki, Mikiya is instantly attracted to her and keeps trying to become close to her. As Shiki realizes Mikiya's warmth and kindness are bringing her out of her shell, Shiki and her other personality SHIKI warn Mikiya that they could kill him if he keeps getting close because both Shiki and SHIKI want to get rid of anyone who makes them vulnerable, but Mikiya refuses to stay away. Eventually, Shiki does try to stab Mikiya, only to realize she can't bring herself to hurt him. After she wakes up from her coma and loses her other personality, Shiki accepts Mikiya to stay by her side and he becomes her Morality Pet.
Determinator: In the seventh movie, Shirazumi 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, Shirazumi stabs Mikiya in the face. This doesn't stop Mikiya from limping on said leg and then clawing his way to Shiki.
Disney Death: In the seventh chapter/movie, it looks like Mikiya dies when Lio stabs him in the eye. Believing him to be dead, Shiki kills Lio in revenge... Only for Mikiya to turn out to be alive and crawl his way to Shiki.
Distressed Dude: In the first movie, his soul is captured by Kirie Fujou and Shiki has to save him.
Dogged Nice Guy: He has been pining after Shiki since day one. Despite her difficult personality and initial attempts to push him away, he's incredibly patient with Shiki and nothing she tries to do will keep him away from her for long.
Even the Guys Want Him: Or at least Shirazumi does, according to Word of God.
Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Downplayed. Mikiya Kokutou is an All-Loving Hero who is able to bring out the best in people, including his love interest, Shiki Ryougi. So it really says something when, despite Mikiya being willing to protect him, Keita Minato earns Mikiya's disgust when he confesses to taking part in the gang-rape of Fujino Asagami.
Everyone Can See It: When he was in high school, it was obvious to everyone that he had a crush on Shiki. When one of his friends asked him if they were dating, Mikiya responded with a Spit Take and the usual She Is Not My Girlfriend talk.
Eye Scream: Shirazumi stabs Mikiya in the left eye after Mikiya rejects him one last time.
Female Fighter, Male Handler: Mikiya is a Non-Action Guy, so his girlfriend Shiki is the one who fights the superpowered individuals they come across. Still, Mikiya provides essential moral support for Shiki, which is the one thing keeping her from becoming a homicidal killer.
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). Later, he opposes killing Shirazumi, who is already a Serial Killer more similar to a savage animal than a human being, despite the fact that Shirazumi had told Mikiya himself that the next time they meet he wouldn't be able to restrain his urges to murder him.
First-Person Smartass: On occasion, in the novels.
Good Is Dumb: His niceness usually leads him to do very stupid things. He even says he gets called an idiot a lot. On the other hand he is a competent researcher and detective and has no lack of book smarts.
Hiding Behind Your Bangs: After Lio stabs him in the face, Mikiya covers his now missing left eye with his hair.
Innocent Blue Eyes: He has blue eyes and he's the most good-natured and compassionate character in the cast.
Kindhearted Cat Lover: He briefly takes care of a cat in Extra Chorus.
Living Emotional Crutch:
- To Shiki. Having Mikiya by her side is what maintains her mostly stable while dealing with her loss of sense of self and the death of her split personality. When she thinks Shirazumi killed Mikiya, Shiki decides she doesn't care about anything anymore, murders Shirazumi and falls over to the ground with no intention to get up again. Mikiya then claws his way back to her and promises to not leave her alone ever again.
- While it's less obvious, he is also this to Shirazumi. Mikiya was his Only Friend and the only person who truly cared about him, but Shirazumi didn't realize how much Mikiya meant to him until it was too late. After he believes he killed Mikiya, Shirazumi snaps completely and goes more Ax-Crazy than he already was.
Love at First Sight: He fell in love with Shiki Ryougi the moment he first saw her that snowy night. He wasn't aware it was her third personality that he met, but that didn't change anything.
Love Martyr: Shiki and her male personality SHIKI threaten to kill Mikiya if he gets too close to them, but Mikiya doesn't get intimidated and keeps hanging out with Shiki because he likes her. Eventually, Shiki goes through with her threat and tries to stab Mikiya, although she can't bring herself to do it in the end and throws herself in front of a car. Yet, none of this makes Mikiya's love for her waver. For the next two years, Mikiya faithfully waits for her to wake up and when she recovers, he stays by her side.
Loved by All: He can easily listen to what other people say with an open mind while also letting others view him as very non-threatening so they're more likely to open up to him. As a result, he's able to easily make friends with pretty much anyone he wants. It's to the point that even when Shirazumi has reached his breaking point of sanity, he notices that he hasn't fully lost it yet likely just due to Mikiya being present as he still recognizes him as a person who legitimately was always trying to help.
Morality Chain: The only reason Shiki doesn't go around killing people is because she understands that she would break Mikiya's heart if she betrayed his trust. Shirazumi knows this and tries to break the chain by threatening her about killing him. And it works; once he (incorrectly) tells Shiki he killed Mikiya, Shirazumi is diced into half a dozen pieces before he even hits the ground.
Morality Pet:
- Mikiya is the only one who can bring out Sociopathic Hero Shiki's human and compassionate side.
- Shirazumi is usually mild around Mikiya, acting like his old self only towards him.
Muggle–Mage Romance: With Shiki. Mikiya knows they come from very different worlds and she's anything but normal, but he still loves her and wants to be with her.
Named Like My Name: A variation that only works in Japanese. Shiki and other characters point out that his last name sounds like a French poet, referring to Jean Cocteau, whose last name is pronounced as Kokutou in Japanese.
Nice Guy: Kokutou is a really decent, polite, and patient guy, and a devout Zen Buddhist.
Non-Action Guy: Mikiya sticks to investigation and information gathering, which he is very good at, and leaves all the fighting to Shiki.
Oblivious to Love: He's clueless to any girl aside from Shiki falling for him. It's not as bad as other examples because he barely got to meet most of those girls more than once, but it is surprising he hasn't noticed his sister's affection for him is clearly not platonic.
Occult Detective: Since he didn't want to go to college without Shiki, Mikiya got a job as an assistant investigator in Touko's pseudo-detective agency that pursues cases with supernatural or abnormal elements.
Official Couple: Mikiya and Shiki are obviously in love with each other. The epilogue confirms them to be married in the future.
The One Guy: The only recurring male character among the protagonists.
Only Friend: Ever since high school, Mikiya is the only one who could get close to Shiki and become her friend. He was also the only person Shirazumi could call a friend.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even though he is willing to protect him, Mikiya is disgusted with Keita Minato after the latter confessed that he and his gang had raped Fujino.
Opposites Attract: With Shiki. He's a friendly and compassionate Nice Guy, she's an aloof and ruthless Sociopathic Hero.
Ordinary High-School Student: When he met Shiki, he was just an extremely normal high school student with exceptionally average grades who got himself involved in some weird stuff when he fell in love with a girl with a male split personality who could be a murderer. After Shiki ended up in a coma, Mikiya didn't want to go to college without her after graduating high school and started working under Touko as an assistant investigator.
Pitbull Dates Puppy: Mikiya is a sweet, incredibly patient and pacifist Nice Guy, while Shiki is an aloof, bloodthirsty Blood Knight and Sociopathic Hero.
Really Dead Montage: In the seventh movie. Subverted in that he was Not Quite Dead.
Ridiculously Average Guy: His Origin is Normalcy, which makes him normal to the extreme.
Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: He's Sociopathic Hero Shiki's gentle and compassionate sidekick who is always trying to bring out the best of her and stop her from going too far on her enemies.
Scary Shiny Glasses: The third movie after Keita Minato confesses how he and his gang repeatedly raped Fujino Asagami.
Mikiya: You. Shut up.
Secret-Keeper: After finding Shiki standing in front of a headless corpse, he didn't tell the police, deciding to believe she isn't the Serial Killer. Also, he promises Shiki's Third Personality to not tell Shiki about her existence and powers.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Mikiya is the very definition of a normal and levelheaded guy, in contrast to his younger sister Azaka who is an outspoken Tsundere with a Big Brother Attraction.
Single-Target Sexuality: He loves Shiki and no one else. He even claims that he wouldn't mind if Shiki were male.
Sophisticated as Hell: "She is either an eminent virtuoso, or just a big weirdo."
Spell My Name With An S: Even the official manga translation can't seem to decide if it's "Kokutou", "Kokuto" or "Kokutoh".
Supporting Protagonist: While the main character is really Shiki, a chunk of the story is told in his point of view. He also serves as this to Shizune Seo in her side of the story in Future Gospel's Möbius Ring storyline.
Token Good Teammate: The people he works with are morally neutral at best, while Mikiya is the most moral character in the series.
Took the Wife's Name: Years after the ending, Mikiya marries into Shiki's family, not the other way around. It makes sense since he was born into a normal middle-class family while the Ryougi are a very wealthy and powerful clan.
Unable to Cry: Mikiya says he couldn't cry even if he wanted to. He believes that crying is a "special" action that makes the person whom you are crying for "special" in return. Because he instinctively attempts to live a "normal" life as his Origin dictates, it is impossible for him to shed tears for someone unless they are truly special to him.
Unbroken Vigil: During Shiki's two year coma, Mikiya goes to visit her every week. This even earns him the nickname "Puppy-kun" among the hospital staff.
Understanding Boyfriend: Mikiya doesn't care about what makes Shiki abnormal; be it split personalities, eyes that see death, committing murder or being the incarnation of the Origin itself. He will love her and stay with her no matter what.
Unfazed Everyman: A completely normal guy working for a magus. Nothing out of the ordinary there...
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 Aozaki

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (drama CD), Takako Honda (anime)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Touko.jpg

Touko is an extremely powerful magus who masquerades as an artisan specializing in mannequins and occasionally a designer of buildings. Together with Mikiya, she runs a pseudo-detective agency that pursues cases with supernatural or abnormal elements.

She specializes in puppet maker magecraft, an arcane art focused on reproducing the parts of the human body, allowing her to make Artificial Limbs for those who have lost them. This also proves useful as she can not only create replacement body parts that function exactly like the originals, but can augment them with her magic and various additional functions as well.

She is the older sister of Aoko Aozaki.

