Characters / Himenospia

Arachnid Character Index
Main Characters: Arachnid, Caterpillar, Blattodea
The Organization's "Bugs": Recurring, Exclusive to Arachnid, Exclusive to Caterpillar, Exclusive to Blattodea
Other Characters
Related series: Jackals, Choubu no Shinobi, Himenospia

The cast of characters from Himenospia.

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Himeno Endou

She doesn't get to be that happy for long.

A plain and horribly mistreated schoolgirl who's chosen by a red wasp to be a mutant "Queen" and ends up taking over her hometown after her classmates and mother are all killed.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: Himeno instinctively realizes what her unique ability as a queen is when Serena has her dead to rights after killing Niho and shooting Nagisa down.
• The Ageless: She learns from Serena one effect of being a wasp queen is not aging past 16. Another thing to get bothered about.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: A red wasp causes her to grow a sting out of her womb that converts other women. It is later revealed each queen has an unique skill determined by the shape of their sting, and Himeno's is domination over other queens.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: She insists to Mizu and the public the women she stung aren't brainwashed or anything, but confesses to Serena she was lucky Inspector Aya was a woman and tells Niho most of her followers amount to prisoners of war.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Himeno's brainwashing ability has the unique effect of working on other queens, but seemingly only to the extent they're prevented from killing her. Nagisa falls in love with Himeno after being stung, but still strings her along the plan to kill Serena and begrudgingly lets Niho imprison and torture her. Himeno then converts Serena but there's barely any effect as she nonchalantly refuses to give Himeno any acknowledgement and abandons her with the dying Nagisa.
• Break the Cutie: Already starts out as a Broken Bird who brainwashes her classmates out of self-defense and a wish to not be treated horribly for once, but after the school shooting and the murder of her mother she gets a lot colder and tries to embrace her role as a wasp queen. Things turn bleaker as Himeno finds herself to be no more than a pawn and she only gets a hollow victory against Serena in the end after losing all her minions as well as both Niho and Nagisa.
• Composite Character: Of a few characters from Arachnid.
  • She's mainly Alice Fujii with glasses on. A meek and gloomy girl who's kind at heart but is increasingly embittered by all the torment she ends up suffering. She has little of the power and resourcefulness Alice had, though, leading to her being wracked by the exact humiliating situations Alice avoided in her story and losing a lot of people she held dear. Himeno's surname also has the "藤" kanji on it, but read as "dou" instead of "fuji".
  • In Arachnid, Alice is outraged when a woman with a scorpion-like mechanical sting admits to being indirectly responsible for the death of her mother. In Himenospia, Himeno likewise snaps when she finds out her mother has been murdered, but the one with the deathly venomous sting is herself.
  • Alice had a glasses-wearing foil named Ai Kuramoto who was sexually abused by her own father and accused of seducing him, and manifested brainwashing abilities that drove her mad with power. The fact that in Himenospia a wasp queen's servants will turn into insane terrorists if she dies is a clear analog to the "rape zombie apocalypse" that broke out once Ai was killed.
  • The main analogue of the Organization Boss in this story is Serena, but Himeno is also turned ageless by her mutation and has a Shower of Angst scene as she thinks about her future. In Arachnid, the Boss had such a scene upon realizing her agelessness ability was wearing off.
• Damsel in Distress: Himeno is held by Niho on a secret underground prison and is subjected to some colorful kinds of torture. Mizu and Serena hijack the plot as this goes on.
• Decoy Protagonist: As the story goes on, Himeno starts sharing the spotlight with Mizu and Serena on top of turning out to be an helpless pawn of everyone. In the end, it is her co-protagonist Nagisa who takes charge as the actual instigator behind Himeno's rise to power.
• Disappeared Dad: She knows nothing about her biological father, and instead just had an unnamed "man who is not her father" who attempted to sexually abuse her.
• Failure Hero: In the final volume of Arachnid, Murata remarks that writing Alice as an all-powerful assassin second-to-none might've been a flaw in the story. Her expy Himeno can be seen as an attempt to address that, but the result is very bleak, though: Alice was a pitiful Cosmic Plaything with no positive influences in her life but you could almost always count on her to kick ass with her infinite string traps. Himeno likewise spends the whole story struggling for her freedom just to find she's been a plaything of everyone around her but is all around helpless while Niho tortures her and her minions get killed left and right. On top of Niho being killed while Himeno was hoping to reconcile with her, Serena mortally injures Nagisa, who in the end truly loved Himeno despite her manipulations. Himeno is able to turn Serena into a soldier but is left alone, chained and naked in some underground dungeon grieving over the death of her only friend. In the end she is implied to have expanded her territory and actually has Serena's support for taking over the world, but it all happens offscreen before the story abruptly ends.
• A Father to His Men: Himeno ends up with a large bunch of women unnaturally in love with her and she does sincerely want to keep them safe, but other than Nagisa they are all sitting ducks who get murdered without ever receiving any proper characterization.
• How Do I Shot Web?: She brainwashes her first few soldiers without realizing it and doesn't understand most of the rules involved, being left unaware of her unique ability as a queen until she instinctively uses it at the climax of the story.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Himeno takes drastic measures to try and have a decent life, but unfortunately turns into an international-level plaything as the story goes on.
• Misery Builds Character: While getting whipped around by Niho, Himeno reflects on how such misfortune is nothing new to her. She recalls her horrible family, classmates and school staff and thanks them for strengthening her resolve.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Sure Himeno brainwashes a lot of people and throws Tokyo out of order, but she does it under extreme circumstances and is put against power-hungry antagonists who are ruthless about harming and dehumanizing her.
• Puppet Queen: Nagisa knew Himeno would be chosen as a queen if stung by a red wasp and made it happen, manipulating everyone so the school massacre, the creation of Himenospia and Serena's arrival would follow. At first Nagisa just wanted both Himeno and Serena to die, but she did end up affected by Himeno's love-inducing sting and so ends up going through the plan while also trying to avoid getting Himeno killed. The trope is averted in the end of the story when Serena becomes allied with Himeno and plans to teach her how to become a Queen of the World with no strings attached.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Downplayed; after being made a pawn by everyone, Himeno defeats Serena by turning her into a soldier but Niho, Nagisa and all her no-name mooks get killed in the incident. On the upside, Himeno survives and gets to enjoy some peace as Serena not only stops attacking Himenospia but also decides to let it expand over the whole world.
• Rape as Backstory: Years before the start of the series, Himeno's stepfather forced her to undress before him, and when she ran to her mother for help she got hit in the face with a hot iron instead. She bitterly remembers this more than once in the story when people threaten her with humiliation and rape.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After the school shooting, Himeno figures a way to get as many family members of key governmental figures as possible brainwashed before she turns herself to the police to try to retrieve her mother. Once there, she finds Jirou actually had her mother assassinated and is forced into a quick-draw match against him. Himeno snaps, brutally stings Jirou to death and successfully takes over her hometown.
• Scars Are Forever: Has half of her face scarred from her mother hitting her with a hot iron, and decides to not remove it once she establishes Himenospia. After being tortured by Niho, she also ends up Covered with Scars.
• Shadow Dictator: Averted, as Himeno makes the existence of the wasp mutants public and deliberately limits her power to her hometown even if she's turned it into something of an Egopolis. This makes her very vulnerable to Serena, who has over a century of experience as a shadow ruler and already had her soldiers infiltrated in Japan for a long time.
• Shameful Strip:
  • How we first see her, crawling around naked while her ridiculously abusive classmates stream it on Youtube. Then there's how Niho holds her prisoner inside an underground jail. Notably, both scenes are exact throwbacks to things two villainesses from Arachnid hoped but failed to do unto Alice.
  • Serena walks right into Himenospia telling Himeno to undress before her and Himeno complies, with a rather disturbingly serene reaction as she remembers what her step-father once did, to buy time for Nagisa to find Serena's sniper soldiers.
• Ship Tease:
  • Nagisa is pretty much Himeno's girlfriend throughout the story. Unfortunately, they only confess to each other when Nagisa is about to die.
  • Serena has a love-hate relationship with Himeno and steals a kiss from her while also desiring to just dispose of her.
  • One extra comic released after the end of the series has Mizu complaining that Himeno should stop pretending being humble and wear a princess-like dress already. Himeno replies she should wear that only on special occasions, so if she wears it just for Mizu to see then it's ok.
    Mizu: (This style of smooth-talking... kinda... seems more and more like hers, huh?)
• Spanner in the Works: Nagisa wanted Himenospia destroyed with both Himeno and Serena dead, but didn't expect to be affected by her sting upon posing as a mere soldier. As a result, Nagisa starts loving Himeno and tries to bait and ambush Serena without getting Himeno killed even if she must expose herself. And then Himeno manages to sting Serena as well.
• Unwitting Pawn: Poor Himeno tries to protect her "hive" but is far too outclassed, to the extent The Reveal paints her as a mere Puppet Queen.
  • Serena went to Japan like she owned the place because she was in fact halfway there and wanted to use Himeno as a stepping stone to gain complete control over the country and then kill her.
  • Himeno sure is surprised that Oonuki, the policeman that got run over by a car while trying to capture her after the school shooting, was actually assisting the goverment and Niho to capture her.
  • Fujimoto and Niho also turn out to be very untrustworthy and are right under Himeno's nose with her none the wiser.
  • As Himeno is accused by Serena of creating Himenospia as some kind of trap, she recalls it was Nagisa who suggested it in the first place. Everything that happened to Himeno since she entered high school was a part of Nagisa's design.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Nagisa talks her into building a "paradise", which comes to happen after that one incident. However, Himeno keeps it to her hometown and has plans to wage war against any enemies who might come for her.
• You Killed My Father: She spears Jirou with extreme prejudice for his murder of her mother and her classmates. Furthermore, Himeno is very disturbed to learn Nagisa is the Sovereign because it means she plotted things to such an extent that the blame for everything could lie at her feet.

