Character guide

Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto

major

Also known as Etsu, Etsu-bo, Etsu-ko, Etsu-bo Sama, Etsu-ko Sama, little Etsu-bo Sama, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, Etsu - bo Sama, Etsu - ko, Etsu - ko Sama, Little Etsu - ko, Little Etsu - bo

Etsu grows up inside a vanished order where rank, ritual, and the family name shape every gesture, then finds herself transplanted to a Cincinnati household whose rules she must learn from scratch. Her deepest tension is loyalty: to her mother's death-robe discipline, to her brother's faith in her education, and to a new self forming in a foreign tongue. That double vision — homesick yet curious — is what makes her the reader's guide through the whole book.

Mother

major

Also known as Honourable Mother, Poor Mother, Mother Goose

Mother rules the household with quiet severity, teaching Etsu that honor is worn like a garment and that a samurai's wife must be ready for anything. Her marriage is distant and formal, yet when her husband is taken prisoner she disguises her son, straps on her dagger, and goes to meet him — trusting a stranger's word because he is a samurai. She is the moral spine of Etsu's childhood, and her example of silent courage shadows every choice her daughter later makes.

Father

supporting

Also known as Honourable Father, Presently Father

Father is often absent, traveling on duties that keep him from his family, but his presence is felt in every rule of the household. When war clouds gather he is taken prisoner, and his brief meeting with Mother through the palanquin's window reveals a man who trusts his wife with everything he cannot say aloud. His early death leaves Etsu with an ideal of samurai integrity she spends her life trying to live up to.

Honourable Grandmother

supporting

Also known as Grandmother, Honourable Edo Grandmother

Grandmother belongs to the old capital and the old ways, and she supervises Etsu's training in posture, speech, and the thousand small ceremonies of a samurai daughter. She is strict to the point of coldness, yet her severity is a form of love — she is preparing the child for a world that will demand everything. Her lessons give Etsu the discipline she will need when that world dissolves and she must invent a new way of being.

Hanano

supporting

Hanano is the sister who stays behind, marries, and later visits Etsu in the United States, carrying her own blend of Japanese poetry and American practicality. Her moon stories and her earnest questions about God show a mind that holds old beliefs and new ones side by side without embarrassment. She matters because she embodies the family Etsu left — and the possibility that the two worlds might still recognize each other.

Brother

supporting

Also known as Honourable Brother

Brother is the heir, the one who carries the family name, and he uses that authority to support Etsu when tradition would hold her back. He believes in her mind and her judgment, even when her choices take her far from everything the family knows. His trust is both a gift and a weight: she cannot fail him, and she cannot go home unchanged.

Matsuo

supporting

Matsuo belongs to the old order of service, where loyalty to a master outlasts the master's wealth and rank. His world is one of quiet obligation rather than ambition, and the slow erosion of the household he serves tests what fidelity means when there is little left to protect. He matters because he embodies the vanishing samurai code that Etsu's childhood is steeped in, and his presence keeps that code alive even as the family adjusts to a diminished life.

Ishi

supporting

Also known as Kind old Ishi

Ishi is part of the intimate household world that surrounds Etsu before the family's fortunes change, a servant whose kindness is woven into the texture of daily life. Where rank and ceremony govern so much of the mansion, Ishi's care offers something warmer and more personal. She matters because she represents the tender, human side of the old order, the affection that survives even as the structures around it begin to give way.

Chiyo

major

Also known as little Chiyo

Chiyo arrives in Etsu's life after the long crossing from Japan to America, a child of the new country rather than the old. She is the living proof that Etsu's two selves, samurai daughter and American wife, can coexist in a single person. Her presence in the later arc gives Etsu's story its forward motion, asking what is passed on when a mother has had to reinvent herself entirely.