Adaptation Dye-Job: She has short, blue hair in the novels. It's changed to long red hair in the movies, to make her look more like her sister. The color of her pants is also changed from purple to black.
Adaptational Hairstyle Change: In the novels' illustrations, Touko had very short blue hair. The movies changed her original hairstyle for a shoulder-length ponytail and made it red to match with Aoko.
Affably Evil: By most people's standards, she is an inhuman monster who cares very little for human life, will kill even longtime colleagues over a mere insult, and has a desire to murder her own sister for the "crime" of being chosen as the successor of their family over her. This doesn't stop her from being funny, charming, and genuinely kind to people she likes, like Shiki and the Kokutou siblings.
The Archmage: Touko is one of the most skilled modern magi of the Nasuverse. She has an unusually high amount of Magic Circuits for an Aozaki member, but like the rest of her family, her Circuits are of excellent quality. Coupled with her natural gifted body, she is also a master of rune magic and puppetry, the latter being the reason why she is on the list of magi that are designated to be sealed.
Artificial Human: Her greatest achievement as a puppet maker was the development of a process to make perfect copies of herself that will awake when the current her dies. As one of the Toukos dies in "Paradox Spiral", this means either she was a copy up till that point in the story, or became one afterwards... assuming the "original" Touko wasn't already long dead. Touko herself suggests it doesn't really matter, pointing out since her other selves are all perfect copies, she can't even prove that the "original" her is / was any more real than the "artificial" her anyway.
Badass Bookworm: Knowledgeable in loads of fields. It's noted in Lord El-Melloi II Case Files that she's single-handedly responsible for reviving modern Rune Magecraft after it'd hit a dead end for centuries by researching the Futhark runes and rediscovering Primeval Runes from the Age of Gods.
Badass Longcoat: She wears an orange longcoat in the fifth chapter, which makes her look more badass when she faces Araya and kills Cornelius.
Benevolent Boss: Although she's not good about paycheques, she hauls Mikiya and Shiki out of trouble a few times apparently for no reason other than that they work for her.
Berserk Button: She's usually pretty calm, but if you call her a "dirty red," calm turns to Tranquil Fury and you're dead. It's her policy. Francesca made it a point to push the button with all deliberation just to see what she'd do. Answer: brutally murder her, then proceed to kill another dozen copies and torch half as many safehouses.
Bespectacled Cutie: If she's wearing her glasses, she acts friendlier and inviting.
Blue-Collar Warlock: She is a supernatural detective masquerading as an architect and toy designer, dresses up in modern work clothes and a trenchcoat, smokes cigarettes, and always flat broke that she accepts odd jobs that would pay for her charge's paycheck and/or her spending habits. Yet she is known to be one of the most powerful magi in the Nasuverse.
Body Backup Drive: As a genius dollmaker, she figured out how to create perfect copies of her own body and mind, which awaken when her current "container" is destroyed.
But Now I Must Go: Decides in the last chapter that she's been hanging around one area too long and moves on.
Cain and Abel: With Aoko, the Abel who (unintentionally) stole the rights of the Family Head of Aozaki Clan. Touko entered the Clock Tower academy to get her revenge on her, making her the Cain. Let's just say the rivalry between the sisters has gotten rather bad a good few times in the past.
The Cameo: She has been seen in Fate/EXTRA. Along with her little sister Aoko — in the very same room, no less.
- She also possibly made a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance in the third part of Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel, walking past Rin and Sakura as they headed to a back-alley magic shop to acquire a new artificial body for Shirou's disembodied soul to occupy. All we could really see was the back of a head of red hair, but given the context it was probably meant to be her, having just delivered the body they'd ordered.
Clone Angst: Inverted. Cornelius is utterly horrified to find out she has multiple copies of herself, as he realizes he's been unable to tell when he's been dealing with a copy or the "real" her. Touko herself sees no distinction, as the copies are all perfect ones physically and mentally (thanks to a magic Hive Mind), so as far as any given Touko is concerned, all her copies are her. By the time of Fate/strange Fake, her copies have progressed in complexity to the point of being able to pass DNA testing.
Color Character:
- In compounds, the 橙 kanji in her name means orange. Alba calls her 橙色の魔術師, the Orange Magus.
- Her family name contains the word for "blue" (Ao), which is the reason why she aimed to get the primary color title of "blue" in London.
Color Motif: Mikiya mentions that Touko always seems to wear something orange as a rule. In the movies, she is wearing orange earrings, a necklace with an orange stone, orange painted fingernails and occasionally an orange coat.
Continuity Nod: She was the creator of the glasses that Shiki Tohno wears in Tsukihime, as well as Shirou Emiya's new body in the True End of Heaven's Feel in Fate/stay night.
Cool Big Sis: Acts this way towards Mikiya and Shiki. Not so much towards her actual sister, though.
Creepy Good: Although she is the boss through which our heroes are employed, Touko has an uncomfortable tendency to find amusement, if not outright viciously laugh at the irony of human suffering rather feel compassion.
Curtains Match the Window: Has red hair and eyes in everything but the original novel release.
Drives Like Crazy: When Touko gets behind the wheel in the third movie, Mikiya's reactions tell us that she's like this. We find out in the 5th movie that she never went to driving school, which explains a lot.
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the original light novel illustrations, Touko has short light blue hair. Ever since the movie series adaptation, Touko is portrayed with long auburn hair in every of her next appearances in the Nasuverse.
Eccentric Mentor: She almost never has the money to pay her apprentices because she has a habit of making impulse purchases of weird things. There's also the massive collection of doll parts... and just about everything else about her.
Eldritch Abomination: Invoked. Has a series of suitcases filled with increasingly terrifying shadow monsters that are specifically made to be unidentifiable and unkillable, with the strongest we see having a multi-limbed shoggoth looking thing inside it that eats her enemies alive. She herself edges towards Humanoid Abomination, as she's created an endless series of Body Backup Drive copies that will replace the current her with the exact same personality and memories, one after another, the second the latest her dies, much to the existential horror of those unlucky enough to find out.
Cornelius: Then was the you I've been dealing with this entire time... no... are... are you real?
Touko: Really now... what's the point of a question like that when I'm the one you're asking!
Embarrassing Nickname: Calling her "Dirty Red" is a way of mocking her and saying she plays second fiddle to her little sister. God help you if you dare to call her that, though. In "Paradox Spiral", she kills a longtime colleague simply for the crime of calling her her hated college nickname, and even lets it slip that since college she kills every magus who calls her that as a matter of principle.
Evil Laugh: Breaks into peals of malicious laughter when she realizes Araya's clone is about to be disemboweled by Shiki because of his misjudging her abilities in Paradox Spiral.
Evil Parents Want Good Kids: She may be an apathetic and dangerously vengeful magus, but she'll be damned if her protégées Shiki or the Kokutou siblings will end up the same.
The Exile: A Sealing Designation is something between excommunication in the Christian sense of the word, and being marked for "Sealing", which isn't what it sounds like at all and instead that the Designate's magical research has born such tabooistic fruit that the Clock Tower will try to capture and dissect them to get their hands on these results themselves. Touko got hers from making perfect copies of herself and a Body Backup Drive for them.
Existential Horror: Her Body Backup Drive brings up existential questions of what it even means to be "real" if you can be perfectly replaced. And while she doesn't really give a damn, Witch on the Holy Night reveals it's to the point the original Touko willingly let her first duplicate kill her years ago, just to get around a Geas that kept her from trying to kill her sister again a few years early.
Expository Pronoun: Shiki notably uses the aggressive-masculine pronoun of ore to refer to herself in spite of being the portrait of a classical dignified Japanese lady. This is actually just her emulating her male personality's speech patterns as a way to remember him after he disappears.
The Glasses Come Off: Invoked. With her glasses on, she's comparatively nice bordering on a Sensei-chan to her underlings, thanks to an enchantment on them that implements the equivalent of self Mind Manipulation. When they're off, she's much ruder.
Hive Mind: Exploited to implement her Body Backup Drive concept. Her untold number of copies are all being fed memories and experiences through a magical connection from the current her. So as soon the current Touko dies, the next Touko wakes up with the same mind, abilities, and memories to continue right where the last her left off.
Immortal Life Is Cheap: Thanks to what basically amounts to Body Backup Drive by means of one-to-one copies of herself that automatically awake when the current her dies, she can't be killed by any conventional means... not that the existential angst over realizing you can die and still be perfectly replaced is any less horrifying.
Lack of Empathy: Like many magi. Oh, she understands human feelings and pain. She is just so clinical and logical about it that she just doesn't care.
Shiki: Are you... human?
Touko: I'm a magus.
Losing Your Head: In the fifth chapter, Araya decapitates her and keeps her head alive so that her next body doesn't activate.
Loss of Identity: Downplayed. Touko at one point created an exact duplicate of her body, down to the last detail, which made her realize that her own individuality was completely meaningless, as that body could exist as her on its own. She links it to her consciousness and sets it to wake up the instant her current body dies, so it quite literally is her, complete with memories, and she sees no meaningful difference between that body and any other body she might make and use.
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.
Merlin and Nimue: She teaches Azaka magecraft at Azaka's insistence.
Money, Dear Boy: In-Universe, it's her main reason to establish a paranormal detective agency. However, by the time of Fate/strange Fake, she was offered a fortune to collaborate with the masterminds behind the Snowfield Holy Grail War, only to turn them down no matter how much cash she was offered. This might have something to do with the fact Francesca, one of said masterminds, made it a point to push her Berserk Button, though Francesca herself believes she would have been more receptive had the request been worded to appeal to her interests.
Mrs. Robinson: Despite a certain caveat making it hard to tell, Touko is about twenty-seven or twenty-eight and both busty, tall and very pretty. She was a high school student during a fad for pop-a-point pencils (in The '80s) and the parts of the story in which she appears take place between 1998 and 1999.
Nigh-Invulnerability: Permanently killing Touko is next to impossible. Her "soul" and memories are constantly being transferred to a series of puppets that are absolutely identical to herself, and the first thing she does when her "old" self dies and one of her "new" selves wakes up is make another body, with Paradox Spiral being the one exception because she was in a rush. The only way to stop her is to either go through the potentially impossible process of finding and killing all her myriad bodies, destroy the very concept of her existence, or incapacitate her without killing her as Araya does.
Nominal Hero: Not as obvious as Shiki, but Touko is not a heroic or benevolent person by nature and only acts for her own benefit. She appears like a good guy just because she's genuinely fond of Shiki and the Kokutou siblings, and her little sister isn't around.
Occult Detective: She works as an investigator for cases with supernatural or abnormal elements.
Only in It for the Money: She's a supernatural detective because it's the best way to make a truckload of money with her skills, not out of any sense of justice or decency. And oh, it helps to kill the boredom of day to day existence.
Out of Focus: She's a major character in the first five movies, but her role is greatly diminished afterwards.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue Oni to Aoko's Red Oni.
Renaissance Man: She is, in name or in fact, an architectural draftsman, toy designer, bunraku puppet theatre techie, magus, detective, and speech therapist. Her specialization in both runes and puppetry as a magus is noted to be an outlier in Lord El-Melloi II Case Files with how she's managed to excel at both more than anyone has in decades.
Retired Monster: She's much more laid back, if no less twisted or ruthless, than she was back in her high-school days.
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.
Sibling Rivalry: With Aoko. Unlike other examples of this trope, this is taken in an uglier direction, lasting for years and splitting the two apart, the crux of it being Touko wanted the "Blue" title and the magic skill that Aoko had.
Sibling Yin-Yang: With Aoko. Aoko is much more cheerful and outgoing while Touko is more reserved.
Smoking Is Cool: Like a chimney. Just try finding a shot of her ashtray where it's not full of cigarette butts. This is notable because she apparently exclusively smokes a shoddy brand of Taiwanese smokes that she bought the last shipment that was ever produced, and sells boxes of this shipment to other Magi that share her addiction, such as Kairi Shishigou.
Sociopathic Hero: Even moreso than Shiki. She's a magi after all, so nearly complete Lack of Empathy and disregard for human morals is to be expected from her.
Split-Personality Switch Trigger: Touko has dual personalities and the switch is made by putting on and taking off her glasses. With her glasses on, Touko is cheerful and friendly, but objective and ruthless. Without her glasses, she's more serious, subjective and emotional.
Squishy Wizard: She's one of the most powerful magi in the world and an expert puppet maker, but doesn't appear to be very good when it comes to physical combat. Lampshaded when Araya comments Touko herself once told him that a puppet user loses in the moment its puppet is defeated.
Token Evil Teammate: Shiki may enjoy the thrill of fighting to death, but is ultimately a decent person and the Kokutou siblings are good people. Meanwhile, Touko is a cruel magus at heart and has done far worse things than Shiki ever does (mainly thanks to Mikiya helping her suppress her murderous impulses).
Tranquil Fury: When she's absolutely pissed, Touko will calmly tell you what you did to invoke her ire and proceed to kill you in cold blood.
Tsurime Eyes: Has eyes that slant slightly away from her forehead, to signify her maturity in comparison to the younger Shiki and Mikiya.

Azaka Kokutou

Voiced by: Yukari Tamura (drama CD), Ayumi Fujimura (anime)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Azaka.jpg

"I have a confession. I love special things."

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.

