Akane Nashimoto

Akane Nashimoto (梨本 茜 Nashimoto Akane) is a skilled diver who is depicted as having a strong intuition about ghosts/spirits and she develops a close friendship with Kurumi Shikano.

Appearance
Akane is a slim middle-sized young woman with smooth neck-length black hair that has square bangs hanging on the left side of her forehead and brown eyes.

She often wears light clothing which is useful for fast emergency diving as style and looks don't interest her very much.

Personality
Akane is a very quiet girl who is a bit shy, but she gets very confident whenever it comes to her amazing diving skills. She is also the most loyal friend one could ever have and stood by Kurumi Shikano's side even when Team Autumn's leaders were out to kill her.

Early Life
Akane comes from an old family of pearl divers. Since they were from Mie, it is possible that her family entered the shelter in Nagoya. Whether they survived is still unknown, though.

Present
Akane and her group entered the New World three years prior to the start of the series and wandered around Japan for a long time until they finally settled down in the Kansai region.

Some months after the short visit of Arashi Aota's group to their camp, a volcano erupted. The falling ash destroyed Team Autumn's fields. Then, Kurumi Shikano got pregnant from Ryuusei Ogiwara - and so broke the group's law of not allowing sex. Akio Haza and Ran Shishigaki were out to kill her because Kurumi refused to abort the baby, but Ryoya Izayoi stepped up for the very first time and persuaded Ryuusei, Kurumi and Akane to run away together with him. The Autumn leaders and their group searched for them to no avail until they were forced to seek shelter somewhere else as their village became uninhabitable.

Half a month later, they came across the runaways named Hana Sugurono, Haru Yukima and Takahiro Aramaki in the ruins of Ryugu Shelter where Ryuusei and his group had been hiding from Ran's group. Akane had her very first appearance in the series here, during Chapter 52 of the series in the Ash arc, "Like Seaweed", when she bested Hana at diving completely. Akane helped Ryuusei take Hana hostage in order to force her into exploring an unknown area which Akane felt to be very dangerous. Since she could sense ghosts and the like, she warned her own group to go near, but due to Akio's attack on her food rations, they were running short on supplies and water.

Akio, Ran and Sakuya Yamaki stole Aramaki's boat and explored Ryugu Shelter while collecting everything useful, ignorant to the danger of Acari X. They finally attempted to open the freezer but were stopped just in time by Izayoi who for the very first time yelled at them, surprising them enough to leave the freezer again.

When the shelter started collapsing, Akio and Ran ran away, even leaving Sakuya back. Shortly after that though, they reunited with Hana's group and worked together in order to discover a way out of the crumbling shelter. Akane's diving skills were a real life-saver when the explorers had to go through a submerged parking lot in order to return to the waiting group. Hana was the first one to come up, and at her  call, Akane jumped in without hesitation.

When they finally safely reunited with Ryuusei's group and left the shelter, Team Summer A approached them. Ango tried to shoot Ran for being a potential infection herd of Acari X, but Izayoi shielded her and died taking the bullet. In face of the tragedy, Akio and Ran decided to reconcile with the rest of their team and travelled together with Hana's group back to Team Spring's base.

They found it destroyed by a flood though, and in search for the missing Spring members, discovered Momotaro had been captured by Team Summer A. Akio and Ran decided to kidnap Koruri in order to force them into exchanging hostages. Their plan got messed up by the attack of the White Piranha Bats, though, and most of Team Autumn's members ended up severely injured. Thus, they grudgingly decided to live together with Team Summer A in their base.

Team Autumn settled in quite fast, although Akio had to say a few severe words to them because he disapproved of the way Team Summer A wallowed in self-pity and Ran developed a slight, funny rivalry with Nijiko over architecture styles. Although Ran still dislikes the idea of Kurumi giving birth, she didn't oppose it any longer and even started planning a separate house for the new family. Akane slowly grew closer to Gengorou with whom she shared her love for animals.

When Hana went missing and Ango's rape attempt was discovered, Akio made it very clear to Ango and Ryou that the "commoners" weren't as peaceful as the "elites" thought and, together with Sakuya and Aramaki, drove them out of the community.

Around one or two months later, a forest fire destroyed Summer A camp. Akane and her team were forced to move again, travelling into an uncertain future.

Skills
A skilled diver who has a strong intuition about ghosts and spirits.

Kurumi Shikano
Akane and Kurumi developed a close friendship.

Gengorou
Akane seems to have gotten very close to Gengorou from Team Summer A. He even stayed for her at Summer A base instead of following Ango and Ryou when they were exiled.

Etymology

 * The name Akane means "deep red, dye from the rubia plant" (茜).
 * It can also mean madder.
 * Akane's surname Nashimoto means "pear" (梨) (nashi) and "base, root, origin, source" (本) (moto).