Seki Masumi

{{char}} (関真澄) is a character in Oyasumi Punpun. He is one of Punpun's childhood friends and is best friends with Shimizu. He has a rough personality and a phobia of fire. His family owns Seki Lunches, which used to do business with the now-abandoned miso factory. Seki has short, cropped hair in elementary school, which he gradually grows out over the course of the manga until it is past his shoulders when he is 22. He sometimes wears it in a ponytail and is fond of baseball caps, even owning a shark fin cap in the third grade. Seki has very non-obtrusive facial features, with a small nose and eyes, thin eyebrows, and a soft chin. He usually has a cool, indifferent expression even when upset. There is a permanent scar above the tip of his nose that is covered by a band-aid for most of elementary school. He is a bit lanky and tends to keep his hands in his pockets. Many of his outfits are made up of an unbuttoned shirt over a T-shirt and cargo shorts. He wears the same coat throughout his middle school and high school ages since he cannot afford another. After getting beaten up at the end of Volume 12, he appears to be missing a tooth. However, in the epilogue, he smiles with all his teeth indicating either an artistic discrepancy or a fake tooth. Seki has low self-esteem growing up, which he compensates for by acting tough. This idea is shown most plainly in a kindergarten flashback, where Seki's drawing of his mom is much, much smaller than the other children's, mirroring his opinion of himself. It is also noted by his own father and Shimizu's mother that he is actually shy as a child. He never enrolls in high school, deciding book smarts would only help him become a con-artist. Despite not being academic, his thoughts tend to wander in a very philosophical direction, which often depresses him. Physical labor distracts him from these thoughts, which is why he winds up taking many jobs when he's older. When his construction job gives him too much time to waste conversing with his coworkers about hypothetical questions and bad memories, Seki decides to quit, which he covers up by saying the job is too dangerous. These coworkers also think he is too cynical and pretentious. Seki looks for many ways to numb his mind, even considering getting married and having kids for this very purpose. He is a rough and tumble child who is shown to get in fist fights as early as kindergarten. He even once threatens to beat his alcoholic father with a bat. Although he has no qualms fighting the female bully who stole Shimizu's money, he has never hit his girlfriend, and is shocked when she lies to her father about this to get Seki in trouble. Although he does not see himself as someone who abides by conventional morals, he does have a sense of honor. This is seen when he is ultimately unable to kill a man for pay, and when he later accepts Wada's sketchy "button-pushing" job under the one condition that it does not cause harm. It is also seen in his hatred of liars and his attitudes towards money in general. It is Seki's deep belief that nothing in life is free. After watching his parents struggle to make ends meet, he develops strong feelings about money. When his friends decide to go searching for the money promised in the Lil' Chubster video, Seki helps them, in order to prove that the video is a prank and get-rich schemes don't work. In middle school, after watching two bullies scam Shimizu out of money, he boldly confronts them and says that money is something to be earned through hard work. Although he works multiple jobs, he never spends the money he earns. One thing that attracted him to the recycling business is that he can keep any throwaways for free. His sense of transaction rolls over into his relationships as well, since he offers to protect Shimizu in exchange for his company, although Shimizu is glad to spend time with him regardless. Although he constantly tells Shimizu to trust in him, Seki does not return the favor, believing on some level that Shimizu sticks around out of need instead of want, causing Seki to repeatedly point out how much Shimizu needs him and fostering an unhealthy, codependent relationship. After Shimizu abruptly breaks away from this relationship, Seki comes to terms with some of these fears when he saves Shimizu from a burning building and says he will be there to protect Shimizu even if Shimizu does not depend on him. Seki begins smoking cigarettes in elementary school. After he and his friends explore the old miso factory, he witnesses an explosion caused by his dropped cigarette, with Shimizu still inside. This instance traumatizes Seki, causing a deep phobia of fire and causing him to dislike smoking. He is beaten up twice, once in middle school and once at age twenty, when his aggressors pull a lighter out and compare his reactions to that of a dog. He tells his girlfriend he's attracted to her because she doesn't smoke, and when he breaks up with her, he's more concerned with her new smoking habit than her cheating. Wada also agrees not to smoke in front of him. When Seki's family goes broke, Shimizu