These are the characters for the series Gatchaman Crowds.
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Gatchaman Crew (G-Crew)
Hajime Ichinose/G-101
Voiced by: Maaya Uchida (JP), Jessica Calvello (EN)
The main protagonist of the series and newest recruit to the team. She's a bubbly, energetic high school girl with a fixation on collecting stationary, art supplies, and anything she considers pretty and cute. Just as she was starting to become bored and craving of more excitement in her life, she found herself enlisted as part of the G-Crew.
Her impulsive nature and willingness to disobey orders puts her at odds with more serious team members like Sugane.
- All-Loving Hero: Definitely so: the girl befriended a MESS and Berg-Katze, after all.
- Badass Adorable: Sweet, energetic, and dedicated to her job. Also terrifyingly intelligent and a pretty handy fighter.
- Badass Bookworm: Very smart (in her own unconventional way), quite learned, and a capable gatchaman.
- Buffy Speak: For all her virtues, the lady is not especially articulate.
- Catchphrase: She seems to have developed one in Insight.Katze, shut up.
- Cloudcuckoolander: This is a girl that fawns over day planners to almost
Cargo Ship levels, obsesses over arts and crafts, makes spontaneous conversation with strangers, and rarely bats an eye to being thrust into becoming an alien-fighting superhero. - Dissonant Serenity: In Insight, she keeps telling Katze to shut up with a smile and a happy tone of voice..
- The Face: Hajime is the one who leads the charge in revealing gatchaman to the public and developing their initial PR. She's quite the celebrity by the time of Insight.
- Fantastically Indifferent: She doesn't bat an eye about being recruited onto a team that fights mysterious forces, and just embraces it with the same enthusiasm that she does with everything else.
- Free-Range Children: Her parents don't seem to accompany her on her meet-ups (which, granted, have plenty of other authority figures she's on friendly terms with). The only indication that Hajime even has parents is a couple of conversations over the phone with her mother.
- Genki Girl: Makes Haruhi Suzumiya look like an Emotionless Girl.
- Genius Sweet Tooth: Consumes vast amounts of sweets and pastries to fuel her thought processes.
- Gibbering Genius: A Motor Mouth with very unusual speech patterns that only get worse when she's figuring something out. This is a problem.
- Girlish Pigtails: Gains these when transformed.
- Good Is Not Dumb: She's genuine in her optimism, and it's easy for cynical characters to see her as too idealistic to have thought things through. Not so. While she is capable of acting dumber than she is, she rarely does so.
- Gratuitous French: When she calls her attacks.
- Hot-Blooded: Very passionate and energetic.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Katze is not pleased when they find out she is immune to their "trolling".
- Innocent Gray Eyes: Her gray eyes signify her innocence.
- Intergenerational Friendship/Odd Friendship: With O.D.
- Jumped at the Call: She always gets at her job when summoned.
- Male Gaze: Her breasts, although always fully covered, get quite a bit of focus, especially in episode 1 and Insight. Insight justifies it a little by having Berg-Katze talk out of her chest when not transformed.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Serves this role to the entire team and is unusual in that she is the protagonist. Energetic and optimistic in the extreme, she manages to pull everyone out of their shells or change them for the better by opening their eyes to new viewpoints.
- Meaningful Name: "Hajime" means "first" or "beginning", and "ichi" means "one". She's gatchaman #101, and she makes the team do many things they hadn't done before (communicating with the enemy instead of mindlessly fighting, revealing their existence/identities to the public, etc).
- Motor Mouth: And she speeds up even more when she's thinking hard.
- Nice Girl: Always happy to make new friends, and often succeeds in doing so.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: During the conversation with Rui in episode 6. In her own weird way, she does this pretty much all the time; she's a lot more perceptive than her hyperactive, childlike behavior suggests.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Her sealing of Katze in episode 12, which is remedied in the director's cut.
- Phrase Catcher: When someone calls her "newbie" or "rookie", she responds with, "I'm Hajime!"
- The Pollyanna: Sort of a reconstruction. She's very good at using her hyper-optimism to get people to work together, avoid unnecessary violence, and bolster her Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Plucky Girl: Nothing will keep this girl down. Nothing.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt: In her school uniform.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Sugane's and Utsutsu's blue. She's also the blue to Tsubasa's red in Insight.
- Rookie Red Ranger: Newest recruit, but by way of Obfuscating Stupidity and different ways of thinking, she leads the team.
- Shear Menace: She wields a giant pair of scissors, generated while she's in her armor.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: To Katze in the director's cut of episode 12, which turns them into a NOTE somehow.
- Slasher Smile: Her gatchaman form develops a red one when Katze is in control, contrasting with her usual blue eyes.
- Smarter Than You Look/Genius Ditz: Despite her bubbly personality, she catches on to things extremely fast.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: In her initial encounter with a MESS, she lets it go and later claims that she wants to get to know them better first. Then in her second encounter, she actually succeeds in communicating with a MESS and it returns all the people and objects it absorbed.
- Supreme Chef: Whatever blue concoction she fed Sugane and Paiman for breakfast, they seemed to like it just fine.
- Talking the Monster to Death: Rather than fight the MESS, she tries to communicate with it. It works.
- Too Sweet For Yog Sothoth: Her bubbly nature and unshakable optimism coupled with the way she doesn't let what anyone says negatively about her bother her means that Berg-Katze can't stand her after they realize they can't break or corrupt her. In the epilogue she weaponizes this and make herself the "caretaker" of a sealed Berg-Katze.
