Characters / PandoraHearts - Oz Vessalius

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Main Characters (Oz Vessalius) | The Four Great Dukedoms | The Baskerville Household | The Abyss | Minor Characters

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Oz Vessalius / Oz the Bloody Black Rabbit

Voiced by: Junko Minagawa

"I don't really like throwing around the word 'justice'...although I do admire the concept. I believe there is no black and white, no good or evil. In this world, there are only people's intentions."

Our protagonist. Though apparently cheerful and harmless, on his fifteenth birthday he is cast into the prison-like Abyss for committing a grievous sin—existing. While there he formed a Contract with the Chain B-Rabbit, apparently short for Bloody Black Rabbit, though she prefers to go by "Alice." In terms of inspiration, Oz could be based off Alice or the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but seems to more strongly reference two other characters from children's books, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the The Velveteen Rabbit.

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A-E

• Above Good and Evil: He rejects the cold, simple judgements of "good" and "evil" to justify cruelty in favor of a more nuanced, grey, humanistic compassion.
• Adopted into Royalty: Turns out Oz was never a real Vessalius. He's actually a Chain possessing the deaged body of Jack Vessalius. When the body turned into an infant, Jack tricked Xai Vessalius into taking Oz as his adopted son. Oz was then raised as a noble, unaware of his true origins.
• Alice Allusion: A possible male variation. He shares more traits with Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland than Pandora Hearts' own two Alices.
• All-Loving Hero: Despite hiding his emotions under an enormous load of emotional baggage, Oz deals with adversaries through emotional understanding and a subtle but unending amount of empathy and compassion, even when things come to blows.
• Always Save the Girl: Deconstructed. Oz considers nothing to be more important than Alice's safety, whether she agrees with him or not. When in a disturbed state of mind, Oz is willing to destroy anything that hurts and/or scares Alice, even endangering himself and his own friends in the process. It's heavily implied this desperation with keeping her safe is a manifestation of his trauma from the Tragedy of Sablier (during which Alice chose to commit suicide to protect him). Part of his Character Development is to overcome this complex and relearn how to prioritize Alice's will vs. Alice's safety, as well as allow himself to trust and emotionally invest in other people besides Alice.
• Amateur Sleuth: Oz and his companions join the Pandora organization in order to solve the mystery involving Alice's missing memories, the Tragedy of Sablier, and the Abyss.
• Ambiguously Bi: An omake has him enthusiastically entertaining the idea of having lovestruck fans "regardless of gender" as well as stating he feels "slightly attracted" to a cross-dressing Break. In one of the Caucus Race novels, he gets heavily disturbed by the idea of Gilbert getting married. However, there's very little to suggest Oz is bisexual in the main series other than his possessiveness of Gilbert; otherwise, he appears to be pretty clearly heterosexual.
• Animal Battle Aura: When he uses B-Rabbit's power, the projection of a giant black rabbit appears behind Oz. This is foreshadowing to the revelation that it's Oz, not Alice, who is the true possessor of the B-Rabbit's power.
• Animal Motifs: His true identity is the Black Rabbit, or B-Rabbit for short. True to form, many of his clothes and belongings in the Official Art have depictions of rabbits on them in some way.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: The Intention of the Abyss, in spite of being incredibly powerful, still did not have enough power to fulfill Jack's wish to drag the world into the Abyss because her vessel (Alice) would be destroyed from the pressure it would place on her body. Oz was created to serve this purpose instead and has enough power to destroy the world, but he has absolutely no intention to do so, and he is the main positive participant in the "Save the World" Climax.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: When he dresses up as a maid, Gil says he looks "gorgeous" and a male servant of the Barma household seems to approve as well.
• Badass Adorable: Especially when playing around with that scythe. And also especially since he's B-Rabbit.
• Beast of the Apocalypse: During the near-apocalyptic Tragedy of Sablier as B-Rabbit, giving him a reputation for bloodshed and destruction that lasts his hundred-year absence and still terrifies Pandora. He subverts this in the second near-apocalypse with his role as a Messianic Figure and Anti-Anti-Christ.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Oz begins the series as a depressed cynic Stepford Smiler unwilling to have sincere faith in anything for fear of suffering more emotional damage at perceived inevitable letdowns, causing everyone who loves him deep stress and worry for his wellbeing. By the end of the series, Oz is acknowledged as having become a character who embodies hope and faith, and is the leader of the group counteracting Oswald's and Jack's efforts to write off the present world as worthless. For double points, Oz 100 years ago was intended to be the tool that would end that world.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Cute, innocent-looking, and friendly, but you do not want to piss off this rabbit. The childish facade hides a strategist's mind and his destructive potential is second only to the Core itself; he's considered the most powerful Chain for a reason.
