Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Descriptions of the cast of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, and tropes that pertain to them.

WARNING! There are unmarked Spoilers ahead. Beware.

Junpei

"Do any of you know what the fuck is going on here?! Who's Zero?! What's this "Nonary Game"!? C'mon! Anybody? Anything?! What the hell is going on?! What are we doing here?!"

The protagonist of the game. He's a college student who is kidnapped by a mysterious masked man one night. He wakes up on in an unknown location with a bracelet strapped to his wrist. From here, he has nine hours to find a way out. His bracelet number is 5.

  • Agent Mulder: Is a staunch skeptic, with a habit of putting down June's occult musings.
  • Batman Gambit: Is capable of quite a few of these, including tricking other players into choosing which door he wants, and tricking Ace into revealing himself as the villain by pretending to switch clothes with Santa (Ace cannot recognize faces).
  • Deadpan Snarker: Mostly internal, but sometimes he voices it.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Only in the gameplay sense; he's still the main character of the story, but at the very end it's revealed you've been playing as June all along.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Hits this hard in one of the Bad Endings. Specifically, the one where Clover goes Ax Crazy. After he finds out that she murdered Santa, Seven and June, his mind breaks so hard that he actually starts to see Clover as a sort of angelic figure, and is even willing to follow her. It doesn't stop her from killing him and taking his bracelet.
    • It happens to him in The submarine ending too. Not only does he think that everyone else on the ship is dead, he completely breaks after June dies in his arms, to the point that he barely even registers Seven and Lotus' deaths. Ace probably did the poor bastard a favor in the end.
    • He doesn't take Snake's Heroic Sacrifice in the Safe ending very well either.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: At least as far as this game is concerned. A sequel may change things though.
    • Word of God suggests not, saying he would pursue her for the rest of his life.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Inverted. He's the only one who is called by his real name because June blurted it out earlier.
  • Friendless Background: If you check the ladder in 3rd class cabin, he reveals that he has no friends after elementary school.
  • Genre Savvy: Can be this depending on what choices you make...
    • Idiot Ball: ...while other choices give him a firm grip on this.
  • Guile Hero
  • The Hero
  • Morality Pet: Arguably for Akane.
  • Only One Name
  • Pungeon Master: Much to the annoyance of the others. Also his self-admitted reason for not having any friends.
  • Surrogate Soliloquy
  • Unfazed Everyman: He's the only member of the cast who neither has a tragic backstory nor is a Complete Monster.

Gentarou "Ace" Hongou

"What are you going to gain by being so suspicious? That's what Zero wants, you know. This game was set up by Zero, wasn't it? Any game has a winner and loser. Whoever makes it through door [9] is a winner, and those who don't are the losers. Zero is trying to make us fight against one another for that victory. That is why we can't let ourselves fall prey to suspicion. We have to trust one another, and form a strong bond of friendship. Otherwise, we'll end up ensnared by Zero's manipulations."

An older man with a goatee and graying hair. He generally serves as a voice of calmness and reason in the midst of the terror going on in the ship. His bracelet number is 1, and his name comes from playing cards.

His original Japanese alias was "Ichinomiya" (from the word for "one").

His true identity is Gentarou Hongou, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that (re)created the Nonary Game nine years ago as an experiment in morphogenetic fields. He and three others kidnapped eighteen children (nine pairs of siblings) and placed nine children on the Gigantic, and the other nine children in "Building Q", a replica of the Gigantic built in Nevada. After the initial game, he laid low for a while until the present day, where he is kidnapped by Zero and forced to play the game he recreated.

  • Badass Beard
  • Batman Gambit: The main reason he offered to stay behind was because without him there was no way the others could enter door #3 and learn that Snake was dead, banking on the fact that they'll want to leave as few people behind as possible and go through doors #7 and #8.
  • Big Bad
  • The Comically Serious
  • Complete Monster
  • Cool Old Guy: Or so he seems at first...
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive
  • Freudian Excuse: His reason for holding the Nonary game was to find a way to counteract his Prosopagnosia (inability to distinguish one face from another; in this case, human faces). He conducted the Nonary Game nine years in the past to see if morphic resonance actually existed and to gain insight on it. After doing that, he planned on utilizing the morphic fields to get feedback from other people, said feedback describing what the facial features of humans actually looked like.
  • A Glass of Chianti: He, along with his three Cradle executives had a snapshot where they held their glass of wine as a success of their project nine years ago.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Offers to leave himself behind at one point when the group has to leave someone behind to go through numbered doors. Turns out it wasn't needed. It also turns out that he knew they were just going to end up back where he was in the first place.
    • And he wanted to keep the others from entering Door #3, where "Snake" lay dead after Ace murdered him.
  • Hypocrite: All that talk about the The Power of Trust, the Power of Friendship, and he backstabs them all.
  • Jerkass
  • Karmic Death: There's only one ending where he can be killed... and in that ending, he burns.
  • Knight Templar: Possibly, he cries out "I don't deserve this!" on his death in the incinerator.
  • Lack of Empathy: Likely as a result of his prosopagnosia. He describes other people as "chimpanzees."
  • Nice Hat: In the photograph of him standing with the other managers of the first Nonary Game.
  • Slasher Smile: In the "Safe" and "True" endings.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Has a truly epic one in Ending 4 after Snake manages to take six bullets and is still able to rip him apart.
    • And then another one when Seven disrupted the original Nonary Game nine years ago.


