Characters / Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch From Mercury Dueling Committee

Main Character Index | Main Characters | Asticassia School of Technology | Dueling Committee | Benerit Group | Others

The Dueling Committee of the Asticassia School of Technology is responsible for overseeing the duels that take place at the school. It also doubles as a student council of sorts, as the members of the committee have a wide-ranging amount of authority over how student-related matters are handled, superseded primarily by Chairman Delling Rembran.

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In General

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Played with; they oversee duels in a school where Duels Decide Everything. However, membership doesn't bestow much power, it's more of a status symbol for the heirs of the companies funding Asticassia. The three most well-connected members actually end up the least involved with the Dueling Committee because they're too busy with their houses' others affairs (even when they're still dealt with in the academy).
• The Beautiful Elite: The majority of its members belong to prestigious families. They also happen to be very easy on the eyes.
• Dwindling Party: Over the course of the show, the committee of five members are reduced to the two members who aren't heirs to the dueling houses, due to the other three being preoccupied. And while other members of Jeturk and Grassley Houses do hang out there, it's not for long, and not far into the second season, it is just down to Secelia and Rouji holding down the fort.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three dueling heirs have this dynamic with one another, both in terms of their personalities and their mobile suit's functions:
  • Guel is the Fighter, being the one who engages in duels the most and befitting his brash and confrontational personality. His mobile suits, the Dilanza and Darilbalde, focus more on melee-oriented combat.
  • Elan is the Mage, being cold and apathetic at almost everything. His mobile suits, the Zowort and the Gundam Pharact, specialize in mobility and sniping from safe distances.
  • Shaddiq is the Thief, befitting his preference to scheme and manipulate behind the scenes, and only directly taking action when he feels he has the advantage and the opponent does not.
• Flexible Tourney Rules: To the Dueling Council, pilots are to use whatever resources they have available to them in order to win. Sabotaging your opponent's equipment or having outside help modify the arena to your benefit are all completely allowed. The only things not permitted are ones illegal even outside of a duel, like using a Gundam.

Guel Jeturk

Affiliation: Jeturk House

Main MS: MD-0032G Guel's Dilanza, MD-0064 Darilbalde, MD-0031L Lauda's Dilanza (stolen from Lauda), HU-45p Prodoros (Borrowed from Dawn of Fold)

Voiced by: Yohei Azakami (Japanese), Bradley Gareth (English)^{Foreign VAs}Aldo Ramirez (Latin American Spanish)

"Guel Jeturk cannot lose!"