• Body Surf: From his original plush rabbit forms to his formal Chain form to Jack's body. His comments in Retrace LXXVII imply that this could have happened again if Jack's body died and he got another Contractor. But since he dies, he's eventually reborn in a new one all his own.
• Boyish Shorts: Although he's chronologically 25 years old, Oz is still physically and mentally a young teenager after returning from the Abyss. His Iconic Outfit has him wear a pair of plaid green shorts.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Seems to zigzag around this trope. Getting stuck in the Abyss didn't break him as much as accidentally stabbing Gilbert before that. The series has been playing this straighter the more it progresses.
  • Played straight after the Tomato in the Mirror hits him right in the face. Learning that he's actually B-Rabbit and Jack's actions messed him up bad.
• Broken Ace: According to the guide books, Oz is highly skilled with drawing, painting, writing both prose and poetry, recitation, singing, playing both the violin and piano, dancing, studying, horse back riding, mathematics, firearms, and swordsmanship (though he's noted to have little actual combat experience). In-story he proves himself to be extremely intelligent, with an impressive memory and quick analytical and deductive thinking. Unfortunately, though Oz is extremely talented and admired by many, he still has a lot of issues.
• Broken Bird: Beneath his fake smiles, Oz had his faith in pretty much everything destroyed by Xai's emotional abuse from very early in his life and he has no real hope that anything can get better for him. His character arc is mainly about growing out of this pessimistic mindset by learning to have hope and trust in his loved ones.
• Broken Hero: Oz was completely shunned by his father at a young age and repressed the emotional damage this did so those he cared for wouldn't worry about him. As if that wasn't enough trauma, after Jack reveals Oz is the original B-Rabbit, Oz is almost completely mentally and emotionally broken thanks to the re-emergence of the scarring memories from 100 years ago and Jack's additional abusive attempts to convince Oz that his existence is invalid and worthless. However, with the support of the people who love him regardless, Oz is eventually able to pull himself together again to take action and become the real hero of the subsequent disaster.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Played as the White Rabbit in Gilbert in Wonderland, and is noted by both Gils to be quite cute. Storywise, he was a pair of cute plush rabbits (before everything went to hell), and is still cute as a human. Subverted when he's destroying everything as B-Rabbit.
• Cast from Hit Points: Using B-Rabbit's power was expected to put a dangerous amount of strain on Oz's body, which is why Gilbert attempts to keep it sealed for the first quarter of the manga. Notably, the seal does limit Alice's access to B-Rabbit's power, but it soon becomes apparent that it doesn't limit Oz's own unusual access to the same powers even while Alice is sealed. The fact that this power didn't put the expected amount of strain on Oz and the seal soon proved ineffective at its purpose is an early hint that Oz's supposed contract with B-Rabbit isn't functioning like a normal illegal contract.
• Changeling Tale: Part of his backstory. On the day he was "born," Jack's allies (with Xai Vessalius' cooperation) secretly switched Xai's newborn son with the infant Oz. Played with in that the child Oz replaced was stillborn, not kidnapped.
• Character Development: Possibly the most prominent example. Like his possible inspiration Alice, Oz is noted by many people to be constantly changing throughout the series. At one point, Duke Barma even mentions that Oz had completely changed around his personality in the few days between visits to his house. In general, though, Oz starts the series as a traumatized, depressed individual hiding behind his own self-delusions and masks to protect himself, and ends the series with far more self-awareness, peace of mind, and self-worth.
• Color Motif: An interesting example of almost a Red Herring color motif, to parallel the twist on his identity. He's initially surrounded by green and yellow, a color pairing also strongly associated with Jack and in contrast with Gilbert's black and blue and Alice's red and white. As the story progresses, Oz becomes visually distanced from Jack's green and more associated with black, red, and (eventually) gold, sharing one color with each of his best friends and affiliating him with both his past as B-Rabbit and the golden lights of the Abyss in contrast with Jack's reoccurring motif of water and darkness. This is implied in official art all the way in the beginning: Oz's Character Chair from Volume 1, for example, is a golden and red throne, with the green gem in the Vessalius crest on top missing. And when rabbits are meant to represent the current him in official art, they often wear Oz's red tie.
• Creepy Child: Break even points it out. Oz starts out so cheerful in the face of misery and so well hidden behind his many masks that even Break (a creepy fellow himself) finds him unnerving. However, he grows much more human (pardon the pun) as the story goes along, and ironically is shown at his most human just when we find out he isn't. As he gets the courage to evaluate who he is for himself, this fades from his character completely.
