| Character | Gameplay | Gallery | Sprites | Bonding Events |
Their insides certainly are a pretty color... And the way their brains splatter everywhere when you crush their skulls... It's like poetry in motion!
-- Official Website [2]
Hiruko Shizuhara (雫原 比留子, Shizuhara Hiruko) is a student in the 2025 JRPG The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-.
Appearance[]
Hiruko is a tall, bespecacled teenage girl with long, straight, waist-length dark purple hair and red eyes. She wears a small grey hairclip on the left side of her bangs and triangular-shaped earrings, half obscured by her hair. She also has four gold-colored piercings on the helixes of her ears, three on her left and one on her right, which are usually fully obscured by her hair.
In her default outfit, Hiruko wears a short black jacket over a black and white half-placket shirt, a long black skirt with silt hem and black-heeled boots. She also wears a black choker with silver oval-shaped buckles and a light gray bracelet on her left wrist.
She wears a slightly modified version of the Hemoanima girls uniform. The uniform consists of a white undersuit that also covers her hands underneath a black, long sleeved sailor fuku with white accents and bow and a white armband on her left arm. Her skirt is longer than the usual girls uniforms, but is the same length as Kurara Oosuzuki's, with a placket in the side, similar to her default outfit. Her armband, axe head, and axe handle all have the numeral 貳 (2) on them.
Personality[]
"Leader of the Special Defense Unit. A cold, almost heartless beauty, she always speaks her mind, no matter how brutal or offensive her words may be. She is just as merciless on the battlefield, where she takes a twisted sense of pleasure in tearing invaders apart." - Official Website Description[3]
Hiruko is a blunt, straightforward and almost curt person who has no patience for people she thinks are wasting her time, and will usually only talk about herself if she has to. She only reveals her history with fighting the invaders when she is in a good mood, implying she usually finds talking about herself tedious. This mindset portrays her with a very logical, pragmatic attitude to decision-making, quickly being able to boil a situation down to its basic stakes, and act accordingly. For her, the most logical course of action is to defend the academy, with all other options only resulting in death.
As someone who's been fighting the invaders longer than her peers, Hiruko frequently reminds others about her prowess as a formidable fighter and thus considers herself above the rest, which frustrates Takemaru. She views strength as everything, and has no patience for two things- weakness and cowards who refuse to fight or flee from the academy. To her, only results matter and everyone else are expendable. This is best seen when whether they should spare Murvrum, the first Commander fought in game, when he appears to be begging for mercy by killing it herself, especially after he nearly killed all of them after what appeared to be an underhanded tactic of falsely claiming a truce by holding his hands up (events later in the game show this to have been a mistaken assumption, as the standard gestures for summoning a Commander's hemoanima form involves a similar stance - Murvrum never intended to ambush or deceive the students). As for her classmates, she is unwilling to hear out their excuses as to why they don't want to join the battle, and make compromises around it, instead only looking down on them. After they continue to refuse to join the fight on day 7, she threatens to make them pay.
She places a high value on art and aesthetics, and often brings them up, with the mere observation of an art piece she finds beautiful being able to raise her spirits. However, Hiruko possesses some unusual aesthetic sensibilities which Takumi often disagrees with, such as finding Sirei adorable and notably, her unsettling fascination with the brutality of combat, often admiring the gruesome details of battle as if they were a form of art, both looking and sounding pleasured as she does so.
There is a lot Hiruko doesn't know about Hemoanima (though it's unclear how much more knowledge she has on it over the others), however she doesn't let that bother her, preferring to focus on making the most of what it grants her.
Caution: Major Spoiler about Hiruko's Character
Hiruko is also shown to be secretive at times. In certain routes, she has demonstrated an awareness of the parallel leap technology, though it's unclear how much she truly understands. It’s suggested that Hiruko’s consciousness may gain fragments of memories from parallel timelines, making her privy to future events. This web of overlapping timelines that is still difficult to understand, though it's likely that her knowledge of where the parallel leap technology lab is located may have come from either Takumi or V'ehxness in other future parallel timelines, or it is likely her memory is chronological based on the routes number itself.
