This page lists the characters of Zaregoto and their associated tropes.
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Main Characters
Ii-chan
- Voiced by: Yūki Kaji
Zaregototsukai. 19 years old at the start of the series when he returned from Houston, America to Kyoto. Student of Rokumeikan Private University.
- Break Them by Talking:What he does to Mikoko in Kubishime Romanticist. He indirectly calls her out for killing Tomoe as well as reveals his true nature to her; this conversation is strongly implied to have caused her to kill herself.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Noticed by Aikawa. He's good at solving cases, but doesn't pay too much attention to his resolve and skips vital information or holes in his arguments.
- Catchphrase: "Zaregoto da." Translation
- Death Seeker: He won't kill himself, but wouldn't mind being killed, or sometimes even wants it to happen.
- Empty Shell: Completely devoid of emotion or empathy, a defective product.
- Lack of Empathy: One of his most noticeable traits. He has a really hard time feeling things for anybody, and some people despise him for that. In the second novel, Akiharu mentions that he thought he'd be capable of killing someone due to his lack of emotion.
- Mystery Magnet: People tend to die when around him, which prompts him to solve mysteries.
- No Name Given: His real name remains unknown to the reader but several people in-story do know it. It is said only Kunagisa and his sister ever called him by his real name. There is a riddle he told Hagihara Shiogi in Hanging High School. Shiogi solved it, but the reader never learned the answer.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The nickname Ii-chan is usually used by Kunagisa and Omokage Magokoro. Other people called him by various nicknames such as Ii-kun, Ii-tan, Ii-ni, Ii-nosuke...
- The Stoic: Regardless of what he's feeling at the moment, his face will betray no emotion whatsoever.
- Straw Nihilist: Kind of. He says he doesn't care about the people around him, with the exception of Kunagisa, thought he has some Pet the Dog moments.
- Too Broken to Break: In his own words, he thinks he's received a "fatal (emotional) wound" and that's why he's so apathetica and uncaring.
- Unreliable Narrator: Best showed at the end of Kubishime, where we learn that he found Mikoko's suicide note, tampered with the evidence and hid his actual thoughts on the case.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: In Sumiyuri Academy he was forced by Aikawa Jun to wear Girls' Uniform.
Kunagisa Tomo
- Voiced by: Aoi Yūki
The Blue Savant. Ii-chan's childhood friend and probably one of the only two friends he has before the start of the series, 19 years old. A genius in the field of computer engineering, she was once the leader of a cyber terrorist group with no name (she calls it Team but other members call it other things).
- Badass Longcoat: Kunagisa wears a very fancy cloak that looks like a wizard's robe. It means a lot to her.
- Expy: Of Shinobu Oshino. Both are diminutive (though Shinobu only regresses to the form of a child when de-powered), eccentric, hyper-energetic, constantly barefoot, have long hair, and lazy. Actually it is the other way around since Zaregoto was written way before Monogatari.
- Hates Baths: It's mentioned several times in Kubikiri Cycle that she doesn't like bathing, seeing it as a waste of time.
- Hikikomori: As a genius engineer, Kunagisa's keeps to her own devices nearly all the time and immerses herself into technology, and only comes out of her room when made to or it interests her to do so. Ii-chan ribs her for not even having the motivation to shower because she's so engrossed in her work.
- Idiot Savant: Kunagisa has been diagnosed with Savant Syndrome, she's unparalleled with anything involving computers, but helpless in many day-to-day activities.
- Kissing Cousins / Brother–Sister Incest: Her parents are implied to be such. It may or may not the reason she has blue hair.
- Lonely Rich Kid: She owns the whole apartment she lives in, and her family is one of the most influential in Japan. On the other hand, Ii-chan seems to be her only friend.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Dead Blue, her nickname as the leader of Team. She is legendary in certain circles.
- Older Than They Look: She is said to have remained the same after Ii-chan left for America. That would imply that she looked like 13 when she was 19. At the end of the series, she began to grow again.
Aikawa Jun
- Voiced by: Yuko Kaida
- Badass Driver: She's able to drive at high speed without even paying attention to the road, apparently. Doubles with Car Fu, as she is capable of deliberately injuring but not killing someone with a car in the final novels.
