Here's a list of characters for The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
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The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service team
General
- Amateur Sleuth: All members are students fresh out of university who have no experience in professional detective work and barely have enough money to stay afloat, and while Makino is a licensed embalmer the country she lives in refuses to recognize her due to cultural reasons.note The only reasons they're successful is due to having Psychic Powers (usually Numata's dowsing and Karatsu's I See Dead People) and they have Sasayama, a former police detective, helping them.
- Animal Motifs: The gang identifies with the black heron, the Psychopomp who brings departed souls to the afterlife.
- Blessed with Suck: All of them. As mentioned below, all members of Kurosagi specialize in one thing and one thing only, which is working with corpses. Numata, Karatsu, and Yata are the most obvious with their odd abilities, but Sasaki and Makino, who otherwise have legitimate skills that can be applied to society, also count (Sasaki is essentially Grave Robbing who will likely be arrested for evidence tampering and failing to notify police if word got out, while Makino happens to be a licensed embalmer in a country where cremation is the norm).
- Crippling Overspecialization: Outside of Sasaki's computer-hacking and social skills, they've all got death-related or plain outlandish skills that don't translate to "normal" jobs. Makino also counts since she's a licensed embalmer in a country where cremation is the norm, so she's not likely to get any business due to cultural reasons.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The gang's callsign is kurosagi, the black heron who brings souls to the afterlife. They specialize in helping the dead finish any Unfinished Business so they can move on. The dead sees the gang as their saviors. However, to other (living) people, they appear as a bunch of macabre weirdoes who like dead bodies a little too much. In Vol. 7, many students at the Buddhist university the main heroes go to think that the Kurosagi gang is some sort of cult.
- Deadpan Snarker: Applied liberally by all members, but Kereellis, Yata's felt hand puppet, is the worst offender.
- Dysfunction Junction: All of them have personal issues and bad pasts that shaped them into the people they are today.
- Karmic Jackpot: After helping their first suicide victim and (with his permission) taking a lottery ticket from his corpse as "payment", the group discover it's a winning ticket. It turns out to be just enough money for starting capital for the service, and the group continues to do their good deeds for promises of karmic payoff.
- In a more straight example, one of the consequences of helping their "clients" is that someone will end up paying for their crimes, usually at the hands of the Kurosagi gang's aforementioned clients.
- Grave Robbing: Technically their "clients" haven't been buried yet, but to outsiders they're a bunch of university graduates robbing corpses (and by extension destroying valuable evidence) and not contacting authorities. To be fair, though, most people would only think of getting rid of the body and if it weren't for Kurosagi, a lot of crimes would still go unpunished.
- Only Sane Man: They tend to trade places each story depending upon who's in focus; sometimes it's Sasaki, other times it's Karatsu, but they all have their moments of temporary insanity.
- Parental Abandonment: All of them, except maybe Karatsu. It's suggested in Volume 11 that having your parents die violently when you're a small child increases your chance of developing odd abilities, which may explain why three members of the Kurosagi team have Psychic Powers.
- Perpetual Poverty: Since dead clients can't really pay, the Kurosagi gang often have to take up odd jobs in order to feed themselves. They soon get jobs as a corpse delivery service but even then it barely keeps them afloat, so whenever they see a chance to make some yen, they take it. The low pay eventually results in Numata losing his previous home since he failed to pay rent, and had to go find a new place.
- Psychic Powers:
- Yata is a channeler whose felt hand puppet may or may not be possessed by an alien.
- Karatsu is an itako who can communicate with the dead and revive them long enough so they can finish their unfinished business. Actually, he's possessed by a benevolent spirit (an ancestor maybe?) who's doing the real work.
- Numata is a dowser who uses a pendulum to find hidden corpses and dead tissue. He can also dowse for people who are going to die.
- Psychopomp: The entire group acts like this in general. Their symbol is kurosagi, the black heron that takes souls to the land of the dead.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: All of them utter curse words at some point, but Kereellis is the worst of the lot.
- Smoking Is Cool: All of them save for Makino and Yata smoke at one point.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Maybe. It's suggested that Yata's spirit channeling, Numata's dowsing, and Karatsu's I See Dead People ability were the results of going through a Dark and Troubled Past at a young age.
