Arguably the main character, and a staple of Otomedius' promotional art. Anoa is a bright and cheerful girl with a penchant for blue. Her Ride Viper is the Vic Viper. When not saving the world, Anoa is a second year high school student at St. Gradius Academy.
Awesome, but Impractical: Hyper Anoa. The concept of her becoming more powerful as her Platonic power grows is great from a story perspective, but when it happens in gameplay, it strips all of your powers and weapons, leaving you to face the final stage with default speed, no weapons, and no options.
Also, Anoa's Platonic Break. By the time it's charged and ready to fire, the enemies it's locked on to are most likely off the screen. It's impressive though when used on bosses.
Girlish Pigtails: Meant to invoke the split-hull design of the Vic Viper itself.
Art Evolution in Excellent keeps the aesthetic, but makes Anoa's pigtails an actual extension of her bangs, furthering the split-hull/fanged appearance of the Vic Viper's hull.
A Gradian. Erul is Anoa's best friend, and came to Earth as part of a search for her older brother, the pilot of VIXEN (A ship from one of Konami's earlier shooters). She's quite intelligent, and enjoys studying Earth culture. Her Ride Viper is Lord British. Erul is a second-year student, in the same class as her friend Anoa.
Frickin' Laser Beams: Lord British's signature weapon, Ripple Laser, fires expanding laser rings that still destroy enemies that fly through the center.
Shout Out: Her brother was the pilot of VIXEN, from Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou. Another is her credit dialogue in Gorgeous, quoted word-for-word from the Salamander OVA.
Esmeralda: "What are you going to do, now?" Erul: "Well...I'll think about it while listening to some rock music."
Stuff Blowing Up: Erul's Platonic Break, where she positions her Options and then detonates them.
Diol Twee
A third year student and the closest to being an adult in the cast, Diol is the squadron leader. She's firm, but has a sisterly kindness to her approach on leadership. She seems to be bonded to the Flint, an organic component of her otherwise artificial Serenity Viper.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Diol gets very excited during the boss rush in Excellent, commenting that her body feels hot and she wants to fight more and more.
Shout Out: Her tentacle tail resembles those found on the Flint in the original game.
Workaholic: A rare, upbeat version. Diol loves her work for the "G" Organization and can't seem to put it down.
In her ending cutscene from Gorgeous, Diol announces that the mission is complete and she wants another one, because her "work is never really finished." Anoa and Erul promptly complain about the work load, but she just laughs it off.
Madoka
An immigrant from Planet Mel, Madoka is an engineering genius who built her own Ride Viper - Which is based on Twin Bee, a hero from her planet. On Earth, she's a first-year high school student.
Art Evolution: Madoka underwent significant design changes between Gorgeous and Excellent.
Of note, she wears shorts now, instead of a skirt. She's also opted for Twin Bee's iconic gloves.
Murdoch Viper now has handles for her to hang on to. Additionally, the seat now physically resembles Twinbee's body, with the cushion itself replacing the windshield/eye portion. It's also referred to as Murdoch Viper Mk.II.
Custom Uniform: Madoka doesn't wear a standard "G" uniform.
Dumb Blonde: Completely inverted, as she's a mechanical genius. She's still just a first-year student, though.
Enemy Summoner: The rare heroic version, Madoka's Platonic Break summons a duplicate of Gainbee who punches the crap out of enemies for a while.
Lethal Chef: The Madoka of Twin Bee fame is a horrible cook. If this is the same Madoka, than Tita's line "I won't miss you, cookie!" while Madoka was departing must've referred to her cooking.
Wrench Wench: Built her own Ride Viper completely from scratch, before she even saw any of the others.
Emon Five
Hailing from another dimension, and the planet Ebisuboshi, Emon Five is the only male in the entire cast. While he himself is inspired by Ganbare Goemon, his Xel Viper is drawn from Thunder Cross. Emon is (was?) a second year student in Anoa's class.
Rated M for Manly: The character designer, Mine Yoshizaki, explains in an interview that Emon's unusual position on Xel Viper was chosen so that the hitbox being below his waist would make it look like he tanked enemy fire with his chest.
Shout Out: The character for Five is 'Go'. Read in Japanese, Emon's full name is Go Emon.
Smoking Is Cool: ...when you use a pipe longer than your entire body.
Take That: Due to being cut from the cast in Excellent, his sister Emon-8 attacks the Angels in a fit of rage.
