Zaha Sanko (ザハ＝サンコ, Zaha Sanko) is the main protagonist of Dai Dark, he is a young man who's travelling across space with the "Package of Darkness", Avakian. After someone placed a bounty on him which the first person to retrieve his bones will be given any wish they desire, Zaha's now on a journey to find out who it was whilst avoiding being killed.
Appearance[]
Approximately 190 cm (~6'3" feet) tall, with a slim muscular build. Commonly seen wearing his skin of darkness when traveling outside of his ship. He is sometimes shown wearing t-shirts with sci-fi monsters on them, an example of which is in Chapter 3, where Zaha is shown to be wearing an "Alien" t-shirt as a reference to the Alien movie franchise. Later on in Chapter 11 he is shown wearing a shirt with a Facehugger on the front, which is also a monster from the Alien franchise.
Personality[]
In spite of having extremely deadly abilities, and being more then willing to use them, Sanko's quite a friendly teenage boy who enjoys life despite having numerous people out to kill him; his favorite activities include eating spaghetti and meatball stuffed sandwiches (or "MeBaSpa" as he refers to them) and watching his favorite TV show, "Alternate Dimension Death RUN".
Zaha can often be lead astray due his happy-go-lucky attitude, something which Avakian often scolds him for whenever it happens, although the former often points out how they aren't so different given how neither of them has any idea how to steer their spaceship and they're both often scammed quite easily by Misetani Box.
Sanko also likes to work with clay and makes clay figurines of his favorite characters.
In school, he did his homework diligently, presenting his Photochtoncontainer with a spaghetti and meatballs sandwich whereas other students brought them back broken or faulty.
Sanko refers to himself as boku (僕), a type of pronoun often used by boys and more soft-spoken men.
Being bullied and otherwise having to always hide his identity, for other people will try to kill him when they know who he is, has left him quite lonely. When Shimada isn't interested in his bones, Sanko immediately latches on to him, despite how dangerous he is and isn't afraid to show this affection, such as in chapter 8 where Zaha tackles him with a hug upon seeing him or when he makes a clay figurine of him. He has a familiar relationship with Avakian, who acts as his caretaker, much like a parent or an elder sibling. He thinks of Moja as cute and helpful, frequently hugging the little robot and hosting a cooking show with him.
History[]
6 and half years ago[]
Zaha and Avakian infiltrated the Treegun Elementary School. Avakian then hacked the system and made Zaha a student there, since it was a safe place for Zaha. As Avakian was finishing the registration, Zaha had to say his name, but since he was dying from hunger, he said Meatball Spagetti and was registered under that name.
6 years ago[]
Zaha woke up in the morning and headed to the school bus. Then in the classroom, the teacher asked them to see their homework using the Photochton Container. Zaha released his container to reveal a meatball and spaghetti sandwich, claiming to be his favorite.
As he was returning from school, Zaha came to a sealed section, trying to look through it, he saw someone and got scared. As Zaha explained what he saw, Avakian got suspicious it may be someone after Zaha, so he wanted to go and check it at night. Using Dark Flesh Avakian removed Zaha's Phylactery that makes him go to sleep at night and they headed towards the sealed section. When they entered the sealed section, they saw kids and followed them to a corridor full of dead bodies. The person Zaha saw appeared behind them and Zaha used his Dark Flesh axe to attack them, but that had no effect. He continued attacking them, but was easily repelled back. Realizing the person wasn't after Zaha's life, the person introduced themselves as Shimada Death and that they came to feast on this ship. Shimada then revealed that the two "kids", who were actually Mini-Bucketmen, were the one who killed all the people. Immediately after that the Mini-Bucketmen attacked Zaha, breathing poison into Zaha's face. Being seriously affected by the poison, Zaha was barely standing. He then threw his axe at one of the Mini-Bucketmen killing him, but as the other one was about to kill him, Shimada Death touched him and made him explode, claiming him to be his 200th to eat. Zaha was surprised that Shimada didn't want to kill him due to his bones, but Shimada told him he didn't want anything as he already had all and left. As this was the first person that he met that didn't want to kill him, Zaha considered becoming friends with Shimada.
Plot[]
Zaha was floating injured in space, when the Waste Mafia Ship The Kahiya took him in. While the ship captain was inspecting him, he saw Avakian and figured he was Zaha Sanko, so he decided to take everything from him. At that moment Zaha woke up and asked to leave his underwear. Later when Avakian woke up he went to Zaha and seeing him being frozen, he started a fire to warm him up. As Zaha woke up, he was freezing and he used his Dark Hide disguised as underwear to dress himself up. Not realizing the fire spread and caught Zaha on fire, as he was running around trying to put out the fire, he accidentally set part of the crew on fire that gathered in front of the door of the room he was. The three-headed captain tried shooting Zaha, but the bullets bounced off. Zaha requested his Dark Flesh from Avakian, turned it into an axe, and proceeded to kill the captain. Striking the captain with the axe, removed all the skin and meat from him leaving only his bones and Zaha claimed he will be taking them. The rest of the crew tried to kill him too, but ended with the same fate. Zaha and Avakian took the ship and headed for their wanted location, a black hole. On their way there, Zaha found some weird bread and used an ancient Photoleowave to bake it and eat it. Reaching the black hole, they came out of the ship and jumped towards it.
As they went into the black hole, they saw a researcher who believed a world existed after the black hole. Zaha explained to him that indeed such a world exists and it's called Dark, but ordinary people can't reach it. Arriving on Dark, he started looking for Misetani Box. Upon finding her, he exchanged the bones he collected for a Dark Core to complete his ship and some Sakamanju. As they were eating the buns, they discussed what they were going to do and that Zaha wanted to contact Shimada, as their ship would be ready. On the way to the ship, they were attacked by more people wanting to take Zaha's bones, but he quickly got rid of them. Installing the Dark Core onto their hidden ship on Dark, they now were able to freely travel on and off from Dark. Wondering how they would drive the ship, the new A.I. Moja came and revealed himself. Zaha then contacted Shimada to tell him about their completed ship.
Abilities[]
- Dark Hide (闇の皮, Yami no Kawa): A protective set of clothes that can transform and surround his entire body. These can repel all kinds of attacks, including attacks with firearms or from melee weapons, be they blunt and piercing.
- Dark Flesh (闇の肉, Yami no Niku): By combining a Dark Bone with the aforementioned Dark Flesh, Zaha can create an axe that, upon hitting a living being, removes all skin and meat from them, leaving only their bones.
- Enhanced Strength: As a Dark native, Zaha is incredibly strong, even as a child, able to kick a highjacker ship off the excursion module and able to crush someones head with one hand.
- Regeneration: Zaha mentions he can easily regenerate from most injuries, but this takes a lot of time and energy, making sustained damage able to incapacitate him.
- Dark Vision: As a Dark native, Zaha can see normally even in total absence of light.
- Language Competence: Zaha has been exposed to the vast intergalactic world since birth, therefore he has learned around "two hundred and some" languages from different planets.