The following tropes can be applied to the characters of the manga and anime series Gravitation.
open/close all folders
Bad Luck
Shuichi Shindou
Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Rich McNanna (English)
Yuki: Quiet! I haven't cried in six years and my head is really killing me.
Shuichi: Six years? You're just too cool! As for me, I cry at least once a day. Man, that's just mega-cool! It's like you have a dark past or something! Oh, right. You really do. Hahahaha!
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The anime adaptation ran with an interpretation of the color schemes Murakami likes to use in his color illustrations, and also changed his brown eyes to green.
- Closet Key: For his own Closet Key, even. Shuichi’s influence is what forces Yuki to accept and extricate his sexuality from his past trauma.
- Crossdresser: Not quite unwholesome enough to be considered creepy, but it’s nearly always for reasons that involve trying to seduce Yuki. He thinks it’s a much better look on him than it actually is.
- Disguised in Drag: When he pretends to be Ayaka so he can get Yuki’s Arranged Marriage called off.
- Flanderization: His Keet tendencies overtake his characterization from about the third volume on.
- Gayngst: When it seems Yuki is rejecting him (at several points), his default question is "Is it because I'm a guy?"
- Hair Color Dissonance: In the manga, his hair is black and generally reads that way in the actual text, but Murakami renders this in various shades of pink and red in her color illustrations. This seems to be an artifact left over from recycling the character designs from her B'z Yaoi Doujinshi for Bad Luck- Koshi’s hair (which in real life varies between black and shades of brown) is usually rendered in the same shade of pink as early color illustrations of Shuichi. Oddly, during the period when he bleaches it blonde, the color illustrations accurately represent his hair color.
- Horrible Judge of Character: So much so that probably the only person he actually judges correctly upon first meeting is Reiji. This is also what gets him in trouble with Taki.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: The outfits that Reiji puts him in.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He was willing to give Yuki up when he thought Ayaka would make him happier; it backfired on him because she was actually testing how hard he would fight for Yuki.
- Keet: He's extremely excitable to the nth degree. There's a reason why he's the page image for a reason.
- Sailor Fuku: Wears one once in a futile attempt to be sexy for Yuki.
- Stripperiffic: His performance outfits are sometimes this. Murakami also really likes to put him this type of outfit for the book and chapter covers of the manga. Some are meant to be stage costumes, though not all.
- Super-Deformed: He falls into this at several points, sometimes with Little Bit Beastly mixed in.
- There Was a Door: You can't help but wonder how he's not in debt after all the walls he's had to pay for.
-
Ukefication: Canon example as Shuichi's character design gets more and more childish and feminine as the series progresses. - Wholesome Crossdresser: Shuichi dresses up in women's clothing on more than one occasion to be Played for Laughs, generally because he's gotten insecure about Yuki's interest in a man.
Hiroshi Nakano aka Hiro
Voiced by: Yasunori Matsumoto (Japanese), Daniel Kevin Harrison (English)
- Pair the Spares: With Ayaka.
Suguru Fujisaki
Voiced by: Fujiko Takimoto (Japanese), Luke Novak (English)
- Record Producer: After Sakano is fired by Tohma, Suguru becomes Bad Luck's producer.
Nittle Grasper
Tohma Seguchi
Voiced by: Ai Orikasa (Japanese), Bill Rogers (English)
- Affably Evil: When at his worst. Granted, "evil" isn't really the right word for it, but then again, neither is "sane".
- The Atoner: Only in regards to Eiri. Otherwise, he doesn't give a crap, generally.
- Berserk Button: Do ‘’not’’ even think about so much as looking at Yuki funny if you value your safety. Especially don’t think about dressing up as the man who attempted to rape Eiri in order to "heal him psychologically". He goes from Stepford Smiler to an Ax-Crazy Yandere in just a few short panels. Afterward? He's smiling again and brushing his rampage off like it was nothing.
- Crossdresser: Dons a nurse costume while taking care of a sick and not very cooperative Yuki in EX.
