Characters / The Secret World: Tokyo NPCs

A character subpage for The Secret World. For the main page, go here.

---

Inhabitants of Tokyo

Masao Tanaka

Remain calm: the government is working to bring this situation to a swift resolution. Compliance is mandatory.

Voiced by: Daisuke Suzuki

A high-ranking government official currently managing the ongoing quarantine of Kaidan and the other Filth-infected districts of Tokyo. Unfortunately, this is proving much more difficult than anticipated, and many of Tanaka's attempts at preventing the spread of the Filth are already beginning to fail...

• Agent Scully: Apparently, Tanaka doesn't believe in the supernatural even though his job requires him to be a practical expert on the Secret World in order to cover it up. Needless to say, his attempts to both cover up the incident and rationally explain it to himself have left him in "an impossible knot of brain patterns."
• Animal Metaphor: Despite his nickname of Steely Dog, Tanaka is more often compared with much less impressive animals: in one entry alone, the Bees compare him to an insect, a mantis shrimp, and an owl - particularly in his tendency to vomit up "speeches filled with bones." Tanaka is most commonly compared to a mouse, apparently because of his desperate and futile attempts to manage a situation beyond his ability to control, being constantly swamped by the enormity of the crisis.
• Antagonistic Offspring: It turns out that Masao's daughter, Naonomi, is directly responsible for setting off the disaster that her father is struggling to deal with, having trained and directed John into the role of the suicide bomber who released the Filth into Tokyo. For his part, Tanaka still doesn't know, given that the private detective he sent in is getting absolutely nowhere and the players haven't broke the news to him yet.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: To his credit, Tanaka really is trying his hardest to keep the situation from getting any worse. Unfortunately, most of his efforts aren't having much effect: arranging for the construction of a massive wall around Kaidan didn't stop the Filth from either punching through it or just flying over it; keeping the true cause of the disaster a secret was ruined when John started adding classified footage to the emergency address; even killing citizens trying to escape or seek shelter might not be enough. As the Bees put it, the situation is a runaway circus, spiralling further and further out of Tanaka's control.
• Blatant Lies: His job is to maintain the Masquerade in the face of the ongoing crisis. Given how Tokyo is essentially being eaten alive by the Filth, he's had to resort to a lot of these, much to John's amusement.
• Blackmail: A victim of this. Having been photographed at the Love Hotel, he provides the blackmailer - one Jake Hama - with profitable work in exchange for ensuring that the photos don't end up getting mailed to Tanaka's wife. The mission to find Naonomi was apparently the result of their deal... though given just how unprepared Hama is, it's just as likely that Tanaka sent him on a wild goose chase in the hopes that it would end up getting him killed.
• Emergency Broadcast: Introduced performing one of these, which the player manages to view via one of the billboard-sized screens directly above the Kaidan subway exit. Unfortunately, his attempts to reassure the citizens are undermined by John, who splices in horrific footage of Filth infection and the lethal results of complying with Tanaka's orders.
• In-Universe Nickname: According to the lore, his classmates called him Steely Dog.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The outro to "One Kill Ahead" features Masao's only daughter, Naonomi Tanaka, being shot dead by the Rabbit Killer. Admittedly, it's not known if he has any other children, and for the time being, Masao remains unaware of what's happened to Naonomi.
• Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice: As no cure for the Filth currently exists, Tanaka's current policy for anyone attempting to escape the city is to have them shot. Also, any infectees that show up at the guard towers as instructed will also be killed on sight.
• Seriously Scruffy: Tanaka likely hasn't had the time for personal grooming since the crisis, not even in preparation for an emergency broadcast to the public. As such, his address is conducted with a mop of uncombed hair, a loosened tie, an unbuttoned collar, and more than a little bit of stubble.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Masao is extremely disappointed with his daughter's choices in life, especially since she's ended up falling in with the wrong crowd and joining the Fear Nothing Foundation. However, as problematic as their relationship is, Masao still cares about Naonomi a great deal - at least enough to hire Jake Hama to search the ruins of Tokyo for her... not that it's done much good. Plus, he doesn't know that Naonomi is guilty of facilitating the terrorist attack that's giving him so much trouble at present, so his disappointment hasn't peaked just yet.

Harumi

I haven't been up to much... just achieving digital omnipresence by staring into the boiling eye of my plasmatic data- cauldron. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most all-seeing cutie of them all? Why, you are, Harumi!

Voiced by: Janice Kawaye

A gifted hacker and one of the youngest survivors encountered in Tokyo, she and her brother Yuichi have managed to escape the worst of the ongoing Filth outbreak by sheltering in a heavily-fortified apartment complex in the south-western end of Kaidan District. Armed with a large supply of microwaveable dinners and Bingo Cola, Harumi remains enthusiastic despite the disaster - mainly because the internet's still connected, and her hacking expertise allows her to spy on the player's antics throughout Tokyo.

• Berserk Button: Don't insult her makeshift Hacker Cave; even mild attempts at dismissal are enough to make her quote Hudson.
• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted; Rum has a very effective case of Little Sister Instinct towards Yuichi, openly declaring that anyone who dares mess with him will incur the wrath of "Neuromancer_Queen99, Queen of the Pillow Fort!"
• Big Little Man: First introduced holding an uzi to the player's head from behind a chained door, it's not until the camera shifts to the opposite side of the door that it becomes apparent that Harumi is actually a head shorter than the player - and much younger, too. (And that the gun is, in fact, a water pistol.)
• Child Prodigy: A self-declared computer genius and one of the best hackers in Tokyo, even experienced Orochi agents are baffled by Harumi's abilities, openly speculating that her technical brilliance might actually be supernatural in nature; to put things in perspective, her only rival for control over the city's electronics in the aftermath of the disaster is John. For good measure, the after-mission text to "Spiral" reveals that Kirsten Geary is seriously considering her for recruitment into the Illuminati.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Acknowledged when she observes that, between her and her brother, she's the lucid member of the household. This, despite frequently chanting the Bingo Cola jingle and declaring herself on a search for digital omniscience.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: What with her big brother being unable to look after himself and frequently lapsing into paranoid withdrawal, Harumi's appointed herself as this to Yuichi; in the event that she's not cooking dinner or tidying up after him, she's also making sure that he stays polite in conversations with the player, and comforting him during the nastier panic attacks.
• Cosy Catastrophe: Currently enjoying one of these, partly due to her vast stock of microwavable dinners and Bingo Cola, but mostly due to the fact that she still has access to the internet.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Harumi's insatiable energy and ambitions as a hacker are both fuelled by regular doses of Bingo Cola. In "The All-Seeing Kawaii," she realizes that the Filth seems to have acquired a liking for it as well, and considers giving it up for a while.
• Genki Girl: Is pretty upbeat and cheerful considering the state of Kaidan and her brother, though her addiction to Bingo Cola no doubt helps. It's a very rare mission is she isn't seen bouncing on the spot in excitement, giggling excitedly, spinning around in her swivel chair, chanting advertising jingles for soft drinks, mimicking the players' magical powers through incomprehensible sound effects, or just declaring herself Queen of the Pillow Fort.
• Hero-Worshipper: Given that she spends the majority of her time spying on players through Tokyo's surveillance systems, Harumi has developed a very impressive respect for the players, enough to be almost completely overcome by a Squee attack upon meeting you for the first time. She even asks for a demonstration of your magical powers.
• In-Universe Nickname: Her name is occasionally shortened to "Rum," especially by her bother. While online, though, she prefers to go by the name of Neuromancer_Queen99. She also uses the name 'Security 5'.
• Innocent Inaccurate: Harumi might be astonishingly competent and knowledgeable for her age, but she still makes the occasional mistake in this vein; for example, at one point she tries to cheer Yuichi up by suggesting that they play with "those weird action figures." Yuichi, horrified and more than a little disgusted, reveals that the supposed "action figures" are really his collection of hentai figurines!
  • Though judging by her rather mischievous face just before that replic she's perfectly aware of this fact and simply trolling him.
• Last of Her Kind: Subverted - but only just. Though "All Alone Together" leaves Harumi with the sobering knowledge that a huge chunk of her online friends have been killed in the aftermath of the Filth-bombing, she isn't the last of her group: Darkdeathevilman is alive and hiding in a dumpster, whilst Amaya has deserted her Orochi employers and left Tokyo altogether - apparently via Agartha.
• Motor Mouth: Just about every single conversation consists of her talking at roughly a thousand miles an hour; even if the player could talk, chances are you wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise. This only becomes more clear in contrast to Yuichi, who barely manages to force a few sentences out at the best of times.
• Not So Omniscient After All: In spite of Harumi's best efforts to make herself technologically omniscient, she occasionally finds that the Filth is more than capable of stymying these attempts via direct attacks on her security cameras, either stealing them or destroying them outright.
• Odd Friendship: "Neuromancy and the Art of Making Friends" reveals that Harumi has formed an online friendship with John, of all people. She doesn't appear to be aware of his more unpleasant traits, claiming him to be merely "misunderstood" - though she does seem a bit freaked out by his occasionally "icky" mannerisms. For his part, John doesn't seem to be attempting anything nasty... so far.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Occasionally, Harumi's exuberance will fail her and she'll admit to being genuinely afraid for people she cares about, either in the case of her brother's deteriorating sanity, or the prospect that her many online friends may have been killed in the bomb blast.
• Parental Abandonment: Both died after the Filth Bomb.
• Playful Hacker: Sabotaged the Orochi Group's website a month prior to the disaster, and regularly hacks into local security cameras to observe the players in action. However, she also has standards, making it abundantly clear that she won't hack into her friends' accounts for any reason whatsoever.
• Promotion to Parent: Unusual variant, given that it's the younger sibling that's been promoted instead of the older. Nonethless, Harumi does go about fulfilling the usual substitute-parent's duties, including cooking dinner for Yuichi and tidying up after him; appropriately, Yuichi himself ends up behaving like a child during his occasional breakdowns.
• Sinister Surveillance: Takes advantage of Kaidan's many, many security cameras in order to watch the activities of the players throughout the city.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Bingo Cola - enough to make her regularly recite the jingle.
  Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! The clock says you're mad! Drink Bingo! Bingo! It explodes the sad! Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!!!
• Trap Master: Harumi proves surprisingly masterful at building makeshift traps, many of them quite lethal. In fact, upon arriving at their apartment block in the mission "Spiral," it's discovered that Harumi has somehow managed to booby-trap the entire building: she's flooded the ground-floor corridor and left an active power cable trailing into the water; she's set up automatic potato guns in one of the corridors and swinging paint cans on the stairs; she's even gone so far as to scatter marbles and rakes throughout the halls. For good measure, she's also barricaded several staircases and blocked the elevator doors, forcing uninvited guests to walk through the traps in order to reach their apartment. It's not known when she was able to set all these traps up or even how she accomplished it without being noticed by roaming Filth-infectees.
• Unusual Euphemism: Resorts to these when you first meet her, exclaiming "Holy Roly-Poly!" and describing you as "some real superhero shiz!"
• Water Guns and Balloons: Her weapon of choice for frightening unexpected visitors, Harumi's waterpistol is a very realistic replica of an Uzi - realistic enough to fool you, anyway, at least until she decides to dampen your shoes with it.

Yuichi

Word viruses, music pollution, rogue memes, yellow noise, laughing bacterium - always getting in. Always! No reason why we can't talk through the locked door. No reason.

Voiced by: Kenji Watanabe

Harumi's big brother and a former member of the Fear Nothing Foundation, Yuichi is one of the few remaining sources of information on what the FNF was planning prior to the Tokyo Incident - though his somewhat jumbled state of mind means that getting answers from him might be a little difficult. Hiding in the same apartment as his little sister, he spends most of his days reciting bizarre trivia and trying to convince the player not to actually enter the apartment.

