Characters / AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative

AI: The Somnium Files | Main Index
Protagonists: Kaname Date | Mizuki Date
AI: The Somnium Files (Iris Sagan) | AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative

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Characters introduced in AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative.

Protagonists

• Kaname Date
• Mizuki Date
• Aiba, Ryuki, Tama, and the Masked Woman

The Endas

Andes Komeji/Yoneharu Enda

Andes Komeji/Yoneharu Enda

Voiced by: Shinobu Matsumoto (Japanese), Brent Mukai (English)

A professional comedian formerly known as the "Quiz King", who serves as the host of "Faith to Face", an online quiz show. The right half of Jin Furue's body suddenly appeared during a live webcast of the show, and marked the start of the Half Body Serial Killings.

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• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: A major plot point. And what ultimately led to his death. Frustrated with his mounting debt to the Yakuza, deteriorating relationship with Shoma, and the Yakuza's threat to traffic Shoma if he doesn't pay his debts, he gets wasted one night and comes up with the bright idea to steal one half of a serial killer/terrorist's bisected victims and blackmail him with it for money. He eventually realizes what a terrible idea it was after sobering up and decides not to go through with it, but by then he was already in Tearer's crosshairs for stealing it in the first place.
• Alternate Character Reading: His given name (Yoneharu) and stage name (Komeji) are both spelled 米治.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: A Deconstructed Trope. He gave up his rather successful career as a trivia expert to attempt to break into comedy. The only problem is that he's not good at it. Like aggressively unfunny. His refusal to quit puts his family in dire financial straits, costs him his marriage, causes his son to resent him, and eventually forces him into illegal activities to pay his mounting debt.
• Character Development: His primary development is to realize the tragic irony that working his butt off to grant a decent living for Shoma not only made him get involved with all sorts of shady dealings, but also distance himself almost completely from the son he swore to give a comfortable life; upon realizing that Komeji shifts his misguided attempts of securing Shoma a good life to dedicate all his attention to him and protect him instead, in his and Shoma’s route. However, in the mainline route Komeji never lives to see this through, it is only in the Divergence Route where his development comes to fruition, after doing time for his crime (hiding a dead body) Komeji then dedicates his life to Shoma, gives up on his comedian dream, making it just a side gig to his new day job at a tofu Factory.
• Cosmic Plaything: Oh, where to begin? First he uses up all the benefits fame gave him during his youth, then gets divorced by his wife who takes his daughter, and struggles to to find success in his dream job of being a comedian. His failure to succeed as a comedian makes his son a target for constant bullying, which in turn causes Shoma to become bitter and resentful of his father. It also causes Komeji to take money from loan sharks, which causes him to incur a severe amount of debt. He is then killed in a gruesome way after his son tells him he hates him and wishes him dead. Talk about rough.
• Dirty Old Man: Ryuki can find a receipt for Sunfish Pocket in his suit, and asks if he frequents maid cafes. Before he can answer, Date, the resident shameless pervert, immediately joins the conversation. He isn't one though, he's actually going there to catch up with Amame, his daughter.
• Dramatic Irony: Komeji dies thinking his children hate him. This is a far cry from the truth, as his death enrages both Shoma and Amame into trying to kill Tearer when he comes out of hiding six years later, with Shoma building an arsenal of thermite bombs to blow him to kingdom come while Amame turns his slicer against him.
• Family Versus Career: Komeji's dream is to be a comedian, but he's so bad at it that it's nearly destroyed his life. His wife's divorced him, his son resents him, his daughter took a job she doesn't particularly enjoy to support him, and he's so deep in debt with loaners on both sides of the law that he got involved in a gun smuggling ring and decided while drunk to steal Jin's body and use it to extort money from Tearer. By the end of his shared route with Shoma, he can no longer ignore all the problems his failed comedy career has caused and attempts to quit, but by that point Shoma has also come around, and insists that he keep up his act, while in the Divergence route he follows through with this and gets a job at a tofu factory instead. In the main route however, he doesn't live long enough to make this decision.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: He loves being a comedian and wants to make it a viable occupation for himself. But he is terrible at it and can only deny the fact for so long. One bad choice after another leads to him having to resort to desperate measures to stay afloat.
• The Idiot from Osaka: He's a terrible comedian, and the Japanese version has him speak in Kansai dialect.
• It's All My Fault: When he talks about both the circumstances of his divorce and the fact he took a dead body from a crime scene, he places the blame squarely on himself, owning up to his mistakes without pushing blame on anyone else.
• Killed Off for Real: In the Explosion ending, which is part of the main timeline, he doesn't make it, being Tearer's third victim prior to the timeskip.
• Mad Libs Catch Phrase: He tends to say "God of energy, Inti Inti, Pachaka-max!" after each of his jokes. Depending on the context, he may change it up, like "God of apologies, sorry, sorry..." or "God of seasons, warm, hot, chilly, cold!".
• Nice Guy: Despite being a guy who's constantly down on his luck, considered to be horrible at his dream job, and has a very strained relationship with the rest of his family, Komeji is a very nice person who wants to make people smile.
• Non-Standard Character Design: He has a cube-shaped head, and nobody comments on this. To prove that his head isn't a mask, an X-ray reveals that his skull is also cube-shaped.
• Oh, Crap!: He stumbled upon the other half of Jin's body at the rooftop amusement park and, in a drunken stupor, decided to steal it to try and extort money out of Tearer. The next morning he sobers up and realizes what a terrible idea that was, and calls his daughter Amame over to help him cover his tracks. Unfortunately, by then he was already in Tearer's crosshairs.
• Parents as People: Arguably a Deconstructed Trope. Komeji loves his son very much, and tries to do best by him despite the struggles the two of them go through. However, Komeji is also a very flawed man. Having used up the money fame afforded him and split from his wife and daughter, he constantly takes out loans and creates debt for himself which in turn only worsens his struggles with his son. Due to his dream job both not providing much revenue and directly causes his Shoma to get made fun of, his life only becomes harder financially and personally. This eventually leads to him making shaky business deals that put Komeji truly in over his head and endangers the son he wants to protect.
• Papa Wolf: He's very protective of Shoma, and tries to do his best to ensure a good life for him despite the many financial struggles he goes through. In fact, some of the troubles he goes through are specifically due to his dire need to protect his son. In his route, he gets severely beaten up shielding Shoma from a group of assailants.
• Properly Paranoid: When he's arrested in the Explosion route for his involvement in a smuggling ring, he requests that ABIS send a police escort to Shoma to make sure he's safe, as the loan sharks he's indebted to have threatened him in the past. In the Komeji/Shoma route, where he doesn't make this request, Shoma is kidnapped by Horadori scientists, vindicating his fears.
• Punny Name: His stage name is a play on "comedian desu", or "I am a comedian". His real surname is a play on "entertainer", and his given name is an Alternate Character Reading of "Komeji".
• Sad Clown: He's struggling with debts and supporting his family whilst stuck in a crumbling role as a comedian. Even his Somnium's theme sounds exactly like a melancholy version of a comedic tune.
• Solomon Divorce: He lives with only his son because his wife left, but he mentions having a daughter. His daughter, Amame, chose to live with her mom, but she's still involved in his life.
• Spanner in the Works: Ultimately the Nirvana Initiative likely would not have been prevented had he not stolen the left half of Jin's body on the rooftop of Misetan Department Store. Tearer gets so pissed off by this that he decides to target Komeji, then places both halves of his body at the exact same spots as Jin's. This makes the main cast realize the reason why Tearer split his victims' bodies in half and was so particular about where to place them: to indicate where the TC-PERGE-loaded missile will be launched from.
• Stage Name: "Andes Komeji" is his comedian name.
• Tragic Dream: What Yoneharu Enda is known for is his former title as Quiz King, but what he really wants to do is to be a comedian. Unfortunately, he's not very good at it, considered to be washed up, and pursuing the job only makes life harder for him and his son. To make matters worse, in all but two endings, not only is he unable to become successful, but he's also killed off in a gruesome way.
• Visual Pun: A "blockhead" is older slang for someone stupid or foolish. Komeji does tend to make a lot of foolish decisions, especially one that gets him killed, and, well, look at his head.

