Akio Tademaru

Akio Tademaru (蓼丸昭夫,) is a human scholar specializing on Kemono and Shiki Tademaru's uncle.

Appearance
Akio is adult man with short messy hair who wears glasses.

Personality
Akio presented himself as a polite, amicable and proper adult and parental figure to Shiki when first introduced. In truth, this is a facade, Akio was in fact a manipulative, self-serving, greedy and highly ambitious person with absolutely no morals, willing to exploit Kemono powers for his self-benefit, convincing Kumi of partaking in inhuman experiments with the intention of producing golden silk, all under the pretense of giving her and Shiki a means of self-susteinance having her go through a tortorous experience in order to create an hybrid capable to producing it.

Akio feels not the remote sense of remorse or guilt for his deeds, and in fact relishes on what he had achieved thinking he made such a groundbreaking discovery that it would catapult him to unparalleled historical fame. He also lied to Shiki regarding his mother's condition and manipulated him onto thinking he meant the best for both him and his mother. Calm and patient he kept avoiding the issue, whenever asked, knowing that Shiki would eventually give up on the matter.

History
When he was a student, he followed his older brother on a investigation in Kinshi-Go folklore. On this trip, they met a female kemono Arachne, Kumi Yamagumonoko, that his brother fell in love with.

Before Shiki's birth, his brother died after losing footing in the forest.

After Kumi came to him after her son had gotten a fever, he made a proposal to her to use her abilities to make money and she agreed as she would do anything for her son. So he decided to pair her up with different types of kemono and creatures from the forest to try and create the spider that produced the golden thread in the legend artificially. At last with Aya born, he successfully created a being with a thread that can heal injury and illness. At some point in time, Lady Inari found out about this incident and blacklisted him. Then hid the threaded Kumi in a pool of water with a few skunk tail cabbage flowers spread near it the outside of it.

Plot
As Shiki returned back to Kinshi-Go, he lied about what happened to Kumi to Shiki and the Kemono Office. After they found out that he might have killed Shiki's mother, he uses the children from previous attempts to attack them and fail. With the help of Aya, the group learned that Shiki's mother isn't dead and that Aya's cocoon has Kumi in the pool of water.

Running away in the forest, he met Nobimaru and he talked to him for a bit before an explosion ensued.

Appearances
{{Appearance
 * Chapters=

Shiki Arc

 * Chapter 11 - The Spider's Thread
 * Chapter 12 - Madness
 * Chapter 13 - Dearest Wish
 * Chapter 14 - The Golden Thread
 * -|Episodes=

Shiki Arc
}}
 * Episode 7 - Home

Shiki Tademaru
Akio was a tactful and proper parental figure to Shiki on the outside. In truth, this was all an act in order to hide his misdeeds and make Shiki forget what he had witnessed. At present day Akio continued to lie to Shiki without the slightest shred of remorse.

Aya Tademaru
TBA

Kumi Yamagumonoko
Although Akio was seemingly both kind and friendly to her, although this was, in fact a ruse. Akio knew he could exploit Kumi in order to create golden silk which he could use to enrich himself, and manipulated Kumi onto participating on his experiments, all under the pretense of giving her the means by which she and Shiki could live peacefully as humans. He then proceeded to have her systematically raped for years under different kind of Kemono breed found nearby in order to create an offspring that could create the golden silk. He had her and Shiki separated when he was traumatized by the experiments he witnessed during his childhood. To date, Akio feel not the slightest remorse for what he made her endure.