• Break the Cutie: Occurred in the backstory, during which he learned that all his new friends among the Fear Nothing Foundation were only there to manipulate him into serving the cult, and his own girlfriend was trying to turn him into a suicide bomber. Plus, he also had to endure all the torturous indoctrination procedures the other FNF members had to suffer before finally making a run for it... and then the Tokyo Incident occurred, leaving him stranded in his apartment, terrified of being murdered by the Rabbit Killer or having his brain eaten by the Vampire Squid Gods.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Eccentric, paranoid, withdrawn, and prone to loudly proclaiming obscure trivia. Though occasionally played for comedy, these tendencies are more often used to illustrate the devastating effect his time in the FNF and the Tokyo Bombing have had on his already-eccentric personality, especially once it becomes apparent that Yuichi is almost incapable of looking after himself and likely in serious need of psychiatric care - and thanks to the ongoing state of emergency, he isn't going to get it anytime soon.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Due to his experiences, he knows more than the people might realize at first. His quote above is almost the same as more conventional descriptions of the Filth, and the Vampire Squid Gods he mentions fit the description of the Dreamers as well.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Yuichi finds English an exhausting language to speak, and his crippling social anxiety doesn't help; as such, while he's a bit more eloquent than the common Asian Speekee Engrish variant, he tends to restrict himself to fairly basic statements in contrast to the streams of jargon he can deliver in Japanese.
• Foil: Arguably one for John. Both were socially awkward loners that joined the Fear Nothing Foundation, became infatuated with Naonomi, and were chosen as candidates to be suicide bombers by the higher-ups. But while Yuichi couldn't go through with it and ultimately left the Foundation, John embraced the role of bomber - and much, much worse.
• Friendless Background: A combination of crippling social phobia and eccentricity apparently left Yuichi with few friends outside his immediate family... up until he joined the Fear Nothing Foundation. Unfortunately, the friends and girlfriend he gained while among the FNF were all there to indoctrinate him into the cult and sculpt him into a suicide bomber. Upon discovering this, Yuichi left the Foundation and ran for the safety of home; now, following the emergence of the Filth in Tokyo and the stream of assassinations and mass-suicides that have swept the Foundation, the only friend he has left is Harumi.
• Hikikomori: Referred to by this very name, having turned up on an official government registry of known hikikomori long before the disaster - according to Bong Cha. Of course, following his traumatic departure from the FNF and the Tokyo incident, Yuichi’s even less inclined to leave the apartment than ever before
• Improvised Armor: Made from household objects like oven mitts, seat cushions, and his trademarked "space helmet." Not that it will help much if he does get attacked, especially since he doesn't wear pants.
• Little Known Facts: Prone to compulsively mentioning them in times of stress - which, given the current circumstances and Yuichi's overall demeanour, means that he spends almost every other scene rattling off trivia.
• Last of His Kind: With the overwhelming majority of his peer group having committed mass suicide in preparation for the Great Message, Naonomi having been assassinated by the Rabbit Killer, and John being at ground zero of his own Filth-bombing, Yuichi is now the only surviving human member of the Fear Nothing Foundation as of Issue #10.
• Madness Mantra: Provides one when he realizes that the Rabbit Killer might be after him.
  Hip-hop, die! Hip-hop, die! She's coming to kill me, Rum! She's coming to kill everyone! Big white ears can hear your fear! Hip-hop, die! Die! Die!
• Nervous Wreck: Yuichi wasn't exactly comfortable with social interactions to begin with, but the disastrous end to his time with the Fear Nothing Foundation and the aftermath of the Tokyo Bombing has left him a neurotic mess barely capable of sustaining a conversation longer than a few seconds.
• Never Bareheaded: Never takes his helmet off and never removes the surgical mask covering his face either, apparently out of fear that something might try to eat his brain. Also, he reasons that since he built the helmet, it's a part of him.
• No Social Skills: Even with Harumi coaxing him, Yuichi is barely able to maintain a conversation for longer than a minute without either breaking down or resorting to another little-known factoid. And that's if he's able to talk at all: on bad days - of which there are many - Yuichi's fear brings him dangerously close to withdrawing from reality altogether, enough to make him completely forget that his little sister even exists.
• Pants-Free: Introduced hiding on the opposite side of a door and only occasionally peering out, a cut to his side reveals that Yuichi is almost completely naked from the waist down. He remains this way throughout the Tokyo missions.
  • Later, during "The All-Seeing Kawaii," Harumi manages to talk Yuichi into putting some pants on... only for Yuichi to accidentally spill Bingo Cola all over them. Back to pantslessness.
• Parental Abandonment: Both died after the Filth Bomb.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Enacted this once he discovered what his girlfriend and the rest of the Fear Nothing Foundation had in mind for him. Due to his current condition, Yuichi can only explain that they wanted him to do "something bad," though it eventually becomes apparent that they wanted him to bomb the Orochi Tower.
• Shrinking Violet: Very shy.
• Suicide Attack: It's eventually revealed that the Fear Nothing Foundation had been grooming Yuichi into a suicide bomber for an attack on Orochi Tower; once he realized what he was actually being prepared for, he couldn't go through with it, abandoning his intended role and the Foundation once and for all. Unfortunately, he wasn't the FNF's only candidate...
• Tinfoil Hat: Yuichi wears a somewhat more complicated version of the common tinfoil hat, apparently cobbled together from household items. He believes it will prevent the vampire squid gods from eating his brain algorithms.

Ricky Pagan (AKA: Ryuichi Sagawa)

Intruder, know that this place is protected! Gatecrasher, know that you face the one charged by Amaterasu and blessed by Gaia! Ginpachi Park's bequiffed, leather-clad environmental vigilante, putting the "pomp" in pompadour: RRRRRRICKYYYYY PAGAAAAAN!

Voiced by: Akie Kotabe

Leader of the Pagans and the unofficial protector of Ginpachi Park, sworn to protect the "last spot of soul" in Tokyo in the name of his Holy Trinity - Gaia, Amaterasu, and Elvis. Most often found standing guard just outside the Agartha portal at the base of the cherry blossom tree, Ricky is also the primary subject of the Sidestories DLC: "The Last Pagan."

• Accent Relapse: Normally, Ricky will speak in an accent and tone of voice modelled on Elvis Presley, but sometimes when the reality of his situation gets to him, he shifts into his natural Japanese accent.
• Berserk Button:
  • The Phoenicians. Ricky's pretty open-minded when it comes to most of the factions, gladly receiving aid from any of the Big Three, sharing the park with a team of Council agents, and agreeing to cooperate with the Jingu Clan, the Korinto-Kai and even the House-In-Exile in their struggle against the Filth. But when it comes to Phoenicians, Ricky has nothing but disgust and derision.
  • Ricky takes an understandably dim view of the Orochi Group and other manifestations of "The Corporate Id."
• Break the Comedian: A quirky environmentalist Elvis Impersonator, his hammy mannerisms make anything he says hilarious - up until the events of the mission "The Pagans." Grieving for the missing members of the eponymous gang, he breaks down and temporarily reverts to his former identity - Ruichi Sagawa; worse still, the Black Signal takes this opportunity to speak to him through his boom box, trying to convince him that his powers are imaginary and taunting him with the knowledge of how his friends died in agony. Though Ricky is eventually able to fight back with an epic Shut Up, Hannibal!, he's uncharacteristically somber for the rest of the scene, and doesn't recover his spirits until you recover the jackets of his dead companions and unite them in a ghostly dance-off.
• Due to the Dead: The final act of "The Pagans" consists of you and Ricky dancing in remembrance of the members of Ricky's gang who didn't survive the Tokyo Incident. For good measure, the ghosts of the dead show up to dance as well!
• Elvis Impersonator: Granted, Ricky isn't impersonating Elvis so much as worshipping him via imitating his style of dress and speech. The Pagans dress in a similar way, all revering Elvis Presley as a saviour for bringing about Rockabilly, which they believe helped Japan's youth out of the shadow of World War II.
• Famous Ancestor: The Dragon claims that his father is none other than the thought-stillborn twin brother of Elvis Presley himself.
• Gang of Hats: Ricky's gang all style their hair into Elvis-like pompadours, and all of them wear leather jackets and jeans - with a few minor modifications depending on the team member. In "The Pagans," you're tasked with finding the missing gang-members and bringing their jackets back if they didn't survive their time in the wilderness.
• Incoming Ham: In "The Pagans," where he is first properly introduced. Just look at the quote above!
• Large Ham: Befitting an imitator of Elvis, Ricky takes great delight in chewing up any scenery he hasn't sworn to protect.
• Last Fertile Region: Ginpachi Park was serving as this to most of Kaidan prior to the Tokyo Incident; following the bombing, it serves much the same purpose, only even more so. Despite Filth contamination, an infestation of infected Deep Ones, and a crashed Sycoil tanker spilling petrol into the nearby waters, Ginpachi Park is still going strong thanks to the power of the Bees, with the huge sakura tree in full blossom and the Agartha entrance illuminating the area.
• Last of His Kind: "The Pagans" reveals that the gang's membership has essentially collapsed in the wake of the Tokyo Incident, with three members being corrupted by the Filth, one being killed, and another leaving to join the Jingu Clan - ultimately leaving Ricky as The Last Pagan.
• Martial Pacifist: Ricky has always preferred nonviolent resistance to "The Corporate Id," having been involved with organizing peaceful protests against the Orochi Group since before the Tokyo Incident. That said, he is willing to fight if he doesn't have any other choice, openly warning you not to "make me use my stuff on you, man." Furthermore, in Issue #10, a trip through John's memories reveals an incident where Che Garcia Hansen attempted to pick a fight with Ricky; unmoved by the drunken hippy's taunting, Ricky managed to talk both Che and John into a duel on his own terms - namely, a dance-off!
• Mistaken For Bigot: According to Kaoru, the breakup between her and Ricky occurred when he "saw the real me," and unable to accept who she really was, left in disgust. Ricky, on the other hand, openly scoffs at the idea of him rejecting Karou based on "what he saw between her legs", and states that what really repelled him was a tattoo on her thigh - indicating that Karou was secretly a Phoenician agent. And he's right, too.
• Nature Lover: An environmental vigilante and a devout worshipper of Gaia, Ricky spent his days prior to the Filth-bomb staging non-violent protests against Orochi encroachments against Ginpachi Park. Now, in the wake of the Tokyo Incident, Ricky has declared himself the official protector of the park, and will defend it to his last breath.
• The Power of Rock: A firm believer in this, as a devotee of Elvis and "Rokabiri." For good measure, your first mission with him is spent using his boom-box to summon the other Pagans out of hiding, using the power of the music to illuminate a Filth-infected Pagan hidden among a crowd, temporarily sedate a Filth hulk that used to be "Kaiju," and put the souls of the dead Pagans to rest in a spectral dance-off.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ricky rarely ever loses his grip on his persona, even in the apocalyptic aftermath of the Tokyo Incident; in just about every single line of dialogue, he remains brash, cool and thoroughly Elvis-like, only acknowledging the identity of Ryuichi Sagawa as an origin story. However, in the intro to "The Pagans," Ricky's confidence briefly fails him when he admits that he couldn't save his gang... and then the Black Signal tunes in with a Breaking Speech, causing him to shift back into Ryuichi Sagawa - terrified, guilt-ridden and powerless.
• Religious Bruiser: A devout follower of his unique Holy Trinity: Gaia, Amaterasu, and Elvis. Indeed, Ryuchi's transformation into Ricky Pagan was initially inspired by his vision of the goddess Amaterasu emerging from the sakura trees of Ginpachi Park, and to this day he defends the park in her name, revering her alongside Gaia the Immaculate Machine and his prophet, Elvis.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers one of these to John following the Black Signal's attempt at a Breaking Speech.
  Enough! Get behind me, Static Satan! Get outta my box! The Power of Rock compels you! I'll take illusions over lies: I... AM RICKY PAGAN!
• Third-Person Person: Ricky generally refers to himself in the third person, though he does allow a few liberties when mentioning his former self. However, it's the use of "I" in a moment of stress that indicates that Ricky's persona might be slipping.
• Tragic Keepsake: The jackets of Ricky's fallen friends become these in the aftermath of "The Pagans.

Kaoru

We can accommodate any inclination, ease any trouble or tension. There are no problems here, only solutions.

The manager of the Dream Palace, a high-class love hotel on the eastern side of Kaidan. Despite the ongoing state of emergency and the high concentration of Filth-entities in the area, Kaoru has kept the hotel open for business, weathering the crisis with unshakable serenity. Having seen many different visitors come and go since assuming control of the establishment, she has a vital role to play in guiding players to the truth behind the Tokyo Incident. She's also a secret employee of the Phoenicians, and heavily implied to be intersex.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Kaoru has had to face a great deal of hatred from people who've learned her secret, especially the children who first saw that she was "different." Kaoru's driving goal is to escape this intolerance once and for all, and is seeking citizenship in New Carthage to this end.
• Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: Instantly notable, especially if you've just been chased off the streets by monsters; Kaoru possesses a soothing, pleasant tone of voice that never loses its serenity even in the face of an ongoing apocalypse. This is actually commented on in "Nightmares In The Dream Palace," when John recalls being deeply reassured by Kaoru's voice, commenting that it "made everything alright."
• Dark and Troubled Past: After her secret was first discovered during a day at the beach, Kaoru was so horribly bullied by the other children that she simply fled into the water and let the waves sweep her away. When she regained consciousness, she learned that her father had tried to rescue her, only to end up getting swept away himself. All this left her painfully aware of her status as an outcast and saddled with a lasting fear of the ocean.
• Dark Secret: Her intersex status is this; because of the rejection and prejudice she's experienced because of it, Kaoru needs a lot of persuading to get her to discuss anything vaguely related to it, and even then she can only do so in subtle hints and implications. For example, she opens up to you about attempting suicide as a child, but she never makes it entirely clear as to what exactly the other kids saw.
• Eldritch Location: Presides over one of these in the form of the AV suite. Originally just a room intended for customers who preferred to "warm up" with some televised porn before getting down to the actual sex, it's since changed under the psychic impact of many different guests; in fact, it's actually capable of retaining an impression of their memories. Needless to say, Kaoru ensures that the room remains locked, and only ever hands over the key during the mission "Nightmares In The Dream Palace." Here, a visit to the suite reveals that John's memories are heavily imprinted on the room and it's contents, enough to take the player on a delirious trip through his Start of Darkness. For good measure, one of the most vivid memories are of John's own visit to the suite, where he recalls seeing the wallpaper morph into "sleeping mouths swallowing planets."
• Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite: Subverted. Kaoru has been forced to endure a great deal of prejudice and cruelty from people who have learned her secret. So far, the only person who's displayed any sort of sexual interest after learning the truth is Ricky Pagan, but thanks to their disastrous breakup, Kaoru refuses to believe him.
• Intersex Tribulations: It's implied through several lines of dialogue that Kaoru is actually intersex. For example, Kaoru herself mentions that her traumatic "discovery" by the other children occurred while she was swimming, and Ricky Pagan claims not to have rejected her based on "what Ricky Pagan saw between her legs."
• Love Hotels: The Dream Palace in a nutshell. Kaoru proudly boasts that they can accommodate all tastes, and though most of the rooms throughout the building remain closed to non-paying visitors, a few have been left open to display how each one has been modelled in order to cater to a specific fetish.
• Miss Kitty: Variant; as the manager for what is essentially a brothel with a BYO policy, she serves a similar function, and is well known for treating her customers, employees and business partners kindly; she also prides herself on being able to provide a service for just about any kind of appetite. At present, it isn't known if she ever served as a prostitute before ascending to management positions, though she has performed many different odd jobs around other love hotels in the past.
• The Promised Land: Kaoru clearly sees New Carthage, the Phoenician seat of power, as this. In dialogue, she openly proclaims it to be a place where she can finally be accepted for who and what she is, where she live free of prejudice at long last. Unfortunately, actually getting there requires her to first prove herself to her employers... and get over her fear of water, the one problem with her "Floating Eden."
• Red Light District: Aijou Road appears to be this to Kaidan; quite apart from the fact that its primary attraction is a love hotel, it's also hidden away in the backstreets and essentially invisible to anyone on the main road. Prior to the disaster, this was apparently the liberal version, but these days it's very much the hostile version - being densely populated by Filth infectees and hulks. Kaoru herself agrees with this assessment, only daring to patrol the border of the hotel while armed.
• The Stoic: Even with the district under quarantine and a few dozen Filth monsters patrolling the street outside, Kaoru remains as serene and professional as ever. The most emotion she's willing to display is a rather schoolgirlish giggle should you persist in questioning her... and a subtle but evident note of sadness when talking about her relationship with Ricky Pagan, or the traumatic events of her childhood.
• Tattooed Crook: Ricky Pagan considers her this, claiming that it was the tattoo of the Phoenician Brotherhood on her thigh that caused him to break up with her, not the fact that she was intersex.
• Tattoo as Character Type: Kaoru sports a Phoenician insignia tattooed on her thigh; in keeping with the character type, she is indeed quite private and yearns for intimacy that she believes that she'll never be able to find outside of New Carthage. Given the Phoenician proclivities, it might also brand her as a Tattooed Crook if not for the fact that Kaoru is one of the more law-abiding initiates to the sect.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: She's quite reluctant to discuss herself or her past with the player, often trying to change the subject or flatter you into talking about yourself. After several tries, she eventually opens up and begins providing a few details - or at least, those she feels comfortable sharing with you: for example, she never explicitly reveals the truth behind her gender.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Kaoru suffers from Thalassophobia as a result of her childhood traumas. This proves a severe handicap for her in her attempts to join the Phoenicians; as an agent of the Phoenician Brotherhood, she'd be expected to travel on the ocean on a regular basis, and likely swim as well. Nonetheless, Kaoru is determined to cure herself of her phobia, though traveling to the beach in order to combat her fear has become much more difficult since the Tokyo bombing.