- Cool Car: A red Cobra.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": Only her enemies call her Aikawa-san, but Ii-chan does it anyway.
- Insufferable Genius: People call her a genius, and she loves it.
- Jack of All Trades: She will do anything as long as she's payed for it.
- Master of Unlocking: One of her specialties is unlocking doors, even those with a fingerprint lock. She is so proficient at it that she gifts Ii a lockpicking knife, since she has absolutely no need for such trivial tools.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: You don't want to mess with her. Even badass serial killer Zerozaki knows that.
- Telepathy: One of her powers. Like the other user of Telepathy in the story, Himena, Aikawa uses it to comment on some of Ii's narration. It's how she finds out he was messing with her every time he called her by her last name and serves as foreshadowing to the Ishimarou Kouta in Psycho Logical being Aikawa in disguise.
- The Soft-Hearted Warrior: Several times noted to be very soft on her friends and someone who avoids killing whenever necessary. Ii even speculates that she is secretly so soft that she cannot bring herself to kill someone in the first place.
- World's Best Warrior: Subverted. She is only said to be humanity's strongest contractor. But she did beat Omokage Magokoro at the end of Uprooted Radical (Part Three), who should be the strongest human being.
Wet Crow's island
Akagami Iria
- Voiced by: Mariya Ise
- Angsty Surviving Twin: Subverted. She killed her twin sister herself, which is the reason she has been exiled to the Wet Crow's Island in the first place.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Despite having an enormous mansion, she's as lonely as a woman living with her three maids on a deserted island can get.
- Theme Twin Naming: Her name is from Iliad while her sister Odette's name is from Odyssey.
- The Ojou: The Akagami family is one of Japan's five biggest plutocrats.
- Sibling Murder: She killed her younger twin sister, Odette.
Handa Rei
- Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima
- The Quiet One: She's almost as quiet as Teruko. This is because she wanted to avoid revealing her true identity as Akagami Iria.
- Troll: She switches places with her maid because she thought it would be fun to see which of the geniuses would discover the switch first.
The Chiga Triplets: Akari, Hikari and Teruko
- Big Damn Heroes: Teruko fights and defeats the killer in Kubikiri Cycle, saving Ii-chan's life.
- I Lied: Teruko's Catchphrase. On rare occasions that she does speak, one has to carefully filter through what she said, because almost all of it will be lies.
- Ninja Maid: Teruko. She can even fight off Zerozaki Kishishiki to protect her mistress, Iria.
- The Quiet One: Teruko again. Hikari is astonished that she talked to Ii-chan and Iria herself notes that at the end of Kubikiri Cycle that her silence was not an act, she really doesn't talk much.
- Token Good Teammate: Hikari. Unlike the other two triplets, who ignore Ii-chan at best and are actively antagonistic towards him at worst, Hikari is consistently kind to Ii-chan and Kunagisa, to the point Ii-chan vouches for her when she is the prime suspect of the murder.
- The Watson: Hikari shares this role with Ii-chan in the latter part of Kubikiri Cycle.
- Twin Switch: May or may not have happened in the final volume. Ii sends for help from Wet-Crow's island to gather information. The triplet in question claims to be Hikari, but Aikawa speculates from a glance that Iria might have been worried by Himena's premature death and sent Teruko to act as a bodyguard instead. Since the triplet avoids meeting the only person who can tell them apart (Kunagisa) and Ii feels that confronting Teruko might not yield any good results it never gets resolved.
Sonoyama Akane
- Voiced by: Yu Shimamura
- The Ace: Is able to kill and replace the world's best artist AND one of the seven top researchers in the world while still producing work on the same level as the originals. Additionally, the fake demonstrates impressive skill in physical combat.
- Taken to eleven in the final volume, Uprooted Radical. She announces to Ii that her next target is no one else than Humanity's strongest, Aikawa Jun. Post time-skip, Aikawa herself notes that she has managed to impersonate her to the point that she is actually decreasing her workload as a contractor, but keeps trying to kill her for some reason.
- Arc Villainess: She's the main antagonist of the first novel, Kubikiri Cycle.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Not only does she succeed in killing and replacing Sonoyama Akane, but she faces no consequences for her actions. Iria allows her to leave the island a free woman, and Aikawa states that the fake's genius is so great that she won't struggle to adapt to her new identity's responsibilities.
