Characters / Ōban Star-Racers

Here is a list of characters from the racing cartoon Ōban Star-Racers.

---

Main Characters

Eva "Molly" Wei

Eva "Molly" Wei

Voiced by: Chiara Zanni (English), Junko Noda (Japanese), Gabrielle Jeru (French)

"Don Wei doesn't know that I'm really his daughter, Eva. But maybe he'll love me as the pilot, Molly."

An ambitious 15 year-old human girl who escapes from her harsh boarding school to find her father, Don Wei, but when he doesn't recognize her she ends up landing a job as a mechanic for his company. Lacking in self-confidence and intimidated by his harsh demeanor, Eva is unable to tell Don Wei who she really is, and assumes the name "Molly" after reading it on a conveniently placed poster. Eva soon becomes the pilot of the Whizzing Arrow II for the Earth Team after their star, Rick Thunderbolt, is injured during the first race. She wants to win the ultimate prize to bring her mother back to life.

---

• Ace Pilot: It's a racing show after all, and Eva definitely holds her own on a field of starship pilots.
• Action Girl: Played with; Eva doesn't use her fists, but she makes up for it with amazing racing skills.
• Action Survivor: She's neither a superpowered being nor a trained warrior, but she gets by on just her wits, piloting skills, and determination.
• Affectionate Nickname: Nicknamed "Little Mouse" by Rick.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Downplayed. Molly is initially given the brush off by the rest of the Earth team for being a stowaway among other reasons and doesn't get friendly competition from most of the alien racers due to being a "weak" human. It isn't until a few narrow victories she's able to fit in.
• The Baby of the Bunch: She's the youngest Earth Team member — making her the most inexperienced as well. She quickly learns, however.
• Badass Adorable: She's a cute and kind teenage girl who progresses to a Badass Biker.
• Badass Biker: She spent ages gradually assembling a hover-bike to use in her escape from the boarding school. When the Whizzing Arrow's adult-sized pilot seat proves too large for her to operate effectively, she removes it and grafts the bike into its place as a jury-rigged control system, effectively turning the Arrow into a massive jetbike.
• Badass Family: She's a skilled pilot just like her Mom and while not shown, Don mentions he was one in his youth as well.
• Badass Normal: She's just a plucky young human girl and her opponents are all powerful alien warriors, most of whom have superpowers of some kind. She's able to get by on just spirit and determination alone.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Her Earth Racing uniform exposes her stomach area and she happens to be the only female on the team.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Case in point, before she learned the true nature of her mother's death, she tried to murder Spirit during their race because she falsely thought he was directly responsible. Then she learns that it was Canaletto who was responsible for her mother's death; Maya actually let Spirit pass her just before her ship crashes and burns.
• Big "NO!": She shouts this when she sees Jordan jumping onto the Pyramid of Power, and shouts his name as he falls, assuming that he's going to die, but is powerless to stop him due to being under Canaletto's control. However, luckily for her, the Pyramid of Power contains the Avatar's powers and Jordan survives, but becomes the new Avatar.
• Blush Sticker: When she was a child, she had the red, round, rosy cheek kind.
• Boyish Short Hair: Her short hair matches her tomboyish personality.
• Brainy Brunette: Eva has natural black hair, is 15-years-old, and already a skilled mechanic.
• Broken Bird: Her mother's death, followed by her father's abandonment, and coupled with 10 years in a boarding school with an abusive figure turned her into the trope and made her gain many self-esteem issues.
• Broken Pedestal: Eva spent her whole childhood watching her dad on TV, believing he was a great man,and wishing to reunite with him. When they meet face to face, she discovers her loving father has been replaced by a cold, angry, and hard-hearted man who doesn't give a crap about his daughter and treats his team poorly. When she finally reveals who she is, she gives him a well-deserved callout for his selfish negligence, leading him to realize just how low he's let himself sink.
• Calling the Old Man Out: After Don Wei tells Molly that he knows that she's really his daughter, she unloads on him for abandoning her at a boarding school for most of her childhood (without so much as a letter) and not even recognizing her when she first joined the team. When Don tries to explain himself, she makes it clear that there is no excuse for forgetting her.
• Cannot Spit It Out: It's implied that she wanted to say, "I love you," to Jordan after he becomes the new Avatar in the finale, but she hesitates at the last minute. Further implication is Molly cradling Jordan's face just as he leaves, and his understanding expression before he goes to kiss her.
• Car Fu: Before even leaving Earth, she pulled this off with her Rocket bike on an attacking Crog. During the race proper she attempted this on Spirit, but he was way too tricky.
• Character Development:
  • Having grown up as a loner, she is very self-reliant and does not like to talk about her problems. She learns to trust her teammates and Prince Aikka, but it takes a long time before she is able to open up to any of them.
  • She's fixated on winning the Great Race so she could use the Ultimate Prize to bring her mother Maya back to life. She's devastated when she's learns that there's no prize and the Avatar's power couldn't resurrect the dead, but she eventually accepts it after reconciling with her surviving father, Don Wei.
• Child Prodigy: Became a mechanic before she hit puberty. This is what let her father hire her as a mechanic for his racing company.
• Cosmic Motifs: She has a star tattoo on her cheek.
• Curious as a Monkey:
  • Downplayed as she's not that young, but Molly have several these moments. To kick off, she drags Jordan along on an expedition to the temple ruins on Alwas and nearly dies when the whole structure begins to collapse into the sea. Fortunately, Rush is there to drag her out of the water after she’s knocked unconscious. As a result, she and Jordan gain a good friend and Molly learn a little about the whole avatar and Oban situation from the temple ruins.
  • Another, this time subverted, case occurs on Oban where she sees the lights and sounds coming from the surface of Oban and wants to investigate. Though initially unable, Aikka comes to her aid and gives her and Jordan a ride to the surface, where they watch the native creatures of the planets in a massive ritual.
• Curtains Match the Window: She has red dyed hair and dark red eyes, which highlight her fiery spirit.
• Daddy's Girl: Deconstructed. Her devotion towards her father and desire to make him proud has made Eva push herself since early adolescency to become a top mechanic. It also made her never give up on the idea that one day he would come back to get her. Sadly, he never does. And even when they do meet, he doesn't even recognize her. When he finally does, he gets the most brutal chewing-out of his life.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her life has been a hard one. Her mother died in a tragic accident during a race (later revealed to be part of an Eldritch Abomination's unfathomably-complex Gambit Roulette). Her father abandoned her only a short time afterwards in a boarding school, and has never visited or called her. And the headmaster of Eva's boarding school was an abusive parental figure towards Eva, giving the young protagonist a lot of self-esteem issues.
• David Versus Goliath: Eva is a petit teen, and her more vicious enemies tend to be quite large, case in point Groor, General Kross, and Canaletto.
• Delinquent Hair: Dyes the top part of her hair red.
• Delinquents: Justified. Anyone would be acting up in a place like the Stern Boarding School. If Miss Stern is to be believed later, Eva has a knack for getting into trouble.
• Determinator: Gets stuck at the bottom of a massive crevice on Oban with Jordan and absolutely refuses to grow old there and give up, despite the bleak situation they’re in (wrecked vehicle and no one to come and get them).
• Did Not Get The Guy: At the end, she doesn't get Jordan (turned into the Avatar) nor Aikka (returns to his home planet after the races).
• Drowning My Sorrows: She does so in a family-friendly way with "Grenadine Milk" after Don Wei is initially ungrateful for her victory over Groor.
• Dude Magnet: Has Aikka and Jordan falling for her. She doesn't get either, but she's not bitter.
• Facial Markings: Star (left side of face) and rectangle (right side of face) tattoos, in honor of her mother who possessed similar tattoos.
• Fiery Redhead: Zigzagged. Eva's hair is black, but she dyed the top part red. And while she's mainly quiet and keeps to herself, when pressed she shows she inherited her father's short-tempered and stubborn personality.
• Friendless Background: Heavily implied. Eva has no fond memories of Stern Boarding School and is never shown befriending fellow students.
• Genki Girl: She's generally quite peppy and excitable, but of course she hides a lot of sadness beneath that spunk.
• Goggles Do Nothing: They don't serve any real purpose, except as a reminder of her mom.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a great girl. She also has no patience for anyone giving her shit, and in some cases will run you down if she's especially pissed.
• Goth: Implied. She wears black, dyes part of her hair red, and got facial markings.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Gets a heavy one when it's discovered that the winner of the race won't receive any wish they desire, but instead become the next Avatar. She all but gives up the will to even compete in the race. Eva/Molly only does return to racing because she couldn't let someone like Lord Furter or General Kross abuse the power.
  • She suffers an even worse one when Canaletto reveals that she's been an Unwitting Pawn for him her entire life. She's so horrified that Canaletto is basically able to break her by simply telling her the truth, which leaves her vulnerable to his hypnotic sorcery. Jordan had to save her by becoming the next Avatar, vaporizing Canaletto in the process.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With Rick Thunderbolt as mentor/student friendship. And later romantically with Jordan, who while not as big as Rick, is still muscular and tall compared to the petite Eva.
• Humble Hero: Fully shown when she willingly refuses the title of the Avatar, insisting that Aikka would be far better suited to the role. Unfortunately, it was Just as Planned for Canaletto's gambit to become the Avatar again.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Her main motivation throughout the series is to gain the love and appreciation from her father. Something she hasn't had in ten years.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: More like "I Just Want To Have the Normal and Happy Life I Had with My Parents".
• Interspecies Romance: She (a human) and Aikka (a Nourasian). They don't get together, but remain close friends.
• In the Blood: Her mother was a champion pilot and her father her mom's coach. Naturally, she carries on the legacy at the tender age of 15.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eva/Molly has her angst and abrasiveness, but she's still a kindhearted and friendly person.
• Jumped at the Call: More like hitched a ride on the call. Eva stowed away on the ship leaving for the race and wound up as Earth's champion through a series of circumstances and her own determination.
• Kid Hero: The 15 year old protagonist and heroine, with the burden of saving both Earth and the universe from certain doom in the Great Race of Oban.
• The Kirk: To Jordan's McCoy and Aikka's Spock.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Eva picks up her pseudonym, "Molly", in this way. When she sees her father for the first time in years and he doesn't recognize her, she tells him her name is Molly after seeing a pin-up poster in the hangar, because she was too afraid of telling him the truth.
• Living Emotional Crutch: After Don Wei finally figures out she is his long-lost daughter, he does everything within his power to keep her safe and explicitly tells her that he couldn't bare to lose her again.
• Love at First Sight: Downplayed. It's more like "crushing at first sight" towards Aikka.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Although "Molly" doesn't tell Don up front she's his daughter, and it takes quite a while for the guy to do the math. When he finally does, she's not happy about it.
• Morality Pet: To Rick. He drops his usual smug attitude when around her and acts like a surrogate Cool Big Bro.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In ''Molly Star Racer'', of all characters, Eva has two rows of shark-like teeth, which sets the show stylistically apart from its prototype.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: Her family life fell apart after her mother died, with her father becoming so grief-stricken that he abandoned her. She wants to win the Ultimate Prize to bring her mother back to life, as she believes that's the only way she and her father can go back to being a family. However, she eventually discovers the Ultimate Prize can't bring her mother back. In the end, she and Don still manage to reconcile and start living together again after they return to Earth, with both of them having accepted Maya's death.
• Ms. Fanservice: Though not as prominent an example as her mother, Eva/Molly is quite attractive and her earth team uniform shows off her midriff and curves. Plus, certain shots of her show a fair amount of Male Gaze and Hartman Hips.
• The Napoleon: Downplayed. Eva/Molly is as big as you'd expect a 15 year old girl to be, but she's the smallest of the Earth team and her fiery personality makes her clash with the others and fly off the handle(sometimes literally) when emotional.
• Nepotism: A completely unintentional example. Molly is both a skilled engineer hired by Mr. Wei and she's his long-distant daughter Eva, who he recruited after firing his previous mechanic for missing work. He had no idea who she was at the time.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After she wins the race, Molly is supposed to become the Avatar. But, having learned that becoming the Avatar won't let her bring back her dead mother, she refuses and goes back to her module, intending to make Aikka the Avatar. This results in Canaletto breaking out of his prison since Satis' power runs out.
• Oblivious to Love: She's pretty clueless about Jordan's feelings for her. Jordan has to spell it out for her to get it, but sadly he did it too late.
• Outdoorsy Gal: In both Oban and Alwas, she was shown to be quite adventurous and was shown to love exploring.
• Parental Abandonment: Lost her mother after her ship fatally crashed during a race against Spirit, and her father dumped her in a boarding school just because she resembled her dead mother, never contacting her for ten years since. No wonder Eva was so mad once Don Wei finally recognizes her.
• Plucky Girl: She's feisty and can worm her way out of a lot of tense situations.
• Rebellious Spirit: Invoked, causing Molly to give one of the Arrow's engines a paint job that Don Wei disapproved of.
  Rick: (to Don Wei) You told me to light a fire, I lit a fire.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Eva/Molly doesn't really know a lot about star racing, until over the course of the story.
• Rough Overalls: After proving herself to be a capable mechanic, Molly starts wearing overalls and a crop-top. However, it's not immediately apparent that she wears overalls, as she wears the bib and suspenders draped around her waist.
• Rule of Symbolism: Her tattoos and dyed hair are souvenirs from one of her first runaway attempts. The stripe represents a tear (the tragedies of her mother's death, her father's abandonment, and the abuse of the boarding school's dean) while the star symbolizes hope (her desire to win so she could resurrect her mother).
• Samus Is a Girl: Don Wei mistakes her for a boy when they first meet after years.
• Seeks Another's Resurrection: She wants to win the Ultimate Prize in order to bring her mother back to life, believing that her return will repair her broken family. Unfortunately, even the godlike Avatar cannot bring back the dead; learning her efforts are All for Nothing nearly causes Eva to quit the Great Race.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • Besides the looks, she also shares a lot of characteristics from her mother, especially her mom's headstrong attitude and recklessness.
  • While she does share more of her mother's quirks, there's no denying that the girl gets her short-tempered nature and stubbornness from her father.
• Ship Tease: With Jordan and Aikka. Also could qualify as a Love Triangle as well.
• Shorttank: A rare example of this archetype as the main character instead of the lead (Jordan takes the place of "co-star") but otherwise she fits the archetype perfectly. She's got the the outfit, the spunk, the tomboyishness, and most of all the impossibly stubborn go-getter attitude that lets her get so far in the Oban Cycles.
• Sleep Cute: In Episode 21, she falls asleep next to Jordan. Don Wei was not happy when he caught them locked in an embrace next morning.
• The Smurfette Principle: Molly is the only female member of the Earth Team.
• Spanner in the Works: Eva wasn't even supposed to be in the race, but nonetheless she stows on board and her presence forces Don to confront his past and changes who the champion of Earth is. To Canaletto's glee.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Deconstructed. Lose her natural black hair and she's the spitting image of her mother. However, Don Wei reveals that this was the reason he abandoned her as a child.
• Teen Genius: A former Child Prodigy as well. Her mechanical skills at only 15 are professional-like; this is what let her father hire her for his company, and to later allow her to stay on the Earth Team after following them as a stowaway.
• Token Human: After Rick gets taken out early, Molly/Eva becomes the sole human pilot in a race filled with bizarre, powerful aliens. She's underestimated quite a bit by her competition because of this.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Eva is quite tomboyish, but can act quite girly when excited.
• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from a novice star pilot to to the winner of the Great Race with a partly damaged star fighter.
• Tragic Keepsake: Subverted. invokedWord of God states that the googles she wears are not her mother's; the ones that Maya wore were destroyed in the crash.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • When she sees Spirit again, who she blames for her mom's death, Eva momentarily despairs, but then steels herself and shoots him a look of cold hatred while promising this:
    Spirit, you will not escape me this time. That's a promise.
  • Much later, when Don asks her if she really is his little girl, Eva, who's about at the end of her rope with her old man's clueless, stubborn stupidity, gives him a coy little smile and cheerily responds:
    ''If I really was your daughter, you'd know it immediately. I mean, you really wouldn't need to ask, would you?
• Trauma Conga Line: She's had it rough. Her father abandoned her in a hellhole of a school and tried to forget about her completely, she's routinely picked on for her perceived weakness by both her fellow teammates and the other racers, she finds out the Ultimate Prize cannot in fact bring back the dead, and to top if off she discovers her life has been controlled by an eldritch monster who wants to use her to destroy the world.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Gets into this now and then, most notable being when she tries to murder Spirit on the wrong assumption he killed her mother, which even shocks Don Wei himself.
• Unwitting Pawn: From the very beginning, her entire life - including the death of her mother and Rick's Career-Ending Injury - was carefully orchestrated by Canaletto so she would eventually participate in the Great Race of Oban as Earth's representative pilot, knowing that she would refuse the Avatar's power after learning it wouldn't bring Maya back. Eva doesn't take the revelation well.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: While Eva is still a nice person, flashbacks of her as a child show she was more open and cheerful. In the present (especially at the beginning), she is a depressed teen with father issues and low self-esteem.
• Weak, but Skilled: She's quite small(hence the nickname, "Little Mouse") and doesn't have much physical strength, but Eva is a force in the pilot seat and is good at maneuvering around larger foes.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Deconstructed. Eva's motivation for most of the series is to get back the love her father denied her for ten years. The irony is that Don doesn't know she's his daughter at all, and acts as a Mean Boss to her until well into the latter half of the series. When he does finally realize the truth, rather then lead to a tearful, happy reunion, it just pisses her off. Eva proceeds to chew him out over his neglect.
• Wrench Wench: Her skills are on par with Winry Rockbell. She built the hover-bike used to escape the orphanage herself, having apparently spent ages collecting and purchasing the parts, and later goes on to hotwire the thing into the Whizzing Arrow II to replace its adult-scale pilot seat.
• You Killed My Father: Gender-inverted. Her attitude towards Spirit, the racer who she thinks is responsible for her mother's death. Once she gets over the initial shock of seeing him again, Eva is so consumed by rage that she completely wrecks the Arrow trying to kill him; only to learn the truth when he shows her the events of that day through his eyes. Later, it turns out that Canaletto was responsible for Maya's death.