Jake Hama (AKA: The Love Hotel Detective)

This job, it made me who I am. People used to look at me and see a loser, but now they see a detective; a man who'll do just about anything to find out the truth. Or the near-truth. Or a lie that they are willing to pay for. Whatever. As long as I get paid.

A washed-up private investigator on the hunt for the Rabbit Killer, as part of an ongoing search for Naonomi Tanaka on behalf of her father. Unable to find any leads, Hama has resorted to wearing a rabbit costume in the hopes of getting his quarry's attention, and now spends most of his time getting drunk in an alleyway just outside the Kaidan quarantine zone, waiting for the Rabbit Killer to show up. In the meantime, "The Love Hotel Detective" has a lot to say about his current mission...

• The Alcoholic: To the point that you can easily find him by following the trail of sake bottles and cigarette butts he's left in his wake.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Probably had to have played a part in his decision-making process at some point, given that his current plan involves standing around in a bunny-suit, getting progressively shitfaced and waiting for the highly-trained assassin to just show up and get captured by a middle-aged alcoholic armed only with a bottle of sake.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Invoked. Immediately after meeting you, he asks, "You haven't seen someone in a rabbit suit around here, have you?" Because the player can't speak, your snappy reply is a blank "are-you-fucking-kidding-me" stare, leaving Hama to limply reply "Not me, obviously..."
• Blackmail: Prior to the Tokyo Incident and his latest mission, this was Hama's most profitable line of work. Suspicious wives caught searching the Love Hotel for information would be directed to him by Kaoru, and they'd hire him to find any evidence of extramarital activities their husbands might be up to; then, after photographing the unfaithful husbands at play, he'd hand over the incriminating footage to whoever bid the highest - husband or wife. It was during one of these jobs that he bumped into Masao Tanaka, and they struck up a lasting bargain: Tanaka would find him paying work, and Hama would keep the photographs away from his wife. Unfortunately for Hama, this resulted in him being given the job of tracking down Naonomi - which has since left him stranded on the outskirts of Kaidan, unable to escape and unable to call for help. And Tanaka might just have intended this.
• Clueless Detective: As the Buzzing points out, Jake Hama has no idea just how far out of his depth he currently is. He doesn't seem to realize the danger the Filth represents, he doesn't appear to notice that there's a whole horde of infectees just around the corner from his hideaway, he has yet to realize that the Rabbit Killer isn't going to wander into his "trap" just because he's dressed in a rabbit costume, and the fact that he's no match for a katana-wielding supernatural assassin appears to have escaped him completely. Also, he doesn't appear to have realized that accepting a job from a past blackmailing victim is a very bad idea, especially if it involves entering a quarantine zone.
• Dumbass Has a Point: As stupid as Jake may be, he's perfectly correct in recognizing the Fear Nothing Foundation as a cult. May count as being Too Dumb to Fool, given that he's one of the few "normal" citizens of Tokyo who haven't bought into the Foundation's propaganda.
• Embarrassing Last Name: Jake's real last name is Yokohama, a legally embarrassing name that got him fired from his last job for "taking bank loans as the pretend owner of an international company." As such, he's required by law to use the shortened form.
• Fat Idiot: More than a little bit on the tubby side (an impression only worsened by the suit) and more than a little bit of an idiot (an impression only worsened by the suit).
• Goofy Suit: Instantly recognizable due to the rabbit costume he wears, Hama has somehow managed to find an even less dignified version of this trope: the costume has been stolen from the Love Hotel's furry room. And on top of being extensively patched, dirty, and notoriously difficult to remove in the event of a Potty Emergency, the Buzzing remarks on how the suit "turns into a galaxy under black light."
• In-Universe Nickname: "The Love Hotel Detective."
• In Vino Veritas: Likely one of the reasons why Hama's gotten so talkative about what should be confidential matters.
• Private Detective: He likes to style himself as a classic hardboiled private-eye, though in reality he restricts himself to the duties real private detectives perform, namely running surveillance on cheating spouses - with a little blackmail on the side. Recently, however, he's gotten into more stereotypical work in his search for the Rabbit Killer and by extension, Naonomi Tanaka - which has even resulted in him getting the stereotypical offer of a huge sum of money in exchange for finding "the rich client's vanished daughter."
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Subverted... mainly because his strategy of lounging drunkenly in an alleyway hasn't led him to find anyone let alone Naonomi Tanaka. And then double subverted when you decided to complete his mission in his stead, and find Naonomi just a few minutes before the Rabbit Killer catches up with her.
• Seriously Scruffy: He's sporting a good deal of beard growth, and his costume's had more than enough time to acquire several patches.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Jake Hama thinks very highly of himself, often talking very grandly on the trap he's set for the Rabbit Killer, how much Masao Tanaka respects him, and how he'll soon track down Naonomi Tanaka. He doesn't even seem to grasp that his current mission is clearly impossible for him, insisting that the Rabbit Killer will be along in just a minute...
• Uriah Gambit: "The Love Hotel Detective's" current mission smacks of this, given that it's been given to him by an official that Hama just happens to be blackmailing and requires him to venture into a quarantine zone infested with monsters with no means of defending himself, escaping, or even calling for help. Hama, being Hama, doesn't appear to be aware of the possibility that his "benefactor" has screwed him back.

Jung

My biography would not command a high word count: I have not lived very long, not in realtime. In dreamtime however, I have lived a vastly more... well, that is a subject too complex to explain to you in this venue. I could squeeze it directly into your mind, but it would hurt and that is not polite.

A powerful psychic enrolled in the Orochi Group's "Rising Star" program, and (at almost five years of age) the youngest NPC in the game so far. Strong enough to defend himself against the monsters that wander the streets and unwilling to seek out the company of other survivors, Jung is content to remain in the playground of the Happy Smiles Kindergarten, enjoying his dominion over the seesaws and occasionally providing information to wandering players.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Apparently, Jung was subjected to a lot of bullying from the other children prior to the Tokyo Incident, likely due to his rather distinctive cranial mutation.
• The Aloner: Having resisted Orochi's attempts at recapturing him and being apparently unwilling to seek out the company other survivors - and likely powerful enough to make his way through the streets unassisted - Jung seems more than content to sit alone in the playground and enjoy his see-saw. And while does seem to get a bit lonely at times, he doesn't appear to require much more than the occasional conversation with the player in order to keep him sane, even claiming that things like company and friendship are nothing more than "empty calories."
• Berserk Button: Don't stare at his head... or even think about it; it's such a sore point that he's actually willing to use his powers to force the thoughts out of your head before he remembers his manners.
• Brainy Baby: Jung was actually born extraordinary, though he firmly believes that he's improved a great deal since then. As he points out, a baby isn't exactly going to possess much in the way of restraint or consideration, and when that infant happens to possess the ability to control minds...
• Child Prodigy: One of many gifted children brought up in the Orochi's "Rising Star Program," Jung is far more intelligent than any of his instructors, and has to restrain himself from insulting anyone with lower intelligence.
• Creepy Child: Thanks to his telepathy and intelligence he's a lot more mature than he should be at about five, often coming across as unearthly and remote. He's still given over to childish emotions and passions though, which is why he's still in residence at the playground.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Long before his first appearance in the game, Jung is actually referred to in passing during the mission to Solomon Island, specifically by Carter; in conversation, she mentions having dreams of fellow prodigies - one of them being of a little boy at a "special kindergarten" with a habit of figuring out algebra in his head when frightened.
• Hearing Voices: According to the Lore for "Nightmares In The Dream Palace," Jung has actually made telepathic contact with the Bees, though he believes them to be Jungian archetypes out of the collective unconscious. For their part, the Bees don't seem offended by the misunderstanding.
• Known Only by Their Nickname: Having originally referred to him only by his numbered designation, his Orochi handlers eventually started calling him Jung because of his tendency to quote the man. Jung himself doesn't seem to mind all that much, declaring his real name to be irrelevant.
• Little Professor Dialog: A given, considering Jung's intelligence, though the Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness does break down from time to time, most commonly when he's angry or upset. For example, when recalling the incident when a representative of the Fear Nothing Foundation threatened him, he refers to his assailant only as "a mean man," and describes his mind as being "like a snow globe full of eels."
• Mind over Manners: Though he often reads the minds of players for the sake of a quicker conversation, he doesn't go out of his way to actually mind-control anyone unless he absolutely has to... though given how sensitive he is about people thinking about his head, this is a principle he has to specifically remind himself to abide by - and he's not always successful at doing so. He also declines to force information directly into your head, stating that it would hurt and it wouldn't be polite.
• My Brain Is Big: Possesses a massive forehead to match his colossal brain. He's pretty sensitive about it.
• Parental Abandonment: Jung's parents are nowhere to be found, and he doesn't remember much about them anyway. However, what is known is that he ended up in Orochi care soon after his birth; over the course of his infancy, he was passed through a rapid succession of foster parents, all of whom ended up giving up custody of him when the stress of caring for him grew too much. Eventually, though, Jung learned maturity and the High Turnover Rate settled down.
• Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Fully capable of reading thoughts and warding off monsters without the use of ostentatious gestures, Jung only needs to use this particular stance when making use of his mind-control powers - as he does during his introduction in "Youth Outreach."
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Engaged in a bit of this during the backstory. More specifically, a FNF member showed up at the playground shortly after the bombing, and made the mistake of threatening him; Jung retaliated by very politely telling him to forget how to breathe.
• Psychic Children: Barely five years old and already powerful enough to read minds, control thoughts, and prevent wandering monsters from venturing into the playground.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Stop... looking... at... my... head."
• School for Scheming: Casually reveals that Happy Smiles Kindergarten was one of these, having been established as part of an Orochi initiative to study and develop supernatural powers in children. He also notes that the Fear Nothing Foundation has also been exploiting this program and others like it by recruiting the dropouts.
• The Spock: Fiercely logical and highly intelligent, Jung is also prone to insisting that he doesn't really need things like human company or friendship - though he doesn't always sound entirely convinced of this.
• Telepathy: Along with his intellect, this is his most frequently-used ability, especially since he prefers reading minds over actual conversation so that he can get right to the point.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Subverted. Jung is halfway through a bilious rant about how horribly he was bullied by the other students at the kindergarten, how all those students are gone, and how the playground now belongs to him... and then the fact that he's all alone hits him.
• You Are Number 6: Before being nicknamed Jung, he went by the designation of Subject 28.
• Younger Than They Look: Upon first bumping into him, the player quickly starts making estimates about Jung's age... only for Jung to admit that he's even younger than that - 4.79 years old to be precise.

The Rabbit Killer, AKA: The White Rabbit, AKA: Uta Bloody Valentine

WARNING! Beware the White Rabbit. She leaves a wake of corpses. The wake will lead to the Dark Tower.

—The Buzzing

A mysterious assassin stalking the streets of Kaidan, always one step ahead of her competitors and targets. So named for the enormous rabbit mask she wears, her true identity and her current employers remain unknown, but she seems to be targeting both Orochi agents and members of the Fear Nothing Foundation. Revealed in Issue #11 to be in the employ of Lilith as both a bodyguard and a personal assassin.