Despite her cold exterior, Hiruko has displayed her humanity in moments of empathy. She shows an understanding of Darumi's psychology and history, and even shows vulnerability when she cries. However, her strong resolve to keep everyone alive remains her primary goal, pushing her to act with both strength and determination when needed. In some routes, Hiruko harbors deep feelings for Takumi. These feelings, however, remain hidden, and her interactions with him are often marked by a cool, controlled demeanor, but it could also just be because she has no knowledge of parallel timelines in those routes.
It is implied that her experience in the timeloop has incubated her to be more reclusive, secretive, and self-sufficient over time, as she learned early on that sharing the existence of the timeloop with the others often led to the worst outcomes.
Name Etymology[]
Hiruko's given name, 比留子 (Hiruko), consists of the kanji 比 (hi), meaning "to compare," 留 (ru), meaning "detain" or "stay," and 子 (ko), meaning "child", a common ending for female given names. This combination could suggest someone who observes, evaluates, and remains steadfast.
Her surname, 雫原 (Shizuhara), is composed of 雫 (shizu), meaning "droplet" or "trickle," and 原 (hara), meaning "meadow", "plain", or "original". The imagery of a droplet in a vast field might symbolize something small yet significant, possibly hinting at her precise and impactful nature.
History[]
Early Life[]
Hiruko lived a completely normal life for most of her life, something that made her immensely dissatisfied. A resident of Ota City, she was born to parents she saw as average to the point of tedium with hearts of gold which would lead them to trying to help others even when they couldn't afford it, something which annoyed her for a time (despite her ultimately showing similar behaviours at the Academy). Due to her conformity to society's expectations as a perfect student, she was expected to keep up with those expectations, suppressing her true self and dissatisfaction to keep up the façade of a model citizen. Whilst most TRC residents were happy to live the uneventful way of life the Complex offers, Hiruko saw the city as little more as a sty for domesticated pigs, wishing for more in her life.
To satisfy these urges, she started to visit the city's Red Light district, Kabukicho, during the night, where she'd taste more of what she has to offer. She hid this from her parents. Despite it being no place for a teenage girl, her thrill-seeking activities, which included creating a graffiti masterpiece, winning an underground rap tournament, and working at a night at a host club, made her a renowned member of the nightlife community. Whilst she initially found this thrilling, it eventually just became just as boring to her as the rest of her life.
A year after she started visiting Kabukicho, an alarm went off during the night. Partway through going to her nearest shelter, Hiruko starts to wonder what exactly they're hiding from, with it being strongly implied that her dissatisfaction had hit the point that she was able to undo the subliminal messaging to always mindlessly go to the shelters that the TRC imposed. There, she ran into a Grizzlei (referred to as a Grizzly in the novel), which chased her down despite her doing parkour to try and evade it. Just as she's run out of stamina, and it seems like she's about to die, she encounters a team of bounty hunters who attack it with gunfire, and finish it off with a grenade. Thrilled by the near-death experience, Hiruko peppers the bounty hunters with questions about what's going on, but receives no answer.
Not long after, Hiruko seeks out an informant who tells her about the city's secret. From there on, she starts studying the invaders every time they attack in order to formulate how to defeat one herself. Her weapon of choice is an axe from a hardware store, and afterwards she spends 6 months training in an abandoned Kabukicho warehouse, both through getting used to the axe, and running through mental simulations of fighting the enemy in her head. After creating a strategy, she is able to defeat a Grizzlei without receiving a scratch, her hatred towards it long having since turned to gratitude for freeing her from her mundane, average life. Upon sifting through its viscera, she finds her love for the invader's insides, presented as a twisted form of her finding her passion in life. From there, she continued to fight different invaders until she was inducted into the Last Defense Academy.
Hiruko attended a school called Ota Girls' High, which is considered a good school. It is implied that Hiruko's family is not well-off by the courtyard FTE that has her talk about something she'd would do if she were rich.
She is mentioned to have had a cat, and had a collection of soft, vinyl cat figures. She also had a phone charm of a mascot figure called Entraily that she loved so much she carried it around with her in her bra, being a cute figure of an animal with its guts hanging out that was considered in such poor taste that it was recalled three days after release.