• Cute and Psycho: As the first half of the manga goes on, it becomes more obvious that Break is right—Oz is definitely not entirely "there." The second half has Oz working to repair that.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Oz's abuse at his father's hands pretty much destroyed his ability to have faith in anything, especially his own self-worth.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was initially a kind of stuffed animal spirit guardian for the Alice twins left behind by their mother, and he loved them both dearly. But one of them—the justifiably lonely, miserable, and mentally unstable Intention of the Abyss—turned him into a Living Weapon at the request of Jack Vessalius, in order to destroy the world. What followed was the Trauma Conga Line to end all Trauma Conga Lines for everyone involved: Oz was tricked into contracting with an Omnicidal Maniac thinking he was simply going to guide the man to visit his lonely friend. He was subsequently stripped of free will and forced to slaughter and destroy the human city he had lived in as a plush rabbit, including people he recognized and loved, while still being mentally himself and all too aware of what was happening around him. Then his beloved owner Alice committed suicide in front of him to stop this. Remembering this was the Break the Cutie moment that almost destroyed him.
• Declaration of Protection: As a plush toy he swore to protect Alice when she was still alive, which carried through even after just meeting her in the Abyss. He also declared to Gilbert that "protecting servants is a master's job."
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Oz deconstructs the basic personality of the Stock Shōnen Hero. He's an outwardly cheerful and ditzy Kid Hero. He also always puts others before himself, even if it may cost him his life. However, it's gradually revealed that he's a Stepford Smiler, his habit of accepting everything is really just an unwillingness to fight for himself, and his "selflessness" is really a martyr complex that attempts to justify his suicidal tendencies by painting him as a hero. Finally, in a subversion of the Book Dumb stereotype embedded in this trope, he is much smarter than he appears. As his mental state improves, he retains the charismatic, positive attitude and even comes to represent hope, but at his most stable, he is notably levelheaded and mature.
• Demonic Possession: Since Oz is a world-wrecking Chain who took control of his body, Oz has technically been doing this to Jack for almost the entirety of the story. It's ultimately inverted, though, since Jack is the malicious one of the two and can take control (for the most part) when he wishes.
• Determinator: Despite all of his hardship (or perhaps because of it), Oz came to accept and love the world the way it was, and so fought to stop Glen's plan to alter time even though it would have prevented a great deal of pain. His determination cost him a great deal, as his own decisions kill him in the final chapter—but despite his mourning that it had to come to that, it's clear from his actions that he doesn't regret it.
• Devoted to You: Oz is this to Alice. Oz calls her his "sun" and it's especially apparent in the Caucus Race side novels where Oz stresses over and over how he must and will do anything for her. While the deep platonic love is real and remains, Oz eventually develops out of the unhealthily obsessive aspects of this devotion, which are heavily implied to be a lingering imprint from his time as her stuffed animal further warped by the trauma of what he witnessed happened to her during Tragedy of Sablier.
• Disappears into Light: In the final chapter, Oz joins with the other lights of the Abyss along with Alice after having final words with Gilbert.
• Dissonant Serenity: In the first half of the manga, his ability to somehow smile through and accept every situation is one of his defining traits. Other characters are unnerved by Oz's lack of reaction to events that would normally be considered very emotionally damaging.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Once you know the true events of Sablier, Oz's psychotic Freak Outs in the first half of the manga begin to look a lot like PTSD.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": Ever since they were kids, he has wanted Gilbert to stop calling him "Master" or "Younger master" because he always felt there was something off with it. Gilbert finally calls him Oz without honorifics after he decides to rebel against his first master Oswald to protect Oz.
• The Dulcinea Effect: Just shortly after meeting Alice, Oz finds himself willing to do anything to protect her and make her happy, without knowing why himself. Justified since Oz was initially her stuffed rabbit, and one of the first conscious decisions he made in his life was that he wanted to make sure Alice was happy.
• Endearingly Dorky: At times, especially when he nerds out over Holy Knight.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Oz displays seemingly infinite compassion and forgiveness for others, including those who have deeply hurt him like Xai. However, Jack is the only person Oz has openly stated to hate because Jack caused unforgivable physical and emotional damage for Oz and his closest friends.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: Played With. He's not evil in the slightest, despite being designed to destroy the forces that separate the human world from the Abyss, but he was forced to commit atrocities against his will during the Tragedy of Sablier. The distress induced by the ordeal causes him to physically change from a majestic rabbit to a horrifically misshapen shade that barely looks like the rabbit he was born as. He gets better by the end of the series, though.
• Expository Pronoun: He originally started using "ore" as a first-person pronoun to imitate Alice's father, Levi. This symbolized his increasing self-awareness as he grew beyond being a mere stuffed toy.

F-H

• First Friend: Instead of Jack, Oz was his Alice's sole companion when she was locked at the Baskerville's tower. Alice took one of Oz's stuffed rabbit vessels with her from the Abyss and she loved to talk and play with him, so she never felt lonely at the tower. Alice was heartbroken when the stuffed rabbit disintegrated from giving Lacie's final memories to Jack.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: He spent ten years in the Abyss, but since time flows differently there Oz doesn't notice it when he comes back. Once he finds out, he has to adjust to things such as how his best friend and his little sister have grown while he's still the same.