- Unfinished Business: What the main characters specialize in. The manner of death doesn't matter - if you got any last requests, the Kurosagi team will make sure those requests are fulfilled. But sometimes... what the dead want isn't very specific.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The members of Kurosagi frequently rib and snark at each other (especially Numata and Kereellis), but they're all close friends who stick together because they couldn't find acceptance anywhere else in society due to having odd abilities and professions.
Kuro Karatsu
A Senior at an average Buddhist university. He can hear the voices of the dead.
- Bald Mystic: He's a bald Buddhist monk that can see dead people and won't hesitate to sic said dead people on a perp.
- Blessed with Suck: He can talk with the dead, 'nuff said. While this makes him the linchpin of the 'Corpse' part of the Kurosagi Delivery Service, it has given him alienation issues.
- Catapult Nightmare: Has one in Volume 1, after he dreams about a man obsessing over a woman's naked body. Whatever was possessing him woke him up.
- Character Development: Becomes more heroic as the series progresses.
- Character Tics: He has a frequent tendency to raise one eyebrow.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Whether he does it out of curiosity, boredom or the goodness of his heart, Karatsu just can't seem to abandon a penniless corpse in need. This is a frequent source of exasperation for Sasaki, who comments in the first volume that the reason the restless dead come to him is because he's "a guy that can't say no." For all that he's a cynical wiseass, he's astonishingly compassionate.
- Demonic Possession: Possibly. Every time he uses his ability, the ghost of a long-haired, scarred man appears behind him. It may be an ancestor of his doing the actual work.
- Do with Him as You Will: Karatsu's typical way of dealing with villains is to raise the body or bodies of their victim(s) and stand back while they get horribly slaughtered. His Buddhism really puts the "technical" in Technical Pacifist - he won't participate in violence, but he has no qualms letting (dead) people do it for him.
- Got Volunteered: Was roped into the Kurosagi team in Volume 1 thanks to Kereellis exposing him, more or less.
- Face Palm: Does this in Volume 1's first chapter when Sasaki was running late due to being on her Corpse Chat getting information about their first corpse.
- Fascinating Eyebrow: His defining trait. He even does it on every cover he appears in.
- How We Got Here: The first chapter of Volume 1 has him having a flashback as to how he got roped in with the Kurosagi team.
- Insistent Terminology: Calls Grave Robbing "body-borrowing".
- I See Dead People: Obviously. Jokes aside, this is one of his abilities - he can talk to corpses long after they've expired.
- Japanese Ranguage: On occasion he will mispronounce a Japanese word as something else and quickly get corrected.
- Kubrick Stare: Sometimes does this when reviving a corpse and setting them on the case's Big Bad.
- Long-Lost Relative: He's actually Sasaki's half-brother.
- Powers via Possession: His I See Dead People ability actually comes from a benevolent spirit who's using his body as a conduit.
- Psychic Powers: He can temporarily revive the dead, long enough for them to finish any Unfinished Business, which usually results in someone's Karmic Death. And jokes aside, he can see corpses and communicate with them by touching their expired bodies. These abilities are typically classified under itako, elderly blind women gifted with spiritual powers, but that doesn't stop him. His powers might not be his own, though, because a scarred ghost of a young man always appears behind him every time he uses them.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Tries to do this in the first volume, not wanting to mix in with a group of weirdos who like dead bodies a little too much. Then his I See Dead People ability got exposed, and the rest is history.
- Smoking Is Cool: Is occasionally seen smoking, which is actually surprisingly common among Bhuddist monks in East Asia.
Ao Sasaki
- "Let's go see some dead people!"
- Beauty Equals Goodness: She's a stunning young woman, and while "body-borrowing" may not be considered good, she does it for the best intentions and it does help a lot for the dead who have Unfinished Business.
- Broken Bird: Once her past and trauma are revealed.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Sasaki's parents and one of her sisters were murdered when she was very young, and when she was eight she found their corpses, resulting in deep trauma that required constant psychological therapy and very strong antidepressant medicine. And then she found out, some years later after the murders, that someone else murdered her mother and sister.
- Death Equals Redemption: Believes in this trope, dismissing out of hand the need for the corpse of the man who murdered her parents and one of her sisters to apologize. This feeling may not be genuine when she says it, although she and her sister do legitimately forgive him by the end of the story arc, mostly because it's revealed that he only killed her father, and someone else killed her mother and sister.
- Driven to Suicide: During one chapter, she listened to a suicide song (created accidentally) that made her want to go stand on the railroad tracks so she can join her dead parents and sister. Fortunately she was saved by the spirit who's possessing Karatsu.
