Shinpei Ajiro

Shinpei Ajiro (網代 慎平, Ajiro Shinpei) is a 17-year-old boy who returned to his hometown of Hitogashima for the first time in two years to attend the funeral of his childhood friend, Ushio Kofune. Since he lost his parents at an early age and grew up in the Kobune family, he has been close to Ushio and Mio as if they were his family. He has a habit of trying to "look down" on his situation objectively.

Appearance
Shinpei is a young man with medium long black hair and blue eyes. He usually wears a white shirt and blue shorts.

Plot
After two years away, Shinpei returns to Hitogashima to attend his childhood friend Ushio's funeral. On the boat, he dreams of she asking him to find her and protect Mio. Stepping on the island, Mio welcomes him and they head towards the funeral while chatting about various subjects. At the funeral, his friend Sou explains that Ushio saved a kid, Shiori Kobayakawa, from drowning, but drowned herself. That evening, Sou calls Shinpei and explains that the rumour about his father performing an autopsy on Ushio isn't real, but they did find strangler marks on Ushio's neck. However, as there was no one around suspicious at her death, they labelled it as incident.

The next day, Shinpei helps out at Kofune's dinner. A drunk man, Nakamura asks him if he found the woman with glasses he was looking for, but Shinpei thinks he confused him for someone else. The police officer, Tetsu comes and explains that the whole Kobayakawa family had vanished. Hearing that, Mio runs away and Shinpei follows her. After catching up to her, Mio explains that Shiori said she saw a girl looking like her about a week before the incident. An old hunter, Ginjiro Nezu, tells them that's a shadow and those afflicted by shadow sickness, see their shadow and then get killed by it. The shadow then acts as the killed person and kills the remaining family. It used to be quite common sickness before the war and those afflicted went to Hito shrine for cleansing. Mio then states she saw Ushio's shadow along with Ushio, three days before Ushio died. Shinpei then decide they go to the shrine to learn more about the shadows. However, the shrine is closed at the moment and Mio sees Shiori in the forest and they run after her. They are unable to find Shiori, but hear a gunshot and following the sound, they see the woman with glasses bleeding from a gunshot. Mio heads to get help and the woman tries to tell Shinpei something, but get shot in the head. Shinpei then sees Mio holding a gun and holding the Mio that was with him as hostage. The other Mio then shoots Mio and Shinpei. Shinpei then awakens back at the boat where he met the woman with the glasses.

Shinpei realizes his day is repeating and notices Mio's bike had a cut break wire. That night after preparing dinner, he goes out for a fresh air, thinking if someone tried to kill Mio. He ends up seeing Tetsu who sees Mio standing in front of the house. Mio then kills him with a kitchen knife and creates a shadow that transforms into Tetsu, making Shinpei realize she is a Shadow too. She takes Tetsu's gun and explains she wasn't able to kill Mio yet. However, Sou calls Shinpei, which reveals him and Mio kills him. She starts to explain why she can't make a copy of him, but Shinpei dies before he can hear the rest. Shinpei then finds himself travelling somehow and awakening on July 22nd as he steps on Hitogashima.

This time, Shinpei tries to stop Mio from falling in the water, but ends up falling himself and Mio jumps in to help him out. After reliving the same day, that evening, he calls Tetsu reporting a fake fight in order to keep him away from Shadow Mio. He sets up his phone outside the house and has it recording. In the morning, he shows the footage to Mio, explaining that on the video she can see a Shadow, that is there to kill Mio. Shinpei reveals he knows that Ushio saw her Shadow too and Mio then guesses that the Shadow may have killed Ushio. Mio states that Shiori saw her shadow too and Shinpei decides to go alone to Kobayakawa's place. As the Koba Mart is closed, he meets Shiomi, who decides to check on the Kobayakawa family. They enter their house to find the TV running and the table full of untouched food. While Shiomi searches for the family, Shinpei notices black strains and realizes its the marks left by the Shadow. He goes on the second floor to look for Shiori, but as he notices a flash and Shiori appears behind him producing another shadow, he figures that she is a Shadow and that he had been afflicted by shadow sickness at the funeral. However, Shiomi comes and Shiori decides to run. Shinpei then goes to look for the woman with glasses, but is unable to find her.

