Juuzou Suzuya

Suzuya cuts an androgynous figure, pale-skinned with tidy white hair falling to his shoulders and deep red eyes shadowed by bags beneath them. Red pins shape his bangs into the Roman numeral thirteen, and he stitches his own skin as a form of body modification: a small pair of crossed threads under his right eye, one beneath his lower lip, a run of sutures down his neck, and more along his right arm. His early wardrobe pairs a half-buttoned white suit with sleeves rolled to the elbow, red polka-dot suspenders, black trousers, and red slippers, often worn under a black jacket.

By the Joker side story and the opening of Tokyo Ghoul:re, his look shifts sharply. He dyes his hair black and crops it to chin length, rearranges his stitch pattern, and wears a prosthetic in place of the leg he lost years earlier in the Owl Suppression Operation. Later in :re his hair grows out again, worn in a bun or ponytail, his facial stitches return to the original crossed marks, and the numeral in his hair changes to twenty, tied to the Judgement tarot.

Big Madam's conditioning stripped away Suzuya's sense of fear, physical pain, and morality, leaving a young man his mentor bluntly labeled a problem child. Beneath a playful, childlike surface he was violent and deeply unsettled, taking pride in what he called clean kills and treating the act of killing as an ordinary part of daily life, with no grasp of how much a death should weigh. Wrongly blamed for animal killings committed by others during his training, he grew wary of anyone who wrote him off, resenting the judging looks he learned to recognize.

His emotional blankness pushed him to charge any threat head-on, which nearly cost everything when he took on the Owl without support. Yet when he understood how much Shinohara meant to him, he broke down in anguish, proof that he could love and grieve after all. In the years that follow he matures noticeably, turning calmer and warmer, mentoring investigators like Tooru Mutsuki and commanding his own team, though he keeps enough of his old self to bring candy to grave meetings and stays ruthless toward ghouls.

Taken captive as a child, Rei Suzuya was raised as the pet of the ghoul Big Madam, made to perform circus routines and manipulated through a cruel points system. Working as a Scrapper in the Ghoul Restaurant under the name Juuzou, he was sickened after his first killing before his conscience gradually went numb. Big Madam, whom he regarded as his mother, sometimes dressed him as a girl and, fearing he would lose his looks, mutilated him and forced him to live as one. When the CCG raided the estate, he was rescued and taken in; Shinohara argued that the boy was a victim who deserved another chance. At sixteen he entered the Academy Junior School alongside Kurona and Nashiro, where he was scapegoated for a string of animal deaths and shunned. At nineteen, Chairman Tsuneyoshi Washuu made him a Rank 3 Investigator, and he chose the name Juuzou Suzuya before being paired with Shinohara in the twentieth ward.

During the Aogiri arc he pickpocketed Ken Kaneki, then joined the raid on the group's hideout, breaking in on Marude's motorcycle and finishing off the badly wounded Yamori, whose kakuhou became his quinque 13's Jason. In the assault on Kanou's lab he clashed with his old classmates Kurona and Nashiro. The Owl Suppression Operation cost him his right leg and left Shinohara comatose, a loss that shattered him. Fitted with a bladed prosthetic and promoted over time, he took command of a squad in the thirteenth ward and pursued Nutcracker, a trail meant to lead back to Big Madam. At the Auction he went undercover disguised as a woman, revealed himself to strike, and ultimately subdued Big Madam, telling her he held no grudge and that slaying her was simply his work.

Rising to Special Class at twenty-two, the first to reach that rank so young since Arima, Suzuya battled Kurona again at Rushima using the Arata Joker armor, and during the Clown Siege was nearly killed after Uta took Shinohara's shape, only for Hanbee to save him. Declared the next Arima by Furuta, he led the S3 Squad. In the Dragon crisis he and Hanbee inflicted grievous wounds on Kaneki, a factor in Dragon's emergence, then joined forces with the ghouls to fight Dragon's spawn and V. His combat is built on superhuman strength, speed, and agility, near-total pain tolerance, and mastery of the Scorpion 1/56 knives, 13's Jason, and Arata Joker. In the end he serves as the Tokyo Security Committee's top Dragon General, respected as a leading peace officer.