The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Characters in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
9 characters, main characters first.Main characters
Toru Okada
An unemployed man whose search for his missing wife pulls him into a surreal underworld.
Antagonists
Noboru Wataya
Kumiko's sinister, ambitious brother.
Supporting characters
Kumiko Okada
Toru's wife, whose disappearance drives the novel.
Malta Kano
A medium consulted to help find the Okadas' missing cat, known for the name she took after spiritual training on Malta.
May Kasahara
A frank teenage neighbor who befriends Toru.
Creta Kano
Malta's younger sister and psychic apprentice, who resembles Kumiko and recurs at pivotal points in Toru's search.
Lieutenant Mamiya
A retired soldier whose long account of his wartime experience in Manchuria forms an embedded historical narrative within the novel.
Nutmeg Akasaka
A businesswoman Toru meets in Shinjuku who hires him for a private healing practice and gives him a stake in an abandoned house.
Cinnamon Akasaka
Nutmeg's son, mute since childhood, who communicates by gesture and maintains the well beneath the abandoned house.