Shoma Enda

Shoma Enda

Voiced by: Hiromi Igarashi (Japanese), Greg Vinciguerra (English)

A classmate of Mizuki's during her time in elementary school and a prodigy in engineering. He's not on the best of terms with his father, Andes Komeji.

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• The Ageless: As a result of Chikara's experiments, Shoma ages so slowly he's effectively this, and is considered Chikara's only success at discovering eternal life.
• Big Damn Heroes: Bears special mention as if he hadn't shown up with the others it would have been impossible to destroy the rocket containing the TC-PERGE, due to the bombs he had made and his robot being able to move them.
• Big Sister Worship: He's extremely protective of and says nothing but positive things about his sister Amame, even standing in the way of the police attempting to bring her in for questioning.
• Character Development: Post-timeskip he's generally a lot more easygoing and friendly, having moved past his angsty nature from when he was a preteen, despite the fact he's still harboring a murderous grudge toward Tearer.
• Chekhov's Gag: When meeting Shoma for the first time, Ryuki can ask as a joke if Shoma is constructing a bomb. Then later on it turns out Shoma can construct an exact replica of Tearer's thermite bombs which are used for stopping the latter's plan for good.
• Child Prodigy: He creates a fully functioning robot at the age of twelve.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: He grew to resent his father because his complete ineptitude at stand-up comedy caused many of his classmates, including former friends, to bully him. Tama remarks during his Somnium that this is awful, but that it also isn't fair to blame his father for what his classmates are doing, as all he's been trying to do is support Shoma and live his dream at the same time.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He's got a knack for robotic engineering, able to create a functional robot helper by himself. He also engineers a series of thermite bombs that the heroes use to take down Tearer's rocket in the finale.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: He's always seen wearing a pair of blue headphones, and Shoma specifies he isn’t even listening to music but only using the Noise Canceling feature instead, it takes a fair amount of prodding to make him open up when Ryuki initially asks him about his father and the "Bats490" video.
• I Reject Your Reality: The theme of his Somnium. Due to his father's lack of success as a comedian, he's been subject to incessant bullying at school to the point of despising his own family name and believing that everything around him is fake. This is also the reason why he is drawn to Naix's ideology.
• I Wished You Were Dead: Due to his increasing frustration with his Dad's mistakes, Shoma finally blurts this out to Komeji when it turns out he stole something he shouldn't have. Unfortunately, there's no taking back these words, as Komeji is murdered just a few hours later when attempting to right his wrongs. He's understandably very upset he never had a chance to make up and take back those words.
• Jerkass Realization: He yells at Komeji to just die already and get out of his life... which is the last thing he says to him before he does just that. When Shoma discovers his body first-hand, he runs off in a mix of both horror and guilt. In the present day the "likes" in his profile are amended to include his father, indicating that he's since come to regret the way he treated Komeji when he was alive.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Initially aloof and standoffish, with a tendency to insult people, but he can be pretty friendly and outgoing once he warms up to someone.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During his epilogue in the Resolution ending, he says that he still misses his dad, but takes solace in the belief that there is another parallel timeline where his father is still alive and able to have a happy life with him. This is a clear nod to the Andes and Shoma route that you completed before unlocking the Resolution route. And it even applies to the Divergence secret ending you can get right after finishing the epilogue.
• Older Than They Look: He still looks like he's 12 even post-timeskip when he's 18. This is due to Chikara's experiments on him slowing his aging.
• Replacement Goldfish: His first robot was stolen by Amame to plant the half of Uru's corpse at the stadium and is never recovered, so he simply builds a duplicate.
• Tsundere:
  • Has a crush on Mizuki, his classmate, but vehemently denies it whenever she’s brought up in a conversation. Due to circumstances causing him to age extremely slowly and pretty much shutting himself down from the outside world, he never pursues this. His crush seems to mostly fade away post-Time Skip, though "A Certain Girl" is still listed under his Likes.
  • Despite all the resentment towards his father, Shoma still loves him deep down and is devastated by his death.
• Unwitting Test Subject: Chikara Horadori informed him that he had a rare, fatal genetic illness, and encouraged him to participate in gene therapy at Horadori Institute in order to cure him. After a few treatments, Shoma stole some paperwork from Chikara's desk and, after translating it from German, learned that he was actually being subjected to experiments; confronting Chikara about it led to the doctor blackmailing him into undergoing more treatments without telling anyone else, as his altered genetics now made him reliant on Chikara's medication to live.
• Vengeance Denied: He plots to kill Tearer after the murder of his father. Amame beats him to it.
• When He Smiles: Several characters note that he has a really nice smile, making it feel special whenever he truly opens up or feels happy.
• You Killed My Father: One Wink Psync reveals that he seeks justice for the events of six years ago. He plots to kill Tearer with some thermite bombs, but Tearer is already dead at the hands of his sister, who also wanted revenge for their father.

Shoma's elder sister (HEAVY SPOILERS)

Amame Doi

For tropes related to her, see AI: The Somnium Files.

Brahman World Cuisine

Gen Ishiyagane

Gen Ishiyagane

Voiced by: Yasumichi Kushida (Japanese) SungWon Cho (English)