Jordan C. Wilde

Voiced by: Samuel Vincent (English), Keichirou Satomi (Japanese), Thomas Guitard (French)

Click ^here to see him as the new Avatar

A 17-year-old rambunctious army soldier who is hired by Don Wei to be the gunner for the Whizzing Arrow. He eventually develops a crush on Eva and later falls in love with her.

---

• Ambiguously Bi: Despite clearly being attracted to Molly, Jordan shows a fanboyish admiration for Rick and often waxes about how great he is, despite that he's only known him a few days.
• Anime Hair: The left side of his hair is black, the right side is blonde.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Defeats Canaletto by jumping onto the Pyramid of Power, and becoming the new Avatar. When Molly sees him for the last time, Jordan's human body has transformed into a long-haired, humanoid being whose (temporary) body is brimming with power.
• Betty and Veronica: The Betty (Eva/Molly's best friend during Oban and the gunner for the Earth Team) to Aikka's Veronica (a Nourasian prince who may or may not be a Friendly Enemy depending on the situation) for Molly's Archie.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Thick, black eyebrows. They glow white after becoming the Avatar.
• Blood Knight: At times he seems way too eager to shoot things in his role as the Whizzing Arrow's gunner.
• But Now I Must Go: Having stopped Canaletto and become the Avatar, Jordan had to leave with the Great Beings so he could get settled into his new role... but not before giving Molly her first kiss.
• Butt-Monkey: Especially when trying to handle with his explosive partner.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He finds himself unable to tell Molly how he really feels about her. And when he finally spits it out, it's just moments before he becomes the Avatar and never sees her again. To be fair, he does admit his feelings once, but it turned out to be Don Wei.
• Character Development: Subtle, but his hostility towards Aikka gradually lessens over time.
• Creepily Long Arms: His new body as the Avatar has much longer and skinnier arms than is normal for a human. However, he states that it'll likely change once he fully settles into his new responsibilities.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Downplayed. While half of Jordan's hair is blond, the other half is black, which matches his black eyes. After becoming the new Avatar, his eyes turn yellow, and while it doesn't match his hair or his body, which got turned into white energy, it does match the golden aura that surrounds his (temporary) form.
• Dead Guy Junior: Jordan got his name from the middle name of his grandfather.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Though he finally confesses his feelings to Molly and kisses her in the finale, he is unable to pursue a romantic relationship because of his new duties as the Avatar.
• Disappears into Light: Leaves this way with the Great Beings, after giving Eva/Molly his first kiss.
• Drives Like Crazy: He's abysmal at piloting, to the point that in his words, his flight instructor retired due to sheer trauma. If Stan and Koji are to believed, said instructor now works with small animals.
• Empowered Badass Normal:Exaggerated. Jordan starts the show as a headstrong yet clumsy and immature ship gunner, and ends it as the closest thing to a god in this universe!
• Famous Ancestor: In-Universe. His grandfather is William J. Wilde, one of the first humans to meet with aliens - who is also rumored to have been The Quisling. This apparently caused Jordan some trouble in school, which likely contributed to his hatred of the rogs.
• Fantastic Racism: Jordan is intensely distrustful of aliens. He especially hates the Crogs because they attacked his grandfather, William J. Wilde. He also doesn't like the Nourasians because of their alliance with the Crogs... or so he thinks. This aspect does fade as he gets to know legitimately friendly aliens like Rush and witnesses one alien pull a Heroic Sacrifice to save the heroes. By the end he's fully embraced his role as guardian of the universe and presumably abandons his resentment altogether.
• Gold and White Are Divine: His new (temporary) form as the Avatar is made of white, rippling energy, while a golden aura and the Avatar's sigil surrounds him. He's the show's equivalent of a Physical God.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Non-fatal example. Despite getting a broken leg from Canaletto's attacks, Jordan stops Canaletto from reclaiming his lost power by jumping into the power orb atop the Pyramid of Power, becoming the new Avatar in the process. While he saved the universe, Jordan's new duties prevents him from being with his friends or returning to Earth to his family.
• Holy Halo: In the finale, when he appears to Molly after jumping onto the Pyramid of Power, Jordan is floating in the air with the Avatar's multi-armed sigil behind him.
• Hot-Blooded: Jordan's always ready to jump into action and isn't afraid to stand up to monstrous foes like Groor and Kross.
• Humanoid Abomination: Jordan's form as the new Avatar looks somewhat passable as a humanoid - his face is intact, but his arms are elongated, his once-short hair is much longer and perpetually rippling, and his entire body seems to be made of white-golden energy. He also has the tendrils of the Avatar's sigil extending from his back. However, Jordan states that the body Molly/Eva sees him in is only temporary, and it would change into something else once he settles into his new role.
• Identical Grandson: When his grandfather, William J. Wilde, was younger he looked exactly like Jordan does.
• I Just Want to Be Special: After becoming the Avatar in the finale, Jordan admits to Eva/Molly that while he wanted to prevent Canaletto from abusing the Avatar's power, he actually wanted to do "something big in [my] life", but never had the courage to do so until now. It's implied that being the grandson of a supposed traitor motivated him.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Pretty much why he got the job. He proved his worth to Don Wei's team by shooting down the targets so hard, he made a small crater in the wall.
• Irony: Jordan is the worst pilot in the race(and not even a pilot for that matter) and no one, least of all himself, expected him to become Avatar. Yet thanks to a series of tragic and bizarre circumstances, this plucky little boy from Earth became the most important person in the universe.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jordan isn't exactly the most mature, but his heart is always in the right place.
• The Lancer: To Molly/Eva; unlike her, he's doesn't live a double life, isn't an excellent pilot (he was so bad his last instructor retired), fiercely hates the Crogs and the Nourasians (the latter only because of their alliance with the former).
• Large and in Charge: Becoming the Avatar causes Jordan's body to become otherworldly and grow several times bigger than Eva/Molly, though he mentions that it'll go away once he settles into his new role.
• Last Kiss: He gives a goodbye kiss to Molly right before assuming his role as Avatar.
• Light Is Good: His ascension as the new Avatar gives him a large, long-haired body that's brimming with power and entirely made of light. He's also one of the central protagonists after Eva/Molly.
• Lonely at the Top: He becomes the new Avatar in the finale, stopping Canaletto for good. But now he can't return to Earth and will never see his beloved Molly, his friends, or his family again. And it's likely he'll outlive them, too.
• The McCoy: To Molly's Kirk and Aikka's Spock.
• Meaningful Appearance: After becoming the Avatar, the best way to describe his new (temporary) form is that of a godlike being made of energy with his face. It shows how far removed he is from his own humanity now, and while he's still himself, that is very likely to change due to the Avatar's omniscience and quasi-immortality.
• More Dakka: When Don is looking for the best gunner for the team, Jordan proves his worth by putting enough shots in the back wall to tear a chunk out of it.
• Mysterious Middle Initial: It's never revealed what the "C" in his name stands for.
• One Head Taller: Jordan is a head taller than Molly/Eva. After becoming the new Avatar, he becomes much bigger, though Jordan mentions that his new body is just temporary until he settles into his new role.
• Physical God: After becoming the Avatar. Even his new (temporary) body is otherworldly and brimming with power.
• Redeeming Replacement: Jordan isn't a direct replacement, but his grandfather William Wilde is regarded by history as a traitor on the order of Benedict Arnold. At least in part, this motivated him to join the military in the first place.
• Ship Tease: With Eva/Molly. He has an obvious crush on her, but she's oblivious. He makes a few attempts to confess, but doesn't get to tell her until right before he becomes the new Avatar and he has to say goodbye to her forever.
• Single Tear: As he watches Earth Team leave Ōban in the finale, he sheds one, knowing that his duties as the new Avatar would prevent him from seeing his friends and long-time crush.
• Sleep Cute: While sitting together with Molly, he ends up falling asleep with her. Don Wei alter finds them cuddle-sleeping and isn't happy to find them that way.
• Someone Has to Do It: Mentioned verbatim. Part of Jordan's decision to become the new Avatar in the finale is so that he could prevent someone like Canaletto from abusing the position's power.
  Molly: So you're the Avatar?
  Jordan: Someone had to do it.
• Spanner in the Works: Canaletto was probably not expecting Jordan to interfere with his plans with Eva/Molly, assuming he was dead or severely incapacitated like Aikka. And it proves fatal, too; after Jordan jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar, the World-Healing Wave that ensues completely obliterates Canaletto.
• Supernatural Floating Hair: After Jordan jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar, his hair grows to tremendous lengths, and is constantly rippling from the sheer power he now possesses.
• Tragic Keepsake: Wears his grandfather's dogtags.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without bringing up his fate as the new Avatar.
• World-Healing Wave: Jordan becoming the new Avatar in the finale unleashed a wave of power that completely obliterates Canaletto and restores the lifeless Ōban into the lush planet it once was.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He says this trope verbatim when he finds out Molly/Eva is Don Wei's daughter in Episode 25.

Don Wei

Voiced by: Ron Halder (English), Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese), Jérôme Keen (French)

"You've probably heard of me. I'm Don Wei. Just when I thought I'd reached the peak of my career, I was handed the greatest challenge ever faced by man:to lead the Earth team to victory in the Great Race of Oban. Since the start of the pre-selections on the planet Alwas, we've had a few surprises. But I remain confident we'll pull through! Winning, whatever the odds. That's what my job is all about."

Eva's father and owner of Wei Racing, a successful Earth corporation that manufactures vehicles and sponsors races.

