Tareo

Tareo is a plump ten-year-old whose dark hair falls in a bowl cut broken by a bald patch. A single connected brow and a pair of puckered lips complete a face that his classmates, and even Garou, bluntly call ugly. His usual outfit is a plain white tee marked with the letters BG worn over black shorts.

Warm and trusting, Tareo idolizes heroes and dreams of joining their ranks, even as he confesses he is too frail for it. Monsters terrify him, and he tends to burst into tears at the sight of one. His naivety shows early, chatting freely with Garou without any idea who the man is and feeding him details from a hero guidebook. Their repeated meetings gradually toughen him. He wavers when he sees the brutality Garou is capable of, then feels guilty and resolves to stand by him anyway, holding onto the good in Garou even through his monstrous transformation. In the end he finds the nerve to face down heroes calling for Garou's execution and to shout at Garou to flee, proof of how far his courage has come.

Long before the drama, Saitama plucked Tareo and his dog from the path of a speeding car and lectured the boy on crossing streets safely, a rescue Tareo soon forgot. His bond with Garou begins after the Hero Hunter downs three C-Class heroes and asks to see his Hero Association Catalog. Tareo balks, but Garou's interest sharpens on learning the book also lists monsters, and Tareo, misreading the moment, assumes Garou wants to become a hero just as he himself hopes to. Garou uses the catalog to track his next targets and moves on. The two cross paths again when Garou probes him about Watchdog Man's whereabouts, a talk cut short by a monster alert that has Garou telling the boy to run.

Their most harrowing stretch comes during the Monster Association crisis. Bullied into checking the group's secret hut, Tareo finds a badly wounded Garou inside, and rather than turn on him, ends up lending his catalog after Garou urges him to grow strong. He briefly flees in fear of Garou's changed appearance, then apologizes, crediting Garou with shielding him from Death Gatling's gunfire. The reunion breaks apart when Saitama arrives chasing Garou and the monsters Bug God and Royal Ripper appear. Tareo is captured by Sludge Jellyfish and hauled underground by Royal Ripper, sharing a cell with the spoiled hostage Waganma, who promptly enlists him as a lackey. Marked for torture, Tareo is saved at the last moment when Garou bursts through the wall and cuts Royal Ripper apart with his Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist. He trails Garou through a gauntlet of monsters, is nearly caught by Black Sperm before Atomic Samurai intervenes, and is finally taken under King's protection. Together they ride an elevator toward the surface, are thrown clear when Tatsumaki uproots the base, and are shielded by Genos from Orochi's roots before witnessing the fused Psykos rise.

Reunited with an overjoyed Waganma among the wounded, Tareo later shares an evacuation helicopter that Sage Centipede attacks, only for Garou and Metal Bat to fend it off. Still he pleads with Garou to abandon his path, and when Saitama comes for the Hero Hunter, Tareo begs that Garou be spared. In the grim timeline where a God-empowered Garou unleashes lethal radiation, Tareo dies among countless heroes, but Saitama's victory rewinds events and halts Garou before that future can unfold. As the heroes close in on the beaten Hero Hunter, it is Tareo who reaches him emotionally and stops Sweet Mask from carrying out an execution. Some time afterward, when his friends again cast him as the monster in their games, Tareo refuses and proudly proclaims himself the hero Garou-Man, then piles into Narinki's car with Waganma and the others. An ordinary boy, he possesses no powers beyond those of any other child.