Light "Snake"

A thin, elegant man dressed in a regal fashion. He is blind, but is quite capable of getting around easily enough. Clover is his sister, and his bracelet number is 2. His name comes from the expression "Snake Eyes", a term in the dice game craps that signifies 2.

His original Japanese alias was "Niels", using the pronunciation of "two" and the name of a favorite physicist, presumably Niels Bohr.

He was one of the eighteen children who participated in the Nonary Game nine years ago. As a result, he knows a great deal about the game, but because Zero has threatened to kill Clover if he says anything about it, he keeps his mouth shut.

  • Aerith and Bob: His real name, Light seems rather out of place when standing next to people with obviously Japanese names.
  • Artificial Limbs: Has a prosthetic left arm, which proves the dead guy in the bathroom isn't him.
  • Berserk Button: Harming Clover is a really bad idea, and he can be an absolutely terrifying person if that button is pressed.
  • Big Brother Instinct
  • Determinator: Takes six bullets to the chest in ending 4 and is still strong enough to take down Ace.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Disability Superpower: Although blind, his other senses are so good that you wouldn't even notice this unless he told you. He even mentions that if you tried to attack him, it would be unlikely that you would win. He's not joking.
  • Expy: He looks an awful lot like Miles Edgeworth.
  • Eyes Always Shut: Snake. Justified in that he's blind. He only ever opens them when:
    • In one of the puzzles, when Seven/Clover/Snake/Junpei spell "pipe" in a cheer-leading fashion. Snake has his eyes wide open as he shouts "Gimme a P and an E!"
    • In the Safe Ending, Ace tells Snake that he killed Clover - and exactly how he did it - and Snake snaps and his eyes open as he swears to kill Ace. It's actually pretty terrifying.
    • When they're putting together what happened to Snake, his eyes are open in the still where he's going for the DEAD Though as it turns out, that wasn't Snake at all.
  • Handicapped Badass
  • He Knows Too Much: Ace's main motivation to kill him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In ending #4 he holds Ace back so Junpei and the others can escape.
  • Idiot Hair: Subverted in Snake's case. He's rather smart.
  • Ironic Name: His real name is Light, which is about the worst name you could give to a blind person. Granted, he wasn't born blind.
    • Played straight with his nickname as well, when during his Heroic Sacrifice and Taking You with Me moment in ending 4, he is described as a snake that "rarely lets go of its prey" as he pins Ace down, even after taking six bullets.
  • Not Quite Dead: That dead guy in the washroom isn't him.
  • Only One Name
  • The Smart Guy: He's quite intelligent. On top of that, he has more information from Zero than the others.

Aoi "Santa" Kurashiki

A foul tempered young man with white hair. His attitude can make him difficult to deal with, but he's determined to push forward and doesn't like indecisiveness. His bracelet number is 3. His name is derived from "san", the Japanese word for three, and was unchanged for the English-language version.

He was one of the eighteen children who participated in the Nonary Game nine years ago, along with his sister Akane. Due to an administrative error, both he and Akane were placed in the same testing group instead of being split up as the experiment demanded. He is fully aware of the true purpose of the second Nonary Game, having collaborated with Akane to perfectly recreate the vision that she saw in the closing moments of the first Nonary Game, and to take revenge on the people who put them through the Nonary Game to begin with.