---

• Anti-Hero: A nasty tempered jerk of a boss who abandoned his daughter and is a total dick to his employees is not someone you'd call a "hero", let alone entrust with the safety of mankind, but he really does want to save humanity and overtime even becomes a better person from the whole adventure.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: After he finds out Molly is his long-lost daughter Eva and Jordan has feelings for her, Don gets a little hostile when he sees them getting too close.
• Byronic Hero: He's a dour, stubborn and brooding man whose attitude stems from losing his wife. While he does have good intentions, these are hidden by the shell he builds to keep others emotionally distant.
• Character Development: He begins the series having long given up on ever being a father to Eva and on Alwas is consistently abrasive and difficult to work with, even his relationship with his best racer - Rick - having soured years ago. The entire star racing tournament drags up many painful memories for Don Wei, forcing him to confront his flaws. And when they reach Oban he finally begins to suspect Molly is Eva and grows increasingly concerned for her safety and being a better father.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Pre-series and flashbacks portray him with black eyes and black hair.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His beloved wife Maya died in a tragic race against Spirit, who was mistakenly believed to have murdered her. It destroyed him to the point he abandoned his only child because she reminded him too much of Maya. For a while, he was a drifter and met Rick. They started a racing company together, but because Don sported an abrasive attitude in order to not get close to anyone again, their relationship wasn't a happy one. Needless to say, Rick left.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Downplayed at first. He wears an all-black suit and is a complete hardass to his employees. But after Eva/Molly joins the racing team and proves her worth, he gradually loosens up, and eventually reconciles with his estranged daughter.
• Despair Event Horizon: Crossed one a while back after Maya's death which led to his horrible parenting decisions. He falls into an even bigger one years later when he believes Eva and Jordan have perished on Oban, sobbing that he's destroyed both his wife and daughter.
• Deuteragonist: He's the character who gets the most development and focus after his daughter, as the series is also about him learning to be a better father and recognize her strengths.
• Detrimental Determination: Don is determined to see his mission and responsibility through even after the lowest point in his life. Unfortunately, this nearly destroyed his relationship with his daughter, alienated his underlings, and by the time he tries to process his trauma and reconnect with Eva, it's far too late in the game.
• Disappeared Dad: Don left Eva at a boarding school and has never visited her once in the past 10 years.
• Everyone Has Standards: During the great race he's not above being ruthless to win, and is enraged at Spirit for supposedly causing his wife's accident, but he's horrified when Molly goes nuts and tries to pull vehicular homicide on the creature, endangering herself and Jordan as well.
• Excessive Mourning: His grief and guilt over Maya's death lead him to abandon their only daughter for 10 years.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Don was once a successful and happy man who managed one of the biggest racing companies on Earth and was Happily Married to Maya. Then his world came crashing down when Maya was killed in a racing accident. Sinking into despair, Don began to doubt his ability to raise a child, which led to him abandoning his daughter at a miserable boarding school. After some time as a drifter with no purpose, he soon grew into a cold, hard man who distanced himself emotionally from everyone. When Eva confronts him about this, she furiously tells her father of all the years she waited for him to come back, that she was just as hurt by Maya's death as him, and that he never made an attempt to even contact her. What's more, Don eventually did find a successful team, and he still could never find the time for his daughter, to the point where he didn't even recognize her when she showed up again. Don himself admits he can't blame Eva for hating him after his utter carelessness.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: He strikes this pose in one shot of the opening sequence of the show. He does it a few other times in the series proper but it's rather out of place here as he's usually more subdued.
• Good Is Not Nice: Don may be leading the Earth Racing Team in order to stop the Crogs, but he's not the most pleasant.
• Good Parents: To Eva before Maya's death. He was a caring and devoted father to his only child. After they return to Earth, they finally reconcile and Don goes back to being the loving father he once was.
• Happily Married: To Maya before her death — they were openly affectionate with one another and all flashbacks shown of the two were happy ones.
• He-Man Woman Hater:invoked Not quite as bad as most examples but Don Wei clearly has a low opinion of women in racing, which likely stems from Maya's death. This causes conflict with "Molly" even before he realize she's his daughter. He initially refuses to make her a replacement pilot after Rick's accident, and tries to take Jordan instead, despite the fact that Jordan has a poor track record at flying. Predictably, Jordan nearly crashes the Whizzing Arrow on his first flight, and it takes Eva stealing the ship to get him to even consider her.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Justified; after Maya's death, Don Wei acts as a jerk so people won't get close to him, and so he wouldn't suffer heartbreak again. It's deconstructed as it hurts Eva who left her boarding school to look for him... only to find that he doesn't recognize her, and Don Wei's abrasive impatience at the moment causes Eva to introduce herself as a new girl as she was too afraid to tell the truth. Once Don Wei finally recognizes "Molly" as his estranged daughter, Eva gives him an epic chewing-out for abandoning her just because she heavily resembled her mother, and not even bothering to contact her for ten years.
• It's All About Me: He spiraled into this cycle after Maya's tragic passing, as he hardened his heart to move forward with life and stopped caring how his actions affect those around him. This leads to him not only abandoning Eva, but also often treating his team quite harshly. During the great race he makes several unreasonable orders out of sheer stubbornness, like trying to make Jordan race even though he's terrible at it and risking Rick's life to get him back in the seat, even after Eva's proven herself! Thankfully he does grow out of it, especially after his daughter chews him out for how he never stopped to wonder how she felt when he left her at that boarding school.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The race against Aikka ends in disaster because Don and Molly's plans clashed with one another. Because Molly was still a new member of the team, and a stowaway to boot, and because there was a lot on the line for the Great Race, he saw no reason to listen what she had to say, then blamed her for the loss because she took over and refused to stick to his plan. Since she had defied orders on previous occasions, he forces her to undergo some proper training and made sure she became a team player before he can finally trust her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Abrasive, rude, and cynical. But he does care for the team and isn't as selfish as he would like others to believe. He later loses the Jerk part completely after he finally recognizes Eva as her daughter, gets called out on his abandonment by her, and resolves to become a better father for her after they return to Earth.
• Kick the Dog: His introduction has him casually fire his mechanic over the phone. Why? Because he had to attend the birth of his twins before the Grand Prix. It serves little purpose except to establish that he is far from the kind man Eva remembers as her father.
• Large Ham: Downplayed, but he tends to enunciate very loud and dramatically when giving orders and pepper his speech with Purple Prose.
• Lean and Mean: Don Wei has quite a scrawny physique compared to his more muscular male employees, especially Rick. Downplayed as he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead of a villain.
• The Leader: Of the Earth Racing Team.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: His daughter Eva/Molly is feisty, rebellious, passionate, and overall friendly while Don himself is dour, uptight, persnickety, and generally not fun to be around.
• Made of Plasticine: A downplayed instance. He's rather frail compared to other characters and breaks his arm at one point punching a countertop in frustration.
• Mean Boss: He fires one employee on a whim after discovering new mechanic talent (Eva), after not letting him take a day off cause his wife gave birth to twins.
• Meaningful Name: "Don" is a term used for someone who is in charge of something; Don Wei is the boss of his own racing organization, as well as the Earth's racing team.
• Mission Control: Serves as this alongside Stan and Koji, giving orders to the Whizzing Arrow on the track.
• The Mourning After: Don referred to Maya as "the love of his life" and never got involved with any other women after the death of his wife. Maya's death had a huge impact in his personality and he's still affected by it.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: After Maya died, Don lost himself to grief and abandoned his only daughter because she reminded him too much of Maya. After he figures out Molly is Eva and she confronts him about his abandonment of her, Don realizes he completely destroyed his connection to the only family he had left. By the end of the series, Don has amended his relationship with Eva and they're going to live as a family again, now having come to terms with Maya's death.
• My Greatest Failure: He blames himself for Maya's death.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He eventually learns that Molly is his daughter Eva. He ends up with this reaction because she calls him out on not recognizing her until well late into the Ōban races.
• Non-Action Guy: He's just there to give the team orders and relay news to Earth, though he's not afraid to take a more active stance if the situation gets desperate.
• Ocular Gushers: He cries like this in the much more stylized musical pilot Molly Star Racer after Molly crashes the Arrow. Given the huge change in tone with the series proper, he's much less over the top here.
• Papa Wolf: After discovering Molly was his long-lost daughter, Eva, Don showed his fierce protectiveness over her. He was even willing to deliberately disobey a direct order from the President because he didn't want his daughter to get seriously injured or die in the race (particularly once its revealed that their shared desire to bring Maya back was All for Nothing).
• Parental Abandonment: He stuck his daughter in boarding school and did his best to forget about her after the death of his wife.
• Parents as People: He does love his daughter, but he's only human. He lost the "love of his life" in such a brutal manner, he wasn't in the right emotional state to raise Eva.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: It's not-so-subtly stated that Don has a very sexist attitude toward woman racers. When he first meets Eva(who he doesn't recognize) he says: "Well, then you have even less of a reason to be here! This is not a shopping mall, you're in the hangar of a star-racing team!" And on Alwas he takes the time to remind her that because she's a girl, she can't possibly replace Rick as the Whizzing Arrow. Granted this mostly stems from Maya's tragic death, and his attitude does change as he experiences what "Molly" can do.
• Recruit Teenagers with Attitude:
  • His best pilot is his rebellious, estranged daughter with abandonment issues. His best gunman is a rambunctious military cadet. Both of them are in their teens.
  • That said, Molly/Eva is a double subversion. The only reason why he eventually allowed her to become the new pilot, as skilled as she is, was because his previous one was too injured to continue.
• Retired Badass: He does claim to have been a racer in his youth and actually volunteers to be the new pilot after Rick's accident, but just how good isn't clear as we never see him behind the wheel.
• Say My Name: Not long after he learns the horrible truth of his new pilot and is forced to confront his angry and heartbroken daughter, Don witnesses her seemingly die in the next race and belts out his anguish:
  "EEVAAA!"
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He eventually tells the President of Earth to his face that he refuses to risk his daughter's life anymore and is pulling her out. He gets overruled quickly, but that still took guts.
• Skewed Priorities: Don is so against having a woman racer that he apparently forgets Molly is the only hope Earth has against preventing the Avatar from falling into the hands of aliens who'd destroy the earth. It becomes a little more understandable when he's actively trying to save his daughter from danger.
• Seeks Another's Resurrection: Subverted. Upon learning about the Ultimate Prize, Don believes that it is capable of reviving someone from the dead. While he is simply following orders to win it for Earth, he eventually learns that his daughter Eva, was trying to win it for the sake of bring Maya back to life.
• So Proud of You: Shortly before the final race, he tells Molly/Eva that Maya would be proud of her and his look just states he's proud of her too.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: All of his jerkassery is to hide his deep grief and self-hatred over Maya's death.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Despite his hardass nature, he's mainly like that because he doesn't want to get close to anyone due to his wife's death. Seeing his daughter again helped show his soft side again.
• Team Dad: For the Earth Team. The especially strict, disciplinarian type.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Maya's death Don changed his personality for the worse. The new Don became a strict and controlling workaholic to distance himself from the pain of his past, including Eva, the daughter he left behind. This resulted in Don's relationship with Rick becoming strained as well. Despite their great success, the two men clashed with each other enough that Don eventually fired Rick from Wei Race in 2081.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After discovering Molly is his daughter, Eva, and getting a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech from her, Don regained some of his old personality prior to Maya's death. He's still a hardass, but a reasonable one. After the Great Race is concluded and they both come to terms with the fact that Maya will never come back, Don takes Eva to live a much happier life together.
• Trauma Conga Line: He's been living an extreme bout of this his whole career. First his wife dies in an accident he blames himself for, to the point he leaves his daughter to "protect" her. Then she resurfaces years later as the pilot risking her life against vicious aliens to save the Earth. He learns this right before she goes on crash course through a canyon that sends her and Jordan to the bottom. By the end of this he's on the verge of a breakdown from horror and guilt.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In her first bout as racer, Molly succeeds, albeit with an unexpected stunt. Don's response is to throw a fit over disobedience and yell at her, to the point where he tries to withdraw from the race and later foolishly tries to put Rick back as pilot. Incidents like this are likely why he has such a hard-edged reputation. His demeanor softens overtime, even if he's still quite strict.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: To put it lightly, the show's whole damn plot hinges on Don being a terrible parent. His abandonment of his daughter led to her worming her way into the Great Race, which in turn led to his champion being permanently injured, which led to her becoming the Earth pilot, refusing the power of the Avatar, and almost allowing an ageless abomination to destroy the entire universe.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: An older example. In his flashbacks to when Maya was alive, Don was a happier man and a Benevolent Boss. Her death transformed him into a Mean Boss and complete hardass.
• Verbal Tic: He makes a point of mentioning every so often that he hates surprises. It becomes incredibly ironic knowing he's in for one ''hell'' of a surprise later down the line.

Rick Thunderbolt

Voiced by: Michael Dobson (English), Jun'ichi Suwabe (Japanese), Alexandre Coadour (French)

A Minor League Racing Champion and one of the best racers on Earth, Rick is chosen to accompany Don Wei as the Earth Team's original pilot. He is seriously injured in the team's first race and replaced by Molly.

---

• The Ace: Rick is a Minor League Racing Champion and one of the best racers on Earth.
• Affectionate Nickname: Refers to Eva as "little mouse".
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: A racer example. Rick is an amazing pilot and knows it.
• Big Brother Mentor: Acts as an older brother figure to Eva/Molly, even giving an Affectionate Nickname. Later on, he would also be her racing mentor.
• The Big Guy: He is the tallest and hunkiest member of Earth Team.
• Broken Ace: After his Career-Ending Injury, Rick quickly falls into a depression, but he still sticks around to teach Molly what he knows.
• Career-Ending Injury: His first race ends with the Whizzing Arrow I exploding mid-flight and crashing. While Rick survives and is back on his feet in a week, severe damage to his nervous system nearly cripples him with pain whenever he becomes stressed. Not even the advanced technology available at the Great Race is able to cure him, which effectively ends his career as a racer and ensures that Molly becomes the Earth Team's pilot full-time.
• Cool Shades: A stylish pair of black shades.
• Foil:
  • To Eva/Molly — He's an experienced Star Racer who was supposed to be the racer for the Earth Team, while Eva is a Rookie Red Ranger who becomes the replacement for Rick. While Eva is a Humble Hero, Rick is quite arrogant and even states "modesty is for losers". He is a famous star racer, while Eva is just a fresh newbie who doesn't even get recognition for winning Ōban.
  • To Maya Wei — Both were racing champions, had a partnership with their manager Don Wei, and a close relationship with Eva/Molly. For the first contrast between the two is personality, relationship with Don, and when they were in Eva/Molly's life — Maya was shown to be a humble Nice Girl who was in a loving marriage with Don, but was unable to see her daughter grow up; Rick is an arrogant Jerk with a Heart of Gold who has a volatile relationship with Don due to the latter's hardass personality, and befriended Eva/Molly when she was a teen. Second, how their racing careers came to an end — Both had different reasons but they are also connected to Canaletto's scheming — Canaletto orchestrated Maya's death to ensure her daughter would refuse the Ultimate Prize in the future while the Big Bad ensured an accident for Rick when the latter got too close to the truth. Thirdly, how Eva/Molly never sees them again — With Maya, she remains dead and the Ultimate Prize couldn't being her back to life; for Rick, he leaves Ōban after teaching Eva/Molly everything he knows.
• Genius Bruiser: Rick's not only well built and an excellent pilot, he's fairly smart and personally investigates the strange events surrounding the Alwas race. He might've cracked the case wide open if Canaletto hadn't caught wind of him.
• Hidden Depths: Rick turns out to be quite perceptive. Case in point, he was able to figure out Eva/Molly was Don's long lost daughter before anyone else (including Don himself). He's also the only person to even come close to discovering Canaletto's existence before the Ōban Cycle, but he's promptly Mind Raped into forgetting what he learned.
• Hunk: There's no denying it. He's very hunky.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rick is arrogant and impulsive for sure, but he has a decent heart, especially around Eva/Molly who becomes a surrogate younger sister.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: After his Career-Ending Injury he spends the entire first half of the series hunting for the truth behind who sabotaged him and might go after Molly now she's replaced him as the Earth pilot. He gets really close to uncovering the truth too, but when he contacts Canaletto, it ends with him getting his memory of the conspiracy he was uncovering erased. He doesn't even recognise the amulet which had been his first real clue. If he'd been more cautious then he might've at least been able to give them some warning about Canaletto before returning to Earth.
• Long Bus Trip: After being Put on a Bus (see section), Rick never makes a reappearance (sans mentions and flashbacks). He doesn't even have a cameo in the series finale.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Long, flowing hair and considered to be quite handsome? Check.
• Meaningful Name: Rick Thunderbolt has red thunderbolt tattoos on his body.
• Mind Rape: When he gets too close to the truth and manages to psychically contact Canaletto Rick is mentally tortured and forced to forget the experience.
• Put on a Bus: Rick heads back to Earth half way through the series as the team is heading on to Ōban, having taught Molly everything he can, never seen again.
• Red Is Heroic: His red thunderbolt tattoos and he serves as a guide for Molly/Eva.
• Sexy Mentor: Quite the hunk and the racing mentor for Eva/Molly.

Koji and Stan

Koji is voiced by: Alessandro Juliani (English), Yoshinori Fujita (Japanese), Vincent Latorre (French)

Stan is voiced by: Dexter Bell (English), Keisuke Fujii (Japanese), Nicolas Mead (French)

The Earth Team's mechanics, and the creators of the three Whizzing Arrows.

---

Tropes that apply to both:

• Heterosexual Life-Partners: They even refer to the Whizzing Arrow III as their "baby".
• Mr. Fixit: They continually repair and redesign the Whizzing Arrow and it’s later incarnations making the racer more efficient with each upgrade.
• Nice Guys: They're one of the most easygoing and polite members of the Earth Team.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Stan is the Red Oni, more prone to speaking out his mind; Koji is the Blue Oni, the one who tries to keep the peace and calm down Stan's more emotional outbursts.
• Shipper on Deck: They both seem keen to let Jordan and Molly have plenty of "alone time."
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Koji is the Sensitive Guy, Stan is the Manly Man.
• The Smart Guys: Koji is the electronics specialist and Stan is hardware specialist.
• Those Two Guys: They are always seen together, mostly working on the Whizzing Arrow.

Tropes that apply to Koji:

• Asian and Nerdy: Koji is Asian (the exact nationality is unknown) and is one of The Smart Guys of Team Earth.
• Eyes Always Shut: Aside from one instance in episode 12, Koji's eyes are never seen open in the entire series.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Koji is one of the mechanics and the only one of the two to wear glasses.

Tropes that apply to Stan:

• Black and Nerdy: Stan is African-American and is one of The Smart Guys of Team Earth.
• Fiery Redhead: Especially when the lives of his friends are in danger.
• No Hero to His Valet: He and Koji are both initially quite excited to be working for Don Wei and are very respectful to the man. But Stan grows increasingly frustrated with Don Wei seemingly only caring about winning over the safety of Molly and Jordan. By the time the team has reached Oban it's bordering on Irrational Hatred as Stan grows more outspoken. Fortunately, it's around this time that Don Wei's Character Development kicks in, regaining some trust.

Prince Aikka

Voiced by: Kirby Morrow (English), Hiroaki Miura (Japanese), Rémi Caillebot (French)

The prince and knight of Nourasia who races on the back of a giant flying beetle named G'dar, which acts as his vehicle.

---

• Betty and Veronica: The Veronica (a Nourasian prince who may or may not be a Friendly Enemy in the depending situation) to Jordan's Betty (Eva/Molly's best friend during Ōban and the gunner for the Earth Team) for Molly's Archie.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The prince despite being peaceful in general is dangerous through his archery skills, swordsmanship, and determination to win.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Downplayed, while he mainly uses his bow, Aikka has a short sword as a sidearm.
• Conflicting Loyalty: He values his friendship with Molly, but his loyalty to his kingdom and his "alliance" with the Crogs keeps getting in the way.
• Cultured Badass: While he’s very focused on his duties as a Warrior Prince, Aikka also professes that he never misses an opportunity to enjoy music.
• Fiery Redhead: Zig-zagged, Aikka is usually in control of his emotions, but sometimes, like when Molly raced against Spirit and he rushed off to save her, he just can’t hold back.
• Friendly Enemy: Though he belongs to a rival team, Aikka developed a deep bond of friendship with Molly.
• Friendly Sniper: Aikka is benevolent and amicable, and one of his magic charged arrows can take out most rivaling racers without a problem.
• Glass Cannon: His 'star-racer' is a living creature which, while gigantic, is still much smaller and more fragile than most other racers. The majority of Akkia's races are won thanks to his magic arrows, which are so powerful that very few star-racers are able to survive a direct hit.
• Honor Before Reason: As a Nourasian Knight, Aikka has a very deep rooted sense of honor. This being his defining trait through the series and his actions.
• Horse of a Different Color: Aikka formed a close bond with his mount, a giant beetle named G'dar.
• Interspecies Romance: Him (a Nourasian) and Eva/Molly (a human). They don't get together much, but remain close friends.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Besides being the Nourasian Prince, Aikka is also a knight.
• Magic Knight: He's a skilled hand to hand fight that also pulls out a few different magic abilities, most frequently powering up his arrows to deal damage to an opposing racer.
• Nice Guy: One of the nicest racers in the contest.
• Older Than They Look: Hinted at in his very first appearance, as when Molly derides him for barely being older than she is, he simply admits that she would be correct if they were referring to "Earth years". invokedThe creators have stated that Nourasians do indeed have longer life expectancies than humans, by dint of aging slower.
• The Spock: To Eva's Kirk and Jordan's McCoy.
• Warrior Prince: Aikka knows some martial arts and can shoot arrows.
• The Wise Prince: He's quite mature for his age.

Satis

Voiced by: Brian Drummond (English), Masashi Hirose (Japanese), Nicolas Mead (French)

A small, eccentric being who proclaims himself to be the Avatar's loyal servant.

