Shima Family

The **Shima Family** (志磨 家) was a wealthy and calculating family in Tokyo.

## History

In the Meiji Era, Tamayoshi and Tamasuke were the sons of a poor family that often left their children to starve while they took whatever food they had left or could get. This was the start of Tamayoshi's obsession with wanting to become rich so that he wouldn't have to suffer from poverty again. He began studying on how to become wealthy and then planned to marry Yuki, his childhood friend. However, by adulthood, she moved on and married an older wealthy man. This emotionally broke Tamayoshi and he became convinced that money, status, and power were the absolute necessities to not only happiness but complete control.

By the time of the Taisho Era, Tamayoshi built vast wealth and fame in the Shima family but his brutality and lack of empathy earned him the nickname *Rakshasa*. He married his first wife, who gave birth to Tamaki and Tamayo. Meanwhile, Tamasuke fell in love with Touko and the two wanted to marry. However, after his first wife passed away, Tamayoshi forced Touko to marry him as his second wife, an act which outraged Tamasuke and he never forgave Tamayoshi for it. Touko gave birth to Tamahiko but Tamayoshi treated her with cruelty. Three years after Tamahiko's birth, she ran away and reunited with Tamasuke, and the two had a brief affair, resulting her becoming pregnant with Tamao. However, Tamayoshi forced her to return and this was kept a secret from Tamasuke, who severed ties with the family and went on to become a doctor. At some point, he married an unnamed woman and adopted her surname. Touko later gave birth to Tamako.

As a result of the family possessing no affection and/or empathy, the Shima children grew up deprived of love and were taught the importance of wealth and power. This caused Tamayo and Tamako to become spoiled, although Tamayo possessed a personality just as ruthless as her father. All the children were raised to be obedient to their father and loyal to the family at all costs. This also caused the children to have little to nothing to do with one another.

On Tamahiko's 17th birthday, he and his mother were in a car accident that killed his mother and left his right arm disabled. His father became humiliated at having a disabled son and had him exhiled to a villa. To further save face for the Shima family and improve his older children's marriage prospects, he had Tamahiko declared dead. When Yuzuki came to Tamayoshi and begged for him to buy her in exchange for money to support her family, he agreed to buy her for ¥10,000 and had her become Tamahiko's caretaker and possible future bride. He had Tamaki keep track of Tamahiko though Tamaki was secretly trying to protect his brother from their father. While in exhile, Tamahiko reconciles with Tamako, who moves in with Tamasuke after finding inspiration in becoming a doctor. After Tamaki is critically injured during the Great Kanto Earthquake, his father began planning to install Tamahiko as the new heir should Tamaki succumb to his injuries. Tamayo, the sibling most eager for her father's attention and to succeed him, secretly poisons Tamaki.

Tamayoshi has Tamayo take Yuzuki away from Tamahiko, who, as the next heir to the Shima family, must marry a more appropriate bride. Tamayoshi also intended to pair Yuzuki up with Tamao. However, having found happiness with Yuzuki and preferring a simple, peaceful life in contrast to the wealthy, pernicious Shima family, Tamahiko severs ties to the Shima family and marries Yuzuki, and adopts her surname. Tamako and Tamao also leave the family for their own reasons; Tamako to pursue her dream to be a doctor and Tamao to live with his biological father, Tamasuke. This leaves Tamayo as the only child left to succeed Tamayoshi, who names her as his heir. Over the next several years, Tamahiko and Yuzuki have three children (two sons and a daughter), Tamako and Tamao become doctors and run Tamasuke’s hospital. Tamako also forms a relationship with Hakaru, one of Tamahiko’s friends.

