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Sphinx
Nine/Arata Kokonoe
They were weak. That's why they died. We were weak, too. That's why we couldn't save them.
Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese), Christopher Bevins (English)
A secretive young man with a bright mind and calm demeanor who moves to Tokyo and attends school as a high school student alongside Twelve.
- Brains and Brawn: The brains to Twelve's brawn, as he's the mastermind in most of his terrorist plans.
- Badass Bookworm: Nine enjoys dropping literary and mythological allusions in his riddles.
- Conveniently Seated: When Nine transfers to Lisa's school, he's given the second-to-last seat next to the window, which is rather conveniently empty.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- After Five manages to hack his Macbook laptop in the 5th episode, Nine disposes of it and pulls out another one from under his desk straight away to resume his hacking work.
- Prepared to use the stolen atom bomb from Aomori in case he's killed or kidnapped near the end of the 10th episode.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He apparently has been through a lot, and witnessed the deaths of quite a few fellow children when he was younger.
- Far East Asian Terrorists: One with Twelve to the duo group called "Sphinx".
- Made of Iron: After getting caught in the explosion of one of his own bombs, he suffers some burns but shakes off the injury.
- Not So Stoic: Nine has shown signs of stress in the past, but after watching Twelve get shot, he just absolutely loses it.
- The Stoic: Always stays quite calm and emotionless.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Ironically seems to abide by this, as his bombs are never intended to actually kill anyone and he goes to great lengths to ensure that they don't, even shielding an innocent from an explosion and working with Shibasaki.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to bring the Japanese government down for being responsible for the cruel experimentation on him, Five, and Twelve from the Athena Project, and to expose their involvement to the rest of the world through acts of terrorism.
- Victorious Loser: He loses his life through the drugs and experimentation used on him due to the Athena Project, but manages to succeed on his goal in toppling the Japanese government with an EMP attack; and with the help of Shibazaki, he exposes the world to the cruelty of the Athena Project.
- Villain Protagonist: He's one of the terrorists.
- You Are Number 6: He's more known by his number than his alias.
Twelve/Tōji Hisami
Don't worry. I won't get too involved.
Voiced by: Soma Saito (Japanese), Aaron Dismuke (English)
A childish but mysterious young man who sees Nine as his brother, and is always with him.
- Attention Whore: As part of Sphinx he enjoys publicly taunting the police via uploading videos.
- Badass Book Worm:
- Brains and Brawn: The brawn to Nine's brains, as he serves the right-hand man and "muscle" to Nine's plans.
- Cannot Spit It Out: To Lisa.
- The Charmer:
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Is quite goofy and childish for the most part.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He apparently has been through a lot, and witnessed the deaths of quite a few fellow children when he was younger.
- Far East Asian Terrorists: One with Nine to the duo group called "Sphinx".
- In the Back: Twelve is shot in the back by American soldiers.
- Keet: A dark twist of this trope.
- Kick the Dog: Makes fun of an evacuating child's fear in episode 1.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Nine's blue.
- Ship Tease: It's implied he might have feelings for Lisa.
- Stepford Smiler: Acts childish and goofy but is quite capable of being cruel and ruthless.
- Tastes Like Purple: Episode 6 reveals he has synesthesia, so he associates peoples' voices with colors. According to him, Lisa's is yellow.
- The McCoy:
- Took a Level in Kindness: In Episode 2, he tells Lisa that he won't hesitate to kill her if she reveals their secrets. But in Episode 7, he is not okay with Nine leaving Lisa to die inside the plane where the bomb is located. Then in episode 8 and 9, he chooses to go rescue Lisa from Five, despite having to betray Nine in the process.
- The Trickster:
- Villain Protagonist: He's one of the terrorists.
- You Are Number 6: He's more known by his number than his alias.
Lisa Mishima
Will we be able to see him again?
Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (Japanese), Jad Saxton (English)
A girl in the same school that Nine and Twelve transfer into. Her problematic life both in home and school leads her into their world, and changes her fate forever.
- Abusive Parents/My Beloved Smother: Her mother doesn't look really sane and seems rather overbearing towards her daughter out of fear, that she'll "abandon" her like her husband did.
