Characters / Spriggan

aka: Spriggan 1998

Character list of Spriggan.

Be warned of spoilers, especially for those who are just seeing the Netflix version, considering the manga's been fully published by the early 90s.

ARCAM Corporation

Leadership:

Henry Garnum

• Karma Houdini: Henry was never brought to justice despite collaborating with Trident.
• Secret-Keeper: He later finds out Tea's real name and her backing of the ARCAM Corporation at the end of the manga.

Yamamoto

Spriggans:

Yu Ominae

• Barehanded Blade Block: During the chase in the Grand Bazaar in the OVA, Ominae managed to block a mook's BFS with his bare hands. Before breaking it, much to the mook's horror. Justified because Ominae is a Super-Soldier.
• Casting Gag: Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time Kyle McCarley took over a role previously done by Chris Patton.
• Child Soldiers: Yu himself, who was kidnapped at a young age and placed into a black ops unit of child soldiers known as "COSMOS" after his parents were killed during an archaeological expedition in Iran by American commandos.
• Experienced Protagonist: An ex-COSMOS child soldier who fought around the world before his brainwashing wore off and recruitment to ARCAM.
• The Power of Friendship: McDougal calls out Yu for Saving the World when It Is Beyond Saving. Yu replies that he doesn't care about the world; everyone he cares about is in ARCAM so he fights to save them.
• See You in Hell: Yu yells one to Col. McDougal before giving the latter the final blow.
• That Man Is Dead: Yu has abandoned being called #43 since he defected from COSMOS, preferring to be called by his real name.
• The Dreaded: Yu's feared by militaries/intelligence agencies worldwide because of his experience fighting with other Spriggan forces. If any military unit's been told to go after him, it shows that he's assessed to be a major threat.
• Would Hurt a Child: Especially if said child is used by the American military to be engineered with enhanced psychic powers.

Jean Jacquemonde

• Anti-Hero: Jean believes that ARCAM's security forces need to be ruthless against those who try to steal OOPArts by doing the necessary, even killing, in order to protect the human race.
• Irony: He hates it when he's called a monster. Considering that's he's a lycanthrope bioweapon that is.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Jean is this after he sees his own blood whenever he gets shot up by small arms. He's like that since his family bloodline are all werewolves, created by ancient civilizations as a biological soldier. However, ex-ARCAM Spriggan and doctor Percup Ramdi had been able to fix it somewhat.
• Super-Speed: Jean can outrun machine-guns fired at his direction thanks to his powers. It's a strong hint to his lycanthrope past.

Tea Flatte

• Really 700 Years Old: She is the original Chairwoman of the 300 year old ARCAM Corporation. She learned life extension magic from Merlin.
• The Man Behind the Man: Her full name is Tea Flatte Arcam, who created the ARCAM Corporation.

Oboro

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Oboro is a benevolent version.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Oboro mostly fights with qigong skills.
• Badass Normal: Fighting against enhanced soldiers and supernatural opponents, he has to resort to using martial arts.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: He's Japanese by birth, but he's been trained in Chinese martial arts for most of his adult life when he was growing up.
• Stealth Mentor: A variation occurs when Oboro was first introduced. He was a good guy all along, and was a double agent. A more straight example occurs late in the series when he seemingly defects to Trident. He fought and seemingly killed Jean and later fought Yuu. After being defeated (he may have limited himself) he explains that he did all that to unlock Yu's true potential and he knew Jean wouldn't be that easily killed. It was shown in subsequent battles that the two indeed became a lot more powerful after his "lesson".

ARCAM Private Army:

Jimmy Max

• Badass Normal: Leads the APA against the paranormal, superpowered beings and heavily decked military units despite using conventional small arms, explosives and close quarters combat.

Scientists:

Professor Mayzel

Margaret

Allies:

Rie Yamabishi

• Right in Front of Me: Yu's Childhood Friend asks for ARCAM help in tracking down her friend from the orphanage they grew up in America, not realising he's her Spriggan bodyguard.