Nagisa Hattori

"Let's make it! Himeno's... perfect paradise."

"I... really do... like you, Himeno. I never knew... that being liked by thousands or even tens of thousands of people... doesn't even come close... to loving someone yourself."

A bully who was obsessed with tormenting Himeno until becoming her first soldier.

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• Composite Character: She starts out as a horrible bully to Himeno like Yoriko was to Alice in Arachnid, but forcing the girl to crawl naked around the school was something Megumi had threatened Alice with. After Nagisa is converted, she also acts all lovey-dovey with Himeno like Megumi did to Alice once defeated but... still remains a Yoriko in certain ways...
• Dynamic Entry: Saves Himeno by hitting Oonuki with a flying knee to the face and hugs her queen in relief. Notable because it mirrors a rescue scene featured in both Arachnid and Blattodea, adding to Nagisa's status as a honorary roach.
• Heel Realization: Nagisa realizes she only changed from Himeno stinging her, but argues it truly made her a better person and that Himeno shouldn't feel guilt over it.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Nagisa is Himeno's right hand and has much better people skills than her, being able to manage her fellow soldiers as if she was a queen in her own right.
• Instant Expert: She instinctively knows how Himeno's and her own powers work...
• Pose of Supplication: After falling in love, Nagisa figures Himeno won't easily forgive all the harassment and considers performing naked dogeza before her and licking her shoes.
• Take Over the World: She encourages Himeno to gain more comrades and establish a paradise...
• Teens Are Monsters: She along with the rest of her class humiliated Himeno to extreme lengths and nobody in the school's staff did anything about it.