Action Dress Rip: She rips her uniform's skirt in her fight against Ouji, for better mobility.
Action Girl: The sixth movie shows what she's made of when she shows off her skills as a Kung-Fu Wizard.
Adaptational Personality Change: Though she's presented as a fiery go-getter girl who's unbothered by her incestuous attraction towards Mikiya in the anime, Azaka, in the novel version of Oblivion Recorder, comes off as a lot more introspective and conflicted towards said feelings she has for her brother, as she monologues that despite being aware how wrong it is for her to possess such feelings, she can't help but be attracted by the dangerous pull her Origin of Taboo has on her. Her inner conflict in the novel portrays her as someone who is constantly plagued by her own intrusive thoughts and dark impulses, which she is forced to confront in the events of Oblivion Recorder as a whole.
All There in the Manual: How she first met Touko was only briefly touched upon in the pamphlet that came with the sixth movie. Apparently, they met each other during the period when Shiki was still in her coma and that Tobimaru Tsukiji, Aoko's childhood friend, was somehow involved.
Annoying Younger Sibling: Not to her actual brother, but Shiki treats Azaka more like an annoying little sister than a real love rival.
Ascended Extra: Her role in the sixth movie is greatly expanded compared to in the novel, where Shiki received at least equal focus.
Badass Adorable: Sure, Shiki may be charming and beautiful, but Azaka-chan fits this trope better as she acts in a more cutesy fashion.
Big Brother Attraction: She has a big crush on her older brother.
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.
Clingy Jealous Girl: She hates anyone who gets close to Mikiya. This is why she can't stand Shiki.
A Day in the Limelight: She is the protagonist of the sixth movie.
Elemental Personalities: Fitting a magus whose talent is Playing with Fire, Azaka is Hot-Blooded and quick to anger when her friends are harassed or mistreated. Or when she sees her rival in love, Shiki.
Enemy Mine: With Misaya Ouji in Garden of Oblivion. The novel reveals that they still don't get along well even though they're technically allies now. Though this is can be seen as an improvement compared to their previous relationship.
Everyone Can See It: Her feelings for Mikiya are quite obvious. Shiki knows about them and is quite sure she isn't the only who has noticed them. Azaka's interactions with Shizune in Extra Chorus pretty much confirm this. Of course, Mikiya has no idea of her feelings.
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.
Forbidden Fruit: Azaka's Origin of "Taboo" causes her to have a natural attraction to that which is forbidden, mainly her brother.
Girlish Pigtails: The sixth movie shows Azaka with her hair tied up in pigtails when she was a child.
Girly Bruiser: Her fighting style includes hand-to-hand combat.
Girly Run: The sixth movie animates her doing the stereotypical girly run with her arms raised up when she does a Foe-Tossing Charge, although it might be because she was running on the backs of pews to get directly to Ouji.
Hopeless Suitor: Azaka wants her brother to see and love her as a woman, but Mikiya won't ever be into incest and the only person he loves romantically is Shiki anyway.
Hot-Blooded: Azaka is a very energetic, extroverted and passionate person.
I Just Want to Be Special: She admits she has a natural attraction to things that are "special" or "forbidden". Stems from her Origin of "Taboo".
Kawaiiko: Azaka-chan is a slightly older than usual example, but oh so very cute nevertheless.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Anyone expecting her to be a worthless warrior in close combat because she practices magic is in for a very rude surprise.
Last-Name Basis: Her schoolmates call her by her last name, including Fujino and Ouji.
Little Sister Heroine: She's Mikiya's cute little sister who has a huge incestuous crush on him and often challenges his actual love interest.
Nephewism: Her uncle's place had a cleaner and healthier environment than the city her parents lived in, so Azaka was adopted by her uncle due to her poor health as a child.
Playing with Fire: She is able to learn ignition spells due to her inborn ability of triggering spontaneous combustion.
Plucky Comic Relief: Compared to the other characters, Azaka is pretty comical. Most of the scenes in which she's around are the most light-hearted moments in the series.
Plucky Girl: While she can be hot-tempered, not a lot of things can get this girl down.
Rebellious Spirit: Because her Origin is taboo, she has a natural urge to do what she's supposed not to.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Azaka's Origin is taboo, making her go against the social norms and feel drawn to things considered forbidden, like her brother. Meanwhile, Mikiya's Origin of normalcy makes him as normal as he can get.
Single-Target Sexuality: Ever since she can remember, she has only been interested in Mikiya.
Stronger Than They Look: Azaka is strong enough to pin down Shiki.
Technicolor Fire: Her flames are a mix of various shades of blue, green, purple, white and red.
Tricked-Out Gloves: She wears a Mystic Code, Salamander Skin Gloves, given to her by Touko in combat to make up for her subpar spell-weaving skills.
Tsundere: Sweet type. She's usually pretty nice and friendly to everyone and very affectionate to her brother. She only becomes harsh and hostile around Shiki. She's still able to admit that she actually likes her well enough; it's just that since she views Shiki as her rival she can't be too friendly towards her.
Unknown Rival: She sees Shiki as her ultimate rival for Mikiya's affections. Shiki, however, doesn't take her seriously and only treats her like a minor nuisance.
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 other 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.

Major Characters

SHIKI Ryougi

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shiki_m.jpg

Shiki's male personality that she lost after being involved in a car accident in high school.

Death of Personality: He dies after the car accident, which gives Shiki a connection to death while she's still alive.
Disappeared Dad: Shiki and Mikiya's daughter Mana views her mother's male personality as a "father". Despite being dead for a long time, Mana is aware of SHIKI having lived inside Shiki. She distinguishes SHIKI and Mikiya by calling the former "father" and the latter "Papa".
Expository Pronoun: What immediately makes SHIKI stand out is that he refers to himself as 'ore', a very arrogant and masculine form, while Shiki refers to herself as the neutral/female 'watashi'.
Heroic Sacrifice: Knowing Shiki could never become happy with him inside, SHIKI chose to die during the car accident so Shiki could finally live normally and be with Mikiya.
Posthumous Character: While we do get to see him a couple of times in the chronologically first chapter/movie, most of his characterization comes from flashbacks and dialogue later in the chronology of the series.
Psychopathic Manchild: He has the speech and gestures of a child. He's also the one responsible for Shiki's murderous tendencies.
Real Men Hate Sugar: He confirms to the teenage boy stereotype of not liking sweet stuff.
Real Men Wear Pink: Ironically, while many of the masculine traits Shiki has are an affectation to honor SHIKI's own personality, he had something of a feminine streak. During his "date" with Mikaya, he's seen enjoying himself in a more girly way by energetically running around, playing for stuffed dolls and checking out jewelry. He's also seen wearing the same types of girly kimonos Shiki wears, and while not implied to be his choice, he doesn't exactly oppose wearing feminine clothing most of the time.
Rebellious Spirit: He's the literal manifestation of Shiki's suppressed rebellious impulses.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Shiki's Blue Oni. SHIKI is carefree with a free-radical nature, while Shiki is cold and brooding.

Daisuke Akimi

Voiced by: Hiroki Tochi

Mikiya's cousin and the police inspector in charge of 1995-96 murder spree investigation.

Agent Mulder: He seems to believe in the supernatural, but he never actually finds anything conclusive.
Friend on the Force: To Mikiya, apparently trusting his cousin enough to discuss confidential investigation details with him.
Nice Guy: He's affable like his cousin. It almost seems to run in the family.
Ship Tease: Gets a bit with Touko, and even apparently went on a date with her, but it ultimately doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Tomoe Enjou

Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Tomoe.jpg

"Ah, I wish this spiral was a paradox..."

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.

Accidental Pervert: During a montage, he walks past an open doorway and can see Shiki changing. He looks visibly annoyed, and shuts the door.
Artificial Human: He's actually a puppet created to repeat the real Enjou's death.
Audience Surrogate: Takashi Takeuchi, Tomoe's character designer, believes that Tomoe is a relatable character to the viewers.
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.
Broken Ace: He had a promising career as his school's star athlete in track and field, but his life fell apart when his father accidentally ran a teenager over with his truck for work as he was driving under influence. Then his family moves to the Ogawa Apartment Complex and things spiral into even worse tragedy for him and his parents from that point on.
Bully Magnet: After his father killed someone in a traffic accident, Tomoe became a victim of bullying and harassment at school until he finally dropped out.
Combat Pragmatist: His first attack in self-defense? A gruesome Eye Scream. The light novel extends it, as in there the first thing he does is jam a can into an enemy's mouth then punch it in.
Curtains Match the Window: His hair and eyes are both orange.
Dead All Along: The real Tomoe Enjou is long dead. The one we see in the movie is a mere replica. When he finds his own preserved brain he does not take it well.
Death Seeker: Partially brought about by his Origin, Worthlessness.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: Described in the novel as having very feminine features to the point that he is often mistaken for a girl.
First-Person Smartass: He tends to snark a lot in his internal monologues in the novels.
Heroic Sacrifice: Once he realizes exactly what he is. At first, it seems a Senseless Sacrifice, but he did bring with him the Kuji-no-Kanesada, which allowed Ryougi to fight at her absolute best and defeat Araya.
I Coulda Been a Contender!: His promising career as his school's star sprinter quickly went up in flames when his father accidentally ran someone over while driving under influence. It's heavily implied that this caused him to start acting distant towards his parents in flashbacks.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Upon meeting Mikiya, Enjou immediately realizes what is going on between him and Shiki. He takes it surprisingly well, believing that even though he loves her, Mikiya is the one she needs. He still considers them to be an odd pairing, though.
Last-Name Basis: Only his parents and the thugs at the beginning of the movie call him by his first name. Shiki always calls him by his last name, and he always calls her by her last name, too.
Lost in Translation: His quote up there sounds a lot less ridiculous in Japanese.
Love at First Sight: He says he fell in love with Shiki the moment he first saw her. Araya says he simply imprinted such feelings in Enjou's mind, but Enjou says it makes them no less real in his own perception.
Matricide: He claims he killed his own mother when she tried to kill him. It's a bit more complicated than that, naturally. To sum it up, what Enjou killed was a puppet of his mother created to repeat their deaths. Enjou's real mother killed herself after she killed her husband and the real Enjou.
The Runaway: He ran away from home after he thought he killed his own mother. Shiki then takes him in and lets him stay at her place.
Spanner in the Works: Araya only lost because of Enjou's love for his family.
Tomato in the Mirror: Tomoe Enjou is an Artificial Human, as he himself confirms when he finds the Brain in a Jar with his name on it. The real one was killed off long ago.
Trademark Favorite Food: While staying at Shiki's place, he eats a lot of Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
Tragic Dropout: He dropped out of high school to help support his family after they fell into financial ruin because his father ran over someone while driving under influence.

Shizune Seo

Voiced by: Yuka Iguchi

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.

Ascended Extra: Once just a cameo character in the sixth movie, Shizune goes on to become one of the focus characters and main narrator in Future Gospel, and once again takes the helm as the narrator and main protagonist of the Garden Of Oblivion novel and drama CDs.
Blessed with Suck: Her precognitive ability has only given her grief and a pessimistic outlook in life due to being unable to avert disasters she sees when it really matters and because said visions only come to her at random. It wasn't until she meets Mikiya that she's convinced to change her mindset for the better and with renewed hope.
Book Dumb: She's bad at studying and at exams, despite the fact that she could easily use her power to know the answers beforehand.
Boyish Short Hair: Her hair is very short, though she's not typically tomboyish at all.
Brainy Brunette: Subverted. She's a top student of her school because of her precognitive ability, not because she's good at studying.
Chekhov's Gunman: She's mentioned by both Azaka and Mikiya separately in the 6th and 7th movies respectively and makes a last minute appearance near the end of Oblivion Recorder. Her story is finally told in the side story, Future Gospel.
Early-Bird Cameo: She briefly appears at the end of Oblivion Recorder, but the circumstances surrounding her as well as her precognitive abilities aren't elaborated on until Future Gospel, the events of which happened many months prior to Oblivion Recorder.
First-Name Basis: Mikiya calls her by her given name, which initially makes her blush. She later asks him to call him by his given name, too. She also calls her two best friends, Naomi and Azaka, by their given names while they call her by her last name.
Foil: To Meruka Kuramitsu, also known as Mitsuru Kamekura. Both individuals have similar precognitive abilities that have made them unhappy with their lives and have given them despair over living. The difference is that Shizune cannot control the visions she sees (they appear randomly) and believes that the future can't be altered no matter what, while Mitsuru has an additional ability that helps him achieve the visions he sees. Shizune tries to live her life normally Mitsuru her powers and even tries to use these visions to save a life, while Mitsuru uses his for a living by bombing targeted places. Their character developments also fall under this category, with Shizune learning, after a pep talk from Mikiya, to live a happy life despite her powers since the future is something she realizes isn't concrete, and therefore uncertain and worth living, while Mitsuru learns the same lesson the hard way via an encounter with Shiki.
Hopeless Suitor: She develops a crush on Mikiya, but realizes that she can't possibly hope to be as close to him as Shiki is.
I Just Want to Be Normal: She has complicated feelings towards her precognitive abilities in that while some of the visions she sees can benefit her in some way, she also gets to foresee possibilities of very unfortunate incidents and disasters in her visions that she usually has little power of changing to avert them, with the added "bonus" that said visions only come to her randomly and without warning. She also doesn't tell other people about her ability out of fear of being ostracized for it.
Last-Name Basis: Her two best friends, Naomi and Azaka, call her by her last name, even though she calls them by their given names.
Limited Wardrobe: She only has her school uniform, since her father doesn't send her any clothes to Reien Academy. The outfit she wears in Future Gospel is borrowed from her friend Naomi.
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".
Seers: One of three in Future Gospel.
Spoiled Sweet: Though the Seos are wealthy winemakers, Shizune remains a sweet girl who prefers to live as simply as possible and never flaunts her wealth to anyone.
You Can't Fight Fate: She firmly believes in this, until she meets Mikiya.