Caution: Major Spoilers
In the Second Scenario route, this is all revealed to be false memories implanted in her for the sake of making a diverse platoon of soldiers that'd be able to bring various viewpoints, and thus adapt better to situations. Hiruko is a clone of Shion that was created within the Kamakura hospital as a project to create cryptoglobin users who could wipe out the Futurans.
Enrollment in the Last Defense Academy[]
It is unknown if Hiruko's previous history of fighting the school invaders made her entrance exam any different from the other students.
Upon being transported to the academy, she keeps her cool, and takes a logical approach to the strange situation. When the academy is attacked, she immediately boils the situation to 'fight or die', and so is one of the first four students to go into battle. Her strength is quickly noticed by the others, as well as her uncanny sadism towards the invaders.
She constantly probes Sirei for important information regarding their situation, and gets frustrated when he evades her questions. When he disappears, she is concerned, and tries to look for him.
Over the next few days she acquires a more authoritative position, looking down on the non-fighting students for being cowards whilst being protective over the ones who are willing to fight (so that the academy's defences are not compromised if they are unable to defend it). She originally forbids Takumi from going out to try and look for Eito, only allowing him to do so once he says he'll try to find Sirei as well, expressing frustration that no one else cares for the bigger picture when the other two fighters say they'll go with him. When Eito finds his broken badge, she demands that Takumi take her back to the place where Eito was found on the morning of Day 7, where the two of them end up finding Sirei's destroyed body.
When the academy is attacked afterwards, she acts quickly and takes Sirei's place in battle, cementing her leadership. She also threatens to make the other students pay after they continue to refuse to fight, likely due to her aforementioned perception of the situation as having two choices: fight or die, combined with her dislike of indecisive people. She is caught off guard by the commander's transformation, and has to be saved by Eito, with her swearing to get her revenge on the commander for it. When the commander is defeated and begs for mercy, she doesn't bother trying to sympathise with it, only seeing it as her enemy. When the others hesitate to kill it, she does it herself, performing the first Finishing Blow, and absorbing its energy. Afterwards, she discusses Sirei's disappearance with the others some more, before they all agree to retire to bed.
Relationships[]
Sirei[]
Initially, Hiruko is the student whose goals are most similar to Sirei's, quickly assuming that defending the academy like he says and getting the other students into battle is the only logical course of action. Hiruko enjoys how Sirei looks visually, often using adjectives such as "charming" and "cute" unprompted when talking about him, which is unusual for someone usually so curt. She is quick to go along with the mission he gives them all, however she gets irritated with his continuous evasion of her questions about their situation. After Sirei's disappearance, Hiruko is quick to assume his role in battle, but soon becomes an even more brutal leader against the non-fighters.
However, as we see more of them together, it becomes clear that Hiruko only aligns herself with Sirei when their goals align rather than out of loyalty to him. If it is more convenient to her, she does attempt to destroy his second-in-command, Nigou, resulting in a Decide your Destiny on whether to let her.
Within the Second Scenario route, Sirei brainwashes Hiruko by erasing some of her memories and tampering with her emotions, resulting in her feeling very trusting of him. This becomes important in the Conspiracy route, as one of the bad ends is caused by Hiruko's brainwashing causing her to rat out Takumi's plans to align with the anti-exodus project to Sirei.
However, Hiruko doesn't see Sirei as entirely untrustworthy or worthless, as in the split before Romance and SF routes, she is seen asking for the Glitch Repair Program from him, rather than trying to steal it or deceive him. Additionally, in SF route, she ultimately decides to take Sirei and Nigou with them in the lead-up to endings 54 and 55, disabling them temporarily as she knows their programs would lead them to resist. When Sirei reactivates in ending 55, he is distraught they failed their mission, but does not take any action or show any major hostility to them himself.[1]
Takemaru Yakushiji[]
Hiruko and Takemaru initially clash early on due to Hiruko's provocative statements that she sees him as beneath her in regards to both brains and brawn, though she does ultimately respect him more than the others for being one of the first 4 to join the fight. Though Takemaru does frequently wish he could beat her up if it wasn't against his code to hit women, he does also respect her as a combatant after she shows her skill, and is glad she's on his side.
