❝ Would it be better if I just died? ❞
| Romaji | Fumiyo Shiodome |
|---|---|
| Kanji | 潮留 史代 |
| Aliases | Honor student Honor Roll (by Leo) Dandelion (by Towa) Kitty-cat (by Taiga) BB (by Romeo) Senpai (by Ren and Sho) | | --- | --- | | Affiliation | Darkwick Academy | | Occupation | Student Inspector |
| House | - |
|---|---|
| Year | Second |
| Birthday | 14 March (Pisces) |
| Blood Type | O |
| Likes | Travelling Alone |
| Family | Hiroshi Shiodome Sayuri Shiodome † | | --- | --- | | Hometown | Naha, Okinawa Edogawa, Tokyo |
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Eye Color | Teal (Right) |
| Aquamarine Blue (Left) | |
| Hair Color | Black |
| In The Game | Prologue |
|---|
| Voice Actor | Shion Wakayama |
|---|
Fumiyo is a girl with an ideal build and average height. She has heterochromia eyes (her right eye is teal and her left eye is aquamarine blue), tan skin, long eyelashes, a slender nose, small lips, and slender fingers. She wears a pair of long earrings with aquamarine crystals and several piercings in her ears. She has black hair with mid-length and middle part bangs.
Her father's treatment of her over the years has left Fumiyo with deep emotional wounds. Her father's constant lack of appreciation and demanding nature caused Fumiyo to grow up feeling like she was never good enough, leading her to secretly feel insecure often. She also finds it difficult to trust others. Her father's violent behaviour after becoming an alcoholic left Fumiyo traumatized. Occasionally, this trauma triggers panic attacks when she is reminded of her father's violence towards her. Her panic attacks have even recurred when she happened to see someone who resembled her father.
Fumiyo is the type of person who prefers solitude, but she can socialize reasonably well. She knows how to behave at parties and similar social gatherings, such as dancing and table manners. She doesn't particularly need validation from others, even though she grew up never receiving any from her father. With a tough past, she is used to relying on herself.
Fumiyo tends to appear strong, calm, cold and cynical. However, she actually has a soft heart and a fragile soul. She is hardworking, diligent, caring and loyal to those she trusts and feels comfortable with. Despite her thought about ending her life, she wants to find the meaning of life again by helping others.
Rather than worrying that she is cursed and will die within a year, Fumiyo tends to be happy that she is finally free from her father, although she eventually becomes worried after the truth is revealed that her curse will turn her into another copy of Kyklos.
When she entered Darkwick Academy and met the ghouls, she didn't immediately open up and trust them. However, she wasn't afraid of them either. She is intelligent, observant, and always analyzing the situation before acting. She wasn't overly fixated on finding a way out of Darkwick, she was more focused on understanding this new world and subconsciously finding reasons to keep living.
Fumiyo Shiodome was born in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Her family was known as one of the wealthy families in the area. Her father, Hiroshi Shiodome, was a successful businessman who managed a fleet of ships that caught tuna and processed umibudo (sea grapes) for export to Tokyo and overseas. Meanwhile, her mother, Sayuri, was a housewife who spent most of her time at home. From the outside, Fumiyo's life seemed perfect: a large house, nice clothes, and adequate facilities. But behind it all, her life was far from happy.
Hiroshi was a cold and authoritarian father. For him, Fumiyo was not a child, but an investment that had to be perfect to maintain the family's good name. From a young age, Fumiyo was raised strictly. She had to be smart, polite, obedient, and carry herself with grace and elegance. Every small mistake, such as an imperfect grade or behavior deemed unladylike, resulted in long scoldings or punishments. Hiroshi never smiled at her and never praised her. Fumiyo was actually a very smart and intelligent child, it was just that Hiroshi always demanded more and more. “You have to be something useful,” he always said, in a tone that was more like an order than advice.
The only warmth in her life came from her mother, Sayuri. Sayuri was the opposite of Hiroshi. She was gentle, loving, and always had a way to make Fumiyo smile. In the afternoons, they often sat together at the edge of the garden near their house, sometimes listening to the sound of the waves and enjoying the sunset view at the beach while Sayuri told stories about sea legends. "Miyo-chan, I'm sure you can always face any obstacle in your life. Your mother knows you are strong. However, if you really need help, there's nothing wrong with asking for it. Keep living, Miyo-chan," Sayuri said one day, gently stroking Fumiyo's head. Sayuri was a safe harbor for Fumiyo amidst a storm that never subsided.
