Characters / Master Detective Archives: Rain Code - Main Characters

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Main Character Index
Main Characters (Halara Nightmare) | Makoto Kagutsuchi

Warning! All spoilers below are unmarked.

It's virtually impossible to list tropes for this game without spoiling everything or creating Self-Fulfilling Spoilers because of the large amount of twists and Murder Mystery-related tropes it contains.

Main Characters

Yuma Kokohead

Yuma Kokohead

Voiced by: Katsumi Fukuhara (Japanese), Lucien Dodge (English)

Yuma Kokohead

The protagonist, an amnesiac detective in training sent to investigate Kanai Ward alongside the Master Detectives. He's accompanied by Shinigami, a Death God bound to him by a pact that cost him his memories in the first place. Despite a lack in confidence due to his strange situation, he nevertheless possesses a strong sense of justice alongside a selfless desire to help those in need.

While he seemingly lacks a Forte due to being a mere trainee detective, he does have Coalescence at his disposal, an ability that allows him to copy others' Forte so long as they are holding hands.

In truth, he is the real Number One, the leader of the World Detective Organization. He resigned from his position prior to erasing his memories in his mission to confront his own homunculus clone, Makoto Kagutsuchi.

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• Adapted Out: Due to the protagonist being one of the other NDA members instead, he (and Shinigami by proxy, besides loading screens and tips) is completely absent from the DLC packs, which allows the audience to better understand their behavior whenever he's absent.
• Affectionate Nickname: Once Desuhiko warms up to him, he starts calling Yuma "my man" as a sign of their friendship.
• Ambiguous Situation: Just what he remembers of Shinigami after their pact is broken is currently unknown. Shinigami treats it as a certainty he will forget everything about her, the only caveat she gives is him potentially remembering "for a moment." Albeit, she also says no one has ever used the Emergency Exit before, so it's possible she was mistaken about the effects. That is, in Yuma's note to Kurumi he states he made "a promise to someone" (which we know to be Shinigami), asks her to look after the Book of Death (where Shinigami resides), and pledges to return for it someday. Taken together, it indicates he may still know enough to remember how important Shinigami became to him.
• Amnesiac Hero: The game begins with Yuma waking up in a train station storage room with no idea how he got there. Shinigami reveals the amnesia was due to him giving up his memories in exchange for her power.
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: Unlike Number One, Yuma is unsure of himself, trusting of others to a fault and needing of the people around him to provide him support. However, Number One actually wanted things to turn out this way, due to realizing Kanai Ward's ultimate secret and the Great Global Mystery couldn't be solved by him alone.
• Armor-Piercing Question: He asks Makoto Kagutsuchi about the homunculus and Kanai Ward's Ontological Mystery at the beginning of Chapter 3, something that he can't answer about as Makoto is the one responsible for the game's immediate plot, and answering anything about either would immediately incriminate him.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Chapter 2 has him investigating an all-girls school disguised as a student, causing some members of the theater club to wonder how they never scouted out such a cute girl before.
• Badass Cape: Even though it's actually a rain coat in the style of a cloak, Yuma's rain coat comes off as this. It even flutters like an actual cape in the Mystery Labyrinth along with a neat magical fraying effect.
• Bad Liar: He gets a bit better as the game goes along, but initially he's extremely bad at lying, prone to awkward stammering, long hesitations, and messing up words.
• The Bait: Not for a plot by the NDA, but rather by Makoto. It’s all but stated that Makoto brings Yuma to the research lab alone at the same time Yomi makes a visit to lure the other NDA members to the lab for Yomi’s plot to have Yakou kill Dr. Huesca and sow confusion with Fink the Slaughter Artist’s help. In simpler terms, Makoto knew that Yomi would visit the lab just as he brings Yuma down with him, which would allow him to be captured and turn into a Distressed Dude, requiring the NDA to sneak into the lab and save him all at once. As such, Makoto would be given his opening to overthrow Yomi like he wanted.
  Vivia: Yomi definitely was the mastermind who worked in the shadows to put this together. But that aside…there’s one more person I’m curious about.
  Yuma: You mean Makoto Kagutsuchi? I know. Do you think it was a coincidence that he brought me to the lab today? Or…
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yuma is normally one of the kindest, most empathetic people you could hope to meet. Yet, when phantom Icardi's excuses for Shachi's murder lead to him dishonoring everything Shachi stood for (and these excuses being given by someone Shachi trusted to boot), Yuma's countenance takes a notably dark turn as he becomes truly angry as opposed to the desperation he normally shows during Mystery Labyrinths. In turn, one gets the impression this is the first time Yuma has genuinely wanted to kill the culprit.
  "You'll pay for this..."
• Big Good: As the true Number One, he turns out to be this.
• Blue Boy, Pink Girl: The blue boy to Shinigami's pink girl.
• Blue Is Heroic: Yuma primarily wears dark blue attire and is the main protagonist of the story.
• Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: His decision to help Kurumi out and Shinigami's spiteful attitude in Chapter 2 causes tensions between himself and Shinigami since she thinks Kurumi's useless and the Aetheria Academy case isn't worth Yuma's time. She eventually reconciles with him when Yuma earnestly asks for her help, and later the case turns out to have been worth the time when Kurumi tells him about the homunculus research as his reward.
• Broken Pedestal: Chief Yakou arguably becomes this for him when he finds out that he's the culprit of Dr. Huesca's murder in Chapter 4. Only for a brief moment, as finding out Yomi spurred the murder on in the first place makes him realize Yakou was actually a pawn as part of a bigger, more diabolical scheme by Amaterasu Corporation.
• But Now I Must Go: He leaves Kanai Ward and the World Detective Organization after the events of the game, setting off on a personal journey of self-discovery.
• Butt-Monkey: Is often a victim of Shinigami’s antics.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Yakou, Halara, Fubuki, Desuhiko, and Vivia somehow manage to get on Yuma's nerves in their own ways all at once, ranging from their attitudes of cowardice to stupidity to plain selfishness, but when he loses them all and ends up alone with Kurumi in Chapter 5 thanks to Makoto Kagutsuchi, he's absolutely devastated by the idea that they might have died gruesomely. However, since he found the game's Ontological Mystery with Makoto's (intentional) help, he decides to leave them all in Kanai Ward and only sends a note of his future endeavors to Kurumi and only Kurumi, so it's more likely that he prefers "living without."
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: In Chapter 1, he serves as the smooth to Halara's rough.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Courtesy of his pre-amnesia self.
  “I’m signing a pact with a death god. It’s basically the same as dying.”
• Celebrity Masquerade: "Yuma Kokohead", Kanai Ward's rebellious anti-hero detective, is actually the current Number One of the WDO, famous within the organization for his expertise as a detective.
• Chained Heat: Part of Yuma's pact with Shinigami. They have a maximum distance to be apart and when it caps, a chain will appear and drag one along with the other, something Shinigami uses consistently to get Yuma to go places. She can also summon the chain at will, as seen when she stops Yuma from trying to pursue zombie Yakou.
• The Chessmaster: A protagonist variant. The original Number One took any means necessary to hide his true self in order to play as "Yuma Kokohead".
  • The reason he had Shinigami possess him was to hide his Coalescence from others and pretend it was someone else's, and convincingly, it worked, to the point that "Yuma" even convinced himself it wasn't his own Coalescence. It was also to wipe his memory of being Number One completely so he'd be convinced to get help from others than work by himself.
  • He specifically arranged for a Body Double to pretend to be him in order to serve as his replacement and give orders on his behalf. Thankfully, it worked, as the Nocturnal Detective Agency was convinced the old man was the true Number One and followed his every word, including "Yuma" himself.
• Chick Magnet: He gains the affection of four different girls by the end of the game. He makes Pucci's heart skip a beat in Chapter 0, gets confessed to by Fubuki in her final Gumshoe Gab (wherein she also notes she finds him physically quite attractive), and it's made clear that both Kurumi and Shinigami have romantic feelings for him. Safe to say, he's popular with the ladies.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: In Chapter 1 when he sees a kid surrounded by the Peacekeeper goons, he rushes to his aid despite wanting to avoid trouble with the authorities.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Yuma is unsure of himself, constantly battles with how and why he became a detective, and the morality and consequences of his actions, this drives his character for most of the game.
• Clear My Name: Chapters 0, 3, and 4 have him accused for the crimes committed in said chapters, forcing him to try and clear his name and escape from the Peacekeepers' wrath.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: He often tries to keep Fubuki and Vivia motivated when they accompany him, especially in the Mystery Labyrinth.
• Confronting Your Imposter: He confronts Makoto Kagutsuchi regarding his impersonation of the WDO’s Number One in the Final Battle. Makoto is Yuma’s clone, with Yuma being said original. Shinigami’s flashback reveals that the entire reason Yuma infiltrated Kanai Ward was to confront Makoto regarding his impersonation.
• The Corruptible: A retroactive case since his "Yuma Kokohead" persona never shows it, having become more innocent thanks to his memories being erased. Makoto Kagutsuchi, who is the game's Big Bad and is the cause of everything that goes wrong in the story that the Master Detectives get caught up in, is Number One's clone. Of course, Yuma is also Number One, meaning that the original Number One is just as capable of having the same Face–Heel Turn that Makoto did if he was in the same circumstances Makoto is in... Well, except Makoto is a representation of what Number One would be like if he was in Makoto's circumstances, because Yuma is the exact same person as him barring his Identity Amnesia.
• Covert Pervert: When a jealous Shinigami accuses him of being a closet perv who is always staring at women's breasts, his only defense is that he doesn't stare "that often."
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • His amnesiac status causes him no end of grief and suspicion from the other Master Detectives on the Amaterasu Express. But it's that same suspiciousness that convinces Zilch to use him as a patsy for his murders instead of killing him along with the others.
  • Invoked by his past self, Number One, prior to the events of the story. Even though he would lose all of his memories as well as his ace detective personality, he also gained Shinigami's help and a personality more suited towards relationships with other people, things he needed to solve the case.
• Deadpan Snarker: Occasionally dips into this when dealing with Shinigami or the more eccentric Master Detectives.
• Deal with the Devil: He made a pact with Shinigami in exchange for his memories.
• Defiant to the End: When Makoto makes it abundantly clear that Yuma has been trapped within the Mystery Labyrinth and will (potentially) die there, after some encouragement from Shinigami, he decides to battle Makoto and take him down once and for all. He succeeds, and also escapes thanks to the emergency exit.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Makoto Kagutsuchi's justification for masterminding the mass kidnapping of death row inmates to turn their corpses into meat buns for Kanai Ward's residents, using a Weather-Control Machine to block out the sun in Kanai Ward, and luring the detectives over to Kanai Ward to oust Yomi so Makoto can seize control of Kanai Ward from Yomi to protect Kanai Ward's defective homunculi is not something he's proud to hear, or at least, at first. He comes to accept his motive in the end when he sees that he's severely regretting having to cross the lines he did, and tries to actively help him out, however.
• Disguised in Drag: During Chapter 2 while in Aetheria Academy, he masquerades around initially as a female version of himself. During the investigation, he dresses as Yoshiko, Waruna, and Kurane, who also happen to be the case's culprits, as well as Martina Electro; his cover is blown when he and Martina accidentally meet one another, however.
• Distracted from Death: The Master Detectives in Chapter 0, besides "Zilch" due to being the culprit, get killed off-screen after Yuma gets caught up in his bind regarding Shinigami in the train's bathroom.
• Distress Ball: In Chapter 3, he agrees to help the Resistance with equipment to spy on the Peacekeepers despite Shinigami encouraging him to stay out of trouble and to look for the lost detectives instead. Naturally, Icardi, the dissent in the Resistance, ends up using this against Yuma and framing him as a terrorist, causing him a whole lot of issues with near-death experiences and for him to be chased around by the Peacekeepers with Fubuki until the rest of the NDA return to clear his name, all of which could've been avoided if he had just said "no", especially since the leader would have let him go.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: A protagonist variant. Being the true Number One despite his Body Double being believed as such at first, he is technically the one who spearheaded the Nocturnal Detective Agency's mission to investigate Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret, despite initially being perceived as a woeful trainee detective who ranked below the rest of them.
• Doom Magnet: Considering the main antagonist of the game is Yuma's clone taken directly from his DNA, he constantly attracts the Peacekeepers' attention in the worst possible ways, and he can't avoid the trauma of being in a place like Kanai Ward due to people constantly committing crimes and the only police force having gone mad with power, Yuma seemingly can't help attracting bad outcomes for other people, even when he really doesn't want that to happen.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: One that results in a misunderstanding that lasts until the final Mystery Labyrinth of the game. Namely, in Chapter 1 Yuma sees a homunculus corpse for the first time, and is weirded out by the neon pink blood. Instead of saying this though, he asks Shinigami if what he is seeing is real, if she is at all weirded out by it like he is. Shinigami (who doesn't think much about the color of blood at all), assumes he is asking if the corpse itself is normal and she assures him that from her perspective there is nothing unusual about the body. Yuma then decides this must mean that his pact with Shinigami has caused him to see blood as a different color, and proceeds to not ask anything more about it.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: When he’s disguised as a girl his face is left completely unchanged, the only things different being his hair-length and a girl's school uniform.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Yuma is particularly a good person who does care for all people equally, and he does want to help others. He doesn't accept Icardi or Makoto when discovering their motives for their actions in Chapter 3 or Chapter 5, however; in fact, he goes into a rage when he finds out what the two of them were really doing behind the scenes in their respective chapters. The difference is, while he can forgive Makoto and tries to help him out of his dilemma, he doesn't hold back on killing Icardi. While he also shows hatred for Yomi due to masterminding Yakou's murder of Dr. Huesca at the end of Chapter 4's Mystery Labyrinth, it's only for a moment before he undergoes a Heroic BSoD and is eventually captured by Makoto, which leads into the events of Chapter 5.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Makoto Kagutsuchi is Yuma's clone Gone Horribly Right, with them both being the famed Number One of the WDO, and understandably, he's terrified of the actions he's committed throughout the plot when he finally realizes he's the one behind everything going on in Kanai Ward.
• Experienced Protagonist: Inverted. As the Number One he actually is, he is an expert detective in just about every sense of the word, and possesses great self-confidence and a grand reputation in the WDO for how intelligent he is. As "Yuma Kokohead" with those memories erased, however, he's quite the opposite, especially with him taking the role of a trainee to hide his true self, requiring him to be trained by Shinigami to become a Great Detective again.
• Expy: He has a lot of similarities with Togusa. Both are idealistic men in a dystopian setting with a group of far more experienced, but cynical teammates, where their views are frequently challenged by the world, but still aspire to help change their homeland.
• Fall Guy: He became the fall guy for the culprit's crimes twice. First when Yuma is intended to be this for the killings on the Amaterasu Express, but is able to clear his name. Then again in Chapter 3 when he's framed as a terrorist.
• Fisher King: When Yuma turns off the Weather-Control Machine his evil clone, Makoto, made to cover Kanai Ward in a blanket of clouds, the city returns to its original sunny environment. Makoto turning it back on again returns the city to its gloomy state of eternal rain.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Ultimately the Suicidal Sadistic Choice Makoto Kagutsuchi presents Yuma/the true Number One in Chapter 5's Mystery Labyrinth is to leave the Great Global Mystery case behind and leave him to become the true Number One, thereby keeping the truth of Kanai Ward secret forever, for the sake of protecting the people of Kanai Ward from the horrifying truth of what they are, or to expose the truth for the chance of a better future and leave nothing uncovered, while Makoto is indicted for his crimes. He chooses to expose the truth with some encouragement from Shinigami regardless of what Makoto says, leading to Makoto's defeat in the Final Battle.
• Go and Sin No More: Instead of killing the Big Bad Makoto Kagutsuchi via the Mystery Labyrinth when Yuma exposes him as the culprit of the Great Global Mystery, while Makoto gives him the option for his soul to be reaped, Yuma instead decides to let him go and reform by telling Kanai Ward the truth about his misdeeds, leaving nothing unanswered. His decision to do this is under the impression that it's the most effective option in their arsenal, and under the knowledge that both of them are essentially Number One of the WDO, with "Yuma" being the original and knowing the best solution after his time making friends with the NDA as "Yuma Kokohead".
• Gracefully Demoted: He willingly resigned from his position as Number One prior to his pact with Shinigami, his Body Double taking his place and working on his behalf instead during his investigation of Kanai Ward.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Prior to the case involving Makoto Kagutsuchi's manipulation of the WDO, Number One built a reputation in the WDO for his courage and integrity as the WDO's leader. In turn, this also inspired the Master Detectives working below him, and as such, he is responsible for their loyalty to the organization.
• Great Detective: His goal in making the pact with Shinigami was apparently to become one. Though he was already one pre-amnesia as well, as it turns out.
• Gut Feeling: As a detective should have. This becomes especially prominent when he investigates the factory in the restricted area during Chapter 5, as he feels he shouldn't go any further when he first encounters the meat bun conveyor belt, knowing the horrible truth is just beyond. Kurumi's and Shinigami's application of Chronic Hero Syndrome forces him to move forward anyway, and inevitably, he finds out he was right to not move any further.
• Hero Does Public Service: The sidequests allow the player the option to help the citizens of Kanai Ward outside of the main story; which also means Yuma is doing it, since he is the player.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Uses the Solution Blade in the Mystery Labyrinths.
• Heroic BSoD: Under goes several as he investigates Kanai Ward, with the two biggest ones happening during Chapter 4 and 5. In Chapter 4, it's because he's realizing that Yakou is the culprit of the murder, and the fact that Yomi manipulated the former to Kill Dr. Huesca didn't help at all.. In Chapter 5, it's because he's both reeling from the realization he's actually Number One and how he's connected to the homunculi.
• Hero Protagonist: While he is assisted by the other heroic detectives throughout the story, Yuma is the one leading the battle against the Amaterasu Corporation and is the one who primarily opposes it. His sheer willpower is what allows him to eventually defeat and reform Makoto Kagutsuchi, the company's leader. Alongside this, it turns out he's also the true Number One (with Makoto being his clone) and therefore is the leader of the WDO itself.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his amnesia and believing himself to be a rookie detective with next to no experience, Yuma often waxes poetic in ways and on subjects that show a deep and somewhat jaded nature within him.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: His role as the true Number One is much more obvious to one in hindsight. How? By having the ability of Coalescence without any consequences, and being able to access the Book of Death from within the WDO vault in order to make a pact with Shinigami, both things of which the Mystery Labyrinth rely on Yuma's control of for the events of the whole game to even exist.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In an odd way, the entirety of Yuma's story can count as this, counting as a Rewatch Bonus since it's only clear after discovering the whole truth. Since Makoto is the Big Bad clone of Yuma's original self as Number One of the WDO, everything that happens in this game revolves around the darker side of Number One's true scheming mind, an element of Number One that was copied over to Makoto and gave him free reign to use it to commit crimes at his own discretion, which would in turn cause everything in the game to happen. As Makoto notes in the final battle, he even claims he'll "use [Number One's] own brain against him", which pretty much reaffirms the idea of everything happening because of Number One's ability to scheme taking a dark turn in the form of Makoto.
• Identity Amnesia: Before making a pact with Shinigami, Number One arranged things so he wouldn't remember his true identity, but instead think he was the detective-in-training Yuma Kokohead.
• Idiot Hair: Yuma has a noticeable ahoge on his head. Its curl typically makes it look like a question mark. Succeeding in a Reasoning Death Match makes it stand up, looking more like an exclamation point.
• I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: His go-to lamentation phrase after he kills the culprits via the Mystery Labyrinth is condemning himself for being a killer, something he sees as unheroic. He has to keep this hidden from the others so no one knows that Shinigami is possessing him, to his inconvenience.
• Improvised Weapon: While being chased around Kanai Ward by the Peacekeepers with Fubuki in Chapter 3, upon crossing paths with one, he throws a brick at one of them with great precision to knock them out before fleeing.
• Ineffectual Loner: The aspect of his personality that causes everything in the game to happen, as his inability to do things with the help of others is carried across to his homunculus clone, Makoto Kagutsuchi, who lures the Master Detectives to Kanai Ward in the first place because he believes he can only protect Kanai Ward's defective homunculi by himself and actively refuses help from others due to Number One's loner personality.
• Instant Death Stab: Even though he isn't a Mystery Phantom like the other enemies in the Mystery Labyrinths before, if Yuma fails to evade an enraged Vivia Twilight regarding Yakou Furio's motives during the Post-Final Boss Quick Time Event sequences in Chapter 4, his opponent's box cutter stabs him to death immediately.
