Ryoujirou Shiba

Shiba carries himself as an elderly man who looks to be somewhere in his late sixties. A heavy, unkempt mustache dominates the lower half of his face, while his brow sits bare with no visible eyebrows. His eyes are narrow and heavy-lidded, and a pair of glasses fitted with elongated lenses rests across his nose.

At work Shiba comes across as measured and thoroughly professional. He takes pains not to give offense and chooses his words with care, catching himself before he can label Saiko Yonebayashi as heavy and offering an apology for touching on ghoul biology while Haise Sasaki is present. Beneath that careful restraint runs a streak of genuine curiosity about the people he examines.

Shiba oversees the routine physicals for the Quinx Squad and frequently reviews their Rc figures with Haise Sasaki, cautioning that readings climbing too high can strip a member of the ability to stomach ordinary food. When Kuki Urie presses him to reinforce his kagune, the doctor walks him through Quinx biology and warns that driving the kakuhou beyond its limit would be reckless. He later explains that Rc cell vessels branch further through the body each time a one-eyed ghoul heals, a point that leads Urie to reason repeated injury only makes the half-ghouls stronger.

Years on, Shiba notes that Urie's Rc level has risen to nearly double the accepted standard, a figure that would classify him as a ghoul, and traces the surge back to his frame release surgery. Having personally sat across from kakuja ghouls on two occasions, Noro among them, he judges that Urie holds the potential to reach Special Class. His grasp of ghoul biology is thorough enough to carry out the Quinx procedure itself.