Tamayo Shima

* Anime
* Manga

**Tamayo Shima** (志磨 珠代, *Shima Tamayo*) is Tamahiko Shima's half-sister from another mother.

## Appearance

Tamayo has purplish dark hair and green eyes. As befitting her wealthy status, she is always dressing in expensive kimonos.

## Personality

Tamayo is a cold, calculating woman, devoid of empathy and incapable of love or kindness. The only thing that matters to her are her immediate desires, which she pursues by any means necessary. As a result of her nature and upbringing, Tamayo places virtually no value on most people, seeing them as objects to control or obstacles to remove. This is why she can manipulate, bribe, threaten, and kill others without hesitation or remorse. She even sexually abused her own foster son as a way to torture him for her amusement. She is also very sadistic, having a hobby of mutilating and killing insects and small animals that persists into adulthood. Tamayo usually hides her true nature from the general public, allowing her to charm her way out of unfavorable situations.

Tamayo refuses to form connections with anyone, believing bonds are weaknesses to be exploited by others. Despite this, Tamayo eventually develops a contradictory desire for companionship, but her amoral nature and possessiveness warp her idea of love and bonds. As such, she keeps the people she cares for to herself, driving away or eliminating all other connections in that person's life until only she is left. Many of her misdeeds great and small are justified to her because they are done out of love.

## Background

Tamayo was raised as a Shima and - like all her siblings - was taught money and power were the only things of value. Out of all her siblings, she took these teaching seriously and, in addition to being deprived of love and attention from her father, this caused her to become selfish and ruthless. She emotionally tortured her younger siblings, particularly Tamako.

During an incident when she was thirteen, she was injured enough to be hospitalized, where she was told she could not have children. This had little effect on her, as she was too young to care about having children. She was more focused on how her father treated her. Despite the incident, her value did not diminish in her father's eyes. He kept her around, and she grew to become an influential member of the Shima household.

## Plot

### *Taisho Otome Fairy Tale*

In a letter from Tamayoshi to Tamahiko after the matter's exile, Tamayo was mentioned to have been offered a marriage proposal. To improve their odds, her father had Tamahiko declared dead, leaving her to "mourn" her sibling.

Tamayo abruptly appears with her father in Tokyo following the Great Kanto Earthquake because her older brother was injured and her father demanded Tamasuke Manabe, her uncle who is a doctor, treat him. Tamayo callously greets Tamahiko and feels pity that Yuzuki is his choice for a bride. Tamahiko, not trusting his sister's intents, kept Yuzuki close to him. Tamayo showed no care about her brother nor the people affected by the disaster, as she preferred Tamaki to die if he was suffering and the survivors were not worth concern before taking her leave with her father.

Several months later, Tamaki passes away and the entire Shima family attends his funeral, though Tamayo leaves much earlier than the others after deciding she was done 'mourning' him. She goes to Tamahiko's villa and blackmails Yuzuki into leaving him because Tamahiko, as the new Shima heir, must have a more appropriate bride. Tamayo threatens to Yuzuki that her parents and unborn sibling will be harmed if she refuses. When Tamahiko finds out about this, he angrily confronts her. She is unfazed and tells him that, as the new heir, he more suitable bride will be chosen and he needs to stop living in a fairy tale with Yuzuki.

Once Tamahiko severs ties to the Shima family for good, this leaves Tamayo as the last heir to the family. It is then revealed that she had actually poisoned Tamaki and had manipulated her siblings into leaving the family, so she could not only be the heir to the family but have her father's attention all to herself.

A year later, Tamahiko and Tamao discuss how the latter went back to the family home to get paperwork and learned Tamayo would indeed be the next head of the family. Tamao recalled how she gleefully warned him not to come back so everything would belong to her.

### *Shōwa Otome Otogi Banashi*

At some point, her father passed away and she became the new head of the family but, for the first time, she felt lonely. When she learns of teenage distant relative named Jintaro had been arrested and driven out of his hometown, Tamayo pulled some strings to informally adopt him. Initially, she treated him kindly by meeting all his needs and allowing him befriend a servant boy named Seiji. However, when Jintaro entrusted a letter for Tokoyo to Seiji, Tamayo murdered Seiji. She then threatened to kill Tokoyo and Jintaro armed himself with a knife to kill her in order to protect Tokoyo. However when she tried encouraging him to kill her, he hesitated. She threw herself at the blade and was stabbed in the abdomen, and she said this signified Jintaro's 'rebirth' as her child. The incident deeply traumatized Jintaro, who became powerless as Tamayo's abuse escalated. She began killing other children who interacted with him and began sexually abusing him. After three years of abuse, Jintaro, under the guise of paying respects to his late birth mother, ran away from Tamayo.