- But Not Too Foreign: Played with throughout the show. Even though Lisa is obviously not a Japanese name, she has Japanese physical features.
- Damsel in Distress:
- In Episode 7, she gets captured and locked inside a moving plane with the bomb strapped inside it; she escapes, though.
- She later gets kidnapped again by Five in Episode 8.
- Disappeared Dad: We never find out what happened to her father.
- Due to the Dead: She personally visits the graves of Nine and Twelve to pay her respects.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Part of the reason she joins up with None and Twelve is because her home and school life left her feeling lonely and miserable on a regular basis.
- Lethal Chef:
- In Episode 5, she cooks for Nine and Twelve. Both comment on how it tastes horrible, and even she agrees.
- In Episode 8, she adds strawberry Pocky to a cooking pot of curry.
- Parental Abandonment: Her dad separated and/or divorced from his her mum, which may or may not be the cause or contributing factor for her becoming unhinged.
- The Runaway: Starting from Episode 3.
- Shrinking Violet: Rarely stands up for herself, seems to have few—if any—friends, and hides in the bathroom during lunch.
- Team Mom: Averted and lampshaded by Nine.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: An odd example; while she does appear in the epilogue, we never find out what happened with her home situation. The question of whether she returned to her mother or if she's somehow supporting herself independently is left up in the air.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
Kenjiro Shibazaki
I'd plan to settle this even... but I wanted to see their future.
Voiced by: Shunsuke Sakuya (Japanese), Robert McCollum (English)
A plainclothes officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department who used to be part of of the police force's investigations division, but now works for its records division instead. His contemporary is currently in charge of looking into the terrorist attack in Tokyo.
- Adults Are Useless: Averted, as he's shown to be able to solve Sphinx's cryptic riddles, even managing to prevent one of their bombs from detonating.
- Berserk Button: Nuclear weapons, being a second-generation bomb victim of Hiroshima from the 1960s.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Invoked in episode four. With seconds left before the timer detonates Sphinx's "bomb", Shibazaki is correctly able to answer their riddle. Unfortunately, the rest of the department didn't play fair.
- Due to the Dead: He personally vists the graves of Nine and Twelve to pay his respects.
- Great Detective:
- Hardboiled Detective:
- Hero Antagonist: He's one of the investigators going after Sphinx.
- The Last DJ: Until the end of episode 2, when he returns to the investigations division. The reason he got moved to the records division in the first place is that, fifteen years ago, he believed a Diet secretary's death was not a suicide but a conspiracy of the secretary's political faction, which turned out to be led by a member of the police.
- Race Against the Clock: Especially with an EMP attack is imminent over Tokyo.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Wear a suit and tie in his younger days in the TMPD. Nowadays, not so much.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He becomes this once he is ordered to tackle cases related to Sphinx.
- Those Two Guys: With Mukasa (With him priors at records) and with Hamura (his "partner" in investigating the terror attacks).
- Workaholic: Implied. His daughter, a university student is initially pleasantly surprised when he visits her at her dormitory. Her pleasure fades when she finds out that he's come to see her because of work.
Hamura
If you're doing some investigating, I'll help.
Voiced by: Keisuke Aigasa (Japanese), Ian Sinclair (English)
A plainclothes officer who investigates the Sphinx attacks, he later works with Shibazaki in uncovering a major conspiracy that led to the bombings.
- Character Development: Initially distrusting him because of his "past record" that led to his trasfer, Hamura grows to accept Shibazaki due to his brilliance in solving the case until he helps him find the culprits even after he was suspended by his superior.
- "Eureka!" Moment: He was able to help Shibazaki solve the problem of how Nine could use the atom bomb to be detonated over Tokyo.
- Hero Antagonist: One of the other detectives assigned to the Sphinx case.
- Hypocritical Humor: Tries to warn off his colleagues that some of their investigations could get into trouble before the FBI showed up. He later does the same thing after being ordered to be suspended from the Sphinx case.
- Nice Guy: As part of his character development after he works with Shibazaki over the Sphinx bombings and the investigation on the unaccounted orphans for the Athena Plan.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a suit, but without the tie, and a dress shirt.