• Alice Allusion: Obvious in the Rabbit's alternate name, "The White Rabbit." For good measure, one of the gestures she uses in lieu of actually talking to you involves tapping her wrist, as if to say "you're running out of time," a variant on the original White Rabbit's "I'm late!"
• Black Eyes of Evil: Her mask sports a pair of shiny black eyes, making the otherwise comical-looking mask look surprisingly eerie and only amplifying her heartless demeanor.
• Blood Magic: She uses this on you during the boss battle in the Orochi Tower's penthouse. According to the Buzzing, she's had an aptitude for it since before she could walk.
• Blush Sticker: The cheeks of her mask sport two perfectly circular blushes, in keeping with its cartoonish nature.
• Breakout Character: The developers have stated that they were surprised by the amount of speculation that the players have put into identifying the Rabbit Killer and her motivations.
• Child Mage: The lore entry on her reveals that Uta was effectively supercharged with magical powers from the moment she was born onwards; as a result, the doctors at the asylum found it almost impossible to keep her confined for long, even before Lilith's fateful visit.
• Cute Is Evil: At first, the schoolgirl outfit and the huge cartoon bunny mask make the White Rabbit seem cute, even silly. But a quick look at her past victims makes it terrifyingly apparent that the adorable costume and ridiculous mask are being worn by a heartless killer with no regard for life or property; the sight of the Rabbit Killer herself in action only throws the disturbing cuteness into sharp relief.
• The Dividual: The Reveal that there are three Rabbit Killers who appear to work eerily in sync suggests this trope is in play. The only discernible differences that can be seen are their weapons
• The Dreaded: The Rabbit Killer is quite well-known in Tokyo's underworld, and her name commands a great deal of respect and fear - especially among those who've realized they're on her list of targets.
• Emotionless Girl: During "Fierce Competition," the Mask of Kan'Ami's aura-reading abilities reveal that the Rabbit Killer does not leave an emotional trail, the Mask himself comparing her to a sociopath.
• Evil Mentor: During her time with the Big Three, her Templar self became a student to Pit and Pendulum - kindred spirits with a similar taste for weird masks and silence.
• Fetus Terrible: According to the Bees, Uta devoured her sisters in the womb, resulting in her being born with two additional personalities.
• Flash Step: Achieves this more than once during her battle with the Morninglight staff in "My Bloody Valentine," at one point teleporting herself right in front of an opponent with her sword outstretched, forcing him to accidentally impale himself through the throat.
• Gotta Kill 'Em All: The White Rabbit often takes contracts for large groups of targets, slowly whittling them down to the last member. As of Issue #10 reveals, her latest targets are the surviving members of the Fear Nothing Foundation and their Morninglight associates still present in Tokyo, her part in the issue concluding with her successfully assassinating the high-ranking cultist Naonomi Tanaka.
• Hair-Raising Hare: As conveyed by the rabbit mask and - of course - the murderous demeanour.
• Handwraps of Awesome: Another notable element of her distinctive costume, her hands and wrists being tightly bound with bandages. For good measure, they seem to be stained with blood - not hers, of course.
• Iconic Outfit: She is instantly recognizable by the giant rabbit mask and school uniform she always wears.
• The Jekyll Is a Jerk: Eventually revealed to have been born with multiple personalities as a result of absorbing her twin sisters in the womb. None of the three could be described as good, given that all of them demonstrated violence and a tendency to escape from the asylum on hunts for magical creatures. Ultimately, Lilith found the unfortunate young woman and gave her other personalities bodies of their own... and eventually, they became an entire team of White Rabbit assassins posing as one. No matter which White Rabbit you're dealing with in the present, the Mask of Kan'ami diagnoses her as a heartless sociopath.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Her weapon of choice for melee combat, employed masterfully during her showdown with the Morninglight staff in "My Bloody Valentine." Later, it's revealed that this is actually the weapon of choice for only one of her three selves, the others making use of guns and duel-wielded swords. It's possible that this preference is due to one of her selves being trained by the Dragon.
• Light-Flicker Teleportation: Leaves the Morninglight clubhouse basement this way during "My Bloody Valentine." As it's already been established that she's capable of super-speed, this isn't too improbable.
• Literal Split Personality: A sufferer of dissociative disorder throughout her childhood, Uta eventually made her disorder a physical one with the help of Lilith and an Orochi laboratory - emerging as assassin triplets.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Always masked in her signature rabbit mask, and always encountered in a murderous situation. However, even before she became known as the Rabbit Killer, Uta had a habit of using disingenuous masks in the pursuit of her duties: during her service to the Dragon, she wore a Noh mask; while employed by the Illuminati, she wore bloodstained pyjamas and a Mickey Mouse mask; as a Templar assassin, she made use of a sailor suit and a usagi head.
• Many Spirits Inside of One: Born with no less than three distinct personalities as a result of her prenatal cannibalism, Uta was initially an example of this, though doctors unaware of the Secret World provided an official diagnosis of multiple personality disorder - leading her father to abandon her in an asylum. Then Lilith found her and decided to help the girl out.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: As of Issue #10, we only know the assassin by her title, and occasionally by "The White Rabbit." The boss battle in Orochi Tower reveals her name to be "Uta Bloody Valentine."
• Professional Killer: Classified as a professional assassin by both the Illuminati and the House-In-Exile, though nobody's entirely sure who her current employers are. However, in "One Kill Ahead," Naonomi reveals the Rabbit Killer's current masters are the Orochi Group; Issue #11 expands on this by revealing that the Orochi client who hired her was none other than Lilith. She hasn't been particularly choosy over employers, however: her lore entry explains that her various selves have been recruited by all three major secret societies in the past, either serving as "The Dragon's Tooth," an Illuminati hitman, or a Templar enforcer. However, she's since abandoned these positions and gone freelance.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Issue #10 reveals that the lion's share of assassinations committed by the Rabbit Killer over the course of the last two issues were all part of the Orochi Group's revenge on the Fear Nothing Foundation and the Morninglight - or, as Issue #11 clarifies Lilith's revenge for the Morninglight's betrayal.
• Sailor Fuku: Apart from the mask, the most distinctive element of her uniform takes the form of her schoolgirl outfit.
• Super-Speed: Appears to exhibit this while battling and killing the remaining Morninglight staff under the Club House, easily moving fast enough to deliver killing blows before her opponents can raise their swords. Also, Jung mentions that the Rabbit Killer's thoughts actually seem faster than normal, describing them as "hippity-hoppity thoughts" and even noting that they seemed to be emanating from several different places at once.
• Three Siblings In One: Despite having assimilated her two sisters in the womb, Uta found herself unexpectedly lumbered with her dead siblings' minds, manifested as independent personalities. Eventually, Lilith discovered her and decided to give Uta's other selves bodies of their own.
• Villain Respect: Appears to have a certain degree of respect for the player, enough to politely bow to you during the confrontation at Naonomi Tanaka's safehouse - a bow that the player returns just before leaving Naonomi at the White Rabbit's mercy.
• The Voiceless: Has only communicated to the players though gestures so far.

The Jingu Clan

Common Tropes

The new samurai gather, in the hearthy smells of Susanoo's Diner. The time is desperate. All odds are stacked against them. And yet, in private moments, they grin. The phantom ache is gone. The sword is out of their heads and in their hands. Even as they find themselves in a world where everything has gone wrong, they feel nothing, but nothing, but right.

—The Buzzing

An ancient and secretive clan of Samurai, the Jingu are the last of a collection of demonslayer bloodlines dating all the back to the time of Queen Himiko. However, despite an alliance with the Templars, the clan is still in the process of recovering its strength following a long period of decline, having only drawn enough recruits to qualify as a street gang; however, under the guidance of their leader, Gozen, they have managed to endure the ongoing crisis with impressive tenacity. Currently headquartered in Susanoo's Diner, a small restaurant in the south-eastern region of Kaidan, the Jingu Clan now aims to protect any citizen seeking shelter within their walls and continue their age-old struggle against the Oni.

• The Clan: In the past, the Jingu Clan truly were this, consisting of entire interconnected families of warriors; however, the descendants of those families are comparatively few in number, and though they're more numerous than any of the other factions, Gozen's warriors currently form a much, much smaller clan than they did in the Jingu's glory days.
• Demon Slaying: Their entire hat, being sworn to hunt down and kill any demon intruding into the mortal realms. As such, this makes them natural allies to the Templars.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: According to the Bees, most of the newest members of the Jingu Clan suffered from this particular trope prior to their recruitment; this was due to them being able to remember of their ancestors' lives as samurai, and while these memories were indistinct at best, they were intense enough to make them feel unfulfilled and frustrated. As such, they were quite happy to be brought out of their mundane lives by Gozen and given the opportunity to become modern-day samurai; unfortunately, this takes a dark turn when many of them also ended up welcoming the Tokyo Bombing in much the same way, for it allowed them to feel truly justified in what they were doing, and continue without any doubts whatsoever.
• Genetic Memory: The Heroic Lineage of the Jingu is literally in the blood and/or souls of its members. They instinctively felt that they should be wielding a blade and destroying some evil today, which was unsatisfying if they were an office wageslave or kindergarten teacher. Hence the Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life aspect.
• Good Old Ways: They champion a return to the values of the Samurai, complete with a variation on the Bushido code and a very traditional style of dress and weaponry - though the guards at the gate still use guns, if only for the sake of practicality. For good measure, Gozen has a notable distaste for modern life, openly equating it with the Illuminati in one line of dialogue.
• Heroic Lineage: Most of the current crop of recruits belonged to a long-forgotten bloodline of Samurai and demon-slayers, all of them having been once united under the banner of the Jingu Clan, and all eventually descended into mundane existence following the Clan's loss of purpose. As such, one of Gozen's current missions is to free her new recruits from the shackles of mundane life and make them as heroic as their ancestors.
• Honor Before Reason: The Clan and its members take their duty as demon-slayers very seriously, and if they find that duty delayed or prevented, they will protest. Even if it's for the most sensible of reasons, even if the reason's being voiced by Gozen herself, they'll still question it.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Prior to the disaster, the Jingu Clan cooperated openly with the Fear Nothing Foundation, even borrowing vehicles from them in their periodic journeys up to Gozen's mountain retreat. Furthermore, neither Gozen nor Akashi noticed anything amiss about the FNF, when even Jake Hama recognized that the members were being brainwashed. And they still don't suspect the Foundation or the Morninglight of anything even now!
• Katanas Are Just Better: As traditional Samurai warriors, most of the Jingu Clan wield katanas, only resorting to firearms when dispatching Filth-infectees - or in the occasional drive-by.
• Knight Templar: Just as fanatical as the Templars, if not moreso; while the Jingu Clan maintain the moral high ground over the other two factions in Tokyo, they're becoming increasingly blinded by their devotion to their war against the Oni, at one point going so far as to conduct drive-bys against the Bathhouse - not only wasting resources that could have been better spent fighting the Filth or the Nine Houses, but also risking the lives of the Bathhouse's innocent human staff in the process.
• The Order: A highly-disciplined faction of demon hunters with a strong emphasis on the traditional Samurai lifestyle; for good measure, it's also very exclusive, with most of the members being descendants of the families that used to make up the Jingu Clan, and exceptions are only being made due to the current shortage of capable warriors in the face of the ongoing crisis in Tokyo.
• Protectorate: The citizens that have sought refuge in the Diner currently fall under this heading.
• Samurai: An entire clan of them updated for the modern era; though they do use guns in defence of the Diner, the majority of them wield Katanas, wear robes, and abide by the traditional tenets of Bushido. For good measure, Akashi goes so far as to wear the iconic Samurai armour.
• Skewed Priorities: Even with the Filth being the clearest and most serious threat facing Tokyo, the Jingu Clan are still carrying on with their war against the Oni. Given the Nine House's current incursion, this normally wouldn't be a problem; trouble is, the House-In-Exile are still the primary target of the Clan's hostility. The Bees mention that this actually extended to carrying out drive-by shootings of the Bathhouse at one point, though acts such as these have ceased by the time the player arrives, in part due to the need to actually protect the citizens in their care.
• Undying Loyalty: All of them would gladly march into Hell on Gozen's orders, especially Akashi. As Gozen herself observed...
  When this began, I told them all that we were defending ashes and embers from the hungry maw of the final days, and any man or woman among us could leave the city. I would think no less of them. They all stayed. Every last one.
• The Usual Adversaries: To the Jingu, all Oni fall under this heading. As such, the revelation that the demons aren't the masterminds behind the Tokyo Incident leaves the clan members extremely confused.

Gozen

The city is soul-wounded. It is a festering sore, oozing with demons, with yokai. Those who survive find themselves in Yomi-on-earth. For the few that remain, there is no civilization save for what we hide away in our hearts or carve with our blades.

Voiced by: Minae Noji

The current leader of the Jingu Clan, and the latest in a long line of clan-leaders of the same name. Prior to the disaster, Gozen spent her days as far away from Tokyo as possible, meditating alone at a mountaintop shrine and undisturbed except by the occasional band of Jingu trainees seeking her guidance. However, shortly before the Tokyo Incident, Gozen received a vision of the future, and returned to Tokyo in order to guide her warriors on a more direct basis...