^{Click here to see him in his pilot suit}

^{Click here to see him as a runaway}

^{Click here to see him as the CEO}

A third-year at Asticassia School of Technology's piloting department, Guel is heir to Jeturk Heavy Machinery, one of the group's three branches, and the head of the Dueling Committee.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Guel has become this to Suletta as of Episode 4. Her immediate reaction to his proposal is to immediately refuse, jump into Aerial's cockpit and fly away. When he confronts Suletta and Miorine in class, Suletta hides behind her fiancée and turns down Guel again before he can speak, to his annoyance.
• Accidental Murder: He manages to escape captivity and hijack one of Dawn of Fold's Desultors during the attack on Plant Quetta, but gets ambushed by a Dilanza Sol and can't identify himself, as communications are still being jammed. He eventually has no other choice than to deliver a lethal blow to his attacker's cockpit, at which point it's revealed that the pilot of said MS was none other than Vim Jeturk, his father. Upon realizing this, Guel screams in horror and agony.
• Ace Custom: His Dilanza is a magenta version of the standard model with a feather plume and a head crest.
• Ace Pilot: Represents the Jeturk House as its top pilot, with ambitions of becoming an ace for real in the Dominicos Corps after graduating. He had 26 wins and no losses or ties as the school's Holder and top mobile suit duelist before Suletta and Aerial's arrival. He's only put into a tough spot when his opponents have a technological edge against him—in short, Guel is a very good pilot, just not the very best pilot.
  • The Curb-Stomp Battle that Suletta and Aerial treat him to in the first episode is a result of him getting surprised by the unique armaments of a Gundam, and he's able to hold his own for a time during both his second duel with Suletta (where he was hampered by the AI installed into his suit; he literally performed a lot better once he broke it) and his duel with Elan (where he was using a suit he wasn't used to and was fighting a Gundam without knowing).
  • When he gets caught up in Shaddiq and Dawn of Fold's attempt to assassinate Delling Rembran at Plant Quetta in episode 12, he manages to land a fatal blow against his opponent despite being in an outdated and wrecked mobile suit on top of dealing with the intense stress of being thrust into a life-or-death situation for the first time.
  • In Episode 17, he has his third duel against Suletta and holds his own against her and Aerial for a while, even managing to gain a brief advantage despite suffering from PTSD throughout the fight. He only starts to lose again when Aerial hits Permet Score 8 and takes control of his weapons.
  • In episode 20, when he goes off with Kenanji to challenge Shaddiq, his Darilbalde is still operating under school regulations (preventing him from targeting the cockpit and minimizing his beam weapons' output), but Shaddiq's Michaelis isn't. He still manages to stop Sabina from coming to Shaddiq's aid using his drones without taking his attention off Shaddiq even once, and though Shaddiq manages to blast the Darilbalde into two, he misses the cockpit. This gives Guel enough time to slice off the Michaelis' limbs before bailing from the Darilbalde at the last minute.
• Attack Drone: His Darilbalde is the only non-Gundam with fully-detachable drones, which ram beam blades into foes instead of shooting them. The original version has one pair mounted on its back, then another is added on later.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The lead-up to his second defeat sees his confidence constantly undermined by his father, so when Suletta sincerely compliments his abilities, he becomes instantly smitten, proposing to her on the spot. And while he shortly explains that this was an impulse and he doesn't mean it, he very clearly slowly develops a crush on her, won over by her sincerity compared to the harshness of his family and the sycophants of his House. This culminates in an outright Love Confession in Episode 17.
• Being Good Sucks: His resolution to put aside his old Jerk Jock self is largely what tends to cause his problems. Dueling Elan in Suletta's name leads to his third humiliation, his decision to go it alone and find his own way leads to him being dragged back into the conflict, him riding out into battle at Plant Quetta results in the death of his father, him trying to save Seethia sees her die in his arms, him trying to help Suletta with Miorine involves throwing her into the worst day of her life... He doesn't actually regret any of it, though, as he sees his struggles as the reason he's become a much better person, and even accuses Shaddiq of being the way he is because he hasn't had to sacrifice his own happiness and well-being the way Guel has.
• Berserk Button: Guel already has a Hair-Trigger Temper, but implying he is subservient to his father Vim will really set him off. When Miorine does this, he trashes her greenhouse. In Episode 3, Secilia taunts him about this while his rematch with Suletta is being formalized, but unlike the first episode, Guel is able to hold himself back.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Gender-inverted—after Suletta defeats him for the second time, he proposes marriage to her. Though this has less to do with her victory, and more with her acknowledging him as a Worthy Opponent.
• Big Jerk on Campus: How he's first introduced and presented as in Episode 1, with him being the (then) current Holder who is the heir of a rich and powerful corporation, lords his status over the student body and demands respect from everyone around him. No longer the case at the end of the episode when he loses to Suletta.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: The second season demonstrates that, much like Miorine, he's adopted Suletta's mantra of "move forward, gain two" as the driving force to change himself and grow. He obliquely references it during Episode 20 as he disables Shaddiq's Michaelis with a crafty sneak attack:
  Guel: You're the one who doesn't understand. If all you do is take... you'll never gain a thing!
• Break the Haughty: Guel gets put through a lot over the course of the show.
  • He starts off as the school's top pilot, entitled to getting away with anything he wants; when he goes to pester Miorine, his fiancée, he gets his ass smacked by a new transfer student when she stands up to him. He is then challenged to a duel and soundly defeated by said student which results in him losing his perfect record, his status as the best duelist in school, and his engagement to Miorine, which derails his father Vim's plans to take over the Benerit Group by assassinating Delling Rembran while Guel was still engaged to Miorine.
  • After this, his next two fights have him losing to Suletta (again) and Elan. His loss to Elan specifically gets him kicked out of Jeturk House, and he winds up living in a tent somewhere on campus; people feel so empowered to pick on him that a group of boys pour water on his head while he is eating, only scared off by Shaddiq. It gets even worse when Vim calls Guel in episode 9 specifically to tell him that he's being unenrolled from Asticassia because of his three losses, and rather than let that happen, Guel runs away from Asticassia altogether.
  • The end of the first season sees him murder Vim without knowing his identity until the last moment while trying to escape from Plant Quetta when Dawn of Fold attacks it. This leaves him practically catatonic until a few episodes into the second season, by which point Dawn of Fold is holding him as a hostage. He eventually shakes it off, just in time to fail to save a girl that's severely injured when the Dominicos Corps attack the current Dawn of Fold base; he eventually makes his way back up to space and Asticassia, ready to rebuild Jeturk Heavy Industries after all it's lost and even confess his true feelings to Suletta. However, Suletta (gently) rejects him, and when Miorine gets him to agree to a duel with Suletta in order to save Suletta from Prospera, the PTSD from his experiences completely unsettles him in the cockpit, and it takes everything it has for him not to completely fall apart.
• Butt-Monkey: After his continuous losses against Suletta and Elan, Guel's reputation as an unbeatable duelist is completely shattered and most of the school stops taking him seriously. Once he's cast out of Jeturk House, he's treated as a joke and other students even go out of their way to bully him.
• Cain and Abel: Once Lauda becomes dead set on killing Miorine, Guel becomes the Abel to Lauda's Cain, out of a desire to defend his friend.
• Char Clone: He's The Rival, he has a red mobile suit for most of his appearances, and a few scenes even have him employing very Char-like moves, such as kicks. He also follows the general Char Clone tendency of being increasingly outclassed in power due to lacking the protagonist's level of supernatural ability as the show goes on, despite his own improvements in skill. His early Jerk Jock tendencies also mirror those of Jerid before he undergoes Character Development later on; this hits its natural endpoint in episode 22, where him and Suletta have a fencing duel in homage to Amuro and Char's in the original. That said, he is very unlike Char in personality: while Char was underhanded, manipulative, and amoral at his core, Guel is straightforward, blunt, and has a clear sense of right and wrong that increasingly defines itself as the show goes on.
• Close-Range Combatant: Guel's a physical fighter and both the Dilanza and Darilbalde utilize blades for close-quarters fighting. Notably, when he uses the Dilanza's rifle he fires 9 shots at a stationary Gundam Aerial and only manages to hit its shield once. Unfortunately, his fighting style has a bad match-up against mobile suits with long range weaponry combined with Attack Drones.
• Coat Cape: He wears his uniform jacket draped over his shoulders.
• Combat Pragmatist: After his experiences at the end of the first season, Guel is notably less focused on "honorable" behavior when he pilots Mobile Suits, though he's still careful not to cross certain lines. He flat-out admits that he's not going to win against Suletta with fair play in Episode 17, and goes all-out with whatever tricks he can manage to misdirect her, not even bothering to worry about the Darilbalde's AI. Later on, when he's forced to clinch with Shaddiq in their fight in Episode 20, he uses the opportunity to disable Sabina with the Darilbalde's detachable blades from an angle she didn't see, and lets Shaddiq get in one last shot on the Darilbalde in order to slice all of the Michaelis's limbs off, leaving Shaddiq a sitting duck for capture. He uses a similar maneuver in Episode 23 to get close enough to Lauda in the Gundam Schwarzette to crush its shell units, stopping it cold and preventing the Gundam from killing Lauda with a data storm.
• Cool Big Bro: The reason why Lauda is very loyal to Guel and would turn a blind eye when his brother was a Jerk Jock back then? When Guel and Lauda met for the first time when they were children, he wholeheartedly accepted Lauda without hesitation and treated him as his full blooded brother. Even as they grew up, one of the main reasons that Guel came back to space was he is also concerned that his brother is suffering alone for the sake of the company.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In the first episode, he initially overpowers Miorine and her stolen Gundam Aerial without breaking a sweat, not helped by the fact that the white-haired girl was no pilot. Cue Suletta entering the Gundam to get it back and it's his turn to get utterly destroyed by that Gundam and its weapons. His introduction further sees him effortlessly trashing his opponent with little to no retaliation.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: A lot of Guel's losses are softened when factoring in that he was facing off against Gundams using inferior suits.
  • All of his duels with Suletta, potentially barring the second one, are softened by the fact that Aerial is the most advanced suit in the show by a wide margin, with abilities that simply can't be countered by skill alone. The fact that he manages to inflict more damage against Suletta and Aerial than Norea and Sophie could together is impressive by itself.
  • In his duel with Elan, Guel is on the backfoot throughout the entire fight due to the vast difference in suit performance as well as having to once again face off against bit weapons. Despite this he manages to hold out against the Pharact's stun beams for quite a while, only losing when he flies into a cloud of statically charged regolith that Elan lured him into.
  • His entire fight with Lauda is him clearly not trying to actually hurt his brother, despite the later piloting a powerful Gundam; it was natural that Guel would eventually he overwhelmed.
• Custom Uniform: Guel does not wear his uniform top, instead choosing to let it rest on his shoulders. Additionally, before his loss to Suletta, he wore a white version of the standard piloting suit due to being the Holder, the school's top dueling ace.
• Death Seeker: Guel starts grappling with this over the course of the second season. He's more than willing to starve himself to death while Dawn of Fold has him captured, at least until he hears that Jeturk Heavy Industries is in jeopardy. Even so, his fighting style becomes significantly more reckless, even for him — Shaddiq very well could have killed him if he'd miscalculated during their fight in Episode 20, he willingly lets Lauda stab his Dilanza so that he can crush the Schwarzette's shell unit, and the relaxed way he speaks to Lauda after the fact indicates that he's more than fine with dying as penance for his sins, especially for Lauda's sake. Luckily for him (and for Lauda's conscience), Felsi shows up in her Dilanza with a gun that fires stabilizing gel, which she uses to keep Guel's suit from exploding.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After getting defeated in his second duel against Suletta, he asks for Suletta's hand in marriage. The next episode makes it clear that he was just caught up in the moment and blurted out the proposal impulsively, but the implications of him becoming infatuated with Suletta are still there afterwards.
• Detachment Combat: The Darilbalde's arms can detach from the suit akin to the Turn X, and interchange with the Attack Drones on the backpack to form a pair of beam saber arm blades.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Whatever his true feelings, it becomes obvious as Episode 4 progresses that Guel did not mean to propose to Suletta and got caught up in the moment. By Episode 17, post-Character Development, he confesses his feelings for real, but Suletta gently turns him down.
• Didn't See That Coming: When Guel jokingly tells Suletta that he'd only apologize to Miorine if she defeats him in a duel, he was momentarily surprised that Suletta accepted. He then was even more surprised when Suletta's mobile suit was able to blow him away to kingdom come.
• Disinherited Child: Becomes this by Episode 6 after one loss too many. He's been cut off from all resources of the Jeturk house which included being allowed to live in the dormitory. His father even stops paying his tuition and withdraws him after Episode 9.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His defining trait in the first episode:
  • He trashes Parker Eastcott in a duel and made him grovel in apology (off-screen) because he said Guel had a runaway bride (which is true).
  • When Miorine remarks that she considers him to be his father's lapdog, he decides to destroy her greenhouse.
  • When Suletta stands up to him by smacking him in the butt, he threatens her. When she insists he apologizes for his actions, he forces her to accept a duel where she would be expelled if she loses.
• Domestic Abuse: He thinks his engagement to Miorine via the duel system entitles him to order her around and trash her greenhouse. This is something he learned from his father Vim, who tends to slap and berate him whenever he gets too much of an attitude for Vim's liking.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Angrily refuses Shaddiq's offer to join Grassley House after being banished from his own and forced to camp out.
• Dope Slap: He gives one to himself during Episode 22 when he asks if Miorine is okay with going through with a plan that could put Suletta’s life in danger. One look from Miorine makes it clear that she and Suletta have the resolve to see this plan through, and he lightly slaps himself on the cheek.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: He is in a constant struggle with his father to appease his lofty expectations. Despite how hard he works, he never gets any respect in return, to the degree that when he's about to have his rematch with Suletta, his father instead installs a combat AI to fight for him rather than entrusting it to Guel.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: His Dilanza has a feather plume and large head crest, for crying out loud!
• Establishing Character Moment: He gets into a duel with Parker Eastcott simply because the latter said he had a runaway bride, then uses the duel to force him into a humiliating apology. Additionally, he recklessly uses the duel to display his superiority, which put the lives of other students, such as Suletta, in danger.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Judging from his angered reaction when he sees that Elan made Suletta cry in Episode 5, Guel's roughness doesn't mean he wants to genuinely hurt her feelings.
  • He refuses help from Shaddiq after being kicked out of Jeturk House, due to viewing Shaddiq as a coward.
• The Exile: In Episode 6, being defeated by Elan was the straw that broke the camel's back as he is exiled by his father, and his brother Lauda is put in charge of Jeturk House. After he returns in Episode 16, Lauda willingly gives the position back to him.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: His hair is less spiky and slicked back after running away from Asticassia and taking up a new job, highlighting his calmer and more polite nature in his new, more positive environment. The change also represents how his experiences have given him a more mature outlook on life.
• Freudian Excuse: With a father that's constantly demanding his obedience, while berating and hitting him should he fail, it's not hard to figure out how Guel ended up becoming an irritable Jerkass that is constantly flaunting his perceived superiority. After losing to Suletta and Elan, then running away from Asticassia, killing his father by mistake, and eventually escaping Dawn of Fold, Guel gradually becomes nicer and calms down, proving that his toxic family and environment is a huge factor for his former behavior.
• Forced from Their Home: After losing a duel to Elan while being forbidden from dueling at all, his father cuts him off from their company resources, including the dormitory. He's later seen living in a tent somewhere in the woods on school grounds.
• Good Costume Switch: Upon his return to Asticassia in Episode 17, he now wears a white shirt instead of his dark-colored one, reflecting how his experiences have humbled him for the better.
• Graceful Loser:
  • Despite his rough personality and temperament, he will honor the agreements set in a duel if beaten. The second episode also reveals an underlying sense of honor — he expresses noticeable irritation at the prospect that his duel with Suletta will be declared void. After being defeated a second time, he is calm, and when Suletta complimented his abilities he is happy enough to propose to her.
  • This is true of his behavior outside duels as well as he takes Suletta rejecting his confession well, happy that she has someone who makes her happy already.
  • In Episode 22, he loses to Suletta again, and he immediately returns her Holder Outfit to her. He actually seems somewhat relieved to have lost, most likely because of the fact he wasn’t happy about working with Miorine to cheat in the previous duel, and recognizing Suletta might be the only one who can get through to Miorine.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The feet of the Darilbalde can grapple onto enemies and hurl them onto surfaces, akin to the Slash Harkens in Code Geass.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Before being humbled by his Break the Haughty moments, he had a rough temperament, meaning anything could set him off.
