Here is a list of characters from the manga King of Thorn.
Warning! Unmarked spoilers ahead.
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The Survivors
Kasumi Ishiki
Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (Japanese), Brina Palencia (English)
The main protagonist of this story who was diagnosed with the Medusa virus along with Shizuku Ishiki (Kasumi's twin sister). 160 people out of the world were chosen to be cryogenically frozen until a cure was found and Kasumi was one of those few selected. She is devastated by the fact that Shizuku was left behind and the mere thought of leaving her to die.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Kasumi develops a crush on Marco. She's well aware that it's probably not a good thing, but can anyone really blame her after all the times he rescued her?
- Break the Cutie: Learning that she and Shizuku were infected with the Medusa Virus does a real number on her mental state, as does the rest of the story's events. Breaking Kasumi turns out to be a big part of Zeus' evil plan.
- Character Development: If you take a look at the cover of the first volume of the manga, you see her at the front, clearly showing how withdrawn and insecure she is, in addition to being terrified throughout the story. By volume 6's cover, she is shown smiling confidently, pointing to the conclusion of her character arc ending with her becoming braver and less dependent on Shizuku (seeing as she's furthest away from Kasumi on the same cover), and more independent than she was before by the story's end.
- Dead All Along: The Kasumi we follow in the story is not the real deal, but her clone. The real Kasumi died before the start of the plot.
- Death Seeker: She was so terrified of Shizuku dying before her, that she tried to commit a Bath Suicide. Had Shizuku not caught her in the act, it would not have been pretty. Tragically, it doesn't stop there. Kasumi was still so hung up on it that she tried to convince Shizuku to jump off the cliff and be Together in Death. It resulted in her own death, Shizuku triggering her own Medusa, and the creation of a clone of Kasumi, who was the Kasumi seen for the rest of the story.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Kasumi, real or clone, had no idea she was this to Shizuku until Medusa!Kasumi remembered that the real Kasumi died, and it triggered Shizuku's Medusa. Shizuku trying to be this to Kasumi didn't do either twin any favors, tragically.
- Morality Pet: Had it not been for her plea, and some help from Peter, Ron would have almost killed Marco in a rage. On that note, she does seem to be this for Marco on some level.
- Nice Girl: Kasumi is always kind and polite to others. Despite not trusting Peter after he kidnapped her, she went out of her way to help him out of the rubble. She also sympathized with Alice's miserable state.
- Polar Opposite Twins: To Shizuku. Kasumi is the quieter of the twins, while Shizuku was lively and cheerful.
- Shrinking Violet: Deconstructed. Kasumi is very shy, thus she depends on her more outgoing sister for emotional support, and this leads to a rather unhealthy attachment to Shizuku.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The Kasumi seen for most of the story, both manga and anime, is a Medusa-made clone of the real Kasumi, who accidentally died in a failed attempted at getting her Shizuku to commit suicide together. Shizuku created Medusa!Kasumi because she couldn't live with the reality of her sister being dead.
Marco Owen
Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese), Patrick Seitz (English)
The male main character of the series. He is a fearsome-looking man with a muscular frame and many intimidating tattoos all over his body who is also an expert hacker, so much so that he was able to crack through the CIA's computers – and those of Venus Gate, something that had him arrested and incarcerated for more than half a century.
- Adaptation Personality Change: At the beginning of the movie, Marco is seen as an obnoxious Sir Swears Alot Boisterous Bruiser. Turns out to be more of an undercover facade, seeing as he's a special agent sent by the government to find proof that Venus Gate was behind The Virus outbreak and destroy the facility if need be.
- Badass Normal: Marco is physically fit, knows how to handle guns, and is able to take on dinosaur like monsters. Although, it's implied Alice was helping him out from the shadows, and when she decides to stop, it becomes painfully clear how outclassed he is compared to a Zeus Race monster.
- Character Development: From the beginning, all he cared bout was finding Zeus and killing him to settle the score. But, after he dies and finds himself in the afterlife, he question if treating Kasumi indifferently was worth all the effort. Whether or not he was brainwashed by Zeus to protect her doesn't factor in. When he comes back from the dead, he makes it clear that he'll protect her no matter what. Like Kasumi above, his appearances in the first and last volume covers point to this. In the first cover, his back is turned to her, showing his distant disposition to her, and by final cover, he's shown smiling with her, and his back no longer turned to her.
- Determinator: Nothing stops Marco for long. Not even death.
- The Hero Dies: In both the manga and anime movie. In the manga, he Came Back Strong, but in the movie, his death is permanent.
- Tattooed Crook: His upper body is covered with tattoos, with the one on his back being an important clue leading to his identity.
- Took a Level in Badass: With Alice's Medusa cursing through his body, Marco can now go toe to toe with a Zeus Race.
Katherine Turner
Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Stephanie Young (English)
Katherine is a pretty young woman in her late twenties and the worst Medusa case among the survivors, being the most infected one of them all. Since their encounter she acts in a motherly way towards Tim, the youngest of them being only a little boy. Before becoming infected, Katherine was an alcoholic and was prone to abuse her son Michael, until he was taken away from her and placed in foster care. This events shook her greatly and left her with bitter disgust for herself, prompting her to try to be a true mother for Tim as she wasn't for her son.