However, after the first few weeks of the prologue route, interactions between them are sparse. The two most prominent ones are in the Cult of Takumi route, where Hiruko is absent from the cafeteria the day after Takemaru's death (which does not occur if the player picks Kyoshika instead), with it being explicitly remarked on by the other students as likely being due to grief, and near the end of Second Scenario, where Takemaru starts crying tears of joy after Hiruko agrees with him a single time.
Takumi Sumino[]
Caution: Major Spoilers
Takumi is undoubtedly the member of the SDU that means the most to Hiruko. Though she often acts as cold and snarky to him as she does to everyone else, at some point she developed deep romantic feelings for him, which she often keeps hidden, likely to offset the pain she'd experience once she loops again and he forgets everything they went through. Additionally, Hiruko is established generally to be very bad at expressing her own emotions, which does not help.
In the Killing Game route, Hiruko very clearly defines the "Takumi [she] knows": a kind-hearted guy who is good at heart, and will put his friends above himself. During that route, she keeps her distance due initially due to her being unsure that he's the Takumi she knows, due to him killing Eito. Takumi has massive respect for her during this route, considering her a hero much greater than him for trying so hard to save Darumi whilst putting an end to the killing game. He continues to hold massive respect for her for the rest of the route.
Though she often says harsh words to him, she respects Takumi's abilities as a leader, and will sometimes place the burden of large decisions in his hands, following them unquestionably as compensation. When she is appointed as Assistant Leader to him during the path of Second Scenario, she accepts it with little complaints. Though it's more subtle, Hiruko will often support Takumi, and be one of the first to come to his defence if he's being outcast by the group, often giving him pep-talks when he feels down.
The Coming of Age route is the notable exception, where she is quick to jump to conclusions about him being an enemy spy due to Eito's manipulation. However, after the deception is revealed, she feels stupid for falling for it, and starts working with Takumi as a unit again.
Hiruko and Takumi's relationship is most prominently explored in the SF route, where they work together to create a timeline where none of the SDU die. After experiencing an endless hell she has been unable to escape from, Hiruko sees Takumi as amongst her last hopes, and her desperation leads her to react incredibly poorly when Takumi tries to back out from helping her after hearing the truth that they are both timeloopers, with her saying that she'll never trust him ever again, never in any other loop. However, after firming his resolve, Takumi is able to regain her trust, and they work together again.
During Slasher route, Hiruko mentions that she's looking to add a calico figure to her collection of soft vinyl cats. Takumi is able to remember this and gift it to her, and whilst she initially tries to pretend like she does not care for it, it becomes an object of comfort for her afterwards, with her shown clutching it at times of vulnerability. This is almost certainly due to the associations with Takumi she has.
Hiruko is distinctly crueller during the SF route, likely because of the mental decay that comes as a result of four decades of timelooping. She quickly assigns Takumi as her servant, referring to herself as his master, something which can be interpreted as a mix of her enjoyment of teasing him, as well as possibly a way of keeping a distance between the two of them. The former is particularly important, as Hiruko makes it clear that she gets great pleasure from him looking like a pitiful, sopping wet kitten, and will go out of her way to extract that expression from him.
Though Takumi takes her insults at face value at first and is psyched out by them, over the course of the route they become more comfortable with each other, to the point where Takumi is able to easily brush off her remarks, and even give her a taste of her own medicine and tease her back when he finds out she goes "Eep" when startled, resulting in her getting too flustered to respond.
Ultimately, Hiruko would give up the world for Takumi. This is most evident in the Slasher and SF routes. For the former it's where it's revealed she kept the fact that Takumi was infected with G'ie data and killing the others a secret so that he would avoid being killed by the others, or committing suicide out of guilt all whilst trying to come up with some kind of cure (her favouritism for him is clear when compared to how she treated a G'ie-infected Kako), and even more prominently in SF where it's revealed she used the PLM to deliberately orchestrate the Serial Killer branch of Slasher in order to preserve the cherished memories she holds with Takumi there. In response to this, Takumi feels a lot of different emotions including rage, but ultimately his deep affection for her leads him to forgive her for this.
