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Nico (ニコ Niko) is one of the main protagonists of the anime and web manga series. He is in Nanba Prison for unknowingly buying and selling drugs in the slums along with aggravated escape.
Appearance
Nico is a rather short and skinny teen with wild, bright green hair that reaches his lower back. He has a darker skin tone and reddish eyes, although one is covered with bandages. There are similar bandages covering his neck, right arm, and right leg. His usual outfit is a plain orange prison uniform. He has a ball and chain attached to his right ankle.
When seen not wearing his uniform, such as in flash backs and at the beach, he seems to have a taste for more eccentric clothing.
Personality
Nico is a very cheerful person, rarely taking things seriously; he is seen as happy go lucky. He is a huge anime and manga fan and he enjoys video games. He can be childish and immature at times, as well as being rather impulsive.
He is rather effeminate, both in terms of appearance and personality. When meeting Hitoshi Sugoroku, whom he thought was a girl, he complimented his dress[1]. Out of the rest of cell 13, he is arguably the easiest to apprehend with the only difficulty being his strange illnesses.
When his medicine wears off he seems to have an alternate personality. Nico becomes crazed, and out of control. He then refers to himself using the third person. In this persona, Nico has no limits to his strength and speed, causing great harm to his body. Nico is also attracted to the smell of medicine, charging at people for medicine to save his life as he views the medicine as his lifeline.[2]
Background
Born in the slums of America, he grew up surrounded by drugs and filth. He was born with multiple unknown illnesses and many allergies. he was arrested for suspected drug dealing, although it was soon discovered he was likely used as an unwitting courier. He was sent to juvenile hall with a light sentence, and was later moved to medical reform school to receive intensive care.[3]
Whenever doctors tried to treat his illnesses he would get frightened by the needles used to medicate him, which led him to break out of multiple hospitals and jails. This ended up increasing his sentence and got him charged with aggravated escape due to the extent of the damage.
At an unknown point in time, Nico was used as a recyclable test subject since his body would return to normal after being injected with drugs and medicine. the experiments damaged his brain, causing his body to be unable to limit the amount of strength he uses. He has to take medicine to prevent him from harming himself.
He met Jyugo at a prison, and met Rock at a different prison later on and became close friends with him. He was eventually captured and taken to Nanba prison. Nanba has the best medical care in the world, and the doctors gave him medicinal pills to treat his illnesses without needles. He does not feel like escaping and ironically became somewhat of a drug addict.
Plot
The New Year's Tournament Arc
Like the rest of cell 13 and the guards, Nico participated in the calligraphy event, although he did not do well at all.
Nico sees Upa floating before the top spinning event
Later, Nico left to get his medication, stating that the doctor would be mad if he forgot. On his way back to the tournament, he spotted Upa floating during meditation. Nico was incredibly surprised, running off to tell Hajime and leaving his medication behind. When he found out that Upa was participating in the top spinning event, he quickly grabbed Hajime and jumper into the arena. He was excited to have a chance to use some of the lines from the list of things he's always wanted to say, as well as get a chance to see Upa up close. He was interested in winning simply so he could get a modern gaming console.
Due to the fact he forgot to take his medicine, he was able to copy moves he had seen both Liang and Upa perform. This led to him and Hajime winning.
Building 5 Arc
Trivia
- His favorite colors are yellow and lime green.
- He's allergic to buckwheat.[4]
- Prior to going to Nanba Prison, he had never played video games.
- He laughs in his sleep.
- His name could be translated as "Second child" due to his status being the youngest of the group (or referring to his alternate personality). "Ni" means "Two" in Japanese and the "Ko" in his name might also be a reference to the five in his number as the Japanese word for five is "Go"(五) and "Go" and "Ko" have similar phonetic symbols in the Japanese language ("Go" being ゴ and "Ko" being コ).
- Prior to meeting Jyugo, he was illiterate.
- He likes medicine and jelly beans.
- He dislikes bitter things and painful things.
- His hobbies are playing video games, reading manga and collecting limited supply merchandise
References