Bisco Akaboshi

Bisco Akaboshi is a seventeen-year-old archer known as a Mushroom Keeper, living in a crumbling future version of Japan where a strange illness called Rust slowly turns people to stone. Mushroom Keepers like Bisco shoot special arrows that make giant mushrooms sprout instantly, and those mushrooms can actually cure Rust, yet most ordinary people wrongly believe Keepers are violent outlaws. Because of this misunderstanding, Bisco is hunted as a wanted man and feared as the Man-Eating Mushroom, even though his real purpose is healing, not harm.

Bisco travels alongside Actagawa, an enormous crab he treats like a brother, riding on its back and counting on it for backup whenever a fight breaks out. He is brave, quick to think on his feet, and willing to risk everything for people he cares about, even though the world has given him every reason to trust no one.

His closest companion is Milo Nekoyanagi, a young doctor who joins him on his search for a cure to Rust; over time, their partnership grows into real love. Bisco also looks up to Jabi, an older Mushroom Keeper who trained him and acts like a father figure, and whose failing health pushes Bisco to keep moving forward. Along the way, Milo's sister, Pawoo Nekoyanagi, starts out hunting Bisco as an enemy but slowly changes her mind, eventually caring about him too.