- Those Two Guys: With Shibazaki when they investigate the the unaccounted orphans taken by the RPA.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Initially does this to Shibazaki due to possible retaliation from Sphinx whenever he goes too far, such when the team makes a video for Shibazaki answering one of Sphinx's riddles.
Mukasa
You shouldn't assume that fat people are experts on carbs.
Voiced by: Mitsuaki Kanuka (Japanese), Jeremy Inman (English)
A plainclothes officer who works with Shibazaki in the records division of the TMPD, he helps solve riddles Sphinx leaves out in the most unlikely times.
- Big Eater: Mukasa enjoys eating those doughnuts when they're usually brought into the office.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Mukasa looks like Mitsuaki Kanuka, which is the reason why he's one of the two seiyus (next to Megumi Han) to join in the stage adaptation.
- Lazy Bum: Acts as this whenever Mukasa's doing nothing. He usually eats, plays his games or surfs the internet using the computers provided by the TMPD in the office.
- Nice Guy: Treats Shibazaki nicely even after he was "transferred" to the records division.
- Non-Action Guy: He only stays in the TMPD building, but he has his moments...
- Stealth Mentor: Some of Mukasa's actions have resulted in eureka moments where Shibazaki was able to decipher the riddles Sphinx sent to the National Police Agency. His free time consists of playing a portable fantasy game, which allows Shibazaki to solve one of the riddles of Sphinx.
- Those Two Guys: With Shibazaki prior to the events of the show.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Enjoys his doughnuts, alongside a big liter bottle of soda.
Kurahashi
Will you ever learn from your past mistakes?
Voiced by: Hideaki Tezuka (Japanese), Sean Hennigan (English)
An officer in the TMPD, who happens to be the boss of Shibazaki. He's in charge of handling public relations in interacting with the government and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- Da Chief: He's officially the head of the TMPD's 1st Division in the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
- A Father to His Men/Reasonable Authority Figure: He really tries to do this, if not for the bureaucrats in the Japanese government and the National Police Agency trying to appease to the demands of the American government.
- Locked Out of the Loop: When Five starts to conduct "anti-terrorist" operations against Sphinx, the National Police Agency and the Prime Minister keep him and the other officers involved out of the loop.
- Nerves of Steel: Kurahashi is not fazed when Shibazaki and the other detectives accuse him of collaborating with Five and the FBI in order to discredit Sphinx.
- Red Herring: Played with when the show tries to make it appear that Kurahashi allowed the false flag op to go through at Haneda. Subverted when he informs Shibazaki's team that he didn't know that the Superintendent General did not keep him in the loop.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Five
You're being careless, Nine.
Voiced by: Megumi Han (Japanese), Jamie Marchi (English)
An FBI agent who travels to Japan as part of her duties with NEST to lend support to the terrorist attack investigations.... and an extremely ruthless Inspector Javert using her position as a pretext for a personal vendetta.
- Bilingual Bonus: She speaks English, bordering on the gratuitous type, and Japanese. This foreshadows on her past as a Japanese orphan picked up by the RPA.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A subversion of this. While it's very clear that she ended up where she is due to being one of the smartest (if also most eccentric) people in the room, the fact that her pursuit of Nine and Twelve is an entirely personal "game" based on a wish to psychologically torture them rather than a real attempt to bring bad guys to justice is kind of a problem. She is called on this by her By-the-Book Cop partner Clarence several times.
- Child Soldier/Tyke-Bomb: The only completely successful product of the Athena Plan... though this comes at the cost of her mental development.
- Color-Coded Eyes: Her striking purple eyes immediately mark her as someone special, and she turns out to be a fellow alumna of the Athena Plan and a strong rival to Nine's cunning.
- The Cracker: She's as good of a hacker as Nine is, if not better, to the point that she can compromise his laptop and outwit him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She's from the same institution as Nine & Twelve.
- Driven to Suicide: After beating Nine, she feels as if she has nothing left to live for and kills herself.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Five actually was adopted and trained by the Intelligence Support Activity.
- FBI Agent: Was assigned to the FBI from NEST.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Sees investigating Sphinx as a game and has no problem endangering numerous lives to "play" with them and "beat" them.
- Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: She hasn't done any work related to her NEST occupation ever since she was posted in Tokyo with Clarence.