---

• Ace Pilot: As "Super Racer", Satis manages to reach the preliminary rounds of the Alwas Cycle. Given that the Avatar is selected through the Great Race, Satis would have been the greatest racer in the galaxy during his mortal lifetime.
• Actually, I Am Him: Introduces himself as the 'servant' of the Avatar, but is in fact the Avatar himself.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: They're so big that they reach his knees!
• Cool Old Guy: Quite the chipper, if eccentric guy.
• Disappears into Light: After Molly refuses to accept the powers of the Avatar, Satis does not have enough strength to keep Canaletto imprisoned and is forced to destroy the Pyramid of Power in the temple to prevent him from stealing the powers. Satis then falls from the temple but is caught by Prince Aikka. With his last breath, Satis tells him what must be done to stop Canaletto from destroying everything. As he dies, his body disappears in a cloud of lights.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His ship Super Shark first appears during "Playful Like Para-dice", where it is featured alongside Flint's Flying Fortress and Rush's Stone Crusher as part of Para-dice's fake arcade game.
• Eccentric Mentor: Whenever Molly needs some encouragement, or when things aren't going her way. Usually he just appears to Molly, but he has appeared to Jordan once for similar reasons.
• Large Ham: As "Super-Racer".
• Miniature Senior Citizens: The shortest and oldest character in the series.
• The Reveal: He's the current Avatar that periodically appears throughout the series. At least, until Jordan succeeds him
• Stealth Hi/Bye: One of his favorite tricks. It's implied he can do it across interplanetary distances! Most likely a benefit of being Avatar.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without bringing up the fact that he's was the current Avatar until Jordan succeeded him.

The Avatar

Voiced by: Paul Dobson (English), Banjo Ginga (Japanese), Mathieu Barbier (French)

An enigmatic, omnipresent, and seemingly omnipotent entity who organizes the Great Race of Ōban every 10,000 years, and grants the winner their wish, or so the competitors were led to believe.

---

• Ace Pilot: Generally, the current Avatar is the one who wins the Great Race every 10,000 years. Canaletto and Satis were examples in their mortal lives, though the former became evil. Jordan is an aversion as he's as abysmal pilot, so he's only the gunman; Eva/Molly as the winner would've become the Avatar, but she refused because it wouldn't bring her mother back to life. Jordan became the Avatar to stop Canaletto from resuming his destruction of the galaxy.
• Big Good: The Avatar is this for the entire galaxy, at least, when a good person is assuming the role; in the case of Canaletto, they become the Big Bad. Notably, the Avatar singlehandedly forced the Crog Imperium to abort its invasion of Earth, and is heavily implied to protect the galaxy from even greater threats.
• Expy: The Avatar turns out to be an sci-fi alien version of the titular Wizard from The Wizard of Oz, as he's actually a short,elderly eccentric who uses illusion to pose as an all-powerful entity. Like the Wizard, the wish he promises isn't accomplished the way the characters initially think, and as in the original story, he has to abandon his kingdom by the end.
• Holy Halo: The symbol of the Avatar floats behind his shoulders at all times, glowing bright yellow to create this effect.
• Large and in Charge: In every appearance, the Avatar is gigantic, though Your Size May Vary - when overseeing the preliminary rounds on Alwas, he's a sixty-foot-tall colossus, but he was clearly much smaller when he appeared before the Earth government's council (which was obviously meeting indoors) and is smaller again during the final rounds on Oban.
• Legacy Character: The Avatar rules for exactly ten-thousand years, before hosting the Great Race of Oban to determine a successor. The winner of the Great Race becomes the new Avatar for the next ten millennia, while the previous Avatar dies. Satis is the current Avatar, while Canaletto was a former Avatar who was defeated and imprisoned when he refused to relinquish his title to his successor. At the end of the series, Jordan Wilde becomes the newest Avatar.
• Lonely at the Top: Being a godlike being with a 10,000 year lifespan and immense magical powers sounds cool at first, but it comes with the price of protecting the galaxy alone until a new Avatar replaces you. Jordan learns this first hand in the finale; though he saves the world by becoming the new Avatar, his duties prevent him from joining the Earth racing team's departure from Oban, so he has to tearfully watch as his friends leave him behind.
• The Man Behind the Curtain: The Avatar is revealed to be none other than the diminutive Satis, when he becomes too weak to maintain the illusion any longer.
• Physical God: A mythical figure whose powers are said to be unlimited. However, Satis reveals to Eva/Molly that one thing the Avatar cannot do is bring back the dead.
• Purple Is Powerful: The Avatar seen in the series dons purple robes, and he's a godlike figure. This is because the purple-wearing Satis is the Avatar.
• Sigil Spam: The Avatar's symbol is found all over Ōban and its technology, and it even floats behind him as a Holy Halo.

Maya Wei

Voiced by: Nicole Oliver (English), Tomoko Kobashi (Japanese), Sarah Bouché de Vitray (French)

Eva's mother and Don's wife, one of the best racers on Earth who lost her life in a race ten years before the start of the series.

---

• Ace Pilot: She was the first woman, the first Earth pilot, to have three Earth Star-Racer cups under her belt.
• Cosmic Motifs: She had a crescent moon tattoo on her cheek.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Her fiery death during her race against Spirit served as one for her husband, who became an abrasive, uncaring hardass to his employees, and her daughter, who's left with a tremendous amount of issues from seeing her die and being abandoned by her father for looking like her.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: While alive, Maya was shown to be a caring and kind mother to Eva.
• Facial Markings: Maya has a moon marking on her left cheek and a stripe on her right cheek.
• Goggles Do Nothing: They just serve to show she's a pilot.
• Happily Married: To Don before her death — they were openly affectionate with one another and all flashbacks shown of the two were happy ones.
• Hot-Blooded: Don commented that Maya could be reckless when in a race.
• I Can't Dance: Explicitly told so to her husband on their date.
• The Lost Lenore: Maya's death had a profound impact on her husband. It caused him to to leave their daughter in a boarding school and never visit. Flashbacks have shown that when she was alive, Don was more happier and politer than he is now.
• Meaningful Name: In Hindi, "Maya" means "illusion". This could count as a subtle Foreshadowing because Eva/Molly's whole reason for racing to bring back her mother. Then, it's discovered that ultimate prize wasn't granting a wish. In short, Eva/Molly's goal was an illusion.
• Missing Mom: To Eva, whose goal is to bring her back and repair her broken family. Though she learns that her mother can't be brought back, she learns to accept it by the end of the series.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her racing uniform doesn't reach her knees and shows off her curves, ans she is very attractive.
• Nice Girl: The flashbacks show her as a kind, selfless woman. In fact, in her last race, Maya denied help from Spirit because she didn't want him to get hurt.
• Older Than They Look: She was 28 when she died, but could have passed being a high schooler.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Eva and Don Wei's lives were changed forever by her death, which led to Don's depression and Eva's subsequent Parental Abandonment. Both of them are motivated to seek the Ultimate Prize as a means of bringing Maya back to life and repairing their broken family. As it turns out, this trope was intentionally invoked by her murderer, Canaletto - the lynchpin of his Gambit Roulette is that Eva would only seek the Ultimate Prize to bring Maya back from the dead, refusing Avatar-hood upon learning it can't be done.
• Posthumous Character: She has been dead for ten years by the time the series begins, Maya is only mentioned, seen in flashbacks, or appears in illusions/dreams.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Maya is the only character with pink hair and was known to be quite kind, as well as being Hot-Blooded.
• Unwitting Pawn: Canaletto's plan to become the Avatar hinged on Maya's death. He had her ship rigged on the day of her race with Spirit just so she would crash right in front of her family, giving Eva/Molly the motivation to bring her back via the Ultimate Prize.

The Timeless One (SPOILER CHARACTER)

Canaletto

Voiced by: Colin Murdock (English)

"I go by many names. I am the Lord of Purity, who tolerates no deviation. I am Canaletto, removed from his rightful throne. I am the Timeless One, waiting to bring the old world to its end!"

A dark, sinister being that was once the Avatar, but he refused to give up the title and so was imprisoned by the Great Beings.