• Heroic BSoD: As seen in Episode 15, Guel is in a catatonic state after he accidentally killed his father despite being taken hostage by the Dawn of Fold. He snaps out of his state after he heard that his family's company is on the verge of bankruptcy after Vim's death.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The first episode sets up Guel as an almost stereotypical Jerk Jock and school bully, as well as a classist. Subsequent episodes develop him further, showing that he's got a strong sense of honor and a desire to prove himself and the determination to make that happen.
  • Unlike Miorine, whose plan to escape her father boils down to "ride a ship and stow away to Earth" without much thought to what happens afterwards and gets repeatedly caught, Guel is able to live on his own for a while without any of his father's money once he's thrown out of Jeturk House, then successfully escape Asticassia (on the first try no less), survive and even thrive for two whole months at a new job with a false name without being found by his father, showcasing essential skills ready for employment and adaptability to a foreign environment not normally seen in a highborn child.
  • Guel may look like a Dumb Muscle Blood Knight with a competitive streak, but Episode 11 demonstrates that he's extremely perceptive and knows Jeturk Heavy Machinery far better than his personality implies; he notices that Dawn of Fold is utilizing Jeturk mobile suits, and says that getting a hold of the specific models being used, outdated as they are, isn't something that'd be so easy for any random terrorist group to pull off.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During his duel with Elan, he kicks up a large cloud of regolith with his opening attack. Said cloud costs him the match: first, it causes him to lose sight of Elan, who capitalizes on it to deliver a sneak attack. Then, it renders his Dilanza immovable when some of the regolith gets into its joints—the electromagnetic stun beams from Elan's Pharact overload the joints by conducting through the regolith, rendering him a sitting duck.
• Honor Before Reason: He insists on fighting his duels straight, even though basically any form of subterfuge is explicitly allowed, because for him those duels are for proving his own strength. When his family cheats anyway, he is both angered and saddened, and it's a notable change in his behavior when he admits to himself that fair tactics won't let him beat Suletta in Episode 17 — he doesn't hesitate to slice off Aerial's antennae when she shuts down, but he is visibly uncomfortable with helping Miorine betray Suletta. In Episode 22, when Suletta wishes for a chance to speak with Miorine, he challenges her to a duel, which gives her a chance to reclaim what he took from her fair and square. When she defeats him, he seems relieved that she defeated him, and he promptly gives Suletta back her Holder uniform.
• Hot-Blooded: He is confident in his piloting skills and eager to pick fights. The events of the first season settle him down somewhat, but he still has shades of this; the moment he learns that Shaddiq is responsible for the chaos at Plant Quetta and the Rumble Ring, he rushes to confront him.
• Hypocrisy Nod: When Shaddiq tears into Guel during Episode 20 for the sins of the Benerit Group, how their cruelty and failings have impacted the Earthians, and even Guel's murder of his own father, Guel admits that while he still has his own sins to atone for, Shaddiq does as well.
• I Gave My Word: He fulfills his promise to apologize to Miorine after Suletta defeats him for a second time.
• Important Haircut: Cuts his hair short in Episode 17, representing his resolve to go along with Miorine's plans and restore Jeturk Heavy Machinery to its former glory.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He is desperate to prove to his father he is indeed a worthy heir, which translates into not only becoming the top duelist of his school but also reacting violently to anything that he perceives as a challenge to his superiority, which can range from another student snarking at him to Miorine calling him his father's lapdog.
• Irony: After his losses he decides to run away instead of living under his father's thumb. This puts him right in the middle of his father and Shaddiq's plan to assassinate Delling, and right as it seemed like he was quite happy with his new station in life.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: As the second season goes on, his treatment of Suletta shifts in this direction. Though she considers him a friend and understands his feelings towards her, she loves Miorine, and he knows this. Hence, though he does show regret for never really having had a chance with her, he still does everything he can to make sure she has a good life. This is most visible in the aftermath of their last duel, where, upon returning the Holder's Mark to her (actively ensuring she will marry Miorine), he smiles and privately laments his own foolishness.
• Jerkass: During the first episode, this guy was a real piece of work who believes himself entitled to the benefits of being betrothed to Miorine due to the school rules, and when she provoked him with a remark, he started to destroy all the plants in her greenhouse until Suletta stopped him. He also doesn't care that both girls were nearly crushed by his opponent's suit during the match they watched upon Suletta's arrival, and simply calls them out for getting in the way.
• Jerk Jock: Fulfills this archetype in Asticassia as their popular resident bullying jock with expert mobile suit combat prowess.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • After his first defeat, his original Jerkass tendencies quickly die down. He showcases a sense of honor as well as being a Graceful Loser, and the rest of the show gradually sees him tame his hot-tempered streak for a calmer and more focused outlook on life.
  • In Episode 23, it's shown that he was very accepting of his half-brother Lauda when they first met as children, hugging him and saying that he's happy to have a brother.
• Kicked Upstairs: For his multiple dueling losses and disobedience, his father Vim decides to pull him out of school and put him in a management position in a subsidiary company where he can't cause any more problems for the Jeturk company. Instead, Guel vanishes entirely, and is next seen doing manual labor for an engineering company under an assumed identity.
• Kidnapped by the Call: Despite trying to cut his ties to the Benerit Group after running away he still ends up dragged back into it via a hostage situation.
• Killing in Self-Defense: In Episode 12, Guel had no choice but to defend himself from a mobile suit that he encountered while trying to escape from the Plant Quetta attack. It was unfortunate for him that the person he was forced to fight was his own father.
• Lightning Bruiser: His customized Dilanza, while being heavily armored, is still remarkably agile, practically running circles around a less-armored opponent in its first appearance.
• Love at First Punch: It seems that he's become infatuated with Suletta after she defeated him, as he proposes to her without even thinking in Episode 3. He tries to walk it back afterwards, but it just makes him come off as a Tsundere.
• Love Confession: By the time he comes back to the school in Episode 17, he's emotionally mature enough to properly confess to Suletta without trying to awkwardly walk back like he did before. He gets rejected, but takes it in stride.
• Misblamed: Twice over — and rather strangely — by Shaddiq, who blames him both for Vim's death and for Miorine being involved in the attack on Quinharbor. In Vim's case, Guel was trying to escape captivity during a terrorist attack that Shaddiq himself orchestrated, and Guel only killed Vim in self-defense when Vim attacked Guel, not knowing his own son was inside the mobile suit in question. As for Quinharbor, not only is Miorine not the one responsible for the attack, but it was her idea to go there in the first place to try for a peaceful resolution.
• Misery Builds Character: Guel's character arc generally follows this trajectory over the course of the show. He goes from a Jerk Jock and Big Man on Campus to an Action Survivor who lost everything he had, and in the process of dealing with all these changes and trauma, Guel's positive qualities are better shown to the audience. In the second season, he's even able to bounce back from a catatonic depression after killing his father and resolves to make things right despite the odds.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: His Darilbalde includes a pair of sub-arms on its back with beam sabers in place of hands, which can even be swapped with the regular arms in a pinch.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Screams in horror upon realizing he had killed his own father in self-defense during the attack on Plant Quetta.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When facing off with Suletta in the Gundam Aerial for the first time, he opts to discard his rifle and rushes to engage her in close quarters after seeing that she has a shield, only to later get horrified as he sees said shield disassemble into a mass of flying beam-firing bit staves. He's left wide-eyed and more shocked as the Gundam dominates him.
    Guel: Wh-what...what the hell are you?! [Gundam Aerial slashes off his Dilanza's fin]
  • When Elan begins to dominate him and move in for the final blow, he's left utterly horrified as the Gundam Pharact shoots off all of his stolen Dilanza's limbs and is reduced to begging Elan to stop as his Gundam rips off its victim's head crest with its bare hands.
    Guel: Stop... [...] I SAID STOOOOOOOOOOOPP!!!!!!!
  • He has a silent but very clear one when the small ship of maintenance workers he was on winds up getting hijacked by criminals armed with Gundams.
• Patricide: In episode 12, he is forced to kill his father in self-defense after being mistaken for a terrorist. Tragically, communications only open between them after Guel has dealt the deathblow, allowing him to see his father's dying moments before Vim's mobile suit explodes.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After their first duel, Suletta is arrested under suspicion of having a Gundam, and the Council discusses nullifying the duel and expelling her. Instead of waiting for the final decision that could restore his perfect record, he sends the members of his house to fix Miorine's greenhouse (he couldn't go personally because his father had summoned him) as per the losing condition of the duel, thus acknowledging he lost.
  • After his second defeat, he apologizes to Miorine personally for his actions, and he challenges Elan to a duel the moment he sees that Elan has made Suletta cry.
• Perpetual Frowner: After his losses to Suletta knock him down a peg, Guel is almost always seen sporting a frown. This changes after about two months in-story at which point he's abandoned Asticassia entirely by running away to work on a maintenance ship, where he has a noticeably more relaxed appearance. The major factor in this change, aside from the amount of time that's passed, is escaping the attention of his abusive father, leaving the competitive and oppressive environment of Asticassia, and being around people who actually respect him, all of which clearly brings him peace of mind despite the changes in his living conditions.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Not only does he have dyed his bangs a hot pink, but he also has his Dilanza painted in the same color.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: He allows Lauda to stab his Dilanza in Episode 23 as penance for causing Lauda so much emotional stress and pain by keeping the truth of Vim's death to himself, using the opportunity to crush the shell unit of the Gundam Schwarzette so that Lauda doesn't get hit with a data storm and die. He even outright says that he's fine with dying as long as Lauda never pilots a Gundam again.
• Refusal of the Call: During Episode 9, Suletta attempts to recruit him to fight for the Earth House against Shaddiq's team. He is forced to turn her down due to his father banning him from dueling, which Suletta respects.
• Riches to Rags: After three losses, his father arranges for him to be kicked out of Jeturk House. He goes to live in the woods around campus, and when his father says he's going to pull him out of school entirely and give him a cushy desk job, he runs away from the academy completely. Ironically, this is a Reconstructed Trope, as Guel seems a lot happier working a normal maintenance job since he gets along well with his coworkers and they respect him more than his father ever did.
• Rocket Punch: The Darilbalde's lower arms can detach from the arms and rocket towards its targets, although instead of punching the enemy, it's used to attack them with handheld weapons from distance.
• The Runaway: Rather than following along with his father's plans, Guel ditches the Academy entirely, taking up the name "Bob" and a job as a simple maintenance worker.
• Secret Test of Character: In Episode 22, it is implied that he was testing Suletta’s resolve when he told her the only way he would let her see Miorine again would be for her to defeat him in a duel. If she lost, she would need to give up on Miorine, which Suletta accepts. Guel appears relieved when Suletta beats him, accepting his loss with grace and returning her Holder uniform and status.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: During his final duel with Suletta, the trauma he's faced since being expelled from Jeturk House all catches up to him, manifesting as PTSD and flashbacks to killing his father as well as his time on Earth while he's trying to pilot his Darilbalde. If the battle hadn't been rigged by Miorine, he would have lost.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Guel opts to wear a sleeveless top while his uniform jacket rests on his shoulders.
• Spanner in the Works: While Suletta was a wrench in his father's plans, he was just as much to blame. If he treated Miorine decently, it is unlikely Suletta would have felt compelled to challenge him when she did. Not to mention he is the one who brings up the duels in the first place, when all Suletta had asked was for him to apologize.
• Starter Villain: Guel ends up being the first opponent who Suletta fights against in the entire series, with his rematch with her being what closes out the overall introductionary arc of the story.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Between killing his father and his experiences on Earth, he isn't very keen on ever getting in a mobile suit again by Episode 17. He agrees to fight a duel to secure Miorine's financial backing in restoring Jeturk Heavy Machinery, but frequent PTSD attacks make it extremely clear how little he enjoys it now—however, he's back in the Darilbalde by Episode 20 to apprehend Shaddiq, and succeeds, with no visible flashbacks breaking his focus.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He's introduced as a domineering, entitled, and abusive jerk who treats Miorine like trash. After his first defeat, his worst traits are downplayed considerably. He's still rough around the edges, but his positive qualities are showcased more frequently, and he starts to mature even further as several more hardships come his way.
• Trauma Conga Line:
  • His storyline during the entire first season sees him humiliated repeatedly: losing three duels in a row (the third loss being his own fault), being abused by his father for losing, and finally getting kicked out of his dorm and forced to live in a tent while getting bullied by other students. He seemingly finds peace after running away and joining an engineering company as a menial maintenance worker, but then he gets taken hostage by terrorists. Finally, he escapes the terrorists in one of their own mobile suits, only to end up in a fight against one of his own company's suits, who thinks he's an enemy. Forced to fight back, he finally wins for once, and discovers at the last moment he's just murdered his own father. His last appearance in the season is him screaming in grief and horror.
  • The second season isn't any kinder to him; he was taken hostage by Dawn of Fold after the Plant Quetta attack, spending most of the time in a catatonic state until the Benerit Group attacks the current Dawn of Fold base. While he eventually manages to recover enough to try and save a child injured in the attack, she ultimately dies in his arms. Even after his return to the academy, Guel still has a lot on his plate—he has to deal with both Jeturk Heavy Industries' failing prospects and the Benerit Group's scramble to find a new president, as well as deal with his lingering feelings for Suletta. After Suletta gently rejects his feelings, Guel then winds up part of Miorine's plan to free Suletta from Prospera's manipulations, and has to duel Suletta one more time while grappling with PTSD from killing his father and surviving his time with Dawn of Fold. Ultimately, he wins the duel thanks to Miorine sabotaging Suletta, compromising his own honor and breaking the heart of the girl that he loves by taking away everything precious to her. Ironically, he seems relieved after Suletta defeats him in a fencing duel in Episode 22, and he returns her Holder uniform.
• Troubled Abuser: He lives under the thumb of his abusive and controlling father, and he was an abusive, controlling fiancé to Miorine during his time as the Holder.
• Tsundere: Following his impulsive marriage proposal to Suletta and her rejection, he attempts to walk it back, rather awkwardly, and later claims he doesn't care about her at all. Suletta even remarks how she just can't understand him. But after Suletta is brought to tears by Elan's callousness, Guel is incensed and fights a duel on her behalf, with his terms being that Elan stay away from Suletta if he wins.
• The Unapologetic: Subverted. Suletta has to agree to duel him with the stakes of her enrollment in school being on the line to even force him to apologize for destroying Miorine's greenhouse, but when she wins, he doesn't hesitate to honor his side of the bet.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: What little we see of a young Guel in an Episode 23 flashback demonstrates this, as he embraced Lauda and welcomed him like a brother on the very first day that they met. By contrast, his personality early on in the show, several years after that flashback in-universe, is very heavy on the vindictive Jerk Jock scale until the events of the first season humble him.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: His Dilanza's main weapon is a polearm which can emit a laser blade on its top end, which represents his preference for close-quarters combat. The Darilbalde sticks to the trend with a double-ended beam javelin that can separate into two swords.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Much of his internal conflict and the source of his aggression is due to his desire to impress his father and the subsequent pressure of maintaining his status as the academy's Holder.
• When He Smiles: He smiles in Episode 22 as he remarks what a fool he was after being defeated by Suletta in a fencing match, and he returned the Holder uniform to her.
• The Worf Effect: Being the top pilot at the start of the series makes Guel the perfect target for characters who need to be established as strong pilots too, like Suletta and Elan, as well as showcasing the power of Gundam mobile suits.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • In his duel with Elan, Guel "borrows" his brother's mobile suit to fight instead since he can't use his own Dilanza or the Darilbalde thanks to his dueling restriction. The use of a potentially unfamiliar mech coupled with Elan utilizing a Gundam that Elan was literally created to pilot leaves little wonder to how Guel ultimately lost.
  • In episode 17 it's something closer to this trope: while trying to fight against Suletta in his Darilbalde, he's plagued by the PTSD from accidentally killing his own father and keeps flashing back to what he did while trying to fight. The only reason he comes out on top this time? Sabotage.
• Worthy Opponent: Suletta compliments him on how strong he is. Guel is moved to the point that he proposes to her on the spot, much to Suletta's confusion.
• What You Are in the Dark: When the school where Guel was imprisoned by Dawn of Fold is destroyed, Guel has the option to run away amidst the chaos, but instead he tries to save Seethia, the Earthian child who tried to kill him earlier as revenge for her father's death, despite her grievous injuries. While Guel fails to save Seethia, his efforts earn both Olcott's respect and the chance to go back to space. This act proves that he's able to live up to Suletta's mantra of "gaining two" by moving forward.

