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Utsutsu Hasegawa
- Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki, Mariya Ise (young)
The older brother of Yume. Having a huge sister complex, he cares very deeply for her. His most prominent facial feature is a scar around his left eye. After being infected by the Pupa virus, Utsutsu gains the ability to heal his wounds and regenerate lost limbs. Thus, he acts as a living food source to satisfy his sister's hunger for flesh after she was infected by the virus.
Tropes associated with Utsutsu:
- Animal Motifs: Black butterflies.
- Back from the Dead: He was run over by a truck when he was six to protect Yume (unaware that she is a monster and if the truck had hit her, it wouldn't have any effect on her). She decides to bring him back to life, transforming him into a Pupa monster.
- Covered with Scars: Utsutsu has many wound marks that cover almost his entire body, that are in fact burnings left from his father extinguishing his cigars on him. And a large scar across his left eye which was given to him by Yume.
- Determinator: He will always protect Yume and nothing will ever stop him.
- Deus Angst Machina: Starts off bad in chapter one alone, and only gets worse and worse.
- Healing Factor: At the beginning of the series Utsutsu gains regenerative powers. In order for the virus to be suppressed in Yume, Utsutsu must take a drug and have Yume feed on his flesh.
- Heroic Sacrifice: As a child, Utsutsu attempts to save Yume from an incoming truck, but ends up getting himself killed instead, which causes Yume to "revive" him as a monster. The fact that Yume didn't need to be protected (because as a monster, she has Healing Factor) at that point any more makes it a borderline Senseless Sacrifice, too.
- Humanoid Abomination: Thanks to Yume transforming him into one as a child.
- Meaningful Name: His name means reality.
- Mind Rape: It's implied that the reason he's so loyal to Yume in spite of her monstrous acts is that the revival spell she used on him when he was young subtly brainwashes him, making him forget the love he had for his mother and, over time, replace them with a desire to serve and protect her. However, while Utsutsu acknowledges the Mind Rape, he insists his feelings for Yume are not less real.
- Not Blood Siblings: With Yume, as she's a actually a monster posing as a human girl.
- Ordinary High-School Student: At least until he and Yume become infected with the Pupa virus.
- Parental Abandonment: After realizing how dangerous the situation with Yume was getting, Sachiko abandoned the household. Also his father was often working for an organization and the few times he was at home he was very abusive.
- Satellite Character: He has little to no personality outside of his devotion to Yume and every single of his actions are motivated by his desire to protect her. This turns out to be justified because she resurrected him, with the side effect of making him completely loyal to her, see Mind Rape above.
- Say My Name: YUMEEEE!!
- Took a Level in Badass: After becoming A Pupa monster.
- Unstoppable Rage: Yume being in danger is an incredible source of anger for him. It's enough to transform into a Pupa monster and destroy everything in sight.
- You Are Worth Hell: To Yume. Especially in the manga ending.
Yume Hasegawa
- Voiced by: Ibuki Kido
Utsutsu's innocent and sweet younger sister and a victim of the Pupa virus. She loves her brother and always looks up to him. If she is famished, a hideous monstrosity emerges from her body like a red butterfly emerging from its pupa. Much to her horror, this proceeds to eat anything made of flesh, including humans.
Tropes associated with Yume:
- Animal Motifs: Red butterflies.
- Becoming the Mask: At first Yume only posed as Utsutsu's sister while waiting for Yuu to save her (unaware that he was Strapped to an Operating Table), but eventually developed genuine feelings for Utsutsu.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Besides the whole thing of living by herself with Utsutsu and having absent parents... Yume is one of two ancient immortal monsters (the other being Yuu) that had the bad luck to be found in larvae form by Maria, then kept being experimented on for 30 years. She escaped and left her mate behind and impregnates Sachiko Hasegawa, being reborn as a human girl and losing her memories of being a monster.
- Easily Forgiven: By Utsutsu, for ruining his family's life for years. Justified, as he's conditioned to love her due to the revival spell on him. Shiro and Sachiko aren't so forgiving and still resent her for ruining their and Utsutsu's lives.
- Eldritch Abomination: It was believed the Pupa virus transformed Yume into one. Then it's revealed she was a monster all along.
- Healing Factor: As a Pupa monster.
- Horror Hunger: After the Pupa virus awakens, Yume gets chronic hunger pangs... for human flesh. If they get too severe, she transforms into a Pupa monster, and the one thing that can calm her down is Utsutsu's flesh.