• Interspecies Friendship: Yuma/Number One, a biological human, faithfully befriends the mischievous and possessive Shinigami, a death god who can reap souls.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Being Number One of the WDO, naturally, he has a superior mind; one so superior that he has to isolate himself from others and has the capacity to do things by himself. The exception to this is when he found out about Makoto Kagutsuchi, who was essentially his equal, and had to manipulate circumstances to ensure that he would be able to combat him by making friends with others, specifically the Nocturnal Detective Agency.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: In the battle between himself and the Big Bad. Besides Shinigami, except she isn't a fellow human. The NDA, who are his fellow detective assistants, on the other hand, are human, and despite working with them over the course of the game between Chapter 1 to 4, he ends up with none of them when solving the game's Ontological Mystery. Justified since Makoto specifically made it so Yuma would go alone to the Mystery Labyrinth, separating him from and faking the deaths of the rest of the NDA.
• Ironic Nickname: He is nicknamed "Number One", but three characters turn out to share said nickname (himself, his homunculus clone, and his Body Double).
• Irony:
  • Yuma, at first, believes himself to only be a trainee detective, therefore being lower in status and not even officially having a detective role in the first place, and constantly bemoans his inadequacy and irresponsibility due to a lack of confidence. His former, and true, self turns out to be the exact opposite, actually being the top Master Detective of the WDO, Number One, famous for solving cases on his own and regarded as having the greatest mind on the planet.
  • The guy who insisted on doing everything by himself with no help ended up with a Forte that is utterly useless without someone else's help. Even if the rule about consent was made up (given that Makoto doesn't seem to need it), help from an unwilling person is still help, so he probably didn't want that either.
  • Throughout the story, everyone in the NDA assumes that Number One of the WDO hasn't shown up to solve Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret and wish he would due to his reputation of solving cases on his own, thinking them to be the old man posited all the way back at the WDO. It turns out we are actually Number One, playing as him under the false identity of "Yuma Kokohead".
• It's Personal: He does not take it well when he finds out that Yomi instigated Chief Yakou, the one who took care of the Master Detectives staying in Kanai Ward despite the risk of the Peacekeepers, to commit murder, which develops even further when he finds out that Makoto also played a part in Yakou's death the following chapter.
• It's Probably Nothing: Before he finds out the truth, while investigating the restricted area's factory in Chapter 5, Shinigami proposes that the meat for the meat buns made within it is "specially chosen". Yuma dismisses this at first, but he eventually finds out that's exactly what the meat buns are made from, being made up of the meat from human death row inmates.
• I Work Alone: Number One stubbornly insisted on solving every case he worked on by himself, refusing to accept help from others. He was so stubborn that, when faced with a case he realized he couldn't solve by himself, he had to completely wipe his own memory and trick himself into thinking he was someone else because he knew it was the only way he could force himself to actually ask for and accept help.
• Job's Only Volunteer: Yuma is typically the one to lead investigations of cases against the desires of an Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeeper or follow Chief Yakou's hedonistic demands out of everyone in the NDA. The former case has him lead investigations pretty much every time, and the latter only happens when Yakou doesn't have anyone else to boss around.
• Journey to Find Oneself: Yuma, now having returned to himself as Number One following his resignation from the WDO, leaves Kanai Ward and the NDA for this reason after the events of the story.
• Keet: He may suffer a Heroic BSoD sometimes, but otherwise, he’s usually a very energetic and outgoing person. This even extends to when fighting Makoto Kagutsuchi, being determined to take him down no matter what.
• Kill the Ones You Love: He has to reap Chief Yakou's soul in Chapter 4, since he's the case's culprit. However, Yakou was going to die anyway, so at any rate, Yuma only gave him a quicker death instead, unless he died before he even entered Mystery Labyrinth with Vivia.
• King Incognito: The detective-in-training "Yuma Kokohead" the Nocturnal Detective Agency thought had no experience as a detective turns out to be the true identity of the rumoured Number One, the top detective of the WDO and the greatest mind in the world In-Universe, all along.
• Knight Errant: Both him and his original self can count as one. Yuma and the true Number One can't pass up the opportunity to help someone in need, even if he has to resist the Peacekeepers, or just about anyone telling him he's wrong to do the right thing, to accomplish his goal. Fittingly, from Chapter 2 onward, he's accompanied by Kurumi as he does this, and he has such an effect on her that she goes to search for him when he leaves Kanai Ward without a trace, aside from a note.
• Late to the Realization: In Chapter 5's Mystery Labyrinth, he thinks the Makoto that is holding a Solution Blade and just took out an actual Mystery Phantom is a Mystery Phantom. It eventually comes to him when the stab wound he gives him via the blade causes him to bleed, and he realizes the actual Makoto somehow got into the Mystery Labyrinth. Cue Makoto's Dramatic Unmask and Motive Rant after that.
• Lead Police Detective: Yuma mostly serves as the one to investigate the cases in Kanai Ward while another member of the NDA accompanies him, and he somewhat reports back with new information when necessary.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He isn’t a combatant in the real world at all, but in the Mystery Labrynth he manages to take down Mystery Phantoms at ease with his sword.
• Lethal Chef: According to his profile, he's supposed to be a Supreme Chef, but his amnesia has caused him to forget everything he ever knew about cooking, resulting in this trope. Of course, it turns out that he's not the real Yuma, so he might not have known anything about cooking in the first place.
• Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: In Chapter 1, he serves as the masculine to Shinigami's feminine and Halara's androgyne.
• Masquerading As the Unseen: As the true Number One, while his own Body Double pretends to be him as Number One for the NDA, he pretends to be "Yuma Kokohead", a former WDO trainee.
• The McCoy: He cares far more about doing what's right than he does following any sort of rules or guidelines, as shown multiple times.
• Meaningful Name: Yuma’s name is spelled as “ユーマ” in Katakana, which is also used for UMA (it stands for Unidentified Mysterious Animal and is a Japanese term used for cryptids). “Koko” in “Kokohead” comes from the Japanese characters meaning “here”, making his surname a pun on how he’s not all there in the head. His name is very fitting for an amnesiac detective until it’s revealed that “Yuma Kokohead” is not his actual name.
• Mistaken for Terrorist: Thanks to Icardi, this is his whole ordeal in Chapter 3 in a nutshell. The mistaken identity gets so far out of hand that it leads to Yomi trying, but also failing, to execute everyone in return.
• Mysterious Past: Aside from his true identity as Number One of the WDO, possibly coming from a city like Kanai Ward (as implied when Yuma said that Kamasaki District made him feel nostalgic in the prologue), and being implied to have gun training when investigating Shachi's body in Chapter 3, Yuma's background is never revealed and remains completely unknown.
• Naïve Newcomer: Justified as not only is he a trainee detective, but has Laser-Guided Amnesia, and his Character Development is learning how to be a detective, emotionally and physically.
  • Inverted Trope in regards to his true self, being the experienced and expert Number One.
• Nervous Wreck: Don't expect him to stand up for himself, especially against a wrathful Halara according to their Gumshoe Gab interactions, unless you're treacherous, as Icardi learns the hard way. Averted for his true self, who has enough self-confidence that he works alone, barring the Great Global Mystery case the game revolves around.
• Never Found the Body: His rationale when he gets separated from the rest of the NDA after Yomi blows up the submarine at the end of Chapter 2 in that, since the others weren't confirmed dead, they aren't dead. And he turns out to have been right, as the NDA was still alive after that. On the other hand, when seeing their fake corpses in Chapter 5, he doesn't apply it twice, since this time around, there is what looks like a body before him, though they were indeed still alive then.
• Nightmare of Normality: Yuma's character arc in a nutshell. He believes he doesn't have any powers as a detective nor had any reason to become one in the first place, and constantly thinks little of himself for it. The fact is, he does have powers as he's the real Number One, he just forgot about this and thinks that his Coalescence, which is quite obviously his own, is Shinigami's, because that's what he tricked himself into thinking as part of his Memory Gambit.
• Non-Action Guy: In a relative rarity for a main character, Yuma is not physically or martially impressive at all outside of the Mystery Labyrinths, being about as strong as one would expect a person of his size and build to be. About all he can do when confronted with a physical threat in the real world is dodge and run. He is admittedly quite quick and agile, managing to avoid a lot of Peacekeepers over the course of the game simply by weaving out of the way of their grasps.
• No Name Given: In a rarity for a mystery protagonist, his real name is never actually revealed and it's up to speculation if his clone being called "Makoto Kagutsuchi" is because his clone is using his real name or not. "Yuma Kokohead" is actually a name he took from someone else (with consent), and "Number One" is a formal title for the organization he's part of, meaning they aren't actually his biological names and said biological name is never actually revealed. Shinigami doesn't seem to know either and only knows his "Number One" identity.
• Not What I Signed on For: He's fine with setting up cameras around Kanai Ward for the Resistance... until he found out the cameras were actually bombs and he accidentally ended up framing himself as a terrorist and led himself into a deadly situation, leading to him becoming a target for Guillaume Hall. Thanks to the NDA, he escapes from the Peacekeepers' wrath eventually, and is cleared of the crime, but when he had to deal with it at the time, he absolutely regretted agreeing to help.
• Not What It Looks Like: This results when someone, particularly Kurumi, sees him using his Coalescence, since it requires him to hold hands with someone to share their Forte.
• Obliviously Superpowered: He spends the majority of the story thinking Coalescence is Shinigami's power, due to his pre-amnesia self's agreement. Makoto eventually makes him remember that it's his power, but only after falling into Makoto's trap.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Number One behind the "Yuma Kokohead" decided he had to work with others and betray his whole identity by erasing his memories, resigning from the WDO, and signing a pact with a death god just to be a match for his own homunculus clone, Makoto Kagutsuchi, despite both his honor as a detective and his usual willingness to work alone.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Yuma is the only one capable of wielding the Solution Blade within the Mystery Labyrinth, as Shinigami clarifies to Halara when Halara asks if they can hold it too. However, by some apparent means, Makoto, who is his clone, is also able to wield a duplicate Solution Blade, and duel against Yuma's with it.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Halara Nightmare being The Ace they are, Shinigami is repeatedly impressed by Halara's physical capabilities, no-nonsense attitude, and overwhelming self-confidence, despite her spiritual pact being with Yuma. Thankfully, Halara couldn't care less about such things regarding themselves and is only focused on the job, so Yuma doesn't have to worry too much about it.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Averted Trope in the real world. Yuma is very short and noticeably can’t do anything in the fights in the real world, usually having to flee or have a more combat-capable character save him. However, in the Mystery Labyrinth, this is played straight as he makes dozens of acrobatic flips and dodges as he fights his way to the truth and with the magic sword he wields can overpower people far larger than him.
• Power Copying: Through "Coalescence", Yuma can share the Forensic Forte of any Master Detective he's working with.
• The Power of Friendship: When Makoto provokes Yuma by pointing out that he's alone when confronting him in the bath house where his Weather-Control Machine is, Yuma argues back that he made it as far as he did thanks to his friends. Later on, however, Makoto explains that's exactly what he wanted from Yuma as part of his agenda to overthrow Yomi.
• Primary-Color Champion: Yuma's primary color motif is blue, due to wearing blue attire, and he is the main protagonist who aims to defeat the story's Big Bad.
• Private Eye Monologue: Chapters 1 to 4 begin with Yuma offering whimsical and poetic commentary on the events of said chapter, from his experience as a detective.
• Prone to Tears: Is shown crying the most often out of the entire cast, mostly as a result of all of the trauma and betrayal he has to deal with during the game.
• Psychic Link: While its full potential involves using the actual Fortes of other people, Yuma's Coalescence in its base state allows him to form one of these with other Forte users. It does not allow communication, but he can sense when someone's Forte is being used, and he can to some degree experience how it makes them feel. Notably, when touching Fubuki's hand he outright experiences the extreme fatigue she is feeling after using her Forte.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Happens twofold in Chapter 4.
  • When he finds out that Chief Yakou is the case's culprit in the Mystery Labyrinth, he's furious that the chief never told anyone about his past or his plot to kill Dr. Huesca as vengeance for the murder of his wife, wanting to prevent it before it ever happened.
  • Shinigami labeling Yakou as an irredeemable person for committing the murder and manipulating the agency enrages Yuma, leading him to furiously tell her to shut up and defend Yakou's honor by telling her that he was a good person and wouldn't do something like that without a reason. Yuma turns out to be right, however, as Yomi instigated Yakou to commit the murder from the start.
• Red Herring Mole: Technically, he's not an imposter when it comes to his infiltration of the WDO's mission to investigate Kanai Ward, as he was actually part of the WDO like the other Master Detectives on the train. The actual mole turns out to be "Zilch Alexander", who was a hitman-for-hire sent by Amaterasu Corporation to kill any WDO Master Detectives entering Kanai Ward. This time around, "Zilch" was infiltrating the Amaterasu Express route.
• Refuge in Audacity: When Yuma-as-Martina runs into the real Martina, he slips away by ordering a nearby Peacekeeper to arrest the "imposter". Martina catches up soon enough, but still, points for trying.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Is Number One of the WDO and has an incredibly powerful Forte, but he spends most of the game acting as and believing himself to be an in-over-his-head trainee entirely dependent on the other detectives.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Inverted. Yuma is the nice hero to Shinigami's and Halara's rude sidekick.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The savvy guy to Kurumi's energetic girl.
• Say My Name: Shouts “Halara Nightmare!” when they advise him to call for them in his time of need as Seth’s Peacekeepers nearly capture him in Chapter 1. And of course, Halara saves him as promised.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Defies Chief Yakou's orders not to defy the Peacekeepers three times in order to defy the Peacekeepers and find the truth of the cases between Chapter 1 to Chapter 3. As for Chapter 4, the case was Yakou's own doing due to his strong sense of vengeance.
• Secret Identity Vocal Shift: As Yuma, he always sounds a little anxious and unsure, his voice wavering slightly at all times. In contrast, the flashbacks to his identity as Number One have him speaking more confidently and calmly, even when preparing to do something bold and dangerous.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Desuhiko's manly man.
• Servile Snarker: Yuma is very much willing to snark back at Chief Yakou when he wants to whenever he acts particularly eccentric or demanding towards him in particular.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Both Yuma and Kurumi deny they are anything more than friends when pressed. Not that anyone believes them.
• Shorter Means Smarter: He's very short for his age, yet he's also among the top detectives in the World Detective Organization.
• Ship Tease: Not by choice, but he is subjected to it through four characters over the course of the game, those characters in question being Halara, Fubuki, Kurumi, and Shinigami.
• Significant Birth Date: Yuma was born on May 22nd, the International Day for Biological Diversity.
• Signature Headgear: He occasionally wears a blue bucket hat.
• The Stoic: His true self as Number One discarded all emotions, seeing them as a hindrance to solving a case. This backfired on him to severe degrees when it led to him being unwilling to work with others, and also led his homunculus clone to grow to feel personal angst upon empathizing with the defective homunculi in Kanai Ward, which ends up making his clone into the story's Big Bad.
• Straight Man: Between his eccentric co-workers and Shinigami, Yuma is almost always this.
• Stress Vomit: Well, he holds it back, but his reaction to finding the part of Makoto Kagutsuchi's meat bun factory where the corpses themselves are processed on the assembly line so they can be converted into meat buns is nearly vomiting out of the traumatic sight.
• Summon Bigger Fish: He willingly summons Halara Nightmare once throughout the whole story (the other times Halara came willingly), and that's when the Peacekeepers surround him and Chief Yakou prior to Chapter 1's Mystery Labyrinth, as Halara advised Yuma to do so. Halara appears and promptly knocks them all out with ease as Seth Burroughs watches the action in absolute fury.
• Team Chef: Played for Laughs and subverted. Yakou asks Yuma to cook something for him after finding the information about him being "a great cook". However, it turns out that Yuma isn't experienced with cooking as Yakou immediately rejects the food he offers, and this is the truth; it isn't related to Yakou being a homunculus and not being able to eat anything besides human flesh, as Halara, whom is already proven to be human, bluntly tells Yuma in the Gumshoe Gab that he can't cook, suggesting he even offered something to Halara at one point.
• That Liar Lies: Yuma, in secret, questions Halara's insincerity when they decide to lie about being an Amaterasu Corporation detective to the churchgoers and the art gallery staff for the Nail Man investigation in Chapter 1. The response he earns each time is "Deception is necessary to solve a case."
• These Hands Have Killed: A major source of angst for him, as destroying a Mystery Labyrinth kills the culprit who made it, and he has to do it. It's especially severe in Chapter 2 (where the culprits are three high school-age girls who were avenging their dead friend and had their whole lives ahead of them) and Chapter 4 (where the culprit is Yuma's own mentor Yakou, who has been helping to take care of him and the other detectives since he arrived in Kanai Ward).
• Tomato in the Mirror: "Yuma Kokohead" is actually Number One of the WDO, who struck a deal with the real trainee detective Yuma Kokohead in order to use his name and identity as part of his Memory Gambit. An inversion of this also applies, as the main antagonist of the game is Yuma's Evil Twin as Number One with his memories intact and after a Face–Heel Turn, but he forgot this after erasing his memories as part of his gambit.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed. While Number One (his true self) is completely emotionless and stern due to disregarding emotion as a hindrance to solving cases, "Yuma" is slightly more energetic and actually expresses himself more, though this comes at the expense of extreme feelings of self-doubt.
• Unknown Rival: Him mainly solving the crimes in the Mystery Labyrinth instead of the real world means the culprits aren't aware of him and the threat he poses. Most of them have very few direct interactions with him, especially Chapter 2's culprits, who only know Yuma as a guy they saw on the stage for a few moments before they died.
• Vague Age: It's very unclear just how old Yuma is supposed to be exactly. When he's offered an opportunity to drive a car, he declines by stating he doesn't have a driver's license, which could imply that he is old enough to obtain one. He's old enough to be Number One of the WDO and for his clone to head an extremely powerful company (with no one claiming they are too young for the work), but one of his implied love interests is a teenager and she and the other students of her school tower over him. Further, Shinigami repeatedly chastises him for having an interest in teenagers, as if he isn't one himself, but this could simply be an excuse she is using to vent her jealousy. Further, at other points she claims he is too young for romance, but this contradicts how she is clearly interested in romancing him herself, making it come across as an excuse she uses to try to dissuade him from being interested in other girls. In one bit of exploration dialog Shinigami asks him if he is old enough to drink alcohol, Yuma's reply only being a noncommittal "that's a good question." During Chapter 2, Shinigami also snarkily asks him if "he's 12" when he demonstrates his nervous behavior again, meta-theatrically hinting that he at least is beyond that age despite his appearance.
• Vigilante Man: He kills the culprits via the Mystery Labyrinths for every chapter in return for them committing the murder (though he doesn't know that happens in Chapter 0 until Shinigami tells him after he kills the fake Zilch), aside from the last case with Makoto where he simply lets him go.
• The Watson: Being an amnesiac, Yuma is on the receiving end of all the exposition surrounding WDO, Amaterasu Corporation, and the detective work in general.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He made a pact with a death god to erase his memories of his true self, used the name of a former trainee detective so he could smuggle into Kanai Ward, and hired a Body Double for the Nocturnal Detective Agency so he could battle Makoto Kagutsuchi by getting help from others. The extremism is mostly justified since Makoto was intending to kill Yuma in a duel the whole time for his own extremist goals too.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Becomes one in Chapter 2, where he needs to disguise as a female student to investigate a case in an all girls school.
• With Friends Like These...: Frequently butts heads with Shinigami and the other Nocturnal Detective Agency members what with their opposing viewpoints. However, Chief Yakou's death in Chapter 4 shows how much they do care about each other in the end.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: To an outsider, Yuma is a very green detective in training with amnesia, who is overly reliant on the people around him and trusting of strangers to a fault. While all of the above is true, he's far from harmless. Whenever he solves a mystery, the culprit behind it dies without ever knowing of the danger they're in. They also don't even need to have directly met him for this to happen. He's killed more than a handful of murderers this way, not that he's proud of it. Since the rules of the pact state he can't tell others about it, he keeps this side of himself hidden from his fellow Master Detectives. Once Vivia figures him out, he's fully prepared to kill Yuma if that's what needs to be done.
• Wonder Twin Powers: Yuma's Coalescence requires him to hold hands with another Master Detective for it to work, something that also applies to his homunculus clone, as he eventually discovers.
• World's Smartest Man: As Number One of the WDO, naturally. This came with the DNA that was extracted from him and applied to Makoto Kagutsuchi, who turned to evil as a result.
• You Are Number 6: The true name/title of "Yuma Kokohead" is "Number One", leader of the WDO.
• You Wake Up in a Room:
  • His first scene (and the first event in the story) involves him waking up in a train station's lost and found room, unsure of who he is and why he's there in the first place. He eventually finds out that it's because he signed a pact with Shinigami in exchange for his memories, and she made a promise to never tell him what happened prior to the pact from before his memories were erased.
  • In an Ironic Echo, this happens again at the beginning of Chapter 5 where he mysteriously wakes up in the dingy cottage in the abandoned village within the restricted area, following Makoto knocking him and the rest of the agency out with sleeping gas.