Elan Ceres (Unmarked Spoilers)

Affiliation: Peil House

Main MS: F/D-19 Zowort, FP/A-77 Gundam Pharact, EDM-GA-01 Gundam Lfrith Ur (Stolen)

Voiced by: Natsuki Hanae (Japanese), Aaron Dismuke (English)^{Foreign VAs}Juan Carlos Román (Latin American Spanish)

Elan Ceres is the top pilot backed by Peil Technologies, one of the three major branches of Asticassia School of Technology, and a third-year student in the piloting department. However, in truth, the person Asticassia knows as Elan Ceres is merely the latest in a line of experiments by Peil Technologies into the Enhanced Person Program.

Tropes shared by the Enhanced Persons

• Artificial Human: It's revealed over the course of episodes 5 and 6 that the "Elan" attending the academy are stand-ins for the real Elan Ceres. They were born as normal humans, but were altered to pilot their company's Gundam. These individuals can be treated as this universe's version of a Cyber Newtype from the Universal Century.
• Body Double: Individuals referred to as "Enhanced Persons" serve as stand-ins at the academy for the real Elan Ceres, conducting most of his day-to-day activities and, more importantly, serving as guinea pigs for Peil Technologies' illegal GUND-Format experiments, and as pilots for the Gundam Pharact.
• Custom Uniform: Their uniforms distinguish them not just from the other students, but also from each other. At the begining of the series, Elan #4 starts with white gloves, a white cloth necklace, and feather earrings. His sleeves are also colored black, like the uniform material around everyone's collarbone. Elan #5 is a much more capricious person, and as such gets a costume change to reflect his nastier nature, swapping the feather earrings for pointy ones and sporting a pair of epaulettes.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: For all the effort that goes into making them look identical to the original Elan, they're seemingly never instructed to act like the original Elan. #5 being just as scummy as him was deliberately selected for by Peil Technologies, #4 was his complete opposite, and there's no telling what the other three were like. Having no knowledge of Enhanced Person turnover rates, their fellow students assume Elan just has a habit of changing personalities out of nowhere.
• Drone Deployer: Much like Aerial, the Pharact is capable of deploying several GUND-bits to assist it. Unlike the Aerial, however, these instead fire beams of heavy electromagnetic energy, temporarily knocking out any parts of its opponent that it hits.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Their soft facial features, made to copy the original Elan, have more in common with Suletta's and Miorine's than the likes of other boys like Guel.
• Immunity Attrition: Enhanced Humans are more resistant to data storms than normal, but not remotely immune. It's more than offset by how much they're pushed to fight with higher Permet Scores because their superiors view them as expendable.
• Lean and Mean: The Pharact has thin arms and a very narrow waist with wide-spaced legs that give it lankier proportions compared to its fellow Gundams, which serves to highlight its antagonistic role in episodes 5 and 6.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The surname Ceres is most likely intended as one of the series' multiple allusions to The Tempest, where it was the name of the goddess who blessed Ferdinand and Miranda's wedding. Incidentally, the episodes where they feature served to help Suletta and Miorine get closer to one another:
    • Episodes 5 and 6, Elan #4's Day in the Limelight, gives Miorine further understanding of Suletta's actions and having her accept them.
    • The impromptu witch trial that the real Elan leads Suletta into at the incubation party during episode 7 prompts Miorine to put herself on the line to form GUND-ARM Inc. as a means to protect Aerial from the Group's attempts to steal or scrap her.
    • Elan #5 planting seeds of doubt in Suletta's mind over how much Miorine cares about her in episode 10 ultimately leads to the two of them being emotionally honest with one another, reaffirming their feelings and trust for each other, and promising to support and rely on each other always in the following episode.
  • It's also another celestial object surname, like Suletta's surname Mercury: Ceres is a dwarf planet in the Asteroid Belt.
• Mysterious Past: Due to them being mind-wiped as part of the Enhanced Person procedures, we don't know much about who they really are or where they came from. #4 seemed to have come from an impoverished background, and #5 implies he volunteered for the job to save his own life, but it's never mentioned from what.
• The Paralyzer: Contrast to Aerial's Beam Spam, Pharact's GUND-Bits deploy a web of electromagnetic beams which temporarily disable any mechanisms they come in contact with.
• Pretty Boy: Their fair and boyish looks are very easy on the eyes.
• Recurring Element: The Enhanced Persons are the series take on the "Cyber-Newtype" archetype started by Four Murasame, using very similar terms in Japanese (Kyouka Ningen/Enhanced Human vs Kyouka Jinshi/Enhanced Person). Elan #4 is an Artificial Human treated more as a thing than as a person by his superiors and seems like an attractive Ace Pilot at glance, but is actually very damaged inside. The difference is that while most characters of this archetype are torn apart from the heroes they like by circumstance, Elan #4 ends up rejecting Suletta by his own choice after he comes to understand he and she are Not So Similar. Like Four, however, Elan #4 meets a tragic fate shortly after he and Suletta share one last heartwarming moment together, and Elan #5 inverts it a little, as he's the one to reach out to Norea shortly before she dies instead of being the recipient of her kindness and dying like #4 did and most "Cyber-Newtype" characters do.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Pharact has glowing red eyes, giving it a more sinister appearance than Aerial.
• Surgical Impersonation: All of the Enhanced Persons are given the same face as the real Elan Ceres, presumably through plastic surgery. They also have memories of their former lives wiped. The real Elan promised Elan #4 that he'll have his original face back if he wins the duel with Suletta.
• Volcanic Veins: Much like the pilots of the Lfrith, vivid red glowing lines appear on their face, neck, arms and legs when engaging the Pharact's GUND-format system. Four can also expose these lines even outside a mobile suit at will.
• You Are Number 6: The CEOs of Peil label the doubles by 'Enhanced Person [stand-in number]'. The ones who appear at Asticassia are known as Four and Five.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Implied. Permet data storms are still hazardous to them, even if they are enhanced to endure more. During his medical examination when Belmeria says he shouldn't have any issues during his duel with Suletta, Four deduces that it means he most likely won't survive the next one, which Belmeria doesn't deny. Even if he had won and hadn't been disposed of, it's most likely he wouldn't have survived for long.

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Number Four

"Suletta Mercury, I'd like to learn more about you."

The initial individual enrolled in Asticassia whom the audience is led to believe is the real Elan Ceres. He's known as "the Ice Prince" for his seemingly emotionless demeanor, and takes an unusual interest in Suletta due to believing they may be similar.

