Characters / Root Letter

Characters from the game Root Letter. Due to the mystery format which includes discovering the identity of several characters, beware of unmarked spoilers.

Main Characters

Takayuki "Max" Nakamura

The penpal of Aya Fumino back in high school. He leaves Tokyo to go to Matsue when he uncovers a letter from her that mentions that she needs to cut off contact because she killed someone. He's a Japanese-American.

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• Big Eater: Able to eat all the local soba restaurant's dishes with ease. Kousuke uses this against him in the True Ending route.
• But Not Too Foreign: According to Kadokawa Games, he's Japanese-American.
• Determinator: The source of his nickname, Max. He's absolutely determined to find Aya Fumino, regardless of the law, death threats, and the resistance of her friends. In some endings, this gets him killed or institutionalized.
• Featureless Protagonist: Zig-zagged. While he's only ever represented as a silhouette, and you can choose what responses he gives in his letters, he has a fairly well-defined personality. His name can also be changed, but his default name is Takayuki.
• Happily Ever After: With Shiori in the Golden Ending.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player can give him a different name, but KG materials indicate that Takayuki Nakamura is his actual name.
• I Will Wait for You: In the Last Answer Epilogue for the Princess of Himegamori Forest route, after Shiori frees herself from Aya's influence but still has to answer for killing three people.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's not the nicest person in the world especially when interacting with Aya's friends (as in calling their nicknames, constantly abuses their weaknesses at any opportunity in the first half of the game, and is on the edge of stalking them), but he still has a moral compass and does help Aya's friends to face their own demons.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: His Canon Name is Takayuki Nakamura, but not a single character refers to him by his name- everyone just calls him Max.
• Large Ham: During MAX mode, where he yells out his answers to the person he's interrogating.
• Save the Villain: In the Cursed Letter route, he grabs Yukari, who just tried to stab him to death, to save her from falling off a cliff. Sadly, she tries to stab him again and falls off as a result.

Aya Fumino

Originally from Tokyo, she enjoys history and mythology and was a high school senior at the time of your correspondence. Her disappearance and last contact sets off the game's plot as the protagonist tries to figure out what happened to her. As the protagonist investigates her disappearance, he begins to question everything he thought he knew about her.

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• The Ace: Consistently described as being smart, beautiful, athletic and artistic.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In Cursed Letter, she murders Max, Shiori, and her seven friends, then manipulates Lettuce into letting her loose on the rest of the world.
• Big Bad: In the "Cursed Letter" route, she is behind the curse of the letters and kills off the cast one-by-one while tricking Lettuce into helping her possess one of them, and in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, she is possessing Shiori Yoshioka and using her to get revenge on her abusive father and the others who molested Shiori.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In the "Cursed Letter" and "Princess of Himegamori Forest" routes, she was widely beloved as The Ace by her classmates, and is very sweet when writing to Max in her letters. But behind her beautiful smile lies a murderous, vengeful psychopath who racks up quite a body count.
• Broken Ace: She is described as the "tragic heroine" of her school; she was beautiful, always got good grades, and was a wonderful painter and athlete who died young. But in the "Cursed Letter" and "Princess of Himegamori Forest" routes, dying young (and being abused by her father in the latter route) turned her into a Vengeful Ghost who either indiscriminately murders innocent people or seeks violent revenge against those who abused her and Shiori, respectively. In the latter route, it is shown that even while alive as a child, she tried to get her father to kill her baby sister Shiori because she was jealous of the attention Shiori was getting.
• Dead All Along: The real Aya Fumino died 25 years prior to the story, and it's revealed that a girl named Shiori Yoshioka was posing as Aya.
• Demonic Possession: Her spirit can do this to people. In "Cursed Letter", she kills Misaki and takes over her body to pose as her and break free from her house, and in "Princess of Himegamori Forest", she slowly takes over Shiori, replacing her memories and personality with her own.
• Freudian Excuse: In "Princess of Himegamori Forest", her murderous nature is revealed to stem from the (possibly sexual) abuse her father put her through.
• Enfant Terrible: In "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" route - she wanted to kill her newborn sister, Shiori, so her father's attention would remain on her.
• Invented Individual: She doesn't even exist in the "Government Plot" route, as "Aya Fumino" was created as a cover for Shiori's spying.
• The Lost Lenore: In the "Government Plot" Answer Arc, she was Max's lover and partner in fighting the alien menace, but died in a battle with one of them, which haunts Max to the present day.
• Psychotic Smirk: Her Crow Stationary letter in the "Cursed Letter" route depicts her in shadow with one of these as she plots the death of Max and the seven friends.
• Rape as Backstory: Possibly in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route. Shiori's letter explains that Professor Fumino, her and Aya's own father, was abusing Aya, but the exact nature of the abuse is never specified. It is more heavily implied with Shiori, who wrote that she really would rather not go into detail of what he did to her as it is too horrible to remember, and he invited Nozu, Watanabe, and Omori to "join in".
• Vengeful Ghost: In the "Cursed Letter" route, she cursed the letters and goes after anyone who pretends to be her to dispel the curse, as well as the penpals of the pretenders, eventually going after Max and the seven friends, due to anger at the world for dying young. In "Princess of Himegamori Forest", meanwhile, she seeks revenge on her father, Professor Naoki Fumino, for abusing her as a child, and drives Shiori to seek revenge on both him and the people who molested Shiori as well.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The common route is a lighthearted mystery where Max is trying to track down his penpal, and the antagonists are the seven friends of his penpal who want to hide some ugly memories from their past. But in the "Cursed Letter" and "Princess of Himegamori Forest" routes, Aya Fumino reveals herself to be a genuinely evil antagonist, a terrifying Vengeful Ghost intent on killing half or all of the main cast. Her appearance in those routes heralds a tone shift to supernatural horror and thriller.
• Yandere: To her own father in "Princess of Himegamori Forest", as she tried to get him to kill baby Shiori so he would focus all his attention on her.