• Foil: To Jack. Their Keet ways, which were both used as identical masks to hide their interior thoughts and feelings, become contrasting opposites; Oz, being "heartbreakingly sensitive" as Oscar called him, used this act to hide his emotional turbulence and try to prevent those he loved from worrying about him; Jack used it to hide the fact that he felt he was actually empty inside, which he knew wasn't normal. Even their endings invert their characters: Jack began as the only normal human main character of the Sablier cast and ended a shattered, sociopathic shade, while Oz began as only a bit of energy recording memories inside a doll and developed into one of the most psychologically human characters in the cast.
• Fond Memories That Could Have Been: In the final chapter, Oz sees a vision of a world where none of his friends and loved ones died, everyone could be happy and they had their promised tea party. Oz at first thinks this was a mere dream, but White Alice affirms that was most likely a glimpse of an Alternate Timeline. This brings Oz a bit of consolation before he and Alice disappear in front of Gilbert.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine. Out of the four main characters, Oz is the most cheerful, charming, compassionate, fun-loving and friendly. Although he starts off as a Stepford Smiler, his cheerfulness turns genuine as he becomes more hopeful.
• Freak Out: Has them occasionally throughout the first half of the manga, whenever he's under stress enough to almost make him remember the events of Sablier. Notably occurs in Cheshire's dimension, the sorcerer Rytas' house, the Second Coming of Age Ceremony and especially at the Hole at Sablier.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He was originally a children's comfort toy owned by the Core and Lacie and later the Alice twins, and possibly the single least-threatening thing in the story. Jack and White Alice (in one of her more psychotic moments) decided that made him the ideal tool to end the world, which resulted in Oz being a direct cause of the Tragedy of Sablier completely against his will.
• The Gadfly: He has a tendency to set people off for fun, all in good teasing though. Gilbert and Elliot are his usual targets.
• Go Out with a Smile: Oz initially dissolves into tears, mourning that he'll never be able to attend another tea party with everyone or learn to use a camera. Gilbert promises him, however, that he'll wait however long it takes for Oz and Alice to return to the world of the living. This calms Oz enough that both he and Alice are able to smile as their lives end and they join with the other lights of the Abyss.
  Oz & Alice: See you later, Gilbert!
• Grand Theft Me: Strangely enough, this is a two-way street. Oz eventually ended up doing this to Jack as his soul gradually broke down as his body aged and de-aged, but after picking up some of Jack's scattered soul pieces, he also becomes able to do this to Oz, until Oz (apparently) destroys him for good. At the end of the story, Jack's vacant body is left empty of both him and Oz, and so the Core takes it instead.
• Guile Hero: Throughout the series we get glimpses of Oz's perceptive and deductive nature, though he usually hides it behind a childish facade. It really stands out towards the end, when Oz manages to correctly predict the thoughts and actions of Oswald, the Baskervilles, Jack, White Alice, and the Core, and make a plan to save the world based on manipulating and utilizing all of them (along with a Chekhov's Gun briefly mentioned in a single throwaway sentence dozens of chapters ago) during just those few hours spent recovering at Lutwidge.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He might have several issues, but Oz is ultimately a nice, cheerful person who would do anything for those he cares about.
• Hair-Raising Hare: As B-Rabbit, Oz came to be known as the monster responsible for the Tragedy of Sablier. However, he's really a subversion because Oz never wanted to do any of that; Jack had the Intention of the Abyss turn him into a world-destroying weapon and forced him to help him sink Sablier into the Abyss. Poor Oz was screaming and crying in horror the entire time Jack used him to kill people.
• Hates Being Alone: Xai's rejection left Oz with serious abandonment issues and an immense aversion for the feeling of loneliness.
• Heal the Cutie: Xai's emotional abuse on Oz throughout his childhood left him unable to trust in the worth of temporary things like friendship, love, or his own feelings, resulting in him creating a shallow personality mask and conditioning himself to cheerfully accept misery. As Oz experiences Character Development, he slowly begins to gain a more positive outlook and his eventual decision to have faith that his friends do actually care about him and do not wish to abandon him leads him to actually trust in the worth and reality of that. Through this change, Oz transforms from a depressed cynic to an in-universe symbol of hope.
• The Heart: Oz's infinite compassion combined with his leadership skills motivates those around him to place their faith in his values; Gilbert, for example, has the chance to shoot Xai twice for all he has done, but ultimately chooses not to because he knows Oz still would not want him to. Ultimately, the conclusion of the series comes from Oz's ability to unify all of the remaining opposing forces within the cast for the sake of his faith in the future. This is the main point of contrast highlighted between him and Jack.
• Hellish Pupils: When he uses the power of B-Rabbit, he gains red irises and white, slitted pupils.
