This is the character sheet for FLCL Progressive & Alternative. For characters as they appeared in the original FLCL, see here.
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Introduced in FLCL
Haruko Haruhara/Haruha Raharu
Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (JP, Progressive), Mayumi Shintani (JP, Alternative), Kari Wahlgren (EN)
"That's right, the real one is finally appearing."
A mysterious out-of-this-world woman.
In Progressive, she masquerades herself as a teacher to Hidomi's class in her pursuit to bring Atomsk through Hidomi and her friends.
In Alternative, she appears as a wild lady surveying Kana to fight against the strange monsters that come out of her N.O. Portal.
- The Ageless: In the final episode of Alternative, she reveals that she doesn't age, and has been 19 forever.
- Ambiguously Evil: In Alternative, due to being an established Villain Protagonist but being more heroic than in the original series and Progressive. If you consider Alternative to be the first series in the timeline, then this is because she hasn't actually become evil yet. Her motivations in Alternative is driven over the fact that she "hates bad endings" and wants to stop Medical Mechanica to protect the Earth.
- Animal Motifs: Wasps. She still has her Vespa, and she now possesses a wasp-like transformation.
- Balloon Belly:
- Haruko has this for the first half of Progressive's episode 5, apparently a result of her eating Jinyu in the previous episode. She pretends to be pregnant to shock the class.
- It happens again when she's trying to contain Atomsk after reabsorbing him.
- Berserk Button: She hates being reminded of her failure to capture Atomsk, and that she and Jinyu are the same person. Jinyu keeps hammering both, despite Haruko's initial attempts to laugh it off. By Progressive's episode 4, she drops all pretense and just kills and devours Jinyu herself.
- Big Bad: She takes an active villainous role in Progressive much more so than the original series, now that the audience knows her true intentions from the start. She's openly antagonistic to Iide and Hidomi and her actions, while irreverent as always, often coming off as downright predatory. Averted in Alternative, where she's more heroic if still crazy as always.
- But Now I Must Go: Just like in Classic, Progressive ends with her taking off in pursuit of Atomsk again.
- Cool Teacher: In Progressive, most of her students think she's the coolest teacher ever because of how wild and crazy she is. Only Hidomi and Iide distrust her because they know how dangerous she is.
- Creepy Monotone: As Hidomi's teacher, she speaks in an unusual combination of this trope and Motor Mouth, at least until she reveals her true identity as Haruko.
- Easily Forgiven: In the final episode of Progressive, Jinyu doesn't seem to hold much of a grudge against Haruko for eating her two episodes prior as she smiles at her and comforts Haruko after Atomsk reforms her.
- Evil Teacher: In Progressive, she's the homeroom teacher of Hidomi's class. Out of the students, only Hidomi and Iide know she's up to no good and they're very wary of her (well, it takes a while for Iide to stay wary of her).
- Eye Colour Change: After devouring Jinyu, she gains red eyes instead of her normal yellow.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Her human form is not her true form. Her true body is a monstrous wasp.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: She's much more antagonistic in Progressive than before, yet there are times when even her assumed half Jinyu doesn't have a problem with spending time at the beach with her, only to go back to fighting each other when Haruko randomly goes after Hidomi.
- History Repeats: She purposely attempted to invoke this by attacking Iide, who she thought would have the same amount of power as Naota.
- Hope Bringer: In Alternative, she indirectly becomes this to the entire cast. Her motivations and actions are less selfish because she's not obsessed with Atomsk and wanting power for herself. She helps out the cast throughout their problems, wants to stop Medical Mechanica and desires to protect the Earth because she hates bad endings. While she does call herself selfish in Episode 5, it's a far cry to her impulsive behavior in Classic and Progressive.
- Hot Teacher: Her students Iide, Mori, and Nogata all have a thing for her, with the former boasting about the time she hit him and all of them going to the beach with her.
- Humanizing Tears: In Progressive, when Atomsk seemingly keeps rejecting her advances, she breaks down crying and screams to him why he doesn't want her. He apparently embraces her in return, until he leavs and Jinyu is revealed to have been embracing Haruko.
- Humanoid Abomination: In the fifth episode of Progressive, Haruko finally reveals herself as one of these and is not really human in the slightest. Her true body is a monstrous wasp made of energy which she can turn into at will to consume others.
- Hypocrite: In the final episode of Progressive, Haruko accuses Hidomi of having an It's All About Me attitude, when she is willing to sacrifice whole worlds to accomplish her personal goals.
- Hypocritical Humor: During their fight in episode 4, Haruko takes the time to call Jinyu's glasses lame. After devouring Jinyu, however, she starts wearing them. Possibly justified in that devouring Jinyu may have given her a fondness for them.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Hidomi believes this is the reason that Haruko keeps chasing Atomsk. She can't make him hers so she keeps chasing him to try and make him hers.
- Locked into Strangeness: By the time Progressive takes place, the experience of briefly absorbing Atomsk and Jinyu splitting off from her caused Haruko's pink hair to turn orange. After reabsorbing Jinyu, Haruko's hair goes back to being pink.
- Mass Hypnosis: Implied in Progressive. Somehow, her weird and wacky speech to Hidomi and Iide's classmates causes them to gain Mind-Control Eyes. Afterwards, they're showing signs of Fake Memories and see things that aren't actually there when class is in session.
- Ms. Fanservice: Progressive's Beach Episode has Haruko in a skimpy bikini goading students to put body oil on her back. Though it's actually Jinyu that does so, only it's actually tanning oil. In Alternative, she sports a sleek gym outfit in one episode, and super tight cutoffs in another.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the final episode of Progressive after Atomsk leaves her body once again Haruko angrily attacks him and then asks him why he won't be hers. When he embraces her she seems genuinely happy and, after bringing Jinyu back to life and leaving, Haruko breaks down into tears in Jinyu's arms.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
- According to Progressive's ending animation, at some point after the events of the original series, she managed to obtain Atomsk's power, but something went wrong and seemed to have formed Jinyu.
- Progressive Episode 2 alludes to her antics in-between the first and second episodes, including summoning UFOs and breaking a spoon-bending psychic's fingers with her own psychic powers. Though these events are probably fake; a second look at the yearbook in which these events are recorded reveals the photos as crayon drawings.
- Opaque Nerd Glasses: While disguising herself as Hidomi's class' teacher, glasses are part of her disguise.
- Out of Focus: In Alternative, she's not as involved in the plot as she is in the original and Progressive, for the most part she only hangs around the girls because of the odd N.O energy she's getting from them and protects them from the robots that come about. Otherwise she largely just hangs back observing things.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The violent and wild Red Oni to Jinyu's cool and rational Blue Oni. Makes sense, given that Jinyu is her logical side while Haruko is the impulsive. They even sport appropriate colors in their final clash.
- Secret Test of Character: Multiple times in Alternative, she either seems to be creating circumstances for the main cast to adapt and thrive in, or throwing a Jerkass like Toshio into a relationship with her almost seemingly to test Hijiri specifically. Granted, these are charitable interpretations of her actions, but it does seem applicable for this story in particular.
- Stalker without a Crush: In Progressive, she spends months stalking Hidomi and Jinyu as the latter stays close to the former at all times to prevent Haruko from activating the N.O. portal.
- Start of Darkness: Possibly, if you believe Alternative to be the prequel series. The end of Alternative shows her seeing a taste of Atomsk's power, essentially corrupting her for Classic and Progressive.
- The Stoic: In Progressive, her initial teacher disguise is utterly emotionless and prone to extended breathless rambling, though there are hints of Haruko's oddball tendencies, such as showing Hidomi something incredibly suggestive to try and get a reaction out of her, and by the end of Episode 1 her rant gets more and more emotional until she finally sheds her disguise.
- Super Mode: When going all-out fighting Jinyu in Progressive Episode 4, she sports the same flat red shading with red lineart that Naota did when channeling Atomsk's power. Jinyu is exactly the same, but blue instead of red.