Shiori Yoshioka

Shiori is the true identity of the 'Aya Fumino' the protagonist was corresponding with. The game revolves around the mysteries surrounding her identity. In high school she pretended to be Aya Fumino for Yoko Fumino's sake, but this backfires as Aya's personality begins to take over.

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• All-Loving Hero: Stated to have been beautiful and kind before being possessed by Aya, and is shown to be so during the Golden Ending.
• The Atoner:
  • In the "Bond of Marriage" route, she becomes a nurse and Dr. Fumino's caretaker as she too feels responsible for the death of his wife.
  • In the Last Answer Epilogue for the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, she manages to purge Aya for good and decides to atone for killing three people while under Aya's influence.
• Batman Gambit: In the True Ending route, she wrote the 11th letter in an un-postmarked envelope, placed that in an envelope with a letter to the Protagonist's parents, and asked them to leave it where he could find it (if he was still single), and knew that would get his attention to spur him into finding her.
• Battleaxe Nurse: In one ending, while possessed by Aya, she kills Professor Fumino, her father whom she was taking care of at a nursing home, as revenge for his abuse of her as a child.
• Determinator: In "The Cursed Letter" ending, she tries many things (becoming Aya & hiring an exorcist) to end Aya's curse. She fails in the end, but her attitude in becoming Aya lengthens Max's lifespan until the ending.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Misaki was smitten with her during high school.
• Grand Theft Me: In the "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" ending, Shiori's personality is fully overtaken by Aya.
• Happily Ever After: With Max in the "Bond of Marriage" ending, naturally.
• Hospital Hottie: In the "Bond of Marriage" ending, she has blue hair tied up at the back with general white nurse overalls.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Was she Aya's sister/clone? Was she a government agent? Is she even still alive? That is all determined by Max's responses to her letters.
• My Sibling Will Live Through Me: In the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, Aya and Shiori are siblings who were separated shortly after Shiori's birth; Aya's personality eventually completely takes over Shiori's.
• Posthumous Character: In "The Cursed Letter" ending, she dies some time before the game and is implied to have become a ghost.
• Rape as Backstory: In the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, she was molested by Professor Fumino, her own father, while he "tutored" her, and he invited Nozu, Watanabe, and Omori to join in when they found out in exchange for keeping quiet. This led to her desiring revenge, allowing Aya to slowly take over her mind.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In some routes, as Aya's personality begins to take over her own.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that she was pretending to be Aya Fumino is the game's major twist in every route, though for different reasons each time.

Aya's Seven Friends

General

A group of seven friends who Aya hung out with back in high school.

