tomo kunagisa is a central character
in NISIOISIN's 2002 zaregoto series. she's
a weird little autistic computer creature,
and the creator of this site likes
her a lot :-)
tomo kunagisa, also known as DEAD BLUE (BLUE ON THE VERGE OF DEATH), THE BLUE SAVANT, or THAT WEIRD GUY'S FREAKY CYBERTERRORIST GIRLFRIEND WHO NEVER LEAVES HER HOUSE is one of the main characters in zaregoto, and the catalyst for the events of the first book. tomo is a savant, and i swear she used to be on the wikipedia page for savant syndrome, but last time i checked she's not anymore :-/. savant is a bit of an outdated term, bit of an autistic stereotype (re: that little nerd from the good doctor) but the narrative also allows tomo to have regular autistic traits, and i think that's pretty cool for 2002. zaregoto was really ahead of its time & i will never stop talking about it.
she has a weird evil codependant relationship with the protagonist, and i think about them every day. she would literally destroy the entire world if he stopped being hers, and that was Not an idle threat. me and who, amirite????
as a teenager, when she was separated from the protagonist, tomo led a team of cyberterrorists who worshipped her like a god. i'm a teenager and i'm up at 10pm on a wednesday making this site, and i think that's basically the same thing. she's literally me. it's not entirely clarified what tomo was doing during this period, but based on the fact that her and the protagonist don't reunite until 2002, i think she might have been doing 9/11.
sorry. just kidding. mostly. timeline wise though, she also would have been about the same age as lain at the time that lain came out, so i think they were probably chillin out and smoking cyber weed.
in zaregoto 1 the beheading cycle, tomo is invited to an island for being so cool and smart and a genius. she brings her friend ii (reader never learns his actual name. does he even HAVE one?) and as the title suggests, people get beheaded. some might even say, cyclically. ii stumbles into solving the murder, and tomo is relatively unbothered. at one point she does push through her debilitating phobia of going up and down stairs by herself because she's worried about ii, and it is one of the most romantic things in any media ever ok trust me.
despite not actively being the leader of a seemingly motiveless internet militia during the events of the books, tomo still spends most of her time on her giant scary computer. she operates several screens at once, and the cables and hardware of her setup take up the majority of her apartment. tomo says that her greatest shame is the fact that she used to use a commercially available computer.
arguably the main premise of zaregoto (if we choose to ignore all of nisio's weird edgelord philosophy, which you Should, even if some of it is kind of fun) is that the main character is just Some Guy who happens to be friends with the most insane people on earth. his girlfriend is naturally teal-haired (likely due to being concieved out of incest??? someone tell nisio that's not how incest works), used to be japan's most notorious terrorist, and was disowned from her wealthy family, probably for being too cool and awesome. his best friend is just canonically THE MOST POWERFUL PERSON ON EARTH. one time ii almost got stabbed to death by a serial killer, fought the guy for a few hours like racoons in the trash, realized they literally could not kill each other, so then they went to karaoke together. he's cool with getting hit on by my favorite transgender character in anything ever, who coincidentally also wants to eat him. zaregoto is the craziest piece of media ever made. ii- "the nonsense user" chan is just Some Fucking Guy, and tomo kunagisa is inconsolably obsessed with him. he's obsessed with her back.
tomo is generally unphased by violence. in book 4 psychological, one of tomo's former closest confidants from her cyberterrorist days is found BRUTALLY murdered and tomo lols at his dead body and the threat against her written in blood next to it. she's emotionally detatched from everyone but the nonsense user, generally seeing most people as pawns in her evil schemes. utsurigi, who had worshipped tomo like his one true god, gets totally killed crazy freak style, and tomo does Not care.
