Akio Tademaru

Akio is Shiki Tademaru’s uncle, specifically the younger brother of Shiki’s father.

He is an ordinary human rather than a kemono, but he possesses extensive knowledge of monsters through his work as a folklorist.

He is usually presented as a calm, soft-spoken man with glasses.

His first-person pronoun is “boku,” giving him a gentle and polite outward impression.

Voice actor: Akira Ishida

On the surface, Akio appears kind, composed, and trustworthy.

After Shiki’s mother, Kumi, disappeared, he took Shiki in and raised him, creating what seemed to be a stable and friendly guardian-child relationship.

He also seemed to have been on good terms with Kumi in the past.

However, whenever Shiki asked about his mother’s whereabouts, Akio only gave vague answers.

Shiki eventually stopped asking, partly because he sensed Akio was hiding something and feared the answer.

Akio once investigated the “Nishiki Spider Legend” of Nishikigo together with his older brother, Shiki’s father.

During that search, the brothers encountered Kumi in a forest.

Akio and his brother eventually realized that the legend was not merely folklore, but something rooted in reality.

After Shiki’s father slipped and fell to his death in the forest, Kumi came to rely on Akio.

Akio then proposed a series of experiments, supposedly to earn money so Shiki could be raised as a human without hardship.

Behind his gentle mask, Akio is a cruel, vulgar man consumed by vanity and self-display.

His true goal was to recreate the Nishiki Spider Legend and leave his own name in history.

He saw Kumi, Aya Tademaru, and the children born from his experiments not as people, but as research material and tools for fame.

Even when confronted by Kohachi Inugami and Shiki, he insisted that his work was “wonderful research.”

He also claimed that he had done his best so Shiki and Kumi could live without inconvenience.

Akio showed no real guilt toward Kumi or the children born from the experiments.

Akio forced Kumi into horrific breeding experiments by effectively holding Shiki hostage.

Using Kumi as the mother, he repeatedly crossed her with various creatures from the forests of Nishikigo.

The goal was to produce the legendary “golden thread.”

After many years, the experiments eventually produced Aya Tademaru, the successful result of his obsession.

Although Aya was, in a social sense, his stepdaughter, Akio treated her only as a money-making tool.

He confined her underground, abused her, and used violence whenever she resisted.

Because he needed her alive and usable, he allowed some small requests, but he still showed little respect for her will.

He even bought her frilly, girlish clothes that did not suit her tastes, treating her more like an object than a person.

Aya’s golden thread possessed powerful healing properties.

One year before the main confrontation, Akio tried to promote the thread and circulate it in the market.

However, Yoko Inari’s faction feared that the existence of monsters would become public.

They attempted to suppress the matter and dispose of Akio, but Kohachi Inugami stopped them.

Instead of being killed, Akio was placed on a blacklist.

When Shiki and the others arrived to learn the truth about Shiki’s parents, Akio initially welcomed them pleasantly.

He lied by saying that Shiki’s parents had died and that Shiki had been traumatized by the loss of his mother.

That night, Kohachi Inugami, who had long suspected him, pressed him for answers.

In the hut where Kumi had been subjected to the experiments, Shiki and Nobimaru discovered the truth and restrained Akio.

Even then, Akio fought back by unleashing more than 100 monsters born during the experiments.

These beings were Shiki’s half-siblings through Kumi, though many were produced through monstrous crossbreeding.

Akio used them to corner the Kemono Office and emotionally break Shiki, who had been longing to reunite with his mother.

Kabane Kusaka became enraged when he saw how Akio had toyed with the bond between Shiki and Kumi.

Kabane wiped out the monsters Akio had sent against them.

Akio was restrained once again, but he still tried to bargain for his life.

When Aya arrived and demanded to know where Kumi’s cocoon was hidden, Akio tried to use that information as leverage.

However, Mihai Florescu had already investigated Akio’s past crimes and identified the hiding place.

With his final bargaining chip gone, Akio was rendered useless and thrown aside.

Even then, he continued to speak of Kumi and Aya as tools.

Shiki finally struck him down with a punch and drove him away.

After losing everything, Akio still did not repent.

Driven by the same greed and ambition, he attempted to create a new monster and produce fresh research results.

His schemes ended when Nobimaru burned him to death with foxfire.

It was a fitting downfall for a man whose cruelty had destroyed so many lives.

Aside from Aya, many of Kumi’s children were born as failed results of Akio’s attempt to create the golden thread.

According to Akio, they could not become the golden thread, but they were able to speak and possessed a small degree of intelligence.

They recognized Akio as their parent and constantly tried to protect both him and the forest.

Their forms included foxes, centipedes, earthworms, fish, monkeys, frogs, humanoids, giant types, and many others.

Kohachi Inugami noted that children born between different kinds of kemono usually die soon after birth.

Despite this, these children had survived for about five years, suggesting extraordinary vitality.

In that sense, Shiki’s half-siblings were also victims of Akio’s twisted ambitions.

Kumi herself pitied them, saying that they were still children she had given birth to.

Akio is regarded as one of the most despicable villains in Kemono Jihen.

The author has described him as one of the work’s most prominent evildoers, second only to a major villain such as Yoko Inari.

His crimes are especially repulsive because they target family bonds, parental love, and vulnerable children.

Rather than a grand monster king or warrior, Akio is terrifying because he hides monstrous cruelty behind an ordinary human face.

In the anime adaptation, some viewers suspected Akio’s hidden nature early on because his voice actor, Akira Ishida, is well known for playing traitors and intense villains.

That casting gave his gentle behavior an extra layer of unease for viewers familiar with the actor’s roles.