- Terrible Artist: Progressive Episode 5 has Haruko make a slideshow about the story of how she met her "husband" and the pictures, presumably made by herself, look like they were drawn by a little kid.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: As Alternative is a designed prequel by
Word of God, Haruko is surprisingly a lot less antagonistic than in the original or Progressive and even occasionally offering genuine advice (in her quirky sort of way) and then helping the cast with their problems (though she's still The Gadfly), it can make her behavior in the original and Progressive this. - Took a Level in Kindness: Or if you consider Alternative to be taking place after Progressive, then you'll realize that Haruko is not wearing the bracelet that connects her with Atomsk and she acts more mature compared to her behavior in Classic and Progressive. It could be implied that she had gotten over her obsession with Atomsk after Progressive and peacefully joined together again with Jinyu. Her more virtuous behavior in Alternative could reflect on the fact that Haruko has finally taken a level in maturity. The fact that she's been protecting the Earth because she's grown attached to the people is a huge step forward. In Classic and Progressive, Haruko treats everyone like tools and has an disattachement to the planet whenever it's close to getting destroyed.
- Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: She knows that Atomsk will never become hers, but she's going to keep chasing him forever because he's all she has ever wanted.
- Vague Age: In FLCL Classic, she claims being 19 years old. This was met with skepticism by everyone, as she looks to be at least in her mid-twenties. In Progressive's episode 4, Haruko is listed (in a blink and you miss it gag) as being sixteen, despite 1) being employed as a teacher and 2) around thirty years passing between Classic and Progressive. Meanwhile, in Alternative, she claims to never age past 19.
- Villainous Breakdown: After trying and failing to absorb and contain Atomsk a second time, his humanoid form stands wordlessly in front of her as she vents her frustration against him for rejecting her until she finally cries for the first time in the series.
- Weirdness Magnet: Just like in the original series, the appearance of her and Jinyu toss a local town into complete chaos. By the end of the first episode of Progressive, Hidomi and Iide seem to realize this.
- Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: In Progressive, Haruko is stuck as a teacher. In Alternative, though, she has way too many jobs depending on what the episode's plot calls for.
- Yandere: Progressive reveals that her interest in Atomsk isn't just a mere lust for power, but an actual romantic interest, which makes her relentless chase after him and desire to absorb and control him come across as an obsession with an unrequited love. Jinyu's attempts to get her to give up on Atomsk eventually result in Haruko losing patience with Jinyu before attacking and devouring her.
Canti
A robot created by Medical Mechanica who became one of Haruko's allies, staying behind with Naota Nandaba after she left for space. He reappears in Progressive, seemingly under a new owner.
- Back from the Dead: His head is eventually brought back to a Department of Interstellar Immigration satellite, where it comes back to life acting like a dog and devours Ide.
- Crucified Hero Shot: How he's introduced, with his torn-up body being hung on a cross.
- Evil Counterpart: Dark mass-produced Cantis appear as enemy robots in the final episode of Alternative.
- Mundane Utility: Zig-zagged. Marurao and Eye Patch apparently used him (or rather his parts) to make a flower pot, but they also mention trying to reverse engineer what's left of him to travel through space using N.O. portals. Why they made the flower pot first is anyone's guess, though their dialogue suggests that it's tied to their second priority.
- Noodle Incident: How did Naota lose Canti between the classic series and Progressive, and how did he die?
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Canti was alive and well at the end of the first series, so it may come off as shocking when he's unceremoniously shown dismantled in Marurao's house. He gets better in the finale thanks to Iide possessing him.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: In the epilogue he's working at Hinae's cafe, and can be seen wearing a maid outfit.
Medical Mechanica
The secretive and ominous corporation whose buildings resemble giant irons. Besides somehow making citizens ignore its particular building that lacks entrances or exits, it wishes to channel the Pirate King's power for...something.
- Ambiguous Situation: In Progressive, the Beach Episode features a number of ruined, derelict irons strewn across the beach and in the ocean, suggested that something catastrophic happened to Medical Mechanica, but exactly what is never expounded on. For that matter, it's hinted that Medical Mechanica has some kind of relation with Hidomi with only a few breadcrumbs being dropped (Hidomi's father worked for them in some capacity, and they're the creators of her Power Nullifier headphones.)
- Greater-Scope Villain:
- In Progressive, they're a constant backdrop to the conflict and are an enemy of both Haruko and the Immigration Bureau, but the focus is always on the characters' internal conflicts instead, most of whom don't know very much about Medical Mechanica anyway.
- They are a downplayed version of this trope in Alternative because most the conflict is unconnected to them but they are responsible for the attacking robots and the giant hands using the irons to literally steamroll everything in the finale.
Atomsk, The Pirate King
A being of absolute power who is said to own everything and anyone in the universe. He is the prime target both Haruko and Medical Mechanica want to control for their own devices.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: He briefly a humanoid form (that looks an awful lot like the Anti-Spiral) while possessing Jinyu, Haruko tries and fails to devour him a second time
- Last Episode, New Character: Just like in the original season, he's only hinted at throughout Progressive, is first referred to by name at the very end of the penultimate episode, and finally makes an appearance in the final episode (not counting his appearance in the end credits.)
- Pet the Dog: After Haruko vents her frustrations on being rejected by him a second time, he embraces her and restores Jinyu before taking his leave.
- Physical God: Even more than in his original appearance, as Haruko's carefully-planned trap for him is effortlessly destroyed just by Atomsk passing by it, followed by Haruko and Hidomi getting sucked into some kind of pocket dimension within his body.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Haruko succeeded in "eating" Atomsk in-between Progressive and the original season, but he proved too powerful for her to handle and resulted in Jinyu's creation. Haruko makes another attempt and suceeds, after eating Jinyu prior, only to vomit them back out.
FLCL Progressive
Hidomi Hibajiri
Voiced by: Inori Minase (JP), Xanthe Huynh (EN)
"There is nothing I want to be. There is nothing I want to do. All that exists is zero."
The 14 year-old main character of Progressive.
- Alliterative Name: Hidomi Hibajiri. She shares this with her mother.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She is distant and unsocial to everyone; a mood as dark as her long black hair.
- Ambiguously Human: Hidomi's dream at the beginning of the series suddenly has her transforming into a strange, winged machine, Jinyu seems to think that she screwed up in failing to kill Hidomi with her car (and unlike Naota who took several episodes to start becoming Made of Iron, Hidomi recovered fairly quickly from a car collision), and when she's stressed, her headphones begin to change color and start whirling internally.
- Animal-Eared Headband: Her headphones have cat ears on them. They are her treasured keepsake and have the mysterious ability to generate N.O..
- Animal Motifs: Cats. She wears cat-eared headphones and her aloof personality is very cat-like.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Horrifyingly subverted with her Dream Sequence, where we see her physically decaying bit by bit. She also ends up with the bottoms of her feet dirtied when thrown out of her bedroom and forced to flee a rampaging Medical Mechanica robot barefooted. And then there's here dream in the second episode where she becomes a flesh eating zombie who is, in turn, devoured by rival zombies. And in the fifth episode she partially transforms, with her right arm and eye replaced with robot parts.
- Berserk Button:
- After an entire episode of apathy, the moment Jinyu removes Hidomi's headphones she flips her attitude and demands them to be returned, even snagging them right out of the woman's hands. Once she's wearing them again she calms down rather quickly, though.
- Hidomi's mother finally deciding to shut down the cafe and stop waiting for her father causes her to flip out again, and remembering it later in the day combined with unintentionally inflicting a Forced Transformation on Iide causes her to start tearing the school apart with her N.O. powers and start transforming into her robot Super Mode.
- Body Horror: Her heaphones drill into her head.
- Character Development: Goes from an isolated headphones-wearing girl wishing nothingness for the world to a girl willing to fight for the world and a friend, and caring about her mother's feelings.
- Color-Coded Eyes: She has purple eyes. Possibly because she's Ambiguously Human.
- The Comically Serious: Her teacher (actually Haruko in disguise) makes her watch porn videos in the middle of class. Hidomi remains as expresionless as ever throughout the whole scene, making her teacher annoyed at her lack of reaction.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
- Compared to Naota, the two of them seem to be loners, but Naota did it to look mature in an eccentric cast while Hidomi feels empty in life. Additionally, Naota admired his older brother who moved away to college, while Hidomi's father has been absent from her life for a while.
