Nona

Nona (ノーナ Nōna) is the manager of the Arbiter system, as well as the bartender of Nona Ginta located on the nineteenth floor. She is the boss of Decim, Ginti, Clavis, and all the other arbiters.

Appearance
Nona appears in the form of a petite woman with pale skin. She ties her aqua blue hair in a braid and locks it with a sky blue ornament. She has small eyebrows, medium sized yellow circular dangling earrings, and she paints her nails the same color of her hair. Her eyes are bright purple, and don the traditional arbiter cross in her irises.

She wears a white buttoned top with puffy sleeves and black suspenders attached to her black high-waist harem pants. Additionally, she has a red ribbon on her collar where her pin is attached to. Nona also sports violet sandals on her feet.

Personality
Nona has a rather overall serious demeanor and disciplines her employees. She administers rulings for who is responsible for each floor under her and corrects any mistakes that they make. Despite her young appearance, she is a calculating person and is an experienced and knowledgeable arbiter.

Plot
She is first seen briefly at the end of Episode 1, complimenting Decim on his good judgement. She asks the Black-Haired Woman what she thought of it, and when she replies she thought it was horrible, Nona assured her that she would get used to it.

As Episode 2 recounts the events of Episode 1 from the perspective of Nona and the Black-Haired Woman, Nona's character is further elaborated upon. Nona is the first person the Black-Haired Woman sees when she awakens, and asks her if she remembers her name. When she replies that she doesn't, Nona explains that she doesn't have a name yet. Shortly afterwards, Nona leads the Black-Haired Woman out of Nona Ginta and onto a shuttle to Quindecim. After departing from the shuttle, she calls for the elevator and chastises Clavis for being late. Upon their arrival at the bar, Nona introduces the Black-Haired Woman to Decim and then asks Quin via telepathy to send Decim's guests' memories to him. Leading the Black-Haired woman to a separate room to observe his judgement, Nona vaguely explains the purpose of arbiters and how they function to the Black-Haired Woman, including showing her Decim's dummy displays. After Decim's judgement, the two reunite with him to compliment him on it. The Black-Haired Woman, however, points out that she believes Decim made a mistake in his judgement much to Nona's shock. After she describes that Machiko was likely vilifying herself to have Takashi sent to reincarnation, Nona grabs Decim and scolds him for making this mistake, and that he should not discount the various actions and random ways humans express themselves when judging them. Nona appears again in Episode 5 playing a game of Solar System 9-Ball with Oculus. Nona is shown to be an exceptional player, and Oculus complains to her that he hasn't even won a single time. Nona's occupation as manager is also revealed in this scene, and by the end makes a poor shot to take it easy on him. Later on in the episode, Nona appears suddenly taking down Ginti in the middle of his fight with Decim, preventing the bar from being destroyed. Decim is surprised to see her and asks her why she was here. Nona is disappointed and reveals that she, Quin, and Ginti collaborated Quin's Memory Test, which is why Ginti was disguised as a young boy. Nona again scolds Decim and patiently explains that there is no such thing as a human without memories, and that he allowed himself to have his attention diverted. She leaves Clavis, Ginti, and Decim to tend to the mess. Afterwards, Nona visits Castra and talks to her Decim failing the test, and asks her about the human death rate. She isn't surprised to discover that they're dying far too quickly. In Episode 7, Nona is visited at the beginning by Quin at Nona Ginta to have a drink with her. She is later revealed in a flashback to have introduced Quin to Decim and Ginti. In the same flashback, she tests both of the new arbiters to use their judgement devices during Quin's final judgement as arbiter. After the judgement, she inquires Decim as to why he didn't use his judgement device and is surprised to learn he forgot to use it. She is even more shocked to learn that Decim respects humans who have lived their lives to the fullest. She tells Decim that every arbiter is different, and that there are many ways to judge, and silences Ginti for criticizing his views. Forwarding back to the present, Nona is shown listening to Quin's complaints about how busy it is in the information bureau, although she has other things on her mind. When Quin asks her how things with Decim are going, she assures her that it will be okay, and that she'll make sure Oculus doesn't find out about his implanted emotions. Quin also asks her why she spends so much time focusing on his actions, and she responds by telling her that she believes it's unfair that arbiters are made to look exactly like humans, know nothing about death or dying, and be the ones judging them. She explains that she's also curious to find out how an arbiter with human emotions would make human judgements. She and Quin then relax and fall asleep. Later, she's awoken by Oculus, who beseeches her to come play billiards with him again. She insults Oculus and gets after him for entering without asking. Oculus then accuses her of hiding something from it, and she defends herself from his intrusion. It is revealed then that Nona was in possession of a copy of the book ''Chavvot. ''Once Oculus leaves, Nona goes to Castra and asks her to send two guests who were murderers, as she anticipated that she was running out of time before Oculus found out about her experiment with Decim. In Episode 8, Nona appears briefly, explaining to Decim over the phone that he will have to somehow judge the two murderers that would appear at his bar shortly on his own.