• Berserk Button:
  • Gozen normally remains calm and reserved, even when condemning the Korinto-Kai as vice-peddlers, but when she's asked about the House-In-Exile, she sounds enraged just by the prospect of talking about them. Of course, as a demon-hunter, Gozen hates Oni as a matter of principle, but Inbeda and his group infuriate her more than most - likely because they gained a measure of acceptance in human society while the Jingu Clan collapsed into irrelevance.
  • Attempting to sway her opinion by bringing up the events of her past is a very good way to make Gozen lose her temper, as Akashi discovered in the outro to "Right Of Way."
• Dreaming of Things to Come: What inspired her to leave her mountain retreat and take direct charge of the Jingu Clan - specifically a vision of the words "Dark demons cry Gaia."
• Enemy Mine: Reluctantly teams up with Inbeda for the attack on Orochi Tower in Issue #11.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": While previous masters of the Clan have affixed the title of "Gozen" to their own names, the current leader of the Jingu Clan is known by her title, an honorific commonly used to describe noblewomen.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: During her introduction in "Right Of Way," Gozen's face remains completely hidden under her Jingasa until the player sits down in front of her. Not surprising, given that the brim of the hat is wide enough to cover her shoulders.
• Fantastic Racism: As demon-slayers, the Jingu Clan oppose the Oni as a matter of principle; however, Gozen regards the Nine Houses and the House-In-Exile with almost explosive rage, and reacting with utter disgust to the notion of a "good demon." However, she is at least willing to acknowledge that Inbeda might be of some help to the player, if only as a source of information.
• Fatal Flaw: Her hatred for the Oni. Both the Buzzing and the Black Signal observe that her longstanding vendetta against the demons has led her to make serious mistakes in her attempts to continue the war, the latter hinting that she has killed innocent people while "under the advanced stages of myopia," the former stating that Gozen's obsessive devotion to her duties as a demon-hunter have formed a dangerous blindspot that prevent her from noticing more serious threats. Ultimately, the second criticism is the more serious of the two because it's actually an indirect cause of the Tokyo Incident: prior to the bombing, the Jingu Clan shared resources with the Fear Nothing Foundation, even cooperated with them for a time; throughout this period, Gozen's focus on the Oni as an enemy meant that she never noticed anything strange about the Foundation, even when Naonomi Tanaka was attempting to arrange meetings with potential suicide bombers in the diner. Even now, she doesn't suspect the FNF of arranging the Filth-bomb.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Daimon Kyota jokingly insinuates that Gozen's long-running feud with Inbeda is just a cover for all the sexual tension between the two of them. For good measure, he voices this opinion when the two leaders are squaring off for a duel.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a rather noticeable one running along her left cheek, and despite Knight Templar tendencies, remains heroic for the most part. As of yet, it hasn't been explained how she acquired this scar, but given the fact that she's a demon-hunter, it's presumably an old war wound.
• Hat of Authority: Wears an impressive-looking Jingasa - appropriate attire for the leader of a samurai clan.
• Heartbroken Badass: The conclusion to "Right Of Way" and the introduction to "Love And Origami" imply that Gozen is one of these; various lines hint at her having been very deeply in love at some point in the past, only to be separated from her lover in the end, likely under traumatic circumstances. It's because of this that Gozen remains sympathetic to love, in sharp contrast to Akashi's open dismissal of it.
• Hermit Guru: Prior to the Tokyo Incident, Gozen spent most of her days meditating at a remote mountaintop shrine; in those days, the guidance she provided to the Jingu Clan was much more indirect, with the recruits periodically driving out to the shrine in order to learn martial arts from her and Akashi handling the day-to-day affairs in the city. However, shortly before the Bombing, Gozen sensed the incoming chaos and descended from the mountain in order to lead the clan on a more direct basis.
• Identical Grandparent: According to the Buzzing, many of the former leaders of the clan looked very similar to her. At present, it is not known if this due to her being an immortal masquerading as her own descendants, a series of distinctive reincarnations, or just a coincidence.
• Lady of War: Aloof, soft-spoken, graceful and dignified... and also the leader of a small army of fanatical samurai. For good measure, she's characterized as being much more reserved than Akashi and the other Hot-Blooded recruits.
• Legacy Character: All the past leaders of the Jingu have had the name Gozen, and all of them have had similar features.
• Mystical White Hair: Instantly recognizable by the shock of white hair visible under her hat, and more than a little bit mystical in nature, especially given her prior role as a mysterious hermit guru to the clan; this becomes even more supernatural when the Bees observe that Gozen's predecessors have all sported a similar hair colour.
• Mysterious Past: Little is known of Gozen's life prior to becoming head of the Jingu Clan, and most of what is known is shrouded in mystery and speculation.
• Odd Friendship: Despite being just as opposed to chaos as the Templars and notably disapproving of Daimon Kyota's manic audacity, Gozen regards the Dragon with a surprising amount of respect; though she openly admits that the Jingu and the Dragon are nothing alike in terms of goals, she admires them for their dedication to the lifestyle of "a centipede, one hundred feet flailing in one hundred directions," a role she acknowledges must be difficult to play.
• Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: Various cutscenes and dialogue options heavily imply that Gozen has acquired a good deal of regrets and obsessions alongside her distinctive facial scar; in particular, the Bees note that the conflict that left her scarred also left her dangerously fixated on the ongoing war with the Oni, claiming that "old scars will block her view of the true danger."
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: When the time comes, Gozen is fully prepared to lead her warriors into battle against whatever foe they're arrayed against. She proves her point when she and her warriors take the fight to Orochi Tower in Issue #11, pausing briefly to square off with Inbeda, before joining him and Daimon Kiyota in a Big Damn Heroes moment against the Mitsubachi.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Fanaticism aside, Gozen is nonetheless a competent and rational leader; as well as converting the diner into a haven for refugees, she's also willing to occasionally bend the rules if it means doing the right thing, and willing to apologise when she feels her anger may have gotten the better of her.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Though she probably wouldn't appreciate being compared to an Oni, Gozen is the blue to Akashi's red.
• Ship Tease: Apparently has had something of a history with Richard Sonnac, with the two of them openly asking about each other in dialogue and text messages alike, and Kirsten Geary cheekily remarking that she didn't know that "Dick" had it in him.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Gozen's clothing is replete with Japanese symbolism that gives hints about her character: her hat is emblazoned with the kamon or crest of the Oda clan, the most famous warlord of which was the son of Dota Gozen. Her stole bears twin chrysanthemums, symbols of the Japanese imperial family, suggesting Imperial patronage, while her obi or sash is decorated with a traditional hexagonal "turtle shell" pattern which symbolises longevity and, in-universe, the Bees. Finally, her all-black short-sleeve kimono is a garment that would only ever be worn by older, married women on very formal occasions - not at all an appropriate kimono for the young woman she appears to be.

Akashi

Does the farmer ask the rat why it eats his grain? No. Best eradicate vermin and ask questions later.

Voiced by: Takashi Sudo

Gozen's right hand man and the owner of Susanoo's Diner.

• Acrofatic: In spite of his size, he's capable of impressive bursts of speed. He mainly uses it for slicing vegetables.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Gozen regards Akashi as her protector, a notion that he finds slightly ridiculous.
  As if the sun needs protecting!
• Chef of Iron: A samurai and a chef, no less; on top of being trained in the use of traditional weaponry, "Nightmares In The Dream Palace" reveals that he's also a very adept fist-fighter. Plus, in the sequence where you play through the memories of John's brawl with Akashi, it's impossible to defeat him conventionally - you can only win by lasting as long as John and Che did before getting scared off!
• The Comically Serious: Occasionally strays into this area due to his insistence on taking everything so very seriously - even by Jingu Clan standards.
• Jerkass Has a Point: "Love And Origami" features him dismissing love as insanity, even going so far as to claim that the woman seen waiting for her boyfriend at the diner was "crazy." While harsh, Issue #10 reveals that Akashi was right all along: the woman in question was none other than Naonomi Tanaka, and the "boyfriend" she was waiting for was Yuichi - the man she was trying to mould into a suicide bomber.
• Love Is a Weakness: A firm believer in this, even going so far as to disagree with Gozen's opinions on the subject.
• Number Two: To Gozen. As well as being Gozen's bodyguard, best warrior and the owner/manager/chef of the diner, he also served as a substitute for Gozen's leadership prior to the disaster.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: When paired with Gozen, the fierce-tempered Akashi naturally forms the red. And he even wears red armour!
• Team Chef: He's this to both the Jingu Clan and the refugees in their care. For good measure, he seems to spend most of his time cutting vegetables behind the counter.
• 24-Hour Armour: Akashi remains clad in his signature crimson samurai armour at all times; give Tokyo's current state, this seems a sensible enough move, though it does become a little questionable given that he insists on wearing it even when he's not on guard duty, even while other members of the Jingu prefer to wear less restrictive traditional garb. More often than not, he tends to wear a chef's apron over the breastplate, too.

The House-In-Exile

General Tropes

They've gathered for centuries, in the back alleys of Tokyo. From different demonic clans, but united in mutual humiliation. Inbeda had only to give it a name. Profit! Industry! Purpose!

—The Buzzing

A mercenary company of Oni outcasts rejected by their clans and banished from the Hell Dimensions, the House-In-Exile made themselves at home on Earth during the late Edo Period, and since then have accepted contracts from just about anyone capable of affording their services - including the Illuminati, who went so far as to provide them with financial support during lean times, resulting in a lasting alliance between the two. Having grown rich and comfortable in Tokyo's underworld, the House-In-Exile take an understandably dim view of the ongoing Filth-infestation and the accompanying demonic invasion, seeing both as unacceptable threats to their franchise. They are currently headquartered in a luxurious bathhouse in the north-eastern corner of Kaidan District, attempting to preserve their profitable status quo and prevent the invading Nine Houses from gaining any further ground.

• Anti-Hero: As mercenaries and semi-Noble Demon types, they generally fall under this heading; true, they're fighting to stop the Nine Houses from doing any more damage to Tokyo, but only because their profit margins are in danger.
• Badass Crew: Even with their numbers whittled down to roughly twenty-two Oni in total, even with the Filth milling in the streets outside the bathhouse, even with the armies of the Nine Houses amassing in the park behind them, the House-In-Exile's headquarters have yet to fall.
• Carry a Big Stick: In keeping with their origins, many of them make use of the traditional kanabō.
• Critical Staffing Shortage: The Tokyo Incident has left the House-In-Exile's membership seriously depleted, with many of them having died in combat with the Filth or the Nine Houses, and an entire squad being wiped out by the Rabbit Killer; as such, there's a little more than twenty of them left to defend the bathhouse. However, these are more than tough enough to keep the bathhouse safe from attack by nine other entire clans.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The House-In-Exile are not proud of the unwitting role they played in causing the Tokyo Incident, and - much like Said and the Kingdom - are currently doing their best to prevent the situation from worsening.
• The Exile: Prior to joining, most of them were exiles from one of the Hell Dimensions, having been forcibly ejected from their clan and from the Oni hierarchy altogether. Inbeda takes this a step further by actually being sold into slavery prior to escaping Hell.
• Fatal Flaw: Greed; though they've tried to maintain their scruples for the sake of their new home, their desire to maintain profits ultimately led them to unwittingly allow the FNF suicide bomber into the Tokyo Subway.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Oni tend to wear masks throughout the setting, and the House-in-Exile are no exception; however, due to their alliance with the Illuminati, most of them wear modified gas masks.
• Levitating Lotus Position: A few of them are encountered doing this around the main pool of the bathhouse, hovering approximately two feet off the ground.
• Murder, Inc.: Serving as assassins and hired muscle to anyone willing to pay top dollar for their services, the House-In-Exile have become particularly celebrated for their long list of past targets, having successfully bumped off mob bosses, samurai, magicians, supernatural beasts, corporate executives, and even a few emperors. They've even become famous enough to receive contracts from corporations like Sony and Mitsubishi, and later still, the Secret Societies: even the Templars have done business with them in the past!
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Normally opposed to accepting contracts that would oblige them to attack Tokyo or its infrastructure, the House-In-Exile decided to waive this rule for the sake of boosting their profits during lean times. So, they accepted several contracts from the Phoenicians, requiring them to assassinate a train conductor, the security guards at the metro control room, and the controller himself; though they were a little confused as to why the Phoenicians would want such mundane targets dead, Inbeda and Co accepted the money without asking questions... right up until a Filth bomb was detonated in the Tokyo subway. In a word, whoops.
• Noble Demon: They're incorrigibly greedy, but they can at least be trusted to honour a deal and maintain good behaviour around innocents who haven't been officially targeted.
• Oni: Their membership consists entirely of Oni; indeed, apart from the players, the only human characters found inside the bathhouse are the employees.
• Only in It for the Money: As mercenaries, the House-In-Exile do not sympathize with the fanaticism of groups like the Morninglight or even with the megalomania of their former brethren among the Nine Houses; at the end of the day, their only abiding interest is in cold, hard profits. As Inbeda himself puts it (during one of the Lore entries), "It is better to franchise on Earth than reign in Hell." This approach has actually backfired on them in the past, when accepting a contract from the Phoenicians indirectly led to the Tokyo Incident.
• Playing with Fire: Like most Oni, the mages among them prefer to use fiery elemental spells over any other kind of magic.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Because they've come to enjoy the luxury and clients that Tokyo affords them, the House-In-Exile have to ensure that they don't accept any contracts that might do any damage to the city, its infrastructure or its economy. Unfortunately, a drop in profits forced them to drop this principle; much to their embarrassment, this resulted in the bombing of Tokyo. As such, their primary goal in the wake of the disaster is to prevent the Filth or the Nine Houses from doing any further damage to their franchise.
• Status Quo Is God: Firm believers in this, given that too many upsets to the socio-economic status quo in Tokyo would hurt their profits.

Inbeda

Survival, opportunism and business sense come quite naturally to my master's mind. When life gives him lemons, why, he squeezes the acidic juices on the flayed flesh of his enemies.

— The Mask of Kan'ami

The founder and master of the House-In-Exile. In the centuries since his arrival on Earth and the formation of his "Tenth House," Inbeda has come to enjoy his exile, particularly for the luxuries it affords him: it is for this reason that he refuses to allow his former brethren among the Nine Houses or the Filth to spoil his monopoly on demonic enforcement; it's also for this reason that he can usually be found lounging beside the bathhouse's main pool, coordinating his warriors' defence of the building from a deckchair while listening to pop music and admiring the many scantily-dressed mannequins decorating the area.

