Known to the public as H&C Logistics Incorporated, it is a multinational company that operates primarily in the shipping industry. Run by Floyd Hekmatyar, he has two children named Kaspar and Koko. Unknown to the public (except for governments, criminals and "other groups"), HCLI operates in the arms trafficking business in providing weapons and needed equipment to its clients, depending on their needs. For a short time, they assisted in the transportation of people into the Balkans. The company operates on various continents from Africa to Europe to most of Asia.
Mega Corp: Known to be this in the public sphere, especially since it has a PMC and an aerospace division. HCLI has launched 126 navigation/communications satellites. For comparison, the American military GPS network has only 24 satellites.
The main protagonist of Jormungand, Koko is a young woman who's a member of HCLI's Europe/Africa Shipping Division - aka, an arms dealer. She travels the world with her team of mercenary bodyguards, and while she's a shrewd negotiator and businesswoman, she can also be rather childish at times.
A God Am I: Subverted (or possibly zig-zagged). When Koko reveals the true extent of her machinations, a civilian researcher asks if she has a god complex. Koko responds by referring to a biblical event where God sent an angel to wipe out an army. She further states that God basically acts like a soldier and thus her plan makes her greater than God. In truth, while one may be apt to think that Koko desires to become a god, she has something more of a messianic complex, desiring to become some kind of twisted world savior. Either way, her megalomania is undeniable.
Ambiguously Gay: She may reciprocate Valmet feelings for her, speaking of which, she's not shy about feeling Valmet in general, she also sounds interested when Dr. Miami tells her that Baburin is surprisingly well endowed.
Berserk Button: Trying to pay her in drugs. It's one of few, if not only, times Koko actually kills someone personally.
Also killing her team members will get you a B-52 Airstrike.
Dark Messiah: When she reveals the details of Jormungand her rant comes off as more along the lines of seeing herself as trying to save the world rather than god like.
Drowning My Sorrows: She hits the bottle really hard for a while after Hex kills R.
Guile Heroine: This is how she operates in Africa and Europe.
Heroic Albino: Koko, having bright-white hair and skin, but blue eyes, and being a arms dealer with her own private micro-army, qualifies for the Anti-Hero variant.
Lady Drunk: Likes her liquor. A lot. Despite that, most of the time she's seen with some form of Brand X Cola. Ugo worries about it when she gets wine during a dinner with Chan, and in an omake chapter in the manga, this is poked at for fun.
Stepford Smiler: Koko smiles all the time, as a means of disguising her true feelings.
Straw Nihilist: She thinks this world is so utterly lost that killing 700 000 people to achieve world peace is nothing in comparison to what's to come if the world continues like now.
Trademark Favourite Food: Often seen drinking Coca Cola. Her reaction to a dinner invitation in episode 6 and reactions while eating in episode 7 suggests she also likes Chinese food but it's not brought up as often.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: She aims to achieve world peace by using the Jormungand system to control the entire world's logistics, starting with shooting down every aircraft currently in the sky, which would result in the deaths of nearly 700,000 people.
Woman Child: Capable of being businesslike one moment... and then rolling back and forth on the table, crying childishly, before morphing back into business mode.
The Deuteragonist, Jonah is a Child Soldier from West Asia recruited by Koko to join her team, which causes a certain unease in the team many of Koko's bodyguards have been on the opposing sides of child soldiers. Hates guns and arms dealers, and ironically is working for an arms dealer. As time goes by, he's becoming something of a mascot/surrogate younger brother to Koko's team.
Afraid of Needles: They reason why he wouldn't take the operation to have the bullet from his buttcheek removed. At least not intil episode 21..
Badass Adorable: He once wiped out a team of adult soldiers all by himself, before being subdued by Chiquita.
Book Dumb: When it comes to math, science, and other educational matters, Jonah is hopeless. It isn't really his fault, as being a Child Soldier meant he missed lots of school, and Koko's team are trying to home school him.
I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When he's having subjects in his "home"-schooling by Koko's crew he doesn't like (he sucks and blows in maths at the same time), he's off to the loo. He used that excuse very often, now they don't believe him even if he has to go for real.
Leeroy Jenkins: Has a certain tendency to go charging head-on into enemy fire. Lehm is working on getting it out of him.
Morality Pet: Koko recruited Jonah for this purpose. She has big plans and needs someone who is loyal but will keep her from becoming a monster, according to R.
Not So Stoic: He's the opposite of Koko; he keeps a stoic mask on around her, but can also laugh and be a kid, which is prominently seen early in Episode 9.
The Watson: Jonah plays this role, allowing Koko to explain her paradigm.