The owner and head chef of the restaurant, which is frequently visited by Ryuki and Mizuki. Due to having a rather scary face, he prefers to always wear a mask.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Iris, Amame and Ryuki call him "Genny" ("Gen-chan" in the original).
• All Love Is Unrequited: While he forced himself to see Amame as a friend or treat her as a daughter, he internally laments that he has romantically fallen for her, but refrains from saying anything because he feels that her love for him is a lot more platonic.
• Beast and Beauty: The Beast to Amame's Beauty.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: He sees Mame, who never once fears or loathes him despite his hideous appearance, as a very important person to him, and vows to protect her at all costs. He even admits to falling in love with her (albeit in his mind only) in their ending.
• Body Horror: In addition to his deformed body, according to Chikara his skin is so rough that it more closely resembles rock than human flesh.
• The Cavalry: One third of the cavalry, along with Mizuki and Lien. He acts as a counterpart to Ota, from the first game's iteration of this trope.
• Chef of Iron: Despite being a sweet, mild-mannered guy most of the time, Gen is one of the strongest fighters in the series thanks to his genetic modifications enhancing his strength and endurance to superhuman levels. He joins the ABIS agents in battle against the various goon squads they face off against on numerous occasions.
• Covert Pervert: Lien claims that he, Gen, and Date regularly meet up to discuss and trade porn magazines. Gen confirms this when you run into him at Marble.
• Cursed with Awesome: Gen is horribly deformed due to Chikara's genetic engineering, which has caused him no end of suffering as he's spent his whole life being ostracized for his appearance. He is forced to wear a full-body costume 24/7 to avoid horrifying everyone around him. However, this same deformity also grants him powerful, rock-like skin and muscles, resulting in impressive Super-Strength and Super-Toughness which comes in very handy during several of the game's action scenes.
• The Faceless: He wears a full-body mascot costume in order to hide his deformities, making his true appearance a mystery. None of the routes in nirvanA Initiative unmask him either; the most you get to see is his skull via X-Ray Vision.
• Face of a Thug: Exaggerated; an X-ray of his skull later reveals it's outright deformed, meaning he looks like a horror movie monster on top of the mask he wears making him look exactly like a Slasher Movie villain. He's a perfectly Nice Guy.
• Facial Horror: An X-ray of his head reveals exactly why Gen hides his face - his skull has a peculiar shape, as well as uneven eye sockets, suggesting that his face is horrific to behold.
• Friendly Rivalry: He butts heads with Ota Matsushida due their differences in cooking philosophies; while Ota is a good cook in his own right, managing the restaurant to be quite popular, he doesn’t think anything of fancy cuisine, thinking that as long as costumers are satisfied with his simple dishes then everything is fine; Gen strongly disapproves of such mindset, believing a chef should strive to offer costumers with dishes beyond expectations, thus he thinks Ota is inferior to his late father whom Gen actually respects. That said Ota and Gen aren’t enemies, they have mutual friends after all.
• Frying Pan of Doom: He favors a frying pan as his weapon of choice during combat.
• Gentle Giant: A hulking muscular man who easily towers over other cast members and has a mild disposition.
• Gonk: Not only is his skull horribly deformed, his whole skeleton is messed up severely. He's well aware of the horrifying appearance he has, so he tries to keep himself as concealed as possible to avoid getting unnecessary attention.
• The Grotesque: A Classic Quasimodo-esque example, right down to his face being seen as hideous by many, but managed to find an unrequited love with a gentle and kind girl in Amame.
• The Juggernaut: Gen is so insanely durable and strong that he can tank a pile of thermite bombs exploding and comes out no worse for wear. This is a result of genome manipulation, but still. When "Gen" gets easily beaten up by a group of riot police in one scene, it's the hint that someone else is under that costume.
• Karma Houdini: Gen can't be legally punished for helping Amame hide a dead body in his freezer since the crime was performed six years ago and the statute of limitations for abandoning a body is only three. Mizuki tries to use this to persuade Gen to allow her to interrogate Amame, to little avail. Amame would have also walked free after her Psync, if ABIS hadn't discovered that she committed an even worse crime only a few days before.
• Nice Guy: Delightfully nice to just about everyone he talks to, barring Ota.
• Noodle Incident: He claims that he and Date have seen each other's buttholes, though he does not elaborate further.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Gen is a huge, muscular man with a deep voice. His costume's blue work overalls are patched with pictures of blue stars and a unicorn.
• Remember the New Guy?: Despite members of ABIS regularly going to his restaurant, he nor his restaurant was never brought up in the first game. Justified however seeing as how it would’ve not been important to the events of the first game and it only recently moved to Golden Yokocho, but apparently Date constantly eats there, something that isn't mentioned in the first game.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Gen is genial and nice to everyone. But talking about Ota and Matsushita Diner is enough to piss him off (at least as pissed off as he's capable of getting). And it's specifically about Ota, as Gen respects Ota's late father.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Gen's durability varies drastically from route to route. In the Explosion route, Gen is able to withstand an explosion consisting of several thermite bombs without any visible injury. In his and Amame's route, he's ultimately put down by automatic rifle fire.
• Super-Soldier: He was the subject of the prototype genetic therapy that led to both Mizuki's Super-Strength. While very much a Flawed Prototype due to his deformed bone structure, he's even stronger than they are and far more resilient.
• Supreme Chef: Gen's food is very delicious, as many characters comment. If his cooking is only just "good", it means something serious is going on with him.
• Taking the Bullet: Takes dozens of live bullets to his back protecting Mame in their ending.
• Undying Loyalty: He'll do anything for Amame, including helping her hide a corpse, resisting arrest, obstructing an investigation, and taking automatic fire aimed at her.
• Vague Age: It's unclear how old he is due to his face being covered and his profile does not list his age, it's implied he's closer to Date's age than Lien's.

Horadori Institute of Genetics

Chikara Horadori (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Chikara Horadori

Voiced by: Mitsuru Ogata (Japanese), Frank Todaro (English)

The Director of the Horadori Institute of Genetics, who's accomplishments in genome therapy have enabled the advancement of gene editing methods that can cure genetic conditions and diseases previously thought untreatable. He is obsessed with the pursuit of immortality, and the true nature of his experiments have made him subject to many shady rumors.

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• Asshole Victim: Dies shortly after his Somnium, and only seems like a kooky scientist at first, but as the game progresses and more details on what he actually did as a scientist are revealed, his death is nothing short of justified.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Initially presented as an incidental scientist whose contributions to the plot are to point Ryuki toward Naix and then immediately die. As the game goes along, it becomes clear that he's directly responsible for Tearer being a threat and many of the problems in the other characters' lives.
• Dream Weaver: Downplayed. His Somnium is full of involuntary symbolisms just like everybody else's, but he is able to block off one of the Somnium's doors with a dream antibody at the beginning, and later on performs a "reselection" to shuffle away some of the memories he doesn't want to dream about — such that the one piece of info you ultimately scrounge is his involvement with Naixatloz. Either he has a very minor degree of dream lucidity, or he's somehow trained himself to resist this kind of interrogation.
• Forehead of Doom: An entire half of his head is just elongated forehead.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Ultimately the threat of the Tearer, as well as many other difficulties in the cast's lives, are direct results of his experiments.
• Hate Sink: Less so during his introduction and Somnium, wherein he comes across as more of an eccentric with suspicious ties to Naix, but nothing that implicates him too deeply in the case. However, after his death, as more of the backstory is revealed, it becomes clear that a lot of suffering the other cast members have to endure can be traced back to him. He has practically no redeeming qualities to balance out his horrid actions and as a result, no named character feels sorry for him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He invented the slicer, likely with the intention of using it on Uru, only to ultimately die due to Uru using it on him.
• Hypocrite: As a follower of the Order of %, he doesn't believe actions have moral implications, as the world is digital - whatever someone wants is justified. However, despite having committed countless atrocities For Science!, he still sacked Lien upon discovering the latter's criminal record, because he believes that someone who's fallen to the depths of stealing can never rise again. This reveals that he thinks the lack of moral consequences applies only to him.
• Immortality Immorality: One of his goals is to find a way to stop and reverse the aging process through DNA manipulation. This drove him to become a Mad Scientist who subjects people to horrific and torturous experiments.
• Immortality Seeker: The main motivation behind his experiments is finding a way to stop or reverse the aging process. He's even succeeded already with one of his subjects, Shoma Enda, who looks exactly like a 12-year old at 18.
• Karma Houdini: Subverted in the ending to the Diverge route. The Frayer's invocation of the Nil number that allows Tokiko to achieve Moksha, which in turn allows Ryuki to gain all the information he needs to solve the HB case before the tragic events of the game befall the main cast, is something that happens before Chikara's corpse is found. This leaves open the possibility that he survived in that route. However, because Chikara's actual time of death was approximated to be minutes before Ryuki's first encounter with Tokiko, he's ultimately not spared in the ending.
• Killed Off for Real: Gets his just desserts in every single route. Even the Divergence Route, where Ryuki is blessed with foreknowledge to solve the entire case before all the bad things and deaths happens with the good characters, can only be accessible after Chikara’s death.
• Lack of Empathy: Chikara is a follower of the Order of %, a Religion of Evil that teaches that since reality is a simulation, they are allowed to do whatever they want. Chikara also wishes to create the perfect human and attain immortality, and in the process subjects his victims to horrifying and torturous experiments, not showing the slightest hint of empathy for the people whose lives he destroys in the process.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The man whose torture of Uru caused him to despise existence and become the Tearer is his second victim.
• Mad Scientist: In order to discover the secret to attaining immortality through DNA, he performed horrible experiments that essentially amounted to serial child torture. And when his son started growing tumors on one half of his body, Chikara seriously contemplated the idea of splitting his son and another kidnapped child in half and fusing his son's healthy side with the kidnapped child's other side. At least enough to create two machines for that explicit purpose (which were later used for the Half Body serial killings by the kidnapped child he had driven to insanity).
• Meaningful Name: The hora (法螺) in Horadori is made up of two kanji meaning "rule/principle" and "helix", respectively. Chikara (力), meanwhile, simply means "power".
• Narcissist: His Somnium is chock-full of paeans to his own intelligence. There's a Running Gag throughout wherein he'll hammily and gleefully proclaim his own genius and "ecstasy" upon the success of a brain-combining 'experiment'... despite most of these being puzzles which Tama is solving and, moreover, her solving them being something he doesn't want (as it brings her closer to his secrets).
• Moral Myopia: He follows the Order of %'s creed that actions don't have moral implications but only when it applies to him. He was more than willing to label Lien a lost cause after finding out about his past criminal record.
• Walking Spoiler: His relevance in the Half Body Serial Killings investigation leads to some truly alarming twists.
• Would Hurt a Child: Performs countless experiments on several children (including Mizuki when she was a mere baby).