Mizu Adachi

An unpleasant girl who is "allergic to kindness" and enrolls at Himenospia to find out just who is this person who got her bitchy mother Rushia brainwashed.

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• Allergic to Love: Mizu is so used to dealing with her mother treating her like trash that she developed an aversion to kindness and will vomit if anyone is nice to her.
• Berserk Button: Kindness might sicken her, but a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing attitude gets her outright murderous.
• Deuteragonist: She's introduced as a second protagonist who clashes with Himeno, and especially gains prominence after Himeno is captured.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Mizu takes no shit from either Himeno or Serena, even to the point of trying to kill Himeno in plain sight or telling Serena to fuck off in front of her soldiers. Both Himeno and Serena actually respect her for it, though, and Mizu begrudingly ends the story as the vice-president of Himenospia while Himeno is away.
• Enemy Mine: She decides to mediate between Nagisa and Serena to get revenge on Niho and the cops for using her as a scapegoat for Atsuko's murder.
• Expy: Out of the four main characters, Mizu stands out for not being based on anyone from the author's past works in either appearance or behavior. Her thing with living off negative emotions seems like a Recurring Element, though, as Megumi Oki in Arachnid and Moe Hanzaki in Killing Bites show a similar sentiment despite having very different motivations.
• Eyepatch of Power: After Mizu is beaten up by Himeno's group for supposedly betraying them, she has an eyepatch over her right eye when she's convincing Serena to help Nagisa rescue Himeno from Niho.
• Meaningful Name: Rushia casually tells Mizu her name is short for "mizuko" (水子, "water child"), meaning a stillborn baby, because she conceived her on a whim.
• Misery Builds Character: She boasts having a strong will due to enduring her mother's absurd contempt for her.
• Only Sane Man: She's a creepy and aggressive loner who thinks of herself as this trope, given how much flawed or evil everyone else in the story is.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Mizu gets so disgusted with how arrogant a ruler Himeno is that she tries to stab her to death right in front of everyone else.
• Token Evil Teammate: Himeno never converts Mizu despite the girl trying to kill her out of sheer disgust. She didn't want to abuse her power that much and felt Mizu can be useful in her own way. This pays off once Himeno is captured and her soldiers get too distressed to plan to save her — despite Himeno having her beaten up for supposedly killing Atsuko, Mizu prefers siding with the wasps to get back at Niho and the police for staging the whole situation.
• Unwitting Pawn: She talks Serena into attacking the Japanese military to kill Niho and save Himeno, but feels like the all-powerful Serena was just humoring her and doesn't realize that Nagisa is also a Queen who is conspiring against Serena by using her and Himeno as pawns. Mizu then gets blown up with the Prime Minister in front of the prison Himeno is being held at. She survives, but is very annoyed about everything.
• You Killed My Father: Played with. Mizu starts out despising Himeno for apparently brainwashing her mother into becoming a good person. She then finds Rushia has just been expressing her feelings more openly and remains as screwed up as ever, so she stops antagonizing Himeno over it.

Himeno's soldiers

• Abusive Parents:
  • Tomoyo started treating Himeno terribly at some point, to the point she beat and scarred the girl for nearly getting raped by her step-father.
  • Rushia conceived Mizu on a whim and named her after a term for abortion before treating her with a comical level of disdain through her whole childhood.
• Berserk Button: Threatening Himeno in any way makes them draw their stings in response.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: They're forcibly lovestruck with Himeno and will go insane if she ends up dead. Himeno doesn't enjoy converting women unless it really benefits her, and tries to leave them to their own devices.
• Friend on the Force: Aya Murakami is a police inspector whom Himeno sure is glad to have been able to brainwash.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Nagisa, Tomoyo and Tokisaka treated Himeno horribly and were all converted by her out of self-defense.
• The Mole: Some of Himeno's previously neutral classmates have been infected by Serena without her realizing it. Others are actually loyal to Nagisa, but are asked to take care of Himeno all the same.
• Mooks: Most of them are mere schoolgirls who receive no real characterization before being killed like sitting ducks.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Tokisaka is the first to suggest Himeno to convert all their classmates and the first to die in the following massacre. Her corpse is used to host Jirou's brain and it unexpectedly prevents him from killing Himeno.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Tokisaka greets Jirou at the school's gate and tells him off, sure that the police wouldn't turn the incident into a school shooting. They immediately kill her, butcher the rest of the student body and pin the blame on Himeno.
  • After Himeno is captured, one of the student council members starts worrying that they'll go insane if Himeno is killed. Just as another tries to calm the group down and tells them to look foward to meeting Himeno again, they're all shot dead.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Tokisaka, Atsuko and all the other ones barely do anything before being killed.

Serena Cervantes

A girl born in 1850s New York who became a wasp queen and steadily took control over the United States, finding and killing all other chosen girls who could pose a threat to her.

