Guren Ichinose

Guren Ichinose 「一瀬グレン, Ichinose Guren」 is the main protagonist of the prequel story Seraph of the End: Guren Ichinose: Catastrophe at Sixteenand it's sequel Seraph of the End: Guren Ichinose: World Resurrection at Nineteen light novel series. In addition, he is the tritagonist in the Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign manga series, which takes place eight years later.

With the death of his father, Guren became head of the Ichinose family, when he was still 16, and remains head of the family as an adult. Guren is a Lieutenant Colonel of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army and the leader of the Vampire Extermination Unit's Moon Demon Company. He is also the squad leader of the Guren Ichinose Squad, and has been since his teen years.

He is voiced in Japanese by Yūichi Nakamura and in English by Dave Trosko.

Appearance
Guren is a tall, young man with medium length black hair parted in the middle and purple eyes

Catastrophe
He wore the First Shibuya High Uniform, a black gakuran with a standing collar, with red trim which was also around the cuffs. Instead of the school emblem, Guren wore the Order of the Imperial Moon emblem on the left breast.

When his squad was first formed, he wore the standard JIDA uniform which consists of a long-sleeved black jacket with two rows of gold buttons on the front and red details including the shoulder epaulets. A brown Sam Browne belt passes diagonally over his right shoulder and holds a brown pouch on his left side. Along with that, he wears a pair of white gloves and a red standard belt. He also wears the uniform trousers with knee-high black boots which goes over his trouser legging.

Vampire Reign
He sometimes is shown with his hair slicked back during the midst of skirmishes on the battlefield, but more often is seen with slightly tousled hair, with bangs hanging over his forehead. He wears the standard JIDA uniform, which consists of a long-sleeved, double-breasted black coat with two rows of gold buttons down the front, red details including shoulder epaulettes, gores at the bottom, and stripes on sleeves. Other decorations include gold aiguillettes and white fourrageres worn on the right shoulder, attached to a stylized cherry blossom decoration pendant at the center of his collar, and two bars with unit insignia medal below them on the left. He wears a pair of white gloves, a black on white armband on his left arm, and a similarly striped black and white web belt with a frog for his sword on the left, and a gold waist-plate. In addition, he also wears the uniform trousers with two white belts strapped around his left leg and black shoes.

In the manga illustration, he also wore a black cape or overcoat with a red lining, and in the anime's artwork, he is shown wearing a maroon coat with red ornamented sleeves. Anime and manga versions have in common shoulder epaulettes and a gold unit insignia. While the shoulder epaulettes are primarily red in the anime, they are a mixture between black and beige in the manga. The anime version shows extra red markings and gold details. In contrast to the anime, the manga depicted the cloak to have beige for its insignia, and details spread all around the garment, with no markings visible.

Human
Guren was naive in his childhood days where most of his time was spent with Mahiru Hīragi. His outlook on life was simple while his life was only happy moments. When he was forcefully separated from Mahiru and treated with contempt for being part of a lowly branch family, Guren felt guilty for being too weak in physique and power to not reach out for what he wanted: Mahiru. Motivated by Mahiru to become stronger and wiser, Guren would become a wise leader who values teamwork and cooperation, determined to ensure the survival of the human race from demons and vampires. When Yūichirō Hyakuya tried to join the Moon Demon Company, Guren refused until he made friends.

Guren sometimes pretends to be lazy, but in truth, he really works hard. He keeps many secrets to himself, and has no difficulty lying about them. He also plans to dethrone the Hīragi Family; however, this is shown to be explicitly desired by him upon being possessed by Mahiru-no-Yo. It is made clear when Guren is possessed, and his true desires come to light, that he, along with Shinya Hīragi, wants to change the status quo and hierarchy.

In addition, he actually cares a lot about his subordinates and friends, considering them to be his family, both before and after the apocalypse.

In the light novels he is shown to have more kind heart, This is shown when he desperately keeps trying to save Mahiru, even when she was turned into a vampire and then when she was demon. It is also shown when Mahiru impales Shinya. He didn't hold a grudge, and forgave her. When she was dying he still wanted to save her, no matter what the cost.

Namanari
His kindness is the reason for why he hasn't been completely honest with his squad whenever they're around him, especially hiding from them his second personality, which Kureto knew of all along, and later Shinya became aware of. It was another reason for why Guren's original personality had yet to be fully taken over by his second, demonic personality, and continues to exist. Nevertheless, he has since kept his own emotions in check on a daily basis, carefully maintaining a positive image so not to worry them.

Guren's personality changes drastically when he's overtaken by his demon blade, Mahiru-no-Yo. According to Ferid Bathory, it happens more often than shown, and his demon side is capable of hiding his true nature from his close friends. Guren is described as being a Namanari, a human with two souls in his body, just a single step away from becoming a complete demon. When Mahiru is in control of Guren's body, he becomes utterly ruthless in the pursuit of his goals and cuts down anyone who opposes him, even if it is one of his comrades, like Shihō or Yu. He doesn’t distinguish vampires or humans as friend or foe to him when possessed, but sees them all as only sacrificial pawns for the Seraph of the End experiment.

Kureto considers the demonic personality to be strong and the original human personality to be weak.