The oldest member of the team and an ex-Delta Force operator, Lehm is the unofficial and de facto leader of Koko's bodyguards. He has excellent tactical planning and his leadership is unquestioned, and he's the Cold Sniper of the team. Prior to the start of the series, Lehm was married to Chiquita, the leader of Kasper's bodyguards.
Battle Couple: Used to be part of one with Chiquita, way back when they were Floyd Hekmatyar's bodyguards.
Cold Sniper: Lehm's primary role, though he's also a good marksman with pistol and assault rifle. Interestingly, he's cold when on the scope; when he's not sniping, he's a rather approachable person.
Combat Pragmatist: Lehm's guiding principle. He doesn't believe in fighting on the enemy's terms.
Majorly Awesome: Was formerly a Major in the US Army, before quitting to work for Floyd Hekmatyar.
Old Soldier: Oldest member of Koko's bodyguards, and pretty much the leader figure among them.
Sergeant Rock: What his role is, more or less. (Despite having being a Captain in Delta.)
Would Hit a Girl: As the Orchestra arc shows, Lehm has no problems with shooting anyone who's a threat.
Yanks With Tanks: Was a former Delta Force operator, and saw action in both the First Gulf War and Somalia in the early 1990s, amongst other places.
A former Finnish Army officer with the Finnish Rapid Deployment Force, Valmet is the group's CQC expert. A good shot with a rifle, but CQC is where she really shines: Valmet is considered unbeatable when it comes to knife fighting.
Amazonian Beauty: Valmet is very muscular, and quite tall, but she's also rather pretty.
Butch Lesbian: She repeatedly declares her dedication to Koko in mind, body, and talent, gets a nosebleed when a panty-less Chinatsu flips past her, is very muscular, and gets a shorter haircut later to complete it.
Eyepatch of Power: How she looks like after the disastrous UN peacekeeping mission in Africa.
A former JGSDF soldier with the Ministry of Defense's black ops unit called SR Team. Tojo was originally recruited to HCLI by Kasper, before joining Koko's team. Serves as a communications and intel specialist.
Death Faked for You: He was this after he was recruited to join the SR Unit.
Kaiju Defense Force: Where Tojo came from before being recruited by Kasper (His first HCLI employer) and Koko.
A former Italian Army Bersaglieri soldier and a veteran of the Bosnian Wars, R appears to be both a communications/intelligence specialist and shooter.
The Casanova: Claims to have a woman in every port and makes a pass at Valmet during some downtime.
A bespectacled former soldier with the US Army's 20th Engineer Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps and veteran of the First Gulf War, Wiley serves as a commo specialist and as a spotter for Lutz. He also specializes in demolition. Also, one of two teams members on the FBI's blacklist, meaning he can't enter the United States (the other being Koko).
Mad Bomber: Gets a little too happy when he's around bombs.
Yanks With Tanks: Was an Airborne combat engineer during the First Gulf War, where Lehm shanghaied him for a Delta mission. After the war, he passed Selection and joined Delta.
Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Hesitates to fire on Chinatsu and tries to disable her weapons; he's partially successful. He goes through a bit of angst on whether he did the right thing. Justified in that his whole paradigm as a police SWAT Team sniper was on taking out criminals and terrorists, not teenaged girls.
Ugo
Voiced by: Yuki Ono (Drama CD), Kiyoshi Katsunuma (Anime)
Formerly a driver for a mafia group, Ugo serves as the resident Badass Driver. He's also quite attached to the cars he drives.
Gentle Giant: A really nice guy and he's also the largest member of the team.
Mao
Voiced by: Hidenori Takahashi (Drama CD), Go Shinomiya (Anime)
Formerly a soldier with an Asian army (so far not stated), Mao was the Sole Survivor of an accident that wiped out his artillery unit. Primarily serves as a shooter, though the Dragon Shooter arc proved he still knows his stuff.
The Everyman: He's basically the closest thing to plain vanilla normal in Koko's crew.
Fatal Family Photo: Averted; not only does he survive after showing it to Jonah, he actually gets a brief moment to shine.
Koko's elder brother, who likes teasing her. At the same time he also seems to care deeply about her; a number of Koko's bodyguards (particularly Jonah) were recruited by Kasper and sent to Koko. He is officially the head of HCLI's Asia-Pacific division.
Cloudcuckoolander: He admires an Urumi (curling blade) that was used for an assassination attempt against him moments earlier before a full scale attack by the SR Team.
Kasper's right hand woman, and the leader of his team - who, in comparison to Koko's crew - appear more like a conventional special forces team. Prior to the start of the series, Chiquita used to be married to Lehm. And then they got a divorce.
