Kohta Hirano

Kohta Hirano (平野 コータ Hirano Kōta^?)

Voiced by: Nobuyuki Hiyama

A 16-year old sophomore student who was often bullied in school, Kohta is a gun otaku (enthusiast) and knows the ins and outs of the firearms and any military-related equipment that the group comes across. Basically, he functions as the group's long-range combat specialist. His skills as a marksman has proven to be an invaluable asset to keeping everyone alive. On a one-month trip to America, he was trained by the US military contractor, Blackwater USA, which furthered his obsession with weapons.

At the beginning of the story, his abilities helped Saya Takagi escape danger. Kohta has a crush on Saya and asked her out on various occasions only to be rejected. However, she does care for his well being. His crush has since ended and he has developed deep feelings for the police officer trainee, Asami Nakaoka. Because the feelings are mutual, they have expressed their love for each other and Kohta even managed to convince her to join the group. Kohta has also grown attached to Alice and will often be found playing with her. He also has a strong desire to protect her innocence.

Unfortunately, he was forced to kill Asami Nakaoka when she risks her life to save a person in danger and gets trapped between a big number of "them". She personally asks him to kill her so that she won't become a zombie and cause pain to others around her. Kohta later finds himself in horror for what he did and tries to get himself killed by them, though with the help of Shizuka-sensei, he overcomes this pain. With this situation, Takashi realizes that if one member of the group dies, everyone will die in a matter of hours.

His character may have been based on the mangaka of the same name as the two look similar. Since Kohta doesn't know any form of close-combat techniques, he uses a supply of different firearms such as a modified Nail Gun, AR-10 and the Smith & Wesson Model 37 that Takashi used before. He then finds a suppressed MP5SFK in Chapter 27.