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• The Ageless: Like how actual wasp queens live much longer than their workers, Serena isn't outright immortal but won't age past 16.
• Animal Motifs: Serena is mainly a wasp-girl, but it is with her that the army ant motifs from Arachnid rear their head. She even references termites at one point, which are Blattodea instead of Hymenoptera, in what might have been Production Foreshadowing for her appearance in the manga Blattodea.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Serena becomes a "soldier" unable to kill Himeno but otherwise doesn't feel brainwashed to follow her orders and succeeds in killing both Niho and Nagisa while only losing a few insignificant minions of her own. She even leaves Himeno all alone and humiliated in the underground prison as a display of her rebellious spirit. Himeno ends up cooperating with her anyway so they can take over the world and prevent an alien invasion together, so even though Serena admitted "defeat", she practically got away with everything.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Serena's sting is bifurcated and allows her to instantly issue orders to any woman she converts. This is seen early on, way before it is established each queen has an unique ability.
• Big Bad: She's the main antagonist who plans to kill Himeno and whom the "Sovereign" is really after.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: After some initial conflict, Serena acts like she can join forces with Himeno and like she even admires how Himeno's been dealing with being a queen. However, she is actually plotting to kill Himeno as she did to all other would-be-queens to mantain her status.
• Composite Character:
  • Serena's looks and name are lifted from Majo ni Ataeru Tettsui, where she was a morally-ambiguous Pope who looked like an expy of Sailor Moon. This is because she's based on how Murata portrayed Sailor Moon's Queen Serenity in a series of fancomics that predate his published works.
  • She gained wasp-like brainwashing abilities as a child that made her ageless and used them to control the United States from the shadows for over a century, much like the Boss from Arachnid controlled wasp-like people with mind control to rule over Japan. Her mention of being glad to God for her ability is also reminiscent of how Dinoponera felt over her own hardships, and so is how Serena maliciously steals a kiss from Himeno (in fact, a "Take That!" Kiss like that also happens in Killing Bites).
  • Like the Army Ant Queen from Arachnid she has an army of Media super soldiers based on army ants, except hers are numerous, actually competent and armed to the teeth.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She once was an abandoned homeless child who had to sell her body just to survive, though in present time she's pretty nonchalant about all that.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Downplayed; while stinging Serena might have left her mentally unable to bring much harm to Himeno, she doesn't get such a love epiphany like Nagisa did and refuses to follow her orders, coldly leaving her alone with the dying Nagisa to escape from the underground prison on her own. Back in the United States with her confidants, though, Serena reasons getting Himeno to Take Over the World will bring about world peace.
• Easily Forgiven: In the end, Himeno has to cooperate with Serena to deal with a possible alien invasion and doesn't seem to hold a grudge over Nagisa's death. In fact, a brief bonus chapter implies they have become so close that Serena's personality is rubbing off on Himeno.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She only shows concern for Joyce and Marjorie and notably doesn't take them along with her for the final confrontation with Himeno and Nagisa where a lot of her minions get killed. Afterwards, whether because of being stung by Himeno or not, Serena openly thanks the two for looking out for her.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Started out as an impoverished homeless girl and ended up as the Shadow Dictator of America.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Subverted; Serena remarks getting turned into a soldier only prevents her from harming Himeno and that her personality, infatuation and hate for Himeno remain the same. She refuses to do anything about Himeno's hopeless situation and leaves, saying that if she must serve Himeno she'll do so on her own whims.
• Invincible Villain: She has Himeno on the palm of her hand and casually takes over Japan, capturing the Prime Minister and interrogating him about who his real leader is. And if she's been spreading her influence everywhere for over 100 years, then killing her is out of the question, as it'd cause a potential worldwide apocalypse of rape zom— er, berserker terrorists. Even when Himeno manages to sting Serena it barely does anything. She merely expresses amusement at what it feels like to be a soldier and gracefully acknowledges her "defeat" before leaving Himeno still shackled and helpless with the dying Nagisa.
• Kneel Before Zod: The in-universe versions of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are forced to kneel before this smug ageless jailbait.
• Kick the Dog: She mortally wounds Nagisa so she'd die slowly and painfully before trying to quickly execute Himeno, who manages to sting her in return. Despite this, the converted Serena is as bitchy as ever as she coldly states nothing can be done for Nagisa and then leaves Himeno all alone.
• Misery Builds Character: She says that overcoming hardships fostered the will to live on herself, Himeno and Mizu, and argues Himeno is foolish to still favor non violent solutions to her problems despite that.
• The Mole: It's an open secret that Serena is up to no good when she enrolls in Himenospia and she does want Himeno dead, but her main goal there is to observe the situation closely and defeat both Japan's goverment and a mysterious party who wants to control or outright end the wasp queens.
• Pet the Dog: At the end of the story, Serena hugs both Joyce and Marjorie and thanks the two for taking care of her.
• Reused Character Design: First appears in Majo ni Ataeru Tettsui, then in Himenospia and then in Blattodea. She's seemingly unchanged from Himenospia to the Arachnid continuity.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When confronting Himeno at the underground prison, Serena concludes the establishment of Himenospia was a trap long in the making for her and that Himeno is the one responsible. The actual mastermind is Nagisa, the one who encouraged Himeno to become a Queen in the first place.
• Shadow Dictator: Serena amassed a ton of power and resources in the United States over the decades, and is inferred to have her henchwomen spread over the world to take over nations and kill other potential queens. In the end, after coming up with a plan to Take Over the World, Serena still prefers to work behind the scenes while presenting Himeno as the one Queen of the World.
• Slasher Smile: While already mean and smug at all times, the one time Serena loses her composure is when she sports one freaky grin in response to Niho and Oonuki defying her to help Himeno.
• There Can Be Only One: She's said to have killed multiple rival queens since she became one, and wants to dispose of Himeno once she's no longer useful despite having a certain fondness for her. This changes once she's sort of converted and then decides to let Himeno act as her co-queen frontwoman.
• Tritagonist: Serena becomes something of a Villain Protagonist as Nagisa and Mizu are forced to rely on her to save Himeno and fight against the Japanese goverment.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Serena first wanted to use her power to make "a world where children do not die". Evidently she's turned very dark and cynical since then, as she's downright using babies for her army.
• We Can Rule Together: During the ending, she plans to unite the world with Himeno as her partner.
• Worthy Opponent: Serena shows respect to Nagisa for concealing herself and getting Himeno to sting her. She leaves Himeno with apparent disdain, but afterwards declares Himeno does have the potential to Take Over the World for the greater good.
• Would Hurt a Child: She stings babies and has them trained into inhuman super soldiers.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As soon as she learns who is the true ruler of Himenospia, Serena immediately orders her Torturer soldiers to execute Himeno.