Shinigami

Shinigami

Voiced by: Sayumi Suzushiro (Japanese), Anjali Kunapaneni (English)

Shinigami, both spirit and human form

A mischievous death god bound Yuma due to a pact the two made before he lost his memories. A cheerful yet morbid being with a warped sense of morality, she grants Yuma access to the Mystery Labyrinths, physical manifestations of real world mysteries that can only be destroyed once they are traversed and solved.

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• Affably Evil: Downplayed and justified, she's anti-heroic rather than evil, but Shinigami is notably very cooperative with the protagonists, though she is usually the dissenter who speaks objectively and makes very agreeable points, but it does not change that she is still a death god and is the one who executes the culprits alongside Yuma, and that she is quite oblivious to what is considered socially acceptable in the human realm.
• And I Must Scream: According to the flashback in Chapter 5 when Number One/Yuma first summons her, she had been trapped in the Book of Death for ages without seeing anyone before he came in, because everyone in the WDO was scared of her.
• Anti-Hero: While she genuinely helps Yuma in the investigations, she has some notable Blue-and-Orange Morality, and she makes it clear that she loves killing, at least people who in her mind deserve to die (namely criminals who have killed at least one other person). However, she gradually becomes less anti-heroic as the story goes on.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: In Japanese, she's called Shinigami-chan, but since the English version does not use Japanese honorifics, she's just called Shinigami.
• Big-Breast Pride: Shinigami greatly enjoys calling attention to the large, bouncy bosom she has in her humanoid form. This also ties into her Clingy Jealous Girl characterization, as her preferred insult towards Kurumi is "flatty"^note originally "flat-chested uggo", but she dropped the "uggo" part after Kurumi actually came through with some useful information, even though Kurumi is far from flat, she's just less well-endowed than Shinigami.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: While Shinigami's nicknames for the others aren't particularly mature from the start, the "flat-chested uggo" insult she comes up with for Kurumi is particularly petty in comparison to the others since it's only an insult to her appearance, not her personality or demeanor.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed, as Shinigami exhibits the capacity for very human-like and easy to understand levels of empathy, sympathy, etc. in various situations and presents genuine and human arguments for why various culprits deserve death. However, as a death god who loves mysteries, Shinigami often cares more about how entertaining a murder case is than about any human concerns. Further, she is so used to death that she has a hard time understanding why Yuma is so bothered by things like blood and corpses. To a being like her who deals with souls, blood is just a liquid, a body is just an object. Her character profile does not describe her sense of morality as being incomprehensible, but rather simply quite far removed from that of humans. She does grow beyond this by the end of the story, at least where Yuma and his friends are concerned. Early in the story she points out how she really shouldn't be expected to treat death the way a human would:
  "You're asking me how I feel about death?
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Does this on a few occasions.
  • In the first labyrinth, if Yuma chooses to open the false conclusion door, he is crushed by Qs, and Shinigami chides him for thinking that the solution would be that easy, because if it were, they'd get complaints about how lame the case was.
  • In the final investigation, she remarks on how zombies are not supposed to appear in mystery games before adding that they could.
• Character Catchphrase: Shinigami has an unusual habit of saying "boom-kill" instead of "kill", and describes anything exciting as "mysteriful". When entering the Mystery Labyrinths, she also says "Down the rabbit hole we go!"
• Character Development: Slowly grows to be more openly caring towards Yuma's well-being and eventually his friends' over the course of the story. It's a slow burn so her development might not be especially obvious, but it's most apparent during a flashback from the final Mystery Labyrinth, showing her first meeting with Yuma just prior to the events of the game and having her behave way more carelessly and impishly with him, contrasting her fully-developed character for the rest of the Labyrinth. Her final execution forgoes the usual humiliating and destructive fashion of reaping the culprit's soul, where she instead gently comforts Yakou in death.
• Cheery Pink: She's even more of a Genki Girl while in her pink humanoid form.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She can get very catty whenever Yuma so much as talks to another woman, and she'll at times warn him about even the idea of him developing romantic feelings for someone else. At one point she expresses a desire to chain Yuma to her and keep him in a world of just the two of them, Yuma idly noting that their contract already sort of enables this. She spends much of Chapter 2 in various stages of basically a jealous tantrum over Yuma and Kurumi getting to know each other. She gets quite enthusiastic over anything she can interpret as signs of Yuma being under the spell of her feminine charms, belonging to her, etc. Notably when it comes to joining the Resistance she outright outlines the choice as being them or her. With that said, by Chapter 4 she starts becoming more comfortable with the notion of Yuma and Kurumi as a couple.
• Color Motif: In her humanoid form, pink.
• Combat Stilettos: She wears heeled-boots and has no problem running in them during the fortress segments. Albeit, she usually floats, making walking in them a non-issue.
• Composite Character: Blends elements of Monokuma, Junko Enoshima, and the recurring female assistant archetype from Danganronpa, especially Kyoko's more direct involvement in investigations than her more roundabout follow-ups. From Monokuma she takes the status as the game's cutesy Mascot creature who handles the executions of the culprits, from Junko much of her personality and the design of her true form, and from the assistants her involvement as a supporting character backing up Yuma and offering input on the investigation.
• Curtains Match the Window: Has pink hair and pink eyes in her humanoid form.
• Cute Ghost Girl: The spirit Shinigami, usually looking like a cartoony ghost, has the power to turn into an attractive young human-like girl (noted to be her true form more or less).
• Dark Is Not Evil: Zigzagged. She does assist Yuma at all-times, yet doesn't hold much for how humans die once she reaps their souls.
• Deal with the Devil: She offers her services in exchange for something from her master. In Number One's case, he offered his own memories as part of his Memory Gambit.
• Deuteragonist: Being the one who erased Yuma Kokohead/Number One's memories of himself as part of his Memory Gambit, summons the Mystery Labyrinths in each chapter, and kills the case's culprits at the end of them, Shinigami is as important to the plot as Yuma is.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Shinigami’s name is notably named after the exact Japanese term for “Death God”. As mentioned below.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: A cheerful and mischievous sidekick who constantly cracks up a Black Comedy joke who just so happens to be a death god able to reap souls and possess people's dead bodies.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Shinigami has a sharp and critical tongue in general, but she is especially venomous toward anything she regards as very stupid. In particular she states she cannot stand anyone who could be reasonably called an airhead and it’s a pet peeve of hers that some people find airheads attractive. Thus she and Fubuki mix like oil and water when they have to share time in a Mystery Labyrinth.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Befitting of a Death God, her human form wears a black dress reminiscent of the Victorian design.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Even though she loves death and killing, she calls Yuma out on making excuses when he tells Vivia the Mystery Labyrinth is what killed the culprits, stating that their blood is very much on his hands. Notably she doesn't say this to condemn him, but rather to point out how he risks his own life every time he uses the Mystery Labyrinth.
  • She'll readily tell white lies about most things for the sake of her own amusement, but seriously states she would never lie about someone's death.
• The Executioner: Her basic role throughout the game, being the one who reaps the culprit's souls once Yuma solves each Mystery Labyrinth (barring Makoto Kagutsuchi).
• Expressive Hair: Downplayed, but in her humanoid form her massive twintails tend to rise up when she is angry or excited, presumably as an extension of her usual levitating power.
• Eye Beams: With "the power of truth" supercharging her, she can launch massive beams of energy from her eyes to destroy obstacles in the Mystery Labyrinths.
• Finishing Move: Once she reaps a culprit's soul, she unleashes a Bello Fresco Grand Finale from her scythe that completely obliterates them.
• Funbag Airbag: Yuma is introduced to her humanoid form when, after she pauses time, he stumbles backward in confusion and ends up bumping into her chest behind him, complete with bouncy sound effects.
• Fun with Acronyms: Her GOD (Great Onset Destroyer) form for when the final fortress needs to be destroyed.
• The Gadfly: Shinigami never once passes up the opportunity to make fun of someone, even in someone’s mortem, bar few exceptions where she takes the situation seriously. The majority of her dialogue, and most of the game’s dialogue as a whole, at that, is just Shinigami joking around to lighten the mood.
• Genki Girl: She's pretty hyperactive and cheerful, despite being a death god.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Yuma falls into a Heroic BSoD in the last chapter, Shinigami is the one to find and knock some sense into him to make him remember why he wanted to be a detective.
• Giant Woman: In the fortress segments of the labyrinths, she grows to giant size as she carries Yuma on top of her as she effortlessly punts away building-sized cannonballs, crashes through fortress walls and leaps over spiked fences.
• God of the Dead: What Shinigami is In-Universe, and what allows her the ability to reap the souls of the culprits.
• Hates Being Alone: A little bit of this merged with a desire for real friendship. Shinigami shows herself to have huge attachment issues throughout the entirety of the game, and actually feels her constant solitude within the Book of Death is a Fate Worse than Death (ironically). Actually, it's implied that she agrees to help Number One (Yuma) out with his plan to exploit Makoto Kagutsuchi's lone wolf attitude as Number One's clone because he was the only one who asked her for help after a long time of being left alone in the WDO vault. Sure, she may have previously possessed other detectives... until you notice the only one she refers to at all regarding "past possessions" is Number One, her current host during the events of the game.
• Headbutting Heroes: Shinigami constantly opposes the other main characters in the story, with her being a Blue-and-Orange Morality death god who gets easily Enraged by Idiocy and chooses to argue instead of having rational conversation.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Shinigami is prone to joking at the expense of her partner, with most of her voice lines being cheerful laughs at inappropriate moments, and is in constant glee over the possibility of someone's death, as she sees it as an opportunity for a mystery. Despite this, she still aids Yuma in discovering the culprit of a case and exposing the Peacekeepers of their corruption, serving as the NDA's overall Token Evil Teammate. Justified, due to being an amoral death god, which is Played for Laughs whenever possible.
• He's Dead, Jim: When Yuma sees Yakou's body stabbed by Fink the Slaughter Artist alongside her, Shinigami openly declares that he'll bleed out, and claims that she never lies about someone's death when he denies it.
• Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: Whenever she is put on the spot about something she has to lie about, usually regarding her knowledge of Yuma's past and identity, she'll make rather obvious pauses in her dialog, sometimes to Blatant Lies levels. Yuma usually doesn't notice these though.
• Horned Humanoid: While rather abstract in her "puffy" spirit form, in her humanoid form she sports a pair of detailed, curved horns on her head of a sort that would more usually be seen on a depiction of a demon rather than a death god.
• Hot God: Definitely counts as one, though her attitude towards others is questionable.
• Humanity Ensues: The spirit Shinigami, while usually a cartoonish ghost, has the ability to turn into a human-like girl. She remarks she has to do this to access her full power, implying she makes use of the ghost form to save energy (in keeping with her "despises effort" personality).
• Hypocrite: In Chapter 2, she argues that the culprits deserve to die and are not worth Yuma’s sympathy because they are murderers regardless of their motivation for it. She would have a better point if not for the fact that their victim was a murderer herself, meaning that they are guilty of the very thing Shinigami herself is currently justifying.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Gets quite offended when Desuhiko talks down to Yuma early in chapter 2, remarking that only she is allowed to pick on him and outright plotting to take revenge on Desuhiko someday.
• Hypocritical Humor: Before the theater performance begins, she mocks Yuma by saying he's utterly lacking in class compared to the actresses. During the play, while Yuma is intently following the plot, she couldn't care less and sleeps through the whole thing.
• I Love the Dead: Being a death god, mortality is below her conceptually, so she is outright aroused by the idea of human corpses and oft imagines gruesome possibilities for someone's method of dying. Well, unless Yuma is personally affected by what he sees too, in which case she tries to hold it back, like Yakou in Chapter 4 and the dead criminals in Chapter 5.
• Insistent Terminology: When Fubuki calls her a "God of Darkness", she insists that she's actually the God of Death, even though death is a form of darkness.
• Invisible to Normals: No one can see or hear Shinigami in the regular world unless they make a pact with her or they open the Book of Death while she's still inside it. This is why Yuma finds it better to communicate with her telepathically, since no one else can see Shinigami, as he learns the hard way when he talks to her in front of Swank Catsonell during the events of Chapter 0. The only exceptions are people with high spiritual affinity, like Vivia, and even then, until going to the Mystery Labyrinth, all he could see of Shinigami was a distorted, vague cloud that followed Yuma around.
• Irony: Despite being a huge mystery fan, she's profoundly terrible at solving them herself. For further irony, it's revealed in Chapter 5 that Shinigami was never interested in solving mysteries up until Yuma's pact with her.
• Jiggle Physics: About the only time her boobs aren't jiggling is the brief times when she's standing completely still just before the final fortress of each Mystery Labyrinth. She implies they jiggle even when they're not visible (i.e. when using her ghost form).
• Last Kiss: She gives Yuma a small cheek kiss before he voids their pact to escape the final Mystery Labyrinth (which would seal her away in the Book of Death and make Yuma forget her).
• Late to the Realization: Only once Yuma points it out in the last labyrinth does Shinigami notice how strange it is that all the victims in Kanai Ward have pink blood. Justified since as a death god, she never thought of the color of human blood as anything important, so she never commented on it until Yuma mentions it.
• Locked Room Mystery: Enjoys this kind of mystery in particular, as she is visibly delighted that the Nail Man killings are locked room mysteries.
• Magic Contract Romance: It's unclear how much Yuma reciprocates, but she likes to describe her bond with Yuma as one of these, referring to how intimate it is as if they sealed the contract via sex, the idea of her having past contractors as past "boyfriends" and such, she and Yuma meeting as the work of fate, etc.
• Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: In Chapter 1, she serves as the feminine to Yuma's masculine and Halara's androgyne.
• Meaningful Name: She calls herself Shinigami because "Death God" sounds too ominous and creepy, even though these mean the same and what she is. Makes more sense in the original Japanese version because she calls herself "Shinigami-chan".
• Mentor Mascot: Shinigami initially presents herself as a cute ghost monster and teaches Yuma and the players the mechanics.
• Moment of Weakness: She is briefly impressed by the fact that Makoto Kagutsuchi is the owner of Kanai Tower upon meeting him in Chapter 3, up until he starts acting rather strangely.
• Morphic Resonance: She retains her horns and crown whether she is in humanoid or spectre form (though both look a bit different depending on her form).
• Ms. Exposition: A minor case. She provides commentary during the Mystery Labyrinths, pointing out what the player is currently seeing in an exaggerated fashion because, unlike Yuma, she is unable to use Solution Keys and the Solution Blade required to progress through them, in a similar vein to Speedwagon.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's an Elegant Gothic Lolita with a large (very animated) bust and long shapely legs that give her plenty of Leg Focus scenes, and she dons a bikini during her puzzle segments (ending each with a glamour shot pose). Her usual outfit is fairly skimpy with intricate patterns cut into the fabric over her abdomen and hips that make it partially see through. In cutscenes if she's not being quirky or destructive then chances are she'll be doing something titillating.
• Mysterious Past: Just why she is in the Book of Death is never clarified, only that she stayed there for so long due to people fearing her. She implies there are other Death Gods, and refers to herself as having been born at some point, but just what this means, if she has a family, etc. goes unexplained. She also teases Yuma about having had past boyfriends/masters, but doesn't clarify if this was actually the case.
• The Nicknamer: Throughout the game, Shinigami calls everyone by various nicknames usually based on her beliefs about their personality or physical appearance. Notably, aside from giving a relationship "status report" for a given character in each Gumshoe Gab, during the entire story she never uses anyone's actual name. These nicknames include:
  • "Master" for Yuma.
  • "Fuzz Head" for Yakou.
  • "Hellara" for Halara.
  • "Flat-chested uggo" for Kurumi. After Kurumi proves herself useful, she upgrades her to merely "flatty".
  • "The anemic vampire" for Vivia.
  • "Sheltered skank" for Fubuki.
  • "Old geezer" for seniors (Zange/Dr. Huesca/Number One's Body Double).
• Nightmare Fetishist: Downplayed, but present in a few ways.
  • Shinigami multiple times indicates, or even outright says, that she finds the mysteries surrounding strange murders to be arousing.
  • While she doesn’t want him to die, she still thinks Yuma would make "a very sexy" skeleton.
  • Interestingly, on the other hand, she hates horror stories.
• Non-Human Sidekick: A death god, whose true form is a beautiful humanoid but spends most of her time as an incorporeal puffy ghost, and serves as Yuma's companion throughout the story.
• The Nose Knows: She can detect blood by sniffing it, which shes uses twice. Once in Chapter 3's beginning to check if the other detectives' corpses are under the riverbank after the submarine's explosion at the end of Chapter 2, and again mid-Chapter 5 when she detects blood in the meat bun factory.
• Number Two: Yuma's primary second-in-command throughout the game, and the one who allows his access to the Mystery Labyrinths.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: As an enthusiast of all things mysterious (or "mysteriful", as she puts it), she is constantly encouraging Yuma to get to the bottom of whatever case he is investigating. Even as she slowly warms up to Yuma and becomes more caring towards him, she continues to maintain that he seek out the truth, no matter how painful it may be. So when, early in the Chapter 5 Labyrinth, she starts advising Yuma to think about something other than the identity of the perfect homunculus—complete with Suspiciously Specific Denial about how it has no bearing on the case—it's a major red flag that she knows more than she's letting on.
  • A smaller case of this happens a little earlier due to Yuma’s own OOC moment when he's freaking out about The Secret of Kanai Ward Meat Buns. When she tries to talk to him about it and gets a Big "SHUT UP!" from him, she doesn't fight him on it but rather sullenly and quietly makes the relevant Solution Key and never brings this outburst up.
  • While she's usually catty and mischievous with anyone else, she is notably terrified where Vivia's involved. Justified too- due to his Forte he's the only one of the Master Detectives that can see her, and his spiritual affinity gives his presence a "feel" that Shinigami is not used to.
  • When she reaps Yakou's soul towards the end of Chapter 4 instead of blasting his soul with a bright, over-the-top explosion, she gently caresses him and peacefully sends him off, having both grown closer to the group and knowing how much Yuma cared for him.
• Perky Goth: Shinigami's human form. While she gets bored and frustrated easily, she'll shift back to excited and happy just as easily.
• Physical God: In her human form while using her full power, she can be touched and she can also touch others.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The pink girl to Yuma's blue boy.
• Pink Is Erotic: A Shameless Fanservice Girl in her humanoid form, which is associated with pink.
• Pink Means Feminine: A Genki Girl associated with pink.
• Poor Communication Kills: Played for Laughs and Drama simultaneously. The many technicalities of the Mystery Labyrinth, Shinigami fails to communicate to Yuma when he first uses it in Chapter 0. In order...
  • "There is a time limit, and if you go past it, your soul vanishes. In other words, you die!" (Chapter 1)
  • "You can't use Fortes in the Mystery Labyrinth." (Chapter 3)
  • "I don't know why Coalescence only takes the most recent ability when entering the Mystery Labyrinth." (Chapter 4)
• Possessing a Dead Body: One of Shinigami's abilities, which she can use to puppeteer the culprit of a murder into "confessing" after they've died from having their soul reaped.
• Power Floats: She's a powerful death god and is always seen floating around when possessing Yuma, both as a ghost and a humanoid. The fact that she can float is used for a joke on occasion.
• Power Gives You Wings: When summoning the power to reap a soul or souls, Shinigami sprouts a pair of black feathered wings (not that she needs them to fly).
• Properly Paranoid:
  • When she first meets Makoto in Chapter 3, and whenever he's constantly in Shinigami's presence, he is suspicious of him and suspects him to be plotting something while scapegoating Yuma. In Chapter 5, he turns out to be the Big Bad, and he really was doing all of that in his plot to usurp Yomi and dispose of the detectives afterwards.
  • During Chapter 4's investigation, she thinks that Viva's "plotting something." He was, that being planning to kill Yuma so he couldn't find out Yakou's the culprit of Dr. Huesca's murder, and later on, obstruct Yuma's progress in the Mystery Labyrinth in a Duel to the Death.
• Psycho Pink: Has a very different perception of the world due to being a death god, and her humanoid form is pink.
• Red Herring: Her questionable behavior, brutal personality, and lack of respect for the mortal realm makes one think she's trying to pull a Divide and Conquer act on Yuma after getting herself out of the Book of Death and possessing someone, especially when Vivia predicts that she'll be the cause of all destruction. It turns out that she is Good All Along in the end, and her overall personality is merely a part of her, possibly having developed after years of isolation turning her further and further down the path of loathing mortal people more than she usually would. Well, that's how it seems, anyway.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Downplayed considering that she's more of a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, but she counts for being a Genki Girl, and in her humanoid form, she has pink hair.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Inverted. Shinigami is the rude sidekick to Yuma's nice hero.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: Shinigami's whole character, in simple terms. Her being a god is what allows her to break all social conventions, which she does pretty often.
• Secret-Keeper: She agreed to "Yuma Kokohead" beforehand not to say what his true identity is, and for good reason. Makoto Kagutsuchi would end up making this All for Nothing as he knew all along that "Yuma" was actually the true Number One, which he forces him to face in the Mystery Labyrinth.
• Series Mascot: She is the game's mascot, essentially serving as an Expy of Monokuma.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: She is not shy at all in showing off her womanly charms to Yuma at the drop of a hat; in Chapter 0 alone she outright says he can touch her chest if he wants (after noting how "puffy" it is) and after getting tired of explaining the Mystery Labyrinth advises him to stare at her boobs for eight seconds if he has more questions, to "make all your worries disappear". She knows she's sexy and adores flaunting it.
• Shinigami: "Shinigami" is exactly what Shinigami is. Notably, death gods are explicitly called "shinigami" in the Japanese audio.
• Ship Tease: Is quite blatantly in love with Yuma, or at least something close to it, with the single like in her bio even being Yuma. She teases him through most of the game, and gets quite sincere in her affection toward the end, embracing him and later giving him a goodbye kiss. Yuma for his part regards her as very important to him, to the point that in the end he dedicates his future to fulfilling his promise to her to show her a world where solved mysteries have spread happiness everywhere. That said, it is still unclear if he reciprocates her romantic feelings.
• Shipper on Deck: In Chapter 4, her love-hate view of "flatty" Kurumi Wendy has improved to the point where she indicates she's fine with her and Yuma as a couple as long as it's with her "permission". On two separate occasions later, she even gushes over how romantic a moment shared between Yuma and Kurumi is.
• Signature Laugh: She goes "Kyahahaha" whenever something amuses her.
• Smarter Than You Look: While at first may seem kind of air-headed and may not be as proficient in mysteries herself, she at times displays the ability to pick up on things even Yuma may have missed. For example, in the first Mystery Labyrinth's minecart section she asks a series of legitimately strong questions that lead Yuma towards an answer, and has the foresight to remember Fubuki's Forte as an important clue in Chapter 4. In addition, she's able to quickly point out that the gun used to kill Shachi was designed to be held from the left hand far before Yuma.
• Spanner in the Works: Makoto's plan to Kill and Replace the true Number One (Yuma Kokohead/the protagonist) in Chapter 5's Mystery Labyrinth would've worked as planned if she didn't give Yuma a Rousing Speech to fight for the truth instead of backing down like he wanted to in the first place.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Shinigami tends to belittle victims Yuna encounters and joke about the manners of their deaths.
• Synchronization: Downplayed Trope, but after the first chapter (during which she hadn't fully synched with him yet) whenever Yuma is knocked out Shinigami is knocked out as well and she briefly posits what might happen if Yuma dies.
• Telepathy: Due to their pact, Shinigami is able to read Yuma's thoughts (though he cannot read hers). This comes in handy once Yuma finds out about it, as it lets him communicate with Shinigami while other people are around without it looking like he is talking to himself. He simply has a conversation of thoughts with her.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Shes's seriously pissed off when she finds out Yakou manipulated his detective agency so he could covertly kill Dr. Huesca and hide the crime from the others. She downplays this when she discovers Yomi manipulated him to do so.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Implies this when she remarks being stuck in a room forever with Yuma and Halara might not be so bad, much to Halara's annoyance.
• Token Evil Teammate: Being a death god beyond mortal desires, this comes naturally. Unlike the other heroic characters associated with the WDO, Shinigami is consistently the only one who sharply expresses her hatred for others without filter at pretty much every chance she can get, and is the only one to joke about death itself like it's no big deal, while the other WDO members don't even once do it, since she is metaphorically beyond the concept of death. Even Yuma notices her questionable behavior at all times since it's so obvious. Aside from the obvious of the way she acts, she's also the only teammate to actively assist in murder (well, Yakou assists in murder himself too as Chapter 4's culprit, but he's a Tragic Hero who was manipulated by circumstances and doesn't appear to be too proud of what he did), since Yuma's able to reap the culprit's souls because of her powers, and unlike Yuma, she holds no regrets in doing so.
• Tongue-Out Insult: She sticks her tongue out a lot when mocking people in her humanoid form.
• Transformation Sequence: Shinigami has a classical Magical Girl sequence when she turns into humanoid form for each Mystery Labyrinth.
• Tsundere: She often falls into this behavior, usually toward Yuma but there are other examples, such as blushing and stammering when accepting Fubuki’s offer of friendship after having spent the entirety of the chapter beforehand denigrating her and squabbling with her.
• Vigilante Execution: What her reaping the souls of the culprits technically amounts to, although Yuma is horrified and is usually reluctant to follow through with this, barring the culprit of Chapter 3, who angers Yuma to the point where he's willing to assist Shinigami with her execution of the culprit.
• Virtuous Character Copy: While virtuous may not be the right word here (at least initially), Shinigami is effectively this to Junko Enoshima. Aside from how Shinigami's humanoid form looks very similar to Junko, both of the girls enjoy killing, and they both are responsible for executing the main culprits of their respective source materials. However, while Junko kills off the culprits just for her desire to have people feel despair and gives them Cruel and Unusual Deaths, Shinigami pretty much needs to kill the culprits off just so that Yuma can escape the mystery labyrinths without ending their pact, and even comforts Yakou Furio as he dies. Shinigami also grows to care about Yuma, and ends up becoming a good friend to him, while Junko is extremely willing to kill-off those she cares about.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: Anytime she activates the "Shinigami Puzzle", she does so in a revealing bikini (although it's not clearly visible until the player solves the puzzle).
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: As a Virtuous Character Copy of Junko, she is also willing to execute culprits, but unlike Junko, she kills those who chose to be criminals of their own will due to the dystopian setting, as opposed to Junko, who traps and outright manipulates people into killing one another directly so they can leave and then blames it on the students once she executes them.

