Izumi Shimomura

Izumi Shimomura Yōko Tainaka
Manga Anime
Information
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
Voice Actor	Mikako Komatsu (Japanese) Cristina Vee (English)
First Appearance	Chapter 1 (Manga) Ajin Part 1: Shōdō (Film) Episode 1 (TV Anime)
Image Gallery

Izumi Shimomura (下村 泉, Shimomura Izumi), formerly known as Yōko Tainaka (田井中 陽子, Tainaka Yōko), is a a stoic and taciturn Ajin working for Yū Tosaki at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

As Yōko, she first discovered her Ajin abilities in her teenage years when she first died after defending herself from a rape attempt of an abusive stepfather. Yōko would run away from home where she is eventually recruited by Yū as a bodyguard under a special contract. The contract allowed Yōko to adopt the alias of "Izumi Shinomura", such that "Yōko Tainaka" is legally deceased and that "Izumi Shimomura" is a separate identity.

Appearance

Izumi is an attractive young woman with short, black shoulder length hair that appears rather spiky at the start of the series, large grey eyes (dark red eyes in the anime) with long, prominent eyelashes and there is a small mole under her left eye. Her usual attire is a black suit with a white buttoned shirt underneath, black pants and shoes.

At one point in the series, she wore a pink short-sleeved flannel shirt with jeans as her casual wear, saying that "She didn't have anything else."

High School

A young Shimomura in high school.

When Izumi attended high school, she wore a standard uniform with a tie, skirt, blazer and a white shirt.

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).

Due to her past trauma caused by both of her parents and love life, she became very depressed and suicidal, often cutting herself and eventually trying to commit suicide.

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.