  • Big Brother Instinct
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Even moreso than the others.
  • Conveniently an Orphan
  • Deadpan Snarker: Whenever Junpei is in a room with him, he is a veritable fountain of sarcasm and deprecation.
  • The Dragon: To Zero.
  • Dead Little Sister: His motivation. Though she's not dead in the True end. Either way, it's the whole purpose of the Nonary Game.
  • Expy: His motivations and role in the story are similar to that of Mei Kiridera from 12Riven, a previous work of the author's (who in turn was an Composite Character of two characters from Ever17, Ryogo Kaburaki and Hokuto).
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold
  • The Lancer
  • Meaningful Name: San is Japanese for "three". In addition, he has a few stories to tell about Santa Claus. His real name, "Aoi", is a homonym for the Japanese word for "blue". His sister's name means "scarlet"; when combined, those two colors create purple-- Murasaki, the original Japanese alias for "June".
  • Nice Shoes: He just bought them, which is why he doesn't want to go through Door 5 after the 9th Man dies.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity
  • Promotion to Parent: As he puts it, he "had to be like [his sister's] dad" after their parents' deaths.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Can become this in ending 2, although it's ultimately subverted in ending 1.

Yotsuba "Clover"

"I would'a thought a guy your size would have bigger balls than that."

A cheerful girl prone to rapid swings of emotion. She is Snake's sister and her bracelet number is 4. Her name comes from the number of leaves on a four leaf clover.

Her original Japanese alias and real name was "Yotsuba", which means "clover" (literally, "four leaves").

Like her brother, she participated in the Nonary Game nine years ago. Unlike her brother, she was one of the subjects at Building Q in Nevada, rather than at the Gigantic with Snake, Santa, and Akane. As such, she knows a lot about the Nonary Game, but was told by Snake never to mention it to anyone.


Akane "June" Kurashiki (Zero)

"I'm not really Zero. Not yet. Perhaps you could say I am... less than Zero."

An old friend of Junpei's from elementary school. She's always helpful and works hard to make sure no one is left behind, although she is occasionally prone to feverish spells. Her bracelet number is 6, and her name comes from the sixth month of the year.

Her original Japanese alias was "Murasaki", from the word for "six". The word's literal meaning of "purple" also applies to her clothing, her eye color, and certain other aspects of the game. As later suggested by the real name and bracelet number of "Cap", the mu syllable can be interpreted either as "six" or "nothingness".

She was one of the children who participated in the Nonary Game nine years ago. At the climax of her Nonary Game, Akane became psychically linked with present-day Junpei and witnessed him play the second Nonary Game. Furthermore, Akane has a unique power that let her perceive every possible variation of events in the second Nonary Game, and transmit this information to Junpei to help him out.

This psychic link would save her life, as present-day Junpei would help her solve a puzzle that freed her from the last lethal trap of her Nonary Game. However, this chain of events caused a Temporal Paradox: if the events that she had foreseen did not occur, then Junpei would never be in a position to become psychically linked with her past self and thus save her life. And so, Akane schemed with her brother Aoi to recreate the events she had foreseen in the past, masterminding the second Nonary Game to safeguard her own life while also taking revenge on those who put her through that ordeal in the first place.

  • Agent Scully: Believes in occult tropes like the mummy's curse and automatic writing.
  • Anti-Hero: Type IV, possibly.
  • A-Cup Angst: Mentioned in a throwaway conversation.
  • Break the Cutie: Akane seems greatly affected by their situation and the mistrust within the group, which combines with her Ill Girl attributes. While the behavior of present-day Akane is a lie, the events of her Nonary Game did traumatise her so much that she became a coldhearted manipulator.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Word of God says that she is much more cruel and cold then she appears due to the events of 9 years ago. The innocent nice girl personality she puts in front of Junpei and the others is probably due to her wanting to act exactly like how she saw herself through Junpei's eyes or is because she wants act like how Junpei remembered her as a kid. It is unknown how much of that personality is the real her and how much is fake.
  • The Chessmaster: Besides being Zero, the one behind the 2nd Nonary Game, Words of God says that she has even bigger schemes planned in the future.
  • The Chick: Her personality is basically just liking Junpei and freaking out about the situation. Some players find her cute, others find her and her prior connection to the protagonist irritating.
  • Conveniently an Orphan
  • Covert Pervert: Her first thought when Junpei examines a bed in one of the cabins? Blushing and muttering, "Haha, no...it's much too soon for that..."
  • Dead All Along: Subverted in the True end.
  • Dead Little Sister: To Santa in most ends.
  • Hair Decorations
  • Guile Heroine: She's behind just about everything in the present, but her intentions were noble, making her fall on the good end of the scale.
    • Idiot Ball: Her decision to run back for a memento of her childhood sweetheart rather than escape the deathtrap and approaching psychopath causes her death and all the fallout it brings on others.
  • Hidden Villain: Zero.
  • I Am Not Pretty: In Cargo Room (Door 6), checking her own card will cause her to believe that she's not attractive to guys, unlike Lotus and Clover.
  • Ill Girl: Suddenly comes down with a fever at regular intervals in the game.
    • This signifies when Junpei is not following the exact chain of events that would lead to her being saved in the past. The fever is literally indicative of her past-self burning to death in the incinerator.
  • Innocent Innuendo: Invokes this a lot, bordering on The Tease. Though given she knows everything about Junpei's actions, it may not be so innocent...
  • Obfuscating Stupidity
  • Plucky Girl
  • Save Scumming: Her past self uses this to guide Junpei towards the true end.
  • She's All Grown Up: Santa wasn't kidding when he said she was "cute as a button" as a kid. And just look at her now.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Word of God says her experience in the Nonary Game traumatized her to the point that she became a Magnificent Bastard capable of creating a huge organization to recreate the game. Even with her slight bit of idealism left, she still has no qualms about planting bombs in the executives.
    • To be fair to June, while she did plant bombs in the 9th man and the fake Snake, she was not the one who actually killed them or the Captain, and she did give Ace the opportunity to end the game altogether by confessing his part in the Nonary Game nine years ago to the world. And then the whole thing gets turned back around when she had to have known that Ace would do exactly as she intended, as the only way to save her life was for the Nonary Game in the present to reach the conclusion it does in the true ending.
    • Though you may question the morality of manipulating a man into killing others to avoid dirtying her hands, and of involving innocents in a potentially lethal plan to save herself from a situation caused by her own clumsiness/bad judgment.
  • Villain Protagonist
  • Xanatos Gambit and Gambit Roulette: The entire Nonary Game is the Roulette; its to save her life in the past! In this case, because of the multiple timelines, (here's where the Gambit comes in) its failure condition is also its success condition.