Kurumi Wendy

Kurumi Wendy

Voiced by: Megumi Toda (Japanese), Lisa Reimold (English)

A native of Kanai Ward and student at Aetheria Academy. She has an intense admiration for detectives, seeing them as heroes in a way. After she requests Yuma's help to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding her friends death, the two become good friends with a deep trust in one another, much to Shinigami's chagrin.

She also acts as Kanai Ward’s sole informant after her grandfather's disappearance three years ago. Her hunger for knowledge quickly earns her an honorary spot at the Nocturnal Detective Agency.

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• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Briefly serves as the playable character during the Epilogue due to Yuma's disappearance.
• Angry Cheek Puff: In one moment when Kurumi sees Yuma holding hands with Fubuki, she annoyingly puffs her cheeks after Yuma tries to explain it's Not What It Looks Like.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: After being around Yuma for only one case, she already figured out that it was he who killed the culprits based on how he reacted. This is especially impressive when considering that the Master Detectives he surrounds himself with didn't notice aside from Vivia (and even he only figured it out because he could see Shinigami and had heard rumors about the Book of Death).
• Badass Pacifist: Unlike the other characters, Kurumi avoids actually attacking or killing people, even in self-defense, though it becomes necessity to do so when trapped with the zombie homunculi in the restricted area. Despite this, she lives through to the end. The same cannot be said for the rogue personality of her homunculus self three years ago, however.
• Bait-and-Switch: She's understandably freaked out when being chased by the zombie Homunculi and her disappearing in the factory full of them sets off a major death flag. However as she finds out later, she's also a Homunculus; meaning that she's essentially invisible to the human flesh-seeking zombies and even makes peace with a zombified Aiko.
• Brutal Honesty: She isn't typically so brutal, but when she first finds Kanai Tower, Makoto Kagutsuchi's state of residence, to ask Makoto about the Amaterasu research lab's location in Chapter 4, her first comment is that she thought it was an eyesore from a distance and actually thinks it looks worse up close. Ouch. At least it wasn't directly to Makoto's face.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed, but she becomes visibly flustered and irritated on seeing Yuma and Fubuki holding hands.
• Crush Blush: She does this whenever someone in the cast teasingly suggests that she and Yuma are romantic partners together, turning to shy embarrassment and displaying a nervous shifting while looking down. He responds each time with denial.
• Disappeared Dad: With her grandfather a generation up, at least. A key plot point in the story is the mystery of the disappearance of Kurumi's grandfather; it turns out that he was murdered during the Blank Week by homunculi, but didn't have a replacement clone unlike the rest due to refusing the blood test at the time.
• Expy: Of Chiaki Nanami, being a grey-haired high school girl who is all but stated to have romantic feelings for the amnesiac protagonist and who serves as their Hypercompetent Sidekick, leading aspects of the investigation that the player isn't able to personally get involved in and often providing crucial clues to solving the relevant mystery.^{Spoilers for Danganronpa 2}However, she thankfully manages to avoid Chiaki's fate and lives to the end of the game.
• Following in Relative's Footsteps: Repeats her grandfather's advice and occupation as an informant following his disappearance, even admitting when she's only copying said advice.
• Fun Personified: Kurumi is constantly positive and cheerful throughout the game and can lift it of its darker undertones whenever she's around. On the other hand, this doesn't carry over to when she's suffering from being wrongfully arrested in Chapter 2 or when she has to deal with trauma of the restricted area in Chapter 5.
• The Informant: She began working as one after her grandfather disappeared.
• I Will Find You: She leaves Kanai Ward in the epilogue to search for Yuma, even though he promised to return someday. She may be immortal, but that doesn't mean she's patient.
• Leitmotif: "Kurumi's Theme".
• Living Forever is No Big Deal: She appears to possess this mindset upon finding out she's an immortal, not having any particular gripes about it, but she doesn't find it beneficial either. Instead, her being aware of her immortality ends up making her more impatient.
  Kurumi: "Someday", he says... I may be immortal, but I'm not that patient!
• Ms. Exposition: Due to her informant role. Kurumi is full of exposition, or at least, after she tells Yuma of the homunculus research, and continually describes deep Kanai Ward lore to assist Yuma and his friends, and, by proxy, the player, in solving the case.
• Never the Obvious Suspect: Martina Electro tries to arrest her as the culprit of Karen's murder in Chapter 2, using the basis that Kurumi handled the wine bottle and therefore must've handled the poison as well, not bothering to investigate much further. Yuma soon proves that Kurumi isn't the culprit at all and it was in fact Yoshiko, Waruna and Kurane working together.
• Nice Girl: She's an incredibly friendly girl who provides Yuma with much information and emotional support.
• Only Sane Woman: Or much rather, Only Sane Sixth Ranger, as she takes Halara's role as this when she joins the agency as an honorary member, being the only one without an obvious vice.
• Perpetual Smiler: Kurumi smiles constantly, especially in cases where she's excited. The only times she doesn't are, of course, when distressed, but she otherwise maintains her idealism and has a cheerful smile on her face.
• Pride: Downplayed. It's not too obvious, but Kurumi is very prideful of her role as an informant and her ability to get information out of others, to the degree that she never passes up an opportunity to pry said information when she gets the chance. However, it's not so much that it actually defines her.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The energetic girl to Yuma's savvy guy.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Only ever seen wearing her school uniform (and her raincoat over it when outside). Even after leaving Kanai Ward altogether in the epilogue, she continues to wear it despite the fact that it's obviously going to be quite a while before she returns to school.
• Ship Tease: A lot with Yuma over the course of the game, and it's not subtle either, at least compared to when it happens with Shinigami, Halara and Fubuki. In the end she denies it when Desuhiko claims she is in love with Yuma, but does admit in a earlier talk with a store clerk that her journey to find Yuma is due in part to a "high school girl crush."
• Signature Headgear: A headband matching the color of her coat with a pink flower outline on the left.
• Sixth Ranger: While she never becomes an official detective, starting from Chapter 3 she often accompanies Yuma with his investigations and even hangs out with the other detectives.
• Skewed Priorities: Kurumi notices that Yuma and Fubuki are holding hands as she's about to warn them of something related to the bomb threat in Chapter 3... only to get distracted entirely by that situational jealousy of hers, forgetting that Yuma is currently being framed as a terrorist by the Resistance.
• Youthful Freckles: They can be hard to see, but Kurumi has freckles, symbolizing her youthfulness.

Nocturnal Detective Agency

In General

The only detective agency in Kanai Ward, where Yuma and the other Master Detectives are stationed as they investigate the city's many mysteries.

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• Anti-Hero Team: All of the main detective characters have questionable personalities that hinder them from being complete hero types. Yuma is self-conscious about his validity as a detective, Yakou is jaded and cowardly, Halara is a self-interested cynical extremist, Desuhiko is a straightforward Casanova Wannabe, Fubuki is exceedingly foolish, and Vivia doesn't even want to be a detective regardless of circumstances.
• Anti-Interference Lock Up: Everyone except Yuma and Kurumi, barring Yakou since he was dead by that point, all suffer this fate when Yomi is ousted from power and Makoto has total power over Kanai Ward, being locked up in Kanai Tower far away from Yuma so they can't interfere with his Kill and Replace plan.
• Befriending the Enemy: Following the absolute insanity the detectives suffered through during their stay in Kanai Ward, they decide to reconcile with Makoto Kagutsuchi once he confesses the truth about his actions to all of Kanai Ward's residents, deciding he can call them over at any time. Obviously, Halara doesn't work for cheap.
• The Chosen Zero: The detectives that managed to make it through the Peacekeepers' attempts on their life are a bunch of misfits who are actually uninterested in detective work and focus more on their own priorities, and their chief is willingly a Dirty Coward due to having lived with the Peacekeepers for years. Despite this, they're able to prove their potential by surviving through it all. Downplayed, in that it was an elaborate trick from the CEO of Amaterasu Corporation to oust Yomi Hellsmile from power, but it's still applicable.
• Death Faked for You: In Chapter 5, Makoto Kagutsuchi, the CEO of Amaterasu Corporation, fakes the deaths of the remaining Master Detectives when he kidnaps them all after Yomi's defeat, setting up fake bodies to give the impression of them having been devoured by homunculi in the restricted area of Kanai Ward as a means to tell Yuma information about the homunculi and Kanai Ward itself, while subtly avoiding revealing his identity as the true Number One's clone.
• Disney Death: Besides Yuma, they are subjected to it twice, the first at the end of Chapter 2 and the second during Chapter 5, excluding Yakou in the latter since he had already died by that point.
  • In the first case, it is believed that the rest of the team besides Yuma had drowned when the submarine exploded and there was nothing to support them on the water their agency resided on, only for it to somehow turn out that they survived the explosion and met up at the secret meeting place that Yuma wasn't told about (the multipurpose building), not that they ever describe how exactly they survived it, of course.
  • In the second case, after Makoto captures the Master Detectives, it is at first believed that they died while researching homunculi and Kanai Ward in the restricted area's zombie-ridden factory, though in a far more gruesome fashion than before, their flesh seemingly stripped away and their remains a mess. The epilogue reveals that they actually lived through the chaos in the end, and the corpses were mere fakes, Makoto actually imprisoning them instead.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Aside from Chief Yakou, the group falls under this, including The Cynic (Halara), The Optimist (Fubuki), The Realist (Desuhiko), and The Apathetic (Vivia). The additional fifth is The Conflicted (Yuma).
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: As detectives, Yuma, Desuhiko, and Fubuki's sense of empathy and heroic spirits serves as a contrast to Yakou, Halara, and Vivia's coldness and emotional distance from others.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Aside from the Solution Blade, Shinigami's scythe, and Vivia's box cutter and syringe, the detectives largely fight against the Peacekeepers with their minds or their fists. The Peacekeepers themselves, on the other hand, almost always have a firearm or baton on hand, giving them the advantage over the detectives, except for Halara, who can easily overpower any weapons the Peacekeepers may use.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Even though they're the only real good among Kanai Ward's corrupt population, the public of Kanai Ward itself appears to show disdain for them no matter what they do, even though the detectives are trying to find the truth of the city for their sake.
• Implausible Hair Color: Yuma's hair is mauve with a faint purple shade, Shinigami's hair is pink, Yakou's and Fubuki's hair is blue, Halara's hair is naturally silver, and Vivia's hair is green with black streaks, despite them only being detectives (or in Shinigami's case, a death god).
• Not Quite the Right Thing: The main course of action the detectives take during their investigation is acting in opposition of the Peacekeepers. In terms of trying to solve Kanai Ward's corruption, this was the right thing to do for Kanai Ward's sake, as it was either the citizens living with Yomi in power forever (quite literally since everyone is actually an homunculus clone of their original self) or casting him out for the sake of a change in Kanai Ward's society. However, what they didn't account for is this being something they were expected to do in accordance with the more devious planning of Makoto Kagutsuchi — essentially meaning that they hadn't anticipated for it all being a trap set up by him, in reality. Their actions were indeed the right thing, but they really hadn't prepared for there being something more to what they were doing.
• Promoted to Playable: The four Master Detectives each get a turn as the player character in the DLC Substories released after the game's initial launch.
• Put on a Bus: Twice. The first time it happens is when Yomi destroys their submarine at the end of Chapter 2, forcing everyone except Yuma and Fubuki out of focus until their return at the end of Chapter 3. The second time is following them completing what Makoto wanted them to do in Chapter 4, that being ousting Yomi, as when he knocks them unconscious and kidnaps them, everyone besides the protagonist, who the Big Bad wants a challenge from, is locked up in Kanai Tower for the rest of the plot and never seen again until the epilogue.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The agency is comprised of a myriad of wacky personalities, including a cowardly chief, an amnesiac trainee, a cynical gambler, a perverted wannabe-superstar, a ditzy heiress, and an aloof book-lover, all unified under the same goal of finding Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret. The honorary member of the agency also ends up being an immortal Nice Girl informant. And to add to that, the amnesiac trainee is actually an amnesiac Great Detective masquerading as a trainee, and the cowardly chief also turns out to be an immortal.
• Right in Front of Me: The NDA are completely clueless that the "Yuma" they're talking to is the true Number One of the WDO due to his multi-layered gambit to keep his secret from others when sneaking into Kanai Ward working out perfectly.
• Rotating Protagonist: Throughout the game, Yuma switches between using his Coalescence on each Master Detective in his battle against Amaterasu Corporation. Halara's Postcognition is used to solve the Nail Man case in Chapter 1; Desuhiko's Disguise is used to solve the Aetheria Academy case in Chapter 2; Fubuki's Time Leap is used to solve the Resistance case in Chapter 3; and lastly, Vivia's Spectral Projection is used to solve the Amaterasu Corporation case in Chapter 4.
• Secret Chaser: The main goal of the detective agency is uncovering Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret. They persist on this no matter what because Number One told them to do it, but they seemingly come up with no results, because they were actually there to be pawns for Makoto.
• Sole Survivor: All of them, besides the chief himself, are indicated to have avoided Amaterasu's attempts on their life while entering into Kanai Ward by various means, which also means that, amongst the detectives who survived, that being Halara, Desuhiko, Fubuki and Vivia, the four of them also had to see other unnamed Master Detectives die before them in their own failure to enter Kanai Ward, not that they detail what happened to them in order to survive those attacks in question while everyone else died.
• Spanner in the Works: Everyone, including Shinigami and Kurumi, serves as this against Yomi, their opposition against the Peacekeepers being what eventually leads to his downfall... which unwittingly ends up serving Makoto. Yuma and Shinigami continue their interference for them in Chapter 5 when they oppose Makoto in the end, their refusal to give into him causing his plan to Kill and Replace the original Number One to fall apart.
• Split-Screen Phone Call: The agency's submarine features a TV that displays the feed of the branch calling via the phone, in this case, it's connected to the WDO, and as seen in Chapter 1 and 4, Yuma and Halara taking the call once each, respectively, this allows the agency to also see the face of the one calling them, and receive any additional live feeds.
• Took a Level in Badass: Prior to the arrival of Yuma, Halara, Desuhiko, Fubuki, and Vivia, the agency primarily investigated lost pets and infidelity, keeping out of the Peacekeepers' radar. By the time of the present day, aside from Yakou, they are willing to investigate murders and challenge the Peacekeepers due to Heroic Willpower... which was actually part of Makoto's planning, but it's still worth noting.
• Token Human: Kanai Ward's Ontological Mystery reveals that the NDA is this, as when excluding Chief Yakou, who is a resident too, the detectives Yuma, Halara, Desuhiko, Fubuki, and Vivia are in fact the only mortal humans amongst a population of immortal homunculi, since they are also the only outsiders.
• Token Immortal: Shinigami (unseen, technically not a member, but still part of the group), being a death god, naturally, as well as Chief Yakou and Sixth Ranger Kurumi, being homunculi. All the other members besides them are mortals.
• Underwater Base: After they were kicked out of the multipurpose building they were formerly stationed at, the agency now resides in a classy submarine submerged under a dirty riverbank.
• Unwitting Pawn: The Master Detectives were all actually summoned as part of Makoto Kagutsuchi's gambit to seize full control of Kanai Ward from Yomi and the Peacekeepers. Once they finally remove Yomi from power, Makoto imprisons them in Kanai Tower and fakes their deaths to shock Yuma and Kurumi.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The agency is well-aware that Amaterasu Corporation is their primary enemy. That doesn't stop them from occasional infighting, however, or at least, until Chief Yakou actually dies directly because of Amaterasu's corruption, which eventually reminds them of the fact.

