Shiroe

"If we give up when facing problems of this level, we should not have expected anything from the start."

- Shiroe, Volume 2 Annex

Shiroe (シロエ) is the main protagonist of the series Log Horizon. A veteran player of the online game Elder Tale, he was formerly the strategist of the Debauchery Tea Party and is the current Guild Master of Log Horizon. In the real world, he is a 23-year old engineering graduate student named Kei Shirogane (城鐘恵).

Appearance
Shiroe is taller by several centimeters in Elder Tale than he is in real life, and his figure is slightly slimmer. When he first regains consciousness in the game, he notices that his hands are more slender but also seemingly more skillful.

Facial Features
Shiroe wears glasses and is described by Naotsugu as having eyes that are "sanpaku," a term that means that the iris is small and doesn't completely cover the vertical axis of the eye. He has a habit of pushing up his glasses when he's thinking or is about to take action.

Personality
Shiroe is a graduate student majoring in engineering when he is trapped in the game Elder Tale. Naturally a cautious and thoughtful introvert, he has played the game since middle school and is a veteran with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the game, which is known for its depth and complexity.

Although Shiroe is socially awkward and tends to be anti-social, he does not actually dislike other people. Instead, he is fiercely independent and wary of others who approach him with ulterior motives. He is not above helping people who are really in need, and he appears to have a soft spot for beginners -- for example, the twins Toya and Minori. In addition, he can be quite protective of people he cares for, a trait that Nyanta used to tease him about.

Shiroe sometimes views himself as acting out of pride or arrogance and can be self-conscious about enforcing his principles or beliefs on others. However, even if he knows that others might not appreciate his actions or thank him afterward, if he perceives he is acting for the greater good, he will use all means possible to achieve his goals. This has caused others to sometimes misunderstand his motives and has earned him the nickname Hara-guro Megane (腹ぐろ眼鏡), which is sometimes translated as "Black Heart Glasses." Typically, in Japanese manga, a character described as "haraguro" is one who appears to be nice but is in fact a schemer or a scoundrel. "Hara" is metaphorically one's true intentions, and "kuro" means black. (In the anime, he is referred to as the "villain in glasses").

Even as a child, he disliked playing outdoors and from middle school onward preferred to stay indoors where he used computers to explore virtual reality. Shiroe remained somewhat of a hikikomori through college, and he notes upon regaining consciousness in Aikiba that it's been awhile since he was last outside.



Shiroe is generally a loner and has reservations about guilds, due to unpleasant experiences with people who sought him out only to exploit his expertise in the game. He was, however, a member of the informal group of players collectively known as the Debauchery Tea Party and was its unofficial strategist and negotiator.

He became a well-known strategist due to his effort in researching and mastering his skill called Full Control Encounter which can be described in a short sentence as using 1% as a unit, forecast 30 seconds ahead. It means that he can grasp his allies remaining MP with 1% margin of error, know all remaining resources of both allies and enemies, and forecast battles 30 seconds ahead.

In-Game Character
Shiroe's main class, the Enchanter, is an unpopular class in Elder Tale. Lacking the firepower most would associate with a magic-user class, the Enchanter is a pure-support class (without heals, since it's not one of the three Healer jobs) that shines only when supporting the party with its buffs, de-buffs and binds (Nanoha fans, think Yuuno Scrya without the tough defense and you're near there). Shiroe, however, loves this class for its potential, the complexity of playing this class well and also because the idea behind this class, "a class that can't do anything on its own," offers an experience totally opposite from his tenancy toward independence and self-reliance.

Due to having an expertise in CAD drawing as an engineering student, he chose Scribe as his subclass. After the discovery of cooking without the in-game menu allows a player to produce out-of-the-game products, he started experimenting with his Scribe subclass. After learning about Spirit Theory from Ri Gan, he is confident that if conditions are met, it can be used to create new in-game magics and laws. For example, he created a contract between Log Horizon and Rundelhaus Cord to keep him alive by converting him into an adventurer and a member of Log Horizon, allowing him to be reborn at the Cathedral.

Synopsis
At the moment when the Novasphere Pioneers expansion pack was deployed, Shiroe had been exploring a beginners' area with the twins Minori and Touya using the game's Teacher System to help them practice playing. When the pack was released, his screen filled with jet black darkness, and when he regained consciousness, he was no longer at his desk -- but rather appeared to be literally on the outskirts Akiba.

At first, he is unsure whether he's inside of Elder Tale or merely in an unrelated world that happens to resemble the game, but after he accidentally triggers the appearance of the in-game menus by raising a hand to touch his chin, he is convinced that he has somehow been transported into the game.

Trivia

 * Shiroe's name is written in kana (not kanji), so the meaning of the name is intentionally ambiguous. Phonetically it's a combination of the first character of his real last name (城 = "shiro") and his first name (恵 = can be read as "e").  Put together, they make "Shiro-e," which would mean something like a "fortress of wisdom."  However "shiro" is also a homophone with (白), which mean "white" or sometimes "innocent."