Jiya

supporting

Also known as Jiya San, old Jiya

After the family's fall from rank, Jiya is handed the impossible task of managing money for men who were raised to consider it beneath them. Honest to the bone, he is nonetheless easy prey for a smooth-talking agent selling a foreign business method, and his loyalty to his master becomes the very thing that nearly ruins him. He matters because his blunder captures the painful collision between samurai honor and a modern economy the family is unprepared to enter.

Miss Helen

supporting

Miss Helen enters Etsu's life as a teacher and a friend, one of the first Westerners the young samurai daughter comes to know as a person rather than a rumor. Her presence introduces Christianity, English, and American ways into a household still governed by ancestral custom, creating a quiet friction between old loyalties and new curiosity. She matters because she is one of the early threads pulling Etsu toward the life she will eventually choose.

Taki

supporting

Also known as Faithful Taki

Taki is the servant who stays, following Etsu from the old household into a foreign land where neither of them quite belongs. Her loyalty is absolute but not unthinking, and the strain of transplanting a Japanese life into American soil falls on her as much as on her mistress. She matters because she is the constant companion of Etsu's transformation, the one witness who sees both the samurai daughter and the American wife.

Mr. Toda

minor

Also known as Brave, unconquered Mr. Toda

A samurai friend of Etsu's father who advises the family.

Miyo

minor

A young girl who becomes Etsu's friend in Japan.

Shiro

minor

Also known as Poor Shiro

A dog belonging to Etsu's family in Japan.

Mrs. Sugimoto

supporting

Within the great mansion she is a figure of quiet authority, mother to the heir and mistress of a household she rarely leaves. Her life of poems and distant children is shattered when her husband is taken prisoner, and she must decide whether to trust an unknown warrior with her son's life. Her willingness to wear a death-robe beneath her traveling clothes, dagger in sash, shows the steel beneath the silk — the samurai code she will pass down to Etsu.

Kikuno

minor

Also known as the gentle Kikuno, Poor Kikuno

A gentle woman who serves in Etsu's household.

Clara

minor

An American friend of Etsu in the United States.

Toshi

minor

A servant in Etsu's Japanese household.

Sudzu

minor

A young girl who plays with Etsu in childhood.

Goro

minor

A servant or retainer in Etsu's family home.

Kin

minor

A servant in Etsu's household.

Uncle Otani

minor

Etsu's uncle who helps arrange her marriage.

Mamma

minor

Etsu's affectionate term for her mother.

Minty

minor

An American friend of Etsu's daughter Chiyo.

Susan

minor

An American friend of Etsu.

Lady Moon

minor

Also known as the beautiful Lady Moon, the Lady Moon

A poetic personification of the moon in Japanese folklore.

Mrs. Newton

minor

Also known as delicate Mrs. Newton

An American neighbor who helps Etsu adjust to Western life.

Mistress Rain

minor

Also known as sly Mistress Rain

A personification of rain in Japanese children's stories.

Taro

minor

A common name for a male servant or character in tales.

Mrs. Sato

minor

Also known as kind Mrs. Sato

A kind neighbor in Japan who helps Etsu's family.

Satomi

minor

A friend or acquaintance of Etsu in Japan.

Major Sato

minor

A military officer and acquaintance of Etsu's family.

Grandfather

minor

Also known as Honourable Grandfather

Etsu's grandfather, a samurai of the old school.

Mrs. Wilson

minor

Also known as Wilson

An American acquaintance of Etsu.

Mrs. Holmes

minor

An American woman who hosts Etsu.

American Grandma

minor

Also known as Grandma

Etsu's American grandmother-in-law.

Tama

minor

A cat in Etsu's childhood home.

Yoshita

minor

A servant in Etsu's Japanese home.

Mr. Holmes

minor

An American man who assists Etsu.

Minoto

minor

Also known as faithful Minoto

A faithful servant in Etsu's household.

Doctor Miller

minor

An American doctor who treats Etsu's family.

Mr. Omori

minor

A Japanese acquaintance of Etsu's family.