Yoshino Somei

• Action Girl: Being a mercenary treasure hunter and spirit medium while trained by her mom at a young age, she's prepared for this when she decided to go hunt for OOPArt treasure.
• Badass Normal: Medium capabilities aside, she still is charging into very dangerous Out-Of-Place Part archaeological sites (many of which are downright Death World-level) carrying only a machine gun and grenades and thriving.
• Catchphrase: She likes to refer to herself as "a fragile maiden" to try to convince people not to harm her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her mom died at a young age, which forced her to go to the mercenary treasure hunter career early on while in school.
• Dope Slap: Exaggerated for laughs. Because Ominae is A) that headstrong and B) wearing a bodysuit made of ultra-tough Unobtanium, she tends to do this to him by blasting him with her machine gun.
• Only Sane Man: Zig-zags in this role. When it involves encountering an OOPart, she most of the time lets her Greed get the better of her and Yu is the one who is most sane by thinking it's best to retrieve it and lock it away or destroy it. When it involves things like prioritizing a Hot-Blooded grand battle to finish a conflict between two parties over surviving a Death World-level place that is out to kill everybody incessantly, she is the one who has to call out Yu and the others to place survival first.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Although she's a capable fighter, a lot of her scenes in the 2022 anime are her having moments of clumsiness, having funny reactions to whatever is going on (such as forming dollar signs in her eyes when Yu tells her that Soma would be a priceless Panacea) or getting in arguments with Yu.
• The Rival: She often encounters Yu on the field trying to get a relic that Yu is out to get himself in order to get rich.
• Walking Disaster Area: Yu does not likes her because, aside from being The Rival, she has a very bad bout of luck. Her initial appearance accidentally causes an idol's Self-Destructing Security to cause a cave-in and in episode six Yu says a Long List of the collateral damage of her operations. Three of her raids ending in international incidents is the least embarrassing part of it.

Shogakukan 3rd High:

Kagaho Sasahara

Hatsuho Sasahara

Tanaka

• Brainwashed and Crazy: Tanaka was brainwashed to kill Yu, but struggles to go through with it.
• Original Character: He only exists in the 1998 OVA.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Tanaka was brainwashed to commit a suicide bombing attack in Shogakukan High in order to kill Ominae.

United States Special Operations Command

Machiner's Platoon:

Colonel Mc Dougal

• A God Am I: He declares himself to be a god after he starts Noah's Ark.
• Child Soldiers: He's a young child who has been experimented on by the Machiner's Platoon (Machine Corp. in the OVA) and cybernetically enhanced since birth, having been trained to harness unmatched psychic power.
• Colonel Badass: Aforementioned Colonel McDougal can take down complete squads of soldiers with his mind alone.
• Creepy Child: Colonel McDougal doesn't look much more than 6-10 years old. He's also an albino with heterochromia, a sadistic killer who can slaughter people just be thinking about it, and who plans to wipe out all human life and repopulate the world with creatures of his own devising by seizing the power of Noah's Ark.
• Humans Are Bastards: Firmly believes humanity to be the greatest threat to Earth, and as such plans to use Noah's Ark to exterminate them.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Col. McDougal plans to wipe humanity off the face of the planet to help the Earth re-flourish and repopulate it with creatures he will create.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He sincerely believes that Humans Are Bastards and that the only way for the Earth to thrive is for them to be wiped out.

Hummingbat

• CallBack: The ONA version of "Noah's Ark" has Fatman and Little Boy not thinking too highly of him when they fight Yu and the former mentions that they're not weak like him.
• Graceful Loser: After being defeated by Ominae, he simply remarks that God promised that Sodom and Gomorrah would be spared if even ten righteous people were found within the city, comparing Ominae to those ten righteous.
• Starter Villain: In the ONA, Yu fights him as the first bad guy to be taken down. Not so in the manga since "FIRST MISSION" was published in the 2000s and beyond after the manga finished publishing in the 1990s.