"Seven"

"H2O... H must mean "hot", and O probably stands for "orphans"... So H2O must be made of 2 hot orphans..."

A towering mountain of a man wearing a beanie and suffering from amnesia. Despite his bumbling nature, he is very dependable and well-equipped for solving problems. His bracelet number is 7. His name comes from... the number seven.

His original Japanese alias was the English word "Seven".

He is a detective that searched for the missing children that were forced into the Nonary game nine years ago. He was caught and locked in a cell in the Gigantic, but managed to escape and also save many of the children in the process. After these events, he attempted to track down the mastermind Gentarou Hongou to bring him to justice, but never found him.

He claims that he was unable to save Akane, and that she was the only child to die in the original Nonary Game. However, this contradicts the chain of events that led up to the creation of the second Nonary Game. Considering that he is one of the only eye-witnesses to the events of the first Nonary Game, it is very likely (but not confirmed) that he is collaborating with Zero.

  • Ambiguously Brown
  • Beergasm: He even drinks the booze from the Casino.
    • That's nothing. He was about to drink pure ethanol in the Operating Room.
      • And actually does drink industrial strength detergent in the same room. How he's still alive is anyone's guess...
  • Big Damn Heroes: Saving the children on the Gigantic nine years ago.
  • The Big Guy
  • Cowboy Cop
  • Easy Amnesia: Justified in that it's probably a side effect of the gas. Maybe.
  • Genius Bruiser: He comes up with the idea to use tools and other items to hold doors open so that the party can backtrack without having to use the numbered doors.
    • He used to be a detective as well.
  • Gentle Giant
  • My Greatest Failure: His failure to save Akane nine years ago.
  • No Name Given: Even Word of God states that he didn't really think of Seven's real name, unlike Lotus's semi-official name.
  • Scars Are Forever: Word of God reveals that Seven got his scars from an incident after the first Nonary Game before. He fought an evil global organization.
  • Scary Black Man: Subverted. He looks the part, but he's actually a pretty nice guy (though he can be quite a smart ass).
    • Not actually Black either.
  • You Are Number Seven

Hazuki "Lotus" Kashiwabara

"Junpei, are you just screwing around?"

A barely-dressed older woman who looks out for number one. Her bracelet number is 8, and her name comes from the number of petals on a lotus.

Her original Japanese alias was Yashiro, from the word for "eight".