Battle Couple: Used to be part of one with Lehm, way back when they were Floyd Hekmatyar's bodyguards.
Little is known about him, except that he's known in the business world for heading HCLI. Floyd is also the father of Kasper and Koko, and Lehm and Chiquita were formerly his bodyguards before they left to lead the bodyguard teams for his children.
The Chessmaster: Appears to have shades of this; the Dragon Shooter arc was orchestrated by him to curry favor with Outspoken Doctors for Human Rights and the CIA, which suceeded quite well.
CCAT
Known to the public as Curry's Company Aerial Transport, it operates directly from Britain as a transportation company. It's also known to be an arms dealing company and is a rival of HCLI in the business to the point that they won't mind getting on top of each other if it suits their interests.
Mr. Curry
Voiced by: Katsuhisa Houki
President and owner of CCAT, and a rival of sorts to HCLI.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Decides to bow out and retire, realising that Koko and Kaspar are launching a gamechanging gambit, and that he won't be able to keep up.
Achey Scars: He's got one on his cheek. But the series doesn't say how he got it.
The Stoic: Most of the time. He doesn't have problems interacting, especially with his HCLI rivals.
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency is an external intelligence agency based out of Langley, Virginia in the United States of America. The division involved in the series is the National Clandestine Servicenote Formerly called the Directorate of Operations, which featured strongly in the Ryanverse, of which George Black is the head of the European Desk.
Scarecrow
Voiced by: Yuki Ono (Drama CD), Tooru Nara (Anime)
A loudmouthed and uncouth CIA agent, who is chasing Koko so that he can take over her operation and divert her earnings to the CIA.
Verbal Tic: ends most of her sentences with "-ssu"
Bookman, aka George Black
Hex and R's superior and creator of Operation Undershaft in an effort to "tame" Koko. He's Chief of the National Clandestine Service's European Desk.
Big Eater: You can see that he can eat a lot. Which makes his wife worry about his eating habits.
The Chessmaster: Behaves like this; he's got many plans and assets reporting to him, and is running a plan called Operation Undershaft.
Code Name: Has a lot of them. He's also known as Burattinaio and Saw, along with many others.
Gamebreaking Injury: Suffered a severe back injury in a helicopter crash just after commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps; this killed his military career, and led to him eventually joining the CIA.
Pet the Dog: Evacuates a family R had been staying with before they were killed by Serbs for helping the UN.
Rank Up: After the timeskip, he becomes the CIA's Director of Clandestine Services.
A radical patriot and ex-member of the Wide Range Communications Platoon, which was suppose to be a planned all-women Special Forces unit, until she was recruited by Bookman to tame Koko after high dropouts from special forces training and opposition to consider women in special forces missions forced the US Army to disband the unit. Had seen action as an operator with the Special Activities Division prior to being recruited as part of Operation Undershaft.
Arch-Enemy: of Koko. Hex has gone after Koko and her group before and killed Echo, one of Koko's team.
She Who Fights Monsters: Is on a vindictive and destructive streak against terrorists. Her brutal methods make her no different or perhaps even worse.
The War on Terror: Had served in Afghanistan as a SAD operative hunting down Al-Qaeda terrorists. She was also serving in Eastern Europe leading a SAD team to hunt down Koko and kill her.
Would Hurt a Child: She would do this to Jonah, especially since he's associated with Koko. She would do the same to Koko if Echo didn't try to stop her.
Daxinghai Company
Daxinghai is a Chinese multinational company that operates out of the African continent, with most of its dealing done on behalf of the People's Liberation Army. Most of its personnel are African and Chinese.
Formerly a Major in the People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Chan is running Daxinghai as a PLA-allied company to counter the influence of HCLI.
Handicapped Badass: Chan's leg was injured when he stepped on a landmine, which caused him to lose the ability to run and become:
Retired Badass: Chan is the man responsible for wiping out a UN FRDF patrol in Africa, killing Valmet's subordinates and her career. When he first appears, he's retired from the PLA and is running Daxinghai.
Younger Than He Looks: He appears to be elderly, but is actually in his early fifties; the shock of being unable to run anymore caused him to age rapidly.
Karen Lo/Low
Voiced by: Saori Kato
Chan's Sexy Secretary and Hypercompetent Sidekick, who can actually give Valmet a run for her money. She's formerly an officer in the PLA with the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Following the death of Chen Guoming, Karen is currently employed by Dr. Amada to serve as her official bodyguard and secretary alongside Mokoena.
Chinese With Chopper Support: Karen had previously served in the PLA Ground Force with the rank of 1st Lieutenant.
