The characters from the anime series Canaan. Be warned of spoilers since it’s a sequel to 428: Shibuya Scramble.
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Main
Canaan
Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro (JP), Shelley Calene-Black (EN)
A mercenary and assassin who has quite the connections with Maria Oosawa, having saved her life in the past. She's known both for her skills and her beautiful white hair.
- Actor Allusion: Doubles as a Casting Gag and Expy. Shelley Calene-Black has previously played a character who's an assassin, uses a red cardigan and fights with European-made handguns.
- All There in the Manual: Canaan's route in 428: Shibuya Scramble reveals more of her Dark and Troubled Past and clears up her Middle Eastern origins as being from Iraq.
- Bifauxnen: She could easily pass for an attractive male due to her rather boyish appearance.
- Big Eater: Maria notes that Canaan has quite the appetite, though Yunyun thinks some of that extra weight should be going to her chest.
- Boyish Short Hair: She keeps her hair short to show her status as a tomboyish Action Girl.
- Brought Down to Normal: Canaan loses her ability to "see colors" at the end of episode 7. She gets it back later, but only after getting hit indirectly by a missile, and confronting Alphard.
- Child Soldier: She has been trained to kill from a young age.
- Cute Bruiser: Plays cat's cradle with copper wire.
- Disease Bleach: Her hair is white due to having been infected with UA virus.
- Experienced Protagonist: Before the series started, Canaan had worked alongside Siam in several mercenary assignments.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: The long glove on her left forearm.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She likes stuffed animals, but she says it's actually because she can't see any color in them instead of them being cute.
- The Gunslinger: She fights uniquely with guns.
- Hide Your Lesbians: Her relationship with Maria is clearly beyond a mere friendship, but is never stated outright.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Because of her synesthesia she can make crack shot without looking or hearing, as all her senses compensate each other.
- Legacy Character: In one sense, the name Canaan previously belonged to Alphard when she was Siam's apprentice, though she has since abandoned the name. In another sense, the Flower Garden Project was intended to create another Super-Soldier with the same synesthesia-based Super-Senses as Canaan.
- Mystical White Hair: Her white hair is a sign of her sense-based powers making her a borderline magical Super-Soldier.
- Red Baron: Canaan’s One-Man Army accomplishments have earned her the moniker Iron-Armed Army of One.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Whenever she uses synesthesia, her eyes turn red.
- Red Is Heroic: The main heroine of the series wears a red shirt at all times.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Her shirt leaves her shoulder blades and the middle of her back exposed.
- Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: She's the protagonist of the series, and is a tan Middle Eastern girl with platinum blonde hair as a result of Disease Bleach from being injected with the Ua virus, which also allows her to perceive additional senses with her eyes.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: She wears a sleeveless red turtleneck and is a mercenary with outstanding combat skills.
- Sole Survivor: From her Doomed Hometown in the Middle East.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's very much a cool type, yet an incredibly caring and loyal person especially towards Maria.
- Super-Strength: To an extent. While she can't punch through concrete walls, she's strong enough to play Cat's Cradle with copper wire.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy (short-haired and combat-oriented mercenary) to Maria's girly girl (long-haired and defenseless photographer).
Maria Oosawa
Voiced by: Yoshino Nanjo (JP), Hilary Haag (EN)
A Japanese photographer who holds quite the fascination with the girl who saved her in the past, and longs to meet her again. Her work in Shanghai might give her the chance.
- Catchphrase: As Canaan notes, she has a habit of calling things "awesome" because she's Easily Impressed.
- Continuity Nod: When Yunyun shows her the soundproof helmets at the Factory, Maria ends up wearing something similar to the cat mascot costume she wore in 428, when she had Identity Amnesia and was being called Tama.
- Damsel in Distress: Due to lacking any combat abilities, she needs Canaan to protect her. In fact, this is how they met; she befriended Canaan after being saved from hoodlums during a trip somewhere in the Middle East.
- Easily Impressed: It doesn't take much to get her to call something awesome.