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• Anti-Villain: Even at their worst, they are ordinary people who made mistakes in the past and feel immense guilt about it.
• Hero Antagonist: With the exception of Nozu (as well as Watanabe and Jun in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route), none of them are truly villainous; they are simply opposing Max in his search to find Aya because the painful truth is something they would rather stay buried, and in the "Cursed Letter" route they are trying to protect him from the curse.
• In-Series Nickname: All of them are referred to by Aya solely with nicknames like "Four-Eyes" and "Monkey". It makes Max tracking them down go from simply asking around for their addresses into a mystery where he has to deduce which nickname refers to who.
• Never My Fault: The position a lot of the characters take when talking about how their friendship ended with Shiori, especially in the "Bond of Marriage" route, is to point fingers at each other and bring up the others' mistakes while making excuses for their own, leading Max to call them all terrible.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: At least as far as Max is concerned, Aya's letters have her call her friends by the nickname she identifies them as. It's up to Max to find out who in town matches those names.
• True Final Boss: In the Bond of Marriage route, which is unlocked after completing at least one route, all of them serve as the final Investigation target in Chapter 9.

Bestie

Yukari Ishihara

^{Click here to see teenage Yukari}

The curator of the Shimane Art Museum. Has an inferiority complex stemming from the fact she was unable to get into a national university.

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• Anti-Villain: She masterminds the effort to hide the truth of Aya from Max for reasons ranging from not wanting to face her fallout out with Shiori to wanting to protect Max from the curse of the letters. She also snaps and tries to kill Max believing that murdering him will stop the curse.
• Big Bad: In the common route, she is the ringleader of Aya Fumino's seven high-school friends who directs the others in a plan to stop Max from uncovering their secrets and reuniting with Aya, which would bring back bad memories they would rather stay buried.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Disney Villain Death: In Cursed Letter, she winds up falling off a cliff to her death in the process of trying to kill Max.
• Final Boss: She is the final Investigation target in the common route and most routes.
• Gambit Roulette: Her initial plan was to make Max fall in love with her so he would forget about trying to find Aya/Shiori.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Shota, who Yukari was in love with during high school, fell for Shiori instead, causing teenage Yukari to become envious and driving a wedge between the two.
• Hot Librarian: Hot Museum Curator.
• My Greatest Failure: Two: Letting Yoko Fumino die and losing her friendship with Shiori.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the "Cursed Letter" route, she tries to stab Max under the belief that killing him will end the curse, but almost falls off a cliff, only saved by Max grabbing her. She then tries to stab him while he's pulling her up, causing him to let go, and falls to her death.
• Umbrella of Togetherness: The protagonist's first encounter with her involves this. It's all part of her plan to make him fall in love with her so he doesn't find out about Aya/Shiori.
• We Used to Be Friends: Was best friends with Shiori, until they were driven apart by Yukari's envy and paranoia.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Discussed regarding her plan to make Max smitten with her, since she is in a game that learns towards mystery, and herself not being the first love interest.

Four-Eyes

Kousuke Tanaka

^{Click here to see teenage Kousuke}

People abandoned these cats. Humans must have responsibility to raise them. Isn’t that right? Don’t you agree?

Mild mannered and suffering from lack of confidence, Tanaka has a mild speech impediment. As a kid he was always the smartest boy in school and was destined for great things. Then his grades started to drop, and he ended up with a mediocre job at the city office.

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• Dirty Coward: Often the first to dip out whenever trouble is afoot. For example, in the "Cursed Letter" route, he cuts off contact with the other friends in an attempt to save himself from the titular cursed letter, uncaring if the others die as long as he lives, while in the "Crossed Paths" route, his solution to being actively caught in an embezzlement scandal is to commit suicide instead of owning up to it.
• Driven by Envy: Jealous of Shiori's improving grades and status at school, he publicly accused her of cheating.
• Driven to Suicide: In the "Crossed Paths" and "Bond of Marriage" routes, both for different reasons (being caught embezzling money and being stuck in a Soul-Crushing Desk Job believing he will never achieve his dreams, respectively). He doesn't go through with it in either route, though, thanks to the others talking him out of it.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: During his suicide attempt in the Golden Ending, his friends talk him out of it using this method.
• Hopeless Suitor: For Misaki's affections; the poor guy has apparently been in love with her since elementary school.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Though he is a Dirty Coward, he was the only one of his friends to apologize to Shiori for the pain he had put her through, and may have stopped her from going through with a suicide attempt.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: One of the early signs he's not all bad; he was the only one to apologize to Shiori.
• Momma's Boy: The protagonist calls him one during his interrogation, though he's not really much of one (unlike Shota).
• Nerd Glasses: Along with being Prematurely Bald. However, he has taken to wearing a wig (and not wearing his glasses) in an attempt to hide both his lack of hair and bad eyesight.
• Token Good Teammate: In "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, he is the only one of the male friends who didn't participate in Shiori's abuse.
• Warmup Boss: He is the first Investigation target and the one who serves to teach you how they work.
• Stealing from the Till: In the "Crossing Paths" route, he's been embezzling money from the government and putting them into his studies to learn about making an online network for helping the elderly. This gets him in deep trouble, to the point that he is almost Driven to Suicide until his friends agree to help him cover the costs.

