Here's the main character page for the Hotarubi no Tomoru Koro ni manga. Expect some spoilers from here.
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The Tadamura Family
General Tropes
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Several members of the family showed several useful skills, helping for their survival in Hirasaka. The experience also forces Yukito out of his apathy and leads Terumi to become more considerate of other people's feelings.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Downplayed. The Tadamura are not nearly as bad as the Sonozaki or the Ushiromiya, but there's still some underlying tension between some of its members, and nearly all of them have more or less explicit personnal issues.
- Family Theme Naming: Nobuteru's children are named Terumi and Teruya; all of them have the character 輝, which means "to shine". Terumi continues the theme with her own daughter, Umika (the "ka" being the 輝).
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Their first reaction when strange events are happening in the village, at least until the poisonous mist surrounding the village force them to stay.
Cousins
Yukito Tadamura
The son of Masashi.
- Action Survivor: Shows several skills to keep him and his family alive.
- First-Person Smartass: Yukito alternates between normal narration and some distinctly blasé inner comments in chapter 1.
- NEET: Terumi likes to remind him of this.
Yue Tadamura
The daughter of Yumeko, the second wife of Masashi, making Yukito her stepbrother.
- Big Brother Attraction: Yue shows signs of this towards Yukito in chapter 4, apparently from the time her mother married Masashi and Yukito was a bit more cheerful than he is now.
- Extreme Doormat: Yue rarely speaks, never protests, just goes along with whatever she's told, only smiles meekly and cooks for everyone. Terumi finds that character trait extremely irritating and calls her out on it, as she herself aspires to be a 'self-made woman' of sorts.
- The Heart: Downplayed. Her presence helps her siblings get along, but she doesn't talk a lot.
- Shrinking Violet: Yue barely talks to anyone outside of her brother and step-father, she Apologizes a Lot and constantly keeps a low profile. She also feels guilty for what happened with her mother, despite having no fault in it.
Teruya Tadamura
One of Nobuteru's children.
- Sibling Rivalry: With Terumi.
Terumi Tadamura
One of Nobuteru's children, Terumi is a young woman who aspires to be an actress. She is sometimes abrasive towards her cousins.
- Nipple and Dimed: Koike Nokuto seems to like reminding us that Terumi is a fine young woman, as her naked chest is shown on several occasions.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Terumi seems to like taking surreptitious shots at Yukito for being a NEET, and he's not too fond of that, but he doesn't find any retort (except in his head). She most likely took it from her father Nobuteru, who doesn't spare his sarcasm to his older brother - or his brother's children.
- Sibling Rivalry: With Teruya.
Parents
Masashi Tadamura
The older son of the Tadamura.
- My Greatest Failure: His failed business with Yumeko, who cost all of the grandmother money.
Nobuteru Tadamura
The cadet of the Tadamura.
- Death Is Cheap: Repeatedly dies and resuscitates when Yukito tries to bring him back to life. After seemingly dying, the cousins bury him, but he later comes back to life, only to be killed again by a giant ogre.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Nobuteru is implied to have been The Unfavorite among the three siblings (according to himself at least) and he ended up as the most rebellious among them. Masashi, on the other hand, is a serious man who seems to still follow the village's customs faithfully, while Tsunemasa is more candid and optimistic.
Tsunemasa Tadamura
The youngest son of the Tadamura.
- Ambiguously Brown: He has a darker skin tone than the rest of the family. He most likely got his tan from his numerous travels.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Gets cut by several razor blade leaves, trying to save a mysterious woman figure. He later dies of blood loss.
- Failure-to-Save Murder: Downplayed. He blamed himself for failing to save a woman in the woods, who may even not be human.
The Tadamura grandmother
The matriarche of the Tadamura family, who reminded their sons about the village traditions.
- Back from the Dead: Her corpse began to move on its own at the beginning of the story. She later came back as a zombie.
- Hidden Depths: She is revealed to know a lot about the various tools and tricks to repel the demons.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her death causes the rest of the family to move to Hirasaka.
- Posthumous Character: More details are revealed about her later in the story.
- No Name Given: Since everyone calls her "mom" or "grandma"…
Yumeko Tadamura
The second wife of Masashi, who disappeared some time before the events of Hotarubi, leaving Yue behind.
- The Ghost: Is mentionned several times at the beginning of the story.
- Missing Mom: To her daughter Yue.
- Passed-Over Inheritance: A variation where the grandma's money goes to one of her sons' wife, to help her for some shady business. It doesn't work.
Other characters
Miyoko Takano
A mysterious woman who visited Hirasaka in 1983, 33 years before the events of Hotarubi to do some research. She ended up in Hell with Chiharu Nakamura and her family, keeping herself alive for years. She briefly appears to save the Tadamura from zombie dogs and give them some tips to survive, and seems to know a lot about the village.
- Action Girl: She managed to stay alive in Hell for several years.
- The Ageless: Getting stuck in Hell with Chiharu seems to have stopped her growth.
- Ambiguously Human: A diary found by the cousins mentioned a girl named "Miyoko", who showed multiple synptoms implying she became a zombie, like Chiharu and Tsunemasa. By the events of Hotarubi, she seems very human, but also shows signs of not being quite in top shape. It's reavealed at the end that she's been Dead All Along.
- Bottomless Magazines: After 30 years of surviving in hell, her shotgun somehow hasn't run out of ammo yet. She's never seen reloading either.
- Continuity Nod: She appears in one scene complaining about a theory built with her various experiences in Hirasaka, not unlike her work in Higurashi: When They Cry.
- Intro-Only Point of View: The prologue The First and Last Gift stars her and Chiharu as the protagonists, as she sets her research in Hirasaka.
Chiharu Nakamura
A young girl who moved in Hirasaka with her family in 1982. She and her family ended up in Hell along with Takano, and survived with her. The Tadamuras finds her in a catatonic state when they are trapped in Hell themselves.
- The Ageless: The same as Takano.
- Ambiguously Human: When the siblings found her, she doesn't talk at all, but reacts when her name is asked. Later subverted when she is revealed to be a zombie, and was kept captive for this very reason.
- Black Sheep: The only member of the family who doesn't submit to the village traditions, and doesn't believe in fortune-tellers like her parents.
- Decoy Protagonist: Is set as such in the prologue, complete with some backstory about her family and their various issues, until the story shifts to the Tadamura family.
- First-Person Smartass: Isn't above dropping some sarcastic remarks in her narration, notably about her family's beliefs.
- Intro-Only Point of View: The prologue The First and Last Gift stars her and Takano as the protagonists, as she discovers the bizarre events happening in Hirasaka.
- Nature Is Boring: Her main attitude when her family moves in Hirasaka.
- Skepticism Failure: Starts off as very skepticist about the whole tradition and outright ignoring some of the imposed rules. Then two suns showed at once.
- Walking Spoiler: Most of her appearances involve her calling zombies and trying to devour the siblings.