  • Absurdly Youthful Mother: She was around 19 years old when she gave birth to twins, Nona and Ennea.
  • All There in the Manual: Poor girl's name isn't even mentioned in the game itself, but in a Q&A on the official English website. Even then, her first name, Hazuki, is just a "possibility" more than an official name.
  • Bare Your Midriff
  • Belly Dancer
  • Berserk Button: Calling Lotus old.
  • Christmas Cake: And not happy about it either.
  • Damsel in Distress: Gets taken hostage at gunpoint in two of the endings and is murdered in two others.
  • Gag Boobs: They get motion blur in the static image of everyone escaping up the stairs.
    • They also bounce a small bit in her one sprite animation.
  • Gainaxing
  • Glamorous Single Mother: Word of God states that she's divorced to her ex-husband Ichiro Kawashibara.
  • Hidden Depths: Though she seems to be self-serving, she's willing to sacrifice herself if it helps the others and gets her closer to the truth of what happened to her daughters.
  • Hot Mom: Of twins, no less.
  • Impossibly Low Neckline: Her top.
  • Jerkass: Seems a little too uppity over the prospect of leaving someone behind when the group is forced to. Also tends to be quite abusive.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: She spends most of the true end being held hostage by Ace, and as a result has absolutely no idea what's going on in the final confrontation.
  • Playful Hacker
  • Stripperiffic
  • Unfazed Everyman: Arguably even moreso than Junpei, given her only connection to the game is that her daughters were in the first one, while Junpei is connected to the past June.
    • She was completely clued out in the true end and ended up demanding to know what was going on after Ace was taken out.

The 9th Man (Teruaki Kubota)

"A-Ah... Oh my God, oh my God, there's no time left... Listen! I was lied to! He lied to me! He put me in here! It was him! He killed me! It was him!"

A jittery and nervous man with glasses who seems to know more than he should. His bracelet number is 9. Although written with different kanji, the first syllable of his family name is a homonym of the word for "nine".

His true identity is Teruaki Kubota, one of the four men responsible for the first Nonary Game nine years ago. While Gentarou Hongou was the mastermind behind the project, Kubota was the one who designed the technology used in the Nonary Game. With that in mind, he attempts to break away from the group to escape on his own after Hongou (as Ace) tricks him into believing that the DEADs were changed so that only one person had to verify them. He dies soon after, and his death immediately serves as a lesson on how deadly the game truly is.

  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: At least he's not as bad as Ace.
  • The Evil Genius
  • Explosive Stupidity: He REALLY shouldn't have trusted Ace. And he designed the system in the first place!
  • Funny Afro: To Junpei, it's a bird's nest.
  • He Knows Too Much: One reason Ace wanted him dead.
  • His Name Is--: Before he died, he warned the other 8 people about "him" lying to the 9th Man. Ace made his last words a lot more clearer during the confession.
  • Jerkass: The only "evil" thing he has actually done is taking Clover hostage so he can try to escape. It just shows you the game is indeed real and not a joke. Then again, you really didn't expect him to be the calm and rational type, didn't you?
  • Mad Scientist: Sort of. He was one of the men behind the original Nonary Game and responsible for developing the necessary technology.
  • Nerd
  • Never Trust a Trailer / Covers Always Lie: He seems like he's going to be much more relevant to the plot in the promotional material. However, he dies in the prologue. He does serve a bigger purpose in the backstory, though. So he's pretty much still considered one of the main characters, even if he only has an indirect appearance.
  • No Name Given: He doesn't even get a nickname as he blows up in the first few minutes of the game. You actually do find out his real name later, though.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: He only plays speechless for a few minutes before he acts extremely unreasonable.
  • Posthumous Character
  • Sacrificial Lamb
  • Starter Villain: The first person to blatantly antagonize the others besides Zero, and dealt with quickly.
  • Time Bomb: Played HARD for him. This guy just never catches a break, does he?
  • Unwitting Pawn
  • You Are Number Nine: The 9th Man is the closest thing the rest of them is going to call him.

The Captain (Kagechika Musashidou)

Not actually the captain, but a man dressed as one. His true identity is Kagechika Musashidou, one of the four men responsible for the first Nonary Game nine years ago. He was the one who financed the Nonary Project. Hongou was given a note in which he was asked to confess, and be released. Musashidou was brought in as a witness, although this was just a Batman Gambit by Akane to have him killed off by Hongou.

Guy X (Nagisa Nijisaki)

His true identity is Nagisa Nijisaki, one of the four men responsible for the first Nonary Game nine years ago. He was the second-in-charge of the Nonary Project. He is killed by Hongou, mistaking him for Light. This was orchestrated by Akane, who swapped his clothing with Snake's.

Lord Dashiell Gordain

The creator of the original Nonary Games. An English eccentric millionaire, he was a survivor of the Titanic's submersion and later obsessively attempted to purchase everything related to the Titanic. He purchased All-Ice and the Gigantic (after its incident in WWI.) He would take young Englishmen who'd accumulated massive debts and force them to play Nonary Games on the ship. He would enjoy the show with his millionaire friends and they would bet money on who would survive. All the losers were burned in the incinerator as a sacrifice during a ceremony (which the robes Snake woke up in were used for). After many years of this, Gordain died of old age but the games were continued by his successors. Ironically, Ace was kidnapped during the last game.