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Ever since Kristen Geary managed to clear up the House-In-Exile's economic difficulties with a single phone-call, Inbeda has been lusting after her; quite apart from the lecherous comments made about Geary in dialogue, one wall of the bathhouse is taken up with a huge mural of her in a rather suggestive pose, and Inbeda even has one of his mannequins dressed up to look like her. And it's implied that he's not limited to admiring the mannequin, either. For her part, Geary is well aware of Inbeda's crush on her, and the fact that she suggests having him assassinated the moment he stops being useful is entirely coincidental.
  • During your first visit, Inbeda becomes this to you. Among other things, he openly invites you to strip naked and frolic in the bath in front of him; then, once he's finished with the mission briefing, he decides to reiterate his invitation for you to go skinny-dipping, even offering to scrub your back - much to your disgust!
• Amazing Technicolor Population: In sharp contrast to the red and black Oni met throughout Tokyo, Inbeda is distinguished by being a dark blue in colour.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: As slothful as he may be, it's pretty clear that Inbeda really does possess the strength and expertise needed to command a mercenary company in the middle of a city-wide apocalypse; after all, you don't get to gather your own Oni House and keep your fellow exiles united under the House-In-Exile's banner for over three centuries by being weak or stupid. Plus, as "Brotherly Loathe" demonstrates, he's still capable of wielding a sword with deadly accuracy. He proves his strength again in Issue #11 by leading his fellow Oni in an all-out attack on Orochi Tower.
• Berserk Button: Inbeda despises the Jingu Clan just as much as they despise him, often sounding infuriated at the mere mention of them. Of course, where Gozen will denigrate Inbeda for feeding off human weaknesses or for daring to act as a "good demon," Inbeda himself simply resorts to lurid descriptions of what he'd like to do to her.
• Brown Note: Apparently capable of these, given that the Mask of Kan'Ami has to avoid translating some of his more enraged statements too accurately, just in case the walls start to bleed.
• Cain and Abel: His own brother, Ihan-sha, was one of the conspirators responsible for his enslavement and exile. Needless to say, Inbeda has spent the last three hundred years hoping to take revenge; indeed, during his attack on the Oni warband during the events of "The Tale of Momotaro" he'd hoped that his brother would be among the hunters sent after him - but, to his disappointment, Ihan-sha's body was nowhere to be found.
• Cargo Ship: In-Universe example: it's heavily implied that he's been having sex with the mannequins decorating the bathhouse. Among other things, the outro to "Contract Killers" features him dancing with a mannequin replica of Kirsten Geary, making several pelvic thrusts in the process. The Mask warns you to leave before he continues the "dance," unless you really want to find out what the second circle of Hell is like. Appropriately enough, that particular circle is commonly associated with Lust.
• Character Tics: Inbeda has a habit of absently licking his chops and - thanks to the length of his tongue - his face. It's not established if Kan'ami minds having his mask constantly licked, but he seems to be taking it in his stride.
• Cool Mask / Mask of Power: Rather than wearing one of the modified gas masks favoured by his fellow mercenaries or the cracked Noh masks of his former comrades among the Nine Houses, Inbeda covers his face with the golden Mask of Kan'ami - which, on top of being a particularly spectacular-looking decoration, allows him to understand almost any language spoken to him.
• Cool Shades: He doesn't wear them often, but when he does, it's usually to highlight a point he couldn't possibly have made without them - for example, discussing the lacerated corpse uncovered in the intro to "Fierce Competition."
  Looks like this fellow...
  (A Beat; he puts on a pair of sunglasses over the Mask)
  ...didn't make the cut.
  YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!
• Covered in Scars: Sports a number of old scars on his head, along with a huge scar on his belly and chest, clearly visible thanks to his open bathrobe. For good measure, three of his four horns have been sawn off at some point in the past.
• Creepy Doll: Variation; Inbeda has a thing for mannequins, decorating the bathhouse with them en mass. And as creepy as they are, they're still pretty pedestrian compared to Inbeda's use of them.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The Mask indicates that he'd be happy to turn the entire Jingu Clan into a human centipede by running a length of barbed wire through their mouths and out their anuses. And then ride around on it.
• Deathless and Debauched: Inbeda is presumably just as immortal as his fellow demons, having been exiled from the Hell Dimensions ever since the Edo period. As luck would have it, Inbeda greatly enjoys his exile on Earth, finding that it allows him access to luxuries he'd never be able to find in Hell - including television. Even with Tokyo being consumed by the Filth, he's still living up at the local bathhouse, spending his days lounging by the pool in an expensive tiger-skin bathrobe, listening to hip-hop music, being attended to by scantily-clad servants, and screwing a mannequin dressed up as Kirsten Geary. Plus, he will happily hit on both male and female player characters, encouraging them to strip naked and frolic in the waters. Later missions in the Tokyo story arc feature him finally getting off his ass and joining the fray... but he still refuses to go without his bathrobe and slippers.
• Depraved Bisexual: Creepily flirts with players of either gender, openly lusts after Kirsten Geary, and apparently resorts to having sex with mannequin replicas of his current crushes.
• Dirty Old Man: Well over three hundred years old and definitely not "young" even by immortal standards, and very much a lecher. He suggests that you bathe naked in front of him and allow him to scrub your back; he owns a sizeable Stalker Shrine to Kirsten Geary, and apparently enjoys regular sex with a mannequin representation of her; he regularly leaves inflatable love dolls floating in the bath waters; and last but not least, it can't be a coincidence that the bathhouse attendants happen to be dressed in as little as possible. On the upside, he doesn't appear to be deliberately mistreating any of them.
• Enemy Mine: At the urging of Daimon Kiyota, he briefly allies himself with Gozen and the Jingu Clan in order to bring down the real enemy behind the Tokyo Disaster.
• Fat Bastard: Inbeda's time in luxurious exile has left him with a sizeable paunch that few other Oni possess.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Daimon Kiyota likes to joke that Inbeda and Gozen are secretly in love, their aggression nothing more than a sign of all the "apocalyptic barneymugging" they really want to get to.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Befitting his status as the top dog among Oni, Inbeda not only wears a tiger-skin bathrobe with a golden silk lining, but he also listens to pop music through a pair of bright yellow headphones, translates his incomprehensible dialogue via the golden Mask Of Kan'Ami, and wears several gold rings on his fingers.
• The Hedonist: A relentless pleasure-seeker, he spends his days lounging by a pool, being waited on by scantily-clad attendants, enjoying hip-hop music and sex with mannequins. And this during a time of crisis; his doings in "peacetime" are only vaguely hinted at.
• Hell on Earth: Firmly believes this is the case, and has been for many years, as his exhaustive study of American reality programs indicates that there is no longer any difference between Earth and Hell.
• Hidden Depths: Though he takes pains to make sure that nobody finds out, the Bees reveal that despite Inbeda's love of Earth and it's many luxuries, he is occasionally stricken by homesickness. Indeed, he uses the scrying properties of the Bathhouse's waters not for strategic purposes, but to peer back into the Hell Dimensions and his long-lost homeland.
• Made a Slave: As well as being an exile from the Hell Dimensions, it's eventually revealed that Inbeda was made a slave - by his own clan, the House of Jade Fangs, following a particularly bitter period of in-fighting among the Oni. It's not known how he managed to escape or who claimed him as property before then, and Inbeda isn't willing to explain - or to let the Mask of Kan'Ami explain it for him.
• Mundane Object Amazement: As the lore entry for the Bathhouse indicates, a good deal of Inbeda's business works through mutual usage of this trope. As a powerful demon, Inbeda can provide services that seem extraordinary to mortals but are perfectly mundane to the Oni; in turn, he takes endless delight in acquiring earthly luxuries that, while expensive, wouldn't seem out of the ordinary to mortals.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: For all his vulgar habits, self-indulgent sloth and brutal fits of pique, Inbeda isn't stupid; as the Mask points out, he likes to cultivate this impression in order to catch potential enemies off-guard, and apart from the one major mistake he and the rest of the House made in the backstory, he conducts his affairs intelligently and carefully. Also, before forming the House-In-Exile, he managed to trick an Oni warband into accidentally wiping itself out.
• Off with His Head!: Effortlessly decapitates mannequins in a fit of pique during "Brotherly Loathe."
• Overly-Long Tongue: As is often revealed by his habit of licking his face.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: Inbeda dresses exclusively in a huge bathrobe and a big fluffy pair of slippers - fitting for someone who's gotten accustomed to lounging around by the pool all day. He even wears it into battle during the assault on Orochi Tower in Issue #11. And it's a very expensive bathrobe, as the Buzzing points out... a tiger-skin robe, no less!
  • Fridge Brilliance: Oni are often depicted in folklore to wear tiger skin loincloths. Inbeda obviously decided to upgrade.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Inbeda greatly enjoys human television, and will occasionally use a reference from his favourite programs in order to make a point. For example, during the intro to "Fierce Competition," while examining a lacerated corpse found dumped on the premises, he actually goes so far as to offer a Horatio Cain-style Quip to Black, even donning a pair of sunglasses and shouting "YEEEEEEAAAAAAH!" And when you don't laugh, he dismisses you as "culturally ignorant."
• Portal Pool / Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: The lore for the Jigoku no Yu Bathhouse explains that Inbeda chose to headquarter the House-In-Exile in the bathhouse because water - especially heated water - is "a medium that bends spirits, space, and time," allowing him a window back into the Hell Dimensions.
• Public Domain Character: According to the Buzzing, Inbeda is Momotarō from the eponymous story, having invented both the persona and the story - which was actually inspired by a plot to get revenge on the Nine Houses and his brother. The end result was the death of the entire Oni warband sent to look for him - far from the merciful ending that appeared in the classic form of the story - followed by Inbeda disguising himself as a human and making up the story of Momotaro out of sheer boredom.
• Revenge: For many centuries, he nursed a grudge against his brother for having him enslaved, before finally luring an Oni Warband to Earth and having them massacred in the hopes that one of them might be Ihan-sha. After that, he let the matter rest and got on with his life on Earth... right up until the Oni invaded, opening up a great many old wounds. At the end of "Brotherly Loathe," he manages to finally kill Ihan-Sha with your help, putting his vendetta to rest at long last.
• Shapeshifting: Implied in the lore to have this ability, or at the very least a form of Humanshifting given that he easily disguised himself as a human being and spread the tale of Momotaro to the locals without anyone suspecting a thing.
• Stalker Shrine: Has one of these for Kirsten Geary; apart from the often-shagged mannequin dressed up as her, it's surprisingly tasteful, including a mural of Geary fully-clothed, but posed quite suggestively nonetheless.
• Undying Warrior: An Oni exiled from Hell during the Edo period, he's since made a career for himself as a mercenary in mortal Japan, picking off legendary samurai, Yakuza bosses, corporate executives, mythical beasts, and even a few emperors over the centuries. He's even formed his own mercenary gang, the House-In-Exile... and while Inbeda has come to enjoy the finer things his exile affords him, he's not afraid to return to the battlefield with an army at his back.
• The Unintelligible: He's incapable of speaking most human languages, thanks to the shape of his mouth, hence why he has Kan'nami.

Mask of Kan'ami

Here I am, fluent in thousands of languages, and yet forced to speak the tongue of Anglo barbarians with every tourist who passes through!

Voiced By: Gyuri Sarossy

A golden Noh mask containing the spirit of Kan'ami, and the best purchase Inbeda ever made on Ebay. Sentient and highly magical, the mask can translate almost any known language - and quite a few languages that time forgot - and so acts as a translator for Inbeda.

• Aura Vision: During "Fierce Competition," Kan'ami reveals that his linguistic abilities aren't limited to translating spoken or written language; his mastery of Noh allows him to read emotions, even "see" it in the form of coloured trails in the air around him, each emotion leaving a different coloured trail. Over the course of this mission, he allows you to share in this gift, following the trails left behind by the Rabbit Killer and he victims.
• Body Surf: Capable of transferring his essence to his sister mask and back whenever it's required.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Apparently, he's not limited to interpreting languages; he's apparently got a wide repertoire of accents and dialects, even offering to speak in the accent of your choice for the duration of the interview in "Contract Killers." Sadly, he only gets as far as Cockney before Inbeda cuts short his pitch, forcing Kan'ami to return to his normal received pronunciation.
  • He tries again in "Fierce Competition" by putting on an American accent during Inbeda's Horatio Caine impersonation.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Often ends up having to do this when his master starts furnishing visitors with more information than they required, assuming he isn't able to translate the more offensive elements out of it. For example, during his introduction in "Contract Killers," he manages to divert the conversation away from Inbeda's attempts at flirting with the player by loudly exclaiming, "Aaaanyway..."
• Deadpan Snarker: As a former actor, he's rather gifted in the subtle art of sarcasm, irony, understatement and put-downs.
  • Servile Snarker: Kan'ami is unfailingly loyal to his wearer and easily cowed by Inbeda's angry snarls; this, however, doesn't stop him from launching the occasional smart-aleck remark in his master's direction when he can get away with it. This can take the form of direct insults, like "Inbeda the Flatulent," or just refusing to translate his vitriolic diatribe in anything other than a bored monotone, as is the case in "Brotherly Loathe."
  • Snarky Inanimate Object: Permanently bound to one of two completely inanimate masks, he nonetheless makes up for his lack of animation in sheer sarcasm.
• Cool Mask: His spirit is housed in one of these, briefly transferring to a similar one during "Fierce Competition," though Kan'ami complains that inhabiting in this counterpart makes him feel depressed - possibly as a result of the sister mask's permanent frown. At the conclusion of the mission, he decides to leave this secondary mask with you just in case you need to work with him again in the future, and it promptly becomes part of your wardrobe.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Often attempts to introduce a subject as grandly as possible, only for it to fall flat thanks to Inbeda's interruptions.
  Inbeda become something of an urban legend, a great-
  (Inbeda belches loudly)
  *sigh*' Truly, a magnificent creature.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Both his main mask and his "sister mask" are entirely of gold, befitting the mutually oversized egos of both Inbeda and Kan'ami.
• Historical Domain Character: In real life, Kan'ami was a famous Noh actor and playwright. In The Secret World, his spirit has been permanently stored within a golden mask.
• Mask of Power: Whichever mask he chooses to inhabit becomes one of these, providing the wearer with his translating commentary and emotion-reading vision.
• Non-Action Guy: As an enchanted inanimate object, Kan'ami isn't capable of fighting and probably wouldn't be much interested in it even if he could. As such, when the two of you are forced to team up, he leaves the brawling to you.
• Omniglot: This is the Mask of Kan'ami's main power, being reportedly fluent in almost all known languages and quite a few unknown ones. In dialogue, he's capable of speaking English, Latin, Norwegian, Japanese, and of course, Oni; the Buzzing claims that it can even converse in their natural language.
  • He's also a bit irritated when he realizes you're a Westerner, because he finds English - English! - a boring language to speak.
• Perpetual Smiler: Justified, given that he's inhabiting a solid gold mask with its smile permanently carved on.
  • Perpetual Frowner: A feature of his "sister mask," apparently driving Kan'ami to depression whenever he's forced to inhabit it.
• Tactful Translation: Given that Inbeda is prone to providing Too Much Information in some of his more colourful rants, Kan'Ami often has to tone down the translation until it's fit for polite conversation - rendering the bowel-boiling threats against the Jingu Clan in a form safe for human ears, or summarizing Inbeda's lustful descriptions of his Illuminati benefactor as "My master has many warm feelings towards Ms Geary."
• Translator Buddy: To both you and Inbeda - though "buddy" might be pushing it a bit in his case...