• Heroic BSoD: Several times:
  • A brief one when he accidentally slashes Gilbert at the start of the series.
  • A big one after Elliot dies.
  • The biggest one in the series after The Reveal of what he really is, and the events following in reality.
• Hesitant Sacrifice: Oz sacrifices himself in order to prevent the world from getting dragged into the Abyss. Although he remains calm, composed and accepting the entire time, he does start crying with a bittersweet smile on his face, saying, "I don't want to disappear."
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Gilbert, though the "heterosexual" part is questionable on Gilbert's end.
• Hive Mind: Back when he was an Animate Inanimate Object he split his consciousness between the stuffed rabbit in the Abyss and the other rabbit outside of it. This ended when he transferred Lacie's last memory to Jack, destroying his rabbit body in the real world. His other body became the chain B-Rabbit.
• Hope Is Scary: Having been rejected by his own father, Oz became disillusioned him to the concepts of permanence and self-worth. This is why he conditioned himself to accept horror and misery with a smile. Ironically, he comes to embody hope and faith in the present by the end.
• Humanity Ensues: He was once a small stuffed animal rabbit that gained sentience through the power of the Abyss and exposure to human emotions, but through a series of increasingly horrifying events, ended up inhabiting a human body. True to his thematic inspiration (though it isn't obvious at first), much of his story is actually about dealing with the emotional baggage left from how he was created and understanding and accepting what it means to be 'himself' and 'real.'
• Humanoid Abomination: Looks human. Isn't.
• I Am Who?: Revealed to be the true B-Rabbit.
• Identical Grandson: To the point that he looks like a near-exact copy of young Jack. Subverted since he isn't actually Jack's descendant. The reason he looks identical to him is that "his" body is actually Jack's.
• Identity Breakdown: He suffers one after the one-two punch he gets when Jack tells him 1) he's neither a legitimate Vessalius nor even a human being, but the real Chain B-Rabbit who ended up possessing the body of Jack, his contractor, and 2) that Jack was Evil All Along and has been manipulating him the entire time.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: The complete rejection of his adoptive father Xai left a big emotional scar in Oz. During his breakdowns, he confesses that the only thing he ever wanted was for someone to tell him he was allowed to exist and be loved.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Once he recovers his original memories, Oz feels crushed by guilt over Alice having committed suicide to protect him from Jack, especially when he had promised her to save her if she was in danger.
• Immortality: Through Body Surf and a back-and-forth case of Merlin Sickness. Jack's soul gradually broke because of this process, whilst Oz, being a natural-borne Chain and not rejected by the Abyss, did not share his fate. The only reason Jack could keep taking his body back was because one of his soul pieces ended up back in his body, probably during the fiasco at Cheshire's dimension.
  • There are still ways to kill him, though. Tossing him into the Abyss, if using all five Black-Winged Chains, could have dragged him right into the Darkness of the Abyss and theoretically done the job. And of course by pointing his destructive powers at himself and killing his own Contractor, which is actually what happens when he forms a Contract with the Intention of the Abyss to free her from her imprisonment and re-stabilize the Abyss.
• Implied Love Interest: For Gilbert and Echo. The latter's crush is implied in the manga, expanded on in the bonus material, and potentially reciprocated. The former is... well, Gilbert.
• I Owe You My Life: His devotion to Alice is revealed to come from his crediting her and her mother with giving him life. Lacie gave him sentience by giving his original body to the Core of the Abyss and Alice gave him "life" via love and care when he was just a stuffed animal.
• Irony: Used deliberately in his character development. Arguably the main story line in Pandora Hearts is showing how Oz, the least human character sans the Core, develops into one of the most human characters psychologically.
• It Amused Me: Occasionally, he likes to screw with others, mainly Gilbert, for the sake of it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the beginning. He loses his jerk edge as the story goes on, though he still loves to tease Gilbert.

K-P

• Keet: A subversion. He seems incredibly cheerful and upbeat, but this is because, due to his father's abuse, he doesn't believe he has the right to trouble his friends with his darker emotions, and so pretends to be unaffected by the horrifying events that happen around him. He slowly relearns how to show genuine emotions over the course of the story.
• KidAnova: He flirts with many younger girls in the beginning, although it appears this trait is mostly an act to go along with his Keet attitude; like his Stepford Smiles, he eventually grows out of this.
• Kid Hero: He's 15 at the start of the story. Although his real age is actually over a hundred thanks to Jack being rejected by the Abyss.
• Kid with the Leash: Even though Alice treats him like he's the servant, Oz is the one in control.
• Killer Rabbit: Considering he is actually B-Rabbit.
• The Kirk: Calm, but upbeat and somewhat unstable at times, Oz forms the center that balances out the hot-tempered Alice and the serious Gilbert.