Villains

Souren Araya

Voiced by: Joji Nakata

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Souren.jpg

A former Buddhist monk who has lived for around 300 years and a previous acquaintance of Touko from the Mage'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.

Alas, Poor Villain: As Souren Araya dies, we learn that he was so torn up about being unable to save people he at least wanted their deaths to be known and recorded.
Arc Villain: He's the primary villain of the fifth story arc.
Badass Longcoat: He always wears a black coat.
Bare-Fisted Monk: He started out as one.
Barrier Warrior: Has the ability to manipulate boundary fields, which he can wield offensively.
Beat Still, My Heart: Rips Touko's heart out of her chest.
Big Bad: He is pretty much responsible for everything bad that happens to Shiki after she meets Mikiya in high school.
Curb-Stomp Battle: He easily defeats Shiki the first time around and disintegrates Enjou before he even gets to land a blow.
The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: He tells Touko that he forgot his reasons for pursuing the Origin a long time ago. Subverted when he tells Touko his motives as he dies.
A Day in the Limelight: Inverted. Despite being one of the most important characters in the series, he only appears in the fifth movie. If we're counting flashbacks, then he also appears in a few in the seventh movie as well.
Evil Plan: Collect and record the deaths of people, and reach the Origin so he can end the world to prevent more meaningless deaths.
Genius Loci: His experimental apartment complex.
Harmful Healing: In the third movie, he repairs Fujino's cracked vertebrae and restores her sense of feeling. Yes, this is an evil act.
Hidden Eyes: Unlike most examples, we get a few good shots of them, but most of the time they're obscured by shadows.
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.
Araya: I see... truly my Origin is stillness.
Kung-Fu Jesus: One of his arms has a Buddha's remains grafted onto it, making him nearly unkillable when combined with the power of his Origin.
Last-Name Basis: Nobody calls him by his given name. He also calls Alba by his last name for most of the time.
Man Behind the Man: He is the catalyst of villainy in most villains in the series.
Manipulative Bastard: To pretty much everyone, but especially Lio Shirazumi. "Helping" Fujino Asagami by healing her turned her into a murderous person, and giving Kirie Fujou access to a second body leads to a series of suicides, all to make them clash against Shiki and help him find the Spiral of Origin.
Meaningful Name: In Buddhism, the collective unconscious of humanity, its 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.
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. Not only that, but in the original novels, he still had a considerable lifespan left after Shiki pierces him in his death dot. That's typical Nasuverse logic — the longer something has existed and the more magically powerful, the longer it will take to "die" completely when killed. There's some Dead Apostle Ancestors who have been dead for millennia and still exist.
No Cure for Evil: Subverted. Araya is very good at healing. He repairs Fujino's cracked vertebrae. That was not a nice thing to do and he knows it.
Omnicidal Maniac: Because he feels that everyone will ultimately die a meaningless death, he plans to reach the Origin and end all life on Earth so that at least he can keep records of their existence and some meaning will have come from their lives.
Really 700 Years Old: More like 300, but who's counting?
Snow Means Death: Snow begins to fall shortly after he dies.
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.
The Stoic: He is always serious and barely shows any other emotions.
Super-Speed: Shown to be able to dodge a bullet after it has been fired.
Tragic Villain: When Touko calls him pathetic, she means it in the original sense.
Utopia Justifies the Means: His reasoning for wanting to eradicate what he considers a Crapsack World.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: His ultimate goal is to reach the Origin so he can end this world so there can be no more meaningless deaths. To achieve this, he will make as many sacrifices as he sees necessary.
Worthy Opponent: Defied. Although Shiki recognizes him as a strong enemy who she would enjoy a fight to the death with, she states that she can't be happy about it because she simply can't tolerate his existence.

Kirie Fujou

Voiced by: Miki Itō (drama CD), Rie Tanaka (anime)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Kirie.jpg

"Can you fly?"

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.

Alas, Poor Villain: Kirie Fujou kills herself when she has nothing left to live for anymore. The characters seem to feel bad for her at least.
Animal Motifs: The butterfly, in reference to her all the death themes surrounding her character.
Anti-Villain: She's responsible for the deaths of all the girls who jumped from the Fujou Building, but when we meet her physical self, Kirie isn't that evil at all. She's portrayed as a pitiful ill girl who (by her own words) didn't realize she was causing harm to others and everything she did was in order to get rid of her loneliness.
Arc Villain: She's the villain of the first story arc.
Astral Projection: Kirie is able to control a ghostly version of herself above the Fujou Building while her real self is still at the hospital.
Blessed with Suck: Possesses unnaturally robust fortitude, however, this sadly only prolongs her life rather than giving her the power to overcome her sickness.
Clingy Jealous Girl: She's jealous of Shiki because she has a crush on Mikiya.
Driven to Suicide: She ends up committing suicide by jumping from the Fujou Building because she wanted to revive the feeling she had when Shiki killed her spiritual counterpart.
Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Reinforced by her blindness even.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She has long black hair and ghostly pale skin, making her look like a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl.
Ethereal White Dress: She's only seen wearing a white hospital gown, giving her Astral Projection an even more ghostly appearance.
Eyes Out of Sight: Her eyes are usually covered by her hair, which complements her Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl looks.
Friendless Background: She never had the chance to make friends due to being hospitalized from a young age.
I Just Want to Be Loved: She wished to have someone who would be as loving and devoted to her as Mikiya is to Shiki. Knowing she could never have that, she tried to steal Mikiya's soul.
I Just Want to Have Friends: She claims she made the girls jump from the building because she wanted to have friends who would float with her.
Last of Her Kind: The last of her clan. Supplementary materials pertaining to Tsukihime reveal that the maid twins Hisui and Kohaku belong to a branch family.
Love at First Sight: She fell in love with Mikiya at the hospital, when she saw him going to visit the comatose Shiki every week.
Loving a Shadow: After having seen Mikiya's devotion towards Shiki from his everyday hospital visits during the two year period she was in a coma, Kirie fell in love with the idea of the devoted Mikiya rather than Mikiya himself, having lost everything but her life at this point while being left with the desire for someone who would always be by her side like Mikiya for Shiki.
Obliviously Evil: She claims she only wanted the girls who fell from the Fujou Building to notice her existence, not to kill them.
Oh, Crap!: When Shiki kills her ghostly minions and then pursues her with a 200-foot jump onto the roof of a nearby building, Kirie is quite visibly frightened.
Parental Abandonment: Her parents were killed in a car accident years before the eyes of the first movie.
Psychic Powers: Has access to a spiritual counterpart and Mind Control.
Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Subverted. Kirie appears as a ghostly figure with long black hair at the Fujou Building, but that's just an Astral Projection.
Villainous Crush: Sort of. While it's heavily implied to be a case of her being in love with the idea of him rather than him himself, she has a crush on Mikiya and captures his soul to force him to be with her forever.
Yandere: She captures Mikiya's soul because she desperately wanted someone as devoted as him to be by her side forever.

Fujino Asagami

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Fujino.jpg

"Twist."

The main focus of the third movie, she is a classmate and friend of Azaka's. Fujino is secretly a killer and her murders are seemingly a way of giving her inner peace. She has the ability to twist space/objects with her mind and later gains clairvoyance, allowing her to twist objects without needing to see them.

Abusive Parents: Her stepfather from her mother's second marriage is mentioned to care little for her well-being and neglects her. He even specifically requested Touko to kill her while calling Fujino a monster. On the other hand, her mother clearly loves her dearly as shown in the few flashbacks we have of her, while not much is known about Fujino's biological father outside of him being responsible for attempting to seal her powers away as a child without knowing of the side effects it would eventually have on her.
Adaptation Dye-Job: Had black hair in the novels, while the films give her very dark purple hair.
Affably Evil: She's generally polite towards others (especially in regards to Mikiya), but she also happens to be a mass murderer.
Alternate Character Reading: The anime makes an audible distinction between her original main family name 浅神 and the branch family name 浅上. Both are pronounced Asagami in the novel, but Shiki calls the former Asakami in the anime.
Anti-Villain: She's an unrepentant murderer, but Fujino remains one of the more sympathetic characters in the series. Good thing Shiki decides not to kill her.
Arc Villain: She acts as Shiki's enemy in the third story arc.
Ax-Crazy: She only gets to this point because she couldn't complete her revenge and kill Keita Minato. Touko surmises that she would have stopped if she had been able to do it, but Keita unfortunately escaped, causing her to go crazier the longer she can't find him and her sense of pain remains.
Because You Were Nice to Me: She fell in love with her sempai Mikiya because he helped her after she sprained her ankle during a track meet when she was in junior high school.
Beware the Nice Ones: Fujino is noted to be a model student, kind to classmates and never causing trouble at school, but she is also just as dangerous as Shiki is.
Blind Seer: She loses her eyesight after her fight with Shiki, but the clairvoyance she got in exchange for it pretty much makes up for it.
Broken Bird: A sorrowful person who has known almost nothing but either apathy or pain - and several people use this to victimize her.
Bully Hunter: Basically, Fujino is to sexual abuse what the Bear Jew is to the Holocaust.
The Bus Came Back: After a brief cameo in movie 6, she makes her return in Future Gospel: Extra Chorus where she's a major character in Ririsu Miyazuki's story. She later spends Christmas with Azaka and Seo.
Calling Your Attacks: She says "Twist" whenever she uses her telekinetic powers to twist objects or a human body.
The Cameo:
- She briefly appeared in the beginning of movie 6.
- She is also, of all things, a limited-time summonable Servant in Fate/Grand Order.
Cute and Psycho: She's cute, nice and just as dangerous as Shiki is.
A Day in the Limelight: She was the main focus for Mirai Fukuin "Daylight", a manga sidestory where she helps out Miyazuki, a friend of one of the Fujou suicide victims.
Death Glare: Upon activating her psychic abilities, her glares are terrifying.
Dissonant Serenity: Due to her lacking sense of pain, she is apathetic while being raped. Later when she is on the hunt for Keita, she mercilessly twists her victims without feeling too affected by it.
Dramatic Irony: When she was in junior high school, she met Mikiya and developed a crush on him because he helped her when she was injured during a track meet. Ironically, she does not know that he is Azaka's brother and she could have easily met him again if she had been aware of that fact.
Evil Feels Good: While she tries to deny it, she actually enjoys killing.
Extreme Doormat: As a result of her inability to feel pain, Fujino has no reaction to being hurt and won't fight back no matter how much others abuse her. She was even repeatedly raped by a gang because of her passivity and unwillingness to tell anyone about the absence of pain.
Fan Disservice: The scenes of Fujino being abused and raped by the delinquents.
Feel No Pain: She can't feel the sensation of pain, but she keeps this a secret from everyone else so they don't think she's abnormal. It turns out that the lack of pain was the result of her father medicating her as a child to seal her psychic powers before they got out of hand. An aliminium bat to her head followed by a stab wound revived her sense of pain, and her powers with it.
First Injury Reaction: Fujino has no sense of pain thanks to being medicated since she was a small child to seal her psychic powers. She first gets it back in fits after she's hit with a baseball bat by a group of thugs who had just raped her, and proceeds to kill all but one of them because the pain makes her feel both more alive and murderous.
First Time Feeling: Ever since she can remember, Fujino has never felt the sensation of pain. She starts getting her sensation back in fits after one of the gang hits her with a baseball bat. When another tried to stab her with a knife, she found she wanted to live despite the pain, awakened her powers and killed everyone else in the room. The injury worsens and causes her to lash out with her abilities though it turns out there was never a stab wound - she has an agonising abdominal disease that's slowly killing her.
From Nobody to Nightmare: From a normal and passive model student to a terrifyingly powerful telekinetic with endless reserves of rage.
Glass Cannon: She might be the strongest psychic in the Nasuverse, but her body is fragile and couldn't keep up with Shiki. Furthermore, with her appendicitis in its chronic state, Fujino is practically a time bomb waiting to explode.
Gone Horribly Wrong: Turns out that her father sealing her powers by removing her sensation of pain ended up increasing them when they finally unlock.
Handicapped Badass: After the Broad Bridge incident, Fujino loses her eyesight and has to walk with a cane — but only when not using her powers. As seen in Future Gospel, her Mystic Eyes and her Clairvoyance still work and she's just as dangerous as when she fought Shiki; she's just mellowed out considerably.
Hate at First Sight: Instinctively, towards Shiki, who's mostly indifferent. In her narration in the novel after first meeting her, Fujino mentions that she personally has nothing against Shiki herself, but that she could sense a similar bloodlust in her that she detests hence her dislike of her.
Heel–Face Turn: Though she still finds killing enjoyable, Fujino is no longer a psychotic murderer and even talks a fellow student out of suicide in Future Gospel.
Hime Cut: She has blunt bangs, bra strap length sidelocks, and waist-length straight hair, conveying her status as a member of a powerful family.
Hope Spot: You'd expect Fujino losing her eyesight as the story progresses to be a good thing, since her Mystic Eyes of Distortion are the source of her power. Unfortunately, not only does she unlock Clairvoyance as this happens to attack without needing to see, but being blind doesn't actually stop the Mystic Eyes' function. Going blind actually made her more dangerous.
I Just Want to Be Normal: She doesn't want to be seen as abnormal, which is why she hid her insensitivity, and why according to herself she hunts down the remaining gang members (but the latter is really an excuse to deny her bloodlust).
Last of Her Kind: The last of the Asakami clan, though the Asagami branch (where her stepfather comes from) continues to thrive.
Mind over Matter: Has the ability to telekinetically make anything, from metal to stone to human bodies, twist just by thinking it.
Person of Mass Destruction: In the climax of her movie, she brings down a suspension bridge just to get Shiki.
Power at a Price: During her fight with Shiki, Fujino gains clairvoyance at the cost of her damaging her eyesight and going nearly completely blind.
Rampage from a Nail: The pain from the stab wound she received when murdering Keita's accomplices turns her from a straight-minded killer seeking a specific target, to a psychotic killer destroying everything in her path. The worse the pain gets, the more destructive she becomes. Though the pain is later revealed to be terminal appendicitis instead of a knife wound (the knife never actually reached her), the result was the same. Shiki choosing to destroy the appendicitis is what finally ends Fujino's rampage.
Rape and Revenge: She tears apart the gang that repeatedly raped her after she recovers her sensation.
Rape as Backstory: She was repeatedly raped by a gang. She killed them after one of them tried to attack her with a knife which would have killed her. Right at that time, her sense of pain comes back, making her believe that she really was stabbed though as it turns out, it was the appendicitis that caused her to suffer like this.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Though it's when the red becomes combined with green that you need to make peace with your gods.
Ruptured Appendix: Her abdominal pain is not caused by a knife wound, as she initially believed, but by a terminal case of appendicitis. Shiki uses her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception to get rid of it and save Fujino's life.
Seers: She gains this ability near the end of the third movie at the cost of her eyesight going bad.
Shower of Angst: Takes a shower at the beginning of the movie when Mikiya lets her stay at his place for the night.
Squishy Wizard: Fujino brings down an entire bridge with her telekinetic powers to crush Shiki, but once Shiki closes the distance and Fujino's agony becomes unbearable she is helpless to defend herself.
Stealth Mentor: She attacks Miyazuki with her powers, in order to help her with her Survivor Guilt in Mirai Fukuin "Daylight".
Story-Breaker Power: She's the most powerful telekinetic master in the entire Nasuverse, bar-none. Shiki was only able to defeat her at all because Fujino was already dying from appendicitis during their fight and Shiki decided to get rid of her abdominal pains instead of killing her, putting an end to Fujino's murderous impulses.
Superpower Lottery: When her eyesight begins to fail her, she gains clairvoyance to make up for it. Combined with her telekinesis, she can potentially twist (and break) anything, anywhere. Shiki even complains about it to Touko after the battle.
Sympathetic Murderer: As gruesome as her murders are, it's very hard to not sympathize with Fujino given the circumstances that led to her becoming a murderer.
Talking Down the Suicidal: In Future Gospel: Extra Chorus, Fujino ends up talking Ririsu Miyazuki out of suicide.
Teen Genius: She is noted to be one of the best students at her academy.
Tragic Villain: Considering the circumstances around her such as her inability to feel pain and being gang raped, her descent into mass murder wasn't even her own fault.