Monkey

Masaya Watanabe

^{Click here to see teenage Masaya}

Once a career athlete who would've been a promising baseball player, his hopes ended due to an injury. Nowadays, he teaches P.E. to students in hopes of keeping them from going down the wrong path.

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• Asshole Victim: In "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" epilogue - it's pretty hard to feel sorry for him being poisoned when you find out that he was sexually abusing Shiori, who poisoned him for revenge.
• The Atoner: He sees it as his duty to keep other kids (such as Mishima) from going wayward due to his own troubled past, in which he lost his career and his team's chance to play in the National Championship due to getting in a dumb fight. In addition, in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, it is also possible he feels remorse for joining in Professor Fumino's molestation of Shiori and is trying to atone for that as well.
• Big Eater: Has held the record for the soba restaurant's contest for the past 15 years and is the only one who can out-eat the Protagonist.
• Career-Ending Injury: He injured his arm fighting another student, which unfortunately happened to be his pitching arm.
• Delinquents: As a high school student, he got into a fight with a student from another school, causing his team to be banned from the National Championship.
• Hopeless Suitor: To Misaki.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The protagonist has a bad first encounter with him, but he ends up being one of the more reliable ones out of the group, saving Max from Shota and giving him a clue to "Bestie's" identity.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Getting his team to Nationals is his goal and means of making up for being responsible for the team missing both of its chances when he played in high school.
  I hurt my right arm in that fight. I'd been hiding it when I pitched, but it didn't work against that powerhouse...we lost because I gave up a lot of runs. I destroyed our chance at Nationals TWICE.
• Only Sane Man: He tends to come across as the most down-to-earth and rational of the group of friends, probably due to him being a teacher.

Fatty

Jun Omori

^{Click here to see teenage Jun}

Dedicated to the art of making exquisite pastries and sweets, Omori owns one of the best patisseries in Shimane. He has a kind and gentle demeanor, but he hides a dark secret.

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• Afraid of Blood: He was traumatized by Shiori's "suicide" (even though it was fake) and gets squeamish at the sight of even fake blood. He gets over it in the True Ending.
• Asshole Victim: In "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" epilogue - it's pretty hard to feel sorry for him when you find out that he was sexually abusing Shiori.
• Formerly Fat: In his high-school days, he was called Fatty, and was indeed obese. Then he got inspired to change for the sake of his dream job as a cake shop owner (because he believed no one would wanna buy from a fat cake shop owner as it implies lack of self-control), so he entered an exercise program and became a fit, handsome adult. Max, who is looking for him, initially misses him completely because he spends time looking for a fat man, not realizing the possibility that he is this until he sees a picture of him in a brochure for the exercise program.
• Happily Married: Or Happily Engaged, to Yuri.
• Hopeless Suitor: To Shiori during their high school days. His feelings were never reciprocated.
• Nice Guy: A kind and gentle sweets shop owner, and well-liked by all his friends.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Max's interrogation causes him to start stress-eating some chocolate covered potato chips. Afterwards, when he laments that he still has a weak personality, Max points out that Jun didn't eat any of the chocolate part of the chips, showing his willpower and dedication to his new lifestyle.

Bitch

Riko Sasaki

^{Click here to see teenage Riko}

An average housewife married to an average guy – which is a long way from where she wanted to be. Pretty and talented, she always wanted to be an actress, so that she could become rich and famous and look after her parents.

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• Alpha Bitch: Presumably what she was during high school and how she got her nickname, though she was more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Children Raise You: In one instance, her daughter makes her lose her fear of birds.
• I Was Quite a Looker: She was the most beautiful girl in high school, to the point of landing a sexy swimsuit photoshoot, but grows into an average middle-aged woman in adulthood. This is part of why she is such a Stage Mom to her daughter- she wants her to have the stardom she cannot have now.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is vain and sometimes overbearing towards her daughter, but she just wants the best for her family. It's also revealed that part of the reason she wanted to get into show business was to provide for her handicapped father.
• Stage Mom: A rare positive example. Despite being a little overbearing, Riko tries her best to support her daughter in her career as a child actress and is always seen giving her positive encouragement.
• You Didn't See That: In the midst of Shorty/Nozu's Attempted Rape of Shiori, she pretends she didn't see anything as she had become jealous of Shiori's newfound success and beauty.