• The Leader: Type Charismatic with shades of Levelheaded. He leads the group's investigations and makes most of their major decisions.
• Living Emotional Crutch:
  • To Gil, in a major way. This doesn't seem to have improved by the end, even when the living bit is no longer applicable. We can say, however, that any dangerous tendencies Gilbert had due to this were successfully stabilized.
  • While he doesn't know it, Oz is this to his uncle Oscar. It was Oz's presence what prevented Oscar from sinking into despair after he lost both his wife and child at childbirth. A part of Oscar felt tortured by being reminded that Oz was there and his own child wasn't, but feeling that pain made Oscar want to live and fill the void left in his heart by treating Oz as his own son.
• Living Lie Detector: It is brought up several times that Oz knows when people are lying. Interestingly, he almost never calls them out on it and plays along. Then he acts based on the truth instead of what he pretended to believe.
• Living Toys: Before he was made into a Sympathetic Sentient Weapon or became a Humanoid Abomination, Oz was originally a pair of stuffed rabbit dolls owned by Lacie, and later, her daughters. The Core gave him sentience, allowing him to exist as a single consciousness between both bodies and give those in the Abyss and those in the human world connection and companionship.
• Love Makes You Crazy: A platonic variation. He'll do anything for Alice. He'll go temporarily insane after witnessing human!Alice's death. He'll tear apart the Abyss and almost Alice herself to get rid of anything that hurts her. This softens towards the end of the story, as Oz normalizes and deepens his relationships with other people and learns to listen to what Alice truly wants.
• Martyr Without a Cause: Oz repeatedly puts himself in harm's way to protect others because he doesn't care what happens to himself. Elliot calls him out on this, telling Oz that if he keeps doing it he will only worry and hurt those who care about him and he is only trying to protect himself that way.
• Mellow Fellow: Oz rarely changes his carefree and positive attitude, even in the most horrifying situations. It can be a bit disturbing at times. Internally, though, as we find out, he's heavily disturbed and severely depressed.
• Mercy Kill: He forms a contract with the Intention of the Abyss and kills her from the inside because being the host of the Core has caused Possession Burnout to the point where her very being—body, mind, and soul—was about to cease existing altogether.
• Messianic Archetype: A double subversion. Initially he was believed to be the reincarnation of Jack Vessalius, foretold by Prophecy and destined to save the world. Then it turned out that he was actually more of an Antichrist, a parasitic Chain born out of Jack Vessalius' desire to cut the previously untouchable chains supporting their world and sink it into the Abyss and currently living inside Jack's own cursed body. Then in a final twist, Oz knowingly goes to his death repairing the horrible effects the casts' mistakes have had on the Abyss, restoring it to its former beauty and giving the surviving cast and the world a second chance. His role as this is emphasized by the subtle Biblical allusions that pop up around him in the story.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He isn't happy when he thinks Gilbert is the guy Ada likes.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: He's the real Bloody Black Rabbit. Though what the first "B" truly stands for can be debated, as the Alice twins use "Beloved" instead of "Bloody" when calling his name, the adjective 'Bloody' was still unfortunately well-earned.
• Nephewism: Oz's mother died when he was young and his father never came to see him, so his Uncle Oscar took it upon himself to look after Oz as if he was his own.
• Never Be Hurt Again: At the young age, Oz knew the pain of rejection because his own father hates him for reasons he's unable to understand until much later in the series. This drives him to deliberately avoid emotional bonds and suppress his negative emotions to not let himself be vulnerable to being hurt by others. Eventually, as Gilbert and Alice prove Oz means the world to them, Oz lets go of his fears, opens up to his true feelings and learns to trust his friends won't hurt or abandon him.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He gave out a fragment of Lacie's memories to Jack after her death as repayment for the love she gave to Oz as a plush Rabbit at the cost of his body. Jack later repays him by forcing him to slaughter the citizens of Sablier while fully aware and physically unable to stop it.
• Not So Similar: Much of the first half of the manga works to develop how superficially similar Oz and Jack are, both being Gadfly Keets initially presented as Messianic Archetypes. Many scenes are specifically constructed to parallel events, moments, conflicts, and dialogue choices in their lives. However, the second half works to show how different they truly are in their motivations and emotional capacity by taking these previous parallels and inverting the choices made afterwards to highlight Oz's emotional sensitivity in contrast with Jack's sociopathy, showing that their similar actions had opposite motivations.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Often acts dumb (but still charming) in order to convince people to tell him more about something.
• Oblivious Adoption: Initially, Oz has no idea that he's adopted since only Jack and Xai know that Xai's stillborn child was Switched at Birth with Oz.
• Older Than He Looks: Oz is physically and mentally 15, but is in reality a century-old Chain contained inside a century-old body with a bizarre case of Merlin Sickness.
