Mr. Shiowatari is the father of Nagisa Shiowatari and an old friend of Mr. Fujinami, a fellow Hamachaya (beach cafe) manager. Like every other parent in the series, his first name is never given.
Biography[]
Little is known about Mr. Shiowatari's life. He married and fathered Nagisa Shiowatari on an unknown woman, who seems to have disappeared from their lives after Nagisa's birth. At some point, he came to own a Hamachaya and his own private island, which was his greatest dream. Unfortunately, the island he was so proud of was a tiny, uninhabited spit of land separated from the nearest community by four miles of open ocean, and as a result of this poor business choice, the Hamachaya was extremely unsuccessful.
A year before he appears in canon, Mr. Shiowatari attempted to brainstorm something that would attract customers to their island Hamachaya, and hit upon the idea of harvesting the abundant sea urchins of the area and using them to create sea urchin-flavored kakigori (shaved ice). Convinced that this idea was a winner, he and Nagisa began attempting to create their concoction, taste-testing the results to see which recipe would be the most likely to succeed. He ate so much kakigori, 98 bowls in succession, that he died of overeating. Humiliated by this death, he (and Nagisa, who continued eating sea urchin kakigori until he too died) would haunt the island for a year as restless spirits.
After he had been haunting the island for a year, he made contact with his old friend Mr. Fujinami and sold him the rights to the island for three hundred yen. This allowed him to finally introduce Nagisa to Ryūnosuke Fujinami, Nagisa's arranged fiancée. For the sake of his child's happiness, he told his son about the magical properties of the tear of a giant sea urchin that visited the island on that very night; drinking this tear restored Nagisa to life, and allowed Nagisa to finally have his first kiss with his beloved fiancée. Seeing this ended the last of Mr. Shiowatari's regrets, and when the dawn came, he passed on peacefully to the afterlife, leaving Nagisa to move in with the Fujinamis.
Appearance[]
Mr. Shiowatari is a plain-featured but not ugly man, with a slender build and a small mustache. He dresses similarly to Mr. Fujinami, except he covers his head with a bandanna, wears round rimless glasses, and his shirt says "I (heart) sea urchins" instead of "I (heart) the sea".
Personality[]
Mr. Shiowatari is simultaneously very similar to and yet the complete opposite of his good friend, Mr. Fujinami. Like his friend, Mr. Shiowatari is shown to be deeply delusional about his child's gender, insisting that Nagisa Shiowatari is a "very late blooming" girl and ignoring all evidence that Nagisa is a boy. He also shares Mr. Fujinami's terrible business sense; he was eager to set up his Hamachaya on a remote and little-visited island, never once considering that such a location would see few if any customers, and when trying to think up a gimmick to make the Hamachaya more attractive, he set his mind on sea urchin-flavored kakigori, which would taste absolutely disgusting and no customers would want. He is also foolishly stubborn, literally eating himself to death trying to perfect his sea urchin kakigori recipe.
At the same time, though, Mr. Shiowatari is shown to be a very pleasant and affable individual; he is friendly and polite towards others, and a loving, gentle father to his son despite his delusions about Nagisa's gender. He is never violent towards Nagisa, and makes it very clear he wants his child to be happy, a far cry from Fujinami's physical abusiveness and selfishness. He even gives up his own chance to return to life and makes Nagisa take it instead, an act that comforts him enough to let him pass on to the afterlife.
He is shown to have a bit of a prankster's side as well; when the group first meet him, he tries to spook them by pretending to be a more conventionally scary ghost, and Nagisa comments on his father's love of playing jokes.
Powers and abilities[]
As a ghost, Mr. Shiowatari can become invisible and intangible at will.
Relationships[]
Nagisa Shiowatari: In contrast to Ryūnosuke Fujinami and her dad, Nagisa and his father have a very strong and positive relationship. Despite his father sharing similar delusions to Ryūnosuke's that cause him to insist that Nagisa is a girl, Mr. Shiowatari is shown to be gentle, patient, affectionate and loving with his son, who dotes on him in return. Whilst Ryūnosuke fights against her father's efforts to make her act like a man, Nagisa willingly complies in order to make his father happy. The two are never seen fighting or arguing, unlike their Fujinami counterparts. Despite his delusions, Mr. Shiowatari is shown to want Nagisa to be happy, and willingly gives Nagisa the giant sea urchin's tear for resurrection and chooses to remain a ghost so his son can have a second chance at life.
Ryūnosuke's Father: Mr. Shiowatari and Mr. Fujionami are old friends and have a very strong bond. They were such good friends that they vowed to engage their children to unite their families forever. It's implied that part of the reason why Mr. Shiowatari brought his son Nagisa up to act like a girl is because he sincerely believed that Mr. Fujinami had fathered a son. Both have a very similarly delusional nature, failing to realize/accept that their children are biologically the opposite of what they claim, and are shown to have similarly lackluster business sense, in that they both failed to consider the flaws in setting up a beach cafe on a deserted island four miles from the nearest village.
Quotes[]
To be added
Trivia[]
- His surname Shiowatari means "tide, ebb, opportunity" (潮) (shio) and "transit, ford, ferry, cross, import, deliver, diameter, migrate" (渡) (watari).
- His first seiyū also voiced Sōban, Manchinrō, Dracula and the Bluebird.
- His second seiyū previously voiced Akamaru from Kyōkai no Rinne.
Media Appearances[]
Gallery[]
Movies and OVAs[]
2022 Anime[]