The Chiedas

Kizuna Chieda

Kizuna Chieda

Voiced by: Emiri Suyama (Japanese), Amanda Lee (English)

^{(spoiler warning) Click here to see her six years in the future}

A wealthy senior at Sekiba Girls' High School, and classmate of Iris Sagan and Amame Doi during the events of Ryuki's side of the story; through her classmates, she's also friends with Mizuki.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Called "Kizzy" ("Kizunacchi" in the original) by a variety of characters.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Lien falls head over heels upon hearing her sing for the first time.
• Beware the Nice Ones: A particularly extreme case of this happens during the Resolution Ending, when this sweet, gentle, loving girl pulls out a goddamn MINIGUN (though it is later revealed to have been loaded with non-lethal rubber bullets) and starts mowing down Mooks while yelling "COME GET SOME, MOTHERFUCKERS!".
• Cloudcuckoolander: Downplayed but her thought processes can be rather strange, like calling someone significantly younger than her "Big Sis" and feeling a compulsive need to dance when in a good enough mood. Then there's her odd choice to differentiate Mizuki and Bibi by respectively calling them "Little Big Sis" and "Big Big Sis".
• Couple Theme Naming: Her first name means "bonds" in Japanese; Lien's means the same thing in French.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Losing the ability to walk, and by extension dance like she always wanted, puts her through the emotional wringer.
• Damsel in Distress: Tearer kidnaps her for the purposes of baiting the heroes, and Date in particular, to the cathedral. Even after they save her, Tearer's explosion cripples her from the waist down.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: Her dream of becoming a dancer is forever dashed when she loses the ability to walk in an explosion.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: Her love of fairy tales shapes many aspects of her personality; she lives a privileged life like you'd expect of a classic princess, dreams of meeting her "Prince Charming", is prone to song and dance numbers, and is shows a deep kindness towards almost everyone. This extends to her Somnium, which is framed as a fairy tale unfolding with a big storybook for Mizuki and Aiba to follow along.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Is said to be best friends with Iris and Amame, but is rarely seen together with or talks about either of them.
• Friend to All Children: She genuinely loves spending time with children and is often found hanging out at her father's orphanage.
• Gatling Good: In the final battle against Naix, she's manning a gatling gun presumably loaned from the Kumakuras on the back of their ATV.
• Handicapped Badass: Although she is confined to a wheelchair after the Explosion Ending, the Resolution Ending has her wielding a minigun and taking out lots of Mooks during a Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Is noted to be quite close to Mizuki and even calls her “Big Sis”.
• Irony: Even though Love at First Sight is a very common element in the fairy tales she loves so much, when she's on the receiving end of the trope from Lien, she's rather weirded out.
• Missing Mom: She is noted to live with her father Riichi, while Tama explains her mother died long ago.
• Nice Girl: A mild-mannered girl who is kind to everyone, even though she can be quite blunt at times.
• Ojou: Her father is one of the richest people in Japan and she speaks in a very formal manner.
• Precision F-Strike: Doesn't swear at all until the final battle against Naix where she yells out the word "motherfuckers".
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: She wears tights with her uniform, befitting of an ojou, in contrast with her friends Iris and Amame, who respectively wear knee-high and thigh-high stockings.
• Remember the New Guy?: Is extremely close to Iris, Amame, and Mizuki and apparently has been for a long time, but isn't mentioned in the first game.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She dreams of meeting her "Prince Charming" one day who will happily sweep her off her feet. Then Lien comes into the picture who at first is overbearing in his pursuits, but eventually comes to show that he's a kind man deep down.
• Stepford Smiler: She tries to keep her level-headed, cheerful nature even after losing the ability to walk, but it's made abundantly clear she is deeply depressed.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: After the Nirvana Initiative is thwarted and Kizuna can finally move past the trauma of her paralysis, she starts to regain her cheeriness from before the timeskip.

Riichi Chieda

Riichi Chieda

Voiced by: Masaki Terasoma (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)

Kizuna's father, a wealthy man who is the main funder of the Horadori Institute of Genetics, and chairman of Aioen. Rather overprotective of his daughter, and dislikes Lien.

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• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: A massive one. He outright despises Lien and tries to keep Kizuna away from him by any means necessary. He coerces Kizuna into breaking up with Lien, threatens to send Lien to jail using his influence if she refuses to comply, and compensates him with a wad of cash (which Lien throws away in disgust). When that doesn't work, he resorts to hiring a group of foreign mercenaries.
  • He is eventually forced to accept Kizuna and Lien's relationship in the end, since the media labeled them a cute power couple after they helped foil Naixatloz's terrorist plot; Riichi doesn't want the press portraying him as the villainous father who destroyed such a popular couple. In the Divergence Route, the couple is also formed but it is unknown if it is with or without Riichi's approval.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: His attitude towards Horadori; there's too much good stuff he does for him to feel safe just killing it.
• Cop Hater: Voices his disdain for law enforcement when he first meets Ryuki. It seems like a stereotypical rich guy's attitude towards civil servants at first, but later in the story, it may be explained by the fact that when he reported Horadori Institute's inhumane experiments to the police, they refused to conduct a formal investigation, citing lack of evidence, causing Riichi to turn to the press instead.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: When first introduced, he pulls no punch insulting the law enforcement and dismissively responses to Ryuki's questions. He also makes no secret of his disdain for Lien, trying to get Kizuna to stop seeing him on multiple occasions up to and including hiring a group of foreign mercenaries who have no qualms about killing anyone aside from Kizuna, and continues funding the Horadori Institute despite being quite aware of the horrific experiments Chikara was running. However, he runs the Aioen orphanage out of genuine concern for orphaned children, and was actually the one to leak what was happening at Horadori to the press. The reason he continues to fund it despite Chikara's return is because everything else the institute does, like finding a cure for Bibi's heart disease, was too important to keep it closed. Lien eventually convinces him his intentions are sincere, and he cheers up sincerely.
• Punny Name: His first name sounds a little bit like "rich", which is fitting given that he's one of the wealthiest people in Japan.