---

• Ace Pilot: Given that the Avatar is selected through a racing tournament, Canaletto was supposedly one of these in his mortal life.
• All for Nothing: Canaletto spent his time as Avatar destroying worlds for his mad vision of "purity" and even longer building a complicated, multi-step eons in the making plan to escape his prison and take power again. During the Great Race events unfold to his advantage, his pawn has unwittingly freed him, and he's ready to get back in business. And how does it end? With one human who he failed to factor in taking the power instead and blowing him to dust, reducing a centuries long plan to absolutely nothing.
• Ancient Evil: He ruled as the previous Avatar, plunging the galaxy into ten-thousand years of darkness and refusing to relinquish the power to a successor when his time was up. Even after Satis defeated him and became the current Avatar, Canaletto somehow survived and remained trapped in the Temple of Ōban for the entirety of Satis' reign, quietly plotting his revenge. This makes Canaletto well over twenty-thousand years old by the time the series starts, and very few people are even aware that he exists.
• And I Must Scream: He was sealed in an underground cage for millenia, although granted he definitely deserved that, and even then he can still exert influence over the outside world and beyond. Unfortunately for everyone, said imprisonment was also a learning experience for the guy and gave him the means to work out his ultimate plan.
• Animal Motifs:
  • He resembles a Corvid, which includes crows and ravens, birds that are associated with death and ill omens. He's the ultimate Big Bad of the series that the protagonists must face, and he's responsible for every single tragedy that happened to Molly/Eva and those related to her, up to her mother's death and Rick's permanent crippling.
  • He also has what look like large, spider-like limbs protruding from his back, and his symbol resembles a spider. Spiders are associated with destiny and seen as weavers of fate, and he is a Manipulative Bastard who singled out one human to use as his pawn, and utterly ruined her life in a mad bid to regain his lost power as a past Avatar. It also shows how he perverts the golden Avatar sigil and what it represents, as spiders are predators - during his stint as an Avatar, he would abuse his power by destroying all forms of life to reduce the universe to a lifeless void, and even after he was sealed, he would prey on certain individuals he thinks are important or detrimental to his plans.
• Animalistic Abomination: A monstrous humanoid avian with giant spider-like protrusions on his back. While he was likely mortal before winning the title of Avatar, at the present he's brimming with unfathomable power and could be called the Devil to Satis' God.
• Asshole Victim: He gets wiped out of existence when Jordan becomes one with the Avatar. Considering he's a manipulative, genocidal, predatory, holier-than-thou cancer on life, it's safe to say no-one will miss him.
• Astral Projection: This is how he communicates outside his cage.
• Badass Boast: When he introduces himself to Rick(also provides his quote)
  "I go by many names. I am the Lord of Purity, who tolerates no deviation. I am Canaletto,removed from his rightful throne. I am the Timeless One,waiting to bring the old world to its end!"
• Badass Long Robe: Wears a long, gray robe with his sigil on front like a priest, and it does nothing to make him less intimidating when he looks down on you. Pretty nifty that the fabric can withstand twenty-thousand years!
• Berserk Button: Don't call him weak or a bad Avatar to his face. Your fate will not be pretty.
• Beware the Superman: For a while he was the guardian of the universe, an all-powerful being dedicated to keeping the galaxy free of strife. He decided the best way to do that was obliterating everything he deemed improper or impure, even if that included entire planets.
• Big Bad: The ultimate antagonist of the series.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: He has large, arachnid-like limbs on his back, and his symbol resembles a spider.
• Big "NO!": In true evil overlord fashion, his last word is this when Jordan leaps into the Pyramid Of Power and he gets wiped out by the thing he spent centuries coveting.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Typical for an extreme sociopath, Canaletto earnestly seems to think he's doing the universe a favor and that Satis is in the wrong for stopping him. Best demonstrated when he privately monologues of how Satis is "the great deceiver" when observing the tensions between the Oban pilots.
• Break Them by Talking: When he encounters Eva in person, Canaletto reveals the full, awful extent of his Gambit Roulette - that Maya Wei's Plot-Triggering Death, Rick Thunderbolt's Career-Ending Injury and Sul's disappearance were all orchestrated by Canaletto so that Eva would be his Unwitting Pawn and win the Great Race, only to refuse the power of the Avatar and leave Satis too weak to prevent Canaletto's escape. The heartbreak and existential horror is enough to drive Eva to her knees.
• The Chessmaster: Canaletto's plans are centuries in the works. The crowning glory was his manipulation of Molly's entire life, all to ensure his return as the avatar.
• Cold Ham: He has quite a flowery vocabulary, yet mostly speaks in a calm, almost gentle tone. When he does lose his temper, it's a sign things are about to get bad. Really bad.
• Creepy Crows: He's a monstrous alien resembling a giant black bird, and "Creepy" doesn't even begin to describe his personality.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His fight with Eva/Molly, Aikka, and Jordan could hardly qualify as a "fight". Aikka was rendered unconscious, Jordan got a broken leg, while Molly was sent into a Heroic BSoD regarding the truth of Canaletto's involvement in her life and hypnotized into submission.
• Dark Is Evil: Wears dark, greyish clothing, has black spider legs protruding from his back, is covered in black fur/feathers, and is hideously evil.
• Death by Irony:
  • Canaletto spent centuries manipulating events so he could get his claws on the power of the Avatar. When he finally does get to the temple of power, said power is what destroys him.
  • For all his time predicting individual actions and confidence that fate is in his favor, Canaletto is ultimately done in by something he failed to predict and didn't consider important: one scrappy young gunner who accompanied his "most trusted pawn".
  • He wants to wipe the universe clean of impurity and flaw, which he set out to do back when he was Avatar. He gets exactly that kind of treatment when Jordan becomes Avatar, restoring all life on Oban and erasing him as an impurity.
• Determinator: He wil let absolutely nothing deter him from his omnicidal vision. Even being imprisoned underground for thousands of years gives him time to hatch a plan while still in a cell.
• Didn't See That Coming: With Aikka unconscious and out of the picture, Canaletto becomes so focused on Eva/Molly that he's completely blindsided by Jordan, who jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar, just as he's this close to regaining his old power.
• The Dreaded: Very few are aware of his existence, but the few who do are quite justifiably terrified of him. If you aren't, like Suul, he'll be happy to rectify that.
• Eldritch Abomination: He's a former Avatar from a species that is presumably long extinct, is capable of observing the flow of time to orchestrate sweeping Gambit Roulettes, and at one point possessed enough power to scour worlds of life and destroy stars. Even in his weakened and imprisoned state, he's still powerful enough to vastly outstrip every mortal character, including Sul.
• Entitled Bastard: On a cosmic scale. Canaletto seriously believes he's owed the title of Avatar, even though he annihilated whole worlds in his twisted vision of "purity" and refused to give up his title when the next race came. It's telling that when Satis lays out how the Avatar can't just do whatever he wants, Canaletto crushes his ribs and throws him aside.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Somewhat ironic for a monster like him, Canaletto is one of the few characters who never berates or undermines Eva for being a girl pilot or a mere human. In fact, he seems to have a great admiration for her resolve and has complete faith in her as his pawn. Compare that to say, Groor, or General Kross.
• Expy: He is an ancient, terrifyingly nihilistic, seemingly invincible entity who ascended to godlike power from mere mortalhood, wears black robes, manipulates fate to his advantage, and frequently tries to tempt lower beings into joining his life-destroying mission. As such he could easily be taken for one of the Godhand, particularly Void. Design wise though he strongly resembles a Skeksis, which is helped that his nemesis Satis is similar looking to a urRu.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. Canaletto does seem to have a genuine soft-spot for Eva, his "most trusted pawn", and may even intend to share his power with her as ruler of the universe, but this doesn't stop him from taking horrific steps to control her life, whether by killing her mother or forcing her through mind-control to activate the Pyramid of Power. His "relationship" can best be compared to a child abusing his pet out of what he thinks is good for her.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He may be The Unfettered, but Canaletto also notes how utterly bullshit the system for choosing the next Avatar is. That said, his own means of achieving his goals are hardly any better.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Horrifically averted. Canaletto is aware of Eva's love for her parents and uses Maya's death to motivate his pawn. He also knows she's a Humble Hero at heart, so she won't be tempted by the power of the Avatar. In fact, he even states that her fiery passion to be like Maya and make her dad proud is what brought her all the way through the trials of the race.
• Evil Counterpart: To Satis, as the Avatar. While the Avatar generally appears as a being made of light with a multi-limbed Holy Halo behind them, Canaletto is the opposite, appearance-wise, and his sigil is a dark perversion of the Avatar's. He also went against the Avatar's purpose as protector of the galaxy by seeking to obliterate everything save for himself.
• Evil Is Bigger: In person, he's almost as large as the average star-racer, though its unknown whether this is because of his nature as an ex-Avatar or if his race is naturally this huge. Compare to the benevolent Avatar Satis, whose true form is a Miniature Senior Citizen only half Molly's height.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: He speaks in a throaty, dry whisper that makes him sound like a cosmic-monster version of the Jigsaw Killer. And considering his personality, it's a fairly apt comparison.
• Evil Virtues: You can't pull off a millenia long plan without some standards to uphold.
  • Patience: He waits as long as it takes to craft his game, even if he has to spend centuries in his cage beforehand.
  • Creativity: Canaletto's plan for Eva is both monstrously immoral and brilliant in how it plays out.
  • Temperance: The Timeless One isn't one to kill wantonly unless he feels significantly threatened. As such he spares Rick Thunderbolt's life after their encounter, seeing as the human posed no real danger to his vision.
  • Equality: Despite his high opinion of himself Canaletto usually doesn't mock or look down on other lifeforms and even admits when some of them show potential.
  • Respect: Outright compliments Sul and Eva when he meets them in person and admits he initially misjudged Sul's abilities. He also shows a degree of pride in Eva as his "most trusted pawn" and credits her fiery determination to beat the Great Race.
  • Determination: Being trapped beneath Oban for thousands of years won't convince him to abandon his vision, in fact all it does is give him all the time in the world to concoct the next phase of his plan.
• Faux Affably Evil: Canaletto's a monster, make no mistake, but he can really act charming and polite when he wants to. Even when laying out how he orchestrated everything to Eva, there's almost no malice in his voice. He sounds like he's at least trying to be comforting and grandfatherly to his life-long pawn, as if he's a proud father congratulating his child.
  Canaletto: Your inner resources never cease to amaze me, but you are destined not to defeat me, Eva.
  Eva: You know my real name.
  Canaletto:I know everything about you, my dear child. For centuries, I wove the threads of time just to find you. You are my creation. My secret weapon. My most trusted pawn.
• Fan of Underdog: There's a whole menagerie of warriors and pilots from various worlds he could potentially manipulate to achieve his endgame, and yet the one the Timeless One banks on the most is a scrappy 15 year old who wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place!
• Feathered Fiend: His head is distinctly corvid in shape and his extra limbs are typically folded like wings behind him, while black feathers are a recurring motif. invokedWord of God confirms that he was originally meant to be even more raven-like in appearance.
• Feather Motif: Being a giant Raven-like monstrosity his collar and "wings" are covered in black feathers. He sheds these in his cage and can use them to open mystic portals to spy on the world outside his prison, which he does by blowing them into the air.
• Foil: To Eva herself, surprisingly. Both had great potential that was marred by tragedy; Eva was the daughter of a famed racer who lost her mother and was abandoned by her father, while Canaletto was the former guardian of the galaxies who went mad with power and became a monster in his pursuit of "purity". Both were left in prison-like environments for years: Eva at the Stern Boarding School, Canaletto for eons in an undeground cage. Just as Eva wasn't supposed to be at the great race and stowed along, Canaletto interferes with the Great Race when no one knew of his existence. Eva later confronts her father for abandoning her all those years, and Canaletto confronts Satis for sealing him away for millenia. By the end, Eva turns down the power of the Avatar while Canaletto covets it, both factors leading to the near destruction of Oban. Additionally Eva has black hair and reddish brown eyes while Canaletto has black feathers and his eyes are glaring red. But while Eva is genuinely selfless and desires to bring back her family, Canaletto is monstrously selfish and his dream would doom literally everyone. At the very end as Jordan becomes the new Avatar, they both scream the same thing for different reasons.
• For Your Own Good: A villainous and truly sickening variation when he admits he killed Eva's mother:
  "She had to go to bring out the best in you."
• From Nobody to Nightmare: His past isn't shown, but given what the "Ultimate Prize" entails, he was once just another mortal alien chosen to race many millennea ago. Now his very presence makes the supposedly most powerful being in the universe "tremble".
• Furry Reminder: He's kept in what looks like a giant hanging birdcage and often sheds feathers like some kind of nightmarish parakeet. In this case it's not played for laughs, especially if you find certain birds unnerving.
• Gambit Roulette: Eva's entire life turns out to be the product of one - Canaletto caused Maya's death, and set off the bombs that would remove Rick from the race in order to make sure that Eva would be the Earth Team's main pilot; somehow knowing that she would refuse the role of Avatar when she won, and leave Satis too weak to stop him from escaping the temple. Justified, given that he can see the future.
• Genius Bruiser: He's a god-like alien with a millenia worth of magical knowledge and proves to be a skilled, pragmatic manipulator.
• Hated by All: As the Avatar, Canaletto was such a monstrous, tyrannical force that his sigil was regarded with terror throughout the galaxy, and he was sealed away by his superiors for the next millenia. In the present day, only the most deluded and fanatical are loyal to him, as shown by the Mad Scrub. Of course, he couldn't care less and still believes his rule was just and fair.
• Hero Killer: He callously kills Maya Wei, Sul, Satis, and O, the former two while imprisoned. That's not even counting that he's responsible for permanently injuring Rick Thunderbolt and only spared him later on because he felt the human wasn't worth the effort.
• Hidden Depths: For a being who wants to obliterate humanity for his vain vision, Canaletto seems to have taken a bit of a liking to Eva. In contrast to how he called Rick a "pathetic pawn in a game you don't understand" he tells the girl that despite his manipulation, it was her own will that brought her to Oban at all and tries to comfort her as he prepares to take the avatar's power. This could say he doesn't look down on lesser lifeforms as much as you'd think.
• Hypocrite:
  • He calls Satis "the great deceiver" for stringing along the racers with the ultimate prize. Because of course you're not manipulative like him, right, Canaletto?
  • Canaletto claims Satis had no right to imprison him all those eons, when he was obliterating planets and more or less did the same thing to Sul a few episodes earlier.
  • As he's hypnotizing a traumatized Eva, he tells her to forget the past so they can move onto a new beginning. This coming from a guy who refuses to accept he's not the right Avatar and won't accept a new one, as well as one who wants to return to ruling the galaxy from thousands of years in the past.
• I Have Many Names: Says the line. Canaletto, the Lord of Purity and the Timeless One are mentioned.
• It's All About Me: Canaletto, did you ever stop to wonder why nobody actually thinks your idea of purity is a good one?
• Jerkass Gods: He was once the equivalent of a god in this universe, is almost as powerful as one in the present day, and as the rest of this page shows, he's not a very nice guy.
• Karmic Death:
  • After spending countless millennia obliterating worlds and people for being a "weakness" the Great Beings created, he himself is killed for good when Jordan jumps onto the Pyramid of Power and becomes the new Avatar, unleashing a World-Healing Wave that heals the lifeless Oban and obliterates Canaletto.
  • He revolved his plans solely on Molly/Eva, and would manipulate - and kill - whoever was connected to her however he pleased if he thinks they'll advance or halt his plans. He ends up being killed when Jordan, someone close to Molly/Eva, completely blindsides him by sacrificing himself to become the new Avatar, saving his friends and undoing everything Canaletto had worked so hard for.
• Knight of Cerebus: The reveal of his existence gradually darkens the plot.
• Knight Templar: Canaletto is so disappointed with the apparent imperfection of life that he believes the only true way to achieve universal peace is wiping it all out and replacing it with a World of Silence. And he's willing to go to some seriously depraved lengths to achieve this dream.
• Leaking Can of Evil: He's been trapped in the Temple of Ōban for several millennia, but he's still able to reach out to communicate with the Mad Scrub and manipulate Eva's life.
• Manipulative Bastard: Orchestrated a massive Gambit Roulette to take back the power of the Avatar, by essentially manipulating most of Eva's life from the shadows to use her as an Unwitting Pawn during the Great Race.
• Mind Rape: Tortures Rick Thunderbolt when the human manages to psychically contact him, causing Rick to forget the encounter and everything he learned previously.
• Misanthrope Supreme: This creature's hatred for life is limitless. He outright states creation itself was a mistake.
• Misery Builds Character: Invoked. He tells Eva that her mother had to die to bring out the best in her, which in a roundabout way ultimately did. He seems to follow this philosophy himself, as he tells Satis that millenia imprisoned underground gave him plenty of time to think and refine his strategies to free himself and resume his quest.
• Mysterious Past: While it's known he was a past Avatar, nothing is revealed how that came to be, nor just who he was before he went down a path of devastation and nihilistic madness.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: He wants to carry out a crusade of "purity" throughout the galaxy by wiping out whole civilizations and planets. His sigil is also apparently branded by his surviving followers(although we only see one) much like real-life neo-nazis. By the time of the series, his definition of "impurity" extends to all life in the universe.
• Near-Villain Victory: By the endgame, Canaletto is free, Satis is dead, the protagonists are scattered, Eva has been hypnotized into helping him activate the Pyramid of Power, and even the Great Beings are only able to annoy and distract him. If Jordan hadn't thrown himself into the Pyramid and became the new Avatar, Canaletto would have won and continued obliterating every living thing in the universe.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Besides being responsible for the whole plot of the show, his vanquishing of Sul could count. Had Sul stayed in the race, there's a chance he would've won the final round and become Avatar, in turn dooming Earth to Crog subjugation. This sets up a chain of events that transforms Jordan into the Avatar, saving humanity. Thanks, Canaletto!
• No-Sell: Just about everyone who faces this guy is in for a surprise. Sul tries to banish him and Canaletto just pops back up to turn the tables. Satis makes a desperate attack with the last of his Avatar power and gets tossed aside like a fly. Eva, Jordan, and Aikka face him together, and it's telling that Canaletto was going easy on them.
  (After Satis grazes him) Clever, but unwise.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Canaletto claims that he's undoing a flawed universe and building a better one. While he may genuinely believe this, his extreme cruelty, Lack of Empathy, and monstrous ego betrays him as a genocidal fanatic who is destroying worlds for his own selfish whims.
• Off Stage Villainy: Hinted that his time as the Avatar had him doing a LOT of this, given his attitude to what he sees as "impure" and his talk of the punishments he wrecked on the galaxy. Notably, a brief flashback shows him looming threateningly over defenseless worlds, and causing stars to detonate.
• Outside-Context Problem: As a towering, unfathomably powerful cosmic horror who only makes his presence known late in the game, has a plan that involves the entire outcome, and is introduced to the race wiping out the most powerful character, Canaletto definitely falls under this for anyone expecting a straightforward finish-line goal.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He aims to wipe the galaxy clean of life to remove any "impurities", and then start it over in his own image. He sees life as a mistake the Great Beings made, and wishes to make everything barren save for himself.
• Orcus on His Throne: A slight instance, since he isn't introduced until much later and is stuck in his cell for most of the show. Justified however, since he already made his grand move years ago and is just kicking back to watch things play out.
• The Perfectionist: Played for horror. Canaletto lives by the belief that imperfection must be purged to create a perfect world, and he doesn't care if he has to wipe out everything to do it.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Satis dreads what would happen if he got out of his cage, and his fears are justified when Canaletto turns the entire planet into a desert. Keep in mind, this isn't even him at his most powerful, which is why it is very important that he not become Avatar again.
• Pet the Dog:
  • A very small one, but when Rick Thunderbolt got too close to discovering him, Canaletto opted to simply wipe his memories rather than outright killing him, something he had no problem doing to his poor minion. It's possible he was well aware of how close Eva was to Rick.
  • He later comes face to beak with Eva herself and actually admits he's impressed by her resourcefulness and praises her fiery spirit, which is something considering his usual arrogant attitude. Of course, this doesn't serve to redeem him at all as he's still using her to achieve his nightmarish ascension to ultimate power.
• Physical God: Canaletto retains a lot of raw power from his time as Avatar. Even caged lightyears away, the dude's a one bird Worf Effect for anyone who enters his presence.
• Politically Correct Villain: Ironically despite being possibly the most monstrously evil character in the series, Canaletto is also one of the few who isn't shown to be xenophobic or sexist. In fact his whole plan hinges on helping the little human girl win. Then again he wants to obliterate all life in existence, so factors like race and gender must seem comparatively petty to him.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Even with his omnicidal endgame, Canaletto would rather bargain with or drive away obstacles to his plan rather than kill them. When Rick finds out he was behind the loss of his racing ability, Canaletto wipes his memory and lets him live. He later offers a deal to Sul when the latter is winning the Oban race. Turn down his offer, however, and the gloves come off.
• Pure Is Not Good: Calls himself the "Lord Of Purity", wants to purify the universe, and is "pure" of any and all redeeming qualities.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Invoked by Canaletto himself, upon revealing that he was the one who set up Maya's fatal accident against Spirit.
  Canaletto: The loss of your mother, and the desertion of your father, created a perfect alchemy; a blazing pain within you. Once in place, I simply waited for this flame to reach Ōban, and set the entire galaxy ablaze.
  Eva: My mother... it was you. You made her crash. You made her crash, didn't you?
  Canaletto: She had to go, to bring out the best in you.
• Pride: Sees himself as the only one fit to be the Avatar, and upon his release reveals that he has come to consider the work of the Great Beings to be "flawed"; thus necessitating the universe's destruction and recreation In Their Own Image.
• Psychopathic Manchild: For someone as long-lived, intelligent, and grandiose as him, Canaletto also shows himself to be ironically immature and will throw a tantrum if things aren't working out the way he wants. When Satis(who is ironically most likely younger than him) tells him off for his entitlement, Canaletto's response is to brutally attack him while declaring he does whatever he pleases. It happens again when the Great Beings deny him access to the Pyramid Of Power. He yells that they have to do what he wants because he's owed the power of Oban.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Given he was formerly the guardian of the universe, he's still nonetheless a force of sheer power against anyone foolish enough to challenge him. Sul finds this out the hard way when he turns down Canaletto's offer for partnership.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His coloring is predominantly near-monochrome grey and black, but his eyes, symbol and powers are all colored bright, glowing red.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Bright, staring red eyes, resembling those of a bird.
• Sadist: Surprisingly downplayed, as he's normally pragmatic and most of his monstrous deeds are done in service to his plan, but Canaletto's sadistic side emerges when he's especially ticked off. He toys with Sul and creepily chuckles before banishing him to god knows where after letting him think he won. When confronting Satis, he gives him a brutal, drawn out beating rather than finishing him off quickly.
• Satanic Archetype: He's an ancient being who was once associated with the equivalent of God and was cast below the planet for rebelling against his holy mission. From there he manipulates countless events and people to work toward freeing himself, occasionally tries to bargain with beings he can't control, and is committed to destroying everything the "gods" created.
• Shadow Archetype: Canaletto's ambitions rather loosely mirror Don Wei's character arc to the worst extremes. Both are in positions of great importance who have suffered loss-Don lost Maya, while Canaletto lost his whole species. Don Wei hides his grief to move on with his career and treats those around him terribly, while Canaletto hardens his heart to such an extent he's willing to wipe out entire worlds in order to create his pure and perfect galaxy. Both are also figures in Eva's life who have caused her great pain, both with Don's abandonment and Canaletto's murder of her mother. Don Wei desires Eva's forgiveness for his actions, while Canaletto's "affection" for her is twisted and he wants her to join him in creating his perfect world. Don's character development ends in him taking responsibility for his actions, accepting that he can't undo the past, and regaining his daughter's love, while Canaletto refuses to let go of his twisted ideals and dies pathetically, a thousand years of effort amounting to absolutely nothing.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: A totally unsympathetic example, but still particularly extreme. Canaletto spent his time as Avatar destroying worlds for his mad vision of perfection, before being locked away and forgotten beneath Oban's surface for the next millenia. He then spent years perfecting a plan to place one human girl in a position where she could free him, even if that meant killing her mother and ruining her father and mentor's lives. Eventually, he's finally free and ready to take back the Avatar's power....only to be swiftly destroyed when the girl's friend took it instead, and his vision of purity is lost forever. All his thousand year plan accomplished was making someone else Avatar. No Villainous Legacy, no change to the system, no nothing.
• Sigil Spam: Canaletto's emblem - an angular, upside-down Avatar symbol that resembles a spider - is found wherever his influence is felt. In particular, he has it painted in bright red on his beak, and the Mad Scrub painted the symbol on his own body and all over his home.
• So Proud of You: He seems to be genuinely impressed by Eva's tenacity and resourcefulness, which he compliments when they meet face to face. And coming from him, that's not something to be proud of. At all.
• The Sociopath: He shows no remorse whatsoever for killing Maya, permanently ruining Rick's racing career, or dragging Sul to his doom as part of his goal. He even shows no mercy to the Mad Scrub, the last of his faithful servants.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: In the Swedish dub, he speaks in a very gentle, yet hollow and emotionless tone, and almost never raises his voice. The sadist part should need no explanation.
• Spikes of Villainy: Has a large crest of bony spikes on the back of his shoulders, evoking the image of a High Collar of Doom.
• Straw Nihilist: Canaletto is misanthropic on a cosmic scale, to the point where he sees all life as flawed, and deserving to be wiped out and restarted.
• Time Abyss: He was one of the previous Avatars, and the Avatars rule for exactly ten-thousand years. Even after losing the bulk of his powers, he managed to survive long enough to live through the entirety of Satis' rule, which means that Canaletto is at least twenty-thousand years old by the events of the series.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He flat out murders the Mad Scrub, who was likely the last person alive who still worshipped him and did a lot of the things he couldn't while he was in his cage. But it's not like you'd expect humility from an egotistical monster like Canaletto.
• The Unfettered: He wants to create a pure universe. A few billion lives have to go? Small price to pay.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: One of the most extreme examples out there. Canaletto wants to create a flawless world without suffering, and the means in his case include killing several people in a years long gambit to get out of his cage and wiping out the old universe to make room for a new one.
• Vile Vulture: While also resembling a Raven, his featherless head and fluffy black plume bring to mind a particularly nasty vulture.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • He calls Satis "The Great Deceiver" as he watches the Oban cycle racers in their battle for the "Ultimate Prize." It comes off quite hypocritical coming from him, but the system that selects the next Avatar is indeed flawed and this suggests he was similarly strung along in his life as a racer.
  • He also proclaims that Satis and the Creators have allowed the universe to become too flawed and chaotic. Given what we see of relationships between other species, he's not entirely wrong, even if his means of correcting this are totally amoral.
• Villains Never Lie: He's a master manipulator, but Canaletto never directly lies and makes grand speeches about his intention, notably using the Awful Truth of his master plan to break Eva's spirit. He also earlier lambasts Satis as "the Great Deceiver" for lying to the Oban finalists about the Ultimate Prize.
• Villain Respect: Whether it's genuine is debatable, but he does admit that he's amazed by Eva's resourcefulness against such insurmountable odds.
• Walking Spoiler: You can't really talk about Canaletto without spoiling his role as the Big Bad, his significance to the history of the Avatars, or his role in Eva's life.
• Walking Wasteland: Canaletto's very presence is enough to corrupt the Temple of Ōban and cause it to plummet from the sky. Canatello then transforms the entirety of Ōban into a lifeless desert.
• We Can Rule Together:
  • He first makes this offer to Sul, when it becomes clear that he completely outmatches all the other competitors. When he refuses, Canaletto pulls him into an alternate dimension to remove him from the tournament outright.
  • He then offers a more twisted variant of this to Eva, while using hypnosis and a breaking speech to erode her willpower; though it's unknown whether he actually wanted Eva to be his servant or merely needed her to activate the Pyramid of Power for him.
• World of Silence: His ultimate goal, if his words to Eva are anything to go by.
  Canaletto: Together we will tear down this flawed world and build a new one. Full of purity. A world without pain. A changeless world of perfect and eternal...stillness.
• Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Anytime Canaletto talks of his plans, expect him to sugarcoat it. Obliterating whole planets? He's offering fair judgement and eliminating impurity. Wiping out everything that lives? He's just tearing the old world to build a better, more beautiful one!
• Would Hit a Girl: Canaletto caused the accident that led to Maya's death.
• Would Hurt a Child: If "would murder their mother in front of them to groom them into being his pawn" counts, then he definitely does qualify. Oh, and did we forget to mention he's killed entire worlds and that his plan would definitely not spare any children?

