Characters appearing in All You Need Is Kill. Beware of spoilers.
Keiji "Killer Cage" Kiriya
- The Ace: How he appears throughout most of the loops to The Squad or anyone not in the know.
- Broken Ace: This is how he is viewed in the final loop after he is forced to kill Rita.
- Blood Knight: Discussed with Shasta when he asks for a Battle Axe like Rita's.
- Break the Cutie: He started the story as a normal, well adjusted person. It did not last.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Gets asked by Rita if tea is complimentary in Japan as he bleeds to death in the first loop.
- He later uses this to calm down another soldier who was going into shock and discovers why Rita did that with him.
- Combat Clairvoyance: Overtime, it's revealed that Keiji can predict and anticipate his opponent's moves by breaking down time at will, not through memorizing a sequence of events through repetition.
- Cradling Your Kill: The death of Rita.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Keiji tells Rita he loves her as she's dying in his arms.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The manga revolves around Keiji being constantly killed time and time again, but keeps waking up and reliving the same day in a constant loop.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Rita again.
- Nice Guy: Before the loops. Still is after them, albeit very broken.
- Red Shirt: What he was before spending a year in the loop. note
- Seeking Ultimate Strength: Keiji Kiriya is a New Meat who quickly dies fighting an Alien Invasion, but is revived as Groundhog Peggy Sue, a trait which he uses to eventually become a One-Man Army to survive at least his first day.
- Took a Level in Badass: It was long journey but man, DOES he get there. Also a Deconstruction due to how much humanity and things that one care about must be sacrificed in order to become this powerful.
Rita "Valkyrie" Vrataski
- The Ace: How she's viewed by the world in general.
- Broken Ace: She's just a lonely girl, fighting against a truly horrifying enemy while knowing what they are actually capable of without the ability to share the burden with anyone. Until she meets Keiji.
- Badass Adorable: She's still just a lonely 16/17 year old girl underneath it all.
- Blood Knight: And sadly, not by choice.
- Child Soldiers: Rita was too young to join the United Defense Force, so she stole a passport from a female refugee named "Rita Urtaski" and signed up to kill as many mimics as possible.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She has both a caring dad (who is a Retired Badass of the EDF) and loving mom. They were both killed during one of the first Mimic attacks in the US.
- Genki Girl: She used to be one before all this.
- No Name Given: It turns out that "Rita" is the name of a refugee who's passport she's stolen. Her real name is blacked out, and never revealed.
- Red Baron: Alternatively known as The Valkyrie and the Full Metal Bitch.
