| “ | I feel myself going deeper inside you! | „ |
| ~ Hiro to Zero Two inside the Strelizia (of course, not that kind of deep). |
Hiro (ヒロ, Hiro?) is the main protagonist of the DARLING in the FRANXX series. He was known as the child prodigy, he is a Parasite with the codename "016" of Thirteenth Plantation, where he's partnered in a boy-girl pair to pilot a FRANXX.
He is voiced by Yuuto Uemura and Ami Koshimizu as a child in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Matt Shipman and Mikaela Krantz as a child in the English version of the anime.
Appearance
Hiro has a standard "slim" male physique with black, shaggy hair and rich blue eyes. His checkered past has left him with an emphatic expression on his face, despite his personality. He wears the standard Stamen uniform.
As the story progresses, after he survives three rides with Zero Two, Hiro begins slowly develop his "Saurification" process in episode 13 where his canines start to grow. In Episode 16, he begins to grow small blue horns which becomes more visible until episode 23, where his eyes also change from dark blue-green into bright electric-blue with a blue eyeliner just like Zero Two's.
In Episode 24, His horns now become longer, like when Zero Two's as a child, and he developed fangs. Shortly after their success to defeat VIRM, Hiro who later fully a human-klaxo hybrid have blue skins and gray scleras like most of the Klaxo-sapiens in a flashback from 001.
Personality
As a child, he was very optimistic, curious, and joyful. He gave names to the other children in the Garden to make them feel unique about themselves. This made him famous in the Garden and even in other plantations, as well as making him the former star of the Garden. Many children believed Hiro would become the best pilot and become their leader. His curious side really showed as a child, as he was constantly wondering about the outside world and asking questions to the adults, even though none of them would tell him any answers. He is also confident and brave, as he helped Zero Two escape from her room as a child after witnessing the pain she went through during her experiments. After he and Zero Two were caught, their memories were erased. Hiro then became less curious and more obedient and serious, and stopped naming children. After the memory wipe, he only believed piloting a FRANXX was his only purpose of living, like the other children. Hiro's inability to pilot FRANXX has left his hopes low, even to the point of choosing to leave Cerasus until his former partner Naomi encourages him to stay. His emotions are strong, but his heart keeps him from giving up. His self-confidence and hopes are left low, and he felt like he had no purpose in life, until he met Zero Two. Hiro decided to pilot with her in Strelizia, even with Zero Two's warning that he could die, and that he was better off dying than living with no purpose.
History
Hiro was born and raised in the Garden with Naomi, Ichigo and Goro, and he later become Naomi's FRANXX partner. He gave himself the name Hiro and later, 015 the name Ichigo. Other children then began asking for names, and started naming each other. Hiro later became a special research subject at the age of 9, and went through experiments by himself in the Lab, receiving candy as a reward. He sees Zero Two being dragged for testing and asks an adult who she is, but they told him to go back to his room. He then tries to sneak out again but is stopped by an adult. He then sees Zero Two and an adult fighting with her book and climbs up a tree to see through her room window. She then gets her book back and the woman walks away.
After finishing another test, he hears screaming and sees adults conducting a painful experiment on Zero Two. Horrified, he falls to the ground. A man later arrives and Hiro asks him to stop the experiments on her, but the man tells him to return to the Garden. Not wanting to see the girl suffer any more pain, he decides to help her escape. He climbs the tree again and throws a searchlight at the girl's room window, breaking it and causing glass to fall everywhere. Zero Two then sees him and climbs onto the tree branch, however it breaks and Hiro becomes unconscious. Hiro then wakes up to see Zero Two eating a mouse and tries to get her to spit it out, but she bites him. He then introduces himself and tries to think of a name for her. He sees her anklet and realizes her codename is 002. He thinks of Oni, then Zero Two, which prompts the girl to say it herself, and he calls her Zero Two. Hiro then gives Zero Two one of his candies, but she doesn't know what it is. He slips it into her mouth, and she really enjoys the candy. Zero Two then shows Hiro her book, "The Beast and the Prince". He reads the story to Zero Two, but some adults appear and try to look for them. They hide and run away from the adults.
Hiro and Zero Two sit under a mistletoe tree and he finishes reading the story. Zero Two asks what marriage is, so Hiro explains it to her. When they walk away, Zero Two tries to stand up but falls. She scraped her knee, and Hiro was forced to lick her wound, explaining animals lick their own wounds to heal them. With Hiro kneeling before Zero Two, she asks if it's marriage when she confuses his pose with the prince in the story. He tells her they will be married once they escape, and that she will become her darling. Suddenly, a group of adults arrive. They take both Hiro and Zero Two, and when Hiro tries to protect her, he gets hit with the butt of a gun and starts bleeding. After that, their memories were erased. Hiro forgot his promise to Mitsuru, and his aptitude results drastically dropped since he ingested Zero Two's blood, but still received special treatment.
About 5 years later, Hiro and Naomi fail their final capacity test and Naomi was forced to leave Plantation 13. Hiro, however, was given special permission to stay, which he declined. Naomi's transportation was then attacked by a klaxosaur, but she survived.
Etymology
Hiro's nickname may use some of the numeral's readings from his real name "Code:016": hi from 1 (一, hito?) and ro from 6 (六, roku?).
Trivia
- It is revealed in Episode 3 that Hiro has a chance of being a "special specimen", due to his inability to pilot a FRANXX except for Strelizia with Zero Two.
Gallery
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