- Grave Robbing: Technically they haven't been buried yet, but she's still stealing a corpse and not contacting the police, so it counts.
- Harmful to Minors: The first corpses she found were those of her dead mother, father, and one of her sisters, who were all mutilated. The incident traumatized her so much that even as an adult, she's still taking therapy along with strong antidepressants.
- Lame Pun Reaction: In one chapter, when the Kurosagi gang finds a dead ear inside an erotic magazine, Makino wonders if they should "play [the case] by ear". Sasaki tells her to Never Say That Again.
- Long-Lost Relative: She's actually Karatsu's half-sister.
- Meaningful Name: "Sasaki" may be derived from "misasgi", great tomb mounds that were common in ancient Japan. Fitting, as she runs a corpse form and the person behind Kurosagi.
- Meaningful Rename: Her birth name is "Saito", but she changed it to "Sasaki" after the murder of her parents and one of her sisters, and being subsequently adopted by relatives..
- Mission Control: Thanks to being the admin of an online corpse forum, she can gather information more quickly that is outside of the group's normal capabilities. That being said, she doesn't actively participate in most of the cases Kurosagi deals with. It's later exploited in Volume 3 when, during a case involving illegal organ trafficking, the others needed an excuse to find a missing kidney so they left her behind at a hospital.
- Ms. Fanservice: In wardrobe, if not personality.
- Nausea Fuel: Her corpse photos served as an In-Universe example for Yata, who tried to look at them while eating. It didn't end well for him (or his lunch).
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Will appear this way on occasion when she needs to look intimidating. Or during the chapter when she encountered a grim reminder of her childhood trauma.
- The Stoic: Sasaki is frequently this, which is sarcastically lampshaded by her friends. Later heartbreakingly justified with the reveal that she had been taking very strong antidepressants to suppress the trauma of discovering the corpses of her murdered parents and one of her sisters when she was eight.
- Stoic Spectacles: Always wears glasses, and always displays a cool demeanor. The "stoic" part is justified with her consumption of strong anti-depressants.
- The Team Normal: She and Makino are the only ones without any odd powers. She's also the only one with a full range of social skills. That said, she's on some pretty hardcore antidepressants and seeing a therapist.
Makoto Numata
A member of Kurosagi, he can dowse with a pendulum to locate dead bodies.
- The Big Guy: He's not only the tallest of Kurosagi, he's also the strongest, and once punch-stopped a moving truck. He and Karatsu are usually stuck with corpse-carrying and other tasks that require heavy-lifting.
- Broken Pedestal: His old dowsing master, who taught Numata everything he knew about dowsing. He discovered the location where the bodies of Numata's murdered parents and older brother were buried, but the construction company he worked for offered him a huge bonus in exchange for not telling anyone about it. Numata found out years later from his master's apology letter and while he was able to find his family's burial site, he couldn't retrieve them because the site was already built over, resulting a huge loss of respect and faith in his old master.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's a leather-clad tough guy who wears Cool Shades and once punch-stopped a truck. He's also very emotional, likes teen idol music, and even prone to shed Manly Tears.
- Butt-Monkey: He's usually the target of Kereellis's snarking, and whenever misfortune happens and Yata's not the target, it usually happens to him.
- Cool Shades: Is constantly wearing these, even when he was a kid. He received his sunglasses from his old dowsing master as a kid, who told him that a man must always hide his tears.
- Crazy-Prepared: Brought some camping supplies with him on their graveyard trip.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Numata's parents and older brother "disappeared" when he was young, motivating him to take up dowsing so he can find their bodies as well as closure. His dowsing master, after seeing him cry over his loss, gave Numata a pair of sunglasses and told him that a man always hides his tears. It wasn't until years later that Numata would find out his old dowsing master had actually found his parents and brother's burial site at a construction site where they met, but didn't tell him until after he was dead because he was bribed by his bosses from a construction company to stay quiet about it.
- Deadpan Snarker: Can hold his own in this department at times. The first case even has him calling an overprotective father the "World's Greatest Dad", after the true nature of his devotion to his daughter is revealed.
- Dowsing Device: He has a skull ring that turns into a pendulum which can be used to locate corpses and dead tissue. It can even locate people who are going to die.
- Driven to Suicide: Attempts to drive himself in front of an oncoming train after hearing a song that makes people kill themselves, forgetting that Karatsu and Yata are with him. Luckily, they save him at the last minute.