Cornelius Alba

Voiced by: Koji Yusa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Cornelius.jpg

Appearing in the fifth chapter as an antagonist alongside Souren Araya, he is the Director of the Sponheim Abbey, a subsidiary of the Clock Tower, 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 Archmage: According to Word of God, he's by far one of the strongest non-Servant magi we have ever seen, with a 500-year old bloodline and more Magic Circuits than Araya and Touko combined. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to show this off.
Ax-Crazy: Cornelius Alba is a whole lot of crazy, but with sorcery instead of an axe.
Badass Longcoat: He's a capable wizard dressed in a red longcoat.
Blood Knight: He gets very excited during battle.
The Cameo: Shown for just a moment in Fate/Zero, episode 18, using the aforementioned fire skills to torch a village.
Card-Carrying Villain: The movie depicts him as an stereotypical evil villain who is evil for the sake of it. The novel gives him more depth.
Color Motif: Red. He's remarkably violent, passionate and prone to burst out in anger. He also likes Playing with Fire.
The Dragon: In the fifth movie, he's a secondary villain directly working for Araya.
Dragon with an Agenda: While Araya has quite complicated motives and goals for what he does, the only reason Cornelius helps Araya is because he was promised to fight and kill Touko.
Driven by Envy: The root of his hatred of Touko is that she was given the title of "Red" that he wanted, even though Touka didn't even want that title as she was aiming for the "Blue" one.
Evil Is Hammy: His display of hatred toward Touko is over the top.
Expy: Basically the most repulsive parts of Willy Wonka and Alexander De-Large rolled into one humanoid mass; combining the arrogance and loud 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 Clockwork Orange, when he tried to murder Mikiya in a chillingly sadistic torture scene.
Famous Ancestor: He's a direct descendant of renaissance scholar, occultist (and in Nasuverse's Alternate History, magus) Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.
Hate Sink: Souren may be the Big Bad, but he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist. So Cornelius sticks around to be sadistic and petty, especially in the anime where he's a Card-Carrying Villain with far less depth.
Heroes Love Dogs: Inverted. He's a villain, but he has a Doberman familiar that he cares about a great deal. This trait of his, however, is absent in the Paradox Spiral OVA.
Hime Cut: Rare Male Example. He's a distinguished mage with straight bangs, cheek-length side locks, and waist-length straight hair.
Informed Ability: In the anime, anyway. Alba is an absolute top tier magus, but Touko doesn't engage those abilities and crushes him almost effortlessly.
Jerkass: He is motivated by envy and tries to kill Mikiya simply for being associated with Touko.
Karmic Death: Araya gave him Touko's still-aware head after he "killed" her. Alba proceeds to play with it like a toy, mutilate it, and insults it before he destroys it... and its destruction activates Touko's next shiny new body, which proceeds to give him a real bad case of Existential Horror over the fact there are two "real" hers, and then gruesomely murders him. Good riddance, you son of a bitch.
Last-Name Basis: Touko and Araya call him by his last name most of the time, but they occasionally switch to his given name. Alba calls both of them by their last names.
Leitmotif: A waltz accompanied by a eerie-sounding flute, befitting his obsessive nature hidden beneath a façade of class and elegance, named Magician in the compilation soundtrack. A more sinister reprise can be heard in Spiral of the same soundtrack.
Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has long platinum blond hair and he looks rather youthful for his age.
A Love to Dismember: He gets disgustingly touchy-feely with Touko's severed - but still living and aware - head.
Mad Scientist: A co-creator of Araya's baffling death-trap of an apartment complex.
Marionette Master: Alba is responsible for the puppets in Araya's apartment complex experiment. When Shiki and Enjou investigate the complex, she is attacked by the puppets.
More Despicable Minion: Souren Araya commits many atrocities and is responsible for all the deaths in the series, but is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to destroy everything to end the suffering of life. Meanwhile, Alba is a sadist far more concerned with surpassing his rival Touko Aozaki, willingly helping out his boss commit mass murder and human experimentation for his own sick pleasure.
Older Than He Looks: He's fifty years old, but he has the appearance of "an agreeable youth in his twenties."
Playing with Fire: Has the ability to incant eight lines in under two seconds and create a fire blast of over 1000 degrees, and then simply shout "Repeat!" to instantly do it over again. The author compares him to a fighting game character who fights by spamming super moves at will. Only shown in the original novel, though.
Psycho for Hire: Araya needs him for his skills in puppetry. That Cornelius is batshit insane is something he just kind of deals with.
Red Is Violent: He goes out of his way to "play" with Touko's severed head and later with Mikiya, by repeatedly smashing the latter's head against a wall.
The Resenter: He couldn't handle being outclassed by Aoko both in rune magecraft and puppetry, which earned her the title of "Red", something he wanted for himself.
Trademark Favorite Food: According to the author Nasu, Cornelius' favorite food is Touko's homemade "pizza crackers".
Vain Sorcerer: 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.
Yandere: He gets called as such by the light novel illustrator, Takeuchi. According to Nasu, Cornelius originally wanted to impress and be acknowledged by Touko. After she was given that title he wanted for himself, his feelings turned into envy and hatred. He still gets disturbingly affectionate with Touko's severed head before crushing it with his own hands.

Misaya Ouji

Voiced by: Nana Mizuki

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/59542_9244.jpg

Misaya is a senior at Reien Girl's Academy and known to be strict but fair. She has the power to control "fairies" thanks to Satsuki Kurogiri, and clashes with Azaka in Oblivion Recorder after Shiki and Azaka are tasked to investigate a series of memory losses caused by fairies.

Accidental Murder: She accidentally killed Hideo Hayama during a struggle when she confronted him about what happened to Kaori Tachibana. The movie, however, says that Hayama died from a heart attack in the middle of their argument and Ouji was just made to think that she killed him.
Adaptation Dye-Job: Has blond hair in the novel, while her hair is lavender in the movie.
Adaptational Villainy: Due to a combination of demoting Kurogiri's role and importance as the real main antagonist of Oblivion Recorder, toning down the novel's darker aspects behind the Hideo Hayama subplot, as well as sparing Kaori in the anime, Ouji's motives and actions in movie 6 became much less sympathetic as a result.
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.
The Bus Came Back: In the Garden of Oblivion novel and drama CDs, Ouji returns and joins up with Azaka, Fujino, and Seo as a main character trying to survive the ordeals Seo keeps seeing in her visions.
The Cameo: In the eighth movie, she makes a brief cameo appearance.
Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eyes are lavender in the movie.
Dark Magical Girl: Is it any wonder she's voiced by Nana Mizuki in the movie?
The Dragon: To Satsuki Kurogiri. Made much more prominent in the original novel than in the adaptation of Oblivion Recorder.
First-Name Basis: She calls Kurogiri by his given name with the "-sensei" honorific. She also calls Kaori Tachibana by her first name, whom she was very close to.
Last-Name Basis: She and Azaka call each other by their last names. In fact, no character ever calls her by her given name.
Memory-Wiping Crew: Wants to do this by stealing everyone's memories of what happened to Kaori Tachibana so as to cleanse them of the "sin" of the event.
Noblewoman's Laugh: Only once, but what a laugh it is. It's awesomeness is even lampshaded in the Blu-Ray box's interview. Can possibly overlap with Large Ham.
Ojou: Her family is an elite family and her father is the school's chairman. The name "Ouji" tells it all.
Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Attempts to do this to all the girls of Class D in order to punish them for their treatment of Kaori Tachibana, believing as a devout Catholic that they will go to Hell for committing suicide.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After finding out what happened to Kaori Tachibana, the resulting vengeance is not pretty at all.
Student Council President: She's the student council president of Azaka's school.

Satsuki Kurogiri

Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Satsuki.jpg

Appearing as an antagonist in the sixth movie, he is a Magus known as God's Word, and the substitue English teacher of class 1-4 in Azaka's school. He has the ability to manipulate others through words alone.