However, when Fumiyo was 14 years old, misfortune struck one after another. Her family's business went bankrupt due to Hiroshi's reckless decision: he incurred debt to purchase modern fishing vessels. Bad weather, intense competition, and mismanagement caused his business to collapse and rendered him unable to repay the debt. Eventually, their large house was sold, and the family was forced to move to a small apartment on the outskirts of the city. Amidst the chaos, Sayuri fell ill. Fumiyo spent her days taking care of her mother, praying for her recovery, but Sayuri eventually passed away due to her worsening condition. Her mother's passing was the most devastating memory of her life.
After Sayuri's death, Hiroshi decided to move to Tokyo, a big city he considered full of opportunities, hoping he could start over. He sold the remnants of his assets in Naha and took Fumiyo to there, hoping to rebuild his life. But the reality was far from his expectations.
They arrived in Tokyo with little money and no clear plan. Hiroshi, once a successful businessman, somehow lacked the skills to compete in the big city. He ended up working odd jobs as a laborer at the Toyosu Market and a fish truck driver, but his income was small and mostly spent on sake. They lived in a cramped apartment in Edogawa Ward, a suburb of Tokyo near Tokyo Bay.
Hiroshi, who used to be strict but controlled, now turned into a monster. He started drinking every day and often yelled or hit when drunk, blaming the world for the misfortunes that befell him, including Fumiyo. Harsh words turned into shouts, and shouts turned into blows. "This is all your fault! If you were more useful, we wouldn't be like this!" he snapped one night, throwing an empty sake bottle at the floor. Fumiyo chose to be silent, to bow her head, to hold back tears until she was alone.
Since the age of 15, Fumiyo started thinking about earning income by working part-time. The money wasn't much, but it was enough to buy food and pay the often-late electricity bills. Hiroshi didn't care about her; he only appeared to take what Fumiyo brought home, then disappeared again somewhere.
Fumiyo felt tired inside. Tired of her father, tired of this world, tired of herself. It felt like she was no longer afraid of death. When she felt empty or overwhelmed and needed peace, she would usually wander alone or go to the beach to feel the waves crashing at her feet. The sea always looked beautiful to her, and it also reminded her of her mother's warm affection. Now she often imagined what it would be like to drown in the sea, letting the waves carry her away, far from all this. "Would it be better if I just died?", she always muttered to herself. Even so, in the corner of her heart, there was still a glimmer of hope for a peaceful life.
Actually, she had been thinking for a long time about starting to rebel against her father, because she was tired of being constantly controlled by him. And she started doing so in her last year of high school. Her father ordered her to major in business so she could rebuild the business and restore the family's name, but Fumiyo firmly refused and chose the major she wanted, marine science. Obviously, her father was very angry with her, but Fumiyo didn't care, after all, for the past few years she had been struggling to support herself. She started to dare to have a more tomboyish appearance, and she even got her ears pierced. She also secretly started smoking. Besides being a form of rebellion against her father, smoking and getting her ears pierced became her coping mechanisms.
The climax was when Fumiyo decided to cut her very long hair at the beginning of her second year of university. It used to reach below her buttocks, but now it only reached her neck. Her father told her never to cut her hair, without any clear reason. Fumiyo didn't actually hate having a feminine appearance and long hair; she just hated that her father ordered her to do so. Even though Fumiyo was already an adult, her father forbade her from living independently and living alone, and this disgusted Fumiyo because her father continued to restrain her. She finally secretly moved to another apartment so she wouldn't be constantly tied to her father. These two things infuriated her father when he found out.
That day, when her father caught Fumiyo red-handed as she was about to leave with the rest of her belongings to her new apartment, he heartlessly beat her and grabbed her hair. Fortunately, Fumiyo managed to escape in the midst of her father's rage; if she hadn't been strong enough, she might have died at her father's hands. But unfortunately, she didn't manage to take the rest of her belongings that she had intended to take away from her old apartment.
After that incident, while she was on her way to her new apartment on the train, she got caught in a middle of an anomalous ghoul mission that led her getting cursed. She was then taken by Haku Kusanagi to Darkwick Academy, and that made her live a very different life than before.
Currently, she is an honor student at the academy, also serving as an inspector to the ghouls and their missions and working to break her curse in one year.
The anomaly that cursed her is called Kyklos, a type of anomaly that reproduces by cursing humans. It is revealed that her curse is not about killing her in a year; instead, she will transform into another copy of Kyklos, the flower anomaly that cursed her. Edward Hart guessed that Darkwick will likely kill her once she transformed or that she would be locked up in a cell just like Lyca if Darkwick knew the truth.
Through the Sage's Ring power, Fumiyo can enhance a ghoul's stigma by touching, typically by holding hands.