Description
Kōichirō Mutō is a 44-year-old Japanese lights engineer for a stage production company, husband to Mari Mutō, and father to Ayumu and Go Mutō. Tall and well-built with short black hair, he typically wears construction work clothes or a plain green shirt with jeans.
When catastrophic earthquakes strike Tokyo shortly after the 2020 Olympics, Kōichirō is rigging stage lights in a stadium. After a minor tremor, he orders his team to finish. A subsequent severe quake hurls him from scaffolding, though safety ropes prevent injury. He immediately races home on his scooter but finds critical infrastructure destroyed, including a vital bridge. Persisting, he reaches his house and deploys his stage lights on a nearby hill, creating a colored path that successfully guides his family to safety, reuniting him first with Ayumu, then Go—who arrives with eye injuries—and finally Mari.
Inspecting Go's bandaged eyes, Kōichirō diagnoses superficial eyelid cuts, crediting the boy's gaming reflexes for avoiding worse injury. He performs immediate first aid, using a stapler to close the wounds. The family briefly celebrates survival with a group photo before rising floodwaters force them off the hill.
Journeying westward based on intelligence from Go's online gaming network, Kōichirō assumes leadership. He maintains optimism during shortages, like when Ayumu gives their last water to an elderly couple. Later, he kills a wild boar for food. Noting Ayumu's refusal to eat it, he ventures into a yam garden the next day seeking alternative sustenance. Ignoring warning signs about unexploded wartime ordnance, his shovel strikes a buried bomb, triggering an instant, fatal explosion. His dismembered body rains down on his family and fellow survivors, traumatizing them.
His given name "Kōichirō" combines "navigation/navigate" (航), "one" (一), and "son" (郎). His surname "Mutō" derives from "military, martial" (武) and "wisteria" (藤).
When catastrophic earthquakes strike Tokyo shortly after the 2020 Olympics, Kōichirō is rigging stage lights in a stadium. After a minor tremor, he orders his team to finish. A subsequent severe quake hurls him from scaffolding, though safety ropes prevent injury. He immediately races home on his scooter but finds critical infrastructure destroyed, including a vital bridge. Persisting, he reaches his house and deploys his stage lights on a nearby hill, creating a colored path that successfully guides his family to safety, reuniting him first with Ayumu, then Go—who arrives with eye injuries—and finally Mari.
Inspecting Go's bandaged eyes, Kōichirō diagnoses superficial eyelid cuts, crediting the boy's gaming reflexes for avoiding worse injury. He performs immediate first aid, using a stapler to close the wounds. The family briefly celebrates survival with a group photo before rising floodwaters force them off the hill.
Journeying westward based on intelligence from Go's online gaming network, Kōichirō assumes leadership. He maintains optimism during shortages, like when Ayumu gives their last water to an elderly couple. Later, he kills a wild boar for food. Noting Ayumu's refusal to eat it, he ventures into a yam garden the next day seeking alternative sustenance. Ignoring warning signs about unexploded wartime ordnance, his shovel strikes a buried bomb, triggering an instant, fatal explosion. His dismembered body rains down on his family and fellow survivors, traumatizing them.
His given name "Kōichirō" combines "navigation/navigate" (航), "one" (一), and "son" (郎). His surname "Mutō" derives from "military, martial" (武) and "wisteria" (藤).