Yoyagi Park

Lien Twining

Lien Twining

Voiced by: Hidenori Takahashi (Japanese), Y. Chang (English)

A locksmith with a sordid past, who frequents the Matsushita Diner.

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• Bigger Is Better in Bed: In the end with Mama shamelessly asking her Milky Balls which man among their friends have the biggest member, with Mizuki betting on him, Lien seems to be packing some serious heat down under.
• Bridal Carry: Does this to Kizuna as he performs her signature dance.
• But Not Too Foreign: He says he's half-American, half-Japanese when introducing himself to Kizuna.
• The Cavalry: One third of the cavalry, along with Mizuki and Gen. He acts as a counterpart to Moma, from the first game's iteration of this trope.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: His lockpicking skills, initially mentioned as just an aside, are repeatedly called back to and come in handy on multiple occasions.
• Couple Theme Naming: His name is French for "bond" and is acknowledged in-game; Kizuna's given name means the same thing in Japanese.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Despite the not-so-pleasant first impression he makes on Kizuna (borderline stalking her amidst an intense personal life crisis), he has been doing whatever he can to support her, especially after she becomes wheelchair-bound. However, Kizuna thinks he keeps her company simply out of guilt.
• Drowning My Sorrows: He's introduced in Matsushita Diner drinking sadly in a corner. Subverted when it turns out he's drinking non-alcoholic beer.
• Dub Pronunciation Change: Between the Japanese and English versions, his name uses different vowel sounds and is accented on different syllables. In Japanese, it's "RAI-en", while in English, it's "lee-EN".
• Dumb Is Good: Not the brightest guy around for sure, but Lien’s honesty and one-track mind are also his greatest charms as it earns him plenty of new friends who quickly look past the fact he is an ex-con - only the worst person in the story, Chikara, and the overprotective dad, Riichi, ever look down on him for that. His Somnium shows it best: it is the most honest one in the game, where the only real secret Lien tries to hide is on someone else’s behalf, while he is an open book, and Mizuki praises him for that.
• Face of a Thug: He's a brutish-looking man who makes a terrible first impression, making him look like a creepy stalker with an entitlement complex. It turns out he was just in the midst of an emotional breakdown at the time, and he's actually completely harmless and an all around Nice Guy.
• Gag Penis: According to Mama, he has the largest member among Mizuki's male friends. Keep in mind that the pool most likely includes Gen.
• Hidden Depths: Knows just about every step of Kizuna's dance even though she hasn't been able to walk for six years.
• Improbable Weapon User: Wields an oversized key as a weapon in a few scenes.
• Just Like Robin Hood: During the epilogue, Lien mentions that he only ever stole from people making dirty money, and that Quartz (AKA Bibi) would donate it to orphanages. Though it is mentioned that they both earned Moma a good amount of money as well, earning them a place on his good side.
• Love at First Sight: Parodied. After seeing Kizuna's dance at Matsushita Diner, and hearing her say that she dreams of having a Prince Charming take her away, Lien immediately falls madly in love with her, asking her to date him on the spot. Just three days later, he proceeds to blow his entire life savings on a pair of glass slippers and once again proposes to her. This does nothing but make Kizuna very uncomfortable, and it's implied he is having a mental breakdown. Six years later, it turns out the two of them genuinely do have feelings for each other, though Kizuna worries that Lien is only staying with her out of guilt for her injuries.
• Nice Guy: Stalker with a Crush tendencies aside, Lien is an all-around good-hearted guy.
• Reformed Criminal: He used to be a professional thief, but went clean after he got caught and did his time. He got a job at Horadori Institute as a janitor, only to get fired when the director found out about his shady past. He eventually got a job as a locksmith.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Even though he's given up his thieving ways, there are some who believe once a criminal, always a criminal. He was fired from his job at Horadori Institute when the director found out about his criminal past, and Riichi despises the idea of him being with his daughter so much that he hires a band of mercenaries who have no qualms about killing bystanders as long as they secure Kizuna. He eventually gets so fed up with it that he refuses to use his lockpicking skills anymore, since he wants to distance himself from his past as much as possible.
• Remember the New Guy?: Apparently another friend of Date's that was not mentioned at all in the first game.
• Satellite Love Interest: Downplayed, as Lien does have other aspects of his character outside of Kizuna, such as his criminal past, lockpicking skills, and issues relating to his future. But a vast majority about Lien revolves around Kizuna: She is his motivation, what he constantly talks about, and his character arc consists of proving that he'll do anything for Kizuna. His Establishing Character Moment is even marked by him proclaiming his love to her.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: You'd expect a guy who triggered as many alarm bells as he did in his introduction to have a not-so-hidden dark side and entitlement complex, but it turns out that he legitimately is a Nice Guy who just wants to move on from his criminal past.
• Stalker with a Crush: After he professes his love to Kizuna and she rejects him multiple times, Lien follows her around multiple times, with Mizuki being less than thrilled.
• Trademark Favorite Drink: Is usually seen with a can of non-alcoholic beer called "ALFREE".

Naixatloz

Tokiko Shigure (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Tokiko Shigure

Voiced by: Yoko Soumi (Japanese), Laura Post (English)

The President of the Japan Branch of Naixatloz, an organization that believes their reality is merely a simulation. She was also acquainted with Jin Furue, the first victim of the Half Body Serial Killings.