- My God, What Have I Done? When a pregnant Mika gets sick due to stress and has to be hospitalized.
- To really put it into perspective Tohma was so wrapped up in his business with Yuki that he neglected his pregnant wife, who just happens to be Yuki's older sister. The stress of worrying about Yuki, and the lengths that Tohma would go to in order to do what he perceived to be in Yuki's best interests—including threatening Shuichi's life—put Mika in the hospital. At least Tohma toned it down a bit when he realized he could lose his wife and child if he kept up his antics.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Tohma who, while initially appears to be an amiable person, is shown to have a ruthless streak when his brother-in-law's safety or health is threatened.
- Yandere: At one point attempts to go after Yoshiki dressed up as her brother with an axe for giving Yuki trauma. Sakano manages to hold him back, but the way Tohma looks in that panel is probably one of the most terrifying images in the entire manga.
Ryuichi Sakuma
Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese), Kenneth Robert Marlo (English)
- The Hero's Idol: Shuichi basically worships Ryuichi. He and his best friend spent hours imitating Ryuichi and his band as teenagers and they still take inspiration from them as adults. Shuichi even mentions cutting his hair to look like Ryuichi.
- Manchild: Requires a keeper at all times and carries a stuffed bunny with him everywhere.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: In the manga, at least, his Manchild tendencies are hinted to be more deliberate than they seem at first glance.
- Verbal Tic: Na no da!
Noriko Ukai
Voiced by: Haruna Ikezawa (Japanese), Megan Hollingshead (English)
- Happily Married: To Tetsuya Ukai.
- May–December Romance: With aforementioned Tetsuya Ukai, a much older university professor.
- Team Mom: Both for Nittle Grasper and for Bad Luck when she was working with them.
Uesugi Clan
Eiri Yuki
Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue (Japanese), Rome Elliot (English)
(to Shuichi) "Because I'm a good guy, I have one more piece of advice. If you don't want to kill yourself, you should probably stay away from Mercedes SLEs, and SAAB Cabriolets. Because if you get in front of me again, I'll hit you and then back up over you for good measure."
- Armoured Closet Gay: A nonviolent example. His early rebuffing of Shuichi is shades of this.
- Arranged Marriage: Although he and Ayaka never actually get married.
- Brutal Honesty: Tells Shuichi he's going to try to be more honest about how he feels, then follows with:It's inconvenient not to have a hole to fuck when I get in the mood.
- The Casanova: Before he meets Shuchi, his love life consists of one night stands and meaningless fuck buddies.
- Closet Key: For both Shuichi and Tohma.
- Pen Name: His last name is really Uesugi, like his siblings. He took “Yuki” as his Pen Name as a form of atonement for murdering Yuki Kitazawa.
Tatsuha Uesugi
Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa (Japanese), Jason Griffith (English)
- Annoying Younger Sibling: To both of his siblings, though he causes significantly more grief for Yuki than Mika.
- Depraved Bisexual: Played for laughs.
- Palette Swap: He is nearly identical to his brother, but with tan skin and darker hair and eyes. So much so that Shuichi mistakes him for Yuki not once, but twice.
Ask
Taki Aizawa
Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese), Tim Breese (English)
- Armoured Closet Gay: When he’s telling Shuichi how disgusting and unnatural his relationship with Yuki is, it becomes pretty obvious that no small part of his rage and irrational hatred towards Shuichi is a result of his own self-loathing and repression.
- Asshole Victim: It’s hard to feel much sympathy for him when Tohma has him run over by a car.
- Driven by Envy: Becomes obsessed with destroying Shuichi, because he believes Bad Luck is being favored over Ask by NG and Tohma.
- It's All About Me: Initially decides Shuichi is his rival because he wants 100% of Tohma’s and NG’s attention and can’t stand having to share it with Bad Luck. It spirals out of control from there.
- Smug Snake: His official character profile describes him with such terms as "arrogant" and "has a tendency to smirk".
- Unknown Rival: To Shuuichi.