Arc Villain: He's the primary villain of the sixth chapter of the original novel. The movie gave that role to Ouji, however.
Changeling Tale: He was kidnapped by fairies at the age of 10, who made him lose all his past memory and cursed him so that he could still store future memories in his brain, but could not retrieve those memories and recognize them as his own.
Compelling Voice: Has the ability to control people's minds, as well to restore people's memories by retrieving them directly from the Akashic Records via his mastery of the Universal Language. This is, in fact, the reason why he can "restore" even those memories that are permanently gone from a person's mind, like the parts of Shiki's memory that SHIKI took away as he died, or Azaka's recollection of the exact moment she fell in love with Mikiya.
Cunning Linguist: The only sorcerer in the world to be able to speak the ancient Unified Language.
Demoted to Extra: Even though he is the major focus and the one who orchestrated the events at Reien Academy in the sixth novel, his role in the movie is largely as an antagonist for Shiki to fight.
Evil Feels Good: He does everything in the 6th movie because he enjoys "killing time" that way. In the novel, his motivations are slightly more complex: having had his ability to remember his own life taken away by fairies, he instead attempts to form his own identity from the memories others have of him, which he can retrieve; Azaka even observes that, like the fairies who abducted him, Kurogiri seems to have no concept of morals at all.
Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He does things like what happens in Oblivion Record to kill time and has a glasses-enhanced Thousand-Yard Stare.
Go Out with a Smile: In the novel, after Ouji stabs him, Kurogiri smiles consciously for the first time (having staunchly refused to recognize his constant half-smile as an expression of joy before), after arriving at some incomprehensible epiphany on the brink of death.
Identical Stranger: Shiki and Azaka are surprised by how much Kurogiri resembles 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 pre-Tower of Babel Unified Language.
Loss of Identity: He was kidnapped by fairies at the age of 10 and cursed so that he is unable to comprehend any new memories or experiences since then as anything but impersonal data. He enlists the help of Misaya Ouji in an attempt to regain his sense of identity by collecting the memories his students have of him and feeding off of them.
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.
Psychopathic Manchild: As a result of the fairy curse, he perceives human morality and behavior in the manner that a 10-year old would.
Red Baron: Is known by such aliases as God's Word May Day and Master of Babel: Unified Language Master.
Spell My Name With An S: His second name is "Godot Word" in the official subtitles.
The Stoic: He barely emotes and is emotionally detached towards others.
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

Voiced by: Soichiro Hoshi

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/KnK_Lio.jpg

"April 1995. I met her."

Introduced in the second movie as an older schoolmate of Mikiya who dropped out of school because he 'found something he wanted to do,' and takes on a much larger role in the seventh movie.

Alas, Poor Villain: How his death is treated after Mikiya finds his corpse in the novel.
Ambiguously Bi: Word of God claims that Shirazumi has an affinity/obsession for the Anima: literally a preference for the feminine qualities of a male personality. In this regard, Shirazumi fell for Shiki's male personality SHIKI but based on the personality's feminine traits. It's also possible that he has a gender identity disorder. Word of God also claims that although Shirazumi and Mikiya had a simple senior/junior relationship, Shirazumi once viewed it as an obsessive friendship bordering on unrequited love. Also, though he is described as normally hating men and women alike, Shirazumi considers Shiki an exception having viewed her as neither one or the other. Despite all this, both Shiki and Mikiya note that his outward behavior and attempts to appease both of them seem to be a front to convince either of the two to become 'special' with him.
Animal Motifs: Large Predatory Cats. Araya mentions it's a shame that his name is one character off from being Lion. When Aozaki is discussing him, documentaries about lions are airing on her TV, and she specifically compares his origin of consumption to ravenous carnivorous animals tearing prey apart.
Arc Villain: He's the villain of the seventh and final arc.
An Arm and a Leg: Shiki cuts off his left arm. In the movie, she also gives him the full Obi-Wan treatment during their final battle, chopping off all of his remaining limbs before she kills him (in the novel, she merely "kills" his limbs with superficial slashes at their lines of death).
Ax-Crazy: Around five thousand different kinds of crazy.
Because You Were Nice to Me: Has a strong attachment to Mikiya because he was his Only Friend and the only one who encouraged him when Shirazumi abandoned school. The film makes Shirazumi more focused on Shiki, so unlike the novel, this is not developed.
Blood Lust: He constantly licking up blood in a disturbing fashion to help highlight how Ax-Crazy he is.
Bullying a Dragon: It's telling that in his first two battles against Shiki, he is soundly defeated but is spared both times, yet he continues to threaten her and Mikiya. When Shiki decides to kill him for good after she thinks he killed Mikiya, it takes her less than a second to actually put him down.
Carnivorous Healing Factor: Lio Shirazumi, after having his Origin of "Consumption" awakened by the Big Bad, gains an impressive Healing Factor whenever he eats somebody. The only injury he cannot regenerate, in fact, is the arm that Shiki chops off using her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception (because by doing so, she also erased the very notion of his body having two arms from existence).
Chekhov's Gunman: In the second movie, he got a brief mention and a small meeting between him and Mikiya, and Shirazumi is seen briefly talking to Shiki, who doesn't even bother to remember/use his name. He doesn't get a major role until the seventh movie.
Corrupt the Cutie: Rather than to kill him immediately, Shirazumi tries to bring Mikiya to his side as well. He plays up the idea that he and Mikiya are responsible for pushing Shiki into such a desperate state, as a means of corrupting him and even poisons Mikiya with drugs to give him no choice but to become "special" like him in order to survive. Mikiya, being who he is, doesn't give in.
Creepy Crossdresser: He styles his hair like Shiki's, and wears a dress to resemble her. It also doesn't help the fact that he's batshit insane. The fact that he's terrifying in a rather silly looking skirt says a lot.
Curtains Match the Window: His hair and eyes were originally brown. They later changed to golden blonde hair and golden eyes.
Deadpan Snarker: In his high school days.
Despair Event Horizon: After believing he killed Mikiya, he snaps completely. Mikiya was his Living Emotional Crutch, but Shirazumi did not realize it until Mikiya "died".
Dude Looks Like a Lady: In-Universe. A key plot element of the seventh movie is Shirazumi being able to pass for Shiki, albeit at night and from a distance. Even Mikiya admits that he has ambiguous features. Combined with a Gender-Blender Name.
Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Only visible for a few seconds during his cameo in the second movie (it's easier to spot on the Blu-Ray release), but he definitely has them. Like Shiki's, they're matched to his hair colour. He's lost them by the seventh movie.
Early-Bird Cameo: Shirazumi is first mentioned in the second/first chapter (Murder Speculation Pt.1) when Mikiya tells Shiki that one of their upperclassmen is dropping out of school because "he found something he wanted to do".^note The movie adaptation does one better and actually shows Shirazumi interacting with Shiki and Mikiya, although he is always partially obscured.
Fantastic Drug: To the surprise of few, Nasu (A highschool and college student in the countryside at the time of writing) knew very little about drugs in the Japanese 90's, where marijunana possession can get you five years behind bars. Whatever it is Lio is pushing, is apparently a digestable drug three to ten times as potent as hashish, yet even forcefeeding it to Mikiya has absolutely zero effect on him despite a complete lack of built-up tolerance like Lio. How this absolute maniac acquired an entire marijuana plantation is never elaborated on either.
Final Boss: As the main antagonist of the final movie, he is the true culprit behind all of the grisly murders in the city.
Foil: To Shiki. Both struggle with murderous impulses and have an attachment to Mikiya. What makes them different is that Shiki can control her killing instincts and stay an overall decent human both for Mikiya's sake and because she knows the severity of committing murder. In contrast, Lio gives into his Origin of consumption while blaming Shiki for his murders and ends up becoming nothing but a man-eating monster.
From Nobody to Nightmare: He was just a socially withdrawn guy until he committed murder for the first time and Araya awakened his Origin. Shirazumi then became a mass-murdering, cannibal Serial Killer that is more like a group of beasts than a human being.
Healing Factor: He's shown to have the ability to regrow limbs.
Heel Realization: Has a moment of this after "killing" Mikiya. Afterwards, he decides to accept his role as a monster and finally succumbs to his Origin.
Hellish Pupils: He has reptilian/feline's pupils as a result of being the reincarnation of several carnivorous animals.
Horror Hunger: His Origin is consumption, meaning that his primordial instinct is to devour anything and anyone. Once his Origin starts to overwrite his human personality, he eats the human flesh of the people he killed.
I Have You Now, My Pretty: When he has Shiki at his mercy, he knocks her down, drugs her, chains her to the floor and tears open her kimono before drooling all over her.
I Just Want to Be Badass: After being rejected by Shiki, he decides to seek out a schoolmate who was known for bullying others over arcade games in hopes of beating him up, thus proving that he isn't weak. It backfired when he accidentally killed him... and then he was inspired to hide the evidence by devouring the body.
I Just Want to Be Special: The beginning motivation of Shirazumi's Start of Darkness. While Shirazumi never blamed Shiki for rejecting him, he still internalized Shiki's words in which she described him as a weak person. Where Shiki wishes to have a normal life to be with Mikiya (whom outright has a normal life, no matter what he does), Shirazumi seeks to be special in a way that makes him stand out and makes his existence matter. By the time we see him... and as the rest of the tropes illustrate... he's special.
I Just Want to Have Friends: Ultimately, this is why he wants to find someone like him; he wants to have companions in his madness. He's after Shiki because he believes she is the only one who is "naturally" like him, with Mikiya simply holding her back. Shirazumi went as far as to use special drugs to make people like him, but all attempts failed.
I'm a Humanitarian: His Origin of Consumption causes him to gain cannibalistic instinct, which at first causes him to try to get rid of a corpse by eating it and becoming worse when he fully awakens to it.
In Love with Your Carnage: How he feels about Shiki. His goal is to turn her into a complete homicidal maniac like him so that they can be together. Unfortunately she's taken, so he decides to "kill what's holding her back" to get her to "come around".
Last-Name Basis: He's never called by his given name. Shiki and Mikiya go by his last name. Shirazumi himself calls Shiki by her last name most of the time, and in the case of Mikiya, Shirazumi goes from "Kokutou-kun" to "Kokutou" and then to "Mikiya".
Lecherous Licking: The infamous scene in which he salivates over Shiki...dear god. It's genuinely impossible to tell if he intends it as a sexual threat or physical one. Could be both. Either way, it involves way too much saliva.
Limp and Livid: As he loses himself to his Origin's predatory instincts, Lio moves around hunched and limp-armed.
Locked into Strangeness: He's not a natural blond since he had brown hair back when he was a student. It's implied that his exposure to magic might have changed his hair as it's known to do in other parts of the Nasuverse.
Love Makes You Crazy: While Shirazumi certainly starts out fairly normal, his obsession for Shiki causes him to become more and more insane.
Manipulative Bastard: He tries to emotionally manipulate and pressure Shiki into killing.
Meaningful Name: As Araya said, "You were one letter away from being a lion."
Mouth To Mouth Force Feeding: He kisses Mikiya in order to make him swallow a drug.
Murder Makes You Crazy: Love drove him to his most horrifying extremes, but it was his first kill (when he met Araya) that truly saw Shirazumi snap.
My God, What Have I Done?: After Mikiya (seemingly) dies, Shirazumi realizes that he killed his Only Friend and the only person who truly cared about him.
Never My Fault: Part of his moral dilemma was his inability to accept his actions after he first killed someone. Also, after believing he killed Mikiya, even though he is upset about it, he insists that it wasn't his fault.
Not Good with Rejection: He did NOT take it well when Shiki rejected him because he was "weak". He murdered upwards of a dozen people to cope. Later, he "kills" Mikiya when the latter definitely refuses to join his side.
"Not So Different" Remark: Lio repeatedly says that he and Shiki are fundamentally similar, and that Mikiya is the only thing holding Shiki back from a murderous existence. Inversely, in the novel, Shiki describes his smile as being similar to her own.
Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Strong enough to shatter the blade of a knife. Roberta would be proud.
Past-Life Memories: Araya had opened him up to his Origin, giving him access to the memory of all of his past lives; mostly carnivorous animals.
Psycho Knife Nut: He carries a knife to mirror Shiki's weapon and is the biggest psycho in the whole series.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kind of. They're more orange/yellow than red, which means they also count as Supernatural Gold Eyes.
Room Full of Crazy: He has a room that's basically a Stalker Shrine to Shiki, with the walls covered in pictures of her. It's one of the many things that drive home how batshit insane he is.
Rousseau Was Right: Nasu himself describes his character as someone that is both sympathetic yet despicable for his actions.
Secret Diary: Possessed one that later serves as a Chekhov's Gun. Apparently it mostly composed of his descriptions of what Shiki was doing, his feelings for her and also for his Only Friend Mikiya.
Serial Killer: He's the real culprit of the gruesome murders that started two years ago and indirectly resulted in Shiki's coma. After Araya dies, Lio goes back into a killing spree.
Slasher Smile: And a damn terrifying one at that, complete with pointed carnivore's teeth.
The Sociopath: A little bit before he finds his Origin, but afterwards? He's there. Willingly.
Spell My Name With An S: In some translations, his name is spelled as Leo and Rio.
Split Personality: To a degree. The novel describes Shirazumi's mentality as two separate personae: the old Lio Shirazumi who held an attachment towards Mikiya, and the murderous monster/bloodthirsty killer that was born out of his initial love for Shiki (see Yandere). He even lampshades it in his diary and realizes that the cause of this is Mikiya. The film makes Shirazumi more focused on Shiki, so this isn't developed.
Stalker Shrine: The walls of his apartment room are covered with photo collections of Shiki, showcasing how deep his obsession with her goes.
Stalker with a Crush: He has been obsessing over Shiki ever since he met her. He comes complete with a disturbing Stalker Shrine.
Supernatural Gold Eyes: His brown eyes turned golden as a result of his awakened origin.
They Were Holding You Back: Shirazumi plays up the idea of killing Mikiya as a means of removing Shiki's Morality Chain. This is more than likely a bluff to goad Shiki into becoming a murderer, as Shirazumi never truly intended to harm Mikiya. Shirazumi still ends up "killing" him when Mikiya rejects him and gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. And unsurprisingly, it works as Shirazumi expected and Shiki kills him.
Unskilled, but Strong: Lio is both incredibly fast and inhumanely strong; in fact his first kill happened by mistake because he punched someone too hard. That being said because he is up against Shiki who is both stronger AND more skilled than him it is clear that he didn't stand a chance.
Villainous BSoD: Mikiya outlines the true nature of his killings as a breakdown, in an attempt to put some sense into him. It backfires.
Villainous Crush: He has an obsessive crush on Shiki and feels a similar disturbing attraction towards Mikiya too.
Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without revealing his role as the villain of the seventh movie and the real person behind the murders of 1995-1996.
We Can Rule Together: Shirazumi talked up both Shiki and Mikiya to convince at least one to join him. Unfortunately for him, he was rejected by both.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Araya awakening his Origin of Consumption granted Lio with superhuman reflexes like those of an animal predator. The downside is that he's gradually taken over by the desire to eat everything that by the present, he's more akin to a murder of carrion-eating birds or a pride of lions wearing a man's skin.
Yandere: It looks that way on the surface, but surprisingly averted. While part of Shirazumi wanted to kill Shiki, it wasn't out of love - it's due to the violent impulses caused by his Origin of Consumption.