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• Ace Pilot: Proves to be this in Episode 5, where he defeats three students on his own without a scratch and later delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to Guel.
• Badass Boast: While he slowly rips off the Dilanza’s horn in his duel with Guel, Elan states the following:
  Elan: The only way to defeat a Gundam... is with a Gundam.
• Badass Bookworm: When he is not occupied with something else, Elan seems to enjoy reading novels. In Episode 1, he reads The World as Will and Idea also translated as The World as Will and Representation by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. He reads the book again in Episode 5 as he waits for Suletta. Episode 5 also shows him to be an Ace Pilot in his own right as well.
• Back for the Finale: Appears as a Permet ghost within the data storm of Quiet Zero, allowing Suletta to weather the Permet feedback in order to reawaken Eri.
• Brutal Honesty: In episode four, when Miorine warns Suletta that the top three Houses might use her to get to Miorine, Elan flatly tells Miorine he has no interest in her, to her noticeable shock.
• Celibate Hero: When teased by Shaddiq about the possibility of him liking Suletta after he questions her status as a witch, Elan vehemently denies it and states that he will never fall in love.
• Characterizing Sitting Pose: In contrast to Shaddiq, Elan sits straight with his legs closed, giving him a much more proper air.
• Clone Angst: Implied. Questions if Suletta "also borrowed someone else's face," suggesting he has someone else's face. Episode 6 confirms that his body has been surgically altered to resemble the real Elan Ceres, which feeds into his issues of "not having anything".
• Cold Sniper: Given his Pharact's loadout, which has a sniper rifle, and his cold demeanor. Subverted during his duel with Suletta, where he completely loses his cool.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: To erase all traces of him from existence, Peil Technologies chains him up and uses a gigantic laser cannon fit for a mobile suit, vaporizing him altogether.
• Cultured Badass: He's the top pilot of Peil House, and the first episode sees him reading Schopenhauer. He also seems to be the first one to realize Suletta is using a Gundam.
• Dare to Be Badass: After Miorine informs Elan that Suletta and Guel's duel was tampered with, Elan issues this challenge:
  Elan: Suletta Mercury, if you really are a witch, you can survive this situation.
• A Death in the Limelight: Episodes 5 and 6 are largely focused on Elan and gives the audience insight on his status as an Enhanced Person, his combat skills, his relationship to Peil Technologies, and his sudden and fierce hatred of Suletta. Episode 6 also ends with Enhanced Person Number Four being disposed of by Peil for having reached the end of his useful life as a pilot and his failure to carry out their orders.
• Doesn't Know Their Own Birthday: Suletta asked Elan about his birthday because she was interested in seeing his fortune. He initially doesn't answer but when he does, he reveals he's never had one. In truth, birthdays are a remnant from his original life that he was made to forget.
  Elan: That's something... I've never had.
• Driven by Envy: He comes to hate Suletta when he realizes that she doesn't experience any pain while piloting Aerial, unlike his experience with Pharact.
• Emotionless Boy: No matter the situation, Elan does not ever emote under any circumstances. This is Lampshaded by Miorine who calls him "Mannequin Prince" in Episode 4. The student body in general calls him "the Ice Prince" for his unfriendly nature.
• Exact Words: He was being truthful when he denied that he, personally, was after Miorine. But he never said his superiors weren't interested in obtaining her hand in marriage for the usual political reasons, nor did he mention anything about either of them being interested in something else, like the Gundam Aerial.
• Face Death with Dignity: Spends his final moments softly and calmly singing "Happy Birthday" with a small smile on his face and the comforting knowledge of having been loved by someone in his past.
  Elan: Happy birthday to— [gets wiped out]
• Foreshadowing: Elan is the first of the Committee to recognize Suletta uses a Gundam, when the associated technology is long-outlawed in the setting of G-Witch, and neither Guel nor Shaddiq have the same reaction. This is a big hint that he's more than he seems.
• First Love: Suletta's feelings for him have all the hallmarks of the first crush of a teenage girl. She is visibly entranced by his good looks from the start, is constantly blushing in his presence, and desires to get closer to him despite her social awkwardness. It ends in tragedy as Elan dies right after finally opening up to Suletta.
• Four Is Death: He's designated as Enhanced Person Number Four by Peil and he becomes the first major character to die in the series, not counting the prologue. Interestingly, he dies four episodes after he meets Suletta.
• Go Out with a Smile: Meets his end with a small smile on his face, cherishing the memory that he was once loved by someone.
• Graceful Loser: He loses all pretenses of his previous sudden hostility towards Suletta after his loss to her in their duel. He tells her what little he knows about himself to her as per their agreement on the stakes and shares a heartfelt conversation with her as they drift in space. He even flashes a genuine smile for the first time in the series during their one moment together in the aftermath.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In Elan's own words, Suletta has everything he doesn't; friends, family, and hope for the future. This is what drives his animosity towards her. He also has literal green eyes.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: An incredibly cruel example. Right as it looks like Suletta's managed to successfully reach out and gotten him to open up, Elan is declared a failure by his superiors and privately executed.
• Ice Queen: A gender-flipped example. His nickname at school is even "Ice Prince", due to how little emotion he shows to others.
• Kick the Dog:
  • He is quite cruel towards Suletta after he leaves Aerial's cockpit, even though she has no idea about what made him feel bad there and he is fully aware of that. He is just venting his frustrations at her for not being who he thought she would be.
  • In his duel with Guel despite having his Dilanza immobilized by Pharact's bits and completely at his mercy, rather than simply shoot its antenna off to end the duel he instead shoots all of the machine's limbs off before ripping the antenna from its head. All while Guel begs him to stop and his friends watch on in horror.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Is wiped out while trying to finish singing "Happy Birthday".
• No Body Left Behind: When he gets vaporized, it is indicated that there would be nothing left of him. It doesn't completely work: while his physical body was obliterated, the final episode reveals that his genetic information was archived within Quiet Zero, allowing him to manifest as a Permet Ghost similar to Eri within Aerial.
• Not So Similar: He initially felt a kind of Commonality Connection to Suletta due to her also piloting a Gundam, his handlers at Peil theorizing she had physical enhancements like he does. Yet after briefly piloting the Aerial and raising its Permet Score one stage he instead felt alienated from her when he realized Aerial had instead overcome the "curse" which he was created to deal with. This would lead him to challenge Suletta to a duel with Aerial as the winning prize. Ironically enough, it turns out that Suletta is similar to him, as while she doesn't suffer any strain piloting Aerial, she is still a living tool whose existence is defined by a purpose she has little say in.
  Elan: [after testing Aerial's GUND Format without feeling any pain doing so] Suletta Mercury... You're nothing like me...!
• Not So Stoic: His stoic persona is completely obliterated during his fight with Suletta, where he eventually resorts to screaming about how she has everything he doesn't.
• One Degree of Separation: His handler Belmeria is revealed to be Elnora's former understudy, indirectly tying him to Suletta.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: As pointed out by other students, Elan never displays strong emotions, be they positive or negative, and overall acts like he doesn't care much about other people. So when he openly starts making hateful comments towards Suletta and needlessly prolongs Guel's humiliation at the end of their duel, it becomes clear that matters related to Gundams and his status as an Artificial Human are very serious for him and can deeply affect his emotions.
• Pet the Dog: For his stoicism and apparent apathy, he provides Suletta with food when she is confined, treating her decently even when nearly everyone was calling her a witch.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: He has pale skin, short hair, doesn't show any emotions, is stoic, is quiet, and is an Artificial Human. He's basically Rei in this series except he's a male. He also maintains an aspect of Rei that rarely gets carried over- dying and being replaced by an identical clone.
• Sacrificial Lion: The first character in the present-day story to be killed, being executed by Peil Technologies after he fails to defeat Suletta.
• The Stoic: A Cold Sniper that is also a taciturn and solitary person.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He was one of the first people to treat Suletta decently at school, and while he wasn't being completely honest with his intentions, he did seem to desire a genuine bond with her due to believing they had similar circunstances. After realizing they were Not So Similar, he starts acting bitter and spiteful towards her.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Following his defeat in Episode 6, he does become considerably nicer to Suletta in the small span of time between then and when he gets vaporized.
• Villainous Breakdown: In episode 6, he slowly gets angrier while moping about Suletta being more well off than he is and possessing everything he (seemingly) doesn't, not helped by him hitting Permet Score 4. By the time he tries to finish off Aerial, he's a raging, raving mess with his sanity almost gone.
  Elan: Belmeria Winston... Your diagnosis missed the mark... But even so... I'LL AT LEAST DENY YOUR WORTH, SULETTA MERCURY!!!!!!!!!!
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Dies after only appearing for the first six episodes when we were only just learning about him. It's played for tragedy, as he had lost most of his memories and believed there was nothing to learn about him until Suletta made him remember one thing shortly before his demise.
• When He Smiles: After Suletta comforts him, he drops all forms of hostility towards her and begins to smile over learning someone had once loved him in his past. Sure, it's small and we don't really see him smile for long as episode six ends, but it does light up his face. He even keeps smiling in the face of his execution.
• Wistful Amnesia: Thanks to Suletta, he gradually begins to remember his life from before he became an Enhanced Person. Specifically, he recalls a woman who's most likely his mother celebrating his birthday.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He is terminated by the end of the sixth episode after losing his duel to Suletta, with the CEOs of Peil saying that there's no use for someone who can't fulfill their orders, and they already have spares anyway.

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Number Five

"I changed my face just to stay alive. There's no way I'm dying in vain."

The replacement for Enhanced Person Number 4. Unlike his predecessor he's a more theatrical and expressive individual who was apparently picked because his personality is "just as wicked" as the real Elan Ceres'.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Elan #5 only wants to seduce Suletta to obtain Aerial as per Peil's orders, but she's still rather repulsed by his aggressive tactics. She's reluctant to reject him because of her interaction with his predecessor, but after a series of convenient distraction run out, Suletta outright asks why Elan had "changed" so drastically for the worse.
• Ace Pilot: Proves to be this without using the GUND Format of the Pharact. He manages to avoid any damage to his suits, and even when Norea and her Mobile Suit Attack Drones force him to fight back, he manages just fine without raising his Permet Score.
• Accomplice by Inaction: When he notices Shaddiq’s people kidnapping President Sarius, he decides to do nothing to prevent it because it seems like an interesting development.
• A Shared Suffering: He opens up to Norea in spite of her initial hostility due to their shared curse of an eventual premature death in a Gundam's cockpit. Episode 21 subtly indicates that he thinks of Suletta the same way now that he's aware she isn't any safer from data storms than he is, especially considering that, just like him, she was created and used as a tool in service to some greater project.
• Berserk Button: Hypocrisy is his—Belmeria's attempts to justify why she worked with Peil and created the Enhanced Human system to continue her work with the GUND format piss him off enough for him to knock her to the ground, angrily pointing out that she is both too cowardly to die and doesn't actually give a damn about how badly what she's done has hurt him.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Episode 23, when Prospera is about to kill Miorine and Belmeria, #5 saves them by shooting Prospera's helmet and stunning her.
• Combo Rifle: The dual handguns he outfits the Pharact with can be combined into a high-powered rifle similar to his predecessor's.
• Death Wail: After witnessing Norea being sniped by one of the Dominicus Corps's Beguir-Pentes, #5 yells in anguish as he raises Lfrith Ur's Permet Score, controlling the remaining Gundvolvas to attack Norea's killers.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In Episode 17, he attempts to very aggressively take Aerial from Suletta by force, even threatening to use a taser on her. The scene is framed and played up for all its worth as if he were trying to rape her, right down to the dialogue. Fortunately, Guel arrives just in time to throw him off and force him to flee.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He enjoys screwing around with others, but is visibly concerned when Norea has a breakdown over Sophie's death.
  • In Episode 21, he apologizes to Suletta for how he behaved towards her, and agrees to tell her everything he knows about Elan #4 with no hint of his usual false cheer. Given that he was eavesdropping on Earth House's conversation with Belmeria and Guston earlier — and thus would've heard Suletta explain the entirety of her situation in Prospera's planning — it seems that he recognizes her as a kindred spirit much like he did Norea: a tool that someone else used until they didn't need her anymore.
  • In Episode 22, he appears legitimately worried about Suletta’s well being when it seems like she is having trouble clearing Score 5. For everything he had done before, he clearly doesn’t want Suletta to die.
• Enigmatic Minion: Elan #5's will to work for Peil is relatively mercurial. He acts cheerily obedient, but has moments of subtle insubordination, some of which don't obviously serve his immediate self-interest.
• Evil Costume Switch: Unlike Elan #4's soft, feathery earrings, underlying his ultimately gentle nature, Elan #5's are sharp points, and he seems to be a much more sinister character. He also wears a cravat and epaulets unlike #4, giving him a much more villainous look similar to past franchise antagonists.
• Exact Words:
  • When first introduced in episode 10, he tells Suletta that he has "changed" thanks to her. She meant it as his personality having taken a leap from how #4 or the original behaved around her, but he's actually referring to how "Elan" has been changed out entirely.
  • In Episode 17, right as he's about to try and take Aerial from Suletta by force, he lets slip to her that "the Elan you're thinking of isn't here", referring to his predecessor being dead.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Very subtle, but in the epilogue at the end of Chapter 24, Elan #5's hair looks to be a more saturated shade of green compared to the dirty blonde he had before. This could presumably be his original hair color from before he was turned into an Enhanced Person.
• Fights Like a Normal: He is someone who is motivated with self preservation above all else and as such will not use the GUND Format system unless he absolutely has to, instead making do with wits and guile to get out of sticky situations.
• Guns Akimbo: Unlike Number 4 who favored a long range sniper rifle, Number 5 prefers the use of dual handguns when in combat, though they can combine into a Combo Rifle.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: He makes one in Episode 21; after Norea's death, he joins back up with Earth House, apologizes to Suletta for his predatory and aggressive behavior towards her, and asks to go with Earth House as they prepare to leave Asticassia and retrieve Gundam Calibarn. He even volunteers to help them fight if needed, but makes it clear that he won't pilot a Gundam, as he still fully intends to live, having somewhere he wishes to go afterwards.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He understandably has zero sympathy for Bel during her guilt-fueled breakdown, reminding her that he himself is a victim of her unethical research.
• Large Ham: He is shown to get very theatrical when he is presenting duels.
• Manipulative Bastard: Upon first meeting Suletta he tries to manipulate her and spread seeds of doubts in her regarding Miorine. While Suletta rebukes him, it is clear that his words had an impact on her. Apparently the CEOs of Peil picked this one as the fifth Elan as his personality is "just as wicked" as the real one.
• Mortality Phobia: He doesn't want to die; he knows what happened to his predecessor and how dangerous it is to pilot a Gundam. He abandons Peil because he knows that they're going to execute him for his failure to steal Aerial, and his deep-seated fear of dying is what lets him actually make a connection with Norea later on.
• Mythology Gag: He's oddly similar to Lyle Dylandy/The second Lockon Stratos in some regards. Both look exactly the same as their predecessor, their predecessor preferred a sniper rifle to their dual-wielded beam guns, and both unfortunately saw their love interests shot down before their very eyes.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Upon getting a look at Norea's sketchbook, which depicts reptiles, decay, and insects, and hearing her talk about how Asticassia makes her sick, Elan remarks that he thinks they'll get along fine.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In Episode 19, after Norea has a violent, grief-driven breakdown and admits she doesn't want to die, Elan simply cradles her silently. When Nika questions what just happened, Elan quietly tells her, with none of his usual smarm or needling, that it's something she'll never understand.
  • In Episode 20, he's completely serious as he tries to stop Norea from piloting her Gundam knowing that it might kill her. Then, he boards the Gundam Lfrith Ur to follow her, despite knowing the dangers of piloting the Gundam, even raising its Permet Score after she's killed.
  • In Episode 21, while he generally maintains his usual carefree air, he's a lot more direct about what it is that he wants from Earth House, soberly apologizes to Suletta for his behavior, and agrees to tell Suletta everything he knows about his predecessor when she asks him to do so.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Suletta is quick to notice there's something not right about this Elan, and finds something almost frightening about his intensity. Sure enough, his attempt to steal Aerial fails because Eri knows that he isn't the same person as #4, who Suletta was close with and thus was allowed to pilot Aerial.
• Perpetual Smiler: In stark contrast to his predecessor, this Elan has a near perpetual smile plastered onto his face at all times, similar to his template's cocky smirk.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He is surprisingly gentle when it comes to Norea; while he initially appears to be interested in her solely because of her macabre drawings and hatred of Spacians, he actually begins to act and speak more gently with her as time goes on, even encouraging her to run away with him rather than die fighting in a Gundam once he makes it clear that he understands that she's both incredibly afraid to die and has a soft side to her.
  • In Episode 21, he returns to Earth House, apologizes to Suletta, and easily agrees to tell her about Elan #4 without demanding anything in return.
• Token Evil Teammate: Thanks to Miorine purchasing Peil Technologies's development team, he's affiliated with GUND-ARM, Inc and technically the Earth House by extension, participating in meetings and even taking part in the Rumble Ring as one of their pilots.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Becomes this after fleeing Peil. Shown to be genuine after he risks his life for Norea's sake.
• Tragic Keepsake: Episode 22 reveals he now holds onto Norea's sketchbook which is the only thing of Norea that survived after her death.
• Turncoat: After failing his mission to steal Aerial, #5 flees to Grassley House rather than let Peil execute him for failure. He later joins Suletta and Earth House to deal with Lady Prospera in exchange for helping him escape.
• The Vamp: Male example; he repeatedly, overtly attempts to seduce Suletta away from Miorine, in order to get his hands on Aerial. Peil's CEOs describe him as having "a personality as wicked" as the original Elan, implying that this is an aspect in which they're very much alike.
• Walking the Earth: In the series finale, he travels around the world looking for the place that Norea sketched in her notebook. Then, he complains that Norea should have written down the location.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • In episode 16, he doesn't hesitate to smack Bel after hearing her refusal to help him steal Aerial and her desperate self-justifications for all of the morally dubious actions she's done up to this point.
  • One episode later, he knocks Suletta over and was planning to use a stungun to kidnap and/or torture her into giving him Aerial. Guel prevents him from doing either.