Snappy

Misaki Murakami

^{Click here to see teenage Misaki}

A television presenter for a local channel, Misaki's family runs a sake brewery. She is sometimes a little blunt and rude and craves the life of a serious news reporter. She believes that she must be impartial and report the truth.

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• A Day in the Limelight: In the "Cursed Letter" epilogue, as she is alive and possessed by Aya.
• Ambiguously Bi: Played with. She admits to having been smitten with Shiori when they were in high school and never shows interest in any of the male characters, along with Nozu saying that "she's stronger than she looks." However, she does get married in the Golden Ending epilogue.
• Boyish Short Hair: As a teenager, she is said to have short hair. This actually made Max, who had never seen her but heard her described in Aya's letters, think she was a boy until he went looking for her.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Also as a teenager.
• Kubrick Stare: In the "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" epilogue. A rather creepy one, too.◊
• Man Bites Man: Apparently her move of choice in fights (and her way of expressing anger). It's how the got the nickname "Snappy".
• Mistaken Identity: Max initially thinks that Misaki is "Bitch", the high-schools' Lovable Alpha Bitch, because of how she seems to fit the personality. In truth, she is "Snappy", the tomboyish girl who he thought was a boy.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In the "Cursed Letter" ending, she's the only one whose cause of death isn't shown directly, but everyone hears her scream. In the Last Answer epilogue, it's revealed she survived, but became possessed by Aya, leading to a The Bad Guy Wins ending.
• She Is All Grown Up: Very tomboyish during her high school days, she has grown up to be a beautiful woman.

Shorty

Shota Nozu

^{Click here to see teenage Shota}

Once a spoiled kid who had a life of wealth and privilege. When his father's company brought shame on itself or being involved in fraud, Shota went from having it all to being on the brink of poverty. He now works as a bartender, which is hardly where thought his future would be.

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• A Day in the Limelight: He plays a major part in the last two chapters of the "Government Plot" route.
• Asshole Victim: In "The Princess of Himegamori Forest" epilogue - it's pretty hard to feel sorry for him when you find out that he was sexually abusing Shiori.
• Attempted Rape: To Shiori, when they were in high school. Thankfully, she escapes. Sadly, she was not so lucky in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" backstory.
• The Bartender: Had been working as a bartender since high school and is close to finally owning his own place as of the start of the game.
• Momma's Boy: Even more so than Kousuke; getting him to confess his identity involves telling him how disappointed his mother would be if he got arrested.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Tries to kill the protagonist to keep the group's secret.
• Riches to Rags: Lived a life of privilege until his father was caught in a money laundering scam, and has been forced to work as a bartender to make ends meet ever since.

Other Shimane Residents

Professor Naoki Fumino

Aya's father. He is a professor of French who is the one that told Shiori to pretend to be Aya Fumino, his deceased daughter, for the sake of comforting his wife Yoko. In every route, the characters end up having to search for him to discover the truth about Aya and Shiori.