Serena's soldiers

• Adaptational Badass: The Media in Arachnid were quickly defeated in close combat, but the female ones in this story are shown to be a much larger threat with their gatling guns and uncanny durability.
• Animal Motifs:
  • The Media are based on army ants as a throwback to Arachnid. They are mindless and protect Serena by swarming around her.
  • The Torture Soldiers are based on Allomerus decemarticulatus ants known for ambush predation, and likewise are completely cold-blooded and casual about the torture they perform.
• Berserk Button: Threatening Serena in any way makes them murderous.
• Bodyguard Babes: Joyce and Marjorie, as well as some other unnamed characters.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Serena is far more callous than Himeno about how she converts people.
• Brawn Hilda: The Media are tall square-jawed musclewomen with cutesy hairstyles.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The role of the Torturers, who are said to derive sexual pleasure from torture, dissection and killing while also being eerily emotionless about it.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Averted; Himeno stinging Serena is assumed to grant her control of the American queen's forces but it has no effect on them, unlike how Nagisa's soldiers were shown to fawn over both Himeno and Nagisa in an omake. The Torturers only spare Himeno upon being asked by Serena, who got a mental block against killing Himeno but otherwise hasn't changed either.
• Eye Scream: The first thing Serena orders the Torturers to do on-screen is to stab Himeno's left eye, but luckily they don't get to do it.
• Faceless Mooks: The Torturers are all masked and silent.
• The Mole:
  • Since Himeno refuses to sting everyone in Himenospia, Serena takes the liberty of poking a number of unseen girls at school for her own protection. This never comes into play, though.
  • Sergeant Koreeda helps Serena take over Japan's armed forces... but is the first seen gruesomely killed by the air raid on the prison Himeno is held on.
• No Badass to His Valet: Joyce is the only soldier who's shown to be rude and voice her disapproval of her queen's recklessness, unlike all the others who are fully submissive to either Serena or Himeno.
• Token Minority: Joyce is the only black character in the story.
• Tyke Bomb: The Media are stung from birth and raised with nothing but super soldier training, turning them mindless outside of their loyalty for Serena. She outright denies they're human.

Jirou Kuroda

A police officer charged with investigating the red wasps to prevent the terrorist attacks provoked by their servants.

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• Kick the Dog: Gets several dozens of schoolgirls killed for being potentially dangerous mutants and orders the execution of Himeno's mother Tomoyo as well, which is something he gives the news of to Himeno in a most callous fashion while further dehumanizing the girl.
• The Lost Lenore: Jirou is motivated by the loss of his wife Niho and his unborn child to a terrorist attack plotted by a group of wasp-women.
• Only Mostly Dead: Himeno stings him 84 times right in the face with what's presumed to be lethal venom, but he survives and his brain is set inside a schoolgirl's corpse so then he can impersonate his late wife to fool Himeno.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: He drives Himeno mad early on by killing all her classmates and even her mother, and is brutally killed by her in revenge and self-defense while she declares her intent to take over the city. However...
• Unwitting Pawn: The whole time he was a pawn in Nagisa's plan to kill or convert Serena, and the situation ironically leads to his mind turning into that of a wasp-girl and becoming loyal to Himeno before sacrificing his life for her.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He abhors the wasp mutants and wants them all eradicated for being a threat to mankind.

Niho Kurono (Unmarked spoilers)

A member of Himenospia's student council who wants to assassinate Himeno. Not because she's serving another queen, but instead because she's Jirou brought back to life by a brain transplant.

