Shinobu Kawajiri

Of roughly average height and slender frame, Shinobu keeps her hair parted on the right and gathered into a low ponytail, now and then pinning back a few strands from her bangs. Her wardrobe shifts across the story, tending toward skirts and busy patterns such as polka dots.

Shinobu carries herself less like a settled parent and more like a restless young woman, chafing against a marriage she has come to loathe. She bears her husband Kosaku no real hatred, yet their union is a chilly, regret-filled thing, and her hunger for a livelier existence often boils over into snapping at both him and their son. She blames the boy for tying her down, and though she sometimes reaches toward him she is usually rebuffed, which makes his eventual warmth all the sweeter to her. She also insists she is the sort of person that cats tend to like.

Shinobu first met Kosaku back in junior high and paired off with him largely because her friends judged him cool, sealing the marriage once she fell pregnant. The years that followed drained the romance out of the relationship, and only their son kept her from filing for divorce. Everything shifts when Yoshikage Kira, hiding from Josuke Higashikata, assumes Kosaku's face and slips into the household. Playing the attentive husband to dodge suspicion, Kira reawakens feelings in her that had lain dormant for years.

Her brush with the wider danger comes through a cat. Startling a stray named Tama in her cellar, she accidentally kills it, and the animal returns as the Stand Stray Cat to take revenge, tearing off one of her toenails before Kira rescues her and deepens her infatuation. During the looping morning caused by Bites the Dust, the smashing of her treasured Wedgwood set sends her lashing out at Hayato, whom Kira soothes with a goodbye kiss. On the final replay Hayato instead sidesteps the quarrel and kisses her farewell for the first time in ages, silently vowing to keep her safe; puzzled but touched, she brushes Kira aside. Once Kira is dead, Hayato cannot bring himself to reveal that Kosaku is gone, leaving her to keep waiting for a husband who will never come home.