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• Ancient Conspiracy: Defied. She outright says that while Naix is a secretive organization, they don't actively erase evidence of their existence, and they aren't interested in politics, simply transcendence from digital reality.
• Ambiguously Evil: It's difficult to say just how she feels about Uru's killings and his Nirvana Initiative plan. She is certainly aware of it and hiding key information about the subject, but she seems to do very little in terms of actually assisting and her overall plan not only is dependent on it ultimately failing but in another timeline prevents Uru from ever getting as far as he does in the first place. Combined with her disgust at what Chikara has done to Uru, her cold yet affable nature, as well as her cordial relationship with Mamoru (her bodyguard), it's hard to pin down just how villainous she really is.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Her ultimate goal is to transcend her reality and reach Moksha. She ultimately does.
• Back from the Dead: She claims she has the ability to resurrect herself. She appears to be able to do this at first glance, but it's ultimately subverted by the reveal that the timeline is not as it seems.
• Batman Gambit: Her overall plan to reach Moksha is dependent on a number of variables, including Tearer's Nirvana Initiative plan failing, Mizuki and Bibi opting to go to the Naixatloz building after everything's been resolved, the particular function of her hologram that includes the Nil Number not being discovered along with the rest of them, and Amame opting to go along with her blackmail rather than owning up to killing Uru.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Tokiko and the rest of Naix's devotees do believe that the world is a simulation, but understandably no one has any reason to believe anything they're saying is true. But then she's actually proven right when Ryuki—with the Frayer's/Player's help—actually manages to tear the seams of reality, causing Tokiko to become freed and using future-knowledge to arrest Tearer a lot earlier and prevent multiple tragedies from occurring.
• Dead All Along: Inverted when it comes to the past segments. Despite how players are lead to believe that she died six years ago, it turns out she only ends up dying in the present, and she is fully alive in the past segments.
• Driven to Suicide: Attempted suicide in the past due to feelings of guilt over Chikara's treatment of Uru. She later succeeds at killing herself, but as part of an elaborate plan rather than an actual desire to die.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She's an amoral cult leader with little regard for life, but even she found Chikara's experiments horrific.
• Expy: She's incredibly similar to the Zero masterminds of the Zero Escape games ( Akane, Sigma, Delta), as she's explicitly aware of the presence of alternate timelines and manipulates the protagonists to explore them and gather information in order to achieve the ideal outcome for herself. The main difference is that the presence and effect of AlternateTimelines in the Zero Escape games had an In-Universe explanation involving Morphogenetic Fields and "shift"ing, whereas Nirvana Initiative straight-up breaks the fourth wall by implying that the only one actually hopping between timelines is you, the player. Furthermore, the masterminds of Zero Escape had a personal connection with the protagonists that serves as a key aspect to their motivations, but Tokiko has no such personal attachments to any of the player characters, and merely manipulates them because they serve as a convenient conduit to you, the Frayer.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: In the Gainax Ending path, she actually manipulates the player into helping her ascend, but she's enough of a good sport to help solve the mystery in a way that everyone sympathetic survives and is in a good place.
  • Also, in a subtler way, in her first Wink Psync she simply stands there looking directly at the player, as if being aware of them.
• Goroawase Number: Her surname Shigure is one for the number 490, indicating her connection to the "Bats490" video that was uploaded to ViewQube some time before "Fray to Free".
• Greater-Scope Villain: She's the ultimate origin of Uru's beliefs and was the one who convinced him to become more violent - and in the Gainax Ending, claims to have orchestrated things in a Batman Gambit to convince the player there was a Golden Ending, tricking them into exposing a seam she could use to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. She does, however, make good on her promise and improve the situation for everyone greatly.
• Insistent Terminology: Repeatedly insists on calling Naix's teachings a philosophy, not a religion.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: While she is the Greater-Scope Villain, she shows genuine compassion to her followers and wasn't on board with Uru's murderous Nirvana Initiative; she didn't act directly to stop him, feeling responsible for her student's welfare, but after he died, she set up things so that his plot would fail in at least one timeline, and two if a version of herself achieved Moksha.
• The Man Behind the Man: Post-timeskip, everything involving her and Uru's bodies was orchestrated by her giving Amame instructions on what to do, which kickstarted the present day narrative.
• Not So Above It All: As much as she talks about being above concern for the material world and carries herself in a cold, analytical manner, she's not above recording a hologram for the purpose of singing "Happy Birthday to You" to herself.
• Older Than They Look: At the beginning of the game, she's a few days away from her 54th birthday. To put in perspective how impressive that is: Tokiko is as old as Ota’s mother Mayumi, someone who does look her age, making Tokiko the oldest woman in the entire cast seen in nirvanA Initiative. Made even more impressive with the reveal that she is almost 60 in the present timeline when she dies.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In a rather twisted way, but her educating Uru in the views of Naix was done as an attempt to reduce his suffering by making him believe that his torture wasn't really happening.
  • As she points out, her ultimate plan, while it did rely on people dying, would also create a timeline where Tearer's plan comes to a grinding halt shortly after Chikara was killed, saving many other characters from death or suffering as a result.
  • As her Somnium reveals, she feels a great amount of pity towards Gen and Shoma, two experiments by Chikara that had no say on whether or not they wanted to be part of the latter's machinations.
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: She's able to "tear the seams" of reality when Ryuki gives her the Nil number, when it would only be discovered by Mizuki and Bibi 6 years later.
• The Stoic: She's completely unflappable, her emotions are more or less in check all the time. The most extreme facial expression is when she's talking about the possibility of Naix's simulation theory being true, at which point she has a crazed expression with a wide smile on her face. But even then, her volume remains the same.
• Thanatos Gambit: Arranged her own death under bizarre and nonsensical circumstances for the purposes of attempting to create a scenario where she could corrupt the timeline enough for her to reach Moksha. She succeeds.
• Walking Spoiler: In addition to the name of her organization being referenced in a completely different context during the previous game, Tokiko's secret machinations are deeply intertwined with the Half Body Serial Killings.

Other Characters

Mikoto Ushidera

Mikoto Ushidera

A detective investigating the HB case.

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• Cold Ham: Almost always talks in a low, ominous-sounding voice, with multiple brief dramatic pauses per sentence.
• Hero of Another Story: He's a veteran detective who's skilled enough to acquire a Red Baron title. Not that we get to see him do anything too helpful here.
• Mr. Exposition: He's mostly around to give details on crime scenes, not really appearing anywhere else.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His face looks like the Buddha’s.
• Not So Stoic: He's visibly very touched by Mizuki (actually Bibi) giving him chocolates for Valentine's Day.
• Red Baron: He's come to be known as "the Melter" due to his talent at solving cold cases.
• Red Herring: One might initially think this suspiciously designed character might have some sort of connection to the culprit or mystery in general. Nope, not even close. Aside from being a source of exposition, he is not relevant in any way whatsoever.
• Sweet Tooth: The Likes in his bios are all assorted snacks. His Wink Psyncs show him thinking about grabbing some caramel to keep his brain energized.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He's the only character besides Amame and So to be absent from the Dance Party Ending. Notable is that unlike the other two, he's not in prison or out of the country.

Jin Furue (HEAVY SPOILERS)

Jin Furue

^{Click to see his true face}

^{Click to see his face before surgery}

The CEO of the IT company "Music Foods". He was the first victim of the Half Body Serial Killings, with both halves of his body being found on February 10th, but six years apart from each other.

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• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Handsome Son to Chikara, lacking both his father's Forehead of Doom and disregard for ethics, feeling horrible for what happened to Uru for his sake - and got fed into the splitting machine for his trouble. His more handsome appearance is justified, however - it's actually Uru's appearance, due to having had part of Uru's face cosmetically grafted onto him. His real face was rather plain and had a large birthmark on the left side of it.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He apparently went to Uru's "living space" to apologize for all the agony Uru faced for being Jin's unwilling organ donor. However, having stewed in his anger and hatred of Jin for years (particularly that Jin was able to call Tokiko mother, something Uru desperately wished to do) meant that Uru had no desire to accept the apology. Instead, he punched Jin out and proceeded to murder him, kickstarting the story.
• Parental Neglect: By all accounts, Chikara and Tokiko were both not very close to Jin. Neither are torn up about the death of their child, or seem even the slightest bit remorseful of the whole event to begin with.
• Posthumous Character: Naturally considering his murder is what begins the story. However, we don't really learn exactly what he was like, as various characters have differing opinions of him. Some think he was a genius, others think he was arrogant. The one thing that we can likely say about him is that he felt guilty about everything that was inflicted on Uru as he went to apologize to him. However, Uru hated him too much and murdered him.
• Red Herring: An odd example. When half of Tearer's face is first seen, due to appearing to be identical to Jin combined with Tokiko saying that Chikara referred to him as "almighty" and the zigzagging nature of the timeline suggesting that Tearer is targeting Date in the past due to events in the future, the implication seems to be that Jin in some way came back from the dead to function as Tearer and is aware of other timelines. Nope - the Tearer is Jin's unwilling organ donor and Criminal Doppelgänger Uru, and he's an enemy of Date's because he knows the detective is looking into his faction of Naix.
• Shrinking Violet: According to his nurse he was very shy and timid as a teenager. Considering what his parents were like, this seems like a natural conclusion.
• Two-Faced: On half of his face, he has blonde hair (Uru's original face) — on the other half, he has shorter black hair and a %-shaped birthmark. The reason you only see the blonde side before The Reveal about him and Tearer is because all of his photos are doctored to mirror that side to the other half of his face.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Jin's actual personality and thoughts never come from himself, as about everything we know is from words of others, but a couple things can be implied.