Shinpei then returns to Kofune's Diner, where Tetsu comes, but as he acts differently, Shinpei realizes he isn't the shadow Tetsu. Tetsu then gives him Ushio's phone, who told him to give it to Shinpei if something where to happen to her, day before she died. Sou then comes and Shinpei decides to tell him everything. They decide to go to the Hiruko shrine tomorrow, during the Summer Festival, as being crowded would be safer. They go the next day, but before they go meet the priest, Shinpei sees Ushio and runs after her. He ends up following her to the beach, where he sees her standing in the water. Initially, he believes she is a shadow, but as she can't remember her death, her way of talking and behaviour, make him feel she may indeed returned from death. Ushio then heads at the festival, where Shinpei makes her to hide since everyone believe she is dead. He explains she can't meet with her friends and tells her to stay there as he heads to join them. However, on his way to the shrine, Shadow Mio appears in front of him. She knows he filmed her and wonders how he knew she would be there. As she captures him, a shadow Shinpei comes, who makes a flash, making Shinpei realize they will get his most current memories. Shadow Shinpei explains that Shinpei is able to loop, but can't do it willingly, so he tells shadow Mio to not kill him. Shadow Shinpei heads to join Shinpei's friends and while Shinepi tries to stop him, Mio breaks his arm, stating that its pointless to struggle as soon Mother will wake up. Hizuru then appears and blows Mio's head with a shotgun and then shoots her shadow and kills her.

Hizuru introduces herself as Ryunosuke Nagumo, and explains she is there to save Shinpei. Seeing a shadow coming, Hizuru pulls Shinpei to the side and they see Ushio running and heading uphill. Hizuru explains that shadows true forms as the flat shadows on the ground, who don't like to be stepped on. The shadows eat human data, but to get the taste, they have to consume the human. As they notice a flash uphill, Shinpei wants to go save Mio and asks Hizuru for help. Heading up, Shinpei finds a massacre, where the shadows had killed numerious humans. He sees Tokiko being killed by a shadow and shadow Sou killing Sou, who tried protecting Mio. A large shadow grabs Shinpei and recognizes his right eye as the eye their Mother lost long ago, which allows him to control time. The shadow explains that just like in video games, the hero can restart from a save point, but for the Demon King to win, he must cut out the electrical power. It then tells Shinpei to observe him as he cuts the power. Shinpei tries to get to Mio, but the shadow consumes her, along with the other humans, offering them as meal to their Mother, who then appears in the sky. Hizuru apologizes, saying she should have believed the message sooner, but Shinpei states its not too late and ask her to shoot him in the head as he will return to July 22nd. The shadow tries to consume them, but Ushio punches it. Hizuru then shoots Shinpei, who starts floating and sees the island being consumed by shadow and Mother noticing him. As he starts returning back in time, this time he clearly hears Ushio, who tells him that his power has a limit and that everyone dies at the festival.

Shinpei awakens on 22nd, already on the island and after he met Mio and she pulled him out of the water. Later he thinks of what he can do and realizes that each time his returning points moves ahead. Because of this, he realizes he can't keep failing as eventually he will reach a point where Mio and the rest start dying and he will never be able to save them. Shinpei decides to do everything the same and goes to the funeral, where he have same conversations. He tells Shiori that she met a Shadow and if he does again, she needs to run. A bit later, Shiori's mother, Asako asks him what he meant by shadow, but Shinpei notices they are shadows already and explains its something Mio's grandmother had told them when they were young. Shinpei recalls that when Shadow Mio killed him, she had white panties, but today Mio is with blue and white stripped panties. He asks her if she was with white panties yesterday and even though she finds it strange, she confirms, making him realizes she was copied yesterday. Proceeding with the funeral and after the crematorium, Shinpei asks around people if they know about shadow sickness and if they know who Hizuru is. Alain tells him that Hizuru is an old friend and gives him a note she gave him as contact info. Seeing the note, Shinpei realizes its the code from Ryunosuke's Adrift novel. Solving it, he calls the phone, but Ginjiro picks up, who asks him to head to the funeral hall. There, he tells him to stand still and shoots at Shinpei's shadow on the ground to see if he is human or shadow. Confirming he is a human, Ginjiro calls him to the fourth battery. There Ginjiro explains that to solve the code, you must know that Hizuru and Ryunosuke are the same person, but that is only he knows or if a shadow had copied Hizuru, however, its interesting how a human would know it. Hizuru shows up and to reveal his name as she told him, Shinpei asks for an autograph saying he is Shinpei Ajiro. After giving him the autograph, Hizuru tells him to correct her if what she say is false. Hizuru then notes that he didn't knew who she was in the boat and the only way he to know her real name is if she told him. Hizuru notes that this isn't the first time he experienced July 22nd and repeated in multiple times. This would mean, he is a time traveler. Shinpei starts crying and confirms.

Etymology

 * The name Shinpei means "prudent, careful" (慎) (shin) and "flat, broad, level, even, peaceful" (平) (hei/pei).
 * Shinpei's surname Ajiro means "network/net" (網) (a) and "generation" (代) (shiro/jiro).