Emon-8: "How dare you drive out Emon-5 like that!"
A Bacterian, Tita is a spacey girl whose body is rife with cybernetics. She flies the Big Core Examiner, and has a terse relationship with the rest of the squadron, being the same race as their primary enemy. Tita aspires to win their trust, though doesn't understand humans very well. Tita is in Madoka's class, as a first-year student at St. Gradius.
The Time Travel in Excellent suggests that her defection was fairly recent, as her access codes were still usable in Dark Force's fortress.
Tita: "I wonder if my clearance codes still work... ...Hm...This should be adequate."
Human Aliens: Bacterian. This is an important story point for Tita, as everything she does is to try and get the other Angels to accept her as one of their own despite being the same species as their worst enemy.
Kill Sat: Tita's Platonic Break invokes this by calling down a spread of high-powered lasers from the sky.
Third-Person Person: The type who does it only occasionally, and for no apparent reason. She also sometimes calls herself "Tita the Second" despite there being no suggestion of a precursor Tita.
Another pilot from Planet Gradius, Esmeralda is a formal and businesslike tactician and weapons expert. She's a reference to the popular Gradius Gaiden, and pilots Jade Knight. Despite her cold and curt exterior, she seems to have a weakness for cute things. Esmeralda is in Diol's class, as a third year student.
Curtains Match the Window: Despite the rampant color-coordination of the entire cast, she's the only one who actually displays this. And even then, it's tentative, being a noticably different shade of green.
Frickin' Laser Beams: Jade Knight's primary laser weapon, Round Laser, projects circle-shaped lasers that ripple out from the craft a short distance in all directions. Shouldn't lasers travel forever?
This is carried over in Excellent, in that Esmeralda can use everything except for the character specific weapons, of which there are 1 per character (or 2 in the cases of Strarf, Kokoro, Gesshi, and Poini).
Esmeralda's wingman, Poini is a surprisingly young girl with an equally surprising intelligence. Like Esmeralda, she's a reference to Gradius Gaiden, piloting Jade Knight's partner ship, Falchion Beta. Also like Esmeralda, Poini is in Diol's class at St. Gradius, as a third year student in spite of her age.
Child Prodigy: Shown in an upperclassman's uniform, placing her in the same class as Diol and Esmeralda, despite being at least eight years younger than they are.
Rule of Cute: Pretty much justifies her entire existence.
Shout Out: A lot of Poini's English dialogue is pulled straight from the Gradius Gaiden announcer's script.
Poini: "You are a new legend. Good job!"
Summon Magic: In Gorgeous, Poini's Platonic Break summoned dragons made out of gravity which would home in on enemies and destroy them, leaving behind a massive wave of powerup capsules.
A samurai girl who references the obscure Getsu Fuuma Den. Fuuma and Kokoro come to Angel Squadron to replace Emon.
Fan Nickname: Fuuma Nameicantpronounce was circulating amongst English-speaking fans who had trouble remembering her complex surname (Back when the translation was thought to be Fuuma Getsushihana).
A translation error has also led to Fuuma being referred to as "Mon Hau".
Konami has finally settled on her name being Gesshi Hanafuuma, which is a little easier to handle. The nickname seems to be falling into disuse.
Summon Magic: With Poini's new Black Hole Platonic Break, Gesshi gets her old homing dragon, though it's somewhat nerfed because Gesshi has no Options to speak of.
Kokoro Belmont
A girl who references Konami's popular Castlevania series.
An Axe to Grind: Gets access to an exclusive parabola weapon, "Axe", which pierces enemies and causes a lot of damage though can be tough to aim. Axe is a Double-type weapon.
Arnval's partner, also from Busou Shinki. Strarf seems to be optimized for night combat, and otherwise is a very active girl compared to her subdued partner.
Fashionable Asymmetry: L.B.'s Core is on the left side of her head, R.B.'s Core is on the right. Additionally, each one has a single Evil Eyebrow tattoo, guess which one has it over which eye.
Half-Identical Twins: They're twins, and resemble each other, but are clearly not identical.
High Speed Battle: Both against Hugin and Munin, and again against Odin Core.
Norse Mythology: Hugin and Munin are the servants of Odin. They live in Valhalla.
Only Known By Initials: It's never explicitly stated what R.B. and L.B. stand for. It's generally believed to be Right Brain and Left Brain, given the physical shape of their predecessor, Gofer, was was a giant brain.