Foil: To Valmet. She fights with a similar gunkata style and swears revenge for her defeat and the deaths of her subordinates. Valmet notes that she's exactly how she used to be ages ago.
Irony: Considering that she was employed by the very woman she was assigned to kidnap for China.
Undying Loyalty: To Chan. Even though she's treated like crap after she fails to secure Minami Amada and destroy Koko's team, she still respects Chan and is utterly loyal to him. When Valmet succeeds in killing Chan, she tries to avenge him.
Orchestra
A known criminal/terrorist group that does assassinations, it was originally made up of 8 members. Over the years, most of its members were killed by engaging in shootouts with police forces. The group was destroyed after its last two members were killed by Koko's team in the United Arab Emirates.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Chinatsu used to be a normal schoolgirl. Now she's an assassin with spider sense.
Going Commando: Justified. She never wears panties when going into battle. On her first job, she'd gotten soaked and secretly taken them off and soon realized that her aim was better without them. The one time she's wearing panties onscreen, her spider sense is sufficiently muddled that she can't pick up Lehm.
We Hardly Knew Ye: After Koko tried to get Chinatsu to join up with her, but was killed by Lehm after attempting to assassinate Koko for killing her master.
Boss Dominic's Crew
A trio of hitmen working out of a camper van somewhere in North Africa, hired to assassinate Koko and her crew. Hex put them up to it.
A Japanese scientist working for Märchen in South Africa and the best friend of Koko Hekmatyar. Prior to getting into the field of robotics, Minami had previously studied at the Imperial College London (under the Faculty of Engineering) and at Caltech.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Highly respected Roboticist but tends to act like a child at times.
Also has an unhealthy obsession for butterflies. She is willing to hike across snow over mountain just to see a rare poisonous butterfly.
Cloudcuckoolander: Has a tendency to blow off prior arrangements in favour of going looking for things like butterflies and seashells like they're the most important thing in the universe, if her assistant tries to keep her in line...
Woman Child: Like her friend Koko she's got a habit of rolling back and forth on the ground crying when she's not getting her way.
Mokoena
Voiced by: Takahiro Fujiwara
Minami's assistant. He tries to make sure she doesn't wander off to go after butterflies, but he ends up following her in the end. Before Karen was employed by Minami, he used to do bodyguard duties aside from being her assistant.
Bodyguard Crush: Averted. He gets really worried when the good doctor goes somewhere that her safety is questionable.
Gentle Giant: Mokoena's really a nice guy, even though he's capable of handling small arms.
Sweat Drop: Gets into this due to his boss' unbelievable actions that he's forced to follow her.
SR Team
Known somewhat "officially" as the Special Research Team of the Ministry of Defense, Defense Intelligence Headquarters, Joint Staff 2nd Division. The SR Team was Tojo's former workplace and is a black ops team of the DIH specializing in intelligence gathering and covert action. It was formed during the Vietnam War to provide intelligence support in places the Americans could not go publicly. Based out of Jakarta, Indonesia, SR uses the Ganville Trading Company as its front, and is engaged in a profitable (and illegal) side business of actual arms dealing in Southeast Asia, which sets them against Kaspar's HCLI Asia-Pacific division. One of their recent actions is with the Iranian nuclear program controversy, as SR provided the Iranians with needed material while conducting espionage in Iran at the same time.The entire unit was defeated in Jakarta and Tokyo thanks to Koko and Kaspar's efforts, which was done thanks to Col. Hinoki's orders to start a fight against them.
Becoming the Mask: Due to a lack of funds, SR was forced to use their front company to conduct arms dealing to stay afloat and build contacts. By the time Hinoki came onboard, Ganville Trading Company is a highly successful trading company in its own right, with SR being financially independent of the Japanese government's black budget, to the government's chagrin.
Kaiju Defense Force: SR is ostensibly under the oversight of the Ministry of Defense, and the bulk of its operatives come from the JGSDF.
Those Who Fight Monsters: They're starting to show signs of this. And this came back to bite them in the butts when all SR Team operatives were killed.
Yosuke Hinoki
A Colonel in the JGSDF, and the 5th CO of SR. Formerly Tojo's mentor and the man who taught him all he knew (which is not the same as all Hinoki knows). Pulling the strings behind SR's actions. He's known to be married to a Thai woman, to protect his "cover".
The Beard: His marriage to an unnamed Thai woman, which is all part of protecting his cover as a Japanese businessman. Except it turns out that they're Happily Married for real, and have a daughter.
The Chessmaster: Has multiple plans for dealing with multiple situations. He orchestrated SR's downfall, letting them start a fight with HCLI that led to their annihilation, allowing him to retire.