- Humanity Is Infectious: She started out as an unfeeling monster, willing and able to infest or kill anyone and anything for the slightest of annoyances against her. As she spends more time with Utsutsu, she noticeably changes her views, becoming the kind girl we see in the series.
- The Ingenue: Yume is sweet and innocent, and Utsutsu wants to keep her that way as long as possible... Too bad she transforms into a monster whenever she's hungry. By the end of the story it turns out that it's just a facade, because she is not even human and just tries to look cheerful for Utsutsu's sake.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: After reviving Utsutsu from a fatal car accident, Yume forgot about her life as a Pupa monster and her mate Yuu.
- Living Emotional Crutch: To Utsutsu.
- Meaningful Name: Her name means dream.
- Morality Pet: Utsutsu is friendly only towards Yume due to his love for her, as well as being imprinted by her in the past. To everyone else, he will, at best, ignore them as irrelevant and, at worst, be hostile or insulting towards them.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: She actually knew all along that she was a monster. She also remembered Yuu and apologized for abandoning him to be dissected by Maria.
- Ordinary High-School Student: At least until she becomes infected with the Pupa virus.
- Parental Abandonment: Her parents abandoned her and her brother, leaving them to fend off themselves. And their father was abusive. She is not too affected about it like Utsutsu is. Because she is not actually related to them and is a monster without human concepts.
- Say My Name: ONICHAAAAN!!
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Yume as a toddler behaved like a cold and uncaring Eldritch Abomination, eating bugs, attacking Utsutsu for no good reason and scaring the hell out of Sachiko. She only started behaving more human after sealing her memories and falling in love with Utsutsu.
Shiro Onijima
- Voiced by: Koji Yusa
Utsutsu's and Yume's cold and abusive father who works for a mysterious organization. A Combat Sadomasochist, Shiro is a bit of a psychopath who enjoys harming others. He looks for Utsutsu in an almost obsessive level and wants to know about the truth of the Pupa virus, since his son got infected with it.
Tropes associated with Shiro:
- Abusive Parents: He is a sadistic bastard who routinely mutilates Utsutsu, and is the one who gave him the scar across his eye. Except that Yume was the one who scarred him.
- Animal Motifs: Worms, associated with decay and negative forces within people. It's also to show he's a counterpart for Utsutsu, who's associated with butterflies. The difference is that Shiro never let go out of his traumas and became a sadistic monster instead of channeling his angst into protecting his loved ones (Utsutsu towards Yume). Thus, while Utsutsu is able to overcome his traumas and change (butterfly), Shiro never does (worm).
- Archnemesis Dad: In the first chapters. Completely averted in the end. He is just a Troubled Abuser.
- The Atoner: After he finds out that Yume is an Eldritch Abomination incarnated as a human girl, he decides to protect Utsutsu from her, in his own jerkass way.
- Ax-Crazy: He's known to be a violent psycho who relishes in causing others pain. Utsutsu's friends have witnessed him fighting a bunch of thugs and beating them to a pulp with a Slasher Smile on his face.
- Badass Normal: He is able to knock out trained guards, easily disarm a nurse with a gun and survive the attacks of Pupa monsters with ease.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: He's technically not "evil", just really violent and only able to show affection by hurting his loved ones, because his adoptive guardian had abused him for years.
- Conveniently an Orphan: As a child he was an orphan adopted by Genjurou Imari.
- Covered with Scars: As revealed in the "Maria's Island" story, Shiro has many wound marks that cover almost his entire body. They were from his time being abused by Genjurou.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's shown that in the past, Shiro was an orphan adopted by Genjurou Imari. For years, he was locked in his house, physically abused and used as little more than a toy. He escaped after Genjurou commited suicide, only to be broken further by Maria, who claimed that Genjurou's abuse was his love for Shiro. Hence why he is so unhinged and believes that hurting those you love is the greatest form of affection.
- Despair Event Horizon: Played for Laughs, but in the 4-koma after Utsutsu and Yume dissintegrate into butterflies at the end of the story, Shiro looks at the sky with a Thousand-Yard Stare and expresses his interest in chasing after the butterflies to get Utsutsu back. Even Haruka and Ryuichi know he's lost it.
- Expy: Stoic, bespectacled man in a nice suit? Has difficult expressing his feelings? Check. Badass Normal? Check. Has a Morality Pet, whom he acts indifferent to, but the end shows that he cares about that person? Check. Gee, sounds like Soichiro Kuzuki to me.