- Dumb Muscle: He's not completely stupid, but most of the time he's really dense (and once punched out a moving truck's windshield). It's frequently noted by the others, especially Makino and Kereelis.
- Freudian Excuse: He got good at dowsing for corpses because as a child, his parents and older brother suddenly disappeared, and he wanted to find him. An old man taught him how to dowse.
- Geek: Reads a lot of shonen manga, and makes a lot of shout-outs due to this. Also a fan of teen pop idols.
- Good Hair, Evil Hair: He has a goatee, but he's a good guy and one of the main protagonists.
- Harmless Electrocution: During a case involving a Corrupt Corporate Executive who murders people via Million to One Chance, Numata is struck by lightning. Also subverted - due to being in a vehicle at the time, he got away with light burns, which could've been a lot worse if he actually was standing outside.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: He's usually wearing a leather jacket of some kind, including the sleeveless ones.
- Hidden Depths: Despite his "Tough Guy" image, he reads a lot of comics, listens to teen pop music, and plays video-games. His knowledge on occasion gives the Kurosagi gang some background on their cases (like their very first one where a guy committed suicide and a deceased teen pop idol was involved).
- Ironic Fear: After losing his previous home due to failure to pay rent, Numata has to move to a new apartment that's supposedly haunted, and quickly he gets cold feet. This is despite his profession of dowsing for corpses. It turns out that there was a corpse hiding above the ceiling in Numata's new home.
- Luminescent Blush: Tends to blush a lot.
- Manly Tears: Numata is prone to shedding these, or at least protests that his crying counts as manly tears a lot. But he also explains that the tears aren't manly if the emotion isn't genuine.
- Meaningful Name: "Makoto" means "truth" or "sincerity" in Japanese. A fitting name for someone who is a corpse dowser.
- Perpetual Poverty: Especially pronounced with him; working with a group that handles corpses with little to no pay leads to him getting kicked out of his previous apartment and having to find a new one. It doesn't help that his only real skill is corpse-dowsing.
- Psychic Powers: He has the power to find hidden corpses and dead tissue and people who are going to die, using a pendulum as his focus point.
- Real Men Wear Pink: He's the fan of a teen idol. Also reads a lot of shonen manga that leads to him making a lot of shout-outs. Also reads romance novels.
- Smoking Is Cool: He smokes from time to time. In art where the gang is together, he's usually the one with a cigarette.
- Stoic Spectacles: He wears sunglasses all the time, so it makes him appear stoic, but he's more emotional compared to Sasaki. This is because, when he was a child, after he started crying over the disappearances of his parents and older brother, his old dowsing master gave him a pair of sunglasses to wear, saying that a man should always hide his tears.
- Sunglasses at Night: Is always wearing his Cool Shades no matter what time or season it is. He later takes them off in one chapter so his old dowsing teacher can identify him. It's later revealed that his old dowsing master gave him sunglasses when Numata was young after he started crying over the disappearances of his parents and older brother. His dowsing master told Numata that a man should always hide his tears no matter what.
- Super-Strength: Implied in one volume, where he punch-stopped a moving cargo truck.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The others rib him for his dowsing, because a) it's his only real skill b) he can't find anything other than corpses. Or any dead tissue. Or people who are going to die.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Is scared of ghosts. When he rents a new apartment that's supposedly haunted, he gets cold feet. The others tease him for it.
- Would Hit a Girl: One case had him try to save a woman from dying in a building fire, but she refused to leave so he had to knock her out with a punch and carry her out while she was unconscious.
Keiko Makino
A member of Kurosagi. She's an embalmer, which she learned from studying abroad in America.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: When she was young, Makino watched her mother commit suicide by letting a train run her over, and because she was very close to the area where she died, she ended getting covered in her mother's blood.
- Broken Pedestal: She used to look up to a fellow Japanese classmate while she was studying embalming overseas in America. Said classmate uses his job as a hair stylist to kidnap young women, dismember them, and stitch their body parts together to satisfy his obsession with creating "the perfect corpse". When she discovered what he was doing, she furiously screams at him for misusing his embalming skills.
- The Coroner: Usually serves as this for the group due to being a licensed embalmer. For professional aid, however, the group turns to Sasayama.
- Cosplay: At one point she had to dress up as a character from a Show With In A Show for the funeral of a manga artist.