Great Race Contestants

Oban Contestants in general

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Great Race of Oban is framed like an Earthly sporting event, but competition is far fiercer and the prize is potentially godlike power.
• Ace Pilot: You'd have to be one to get very far at all in the great race, although not all of them need a ship to fly.
• Aliens Are Bastards: Played with. While many of the racers are quite ruthless and have a low opinion on other species, a fair number of them are quite friendly and personable, and some have selfless reasons for being there. That said, this is played straight with the Crogs and Canaletto.
• All for Nothing: By the end, no one involved in the race gets what they fought for. The "Ultimate Prize" cannot revive the dead as Eva and Muir hoped, and even Canaletto, who manipulated events for thousands of years, has victory ripped away when Jordan becomes Avatar.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Most of them pride themselves on their otherworldly skills and have no shame in flaunting it.
• Badass Normal: The few racers who don't have enhanced attributes or strange powers are no less qualified to be there.
• Cool Ship: All of them, ranging from Lord Furter's space-galleon to Para-Dice's Video Ball to Ceres' magnetic craft.
• Determinator: When you're competing for a wish from the most powerful being alive you need grit.
• Hero of Another Story: Every racer both past and present has their own reason for coveting the Avatar's power, even the background ones with no names. For guys like Canaletto and Kross, though, it's quite the opposite.
• It's All About Me: With a few exceptions like Rush and Aikka, not many really care about playing fair or have much consideration for what's at stake for their opponents. Para-Dice and Sul are in it for thrills, Toros, Kross, Furter and Canaletto crave power above everything, Marcel and Flint are glory hounds, Ondai just wants to experience feelings, and Ning, Skun, Ceres, Spirit, and Groor will brutally assault their opponents to gain an edge. Even Eva/Molly cares more about bringing back her mother than really saving Earth from an imminent invasion, and nearly drops out when she finds the Avatar can't make that happen. But she ultimately pulls through and realizes keeping the Avatar's gift from the wrong hands is more important.
• Puny Earthlings: In full force here. Several like Sul and Canaletto have near-godlike power, others like Toros and Rush have near-superhuman strength, and non-humanoids like O, Spirit and Muir just have Bizarre Alien Biology on their side. The only ones who don't outclass humans are Furter and his crew, as well as Marcel and Flint.
• Smug Super: Many of the racers have superior abilities to humans and make it clear to the Earth team how low they think of them.
• Starfish Aliens: The designs for Oban's alien-life are often outright eldritch and barely humanoid, particularly with Ceres, Muir, O, and Spirit. And that's not even counting the hundreds of background aliens.
• Weak, but Skilled: The smaller racers, like Eva, Aikka,Para-Dice, and Furter make up for their size by being good navigators and pilots, as well as agile and nimble.
• Would Hurt a Child: While it's forbidden to kill your opponents, the adult racers have no qualms about injuring the younger pilots in a match, and in some cases flat out murdering them to reduce the competition.

Alwas Cycle Racers

Colonel Toros

Voiced by: Paul Dobson (English), Banjo Ginga (Japanese), Mathieu Barbier (French)

"Are you finished playing, humans? It's been amusing watching you struggle with your pathetic ship. But now I'm bored."

Colonel of the Crog Imperium and younger brother of the Crog leader. The Crogs are the sinister alien race that threatened to destroy Earth 25 years ago. He is determined to obtain the Ultimate Prize in order to enslave the entire galaxy under Crog rule.

---

• Dark Is Evil: Huge dark-skinned alien that pilots an evil-looking starfighter.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The crogs in general have deep voices, and he's no exception.
• Faux Affably Evil: Despite Aikka being strongarmed into conspiring with the Crogs, he talks to the prince with paternalistic concern and friendliness. Aikka of course isn't fooled one bit.
• Hate Sink: Much like Groor and his own successor General Kross, Toros' whole characterization is being an insufferably smug, xenophobic brute who thinks he's way cooler than he actually is. He demonstrates just why it'd be a very, very bad thing if the Krogs won. Furthermore, he has the gall to taunt Rush about the damage the Krogs did to his planet, just to give himself an advantage.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In his first race against Eva, he lets her get ahead of him with the Arrow II's hyperdrive, but then reveals he was just toying with her and uses a hyperdrive of his own to overtake the Arrow effortlessly and bisect it.
• Jerkass: Frequently does this, most notably when he taunts Rush about having led the Crog invasion of his planet to lure him out his racer when losing the race to him.
• Knight of Cerebus: He hands Eva her first defeat, and destroys the Whizzing Arrow II in the process.
• Oh, Crap!: Has in his second race against Eva when both of them are going at hyperdrive speed straight towards the wall near the finish line, calling her crazy for a plan that would kill both of them. He blinks first and slows down, allowing Eva to win.
• Sore Loser: After his loss to the Earth Team, Toros orders Aikka to lose against Spirit, in order to push out the Earth Team from the race altogether, so as to teach others not to cross the Crogs. It doesn’t go according to plan.
• Spikes of Villainy: The second trident fighter he used after Rush damaged the first one displayed these.
• Uncertain Doom: He's replaced by Kross in the Oban cycle and is mentioned as having "lost his head" but the circumstances are unclear and it's never confirmed if he truly did die.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The first race with Toros serves to demonstrate that the pilots of the Alwas Cycle playoffs are a league above the Monster of the Week antagonists faced previously. It takes a Mid-Season Upgrade to even the odds in time for a rematch.
• War Hero: Implied that he is this to his people, based on Toros’ high standing in the Crog military as well as that fact that he led the conquest and devastation of Byrus. To everybody else, he's an absolute bullying jerkass.
• You Have Failed Me: Implied to be his fate after he's replaced in the competition by Kross.

Spirit

Ambassador of the Fills; a mysterious, polymorphic, shadowy being. Ten years earlier he raced against Molly’s mother, Maya. Near the end of the race Maya’s ship crashed and exploded. Molly and her father since that day have believed that Spirit had intentionally killed Maya.

---

• Beware the Quiet Ones: Never makes a sound and would be a truly lethal force if he wasn't as honorable. Molly finds this out when she attacks him and Spirit sends her racer crashing.
• Dark Is Not Evil: An all-black figure who happens to be a good person. Once Spirit reveals Molly the truth of what happened to her mother, she feels very bad for misjudging him.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his dark, creepy appearance and general lack of speech, there's a lot that can be said about Spirit just through his actions; he's a very noble racer with a lot of honor, and in the race where contestants can fight each other, he can be brutal, but would only fight back when he's being continuously attacked first, implying that he cares more about winning races through sheer speed rather than taking out his opponents. And last, from what was shown in his exchange of memories with Molly, he was trying help her mother whose star-racer was breaking down, yet she told him to go on ahead; his Single Tear hints that he respects Molly's mother as a racer and feels remorse for being unable to save her.
• Lightning Bruiser: Spirit's ship form moves with scary speed and his wings are razor sharp, as demonstrated when he cuts G'dar's legs to disable Aikka.
• Living Ship: He's not in the ship. He is the ship.
• Mistaken for Murderer: He was thought to be the reason behind Maya Wei's death. Spirit was completely innocent and seems to feel remorse for being unable to save her.
• Nice Guy: He may be aggressive in a race, but he's ultimately a good guy.
• Shout-Out:
  • He's an all-black amorphous being with a white noh-style "mask" who turns out to be a good person despite his creepy appearance. It's very likely he's one to No-Face.
  • Spirit also bares a slight resemblance to Sachiel the First Angel.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: He wears a grey waistcoat off the track. He removes it before expanding his body into racer mode.
• Single Tear: After he shows Molly how her mother really died through his eyes.
• The Speechless: He never utters a word.
• Starfish Alien: He is his own racing vehicle, resembling a large black-winged creature.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Spirit can unfurl his body into a massive glider like shape that he uses for flight.
• White Mask of Doom: Subverted. Spirit isn't a bad guy, and it could be that eerie white "mask" is actually his face.

Rush

Voiced by: Richard Newman (English), Kenji Nomura (Japanese)

A giant, Viking-like racer from the planet Byrus who, despite his intimidating appearance, is a very friendly, good natured person.

---

• Acrofatic: Rush has the heaviest build of any racer, but he's both strong enough to wield his giant axe and fast enough to run alongside the surface of his ship to personally attack Toros.
• Badass Normal: Rush is one of the closest racers to human in terms of physiology, as he doesn't have any special abilities to give him the edge. He's simply very big, very strong, and good with a pickaxe.
• The Big Guy: An utter giant of a man, both in size and personality. This is a trait also reflected in his star-racer, the thing is so enormous that should he get in the lead it will be next to impossible to overtake him as its size makes it incredibly difficult to squeeze past on the narrow courses.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's a Viking-like racer, so of course he's loud and boisterous.
• Chainsaw Good: His Star racer has a laser chainsaw.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His first appearance was in "Hostilities Break Out" when Molly nearly gets run over by his star-racer on her way to get fuel. Stone Crusher also appears in Para-dice's fake arcade game during "Playful Like Para-dice".
• Gentle Giant: Despite his intimidating appearance, is a very friendly, good natured person.
• Graceful Loser: While at first it seemed he was mad at losing against Team Earth like Grooor, in reality he only wanted to congratulate Eva/Molly and Jordan for managing to defeat him.
• Humanoid Alien: From a distance it'd be easy to mistake him for a very big bearded man, but up close he resembles a cross between a man, a mammoth and a walrus.
• Nice Guy: Rush is friendly and good-natured, as he believes in winning races fair, without underhanded tactics.
• Revenge Before Reason: Despite being in the lead in his race against Toros with his racer being unaffected by the Crog Tridents weapons he ends up giving it all up in a fit of blind rage to try and kill Toros after he revealed that he was the one who lead the conquest of Rush's home planet.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Flies into an Unstoppable Rage when Toros not only taunts him with the conquest and spoiling of his planet by the Crog Imperium, but Toros confirms he led the invasion.

Flint

Voiced by: Michael Dobson (English), Hitoshi Horikawa (Japanese), Laurent Maurel (French)

A Scrub pilot from Alwas, one of the three planets that host the Great Race's preliminary matches. Somewhat arrogant and not quite as good as he seems; the judges fix the races for him, since he's the home-town favorite. He and his gunner, Marcel, pilot the Flying Fortress; a green star-racer that resembles a steam-powered train or tugboat.

---

• Fake Ultimate Hero: His races are rigged in his favor.
• Fatal Flaw: Flint's own cockiness brings about the destruction of his star-racer and humiliates him in front of all his fans.
• A Hero to His Hometown: Going along with Fake Ultimate Hero.
• It's All About Me: Why he (and Marcel) help Stan and Koji in "The Will to Win". Flint reasons that if he can help the Earth Team reach Ōban, then he will have lost to the best team in the galaxy and that this would "restore" him in the eyes of his fans.
• Spanner in the Works: Flint is the beloved hero of his home planet of Alwas, he's also dangerously overconfident and reckless. The Alwas judges have been slyly rigging his races intending to help him breeze through the early stages of the competition to increase their chances of obtaining the ultimate prize to rebuild the Alwas Empire... only for Flint to willingly run headfirst into the traps they'd set up for his opponents just to prove he really is as good as he thinks he is.

Grooor

Voiced by: Brian Dobson (English), Jin Horikawa (Japanese), Omar Yami (French)

"I could squash you like an insect. But that would be ''an insult'' to all the insects of the galaxy!"

A biomechanical racer who, along with his ship, seems to run on steam power.

---

• Ambiguous Robots: He appears to be some kind of steam-powered automaton who plugs his cable like arms to pilot his vehicle. However he doesn't act any different from a living creature, meaning he's either a cyborg of some kind or it's just a suit that helps him adapt to different climates.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Grooor is a very aggressive and dangerous racer given to Evil Gloating when he thinks he's going to win.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: A villainous example. While he establishes his threat level by defeating Rick Thunderbolt, his own star-racer is heavily damaged by the destruction of the Arrow I, and in the rematch Eva and Jordan are able to exploit Grooor's patchwork repair job to destroy his racer and win by default.
• The Brute: Short-tempered,violent, cruel, prime strategy amounts to "hit it fast and hard", yeah Groor fits the bill.
• Flat Character: Compared to the other racers, Groor has no motivation or personality traits beyond being an arrogant brute who hates losing, which could apply to just about anyone. Then again, he is just a Starter Villain.
• Hate Sink: Grooor spends every second of his short screentime being an insufferable, petulant bully, and has no cool backstory or charisma that makes him even fun to watch. Therefore, it's unlikely anyone would give a rat's ass about him disappearing from the story after Aikka beats him up.
• Hero Killer: The damage he deals to the Whizzing Arrow I in his first race is what leads to Rick's Career-Ending Injury. Subverted later, as the damage was actually the result of the Mad Scrub's sabotage.
• Jerkass: One of the biggest in the whole show, and the rest of this entry should fill in why.
• Lack of Empathy: Groor's response to seeing his opponent crash and be seriously injured? Mock and threaten his replacement pilot. Have we mentioned this guy's a prick?
• Large Ham: He has an odd tendency to speak in the third person and shout his own name in battle.
• Mighty Glacier: His racer, the Apocalypse, is slow but very tough, described as being armored in "polarized titanium". Thanks to this, Grooor's primary tactic to physically batter his opponents into submission, hammering them against the course and shrugging off obstacles.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His racer is named Apocalypse.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He taunts his opponents like a schoolyard bully and throws a fit when they beat him fair and square, to the point of resorting to assault.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His bright red eye lenses are a pretty big cue that he's not gonna be a good sport.
• Say My Name: In the English dub at least, he has a habit of shouting his own name in a Kiai-esque fashion when angry or moving in to strike.
• Sore Loser: Unsurprisingly, given his general attitude. After he is defeated, he confronts Eva in a bar and attacks her, raging over his defeat in the rematch.
• Starter Villain: The first racer the Earth Team competes against.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's a powerhouse for sure, and pilots a heavily armored ship that can pummel the competition to scrap. However that's pretty much his only gimmick as he relies on brute force over strategy. When the much more skilled Aikka goes against him for attacking Eva, Groor is forced to back off.
• Would Hurt a Child: Attacks Eva in a bar after losing the rematch, ostensibly with the intention of killing her for it, and is only stopped once Prince Aikka intervenes.