Ibuki Kanami
- Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi
- Insufferable Genius: She loves what she does and likes to brag about it.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Even the most innocuous of questions can anger her.
Sakaki Shinya
- Voiced by: Kenji Hamada
- Always Someone Better: He teached Ibuki how to paint and she ended up surpassing him. It still affects him to this day.
- The Dragon: To Ibuki. The real one, that is.
Himena Maki
- Voiced by: Aya Endo
- The Alcoholic: Implied. She is often seen drinking wine, both her alibies consist of her drinking the night away with Shinya and even her cover art has her holding a wine glass AND the wine bottle.
- Foreseeing My Death: Her powers are limited to seeing only two years into the future, as that is when she is going to be brutally murdered. Ultimately subverted, as she dies off-schedule due to Ii and the Fox-masked Man's meddling.
- Insufferable Genius: She uses her powers to berate Ii-chan on every occasion, including reacting and commenting on any commentary he makes regarding her. If Hikari is to be believed, she has done so before with other geniuses, practically chasing them off the island.
- Not So Omniscient After All: She ends up dying two years earlier than she had announced to Ii. This is due to the Fox-masked man finding her power to 'read the story' (i.e. see how everything happens) to conflict with his desire to see the story play out naturally. Since his theory essentially says that as long as something is happening, so it's irrelevant to the story WHEN it happens it does not conflict with her power or the story itself.
- Psychic Static: The reason she cannot read Kunagisa's life.
Sashirono Yayoi
- Voiced by: Haruna Ikezawa
- Only Sane Man: Is the only one properly freaked out by the murders, and described as the only one with a normal reaction by the viewer's standards. This is used by Ii-chan and Kunagisa, who make her fake a tantrum and storm off to pretend to lock herself in her room, in order to lure the killer into her room. She admits that most of it wasn't acted, implying that it was how she really felt.
Rokumeikan Private University
Aoii Mikoko
A classmate and acquaintance of Ii, though he doesn't remember her. She's annoyingly cheery and airheaded, but a nice girl. She invited Ii to Tomoe's birthday, starting the second novel's plot.- All for Nothing: Killed Tomoe in an attempt to separate her from Ii. Not only did Ii never reciprocate her feelings, he eventually found out about the deed and subtlety confronted her about it, which drove her to suicide.
- Big Bad: The one who invited Ii to Tomoe's party and killed her, starting the plot and being the main culprit during most of it.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A cheery, nice and airheaded girl and the culprit of the first murder, a passional crime nonetheless.
- Bullied into Depression: Towards the end it's revealed that Ii knew about Mikoko's actions and their discussion while shopping was all about guilt tripping her, which eventually led her to suicide.
- Genki Girl: Awfully cheery.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The reason she murdered Emoto Tomoe
- Kill the Ones You Love: She really admired Tomoe and thought of her as one of her best friends, which didn't stop her from killing her.
- Love Makes You Evil: Killed her friend because she thought she was getting too close to the guy she loved.
- Never Suicide: Subverted. In the end, she actually did kill herself.
- Mad Love: She's really interested in Ii, despite him not being interested in her in the slightest. Played even more straightforward towards the end, when it's revealed that none of Mikoko's friends actually liked Ii and thought chasing after him would be useless, but they couldn't do anything about it.
Emoto Tomoe
A friend of Mikoko's. She's loved by everyone in her group, though she's is melancholic behind her Nice Girl facade.- Broken Bird: She turns to be just as broken and melancholic as Ii, which prompts her to open to him.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her murder kicks off the main plot.
- Shrinking Violet: Doesn't talk or get involved too much with anyone, prefering to to avoid attention and conflict.
- Stepford Smiler: Like Ii, she feels like a defective product and is pretty melancholic. Unlike Ii, she tries her best to avoid opening up about it, trying to show a good side to her friends.
Atemiya Muimi
Mikoko's childhood friend and part of Tomoe's friend group. She's a lot more serious than Mikoko or Tomoe, but still loves her friends dearly.- Japanese Delinquents: Has the looks, and apparently was one st some point.
- Punny Name: Muimi means meanningless, her sister's name Muri means unreasonable, rude.
