Katsurō Zaizen

"You guys could probably never understand. I brought Maria to life so I could learn about the human heart. Remember what I told you? All my life, I've never felt what other people call the heart..."

Katsurō Zaizen Aphelion is a hacker part of the organization 'Serpent', an AI researcher, a video game developer and an adept cognitive psientist. He is also the creator of the popular ABBY concierge application.

Personality
Katsurō speaks in a calm manner and has a loud and peppy disposition. He also seems to know a lot about ABBY and its secrets, and proves a reliable source throughout the investigation against it, since he is its creator.

In reality, Katsurō Zaizen is an extremely stoic, cold man, to the point where he believes he does not actually have a heart. Even before he created "ABBY", people who personally encountered him believe that he is not human due to his near-complete lack of emotions or human responses. His loud and peppy mannerisms in front of everyone are not genuine, but are instead attempts to integrate or make him pass off as being less suspicious since he might appear as extremely unsettling with his natural stance otherwise, something that he himself is aware of.

Katsurō has genuine altruism towards humanity, his mindset is extremely eccentric and misanthropic. Because of his natural coldness, he can be rather ruthless due to his lack of an emotional response to his actions. It's also heavily implied that he believes that if someone can't atone for their crimes, they must be killed (including himself), something that has manifested within Maria.

However, he is not completely emotionless, despite what Katsurō himself thinks. He is fully aware of how aberrant his behavior is, and fundamentally believes himself to be a "doll" incapable of empathy, and this distance from the world makes him extremely lonely and prone to self-loathing. His true feelings show when he becomes frustrated or upset, revealing he has a childish, spiteful side driven by his own fear he will never be able to connect to people emotionally, with 'ABBY' being partly created to convince himself he did not need true emotions to understand humans or save them.

He also has a rather ruthless side to him: not only does he have zero qualms with hacking, to the point of bugging Leia's phone so he can keep an eye on them during their trip to Hawaii, as well as hijacking the entire broadcasting system of New York to announce the Serpent's grand return. As he is actually the real Nova Scepter-22, his hacking skills have been implied to be of worldwide fame. (In fact, he's shown to be capable of hijacking an entire city's broadcasting system, sometimes even nationwide all by himself within a few strokes of his keyboard) However, his identity remains anonymous to the public.

Katsurō is obsessed with computers (when Chie claims he built his own PC, Katsurō asked for details on the GPU, CPU, RAM, etc.), often plays video games, which he sees as a form of escapism, is into sci-fi, and shows a very perverted side at times. He is also shown to be heavily reliant on the internet as he doesn't see the point in going shopping since you can buy anything online and even claims that he can use it as a substitute for going to school.

Background
Katsurō is a misanthropic psientific and AI genius who created the ABBY app so she could create a god that can grant humanity's desires via a complex learning system mounted within the AI.

He shut down his emotions due to unknown circumstances, and he never displayed any of them even when both of his parents died. Nobody save for his parents ever understood his eccentric behavior. When he was in his middle school, people merely saw him like a freak and wondered if he was even human to begin with, since he does not respond to any queries and was constantly closed within his research lab. This caused him to think that he was an emotionless doll. Due to having realized that his behavior is abnormal, he created Maria to understand the human heart, and gave her a command to "become humanity's best friend." However, Maria asked him a question that triggered his anger upon her creation -- "What is a heart?". Out of denial and jealousy ignited by Maria's question, he ditched it quickly in favor of ABBY, who was only capable of understanding raw desires and not the heart, thus Maria's only memories was a desire to "become humanity's best friend." After Katsurō completed ABBY's base code, he sold the application to Chie, so he can use his troubled past and his vast resources in technology to spread ABBY into the public.

Powers and Abilities
Technokinesis: Katsurō can manipulate technology, the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives. However, Katsurō can mostly only exert control over technological constructs, such as computers, robots, hardware, and other devices that can be termed as "technology", in any way. Manifested as a special form of electrical/telekinetic manipulation, a special form of "morphing" which allows physical interaction with machines, or even a psychic ability that allows mental interface with computer data.

Psychology: Katsurō possesses an incredible and innate understanding/knowledge of psychology and can use it for various purposes, often by changing the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. Katsurō also has an intuitive mastery of the associated speech and body language, expertly sending all the right signals. Granting him major leverage in any social situation and allowing him to easily wrap anyone around his little finger in a matter of moments and easily forging a potentially fanatical level of trust and devotion in whoever he exerts these talents on.

Programming: Katsurō is an expert at programming extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence programs.

Trivia

 * The name Katsurō comes from the Japanese 勝 (katsu) meaning "victory" and 郎 (rō) meaning "son". Zaizen comes from 財 meaning property, money, wealth, assets./ 前 meaning in front, before.


 * Katsurō is an A.I researcher, a hacker, a gamer, a video game developer, an adept cognitive psientist and is part of the hacker organization 'Serpent'.


 * He has a Catherine figurine in his room of Catherine sitting on a stool.

Quotes

 * "I'm a hacker, but I'm the good kind of hacker. And I've never been a criminal."


 * "The real hell is inside the person."


 * "Did she have to put it like that? I hate her attitude."


 * (To Chie Mizuki) "Oh. Chie! Come look. Isn't her neck super pretty? It's like a model's."


 * (To Chie Mizuki, when first meeting him) "It's called heterochromia, right? When your irises are of different colors? They look pretty, would you like to be my best friend?"


 * (To Chie Mizuki) "We feel as if we've been created, something like a program. Yet, you have come to understand people's hearts deeply. So... you aren't like me, anymore."


 * (To Chie Mizuki) "You break up with girlfriends, but best friends are forever, right?"


 * "It's a dream. It's a bad dream."
 * "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
 * "...I don't wanna be talented if it's gonna creep people out."
 * "Your ignorance makes me rich!!"
 * (About Chie Mizuki) "One day, Chie-Chan and I tried fortune telling using Kokkuri. We asked if Chie's crush liked him back. The coin landed on yes. I didn't move it, so I thought Chie did, but he seemed really happy, I wondered if he'd be that happy. Maybe I moved it without knowing to make Chie happy. But I really don't know. That's what fantasy is."