- Forgotten First Meeting: She doesn't remember meeting Alphard and pointing a gun her during the climax of 428 due to her Trauma-Induced Amnesia, and so does not recognize her when they cross paths at the NBCR conference. Alphard asks if she really doesn’t remember or is just playing dumb.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's a very sweet and good-hearted young girl with long golden hair. Only in the anime, though, in 428 she had black hair, which may mean that it is dyed.
- Idiot Hair: She has a long strand of hair standing atop her head. While not an idiot, she's naïve and somewhat spacey.
- A Saint Named Mary: Maria's name is unusual for a Japanese woman. It, however, is befitting her sweet nature. It also goes along with Canaan's biblical code-name.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl (long-haired and defenseless photographer) to Canaan's tomboy (short-haired and combat-oriented mercenary).
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Minorikawa's boss tells him that Maria’s exact memories of what she experienced during the events of 428: Shibuya Scramble aren’t accessible to her due to the trauma of surviving the Ua virus, so trying to interview her for info on the Shibuya incident would be a dead end. Given that she spent most of the game with Identity Amnesia, it’s doubtful she could give much more useful knowledge anyway.
Minoru Minorikawa
Voiced by: Kenji Hamada (JP), David Matranga (EN)
Maria's partner and friend, and another character coming from the Shibuya game.
- Cooldown Hug: To Hakko, after Santana's death. While it stops her from shooting everyone else, it's not enough to bring her back from the Despair Event Horizon.
Alphard Al Sheya
Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (JP), Lesley Pedersen (EN)
The main villain of the series and titular character's nemesis. This woman, who is equal parts beautiful and deadly, is the leader of terrorist organization Snake. She had seen some action in the past as a mercenary alongside Canaan and Siam.
- All There in the Manual: Information provided by the 428 Shibuya Scramble leaflet
mentions that Alphard lost most of her family when American-led military forces staged an intervention into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban. - Arch-Enemy: To Canaan since she's responsible for double crossing Siam and her, which led to his death.
- An Arm and a Leg: Sacrifices an arm escaping Canaan in the final episode.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: As her other tropes prove, she's not the kind of person who leads a terrorist organization from an armchair.
- Badass Longcoat: She wears a dark purple trench coat that looks awesome in her as she kicks ass.
- Big Bad: A role she reprises from the original game. Ultimately, it's her actions that end up driving the plot.
- Child Soldier: She underwent the same training that Canaan did at a young age under Siam.
- Dark Action Girl: She's the kind of woman who A) gets things done herself and B) doesn't have much of a moral compass.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Particularly Liang Qi, who's obsessed with having her attention - even if that means goading her into trying to kill her.
- Handicapped Badass: The ending shows she's still alive and apparently working as a terrorist, despite losing an arm.
- I Need You Stronger: She screws with Canaan using tests, mind games, and physical combat in order to propel her into the thick hatred that she herself is completely submerged in so that she can fight Canaan at full strength and hatred. While she does fight her at full strength, Canaan doesn't succumbed to hate as Alphard intended.
- Lack of Empathy: She'll watch others break down over the loss of their loved ones with either mild amusement or (particularly Canaan's case) a detached kind of satisfaction.
- The Power of Hate: Alphard is a strong believer in revenge as a source of power, and seeks to corrupt Canaan into embracing that same hatred as one last act of defiance against Siam.
- Terrorists Without a Cause: Snake under Alphard’s leadership doesn’t appear to have a particular ideology or grander aspiration motivating their acts of terrorism, they just want to keep up the business they have with the United States’ War on Terror. Alphard herself does have personal goals she seeks to accomplish, but the terrorism she does is in service of that more than in imposing a political dogma.
- Whole Costume Reference: Of Dante as he appears in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, with a blue coat sans harness.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: To Liang Qi. At first, it looks like she'll honor Liang Qi's wish for a fight to the death, but in the end, she passes the deed off to Cummings after defeating Liang Qi, ignoring her in favor of watching Canaan on the security monitors.
