Draft:Shiki Granbell

Shiki Granbell (シキ・グランベル) is the main protagonist of Edens Zero, a manga series written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima. He is portrayed as a human teenager raised his entire life by robots on the fantasy theme park planet Granbell. Characterized by his obsession with making friends, he disembarks on an adventure through space to search for Mother, the goddess of the cosmos, and make 100 friends across the universe. In the process, he inherits the series' titular interstellar warship from his grandfather figure, the "Demon King" Ziggy, from whom Shiki has also learned the supernatural power of Ether Gear to manipulate gravity. The manga depicts multiple versions of Shiki across the multiverse, while revealing Ziggy to be one such version from an alternate future who becomes an unwilling major antagonist.

The character was designed as a culmination of protagonists from Mashima's previous works such as Rave Master and Fairy Tail, with Mashima intending to show his progression from a naive young adventurer to a mature and cosmically renowned hero by the manga's second half. In the Japanese anime adaptation and related media, Shiki is voiced by Takuma Terashima. For the anime's English dub, he is voiced by Sean Chiplock.

Critical reception to the character has been mixed; comparisons to Fairy Tail protagonist Natsu Dragneel have also been noted.

Concept and creation
Continuing his theme of naming protagonists after seasons, Hiro Mashima chose the Japanese word meaning "four seasons" (四季) for the main character of Edens Zero, which he said was "partly as a way to put [his protagonists] all together". Mashima wrote him with a friend-obsessed personality, which influenced the naming of series heroine Rebecca Bluegarden, as Mashima was reminded of the song "Friends" by rock band Rebecca. In the story's early drafts, the protagonist was named "Ziggy" after the David Bowie song "Ziggy Stardust", which Mashima listened to frequently while creating the story. Mashima reassigned this name to Shiki's adoptive grandfather, who is revealed in the story's second half to be a future counterpart of Shiki, with "Ziggy" being a corruption of Shiki's name.

Mashima alternated between different attributes while developing the character's design, such as giving him white hair instead of the final black, and whether or not Shiki would wear goggles. Other concept drawings depict Shiki wearing a bracelet that transforms into a gauntlet as an early concept for his Ether Gear. Shiki is normally drawn with a patch on his cheek, which Mashima admitted he has often forgotten among other design details.

The character's transition into a young man was planned early in development, although Mashima hesitated to incorporate the change due to concerns of negative reactions from "fans of the boyishly cute Shiki". He left traces of his old design to alleviate this, describing the change as "just shifting him from cute to cool". Mashima hoped that Shiki's growth would turn him into someone readers would think was "cool" both visually and as a character. Because he wanted Shiki to stand out among the cast, Mashima deliberately limited the amount of visual changes in the other characters' designs.

For the anime adaptation and related media, Shiki is voiced by Takuma Terashima in Japanese, and by Sean Chiplock in English.

Appearances
Shiki's origins are revealed upon his discovery of Mother: he was born on Earth—of which Mother is its personified form—shortly before the start of the planet's destruction in 2025. A group of eight colleagues—including Shiki's parents, Regret and Leonard—sacrificed their lives to send Earth into Overdrive to save the planet, which inadvertently caused Shiki's death upon Earth's transformation into Mother. Twenty-thousand years later, the Chronophage reverted Mother's history to a point before her transformation, allowing Ziggy to rescue Shiki as Earth's last survivor. Shiki uses this knowledge to save Mother

Characteristics
Introduced as a mononymous character, Shiki is given the surname "Granbell" by Rebecca after his home planet, while he shares his given name with the series' setting, the Grand Shiki Cosmos.

Powers and abilities
During their final battle, Shiki acquires a second Ether Gear from Ziggy, Wormhole (ワームホール), originally belonging to Poseidon Nero. This ability allows its user to create wormholes to travel between any two points in the universe, provided he has already visited those locations in person.

Critical reception
Critical response to Shiki has been mixed, focusing particularly on the manga's early volumes and the anime's first season. Faye Hopper of Anime News Network (ANN) described Shiki as "more Tarzan than Luffy" due to his isolation from human contact and resulting lack of etiquette, and praised his simple motives of exploring the universe and making friends for adding "a spark of life" to the story's apparent "special destiny plotline"; however, Hopper felt that jokes such as Shiki groping Rebecca "does a number on the main character's likeability". ANN ' s Teresa Navarro considered Shiki to be similar to most shōnen protagonists, saying that he "of course fights for his friends, is very passionate, and of course can use some high tech gear that hasn't been used since the Dark Ages". John Serba of Decider called Shiki a "very thin [character]" and "in sincere need of substantial development" along with heroine Rebecca, and criticized the vague establishment of his goals, but determined both to be "blank slates just [ripe] for whatever the universe throws at them". Michael Triay of Bubbleblabber wrote more positively of Shiki, calling him "endearing to watch", and that "[his] incessant ranting about friends can be eye-roll inducing at times but doesn't take away too much from his charm". Triay also complimented Sean Chiplock's performance as "energetic and enamoring".

Journalists have drawn comparisons between Shiki and Natsu. Rebecca Silverman from ANN considered Shiki to be a distinct character, calling him "a lot more aware of girls". Bubbleblabber called the differences between the two characters "subtle", noting that "he actually finds girls attractive and isn’t completely clueless to social cues from them and others". ANN ' s MrAJCosplay considered Shiki's powers to be more creative than Natsu's due to their versatility, while adding that he is "a bit more naïve on the battlefield" and "just isn't in love with fighting nearly as much as Natsu", giving the character more opportunity for growth. He added that the contrast between the two characters' respective series is represented by their approach towards fighting; whereas Natsu almost always winning represented Fairy Tail as a story about "friendship always taking down forces of cynicism and depression", Shiki's realization that "it's not up to him to decide whether or not things will actually turn out [all sunshine and rainbows]" helped establish Edens Zero as "a darker and edgier story masquerading as some kind of happy space opera".

Popularity
Early online commenters have likened Shiki's design to that of a "child" of Fairy Tail characters Natsu and Gray Fullbuster. On Anitrendz, Shiki was voted for "Boy and Girl of the Year for Non-Simulcast Anime", ranking third. The final battle between Shiki and Ziggy was met with enthusiasm by readers, and the connection between the two characters was subject to speculation. Mashima commented on readers' predictions, saying that some readers guessed correctly.