Kurapika has medium blond hair with brown eyes; blue in the 1999 series. In his first appearance in the series, he wears a blue tabard decorated with an orange-colored hem and a white full-body training suit underneath. He changes his tabard and training suit for the duration of the Yorknew City arc. His shoes are periwinkle Chinese style flats.
Kurapika also wears a single, drop earring ornamented with a ruby in his left ear. After learning Nen, he starts using black contact lenses in order to hide his Scarlet Eyes.
Kurapika is a level-headed and intelligent individual, possessing vast knowledge. He is reticent; not one to open up to people easily and quite judgmental. His distance from others initially keeps him level-headed and moralistic, but his heart has been poisoned with sadness and hatred. Having been traumatized from losing everyone he loved at the age of twelve, Kurapika closes his heart to new people and remains introverted as to stay focused on his goal. Though Kurapika outwardly states that he desires to become a Blacklist Hunter and his ultimate goal is to capture the band of thieves that massacred his family, his fury allows him to compromise his personal morality and delve into the squalid side of society.
After becoming a professional Hunter, Kurapika starts upon a self-destructive path. His anger leads him to commit villainous acts of wrath as catharsis for his pain. Kurapika's reserved demeanor makes him very ruthless and unreasonable, but his friends are the only ones able to slightly settle his seething enough for him to think rationally. Even so, he considers his friendships to be a weakness hindering him from succeeding in his aims.
Kurapika is a member of the Kurta Clan. As a child, Kurapika almost fell from a cliff if not for the interference of his best friend, Pairo. While he was unharmed, his friend Pairo had harmed both his legs and both of his eyes and their condition gets worse everyday. This incident deeply affects Kurapika with feelings of guilt. Considering this as his own fault, he decided to solve it by going to the outside world and bringing back the best doctor to cure Pairo. Kurapika thus approached the Kurta Clan's elder to request to go to the outside world but he was constantly refused and argued with the elder, seeing the Kurta Clan's fear of the outside world as unreasonable and backward. After the argument, he talked to Pairo and they had a conversation about the "mysterious" world which give Kurapika some clues and facts.
At some point, Kurapika and Pairo saved a female outsider called Sheila, and as thanks she gives them a book about the adventures of a professional Hunter in the outside world which they read together and kept preciously. After the outsider girl left, Kurapika realized that the Kurta Clan's elder had stolen it and confronted him about it. Having an argument again, the clan elder finally allowed Kurapika to take the test to go to the outside world. Studying hard and passing all the tests successfully, the elder gave him his last test: to go shopping in the outside world with a partner without revealing their Scarlet Eyes. Kurapika chose Pairo as his partner, much to everyone's shock. After departing for the outside world for the last test, Pairo eventually fell asleep during the journey to the town and Kurapika decided within himself that he will pass the test to go to the outside world and find a doctor that can cure Pairo and after that, they will explore the outside world together.
Kurapika passes the final test with some difficulty, but has been granted unrestricted permission to go to the outside world as promised by the clan elder. Before leaving, Kurapika promises Pairo that he will return with a doctor and that they will one day go to the outside world together. He also promised Pairo that he will have fun and enjoy himself while outside, having adventures just like the Hunter they read about from Sheila's book. 6 weeks later, while Kurapika was away, the Kurta Clan was approached by the Phantom Troupe for their valuable eyes and massacred. The news reported the death of all 128 members of the Kurta Clan and of scores of dead bodies with eyes gouged out in their wake. As the last surviving member of his clan, Kurapika vows to gain back all the stolen eyes of his people and to arrest all of the members of the Troupe.