Ken-chan and Ma-kun
- Everyone Has Standards: Ken-chan and Ma-kun are ok with Taki messing with Shuichi at first, but eventually kick Taki out of the band for being such a horrible Jerkass.
Eagleland Characters
Mister K
Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu (Japanese), Brian Maillard (English)
- Disguised in Drag: As a Huge Schoolgirl on a date with Hiro, in an effort to distract the Paparazzi.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": He's "K" when he's working. He even tells his wife to only call him "K" when he's working.
- Eagle Land: Pretty much the embodiment of the Japanese stereotype of Americans.
- Gratuitous English: His dialogue in general is full of random English words and phrases. There's also a rather long conversation between him and Judy that's entirely in, ostensibly, English (originally; Tokyopop's translation, er, translated it).
- Happily Married: To Judy Winchester, an A-list movie star.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: At first. See Do Not Call Me "Paul" above. Only his wife and Reiji ever call him him by his full name.
- Phenotype Stereotype: Blonde, blue eyed, tall, and shoots at anything. Obviously American.
- Spell My Name With An S: Tokyopop’s translation changed the spelling of his first name to Claude. Murakami’s original spelling of his name ( Krawd), while questionable, has a more obvious connection to his nickname. Needless to say, readers who had never seen the original text were left somewhat confused.
- Trigger-Happy: His propensity to shoot anything for any reason is a defining personality trait.
Yuki Kitazawa
Voiced by: Toshikatsu Izaki (Japanese)
- Asshole Victim: He may be a victim of murder, but it's hard to feel sympathy because Eiri killed in self-defense when he paid some guys to gang-rape him.
- Closet Key: For Eiri.
Yoshiki Kitazawa
- But Not Too Foreign: Yoshiki is American, but of Japanese decent and generally lacks all the typical Eagleland attributes shared by the other American characters.
- Everyone Has Standards: Yoshiki can't bring herself to hate Yuki for murdering her older brother because she recognizes her brother's actions as having crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
- Gender-Blender Name: Retains her masculine birth name despite identifying as a woman.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Briefly, when she dresses up as her dead brother as part of a plan to help Yuki get over him.
- Trans Equals Gay: She uses the term okama to describe herself at one point and Tokyopop chose to translate this as "gay". The terminology used by both Yoshiki herself and the characters to describe her is especially jarring since Yoshiki behaves more or less like a straight woman and not like a gay man at all.
- Transvestite: Yoshiki started dressing like a girl to get more attention, which somehow evolved into becoming actually transgender.
Reiji aka Rage
Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa
- Berserk Button: Don't say she's just a chick!
- But Not Too Foreign: She's as American as K is, but ethnically Japanese and speaks the language the fluently. She still has the designated Eagleland trait of being Ax-Crazy, but is otherwise doesn't come off as foreign the same way that K does.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When she quits working for XMR so she can follow Shuichi to Japan, she tells her dad (who is also the label boss) how she really feels.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Her treatment of Shuichi is this.
- Fag Hag: She has feelings for Shuichi, but also gets turned on by guy-on-guy...
- Gender-Blender Name: Reiji is fairly common Japanese name. For boys.
- Punny Name: Reiji is pronounced just like the English word Rage.
- Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: She follows Shuichi all the way from New York to Japan and strong-arms her way into becoming his manager. And it’s hilarious.
Everyone else
Sakano
- Ignored Enamored Underling: For Tohma.
- No Name Given: Only known by his surname. Not even Murakami knows what his given name is.
- Only One Name: Again, only known as "Sakano".
- Subordinate Excuse: Why else would he keep working for Tohma?
Ayaka Usami
Voiced by: Rie Tanaka (Japanese), Rachael Lillis (English)
- Arranged Marriage: To Yuki. She calls it off later.
- Pair the Spares: With Hiro.
Maiko Shindou
- Adapted Out: Of both anime adaptations.
- Out of Focus: In the manga. She features prominently in the beginning, while Shuichi and Hiro are still in high school, but disappears almost entirely once he graduates and the setting changes.