- Sanity Slippage: Her friend Tomoe's death doesn't sit well with her so of course that her childhood friend Mikoko's death and status as the original murderer wouldn't sit well either. Towards the end of the novel she kills Akiharu, tries to torture and kill Ii, destroys everything in her apartment (including her hamster) and finally turns herself in, being completely and utterly insane by this point.
- Trauma Conga Line: Her dear friend Tomoe is killed, followed by the culprit, her childhood friend Mikoko, which drives her to kill his friend Akiharu to drive away suspicions after Mikoko's suicide. When confronted by Ii, who doesn't care in the slightest about her excuses, she goes insane.
Usami Akiharu
- Face Death with Dignity: When giving Ii the Vespa, he tells him that he's sure he's going to be killed next. Turns out he probably knew about Muimi's and Mikoko's actions, but instead of confronting them or telling the police, he accepted his friends as they were and accepted his death at his friend's hands.
- Out of Focus: The least developed of Tomoe's friend group
Zerozaki
In General
- Family of Choice: What Zerozaki family is all about: accepting people with killing impulse and no other family to speak of. Akagami Iria fits into the first category, but the battle between Kishishiki and Teruko showed she still has people who cares for her, so the Zerozaki backed off.
- Family Theme Naming: Shiki for the male and Ori for the female.
- Serial Killer: That is the reason they are a family in the first place.
Zerozaki Hitoshiki
Real name Migiwame Toshiki. The son of two Zerozaki, Zeroshiki and Hataori, which makes him the only "born" Zerozaki. Raised mostly by Soushiki, the only person in the Zerozaki clan that Hitoshiki recognizes as family (at least before Iori came along). He appears for the first time in the second novel, Kubishime Romanticist, where he's acting as a serial killer known as the Kyoto Prowler. He eventually befriends Ii in a strange way, mainly due to their deep understanding of each other.- Affably Evil: He likes karaoke and has casual and irrelevant conversations with the protagonist. It almost makes you forget that he's a serial killer.
- Breakout Character: Eventually gained his own spin-off novel series, the Ningen series.
- Big Damn Heroes: Saves Ii while he's being attacked and tortured by the killer in the second novel.
- Bulletproof Vest: Wears one as protective gear.
- Catchphrase: "What a riot."
- Evil Counterpart: What Ii would have become hadn't he restrained himself. Likewise, Ii is what Hitoshiki would have become had he restrained himself.
- Empty Shell: Like Ii, he's a defective product and a no longer human. Unlike Ii though, he does casually laugh and show some emotion, which may be sincere or not, and it's what diffentiates them.
- Not Blood Siblings: His parents. And his relationship with Iori.
- Odd Friendship: With Ii of all people. Probably because they see each other as a reflection in a mirror.
- Serial Killer: The Kyoto Prowler.
- Straw Nihilist: Just like Ii, he doesn't really care about anyone around him. Taken even further, since he apparently just lives in the streets and kills people without much thought.
- Tattooed Crook: A serial killer with a tattoo on his face's right side.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Youngest in the Zerozaki family (at least before Iori awakened).
- White Hair, Black Heart: A serial killer with long white hair.
Zerozaki Soushiki
The eldest and the leader of the family. Seems to be Hitoshiki's guardian. Has some sort of schoolgirl fetish.- Big Brother Instinct: Towards Hitoshiki and Iori. He was overjoyed to have found Iori as he always wanted a little sister. In the end, he died protecting them.
Sumiyuri Academy
Yukariki Ichihime
- Cute and Psycho: She is mentally unstable, which is the cause of all the problems in The Kubitsuri High School.
Hagihara Shiogi
- Repetitive Name: Almost. The characters of 萩"hagi" and 荻"ogi" are look-alikes.
Niounomiya
Niounomiya Rizumu and Niounomiya Izumu
- Raised as the Opposite Gender: Implied. Although it is more mental than physical, since Izumu stil wear women's clothes and has long, dark hair.
Thirteen Stairs
Furuyari Zukin the 12th
- The Blacksmith: The name Furuyari Zukin is a title she inherited from her grandfather (the 11th) who was a blacksmith. It has been passed down in the family.
- Muggle: She is really just a normal high school girl.