- Compared to Kana, while the two of them are girls older than Naota in their respective stories, Kana is trying to hold on to her adolescence while Hidomi presumably has little interest in spending her time in reality. In addition, Kana has a group of girlfriends to hang out with, while Hidomi seems closer to Iide than anyone else she hangs out with.
- Curtains Match the Windows: She has black/dark purple hair and black/dark purple eyes.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Her character arc is mostly about her growing out of her antisocial persona and opening up to her emotions, mainly thanks to her growing closer to Iide.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father is absent, and her mother wonders if they should move on from him. Turns out this is a huge deal to Hidomi, as seeing her mother shutting down the cafe to stop waiting for him was enough to make her snap during the day.
- Distaff Counterpart: Her robot mode resembles a female version of Canti.
- Emotionless Girl: She has no reaction to anything normal (like being forced to watch a hardcore porn video). Though apparently, getting her to have some sort of big emotional response is what Haruko wants to cause and what Jinyu wishes to stop (even if it meant killing Hidomi).
- Genki Girl: Some of her dream sequences portray her as an over-the-top hyper girl. After her headphones' emergency system activiates, her personality changes into it as well. One line during this phase implies that this is closer to her true self then her normal Emotionless Girl persona.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: She's an unsocial, quiet girl with headphones that she is almost never seen without. Jinyu even points out that they don't play anything; they're purely so that Hidomi can shut out the world and not have to interact with anyone. Ide-as-Canti eventually breaks them for her, helping her to accept herself for what she is.
- Her Boyfriend's Jacket: After accidentally transforming Iide, Hidomi loses her own top and wears Iide's jacket for the rest of the episode and most of the following one.
- Hime Cut: She's an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl with blunt bangs, cheek length sidelocks, and mid-back length straight hair.
- It Was a Gift: Her headphones are very precious to her because they were a gift. She never once wants to take them off and will start complaining if taken. Given that they were a gift from her father before he left Hidomi and her mother, they are very special to her indeed. She eventually discards them in the finale, as they only shackled her to the idea of waiting for her father while also isolating her from the world.
- Last-Name Basis: She and Iide call each other by their last names, because they start as classmates instead of friends.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: She ends up running around barefoot after Haruko tears her out of her house right from her bedroom and has no opportunity to change into street shoes. Immediately, her slippers go flying off.
- Nightmare Fetishist:
- Implied. The opening scene is a dream sequence of a rotting Hidomi wandering a blasted, post-apocalyptic version of her hometown, monologuing about how the world must be destroyed before it can become beautiful. A later dream about getting violently devoured by zombie versions of her classmates accompanied by overly-gleeful narration results in a Catapult Nightmare awakening with her actually blushing. Watching Iide getting physically abused causes a nosebleed (which in anime is a frequent signifier of sexual arousal,) and being told by Jinyu that getting involved with Haruko will get her killed results in her promptly overflowing and transforming.
- This is taken further in episode 3, where she's completely unharmed and there are no zombies around. She then starts fondling her breasts while angrily shouting about how she wishes they were still there so they could rip her to shreds.Hidomi: How awful! None of my friends are here! How am I supposed to feel the pain of being eaten now?! The single layer of skin that divides the inside of my body from the outside. I want it peeled off, I want it clawed off, I want it gnawed off! I just want the whole thing ripped open in one swift tear!
- Non-Standard Character Design:
- Her headphones are very much a sign that Progressive takes place in The New '10s. It also seems to be otherworldly.
- She also has a Super-Deformed design consisting entirely of a pink ghost-shaped blob with cat ears, similar to Alphonse Elric's SD design but with even less detail.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Haruko mocks Hidomi over her feelings for Iide, she fires back that everything Haruko does is out of her infatuation with Atomsk.
- Not So Stoic: Besides when panicking for her life, Hidomi suddenly reacts a lot more harshly when Jinyu takes her headphones, or more empathetic when her mother gives up hope of seeing her father again. These all seem to cause her headphones and noggin to begin reacting, implying that this trope occurring might actually be tied to her power.
- Official Couple: She gets together with Iide in the final episode of Progressive.
- One of the Boys: Iide and his guy friends seem to be the only people that Hidomi hangs out with, as seen in the Beach Episode.
- Power Limiter: Her headphones are referred to as an "enzyme inhibitor", with spinning lights and whirring noises happening whenever she gets too worked up, implying that they're supposed to suppress N.O. (though Hidomi does overpower them on occasion.) They also appear to have a safety function that locks them in place (via drilling into Hidomi's skull) to prevent them from being removed deliberately (though Jinyu hitting her with her car does knock them off accidentally). Destroying them ultimately lets her access her full power.
- Robot Girl: Transforms into one in her first episode dream sequence, strong enough to upend one of Medical Mechanica's irons. She transforms into a smaller, junkier-looking robot in Episode 2, which still packs enough of a punch to send Haruko flying. Eventually, once Ide-as-Canti shatters her headphones, she turns into the complete form from episode 1.
- Ship Tease: As early as the second episode, and even with the headphones on, she remarks that she wouldn't mind a relationship with Iide.
- Shout-Out: Her headphones are based off of the popular Axent Wear Cat Ear Headphones, designed by yuumei.
- The Stoic: Aloof and self-alienating herself from the world, Hidomi seems to have trouble even trying to say 'good morning' to her mother simply because it'd be going out of her way to show emotion. Ultimately, she finally learns to accept herself and embrace change.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Although she gets called a Tsundere, she's actually very much the cold and aloof type. She still cares more than she lets on, as seen in her interactions with Iide.
- Super Mode: When inflicted with negative emotions, seemingly around the ideas of depression, despair or death, Hidomi can transform into some sort of robot entity with presumed sequential transformations. The first one, a small little junker of a doll, knocked out Haruko in a single blow. Ultimately, destroying the headphones allows her to be influenced by positive emotions again and obtain her complete form from episode 1's dream sequence.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening
- Unlike Naota and Iide, who have their N.O. gateways opened manually by Haruko to cause something to sprout from their heads, Hidomi grows a single massive horn with an Atomsk-like glow when Iide is seriously injured trying to protect her. Only a timely intervention from Jinyu in the first episode prevents whatever is in there from fully coming out.
- After learning that her mother has decided to close down the cafe and stop waiting for her father, and after inflicting some kind of Forced Transformation situation on Iide inadvertantly, she destroys the school with her N.O. powers and starts turning into her robotic Super Mode while attacking Haruko in a rage.
- Tsundere: Described as such by her mother and Haruko. Her mother even says Hidomi is deliberately developing this persona. Her mother's cafe patrons love her aloof attitude, as if they were at a tsundere cafe.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Iide. Despite turning down his advances, she quickly grows attracted to him. She still tries to stay distant and deny her feelings because of her antisocial attitude.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Her mom is over-peppy while she is unemotional.
- When She Smiles: Episode 2 ends with her smiling for the first time in the series after everything she just went through with Ide. With the series' ending, the destruction of her headphones allows her to express happiness fully.
Julia Jinyu
Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro (JP), Allegra Clark (EN)
"When you hit pause on the world like that, your body will slowly start to rot away."
A mysterious being, similar to Haruko, that comes to Earth to put a stop to Haruko's newest plans for another local adolescent.
- Alliterative Name: Julia Jinyu, just like Haruko.
- Ambiguously Human: Like Haruko, she seems human, but her superhuman and inhuman abilities and the fact that she's from outer space make it obvious that she isn't. Promotional art suggests that she's hiding her true form.
- Back for the Finale: Atomsk forms her back again after separating from Haruko and finally acknowledging her feelings.
- But Now I Must Go: Much like her other half Haruko, Jinyu is seen driving away from the town once the craziness of the series is over.
- The Comically Serious: She's always serious, all the time, even in silly situations (which, in FLCL, are more than plentiful.) Comes to a head in Episode 3 where she spends the entire episode trapped in a concrete cocoon on the beach and is completely stoic and nonchalant about it, even going so far as to deliver a vaguely inspiring/confusing speech while underwater. She eventually reveals she could've broken out at any time and just...didn't.
- The Conscience: She tries to talk sense into Haruko and convince her that she has to give up on capturing Atomsk because all he really wants is freedom. Makes sense as she's literally the logical and empathetic side of Haruko that she represses. It's subverted; Haruko eventually has enough of Jinyu trying to make her listen to her and devours her.
