| “ | When you love someone, you want them to be happy, right? | ” |
—Botan to Natsu | ||
Botan Saotome (早乙女牡丹" is the guide for Team Summer B and therefore very skilled at survival arts. She is also highly experienced with self-defense moves, because she used to be a policewoman in the previous world.
Outspoken and straightforward in her communication, Botan is a very mature woman who truly cares for her teammates and would do about everything to protect them.
But what will happen once she might be forced to kill in order to keep her friends safe...?
Botan means "peony."
Voiced by Gara Takashima.
Appearance[]
Botan in the past, as a policewoman
Botan is a very tall, curvy, and muscular woman with Rastafari hairstyle. When she opens her hair, it's a very long, bushy and beautiful mass of braids.
Personality[]
She mostly acts very gruff and can be very demanding of her teammates. But she has a very wide heart for her friends and more than once risked her life to protect them. She is the most quick witted out of the team. Her mental and physical strength and great courage are a constant source of relief to her team.
Her noble soul also showed when she told Natsu that she sincerely hoped her former husband lived happily together with his new wife until the very last moment of the very end.
Special Characteristics[]
Botan is especially strong at martial arts and all sorts of survival skills since she used to be a policewoman and also underwent survival training prior to being frozen.
Past[]
Botan used to be a policewoman. She also was married and even expected a child, but during her final stages of pregnancy, a drunk driver hit the car she was in. Although she survived, her child didn't. The relationship didn't last this strain and she broke up with her husband.
After that, he re-married while she decided to come to the future because there would be no drunk drivers anymore.
Development throughout the story[]
Her initial appearance was in the very first chapter of the series, "Slow Awakening." Together with Arashi, she prepared the boat for their escape from the ship they'd been sleeping in.
At the Cat Island, she was attacked with a knife by Semimaru who didn't believe in her not knowing about what had happened to them, but her cool manner made him lose his confidence and step back. Arashi and Natsu started mistrusting her too though, and eventually ran away. Semimaru on the other hand decided that Botan was his best chance on survival and stayed with her.
Later on, they reunited with the two runaways and came across Chimaki, Matsuri, and Hotaru who were being attacked by crocodiles. Without any hesitation, Botan jumped in to save them and got injured on her leg in the process. Mozu killed the crocodile and drove the rest of the reptiles away.
Afterwards, she spilled the beans to the group about the 7 Seeds project and travelled to Bungo Fuji with them. Due to her injury, Botan stayed behind there together with the rest of her group while Natsu, Arashi and Semimaru travelled to Tokyo.
Because their camp got destroyed by falling ash after a volcano eruption, Botan led the remained Team Summer B away from it, but because of a landslide they fell into a hole and were rendered unable to move until Matsuri returned with help.
Botan then continued travelling together with her reunited team until they came across Ango and Ryou. She noticed their wariness towards others, but thought it was rather cute what made the other Summer B members suspect Botan of being a cougar.
When several accidents started happening (set up by Ryou), the guide started to grow suspicious to their guests and searched their bags, discovering real guns and maintenance kits. She then realized that those two were really dangerous and contemplated whether she should poison them or not in order to protect Team Summer B from Ango and Ryou.
During the group's adventure at the ghost ship Fuji, she took every precaution possible to keep Ango and Ryou from leaving the ship before them, but also came to truly loathe the Japanese tendency of "beautiful deaths." So she decided to deliberately leave her potassium cyanide necklace to be eaten by the bacteria in order to never get tempted by the lure of "taking the easy way out."
Further information[]
Botan carried a necklace with poison given to her by Takashi personally. After the Minor Heat Arc, she decided to throw it away because she was determined to never give in to despair.