Ceres

Voiced by: Kirby Morrow (English), Takeshi Maruyama (Japanese)

"How can you imagine even for a second that you are worthy of the Oban prize? Humans,Krogs,Nourasians;all the same. A few thousand years of existence and you think that you are actually important."

The last surviving member of the Mong, a very ancient race. He resembles a hieroglyphic carving come to life, and his ship is a bizarre tangle of pipes that apparently functions via an unknown form of planetary magnetism.

---

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He constantly hurls verbal abuse at his opponents and likes to reiterate his superiority by playing his flute to make them enter a dream-state and probably crash.
• Beneath the Mask: He shows himself extremely proud to be the last surviving member of one of the oldest races in the universe. The art book establishes that this is mostly a front and he's actually bitter about being so alone.
• Everyone Has Standards: Egotistical as he is, Ceres seems to detest warmongering, as shown by his speech about humanity, the Crogs, and the Nourasians, who are most actively involved in a galactic civil war.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He taunts Eva by stating that humans, Krogs, and Nourasians think themselves too high and mighty in their squabbles for power. Given what the Crogs are like, as well as what we learn of Earth's government later, he's not entirely wrong.
• Last of His Kind: Ceres is the last surviving member of the Mong people, a very ancient race.
• Magical Flutist: His flute can put people in a trance-like state and somehow projects a vision of the Mong homeworld into their minds.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Seemingly an inherent power of his, best demonstrated when catches and redirects the Whizzing Arrow's bullets right back at it.
• Musical Assassin: He uses a magical flute to cause Molly to fall asleep and nearly crash the ship. It turns out that all of his powers rely upon the harmonic music, however, as the discordant sound of Molly's rock-and-roll CD actually causes him to freak out and lose control of his star-racer.

Para-dice

Voiced by: Jocelyn Loewen (English), Yuri Shiratori (Japanese), Johanna Menuteau (French)

"Welcome, humans! I'm Para-Dice, and you're not!"

A cat-like, 12-year old hacker prodigy. She controls her ship via a dynamic footpad, which resembles a Dance Dance Revolution platform. She sees the Great Race as nothing more than a game.

---

• Badass Adorable: A cute, cat-like alien who loves to play games, and definitely is no slouch in a race.
• Cat Girl: She hat cat-like features that symbolize her sneakiness.
• Cats Are Mean: She's certainly a sneaky cat.
• Child Prodigy: Coming from a race with an extremely high IQ, Para-Dice is a small budding prodigy who designed and assembled her star-racer by herself.
• Face Ship: Her ship, TV Ball^note Para-racer in the English DVD extras, is built to resemble her own head (albeit spherical instead of cuboid), and is fitted with a large pixel monitor that mimics Para-dice's expressions.
• Foil: Much like Eva, she's an energetic and gifted young girl who proves a formidable racer. Unlike Eva, she takes it way less seriously and is mainly in it for the thrill of competition.
• Furry Reminder: She likes to frequently cry out "Meow!", usually as she leaps to and fro, as if you couldn't tell she's supposed to be an alien cat.
• Gamer Chick: Much of her tech is themed around gaming, which would make her the space farer equivalent of this. She even pilots her ship with a dance pad!
• Genki Girl: Even in race, she's full of energy.
• Green and Mean: Her main outfit is colored green and she's a sneaky jerk.
• More Dakka: Her ship is armed to the teeth, possessing gattling guns and a set of missile launchers.
• Playful Hacker: Through trickery and computer hacking, Para-Dice managed to sabotage the Whizzing Arrow II before her race against the Earth Team, damaging the ship's left engine
• Punny Name: "Para-Dice" can mean both "paradise" or "pair of dice" both of which line up perfectly with the character of a fun loving gamer.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Para-Dice is only around for one episode but it's her who informs Eva (along with Don Wei) of the mysterious Ultimate Prize. From then on, Eva gains a new motivation for winning the Great Race: bringing back her mother with the Ultimate Prize's power.

Ōban Cycle Racers

Sul

Voiced by: Brian Dobson (English); Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese)

A 'magician' known across the galaxy with telekinetic super-powers that are rumored to equal those of the Avatar himself. Sul shows little emotion and rarely reacts to the other pilots unless attacked. He does not actually use a star-racer during the competition, instead he surrounds himself with glowing, diamond-shaped energy fields conjured and controlled by his mind.

---

• And I Must Scream: Canaletto sends Sul to another dimension to eliminate him from the Great Race, and his fate after that is unknown.
• The Archmage: Sul is a 'magician' known across the galaxy with telekinetic super-powers that are rumored to equal those of the Avatar himself.
• Asshole Victim: Sul isn't evil or that unpleasant but he's still a smug, condescending jerk who treats the other racers like they're beneath him. His demise wouldn't be that affecting if it wasn't a sign there's something far worse on the horizon.
• Bullying a Dragon: Some of the other pilots decide to take him out of the race to increase their chances of getting ahead. It predictably doesn't pan out. Ironically, Sul partakes in this himself when he calls Canaletto a weakling for offering an alliance. Not the smartest idea, pal.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Canaletto pulls him aside to offer an alliance, Sul has the gall to smirk smugly at the 50-feet astral bird monster and tell the latter to his beaked face that this shows how weak he is. Canaletto did not take that lying down.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: When the floating ancient god-monster asks for your help, Sul, it's probably not wise to mock him.
• Invincible Villain: While not directly antagonistic, he spends the entire time on Oban first in the rankings despite not always coming in first place. It gets to a point where Aikka (due to some threats from Kross) manages to convince Ning, Skun and Ondai to team up to try to kill him in one race, because at the rate the tournament was going Sul would be impossible to catch in the rankings. He flattens them when they try.
• I Work Alone: In his own words: "Alliances are for the small and weak." This bites him in the ass when he tries to confront Canaletto alone and is shortly sent to another dimension.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sul spends most of his time being smug and looking down on the other racers, even Molly when she tries to warn him about an ambush. When he meets Canaletto, someone actually more powerful than him, he maintains his arrogant attitude and gets promptly vanquished for it.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Sul admits he bored with the monotony of his existence. Having become a master of time, space, and the course of destiny itself, there is nothing left for him to want besides the Ultimate Prize and only participates in the competition to kill his boredom.
• Power Floats: He's always floating in the air, which represents his power, but also his detachment from other beings.
• Power Glows: His "robe" is always glowing, and is one of the best racers in the Oban cycle.
• Smug Super: He's the most powerful being on the Oban track, and he knows it. It becomes his downfall when he tells Canaletto that alliances are for the weak. The latter is quite happy to make him eat those words.
• Spanner in the Works: To Canaletto, as it turns out. His plans required Eva to win, but for all the plotting he did aiding by his power to see the future, Sul kept throwing his plans off with his victories. He had to forcibly remove Sul from the race to get his plans back on course.
• Story-Breaker Power: He's a godlike wizard who makes short work of everyone he races. The Whizzing Arrow wouldn't have a shot of beating him. Canaletto acknowledged this in universe and personally removed him from the story.
• Too Powerful to Live: Canaletto certainly thought so.
• Underestimating Badassery: Believed Canaletto was too weak to truly affect him. While Canaletto was indeed weakened, it was more than enough to completely surpass Sul, and he understood that way too late.
• Ungrateful Bastard: When Molly/Eva decides to warn Sul about the ambush the other racers are going to pull on him in the next race, he doesn't thank her nor does he even acknowledge that she was trying to do the right thing. Instead, he forces her to relive her worst memories, and he simply states she has wasted his time.
• Villainy-Free Villain: He doesn't directly antagonize anyone, but Sul is nonetheless a cold, condescending prick who nobody likes, even Eva, as well as one of the heroes' biggest obstacles. It's also worth noting that he's racing because he's bored, while everyone else has stronger reasons to seek the Ultimate Prize.
• The Worf Effect: Used to demonstrate Canaletto's power.

Ning and Skun

Ning is voiced by: Jillian Michaels (English), Ai Orikasa (Japanese)

Skun is voiced by: Colleen Wheeler (English), Tomoko Hiratsuji (Japanese)

Skun (left) and Ning (right)

"These Humans are getting a bit clingy, aren't they?"
"Well, They do have a female pilot!"
"But that doesn't make her one of us, does it? Time to introduce ourselves."

Two very proud and aggressive creatures from the destroyed planet Inna. Their star-racer is distinctive in that it is actually two ships that fly in tandem, but are capable of combining to form a more powerful craft. After combining their ships, they gain the ability to use an extremely powerful heat-seeking plasma cannon. Their star racers are rectangle-shaped, red with a black border and, when it is two separate racers, are driven like motorcycles.

---

• Anti-Villain: They want the ultimate prize to reunite their people.
• Badass Biker: Ning and Skun's star racers are both essentially flying motorcycles — one is a racing bike and the other's a chopper, based on the handlebars.
• Battle Couple: They're both in love and particularly fierce opponents on the Oban track.
• Dark Is Not Evil: They may look scary, but they are, at worst, Anti Villains.
• Femme Fatalons: Skun has these, and they're Absurdly Sharp Claws to boot.
• Hide Your Lesbians: They're strongly implied to be a couple. Of course, since this show was playing on Toon Disney and ABC Family, the most romantic thing we see them doing is Holding Hands.
• Official Couple: They are hinted at being a couple, given the Hide Your Lesbians, the closest romantic gesture they share is holding hands.
• One-Gender Race: Their race is entirely female.
• Pointy Ears: They have sharp, vampire-like ears.
• Scary Teeth: Their mouths are full of sharp teeth like those of sharks.
• Slasher Smile: They both sport an almost constant one. It's sometimes hard to gouge their true feelings, but this mostly indicates they're battle-hungry thrill seekers.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: They have similar attire and are just as tough, but in terms of attitude Skun is the more focused and serious, while Ning is a little more cheerful, bubbly, and playful. This is also reflected in their hairstyles, with Skun having a brush cut while Ning sports long Girlish Pigtails.

Lord Furter

Voiced by: Don Brown (English), Tetsuo Gotō (Japanese)

"I should've terrified you! FOR I AM LORD FURTER, MASTER PIRATE AND LORD OF THE SEVEN SEAS!"

Captain of a space-galleon, as bad-tempered as he is egocentric. Being a self-proclaimed pirate, he only sees the Ultimate Prize as a treasure to be claimed.

---

• Card-Carrying Villain: A self-proclaimed pirate.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's one of the more outright villainous pilots, but he sounds genuinely appalled after the Avatar seemingly dissipates when the truth of the Ultimate Prize is revealed.
  He's gone! What have we done!?
• Expy: He can be best described as Emperor Pilaf retooled with a pirate aesthetic. Depending on what dub you watch, they even share the same VA.
• Face Death with Dignity: Subverted. His vessel was destroyed by Kross in the episode Canaletto's Revenge when he rammed his star racer into it, splitting it in two before it exploded; all the crew escaped, but Lord Furter tried to prove his loyalty to his ship by not abandoning it, though at the last moment he has a change of heart and flees just as his ship explodes.
• Fat Bastard: He's on the pudgy side and is a greedy pirate. To be fair, he's nowhere near as bad as Kross.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: He and his crew are definitely this compared to the more powerful racers of Oban.
• Gonk: With his short, squat stature and comically swollen tongue, he sticks out as particularly funny looking among the other characters.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: The only thing that matches his HUGE ego is his quick temper.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Well, "sympathetic" probably is pushing it, but the little guy wants to be a fierce pirate so badly it can be kind of adorable.
• Laughably Evil: In a show where most of the villains are terrifying, ruthless galactic warlords and monsters, Furter is there to provide some comic relief with his short fuse, theatrical presentation and overinflated ego.
• The Napoleon: He is easily recognizable due to him being the smallest in stature of all the racers.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Furter has much more cartoonish proportions than most of the characters, likely to tell you he's a comic relief villain.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He's a loud-mouthed little jerk, but he also has no qualms with murder to eliminate his opponents. And he apparently got away with it quite a few times just to reach Oban.
• Overly-Long Tongue: His tongue is so long he can't even close his mouth. It's not even a trait of his species, as none of his men have it.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He's extremely short, but has an enormous ego.
• Space Pirate: He and his crew are styled after revolution era pirates and even have their own ship. Unusually though, they're never seen cruising through space with it or generally looting and robbing like you'd expect of pirates.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After the race with Kross is over, his crew members return to where they came from and are assumed to continue their careers as pirates, but Furter himself is conspicuously absent.

General Kross

Voiced by: Brian Dobson (English), Shōzō Iizuka (Japanese)

General of the Crog Imperium. He replaces Toros as the Crog's representative on Ōban, because Toros' loss to the Earth Team in the last race of the playoffs was "unacceptable".

---

• Ambition Is Evil: He plans to use the Ultimate Prize for galactic domination. When the prize of the Great Race is revealed to be ascension to Avatar-hood, Kross calls up his people and outright demands to have full control over the Imperium once he becomes Avatar.
• Arc Villain: Serves as the primary antagonist of the Ōban Cycle.
• Asshole Victim: His fighter crashes and explodes in the final round on Oban. As one of the very few who actually die during the race, you will not feel sad.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Kross and the Crogs as a whole are the main villains for most of the show. While Canaletto is a far greater threat manipulating the events of the race, he has nothing to do with the Crog invasion. As far as Earth is concerned, Kross poses the most danger if he takes the title of Avatar.
• Big Bad Wannabe: As menacing as he is and the number of actions he pulls off which drive a wedge between Aikka and Eva, he fails to be a straight up Big Bad since he could never hope to beat Sul, and everything in the series is being manipulated by Canaletto anyway.
• Blood Knight: He loves to kill and would do so, if it weren't for the rules.
• Climax Boss: Kross serves as Eva's final opponent in the Great Race of Ōban, as they both scramble for the tournament's Golden Snitch after every other finalist has been incapacitated. Caneletto takes center stage after Kross' death, but the conflict with him only comes after the Great Race's effective conclusion.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Kross has by far the deepest voice on the entire show, fitting for the greatest general of a species of villainous Proud Warrior Race Guys.
• Flat Character: In a show where most of the characters have complex motivations or Hidden Depths, Kross is a straightforward brute with no nuance. He's an Obviously Evil power hungry conqueror, and unlike Toros, doesn't even bother trying to be civil.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Used to differentiate him from Toros and other crogs, and make him look more intimidating.
• Hate Sink: While Canaletto is the bigger threat, Kross is if anything more odious personality-wise, as he's a ruthless, smug overbearing bully of a general who delights in hurting his opponents. He's also a cheater of the highest order, holding Aikka's parents hostage to give himself an advantage in the race. Kross also brushes off the implied execution of his predecessor and is motivated more by a desire to have the Imperium bow to him than actually leading them to victory. By the end, everyone else on the track has to team up to take him out before he can achieve his selfish goals. His death in the final lap against Eva is both anticlimatic and totally well-deserved.
• I Have Your Wife: He forces Aikka to help him by threatening his parents, the King and Queen of Nourasia.
• Jerkass: Kross is the most violent and unlikable racer of Ōban.
• Manipulative Bastard: Because the rules of the race forbid him to intentionally kill his opponents, Kross often manipulates Prince Aikka into helping him thwart the other pilots. His methods of coercion range from physical violence to holding Aikka's family hostage.
• Oh, Crap!: His last words are to gasp "By Kramm!", seconds before his trident fighter crashes and explodes.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Continues the color theme of the Crog Imperium, but also accents it with an abundance of silver markings.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Kross is the second pilot for the Crog Imperium, replacing Toros during the Ōban Cycle. He is stronger, more treacherous and cruel than his predecessor, and his star-racer is a larger, more powerful version of the standard Crog Trident.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's more or less the same character as his predecessor Toros, albeit slightly more competent and bearing a scar over one eye as well as a Badass Cape. In fact, early drafts featured one singular Krog antagonist who was divided into Toros and Kross. The Krogs are pretty much a whole species of hulking, blood hungry moth-like warriors, so the similarities make sense.
• The Unfettered: Kross has no qualms about killing his opponents or manipulating Prince Aikka into doing his dirty work if it means victory for himself and the Imperium.
• Viler New Villain: Downplayed compared to Toros. While Toros isn't much better, he at least tries to be civil when dealing with his Nourasian "allies" and doesn't go out of his way to intimidate them. Kross doesn't even bother hiding what an asshole he is and makes it abundantly clear he only cares for his own glory above the rest of the Imperium.