- Cool Car: She has an old vintage car (a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air), like how Haruko has her Vespa scooter. It seems to drive by itself while she hangs out on the back and can react independently at times, even transforming.
- Cooldown Hug: In the final episode, after she is reformed by Atomsk, Jinyu gives Haruko a comforting hug when he leaves them again.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Jinyu tries cleaning dishes. She breaks every single one of them.
- The Ditz: Downplayed in that she's completely unable to handle cafe work under Hinae to save her life, in spite of being fully capable of fighting Haruko.
- Easily Forgiven: Hinae did try to get the police to apprehend Jinyu after Jinyu crashed her car into Hidomi, but she drops the issue later and says she was cool. Not to mention, she hires Jinyu as a live-in maid for her restaurant because she sees it as a way to make amends...despite Jinyu's lousy technique while cleaning dishes.
- Eaten Alive: Haruko turns into a monstrous form and eats her, recombining with Jinyu.
- Enemy Without: The ending animation shows that Jinyu is Haruko's "other self", tearing her way out of Haruko after she absorbed Atomsk. Their main conflict is that Jinyu is the only one who knows and understands Haruko's obsession with Atomsk and tries to force her to give up on it.
- Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced in much the same way as Haruko in the original series; spying on a person of interest, and then running them over. Unlike Haruko, however, she's far more reserved and was intending to kill Hidomi, albeit in the best interests of everyone involved.
- Facial Markings: She has vertical red stripes over her eyes.
- Foil: In comparison to Haruko, she's more of The Stoic. Additionally, their relationship with their respective protagonists mirror each other; Haruko often acted as a Stealth Mentor towards Naota, but was ultimately using him for her own agenda. Jinyu on the other hand initially acted antagonistic towards Hidomi, but slowly grows to care for her.
- Foreshadowing: She warns Hidomi that "pausing" the world will "rot" her away, which seems somewhat literal judging by the first episode opening with a dream of Hidomi's body rotting away while dealing with Medical Mechanica.
- Fusion Dance: She is unwillingly recombined with Haruko after being eaten by her.
- Good Counterpart: She's almost as eccentric as Haruko (in a more subdued way), and shares a weapon of choice along with having her own vehicle, but unlike Haruko, is a bit more empathetic and heroic (albeit in an unorthodox fashion). Even more pronounced due to being Haruko's Enemy Without.
- I Know Your True Name: She refers to Haruko as Raharu. Being a Literal Split Personality of her, this pretty much proves Amarao was right. Haruha Raharu is her real name and not just another alias.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Unlike Haruko, Jinyu has realised and accepted that due to Atomsk's desire for freedom, he will never be happy if he is tied down by anyone and thus tries to make Haruko let him go. When he leaves them once again in the last episode, Jinyu comforts Haruko, having known from the beginning that things would turn out this way.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Standoff-ish, aloof and hiding her own agenda as she attempted to murder Hidomi to prevent Haruko from getting to her. Yet she goes out of her way to save Hidomi (and Iide) and protect her all the same, like an improvised guardian. She doesn't even seem to hold a grudge against Haruko for absorbing her and even comforts her when Atomsk leaves them again.
- Last-Name Basis: Everyone calls her Jinyu.
- Meido: Like Haruko in the original series, Jinyu starts living at Hidomi's place as a live-in maid. Unlike Haruko, her maid outfit is much more sexualized, though this is potentially justified by the house also being a local cafe.
- Ms. Fanservice: Jinyu is showing a bit more skin than Haruko typically did, and shows up in a cosplay maid outfit at the end of episode one to boot. And then there's her bikini in Episode 3 which she wears throughout the entire episode, even when trapped in concrete.
- Mysterious Protector: She wants to put a stop to Haruko and she befriends Hidomi (kind of). The latter knows nothing about her, but doesn't really care.
- Mystical White Hair: Her white hair makes it obvious that she isn't human.
- Not So Stoic: Episode 2 shows she can drop her stoic attitude when Hinae tries to get her to act as a good maid. Hinae runs her ragged.
- Oh, Crap!: Jinyu knows better than anyone else what Haruko is capable of, what with being her Enemy Without, but towards the end of episode two, her unflappable attitude takes a nosedive the moment she sees that a transformed Hidomi just one-shotted Haruko.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The more calm and collected Blue Oni to Red Oni Haruko's id-driven nature. When the two of them go Super Mode in Episode 4, they even sport the proper coloration.
- The Rival: To Haruko. Like Haruko, Jinyu is pursuing Atomsk and wants to free him from Medical Mechanica, but she opposes Haruko because Jinyu believes Atomsk should be free while Haruko wants to absorb him and keep him tied down to her.
- Shout-Out: While as a meido, she breaks a plate perfectly in half, just like DieBuster's Nono.
- Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: She has white hair and dark skin, and she's apparently a Human Alien with special abilities like Haruko. Her look also helps her stand out as Haruko's rival and Enemy Without.
- Transforming Mecha: Her car, which can transform into a humanoid battle robot as well as a medbay.
- Triangle Shades: Her shades are triangular enough that they almost look like a boomerang. This is to contrast with Haruko's goggles.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jinyu seems to specifically be targeting Hidomi, something about "preventing her from overflowing" during emotional distress which runs counter to Haruko trying to elicit emotions from the girl. Of course, Jinyu does this by attempting vehicular manslaughter, and apologizing to Hidomi's mother for failing to kill her child.
- Would Hurt a Child: When they first meet, Jinyu tries to kill Hidomi via Dynamic Entry with her car in an attempt to keep Haruko from getting to her. By the way, she does this in front of Hidomi's mom.
Ko Iide
Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (JP), Robbie Daymond (EN)
Hidomi's friend and classmate.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Thanks to being eaten by Canti, he's able to completely reform both Canti's body. Then he takes full control and helps Haruko, Hidomi, and the chief escape the inside of Atomsk.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not exactly clear what he thinks of Haruko. On one hand, she abuses him so much with Amusing Injuries that border on getting killed and is the Butt-Monkey to many of her attacks on him and Hidomi. On the other hand, he's apparently perfectly fine with having her as his teacher and is not willing to call authorities on her ass even if they're at the beach. Hidomi couldn't care less about Haruko, but Iide is different about her. Maybe he is just wants a Teacher/Student Romance. It seems by episode 5 that he was just simply unable to do anything about her previously. Once Jinyu is out of the picture which leaves Hidomi relatively defenseless, however, the ambiguity drops and he's more than willing to step up to the plate to try to fend off Haruko.
- Butt-Monkey: Iide is the subject of a lot of physical humor, to the point that he's outright beaten down by a Medical Mechanica robot personally and disrespected by pretty much everyone that isn't his personal friends or Hidomi. He doesn't let it get him down, though.
- Chivalrous Pervert: A braggart that spins a tall tale of love over Haruko hitting him upside the head, with clear intent to try to find a woman in his life and embracing the idea of a Panty Shot (that isn't on his friend) or trying to watch the porn the teacher shows to Hidomi. Once he interacts with Hidomi herself, however, he gets flustered, and goes out of his way to try to protect her (mostly) without any sexual intent.
- Chuunibyou: A bit of a nerd that says ridiculous things and runs his mouth off about Blatant Lies to seem cooler than he really is. He outright tells a couple of thugs beating him up that he Feels No Pain because his heart had frozen. This works about as well as you'd expect it to.
- Cowardly Lion: The first episode establishes him as someone way in over his head involving everything. But whenever Hidomi is in danger he's one of the first on the scene trying to protect her, even if he's ultimately ineffectual.
- Expy Coexistence: He bears a resemblance to Naota, the protagonist from the original series. Seems to be on purpose, as Haruko also attacked him, believing that he'd react similarly to Naota.
- Forced Transformation: Seeing Iide in a compromising position with Haruko causes Hidomi to inadvertantly open a reverse N.O. portal that does...something to Iide and turns him into a deflated person-shaped balloon with some mini-speakers attached. Giving him some water causes him to inflate and fly off into space, where he's taken in by a Department of Interstellar Immigration sattelite and Eaten Alive by Canti.
