Kuu's Puppy

Kuu's Puppy was a small stray dog found by young Kuu one day as he sought refuge from the rigors and wrongs he suffered at the orphanage where he spent much of his childhood.
== History ==
Emotionally repressed around people due to the poor and sometimes horrible treatment he received at the hands of others, Kuu was unreserved around the pup and was often emotionally comforted by it when he was low. He took great care to keep the pup a secret from his tormentors and everyone else, and he would share his food with it and take it around the grounds. As the pup grew up, its needs and appetite increased, to the point where Kuu gave up half of his meals to feed it. Seemingly befriended by a young girl, Kuu, at last, confided in her about the pup's existence, at least in part to secure more food for it.
Whether deliberately or accidentally, the girl Kuu befriended revealed the presence of the pup to Tomoo, the ringleader of the worst of his tormentors. The gang of bullies grabbed the pup and then forced him to watch as they start hurting it. The bullies kick the pup and then proceed to brutally beat it to death with a vase, only regretting that it had died too quickly to suit their sick twisted sense of "fun." The killing of his only friend, which was likely made even worse by the possible betrayal of one he also believed to be a friend proved too much for young Kuu. Giving in to his anger, he teared the children present to pieces.
The pup was only present for a short time in the story, but posthumously, it is one of the most important characters regarding its impact, direct or indirect, on Kuu.
== Trivia ==
* The image is Lucy's puppy from Elfen Lied.
* The puppy is sometimes drawn in the series to look nearly identical to Wanta, but in other instances is drawn with streaks and spots of brown. This mistake appears to be a scanlation error wherein the pages were faded somewhat. In the pages' original format, the fur pattern is consistent.
* The puppy's breed, and possibly Wanta's, might be the Yorkipoo breed. Yorkipoos are small and come in coat patterns like those of both Wanta and the unnamed puppy, and their barks are similar.
* Kuu's act of killing his classmates for beating the puppy to death in front of him is portrayed and widely regarded as his most sympathetic killing in the series.
* The actions of the bullies against the pup are somewhat similar to a sequence from Disney's now-controversial hybrid film, Song Of The South. In it, a young girl's thuggish brothers threaten to drown her beloved pup and finally take it from her. While the dog is seen in the film's final musical sequence running along with animated sapient animals, whether this fanciful sequence occurs in the real world of the film is uncertain, since much of the movie occurs through stories told by Uncle Remus. Since attacking a harmless animal for fun can be seen as typical loathsome behavior, there is no way of knowing whether this sequence could have inspired what occurred in Nanbaka.