Nobu Shimoguchi

Lean and tall, Shimoguchi carried almost no spare weight. His dark hair was cropped short and swept up at the front, above a hairline that had begun to retreat. A long face, wide jaw, and flat features framed his standout trait, an unusually thick pair of lips. Haise Sasaki tended to picture them even larger than they really were, an exaggeration read partly as comic and partly as a sign of his low regard for the man.

On the job he came across as diligent, yet a streak of bigotry ran through him. He belittled Sasaki in front of others for failing to keep his subordinates in line, and he held an open contempt for the Quinx Squad as a whole. That hard shell cracked, however, when his own investigators were butchered by Black Rabbit, leaving him visibly stricken with grief.

He first crosses paths with the Quinx when Sasaki and Tooru Mutsuki seek him out for word on two missing members. Rather than help, he mocks Sasaki's inability to manage his own team and declares him unfit for the profession. A later joint meeting with the Mado and Hirako squads slides into another argument, and to his irritation he is ordered to partner with the Quinx on the Torso matter.

Once the killer's identity is exposed, his squad searches the suspect's home for evidence and taxi logs. Soon after, the SS-rated Rabbit of Aogiri Tree falls on the group and slaughters everyone but Shimoguchi, who survives gravely wounded. Recovering in a hospital and mourning his dead, he agrees to brief Akira on what happened at the scene. During the Auction operation he recognizes Roma Hoito as a lingering Clown and warns a younger investigator to keep clear, but the man dismisses him and is killed at once.

At the Luna Eclipse building during the Rose sweep, his team corners a ghoul resembling Noro. Before he can finish declaring the extermination, the masked figure severs his arm and most of a hand. Facing certain death, he tells his new subordinates that he hates them so they will flee, only to be told they liked him before all of them are cut down together. His last thoughts drift to a boyhood friend named Yamagawa and to worry over his mother. A deranged Kanae then beheads him, calling the corpse a beautiful rose.