- Hidden Depths: Episode 2 reveals that he lives in a poor neighborhood and works laborious blue collar jobs with lots of heavy lifting to help make ends meet.
- Iron Butt-Monkey: In the span of one day, he gets whipped, shot by a pebble-launching machine gun, beaten upside the face repeatedly, swung into heavy machinery, and shot with multiple lasers, and seems no worse for the wear once it's all done. Unlike others, there is no hint that he could have Super-Toughness to explain this.
- Last-Name Basis: He and Hidomi call each by their last names, because they start as classmates instead of friends.
- Naked on Revival: Apparently, though we only see him from the waist up. Although technically he wouldn't be completely naked—he still has his glasses, for some reason.
- Nice Guy: For all of his faults, he's unfaltering in being pleasant as he can to Hidomi. Even when his mouth gets ahead of his brain about wanting a relationship with her, he can't help but apologize profusely.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Haruko tricks him into trying to remove Hidomi's headphones to snap her out of a comatose state, causing them to lock onto her head and forcing Haruko and Jinyu to turn to Medical Mechanica to fix the problem.
- Noodle Incident: Iide was harassed by Haruko and struck off-screen on the head in the same manner that she once did to Naota, her method to open doorways in peoples' heads. For those who've seen the original series, this sort of thing is old news by this point and not really worth showing again, if only for posterity.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: When Haruko starts getting flirty with Iide after having him pinned down, he defiantly says that she doesn't do anything for him.
- Official Couple: He gets together with Hidomi in the final episode of Progressive.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Iide believed Haruko had the hots for him, when in truth it was rather obvious Haruko only liked to use him because of his N.O. Portal usage.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Hidomi. He has an obvious crush on her and tries to ask her out from early on, but Hidomi is reluctant to get close to him because of her antisocial attitude, despite her being attracted to him as well.
- You Remind Me of X: Haruko sees Naota in him.
Gorō Mori
Voiced by: Tomo Muranaka (JP), Jon Allen (EN)
One of Hidomi and Iide's classmates.
- Big Fun: A variant of the usual kind, as he's less brash and cheerful and more of a low-key Cloudcuckoolander.
- Fan Disservice: In the first episode, he comes to school wearing an extremely short skirt to break gender expectations. In one shot, he spreads his legs and his penis is bulging out from his underwear. Iide angrily asks him to never do it again.
- Fun T-Shirt: He wears a T-shirt with a cartoony cat on it that reads, "Moffy."
- Girlfriend in Canada: Invoked. In Episode 3, he bragged to Iide and Marco about his girlfriend coming over to the beach, but she doesn't arrive and he leaves to get her. While it looked like he was fleeing, he actually did go to fetch her at the train station. Except he paid her to act as his girlfriend for the day.
- Rule of Symbolism: Aiko giving her potted sprout to him is this. Embarrassingly enough, it means Mori wasn't able to pluck her flower - which means taking a girl's virginity in Japan - from her and has to settle with a large sprout that's not even close to blooming. It has the other implication he was essentially trying to do it to a little girl.
- Ship Tease: In the finale, he seemingly is on good terms with Aiko, who doesn't find him repulsive anymore.
Maruko "Marco" Nogata
Voiced by: Masatomo Nakazawa (JP), Yuri Lowenthal (EN)
One of Hidomi and Iide's classmates.
- Admiring the Abomination: When Hidomi basically goes nuts as a super Genki Girl due to the headphones drilling to her head, he's the only one (besides her mother) thinking she's better than before (unlike how everyone else is either worried, confused, or angered) and even falls for her.
- Butt-Monkey: Tonkichi uses his help to test out a swaying Viking ship at the amusement park. Said attraction sways a bit too much for Marco's liking.
- Camp Straight: Has distinctly feminine mannerisms, but ends up being attracted to Hidomi once she turns into a Genki Girl due to the headphones drilling to her head.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Especially because of the shading on his upper lip, he doesn't look as much like a Gainax character as he does a typical Production I.G. character who would be right at home in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Because his head made contact with Hidomi's head, the N.O. Portal opens in his head and a Medical Mechanica robot uses him as a host.
- Spell My Name With An S: The English dub romanizes "Maruko" into "Marco".
Hinae Hibajiri
Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (JP), Julie Ann Taylor (EN)
Hidomi's mother and the owner of Cafe Hibajiri.
- Alliterative Name: Hinae Hibajiri. She shares this trait with her daughter.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Her cooking is out there. She makes an avocado parfait, to name one thing.
- I Will Wait for You: She mentions in the first episode that Hidomi's father has been gone for a while, and wonders aloud if maybe they should stop waiting for him to reenter their lives. By episode 5 she finally decides to shut down the cafe and stop waiting for him. Hidomi doesn't take it well. In the final episode she decides to reopen it once Hidomi convinces her to do it for the two of them and not because she's waiting for Hidomi's father. She waited for her husband to come back because she believed Hidomi needed a complete family, not because Hinae didn't think about her daughter and held on to his return.
- Older Than She Looks: She looks like a teenager, but she's old enough to be a fourteen year old's mom, so she must be in her thirties at the very least.
- Shipper on Deck: She tells her daughter that she finds Iide cute and asks if she likes him.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: She's a lot more upbeat than her Emotionless Girl of a daughter.
Aiko
Voiced by: Tomoyo Kurosawa (JP), Christine Marie Cabanos (EN)
A girl who makes herself pass as Mori's incredibly shy girlfriend, but she's actually a pretend girlfriend for pay.- Catchphrase: "So embarrassing!"
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Invoked. Her services as a pretend girlfriend make her look like she's prostituting herself to her customers, which she's well aware of and actively avoids at the end of each "date" by making it look like she's "giving away" (selling) some very "valuable" items of great importance to justify how much money she gets. To the exasperation of her father, said items are belongings from his house she takes behind his back, and some of them are items that reverse effects of N.O. Portals.
- The Fake Cutie: She appears to be an adorably shy girl who is dating Mori. In reality, she's rude and grumpy, and makes guys pay her for going on dates with her.
- Fake Relationship: Mori is paying her to be his fake girlfriend so he can show off to his friends.
- Fetal Position Rebirth: After her transformation into a plant to defeat Medical Mechanica, Aiko is reborn from a giant pumpkin. Literal rebirth, as she no longer has to be the trigger for a weapon and there needn't be any secrets between her and her father/creator anymore.
- MacGuffin Super-Person: The "emotional support plant" she's seen carrying is very important and causes a lot of scrambling for others to recover. As it turns out, the potted plant was only one half. She herself was the other half needed by the forces fighting Medical Mechanica as she's designed to trigger the flower pot to eliminate Medical Mechanica's iron. However, her "father" couldn't bring himself to use her as a weapon after all.
- Naked on Revival: Along with her Fetal Position Rebirth, she comes out of the giant pumpkin without her dress. This gives Marco an opportunity to show that he's a gentleman and give her something to cover up with.
- Punny Name: The first two letters in her name spell Artificial Intelligence, hinting towards her true nature as an Artificial Human.
- Robot Girl: It turns out that she was an android made from Canti's body.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: She doesn't want to tell her father what she does with pretending to be a girlfriend to get money. Though he actually does know about the money she saves and knows she does it to "buy her freedom".
- Ship Tease: The ending implies that Aiko has developed genuine feelings for Mori.
- Shrinking Violet: Subverted. At first, she seems stereotypically, almost painfully, shy and tender. However, it's all an act. She's actually rather bold and is disgusted by how guys like this kind of girl.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Her father is a mess due to trying to hide his secrets from her, he keeps inviting a hobo into their house who also shares said secrets who keeps making neighbors whisper things about her family, and she couldn't care less about the people she "dates" for money.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She stole her dad Marurao's houseplant as part of her pretend girlfriend act, and then gave it to Mori afterwards so she could pretend that the money she got from him was from selling it. Turns out that houseplant was made from a piece of Canti designed to open reverse-N.O. portals, and her selling it may have ultimately led to Tonkichi's attack on Medical Mechanica ending in failure.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Her father's wackiness is just a front to keep his daughter from finding out his hidden agenda, but it is there and it irks her.
Marurao
Voiced by: Kouji Ohkura (JP), Jason Griffith (EN)
A frequenter at Hinae's cafe and the father of Aiko.
