This is a profile of characters from Shadow Star, known in Japan as , and events in which they are involved.
Main characters Bearers and Shadow Dragons Shiina Tamai is the protagonist of Shadow Star. She acts very mature for her age, and though she does not get the best grades, she is talented at cooking and athletics. She always tries her hardest to become stronger, often facing newer and more difficult challenges. While outwardly cheerful and optimistic about everything, on the inside the protagonist's hurt stems back as far as her name; in her dream in the first episode she says, "Are you calling me? That name, Shiina... I don't like it. So next time you want to call me, do me a favor and don't use that name." Using heart-thumping music of the same three piano keys to further the idea of death, Shiina asks, "Am I going to be gone from this world?" She fears losing those closest to her, but must endure.
As the second half of the manga begins and at the end of the anime, Shiina works hard and obtains a scholarship to the prestigious Banda Academy Junior High. In the manga she then moves in with Takeo and Norio after her father's aircraft was attacked by dragons a second time. In an attempt to save Takeo and herself from a United States military attack on a nearby escaped dragon, a missile cuts Shiina's body in half. The following nuclear explosion completely destroys her body. Soon after, she is reborn off the shore of her grandparents' island and it is revealed that her (and Mamiko Kuri's) dragons are, in fact, the whole world. The daughter of Shiina and Takeo (conceived when Shiina has sex with Takeo after declaring her love for him, before the destruction of the world) becomes the new Eve when Mamiko destroys and recreates the planet.
Shiina and her friends usually write her given name with katakana (sometimes as and sometimes as ); Shiina's mother, Misono, prefers the kanji rendering of her given name (), which means "a seed that cannot germinate" or "an empty husk." Shiina's given name is romanized as Shiina in English-language versions and the Japanese graphic novels, while Kodanclub romanizes her given name as Shina.
Hoshimaru is Shiina's companion. He does what Shiina unconsciously wants to do or have happen. This means that in reality she does not wish to casually speak with him, and that everything he does is actually Shiina's will - whether for good or for bad.
In the anime it is not stated, but later in the manga it becomes known that Hoshimaru is Takeo Tsurumaru's dragon, not Shiina's, which explains why she could not link with the creature. When Takeo dies, Hoshimaru attempts to turn his bearer into a virgin princess, but somehow fails.
(Japanese)
Akira Sakura is an eighth grade student (meaning she is two years older than Shiina) who always seems out-of-place. Akira likes to hide in the shadows where she can feel protected from the outside world, nervous of others around her and afraid to trust nearly anyone. Living above her family's restaurant, her parents wish her to try harder in school and not skip day after day. When she does go to school, because she is linked with a dragon she named , she often relives visions of falling from the sky - her constant passing out and vomiting in the middle of class makes her a serious outcast to the other students. Instead of trying to free herself of her timidity, she creates further barriers, with the exception of befriending Shiina. During her and Shiina's battle with Komori, he tells Akira that she has beautiful hair, and as soon as the battle is over she locks herself in her room and cuts off her long hair in fear.
As a young child, Akira was very friendly and outgoing, but quickly transformed into a hopelessly shy and insecure person after being sexually abused by her father. She keeps all of her pain inside but ends up unleashing her rage on her abusive father. She spends the rest of the manga in a juvenile detention center, but later is apparently released and finds Sudo, who shows her what truly happened to Komori.
In Volume 12, when Akira is seriously injured by a dragon battle (she had helped Shiina find Sudo, also pulling her out of a paralyzed state when her father dies and urging her to make peace with her mother) and sent to a local hospital. Its implied somebody threw her out of the hospital window. Most likely the angry mob who blame the Dragon children for the state of the world.
Takeo Tsurumaru is one of the passengers who disappeared from Shiina's plane flight, whom she confuses with the writer of a threatening note. He helps Shiina and Akira many times, although he does not always understand where his responsibilities should stand. He is quite lecherous, having five illegitimate children and three girls pregnant during the course of the series. Eventually, he impregnates Shiina too, but right before that she teaches him that there is a difference between love and procreation.
In Volume 10, Takeo gets caught in a nuclear explosion while trying to escape the hellfire of U.S. soldiers attacking an escaped dragon, and later shows obvious side effects of radiation poisoning, including severe scars and complete hair loss. In Volume 11, Takeo kills some of the city thugs - mostly the same ones who kidnap and murder his best friend Norio in Volume 10 and rape Mamiko in Volume 11, including the thug who tortured, raped and killed Norio. Almost at the end of Volume 12, Shiina says she loves him and they have sex, which leads to Shiina becoming pregnant.
In Volume 12 of the manga, the remaining city thugs fatally shoot him in his chest at his apartment. For unexplained reasons Hoshimaru (his dragonchild, not Shiina's as many thought) cannot manage to transform him into a virgin princess. Takeo's death is the last straw that triggers Shiina's destruction and rebuilding of the human world.