- Freudian Excuse: Being abused during all of his childhood definitely warped Shiro's view on giving affection to others. He even admits in Chapter 24 that he knows he's broken and doesn't know how to show proper affection.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: After Sachiko has an Heroic BSoD and remembers who Yume is.
- Good is Not Nice: He loves Utsutsu and Sachiko, in his own way. But he is only able to express his affections through violence.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He often gets angry and violent for very little reason.
- Hemo Erotic: He literally equates violence with love.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Since he equates violence with love, he often hurts Utsutsu and Sachiko. Genjurou was the one who influenced him.
- Madness Mantra: "This is reality".
- Papa Wolf: Towards Utsutsu in his own twisted way.
- Red Herring: He is violent and arrogant, but he is not responsible for most of Utsutsu's traumas. That's Yume.
- Say My Name: Spends the last chapter of the manga screaming UTSUTSUUU!!
- Scary Shiny Glasses: In the anime and manga adaptations.
- Strong Family Resemblance: As a child he looked like a black-haired Utsutsu.
- Trauma Conga Line: His entire childhood has been hellish enough (see Dark and Troubled Past above), but even after escaping his past, he still doesn't catch a break. His wife is driven to insanity after she was impregnated by a monster and gave birth to it, then his son was kidnapped and similarly turned into a monster, and despite Shiro's efforts to bring him back, Utsutsu dies after being devoured by Yume.
- True Companions: With Haruka Nico and Ryuichi Touge, his comrades from the organization he works for. He also serves as the Only Sane Man for them.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before being abused and broken by Genjurou.
- Would Hit a Girl: He was abusive towards Sachiko, whom he accused of cheating on him. He also punched a nurse who had a gun pointed at him.
Sachiko Hasegawa
- Voiced by: Mamiko Noto
Utsutsu's and Yume's sensitive mother. She cares for her son, but fears her daughter knowing she was born as a monster. After Sachiko and Shiro divorced, she went off with some other young man, leaving Utsutsu and Yume alone. Or at least that's what Shiro made them think.
Tropes associated with Sachiko:
- Break the Cutie: She was pregnant with Shiro's child and gave birth to Utsutsu. However, that day Monster!Yume escaped from the laboratory she was kept in, impregnates Sachiko and is born as a human. Knowing that the child was a monster, she had gotten to the point where she attempted to kill Yume, but she failed because Yume can't even die. She becomes more and more paranoid until she leaves the house. When Shiro finds her in the hospital after all these years, one mention of Yume's name sends it all flooding back and she flies into a blind panic.
- Cassandra Truth: Sachiko despises Yume and often claims that "that monster brainwashed her son". Nobody takes her seriously. The Reveal shows that Utsutsu's attraction to Yume was imprinted by her and Yume is basically an Eldritch Abomination.
- Dogged Nice Girl: Towards Shiro.
- Madness Mantra: "This is a dream".
- Mama Bear: Towards Utsutsu.
- Offing the Offspring: She attempted to murder Yume many times, even when she was in the womb. However, Yume was a monster with a Healing Factor.
Maria/Ai Imari
- Voiced by: Kyoko Narumi
A mysterious woman who seemed to have knowledge about the Pupa virus and is currently doing experiments regarding it. She gave Utsutsu a drug that temporarily suppresses his sister's rampage in exchange for them being examined.
Tropes associated with Maria:
- Big Bad: The closest thing the series has close to one.
- Creepy Child: As a child, she found Yuu and Yume in larvae form and was really excited at the idea of dissecting them For Science!. And evne her own family was scared of her, seeing as she dissected animals For Science!.
- For Science!: She is willing to exchange the lives of many innocent people to gain information about the effects of the virus. Even trying to impregnate herself with the virus in order to understand it better.
- Innocently Insensitive: What got her scarred in the first place. She discovered her brother's porcelain dolls and realized he did....things with them from time to time. She also concluded it was due to an Oedipus Complex. Ashamed upon his secret being discovered, he threw a teapot full of boiling water on her face.
- It Runs in the Family: Like her grandfather, she is very devoted to her job and will not hesitate in using unethical methods.
- Karma Houdini: In the end she is not punished for her unethical experiments or the torture she put through Yuu and Yume for years. After Yume breaks out of her control, Maria's body merges with the island. She's satisfied with it, as she has become a monster just like she always wanted.
