Shuu Tsukiyama

Tall and handsome, Tsukiyama carries a soft, refined look said to mirror his late mother's. He fancies himself a style icon and favors European tailoring, though his taste runs eccentric: formal suits and dress shirts loaded with clashing colors, often reds against purplish blues, and busy patterns of stripes, blooms, or geometry. His vivid blue hair is usually swept neatly with a long fringe drawn to the left, striking enough that Kaneki first mistook him for a model. To echo his own name he keeps a crescent-moon mask.

Two years of grief hollowed him out completely. Starvation left him gaunt, his sternum showing through and his face sunken, his hair and nails neglected, his body draped in a plain sleeping robe while his kagune, out of control, coiled around him into something monstrous. Once he learned Kaneki still lived, he rebounded quickly and reclaimed his old polish, if in a gentler, more subdued key.

At the outset he plays the part of a warm, clever, agreeable gentleman, a mask worn to lure targets toward the Ghoul Restaurant. Underneath sits a selfish, theatrical predator who considers himself an elite hunter entitled to the finest prey and who will use any ruthless means to claim it, traits that made him unpopular among the 20th ward's ghouls. His love of European letters and languages spills into his speech, peppered with stray French, Italian, and English, and his emotions run wild, prone to meltdowns whenever he loses something dear or fails to seize a coveted meal. Away from the hunt he reads, dresses, and plays piano, and he styles himself a chivalrous knight, especially later in Kaneki's service.

Early on he barely grasps how bonds work, dismissing his only human friend, Chie Hori, as a mere pet to excuse his fondness for her, yet he privately longs for a true companion to share his passions with. Kaneki's group and the long depression that follows reshape him. His declining health frayed his mind into violent fits, so his servants sedated him to keep him calm, leaving him withdrawn and somber. Recovery brings real growth: he turns humble, prizes his family and friends, grieves the danger his condition put them in, apologizes to his retainers, and resolves to save Yuuma himself. By then he freely admits he stopped seeing Kaneki as food long ago.

Tsukiyama first crosses paths with Kaneki at Anteiku and grows fixated on his rare scent. He courts him at Kamii University and over coffee, secretly nicking him to steal his blood, then lures him to the Ghoul Restaurant where he unveils Kaneki as the main course. The plan collapses once Kaneki reveals himself a one-eyed ghoul, and Tsukiyama halts the feast, killing the scrapper Taro. He later abducts Kimi Nishino as leverage, only to be beaten by Touka Kirishima in the battle that follows, surviving afterward through auto-cannibalism.

Invited on Anteiku's mission to rescue Kaneki from Aogiri, he joins while still scheming to eat him, but ends up pledging himself as Kaneki's sword. He fights beside him through the hunt for Kanou, dueling and then allying with Naki, before begging Kaneki not to march into the Owl Suppression Operation. Subdued and left behind, he sinks into the depression that consumes the next two years, tended by his servant Kanae.

In the Rose extermination era he loses command of his kagune and has to be restrained and drugged, until Kanae finally admits Kaneki is alive and now the investigator Haise Sasaki. Frail but frantic, Tsukiyama tries to reach him, blaming himself when the retainer Yuuma is captured. His father drugs him to force an escape as the CCG closes on the family, and Matsumae spirits him to the Luna Eclipse, where Sasaki corners him on the rooftop. Kanae dies shielding him, and Touka, Yomo, and Chie pull him to safety, reuniting him with his father. He resurfaces during the Rushima landing to aid Naki and Miza, then follows Kaneki into Goat as its second in command. In the end he becomes the United Front's representative and head of the Tsukiyama family, pouring his fortune into rebuilding Tokyo.

As a full ghoul, Tsukiyama fights with a koukaku kagune rated at class S, forming a metallic ribbon that can armor his torso or extend into a thrusting blade, backed by durability, speed, and agility unusual for a heavyweight of his type.