The Characters of "1Q84" Trivia Quiz

Answer: 'Green peas'

Masami Aomame has a name that one doesn't easily forget, and it's perhaps the most absurd point to note about this stern, but calculated character who rarely loses her cool. Her name translating to 'green peas' may be memorable, but others throughout the story often reflect on her being a very professional person, an unrelenting personal trainer, and a cold-blooded killer, trained to use her own deadly weapon, a modified ice pick inserted into the nape of a victim's neck. Aomame is hired by a wealthy woman who asks her to murder a very important religious figure and, when she does, she has to go into hiding.

Unfortunately, her worldview is forced to shift when she finds herself in a parallel world looked down upon by two moons in the sky; she calls this '1Q84', and there is, perhaps, no way back.

She is the first character to notice a difference in her surroundings, mainly through little details.

Answer: A teacher at a cram school

Tengo, good with numbers since a very young age, met Aomame when they were in school together and, after a brief encounter as children they were seemingly destined to be together; much of the story involves the link they share and their need to reconnect against all odds. Tengo, aside from teaching math at a cram school, works for a local publisher and is called upon to rewrite a story written by teenage novel-writer Eriko Fukada.

The book ultimately sells millions, though his secret double life as a ghostwriter doesn't get out to the public.

He, therefore, sets out to write his own new novel based on the world from his previous ghostwritten work, but he faces real life problems, particularly his being pulled into circumstances beyond his control and the coma and subsequent death of his possible father.

Answer: Air Chrysalis

Fuka-Eri only comes into contact with one of the main characters of the book, Tengo, as he rewrites the bare bones of her original story to win a novel award and have the work published. Fuka-Eri ran away from her parents to live with the only man her family could trust, the level-headed Professor Ebisuno. Still underage, she spends her time going back and forth between Tokyo and Shinanomachi. For a while she resides with Tengo in the city, speaking in her unusual way and acting as a conduit, at one pivotal point, between Tengo and Aomame.

There's something about Eriko that makes her utterly mysterious, and her story about 'The Little People' and their 'Air Chrysalis' construction may be truer than one could ever expect. When she leaves Tengo's apartment at the end of the year, returning to the Professor's, she never writes another book and they never encounter one another again.

Answer: A private investigator hired to locate Aomame

Although Ushikawa doesn't become a point-of-view figure until the third act of "1Q84", he does appear throughout the book in different capacities, mainly around Tengo acting under the guise of a member of the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts.

This is a front created by Sakigake, a dummy corporation designed to help them investigate people when they need to. With this ruse, Ushikawa, a man considered physically unappealing by almost everyone around him, is able to infiltrate otherwise impenetrable areas to dig up information on both Aomame and Tengo.

He rents an apartment in Tengo's building but ultimately gets caught out by Aomame who, after informing her own protectors, ends up being the one responsible for Ushikawa getting captured and killed.

After his death, no one knows, but the 'Little People' emerge from within him and begin creating an Air Chrysalis from his corpse.

Answer: The Dowager

A very wealthy woman indeed, the Dowager, Shizue Ogata, came into money by operating her companies to success in the 1970s, buying and selling when appropriate and ultimately amassing a small fortune. In her later years she opted to do good in the world by ridding it of its scoundrels, particularly men who beat their wives. Creating 'Willow House', a protected shelter for battered women in an otherwise affluent neighbourhood of Tokyo, she instructs Aomame between physical therapy sessions and develops an almost matriarchal bond with the girl, all the while sending her on assassination missions.

It is the Dowager who sends Aomame to kill the Leader of the Sakigake and it is also she who protects Aomame, offering her a small fortune of her own, a safehouse, and an escape route after the murder.

Answer: A handgun

Tamaru works for the Dowager as the sole protector of 'Willow House', and it's no surprise why. A well-composed individual, he knows how to accomplish his tasks and guard those important to him. He and Aomame develop a small, guarded friendship as they mutually work toward the same goals.

When she is sent on her toughest mission she asks him to procure a handgun and he gifts her with one which is otherwise untraceable. He tells Aomame that, as in an Anton Chekov novel, if a gun is introduced into someone's story it must be used.

While she carries it with her throughout the novel she never once fires it, though she is close on several occasions. In order to protect 'Willow House' and Aomame (and, subsequently, Tengo), he interrogates and kills Ushikawa, suffocating him with a plastic bag and covering up the evidence.

Answer: True

In fact, it was Komatsu's idea. Komatsu, a major editor in a Tokyo publishing firm, is one of the men in charge of the submissions for a national book award and, after reading Fuka-Eri's submitted novella he places it into Tengo's capable hands to rewrite; Tengo had spent a number of years editing and reading works for the award particularly.

When the new version of "Air Chrysalis" takes off, Komatsu brings himself, Tengo, and Fuka-Eri further down the rabbit hole by mass-producing it, making it a runaway bestseller, and having a short press junket.

It seems as though they get away with it; largely, they do. At one point, however, Komatsu is held captive by Sakigake agents who less-than-politely ask him to stop all production of the book to protect 'The Little People', whose voice has been sorely compromised by the novella. Of course, he does his best to stem the tide.

He leads an otherwise shrouded life, even to his closest colleagues.

Answer: Erika Fukado

Fuka-Eri's experiences with the 'Little People' derive from a time she spent living on the Sakigake compound with her mother and father. As it turns out, as Aomame discovers, Fuka-Eri's father is none other than Tamotsu Fukada, a man who acts as a link between the 'Little People' and the world around him; this connection is made through prophecies and cryptic messages.

When Aomame encounters him in a hotel room in Tokyo, he wants her to put him out of his misery despite the 'Little Peoples'' best wishes. During the final storm of his life he warns Aomame that either herself or Tengo could die as a result of her actions.

She does, nevertheless, kill him as part of her mission for the Dowager, as he was responsible for having sexual relations with his underage daughter as part of a religious ritual.

Answer: Nurse Adachi

Heading to the coast to visit his alleged father in his assisted-living home, Tengo reads a story about a town of cats that a man is unable to escape. The longer he stays in the town the more he refers to it by said name. While there attending to his father during his waking moments, his coma, and his death, Tengo is introduced to a trio of nurses (whom he relates to the witches from "MacBeth" at one point).

While Nurses Omura and Tamura come and go, it's Nurse Kuma Adachi who he spends a night with.

She speaks cryptically after the two take turns with recreational drugs and, at one point she tells him "When the morning comes you'll be leaving here, Tengo. Before the exit is blocked." He leaves that day, before he can no longer. His only other trip there, to send his father to the crematorium, only takes a couple days before he never returns.

Answer: Buzzcut

Ponytail and Buzzcut, so named for their hairstyles, are first met by Aomame when she enters The Leader's hotel room in Tokyo for her appointment/assassination. Although they seem to be professional bodyguards they're later determined to be everymen, simply assigned a bunch of heavy-lifting to make sure the religion operates.

They are the link between Sakigake and Ushikawa; they are also the ones who kidnap Komatsu. After Tamaru kills Ushikawa, they reveal that they no longer need Aomame though they do wish to speak to her.

This lessened interest in pursuing the assassin is part of what gives Aomame and Tengo the chance to escape the world of 1Q84 and into a world with only one moon.