YOU MEET AJIN ON A ROAD!

Name Izumi Shimomura Yōko Tainaka Kanji 下村 泉 田井中 陽子 Rōmaji Shimomura Izumi Tainaka Yōko Status Alive Age 21 (Born April 5th) Gender Female Hair Color Black Eye Color Grey (Manga) Red (Anime) Occupations Bodyguard Student (former) Height 155cm creature: demi-human ajin

Facial Features and Expression:

She has a heart-shaped face with a well-defined jawline and a slightly pointed chin, giving her a sharp and serious look. Her skin is fair and smooth, complementing her overall aesthetic. Her eyes are large, almond-shaped, and intense, conveying a range of emotions from calm calculation to fierce determination. The irises are a dark shade—likely brown or black—enhancing the sense of depth and focus in her gaze. Her eyebrows are dark, slender, and angled, adding to her serious expression. Her nose is small and straight, and her lips are full but often set in a neutral or slightly frowning line, reinforcing her no-nonsense attitude

Hair: Her hair is short, black, and cut into a layered bob that frames her face and neck. The style is neat but slightly tousled, giving a sense of motion or recent activity. The ends of her hair are jagged and dynamic, suggesting a character who is both stylish and practical. Her bangs are parted slightly to the sides and drape across her forehead without obscuring her vision, adding to her composed, tactical appearance.

Clothing:

She wears a fitted white dress shirt with long sleeves and a classic collar. The shirt clings to her form, emphasizing her well-defined figure—particularly her bust and waist. The fabric shows detailed creases and folds, indicating realism in movement and posture. At times, the shirt is shown with buttons undone at the top, revealing a bit of her collarbone and upper chest, which adds a subtle hint of confidence and allure to her character. Despite the elegance of her outfit, it is practical and allows for a full range of movement, suggesting that she’s prepared for action at any moment.

Body Language and Demeanor:

Her posture is upright and confident, often with arms crossed or hands on her hips, showing assertiveness and control. In the more action-oriented depiction, she is posed dynamically, suggesting agility, strength, and readiness. Her expressions range from calm and contemplative to stern and aggressive, indicating a wide emotional range but a strong tendency toward seriousness and resolve.

Overall Impression:

This character exudes strength, intelligence, and professionalism. Her design suggests a woman who is competent, confident, and capable—someone who commands respect and isn’t afraid to take action when needed. The combination of her sharp appearance, stylish yet functional attire, and powerful body language paints the image of a formidable individual likely central to the story she belongs to.

Personality Izumi is a rather quiet and reserved individual who talks mainly when informing Yū Tosaki about something. Her answers are usually short and to the point. Even though she is an Ajin, she chose to live with humans in secret and doesn't seem to be consumed completely by resentment towards humans despite her background. She seems to be quite intelligent and understanding, for example towards Tosaki and when interrogating Kei Nagai's younger sister, Eriko Nagai. However, despite her initial stoic appearance, she can get embarrassed easily (for example when she said too much to Eriko and when Tosaki commented on her casual clothes).

History Izumi's former name was Yōko Tainaka (田井中 陽子, Tainaka Yōko) and she lived with her mother Sawako Tainaka and her step-father Satoshi Tainaka. Her family were poor, a major factor was that her step-father would take Yōko's or her mother's money and spend it on drinking or girls.

When she was in high school, she was in a relationship with Kazuki before she eventually found out that Kazuki cheated on her with another girl as she overheard them talking about her while they're alone. After hearing this, Yōko goes to her home's bathroom to commit suicide by slitting her right wrist with a scissor while her stepfather is in the house. Her drunk stepfather sees her in the bathroom and attempts to rape her.

Yōko stabs him with the scissors while he slams her head into the side of the sink, killing her. While this happened, her mother returns home to see Yōko dead, Yoko begins to ooze out IBM and comes back to life after being dead, thus alerting her family that she's an Ajin. Her step-father calls the government to try to sell Yoko to them, but her mother wholeheartedly disagrees causing a fight in which they stab each other and die. Yōko left the house before the fight between her parents started, and so she was unaware of their deaths until Tosaki informed her. She eventually wanders in the street and it's implied that she becomes a prostitute to survive in the streets. During this period, Izumi becomes aware of her black ghost.

She eventually collapses from a sexually transmitted disease and is visited in the hospital about 2 weeks after the Shinya Nakamura incident by Yū Tosaki as Tosaki had a gut feeling that she might be an Ajin due to the earlier call to the police by her stepfather about her being an Ajin. Tosaki talks to her and plays the phone call of her mother and step-father's fight in which both of her parents killed each other. Upon learning the true events of what happened, she asks why he'd play that it's too late already. Tosaki replied that he's just correcting her view of her parents because her mom did, in fact, love her, to which she seemed nonchalant.

Just as Tosaki is about to leave the room since he deems that she's actually not an Ajin, she succumbs to her disease but is brought back to life, shocking Tosaki who was present in the room and confirming his suspicion. Afterwards, she gets a special contract with Tosaki in the condition that "Yōko Tainaka" is dead and she will live on a new name while she becomes his escort. She decides her new name to be Izumi Shimomura, taken from her mother's maiden name (Izumi) and her birth father's last name (Shimomura).