Shaddiq Zenelli

Affiliation: Grassley House

Main MS: CFK-029 Michaelis

Voiced by: Makoto Furukawa (Japanese), Alejandro Saab (English)^{Foreign VAs}Ivan Fernandez (Latin American Spanish)

"If that's the Witch's mobile suit, then...We can't just leave it alone."

An adopted child of the CEO of Grassley Defense Systems, one of the group's three branches, and a third-year student in the piloting department who leads Grassley House. Although still a student, Shaddiq has shown his skill in business too, and he is a candidate for the next-generation executive.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: When Miorine visits him in prison to enlist his help in the effort to stop Quiet Zero, she asks that he believe in her unconditionally. His immediate reaction before agreeing is to laugh out loud, as he's aware he was the one who'd ask her for this trust while giving her none in kind in the past.
• All Take and No Give: A major flaw with his treatment of Miorine is that he expected her to trust him as a reliable confidant, while never expressing his true feelings and intentions. His inability to fully believe in Miorine's abilities and independence is why she ultimately ended their old friendship.
• Arab Oil Sheikh: He's implied to be of Arabic descent based on his first name and appearance, and his fashion sense and leitmotif are very reminiscent of the Middle East. He's also the wealthy heir to a weapons manufacturer and presented as a mysterious and somewhat sinister romantic interest. It's revealed later that Shaddiq is not his original name, making his true origins ambiguous aside from "Earthian adoptee".
• Arm Cannon: The right arm of his Michaelis has a weaponized arm cannon.
• Attack Drone: The Michaelis' right arm can detach into a quasi-INCOM flail that can attack from different angles, attached to the main body via a cable.
• Boom, Headshot!: Not him, but the Michaelis. The machine receives a shot straight through its head courtesy of Chuchu and her Demi Trainer.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Shaddiq gets everything he wants at the cost of his freedom. Earth becomes a power on par with the Spacians at the end of the series.
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main contenders for the Big Bad position alongside Prospera and the Peil CEOs; it's his call to initiate the attack on Plant Quetta, which ultimately leaves Delling comatose and gets Vim killed by the end of the first season, and he starts off the second season by getting Sophie and Norea into Asticassia to help him stage Sarius's kidnapping by throwing the Rumble Ring into complete chaos. He continues on this track for the following episodes, using Sarius' disappearance to engineer his attempt to take the presidency of the Benerit Group, and ultimately allowing Norea to rampage across Asticassia in Episode 20 for one last shot at the Group's power bloc.
• Break the Haughty: His arrogance in believing he was the only one worthy of being by Miorine's side backfires on him when he suffers a humiliating defeat because Miorine was able to predict his moves. It happens to him again in Episode 20, when Guel is able to incapacitate and subdue him despite not being able to target his cockpit.
• The Casanova: When Shaddiq brings up that one can stake women on a duel, Guel is very quick to point out that Shaddiq's the only one who would actually do such a thing. Largely an Informed Attribute, as we never see any of these duels Guel accuses him of, and while his closest followers are all pretty girls, he doesn't seem to have any romantic inclination towards them. The only person he expresses romantic interest in is Miorine, who soundly and repeatedly rejects him.
• Characterizing Sitting Pose: When preceding over a duel, Shaddiq slouches and keeps his legs quite spread, showcasing his rather relaxed persona he puts on for others.
• Childhood Friends: Episode 7 reveals he's known Miorine for years, having met her through company events. Though the "friends" part seems to be one-sided on Shaddiq's side, Miorine is calmer and more patient when talking to him than she is with either Guel or Elan.
• Cock Fight:
  • His antagonism against Suletta in Episode 9 has massive shades of this, with Shaddiq constantly thinking about how unworthy Suletta is to be by Miorine's side by listing her (perceived) faults as to why that is the case.
  • Similarly, in Episode 20, he expresses that part of his anger at Guel stems from his failure to prevent Miorine from "staining" her hands with the incident at Quinharbor, ignoring that Prospera was actually responsible for it.
• Condescending Compassion: His plans for GUND-ARM Inc. partially stem from believing that Miorine isn't capable of keeping herself, Suletta, and the company safe from the pressures of the Benerit Group or using the GUND format to its fullest. He blocks her from incorporating GUND-ARM, Inc. for this reason, and this patronizing behavior is a large part of why their relationship sours even further by the end of episode 9. Even without being present at Quinharbor when Prospera sets up the fake attack there, he still treats Miorine this way, actively accusing Guel of being responsible for Miorine's involvement even though she chose to go there herself.
• Crippling Overspecialization: His Michaelis has the Antidote system which incapacitates mobile suits equipped with the GUND Format, but if the mobile suit doesn't have any GUND Format system in it, it won't be as effective. The Darilbalde, for instance, has AI-controlled drone bits which don't rely on any GUND Format system, leaving Shaddiq to deal with Guel's machine by force, with the Michaelis's oversight ultimately proving key to Shaddiq's defeat in his fight with Guel.
• Custom Uniform: Shaddiq wears his uniform jacket open. Underneath, he wears a chest-bearing undershirt, a gold necklace, and very baggy pants.
• Didn't Think This Through: Did he really think creating rules to screw over Miorine's company would result in her being willing to trust him when she was barely willing to put up with him beforehand? He apparently did.
• Dirty Coward: Guel outright calls him one for not being willing to duel him to be the Holder, which Shaddiq does not refute. In episode 9, he more or less admits to it when he speaks with Miorine following his team being defeated by Suletta and Earth House.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Played with. For the first season, he is the last member of the dueling committee to go against Suletta and Miorine. After his defeat, Dawn of Fold, an Earthian terrorist organization, directly becomes the final enemy of the season when they attack Plant Quetta while Earth House is there. However, their marching orders come from Shaddiq, meaning he steps down from directly confronting the heroes to serving as The Man Behind the Man.
• Dragon with an Agenda: While he respects his adopted father and carries out a number of tasks for him, he has his own ambitions, and he believes that Sarius is too short sighted on the potential of the Gundams. In episode 14, Shaddiq goes against Sarius directly and has him kidnapped as part of Dawn of Fold's attack on the school, at which point he explains just what he intends the future of of the Benerit Group to be—its complete dismantlement and apportioning of its resources to the Earthians.
• Epic Flail: The Michaelis can use its right arm cannon as a wire-attached flail mace, alongside a quasi-INCOM beam cannon that can fire from different angles.
• Everything but the Girl: As indicated by the tropes below, his attempts to act as Miorine's knight fail spectacularly in Episode 9.
• Expository Pronoun: Shaddiq normally refers to himself as ore like Guel and other boys to assert his masculinity. In certain situations, he will "church it up" and switch to boku, showing his very affable and laid-back attitude in contrast to him already being involved as a business excecutive.
• Fatal Flaw: Distrust. Shaddiq is incapable of trusting anyone but himself, and this bites him in the ass several times over:
  • His failure to be open with Miorine about how their partnership would work regarding GUND-ARM Inc. causes her to understandably rebuff him, resulting in him rules-lawyering her to stop the company starting up. This same distrust also makes him believe he knows what's best for her, which only makes Miorine trust him even less. She even tells him to his face that she can't trust him if he doesn't trust her too.
  • In the duel to decide the company's fate, Miorine outright weaponizes this against him, knowing he wouldn't trust his teammates to deal with Suletta and would try to finish her off himself. Sure enough, when Suletta is open, he goes for the finishing blow himself, leaving him wide open to getting sniped by Chuchu and losing the duel for Grassley House.
  • While he did love Miorine and wanted to protect her by becoming Holder in the past, he didn't trust her to love him if he did, believing she'd see him as just another person who'd treat her like an object. This led him to stand idle while Miorine suffered, and pretty much ruined their friendship. Suletta's arrival shows that his assumptions were unfounded, as Miorine is more than willing to stand by Suletta largely because Suletta genuinely cares about her, and Shaddiq sadly wonders if he'd have a place in Miorine's heart if he'd just trusted her and fought for her sake earlier.
• Foil: He plays this role to Suletta in multiple ways.
  • He serves as both the heir to Grassley Defense Systems and the head of Grassley House, while Suletta is from the isolated, resource-deprived Mercury and is just another member of Earth House. He has an easy charm with people and has a notable amount of social and business savvy, while Suletta is oftentimes an awkward, stuttering mess who has no real sense of the political games being played around her.
  • Their differences become especially notable when it comes to their relationships with Miorine. Shaddiq and Miorine were childhood friends, but when Delling offered Miorine's hand in marriage to whoever became the Holder, Shaddiq refused to step in due to his unwillingness to trust her or risk himself, leading to their relationship turning sour. By contrast, Suletta's first day in school involves her going out of her way to protect and support Miorine at every turn as well as placing complete trust in her; Miorine responds in kind by protecting and supporting Suletta as well.
• Given Name Reveal: It's revealed in Episode 19 that his original name before being adopted is Jeru Ogul.
• Graceful Loser: He takes his loss against the Earth House in stride and lets GUND-ARM Inc. be a legal corporate entity, promising to not harm the company from then on.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • He shows shades of this towards Suletta during Episode 9 due to Suletta's trusting relationship with Miorine—the catalyst for Miorine's major change in character—and Suletta doing the things he was too cowardly to do. Each time Suletta expresses her complete faith and trust in Miorine, contrasted by Shaddiq's constant attempts to undercut Miorine out of a misguided sense of "knowing better" (demonstrated by him constantly cajoling Miorine to partner up with him, or telling Suletta to "talk sense" into Miorine in order to call off the duel she demanded to get Shaddiq to stop meddling with GUND-ARM, inc.), Shaddiq gets more antagonistic towards Suletta, and most of his thoughts begin to center around proving to Miorine that Suletta is "unworthy" of being by her side.
  • In the wake of Prospera's actions in episode 19, it is clear that he still hasn't let her go, with his first instinct being to blame Guel for what is going on and put extra focus on Miorine's situation. He continues this behavior in Episode 20, outright telling Guel that his reckless behavior is responsible for getting Miorine involved in the Quinharbor incident.
• Happily Adopted: He's Sarius' adopted son, and has a fairly positive relationship with him, in very sharp contrast to the the other scion's parental situations. He greatly respects his father, but he also has ambitions of his own due to thinking his father is short sighted to the potential of the Gundams. The second season, however, makes it clear that Shaddiq deliberately played the dutiful son in order to set up his plans for dismantling the Benerit Group.
• The Heavy: While Delling and Prospera have more power than him, and their plans would have bigger impacts if fulfilled, Shaddiq still shapes a significant portion of the plot, first by trying to force Miorine to make an alliance with him, then by hiring Dawn of Fold to perform terrorist attacks against major characters, with the intent of tearing down the Benerit Group. He continues this role in Season 2 by kidnapping Sarius during the Rumble Ring, deliberately engineering a leadership crisis for the Group that he intends to capitalize on.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: He is already quite good looking as is, but putting on a proper tuxedo during the incubation party of episode 7 made him stand out even more.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Don't let his muscular look and propensity for honorable fighting fool you—he's got enough business savvy to be the next generation of executives of Grassley Defense Systems.
  • Despite being heir to one of the most powerful Spacian corporations, he secretly wants the whole Benerit Group dismantled, and has the authority to order around Dawn of Fold, an Earthian terrorist organization that hates Spacians. It turns out that he's an Earthian that was raised in one of Grassley's orphanages before getting adopted by Sarius, which is both the reason why he has connections with Dawn of Fold and why he's so angry at the Group that he desires to destroy it completely.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal:
  • After Suletta rejects his advice about "talking sense" to Miorine (by which he means 'discourage her from the duel to revert the rule change he made to block GUND-ARM Inc. from incorporating'), Shaddiq drops any remotely friendly attitude he had towards Suletta, and he goes out of his way to prove she is unworthy of being by Miorine's side.
  • His conversation with Sarius in Episode 15 makes it clear by implication that he outright despises the Benerit Group for exploiting Earthians as part of its war partitioning practices. He admits that he has no problem doing what it takes to seize the power needed to break apart the Group and put an end to the profiteering that's ruined Earth and suppressed the Earthians for so long.
  • In Episode 20, he also admits that he's always hates Guel's hot-headed and headstrong nature and states that Guel's reckless carelessness is why Guel wound up killing his own father. He also blames Guel, and the rest of the Benerit Group by proxy, for functionally pushing him into becoming who he is due to their greed and selfishness ruining the lives of Earthians.