In the lead-up to ending 54 and 55, when Hiruko is a burden due to her leap damage, Takumi doesn't even consider abandoning her an option, with the Decide your Destiny rather being whether to follow her to the basement, or take her to the Escape Pod. In Ending 55, they rejoice over the fact that they've escaped the timeloop together.
And yet, despite Hiruko's desperation to escape the timeloop, and the crushing fear she has of it apparent during the route, when he dies of leap damage in her arms in ending 59, she promises with determination that they will go through loop 147, together.
Darumi Amemiya[]
To Hiruko, Darumi is simply another combatant—nothing more, nothing less. When Darumi died, she offered no remorse, treating it as an inevitable loss rather than a personal tragedy, even considering the others strange for getting so worked up over someone they barely knew. However, despite her indifference, she acknowledges Darumi's reliability, as she was among the first to take up arms in defence of the academy. She is even one of the few people to receive praise from Hiruko, as she calls her enthusiasm towards fighting admirable. In Hiruko’s eyes, every capable fighter is a necessary asset, and Darumi is no exception. On the other hand, Darumi greatly admires Hiruko, viewing her as an incredibly strong and commanding presence on the battlefield.
Preferred Items[]
- Wine (#Celebrity Food)
- Yoga Outfit (#Sexy Clothes)
- Scented Candle (#Soothing Items)
- Glasses Stand (#Handy Items)
- Snake Plushie (#Animal Ornaments)
- High Heels (#Sexy Accessories)
- Bath Salts (#Soothing Tools)
- Calico Cat Figure (#Animal Ornaments)
Trivia[]
- The English version of the official website incorrectly lists her birthday as the 7th of May, rather than the 27th of May.
- Her preferred weapon is a giant battle axe, which, despite its size, she prefers to wield one-handed. (Though she will use two when actually attacking.)
- The bit at the bottom of Hiruko's axe is able to extend, creating something akin to a rope which she uses to drag and swing the school invaders around during some of her attacks, such as her Cranial Fracture one.
- Her name was revealed in the Tokyo Game Show 2024 online program for the game.
- She is one of the first four people to be shown transforming, alongside Takumi Sumino, Takemaru Yakushiji, and Darumi Amemiya.[4]
- Hiruko's English VA, Minh Ton, has taken part in several fan-made Danganronpa projects in the community, making this their first role in a title by the original series' creator, Kazutaka Kodaka.
- Their favourite lines to record for Hiruko were the long speech she has where she explains Darumi's upbringing and mindset in the Killing Game route, and any line from the SF route.[5]
- Hiruko's Japanese website epithet is 女王リーダー, meaning "Queen Leader".[6]
- The kanji behind her in her Report Card profile says 虐殺 (gyakusatsu), meaning "slaughter" or "massacre".
- Hiruko enjoys drinking wine, despite being underage. Takemaru's confident assertion that she's under the legal drinking age implies that the legal drinking age in the Tokyo Residential Complex is still 20, as in current-day Japan.
- Hiruko's greater experience in fighting the invaders is reflected in her weapon stats; while all the other fighters in the demo only have one unique move and 1/5 of their skill points, Hiruko has two moves and 8/10 of her skill points, with her Cranial Fracture move being maxxed out.
- In Freetime events, Hiruko increases your Mathematics skill (Analysis).
- Takumi can only access Hiruko's Freetime events if he has spent a period training first.
- She is the favourite character of game director Kotaru Uchikoshi, due to her prominence in his routes.[7]
References[]
- ↑ https://hundred-line.com/en/character/?p=hiruko
- ↑ https://hundred-line.com/en/character/?p=hiruko
- ↑ https://hundred-line.com/en/character/?p=hiruko
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/live/Azv7W8vOtQY?t=2154s
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUozNFThwBk
- ↑ https://hundred-line.com/character/?p=hiruko
- ↑ https://www.tumblr.com/asaka-lucy-hl/785158124155944960/5th-school-council-online-meeting-en?source=share