- Secretly Dying: Five due to her condition thanks to the RPA.
- Sole Survivor: Aside from Nine and Twelve she is the only survivor of the Athena Plan.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Five is a known FBI agent.
- White Hair, Black Heart: She is as amoral and selfish as her hair is white.
- You Are Number 6: The only name she has.
- Younger Than They Look: Due to her well-groomed appearance, she easily looks like a woman in her early or mid-twenties. Then we find out that she's not much older than Nine and Twelve, meaning that she's probably somewhere in her late teens.
Clarence
So you're saying that you'll acquiesce to the demands of a terrost, but not to the wishes of the American government?
Voiced by: Daisuke Takahashi (Japanese), David Wald (English)
An FBI agent with its Counter-Terrorism Division, he works alongside Five as part of the American government's response to catching the terrorists responsible for stealing plutonium from Aomori.
- By-the-Book Cop: He is a textbook
Lawful Neutral character who simply wants to track down Sphinx with a sense of caution, and resolve any related crises as he has been assigned. Five has a... somewhat different mindset. - The Dragon: To Five during their operations in Japan. A dutiful agent of the law stuck on the same mission as a Psychopathic Womanchild who has far too much autonomy for anyone's good.
- FBI Agent: Clarence is stationed with the Counter-Terrorism Division.
- Hero Antagonist: He's an investigator going after Sphinx. At least, that was the reason why he was in Japan.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Wear a suit and tie.
- The Starscream: What Five sees after Clarence aims his sidearm at her. To be fair, he was genuinely worried that her condition was not making her think straight.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Clarence is a well-known FBI agent.
- Voice of Reason: Often questions Five on her wantonly destructive and harmful behavior, and decides she has gone way too far after she launches an attack on the van transporting Nine and kills a Japanese police officer. Unfortunately she shoots him dead before he can secure her.
Athena Plan conspirators
Souta Aoki
If you two hadn't come, I would taken this to the grave.
Voiced by: Takaya Hashi (Japanese), R. Bruce Elliott (Engish)
Formerly in charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, he leads a secluded life after his retirement. He also was in charge of getting the Athena Plan working by getting orphaned children all over Japan.
- Face Death with Dignity: He has no problem accepting the fact that the conspirators may choose to kill him after he talks with Hamura and Shibazaki after his involvement with the plan.
- For Science!: The reason why he went along with the plan.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Souta didn't regret his participation in the Athena Plan after the Allied occupation of Japan.
- Just Following Orders: He uses this excuse to justify his participation in the Athena Plan after he was confronted by Shibazaki. Shibazaki, in turn, reminds him that the guards at Auschwitz also said the same thing.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The epilogue doesn't state about what happened to him, except that he's being brought to justice.
- You Monster!: A very, very angry Hamura calls out Aoki's participation in Project Athena (a human experimentation project to artificially produce people with Savant syndrome
conducted by the Rising Peace Academy which Five, Nine and Twelve were the sole survivors of), "not human". Aoki calmly accepts this without reservation.
Shunzo Mamiya
Spoilers! Click here to see this character.
Voiced by: Shuuichirou Moriyama (Japanese), Grant James (English)
A known politician in Japanese politics, he was also responsible for jumpstarting the Athena Plan and working alongside the Rising Peace Academy to make the plan feasible.
- The Man Behind the Man: He's responsible for bankrolling the Athena Plan and the construction of the miniature prototype atom bomb.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mamiya explains his reasons for launching the plan is to restore Japan back to its former glory after the end of the Pacific War. However Shibazaki calls him out on it saying that he's done more harm than good, to which Mamiya merely smirks at Shibazaki's response.
- The Plan: Mamiya ensured that the orphans taken in to the academy would be subjected to savant syndrome experimentation as a plan to help in the reconstruction of Japan.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: How he was able to ensure Shibazaki's transfer to the records division of the TMPD.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Mamiya is a known man in the Japanese political arena.
- Walking Spoiler: You can expect much from the spoilered entries.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The epilogue doesn't state about what happened to him, except that he's being brought to justice.
- Would Hurt a Child: Didn't seem to care that children died in the RPA as long as the Athena Plan worked in the long run.