- Becoming the Mask: Tries very hard to keep Aiko in the dark about his N.O. Portal experiments, though it's ultimately because he's grown too attached to her as her father to use her as the intended weapon against Medical Mechanica.
- Expy Coexistence: Marurao bears a shocking resemblance to Amarao from the original FLCL. It's eventually revealed at the end of Progressive that he's Amarao's son.
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: A variation. He's never seen without a baseball cap, and while it doesn't obscure his eyes, it does obscure his tiny eyebrows, giving away that he's Amarao's son.
- La Résistance: Seems to be part of some kind of resistance movement against Medical Mechanica with Eye Patch and Tonkichi.
- Strong Family Resemblance: His father is Amarao, explaining why they look so alike.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: His daughter has her head on Earth more than he does, despite this being a poorly covered front.
Eye Patch
Voiced by: Takayuki Sugo (JP), J. David Brimmer (EN)
An old hobo who frequents Hinae's cafe.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He keeps telling people that they should be a "pro". When asked what he means, he doesn't have a clue. He's also perfectly fine having some tea with a sentient giant robot.
- Dirty Old Man: Seems to have some sort of fascination for Hidomi because she is cute to him.
- Meaningful Name: Eye Patch has an eye patch.
- No Name Given: Besides "Eye Patch", it's not known what his real name is.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: The crazy old man persona is an act. He only reveals his true self when with his accomplice Marurao.
Tonkichi
Voiced by: Jin Urayama (JP), Steve Kramer (EN)
Another frequenter at Hinae's cafe. He works at the local amusement park.
- Hidden Depths: When he sees Haruko and Jinyu fighting in the sky, instead of reacting with confusion, he says "It's begun!", hinting at some sort of knowledge about them. Episode 5 confirms that he's part of the same group as Marurao and Eyepatch.
- Transforming Mecha: His entire theme park is actually a weapons platform made by combining all of the rides together. After getting enough people together to harness their N.O., he tries to use it against the Medical Mechanica iron, to little effect.
FLCL Alternative
Kana Koumoto
Voiced by: Karen Miyama (JP), Megan Taylor Harvey (EN)
The 17 year-old main character of Alternative.
For tropes regarding her appearance in Shoegaze, go here.
- All Take and No Give: Although not necessarily out of maliciousness, Kana has a bad habit of steamrolling her way into whatever of her friends are personally dealing with, without much concern or input.
- Ambiguously Bi: She had a crush on Sasaki untill she lost interest in him after episode 4, but in the final episode, she shouted out that she loves Pets. It is unknown if it met to be a Platonic Declaration of Love or Anguished Declaration of Love for Pets.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Floored, disoriented and even somewhat apparently feeling betrayed by Pets never talking about her home life or leaving for Mars, Kana borderline demands that as friends, they shouldn't keep secrets between each other. So Pets lets her know all of the feelings she's been holding back in response.
- Be Yourself: The ultimate message of Episode 6 is that it's okay for Kana to actually be honest and vocalize how she is truly feeling rather than masking them in false acts of sincerity for the sake of looking mature, or being liked.
- Blithe Spirit: Deconstructed. She's unerringly positive and acts out of an earnest desire to fix her friends' problems, but her immature worldview and total lack of subtlety usually means she has a rough time of it. Pets finally gets fed up with her meddling in episode 5, screaming that Kana's desire to "help" is really about her own ego.
- Character Development: Goes from a childish teenager with impossible dreams to a girl who accepts the reality of adulthood but knows it isn't as bad as she thought it was.
- Childhood Friends: With Pets, as the two are particularly closer than with Hijiri and Mossan. Though it's pretty one-sided from Kana's side than it is from Pets's side.
- Coming of Age Story: Alternative is this to her, as she struggles to come to the realization that she'll be an adult very soon. At least in Japan, reaching adulthood means maturing and becoming a cog in a machine. This is eventually played in a somewhat non-traditional way, implying that for someone who's just naturally immature, trying to force or fake maturity won't really accomplish anything besides put unnecessary pressure on themselves and prevent the people around them from knowing them as well as they'd like.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
- Naota was a 12-year old boy who tried to act mature for his age, pushed his "childish" friends away to be a loner, and ended up wasting his childhood as a result; his character arc is about grabbing that last chance to act like a kid. Kana, on the other hand, is a teenage girl who loves doing childish things with her friends, and her character arc is about accepting that she can no longer have that kind of fun when she becomes an adult, which is very soon.
- Hidomi was an 14-year old girl who felt empty of purpose in life and is uncertain of her future despite what she has, while Kana knows her future is coming and wants to make the best of what time she left.
- Curtains Match the Windows: She's a brunette with brown eyes.
- Deconstruction: Of your average anime Genki Girl. Bearing all the typical traits (Excessive peppiness, No Indoor Voice, barging into her friends personal business when she thinks they need help). The deconstruction is, unlike 99% of anime, her friends find these traits unbearably annoying at times. Especially Pets, who finally gets sick of it and breaks off their friendship.
- Delicate and Sickly: Formerly was confined in the hospital for a long time during her childhood that prevented her to make any friends outside of it. Pets became her first "friend," but only out of desperation for Kana without properly building said relationship.
- Epic Fail: Episode 3 has her summoning a Medical Mechanica robot...a very weak one that is easily dispatched in one hit, and doesn't impress Haruko at all.
- Feet-First Introduction: Introduced slipping her feet into her shoes as she heads off for school.
- Friendless Background: From a brief shot, Kana used to be hospitalized as a little kid for a long time, making her unable to make any friends until she latched herself onto Pets being her first "friend."
- Genki Girl: Adores her teenage dreams so much that it clouds her from accepting adulthood. She is very proactive in messing around with her friends.
- Growing Up Sucks: She wishes to keep being childish with her friends, despite the fact adulthood is just around the corner. Of course, she will have to accept reality sooner or later.
- Heroic BSoD: Pets' "Reason You Suck" Speech that deconstructs and beats down on Kana's It's All About Me mentality causes her to not only absorb a Medical Mechanica Terminal Core into her N.O. portal by accident, but promptly pass out and dream of reconciling with Pets rather than confront the issue.
- Hikikomori: Discussed. In Episode 3, after Mossan gets frustrated with Kana not asking for permission to help her out, Haruko can tell Kana is in the dumps and should become a hikikomori. Which is what Kana does in the finale after Pets left for Mars, though Kana gets better soon enough when she reconciles with her feelings.
- The Ingenue: Despite being on the cusp of adulthood soon enough, Kana reacts to the recent events in her life with a rather adolescent and innocently young mindset, such as acting like a child about spicy foods or overly freaking out at the sight of Hijiri kissing someone like she's never seen it before. This is both a bit of a negative trait in the naivete and being Innocently Insensitive, and also positive in that she's The Heart of her group of friends.
- Innocently Insensitive: Kana tends to charge headfirst into what's on her mind, even if it might be a bit rude or impolite to others. This bites her in the ass big time in episode 5 when she tells Pets, who is under a lot of stress at that moment and actively captured by a Medical Mechanica Terminal Core, that they're friends, so they shouldn't keep secrets from eachother. The result is being hammered by an absolutely blistering rant-inducing slight for her troubles.
- It's All About Me: After several episodes of forcing her way into her friend's lives and circumstances out of doing what she think is right, Pets accuses Kana of self-interest big time.
- Power Glows: Her Super Mode comes with a glowing aura and illuminated hair.
- Reality Warper: By fully embracing her emotions and opening the N.O. portal in her head in its full power, Kana's hair suddenly becomes reminiscient of Nono's and she gains the ability to rewrite space-time and even warp planets.
- Secretly Selfish: Episode 5 kind of re-contextualizes a lot of Kana's actions regarding her friends.
- In episode 2, she insists on trying to find a way to get Hijiri and Toshio to become a couple again, despite Toshio clearly being a bad fit for Hijiri, all because Kana has been projecting her romantic desires onto them.
- In episode 3, she insists on helping Mossan with her modeling competition, not out of real concern for how overworked she was, but because she was having trouble planning for her own future and now sees helping Mossan with her goals as an easy way to avoid thinking about it.