Tearer (HEAVY SPOILERS)

Uru Somezuki

Voiced by: Kengo Kawanishi (Japanese), Billy Kametz (English)

^{Click to see his true face}

The ultimate culprit behind the Half-Body Serial Killings. Since he was kidnapped by Chikara since he was six, he ended up being experimented on by his kidnapper. As a result, he ended up accepting Naix's teachings, and fully wishes to get out of "this fake reality".

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• Acquired Poison Immunity: Not so much poison, but anesthetic. Tearer is hit by a heavy anesthetic that's supposed to knock him out for 12 hours, he's back up and walking around in less than an hour. He explains that as someone who's been exposed to a lot of anesthetic, he's developed great resistance to it.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Mizuki feels some sympathy for him after all is said and done, given how he was held in captivity and experimented on for nearly all of his life.
• Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. Uru was a remorseless killer who fully intended to kill many people with TC-PERGE under the idea that it would prove the theory that Naix truly believed in. But despite this, he also suffered from endless abuse and manipulation that caused him to drastically lash out against those who he felt wronged him. While his death was deserved on account of how he planned to cause millions to die or kill others, it also causes much harm to his killer despite how justified they may have been. Mizuki doesn't even think he applies when it comes to this trope, viewing him as a Tragic Villain instead.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Entirely justified. Having no parents to call his own, being kidnapped, experimented on and used as a living organ donor isolated from the rest of the world and essentially kept more like an animal than a human being with only cultist ideologies to cling to, it's no wonder Uru lost his mind and became a murderer.
• Big Bad: Was ultimately responsible for the Half-Body Serial Killings, and while Tokiko kickstarted the Present half of the case, he started killing on his own, with the present timeline being more a reaction to his own death.
• The Chessmaster: In spades. He even had a bunch of plans set up in case of his own death, which pay dividends for him when he is the victim of Amame's revenge.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Saito Sejima. Saito was more or less Ax-Crazy from birth and made worse by a loveless upbringing until he was only driven by his desire for stimulation, with a noted tendency towards recklessness, and works largely on his own, or with a single conspirator. Saito also faces off against the heroes after The Reveal and is very much the Final Boss of the game. On the other hand, Uru is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who was tortured by a Mad Scientist and only shown kindness by Tokiko, causing him to become an ideologically driven fanatic to live up to her ideals of freeing everyone from digital reality, a Diabolical Mastermind leading his own faction of Naix, and a subtle, careful planner who meticulously hides his identity, only exposing himself as much as needed to win converts to Naix or push his faction's terrorist plots, mostly choosing targets for revenge or protecting himself from ABIS. To throw the contrast into even more relief, Uru turns out to be Saito's half-brother. And unlike Saito, Uru is not directly thwarted by the heroes and was Killed Offscreen during the six-year Time Skip. The final battle is against the remnants of Naix and Horadori Institute trying to carry out the plan in his stead.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: To Jin - it's actually his body found in the present that kicks off the investigation again. Horrifically justified, in that Jin's appearance is due to Uru being his unwilling organ donor, with surgery to graft half his face onto Jin's.
• Dark Messiah: Presents himself as the savior who will lead humanity to Moksha.
• Diabolical Mastermind: One of Naix's most important leaders, and a driver behind them becoming more violent.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Courtesy of an artifical modulator. His natural voice turns out to be disarmingly boyish by comparison.
• Facial Horror: Half his face is covered in a chitinous mask, as it was removed to be grafted onto Jin Furue's own.
• Foil:
  • To Bibi. Both are orphans who grew up being horrifically tortured while having a counterpart living a much better life by comparison, but while Bibi loves and wants to protect Mizuki, Uru possesses nothing but seething hatred and jealousy toward Jin and ultimately kills him.
  • Tearer also has notable parallels with Mizuki herself. Both were, in a manner of speaking, adopted by parents who did not stay together, with one actively abusing them while the other was distant and largely neglectful but kinder and thus idolized by comparison. A key difference between them is that while Mizuki had Date to save her from that situation Tearer wasn't lucky enough to receive the same.
  • He's also a foil to Lien. While Lien's pursuits of love may border Stalker with a Crush territory, he swears off any future acts of criminal wrongdoing in order to enable a loving relationship. Tearer is the straight opposite, as he commits multiple crimes and serial killings to earn Tokiko's approval, and tries to impress Amame by embellishing the beliefs he held that would — in his eyes — justify his murder of her father.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Simply winning wasn't good enough for Tearer — people needed to know that he won. His master plan could've easily succeeded if he hadn't insisted on turning the investigation of his murders into a game, and instead leads ABIS right to him multiple times. When Komeji screws up the spectacle by stealing the left half of Jin's body, Tearer murders him as well and has him take Jin's place as the "marker" for where he will launch the TC-Perge missiles from, which allows ABIS to figure out the true purpose of his murders. He then decides to invite Komeji's daughter to his lair so he can brag about killing him to her face, expecting her to understand the grand design his death was done in the name of. She didn't.
• For the Evulz: Downplayed, his killings are all done for the sake of the Nirvana Initiative, and when the heroes question him on whether he's been kidnapping and killing people who watched the Nirvana videos, he tells them he doesn't kill for no reason. That being said, his justification for sending the detectives on a lengthy scavenger hunt, baiting them into a hard spot with a hostage situation, and taking the time out to exposit his plans even when he can kill them at any second, is because he views the world as just a game where he can play with them.
• Freudian Excuse: Being a victim of horrific experiments for nearly his entire life warped his moral code, especially given how the only person who showed him any kindness or escape was a cult leader who viewed the world as fake.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: The one thing he never received in life, and what set him onto a path of becoming a serial killer; he pined for Tokiko's affection and became a devout believer of her cult, to the point that he killed for her sake.
• In the Blood: Averted. He's Saito Sejima's half-brother, but everyone quickly realizes his brain functions normally, and he is driven by saner motives than For the Evulz; Mizuki feels he could have been a normal guy if Chikara hadn't spent all of his formative years torturing him.
• It Amused Me: The reason for why he leaves an elaborate paper trail for the investigators, blackmails Ryuki, and monologues to the heroes about his plans. His ideology makes him think of the world as one big game, and he's taking the time out to play with them while orchestrating his plans.
• It Is De Humanizing: When he holds Tama hostage, he continuously refers to Tama as "it", showing that if she's an AI, he doesn't consider her to be a living thing.
• I Want My Mommy!: Tragically, the very first password needed to break through Uru's mental lock is "MOM HELP ME", indicating that he wanted Tokiko to save him from the hellish torture that was his life.
• Karmic Death: He made the fatal mistake of inviting Amame, the daughter of a man he killed, to have a nice private chat, then gloats about killing Komeji in front of her, leading her to kill him out of rage and revenge.
• The Killer Becomes the Killed: He gets away with three murders only to be killed six years later in the same way at the hands of Amame because he gloated to her about those murders.
• Knight Templar: Fully believes the reality he knows is both fake and a hell, and is willing to do anything to free himself and the rest of Naix from it - even mass murder.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Ultimately what lead to his downfall. Based on their first encounter and the way that Tearer describes Amame in his journal, Date points out that Tearer was "fixated" on Amame. This fixation led to the irrational decision of boasting to Amame about the reasons he killed her father. His expectation that she would take to his beliefs is the one time he drops his guard, and is the reason Amame manages to kill him. The trope is partially justified since Tearer is psychologically unstable from his tortured upbringing, and because the transgressive acts he'd previously done for the sake of love were never questioned by his other target of affection, Tokiko.
• Love Makes You Evil: Both played straight and partially exaggerated with the Tearer's feelings toward his adoptive mother Tokiko; his desire for her affection is described as an Oedipus Complex, and he becomes a serial killer in order to enable her cult-like beliefs which he'd grown enamored with. Justified in that he grew up tortured and sheltered by his adoptive parents who only saw him as a means of curing their biological child.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Even though Chikara and Tokiko kidnapped him, he only came to despise Chikara for using him as an unwilling organ donor, while desperately craved affection from Tokiko, whom he saw as his "mother". Justified, in that Tokiko was the only one of the two who showed him any degree of kindness.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Tearer" is a twofold one since not only does it refer to what he does to his victims, it is also a homophone for "terror."
• Non-Action Big Bad: Uru is a killer yes, but he's not much of a fighter. He usually lets traps or grunts do his dirty work for him.
• Omni Disciplinary Scientist: By his own admission, he's had years to do nothing but learn, as such, he's become very knowledgeable in most things.
• Posthumous Character: Of a sort. In the present day he's already dead and it is, in fact, his body being discovered that kicks off the game.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Uru could have killed Ryuki and Tama the second the latter defied the former's orders, but considering his choices were to kill one person or attempt to kill everyone, he decided that the latter would work better in his favor over spite. Presumably, he doesn't kill them afterwards because it wouldn't help his plans in any way. And unlike Saito, he doesn't act without some logic behind it.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He seems to have a very basic, childish view of the world and little ability to handle setbacks, not surprisingly given how he was treated as a lab rat since he was six.
• Punny Name: "Tearer" is a very multifaceted title for him. It plays into his cutting (or "tearing") people in half, his desire to split humanity off from the world, his clear grief due to his tragic backstory, and it sounds like "terror".
• Revenge: It's stated that part of the reason why he killed Chikara and Jin is due to revenge against them as the former experimented on him all because of the latter's condition. He later kills Komeji for messing up his initial plan, furious that a "thief" would take what was his.
• Sanity Has Advantages: It doesn't take a genius to realize that inviting the woman that you previously held at gunpoint and whose father you brutally murdered to your hideout then turning your back on her is just asking for disaster. He didn't, due to his growing fascination with her and that allowed Amame to knock him out with a wrench before cutting him in half with the device he used to murder her father (and everyone else).
• Significant Anagram: The alias he gives to Ryuki, "Dahlia Boat", can be re-arranged to Ialdabaoth.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Killed three people using the slicer, only to end up being killed with it himself. For bonus points Amame specifically waited until he was awake to activate it.
• Too Clever by Half: Tearer is a genius and he knows it, and has been staying one step ahead of ABIS for six years by the time of Side Mizuki. However, his arrogance leads to his death when he draws Amame out to his hideout and brags about killing her father to her face, then exposes his back to her since he doesn't expect her to actually attack him. And so, Tearer meets his end not at the hands of Ryuki or Mizuki, but a simple waitress that he was too absorbed in his beliefs to recognize the threat of.
• Tragic Villain: He's willing to personally kill a couple people and indirectly kill millions upon potentially billions, but at the same time, he was kidnapped and treated like an animal and unwilling organ donor for a vast majority of his life, with only Naix teachings to cling to. It's no surprise he was performing such extreme measures.
• Two-Faced: As a result of the experiments done on him, he is missing half of his face, with the missing half replaced by an all-black chitinous mask.
• Undignified Death: For a Serial Killer out to cause the apocalypse, getting whacked in the back of the head and bisected by your own machine because you turned your back on a civilian you didn't feel threatened by is a pretty embarrassing way to go.
• The Unreveal: Tearer captured Date after the explosion in the cathedral, but whether it was to interrogate him or something else was never said, as he apparently didn't do anything to Date in the day that he was held there.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He used to be a nice kid not unlike any other, only to be kidnapped, tortured, and has his organs removed against his will.
• Villains Never Lie: Subverted. He claims at a couple points his real name is "Dahlia Boat." While it's unknown what he was getting at, it's later made quite clear expecting the terrorist with a paranoid meticulousness about hiding his identity would tell the truth about his name was rather stupid.
• Villainous Plan Inertia: He's murdered quite a while before his endgame goes in motion. However, his mooks are able to carry out his plan without him. He even prepared a video to taunt his enemies in case he died beforehand.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Due to Amame catching him as he's setting up Komeji's body, Uru takes this as part of his destiny, and that she by extension is part of it as well. He threatens to kill her after cornering her, but after she's successfully convinced to not say anything, Uru decides to invite her years later to talk about his plans to her, believing she'd understand. She doesn't, and she kills him for it.
• Xanatos Gambit: Fittingly for The Chessmaster, Tearer is exceptionally skilled at anticipating his opponents and planning around them. The only two things that hinder him are: people putting their emotions before their logic and protecting others, and the idea that one may view what he does as inhumane. Even then, he still has contingency plans set in motion to carry on after his death.
• Walking Spoiler: After all, he is the culprit of the Half-Body Serial Killings, and his backstory reveals a lot about Tokiko and Chikara.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Had he not been experimented on by Chikara, he would likely not accept Naix's teaching, and not wish to escape "the fake reality he is in".
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: Even after his death, his faction of Naix remains dedicated to his Nirvana Initiative plan.