Nona appears again in Episode 10, first in a flashback where Decim is first created. She is credited for explaining his task to him and originally initiating his career as arbiter. Later, Nona is seen recounting the Four Rules of Arbiters, and then being visited unexpectedly by Decim. Nona listens to Decim when he explains to her that he believes the way that arbiters currently judge is wrong, and then proceeds to ask him how he will judge the Black-Haired Woman. Nona pressures him and lets him know that his assistant's term is coming to an end, and asks him if he will create an extreme condition for her. She then tells him that a special guest will shortly at Quindecim, and that Decim must judge her, and reminds him that he is still an arbiter. Later, Nona asks Quin for all of the Black-Haired Woman's memories and gives her a bottle of whiskey for her trouble.

In Episode 11, it is revealed in a flashback that Nona assigned Chiyuki as Decim's assistant to teach him about humanity. Nona is confronted by Oculus in Episode 12, who has now discovered that she implanted human emotions in Decim. She swiftly dodges an attack by his beard when he tries to see into her memories. She firmly tells Oculus that she believes arbiters can work with human emotions, and that they are not just mere dummies. After they have an argument by his billiards table, Nona leaves and invites Castra and Quin to Nona Ginta to discuss the matter over lunch.

The series ends with Nona's voice narrating the Four Rules of Arbiters. Her fate and the fate of her plans are unknown.

Decim
Without being aware of it, Nona chose Decim as an experiment to develop humans emotions through his relationship with a human, Chiyuki. While Decim usually manages to impress Nona with his skills, he still makes lots of mistakes, which Nona is irritated to constantly correct. She is rather disappointed when he misjudges his guests, and especially when he fails Quin's Memory Test. Decim is very polite to Nona and has much respect for her, and apologizes every single time for his mistakes. In addition, Nona seems to respect Decim enough to give him an assistant, the Black-Haired Woman. Secretly, Nona wants to use the relationship between the Black-Haired Woman and Decim to prove to Oculus that arbiters can work in tandem with the living.

Oculus
She seems to initially have an easy-going, nonchalant relationship with Oculus. They are frequently seen playing billiards together. According to Nona, Oculus still haven't won against her in billiards for years, despite him being second in line to the position of God. It becomes apparent in later episodes that the two may have a more tense relationship than previously shown. Nona is critical of Oculus' opinions of arbiters, especially on how they should do their job and the purpose arbiters serve. She believes that there are multiple ways of judging, and that arbiters should be able to work in tandem with the living and does not waver even when Oculus states that her views will change. By the end of the series Nona seems dedicated to proving him wrong and bringing around a new system of judging the dead.

Quin
Quin and Nona are on very close terms, and appear to be good friends. Often, Nona will have Quin over at Nona Ginta after work for a drink. While she is sometimes annoyed by her loud and chatty nature, she enjoys her company quite a bit and even trusts her enough to tell her about Decim's implanted human emotions. Quin, in turn is glad to do her a few favours and occasionally counsel her.

Ginti
Nona exercises discipline towards Ginti, calling him a "moron" for trying to fight Decim. She does not hesitate to take him down when he attacks, and cuts him off when he tries to speak. She does not tolerate any of his antics, and often chastises him.

Clavis
Clavis is one of Nona's most trustworthy confidants, as well as her loyal valet. Nona often scolds Clavis for being late to the elevator, yet the two are able to speak to each other casually and understand one another. She even confides in Clavis about Decim being an experiment, which Oculus is completely unaware of.

Abilities
Super-Strength: Nona adapts unnatural, immense strength and becomes capable of knocking down anyone she must. She uses this ability against Ginti to interrupt his fight with Decim in Episode 5, as well as to silence him at several points during the series. Ginti usually ends up in agonizing pain from her hits to the point of being unable to move.

Quotes

 * "If I let myself feel satisfied and start slacking off, even once, it's all downhill from there."
 * "With Decim, it's all drinks and seriousness. Aside from that, he has no other saving graces."
 * "Do you know what the most primitive emotion people have is? It's fear."
 * "The thing is, I believe it is good for there to be more than one method of judging people. But... so many people die each day, and we have to figure out how to judge them all somehow. This is it. We work on autopilot. Mechanically, no questions asked. Then afterwards, what happens? We forget everything about the people we've judged. Because if we didn't, we couldn't continue on being arbiters. We are not human, we are dummies. We never live, and we never die. And yet we're built to look exactly like those we judge. Doesn't it seem strange of kind of unfair? We don't even know the first thing about death or dying, yet we're the ones that judge the dead. Besides all that, I'm curious. I'd like to see an arbiter that has human emotions making human judgements."
 * "We are capable of change."

Trivia

 * Nona has been working as a manager for 82 years.
 * She seems to have considerable fighting skill, as she is capable of easily knocking out Ginti, or dodging Oculus's flower.
 * Despite being an arbiter, she never appears to have dead guests visit her in the series.
 * Her name nonaginta is Latin for "ninety", referring to the floor she works on (90th).
 * In the intro to the show, Nona appears in a red dress, which is never seen in the actual episodes.
 * The drama CD seem to imply that Nona have feelings for Clavis.