IchiGoro

IchiGoro is the het ship between Goro and Ichigo from the DARLING in the FRANXX fandom.

Canon
Goro and Ichigo start out as childhood friends and know each other since their days in the Garden. When Goro was little he was tired of the communal life in the Garden and tries to fight everyone so they will hate him and stop talking to him. However, Ichigo notices and tells him to stop fighting alone. She reasons that although he mightn't be able to fight the bullies alone they can do it together. Goro and Ichigo take on the bullies together and defeat them successfully. From that incident onwards, Goro takes a liking to Ichigo, even though she shows interest in Hiro, never him.

Goro, Ichigo and Hiro later become best of friends as they all have double-digit codes. When they are still in the Garden, Hiro comments Ichigo's bangs are getting long and if she doesn't clip them she won't be able to see. Upon hearing this, Goro requests a hairclip as his annual present from Papa and tries to give it to Ichigo once he gets it. However, Hiro gives Ichigo a hairclip with the same design first, so Goro is unable to give her the hair clip, so he keeps it. Throughout his days in the Garden, Goro observes Ichigo closely, to the point where he knows her better than she herself does. Although he is disappointed when he knows Hiro makes her happy but he doesn't, he perseveres on.

After graduating from the Garden, Goro is pleasantly surprised when he finds Hiro, Ichigo and himself are in the same squad. Goro and Ichigo are assigned to be partners to pilot Delphinium and connect well from the start. Goro is calm and collected, managing to think straight even in times of crisis. On the other hand, squad leader Ichigo is impulsive and often lets her emotions get the better of her. Together, they make a good team - Ichigo makes split-second decisions on the battlefield and Goro backs her up or offers other probable solutions. Goro is usually calm and comfortable when talking to Ichigo, but on the night Ichigo confronts Zero Two, he tries to comfort her but stops himself. He asks himself why he's feeling this way watching Ichigo cry and wonders what the feeling is. Though never stated, it is heavily implied the feeling he was talking about was his love for Ichigo.

While defending the plantations during kissing, Hiro's FRANXX, Strelizia, gets crushed by the klaxosaur. When Ichigo sees this, she assumes Hiro is dead, breaks down into tears and loses her connection with Goro. As Ichigo mourns Hiro's death through anguished tears, Goro holds her face and tells her to get a grip on herself. He explains to Ichigo they still haven't eliminated the klaxosaur and they need to continue fighting, reminding her of her role as squad leader and encouraging her to keep on going. Luckily, Hiro didn't die, so Strelizia reconnected. Upon seeing this, Delphinium (IchiGoro) reconnect and help defeat the klaxosaur with the rest of the squad.

During the beach episode, Goro stares at Ichigo and awkwardly looks away when she looks at him. Later, he joins Zorome and Futoshi in 'checking out' their pistil partners in swimsuits. However, after watching HiroZero, he wonders if there's a relationship that goes deeper than FRANXX partners.

Fanon
Funnily, the ship wasn't official until the finale. Despite that, IchiGoro is the second most popular ship in the DARLING in the FRANXX fandom. Both Ichigo and Goro are highly popular among the fans, so this likely attributed to the ship's popularity. The ship even entered the top 10 most popular anime ships, after the episode when Goro confessed his feelings for Ichigo.

Earlier on into the show, some DARLING fans criticised the ship as they felt it was too one-sided and Ichigo didn't deserve Goro's niceness.

Fandom
DEVIANTART

PIXIV
 * ゴロイチ tag on pixiv
 * ゴロイチ on pixiv encyclopedia

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