Gioacchino Soldati

Gioacchino Soldati is the mediator of Ikebukuro and a restauranteur.

Appearance
Gioacchino is a brunet man whose face bears three large parallel scars that diagonally stretch from the upper right to lower left: the uppermost scar begins somewhere near his hairline and cuts between his eyes to end under his left eye; the middle scar cuts through his right eye—the sclera of which is dark—and across his nose to terminate in his left cheek; the lowest scar begins near his right ear, cuts through his mouth, and ends at the jut of his chin. He wears dark-framed glasses and ear gauges. His style of dress is otherwise sharp: he wears a three piece suit over a tie and striped dress shirt.

Personality
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Chronology
Gioacchino is one of several mediators who is contacted by someone who promises a 500 million yen reward for he who can kill Polka Shinoyama, though he is not the first: the first is Lisa Kuraki, who switches from trying to end Polka's life to protecting it after her subordinate tries and fails to murder him. When Shibuya's mediator Higuro disappears and a meeting is arranged to discuss his replacement, Gioacchino sees the meeting as an opportunity for not only gleaning new insights into the bounty and his competitors' interest in it but to preview the skills of Ikebukuro's mediator Katashiro, whose territory he hopes to someday claim for his own. In anticipation of the latter, Gioacchino arranges for a group of men to ambush Katashiro after the meeting's conclusion.

Andalucía, Lisa, and Katashiro—the last of whom has yet to be noticed—are already present by the time Gioacchino, his bodyguards, and his entourage arrive at the conference building, the women already busy discussing Lisa's about face regarding Polka. Gioacchino chimes in that he has also received the bounty offer as he pushes his way through a throng of onlooking henchmen and to the mediators' card table, making plain his own stance on the matter: he will support Polka either living or dying depending on which option is more profitable long-term.

Lisa claims that she dropped the Polka client because they lied about Polka being a mere high schooler; then, she warns Andalucía that she will only the once excuse her for instructing her snipers to fire on Lisa's own. One of Andalucía's men aims his gun and the word bitch at Lisa, for the latter of which Andalucía shoots him dead. Gioacchino requests that the women exclude him from any further crossfire before making a quip about everyone killing each other off by the time Higuro's potential successor arrives.

Higuro's successor, Yumeji Agakura arrives on cue and joins the mediators at the card table. Gioacchino admits that he did not know the Agakura Clan was so intimately involved with Shibuya as to be able to take over as its mediator, and, when Lisa casts suspicion on the Agakuras' potential hand in Higuro's very disappearance, demands that Yumeji explain. However, whether the Agakuras 'disappeared' Higuro is less important than the known fact that the Agakuras kidnapped Lisa's man on Higuro's orders. This Lisa presses Yumeji on; although she ultimately lets the matter be, she deliberately lets slip that the Agakuras have a separate but ongoing situation with one of the Shinoyama guards. Unsure as to Lisa's meaning, but fairly sure that Lisa is hiding something like he suspected, Gioacchino privately determines to investigate Polka's relationship with Shinjuku.

The meeting concludes with Yumeji being formally acknowledged as Shibuya's new mediator. Renewed conversation between Lisa and Andalucía ensues, which Gioacchino is a passive listener to outside of two comments: one in which he seconds Katashiro's anti-antagonism stance, and a second in which he approves Lisa's quoting the sentiments of her grandfather, who founded the meetings of the mediators. When Katashiro takes his leave and walks into the preplanned ambush, Gioacchino and his bodyguards follow and witness Katashiro kill the ambushers with brutal ease. Katashiro then asks out load whether Gioacchino's restaurant is still open, prompting Gioacchino to answer that it is fully booked. While Katashiro does not appear slighted, he explicitly leaves the corpse cleanup to Gioacchino as he strolls into the night.

Gioacchino's men take stock of the corpses and Gioacchino stock of the challenge Akihabara stand to pose, apparently undeterred by his bodyguard's inability to guarantee his protection in the event the dangerous Katashiro tries to end his life. Gioacchino's attention turns back to the boy whose life people are actively trying to end—Polka—and Gioacchino takes out his smartphone so that he can reread the bounty message. If the current stalemate is to be broken, he says, it ought to be broken by his company.

Trivia

 * Phantom Solitaire's ongoing feud with Ikebukuro's magic enthusiasts has caused Gioacchino much grief as Ikebukuro's mediator.