Baku (バク Baku) is the second protagonist in the original Onegai My Melody and its sequel. He's a purple tapir (often mistaken by humans for an eggplant) who serves as Kuromi's sidekick. He tends to end his sentences with "~zona".
His name, while meaning "tapir", is also a reference to the folkloric creature of the same name that fed on dreams and nightmares.
Personality[]
Despite his looks, Baku is overall a friendly man. He gets along with people easily and even acts nicely towards My Melody and her friends when not helping Kuromi, to the point he sometimes apologizes to My Melody. Apart from Kuromi, he gets along particularly well with Chika-chan, and the owner of the oden stand, who he feels bad about when Kuromi used the Melody Key on them.
He seems to dislike and envy those who are successful only for their looks and wishes to be in ``the winning team of life´´ like them. He dislikes being compared to eggplant and being a doggone loser, and this reflects in a more negative aspect of his personality: he sometimes takes pleasure in seeing members of the winning team of life become losers, and even mocks them in the case of Kakeru and Keichi. He can also rarely cause mischief himself to these people, as seen when he interrupts Kakeru's song by hitting him with a fan in episode 38 of the first show.
He is a hard-working man, always waking up at four o'clock in the morning to deliver newspapers in the human world. That way he can earn money to pay for his and Kuromi's rent at Keichi Hiiragi's mansion, this is despite Hiiragi not asking any money from her (only Baku). At seven o'clock he always wakes up Kuromi despite the trouble she gives him. He also likes spending time at the kindergarten playing with the children, whom he talent taking care of and a soft spot for due to his role as the eldest brother in his home.
One of Baku's most defining traits is his crush on Kuromi despite often being victim to her anger. He cares deeply for her well being, even to the point of trying to stop the heroes from preventing the end of the world when Dar takes her life hostage. This love is due to her fiery personality, and her hidden kind side. In the end, while Baku desires to be in the winning team of life and be considered good-looking, his biggest desire is simply to be loved. While Kuromi is frequently very physically abusive to him, Baku regardless dismisses the abuse towards his feelings despite having a master-pet relationship.
Backstory[]
Baku was born in February 29 as the first child of his family. His mother raised him in her hometown, where he developed the local accent and thus would go on to become the only one in his entire family to end sentences with ``~zona´´ rather than ``~ppe´´. He doesn't have any memory of this detail until episode 32 of Onegai My Melody: Kuru Kuru Shuffle!
His parents would conceive later on 12 more kids, and since the two of them spent a long part of the day working, Baku had to do a big part of their job raising the kids. This taught him how to deal with children and take care of himself.
Despite his love for his family, especially Bako, he at one point ran away from home after being scolded by his father. He went to the beach to cry alone when by coincidence he saw Kuromi screaming at the horizon after getting angry with My Melody as usual. Despite Kuromi initially getting irritated at him, she helped him cheer up by teaching him how she dealt with her frustrations and taking him on ride on her tricycle. This was the first time someone was nice to him, and from that day on he swore to himself he would follow Kuromi everywhere.
A long time later, when Kuromi was captured and sent to trial for stealing bread for Baku's family among other crimes, he tried to defend her by telling the truth of why she stole the bread but it was in vain since she denied it. When she got declared guilty and jailed, Baku stole bread himself to be in the same cell together with Kuromi.
Eventually, they managed to break out of the prison and steal the Melody Key, starting the events of the series.
Role and Abilities[]
Baku's main role is helping Kuromi in her goals, helping her find notes with his sense of smell and keep them safe inside his tummy by eating them, while also serving as her main way of transport thanks to his capacity to fly. While she is prone to mistreating him, he remains loyal and at her side in almost every situation. With the only exceptions being once when Kuromi's mistreatment goes too far for him and a brief time near the end of the first show when he thinks to help her will only hurt her.
He shows talent taking care of the home, being the one who cleans Kuromi's room. And he also shows the ability to protect others by wrapping his extended ears around them. He can also read human, something he learned while delivering newspapers every day.
In Kuru Kuru Shuffle, while he keeps transporting Kuromi and sniffing out the notes, the task of keeping them is passed on to Kuromi's box. In exchange, he gains a bigger role as the paragon of Doggone Losers and has the duty to finish off Dar-chan by eating him. After learning from the Eggplant God about his status of paragon, he develops the capacity to detect people's doggone loser auras, absorb them and gather the energy produced from them to use. He studies and learns to use it optimally, that he even creates his own hero persona: Eggplant Mask/Nasubi Kamen.
In Sukkiri, while he's a referee at soccer practice, he feels uncomfortable. Then, he goes to a flower field and farts out all the black notes he ate during the past two seasons, and that happens after he ate Dar-chan in Kuru Kuru Shuffle. Somehow, those black notes can turn into Huff-Huffs, a reminiscent of Dar-chan. His ability now is to sniff out Huff-Huffs, in order for Kuromi to get the Anger Gems, and make her the ruler of all Mariland.
He has his own version of Usamimi Kamen's signature attack, called" Doggone Loser Beam", which can cause humans to slowly turning them into tapirs.
Trivia[]
- Like Kuromi, Baku has a journal where he writes down his moments with her. Hiiragi burns it in the middle of the first season, but he somehow retrieves it in the second season when they break out of jail.
- His birthday is confirmed to be on February 29.
- His name is a bit of a pun: in Japanese, baku could mean a tapir or a dream-eating creature of Japanese mythology.
- In one episode he has a crush on Uta.
- He does appear to have a conscience. On one occasion, he was seen delivering newspapers and giving rides to children.
- Baku has the ability to sniff out Black Notes, and whenever a new one is obtained, Kuromi skewers it with a magical stick and Baku eats it for safekeeping.
- Baku first met Kuromi at a beach in Mariland after being scolded by his own father.
- Baku usually says "Zona" at the end of his sentences, a lot like a catchphrase which is common of anime characters.
- His first Doggone Loser beam is shot in OMMKKS26.
- Although Kuromi comes first for him, he also has a crush on the Tennis player Charapova-chan and on the kindergarten teacher, Chika-chan, and just seeing them is enough to keep him refresh and help him go forward when things go bad for him.
Gallery[]
See Baku/Gallery