SERIZAWA, gin

Gin Serizawa

Twenty

Male

Japan

This Okinawa native, like most others living in the island, is lightly tanned. Indulging often in his hobby, fishing, he has developed scarred hands as well as a fairly muscular body. After all, strength and endurance are often needed when reeling in his catches. He has a tattoo on his left arm resembling a bird-like figure that snakes up his neck. His eyes, which are green with flecks of gold around his irises, mark the boundaries for the tattoo, as it stops underneath his left eye. Aside from his eyes, which, as the color hints, may be a product of some Middle Eastern influence, he has black hair, proof of his Japanese blood. However, to get with pop culture, he dyed it brown.

Holding his mace like a lance at his side, he faces the enemy. With his left foot planted firmly on the ground in front and the other moved slightly toward his right, the Art is activated, making his mace begin to glow green. Charging forward, he thrusts the mace forward like he would with a sword. The front of the mace is pushed in toward the gut of his enemy. The move has the potential to stun his enemy, allowing him to pull his mace back and retreat.

Resting his weapon on his right shoulder, his fingers are wrapped loosely around the handle of his mace. Moving them up slightly toward the base of his weapon, Gin both increases power and grip, furthermore, activating his Sword Art. The mace glows purple upon activation. Once fully charged, he swings his mace powerfully in close-ranged combat, aiming for his enemy’s skull.

POSITIVE
• Amiable
• Polite
• Unbiased
• Resolute
• Childlike

NEGATIVE
• Enigmatic
• Misunderstanding
• Weak-spined
• Perverted
• Touchy

LIKES
• Touching fish
• Salty snacks
• Watching the scenery go by
• Clam-digging
• Fruit juice

DISLIKES
• Driving
• Being tickled
• Being poked in the ribs
• Hot baths
• Milk

He had a relatively uneventful childhood. His mother didn’t even get a babyshower. Being a single mom with a daughter, Mari wasn’t exactly prepared for yet another child. While her boyfriend, whom she met a year later, offered to take care of the family while they dated, the family of three was always in disarray, leading to Gin’s sister, Ayumi, to take care of her baby brother.
As a young boy, he never really noticed it, but his sister was a dominant force in his life. Always there to stick up for him at school and never failing to come to his rescue, he idolized her and looked to her as his personal hero. This unusual love for his sister may have been unnerving to any outsider, but he truly cared for his sister, and as a result, did his best to stay out of trouble whenever he could, since he did not want to make her life harder.

It was hard though, during high school, to continuously stay out his trouble. His step-father and mother were always out late, carousing into the night, leaving he and his sister to clean up after them. Gossip always has an uncanny way of going where ever you don’t want it to go, and his peers constantly mocked his circumstances, though their jibes seemed to be targeted mainly at his parents. Despite this, he lashed out angrily at whenever the chance presented itself to him. His sister was usually the one to apologize, leading Gin to only despise his circumstances further as well as his classmates.
His sister, unknown to him, suffered as well for his foolishness. The more Gin fought, the lower her reputation seemed and the farther she grew from her mother and step-father. Unlike her brother, she agreed with her classmates, knowing that their caretakers have not been the best. Gin failed to see that, only until he graduated and was forced to move out with his sister, did he begin to see the light.

It came as a rude awakening. His step-father coming in to tell him that his mother wanted him out with Ayumi. He was never one to argue, so with a sinking feeling in his gut, he packed his belongings and moved out to be with his sister, allowing the couple to live on their own. Though never having seen her in over two years, he was unsure how she’d respond to him intruding. When he came to Okinawa, where his sister worked as a detective, she greeted him cooly, allowing him to stay with her.
Gin, having changed for the worse by becoming more or less a delinquent, was shocked by the change that had overcome his sweet sister. Treating him with the same coldness his peers had, his sister unnerved him, making him more quiet and subservient to her as he had been in the past. College was a time to become independent, to find your niche and discover your talents. However, he failed to go, only coming in to take an important test or two, spending most of his time fishing instead, as doing so calms him and gives him a chance to get away from it all: his sister’s betrayal, his abandoning, his mother’s departure. Gin knew he has become nothing but a nuisance to his sister.

The game was thrown in his lap. His sister’s words: “You don’t exactly deserve it for not doing well in school, but your birthday is your birthday.” Uttering a quiet thank you, he took the Nerve Gear, heading into his room to try it out. On one of the days he chose to go to school, he had heard his classmates talking about the game, though he was never too much of a gamer type to be interested in it. Perhaps it was his sister’s way of telling him to live some more, getting this game, by making superficial friends over some artificial world.
Never the less, when Gin put on the helmet tiredly, he found himself waking up to a world he could never have imagined. Rather than feel bored by it, the young man was amazed and awestruck. Although the first thought in his mind was that he was going to fish here and become an amazing fish merchant, he felt that it was the perfect opportunity to make some friends. Whoever showed him kindness during the first few hours of the game, automatically was stalked and seemingly ‘hit-on’ by him. Yet when Akihiko’s announcement came onto scene, he wasn’t too concerned. Stunned maybe, but not concerned. After all, this was his chance to reinvent his life. The subservient delinquent Gin was no more, in his place, the humble and strong Dormouse.