- Damsel in Distress: She was kidnapped by a Mad Doctor who seeks to preserve her corpse and turn her into a museum display. Karatsu saves her by reanimating all the bodies of the doctor's angry victims, who kill the doctor and rescue Makino.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Makino's mother committed suicide by train when she was very young. Makino happened to be there and tried to tell her mother to get away, only to see her get run over and have her mother's blood splattered all over her. The train workers who retrieved the body gave Makino a bag containing her mother's head so they can make the body easier to carry.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: She sometimes wears outfits of this nature.
- Et Tu, Brute?: In Vol. 1, she discovers that Kei Tsutsui, a friend and former classmate in America she looked up to, was misusing his embalming skills to create what he calls "the perfect corpse". The devastation is clear on her face.
- Girlish Pigtails: She frequently styles her hair as these. Or braids. Or some other variant. It combined with her teenager-geared fashion sense makes her look younger than she really is.
- Harmful to Minors: She watched her mother commit suicide by train as a child, and due to being close to the site of impact, she even had her mother's blood splattered onto her as the train ran her over. The train workers retrieving the body had her carry a bag containing her mother's head so carrying the body will be easier for them. It's a wonder she didn't have any emotional baggage from that.
- Hostage Situation: She was more or less taken hostage by Mr. Yamakawa in Volume 1's first chapter.
- Ironic Name: "Keiko" means "blessed child". Her occupation as a licensed embalmer in a country that strongly prefers cremation makes her anything but. Her past wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, either.
- Kawaiiko: She's a twenty-something year old who's a university student and a licensed embalmer. Yet she dresses like a teenager, wears her hair in childish pigtails, acts way younger than her profession would suggest, and speaks like a Valley Girl.
- The Lab Rat: Sometimes, but she's more likely to be out gathering information with the rest.
- Older Than They Look: She looks about nine and dresses like a teenager, yet is a senior in university and is a licensed embalmer.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Gender-inverted. She used to attend an embalming school in America with a fellow male Japanese student whom she saw as an older brother figure. Sasaki pokes fun at their relationship, causing some denial. Turns out he's the Big Bad of a case Makino and friends were working on.
- Signature Hair Decs: She's a university grad student who works as an embalmer (which is a strange occupation in Japan since cremation is strongly preferred to burial). Her constant use of hair decorations makes her younger than she actually is.
- The Team Normal: She and Sasaki are the only ones without any odd powers.
- Valley Girl: Makino lets bits of the accent slip into her speech, but not to the point where it hides that she's actually very intelligent. Justified as she briefly studied overseas in America, allowing her to pick up the accent.
- You're Insane!: In Vol. 1, Makino shouts, "You're crazy!" at a former embalming classmate who was misusing his skills to create what he called the "perfect corpse". Karatsu corrects her and says that her classmate is just wrong in his beliefs.
Yuji Yata
A member of Kurosagi. He channels aliens through his sock puppet, Kereellis.
- Butt-Monkey: He gets picked on his friends (usually Numata or Karatsu) usually because of what Kereellis said. In one case he Got Volunteered as The Bait (long story behind that) and would've died if his friends hadn't come at the last minute.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Averted. He's actually pretty normal despite wearing a hand puppet that may or may not be possessed by a real alien.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His parents tried to commit a murder-suicide by driving the entire family into an isolated part of the woods and letting their car run so they can die by breathing by the car's exhaust gas. Yata was the only one who survived due to having his window slightly open, but his parents and sister did not. Because he didn't know what a corpse was at the time, he thought his family was sleeping and tried to wake them up using Kereellis.
- Disabled Snarker: Like his friends, Yata can be sarcastic when the mood strikes. He also has a heart condition, meaning too much physical exertion is bad.
- Eyes Out of Sight: Apparently he had eye obscuring bangs these even when he was a kid. It's very rare you actually get to see the eyes hidden behind them. One must wonder how he gets around with that kind of 'do.
- Geek: Is a fan of science fiction and Star Wars (called "Star Peace" here), and owns quite a lot of memorabilia. Despite it, he insists he's a nerd as they're smarter.
- Harmful to Minors: His parents tried to kill him and his sister via a murder-suicide when he was young. While Yata survived, his sister (and parents) did not.
- Insistent Terminology: He's a nerd, not a geek. Nerds are smarter.
- Please Wake Up: When he was younger, Yata's parents committed a murder-suicide driving him and his sister into the woods and let the car run so they'll all die from breathing exhaust fumes. Yata survived, but because he didn't know what a corpse was, he thought his family was sleeping so he tried waking them up using Kereellis.
