Hanbee Abara

Height defines Hanbee's silhouette first: he stands unusually tall on a lean, narrow frame, with dark hair worn long. A worried, uneasy look tends to settle across his face, and artists draw his eyes as blank shapes with no visible irises. He dresses in a black suit and fastens a band around his arm bearing the numeral XIII, a nod to Juuzou Suzuya, whose given name can be spelled with the characters that also stand for thirteen.

Beneath an intimidating exterior sits a man ruled by fear, plagued by shaky confidence and a tendency to run rather than confront the ghouls he is meant to hunt. Suzuya bluntly judges him unsuited for the profession, too soft-hearted and frightened to draw a weapon. Hanbee overthinks nearly every choice, hesitating so long that chances slip past him.

Yet he is not static. When Suzuya deliberately courts danger, Hanbee finds the nerve to step between his mentor and a ghoul's strike, and he quietly hopes to one day muster even a fraction of the bravery his leader carries. By the events of the sequel, that growth is unmistakable, since he can now wound an SS-rated opponent instead of turning and fleeing as his younger self would have.

Hanbee headlines the standalone Joker story, where he frames the world of ghouls and the investigators who oppose them while branding himself hopeless for bolting whenever a ghoul appears. Assigned under Suzuya to track the leader of the Skull Masks in the 11th Ward, he joins the squad canvassing Kurashiki Street and admits he focuses best on his own. He recounts how ghouls attacked him as a boy and how his father was maimed shielding him, losing both legs, a moment when Hanbee could not summon the courage to help. When Suzuya's weapon shatters mid-fight against the gang's leader, Hanbee finally drives his blade through the enemy and rescues his superior.

Later he liaises with the Quinx Squad over the Nutcracker case, covering for an oversleeping Suzuya, then treats Saiko Yonebayashi and Ginshi Shirazu to lunch and a hospital visit to the comatose Yukinori Shinohara. During the auction raid his squad corners Big Madam before she can kill Kuki Urie, and Hanbee shields Suzuya's ears from her taunts as his teammates finish her off. At Rushima he outmaneuvers Miza, springing his weapon's hidden mechanism to impale her, but is later pinned and wounded by Kurona Yasuhisa. Even as she claims Suzuya has cast him aside, Hanbee insists his leader never abandons his own, and Suzuya arrives to prove him right.

His craft rests on precise, guarded swordwork sharp enough to slice through pillars. He carries Silver Skull, an ukaku quinque shaped like a long katana with a round guard that can sprout rib-like spikes to skewer ghouls, and he also wields the koukaku weapon known as Arata II.