Ondai

Voiced by: Trevor Devall (English), Hideo Watanabe (Japanese)

"I am faster, I am smarter, and I am still under warranty. Humans are so last century!"

A robot that looks like a cylinder that walks on three flat metal legs. His star-racer is capable of transforming into a humanoid mech armed with a pair of energy swords and a battery of missile launchers.

---

• Badass Bookworm: He literally has a computer for a brain and dedicates his life to uncovering the knowledge of the universe. Couple that with the fact that he can link into and pilot a giant mech, and you have one robot whose not to be messed with.
• Become a Real Boy: His desire is to become a living creature so he can experience emotion.
• BFS: The energy swords his mech carries are almost as big as it is.
• Genius Bruiser: Thanks to being a highly advanced robot, he's able to make impressive calculations on the fly that shift the odds in his favor. When he plugs into his ship, he becomes a hulking, agile Transforming Mecha with strength matching his intellect.
• Hidden Depths: He's convinced of his own superiority over organic races, but his wish is to be able to feel things like an organic himself, and his module at Ōban is full of living creatures that he takes care of.
• Insufferable Genius: He is very analytical and constantly running calculations, but is also known to have a sarcastic and narcissistic personality.
• Living Lie Detector: Ondai has one that enabled him to know Eva/Molly wasn't lying about the ultimate prize being a fake.
• Nature-Loving Robot: Despite initially being seen as an insufferable machine who hates organics, he actually admires them and cares for several small animals.
• Paralysis by Analysis: He may sometimes get carried away with calculations when too many things around him are mathematically possible, causing him to go into a state of awe, as was exemplified in Optimised Like Ondai.
• Transforming Mecha: Ondai's star-racer is capable of transforming into a humanoid mech armed with a pair of energy swords and a battery of missile launchers.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: His star-racer (in robot mode) was disabled by Prince Aikka in the final race, and he is not seen again.

O

The tallest of the nine Ōban pilots, he resembles a large upside down teardrop with stubby legs and one large eye in the middle. He appears to "pilot" a large, bizarre, organic construct that looks similar to a jellyfish of some sort.

---

• Chekhov's Gunman: Previously under the radar, he turns out to be important later on.
• Heroic Sacrifice: After Canaletto is freed, O rushes to help Molly, Jordan, and Prince Aikka, and follows them to the Temple of the Heart, where he protects them from two giant guardians controlled by Canaletto before being killed by them. His unique energy-absorption abilities allowed him to take the guardians down with him, consuming them in an enormous explosion that disintegrated all three of them.
• Living Prop: He has little to no characterization, never speaks(likely because he can't talk), and is never given any focus until the last few episodes where his backstory is only hinted at before he dies.
• My Greatest Failure: Long ago, when Satis faced Canaletto in combat, he called to O for help. However, O did not respond to the request. All the way to the present, O felt incredibly guilty that he did not go back to help Satis.
• One-Letter Name: He's simply known as O.
• One-Winged Angel: His combat form is colossus sized, vaguely humanoid, and has large jaws for hands. He uses it during his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Organic Technology: His "star racer" is organic and uses a mouth of sorts to place its pilot inside. And that's not even including its combat mode.
• Riddle for the Ages: O's connection to Satis, as well as where he came from or why he's in the Great Race is never elaborated on. We only know he was present when Satis fought Canaletto, and wants to atone for abandoning him.
• Seers: In the early stages of the absolute final race, O has what seems to be a vision of Satis fighting Canaletto. As a result, O seemingly drops out of the race and takes shelter from the impending catastrophe to help out afterwards.
• The Speechless: Hovering silently, O never says a single word of dialogue throughout the series.
• Starfish Alien: He and the construct he flies are easily the most alien of all racers in Oban's finales.
• Taking You with Me: Overwhelmed by the guardians, he opts to self destruct once the heroes are out of the line of fire, destroying both his opponents at once.
• Time Abyss: If he was alive during the conflict between Satis and Canaletto, that makes O thousands of years old.

Muir

A large crab-like alien with a heavy, armored shell and large pincers, as well as telepathic tentacles.

---

• Anti-Villain: In "Monstrous Like Muir", Molly discovers that she isn't the only one who wants to bring back a loved one; Muir's mate was killed by alien hunters who wanted her tentacles and left her for dead. Muir hopes to win the Ultimate Prize to bring her back to life.
• Combat Tentacles: Muir's tentacles also have telepathic qualities.
• Freudian Excuse: He attacks other racers who compete against him because he wants to win the Ultimate Prize. His mate was killed by alien hunters and he hopes to win the Great Race to bring her back to life.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Muir is a large crab-like alien with a heavy, armored shell and large pincers.
• Opt Out: When it's revealed that it's impossible even for the Avatar to bring people back from the dead, Muir drops out of the race completely.
• Organic Technology: His racer looks like a whale-like crab not dissimilar from Muir himself that he pilots using his tentacles.

Other Characters

President McMullen

Voiced by: Richard Newman (English)

The president of the Earth Coalition, McMullen has been privy to the existence of the Avatar for many decades, but kept it secret as part of a Government Conspiracy. When the Great Race of Ōban draws near, he recruits Don Wei to form a team capable of competing.

---

• Armchair Military: He personally orders a pre-emptive counter attack on the Crog fleet massing at the solar system's edge, from his seat at the government building. This proves to be a very rash decision.
• Bald of Evil: Downplayed. By the time of the series he's bald in the middle, and while he's (debatably) not evil, but he's still corrupt and power-hungry, and clearly doesn't give a crap about collateral damage when it comes to furthering human interests.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Initially is a Reasonable Authority Figure for the Earth Team. Then he tells Don he couldn't care less about them unless they win, violates a ceasefire that endangers countless lives, and arguably becomes the third most vile character in the series after Canaletto and Kross.
• Despair Event Horizon: Crosses this when he realizes the Crog Imperium is sweeping aside Sol's defenses, all because he decided to launch a paranoid preemptive attack and thus violated the ceasefire of the Great Race. When Don contacts him the final time, he finds the President in an almost catatonic state, surrounded by apocalyptic pleas for help.
• Didn't Think This Through: Rather than wait for the resolution of the Great Race before acting, McMullen orders the Coalition navy to perform a pre-emptive strike against the Crog Imperium's armada waiting at the edge of the solar system. Apparently he forgot that the Avatar's intervention is the only reason humanity survived the first Crog invasion — even decades later, human ships are markedly inferior to their crog equivalents, and the shiny new fleet sent to engage the Imperium's armada is shown to have only a fraction of the invaders' numbers. Predictably, the crog annihilate the Coalition's fleet and start gunning for Earth, leaving a despairing McMullen to listen to military officers beg him for help, until the new Avatar once again bails humanity out.
• Dirty Coward: Beneath McMullen's stern, commanding air of leadership is a paranoid, arrogant old man who refuses to take responsibility for his mistakes. He acts confident as he orders Don Wei to put his feelings aside and later commands a pre-emptive attack on the Crog fleet, yet when it backfires he freaks out and mutters how it wasn't his fault, even as his forces are being slaughtered thanks to his piss-poor plan.
• Foil: Ironically for a leader of humanity, McMullen serves as one to both Kross and Canaletto, the main villains. While these two are literal monsters seeking to Kill All Humans, McMullen is an upstanding human leader who nonetheless believes in supremacy over alien lifeforms just as they do. While Kross and Canaletto want to become Avatar, McMullen plans to harness the Avatar's power through a human champion. Furthermore, Canaletto is using Eva as his pawn to regain power, while the President himself is also using her to give Earth it's Avatar.
• Government Conspiracy: Decades ago, McMullen was minor member of a council of government officials during the Crog invasion of Earth. When the Avatar appeared before them and set the cease-fire in place in exchange for Earth's participation in the upcoming Great Race of Ōban, the council chose to keep the Avatar's intervention a closely-guarded secret from the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, this had the side-effect of leaving humanity underprepared for the tournament, and McMullen (now the leader of the Earth Coalition) basically had to order Don Wei to claw together a team at the last second. At the end of the series, the same conspiracy forces the surviving human protagonists to swear to lifelong secrecy about Ōban and their adventures, as they once again re-write the truth behind humanity's second conflict with the Crog Imperium.
• Hate Sink: McMullen is a reasonable man at the start of the show, but as the race reaches it's climax he becomes a smug, condescending, war-mongering hypocrite. Not only does he shrug off the idea of forcing the universe's greatest position on a 15 year old, but he's actively planning on using the Avatar as a weapon for Earth supremacy. He later orders an attack on the Crog armada, nearly dooming Earth on the notion that the Crogs might've attacked first..
• Jerk Ass Has A Point: As callous as he can be, Mc Mullen is accurate when he claims Don has to put aside his own feelings to win the Ultimate Prize, as failure would result in the Earth being helpless against the Crog invasion.
• Karma Houdini: McMullen faces no consequence for forcing the Earth Team to risk their lives and Eva nearly to sacrifice her mortal life for Earth, as well as launching a paranoid attack on the Crogs in the midst of a ceasefire, which nearly dooms humanity, and in the end he gets a human Avatar after all. That said, it's implied his brush with hubris humbled him a great deal.
• Mirror Character: Towards the end of the series, McMullen's behavior increasingly aligns with that of the Crog Imperium, humanity's greatest rivals:
  • When he learns that the ultimate prize is ascension to Avatar-hood, McMullen immediately decides that a human Avatar would be perfect for enabling human supremacy in the galaxy, and urges Don to continue participating in the tournament at all costs. This is exactly what General Kross had in mind, minus the latter's additional desire to become a God-Emperor.
  • In the same scene, the President hints that the Coalition hopes to use an Avatar to not only wipe out the Crog Imperium completely, but also destroy anyone else in the galaxy who would threaten humanity or stand in their way.
  • Damningly, McMullen arranges for humanity to violate the ceasefire of the Great Race, sending a Coalition fleet to launch a premature surprise attack against the Crog armada, who were standing by to begin the invasion after the Race. He claims amid a Despair Event Horizon that the Crogs couldn't be trusted to respect the ceasefire, and that attacking first was the only option.
• Never My Fault: He seems to be in severe denial about his role in the Crog counterattack, as he's mumbling how "they couldn't be trusted", even as the screams of dying soldiers fill his comm screens.
• Planet Baron: A rare human instance. He's the President of the Earth Coalition, which by default makes him the leader of the entire planet. And soon enough, we find out he's just as corrupt as these types often are.
• Smug Snake: He dismisses Don Wei's concerns about forcing Molly to keep racing after learning the prize won't bring her mother back with snarking indifference, as by that point he had decided that the ultimate prize was far more important than any of the Earth Team's concerns.
  Don Wei: She thought could use the prize to bring her mother back from the dead.
  McMullen: Touching, but irrelevant.
• We Have Reserves: All but tells Don that the Avatar's power matters more than the lives of him and his team, and later orders a surprise attack on the Crog fleet, completely willing to throw away his men's lives just to get an edge on Earth's enemies.

Miss Stern

Voiced by: Lauren Alexandre (French)

The headmistress of the Stern Boarding School, a dreary and oppressive institution where Eva was left by her father.

---

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Puts on a friendly,cheerful face to little Eva when Don drops her off, but as soon as he drives away she turns cold and hard.
• Boarding School of Horrors: The Stern school is not shown to be a kind or welcoming place, especially to a girl ditched there by her father.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: She has a pair of small pointy specs and is a mean, strict woman.
• Hate Sink: She's a callous, unfeeling tyrant of a person with zero sympathy for the problems of her students. Despite her very little screentime, Eva makes it clear her time under Stern's care was absolutely miserable.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Keeping Eva locked away and taking away her bike is harsh, but she still is trying to keep a student from getting into trouble. And that's exactly what happens when Eva finds her bike again.
• Karma Houdini: As nothing Stern did was outright villainous or even illegal, she presumably never pays for her callous treatment and continues running the school.
• Lack of Empathy: It's pretty obvious in Stern's few scenes that she doesn't give a shit about Eva's loneliness at all.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Her hair is tied up into a bun and as her name says, she's a stern and uptight woman.
• Sadist Teacher: Implied to be the norm. She punishes a student who comes to class late by forcing him to balance books on his head with buckets of water.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Normally a bit character like her wouldn't warrant an entry, but it should be noted that if Stern was a more compassionate, understanding guardian who ran a less oppressive environment, Eva might never have felt the need to run away from school and been beamed to the great race at all.

The Mad Scrub

A member of the scrub species on Alwas, and an insane hermit. He is discovered to be the one responsible for Rick Thunderbolt's Career-Ending Injury, which prompts the human to track him down for answers.

---

• Asshole Victim: He's killed by the same monster he fanatically worshipped. While it demonstrates Canaletto's callousness, it's hard to feel sad since the Mad Scrub caused Rick's accident and was knowingly helping in his master's plan to wipe out the universe.
• Knight of Cerebus: Once Rick tracks him down, the greater plot gains some pretty dark implications.
• Mad Bomber: He snuck into the Earth Team pit and concealed an explosive device inside the Arrow I's engine, which led to Rick's Career-Ending Injury during the first race with Grooor.
• No Name Given: We never learn the Mad Scrub's true name.
• Room Full of Crazy: The Mad Scrub's home is plastered with the same symbol found on his amulet, painted on several surfaces (including his own body) with bright red paint, and a creepy effigy shrine depicting a corvid skull sits in one corner. All of these are motifs associated with Canaletto.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's only a minor character, but he is the one who sabotaged the Whizzing Arrow I in the first race and caused Rick's crippling nervous damage, which allowed Eva to replace him as the Earth Team's pilot. He also serves as an introduction to Canaletto.
• Walking Spoiler: You can't talk about the Mad Scrub without revealing that he caused Rick Thunderbolt's Career-Ending Injury in the first race against Grooor, or his nature as a Canaletto cultist.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The lightning that sets fire to the Mad Scrub's home (with the hermit trapped inside) is heavily implied to have been caused by Canaletto.

The Great Beings (SPOILERS)

The Great Beings

A race of enigmatic Energy Beings who are the creators of Ōban, from which the entire galaxy originated via the planet-seeds. However, they grew complacent and jealous of each-other, and a catastrophic civil war exterminated their civilization. The survivors, wracked with guilt, chose to abandon their godhood and instead nominate a single mortal every 10,000 years to serve as the galaxy's solitary steward. This being is referred to as the "Avatar".

---

• Energy Beings: The Great Beings are shown on temple murals and flashbacks to be abstract, two-dimensional humanoid shapes formed out of either pure light or pure darkness. The far-reduced remnants of their civilization prefer to simply appear as small spheres of light, but they can assume a more detailed shape at will.
• Götterdämmerung: Their civilization was brought low by an apocalyptic civil war between two factions. By the time it ended, only nine weakened individuals were left, and they elected to empower individual mortals to rule as gods in their place.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In-universe, this was their reaction after their pride and jealousy caused their people to enact a severely catastrophic civil war that killed off many and destroyed their society. They abandoned their godhood and chose to have the Avatar look after the galaxies in their stead.
• Mr. Exposition: Nine of them appear near the end of the series, but their main role is to provide The Reveal and share a story about the downfall of their race.
• Physical God: An entire species of them, and the few that remain grant their combined strength to the Avatar every 10,000 years.
• Precursors: They created Ōban, the planet seeds, and by extension most life in the galaxy. They also created the Great Race, through which they select a candidate to be Avatar every ten-thousand years. However, once they give the power of the Avatar to someone, they just sit back and let the new Avatar do whatever he or she wants — the only rule is that the Avatar must surrender his powers when the time comes to chose a successor. Canaletto was only imprisoned because he broke that one rule, and until then he was allowed to commit horrifying atrocities for millennia.
• The Worf Effect: At the climax, the nine echoes manifest to deny Canaletto access to the Pyramid of Power, but individually they're so weak that all they can do is fly around the monster and distract him, as he smites them one by one with his sorcery and collects their essences into an orb for him to absorb.

---