• Our Phlebotinum Child: Levi made the two stuffed rabbits that acted as Oz's first vessel and Lacie gave the rabbits to the Core of the Abyss, which created the consciousness that became Oz. In a sense, Oz could be considered the brother of the Alice twins because he also came into existence because of Lacie and Levi.
• Parental Abandonment: Oz's adoptive mother died when he was young and his adoptive father Xai rejected him after coming to associate Oz with Jack's manipulations. His Uncle Oscar was the closest thing to a stable parental figure Oz had as a boy, but even that relationship was complicated since Oscar initially treated Oz as a Replacement Goldfish for his own deceased child and both loved and resented Oz for living when his child did not. Unsurprisingly, all of this built up enormous emotional tensions within the family.
• Person of Mass Destruction: As B-Rabbit while he has his powers. He stands above all other Chains for this, as even the next five most powerful Chains working together could only (barely) contain a portion of the damage he wrought during the Tragedy of Sablier and were still unable to save the doomed city. In the hierarchy of power B-Rabbit seems to be only topped by the Core of the Abyss itself
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Alice. Word of God has expressly stated that Oz and Alice aren't romantically attracted or involved with one another because their relationship is "on a different level." Still, the two absolutely adore each other in the platonic sense.
• Powers via Possession: Oz gets these through Alice, except it actually turns out to be the opposite as Alice borrowed all of her powers from Oz. Jack also gets these through Oz in later chapters.
• Princely Young Man: And how. He shuffles his residency between mansions, is deferred to by Pandora and most of the government, has a highly cultured taste despite his at times eccentric personality, styles frequently in Gorgeous Period Clothes, and is the heir to one of the most powerful families in the country.
• Psychotic Smirk: Occasionally pops up either when he's really pissed off or trying to freak people out.

R-W

• Really 700 Years Old: Unlike other characters, he really lived through those hundred years although he has no recollection over it.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes turn red whenever using B-Rabbit's power. He's also a lot more violent like this and can easily kill people.
• Reincarnation:
  • Subverted. It's initially believed that Oz is the reincarnation of the hero Jack Vessalius. The truth turns out to be far more complex.
  • Played straight at the end of the series. He and Alice knowingly go to their deaths in the final chapter in order to repair the damage done to the Abyss by human hands, but are reincarnated 100 years later and eventually reunite with Gilbert.
• Replacement Goldfish: His entire relationship with his Uncle Oscar is a deconstruction of this trope. After Oscar's son died, Oscar pretty much raised Oz himself, since Xai refused to have a hand in doing so. But while Oscar grew to love Oz as the son he never had, he also grew to hate him for seemingly replacing his child.
• The Reveal: He's really B-Rabbit and his "body" is actually Jack's. The reveal of this shortly after the reveal of Jack's true moral alignment threw the fandom into utter chaos.
• Righteous Rabbit: Oz was originally a stuffed rabbit toy that wanted nothing more than to make his owner Alice happy. He was made into a Hair-Raising Hare against his will by Jack and the Intention of the Abyss and he was forced to help in Jack's plan to destroy the world. Despite all this, Oz remains a good-natured and heroic character and at the end of the story, he restablizes the world from the damage it received due to Jack's actions and returns the Abyss to the golden paradise it once was, at the cost of his own life.
• Safety in Indifference: Oz was so mentally screwed up by Xai's emotional abuse that he essentially removed any emotional attachment from anything and deliberately Stopped Caring about his own well-being so he could Never Be Hurt Again. He grows out of it once he learns that all he's done is deprive himself of happiness and worry the people who care for him.
• The Scapegoat: Played with. He's this to Pandora and the Baskervilles after escaping execution, as they make a public announcement that he's the cause of the earthquakes and even put a bounty on his head. Of course, because the last fragment of Jack's soul exists in the same body as Oz, this is both true and untrue. Oswald even admits fairly early in the manga that Oz is just an unfortunate existence he must oppose and destroy For the Greater Good.
  • Played straight with his adoptive father Xai, who blamed Oz for his own mistakes since he had too much pride to simply accept his misfortune and move on.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He uses his connection to Jack as this, though it later comes back to haunt him when Jack (and by association, Oz) is identified as a threat that must be destroyed by the Baskervilles and much of Pandora.
• Shoo the Dog: After his memories of the Tragedy of Sablier come back, Oz tells Alice he can't let her stay with him anymore out of guilt for being the cause of her Heroic Suicide. Because of Oz denying her, Alice loses her physical form until he calls her back.
• Sinister Scythe: B-Rabbit's—and therefore Oz's own—signature weapon, and one of the more destructive physical manifestations of his powers. Its primary purpose is revealed to be cutting the chains that hold up the world and causing the Apocalypse, but it also has the added ability of turning all it comes into contact with—mortal and "immortal" alike—into sand.
• Stepford Smiler: Oz suppresses his negative emotions under a veneer of cheerfulness (and occasionally, trolling) for the first half of the series.
