This page is for tropes related to characters appearing in Slow Damage: Clean Dishes. For the characters who originally showed up in Slow Damage, look for their tropes here.
Note: If the name of the character's voice actor is enclosed in quotation marks (e.g. "Name of voice actor"), it means that the name is only a pseudonym, and the voice actor's true identity remains undisclosed.
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Main Characters
Baku
Baku | バク
Voiced by: Haruki Ishiya note
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Part of the reason that Baku is completely unfazed about his work is because his parents made a living by embalming corpses. Said parents were also open about their work, which meant that Baku was exposed to both dead bodies and death itself at an early age.
- Due to the Dead: When his parents died in a vehicular accident, Baku opted to embalm their bodies himself during their funeral.
- Meaningful Name: Nickname, to be more precise. A baku
is a supernatural creature from Japanese folklore that's known to devour nightmares, but can also devour a person's hopes and desires if it's too hungry. The reason Baku earned his nickname is because his co-workers at Sara-ya joked that he doesn't have any ambitions, desires, or dreams. - Only Known by Their Nickname: Baku isn't actually his real name, though he doesn't bother to correct anyone and rolls along with it. His real name is never revealed, either.
- Parental Neglect: Both of Baku's parents were not abusive to him, but their job left them with little time to attend to him and he usually finds himself all alone at home whenever he'd go return from school.
- The Stoic: He doesn't show much change of emotion, which had been the case even during his childhood.
Shiro
Shiro | シロ
Voiced by: Shouta Hayama note
- Albinos Are Freaks: True to his name, Shiro has white hair and very pale skin, and is quite the disturbing yet tortured individual.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Shiro serves as one to Towa. Both had less-than-ideal mothers (especially in Towa's case), and their history with their mothers led to their hypersexual behavior and their lack of regard for their own well-being. But whereas Towa is apathetic about the prospect of dying and is averse to affection, Shiro actively seeks to die and wants to be with someone who can love him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Shiro was born from his mother and one of her customers. Because of their lack of finances, Shiro never got to attend school and only stayed at home, where he could hear his mother during her "work hours" due to the thin walls in the apartment. After his mother's face got permanently damaged by one of her clients, her treatment of Shiro became worse and worse, which soon landed Shiro in a hospital. Due to his circumstances, he was sent to a childcare facility, where he still felt isolated from the other children. Thanks to his mother's influence, in spite of his age, he would sate his loneliness by offering sexual services to others. When he got caught by the staff, he fled the facility and soon found himself living with another man who kept him around mostly for sex. But then one day, his "partner" got killed in a gang war, and it's this incident that turned Shiro into a Death Seeker.
- Death Seeker: Shiro is highly suicidal, although he seeks death only at the hands of his most loved one, Baku.
- Dissonant Serenity: Whether he's talking about mundane or grisly things, Shiro always talks in an eerily spirited tone.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Shiro's Dark and Troubled Past has resulted in being content with getting affection from anyone who could give it to him, no matter how sincere and/or twisted it was.
- Really Gets Around: Before he met Baku, Shiro would sleep with anyone who was willing to take him, believing it to be the norm as he would always hear all the noises made whenever his mother would have sex with someone as part of her job.
- Son of a Whore: Shiro's mother was a prostitute, and this fact shaped most of Shiro's childhood.
Supporting Characters
Kimika
Kimika | キミカ
Voiced by: "Aoi Haiba"
- Brother–Sister Incest: Not by choice, however. He had three older sisters, all of whom treated him like a slave, and sometimes, in the sexual sense. He complied with their whims, but only because he was too young at the time to know any better.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: While no member of a Cleanup Crew can be considered normal let alone moral, Kimika's real colors show when he's revealed to be the ringleader of a suicide cult that Shiro just so happened to join... and he plots for him and Shiro to die together. Though even then, the trope is zigzagged; while Kimika is undoubtedly disturbed, he is never malicious and has a hard time figuring out what he is doing wrong. And when he's jailed for his crimes, he is genuinely confused that Ruu would still be concerned for him despite what he nearly did.
Ruu
Ruu | ルウ
Voiced by: Daiki Hamano note
- Only Sane Man: Ruu is the most put-together compared to his other co-workers in Sara-ya. Even when taking all their backstories into account, Ruu's is the least dysfunctional.
Iijima
Voiced by: Jun Fukushima note
