While this book has many major and minor characters, these are among the most important:
- Toru Okada: The narrator and protagonist, Toru is a passive and often apathetic young man living in suburban Japan. He is Kumiko's husband and continually follows the orders or wishes of others. Toru is portrayed as an average man and the embodiment of passivity. He is a legal aid who is considering a law degree but has chosen to leave his job at a legal firm. He spends his days doing house chores, cooking pasta, listening to the radio, and searching for their missing cat. At the beginning of the novel, his life is mundane. Toru spends a lot of time alone and the reader can see that he is not in control of many aspects of his life. His search for their missing cat leads him into interesting adventures.[2]
- Kumiko Okada: Kumiko is Toru's wife and, as the breadwinner of the couple, is the more autonomous of the two. She works in the publishing business. Following the disappearance of their cat, she disappears as well. Kumiko's childhood was stifling because her parents wanted her to take the place of an older sister who had committed suicide at a very young age, an event that became an obsession of their older brother, Noboru Wataya.
- Noboru Wataya: Noboru is Kumiko's older brother. He is presented as a mediagenic figure; the public loves him, but Toru cannot stand him. Noboru first appears as an academic, becomes a politician during the course of the story, and has no apparent personal life. He is said to be hidden behind a façade — all style, and no substance. He is the antagonist. Noboru is constantly changing his image to defeat his opponents, but nobody seems to notice his inconsistencies except Toru. The relationship between Toru and Noboru can be compared to that of good versus evil.[3] ("Noboru Wataya" is also the name Toru and Kumiko gave to their pet cat, whom Toru later renames Mackerel; the character name also appeared in "The Elephant Vanishes" and "Family Affair", both translated by Jay Rubin, in The Elephant Vanishes collection.)
- May Kasahara: May is a teenage girl who should be in school, but, by choice, is not. Toru and May carry on a fairly constant exchange throughout a good deal of the novel; when May is not present, she writes letters to him. Their conversations in person are often bizarre and revolve around death and the deterioration of human life. Even more bizarre is the cheerful and decidedly non-serious air with which these conversations take place.
- Lieutenant Mamiya: Lieutenant Tokutaro Mamiya was an officer in the Kwantung Army during the Japanese occupation of Manchukuo. He meets Toru while carrying out the particulars of Mr. Honda's will. (Honda had been a Corporal, therefore Mamiya had been his superior.) He has been emotionally scarred by witnessing the flaying of a superior officer and several nights spent in a dried-up well. He tells Toru his story both in person and in letters.
- Malta Kano: Malta Kano is a medium of sorts who changed her name to "Malta" after performing some kind of "austerities" on the island of Malta. She is enlisted by Kumiko to help the Okadas find their missing cat.
- Creta Kano: Malta's younger sister and apprentice of sorts, she describes herself as a "prostitute of the mind." Her real given name is Setsuko. She had been an actual prostitute during her college years but quit after a session with a young Noboru Wataya, who effectively raped her with a foreign object. Disturbingly for Toru, Creta's body bears a near-identical resemblance to Kumiko's from the neck down.
- Nutmeg Akasaka: Nutmeg first meets Toru as he sits on a bench watching people's faces every day in Shinjuku. The second time they meet she is attracted to the blue-black mark on his right cheek. She and Toru share a few strange coincidences: the wind-up bird in Toru's yard and the blue-black cheek mark appear in Nutmeg's World War II-related stories, and also Nutmeg's father and Lieutenant Mamiya (an acquaintance of Toru's) are linked by their experiences with violence and death in Manchukuo and the rise and dissolution of the Kwantung Army during World War II. "Nutmeg Akasaka" is a pseudonym she chose for herself after insisting to Toru that her "real" name is irrelevant.
- Cinnamon Akasaka: Cinnamon is Nutmeg's adult son who has not spoken since the age of 6, owing to some events involving the cry of a wind-up bird and shock of finding a live heart buried under their garden tree. He communicates through a system of hand movements and mouthed words. Somehow, people who've just met him (who presumably have never lipread or used sign language) find him perfectly comprehensible. "Cinnamon," too, is a pseudonym created by Nutmeg. He is described as a perfect reflection of his well groomed mother.
- The Cat: Named Noboru Wataya after Kumiko's older brother, the cat symbolizes marital happiness between Kumiko and Toru. The cat leaving signifies the leaving of happiness in Kumiko and Toru's marriage. Once the cat leaves, Kumiko and Toru suffer many difficulties but when the cat returns, though a little changed and renamed Mackerel, it signifies that Toru is now ready to communicate with Kumiko and save her from the trap she has been placed in by her brother.[3]