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• Abusive Parents: In the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, he is said to have physically abused Aya and Shiori in some unspecified (but heavily indicated to be sexual) manner, and in "A Government Plot" Answer Arc, he used Shiori as a guinea pig for his experiments.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In "A Government Plot", he successfully captures Max and the seven friends, eliminating all threats to the titular government plot.
• Big Bad: In "A Government Plot", he is the chief agent carrying out the titular government plot to cover up the existence of alien technology, going after Max and the seven friends to capture them, and allow Japan to surpass America and Russia. In the Last Answer Arc, he instead sides with the Alien Invasion and tries to kill Max and the seven as revenge for letting Aya die in battle.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the "Government Plot" Answer Arc, he claims to have joined the Alien Invasion to get revenge on Max, Shori, and their friends for letting his daughter Aya die. This only applies to this continuity, though; in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, he is revealed to have abused her to death with no remorse.
• Evil Old Folks: In the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, he is an abusive father to Aya and Shiori, with it heavily hinted he was sexually abusing them, while in "A Government Plot", he is the leader of the government agents out to capture Max and the seven friends to stop them from exposing the titular government plot involving alien technology. And in the Answer Arc, he is The Quisling to the Alien Invasion.
• Evil Teacher: He is a respected French teacher who tutors Shiori in other subjects like math, causing her to get better grades than super-smart nerd Four-Eyes. He is also, depending on the route, using his job and the tutoring as a cover for either his sexual abuse of Shiori ("Princess of Himegamori Forest"), or his sinister government work where he organizes the capture and memory alteration of anyone who gets too close to the government's use of alien technology ("A Government Plot"). Averted in the other routes where he is just a normal teacher.
• Faux Affably Evil: In the "Government Plot" route. He's working as a government agent, but decides against killing Max for finding out about the UFO, instead opting to institutionalize him, because he considers murder to be a crude method. Even as he has Max and the others captured, he still speaks in the same grandfatherly tone.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route, his abuse of his daughter Aya, which caused her death, is what turned her into a murderous Vengeful Ghost, but he himself mainly shows up in flashbacks, never personally antagonizes Max, and is killed by Aya before he can do anything.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • A retroactive one in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" route. In the original VN, he exits the work with nothing bad happening to him. Last Answer reveals that he was the Greater-Scope Villain who sexually abused Aya and Shiori, but this is only discovered after they murdered him in revenge.
  • In the original "A Government Plot" route, he sends Max to an asylum while capturing Shiori's seven friends, eliminating all threats to the titular plot. Last Answer reveals the events to be All Just a Dream, and Professor Fumino is promptly arrested for experimenting on his daughter Shiori, then is killed in battle when he sides with the aliens.
• The Quisling: In the "Government Plot" Answer Arc, he sides with the Alien Invasion and attacks Max and friends with his own Humongous Mecha.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In "Princess of Himegamori Forest", he saves a baby Shiori from the murderous Aya who wants to kill her, but since he then goes on to abuse Shiori himself, he clearly doesn't do it out of genuine concern.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the "Crossed Paths" and "Bond of Marriage" routes, while well-intentioned, his request for Shiori to pose as Aya starts a whole bunch of problems for everyone.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He is a teacher respected by the public, and people mainly have good things to say about him. Even Shiori's friends remember him as a good man who tutored Shiori. But in the "Princess of Himegamori Route", it turns out that his daughter, Aya, died because he was abusing her in what is heavily implied to be a sexual manner, and his "tutoring sessions" were nothing but a cover to make Shiori his next victim. Meanwhile, in the "A Government Plot" route, he is actually a government agent tasked with capturing and disposing of anyone who might discover the existence of the government's alien technology, and is using Shiori as a spy.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The common route is a lighthearted mystery where Max is trying to track down his penpal, and the antagonists are the seven friends of his penpal who want to hide some ugly memories from their past. But in the "Princess of Himegamori Forest" and "A Government Plot" routes, he is respectively revealed to be an abusive father to the Fumino twins (who is even heavily implied to have molested them) and the leader of a group of sinister government agents out to capture Max and friends for getting too close to their alien technology. The latter route undergoes a tone shift to a Conspiracy Thriller once he makes his move and starts sending his agents over.

Yoko Fumino

Aya's mother. After her daughter's death, she became delusional and came to believe that Shiori, who looks similar to Aya, is Aya herself. So Shiori agrees to pretend for her sake. She eventually died in a fire that took down the Fumino household.

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• Posthumous Character: She's been dead for 15 years.
• Sanity Slippage: She started going crazy to varying degrees after Aya died.

Haruka

Haruka Yamamoto

The owner of the Matsue Inn, where Max stays during his quest.

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• Small Role, Big Impact: Gives Max his first clue that something is afoot regarding Aya, namely that she died 25 years ago.

Tomoko

Tomoko Sakata

Haruka's assistant at the Matsue Inn.

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• The Ditz: A bit airheaded, but a nice girl.
• Motor Mouth: At least Max thinks so.

Genkichi Uno

The owner of the local soba shop, Kamiari-An.

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• Affably Evil: In the "Government Plot" route, where he and Sanpei are government agents, he is nice to Max while capturing him.
• Co-Dragons: He, Sanpei, and Shiori report to Professor Fumino in the "Government Plot" route.
• Cool Old Guy: Takes a liking to Max and gives him half-off on most of his meals.

Sanpei

Genkichi's energetic employee at Kamiari-An. He also runs a paranormal blog on the side.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In the "Government Plot" route, he acts as nice and friendly as he does on the other routes. Then he is revealed to be a government agent, and when Max and the seven friends captured, he is the one to suggest Professor Fumino should just kill them.
• Co-Dragons: He, Genkichi, and Shiori report to Professor Fumino in the "Government Plot" route.