After Tamayoshi passes away, Tamayo succeeds him. Because she is unable to have children, she adopts an teenage distant relative, Jintaro. However, she began abusing him and murdered anyone who tried to get close to him, and he was unable to bring himself to kill her. Eventually, after three years of abuse, he ran away. Tamayo, in a repulsive plot, intended to use Jintaro’s childhood friend and lover, Tokoyo, as a hostage in order to force Jintaro and Tamako to marry and produce children due to that the Shima family is in decline. Jintaro informs this to Tamako, who agrees to help him. While Jintaro and Tokoyo stage their deaths and run away, Tamako and her brothers go to the police with Jintaro’s camera and suicide letter, which contain evidence of Tamayo's crimes, leading to her arrest. While awaiting trial, she contracts turberculosis and dies. Jintaro marries Tokoyo whose surname he adopts and is drafted into the Second Sino-Japanese War and then the Pacific War. During this time, Tamako marries Hakaru and they open their own clinic. Jintaro is presumed to have been killed in combat but when the Pacific War ends, he returns alive but disfigured. Shortly after, they have a son together.

With Tamayo deceased, her siblings, foster son, and all of their children having adopted different surnames to signify their separation from the family, the Shima family comes to an end.

## Structure

The Shima family was a very influential and wealthy family that values wealth, status, and reputation over moral and ethics. The family was considerably smaller than most Japanese clans and has adopted Western styles. All the finances and conflicts are handled by Tamayoshi.

The family used to be poor and a much larger family until Tamayoshi’s rise to wealth enabled him to cast out unnecessary and/or unwanted family members. Another reason for the decline in the family is several members opting to leave due to repeated abuse or mistreatment and unwillingness to abide the cruel methods meant to enrich the family, such as shutting down businesses and bankrupting individuals of their finances. It was hinted that victims was those situations have died in poverty or other causes, hence why the family was called the *Rakshasa clan*. As the family values status and reputation above anything else, it has no problem dehumanizing unnecessary members to the point of casting them off as dead. The family’s reputation was well known to the public but keeps its personal affairs private, particularly the reason for Tamahiko’s absence from the family and when Tamako was being bullied Tamayo and the rest of the Shima children were being ridiculed and or ignored by their peers, their father turned a blind eye to everything.

Despite the Shima family’s well documented history, it was seemingly careful enough to avoid involving the authorities, which would damage the family reputation and status. The family was cautious on this until Tamayo’s arrest for a series of crimes, including murder, which damaged the family’s wealth and status beyond repair.

## Family Tree

Tamayoshi, Tamasuke, and seven unnamed siblings are born to their parents.

Tamayoshi married his first wife, and they had Tamaki and Tamayo.

Tamayoshi married Touko, and they had Tamahiko and Tamako.

Touko and Tamasuke had Tamao.

Tamasuke married an unnamed woman, and they adopted Tamako and Tamao.

Tamahiko married Yuzuki Tachibana and they had Tsukihiko, Haruki, and Tamami.

Tamako married Hakaru Shiratori.

Gishin Shima married an unnamed woman and had Shintaro Shima.

Shintaro and an unnamed woman had Jintaro.

Jintaro was adopted by Tamayo.

Jintaro married Tokoyo Kurosaki and had an unnamed son.

## Members

### Political members

Tamayoshi ShimaTamasuke Manabe (formerly)Touko ShimaTamayo ShimaTamahiko Shima (formerly)Tamako ShimaTamaki ShimaTamao Shima
## Etymology

* The surname **Shima** means "will, purpose" (志) (**shi**) and "grind, polish, scour, improve, brush (teeth)" (磨) (**ma**).

## Trivia

* A common trait within the Shima family is every member's imposing height.
* The Shima family has four mansions in Tokyo and Shibuya but the main residence is within Tokyo.
* According to Tamayo, many residents in the Kansai region are fiercely loyal to the Shima family via bounties.
* The Shima family is known as the *Rakshasa clan* because the family used immoral means to achieve wealth and privilege via blackmail and destitution of other people (many of which presumably died from starvation and other unknown causes). It wasn't until Tamayo became the head of the family, when murder became part of the methods to enhance the family's status.