- You Killed My Father: Canaan’s looking to avenge Siam after Alphard betrayed them and killed him.
Mercenaries
Siam
Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (JP), Andrew Love (EN)
Canaan's mentor and adoptive father.
- Actor Allusion: This is not the first time Akio Otsuka played a character who fought in wars around the globe and decided to teach child soldiers on how to fight in a battlefield.
- All There in the Manual: Canaan's route in 428: Shibuya Scramble reveals more of his background. The game hints that he's of Palestinian heritage who joined the PLO and was sent to Libya to be trained by the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya military. Siam later fought in Afghanistan against pro-Soviet Afghan and Soviet-led troopsnote before he left the country, partly to break away from his past and become a mercenary under the name Siam. The only thing not mentioned is any traces of his real name.
- Anti-Hero: Siam wanted to make a difference in parts of the world where peace is not easy to attain. The only way he knows how to do it is by doing mercenary work.
- Hero of Another Story: Siam's exploits in Afghanistan during the Cold War are alluded to, but never shown.
- Made of Iron: He can tank gunshots thanks to his bulletproof vest and powering through the pain. Alphard opted to fatally stab him instead of shooting him in the head because she grew up believing bullets would never hit Siam somewhere it mattered.
- Mentor Archetype: To Canaan and Alphard, they wear a snake tattoos as symbol of their bond.
- Middle Eastern Terrorists: Formerly a PLO fighter before he joined the mujahideen in Afghanistan.
- Parental Substitute: He's a father figure to Canaan, having taken her in after her entire hometown — except for her — fell victim to the UA virus.
- Serious Business: Story dialogue from Canaan's route mentions that while Siam is not a fundamentalist Muslim, he sticks to the teachings of Islam that a Muslim cannot drink alcohol. This is actually true in real life.
Snakes
Liang Qi
Voiced by: Rie Tanaka (JP), Jessica Boone (EN)
Alphard's Number Two, a merciless and cruel Chinese hitwoman who idolizes her.
- Angrish: When ranting about how she'll destroy anything that gets between her and Alphard during her Villainous Breakdown, the things she lists includes mundane, completely unrelated things like "cream, barbecue, and waffles."
- Attention Whore: Just about everything that Liang does that isn't following Alphard's orders is to gain and keep the attention of Alphard, her beloved nee-sama. She hates anyone, especially Canaan, who takes Alphard's attention away from her.
- Body Horror: When Liang consumes the Ua virus, she suffers horribly as the effects of the virus on someone who does not have the genes for synaesthesia take their toll on her.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Liang becomes this as she spirals further into madness, and is so desperate for any attention from Alphard at all that she derives pleasure from getting slashed in the leg by Alphard during their duel.
- Didn't See That Coming: When Cummings patiently asks her to come back with him after she brutally pummels him during her Villainous Breakdown, Liang Qi looks rather shocked for a moment - as if surprised that this didn't turn him off.
- Disease Bleach: Her hair turns white when she consumes the Ua virus.
- Far East Asian Terrorists: A Chinese member of the Snakes operating in Shanghai.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: She tried to give herself synesthesia by swallowing Ua virus capsules... and it backfires HORRIBLY.
- Ignored Enamored Underling: To Alphard. She wants her superior's attention at all times, while Alphard's either indifferent or dismissive depending on the situation. Cummings is one to Liang Qi herself.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Her devotion to Alphard makes her completely unhinged.
- Mistress and Servant Boy: She poses as Cumming's Sexy Secretary, but that's just a cover. Cumming is her subordinate, in reality, and she mistreats him a LOT. Not that he minds, being the masochist he is.
- Ms. Fanservice: Big-time. Special mention to her penultimate episode, where she goes around wearing lingerie. Then again, given how off her rocker she is by that point, it might veer into Fan Disservice.
- Pet the Dog: A twisted example, at the very end - she praises Cummings for shooting her (though she might have seen her own bleeding, pale-haired reflection and thought he shot Canaan), telling him that she'll love him from now on. Whether she meant it or not, we'll never know - she died shortly afterwards.