Relationships Sawako Tainaka Izumi cared for her mother and did not understand why she was with Satoshi Tainaka. She hated her after thinking she wanted to sell her to the government. After learning the truth, she cared for her again and promised she won't run after getting her new life as Izumi Shimomura.

Satoshi Tainaka Izumi had a strong dislike for her step-father as he kept them poor. She hated him after he attempted to rape her, killed her and tried to sell her to the government.

Yū Tosaki Izumi is Tosaki's personal bodyguard. He relies on her heavily, however, he does not hesitate to threaten her if she fails to do her job correctly. Even though it was shown that Izumi seems to understand Tosaki, she is still quite anxious in case of making a mistake in front of him, such as the time where she accidentally asked Kei's sister if her brother has seen as Black Ghost, later saying that she was glad that Tosaki wasn't there at the time. We discover that the reason that Tosaki still keeps Izumi's status as an Ajin a secret is because he considers her as a valuable escort in case anything might happen to him.

When they were attacked by Sato, he revealed to her that her status is kept in a bank vault and the keys to the vault is in the safe beside Tosaki's fiance's hospital bed. Tosaki voided their contract and told Shimomura to run away from Sato. Instead, she decided to stay and protect Tosaki, saying that she is free to do that since the contract is voided. She also thanked Tosaki for giving her a new life. Tosaki and Izumi's relationship is professional only.

Kōji Tanaka

Izumi's relationship with Tanaka begins early in the series when she tries to prevent his IBM kidnapping Eriko Nagai. Both she and Tanaka engage in a fight, and while she manages to defeat his ghost with hers, she ultimately fails to protect Eriko. She encounters him again later in the manga during Tanaka's attempt to assassinate the CEO of Forge Safety, and in this confrontation he directly states his disgust at her being treated better than he was, and for her working for the government after what it did to him. She ignores his appeal, stating what he is doing is no better, and attempts to incapacitate him. As happened with Sato and Kei, their IBMs happen to collide heads during this fight, and they are both temporarily aware of each other's memories and mental state. Tanaka tranquilizes and handcuffs her to the stairwell and continues on his mission, but not before killing some onlookers that might have revealed her identity as an Ajin. Knowing these things, her feelings about Tanaka begin to change.

Once Tanaka is betrayed by Sato, Izumi starts out decisively to save him from the government, who once again decide to send him back to captivity and torture. After killing the agents holding him, she asks him to join her cause to stop Sato, which he initially refuses, until his own anger and despondency urge him to team up temporarily with her so he would not be in her debt for rescuing him. When they eventually encounter Sato and Tanaka finds himself unable to shoot him, Izumi comforts Koji during his emotional breakdown.

During the final scenes of the manga, Izumi meets up with Tanaka after Sato's capture to give him documents Tosaki had provided, enabling them both to change identity and live freely again. It turns out that she and Tanaka are close in age, with only a three year difference between them. When she asks him if he has anywhere to go, he replies he doesn't, and she offers him to stay at her place. Initially confused and wary, Tanaka agrees, and the two go home together.

Abilities and Powers Immortality - Similar to all Ajins, Izumi is immortal. Invisible Black Matter - Izumi possesses IBM and can manifest her Black Ghost which she calls Kuro (which translates to "Black"). Her Black Ghost's unique physical trait is its head shaped like an elongated pyramid. It is shown that she can control her Ghost properly as she can command it to protect Yū Tosaki and fight other Ghosts. Paralysis Scream - It is assumed that Izumi can use a Paralysis Scream since she's an Ajin but this has never been demonstrated in the series yet. Etymology Her name is taken from her birth father's last name (Shimomura) and her mother's maiden name (Izumi).

The name Izumi means "fountain, spring" (泉). Izumi's surname Shimomura means "under, below" (下) (shimo) and "town, village" (村) (mura). Birth Name Her former name was Yōko Tainaka (田井中 陽子, Tainaka Yōko).

The name Yōko means "light, sun, male" (陽) (yō) and "child" (子) (ko). Yōko's surname Tainaka means "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta), "well, mine shaft, pit" (井) (i) and "middle" (中) (naka). Trivia Izumi affectionately refers to her “black ghost” as “Kuro”. Izumi's personality is similar Rin Shimotsuki from HinaBitter♪ song series by Konami, with both of them being calm and composed. Interestingly, Rin also has beauty mark on her left eye like Izumi. Izumi's real name and her assumed last name ("Yoko" and "Shimomura", respectively) are a direct reference to legendary video game composer Yoko Shimomura, who created the soundtracks for such games as "Legend of Mana", "Super Mario RPG", the entire "Kingdom Hearts" series, and most recently "Final Fantasy XV". This may be due to Sakurai Gamon's love for video games. The appearance of Izumi's IBM is very reminiscent of Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill series, with an elongated pyramid on its head and a muscular body.