Recurring Boss: Encountered in Stage 2 and again in Stage 7.
The Cameo: They show up in Excellent, piloting Tetran and supplying most of the hazards for the stage, but aren't a boss and cannot be defeated. They just run off before the real boss arrives.
Noblewoman's Laugh: When she introduces herself, and again when she berserks.
Oh Crap: General player response when her ship deploys its Options.
Take That: Meta quickly identifies Tita as a Bacterian traitor.
The Cameo: Appears in Excellent, but gets taken out by the stage's actual boss before she can fight.
Shout Out: Metalium is the name of the player ship in Nemesis II.
At the end of Stage 3, before Big Core DX appears, the player is faced with two machines hurling out dozens of fireballs, just like the intro of the first Gradius boss ever, Big Core.
While these machines are running, the classic Aircraft Carrier theme from Gradius also plays.
A bikini-clad catgirl pirate. Her motivation as a villain isn't explained in the least. Given her pirate motif, the most sensible explenation is that she's a mercenary that the Bacterians have hired.
Neko Sencho: "I'm gonna need all nine lives for this-nya!"
High Altitude Battle: Neko Sencho attacks the angels above the clouds. Mirrored Core emerges from the clouds in a way reminiscent of a surfacing submarine.
Shout Out: Her battle music Runaway is remixed from "Crisis, 4th Movement", the mid-boss song from the original Parodius where the Cat Pirate Ship is encountered.
Verbal Tic: Ends most of her sentences with "nya".
Neko Sencho: "I'm no 'fraidy cat! I'm an air-sea-landcat, the purrfect feline warrior-nya! I'll bat you around like a ball of string-nya!"
Warm Up Boss: Generally considered easy, even in high loop play.
T.B. Rika
Bait-and-Switch Boss: The stage initially seems like you'll be fighting the Gofer Sisters in a Tetran, which you can damage throughout the level. And then they take off down a side-street and T.B. leaps out with a perfect-condition Tripod Core.
Only Known By Initials: Like the Gofer sisters, it's never stated what T.B. stands for, though there is a sensible theory that it stands for Tuberculosis. She is, after all, a Bacterian.
Sadist Teacher: Many of Tripod Core's attacks are prefaced by her announcing it is a punishment of some kind, and she was a teacher at the characters' school, St. Gradius Academy.
Shout Out: Her theme, Falling Rock, is a remix of the "The Final Enemy" which has appeared in Gradius II and was a theme for Chichibinta Rika, an enemy from the Gradius Series.
A three-armed samurai from the distant hell. The Gofer Sisters resurrected her so they could use her power against the G Organization's newest members, Kokoro and Gesshi.
Big Bad: So big and so bad that she can't be defeated. The characters have to travel back in time to when she was a little girl to even stand a chance.
Expy: She's basically a Goth-Loli version of Castlevania's Dracula — an anthropomorphic force of evil who seemingly wants to destroy everything. Highlighting this, the first phase of her boss fight takes place in a castle/cathedral for no immediately obvious reason.
Tita even comments that these Bacterians are different.
Person of Mass Destruction: Annihilates the entire Gradian fleet in just a few seconds. Even as a child, displays this kind of capability.
Dark Force: "I will gather up my might again...and show you the power of a god."
Sequential Boss: First, she pilots the Black Viper, a Bacterian copy of the Ride Vipers. Then, she pilots a mecha. Finally, in the secret final stage, she's an Anti-Climax Boss.
Shout Out: After you defeat Dark Force in her first phase and she escapes, you can see potraits of the final bosses of Gradius 1, 2, 3, and Salamander 1 and 2.
Tyke Bomb: Either she's the current leader of the Bacterians, or the Gofer Sisters created her as a Person of Mass Destruction. No matter which one it is, even when she's in her larval stage, she's very powerful.
In Otomedius Gorgeous, Irene appears as a reference to Xexex, as an automated distress beacon embedded in Snowflake Core. The actual character doesn't make an appearance.
Shout Out: Her entire presence. In particular, Holo-Irene's dialogue is a word-for-word recording of the original Irene's distress call during the intro for Xexex.
Heel Face Turn: For unexplained reasons, assists the Gradian fleet against the Bacterians during a mass assault. In the final stage, he's coordinating the fleet's repairs and pursuit of the routed Bacterian ships.
