Minoru Hoshino

This young man wears his blonde hair in spikes, sports long eyebrows, and looks out through gray eyes that flare purple whenever his temper rises. The outfit he debuts in is a gray undershirt layered beneath black pants and a black hoodie. By the time the Japan Crisis Arc rolls around, he has traded all that for armor forged in jet black.

Self-assured and seemingly close with his fellow guild members, Goto Ryuji among them, Hoshino genuinely values their safety. His horror at stumbling upon the decapitated bodies of Kei and Ippei made that plain, and watching the Ant King cut Goto down with no effort right before his eyes pushed him into outright traumatic shock.

With four days remaining until the fourth Jeju operation, Hoshino linked back up with his fellow raiders inside the Korean Hunters Gym. He took part in the four-on-four spar between the squads, drew Lim Tae-Gyu as his opponent, and clinched the win by hurling him into a wall. He also looked on as Goto sparred Jinwoo, stepping in to restrain Goto once the bout boiled over. On the island, command placed him in Team Alpha beside Ishida and Goto. The trio went searching when Teams Charlie and Delta fell silent, only to find their headless remains across the island. Matsumoto, indifferent to the slaughter, ordered them to abandon the Koreans and withdraw, but the Ant King struck first, taking Ishida's head in one blow. Goto chose to stand and fight, sending Hoshino off to link up with Team Bravo; he obeyed, glimpsing the King end Goto in a single shot as he ran.

Reaching safety at last with Kanae and Kumamoto, he shook off the shock of his leader's death enough to brief the survivors on the Ant King. As he spiraled into talk of certain doom, Reiji told him to settle down, relaying news just received from Korea's hunter authorities: one of their own had brought down the Ant King, and the raid had ended in victory, though heavy losses came with it. Once the Japan crisis began, Hoshino and the guild's surviving S-ranks met with the country's leaders over the S-rank Gate that had opened. He sat in on Reiji's talks with Yuri Orloff, moved with Kanae to strike the Russian hunter, and found the attack stopped cold by magical barriers the man threw up. Once an S-Rank Gate erupted in Tokyo, he was deployed to the crisis. After the dungeon break, with Orloff now dead, Hoshino and Kanae lunged at a giant, only to be swatted aside by its sword. When Jinwoo reached Japan and his shadow army tore through the giants, the two were left standing amid the rubble as the shadows marched toward Tokyo.

Goto rated his strength formidable for an S-rank, yet he proved nearly helpless against the Tokyo giants, barely able to evade their swings, and stood no chance against the Ant King, surviving only because Goto made himself a distraction. His Enhanced Strength let him outmuscle Lim and drive him through the gym wall hard enough to punch a wide hole; his Enhanced Speed showed when, at point-blank distance, he slipped past the magical arrows Lim loosed at him.