| Main | Profiles | Fun Facts | Fan Culture | Music |
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| 鋼 ゼロ Hagane Zero | |||
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| Information | |||
| Species | Human | ||
| Abilities |
Create and use dolls | ||
| Age |
20 years old | ||
| Occupation |
Wanderer, Doll Maker | ||
| Location |
Hagane's Mansion | ||
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Zero Hagane (鋼 ゼロ Hagane Zero) is a doll maker who lives in his mansion near the Lost Village. He is the creator of Pupa.
General Information
Personality
Zero is shown to have an obnoxious personality and for being a tease to girls, wanting to take them home with him, much to the girls' disgust. He has an obsession with magic in general- particularly the creepier side of things. He's attached to magic and dolls, but he is indifferent to other people. Zero is also shown to be rather petty, simpleminded and inconsiderate for others.
He doesn't perform the usual act of attacking humans, but he unexpectedly likes fights and upon being challenged to battle, he gladly accepts, hoping to find good opponents to play with his doll Pupa. After the events of Unconquered Album, where an oracle predicts that he would fall in love with Sozai Meiwakuna and love her more than his dolls, he has doubts about it, but decides to cherish Sozai anyway.
Abilities
- Create and use dolls
He makes dolls and uses them in his attacks. His favorite doll, Pupa-chan, is automate thanks to Zero infusing a soul into the doll.
Character Basis
Name
His last name, Hagane (鋼) is the Japanese word for steel.
Design
His fondness for dolls and using them for their attacks is based on Alice Margatroid, from the Touhou Project. However, Zero's personality is more inclined towards how Alice is viewed in the fandom: "a creepy doll otaku".
His scar around his right eye is similar to Utsutsu Hasegawa from the anime Pupa. Ironically, Zero's doll is named Pupa too.
Background Information
Zero used to be a regular human in the army, and in the heat of one of his earlier battles, a mysterious youkai gouged his eye, leaving him almost lifeless. When he was on the verge of death, a ghost girl saved his life transforming him into a half-ghost. He gained the ability to control ghosts, which he mostly used to infuse into dolls.
As of Haunted House Souls he is now fully human, though it is unknown if he still retains the ability to control ghosts and infuse them into his dolls.
Role
Mystical Lost Village
Hills of the Gods
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Zero in Hills of the God
Recently, there have been rumors about the birth of a fake god. Zero does not care about such things and just wants to test Pupa's abilities after she gained a human form after the events of Kodomo's Days in the Field. Pupa has newfound feelings for him, while Zero honestly preferred her as a doll.
He is eventually guided by Bijonu Ochosan to the eponymous Hills of the Gods, where a newborn automate golem named Ragoni is wandering around. Ragoni also happens to be the fake god everyone is talking about. Zero is more interested about the fact that they are an automate golem, while Ragoni is confused about their birth and demands answers about their identity. After defeating Ragoni, he wanted to take the golem home with him, but they refused.
Unconquered Album
Zero's ending
A large island surges from nowhere, the Northeastern Island. Zero decides to visit the place in order to find more playmates for Pupa, who is bored with fighting against Zero's normal dolls. On the way, he's warned that there are dangerous monsters across the island, but Zero is more concerned about meeting cute monster girls.
After forcing his way to the island, he receives an oracle from a triclops called Kibun Mittsumete: one day he would love a human girl and cherish her more than his dolls. Not believing it, but curious about it, he decides to meet said girl, Sozai Meiwakuna. Zero becomes fascinated with Sozai's doll-like appearance, but she seems disturbed by his presence, after being defeated by Christine Seaphera minutes ago. Afterwards, she told him about her abilities, and why she secluded herself in the island. Zero convinces her that carrying burdens and traumas from the past is no good and offers her to settle with him in Kuusou no Sekai. On the way back home, he steals Quanna Noayano's documents out of petty annoyance.
Hagane's Mansion
Sozai now leaves with Zero at his mansion in the Lost Village. While the doll youkai Miyako Yamagake gets lost at his mansion and gets chased by the dolls scattered around the place; Zero (who had been having teatime with Sozai that day) reveals that he knew all along that Miyako had entered the house and the chasing dolls were his doing. Apparently, he did it because it amused him, but after Miyako destroys the dolls in a moment of confusion, Zero goes with Sozai to confront Miyako by himself.
Miyako is angry at Zero for mistreating dolls like her (since she had noticed the dolls were possessed by spirits under Zero's control) so she attacks him, but stops upon seeing Pupa (Miyako had entered the mansion to see Pupa in the first place). Realizing what happened, Zero offers Miyako to live at his mansion as a maid and she accepts as long as she could stay with Pupa.
Haunted House Souls
Zero appears alongside Pupa as the 4th boss in Route 1, now a full human rather than a half-ghost.