• Stopped Caring: The trauma of his father's neglect and emotional abuse eventually led Oz to completely disregard his own well-being. By the beginning of the manga, he has changed from a remarkably sensitive child to a stoic and faux-cheerful young man who does not care if he dies. Nearly all of his Character Development is centered around reversing this.
• Switched at Birth: Oz is actually the chain Oz the B-rabbit inhabiting the cursed body of Jack Vessalius. He was switched with Xai Vessalius's real, stillborn child at birth as part of Jack's plan to reunite Alice and the B-rabbit.
• Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: Oz's true backstory and connection to the Tragedy of Sablier: he was the Chain that, under the control of an Omnicidal Maniac, slaughtered and sank the city into the Abyss. Entirely against his will.
• Sympathy for the Devil: At the end of his emotional arc Oz has grown enough to finally firmly accept that he in no way deserved what Xai and Jack done to him, but still expresses a retrospective level of sympathy for both. Oz even cries at Xai's death, simultaneously rejecting the legitimacy of everything Xai has every told Oz while still mourning Xai as the father Oz always wanted but never got to know—which is an impressive feat of empathy, considering Xai's portion of the conversation amounts to a Dying Declaration of Hate.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Oz feels his own world fall apart when Jack reveals to him that not only is he not a legitimate Vessalius, he's not even a human being. He's the real B-Rabbit who ended up possessing the body of his contractor, Jack Vessalius. Shortly before the damaged pieces of Jack's soul left the body after 100 years, Jack arranged Xai Vessalius to switch his stillborn son with Jack's de-aged body. Basically, Oz's entire identity was nothing but lies and fabrications of Jack.
• Took a Level in Badass: He starts becoming this after the events in Sablier, where he first manifested his powers but took him a while to control it. He took another level in badassery when he remembers his past as B-Rabbit, to the point where he can fight Glen/Leo evenly. Compare it to the earlier events in the manga where he can barely defend himself without the help of Alice or Gilbert.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Starts out cynical, depressed, and essentially believing his entire life is hopeless. By the end of the series, he literally represents hope.
• Tragic Keepsake: He keeps Echo/Noise's cloak after their deaths, and from then on is never seen without it until his own death.
• Tranquil Fury: During his Second Coming of Age ceremony, he flips between this and loud, aggressive anger, all directed at Isla Yura. Notably, the second startles Vincent and the first deeply unsettles Elliot.
• Trauma Conga Line: Oz was originally a sentient child's comfort toy created from the wish of a doomed woman, Lacie, to provide her lonely friend the Core of the Abyss company. After her death, Oz ended up in the possession of her daughters, one of whom turned him into a monsterous weapon and gave control of him to a psychopath, Jack, who forced Oz to slaughter countless lives against his will, ending with the other daughter, Alice, committing suicide in front of Oz to prevent Jack from using Oz for further destruction. This gave Oz a severe case of PTSD and amnesia as well as trapped him with Jack, his abuser, after which his consciousness went dormant for around 85 years. Once active again, Oz was adopted into an emotionally abusive and neglectful family and experienced isolation from the outside world, complete rejection and dehumanization at the hands of his adoptive father, inconsistent love and support from his loving but damaged uncle, and the death of his adoptive mother, all while still a young child. And these are just the traumatic events that took place before the actual series started. From Oz's creation to his death, there were very few moments when he was able to be genuinely happy.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: A case of bait and switch between this and Limited Wardrobe. Early on in the series, Oz's survival after the Coming of Age ceremony is supposed to be secret, so he is given some commoners' clothing and this becomes his signature outfit for the early manga. After the rest of the nobility find out about his survival, though, he's integrated back in with high society and begins wearing a larger variety of clothes. The last time his commoner outfit is really seen is during the incident at the Hole at Sablier; after that, Oz usually styles a range of effeminate knickerbocker suits and fancy frock coats.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had he not given Lacie's memory fragment, Jack would have accepted Lacie's death and the tragedy would not have happened.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He has always wished to gain the praise and recognition of his father Xai Vessalius. He concludes eventually that he likely never will, but realizes that it's not his fault and he has the right to exist just as much as anyone else, no matter what his father thinks.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack": Alice named him after her uncle, Oswald.
• When He Smiles: Gilbert returns the expression with obvious adoration, and Alice usually cheers up.
• Wise Beyond His Years: Probably due to the Parental Abandonment, his bookworm tendencies, and being raised as the heir of Vessalius House. He's actually been alive since before the Tragedy of Sablier, though he doesn't remember it until Jack triggers his memories.
• With Friends Like These...: Oz openly calls Gilbert his most precious friend. He enjoys playing with Gilbert by mercilessly tormenting him and laughing at his panicked reactions. Nevertheless, their devotion to each other is sincere.