Akemi Tokunobu

Akemi deeply resents her lack of what she perceives as "good choices", given the very limited options for women and the way they are often treated as commerce. However, despite her impatience and occasional impulsiveness (which leads to her easily being exposed and caught by Mizu when she tries to assassinate her), she has a shrewd, calculating mind and has proven herself highly skilled with persuasion, diplomacy, acting, and manipulation. Her beloved tutor Seki, the one man she doesn't see as a 'tyrant,' provides her with the tools needed to survive and prosper in courtly politics through her education, while sheltering her from what he considers unsafe options for her.

As she sees more of the world and how she has much better options than most women, despite her legitimate complaints, she reluctantly adjusts her worldview and hardens her heart. After Seki, despite his pragmatism, tells her with his dying breath to do only what she chooses, she acknowledges that she doesn't merely want to be "happy", but "great" through an active role in the shogunate's court- resulting in her deciding to stay in her marriage to the new shogun's brother, and place her wounded father under her obligation by hiding his past treachery.

She excelled at many of the fine arts and courtly practices, including tea ceremony, Renku poetry, flower arrangement, painting, dancing, and go. Despite never having been trained in combat and claiming she isn't brave, she has proven to be so on many occasions, especially when she intervenes to save Ringo's life by stabbing his attacker to death.

Though she has genuine affection for Taigen, her journey throughout the first season acquainting herself with the rest of the world- and how she can operate most effectively in it- causes her to put those feelings aside, in favor of her ambitions to shape Japan for the better through her newfound political influence and marriage.