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• Beneath Suspicion: Niho was the only girl who ever asked to get brainwashed and Himeno had no idea brain transplants are possible.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: As Niho, Jirou acts as kindly as his late wife used to be and ends up as one of Himeno's closest confidants. In reality, he really enjoys being an Ax-Crazy, Cute But Psycho girl and eventually gets Himeno captured to torture her.
• Brain Transplant: After Jirou was stung to near-death by Himeno, he opted to have his brain transplanted into Tokisaka's corpse. The technology was provided by some unknown person who promised to help him rid the world of the wasp-women.
• Cycle of Revenge: Jirou lost his family to wasp terrorism, got almost killed by Himeno for killing her mother and her friends, and then invoked Restrained Revenge on her by just torturing Himeno instead of outright killing her.
• Death by Irony: By attempting to protect Himeno as Tokisaka once did, Niho gets brutally stabbed much like her former self Jirou and in her dying moments is able to let Himeno win a quick-draw match against Serena, which is how Himeno had defeated Jirou.
• Dies Wide Open: After stabbing Niho all over her torso, the Torturer soldiers drag and toss her limp body aside all while she has an eerily peaceful smile on her face, still looking directly towards Himeno. She clicks the trigger to release Himeno's chastity belt, but it's hard to tell if she's still barely alive or dead for good but still trying to help Himeno even in that state — which would once again mirror a certain event from Arachnid.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: The attack on Serena would've failed miserably if Niho didn't disable the chastity belt she put on Himeno with her last breath to let Himeno sting and convert Serena.
• Heel–Face Turn: Due to Himeno's influence over Niho, she starts shooting Serena's Torturer soldiers down to protect her.
• Hellbent For Leather: Puts on a dominatrix costume and whips Himeno 84 times in a row to get revenge from once getting stabbed that much by her sting.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Niho and Oonuki try holding off Serena's soldiers while Himeno and Nagisa escape from the underground prison. She is next seen held as bait to ambush Himeno, horribly impaled all over her body and yet still looking happy to have been of service. With what is either the last of her strength or her corpse moving on its own, she removes the chastity belt on Himeno, allowing her to sting and brainwash Serena.
• Just Shoot Him: Whoever helped Jirou come back as Niho needs Himeno alive, so at first Niho is content to just humiliate and beat her; but once Serena defeats Japan's military and kidnaps the prime minister Niho decides to kill Himeno before leaving. Problem is, being inside a soldier's corpse does make her susceptible to Himeno's control after all, so Niho cannot shoot her or put much strength into strangling her despite desperately wanting to.
• Loss of Identity: Himeno tries to convince Niho that she's turning into a person separate from both Jirou and Tokisaka. Because of the Queen's substance effect, Niho ends up sacrificing herself for Himeno out of love.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Despite Niho repeatedly attempting to shoot Himeno dead, the "cellular memory" of Tokisaka's body won't let her do it. She starts freaking out when she unwillingly cries over trying to kill Himeno despite feeling nothing but hatred for the girl.
• The Mole: She infiltrates Himenospia by pretending to be the first and only girl who actually asked to get stung, but is actually Jirou and manages to get Himeno captured by using Mizu as a distraction.
• No-Sell: Subverted; at first her male brain can control the wasp sting while being immune to a queen's brainwashing. This lets Niho pose as one of Himeno's servants, but eventually it turns out Niho and other men can still be infected with subconscious Undying Loyalty for the queens and she is unable to kill Himeno.
• Posthumous Character: The real Niho was Too Good for This Sinful Earth and broke Jirou out of his isolation but was senselessly killed in a terrorist attack before they could marry.
• Redemption Equals Death: The circunstances are rather screwed up to say the least, but Niho turning loyal to Himeno and trying to save her from Serena spells doom for her. Further made tragic by how Himeno was looking foward to making amends with Niho before she found her stabbed to death like a pincushion...
• Showing Off the New Body: Jirou used to be a pretty serious guy, but now that he's in the body of a schoolgirl and changed her appearance to that of his innocent and demure dead wife? Starts furiously masturbating to the sight of a humiliated Himeno suffering from food poisoning and puts on a skimpy dominatrix costume to whip her around.
• Slasher Smile: There are two scenes where she's flashing a very cartoonishly evil ear-to-ear grin. One is a Traitor Shot towards Mizu and the other is when she reveals her former identity to Himeno, giving a major contrast with Jiro's original stoic personality.
• Sue Donym: Jirou figured nobody in Himeno's group cared who his wife was, and made his fake surname a pun for laughs. He makes fun of Himeno for how she was able to pull a takeover of the city the year before and still failed to realize he was right under her nose the whole time.

Oonuki Ken

A recurring police officer who's involved in the supposed operation to arrest Himeno.

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• Killed Offscreen: While we see how the Torturers brutally injured the half-dead Niho, Oonuki is just assumed to have been killed off panel.
• The Mole: Conspires to pit Himeno and Serena against each other and later helps Niho capture Himeno. Why is Himeno even surprised a guy who got run over by a car while trying to arrest her is a traitor anyway...

Yasuomi Fujimoto

A biochemist who's highly interested in the wasp mutants.

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• Adaptational Personality Change: In the Arachnid series, Jigabachi/Sand Wasp is a mad surgeon and mentor to child assassins who's allied with a sadistic nurse and does plenty of torture acts himself. Dr. Fujimoto, on the other hand, is an odd fellow who's playing all sides for his own gain and amusement but hasn't directly harmed anyone so far. He also lacks Jigabachi's "frankly" Verbal Tic.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In Arachnid, Jigabachi was just another villain who was unaware of who the Organization's Boss was. In Himenospia, Fujimoto works directly for her counterpart and is on amicable terms with Himeno, the story's analogue of Alice Fujii.
• Ascended Extra: Fujimoto is considerably more prominent than Jigabachi was in Arachnid and Caterpillar, as he is revealed to be a researcher and close advisor for Nagisa.
• Benevolent Boss: He treats Rie nicely and discloses the conspiracy to her just in case once shit hits the fan.
• Berserk Button: Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata, the large brown cicada. It's his security password and yet he hates the things, stating they refuse to learn how to turn themselves back up on flat surfaces like evolution and the threat of other species doesn't matter to them.
• Depending on the Artist: The art style gives him a more threatening appearance than Jigabachi has in the Arachnid series despite not being as evil. Might be the lack of a Forehead of Doom hairstyle.
• The Dragon: He's been working for Nagisa since his youth, and suggested her to use a decoy queen for her schemes. Interestingly, she is the one character Fujimoto is never seen talking with before The Reveal.
• Evilutionary Biologist: He believes the rule of the wasps will further human evolution and researches them for the Sovereign. As part of their plan, he lets Rie save Himeno to help her establish Himenospia.
• For Science!: Everything he does is to see how things go for the sake of scientific progress.
• Mr. Exposition: He's mostly just around to give bug trivia and explain the behavior of the wasp mutants.
• Named After Somebody Famous: He's named after Yasutaka Fujimi, the author of The Island of Giant Insects.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Fujimoto likes to sit around eating ramen as if he's nobody important but he's actually aware of far more than he lets on about the wasp mutants because he's been researching them for his "Sovereign" for decades.
• Perpetual Smiler: His default expression is a deranged smile with wide open eyes.
• Reused Character Design: Of Jigabachi from the Arachnid series, and Blattodea even confirms it by establishing Jigabachi's real name is the same. With this, he happens to be the character from Shinya Murata with the most portrayals by different illustrators — four in total.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Regularly seen eating ramen from a pot of "Cup Poodle".
• Wild Card: He's the reason Himeno is saved from the school shooting and is able to take over the city, but then he lets Mizu try to kill her without saying anything. He casually talks with Oonuki and Serena about their plans to capture or kill her. And then it turns out he's working with the Prime Minister. Subverted once he's revealed to actually be loyal to the "Sovereign", Nagisa, since he was around 23 years old.