Yakou Furio

Yakou Furio

Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu (Japanese), Kaiji Tang (English)

A native of Kanai Ward and the head of the Nocturnal Detective Agency. An average detective among the WDO's many masters, he's an unkempt, cowardly, though ultimately good-hearted man who would prefer to avoid the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers' attention at all costs. Unfortunately, the Master Detectives sent to investigate Kanai Ward have other ideas...

He is revealed to be the culprit of Chapter 4, having been manipulated by Yomi to kill Dr. Huesca in a murder-suicide case, leading to him obfuscating his true cause of death through Huesca's security system by targeting himself with a hitman.

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• Actually, That's My Assistant: When Halara steals his chair in the "Raining Cats & Dog" DLC, Tetra, a client visiting the agency, at first assumes that Halara is the chief since they're sat at the main desk. Yakou quickly corrects her that Halara's just one of his subordinates.
• Adaptational Protagonist: Appears as the protagonist in “How To Be a Master Detective: A Yakou Furio Case” which functions as his origin story.
• The Alcoholic: On top of his many already-present issues, Yakou likes to excessively drink alcoholic beverages and wastes his money away on consuming it. It's likely to distract from said problems, based on his attitude surrounding it.
• All the Other Reindeer: Yakou seems to be singled out constantly as Kanai Ward's punching bag because he's the only real detective in the city, at least prior to the arrival of the other detectives. In the past, his former colleagues left him behind to join Yomi's league, and a hitman also took advantage of him; in the present, Yomi, the Peacekeepers director, personally takes advantage of him to eliminate Dr. Huesca because he's Kanai Ward's only real detective, and is inherently a challenge to his position.
• Ambiguous Situation: Even Yuma doesn't know if Yakou died due to Shinigami reaping his soul or if the poison gas and/or stab wound got to him first.
• Angrish: At the end of Chapter 2, he's furious that Yuma had once again resisted the Peacekeepers, and got so angry that he realized he was starting to sound like he had a lisp.
• Badass Normal: Though without regard for collateral damage, his plan to manipulate his agency so he can covertly kill Dr. Huesca, Amaterasu Corporation’s head researcher, and use a hitman-for-hire as part of his plan to obfuscate the truth is quite impressive for a man with no special abilities of his own.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Ultimately Yakou's fate by the end of his character arc. He hates criminals, Amaterasu Corporation, and the Peacekeepers, but he not only becomes a murderer himself, he unwittingly ends up being the reason the company's directors, Yomi and Makoto, fulfill their overarching agendas, that being eliminating the head researcher, Dr. Huesca, and ousting Yomi in order to usurp him, both being Yomi's and Makoto's goals respectively.
• Beleaguered Boss: One can tell from his behavior that he fits this exactly, rather obviously having no idea what he's really doing with the detectives, even by his own admission, and trying to make the most out of Kanai Ward's restrictions.
• Beneath Suspicion: Absolutely no one suspects him to be Dr. Huesca's killer in Chapter 4 since he's The Leader of the detective agency, and therefore can't possibly be willing to do extreme things. Of course, it turns out he is the killer after all, and the entire "hitman threat" scenario was completely his doing so he could invoke this trope.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Cowardly tendencies aside, Yakou is comically exaggerated and has very over-the-top reactions and eccentricities... so of course he turns out to be a Manipulative Bastard willing to take revenge upon a highly-secured head researcher, that being Dr. Huesca, at any cost and hiding his death as a result of that researcher's tight security by any means.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In Chapter 0, he stops Swank from unfairly arresting Yuma for the Amaterasu Express Massacre by persuading him to let Yuma go. Swank is convinced, and leaves the situation for Yakou to handle instead.
  • In Chapter 4, he does this accidentally while he's slowly dying from a stab wound/gas. As Vivia is returning to Yuma's body while in Spectral Projection with Yuma, he communicates to them that they should stop fighting and face the truth. This stops Vivia from stabbing Yuma to death in his attempt to stop Yuma from knowing Yakou is the culprit of Dr. Huesca's murder.
• Big Eater: Yakou is proudly obsessed with Kanai Ward's meat buns, and wants to eat them at any opportunity he can. Little does he know the meat is human flesh.
• Big Good: Less so than Number One, who he serves under, but he's the leader of the main detective agency in the story, and Yuma, Halara, Desuhiko, Fubuki, and Vivia are his agents, making him responsible for their presence in Kanai Ward. Understandably, once he dies and the Big Bad Makoto Kagutsuchi succeeds at his goals thanks to his reckless actions in Chapter 4, the agency falls to chaos in an instant.
• The Butler Did It: An inversion. Instead of a lowly servant of the agency committing a crime, it turns out Chief Yakou, someone who leads a group of people who serve under him, commits one instead.
• The Call Put Me on Hold: Despite his status as the only detective without a Forensic Forte, he is very insecure about the fact and wishes he had one of his own so he could do what the Master Detectives who do have Forensic Fortes can do, which mostly involves getting more money on the job than he currently does.
• Da Chief: Of the Nocturnal Detective Agency. He's even referred to by the trope repeatedly by his employees, though with a more formal "the".
• Cigar Chomper: By Yakou's own words, he is unable to quit smoking on that cigarette, and as shown in Chapter 5, becoming a zombie doesn't stop him.
• Cool Old Guy: While he's only middle-aged (in appearance that is, given like all the other people in Kanai Ward he's only been alive for three years), Yakou is notably older than all of the other detectives, with Desuhiko even referring to him as "old man", and he serves as the chief of the Kanai Ward division of the WDO, the biggest detective organization in the world.
• Comfort the Dying: Yakou is on the receiving end of this in Chapter 4 when his detectives find him having been fatally wounded by Fink the Slaughter Artist, staying with him as he dies in Amaterasu's research lab, with Halara especially being by his side and even attempting to revive him but failing since he was going to die no matter what.
• Cop Hater: Despite being a detective himself, Yakou sure hates the Peacekeepers controlling the law within Kanai Ward. Understandably so, considering its director, Yomi Hellsmile, has taken over all aspects of Kanai Ward’s law enforcement due to his corruption.
• Corrective Lecture: Yakou chastises Yuma for his defiance against the Peacekeepers between Chapter 1 to 3 by giving him a stern lecture about the consequences of being reckless.
• Cosmic Plaything: In hindsight, he isn't the most fortunate man in Kanai Ward, or the world, really. He has no Forensic Forte, his town of residence has been converted into a Wretched Hive full of corrupted citizens, his detectives constantly let themselves loose despite his warnings, his wife died by Amaterasu and he became jaded in the process, his original self was replaced with a homunculus that thought he was his original (who lost said wife), and he ends up dying as said homunculus clone while unaware he was an Unwitting Pawn for Yomi Hellsmile and Makoto Kagutsuchi, while said detectives end up getting kidnapped by the latter after he dies with the threat that they'd have died in Kanai Tower together if Makoto got what he wanted in the end.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: Not normally, but a sprite where he shows a creepy, wrathful grin and has a shadowy face gives off the impression of this.
• Crusading Widow: He tries to kill Dr. Huesca in Chapter 4 at the expense of his life because he thinks him to be the culprit of his wife’s murder, the event of which left Yakou as the jaded, lonely man he turned into.
• Curtains Match the Window: Has dark blue eyes and dark blue hair to match.
• Death by Origin Story: Not him, obviously, but his wife, the one that he kills Dr. Huesca over, died long before the Master Detectives arrived in Kanai Ward, his only reminder being a photograph of himself with his wife.
• The Dead Guy Did It: He's Chapter 4's culprit despite being its second victim. He made his way through the toxic gas chamber knowing it would kill him, and hired an assassin to kill himself and obfuscate the cause of death.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Da Chief. In the usual dystopian story, Da Chief is usually portrayed as a stern, but well-meaning person, wanting to change the system like the heroes, completely willing to put their lives on the line to make an effort. Yakou is anything but that, regularly being terrified of death and having little self confidence. He's also portrayed as anything but sharp and seems to have little genuine faith in his subordinates (though this gets subverted when its revealed his faith in their abilities was integral to his own plans).
• Despair Speech: Gives one to Yuma in the prologue, explaining that Kanai Ward is controlled by Amaterasu Corporation and the Peacekeepers, and how criminals are allowed to run rampant while Amaterasu looks down on everyone, having decided to give up on fighting against them due to their overwhelming power and how defying them would be a grave mistake.
• Died in Ignorance: On several levels, he dies not knowing the man he killed was not his wife's killer, that he was being used by Yomi, who did have something to do with her death, and moreover that the wife he remembers was not even "his" but rather the wife of the original Yakou Furio. His spirit's last words about the nature of truth downplay this as they imply he may have realized some things after/upon death (depending on when exactly he died), and his zombie self somehow manages to get ahold of some intel that helps Yuma get closer to the truth about the homunculi.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: His response to Halara's accusation that he'd give the detectives over to the Peacekeepers for his own safety when asked to help with Yuma and Halara's investigation in Chapter 1.
  "I’d rather turn myself in than ever sell anyone out. Though…I wouldn’t want to do that either, if I’m being honest… Never mind! Forget what I just said!"
• Dirty Coward:
  • Would rather hold the detectives back from fighting the Peacekeepers than encourage them, and also takes every opportunity to delay working on the assignment given to the agency, mostly to protect himself. This leads to Halara giving him a Cowardice Callout at the beginning of Chapter 2.
  • Fitting his role as this trope, he stabs the homunculus clone of the deaf Dr. Huesca In the Back once he ambushes him to avoid being spotted so Huesca can't defend himself.
• Doomed Hurt Guy: He's stabbed by Fink the Slaughter Artist in Chapter 4 as part of his Thanatos Gambit, and the detectives try to save him from his injury. Yuma eventually finds out that he was doomed just before that, as he's Dr. Huesca's murderer, and he endured the Deadly Gas within his security system that would have killed him after 30 minutes anyway. Along with that, due to creating a Mystery Labyrinth, his soul was going to be reaped by Shinigami, even if Yomi Hellsmile was the real mastermind behind the murder.
• Doomed Protagonist: Yakou was bound to commit the murder that ended up killing him in Chapter 4 at some point regardless of whether anyone tried to stop him, as Yomi was bound to use the death of his wife to manipulate him at some point, even if he didn't send the trigger letter immediately after Vivia's arrival like he does in the actual story. Fubuki likely also would've survived the massacre in the prologue and allowed him to bypass security with her Forte no matter what as well, considering her ability to rewind time itself, and Makoto definitely would've taken part in using him as a pawn too, considering the very reason Makoto brought the detectives to Kanai Ward in the first place (to oust Yomi).
• A Doormat to His Men: He thinks he has control over the Master Detectives he's trying to keep safe from the Peacekeepers; the truth is, he does not, especially Yuma. Otherwise, the story of the game would not exist.
• Easily Forgiven: He is held accountable for committing the murder in Chapter 4, something that Vivia's attitude towards Yuma revolves around. However, he's forgiven for his actions once the two detectives aware of the truth (Yuma and Vivia) realize that Yomi instigated the murder in the first place (with Yuma also finding out Makoto contributed to it by introducing him to Fink). This is despite Yakou consciously putting the murder into action himself and recklessly endangering his agency by targeting the all-important head researcher of Amaterasu Corporation in the process, using any means necessary to obfuscate his crime, and basically sacrificing himself in the process without caring for the consequences. The plot also helped Makoto Kagutsuchi's goals too.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: He manipulates Yomi to visit and guard Amaterasu's research lab as part of his plan to blend in with the Peacekeepers in Chapter 4, despite being well-aware of how he's irredeemably violent and self-serving and would only continue acting that way around the very detectives he despises so much.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Shinigami fires her Bello Fresco Grand Finale at him in the Mystery Labyrinth, he calmly closes his eyes as it approaches.
• Face of a Thug: His unkempt appearance, cigar addiction, jaded attitude, and suspicious clothing makes him look like a criminal, but he is a good guy despite this. This ends up a subversion when he actually kills someone (Dr. Huesca) in Chapter 4 and uses a hitman as part of his plot, however.
• Fatal Flaw: A tragic combination of revenge and recklessness. Most of Yakou's present day arc involves him reminiscing over his wife's death and wanting to make the one who caused her death pay for what they did. Yomi instigated him to target Dr. Huesca with an anonymous letter by framing Huesca for the murder, which he wavers between deciding and deciding not to act on. However, when he does act on it in Chapter 4, he ends up being completely willing to sacrifice himself to commit his murder, and the results of doing so end up creating senseless chaos, though most predominantly, it ends up serving the distinct agendas of Makoto and Yomi. Of course, he is a homunculus clone of Yakou, as opposed to being the original, but with Makoto tricking Kanai Ward into thinking the residents were human beings instead, it's basically no different than if the original Yakou was doing the same things.
• A Father to His Men: The only reason he tells his agents to stay away from the Peacekeepers is to prevent trouble for themselves. Unfortunately, he goes way too far on that, and it's marginally his own safety he's concerned about. Plus, they mostly don't listen in the first place because of his lack of charisma. That doesn't stop his agents from being there for him as he dies in the research lab, though.
• Feet-First Introduction: He's first introduced to the player with his running feet before panning upward to reveal his face.
• First-Name Basis: Commonly referred to as "Chief Yakou" by his employees.
• Friendly Zombie: He isn't as talkative as the other non-hostile zombies, only able to say Yuma's name, but he does hand Yuma an important piece of evidence before shambling off to parts unknown.
• Guys are Slobs: Compared to his detectives, Chief Yakou has no dignity or cleanliness and lives an incredibly unhealthy, unkempt loner lifestyle on his submarine.
• Heartbroken Badass: He (or rather his original self) lost his wife four years ago, unsure of how until Yomi gave him misinformation about the truth and made Amaterasu's head researcher, Dr. Huesca, a scapegoat so Yakou would target him for murder. Yakou inevitably commits said murder in Chapter 4 while trying to cover up the truth from his agency, due to possible guilt over his criminal act, and also dies in the process.
• Hypocrite:
  • At the beginning of Chapter 2, Yakou is furious over Halara and Desuhiko going off on their own despite the Peacekeepers being on alert since the Nail Man case was solved and Yuma (and Halara) provoked Yomi to take action against the agency. Then, he tells Yuma to go and buy meat buns from Kamasaki District regardless of him getting into the same risk of provoking the Peacekeepers again, which, of course, Yuma immediately calls him out for. Partially counts as Hypocritical Humor as well.
  • His desire for revenge overcomes his desire for caution when he ends up manipulating the agency and the Peacekeepers for his plan to murder Dr. Huesca at the expense of his own life, which ends up causing more complications with the agency itself than Yuma's prior interferences with the Peacekeepers beforehand, which Yakou previously scolded him for thrice total.
  • A chief detective, who is usually supposed to expose a murderer and be completely against them, manipulates his loyal detectives into aiding him in committing a murder of his own.
• Hypocritical Humor: He enforced a "no open fires" rule in his agency, but as Desuhiko later notices, he hasn't given up his smoking habits.
• Idiot Houdini: A Rewatch Bonus, but when reviewing the prologue upon finding out that he told Yuma of the agency's former location, one also notices he hastily avoids telling him it's also the secret meeting place. His agents don't call him out for failing to inform Yuma of this when it bites him back in Chapter 3.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Yakou does this unintentionally when he hides the photo of his wife that Fink returned to him after being stabbed for his Suicide by Assassin, as he was actually trying to hide the photo, not give it as evidence to be found.
• In Love with the Mark: As shown in his DLC episode, he met his wife because a hitman (under the guise of a businessman interested in offering her a job) hired him to find her, since she was a researcher within Amaterasu Corporation. Instead of calling his employer upon finding her in the city's cafe, he decides to have a conversation with her to try to find out what is going on, and he comes to like her enough to agree when she asks that he not report her location to the man who hired him. When said hitman personally confronts her anyway (having followed Yakou without him knowing), Yakou gives her the opening to escape, and thanks to his protective spirit, she hires Yakou to be her bodyguard.
• Irony: The whole purpose of a detective is to solve mysteries, a statement made within the narrative many times, but Yakou not only leads a group of detectives who aim to solve mysteries, he ends up creating one of his own with his murder in Chapter 4.
• It's All About Me: Invoked hard and explicitly. Any time someone challenges his decision on avoiding the Peacekeepers, he constantly says that he's concerned about his life being on the line, not the lives of the other Master Detectives, not that anyone questions him on it, of course.
• Killed Offscreen: His actual death in Chapter 4 happens when Yuma (the player) is in Dr. Huesca's critical lab, far away from where his body actually is with Halara and the others.
• The Killer Becomes the Killed: After he killed Dr. Huesca, Fink the Slaughter Artist killed him. Or at least, Fink killed him to mask what he was already dying from, courtesy of Dr. Huesca's security.
• Killer Cop: He's a chief detective and also the culprit of Dr. Huesca's murder in Chapter 4.
• The Leader: Of the Nocturnal Detective Agency and its members. His role is phased out when he commits to his scheme to kill Dr. Huesca in Chapter 4, leaving his agents aimless.
• Literal Metaphor: In his Despair Speech, he says that "someone in Amaterasu Corporation is always smiling when someone in Kanai Ward is crying", as to acknowledge how corrupt the higher-ups are. Narratively speaking, this turns out to be very literal, as Yomi Hellsmile is, well, constantly pulling a gleefully sadistic smile everywhere he goes, and thinks himself superior to everyone. Meanwhile, Makoto Kagutsuchi, who is only discovered to be an Amaterasu Corporation associate when revealed to be its CEO at the end of Chapter 3, wears a Menacing Mask that has a constant smile painted on it.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: Before he tries to manipulate the agency in Chapter 4, at least, but Yakou is typically a very crazy, over-the-top agency chief and is very prone to overreacting to things, and that's mostly because he's worried about the Peacekeepers getting involved... and jeopardizing his own safety, not the others', at the least.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Yakou repeats the idea of "doing anything for the one you love" at least twice, once during Chapter 3 when Yuma and Kurumi are under threat of the Peacekeepers with the rest of the NDA, and in his final Gumshoe Gab (found only after he dies). It turns out that the reason he killed Dr. Huesca is because he thought he killed Yakou's wife, whom Yakou obviously loved, willing to actually do anything for her, including getting himself killed and manipulating his own agency. Of course, Huesca didn't kill her after all in the end, but Yakou certainly went crazy over the assumption that he did.
• Manipulative Bastard: Though Yomi is the one who served to manipulate Yakou into committing the murder in the first place, Yakou also plays his own manipulations by luring the agency and the Peacekeepers into the research lab with the false death threat, which is what allowed him the opportunity to kill Dr. Huesca, his target, by use of Fubuki's Forte.
• Meaningful Name: His forename "Yakou" sounds similar to the Japanese word for "nocturnal", a reference to the Nocturnal Detective Agency, which he leads.
• Memento MacGuffin: The photo he is occasionally seen with throughout the game, which ends up being his motive to kill Dr. Huesca in Chapter 4 because it's a picture of his deceased wife.
• Mentor in Sour Armor: A cynical middle-aged detective agency chief who hates fighting the enemy thanks to the death of his (original self's) wife, teaching his own detectives with a firm, authoritative hand not to fight so they don't end up in his situation. He's partially correct in thinking like this due to Yomi's influence utterly wrecking Kanai Ward's peace, but he's certainly a pessimist.
• Misplaced Retribution: Yakou's plan to murder Dr. Huesca in Chapter 4 ends up being misguided for two reasons: the Dr. Huesca he killed was actually the clone that killed the original Dr. Huesca, and Huesca never killed his wife in the first place, as it was the Zilch from Chapter 0 who killed his wife under Yomi's orders.
• Mr. Exposition: He basically serves as this for the opening of the story, expositing about Kanai Ward, the WDO, his opinion on the matter regarding their relationship with Amaterasu Corporation, and even what Yuma's potential true identity could be (the lattermost of which ends up being a flashback in Chapter 5 during the battle with Makoto).
• My Greatest Failure: Failing to protect his wife from Amaterasu’s corruption, which serves as his motive for murder.
• Native Guide: Since he lives in Kanai Ward, Yakou ends up being the one to have to guide Yuma and Halara to the church in Chapter 1.
• Neutral No Longer: Played for Drama. He spends much of the story idling about and letting the Peacekeepers continue to destroy Kanai Ward with their corruption, though that's mostly thanks to Yomi making him paranoid with the possible idea of Dr. Huesca, Amaterasu Corporation's head researcher, being responsible for the death of his wife four years ago. Then that changes when he opposes one of the more villainous characters... by killing Dr. Huesca and covering up the crime, in a Pay Evil unto Evil situation since Huesca turns out to be one of Yomi's collaborators.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The entirety of Chapter 4 involves him making rash decisions that only fall into Amaterasu's whims. Luring Yomi to the research lab to blend in with the Peacekeepers ends up nearly getting his own agents killed due to the overwhelming number (the death threat motivated Yomi to increase security and be there to act in defense before the agency raided the lab with Yakou, making the HQ harder to navigate without crossing paths with him) after he gives Fink the go-ahead to stab him as part of his gambit, and killing Dr. Huesca himself only creates chaos during the raid that nearly ends up in Yuma and Vivia dying by Yomi's hands due to their investigation causing them to cross paths with Yomi. And to top it off, his death pretty much led to the NDA being useless to Makoto and giving him the opportunity to be rid of all of them, especially with Yakou no longer being there to lead them, since Yakou's plot gave him exactly what he wanted: an opportunity to find evidence against Yomi, said opportunity being why he also lured the detectives to Kanai Ward from the start.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: It's implied throughout the game that he's wiser than he lets on, going on philosophical tangents and surprisingly knowing how rowdy his agents are. Eventually, this entirely comes into play when he manipulates his detective agency, Fink the Slaughter Artist, and Yomi Hellsmile himself in his plot to kill Dr. Huesca.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During Chapter 4, Yakou's behavior is... very odd, and contrasts his usual behavior, foreshadowing his eventual murder. Before Yuma leaves to visit the research lab with Makoto, he visits Yakou for the last time alongside Kurumi, seen holding the letter that would cause the murder later on. He is rather... dejected, lacking his usual energy, and is talking about the loss that caused him to become the jaded person he is now, and how he couldn't hold onto them, which was actually referring to his deceased wife. Later on, after raiding the research lab, he surprisingly Takes A Level In Idealism and is extremely enthusiastic and hopeful despite his usual negative outlook, which Desuhiko points out for himself as well; the reason for the later shift is because he's finally able to take an opportunity for revenge, like he's wanted to this whole time, and he's finally been open to it, that revenge being to murder Dr. Huesca.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He is the culprit of Dr. Huesca's murder in Chapter 4, but aside from Huesca's bad reputation in Amaterasu, upon finding out that he was willing to lure Yuma, Desuhiko, and Fubuki into a trap to kill them so he could escape by himself, he was in collusion with Yomi until six months ago, and his homunculus experiment is the direct cause of much of the story's conflict in the present day, it's easy to no longer find Huesca worthy of sympathy.
• The Perfect Crime: As the last obvious murder case in the game, Yakou's can be considered nigh-impossible to solve if it wasn't for one factor: the lethality of Dr. Huesca's security and his paranoia causing him to create it. The only reason that Vivia even realizes that he's the culprit in the first place is because he would've ended up dying regardless once he went through the gas, and used Fink as part of his suicide attack. Alongside that, there was nothing tracing it back to him, and the victim never had any evidence of letting someone through to the lab. However, this enforced failure condition would be to Yomi's disadvantage, as the one who masterminded the whole event, since it would allow Yakou to be discovered as the culprit in the Mystery Labyrinth anyway. Essentially, Yomi's own threats caused his own plan to topple over, as Yomi is the initial reason that Huesca set the security up for his lab. Sure, Yakou's fake Fink threats could've been traced back to him, but it wouldn't have specifically done so in the event of the murder itself, as those fake threats had nothing to confirm his motives with either.
• Properly Paranoid: Though still a coward to unhealthy degrees, even being noted as one in his profile and called out as one by Halara, Yakou was technically in the right for wanting to avoid the Peacekeepers as the opposite (confrontation) is exactly what Makoto wanted his agency to do. Yuma, who is actually Number One, did what Makoto, who is actually Number One's clone, wanted by continually confronting the Peacekeepers over the course of the game with his fellow detectives, and... there were many consequences in store.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: His DLC episode ends with the zombified Yakou clutching the pill that was developed by his (original's) wife, which may be able to restore his mind and truly bring him back to life.
• Relative Button: Played for Drama. He does not take it well upon being informed of who is responsible for the death of his wife, the female Amaterasu researcher seen in his DLC, and spends the entire story planning to kill said person in secret. Chapter 4 eventually reveals said person who he thought was responsible was Dr. Huesca, Amaterasu Corporation's head researcher. Of course, this is what he was told by Yomi Hellsmile under an anonymous signature in a plot to manipulate him.
• Revenge Before Reason: In Chapter 4, his only goal is killing Dr. Huesca thinking him to be the one who killed his wife while hiding his role as the killer and sacrificing himself to do so. That's about it. The following consequences and who has to be exploited to accomplish it are the least of his concerns.
• Sacrificial Lion: His death and the reasoning for it are mostly used to show how ruthless Amaterasu Corporation really is, as the two people who encouraged his death from the start, Yomi and Makoto, are both associated with Amaterasu, and both play a part in his death by manipulating him in their own ways for their own reasons. It's also used to show how the NDA really care for one another, despite their tensions, as the drama behind his death reveals that the detectives are ultimately good people deep down; it especially exposes what Halara's really like underneath their cool attitude, at that.
• Scream Discretion Shot: Immediately after Yuma, Desuhiko and Fubuki discover Dr. Huesca's body after entering his critical lab, Yomi following behind, Yakou can be heard screaming in a chilling fear from the hallway just outside. Yuma runs outside to discover the source of this and finds Fink having stabbed him.
• Self-Sacrifice Scheme: His plan to lure himself and his agency into Amaterasu Corporation's research lab with a false death threat from Fink so he could kill Dr. Huesca at the expense of his life, which would culminate in his Suicide by Assassin, leading to the drama surrounding his death with the NDA thereafter.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Sure, he may have gotten Dr. Huesca killed in the end, and he knew he would die in the process, but it didn't come without an actual sacrifice. That sacrifice in question being the entirety of the Nocturnal Detective Agency, since he was the only official head, and when he died, no one was there to run it anymore. Makoto abducting everyone after he died was only inevitable.
• Smoking Is Cool: Downplayed. While Yakou himself constantly smokes on his cigar, no matter the scene, and does indeed highlight his rebellious attitude by doing so, Yakou as a person is usually anything but. Also inverted, as he's the only member of the NDA who smokes (on-screen, that is), but the agents working under him more fit into "cool" better than he does, and his lack of a Forensic Forte doesn't help matters.
• Smoking Is Edgy: Yakou is a very cynical, aloof detective who is suffering from the death of his wife four years ago, and detests Amaterasu for being the ones responsible for it. To accompany this, he also wears ragged clothes and is a constant smoker.
• Spare Them The Dirty Work: What Yomi manipulated him to do, in summary. Since Yomi couldn't take out Dr. Huesca himself as his own revenge for planning to escape from Amaterasu Corporation on his own, he encouraged Yakou to take the job for him by using Yakou's desire to kill Huesca for (supposedly) murdering his wife before the events of the game.
• Speech Impediment: Develops a lisp whenever he becomes particularly upset.
• Stepford Smiler: Downplayed. He's usually a very moody person, but he pretends that the misfortunes within his personal life are a non-issue, and he can work with his current situation in spite of the difficulties. In reality, he's extremely doubtful of himself, and his spirit is completely broken because his (original self's) wife died, despite her being the only person who gave him any real happiness after Amaterasu Corporation took over Kanai Ward and his former colleagues left him behind to join them.
• Suicide by Assassin: Dying from toxic gas would make it obvious he was the one who killed Dr. Huesca, so he hires a hitman to stab him to death before the gas can kill him.
• Suicide, Not Murder: When the detectives find his body, they assume that Fink killed him of his own will, since, of course, he was an iconic hitman within Kanai Ward, choosing Yakou as a target for his vulnerability after infiltrating the research lab for real and finding him alone with no nearby witnesses. The reality is that, the entire time, Yakou arranged for Fink to stab him, and it was an intentional part of his overall murder plot to cover up that he was the one who killed Dr. Huesca.
• Sympathetic Murderer: His reason for murdering Dr. Huesca's clone and covering up the crime while manipulating his agency in the process is that he thought he was taking vengeance on the person who killed his wife. He actually wasn't, and was actually unwittingly sparing Yomi Hellsmile the effort of killing the doctor himself as Yomi's own retribution for Huesca's betrayal six months ago, and giving Makoto Kagutsuchi the opening to expose Yomi for his crimes and place him under arrest.
• The Team Normal: The only member of the Nocturnal Detective Agency who doesn't have a Forte.
• Thanatos Gambit: Thrice over even. He knew that the toxic gas in the critical lab security would kill him no matter what and powered through it, then he knew that he would be shocked to death by the panel room dozens of times as the detectives used Fubuki’s Forte to brute force the safe path they needed to take, before finally letting himself get stabbed to death by a hitman he hired.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The meat buns sold around Kanai Ward. He is unaware they're made of human flesh.
• Tragic Hero: He and Yomi are the sole sources of conflict in Chapter 4, since the two of them are the cause of the immediate plot within that chapter, with Makoto serving as its Greater-Scope Villain by being the one who introduced Yakou to Fink in the first place. However, Yakou dies unaware that either of them played a part in his role as the one who killed Dr. Huesca via sneaking into his lab, and covertly sacrificing himself to succeed at the murder, and his revenge is driven by him being, as he refers to himself constantly, an Empty Shell since he believes he lost his wife over three years ago to Amaterasu's corruption (in fact it was his original who lost her, the Yakou we see being unaware he is not the same person). Speaking of Amaterasu's corruption, he dies from it just the same way his wife died in the end as well. In the end, he's an immortal near brain-dead zombie whose last act of sentience was to hand Yuma important evidence.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • The photo that he's seen with, which ends up being his motive to kill Dr. Huesca in Chapter 4 following various moments of foreshadowing. It's a picture of himself with his deceased wife, whom he thinks Dr. Huesca had killed to keep her quiet about Amaterasu, and in order to hide his role as the culprit from the other detectives as he lay dying, he marked the photo with the blood from the stab wound and hid it in a nearby plant to cover up the decisive evidence.
  • It's implied that the glasses he wears are this as well since his wife's seen wearing them during his DLC while he isn't wearing any.
• Treacherous Advisor: He's the head of the Nocturnal Detective Agency, which also means he's the mentor of the main detectives in the story, including Yuma, and even someone like the untrusting Halara. Unfortunately, he also turns out to be a non-malicious scheming murderer, and pretty much betrays the agency in the process of actually committing that murder, though considering who he killed, one can't blame him for going through with it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • He sends Yuma out into Kanai Ward's crime-riddled land unsupervised twice, once at the beginning of Chapter 1 and again in Chapter 2. The first time, after telling him to round everyone up (no one listens and Halara is missing), Yuma ends up instead getting involved with the Nail Man case, requiring Halara to appear and save him, then have Halara join in with investigating the case. Seth appears and threatens to arrest Yakou thanks to the both of them. The second time, he sends Yuma out to buy meat buns from Kamasaki District, causing Yuma to get wrapped up in the Aetheria Academy case, thanks to Kurumi, and motivating Yomi and Martina to fight back by destroying the NDA's submarine with everyone onboard.
  • His decision to lure Yomi Hellsmile and his underlings to the research lab as part of his murder plot against Dr. Huesca ends up causing much of the conflict in Chapter 4, with Yomi spreading his violent behavior towards the whole NDA everywhere he went, nearly leading to their arrest had Makoto Kagutsuchi not intervened.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • In the prequel novel, his senior detective had him doing various dull and menial jobs around Kanai Ward. Unbeknownst to him, the purpose behind those was to piss off a local gang, who couldn't go after him due to his senior's ties to their boss. Once Yakou got so fed up with him that he quit, he walked right into their trap since they were now free to kill him. His boss wanted this to happen, as the police were waiting for the gang to act out in the open so they could arrest them.
  • He was a twofold case in the fourth chapter. First was by Yomi, who gave him the lab map and the info about Dr. Huesca's involvement with his wife's death so he'd kill the doctor and lead the detectives into a trap. The second was by Makoto, who introduced him to Fink the Slaughter Artist as part of his plan to find evidence against Yomi in the confusion.
• Vengeance Denied: The reason he wanted Dr. Huesca dead? Because he killed his wife in an "accident". Except said accident was actually caused by the fake Zilch on Yomi's orders. The original fake Zilch died during the Blank Week and the second one was killed by Yuma and Shinigami. And Yomi wanted the doctor's murder to happen. Yakou never finds out about this.
• Walking Spoiler: It's pretty much really hard to talk about him without revealing that he was the culprit for Chapter 4.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He chews out Desuhiko after he let the Nine-Tailed Cat abscond with the ring the museum had lent them, saying paying them back would bankrupt the agency.
• What Were You Thinking?: In the three events when he scolds Yuma for getting involved with the Peacekeepers up to Chapter 3, he basically asks this every time, in a very angry tone.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: According to Vivia, the note he received from Yomi that instigated his murder was sent just after Vivia, the last detective, was dispatched to and arrived at the agency. Along with this, Yakou is seen staring at his Tragic Keepsake photo plenty of times throughout the events of the story, serving as a more explicit hint towards his killer intent. Both of these factors serve to indicate that throughout the story, Yakou is planning his murder the entire time, which he eventually commits to in Chapter 4.
• Would Harm a Senior: Dr. Huesca, a very obviously old Mad Scientist within Amaterasu protecting himself with a security system, is his target for murder in Chapter 4, and he has no issues targeting him out of revenge regardless of his status as a senior.