- Yandere: Man, oh man, oh man, is Liang ever one of these for Alphard. Her reason for murderously despising Canaan is because she can't stand Alphard paying attention to anyone other than her.
Cummings
Voiced by: Tōru Ōkawa (JP), Andy McAvin (EN)
The lead of a company of private military contractors named Daedala, which is a cover for Alphard's group. In reality he's little more than a puppet as well as Liang Qi's subordinate and punching bag.
- Anti-Villain: The most "moral" of the trio he forms with Liang Qi and Alphard. Hell, the main reason he's involved in all this is probably due to his feelings for Liang Qi.
- Beleaguered Assistant: To Liang Qi, who's quite frankly insane, and takes the brunt of most of her abuse, too.
- The Chew Toy: His abuse at the hands of Liang Qi is mostly Played for Laughs. Until he has to Shoot the Dog in episode 11.
- Love Martyr: He's very in love with Liang Qi, but she mocks and beats him. Her final words are to praise him for shooting (she thinks) Canaan, and agreeing to love him... right before she dies from her bullet wound. Ouch.
- Mistress and Servant Boy: His relationship with Liang Qi. She poses as his secretary, but he's actually her subordinate.
- The Mourning After: Becomes a monk after Liang Qi's death and Alphard's disappearance.
Borners
Yunyun
Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (JP), Serena Varghese (EN)
A girl from the slums who follows Maria around.
- A-Cup Angst: She keeps stuffing her shirt with whatever she can find.
- Anime Chinese Girl: She dresses in Chinese clothes and wears a variant of odango hair.
- Blessed with Suck: Her Borner mutation is... having *two* appendixes. Really. But, well, compared to Hakko and some others, she almost got off easy. Except, of course, for needing meds and having to work with Liang Qi for them.
- Fake Boobs: She sometimes stuffs dumplings in her shirt.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When she, by Maria's own request, detaches a train car rigged with explosives, with Maria still inside it. The look on her face says it all.
Hakko
Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (JP), Emily Neves (EN)
The waitress of Santana's karaoke bar, she seems to be mute. She's kind and sweet and a little childlike, and Minoru seems to have a crush on her.
- Break the Cutie: Cuties of all kinds are broken here, but Hakko takes the cake.
- Brown Note: The real reason why she doesn't talk. Her Borner power resides in her voice, which releases lethal and very powerful waves; it can cause brain damage on those who hear it, and destroy any buildings/materials/etc. in her surroundings.
- I Love the Dead: In a scene that's both squicky and tragic, she gets very close to Santana's lifeless body.
Civilians
Santana
Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (JP), Leraldo Anzaldua (EN)
The owner of a karaoke bar in Shanghai, who offers solace and protection to Borners and others with the help of the waitress Hakko.
- The Atoner: As a CIA agent, he was one of the main actors behind the UA virus test that wiped out Hakko's village. Hence why he took her in. Tried to retire to a peaceful life running a karaoke bar, but his conscience gets the better of him and he ends up pursuing proper atonment, to his death.
- Last Request: As he lays dying he not only assures Hakko that it's not her fault, but asks her to tell him that she loves him.
Jin the Taxi Driver
Voiced by: Joji Nakata (JP), Rob Mungle (EN)
A certain taxi driver who bumps into Maria and Minoru sometimes.
Kenji Oosawa
Voiced by: Atsushi Ono
Maria's father, and a well-known scientist.
- Demoted to Extra: He goes from being one of the 5+ playable protagonists in the original 428 game to a side characters, albeit one with an important role in his brief appearances.
- The Professor: He's a biological researcher known for developing a cure for the Ua virus infection.
Others
Yuri Natsume
Voiced by: Junko Minagawa (JP), Kaytha Coker (EN)
Canaan's boss and informant, as well as an acquaintance of Santana.
- Majorly Awesome: She did render some assistance to Canaan in Xinjiang. It's also her actual rank too.
- The Mole: On behalf of the Defense Intelligence Headquarters.