- In episode 4, she ends up sending Sasaki a bunch of mixed signals over whether they should become a couple, because she got jealous when Haruko started making movies on him. When it seems like the two are actually going to become a couple, Kana immediately walks back on it because she no longer feels the spark.
- This reaches its breaking point in episode 5 when Pets calls Kana out on all of these previous actions.
- Shipper on Deck: She goes nuts seeing Hijiri kissing college photographer Toshio and very much loves the idea of them being together. She is horrified when she thinks Toshio is cheating on her with Haruko, trying very hard for Hijiri to remain a couple with him despite their wishes. Luckily, Kana grows out of it once Hijiri decides to end it before keeping it up with poorly mature excuses.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Sasaki, whom she obviously has feelings for. Though when they are about to kiss, Kana suddenly loses the "spark" to even kiss him. She later admits that she really isn't ready to start a relationship and would rather keep hanging out with her friends a bit more. Later on, her decision to walk out frustrates Pets, who had feelings for Sasaki but let Kana have him.
Tomomi "Pets" Hetada
Voiced by: Yuri Yoshida (JP), Marieve Herington (EN)
One of Kana's friends. She has a relatively shy personality, and usually the most serious in Kana's friend group.
- Abusive Parents: Episode 5 shows her mother to be a sort of Broken Bird that nearly assaults Kana when Pets goes missing, and Pets' sparse room combined with the implications that her father will be angry if Pets can't be found doesn't paint a pretty image of her home life. The fact that she's known to be the daughter of a rich man but kept quiet about this says a lot.
- Affectionate Nickname: "Kana-bun" towards Kana. The affectionate part is ambiguous at best.
- Ambiguous Situation: In the finale, after the earth is saved it's left unclear if Pets and her family will actually return to earth or not, and even then, if her and Kana will actually reconcile.
- Blatant Lies: Her stories said to her friends about her family are all lies, as her family life is much darker than she lets on.
- But Now I Must Go: The fact that this is going to happen to her by being taken with her family to colonize Mars works as the catalyst for the last two episodes of the series, and it ultimately sticks.
- Childhood Friends: With Kana. Notably, in her "Reason You Suck" Speech she asks herself why she did it and tries to claim she regrets it as she was the one to approach Kana and start the friendship.
- Covert Pervert: She's quick to take advantage of a compromising moment from Hijiri with her phone's camera and a bit of a smug grin on her face.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: With Kana incapacitated at the end of episode 5, Pets' hair is worn down more wildly, and she removes her hairclip and gives it to Kana.
- The Gadfly: Bits of it crop up throughout the series, as she seems to snark and be smug about little jokes at the expenses of others, though never to the extent of being a jerk. Though it's deconstructed when she repeats calling Kana annoying in episode five - right before her "Reason You Suck" Speech, implying it was sort of a method of coping with the immature things her friends (especially Kana) were constantly doing.
- Green-Eyed Monster: During her "Reason You Suck" Speech, she drops the bombshell that she has a crush on Sasaki too but supported Kana to see her happy instead, and was not happy that Kana pulled them all on a wild goose chase before ultimately refusing to date Sasaki on a whim anyway.
- Hidden Depths: Though she was friends with Kana on her own volition, she never actually discussed much of her home life with anyone - so the fact that she's the daughter of a rich father, or has a seemingly-dysfunctional home life, completely escaped Kana's notice until she's forced to confront it.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: The only picture in her room is a childhood photo with Kana that the latter's mother took. Even despite her alleged anger for Kana, implications in her body language and context heavily imply she befriended Kana to escape the crap in her home life, and still cherishes her friendship with the cast.
- Older Than They Look: Petite and just a little smaller than Kana, she could easily be mistaken for being around the age set of the middle school cast of the original series rather than on the cusp of high school graduation.
- Out of Focus: For the first four episodes, Pets is largely the least developed of the four central friends, getting the least amount of lines and focus out of the group. It's not until the penultimate episode, Episode 5, where we learn more about her the fact that she comes from what's implied to be an abusive household. This revelation shocks both Kana and the viewer alike since up until now, we've grown accustomed to just being Kana's quiet friend.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: She adores taking photos and is seen using her phone a lot more than the other girls.
- Put on a Bus: More like Put on a rocket to Mars in order to avoid the impending destruction of Earth. Pets leaves with her family at the end of Episode 5 and shockingly doesn't return for the finale.
- The Quiet One: Pets typically doesn't say a whole lot, often sticking to short sentences and letting the others do the majority of the talking.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers an absolutely scathing one to Kana, pointing out that in all of the episodes up to this point, Kana has been acting entirely in her own naive and insensitive interests and even treated her own supposed love interest with a brazen and reckless mindset. It's so bad that after all is said and done, Kana dreamed of a happier ending to the episode than what really happened to try to avoid confronting Pets' words.
- Shipper on Deck: Enjoys pairing Kana with Sasaki like the others. Though it may have been a case of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
- Smoking Is Cool: Like Mamimi before her, she smokes despite being a minor. And like Mamimi, it's an early sign of coping with stress rather than actually doing it to look cool, turning this into Smoking Is Not Cool.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In a quick scene that is easy to miss in the first episode, while her friends are playing games and lazing about, Pets can be seen smoking. Attention isn't really brought to this, but this is the first early sign that not everything is going well for Pets.
- Walking Spoiler: Anything involving Pets in the last two episodes can't be spoken off without spoiling the climax.
- You Didn't Ask: Curiously, Pets is rather quiet and reserve so we don't know learn much about her for the first four episodes of Alternative. This ends up being intentional because Kana never actually takes the time to ask. Come Episode 5, when Pets finally gets her Day in the Limelight we find out she's from an abusive household, and has a lot of pent up anger and resentment towards Kana for taking their friendship for granted up to this point. Even Hijiri and Mossan, who remain friends with Kana despite her actions, are surprised Kana never asked Pets about her family beyond listening to Pets spouting lies to cover it all up.
- Youthful Freckles: She's a teenage girl with freckles on her cheeks.
Hijiri Yajima
Voiced by: Riho Iida (JP), Erica Lindbeck (EN)
One of Kana's friends. She is a magazine model.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Considered as such by her classmates; Hijiri is tall, has model good lucks, incredibly aloof and snarky, and the source of rumors due to her Urban Legend Love Life.
- Brainless Beauty: She's resentful that everyone expects her to be a full-time model instead of going to college.
- Hidden Depths: In the first episode, despite her appearance Hijiri is actually just as silly as the rest of her friends, finding a lot of joy in playing around on the beach and launching off model rockets.
- "Not So Different" Remark: In regards to Toshio changing his mind about rekindling their relationship together, Hijiri decides that she's just like him about pretending to act mature, looking down on others, and saying that things are fine between them when they are not but would rather not be his girlfriend if it means they'll keep up trying to justify their actions as a grown-up thing, much to his chagrin.
- Shipper on Deck: Enjoys pairing Kana with Sasaki like the others.
- Stepford Snarker: Hijiri puts on airs of appearing aloof and snarky but deep down is more insecure about her relationship with Toshio than she would like to admit.
- The Stoic: She acts nonchalant to distressing events, such as breakups which she thinks is very mature-like. But deep down she knows she's immature about that, as proven when she eats spicy food and she lightly overreacts to its spicy taste.
- Urban Legend Love Life: Due to her preference for only dating older guys, Hijiri finds the matter of her love life to be a source of rumors among her classmates.
Man "Mossan" Motoyama
Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura (JP), Marin Miller (EN)
One of Kana's friends who wants to be a designer and tries to work at different jobs just to get at a good designer school.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Despite her girth, she's quite cute and wears a variety of outfits and hairstyles through the series.
- Big Eater: Her introduction has her trying to reach for her school shoes with her toes because she refuses to put down her snacks. She's shown eating constantly when at the clubhouse (mostly due to the bottles of Dr. Pepper laying around). Likewise during the shopping montage, the girls visit one of the stores, and she grabs nothing but snacks and is later shown eating them on a the bus ride.
- Big Fun: Downplayed; while Mossan is overweight and is often seen snacking, her weight is rarely actually treated as a source of comedy relief.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Downplayed; Mossan gets livid when Kana takes it upon herself to try and take over her part-time shifts without even talking to her first. It's less about not wanting help as much as it was Kana going behind her back to intervene.