Halara Nightmare

Halara Nightmare

Voiced by: Yui Ishikawa (Japanese), Amber Lee Connors (English)

One of the Master Detectives sent to investigate Kanai Ward, an aloof individual with no specified gender. Cool, calm, and collected, Halara is a highly competent detective who charges a sizeable sum for their work. Their Forte is Postcognition, allowing them to view a perfect recreation of a crime scene based on the moment it was first discovered by a third party.

They act as Yuma's assistant in Chapter 1, helping him investigate the Nail Man Killings with the promise of a hefty repayment down the line. They star as the lead in the "Raining Cats & Dog" substory.

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See their tropes HERE.

Desuhiko Thunderbolt

Desuhiko Thunderbolt

Voiced by: KENN (Japanese), Khoi Dao (English)

One of the Master Detectives sent to investigate Kanai Ward, a self-described "Superstar Detective" with an ego as large as his backpack. He's an optimistic, though rarely successful, ladies man who longs to be a famous musician in addition to his detective work. His Forte is Disguise, allowing him to create incredibly accurate disguises of anyone he sees even once.

He acts as Yuma's assistant in Chapter 2, helping him infiltrate the all-girl Aetheria Academy to investigate a student's death. He also stars as the lead in the "Charisma Killed the Cat" substory, in which he faces off against the elusive thief known as the Nine-Tailed Cat.