- Possibly subverted in the epilogue. From Hotoki's explanations, it could be assumed that Maria merged with the island presumably not of her own volition.
- Lack of Empathy: According to her mother and Hotoki. You really can't have anyone if you dissect creatures for curiosity.
- Oblivious to Love: She's completely unaware to Hotoki (actually her brother Makoto)'s feelings for her.
- Scars Are Forever: The left side of her face is scarred due to being scarred by Hotoki in her childhood.
- Significant Anagram: Her pen name Maria is an anagram of her real name, Ai Imari.
Yuu
A mysterious man who appears to show guidance to the Hasegawa siblings. Despite looking human he claims himself a monster of the red butterflies who lived for many generations on the remote island of Onigashima, explaining the reason why Utsutsu and Yume were infected.
Tropes associated with Yuu:
- Comedic Sociopathy: Most of time, when his behavior is causing people discomfort (mostly Utsutsu), it's because of his ignorance of social rules, rather than active malice.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He is one of two ancient immortal monsters ( the other being Yume) that had the bad luck to be found in larvae form by Maria, then kept being experimented on for 30 years. Not only his mate escaped without him, she was reborn as a human named Yume and forgot his memories of him.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Towards Utsutsu for stealing away his mate. In his defense, Yume and Utsutsu bonded for 16 years, while Yuu and Yume were together for 1000 years.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After he comes to terms with the fact that his mate now loves Utsutsu and wants to live a normal life with him.
- Killed Off for Real: He's eaten alive by Utsutsu when he starts mutating into a pupa monster. He survives due to his healing factor.....only to be assimilated by Maria and eaten by Utsutsu and Yume's larvae child. He doesn't come back this time.
- Mind-Control Device: His tongue becomes an appendage that if it touches the ear of someone, he can give all of his memories to that person. He uses it on Utsutsu so that he could understand about the true identity of his mate. He also attempts to use it on Monster!Yume, so that she could remember her past, but it backfires.
- Mr. Exposition: Serves as this to Utsutsu, explaining him about Yume's past and the pupa monsters.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Yuu and his mate were discovered by Maria 30 years ago, dissecting them for her facility in researching the Pupa virus for her selfish egotism.
Genjurou Imari
Maria's grandfather and a painter who lived in the island of Onigashima. He only appears in flashbacks, having died thirty years ago.
Tropes associated with Genjurou:
- Dirty Old Man: He's fond of adopting orphan boys to serve as his inspiration. For Genjurou, this meant stripping his "models" naked and whipping them bloody so that he can paint their scars.
- Driven to Suicide: He hanged himself to death. However Maria's Island implies Bizen killed him and made him look like a suicide, out of disgust of what he did to the orphans.
- Lack of Empathy: You can't really have any if you get on torturing a little boy to the point of insanity.
- Mad Artist: What can you say of a man who kept an imprisoned child and tortured him just for the sake of inspiration?
- Parental Substitute: Since Maria's parents can't handle her, she is sent to live with her grandfather. He also adopts Shiro from the orphanage.
- Posthumous Character: We only see him in Maria and Shiro's flashbacks.
Hotoki
Maria's loyal assistant. His real name is Makoto Imari, Maria's older brother, who holds incestuous feelings for her.
Tropes associated with Hotoki:
- Brother–Sister Incest: Is very much in love with Ai and becomes his assistant just to be close to her. Unfortunately she's not interested, only concerning herself with her experiments.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In Maria's Island, he's shown to be repulsed at what his grandfather does to Shiro and calls out Ai when she starts taunting the boy about it.
- Ignored Enamored Underling: To his sister.
- It's All My Fault: He blames himself for Ai's scarred face. Because he actually caused it.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Back in his young days, he was really attractive compared to now.
- Only Sane Man
- Undying Loyalty: To Maria.
- Walking Spoiler: See all the blanked lines? There's more to him that it seems.
- You Are Worth Hell: Realizing that Ai will never look at him that way, he decides to become her assistant in order to stay close to her and help her with her dreams to become a monster.
Chiharu Bizen
The director of the Imari Hospital, where Sachiko is residing.
Tropes associated with Bizen:
- Improbable Age: When Maria meets him as a child, she meets a teenage Bizen, who was already a researcher of various biological diseases.
- Mr. Exposition: He explained to Shiro about the truth of the Pupa virus and about Yume's origins.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: It's implied Bizen killed Genjurou and made it look like a suicide in order to put an end to his mad art..