Meruka Kuramitsu

Voiced by: Akira Ishida

The main antagonist of the novel Future Gospel: recalled out in summer. Unsatisfied with a normal life that he can predict with 100% accuracy, he is a "bomber-for-hire" who uses his ability to avoid capture.

Deadpan Snarker: He often makes dry remarks when it comes to dealing with the very energetic Mana.
Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted; Mitsuru doesn't like to be called by his old alias "Kuramitsu".
Expecting Someone Taller: Shiki didn't expect that a near mythical bomber would actually be a 14-year old kid.
Eye Scream: Shiki permanently damages his right eye, sealing off his precognition abilities for good.
Fantastic Terrorists: A "bomber for hire". The fantastic aspect comes from Kuramitsu's ability to see the future — in fact, this is why his bombings are always successful and leave neither collateral damage, nor any traces to lead the police back to him.
Far East Asian Terrorists: Briefly was one as a bomber-type terrorist.
First-Name Basis: Mana calls him by his first name "Mitsuru" while adding the -san honorific.
Foil: To Shizune Seo, his fellow precognitive psychic-user. See her entry for more details.
Heel–Face Turn: After Shiki defeats him and he loses the power needed for his bombing, he turns his life around and eventually starts working for Shiki's family.
I Just Want to Be Special: He became a bomber because he couldn't stand living a normal life that he could predict with 100% accuracy. So he decided to use his powers for something more exciting.
Improbable Age: Kuramitsu was only 14 during his stint as a near mythical bomber.
Intergenerational Friendship: In the future, he's 26 years old and hangs around the 10-year-old Mana.
Mad Bomber: While not actually crazy, he makes a living from bombing, as he gets paid from his clients.
Magical Eye: He possesses a right eye that can see the future, while his left eye can see "the path" to achieve that future.
Only Known by Their Nickname: "Meruka Kuramitsu" is a nickname based on a comic character he liked, and a Significant Anagram of his real name Mitsuru Kamekura.
Reformed Criminal: After Shiki disables his eyes in an ambush, he gives up the bomber stint to live a quieter life and become an author of children's books.
Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: With Mana. His pessimistic behavior is usually counter balanced by Mana's curious and cheerful disposition, and Mana usually requires so much attention that he doesn't really have the time to feel down.
Seers: He has the ability to predict the future with 100% accuracy. Unfortunately, the fact that his predictions are 100% accurate means that the future has a definite existence, and Shiki can kill anything that exists. Shiki even comments that if his power was the "weaker" Precognition displayed by Seo, he probably would have actually stood a better chance of killing her since the future would still be uncertain enough that Shiki couldn't kill it.
Significant Anagram: His alias is an anagram of the Japanese phonograms of his real name. Mi-tsu-ru Ka-me-ku-ra → Me-ru-ka Ku-ra-mi-tsu.
Starving Artist: In the future, he's a struggling picture book author who ended up deep in debt. He was only saved thanks to Mana convincing her parents to give him a job as a detective.
Stopped Caring: Thanks to his ability to predict the future with 100% accuracy, he submits to the idea that his life is absolutely worthless, hopeless, and pointless since he knows what's going to happen to the future without fail. Ironically, when Shiki gets rid of his precognitive abilities, the loss of his ability to predict the future actually gave him renewed hope to live, even though he's struggling with living in the present compared to how he lived in the past where he considered himself dead inside even though his life was relatively better materially.
Supernatural Gold Eyes: His eyes have the power to see the future and the path to it; just to make clear they are special, they are the color of gold. After Shiki kills his power, his right eye turns grey.
That Man Is Dead: In the future, he states Meruka Kuramitsu disappeared from the world when Shiki defeated him. The one living now is Mitsuru Kamekura.
Work Off the Debt: He had to begin working for Shiki to pay off his debts.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the future, Mitsuru claims his life has been filled with nothing but failure ever since he lost his power to see the future and he's worthless. Mana tells him she can see he's a good person and there's still plenty of things he can do.

Other Characters

Akitaka Suzugiri

Voiced by: Makoto Yasumura

A servant working for the Ryougi family and Shiki's personal butler. He mainly appears in the second movie and has short appearances in the fourth and fifth movie, delivering Shiki her sword in the latter.

Satellite Character: He doesn't have much characterization beyond being Shiki's servant. He also barely appears in the story, since Shiki has left the Ryougi residence.
The Stoic: Always serious and no signs of emotions.
Undying Loyalty: He's wholly and genuinely loyal to Shiki even though the latter keeps brushing him off. He remains her steadfast servant even up until her adulthood.
Yakuza: He was once a former yakuza until the Ryougi family hired him.

Gakuto

Voiced by: Kenji Takahashi

Mikiya's high school friend whom he has contact to even to this day.

Friend in the Black Market: Mikiya's Best Friend from high school is the reason why Mikiya has better knowledge of the Tokyo drug market in 1999 than his cop cousin Daisuke in chapter seven (granted, Daisuke is in the homicide division, not narcotics). Gakuto also fixes Mikiya up with weed and LSD.
Hidden Depths: Given that he associates himself with Keita, and one of the drug dealers knows Gakuto personally, it's implied that Gakuto is a Functional Addict.
Last-Name Basis: He and Mikiya call each other by their last names.
Lovable Jock: He used to be a member of his high school's judo club and he's a pleasant fellow to talk to.
Nice Guy: He's nice person and he's willing to lend Mikiya money in exchange for helping him finding his kohai Keita.
No Full Name Given: He's only called by his surname and his given name is never mentioned.

Keita Minato

Voiced by: Shintarō Asanuma

A former kohai of Mikiya and Gakuto and a member of a local street gang who repeatedly gangraped Fujino Asagami until she has awaken her power in the third film. As the only survivor of her onslaught, Fujino's prime priority is to kill him, so no witnesses are left.

Crippling Castration: Sometime after the events of the third movie/chapter, he had his penis torn off in an accident.
First-Name Basis: Pretty much everyone who knows him calls him by his first name.
Karma Houdini Warranty: Although he survives Fujino's murder spree and Mikiya considers him having to live after everything that happened to be enough punishment, supplementary materials reveal that he got further humiliated by having his penis torn off in an accident.
Leave No Witnesses: He's the only one who escaped Fujino's first onslaught, so she tries her best to track him down and kill him, so she wouldn't be pinpointed as a murderer.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He and his pals gangraped Fujino on a regular basis and they tried all different kinds of methods of violence to draw a different reaction from her. He also says that it was rather boring to rape her, due to her lack of emotional reactions, but when one his pals hit her with a baseball bat on her back and accidently caused her sensation of pain to return, just reminiscing about the moment of her "acting human" gives him happiness after all the fear he has experienced.
Sole Survivor: He's the only one to survive Fujino's first massacre and he continues to survive throughout the third film/chapter.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Due to escaping the crime scene as the sole survivor, Fujino tries to track him down by interrogating his friends and associates, killing all of them in the progress and turning her into a sadistic serial killer.
Used to Be a Sweet Child: Implied. Gakuto says that Keita was really fond of Mikiya and hung around him a lot. All we see from him is being a gang member, a rapist and drug addict.

Kaori Tachibana

Voiced by: Eri Kitamura (uncredited)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tachibana_kaori_knk.png

A first-year student and schoolmate of Azaka and Ouji who prior the events of the sixth movie was apparently assaulted by fairies and tried to commit suicide by burning the school's old facility.

Addled Addict: After Hayama forced his drug on her to shut her mouth, she became addicted to drugs, and the withdrawal symptoms cause her to hallucinate about fairies. She also lost weight and became pale due to the drug abuse.
Bungled Suicide: The end of movie reveals that she survived her suicide attempt, despite the entire school building being burnt down. This was not the case in the novel, however.
The Cameo: In Future Gospel which chronologically takes place between Remaining Sense of Pain and Overlooking View, she can be seen with Ouji walking across the screen in the foreground when Seo is talking with Naomi. This scene happens months before her suicide attempt.
Childhood Friends: She had been close friends with Ouji since elementary school. Ouji sees her like a little sister.
Driven to Suicide: The police think that she tried to commit suicide, but her classmates claim that she was apparently assaulted by fairies. Turns out she couldn't handle becoming a drug addict and really tried to commit suicide.
First-Name Basis: Only Ouji calls her by her given name, due to how close they are.
Forced Addiction: In the movie, teacher Hideo Hayama forced Kaori to become addicted to drugs, to keep her quiet about him taking them at school.
Full-Name Basis: Azaka always calls her by her full name. They aren't classmates, so Azaka isn't familiar with her.
Good Girls Avoid Abortion: In the novel, because she was a devout Christian, Kaori refused to go through an abortion after she got pregnant due to Hayama making her class do Compensated Dating. In the end, she committed suicide by burning herself in a fire as an act of atonement for the sins of her class.
He Knows Too Much: She accidently saw Hayama doing drugs, which forced him to shut her mouth by making her addicted to drugs just like him.
Last-Name Basis: Hayama called her last name like all teachers do.
The Reveal: She never saw fairies. It was all her hallucination from the drugs and withdrawal symptoms, and she was really Driven to Suicide because she couldn't handle being a drug addict. The end of the movie also reveals that she survived the arson.
Self-Immolation: She causes the school's old facility to burn down with her attempted suicide.
Spared by the Adaptation: She committed suicide in the original novel, but is still alive in the 6th movie.
Teen Pregnancy: In the novel, Hayama started a prostitution ring with Class 1-D, which resulted in Kaori getting pregnant. Not willing to abort, she committed suicide.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Accidently discovering Hayama's drug abuse caused a series of events, which include her own attempted suicide, Hayama's death and Ouji obtaining magecraft who tries to kill Kaori's classmates with her powers.
Walking Spoiler: She's a crucial part behind the mystery of the sixth movie, so most of the mystery's resolution is tied with her.

Hideo Hayama

Voiced by: Yuuichi Ishigami

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hayama_knk.png

An English teacher of Azaka's high school who vanished after the incident with Kaori Tachibana prior to the events of the sixth movie.

Addled Addict: He's a drug addict and can't do his everyday life without it. When Kaori Tachibana accidently sees him doing drugs, he forces her to become one herself to keep her mouth shut. His own abuse of drugs also causes him to die from a heart attack when he tries to kill Ouji.
Evil Uncle: He's the younger brother of Ouji's father.
He Knows Too Much: After being discovered of abusing drugs, he keeps Kaori Tachibana's mouth shut by making her a drug addict himself. When Ouji confronts him about the truth, he tries to kill her.
Hollywood Heart Attack: When he tries to kill Ouji, he dies from a heart attack caused by his drug abuse and hits hard on his head.
Nepotism: He's a former criminal and only got his job at the school because he's the chairman's younger brother.
Yakuza: His way he dresses in school and his criminal profile suggest that he is one.