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• Afraid of Blood: Absolutely loses it at the sight of corpses and blood, and actively takes cases that avoid those things (i.e. espionage and infiltration).
• Ambiguously Bi: While he's an unrepentant skirt chaser in the main game, his Gumshoe Gabs with Yuma imply he might enjoy another man's company as well. Specifically, the way he asks Yuma to form a band with him, shyly admitting it's the first time in his life he's wanted to share the spotlight with another person and passionately asking Yuma to "journey on a path toward stardom side by side" with him, can easily be read as being romanticlly intentioned. Adding to that, one dialogue option has him straight up admit that a woman turning out to actually be a man would not be a deal breaker for him. In the main story itself there is a scene of him openly admitting he'd happily bang Yuma (with his consent) when he sees what Yuma looks like in a female disguise, indicating Desuhiko's tastes are more about appearance than sex or gender.
• Attention Whore: Desuhiko loves the spotlight and has aspirations of being a famous rock star one day.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: During one of Desuhiko’s Gumshoe Gabs he dresses up as Yakou to mine information from Yuma about his opinion of himself, but can't help but make compliments about himself which makes Yuma realize he's actually talking to Desuhiko.
• Casanova Wannabe: He thinks he’s a ladies man with dozens of fans, and is absolutely wrong every time.
• Dating Catwoman: He tries to pull this during his proposal to Enyne, enamoured with the notion of a Master Detective and Phantom Thief romance. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't reciprocate, simply grabbing the ring, leaving the hotel and returning it to the museum as her response.
• Didn't Think This Through: After Enyne reveals she's the Nine-Tailed Cat and is about to leave with the fake ring, he exposes his ruse by revealing the real one still in his posession. When he uses it to propose to her, he's blindsighted when she simply takes the real ring and just leaves.
• Disguised in Drag: Helps Yuma infiltrate Aetheria Academy by masquerading as one of the teachers, which ends up catching him in a bind of keeping the disguise going to convince the Peacekeepers, wearing him down significantly.
• Dislikes the New Guy: His initial attitude towards Yuma, much to Halara's chagrin. Eventually, the two of them release their tensions when Yuma hires him to investigate the all-girls Aetheria Academy.
• Distracted by the Sexy: He suffers from this to some degree at the best of times, but the sight of Shinigami in her humanoid form has him various levels of distracted for much of the Mystery Labyrinth he ends up in. Notably he doesn't seem to hear a single word of Yuma's lengthy explanation of what the labyrinth is simply because he was ogling Shinigami the entire time.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While there are many immensely screwed up things he could do with his Disguise, he never uses it for criminal acts, despite his perversions. Admittedly the way he puts it is that he makes sure to stop just short of doing something illegal.
  • He normally is willing to flirt with pretty much anyone who even looks feminine enough, but is never seen going after Halara or Fubuki, presumably because he finds their personalities to be too frustrating in terms of romance as he repeatedly expresses exasperation when dealing with them.
• Expy: Of Leon Kuwata, as a spiky-haired, passionate, overconfident Casanova Wannabe who wants to become a famous musician despite his innate talents lying elsewhere. However, while Leon was Book Dumb, didn't have a particularly notable relationship with Makoto, and ended up being one of the first deaths in his game, Desuhiko is an accomplished Master Detective, eventually ends up quite friendly with Yuma, and survives to the end of the story.
• Fatal Flaw: Lust. If Desuhiko ever makes a mistake during an investigation or blows his cover on an investigation, it's usually due to his unquenchable interest in women. This is shown the most in his DLC when he lets the true Nine-Tailed Cat get away because he found her attractive. It's also shown that he stalked Aetheria Academy's music teacher while in his teacher disguise following Chapter 2, forcing Yuma to lie for him when inquired about it.
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: With him being Afraid of Blood and only being interested in gorgeous women, it's easy to forget that he is legitimately intelligent and is a Master Detective for a reason. During the second Mystery Labyrinth he takes one look at the three winding paths leading to the "Howdunnit" (once he's able to see them from above) and realizes they all converge together, helping Yuma realize that there's not one culprit, but three.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Considering the entire NDA does like each other loosely speaking, the standards are slim, but the closest that gets to this is Desuhiko. Out of everyone in the main cast, everyone besides Fubuki either ignores him or argues with him. In his case, Yuma is disappointed in his Casanova Wannabe personality, Shinigami outright loathes him, Vivia doesn't acknowledge he's even saying anything at one point, Yakou is mostly enraged by him, and despite them being Vitriolic Best Buds from the very first moment in the game, Halara is rather harsh towards him.
• Genre Blindness: He keeps trusting the female Mystery Phantoms in the second Mystery Labyrinth, despite being told that they only exist to mislead the investigation. Granted he did spend Yuma's explanation of the Mystery Labyrinth ogling Shinigami, but you'd think after the first few Reasoning Death Matches someone as smart as him would figure it out anyway.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Investigating Aetheria Academy with Yuma ends up with disastrous results when a disguised-as-Martina Yuma ends up encountering the original Martina where Desuhiko is, while Desuhiko is being interrogated by the original Martina, forcing them to flee.
• Good Wears White: Desuhiko’s blazer is colored white.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: His relationship with Yuma becomes this when they band together to infiltrate Aetheria Academy. Desuhiko constantly teases Yuma on just about everything and even admires the confidence he sees in him, especially with him not being as professional as Halara is regarding his image, which makes him easier to bond with, and it also makes them seem closer to one another than Yuma is with anyone else in the NDA.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his egocentric personality he eventually reveals how he was depressed and a Shrinking Violet as a kid which lead to the development of his Master of Disguise abilities until he had to go on stage as part of a case and was inspired to be a Star and ran himself ragged by training to both be a Detective and Idol.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He's a cute, exciteable boy with a lot of genuine talents and a zest for life. He's also girl crazy to the point he tries to hit on almost every female he comes across, always failing.
• Lust Makes You Dumb: Desuhiko is a genuinely intelligent young man, but his sheer horniness means it can take a while to see him exhibit this intelligence, especially if a attractive woman is within his field of view. For specific examples, he is so focused on ogling Shinigami that he mostly ignores explanations on how the Mystery Labyrinth works, and he repeatedly believes the lies the Mystery Phantoms tell him simply because they have taken the form of teenage girls.
• Master of Disguise: Desuhiko's Forensic Forte is "Disguise" - the ability to disguise his clothes, face, voice, height, weight, and even gender. While he tries to claim there is no magic to it, the sheer level of physical alteration he is capable of using on himself and others goes beyond what should be possible (notably in Desuhiko's DLC story he uses Disguise on Yakou to make him look exactly like Desuhiko, despite Yakou being much taller than him).
• My Greatest Failure: Played for Laughs when he tells Yuma about a mission he was on where an attractive woman was hitting on him, and he ended up freezing up and losing out on his chance to romance her.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: He does this to Yuma at the end of Chapter 2 when he says the girls just died for no reason and neither of them can be blamed for it.
• Perverted Sniffing: One of his sprites has him doing this.
• Photographic Memory: Desuhiko can copy the appearance of anyone he sees by looking at them and remembering their face, which he uses to help Yuma disguise as the main three theater girls who are suspects in Karen's murder, along with Martina in order to gather any additional information, as well to disguise himself as a teacher who passed by him when first entering the school.
• Power Perversion Potential: He clearly would be happy to use his Disguise Forensic Forte for carnal purposes, and laments the limitations to doing so. Not only is using the power physically draining for him, but the altered or added body parts (such as breasts if he takes on a female disguise) are incapable of feeling pleasure.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man to Yuma's sensitive guy.
• Shipper on Deck: He openly approves of Yuma getting together with Kurumi. Bonus points for literally being on a naval vessel when he made the declaration.
• Small Name, Big Ego: To the point he thinks himself as the greatest detective. At one point, he even tries to promote his own song while under disguise, nearly blowing his and Yuma's cover. Luckily, he was dragged off the stage before he gets to play it.
• Virtuous Character Copy: The form his powers take and manner in which they're presented are remarkably similar to Tsumugi Shirogane, but while she allegedly can't copy real people, Desuhiko exclusively does so despite demonstrating the capacity to take on original forms with his initial disguise for Yuma. Additionally while she is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Desuhiko initially comes off as rude and hostile but soon turns out to be rather friendly and helpful. As a bonus Casting Gag, the teacher he disguises as during Chapter 2 has the same English VA as Tsumugi.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Halara. Their very first moment in the game features them bonding over gambling, with Halara being annoyed by his insistence that he won the game and Halara justifying against it by means of a technicality of the chief returning from rounding up Yuma. In the epilogue, Halara also displays an affectionate sigh of disbelief when Desuhiko predicts himself to be the next Number One after Yuma's resignation.
• A World Half Full: Beginning Chapter 2, Desuhiko complains about how Kanai Ward is dark and gloomy, and he hates the constant rain every time he goes outside, so he decides he should "lighten things up" with his gigs. He eventually tries to do it in the agency before the chief interrupts, so he tries to do it again on-stage while disguised as an Aetheria Academy teacher. He would've done it a third time if he and the rest of the NDA didn't get kicked out of the plot temporarily by Yomi before he had the chance to.

Fubuki Clockford

Fubuki Clockford

Voiced by: Saori Onishi (Japanese), Xanthe Huynh (English)

One of the Master Detectives sent to investigate Kanai Ward, the ditzy heiress of the world renowned Clockford Family. While kindhearted and highly motivated to find adventure, her sheltered upbringing has left her lacking in common sense. Her Forte is Time Leap, a powerful ability that allows her to rewind time.

She acts as Yuma's assistant in Chapter 3, traveling with him to help clear his name after he's labeled a terrorist. She stars as the lead in the "Fubuki's Luckiest Day" substory.

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• Actor Allusion: Fubuki Clockford is a princess-like heiress played by Xanthe Huynh, who at one point works at a coffee shop much like Haru Okumura's dream to open a cafe. Also like Haru, she was also trapped in an arranged marriage that she wanted no part in.
• Actual Pacifist: Admitted outright when Comically Missing the Point in the prologue, saying that she doesn't want to commit to the war against Amaterasu for the very reason of being a pacifist. Of course, this doesn't stop her from fighting back when necessary.
• Badass Family: The Clockford family apparently not only share the same Time Leap ability, they actually govern the world's perception of time such as calendar dates.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played Straight with Fubuki not only being considered as "beautiful" In-Universe, by both Yakou and Yuma, but also being the nicest of the Nocturnal Detective Agency without any deception or fault.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though Fubuki is typically very well-mannered and polite, she doesn't refrain from fighting back against the Peacekeepers as her and Yuma are chased around Kanai Ward.
• Brainless Beauty: She is very good looking but has trouble remembering what number comes after three. When she works as a waiter in a cafe the entire establishment gets filled to the brim with customers, each and every single one with ulterior motives.
• Break the Cutie: Out of all of the detectives, the one who's hit the hardest and expresses the most distress over Yakou Furio's likely death in Chapter 4 is Fubuki, who is the definite nicest and most naïve member in the group. This is then followed by the situation with the criminal that the WDO is pursuing regarding a kidnapping case, which also thoroughly traumatizes her even further.
• Bumbling Sidekick: As Yuma's assistant in Chapter 3, continuing her cloudcuckoolander tendencies despite the dire situation Yuma is in.
• Character Development: Spoofed. She doesn't go through very much of an arc over the course of the Chapter 3 labyrinth, but still concludes at the end of it that she feels like she's really grown and changed as a person... only for Shinigami to point out she won't remember any of it anyway.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Fubuki, who's usually the comic relief of the cast, ends up being a key element in Chapter 4's case later on when Yakou uses her Forte to bypass Amaterasu head researcher Dr. Huesca's security system and enter his critical lab to kill him as the culprit.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She has a VERY odd thinking process, due to her upbringing making it hard for her to tell mundane things apart. She also outright mishears things on a routine basis, resulting in some very strange interpretations on her part. Among the biggest examples, her knowledge of evaporation has convinced her that the ocean must be in the sky (she's never seen the ocean herself, and is convinced that is where she'll have to go to see it).
• Clueless Detective: And how. Granted, she can think like a detective when the time calls for it but otherwise, she isn't quite as sharp as a detective should be.
• Clueless Dude Magnet: While working the café in Ginma District, the patronage spiked with dozens of guys, not realizing they came just to see her.
• Color Motif: Her hair and eyes are a light blue, which predominantly take up her appearance.
• Comically Missing the Point: She overheard her family's servants calling her "dummy thicc" behind her back, and thought it meant they were calling her stupid. When Yuma says she makes a good partner for him, she thinks he means romantic partner and that he's proposing marriage.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eye-color are the same color of a light, clean blue.
• Cutting the Knot: What her Time Rewind Mechanic is used for in Chapter 4. Since the detectives don’t know the code for the password puzzle to reach Dr. Huesca’s critical lab, her rewind powers have to be used to reset each time Ama-Pal would get damaged by electrocution (along with the culprit riding on top of it).
• Dating What Daddy Hates: She attempts to invoke this with her love for Yuma, saying that she prefers the real love she has for him than the forced "love" being offered through her parents' arranged marriage. Of course, it's not a fully-fledged "date" and it's more of an offer for one.
• The Defroster: Hinted to be this for Halara in "Fubuki's Luckiest Day" as she brings out Halara's more "caring" side much easier than any other character did in the main story (Yuma included), most likely because for all her lack of intelligence she is pure and honest, lacking in the human vices that drive Halara’s misanthropy.
• Delicious Distraction: Is much more focused on eating the chocolates used to score Halara and Desuhiko's gambling match in her introduction scene than actually keeping score.
• The Ditz: Due to her sheltered upbringing on top of her general forgetfulness, she has a very limited and warped understanding of what's going on around her. This gets deconstructed later in the story, as she's well aware of her shortcomings and has some major self-esteem issues because of them, thinking her Forte is the only useful thing about her and thus perceiving herself as The Load during situations where she can't use it or it won't help.
• Dude Magnet: After somehow getting hired to work the café in Ginma District, the patronage spiked as dozens of guys came there just to ogle her. Not that she notices.
• Dumbass Has a Point: When debating Shinigami over whether Shachi committed suicide or not, she's firmly on the latter side. She explains her reasoning by the argument of "If he had a gun, why didn't he use it to fight back?". Shinigami admits she hates how much sense that makes.
• Dumb Is Good: Fubuki is an absentminded Upper-Class Twit, but is definitely the nicest character in the whole game, aside from the few moments where she's Innocently Insensitive, and that's saying a lot about how different she is from the rest of the cast considering the game is set in a crime-ridden dystopia.
• Easily-Distracted Referee: In her introduction scene, she serves as the referee for Halara and Desuhiko's gambling match, the group improvising using chocolates to score. She gets distracted by the chocolates themselves and constantly eats them instead, which ends up nullifying the game, to Desuhiko's distress.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Parodied. She is comically overjoyed when she eventually remembers that "four" comes after "three" in the prologue.
• Expy: Of Sonia Nevermind. Her face is almost identical, but while Sonia is a princess of a foreign country and is only somewhat ignorant of the world and relatively naive but is very intelligent otherwise, Fubuki is an heiress to an influential family and is ignorant and naive to its logical extreme.
• Fanservice with a Smile: At the beginning of Chapter 3, she briefly serves as a waitress when waiting for the NDA to show up after they were separated following the explosion, and the tight outfit she wears on the job emphasizes her chest and her curvature. The enthusiastic movements and bounces she makes while in that outfit make it quite an alluring sight.
• Financial Abuse: Apparently, it wasn't Fubuki's choice to become a Master Detective in the first place; her parents had forced her to become one so she could learn about the world better, due to being held back by her family's extreme financial privileges.
• Forgetful Jones: She has a very... unreliable memory, often forgetting things that have been explained right in front of her, including that the agency had a backup meeting place. It tends to happen when she's distracted thinking of something else, which can happen to her quite easily.
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Fubuki is typically shown to be extremely airheaded and makes incredibly wild leaps in logic at times, so when she does manage to be a detective, it's a reminder that there's a reason she's still a hired detective in the present in spite of said incompetence. In Chapter 3, she actually makes an effort to question the case at least twice, as opposed to going through the motions as per the usual. When Kurumi shows her the surveillance footage of Yuma running up the building stairs before Shachi was shot, she actually wonders how the culprit managed to get on the roof of the Resistance hideout despite Yuma being the only one seen going up the only other entrance, and does try to consider other alternatives, albeit getting nowhere. It becomes clearer in the Mystery Labyrinth where she counters Shinigami on her logic of Shachi's death being a suicide, asking why Shachi didn't use his gun to defend against the Peacekeepers when they were about to attack him and instead used it to kill himself; Fubuki's logic turns out to not only stump Shinigami, but it also turns out to have been the correct logic, as Shachi's death was actually a homicide.
• Gamer Chick: Downplayed as it's unclear if she is actually good at them, but she has a deep fascination with fantasy roleplaying games (and given her nature, may believe they represent real things), equating pretty much everything in the Mystery Labyrinth to them and in a sidequest it's revealed she has an interest in obtaining real Orichalcum and forging the Sword of Legend with it.
• Genius Ditz: Despite being a total airhead, Fubuki somehow managed to master the ability to rewind time itself all on her own.
• Genki Girl: Fubuki is typically very bubbly and energetic due to her Cloudcuckoolander nature.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Fubuki is an energetic, excitable Proper Lady who is very interested in romance, but apparently likes competitions and is willing to hang out with the rest of the detective agency - of which is mostly male.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: The "Fubuki's Luckiest Day" DLC where she serves as the Player Character reveals her Time Rewind Mechanic is this from her perspective. Combined with Expendable Alternate Universe, as she discards individual timelines that occur every rewind as well.
• Heroic BSoD: Flies right over here when Yakou gets fatally stabbed and she can’t reverse time far enough to save him and only gets deeper in despair as he gets worse before breaking down in Broken Tears.
• Idiot Hero: The token idiot of the NDA. It seems to get on the other members' nerves sometimes, barring Halara and Vivia, at least.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Has blue eyes and is a very affable and understanding, if absent-minded, woman.
• Innocently Insensitive: At times her dialog veers into these, such as idly remarking on how all the detective group except her and Yuma must be dead, that Yuma's mind is in a worse off state than her own, etc.
• Insane Troll Logic: Yep. She has no idea of how straightforward the working-class world really is (already-expensive chocolates are impressive to her), and she has no idea how nature itself functions (she thinks the ocean is in the sky), but she has enough imagination to form completely illogical conclusions of her own regardless, and they're pretty much wrong every single time.
• In the Blood: She implies that every member of the Clockford family has some sort of power related to time manipulation.
• I Resemble That Remark!: She is offended by being called "sheltered" while continuing to have complete Genre Blindness regarding what the Mystery Labyrinth actually is as a result of being too overindulged by her rich upbringing to understand obvious things. At least she's still got her basic manners despite that.
• I Should Have Been Better: Instantly gets hit with this when she finds that Chief Yakou has been stabbed and she can't reverse time far enough to save him, and it continues into the final call with Number One at the end of Chapter 4. Of course, she didn't know Yakou would've died no matter how many times she rewound because of the permanence of the gas in Dr. Huesca's critical lab meaning he'd die anyway.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Played for Laughs and Inverted. While normally nice and cordial to everyone she meets, Shinigami calling her a "Naive, sheltered skank" causes her to take offense to being called "Naive" and "Sheltered," while being seemingly unbothered at being called a "Skank."
• It's All My Fault: Due to her ability, Fubuki often feels personally responsible for when others die, even when it's someone she doesn't know and/or she had no involvement in their actual death. In her mind, her power has to potential to save anyone from dying, so any time she's unable to do that, she can't help but feel like its all her fault.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: An idiotic rich girl with a good heart and acceptable manners.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Not to be confused with being Too Dumb to Live, since she does actually survive to the end, but Fubuki immediately falls for Dr. Huesca's Wounded Gazelle Gambit and, unlike Desuhiko, makes zero hesitation in nearly getting caught in Dr. Huesca's deadly security system trying to save him from the threat she thinks is out to get him in Chapter 4. She only lives through that gambit because Yuma warns her of the danger of said security.
• Literal-Minded: Misinterprets various well-known sayings a lot. Especially prominent when Yuma meets up with her in the café again, taking every single word of his relief to see her still alive in literal terms down to the last detail.
  "I am glad you were born as well Yuma."
• Logical Weakness: Fubuki's Time Leap powers take only a split second to activate, with speed enough that she can even react to an explosion before it kills her, however, she still needs to be alert enough to react in the first place. When Makoto's sleeping gas dulls her mind she proves unable to concentrate enough to activate her powers.
• Love Confession: Her final Gumshoe Gab has her give one of these to Yuma, claiming he's the first boy she's ever felt romantic feelings for.
• Malaproper: As shown in Chapter 3, she is clueless about the true meaning of certain idioms, like, for example, thinking "strike when the iron is hot" is actually "strike when the lightning is hot", and many more.
• Meaningful Appearance: Her collar contains rewind, pause and play symbols, foreshadowing her Time Master Forte.
• Meaningful Name: Her family name has the word "clock" in it, which befits the Clockfords' status as the ones in charge of the world's standard of time and Fubuki's Forte of turning back time.
• Meta Girl: A self-proclaimed "adventurer-detective" in an adventure-detective story? That's what Fubuki seems to be, apparently.
• Money Dumb: According to one of the loading screen messages, Fubuki's wealthy upbringing and general ignorance of just about everything in the world means she has no understanding of monetary value. For example, she thinks an apple costs just as much as a car.
• Naïve Everygirl: Fubuki is rather naïve and slow-witted, making her rather oblivious to what's going on around her and the implications of some of her words and behaviors. This personality of hers is seemingly a fundamental part of her character as she still has it by the epilogue.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: While Fubuki can indeed still think on her own two feet (albeit in her own odd way), she has never been free from her life as a Clockford and was forced to become a Master Detective by her parents, and not only that, but she had to undergo an arranged marriage typical of a rich family, being unable to experience true love or any sense of reality of her own, making her into the cloudcuckoolander desperate for others' approval seen in the present day. It turns out that Yuma manages to lift her spirits somewhat, being a man willing to show her any decency.
• Nice Girl: Eccentric personality aside, Fubuki is definitely the kindest of the Master Detectives Yuma works with while in Kanai Ward.
• Non Sequitur: Her dialog sometimes meanders into these as she'll bring up points for reasons or in ways only she understands.
• Occult Blue Eyes: A detective with the supernatural ability to rewind time who has blue eyes.
• Ominous Message from the Future: Parodied in Chapter 5 of the pre-release 4-panel manga, seen here, where she warns Yuma to refrain from making a gag to entertain Halara, knowing the consequences after rewinding time after he made said gag.
• Overly Long Name: She adds a ever-increasing number of titles to Yuma's name over the course of the Mystery Labyrinth she joins him on. What begins as "Warrior of Light, Yuma" eventually becomes "The Labyrinth Delving Elite Bomb Defuser, He Who Tames the God of Darkness, Holy Great Detective Warrior of Light, Yuma."
• Paranormal Gambling Advantage: Fubuki learns in her plan to expose the casino owner with Halara and Desuhiko in "Fubuki's Luckiest Day" that she can retry every time she loses a bet by rewinding time, which Halara advises her to use to exploit the owner's rigging. She eventually gains an addiction to this when she gambles with Desuhiko in the agency following that plan, and when Halara assures her that she won fairly (Halara adjusted the die so the owner would lose, in reality, as part of said plan).
• Plucky Comic Relief: Fubuki's Cloudcuckoolander tendencies ease the tension presented throughout the game, and especially when she continues her antics as Chapter 3's assistant.
• Proper Lady: Speaks with formality and poshness as a result of her wealthy upbringing.
• Remembered Too Late: Played for Laughs. Yakou forgot to tell Yuma about the emergency meeting place, but he knows for sure that he told Fubuki about it, in response to which she happily says that she remembered just now.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Taken to its Logical Extreme in both regards, with the Clockford family being known everywhere In-Universe, and Fubuki being incomprehensibly dense, if a little bit creative in her thoughts.
• Running Gag:
  • Aside from her counting issues which get repeated through much of the game, chapter 3 features her time and again speaking as if she and Yuma are the only survivors of the Nocturnal Detective Agency, with Yuma every time having to correct her that they don't know that.
  • Adding title after title to Yuma's name during the Mystery Labyrinth, each in accordance with what she perceives as different things he has accomplished.
  • Blaming Shinigami for the various obstacles in the Mystery Labyrinth (believing she is the God of Darkness there to stop them), to the point that after a few times of trying to dissuade her Shinigami simply decides Sure, Let's Go with That. She eventually figures out the truth.
• Save Scumming: While her time powers already basically work this way, the detectives invoke it with the third room of the lab's security system. Since they have no way of knowing the correct code, they plan in advance to brute force it through trial and error.
• Ship Tease: Chapter 3 gives her and Yuma plenty of this, what with them holding hands and Fubuki teasing romantic connections.
• Signature Headgear: To the left of her hair, she wears a pink flower.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Fubuki forms this sort of dynamic with Shinigami due to her distrust of her and the misconception that Shinigami controls the Mystery Labyrinths and creates all the obstacles. This frequently leads to childish bickering between the two, although by the end the misunderstandings are cleared up and Fubuki insists on considering Shinigami a friend, which Shinigami begrudgingly accepts.
• Spoiled Sweet: She's rich enough that she can't even count the number of kitchens her family home had (granted she can't count very high in general, but any more than one kitchen is more than most people have), and her father once bought her a star as a present (or at least he told her he did), but she's also the nicest member of the Nocturnal Detective Agency by a mile.
• Stepford Smiler: Fubuki, at first, appears like The Pollyanna being played straight, until you notice her insecurities, that is. She is fully aware of how she appears to others and just wants to be respected, but she's constantly dragged around by other people's problems and is never allowed a decision of her own, making her feel self-pity deep down. This is also considering her Time Rewind Mechanic, where her sense of responsibility causes her to feel disappointed in herself for being "useless", as she's able to reverse all things, including death, and she believes herself to have missed an opportunity for good when she's too late to do so.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Her and Yuma's relationship in Chapter 3 appears to be this, Fubuki constantly cracking up jokes and proposing ludicrous ideas while Yuma has to endure it and constantly correct her.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: Despite Yuma's explanation, Fubuki beleives Shinigami is creating obstacles inside Mystery Labyrinth and antagonizes her.
• Thrill Seeker: She likes exciting adventures a lot. Her profile states that she dislikes "unexciting adventures".
• Time Rewind Mechanic: Fubuki's Forensic Forte is Time Leap - the ability to rewind time, so that things can be redone. She can use it more than once, but each use leaves her increasingly fatigued. This is exploited in Dr. Huesca's murder case.
• Upper-Class Twit: Is both incredibly wealthy and very, very dense.