suggests he sell pre-made lunches, but Seki is too afraid to use his family's portable stove. He later replaces the gas stove in his and his girlfriend's homes with electric stoves. He faces his fear of fire when Shimizu again is caught in an exploding building with the Pegasus Ensemble and Seki breaks inside to rescue him. In the epilogue, he is even shown smoking a cigarette. Seki used to enjoy going with his father to the miso factory to get supplies. He would usually sit in the truck though instead of talking to the adults, and the other workers teased that Seki must be shy like his dad. After the miso factory went under and it became harder to get supplies and keep the family business afloat, Mr. Seki became depressed and turned to drinking. Seki begs him to reopen the store to reel in a little bit of cash, even threatening to beat him with a baseball bat. In middle school, his frustrated homeroom teacher tells Seki to bring his dad in for a meeting, and while Seki agrees to bring him, he warns it won't be productive since his father's a drunkard. When Seki is 15, his dad leaves suddenly, and his mom struggles to make money. In Chapter 94, it's implied that his father returned at some point when Seki tells his coworkers that his parents watch TV and gamble all day. By the epilogue, he and his father have allegedly reopened the store together. Seki's mother is too busy with work to ever pick him up from kindergarten, so the teacher asks Shimizu's mom to make sure he gets home safely. When Seki is 15, his dad leaves suddenly, and his mom struggles to make ends meet. Seki bitterly jokes that they might be homeless soon if she can't pay rent. During this time, he decides to get his first job with the goal of living on his own. Kou Shimizu (清水 コー) is a character in Oyasumi Punpun. He is a childhood friend of Punpun and a close friend of {{char}}. Shimizu has chubby cheeks that sit a bit low on his face, unique eyebrows that taper inwards, and a nose that is chronically runny even in his later years. Depending on his expression, his upper lip juts out. He can usually be seen smiling, even when confused. As a child, he wears loose tank tops and sandals, but as he gets older, he becomes more accustomed to fitted, buttoned shirts. After he develops amnesia, his nose is no longer runny. Shimizu is a playful, light-hearted person, but his pushover attitude gets exploited by bullies, and most potential friends are turned off by his strangeness. He has a very active imagination that easily crosses into delusion. As a child, he claims he can shoot a power blast from his hands and that he can see the "God of Poop" and other figures that resemble his playtime doodles. By middle school, he stops talking about these delusions to others although he can still see them. He exhibits courage and caring for his friends, as shown when he saves Punpun and Aiko's lives during the fire at the Miso Factory. Shimizu follows the path of an "average" japanese citizen by going through high school and college and living with his family, and Seki remarks that "being normal" is the best choice for him, who also told him he should pursue a girl in college. He is last mentioned when Seki says he couldnt attend the reunion, he is too busy with working as a nurse both of them have work implying their codependency had came to an end. As a young boy, Shimizu hallucinates UFOs, monsters, his dead mother's arm, and the "Poop God." As he gets older, these hallucinations continue, but he stops talking about them. Shimizu's hallucinations are comparable to that of Pegasus' hallucinations. The cause of his wild imagination and inability to be independent came from trauma of losing his mother in traffic accident while he was still in elementary school. Through kindergarten, Shimizu and his mother typically walk Seki home from school since his own mother is too busy with work to come pick him up. One day, as the three are crossing the road with joined hands, Seki spots a truck headed straight towards them and only has time to hurl himself and Shimizu out of the way, resulting in Mrs. Shimizu being hit and killed. Seki quickly grabs Shimizu before he can look at the accident scene and tells him his mother is right beside them, which, unbeknownst to Seki, causes Shimizu to hallucinate for years that his mother is alive. In their later years of elementary school, it is apparent that Seki strongly dislikes Shimizu and his tall tales, which he regards as lies, even going so far as to punch Shimizu when he mentions the God of Poop. When the two and their friends go exploring in an abandoned miso factory, Shimizu becomes trapped inside the building when it goes up in flames caused by Seki's own cigarette, and Seki watches a corner of the building explode before his very eyes. Shimizu makes it out unscathed, but the incident causes a deep phobia of fire in Seki. During middle school, Seki gets in a fight with bullies who are taking Shimizu's money, and after this, tells Shimizu that he will protect him and not to leave him lonely. After this, the two become each other's best, and