Origin of 「　」 *Spoilers*

「Shiki Ryougi」

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/void_51.png

A third personality that has existed in the gap between Shiki and SHIKI since their birth, but purposefully kept herself hidden from the other two personalities due to her general disinterest in being involved in the world. This personality is housed in Shiki's body rather than the other personalities housed in her mind, and can essentially be thought of as the living, sentient embodiment of Shiki's Origin of "Void".

Abstract Apotheosis: Inverted. Most magi and otherwise super-powered beings grow more powerful and supernatural by pursuing their "Origin" / fundamental nature. She on the other hand is one of those fundamental natures given sentience thanks to "Void" being a very, very cosmologically meaningful Origin.
All-Powerful Bystander: She has nigh-omnipotence through her direct access to Akasha... but as that means she can see all of existence laid out before her like a storybook, she doesn't really feel any need to change one particular "script" beyond fixing Mikiya's leg in a minor moment of sentimentality.
Anthropomorphic Personification: The way she talks about herself suggests she's the embodiment of Akasha itself (but Word of God states otherwise), and more or less states it's not incorrect to call her Shiki's Origin of "Void".
Bystander Syndrome: Despite having the power to solve any of the story's various conflicts instantly, since she already knows everything will work out for Shiki and Mikiya in the end, she doesn't bother getting involved herself.
Character Filibuster: The epilogue is basically just a half-hour straight of Shiki's third personality talking at length about the nature of the self and of Shiki's split personality with very occasional interruptions from Kokutou.
Divine Date: She shares Shiki and SHIKI's love for Mikiya Kokutou while being something similar to a God in Human Form with Reality Warper powers. It's why she even bothers to show herself to him and fixes Mikiya's leg without any comment or mention of it at the end of the epilogue OVA.
Empty Shell: She states she's essentially a hollow body without a soul or will of her own. If not for her other personalities observing the world from a human mind's point of view, her omniscient point of view would have made her basically incapable of having a sense of self as the human Shiki Ryougi or being able to talk to others as Shiki.
God in Human Form: She's essentially a goddess born from the void, living in a human body.
The Omnipotent: She is Shiki's Origin of Void, an Origin that can directly interface with Akasha, making her capable of rewriting reality at will by destroying it and creating a new one... and theoretically the most powerful being in the Nasuverse. However, Word of God later downplays this, by stating she is still ultimately under Archetype Earth, Type Mercury, and certain kinds of Servants and Servant-like beings, who have higher level access or privileges to Akasha than the Origin of Void does.
The Omniscient: As she has direct access to the Akashic Records, she has already seen everything that has and will happen, making the world largely nothing but a story she's already read.
Reality Warper: She is capable of destroying and recreating almost all aspects of the world at will, such as when she fixes Mikiya's leg at the end of the series with a thought. However, since most of the world is equivalent to a story she's already read, she never feels any need to use her powers for anything but that.
Required Secondary Powers: The reason Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception don't slowly destroy her body and mind the way Shiki Tohno's do, is because her Origin of "Void" made her an existence capable of wielding them from birth, even if Shiki's mind only realized they were there after her accident and coma.
Walking Spoiler: You can't know about her without giving away the biggest revelations of the epilogue.
Yamato Nadeshiko: Unlike Shiki, she is this in full. She's graceful, serene and soft-spoken and wears a much more elegant kimono than Shiki.

Mana Ryougi *Spoilers*

Mana Ryougi

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mana_3223.png

Introduced in the epilogue to Future Gospel: recalled out summer, she is Shiki and Mikiya's daughter.

All-Loving Hero: Mitsuru notes Mana tends to like everyone too easily.
Cheerful Child: She's a cute and lively young girl.
Daddy's Girl: She adores her "papa" so much that she doesn't want to share him with her mother. Regardless, she and Shiki appear to have a close and loving mother-daughter relationship with each other despite this, as seen in spin-offs and official character art featuring the two of them together.
Family Eye Resemblance: She has blue eyes like her father and aunt. The shape of her eyes is similar to her aunt's too.
First-Name Basis: She refers to Mitsuru by his first name, adding the -san honorific, which shows that they are rather close to each other. When she addresses him by his old alias to tease him, she calls him by his alias's last name "Kuramitsu" instead.
Innocent Blue Eyes: She got the blue eyes of her father and also seems to have inherited his kind-hearted and friendly nature.
Intergenerational Friendship: She likes to hang around Mitsuru, who is 16 years older than her.
Mafia Princess: As Shiki once was, Mana is one as Shiki herself accepted her family business and became the next head.
Muggle Born of Mages: She did not inherit her mother's abilities, nor any abilities of the Ryougi family.
Parental Title Characterization: She calls Mikiya "Papa", showing she's Daddy's Girl. Meanwhile, she calls Shiki by the much more respectful "Okaa-sama/Mother" and since she considers Shiki's male personality SHIKI to be one of her parents too, she refers to him as "Otou-sama/Father".
Precocious Crush: Implied to have a crush on Mitsuru, who also resembles her father in some way.
Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: With Mitsuru. His pessimistic behavior is usually counter balanced by Mana's curious and cheerful disposition, and Mana usually requires so much attention that he doesn't really have the time to feel down.
Strong Family Resemblance: Mana looks like her mother Shiki, with the eye and hair color of her father. She also closely resembles her aunt, Azaka, too.
Walking Spoiler: Since she's Shiki and Mikiya's daughter introduced in the epilogue, it's difficult to talk about her without giving away the ending of the series.
You Remind Me of X: She's sure Mitsuru is a good person, despite knowing about his past as a bomber, because he reminds her of her father Mikiya; they're both unassuming men who are blind in one eye and are weak to women.
Younger Than They Look: She is ten in Future Gospel, yet she looks like she would be few years older than that.

Mother Mifune

Voiced by: Kujira

A famous and accurate Fortune Teller of Future Gospel who gave predictions to Shiki and SHIKI in the past.

Blind Seer: In Möbius Link, her blind eyes are now blind, but her precognition powers have also significantly waned over the years.
Cool Old Lady: She was popular with teenage girls, isn't afraid of anyone, and Mana really likes her.
De-power: In Möbius Link, which is set ten years after the events of the entire series, she can no longer see the future.
Foil: To Mekura Kuramitsu. While Kuramitsu used his precognition for crimes, Mother Mifune is entirely motivated to help people with her power. Mitsuru realizes himself when she learns why she's still doing fortune telling despite being unable to see the future anymore.
Fortune Teller: She does fortune telling for a living with her power. She usually gives advice for love and life.
Named After Somebody Famous: She is named after a Real Life clairvoyant, Chizuko Mifune.
Only Known by Their Nickname: She's only known as Mother Mifune. Her real name is never revealed. Also, she left that name behind long before 1998, so every time she's called by that name in the story, she will note how nostalgic it is to be called like this name again.
Seers: She has true precognition powers, although has lost them by the time of the final epilogue in the future.

Naomi

Voiced by: Saori Onishi

Shizune Seo's friend at Reien Academy who lends her Seo some clothes at the beginning of Future Gospel.

Expository Hairstyle Change: She changes her hair drastically during her two appearances in Future Gospel, yet Seo recognizes her right away.
First-Name Basis: She's called by her first name by Seo, but calls the latter by her last name.
Muggle Best Friend: She's one of Seo's best friends, but unlike Azaka, Naomi is just a normal girl.
No Full Name Given: Only her given name is known.
Parental Abandonment: Her parents live in Hong Kong and they don't give her permission to leave Reien Academy during the summer break.

Ririsu Miyazuki

Voiced by: Risa Taneda

A character introduced in Future Gospel Extra Chorus. A student from Azaka's school whose best friend was one of the suicide victims in Overlooking View.

Bullying a Dragon: She acted like a complete jackass to Fujino after their introductions to each other, and even brings up the murder cases which Fujino was the culprit of during the events of movie 3. Of course, she completely regretted it once Fujino confesses about the latter and decides to teach her a harsh lesson about valuing her life...
First-Name Basis: She calls her best friend by her first name, Yuuko.
Full-Name Basis: She addresses Fujino with her full name, since they aren't that close to each other.
Girlish Pigtails: She wears medium long pigtails.
Interrupted Suicide: Miyazuki wanted to leave the world behind and reach "eternity", alongside with her friend Yuuko Andou. When Miyazuki realized that Andou committed suicide without her, Miyazuki felt guilty and lonely and tries to follow her suit. Fujino stops her from doing so by making her remember Andou's last words.

"No matter how much it may hurt at times, I like to believe that this world is beautiful."

It's All My Fault: She believes Andou killed herself because of something she said to her.
Last-Name Basis: Fujino is the only character who talks to her and she calls Miyazuki always by her last name.
Moving Beyond Bereavement: Miyazuki blames herself for her friend Yuuko committing suicide and believes she should follow her in death out of guilt. Fujino interrupts her suicide attempt to remind her that Yuuko always wanted to believe the world was beautiful, motivating her to live on while holding on to Yuuko's beliefs.
My God, What Have I Done?: She realizes that her action, after a chain of unfortunate events that came to Andou, was the last straw that pushed her friend to suicide.
No Full Name Given: Subverted. Her extra story only has her interacting with Fujino who calls her by her surname. However, her first name is mentioned in the Garden of Oblivion novel.

Yuuko Andou

A student from Reien Girls Academy and one of the suicide victims in Overlooking View. She serves as a Posthumous Character in Future Gospel: Extra Chorus.

Expy Coexistence: Like Kaori Tachibana from the sixth chapter, Yuuko Andou serves as a Posthumous Character and prime motivation for another schoolmate who has deep affection for her and cannot let go of her suicide. Not only did these girl go to the same school, Kaori Tachibana and Yuuko Andou looked almost identical to each other.
First-Name Basis: She's called "Yuuko" by her best friend Miyazuki.
Last-Name Basis: Fujino calls her always "Andou-san".
Nice Girl: She once told her last words to Fujino long before Andou decided to commit suicide. Her last words are also meant to persuade Miyazuki from killing herself.
Posthumous Character: In Future Gospel: Extra Chorus, she has long died, but she still serves as Miyazuki's driving motivation for her actions in that OVA.
Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Her family is dead and left with her with a mountain of debt, then Miyazuki (out of anger) told her to kill herself. Being influenced by Kirie finally made her jump of the Fujou Building, and it's most likely Kirie's influence that carried most of the weight for her suicide.

Characters / The Garden of Sinners

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Main Characters

Shiki Ryougi

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

Mikiya Kokutou

Voiced by: Kentarō Itō (drama CD), Kenichi Suzumura (anime), Eri Kitamura (Child in the sixth movie)

Touko Aozaki

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (drama CD), Takako Honda (anime)

Azaka Kokutou

Voiced by: Yukari Tamura (drama CD), Ayumi Fujimura (anime)

Major Characters

SHIKI Ryougi

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

Daisuke Akimi

Voiced by: Hiroki Tochi

Tomoe Enjou

Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara

Shizune Seo

Voiced by: Yuka Iguchi

Villains

Souren Araya

Voiced by: Joji Nakata

Kirie Fujou

Voiced by: Miki Itō (drama CD), Rie Tanaka (anime)

Fujino Asagami

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto

Cornelius Alba

Voiced by: Koji Yusa

Misaya Ouji

Voiced by: Nana Mizuki

Satsuki Kurogiri

Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu

Lio Shirazumi

Voiced by: Soichiro Hoshi

Meruka Kuramitsu

Voiced by: Akira Ishida

Other Characters

Akitaka Suzugiri

Voiced by: Makoto Yasumura

Gakuto

Voiced by: Kenji Takahashi

Keita Minato

Voiced by: Shintarō Asanuma

Kaori Tachibana

Voiced by: Eri Kitamura (uncredited)

Hideo Hayama

Voiced by: Yuuichi Ishigami

「Shiki Ryougi」

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (drama CD), Maaya Sakamoto (all subsequent appearances)

Mana Ryougi

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto

Mother Mifune

Voiced by: Kujira

Naomi

Voiced by: Saori Onishi

Ririsu Miyazuki

Voiced by: Risa Taneda

Yuuko Andou

Alternative Title(s): Kara No Kyoukai

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