Norio Koga is the other missing passenger from the plane flight, as well as Takeo's roommate and friend. He's nicknamed "Nori-rin" by one of the girls who is a mother to one of Takeo's kids. He possesses a high-level shadow dragon named that often follows Takeo, and crafts new shadow dragons as a sort of hobby. Norio is very aloof and rude around other people, and it is touched on a few times that he is angry at the human race. But he comes to tolerate Shiina, has fierce loyalty for Takeo, and his deepest wish is to have his child.
Norio experiences a turbulent death: a gang of street punks and city thugs approaches his and Takeo's house. Norio comes outside when he hears a noise, and collapses after a blow to the stomach. The thugs drag Norio into the house and ask for Takeo's whereabouts. When Norio states that he is not there, a thug slices Norio's left ear with a sword, causing an earring to fall to the floor. Norio tries to run away, but a sword slices his achilles tendon and Norio falls to the ground. One of the thugs, after punching a fellow thug, decides that he wishes to take advantage of Norio.
After Norio is stripped and placed on a bed and a video camera is turned on, the thug rapes him. Norio withstands the torture as bravely as he can, not screaming or crying a single tear even when he receives stabs in his lower parts, while still using Vagina Dentata to help Takeo and Shiina in their mission to aid Jane Franklin. At some point he starts to pass out from the blood loss which is when the thug gives him an adrenaline injection in the neck, but even so Norio keeps choosing to protect Tsurumaru instead of using his dragon to save his life. When he finally dies, so does his dragon, from which a fetus develops - an expression of his love for Takeo and his secret dream to bear Takeo's child. It's only then that he speaks his final words, lamenting not having the opportunity to declare this love to him.
Later, a badly injured Takeo and Shiina's parents find Norio's severed head attached to the "body" of Norio's favorite doll; days after that Takeo kills the thug who murdered Norio and dispose the thug's body in space.
Virgin Princess The , appearing on a large dragon, is equivalent to a goddess of dragons. She rarely makes appearances, thus seeing her even once in a lifetime is a rare and treasured event. The virgin princess is a replica of its owner's body whose soul has been absorbed by his or her baby dragon, thus becoming an adult dragon. Jyun explains to Shiina that the princesses get their name because they are "joined together" only with their dragons. There is more than one virgin princess, and they may be male or nonhuman.
In the manga, the one who most often makes an appearance and saves Shiina many times over is revealed to be , Shiina's deceased sister. In the manga, Shunji (Shiina's father) discovers a different virgin princess while on a mission in Russia.
Normal Humans Shunji Tamai is Shiina's father and a pilot for a small aviation company, which offers flight training services for the JASDF. He flies a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, later transitioning to a Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker towards the end of the manga. He and his wife Misono separated years ago, and he lives with Shiina. Once a sensational ace pilot for the National Defense Force, his abilities have diminished since an undisclosed incident involving a dragon. He loves his daughter dearly and wants always to protect her, even though she is often the one who ends up protecting him. In Volume 12 of the manga, Shunji dies after Bungo's dragon fires its gun at his plane's cockpit while he is trying to eject, after he caused Bungo's dragon to be sucked into his plane's engine. Shiina and Akira witness his death.
Misono Tamai is Shiina's mother and Shunji's ex-wife. Misono often chides Shiina for the young girl's poor grades, and deep down believes that Shiina is responsible for the death of her first daughter Misho, to the point of trying to strangle Shiina once. Always calm and cold, she works with the government and Miyako on the shadow dragon case.
In Volume 11, Misono shows signs of softening up after a conversation with Akira, in which she says that mothers and daughters always have complicated relationships. In Volume 12, right after Shunji's death, she is finally reconciled with Shiina. In the final chapter, some men who wanted to kill Shiina fatally shoot Misono while she is in her car, right in front of Shiina.
Minor characters Satoru is a friend of Shiina who lives on her grandparents' island. He is one year younger than Shiina, and being from a small island, is often annoyed by Shiina's "city" mannerisms.
Takaya Mizushima is a classmate and friend of Hiroko and Shiina. He has a crush on Shiina and has two older sisters who constantly tease him about it. He is the first one to realize Hiroko's strange behavior, but does not know that it is due to the bullying. After coming across Aki Honda and her group of bullies raping Hiroko with a test tube, he yells at the bullies to stop and drives them away. Then, Mizushima travels to Hiroko's house and tells her that he will protect her from her troubles; Hiro tells him that it is "too late," but he is not killed by Hiroko's dragon due to his kindness. Later attending a coeducational junior high school, he appears sporadically throughout the rest of the series.
Ishida is a ninth grader and classmate of Akira. He has had an attraction towards Akira for a few years, and is very defensive of her. In Volume 6 (Volume 7 in the English-language manga), Ishida helps carry Akira into the infirmary after she collapses in physical education class. Akira, who had been teased that day and desperately wanted someone to confirm her worth, briefly falls in love with Ishida in the nurse's office. She pulls him onto one of the beds, takes off her bloomers and underpants, and tries to get him to have sex with her, but he nervously declines and leaves the room. He then sits alone and berates himself for his weakness, as Akira loudly masturbates in the infirmary.
Suzuki