In GOOD NIGHT WORLD, Captain Pico is the guildmaster of the Pirates, a guild comprising more than 3,000 players. Aoi Yūki voices Captain Pico.
Captain Pico and her Pirates are notorious for robbing, harassing, and killing players in PLANET. However, their ideology is that when they do something bad to a player in the game, they do something nice in real life to make up for it.
Pico and the Pirates, unlike the likes of Ichi, look at PLANET just as a game to blow off their steam. They play this game to relieve the stress they have in real life. The motto of Pico and the Pirates is “Fulfillment in the virtual world will bring a smile to your face in the real world.”
At the same time, though, the gamers, who are die-hard fans of PLANET, hate Pico and the Pirates for looking at the game this way. For them, PLANET is more than just a game.
Pico’s goal
The Pirates are looking for the Black Bird too, but compared to her guild members, Pico isn’t that interested in winning 300 million yen from the Black Bird.
Pico cares about bringing Ichi on her side more than anything. She is willing to sacrifice the Black Bird just for him. It is revealed that they share quite a past with each other, and Pico has feelings for Ichi.
When Pico began playing the game, she saw Ichi as the only one who looked as dejected as she did. She made friends with Ichi, and they fought and enjoyed time together for a while until Pico asked to meet Ichi in real life.
Ichi enjoys hanging out with Pico, but he doesn’t want to meet her in real life. Furthermore, the fact that he really craves to meet her kills him even more. Hence, he parted ways with Pico, who, since then, hasn’t given up on Ichi.
Pico wants Ichi to join the Pirates so he can learn to vent in the game and face his struggles in real life. Pico succeeds in bringing Ichi to her side when he begins blaming himself for the hate the people of the game have for Pico.
Pico was the first to protest against killing people, but then she created the Pirate Guild for Ichi, who left her all alone. Now the whole community of PLANET hates her and the Pirates. Pico breaks down the moment Ichi joins her to make up for this.
Pico’s real identity and her fate
A 17-year-old named Hinako Sakurai, who lives in Musashino City and goes to an all-girls school, plays the character of Pico in PLANET. She skips school and spends time on this online game to make her oppressive mother mad.
Hinako believes that her mother truly doesn’t want her to be happy. Hence, she micromanages her all the time. Hinako’s father is the head of an organized crime syndicate. She has a brother 24 years older than her. As a child, her father called her ‘Peeko’, and that’s where her character’s name comes from.
Since Hinako joined the game with the intention of taking revenge on her mother, she failed to have fun until she met Ichi. PLANET is the only place where her mother can’t control and keep an eye on Hinako all the time.
Later, Kojiro, as Shiro, drops a heavy truth bomb on Pico by revealing that she is an AI. The world of Hinako Sakurai isn’t real. Hinako Sakurai is the name of Kojiro’s former subordinate’s younger sister. They digitized her memory and transferred it to the game, and that memory became Pico.
Pico is just one of the important power sources of the Black Bird that feeds on people’s emotions. She served the Black Bird well by offering it the emotions of 3,000 players who are in the Pirate Guild. Shiro is forced to kill Pico in order to stop the Black Bird.
Pico’s death hurts Taichiro, who plays as Ichi, in PLANET. However, at the end of GOOD NIGHT WORLD, the AI version of Ichi that Kamuro had created to save Asuma finds Hinako in the Birdcage.
Hinako is surprisingly alive, and she not only reunites with Ichi but also confesses her love for him.