Vivia Twilight

Vivia Twilight

Voiced by: Yuichiro Umehara (Japanese), Aleks Le (English)

One of the Master Detectives sent to investigate Kanai Ward, an quiet, self-indulgent man who spends most of his time lying down in cramped spaces to read. While kind enough when spoken to, he generally prefers to keep to himself and rarely interacts with the other detectives. His Forte is Spectral Projection, allowing his spirit to leave his physical form and explore the world as a ghost.

He acts as Yuma's assistant in Chapter 4, lending Yuma his power to investigate an Amaterasu lab crawling with Peacekeepers. He also stars as the lead in the "The Near-Death Detective" substory, in which he investigates the circumstances behind the multiple suicides coming from the same building

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• Abusive Parents: His parents used to lock him in a storage room whenever he misbehaved. Tragically, these are actually happy memories for Vivia, since he and his brothers were all very attention-starved, and if his parents were punishing him, then that meant they were paying attention to him.
• Astral Projection: Vivia can eject his soul from his body, allowing him to investigate unbound by the laws of physics.
• Baritone of Strength: Vivia speaks in a deep, raspy, yet flat voice... during casual conversation. In Chapter 4's Reasoning Death Attack sequences, his voice becomes more aggressive.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Typically a reserved man, Vivia can do some very impressive or amoral things when he wants to.
  • In Chapter 3, he ends up being the one to expose the culprit by seeing the power plant's water level rising and telling the other detectives to investigate, which led them to Icardi and Servan stealing the safes in plain sight.
  • In Chapter 4, he withholds the truth from the other detectives by any means, refuses to investigate Dr. Huesca's murder by himself for everyone else's sake despite having the only ability able to solve it, and tries to kill Yuma at several points in the event that finds the Awful Truth, since Vivia is well-aware the dying Yakou Furio is the culprit while the others are not.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Vivia's behavior and the fact that he and his siblings yearned for their parents' attention, no matter how abusive, suggests that he lives with quite a dysfunctional family.
• Blessed with Suck: A wide margin of Vivia's behavior can be explained by his spiritual affinity and ability to eject his soul from his body and avoid the laws of physics, turning him into a Death Seeker with Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Doesn't see death itself as anything more than something to expect in life, to the point of making it into some kind of joke, and isn't interested in anything at all in life as a result of his spiritual affinity.
• Bookworm:
  • Almost always reading some sort of novel, and his spots in the agency's fireplace and under the hotel's piano have stacks of them. When an NPC with a crush on him asks Yuma what the ideal gift to woo him would be, the correct answer is a book. He even brings one into the Mystery Labyrinth with him, and sits down on conveniently-placed couches to read it several times while remaining entirely unfazed by the floor threatening to fall out from underneath him.
  • He's apparently not a big fan of mystery/detective novels, since he gets more than enough of that sort of thing in real life. However, a loading screen tip says that he actually has no real preference on what he reads, and just does it mostly to pass time.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In Chapter 3, when he appears alongside Yakou and the other Master Detectives, he says that he does not blame Fubuki for forgetting his name since he has not had much screentime, and his name is hard to remember.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: One of the most intelligent and observant members of the Nocturnal Detective Agency, but his absolute hatred of doing anything more than the bare minimum of work prevents him from actually taking much action until Chapter 4. However, his Forte muddies the waters a little, as its nature means it's never entirely clear whether he's sleeping or observing things as a spirit. He does admit to having used his Forte to spy on Yakou when Yakou was formulating his plan to murder Dr. Huesca.
• Brutal Honesty: While he doesn't speak much due to not wanting to waste his energy to do so, when he does speak, he says some very blunt words. Most of it's in relation to his disdain for people who do things for their own sake, and the other half is his apathy towards basic manners.
• Character Catchphrase: "I wanna die someday...", usually preceded by a heavy sigh. Lucky for him, he's one of the few people in town who will die someday. He lampshades this fact in his final appearance; before saying his catchphrase, he says he hopes Kurumi isn't offended by it.
• Cold Ham: Vivia tends to speak in soliloquies no matter the situation, yet he never raises his tone any higher than gruff affirmation, save for when he discovers Yomi's involvement behind Yakou's murder plan.
• Concepts Are Cheap: Repeatedly talks about death, his own and other people's, what with his strange view of the world.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's at least as combat-capable as Halara, but again he's much too lazy to actually put his skills to use 99% of the time. The only reason he bothers to pull his weight during his and Halara's Big Damn Heroes moment in Chapter 4 is because Halara would have charged him too much to take care of his half of the work for him, and he'd much rather buy a new book with that money.
• Cryptic Conversation: Vivia, every now and again, comes up with one of these as a defense mechanism whenever someone tries to encourage him to do something, using a whole plethora of ambiguous vocabulary and gratuitous phrasing to say things like "I don't want to", "I prefer peace", etc. in an extremely complicated, poetic way only he can understand. In particular, he likes to speak of life-changing truths as things that "destroy the world," leaving listeners confused as to whether he is being literal or metaphorical.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: In a sense, Vivia's general reluctance to expose the truth turns out to have a much harsher meaning in Chapter 5, when Yuma realizes that Kanai Ward's residents are defective homunculi, and Makoto's a clone of Number One, whom Yuma actually is, with Makoto essentially being the reason Kanai Ward is able to function how it does by the time the detectives arrive, but due to both of these factors, exposing the truth of Kanai Ward to the world would have unforeseen consequences if it were done haphazardly. So instead of exposing the truth by force, the two of them agree that Makoto should tell the truth himself, being the only one aware of it, as to prevent any collateral damage, and by doing so, things indeed turn out for the better when the residents accept the revelation of their true identity and the UG is willing to provide for them following Makoto's negotiations.
• Deadpan Snarker: In a calm, monotone way; he often shows a dry sense of humour, which is played up when he enters the Mystery Labyrinth. Especially when dealing with Shinigami.
• Death Seeker: A slightly downplayed example; he repeatedly mentions how he wants to die one day, and near the end of Chapter 4 he expresses slight disappointment at not being gunned down by the Peacekeepers.
• Dismotivation: In every possible way. Even in his voice and speech, as he refuses to say unnecessary things.
• Dissonant Serenity: At the end of Chapter 4, while the other Master Detectives, and Shinigami, are utterly horrified by the supposed terrorist attack on the WDO as Makoto catches them in his gas trap so he can kidnap them, Vivia is the only one who has no visible emotional breakdown, remaining his stoic self, even as he's losing consciousness.
• Dodge the Bullet: Does this alongside Halara when Yomi orders one of his soldiers to shoot at them when they both confront him in the research lab to save the other NDA members. Said soldier shoots at the ground instead of directly at them, making it easier for them to dodge, but it counts.
• The Drag-Along: When Chief Yakou ordered him and Halara to investigate Amaterasu Corporation's HQ, he was intending for "a lazy look around", but Halara, enthusiastic as ever, dragged him around by force to his chagrin, eventually leading him back to Yuma, Desuhiko and Fubuki.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: On the receiving end of it when hiding the truth of Yakou's manipulations for the rest of the agency's sake while trapped by Yomi in the research lab during Chapter 4, since they think he's still being his lazy and apathetic self for no good reason instead of actually having a real reason for acting that way in that moment. That reason, of course, being to save them the pain of knowing Dr. Huesca's murderer is Yakou.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Most of his facial expressions have this trope, emphasizing his tired nature.
• The Eeyore: He always speaks in an inexpressive monotone. Though most of his attitude comes from exhaustion rather than outright sadness.
• Expy: He's eerily similar to Nagito Komaeda in certain ways. They both have an unkempt appearance with unruly hair, both have a bizarre morality compared to the rest of the cast, and both have a significant role in their respective game's Chapter 4/second-to-last chapter.^NoteIn Nagito's case, DR2 goes from Chapter 1-6, meaning he has two chapters with a proactive role, while Rain Code goes from Chapter 0-5, giving Vivia only one chapter of focus. However, one of the most significant differences between them is that Nagito is a Large Ham dead-set in his ideology of "despair leads to brighter hope", while Vivia is a Cold Ham who initially values peace and tranquility over being a detective, yet seeing Yuma confront the Awful Truth of Chapter 4 leads him to concede and face it alongside him.
• Face–Heel Turn: Well, it's not crossing over to villainy, per se, but he does actively side with Yomi's arguments in the Mystery Labyrinth in Chapter 4 knowing exactly who Yomi is, that being a power-hungry lunatic who's been attacking the detectives the whole time. He doesn't return back to Yuma's side until Yuma proves beyond any doubt that Yakou killed Dr. Huesca, deciding to face the truth alongside him.
• Fighting Your Friend: Partway though the 4th Mystery Labyrinth, he eventually tells Yuma to cut the crap and admit that Yakou is the killer and that he subconsciously knows it. He then decides to test Yuma’s resolve/beat the truth out of him and fight alongside Yomi's Mystery Phantom. The segment that would normally be G.O.D Shingami is instead a duel between himself and Yuma.
• The Hedonist: Implied with his bio describing him as "self-indulgent" and his very self-focused attitude, in that he actually prefers being lazy so he can "live in peace" without dealing with external problems.
• Heroic BSoD: He spends much of the Mystery Labyrinth in Case 4 in a haze after discovering Yakou is a killer, and being unwilling to help Yuma because of it.
• Horrifying the Horror: He's so strange and morbid that even Shinigami finds his presence to be unsettling and depressing, and that's before it's revealed that he can see her.
• Hypocrite: He accuses Yuma of being reluctant to accept the truth that Yakou Furio is Dr. Huesca's killer in Chapter 4, but the reason that he isn't helping Yuma discover the truth in the first place and is in fact doing the opposite is because he himself is reluctant to let him find out.
• I Have This Friend: Or rather, "I Read This Book". He claims to Yuma that he's been reading a novel about an eager young detective who was hired by a girl to investigate the suspicious circumstances of her mother's death. During his investigation, he discovers that the mother had died in an accident that was the girl's fault, and the girl was entirely unaware of this. The detective is left agonizing over the decision of whether or not he should tell the girl that she technically killed her own mother, and Vivia asks Yuma what he would have done if he was in the detective's shoes. Yuma, knowing that Vivia doesn't normally read detective novels, suspects that this so-called "book" doesn't exist, and that the story is really from Vivia's own life. Vivia just answers with his usual cryptic nonsense and says it's up to Yuma to decide for himself whether he was talking about an actual book or not, but it definitely makes a good Freudian Excuse for why he believes that some mysteries shouldn't be solved.
• Intangibility: Vivia's Spectral Projection prevents him from touching physical matter, which is used to prove his innocence in Dr. Huesca's murder as he can't use a weapon while using his powers.
• Irony: Due to his vampire-like appearance and constant declarations of wanting to die, both Yuma and Shinigami suspect him to be some sort of immortal being. Turns out he's actually one of the very few mortals in a city full of immortals.
• I See Dead People: He's always to been able to see unique supernatural occurrences, which allowed him to see Shinigami, though he can only see her clearly when he's in spirit form and only percieves her as a formless haze otherwise. This spiritual attunement also allows him to keep his memories of the case while in the Mystery Labyrinth, and keep his memories of the Mystery Labyrinth after leaving it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jerk isn't exactly the word to describe Vivia, as he may seem mostly lethargic and incredibly unmotivated, but he does deeply care for his friends, including Chief Yakou, even if he's not the type of person to show it.
  Yuma: Some people think Vivia is cold-hearted, but I think he deeply cared for the chief.
• Knife Fight: Vivia uses a box cutter against Yuma's Solution Blade when fighting him in the Mystery Labyrinth.
• Laborious Laziness: The way he's lazy makes it seem like he's making an effort to be as lazy as possible... and he is.
• Lack of Empathy: Accused of this by Desuhiko when he leaves the other detectives to mourn over Yakou's death. It's mostly averted, since Vivia knows the Awful Truth of what Yakou did, and is mostly likely grieving in his own way, as he too cared about the Chief.
• Lazy Bum: Hates doing work and hates saying more than he needs to because it's too much effort.
• No Social Skills: Given that he prefers to think about dying and he often reads books and lying down in various tight spaces he has shades of this.
• Not So Above It All: More than usual. The events of Chapter 4 have him act stranger than usual due to his awareness that Chief Yakou is the case's culprit and being willing to turn to murdering someone (Yuma) himself to hide it, which contradicts his usual sensibilities where he prefers to avoid doing anything whatsoever.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: He prefers sleeping in either the agency's fireplace or underneath the hotel's piano. Not that he finds it comfortable in the slightest, mind you, but the confined space brings back the above-mentioned "happy" memories, which he enjoys reliving.
• Red Herring:
  • He seems to be aware of Shinigami's presence, and his unhelpful behavior during the Chapter 4 investigation suggests that he knows more about the case than he's telling. Though he's briefly suspected of having used his Forte to commit the murder, he's not the culprit. But he does have a good idea who did it, and he's obstructing the case to keep Yuma from finding out the Awful Truth.
  • There's also his Character Catchphrase, which implies that he cannot die and gives the impression that he is the homunculus that the master detectives are investigating. Not only does it turn out that he's mortal, he's one of the only people in Kanai Ward who isn't a homunculus. He just really likes to mention that he wants to die.
• Refusal of the Call: In Chapter 4, he rejects Halara's encouragement to use his abilities as a detective rather than waste them by saying that he'd prefer to avoid the truth, and considering what truth that was (Yakou is Dr. Huesca's murderer), it's somewhat understandable.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Due to his heightened spiritual affinity he's not only able to keep his memories from the case inside the Mystery Labyrinth, but also take his memories of it back into the real world.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Thanks to his spiritual ability he is able to see Shinigami all along, and manages to deduce she originated from the Book of Death, but he doesn't bother telling Yuma of all this all the way until they partnered up in Chapter 4.
• Self-Deprecation: Implied in that he thinks that Yuma merely talking to him is an act of courtesy.
• Ship Tease: With Ryo in his DLC. Vivia admits he’s “Interested” in her, to which Ryo interprets he is hitting on her. Vivia remarks that may be true.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: After Yuma's final meeting with Chief Yakou before he enters the research lab in Chapter 4, Vivia suddenly appears out of nowhere, having been in the office the entire time. Yakou, alone in the event, is scared half to death by Vivia's sudden appearance.
• The Stoic: Vivia's personality consists of this, hardly feeling the lightest emotions such as happiness or sadness, and sometimes, his more extreme emotions only consist of mild shock or tranquil fury. It’s implied that this is because of stunted emotions that stem from the severe neglect he got from his parents.
• Too Clever by Half: Vivia acts very condescendingly throughout the Chapter 4 Mystery Labyrinth, having already figured out the Awful Truth and believing that Yuma would be better off not learning it. And yet, Yuma figuring out the deeper truth about a mastermind behind the culprit absolutely floors Vivia, as he'd been so firmly convinced that he knew everything about the case that he hadn't bothered to consider some of the oddities. Vivia is forced to admit that he might've been able to prevent the whole mess if he'd actually tried to stop Yakou earlier.
• Too Much Alike: Surprisingly, he and Halara share plenty in common, such as their stoicism, emotional distance, hidden combat capabilities, and anti-heroic tendencies, but with Halara being more openly compassionate than he is, yet more restricting and actively unwilling to let people talk with them beyond simple laziness, the two of them don't quite get along despite Halara seemingly admiring Vivia's capabilities as a detective.
• Vagueness Is Coming: When he refers to the Book of Death and its consequences, about potentially destroying the world, he never actually specifies what that actually entails. And he pretty much never does, even when he's considering stabbing Yuma with his box cutter. It's somewhat understandable as it's a death book, after all. However, it's likely just Vivia being Vivia and saying nonsense as usual.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He was heavily debating on murdering Yuma to prevent him from finding out the Awful Truth of the Chapter 4 case.
• What Is This Feeling?: He claims to have never felt happy or sad even once in his life, but facing the truth of Yomi's misdeeds in the mystery labyrinth makes him note that he's actually experiencing such deep anger for the first time.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Vivia gets on both sides of this trope in Chapter 4:
  • He mostly avoids getting called out for his Lazy Bum attitude throughout the game, up until Halara's fed up with him and tells him off for "not having the willpower to make use of himself". What reduces his chances of even avoiding this altogether is that, as is immediately lampshaded on, Halara was the only one willing to say it too.
  • He shows implicit signs of this attitude while in the Mystery Labyrinth, but he invokes it completely during its Post-Final Boss Quick Time Event, where he throws prompts regarding Yakou's motives for his actions, and says "No, that's not the reason!" if the player misses the mark and gets the wrong answer.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: He has a “shocked” sprite that does this, though unlike most examples only one of his eyes is seen doing this. It’s notably one of his more expressive sprites.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Downplayed, but no less tragically so, as his DLC reveals that his Forte plays a major role in his cynical personality. His Forte's side effect consists of him constantly hearing voices of the undead and seeing ghosts constantly, to which they're beyond his control, which depraved him of his mental-well being overtime, making him the cynical death-seeker we know today. It makes you wonder if Vivia will ever get the help he needs regarding his Forte, IF there will be a sequel.
  Vivia: I've always been able to see the dead... And what they tell me is always true. The truth has been exhausting me for as long as I can remember. Even when I cover my eyes and ears, their voices continue to whisper it to me. "Please... be quiet". No matter how much I beg for it, the calm will never come. Where is the perfect peace...? It's found... in death.

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