Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage characters

Appears from the start

A thirty-six-year-old engineer in Tokyo who designs railway stations. At school in Nagoya he belonged to an unusually close group of five friends, but the other four abruptly cut him off during his second year at university. He accepted their verdict without demanding a reason, and the rejection still shapes his sense that he is empty and easily discarded.

Also known as Aka

Appears from the start

One of Tsukuru's four closest school friends in Nagoya. His family name contains the word for red. Academically gifted and analytical, he helped give the group its sense of balance before Tsukuru left for university in Tokyo.

Also known as Ao

Appears from the start

One of Tsukuru's four closest school friends in Nagoya. His family name contains the word for blue. Athletic, sociable, and direct, he was the most naturally outgoing member of the tightly bonded group.

Also known as Shiro

Appears from the start

One of the two women in Tsukuru's school friendship group, known by a nickname meaning white because of her family name. Delicate and reserved, she is a gifted pianist and seems to Tsukuru to need the group's protection.

Also known as Kuro

Appears from the start

The other woman in Tsukuru's school friendship group, known by a nickname meaning black because of her family name. Lively, perceptive, and verbally quick, she often teased Tsukuru while also understanding more of the group's emotional currents than he did.

First appears in chapter 2

A woman two years older than Tsukuru whom he is dating in Tokyo. She works in travel and is attentive to the gaps in his personal history. Rather than let him keep the old rejection sealed away, she urges him to learn why his friends excluded him before their relationship goes further.

First appears in chapter 6

A younger university student whom Tsukuru meets at a campus swimming pool. Thoughtful and self-possessed, he has an unusually broad knowledge of music and forms an intense friendship with Tsukuru during the lonely period after the Nagoya group rejects him.

First appears in chapter 8

A pianist whom Haida's father says he met while working at a remote hot-spring inn. Midorikawa plays with extraordinary concentration and tells an uncanny story about having accepted foreknowledge of his own death in exchange for a limited period of heightened life.

First appears in chapter 16

Eri's Finnish husband, a practical man who supports her work as a ceramic artist. He welcomes Tsukuru to their rural home and gives him space to speak privately with Eri about the past.