Rie Haraguchi

The head of research at Fujimoto's institute.

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• Car Fu: Hits Oonuki with a car to keep Himeno and Nagisa from being captured right after the school shooting.
• The Hilarity of Hats: She wears a sleeping hat throughout the final few chapters, clashing with the serious mood of the ambush attempt on Serena and her lab's staff barricading themselves to keep away from the conflict.
• The Mole: Due to being infected by Himeno, she undermines the police's attempts to capture Himeno in the first part of the story. And she does that with Fujimoto's blessing, since it was all part of the "Sovereign"'s plan to begin with.
• Nerds Are Sexy: At one point she has a massive Delayed Reaction to being seen doing research in her underwear.
• Unwitting Pawn: Until chapter 38, where Fujimoto finally informs Rie about the "Sovereign"'s conspiracy to manipulate Himeno and overthrow Serena.

Ronald Trampoline and Shinzo Manabe

• Big "NO!": Ronald's last line in the story, after Serena fires him for betraying her.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Ronald makes a misogynistic speech on why the independent feminist-esque nation of Himenospia is unacceptable, though it was actually Serena who had him say all that.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Ronald is based on Donald Trump and Shinzo is based on Shinzo Abe.
• Puppet King: Ronald is a frontman to Serena and Shinzo is one for the hidden "Sovereign" who controls Japan.
• The Stoic: Shinzo hardly loses his composure when he has to prostrate naked before Serena, when she threatens to have him tortured and when his plan to get Japan bombed on purpose to kill Serena gets the car he's in blown into the air instead.
• Trumplica: Ronald is a very unflattering portrayal of former American president Donald Trump as the lapdog of an ageless femme fatale.
• You Have Failed Me: Downplayed, as Serena fires Ronald for his betrayal instead of getting him assassinated like she had done to Kennedy in the past.

The True Japanese Sovereign (Unmarked Spoilers)

The one who's scheming with the Japanese goverment to act against Himeno and Serena is simply good old "Nagisa". As a child in post-WWII Japan, she was granted wasp powers and raised her influence over the country during the next few decades, hoping to eventually kill Serena and Take Over the World.

