Akira Mado

Strikingly attractive, Akira wears her fair blonde hair at about neck length, swept to fall along her right side, above eyes of a purple shade rendered as pale grey-green in Tokyo Ghoul √A. She favors tailored, formal clothing and keeps her face composed, letting little emotion show unless something pushes her to it. A braid is her signature: worn long past her shoulders in her Academy days, then cropped once she joined the ranks, and after the four-year gap grown out again into a braided bun with bangs brushed to one side.

Disciplined and razor-sharp, Akira treats her duties and her daily routine with unwavering seriousness. She inherited her father's gift for reading a scene through instinct and deduction, along with a milder version of his obsession with quinques, and she would often rather build a weapon than make small talk. She holds her feelings close, admitting them only when cornered. Once the timeskip softens her, she grows far more willing to open up, especially with the young investigator she comes to raise.

Placed under Koutarou Amon as his subordinate, Akira joins the search for the vanished Dr. Kanou, and a raid on his abandoned mansion pits her against battling ghouls, including Naki, who wounds her leg. Bitter over her father Kureo's death, she lashes out at Amon while drunk one night, confessing she hates him. When the operation against Anteiku claims both Amon and her old classmate Seidou Takizawa, she holds herself together in public before collapsing into tears, admitting how much both men meant to her.

Promoted to Rank 1, Akira is handed an unusual pupil and meets Haise Sasaki at her father's graveside. She becomes his mentor and stand-in mother, keeping him in line with a blunt Mado Punch and, when his ghoul side rages out of control, dropping him with Rc-suppressant rounds so he will not be marked for extermination. Through the Torso and Nutcracker cases she guides him, and during the Auction she turns the tide against Naki and duels the Aogiri executive Miza. That same night she is shattered to learn the ghoul torturing Sasaki is Takizawa, remade into a one-eyed monster.

On Rushima she serves as second to Kousuke Houji, only to watch Takizawa slaughter the squad and spare her alone, choking her until Amon severs his arm. When Mutsuki moves to kill Takizawa, Akira throws her own body over him and is run through again and again, an act of protection that brands her a traitor to the CCG. Takizawa then carries her, gravely wounded, off the island as a hostage.

Left comatose, she is taken in by the Goat organization, healed by Kazuichi Banjou at the cost of Rc cells flooding her body, and finally restored after a mission secures a suppressant. Awake and hollowed out, having lost both her purpose and her hatred, she is slowly drawn back by those around her. Touka confesses to being the one who killed Kureo, and an embrace from the orphaned Hinami Fueguchi finally lets Akira release her grudge. She reunites with Amon, who vows to remain beside her always, and the two admit their feelings and kiss.

Like her father, Akira keeps a personal arsenal of quinques and studies new and experimental designs with real enthusiasm. She stands up to S-rated ghouls in combat, shoots with deadly precision, and endures wounds that would fell most investigators. Her weapons include Amatsu, which pairs a whip-like bikaku with a dagger-like koukaku; Fueguchi, a rinkaku blade inherited from her father that took her a full year to master; and Fueguchi Two, a koukaku shaped like spreading petals that both guards and strikes.