• Humiliation Conga: Episode 9 is one massive one for him after he spent the first eight episodes in a relatively secure position. Despite him and his teammates having the superior mobile suits and piloting experience—with Earth House basically having to throw mostly everyone else into a set of mobile suits just to warm the bench—they are ultimately defeated in a duel that's broadcast to the whole Benerit Group. Shaddiq himself falls for Miorine using his trust issues against him to ensure that his antenna gets sniped by Chuchu—someone he brushed off as Suletta's sidekick and whom his team didn't bother completely disabling; Chuchu even calls him a "dumbass" for underestimating Earth House, and to add insult to injury (albeit unintentionally), Suletta performs the goofy-looking GUND-Arm Inc. dance after Grassley's loss. As per the conditions of the duel, he has to lift the regulations regarding student start-up companies (the regulations he implemented specifically to screw them over), is barred from taking any more legal actions against GUND-ARM Inc, and on a more personal note of failure, any past relationship he had with Miorine is now irrevocably broken because she's tired of dealing with him.
• Hunk: Of the three major male characters, he is the only one that constantly shows off his muscle, thanks to his unbuttoned shirt.
• Hypocrite: Part of why Miorine is so aggravated by him is rooted in his hypocrisy. While he asks her to trust in him when he tries to convince her to sign over GUND-ARM Inc. to him in a partnership, and generally talks about protecting her, he's so used to playing the social dancing and climbing games of the Benerit Group that he won't extend that trust to anyone else, not even Miorine herself, making his attempts to help her appear shady and untrustworthy.
• Hypocrisy Nod: In episode 20, he admits to Guel that he's gained the standing that he has at the expense of other people, but also states firmly that he's willing to accept his own sins if it means that he can make sure Earthians can finally throw off the yoke of the Benerit Group.
• If I Can't Have You…: Downplayed; he doesn't say it outright, but his conversation with Miorine in Episode 21 implies that the main turning point for why he chose to move forward with his plans to dismantle the group was Grassley's loss to Earth House.
• Ironic Name: "Shaddiq" can be translated as "honest", "sincere", "trustworthy", "promise-keeper", or "good friend". All things he most certainly isn't.
• It's All My Fault: At the end of Episode 9, Shaddiq more or less takes responsibility for the rift that formed between between himself and Miorine, acknowledging that his own unwillingness to fight for her is what caused them to split apart.
• Knight in Shining Armor: His mobile suit, the Michaelis, is stylized like a knight, befitting his desire to fight like the honorable knights of old. However, his personality in truth doesn't really live up to it, as he tends to manipulate situations to his own favor rather than fight head-on, and his desire to play the knight when he's actually not ultimately works against him. He was so determined to protect Miorine himself that it led to him not trusting her to be her own person, nor trusting anyone to do the job of protecting her besides himself. This leads to his defeat in episode 9, as Miorine uses this trait against him to pin him down for Chuchu to take out, and also leads Miorine to firmly sever ties with him, frustrated by his patronizing behavior.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • His fixation on going after Suletta — and his underestimation of Earth House — results in his team being decimated and his mobile suit getting sniped by Chuchu, resulting in a humiliating defeat. Even worse, Chuchu is the person he defeats in the duel and writes off as little more than a "sidekick", making his loss at her hands all the more humiliating.
  • The three situations he engineers with Dawn of Fold — Plant Quetta, the Rumble Ring, and Norea's last stand at Asticassia — all catch up with him in Episode 20, as Guel, one of his victims by proxy, defeats him decisively and assures that he's arrested.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Shaddiq has almost waist-length blonde hair and is quite physically appealing. When on official business he ties the hair up, however.
• Loving a Shadow: Part of Shaddiq's problem is that for all he cares about Miorine, he doesn't really understand who Miorine is as a person, and doesn't respect her enough to actually connect with her. He chooses to work around her and her character flaws via manipulation, instead of being upfront about what he wants from her, and while he isn't wrong about her tendency to get in over her head or how naive she really is, he doesn't grasp that she has her own will; Episodes 19 and 20 make this clear when he blames Guel for getting Miorine involved in the Quinharbor incident, either choosing to overlook or not knowing that Miorine was the one that insisted on going to Quinharbor in the first place.
• Moving the Goalposts: Uses his authority to alter the rules on student-formed companies, backing the nascent GUND-ARM Inc. into a corner and preventing any further development without proof of safety that they'd be unable to produce. This forces Miorine and Earth House to challenge him to a duel to change the regulations back to normal.
• Manipulative Bastard: He always looks to resolve problems he's personally involved with in the most indirect and shady ways possible, making absolutely sure that when possible he can't be traced back to the events in question or that his influence appears to be minimal if he can't completely hide it.
  • It's his call to change the student company founding rules that gets GUND-ARM Inc.'s incorporation blocked in episode 8, and Miorine makes it exceptionally clear in episode 9 that she doesn't trust him because he keeps trying to control situations to bend in his favor. He keeps this streak up for the rest of the first season, teaming up with Vim Jeturk and using Nika to covertly move Dawn of Fold into place at Plant Quetta for an assassination attempt on Delling Rembran.
  • At the start of season 2, he arranges for Sophie and Norea to get into Asticassia as transfer students sponsored by a shell company. This is a setup so that they can cause a big enough ruckus during the Rumble Ring for him to ensure that Sarius gets kidnapped. With Sarius "missing", Delling in a coma, and Vim Jeturk dead, this forces the Benerit Group to start searching for a new president—and Shaddiq, now acting head of Grassley Defense Systems, is a frontrunner for the position.
• Mirror Character: While he's a Foil to Suletta, he acts as this for Miorine in many aspects.
  • They're both young heirs to powerful men in the Benerit Group, with a keen degree of business acumen and even a strong technical understanding of mobile suits (even if Miorine can't actually put that to use when it comes to piloting, while Shaddiq is clearly very skilled).
  • Their Fatal Flaws are very different, but lead to very similar results insofar as isolating them from meaningful connections with others: Shaddiq won't truly trust in anyone, making most of his relationships either very shallow or merely transactional, while Miorine's pride refuses to let her be indebted to anyone if she can help it, which left her friendless and alone at the start of the series in combination with her status as "prize" for the Holder. However, Miorine clearly makes progress in swallowing her pride and putting aside her selfish tendencies thanks to Suletta's friendship and unconditional support, while Shaddiq's inability to actually trust anyone continues to keep him from making any progress in his goals around controlling Aerial and the GUND Format and ultimately ensure both his house's defeat in a duel and the end of any possible relationship he could have had with Miorine, platonic or not.
• Nice Is Not Good: Shaddiq is an incredibly pleasant and good-natured guy to be around, and openly willing to help out others, as shown when offers Guel a place in his House after the latter is left disgraced and ostracized by his own. He also gradually reveals himself to be incredibly ruthless when he needs to be in attaining his goals, up to plotting Delling's assassination with the help of Nika's adopted family. Comments from Naji also strongly imply that he's had them carry out assassinations in the past too. In Episode 11, he is rather nonchalant about the possiblity of Miorine being collateral damage in said assassination attempt, and calmly arranges for his own adoptive father's abduction in Episode 14.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: Downplayed. Shaddiq is wearing an undershirt, but it doesn't cover anything.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: A rare male example, unbuttoning his shirt up to his abs, showing off his sculpted physique.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite previously being antagonistic towards Suletta, he does give her a reprieve from dueling while Aerial is being repaired following their duel, and he does act much nicer to her after his defeat.
  • Despite his shadiness, he does sincerely care for the inner circle of his house. After he's arrested for his scheming, he specifically asks Miorine not to let them get in trouble for his actions.
• Power Nullifier: His Michaelis has the "Antidote" protocol, a system that deactivates any mobile suit possessing the GUND Format once activated. Suletta and Aerial suffer from having their ace in the hole suddenly shut down until Aerial overrides the Antidote.
• Quantity vs. Quality: To defeat Suletta, he organizes a team battle with a 6v6 format. This forces Suletta and Chuchu to fight at a severe disadvantage, because they're the only two good pilots Earth House has; everyone else gets defeated immediately, Shaddiq downs Chuchu, and three of his allies keep Suletta pinned down until he can join them and overwhelm her. However, he ultimately loses because he completely wrote Chuchu and the other Earth House members off as dead weight, and gets sniped by an impromptu sniper's nest setup from Chuchu and the rest of Earth House right as he's about to land the coup de grâce on Suletta.
• Spanner in the Works: His constant scheming proves to be quite the headache for many other schemers in the show; Prospera in particular finds that he (unbeknownst to her) is a major roadblock to her plans due to setting Dawn of Fold on both Plant Quetta and the Rumble Ring. Prospera eventually serves as a spanner to him by blowing up the suits that Ochs Earth provided to Dawn of Fold.
• Stealth Insult: During Episode 7, he seems to jokingly refer to Suletta as a 'witch' who cast a spell on Miorine to get her to change her attitude. However, based on the level of animosity he displays towards Suletta in Episode 9, it becomes retroactively clear that he wasn't being friendly when he said it.
• Stealth Pun: Grassley's emblem is a snake. The phrase "Snake in the grass" is a good description of Shaddiq.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Not him, but the Michaelis resembles the same type of suit as the Beguir-Beu that appeared in the prologue. Given that they were made by the same company, the shared lineage is fairly notable. They even have the same anti-GUND protocol, Antidote, which can disable GUND-Format mobile suits.
• Taking the Heat: In Episode 21, he tells Miorine that he's fine taking the blame for everything he's done if it means that his teammates in Grassley House don't take any of the blowback from what he's done. In the finale, he takes the blame for Quiet Zero as well so Prospera can go free.
• Taking You with Me: His reasoning for letting Norea rampage in Asticassia a second time. Even if he gets caught and exposed as the mastermind, it would still be a huge blow to the Benerit Group if it was revealed that a prominent member was working with terrorists.
• Underestimating Badassery: During the duel between Earth House and Grassley House, Shaddiq and his teammates are solely focused on taking down Suletta and Aerial, causing them to improperly dispatch Chuchu and the other Earth House students. This ultimately proves to be their downfall, as Miorine waits until after the downed Earth House Members fell off Grassley's radars to ensure that Shaddiq ends up getting sniped by Chuchu, supported by the other Earth House students, just as he was about to finish Suletta off.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: He has some level of genuine feelings for Miorine, and wanted to become the Holder to protect her before Suletta's arrival, but never acted upon those feelings because he refused to trust her or even put anything on the line for her sake. This caused the two to drift apart, and by the end of Episode 9, he expresses his regrets for his indecision, asking Miorine if she might have allowed him into her heart if he'd actually stood up for her hand in a duel before leaving her alone in her greenhouse, while she prunes an unripened tomato representing their could-have-been relationship.
• Walking Spoiler: Not to the degree of Elan, but Shaddiq's true nature and motives are hugely instrumental to the series' latter half.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Unlike most of the higher-ups of the Benerit Group, who are just concerned with their own companies, Shaddiq believes his father and the other leaders of the group are too narrow-minded and that changes are needed to bring a better future. Not an evil goal at all, but said changes include using Gundams to revitalize the weapons industry, and he is willing to play dirty to achieve them, as shown by the "carrot and stick" approach he uses with Miorine when she refuses to work with him—the stick in this case is using some rules lawyering to stop GUND-ARM Inc. from incorporating after Miorine submits the paperwork, citing "safety concerns" as an issue. This continues even after Grassley House loses to Earth House in Episode 9, to the degree that he colludes with Vim Jeturk to assassinate Delling Rembran at Plant Quetta using Dawn of Fold as the proxy for the attempt.
  • The second season makes it clear how Shaddiq truly intends to accomplish his goals — he wants to end the corporate-mandated wars on Earth by giving Earthians military assets comparable to the Benerit Group. Unfortunately, his actions throughout the season also re-affirm that he's willing to employ the same violent and amoral methods as the Benerit Group does to achieve his objectives, to the degree that he sets up two separate terrorist attacks at Asticassia to further his plans. The second one in particular is just him letting Norea loose on campus to conduct a full-on slaughter of defenseless students; he fully intended her actions to force the Space Assembly League to act now that the danger to Spacians is undeniably clear, but in the process, he gets several students either severely wounded or outright killed.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Shaddiq sees himself as a Knight in Shining Armor out to rescue the purehearted Rebellious Princess from her cruel fate for the sake of true love. He's not. In fact, a lot of what seems to trip him up around Miorine is his apparent belief that him and Guel are in a Love Triangle with her when she actually has no interest in either. His plans consistently treat Suletta, Miorine's actual true love who has no obvious place in that narrative, as nothing more than an abrupt obstacle that showed up one day and vanished just as quickly when no longer needed, going so far as to claim that Guel must have "tainted" her when he sees her doing out-of-character things for Suletta's sake.
• Xanatos Gambit: Letting Norea loose at Asticassia in Episode 20 was a sure-win situation from his point of view. Even if he failed to defeat Guel and the Dominicus Corps and stop them from exposing him, the Space Assembly League would still be told a member of the Benerit Group caused a massacre in a school full of Spacians, which would force them into action. He doesn't mind being that member, as long as his goals are fulfilled.