- Abusive Parents: To her son Michael. Katherine was a alcoholic in the past, and she frequently abused him physically. Social services stepped to take him away from her, and she's regretted her behavior ever since.
- Broken Bird: From the start, she was already pretty broken. Rather symbolic when she literally turns into a giant bird later on.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She dies to trigger her Medusa, creating a harpy-like creature to protect Kasumi, Tim and Ron.
- Mama Bear: To Tim and Kasumi. She was willing to risk life and limb to save them, even as she was petrifying. She becomes a giant mother bird later on, hellbent on protecting Tim.
- My Greatest Failure: As mentioned above, she deeply regrets her abusive relationship with her son. Her Heroic Sacrifice is seen as a My Greatest Second Chance when she uses her Medusa to turn herself into a what she perceives to be the ideal mother to protect Tim.
- Team Mom: She looks after Tim, and comforts Kasumi when she needed it. She also gives advice to the younger girl about her feelings for Marco.
Peter Stevens
Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese), Christopher Bevins (English)
Peter was an engineer and doctor, the creator of the cold sleep capsules used by Kasumi and the other people gathered by Venus Gate. Despite his success in creating stable prototypes of the capsules, a sudden crisis of the electronics market left him without financial support, until Venus Gate expressed interest in his project and hired him and his colleagues. He succeeded in perfecting the cold sleep capsules and gained access to most of Venus Gate's labs, though he never clearly understood what the mysterious Level 4 was for. However, after developing the capsule he was suddenly withdrawn from the project, which was in turn passed to Level 4 and left him bitter with resentment, so much so that his only obsession became to retrieve his cold sleep capsule from Venus Gate. He apparently succeeded in discovering the Level 4 data, though in doing so he was discovered and taken prisoner, after which he was infected with Medusa.
- Adaptation Personality Change: While still a nice guy, he is also a devote catholic. He also willing sacrifices himself for Kasumi.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the movie, he lets himself get eaten by a monster in Kasumi's stead.
- Nice Guy: The calmest and most polite of the cast, which makes his betrayal all the more shocking. Although, he is apologetic about kidnapping Kasumi, even trying to assure her he means no harm.
- Only Sane Man: He was this to the group, until he betrayed them and kidnapped Kasumi.
Alexandro Pecchino (The Senator)
Voiced by: Kousei Hirota (Japanese), R. Bruce Elliott (English)
Alexandro is an elderly white man and a politician who bought his place among those chosen to be cured, he was gruff and cowardly, always putting his well-being before that of others. He was the first one to notice that Marco Owen was a dangerous criminal by seeing his tattoos, sparking a brief but intense confrontation which fortunately ended thanks to Peter's reasoning and Kasumi's pleas.
- Asshole Victim: He's the first to die, and nobody really cared afterword, since they were still in danger. Although in the movie, Katherine mentioned him as she was scolding Tim for treating their situation like a video game, but that's about it.
- Butt-Monkey: This guy is always the first to die. He was a bit of a prick, so nobody missed him that much. He even gets a snide remark from Marco about him somehow ending up in Heaven with much nicer people like Katherine and Peter.
- Grumpy Old Man: He complains constantly. This is what gets him killed, unfortunately.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the afterlife, he makes a backhanded effort to encourage Marco to go back and save Kasumi.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies early on, with the only thing known about him being that he was a senator, and he paid for himself to one of the 160 infected to be put in cold sleep until a cure was found, and was aware of Marco's identity.
Timothy Laisenbach (Tim)
Voiced by: Akiko Yajima (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)
Timothy is a very young boy (possibly no more than six years old) hailing from Germany, who is infected with the virus. Quite resilient and mature despite his age, he formed a tight bond with Katherine, seeing her as if she was his mother, though calling her auntie in the process. Due to him being so young, his role is relatively minor, though sometimes he proved himself to be a precious asset to the team.- Adaptation Personality Change: In the manga, he was more mature and rightfully terrified of the monsters in the castle. In the movie, he is excited about the monsters, and likens everything happening around him to a video game he was playing.
- Keet: In the movie.
- Tag Along Kid: He's the youngest, so his contribution to the group is relatively minor.
Ron Portman
Voiced by: Kenji Nomura (Japanese), Bob Carter (English)
Ron is a black police officer from the US. The most physically strong of the survivors, he was something of a fatalist, frequently lamenting on how hopeless the situation was and how useless struggling to survive would be.
- Character Development: Once he realizes he wants to live, he drops his fatalist tendencies and fights to stay alive.
- Death Seeker: He was this, but when survival instinct kicks in, he has a change of heart.
- Black Guy Dies First: Averted in the manga, where he survives to end.
- In the movie however, he is third character to die.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the movie, Ron uses his last moments to save Marco from the literal jaws of death. He succumbs to Medusa not a moment later.
- Papa Wolf: To Kasumi and Tim later on.
- What Does She See in Him?: He has a conservation with Kasumi regarding her crush on Marco. He says point blank that he'll never understand how women fall for guys like him.