The Korinto-Kai

Common Tropes

The Korinto-kai parlay with demons. They gamble with death deities. They dance in the razor blade rain and always five paces out of their league - yet always, always they step between the raindrops.

—The Buzzing

The occulted branch of the Yakuza, the Korinto-Kai began as a simple crime syndicate modelled upon the pre-Yakuza tradition of Bakuto. However, all this changed during the 1920s, when their leader and founder paid a visit to New York's criminal underworld, and returned with new ambitions: setting up a new base of operations in Tokyo, they not only exploited the rising popularity of Pachinko as a source of gambling revenue, but also brought their organization into the Secret World, expanding into occult shipments, magical arms dealing, and supernatural protection rackets. They are still in operation today, even during the worst of the crisis in Tokyo, having apparently exploited the disaster to expand their reach even further. They serve as the Dragon's natural allies in Tokyo, possessing similar philosophies of order-through-chaos - and an unusual habit of fortune-telling...

• The Casino: Variant; the Korinto-Kai's current headquarters are concealed within one of their pachinko parlours - for all intents and purposes, a not-very-glamorous casino.
• The Gambling Addict: The majority of the guests at the Pachinko Parlour consist of these. If anything, the state of emergency seems to have actually encouraged compulsive gamblers to continue visiting and playing, if only because most of them believe that the world's coming to an end.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: They like to style themselves as this, especially given that they're operating a major safehouse and sending the players out to keep their customers (AKA fellow citizens) safe.
• We Have Reserves: Primarily composed of mortal criminals, the Korinto-Kai are not up to the combat standards of the Jingu or the Oni (with the notable exception of Daimon himself); however, what they lack in physical strength, they more than make up for in sheer numbers. During the attack on Orochi Tower, Daimon is able to clear a minefield by having a gang of his men charge across it.
• Yakuza: Tokyo's official supernatural branch, having a history stemming back to the Yakuza's roots in Bakuto. Daimon and his current crop of "misfit toys" are more disorderly than the more respectable model of Yakuza syndicate, though the usual displays of caring for the community are still provided... when Daimon isn't allowing the FNF to blow the community to kingdom come, of course.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Like many Yakuza syndicates, the Korinto-Kai like to encourage a positive image, either as friends of the community or loveable ultra-chaotic rogues. As such, they're still looking after their community to a certain extent following the subway bombing, even going so far as to hire you in order to help drive away potential threats to their customers. Even Richard Sonnac comments on how bizarre it is that the one figure in Tokyo doing the most to protect the citizenry is a gangster. As such, the fact that they're one of the many parties directly responsible for the Tokyo incident is kept a secret... except from you.

Daimon Kiyota

Do you subscribe to chaos? Chaos, as you know, is not about eating fortune cookies and shitting wisdom. Chaos is fingering your own bullet hole because you know secrets are in there... or because it's so funny!

Voiced by: André Sogliuzzo

The current leader of the Korinto-Kai and grandson of the syndicate's legendary founder, Daimon is all about the chaos and the opportunities it presents. The proud owner of a Pachinko machine that can supposedly tell the future, he has used his inexplicable insights to maintain the Korinto-Kai's monopoly on supernatural crime in Tokyo for several years, and continues to do so even in a time of crisis. Daimon looks upon the bombing and its aftermath as the ideal means of taking over the city - and averting the apocalypse while he's at it.

