Shunji Shiono

Shiono has an anxious cast to him, with a rounded face framed by short dark hair. He keeps to formal business attire, dressing in a suit.

Jittery and quick to fluster, he was easily thrown by his author's odd habits and tended to cower whenever real danger appeared. Yet beneath that nervousness lay someone genuinely dependable. He shielded Eto's true nature for nearly ten years after learning she was a ghoul, and his last effort, holding back and then spreading her final book, showed a courage his timid manner rarely let show.

A decade before the main story, Eto pressed a five-hundred-page draft of Dear Kafka into Shiono's hands. He waved her off with only his business card, a blunder his superior tore into him for, ordering him to track down so gifted a writer despite having no way to reach her. When Eto returned for her manuscript, he scolded her for leaving no contact details, then softened on hearing she was an orphan; he handed her a phone and took her on as her editor. Two years later he helped launch her under the name Sen Takatsuki. One night, dropping off snacks at her apartment, he opened a strange bin and found part of a human face inside. Eto revealed her kakugan behind him but chose to let him live, and he went on protecting her secret.

Years later, while waiting outside for Takatsuki, Shiono was approached by investigators Haise Sasaki and Nimura Furuta. His refusal to give up her whereabouts landed him in custody, where Sasaki threatened him with execution for harboring a ghoul before leaving Furuta to play the gentler interrogator. Eventually he cracked and confessed the truth, then dissolved into weeping apologies when Takatsuki herself appeared; she assured him she bore no anger and thanked him for making her an author. After his release he fought to get her last work, King Bileygr, into wide circulation, keeping its contents hidden as long as he could even knowing it might be suppressed. Furuta later killed him for that act and cooked him into pâté, which he delivered to Eto in Cochlea as a cruel gift, an act that fueled her drive for revenge against Furuta.