- Powers via Possession: Yata is a channeler who is implied to be possessed by an alien who talks through his sock puppet.
- Precision F-Strike: Utters the F-word in Volume 4.
- Sole Survivor: Of a murder-suicide that claimed his parents and his sister.
- Tragic Keepsake: He still wore his puppet Kereellis because it was his last reminder of his deceased sister, who liked Kereellis.
- Ventriloquism: It's ambiguous whether Kereellis is a real alien or just something Yata made up. You can't see lips move in a manga. It's implied Kereellis is real, and he's possessing Yata.
Kereellis
Yata's alien sock puppet, who is (technically) a member of Kurosagi through Yata.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He's pretty spacey, and his advice isn't very useful most of the time.
- Deadpan Snarker: Easily the worst offender of Kurosagi. Most of his snarking is directed at Numata.
- Demonic Dummy: It's ambiguous whether Yata's sock puppet is actually possessed or it's just something Yata made up. There are hints that the former is actually true.
- Flipping the Bird: To Numata at one point.Kereellis: I got a middle finger for you, and it's made of felt!
- Jerkass: Oh so much. When he's not helping the Kurosagi team (which is almost never), he's snarking/swearing at them. And most of the time his host Yata pays for it.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: If Kereellis is a real alien, he's certainly suffering from this, seeing as he's outright offended when the group tries to dissect a doll.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Kereellis occasionally notices very important things the others don't. Unfortunately, he tends to get brushed off when he points them out (even by Yata!), dismissing it as more snark or insults.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Easily the most potty-mouthed, though the other Kurosagi members have their moments.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: His official role in the group, according to him, is "cosmic advice and odd jobs." And Kereellis' advice isn't particularly useful a lot of the time.
- It's eventually revealed that Kereellis isn't quite as useless as expected, as he apparently has access to the Akashic Records, which might be the universe's version of the afterlife (or at least connected to it.) However, all he's done with this ability is commune with the spirit of a dead goldfish.
Yaichi
The scarred spirit using Karatsu as a conduit.
- Mysterious Protector: Is literally this to the rest of the club members against spirits, particularily Karatsu and Sasaki.
Recurring Characters
Sasayama
A former police detective who now handles the dead and other social services issues in their prefecture of the city. Naturally, they increasingly come into contact with him as the series progresses.
- Badass Bureaucrat: He's a social welfare worker. Is capable of handling his own, and frequently lends a hand to Kurosagi.
- Canon Welding: He's an older version of a character from Ohtsuka's other manga MPD Psycho.
- Cool Old Guy: He's several years older than the manga he came from. Several times he proves he still has it in him to save the day, especially when the Kurosagi gang is concerned.
- Disabled Snarker: Not even having a wooden peg-leg stops him from snarking at the Kurosagi kids.
- Face of a Thug: Frequently lampshaded that he looks like a yakuza. Their first meeting had the Kurosagi gang assuming he had a loaded business card!
- Generation Xerox: A prequel that focuses on Yaichi's origin story features a priest named Sasayama who looks exactly like the retired detective.
- Handicapped Badass: Has an artificial leg. Doesn't stop him from aiding the Kurosagi gang sometimes.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Was a lot more handsome with a full head of hair back in MPD Psycho when he was a police detective with no scars or a peg-leg.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Is always seen wearing a suit. Unfortunately, it makes him look like a yakuza member to Kurosagi.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Apparently he has a cousin who has the same scarred bald head and artificial leg.
- Weirdness Magnet: He has a reputation for this, especially in his last job. He's able to get away with — and help Kurosagi with — a lot of unusual things because people know that weird stuff just happens to him. He even references this almost by name.Sasayama: Everyone knows old Sasayama's reputation - the greatest loony magnet ever to walk a Tokyo beat.
Nire
A successful businessman and an entrepreneur in post-mortem services. Ever since Yata became his part-time employee, he has crossed paths with the Kurosagi team every now and then.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Downplayed. At times his business practices will attract suspicions from the Kurosagi gang, but other than that he doesn't directly antagonize them and has some standards.
- Revenge: His motivation for starting his company. His wife and daughter were attacked by a man while they were walking home. The daughter died, while the wife bled just enough to be rendered clinically brain-dead and hooked on life-support machines for the rest of her life. The culprit was tried and executed, but to the aggrieved Nire it felt like a slap on the wrist.