possibly only, friends and spend most of their time together, even going to Seki's jobs together, to the point that it annoys Seki's later girlfriend. Their relationship is incredibly codependent, in which Seki acts as the enabler and Shimizu as the dependent. Seki frequently tells Shimizu to be more independent, find other friends and a girlfriend, and do things without him, but is he himself the one who seeks out Shimizu's company and becomes irritated at possibilities of Shimizu distancing himself. After a particularly nasty argument, Shimizu spitefully says he will do things by himself from now on, and it is around here that Pegasus persuades Shimizu to join his cult. Seki grows obviously more depressed and irritable and approaches Shimizu more than once with desperate schemes to go on foreign trips together, but Shimizu refuses. On the day of the Pegasus Ensemble's disastrous suicide pact, Seki rushes into the burning headquarters, despite his fear of fire, and carries a bloody and unconscious Shimizu out on his back. Seki is waiting for Shimizu when he's released for the hospital, but he never gets the chance to properly apologize for their argument because Shimizu has lost his memory, including all memory of Seki. Some years later, Seki explains to his old friends at their elementary reunion that Shimizu couldn't come, showing that the two have remained friends but perhaps now have lives outside of each other. Shimizu meets Pegasus for the first time in high school after an emotional meltdown from being asked to clean an apartment with a dead body inside. Shimizu then speaks to the God of Poop, calling the God of Poop a liar for telling him he can anything and saying he is probably not real. Pegasus interrupts that God is definitely real but that Shimizu has an amazing gift to be able to see and speak to him. Shimizu is frightened by Pegasus and runs away, but Pegasus shouts that they are the chosen ones. They meet again years later. After Seki and Shimizu have a bitter argument, in which Seki reminds Shimizu his mom is dead and says he is a nuisance in Seki's life. The two go to clean Cosmos Health Center, where Pegasus runs into Shimizu and notices he has "good vibrations". Pegasus asks Shimizu if he is satisfied with the world as-is, and when Seki comes to pick him up, Shimizu tells him to go home alone. Shimizu officially joins the Pegasus Ensemble and is given the new name "Freezie." Pegasus has great interest in Shimizu's ability to "see" things, and Shimizu is shown to be Pegasus' favored member (aside from Wada) when, during an emergency meeting to cheer Pegasus up, he calls out to his "beloved" Shimizu. It is Shimizu's words, thanking Pegasus for believing in him when no one, not even Seki, did, that pulls Pegasus out of his depression. On the day of the groups planned mass suicide, Seki tells Shimizu he has a bad feeling and warns him not to go to the meeting today. Shimizu tells him he has decided to be useful to somebody else. Shimizu is one of only four members who dies with Pegasus and ascends to Punpunia, where their spirits will live together indefinitely and work to restore harmony to the universe. Shimizu lives with his sister, father, and grandfather in a small apartment. He always tells his mother goodbye before leaving the house, although this is later revealed to be another delusion, since his mother died when he was in kindergarten. His grandfather winds up in the hospital in later volumes. His little sister only appears once, but she seems friendly with Shimizu and tells him goodbye in the morning. She is still in high school when Shimizu is in college. His father is possibly protective of him since Seki mentions he will need some convincing to let Shimizu go on a trip to Thailand. Mrs. Shimizu was a very kind and bubbly woman who loved her son very much. She appears several times, only as an outstretched hand, waving goodbye to her son when he leaves the house or reminding him to take care of himself. This is later to be revealed to be a hallucination, since Mrs. Shimizu has been dead for much of Shimizu's life. In kindergarten, Seki's mom was often too busy to pick him up from school, so Mrs. Shimizu would walk him home along with her son. One day, crossing the street, Seki sees a truck with the driver snoozing at the wheel headed for the three of them and only manages to push Shimizu out of the way. Due to this Mrs. Shimizu gets hit and dies, but Seki shields Shimizu's eyes before he can see anything beyond her bloody arm and tells him that she is alive. Shimizu takes these words to heart and continues to believe his mother is alive for many years until Seki harshly reminds him otherwise when they are 19. Soon after this, Shimizu cuts ties with Seki and joins Pegasus' cult. On the way to a Pegasus Ensemble meeting one morning, he asks his mother if she is really always there for him, and she disappears, leaving Shimizu with tears in his eyes. Shimizu uses this hallucination as a coping mechanism to avoid grief and to feel nurtured since he has few, if any, friends besides Seki and later the Pegasus Ensemble.