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• Becoming the Mask: Nagisa had intended for Himeno and Serena to end up killing each other while she escaped completely unnoticed but, whether by the effects of Himeno's sting or not, she learned what it means to love another person and put herself at risk to save Himeno from the assassination plan.
• Beneath Suspicion: Nagisa is half brainwashed to serve Himeno and is in fact shown beginning to experience those emotions in the volume 1 omake, so Himeno is terribly shocked to learn that she could be plotting a scheme that got her tortured and several of their comrades killed.
• Benevolent Boss: To Fujimoto, who she entrusted with the research and capture of the red wasps even though the process took far longer than she expected. Everyone else seems expendable to her, including Himeno at first.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Nagisa thought that all wasp women have the same kind of sting, but finds that other queens have differently shaped ones. She intuits each shape represents an unique ability, and hers was from the beginning designed for her to pretend to be some other queen's soldier.
• Big Bad Friend: It really is Arachnid all over again, but at least Nagisa doesn't repeatedly try to kill Himeno or anything...
• Big Good: In a black-and-grey morality sense, as Nagisa must have a lot of Offscreen Villainy under her belt but opposes the much more villainous Serena and tries to take care of Himeno after falling in love with her.
• Complexity Addiction: Nagisa leaves Himeno in the dark about everything, even though Himeno had multiple opportunities to sting the otherwise well-guarded Serena while they were both alone. The whole plan against Serena ends up working out of dumb luck, on the nick of time, while both Niho and Nagisa herself are dying.
• Composite Character: Again, she's pretty much Yoriko Tajima from Arachnid with a few details changed, but instead of being a weird false friend she sincerely loves Himeno as much as Megumi Oki loves Alice.
  • Nagisa is an ageless Queen who forces her bullying victim Himeno to become a big shot out of sinister motives much like Yoriko did to Alice in Arachnid. Whereas Yoriko ruined Alice's family even before her birth and directly ordered the murder of her mother, Nagisa is "just" indirectly responsible for the death of Himeno's mother. Like how Yoriko bragged about faking her personality and personally tried to kill Alice despite caring for her on some level, Nagisa originally wanted Himeno to die for her scheme despite feeling some respect for her hardships.
  • Yoriko had been alive for decades before WWII and got Japan nuked on purpose so she would lose spectacularly and avoid Japan being split between the allied forces. Nagisa on the other hand was born during the bombing of Hiroshima and she doesn't seem happy about that event at all because it made her family poor and abusive. She also made her brainwashed mother kill her spouse and then hang herself, just like Yoriko did to her father.
  • Nagisa being allied with Dr. Fujimoto brings to mind how his Arachnid counterpart is friends with a blonde psycho with a mechanical sting and who was indirectly responsible for the death of Alice's mother.
  • Getting stung by Himeno affects Nagisa's personality so that she's manipulative but also actually in love with Himeno, much like how Gokiburi cherishes Alice while planning to force her way into her pants. And in the end both Yoriko and Nagisa had a Dying Declaration of Love for Alice and Himeno, respectively, except that Nagisa tried to protect Himeno just before instead of attempting to kill her.
• Death by Adaptation: In the sense that Himenospia is a take on Arachnid where Gokiburi dies at the end.
• Decapitated Army: It is not seen if Nagisa's death drove anyone in Himenospia crazy, but one omake shows her soldiers also being loyal to Himeno (unlike Serena's soldiers after she's stung) so it can be assumed they would latch on to her.
• Decomposite Character: Keeping with the Arachnid throwbacks, Serena's antagonism and the reveal of Nagisa's actual character makes Himeno a weaker Alice Fujii who's sandwiched between two sociopathic Yorikos.
• Deuteragonist: As a major character and the actual instigator of the series' events, Nagisa was secretly the actual protagonist from the beginning. The author even said as much when asked about why the final volume cover is hers rather than Himeno's.
• Dying Declaration of Love: After being mortally wounded by Serena, Nagisa confesses to Himeno their relationship wasn't a lie and that she truly learned the importance of love during their time together. Himeno is so shocked and distraught that it's left unclear if she got her end of the confession out in time before Nagisa passed away.
• Foreshadowing: The story actually calls back to every instance of Nagisa being suspiciously convenient to Himeno, but in hindsight the foreshadowing was very blatant — when Nagisa dramatically suggests the creation of Himenospia to Himeno, it is specifically the image of a wasp queen that appears behind her... even though her sting is plain-shaped and she was unaware of Himeno's and Serena's different-looking ones.
• Instant Expert: The moment she got stung by a red wasp, Nagisa just knew what her newfound powers are for and reasoned that the USA is ruled by a hostile queen whom she must fight against. She believes following her instincts will lead her to victory — playing The Mole for another queen simply felt like the perfect plan to her, and it is only after deceiving Himeno that she realizes that's the specific skill assigned by the red wasps to her to begin with.
• Lady in a Power Suit: She's shown wearing a business suit while discussing her plans with Fujimoto, painting her as a powerful and elegant gal. Although it is kind of silly to see her drawing her sting out of her pants to intimidate Fujimoto...
• Manipulative Bitch: Nagisa hand-picked Himeno from the very beginning to become a decoy queen in order to bait Serena and then get the two of them killed — and even the influence of Himeno's sting doesn't get her to be honest about what's going on. Furthermore, she keeps Mizu around and manipulates her to eventually become Himeno's vice-president in her place.
  "I'll take care of all the annoying stuff, so... all you need to do... is stay with us, Himeno."
• The Mole: At some point, Fujimoto told Nagisa the safest way to hunt the enemy American queen is to create a Puppet Queen and pretend to be her soldier. A few decades later they captured a red wasp they could use and Nagisa decided on Himeno to be her pawn for the plan. She then explains she'll get Himeno to build a big nation to lure Serena in and then get rid of them both and the nation.
• The Nameless: "Nagisa Hattori" is just a pseudonym and her real name is unknown.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Nagisa was suspiciously competent and convenient, but she pretends to be fooled by Niho and powerless to save Himeno until the time comes to trap Serena in an underground prison while sending an air raid to kill her minions outside.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When the jig is up, Nagisa just stands in silence for a while staring at Serena and ignoring Himeno. She then coldly starts a Motive Rant about her birth during the bombing of Hiroshima and declares herself a wasp queen.
• Pet the Dog: Nagisa is under the effects of Himeno's brainwashing despite being another queen, so while the will to exploit Himeno remains she also realizes how terrible her actions are. She tells Himeno to go along with Aya and Niho knowing what would happen afterwards, but hesitates for a moment. Her rage at later seeing Himeno getting dragged by Oonuki while stripped and beat up turns out to be genuine.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Nagisa puts a wrench in Serena's plans by turning her into Himeno's soldier, but gets killed in the process as Serena calmly leaves them to their fate be like not a lot has changed.
• Redemption Equals Death: While trying to help Himeno escape from the ambush attempt on Serena, Nagisa is mortally wounded and confesses her true feelings for Himeno before passing away.
• Revealing Hug: As Rule of Symbolism, when Himeno realizes somebody had been controlling her from the shadows all along Nagisa is kneeling behind her with both hands on her shoulders and staring defiantly at Serena.
• Self-Made Orphan: She brainwashed her mother and made her commit suicide after killing her husband, and then got rid of all her relatives to completely conceal her own existance.
• Shadow Dictator: She's been controlling Japan's business world for around fifty years while undetected by Serena's forces, and resents her rule over the rest of the world. Her original plan was to get both Himeno and Serena killed without anyone finding out she was also a queen.
• There Can Be Only One: Upon being transformed, Nagisa immediately considers the existence of enemy queens already way ahead of her in global domination. Getting both Himeno and Serena killed at once was her addition to Fujimoto's idea of creating a false queen, but getting stung by Himeno forces her to change her tune.
• Walking Spoiler: Nagisa turning out to be a Queen recontextualizes her actions throughout the story, making it hard to talk about her without spoilers. Not to mention all this indirectly spoils the plot of Arachnid yet again.
• The Woman in Front of the Woman: Himeno's right-hand was the actual mastermind trying to combat Serena.

The Red Wasps (Unmarked Spoilers)

• Alien Animals: They're odd crimson-colored wasps with a serial number in an alien language inscribed on a single cell of their bodies.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: One wasp is seen flapping its wings against the cold vacuum of space just fine before leaving to report back to whoever is behind all this.
• Foreshadowing: There was the one scene in the very beginning with Himeno awakening in an unearthly machine, but aside from it the nature of the wasps comes out of nowhere and the series abruptly ends before the aliens even make contact.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Aliens manufactured human-parasiting wasps who either enslave females or turn them into queens to mess around with Earth society, but nobody has any idea why.
• It Can Think: They deliberately select certain strong-willed girls to become queens.
• Walking Spoiler: The truth behind the wasps is that they're, yes, aliens.

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