Tsubaki Iwanome

—**Iwanome** to Jirotarou Takanosu, *DMDP* Volume 4, Chapter 28.

## Tsubaki Iwanome

* Manga
* Anime

### Relations

Miyabi Hosorogi (mentor)
Kōzaburō Arase, Saki Aikawa, Ranmaru Yatsu, Danjō Tozawa, Fumiyo Yamada, Mikoto Saimyouji (colleagues)
Lisa Kuraki (familiar with)
Ch. Supt. Habaki (ally)

## Media

### Debut

Chapter 5
Episode 01

### French VA

David Manet

**Tsubaki Iwanome** (岩野目 ツバキ *Iwanome Tsubaki*) is the manager of Materials Compiling Group No.3 and currently in charge of the Phantom Solitaire investigation's jurisdictional side.

## Appearance

Iwanome has medium-length blond hair—dyed as such from the original black—and multiple facial piercings, at least one standard piercing in each earlobe. One helix piercing in his left ear, two conch piercings through his right ear, and one stud piercing above and one below his right eyebrow. He is seen using glasses at home but otherwise goes without them or wearing contact lenses when in town.

For work, Iwanome typically wears colorful clothes rather than the standard suit-and-tie; these include a bright blue shirt with red trousers and sometimes camouflage trousers, leading some to say he looks more like a host than a police officer. However, just as he once wore the standard suit-and-tie attire, he dons a business suit once more when asked to take a leadership role in the reorganized special Phantom Solitaire investigation.

## Personality

Iwanome often acts as flamboyantly as his clothes look: loud, attention-grabbing, and full of vim and vigor. Where Arase acts the aloof, intimidating-on-demand 'bad cop,' Iwanome contrasts himself as sociable, gregarious, and 'non-threatening' by comparison; when gathering information at Youtoukorou bar, he occasionally further acts as a playful drunk who laughs loudly, complains loudly, and is loudly intoxicated even when surreptitiously sober.

This friendly congeniality and energy are felt more naturally in the Comps-3 workplace, where Iwanome greets colleagues with a smile and conducts meetings with confident poise. To more charitable police outsiders, Iwanome is eccentric but spirited; to too many hostile members of the Tokyo Metropolitan police force, Iwanome, at worst, is a cocky upstart failure; to a barfly at Youtoukorou, Iwanome might be a rowdy, devil-may-care extrovert.

To the members of Comps-3, Iwanome is a capable, hardworking leader yet to be corrupted like so many others in the police force have been. His flashy clothes, jaunty cheer, and breeziness mask competency, ambition, and dedicated diligence to the job, and all of the above mask Iwanome's intense, impassioned drive to carry out Hosorogi's will in Hosorogi's stead.

For the sake of his and Hosorogi's goals, Iwanome must navigate and work within the same corrupt police system that rejected Hosorogi in the first place; his claim that meshing his gears with others is "what [he does] best" is, therefore, in practice, more than mere congeniality. He responds to Takanosu's leadership appointment by readily donning a business suit and conforming as much as is necessary, even when other 'gears' oppose him. However, he casts what aspersions he can get away with. His behavior as a 'congenial drunk' can also be re-examined in this light; he easily matches the moods of others and skillfully *fits in* despite his flamboyant appearance making him *stand out*.

However, Iwanome's success at meshing with others and as a leader requires Iwanome to be even-tempered. He cannot carry out Hosorogi's will if he loses his composure at others' hostile provocation, nor can he lead an investigative team if he easily 'loses his head.' For the most part, he succeeds at keeping himself, his strong emotions and frustrations linked to Hosorogi's death & the symbol, and his personal feelings regarding police corruption in check even around his Comps-3 comrades. When a hostile non-Comps-3 member of the Solitaire investigation team slams him against a wall, he endures the vitriol; when Takanosu provokes him, his barbed response is *carefully* barbed. His surging to his feet and seizing the Corpse God's lapel during the fortunetelling session is thus shocking even to Arase—who *is* aware of this side of him—and hints at uglier emotions within.

## Etymology

* The name **Tsubaki** is written in katakana (ツバキ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (椿), it could possibly mean "camellia flower".
* Tsubaki's surname **Iwanome** means "rock" (岩) (**iwa**), "field, wilderness" (野) (**no**) and "eye, ogle" (目) (**me**).

## Trivia

* Iwanome has been subject to many arranged marriage proposals, much to his apparent chagrin.
* Marlboro is Iwanome's favorite cigarette brand.
* Iwanome is responsible for many if not all of Shinjuku's troublemaker's monikers, something over which he becomes self-conscious and defensive when the monikers are deemed 'weird'. He reacts with similar discomfiture when Arase later parrots a phrase Iwanome coined, though the reason for his discomfiture may not be the same.

## References

1. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 2, Chapter 23.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 2, Chapter 24.
3. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Chapter 6.