Matsumoto Shigeo

A man of middle years, Matsumoto wears his black hair thick and grows a matching mustache and goatee. The first look at him shows a brown cigar between his fingers, a white-collared shirt and black tie beneath a sleeveless light brown vest, the picture of a comfortable bureaucrat.

Arrogant, corrupt, and out only for himself, Matsumoto feels nothing for others, shrugging off the deaths of Goto Ryuji's subordinates during the fourth Jeju Island raid without a flicker of concern. His cunning ran deep enough to engineer the entire deceit, using the raid as cover to eliminate Korea's S-Rank Hunters for his own benefit. That malice came paired with cowardice, however; the moment his crimes surfaced he caved, easily cowed when Go Gunhee confronted him over his manipulations.

Roughly four years after Jeju Island fell to an S-Rank dungeon break, ant attacks along Japan's southern coast killed dozens of civilians and hunters. Goto flew to Korea, met Go Gunhee, and offered to help reclaim the island. The offer was a lie. Matsumoto intended the raid to gut Korea's S-Rank roster and leave the weaker country defenseless against whatever came next. The Koreans suspected nothing, but the plan unraveled when the Ant King appeared and slaughtered seven of the Japanese team, Goto among them, while Sung Jinwoo killed the Ant King after a grueling fight and rescued the Korean party. By the end it was Japan, not Korea, left without defenses.

When an S-Rank Gate opened in Tokyo, Matsumoto realized that if a failed raid there triggered an international crisis and his Jeju scheme came to light, the blame would land on him. To bury the evidence he flew to Korea, met Gunhee in person, and tried to hire Jinwoo by surrendering Japan's share of the Jeju essence stones. Gunhee saw straight through it, revealing he had known about the conspiracy with Goto all along thanks to a receiver pulled intact from Goto's corpse. Caught and frozen with fear, Matsumoto stayed silent and sweating as Gunhee raged, crushing the receiver in one hand and wrecking the table between them, then told him to be grateful Jinwoo would take the offer regardless. When Jinwoo finally reached Japan days after the dungeon break, Matsumoto greeted him at the airport, quietly awed by his power, and urged him to focus on defending Osaka rather than try to kill every giant alone. Jinwoo refused and proved him wrong, slaying all the giants but the one that fled to China and clearing the gate single-handedly. Soon after, Matsumoto turned himself in to Japanese authorities, his motives left unclear.