Medusa Carriers
Alice Roznovski
Voiced by: Misaki Kuno (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)
Alice is a little Russian girl and the younger sister of the boy who firstly came into contact with the Medusa virus during the meteor shower in Siberia. It is hinted, and later confirmed by herself, that she was abused by her family, and thus suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, using an imaginary friend, a cat-boy named Laloo as a means to endure her harsh life. She was the sole survivor of her whole family when they all died due to the Medusa infection, and in such a moment she unconsciously gave birth — literally — to her imaginary friend, which emerged from her own body and started devouring her brother's deer. Frightened, Alice locked him up and set her house on fire, which not only destroyed her family's corpses and killing Laloo, but also spread Medusa around the world thanks to the fire's smokes.- And I Must Scream: What's left of her body after countless experiments is her upper torso & head, one arm, and her heart & one lung.
- Big Bad: In the movie, her AI is behind all the monsters and hellish events.
- Big Good: In the manga, she's the driving force for the cast to stop Zeus.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She gives the remainder of her life and Medusa to revive Marco.
Shizuku Ishiki
Voiced by: Eri Sendai (Japanese), Alexis Tipton (English)
Shizuku is Kasumi's twin sister who is identical to her if not only for their hairstyle, the fact that Shizuku doesn't wear glasses and she has a upbeat and cheerful personality. Infected with Medusa, despite being left out of those chosen to be cured, among the ones who were was her own sister, she still greatly supported her and insisted for her to take the chance to be saved from Medusa.
- Break the Cutie: Unlike the cloned version of Kasumi, she does not recover from her sister's death.
- Genki Girl: She was always lively and cheerful. That changed after the real Kasumi's death.
- Hive Queen: Her monster form produced all of the monsters seen at the castle, including Medusa!Kasumi.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Kasumi is very attached to her, and the thought of one of them dying from Medusa terrified her enough to try and kill herself. Shizuku tried her best to support her sister, but in the end, their relationship became strained after Kasumi's Interrupted Suicide. Later on, it turns out it actually goes both ways: Shizuku needed her sister's emotional support just as much as Kasumi did, but she kept her feelings to herself so Kasumi wouldn't suffer.
- One-Winged Angel: The giant Hive Queen monster seen through the manga & film is her, after a Superpower Meltdown caused by a Traumatic Superpower Awakening.
- Polar Opposite Twins: To Kasumi, as mentioned above. Shizuku is the livelier of the two, compared to the shy and introverted Kasumi.
- Spirit Advisor: To Kasumi. Or rather, the Medusa-made Kasumi seen throughout the series. Although, she only shows up once to encourage that Kasumi to live.
- Together in Death: In a way, she is this with the real Kasumi by the end.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: The real Kasumi's death is what caused Shizuku's Medusa to go out of control.
Venus Gate
Zeus
Zeus is considered to be the best hacker in the world and a closely observed subject by both NSA and CIA, Zeus is the main antagonist of the series and the archenemy of Marco. The two were apparently rivals in their past, until Zeus broke into the CIA mainframe and then framed Marco for the crime, escaping soon after. At some point he was approached by Karol Vega and made security chief for Venus Gate's labs, especially Level 4, for which he created the tight security systems. A deeply disturbed person, he saw war, strife and conflict as a boring, unrealistic form of entertainment, and claimed that humanity as a species had lost its will to survive. Keeping such ideas a secret from his employers, he devised a way to control Medusa carriers at will, applying it to Shizuku when he found she was much more powerful a carrier than Alice herself. His last act as a human being was amusing himself while looking at Shizuku creating deformed aberrations, before turning his own self into data and entwining it with the monster
- Adapted Out: Zeus doesn't appear in the film.
- Big Bad: Of the Manga. He's responsible for using Shizuku's Medusa to create an army of monsters to terrorize not just the survivors, but also the entire world.
- Godhood Seeker: Everything he did was so he could become one, and he frequently boasts about his god-like powers.
- Slasher Smile: Zeus is always wearing one.
- Smug Super: He always has a smug grin on his face, and happily boasts about how superior he is to everyone else.
- Villainous Breakdown: In their final showdown, he flips out as he's being deleted by Marco.
Ivan Coral Vega
Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe (Japanese), John Swasey (English)
Ivan was the Russian founder of Venus Gate, a religious cult which came to see the power of Medusa as a gift from God himself, and which took Alice in after discovering her in Siberia. Though her suffering could be attributed to him and his religious views could have been easily labeled as senseless fanaticism, Vega was indeed left speechless and horrified by the sheer cruelty of Zeus, whose true identity and goals he was oblivious of, and during the chaotic outbreak at Level 4 he sealed himself inside his study, deep in the facility. He recorded the entire story of how Medusa came into being, how it could turn imagination into reality and what really happened in the lab, ending his last speech asking Alice for forgiveness, before killing himself with a shotgun blast in his mouth.- Big Bad: Subverted. It was assumed he was the villain behind the whole mess, but it turns out he was a Red Herring for the true Big Bad, Zeus.
- Driven to Suicide: In the manga, by the time Kasumi, Marco, Katherine, and Tim find him, he's already dead, via shooting himself in the mouth with a shotgun.
