Naki

The white suit is a near-constant, so much so that it becomes his signature. What draws the eye first are the dark hollows ringing his eyes, worn in from weeping over lost friends. His hair shifts across the timeline: early on it is parted three ways with the forehead swept clear, then after the time skip it is combed fully back in imitation of Yamori. The Goat Wipeout Operation costs him his left arm. In the manga two small pieces of his left ear are missing, a detail redrawn as a pair of black earrings in Tokyo Ghoul Root A before the Tokyo Ghoul:re anime restored the original scarring. In his younger years his hair hung loose and messy over his brow, and his clothes were shabby, marked by visible stitching on the chest pocket.

Naki hides nothing about who he is. He is loud with his confidence, forever bragging that he is Yamori's right-hand man, and he holds the man in such reverence that he copies his dress and even his knuckle-cracking habit, using his middle finger instead. There is a childish streak in him, a belief that running errands and counting money for Yamori made him someone worthy of respect. Quick-tempered and impulsive, he is at the same time deeply feeling, trusting to the point of naivety. Akihiro Kanou observes that Naki cannot read or write and has almost no formal schooling, common among ghouls, so others routinely correct his garbled vocabulary, though he can occasionally deploy a difficult word while stumbling over something basic like the names of directions.

His emotions turn violent whenever comrades fall around him. Learning outside Cochlea that Yamori had been killed left him shattered, and the loneliness of that moment shapes everything after. He fears solitude above all pain, so he risks his life to shield the people he cares for, and he keeps every dead friend alive in memory, reciting their names at night.

Naki never knew his parents. He first crossed paths with Yamori in the 13th ward, challenging him without any idea of his reputation, losing, and then begging to follow him, taking to calling him Big Bro. He took on the man's mannerisms and ran his errands, and at some point was jailed in Cochlea for protecting him. Aogiri Tree's raid on the prison set him loose, and he was almost always flanked by the twins Gagi and Guge as he climbed the ranks. His growing following became the sharply dressed gang known as the White Suits.

During the raid on Kanou's laboratory he wept upon realizing Kaneki was the one-eyed ghoul who had killed Yamori. He formed a shaky truce with Shuu Tsukiyama against the arriving investigators, overwhelmed Amon in single combat, and threw himself in front of Gagi and Guge to take a blow from Akira Mado, biting a chunk from her leg before Amon sent him flying. At the Auction he again clashed with Akira, who trapped and impaled him and lectured him for clinging to the past. The twins leapt in to shield him from gunfire and died doing so, sending Naki into a grieving rampage before Ayato Kirishima saved him. Later, after Kaneki defeated him for leadership of the White Suits, Naki grudgingly accepted him as his new leader, asking whether Yamori still lived on inside him.

In battle he channels a koukaku kagune shaped like a broadsword on his right arm, felling several investigators in a single swing, and his durability and swift regeneration let him keep fighting through repeated wounds. By the epilogue he has settled into the work of the United Front, teaching orphaned ghouls and training volunteers on the front lines. He and Miza Kusakari marry and raise nine children together.