Fatman

• Gatling Good: Fat Man's preferred weapon. It appears to be a vehicle-mounted chain gun, but given his immense strength, Fat Man can use it single-handedly to massacre entire legions of Red Shirts.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Yu snaps out of a Heroic BSoD in what, up to that point, was a Curb-Stomp Battle with Fat Man, taking off his hand with one knife swipe and gutting him with another. This just gets him riled up.
  Fat Man: FINALLY, YOU BEGIN TO FIGHT!

Little Boy

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Several of Little Boy's victims ends up being diced apart into chunks thanks to his Razor Floss, with a few who gets cleanly bisected.
• Razor Floss: The cybernetically enhanced Machiner's Platoon operative "Little Boy" uses razor-thin wires as his weapon of choice, which he utilizes to ensnare and slice multiple enemies at once to ribbons.
• Save the Villain: Discussed when Yu and Jean Jacquemonde get into an argument over whether they should spare Little Boy's life after taking him prisoner, with Yu saying they have to be better than their enemies and Jean arguing that they need to be ruthless to deter them.

COSMOS:

Ralph Cooley

Sho Kanaya

• The Rival: Sees himself as a rival to Yu since he's able to break COSMOS conditioning and uses his special forces skills to fight against them.
• You Are in Command Now: He commands a revamped COSMOS unit with surgery done with implants on his brain. This allows Sho to command numerous units through Orihalcon synthesis, allowing digital signals to be used.

Trident Corporation:

Leadership:

Larry Markson

• The Sociopath: This man has no problem risking the obliteration of a significant chunk of the planet via OOPart if that brings his organization any closer to getting significant power, and he will do all of that with a half-smug/half-"meh" look on his face.

Operatives:

Iwao Akatsuki

Bowman

Jack the Ripper

Russia:

Viktor Stolov

Koichi Moroha

• Playing Both Sides: Moroha uses the CIA agents and the American military with the Spetsnaz in Japan to help him secure the Fire Orb for himself. It's hinted that he does this so that can find and locate the shrine.
• Starter Villain: Yu fights him in Tokyo as the first major villain going after OOPArts.^note You need to ignore the one shots.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Moroha kills the CIA agents in the outskirts of New Tokyo International Airport by using razor sharp winds that decapitated them and their body parts.

Mexico:

Quetzalcoatl

• Ancient Astronauts: He's responsible for helping to civilize the native Mexicans in ancient times.

Tezcatlipoca

UK:

Maria Clemente

Professor Mauser

• Agonizing Stomach Wound: Mauser is shot in the gut by Clemente's black ops unit when he tries to protest the Berserker being taken away. Knowing that he is on borrowed time, and upset about his colleagues being killed, he has nothing left to lose.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Activates the Berserker, knowing it will automatically go on a killing spree, to slaughter the people who killed his colleagues and fatally wounded him. He also hopes that the U.K. government will have a tremendous amount of egg on its face and will be forced to reveal the existence of OOParts to try to save some of its dignity when the Berserker inevitably escapes the base and continues its rampage through the towns nearby.

Neo-Nazis:

Kutheimer

Bo Brantz

• Even Evil Has Standards: Initially, he displays this by objecting when his fellow Neo-Nazis break their promise to release a hostage. When he returns much later in the story, Bo refuses to let anyone destroy the world. Yu thinks he's gone crazy.

Hans Schneider

• Psycho Knife Nut: Hans is an expert with knives, and enjoys cutting people up. He gloats about the chance to slice apart an Asian woman.

Out-of-place artifacts:

Fire Shrine/Orb

Mask of Palenque

Noah's Ark

• Collapsing Lair: Justified Trope; Noah's Ark is frozen in time, and activating the Self-Destruct Mechanism causes the flow of time to continue. As the Ark's mass is too great to sustain its weight in three-dimensional space, it collapses.
• Noah's Story Arc: It's depicted to be created by an ancient race as an out-of-place artifact which not only carried dinosaurs and mythical creatures, it's also used as a weather control device that can bring about drastic changes to the Earth's weather, including the threat of global flooding.

Berserker

• Hero Killer: The manga mentions that another Berserker unit killed several ARCAM security forces personnel when it got loose in India.

Crystal Skull

Phantom Isle

Colossus of Rhodes