Secelia Dote

Affiliation: Burion House

Voiced by: Aya Yamane (Japanese), Cassie Ewulu (English)

"You'll have no excuse if you lose this time."

A second-year student in Asticassia School of Technology's management strategy department and a member of the Dueling Committee.

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• Custom Uniform: Secelia wears her uniform jacket unzipped to her chest, revealing a sleeveless white blouse and short shorts with thigh-high stockings.
• Deadpan Snarker: She is a sarcastic person with a foul mouth, exemplified when she tells Guel that if he loses to Suletta a second time, his "market value" will drop. Her profile even notes she's second to none when it comes to making snide remarks.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite being an arrogant jerkass herself, during the team duel when Aerial is wounded and cornered by Grassley House, Secelia is visibly unsettled by Lauda's sadistic cheering.
  • She is left in horrified silence during the terrorist attack by Sophie and Norea in which they kill students participating in the Rumble Ring.
• The Gadfly: Despite her mocking personality, she's a far cry from the cruelty some of Asticassia's other bullies get up to. She just enjoys getting under peoples' skin.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In the aftermath of the terrorist attack during the Rumble Ring, she displays a certain sense of duty to the school, stating that she feels like she has to see things through and see who's going to be Miorine's spouse once Miorine's birthday comes.
  • She is also seemingly a part of Asticassia's counseling/confessional service, revealing herself to Martin when he confesses to outing Nika's crimes to the authorities. Despite her roundabout methods, she does truly help him let go of his guilt and find the resolve to tell the truth of what he did to his friends, proving herself to be a rather effective counselor.
• Irony: When she's initially introduced in the first season, Secelia spends almost all of her time lounging in the couch and poking fun at the people around her. Over the course of the second season, various events cause the other members of the committee to disappear or be otherwise occupied, and Secelia steps up as the closest thing the student body has to a leader.
• Jerkass: She is stuck-up, condescending, and never far from insulting others. When Guel gets his arse handed to him by Suletta not once but twice and then loses a Curb-Stomp Battle to Elan, she wastes no time in mocking him and his misfortune. Definitely not a pleasant person.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her rudeness, she's ultimately shown to still care about the lives and safety of other students, which is best shown in Episode 14 when Norea and Sophie begin recklessly attacking everyone involved in the Rumble Ring. She also displays a closeness to Rouji as he’s one of the few she isn’t rude to, and she comes to his defense when Renee is making him uncomfortable. In episode 19 and 20, this is shown in full, as she takes the time to help counsel Martin about his guilt over turning Nika over to the police, and then gladly assists in the defense of the school during Norea's assault on Asticassia, even handing off a top-of-the-line prototype suit to Chuchu with zero hesitation.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: The second season increasingly reveals that, despite her laziness and gadfly habits, she's the only person on the Dueling Committee, along with her friend Rouji, who seems to have no malicious or ulterior motives. She's a jerk who likes messing with people, but that is as far as it goes, and when it comes down to the wire, she mainly just wants to do her job and help the student body.
• Ms. Fanservice: Secelia's uniform is just as revealing as Shaddiq's. It exposes her upper chest and she wears shorter shorts than Miorine with thigh-high socks. Even Kana Ichinose described her design as "sexy".
• My Nayme Is: Secelia is pronounced the same as the more common real-world name Cecilia.
• Odd Friendship: She's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who spends most of her time snarking about other students, while Rouji is a socially awkward mechanic who almost always communicates through his Haro. Somehow, the two of them seem to have a genuine friendship going and are rarely seen without the other.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Renee is making Rouji feel uncomfortable during episode 13, she tells her to back off.
  • Her having Martin act as her servant seems like the inverse up until it turns out it was a ploy for him to get over his guilt and be able to confess to his friends.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As the show goes on, almost every member of the Dueling Committee gets dragged into drama, politics, and war. Secelia (along with Rouji who acts as her Number Two) is the only one who remains at her post and remains steadfastly dedicated to the safety of the students.
• Sexy Secretary: She appears in the epilogue as (the original) Elan's number two, having switched out her school uniform for a tight-fitting suit and jewelry.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Does basically nothing other than making snide remarks from the sidelines for most of the series but her response to Martin's confession inadvertently gets paid forward when Suletta realizes that Aerial and Miorine were trying to protect her by driving her away just like Martin was trying to protect Earth House by turning in Nika. This helps her recover from the Trauma Conga Line she'd been put through for the past few episodes and get back on her feet.
• Stunned Silence:
  • During the third episode, she is visibly stunned when Suletta tells her to stop making fun of Guel.
  • Again in Episode 14, when she notices that Norea and Sophie have no intention of playing by the rules and just recklessly fire on anyone present in the Rumble Ring.

Rouji Chante

Affiliation: Burion House

Voiced by: Gen Satō (Japanese), Kristin Payne (English)

"There is no match for Its Individual Permet code, but there is one machine that's similar."

A first-year mechanic in the Burion dorm and a very knowledgeable member of the Dueling Committee, usually seen with his Haro.

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• Everyone Has Standards: Similar to Secelia, he doesn't seem to like Lauda's attitude during the Earth House vs. Grassley House battle either.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His left eye is noticeably obscured by his hair, indicating his shyness.
• Inhibition-Destroying Puppet: His immediate response when Renee approaches him is to cower behind his notebook and defer any speaking to his Haro; later, while Sophie is stealing his food, Rouji is clearly taken aback but unable to protest. When he's tasked with arranging a duel, he lets his Haro speak for him. Rouji even remains expressionless while his Haro angrily interrogates Martin with its eyes flashing red.
• Nerves of Steel: Unlike Secelia, who is stunned speechless at the sight of Sophie and Norea crashing the Rumble Ring and shooting to kill the students and destroy the place, Rouji is able to keep his head cool to analyze the situation and inform her of what was happening, snapping her out of it and prompting her into action.
• Number Two: As Secelia steps up as a leader, Rouji acts as her second, providing her support and logistics.
• Odd Friendship: The loud and flamboyant Secelia seems to be the only person he's really comfortable around.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Played for Laughs with his Haro when questioning Martin on Aerial's attack in Quinnharbor.
• Robot Buddy: He is almost always accompanied by his personal modified Haro, which is capable of looking up any information he cares to know (even gene sequencing is within its capabilities) and speak for him when he gets nervous.
• Shrinking Violet: His social skills are worse than Suletta's, to the point he can barely talk to anyone directly.
• The Smart Guy: For the Dueling Committee. Whenever a Mobile Suit with unique traits shows up, Shaddiq turns to Rouji to do the research and confirm if it could be a Gundam.

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