Otoya

Mao's loyal assistant, Otoya appears to be a young boy with a quiet and mature personality for his age. He shows no signs of mischeviousness or any other childlike behaviors because in reality he is not a child at all- instead he is a shikigami, a sort of familiar who's spirit is infused into an object. In the case of Otoya his spirit was placed into a small wooden doll resembling his childlike physical appearance.

Otoya typically works as Mao's assistant and carries his bag of tools, fetching things that the doctor needs and generally being helpful. He patiently explains things to the time-displaced Nanoka and like Mao is puzzled by her modern behavior and knowledge.

Because Otoya is not a flesh and blood living thing he can suffer severe damage (such as being sliced in half) and then be repaired by Mao. Otoya is also entrusted with the important work of minding Mao's medicine jar, which is the only thing that sustains Mao when he is severely injured. When the medicine jar is destroyed it falls to Otoya to being the painstaking process of reassembling a new and and finding poisonous creatures to stuff inside.

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The Meaning Behind the Name - 乙弥

"Otoya" is a proper name and written with the kanji for "duplicate" (乙) and increasingly (弥).