She learns of his relationship with Tokoyo and concocts a plot to get rid of her. Tamayo approaches Tokoyo's parents with a marriage proposal that Tokoyo would marry her older brother, though she neglected to mention he died during the Great Kanto Earthquake years ago. Tokoyo’s parents accept her offer and abandon Tokoyo to Tamayo after the latter gives them money to cover their debts. After kidnapping Tokoyo, she sneaks into Jintaro's apartment to surprise him for his 17th birthday. She suggests that he marry Tamako and father children with her in order to restore the Shima family, which disgusts Jintaro as this would be incestuous. She also mentions of her intent to marry Tokoyo to her dead brother, alarming him that Tamayo plans to kill her. Tamayo goes back to Tokoyo and reveals her plot to the terrified girl, and entertains the idea of killing her. Jintaro stops her before she can hurt Tokoyo and attempts to kill her with a sword, but Tokoyo stops him. Tamayo then takes the sword and tries to kill then, causing them to flee. However, she put a bounty on the two, causing many poor locals to chase them. Knowing they would likely hide in the Shima Cinema, she set it ablaze.

Once the cinema burned nearly to the ground, Tamayo asked some police officers to search for Jintaro, who, unbeknownst to her, at that time had faked his death alongside Tokoyo to be free from her with the help of Tamako, Tamahiko, and Tamao. In his fake suicide note, he wrote that he forgave her for her abuse and hoped she would repent but he considers her to be the devil. The letter also gave the police directions on where to find the evidence of her crimes. Led by Tamako, detectives come in to arrest Tamayo and show her Jintaro's camera (which contains evidence of her crimes, including of her raping him). Tamayo shows no sadness at Jintaro's 'death', and only asks if she was not good enough and that he was supposed to succeed her. Tamako lashed out at Tamayo for her actions by slapping her and implored for her to change, but she callously replied that she would always remain a devil as she was being led away.

Before her trial’s conclusion, Tamayo abruptly died from tuberculosis, which she contracted from Tokoyo during her kidnapping attempt. Before she died, she confessed to murdering Tamaki and showed no remorse.

## Relationships

### Tamaki Shima

When Tamaki was injured from the earthquake, Tamayo showed concern for him and preferred that he'd die. She pretended to mourn him after he died. However, it turns out she murdered him to upgrade her place in the family succession, proving she had no sibling affection for him.

### Tamahiko Shima

Like with all of her siblings, Tamayo cares very little for Tamahiko, if at all. Tamahiko also has no care for her and in fact holds deep contempt for her. She had no qualms about manipulating events to drive him out of the Shima family, and warned him never to return after he cut ties. However, she senses that deep down, Tamahiko is as ruthless as her.

### Yuzuki Tachibana

To Tamayo, Yuzuki was a tool to manipulate Tamahiko, aiming to use his love for her to force him to obey her and their father. She found Yuzuki to be unsuited as a wife for her brother and blackmailed with threats of violence against her family her to try and get the girl to leave Tamahiko.

### Tamako Shima

Tamayo sought to rule over her sister using fear and terrorized her. She constantly bullied her when she was young, smiling as she did. The bullying left Tamako with a crippling fear of her and caused her to inherit some of her traits. Eventually, Tamako manages to break Tamayo's influence and stand up to her, even mustering the courage to scold her, particularly after her actions drove Jintaro into a corner.

### Tamayoshi Shima

According to Tamahiko, Tamayo was the sibling who loved their father the most and was the hungeriest for his attention, which she sought to achieve by manipulating her other siblings to cut ties with the Shima name (though in Tamaki's case, murder) so she could be his only heir.

### Jintaro Shima

When word reaches Tamayo that a teenage boy with the same last name as her was arrested and driven from his hometown, she pulled strings to have him brought to her in hopes that adopting him would cure her loneliness. After luring him in with false kindness, she revealed that she planned to mold him into a heartless monster like her by emotionally and sexually abusing him. After three years of this, she conditioned him to obey her out of fear, but failed to fully extinguish his heart. This led him to try escaping and even kill her, to no avail. Despite what she subjects him to, Tamayo believes that she is a good and loving mother to Jintaro and that her behavior is acceptable if it's for his sake.

### Tokoyo Kurosaki

Because she wanted Jitaro all to herself, Tamayo is repulsed by the girl Jintaro loves. After paying her parents off, she abducts tries to kill her. Jintaro saves his beloved and tries to kill Tamayo, but Tokoyo stays his hand, showing mercy to the one who wished her dead. Tamayo tries to kill them both, but they escape, and Tokoyo never interacts with her again afterwards.

## Etymology

* The name **Tamayo** means "bead, pearl, gem, jewel" (珠) (**tama**) and "generation" (代).

## Trivia

* Tamayo can play the piano.
* Tamayo loves shopping; Tamahiko once said she would spend over 100 En on clothes and jewelry. In the 1920s, 1 En was worth ¥5000 (adding up to roughly $3,000 USD)

## References

1. ↑ Shōwa Otome Otogi Banashi: Chapter 24