- Feet-First Introduction: Kinda, were introduced to her trying to reach in her locker for her school shoes with one of her socked feet (due to refusing to let go of her snacks) before Kana and Hijiri arrive and chastises her for doing so.
- Girlish Pigtails: She ties her hair up into twin braids.
- Hidden Depths: She works part-time jobs to get enough funds to go to college and is a talented fashion designer.
- Shared Family Quirks: She comes from a family just as obese as she is, and her little siblings turn out to be very good at drawing (realistic depictions of...food) like she does with her fashion designs.
- Shipper on Deck: Enjoys pairing Kana with Sasaki like the others. Mossan in particular muttered "Mouth him, Kana."
- Skewed Priorities: When Kana accidentally gives her a wrong soda other than Dr. Pepper, Mossan is more insulted that the wrong soda was a diet soda.
- Workaholic: Mossan's dream to become a fashion designer has forced her to take on part-time jobs to pay tuition for her college studies while also working hard to enter fashion design contests in order to gain the funds needed. That's without mentioning all the time she spent on her classroom's school festival by herself and overnight because no one else was motivated enough to do it but she tried to spur them all to do it (and she even worked both the haunted house and soba stand during the festival).
Kan Sudo
Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi (JP), Patrick Seitz (EN)
The girls' homeroom class teacher.
- Apathetic Teacher: Doesn't like to give his students a good time during class by announcing hard subjects will suddenly be on tests.
Mon Sasaki
Voiced by: Takuma Nagatsuka (JP), Max Mittelman (EN)
The basketball team manager whom Kana has feelings for.
- Ambiguously Bi: It's not entirely sure he has something for Aida (for putting lotion on his back during a swimming lesson) or he did so because Sasaki is that dedicated to being a team manager.
- Career-Ending Injury: He suffers from Paroxysmal kinesigenic choreathetosis, which prevents him from exercising and playing basketball.
- Fusion Dance: He is unwillingly swallowed whole by a Medical Mechanica robot. The girls can somehow tell they merged through this.
- Just Friends: During an argument about Hijiri's love life, he is visibly upset when Kana scolds Aida that she isn't interested in Sasaki. He accepts the fact Kana isn't ready for a serious relationship but will wait until she is.
- Love Triangle: Pets reveals in episode 5 that she used to have a crush on Sasaki, but stepped down on it to support Kana on it instead. To say that she was not happy with the Unresolved Sexual Tension after all the effort everyone put in to help Kana with it, would be an understatement.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Kana, whom he obviously has feelings for. The two truly end up holding on to being friends...for the time being, as Kana realized she wasn't ready to start a relationship with him.
Ben Aida
Voiced by: Ryōta Suzuki (JP), Ben Pronsky (EN)
A fellow basketball athlete.
- Ambiguously Gay: He once tried to undress Sasaki in the middle of the classroom to flex and greatly enjoyed being...put lotion on his back with Sasaki's help.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Is thoroughly jealous about Sasaki being the target of...erotic attention from Haruko (even though Haruko was trying to get a strong reaction out of Kana).
- Small Name, Big Ego: Rather loud and energetic, so much he tries to show off his shirtless body in the classroom (and tries to undress Sasaki while at it).
Bunta Koumoto
Voiced by: Maho Masaka (JP), Erick Abbate (EN)
Kana's younger brother.
- The Reveal: In Episode 2, he casually tells Kana that he has a girlfriend in school. In Episode 4, he reveals his girlfriend to her. It's a virtual girlfriend from a Dating Sim.
Dennis Yoga
Voiced by: Katsuji Mori (JP), Steve Blum (EN)
The owner of the soba restaurant where Kana works at.
- Chekhov's Gun: He leaves a Vespa with a familiar license plate he personally owns outside the restaurant, which is notable seeing as Haruko lacks her own. Then the ending comes around, and the Vespa gets time-space displaced alongside Haruko, becoming her signature vehicle due to Alternative being a Stealth Prequel.
Maki Kitaki
Voiced by: Kaya Matsutani (JP), Erica Schroeder (EN)
The Prime Minister, who seems to know Kanda.
- Corrupt Politician: The way she delivers her speeches is done in such a Large Ham way, though Kanda comments "lies come as easy to her as breathing."
- Jerkass: Throughout the later episodes, she constantly antagonizes Kanda and blames him for everything going wrong with Medical Mechanica, all the while manipulating the media with Blatant Lies. Considering the whole "ditch Earth and leave humanity to die while the elite rich and few go to colonize Mars" thing, it makes her come off as self-serving and manipulative.
- Karma Houdini: After running a lot of Blatant Lies all series long and trying to cover up the fact that the elite and rich, herself included, would get to escape from Medical Mechanica killing all life on Earth, the series has her go through with her plan and never get mentioned again. No consequences seem to rise from this, even when everything gets resolved.
- Never My Fault: Despite being Kanda's superior and intrinsically tied to the matters at large, Medical Mechanica acting up causes her to offload all of her complaints and issues onto Kanda, blaming him every step of the way.
Tsukata Kanda
Voiced by: Yutaka Aoyama (JP), Ray Chase (EN)
A mysterious and somewhat clumsy man who knows Haruko.
- Butt-Monkey: For both Haruko and Kitaki, as a man screwed by misguided love that exploited his N.O. channel by the former and being considered a desk jockey to dump her problems on by the latter.
- The Klutz: Pouring down a whole bottle of spicy pepper condiments being a main one.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: In the finale, the world is going to end if Kana can't stop it, so he drops trying to waste his days away with a shitty job and gets to fighting alongside Haruko and the others to buy Kana time.
- Stupidity Is the Only Option: When he downs a second bowl full of spicy pepper, he tells a worried Kana that it's an adult thing to withstand spicy flavors... Never mind the fact it's also childish to force himself to eat that much anyway.
- Teeny Weenie: Haruko had previously tried to get a rise out of him in the past, but she was disappointed all that came out of his head was a toy space gun. To this day, Kanda carries that toy around.
- Unscrewed Salt Shaker: Subverted in that it happens due to his clumsiness rather than a prank, but the effect is the same in the sense that too much condiments ended up on his meal.
Toshio Shioya
Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara (JP), Michael Sinterniklaas (EN)
A college photographer who dates Hijiri.- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seems affable and nice, but then he gets enthralled by Haruko and his real personality begins to shine. Though this was probably instigated by Haruko on purpose.
- Distracted by the Sexy: He becomes attracted to Haruko while she wears her skimpy food truck outfit. This is largely the reason he ditches Hijiri over her...only to get dumped himself when Haruko knocks him down from his head and a little toy car comes out of his N.O. Portal.
- Jerkass: A fickle bugger that dates women for their beauty on impulse despite pretending to be mature. Halfway through episode 2, he's already dumped Hijiri for Haruko. And then tries to go back to Hijiri when that didn't work out before bitching about 'stupid kids' when he's rejected.
- Kick the Dog: That expensive necklace he got for Hijiri? He asks for it back since "she doesn't need it anymore" after dumping her. He does this after the fact and just casually via text message. Ouch.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Dating, dumping, and trying to take back Hijiri while being an asshole about it along the way means that once Haruko clobbers him, no one feels an ounce of sympathy - just Kana being surprised by it happening so soon.
- Manchild:
- Despite being older then the girls, he's actually even more immature then them especially with the way he reacts to Hijiri not taking him back.
- He makes a big show about how mature it is for him to break up with Hijiri in person rather than by text. Of course near the end of the episode when he remembers he wants the expensive necklace he bought from her back, he naturally asks for it by text message.
- May–December Romance: He's a college student dating a high school student. The age isn't that far apart, but many people in Hijiri's class treat it as a big deal. Then he dates Haruko, whose age is surely not in the tenths.
- Teeny Weenie: Haruko is disappointed that a tiny toy car came out of his head.
Shizuka Koumoto
Voiced by: Miki Itō (JP), Erica Schroeder (EN)
Kana's mother.
- Satellite Family Member: Unlike Hidomi's mother, Shizuka barely has any lines and her only noteworthy trait is being Kana's mother.