The Frayer (HEAVY SPOILERS)

"The Frayer" AKA "You"

You, the person playing through AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - nirvanA Initiative. A handful of characters seem aware of your presence, existing in a world beyond the normal bounds of the game, and address you directly.

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• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A couple of instances. At the very beginning of the game, in the middle of the quiz show, the host and other voices start asking the player if they're familiar with the events of the first game. Later, the spirit that Mama usually channels to get information also talks to the player and reveals the True Flowchart, explaining that sometimes Ryuki investigated during the present and sometimes Bibi investigated during the past.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: The Frayer is always addressed by that title or directly as "You", owing to any of the player's possible genders.
• No Fourth Wall: Tokiko's interactions with the Frayer are closer to this. She speaks to you through Ryuki, asking if you're a Frayer and asking for a code if you say yes. That code would only be revealed to Mizuki and Bibi six years later, after her death. And afterwards, she lets you decide whether to share knowledge of the game's events with Ryuki, leading to an alternate path in which he stops Tearer a lot earlier and prevents multiple tragedies.
• Punny Name: "Frayer" rhymes with "Player", especially with Japanese pronunciation.
• Recurring Element: True to an Uchikoshi game, this is a Player and Protagonist Integration (reminiscent of Blick Winkel, ? and The Otherworlder) Being that has a presence in the story. Downplayed however in that it only comes into play at certain points in the story (in the very beginning and at the end, especially during the divergence ending). Nevertheless, it’s still a thing in the game's universe.
• Unwitting Pawn: Tokiko engineered a situation in which the Frayer would help her transcend the bounds of her false reality via seeking alternate paths and/or a happier ending for the characters of the game.
• The Voiceless: One of the clearest tells that a character is speaking to the Frayer is that the internal dialogue is made up of unattributed ellipses, in contrast with Ryuki and Mizuki/Bibi. Otherwise, they only give short, straightforward answers to others' questions.