• Affably Evil: Bizarre mannerisms aside, he's a very chatty, likeable character, somehow still managing to find the time to deliver aid to his clients in spite of the apocalyptic circumstances. However he's also a ruthless gangster who prefers to remove fingers in lieu of accepting apologies, threatens the innocent families of his lieutenants if they show any signs of disloyalty, and played an indirect role in causing the Tokyo Incident. And unlike Saïd and Inbeda, he doesn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for his role in it.
• Alice Allusion: Like many of the characters in Tokyo, Daimon is linked to a character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; in this case, he's the Cheshire Cat, being described by the Buzzing as "a Cheshire grin in sharp lapels," and frequently baffling the player with bizarre conversations and philosophies. Also, Daimon actually goes out of his way to quote Through The Looking Glass to Dragon players in the conclusion to "Spiral."
• Ambition Is Evil: Daimon wants to take his gang all the way to the top and maybe throat-punch the apocalypse while he's about it, and he's prepared to do anything to achieve his desires - though the first of them remains the most important. In fact, it's revealed that Daimon isn't just exploiting the disaster in Tokyo: he's one of those responsible for it. The only reason why the Phoenicians managed to get the Filth bomb into Tokyo was because Daimon allowed them to do so, having predicted the outcome via his Pachinko machine and decided to use the outbreak as the perfect means of climbing the ladder to personal success.
• Anger Born of Worry: Initially, during Issue #16, he's just getting pissed off because you're not answering your phone (due to the Morninglight Compound mystically blocking all tech)...until he gives up and asks his Pachniko machine, which is also blocked. He has an Oh, Crap! moment and when he finally contacts you, he's relieved before he remembers you didn't contact him about your excursion and chews you out.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: If you're a Dragon, it's revealed that he's become the new Voice at the end of Issue 11.
• Badass Boast: Provides a very impressive one during the outro to "The Pachinko Model," specifically to a newly-cowed Yamato - whose only response is a terrified sob of "you!"
  Yamato, who runs the Korinto-Kai? [...] Who sees the angles? Who hears the ball screaming in the machine? [...] Who rips the wings off butterflies? Who makes his own hurricanes? [...] When the thousand hells open, when the sky starts eating people, who'll protect you? Who do the demons look at and say, "FUCK! He's loony!" Who is going to drag this organization, kicking and screaming, into a new era? WHO, YAMATO? BEAT YOUR GUMS AND TESTIFY! WHO!?
• Bank Robbery: One of his missions involves you being sent off to conduct a one-man heist of the abandoned Faust Capital building, with Daimon remotely guiding you through the remaining anti-theft countermeasures. Strangely enough, Daimon only wants one item stored in the vault, and you never find out what the hell it is even once you manage to retrieve it.
• Blithe Spirit: He likes to style himself as this; most of his speeches tend to stress how important it is to abandon suffocating traditions and brittle dignity in favour of acting the fool and embracing chaos - even claiming that doing so is the only way that humanity will ever be able to survive the End of Days. For good measure, he's openly contemptuous of "cancelled stamps" like the Templars and the Jingu Clan, and often tries to teach the player how to accomplish their goals in the most audaciously nonsensical ways possible - or to "flirt with chaos" as he puts it. In conversation with Dragon agents, he can also reveal that he considers himself a Blithe Spirit to the Dragon itself; with the faction he loves so much having grown stagnant and rigid, Kiyota believes that he's the perfect "shaker" to freshen them up. It turns out that the Dragon actually agree with this impression, ultimately deciding to make him Bong Cha's successor.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": How he describes his Pachinko machine, claiming that "it was not always a Pachinko machine... but it always was". Curiously enough, the Buzzing use the exact same terms to describe it during the lore entry.
• The Chessmaster: Of all the faction leaders in Tokyo, he's the most perceptive and on the ball, not that he lets you know outright. He engineers things so that he's able to force the Jingu and House-In-Exile to work together with himself leading the way, and even John regards him as a threat. Actually managing to score him as Mission Control is considered a major victory for the Dragon for this precise reason.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Frequently sports this, especially on the cover to Issue #9. The Buzzing even uses this very term to describe him in the issue's lore, in keeping with all the Alice Allusions made throughout throughout this particular collection.
• Cloudcuckoolander: On top of using a lot of archaic slang guaranteed to bamboozle his guests, Daimon has a wide variety of quirks and eccentricities that make no apparent sense to anyone but him: trying to tell the future with the aid of a Pachinko machine, casually chowing down on an apparently lethal plate of Fugu, calling in favours that result in his allies throwing half-empty bottles of whisky out of windows for no clear reason, bombarding the players with lectures that even he doesn't entirely understand, and randomly cartwheeling and moonwalking around his office.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: These supposedly pointless mannerisms and speeches turn out to have a perfectly logical component to them in hindsight. For example, the cartwheeling and moonwalking are actually early hints on how to get past the security systems at the Faust bank. And that bit about the fortune-telling Pachinko machine: It actually works, as do Daimon's apparently meaningless errands, both being founded on the advice of a salvaged piece of ancient technology.
• Collector of the Strange: If John is to be believed, Daimon is in the habit of collecting the severed fingers that have resulted from Yubitsume.
• Defensive "What?": Lets off one of these after the player reacts with understandable confusion to the sight of Daimon very casually nibbling his way through the plate of Fugu he'd just been threatening Yamato with. Apparently, Daimon missed breakfast.
  • And again after being caught doing cartwheels around his office in the introduction to "The Bank Heist."
• The Don: To the Korinto-Kai. The Bees heavily imply that he's also acted as the previous Dons as well, having faked his death and reclaimed the position by impersonating the ex-boss's great-grandson.
• Establishing Character Moment: We first walk in on Daimon accusing his right-hand man Yamato of espionage. Yamato reacts by pulling a gun on him, and Daimon then proceeds to psyche him out so badly that he hands over the gun and contacts list and shuffles out of the room quietly weeping.
  Jeepers creepers, Yamato! You don't turn heel on the boss! Now something messy has to happen. Now I have to promote some other schmuck and make him wear your dripping face just so I don't miss you so...God...damn...MUCH!
• The Friend Nobody Likes: The Dragon's after-mission reports make it abundantly clear that they really don't trust Daimon Kyota, and only put up with him because he seems to represent their interests the best. In fact, Bong Cha actually seems to find him a little bit disturbing, at one point claiming that his place in their models is no longer making sense, and that "his angles are all wrong."
  • Ultimately subverted, however; it's Bong Cha who dislikes him, seeing a rival to her power. The rest of the Dragon collectively decides his competence and sheer chutzpah outweigh his weirdness, and he becomes Bong Cha's successor.
• Fingore: Daimon is very fond of Yubitsume. More disturbingly, John claims that he keeps the severed digits for himself, and supposedly owns entire desk drawers crammed with fingers. Daimon himself jokes quite readily about it:
  Apologies are a fine darb of a gesture and all, but I never know what to do with all those extra fingers...
• Foreshadowing: In the aftermath of "Spiral," Dragon players unexpectedly discover that Daimon has decided to temporarily replace Bong Cha as your mission contact, gleefully impersonating her until the very end of the text message. At the end of Issue #11, Daimon ascends to the post of Voice of the Dragon, replacing Bong Cha for good.
• For Want Of A Nail / Gambit Roulette: Another thing Daimon's particularly fond of, he often manages to accomplish his goals through strange, often nonsensical errands - reportedly guided by his fortune-telling Pachinko machine. For example, the mission introduction to "The Korinto Kai" features him ordering one of his goons to put all of his change in his right trouser pocket, wait until the stroke of midnight, count to sixty-one, and then throw a half-empty bottle of whisky out the window. At the end of the same intro, he calls in a favour from a man he rescued from certain death, only to spend it by asking the bewildered ally to leave a snowglobe on a certain park bench (having shaken it well first). Appropriately for a faction being courted by the Dragon, these apparently random acts actually garner results, to the point that Orochi spies are bewildered as to how the hell Daimon can manage to achieve anything with such nonsensical errands, or how even his screw-ups appear to have worked in his favour. Granted, the fact that his Pachinko machine is actually a piece of working tech from an earlier Age might have something to do with it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From the perspective of the Big Three (minus the Dragon). He's definitely got a few magical artefacts at his disposal, but as far as they're concerned, he's just a mob boss aware of the Secret World; powerful, but not worth courting when faced with his rivals, an ancient group of samurai and a tribe of demons. He not only was playing said rivals like harps, but he ends up a very high-ranking member of the Dragon. The Templars and Illuminati then engage in a storm of finger-pointing, trying to see who missed him as an asset or threat.
• Genghis Gambit: Performs one of these in Issue #11. After a promising start to their attack on Orochi Tower, the Jingu Clan and the House-In-Exile end up at each others throats almost immediately after arriving in the lobby, the age-old enemies apparently blaming each other for the Tokyo Incident. Just before a full-fledged duel between Gozen and Inbeda breaks out, Daimon steps in to inform the two leaders that the real culprits behind the Tokyo Incident are upstairs - and that they stand a better chance of bringing the Orochi leadership down if they team up. An Enemy Mine situation follows.
• Guns Akimbo: During his Big Damn Heroes moment in the Orochi Tower, these are his weapons.
• HA HA HA—No: Performs a variation in this in the intro to "The Korinto-Kai." After telling a very strange story about a hanged man having his having his eyes pecked out by a crow, Daimon lets out one of his signature cackles... only to stop right in the middle and say, "No, I don't get it either. That's horrible!"
• The Hyena: Daimon will laugh at almost everyone and everything, and does so with great frequency - to the point that it quickly becomes a matter of O.O.C. Is Serious Business if he isn't acting lighthearted and bombarding his audience with maniacal chortling. Also falls under the heading of Giggling Villain and Laughing Mad.
• Identical Grandson: Apparently, Daimon looks remarkably like his great-grandfather Ryuu Kiyota, the founder of the Korinto-Kai. According to the Buzzing, they have found no record of Ryuu Kiyota ever having a child, or even dying.
  • My Grandson, Myself: Implied, in that he all but says this outright when he shows you an image of Ryu...and it's Daimon with a mustache.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Finally confesses to his role in the Tokyo bombing in the intro to "The Manufactory," and though he seems a little more subdued than usual, Kiyota doesn't seem too repentant - especially considering that he'd already arranged a plan to ensure that the Filth could be cleansed from Kaidan. For good measure, he even dismisses the collateral damage of his scheme with a quip of "You wanna party, sometimes you gotta blow out a whole lotta candles."
• It Amused Me: Though most of his bizarre mannerisms tend to make a certain degree of sense in hindsight, sometimes Daimon will do something for no other reason than for self-indulgent fun. Case in point, the moonwalking incident during the bank heist: the reasons for the moonwalk itself were logical enough, but at present, there hasn't been any word if there was a practical reason for him recording the security footage of you clumsily moonwalking down the corridor and uploading it to Youtube.
  • Similarly, his opening standoff with Yamato: given that he already knew that Yamato was a traitor as well as the likely outcomes of their confrontation, thanks to the Pachinko machine, it would have been easy enough to just kill him or have the guards restrain him until later. Instead, Daimon went to the trouble of preparing a plate of Fugu just so he could fuck with Yamato's head.
• Keet: Excitable, exuberant, eccentric, and borderline explosive, Daimon might just be the most hyperactive character in all of Tokyo - with the possible exception of Harumi. In just about every line of dialogue, scene and mission he features in, he'll be almost too energetic to sit still for very long and too gleeful to take anything seriously. "The Bank Heist" kicks this up a notch by featuring him not only cartwheeling around his office, but also performing a perfect moonwalk as the player departs!
• Large Ham: A giggling, shouting, monologuing, cartwheeling, moonwalking madman with an unquenchable hunger for scenery. Just about every single line of dialogue that escape's Kiyota's mouth is guaranteed to be dripping with ham, especially in contrast with the other faction heads: Gozen practically vanishes into the background by comparison, and even Inbeda's occasional temper-tantrums struggle to compete with Kiyota's constant showboating.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: In the intro to "The Korinto-Kai," he entertains you with a long, rambling story of a depressed "pendulum cadaver" dangling from a noose, and having to endure the "sharp kisses" of a hungry crow. In between pecks, the crow claims to be trying to cure the dead man's unhappiness by changing his perspective, and asks only for his eyes in return; because a broken neck can only nod, this exchange ends with the crow "eating all the sweet jelly." Eventually, rigor mortis turns the corpse's frown upside-down, and the crow approvingly departs, pausing only to remind the corpse that "home is wherever you hang your head!" After a lot of giggling, it eventually becomes apparent that Daimon sees himself as the crow and the corpse as the rest of the world, and that he can make people happier by letting them experience chaos - so long as they allow him to make a profit in return. Towards the end, he offers to share some of his "prime jelly" if the player helps him protect some of his clients.
• Lost Technology: It's heavily implied that the oracular Pachinko machine is actually a piece of heavily-disguised Third, or even First Age technology.
• Mad Oracle: Terrifyingly enough, both the players experiences and the Bees prove that Daimon's Pachinko machine really can predict the future. Doubly terrifying, Daimon is also the only one capable of understanding its output on a consistent basis - and he's mad as the proverbial hatter.
• Mission Control: During "The Bank Heist," Daimon serves as this to the player, providing step-by-step instructions on how to get past the security systems and reach the vault.
  • Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Most of his instructions require the player to go hunting around abandoned newsagents' kiosks for lighters and superglue, go cartwheeling blindly through the bank's Laser Hallway, and moonwalk across a Pressure Plate floor. Even more astonishing, actually doing this works!
  • Also, during the conclusion to "Spiral," Dragon players unexpectedly receive an after-mission report from Daimon instead of Bong Cha. For good measure, Daimon's perfectly happy to impersonate the Voice of the Dragon, only admitting to the identity theft at the very end of the message. Of course, he's not impersonating the Voice of the Dragon anymore...
• Motor Mouth: Already extremely talkative at the best of times, Kiyota has a tendency to rant at an impressive pace when he's in the mood for a Ham-Up. He actually amplifies this tendency in order to intimidate Yamato in the opening to "The Pachinko Model." More specifically, he does so right in the middle of the Fugu Roulette game, at the very moment when Yamato is plucking up the courage to consume a portion of the possibly-lethal meal - combined with Suddenly Shouting loud enough to get the unfortunate lieutenant to drop the chopsticks.
• New Era Speech: Provides one of these in Issue #11 in a scene revealed only to Dragon players; Kiyota has just replaced Bong Cha as Voice of the Dragon, guaranteeing a dramatic change in direction for the organization as a whole, and he's in the mood to celebrate - and of course, to gear the players up for the fact that Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
  Things change. The cylinder spins. Some stamps get cancelled. We're going to do things differently: there's a time to contemplate, to model actions... there's a time to make action! We're going to rip the wings off butterflies! We're going to flap our own hurricanes! The dark days are gonna be the swingingest whangdoodle of a blow. Let's be mad flappers, you and I! Grab your glad rags! Let's get loaded and jive! (laughs, then sighs) The Fool's prerogative. We taint our honour with irreverence, because doing the impossible is a rudeness to reality, because respect will get this planet dead. And so we cleave to the sacred obscenities. (chuckles) It's our turn. The barrel puckers. The cylinder spins...
• Obfuscating Insanity: It's hinted that while Daimon is undoubtedly crazed, he isn't really as mad as he lets on. This performance isn't just to put his enemies at ease, though; it's because of his firm belief in Success Through Insanity, thereby making this an act of Obfuscating Insanity played upon the entire cosmos, all for the sake of ensuring that he thrives in the dark days and - maybe - gets to kick Cthulhu's ass.
• Oh, Crap!: During Issue #16, when he realizes whatever's keeping you is also keeping the all-knowing Pachinko machine from learning where you are.
• Refuge in Audacity: His modus operandi. In his dialogue tree, Daimon actually discusses this approach at length under the heading of "Chaos," proclaiming that only the most implausible, impossible and thoroughly insane decisions are going to get them through the apocalypse. It's for this reason that he rejects the outcome of a safe, barely-achieved victory, instead aiming to win hands-down and utterly massacre the enemy; because it's the least likely outcome, the one thing they have absolutely no business in trying. And if they screw it up and they lose, well, it's a hell of a lot better than playing it safe and losing anyway. No wonder he joins the Dragon.
• The Roaring '20s: Tends to use a lot of slang from this time period. Appropriate, given the visit to 1920s New York that inspired Ryuu Kiyota's rise to power; doubly appropriate if Daimon really is an immortal Ryuu. Admittedly, he does play with the slang a bit: for example, he prefers the term "wooden kimono" to the more traditional "wooden overcoat."
• Russian Roulette: Variation; upon uncovering Yamato's treachery, Daimon challenges him to a game of Fugu Roulette, with the revolver replaced with a plate of cooked pufferfish; some portions are safe, having been correctly prepared by a master chef, while others have been cooked "unprofessionally," making them potentially fatal. The stakes are as follows: if Daimon wins, he gets the traitor's phone and the list of contacts it contains; if Yamato wins, he gets to seize control of the Korinto-Kai - with the added bonus that Daimon will come back from the dead and take him out for icecream if he does well enough. So, with an entire criminal empire (and icecream) on offer, the lieutenant reluctantly plays along on the condition that Daimon takes the first three bites. Unfortunately, when it comes time for Yamato to dig in, he can't even bring himself to let his portion of fugu touch his lips. Daimon shoos him away, warning him that if he betrays the Yakuza again, Yamato's family will be the next contestants... and a few minutes later, he starts casually helping himself to the remaining fugu. At present, it's still not clear if the dish was safe all along, or if it really was poisonous and Daimon's just immune to tetradoxin.
• Sanity Ball: To his amusement, Daimon finds himself unexpectedly holding the ball early in Issue #11, when he ends up not only having to stop Inbeda and Gozen from killing each other, but also to direct them towards the real enemy upstairs.
  I mean, are you two really going to force me to be the voice of reason? Me?
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Clad in a very snappy pinstriped black suit.
• Success Through Insanity: A firm believer in this, hence his astonishingly eccentric behaviour. As he explains in both dialogue options and cutscenes, he believes that only individuals who are utterly without structure, dignity and sanity can truly succeed in the dark days, and to this end has made himself as loose, adaptable and eccentric as possible. He even compares this to incidents where drunk-drivers somehow manage to survive accidents that would have killed sober motorists, reasoning that their survival is due to having lost all the self-respect that might have made them brittle, instead being malleable enough to walk away unharmed.
• Tattooed Crook: Befitting the boss of a Yakuza syndicate, he's tattooed quite extensively, though most are concealed by his suit; however, some can be seen on his exposed neck and hands.
• Wicked Cultured: Despite his chaotic mannerisms and dialogue, Daimon does have a surprisingly cultured side, decorating his office with antique masks and listening to classical music around the clock.
• The Wonka: So far, most outsiders seem to be a little taken aback that the most capable of the faction heads in Tokyo is also an absolute nutter. As Yamato demonstrates, some members of the Korinto-Kai share this confusion.

Yamato

Voiced by: Takashi Sudo

Daimon's second-in-command, and Inbeda of the House-In-Exile's inside man.

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Fugu Roulette in a nutshell, especially for Yamato. Winning means replacing Daimon at the head of the Korinto-Kai's empire (and ice-cream); losing means a slow and likely very painful death.
• Butt-Monkey: Just about every single scene Yamato participates in usually results in him being terrorized, mutilated, or just embarrassed. To add insult to a multitude of injuries, he's also left behind during the attack on Orochi Tower, allowing Daimon to claim all the glory and leave nothing for his shamed lieutenant.
• The Dragon: To Daimon... ostensibly.
  • The Starscream: On top of selling information to Inbeda, Yamato is willing to take a chance at killing Daimon and taking over his criminal empire. Unfortunately for him, Daimon cottons onto his plans and terrifies him into toeing the line again.
• Humiliation Conga: Subjected to one when he's found out as Imbeda's informant. First, he's merely threatened with having his face ripped off; then, he's forced to participate in Fugu Roulette and chickens out; then, he's forgiven... after being warned that his family will be next to enjoy a game of impromptu food-tasting if he betrays the Korinto-Kai again. And then he has to prostrate himself in front of Daimon and acknowledge him as his master - but not before having two of his fingers chopped off.
• The Mole: Was acting as one for the House-in-Exile, but is caught by Daimon.
• The Quiet One: In no small part due to serving such a profoundly talkative boss, Yamato doesn't have much to say in any of his scenes. In fact, the only time he speaks is to answer Daimon's barrage of questions in the ending cutscene to "The Pachinko Model" - his answer invariably being a panicked whimper of "You!"
• Russian Roulette: The opposing player in Daimon Kyota's game of Fugu Roulette. Even after he's allowed to choose which pieces he'd eat and even after Daimon takes a three-piece headstart to make his opponent feel more confident, Yamato still can't bring himself to take a bite. As icing on the cake, Yamato is let off (by Yakuza standards) with a warning that any further betrayals will result in his family becoming contestants in the next game.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Much like his boss, though where Daimon wears black and purple, Yamato wears white and red..
• Tattooed Crook: As a Yakuza lieutenant, Yamato naturally sports several tattoos on his arms and chest, clearly visible thanks to his rolled-up sleeves and unbuttoned shirt.
• Tear Off Your Face: Threatened with this during the intro to "The Pachinko Model" by his boss, who actually looks to be about to go through with it before he changes his mind and breaks out the pufferfish.
• Villain in a White Suit: Apart from the unbuttoned red shirt, Yamato is a Sharp-Dressed Man who dresses exclusively in white. He's also The Dragon and a crook.
• Villainous Friendship: With Daimon... or so he claims. Granted, Yamato doesn't show much in the way of loyalty, and Daimon's only notable concession towards their friendship is - in the event of the unfortunate lieutenant's execution - to have Yamato's face ripped off and worn by his successor, "just so I don't miss you so goddamn much."
• Yubitsume: Having been found out as a traitor and potential usurper during the intro to "The Pachinko Model," Yamato is apparently subjected to this traditional punishment while the players are out investigating the FNF, for he's clearly missing two fingers from his left hand during the outro cutscene.