- Triple Shifter: A student, part-time worker, an active GALAX user who arranges meet ups and hang outs with friends, and a Gatchaman.
- Uniqueness Value: She's one of the very rare individuals whose social cloud created from Gel's power that's grey and unaffected by the mood of others.
- Verbal Tic: Ends her sentences with "-ssu", a slurred way of saying "desu". She tends to slur some of her speech in general.
Sugane Tachibana/G-96
Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka (JP), Corey Hartzog (EN)
A serious, samurai-like boy who's been part of the team for five years. He is baffled by Hajime and barely even thinks of her as a woman at the start, but grows to understand and admire her.
- By-the-Book Cop: It takes a considerable amount of effort from Hajime to get him to start thinking for himself and not to blindly follow the gatchaman precepts.
- Character Development: He's a lot more laid back in "Insight".
- Chick Magnet: Has girls constantly flocking him in "Insight".
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Was assigned to look after Hajime since she's new, much to his chagrin.
- Straight Man: To Hajime's antics.
- Curtains Match the Window: Has yellow eyes and blond hair.
- Defrosting the Ice King: Hajime's persistence and actions are slowly causing him to act less straight-laced.
- Demoted to Extra: A mild example, but due to the series' shift in focusing on the new characters in the sequel, he has less screen time compared to the first season.
- Deuteragonist: In the first season.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Hajime's red.
- Samurai: Has a very formal and traditional attitude and a strong sense of justice.
- Sword Beam: His "Infinite Blade, Storm" attack involves him shooting a sword beam that teleports to his target, no matter where they may be.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": He really admires Joe, and even joined the gatchaman team because of him. A flashback suggests Joe saved his life when he was younger.
- Tsundere: For Hajime (platonic version) and Joe (borderline romantic version).
Joe Hibiki/G-89
Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (JP), Ty Mahany (EN)
A graduate of Tokyo University. He had a negative view of the human race, but wound up with a revived passion for his job after encountering Hajime. He's a no-nonsense government employee by day, but when night falls, he takes on the role of a dart-loving "bad boy".
- Achilles in His Tent: Refuses to participate in the final battle against Berg-Katze.
- Break the Haughty: At the hands of Berg-Katze.
- Expy: Reflects the original Joe Asakura in some ways, being the bad boy of the team, having an affinity for feather shuriken, and wearing leather racing gloves. He also smokes, as the OVA version of Joe did to cement his "tough" status, and has a friend named Alan (who in the original Gatchaman, was a childhood friend of Joe's that became a priest).
- Flaming Hair: When transformed.
- Hair Color Dissonance: Looks as if he's meant to have black hair in some artwork, though it generally appears as a dark green.
- Heroic BSoD: After losing to Berg-Katze, he gets really depressed and lets his self-loathing and suicidal impulses consume him.
- Hidden Depths: He reveals on a couple of occasions that his dream is "world peace".
- Jail Bait Wait: A possible example; Joe invites Sugane out drinking with him several times, though Sugane always has to turn these invitations down since he's not old enough to drink yet. Their last scene in the epilogue, taking place after Sugane's 20th birthday, is of them finally at Joe's favorite bar for that drink.
- Meaningful Appearance: Green/black on top, red/orange underneath. When his hair is tied back, though, it appears solid green. It's meant to symbolize his dual nature and his true personality which is quite hot-blooded.
- Oral Fixation: The first season has him smoking in nearly every scene he's in. In Insight he switches over to lollipops and then suddenly starts smoking again.
- Playing with Fire: His power is to create flames, most obvious with his gatchaman form. He can also use them to light his cigarettes.
- Smoking Is Cool: He is often seen smoking and is rather aloof. He ditches the cigarettes for lollipops in Insight.
- Spell My Name With An S: "Joe" vs. "Jou". NTV's official site gives his name in English as "Joe", though other spellings can persist, such as in the artbook where his name is spelled in English as "Jo".
- Split-Personality Makeover: In the day time, he takes on a serious and formal personality, slicks his hair back into a ponytail, and wears glasses. At night, the glasses go, he lets his hair down, and he acts as a laid-back delinquent.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Absent in the epilogue; remedied in the director's cut.
O.D/G-12
Voiced by: Daisuke Hosomi (JP), Clint Bickham (EN)
A effeminate, flamboyant person who runs the Gatchaman CAGE. They are unable to transform, so they do not actively participate in missions. They are fun-loving, but will only truly open up to those who open up to them.
- Ambiguously Human: Earth isn't the first planet they've protected. Plus, there's a large number gap between Joe and them despite looking the same age. They reveal in episode 8 that they are half-human.
- Intergenerational Friendship/Odd Friendship: Gets along with Hajime very well.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Has their pet cat Altair tagging along with them almost constantly.
- My Greatest Failure: Failed to defeat Berg-Katze, who went on to destroy their home planet.
- Nice Guy: By far the most amicable and understanding of the crew, as even though Hajime does have good intentions, they initially draw criticism and confusion. The others have no such problem with O.D even though he's almost as eccentric as she is.
- Non-Action Guy: Subverted. They can more than hold their own in their gatchaman form, but chooses not to fight most of the time because doing so could easily destroy the world. Also, when Katze threw JJ's sitting place at them in the Precipice, O.D was strong enough to safely block it while in their normal form.
- Older Than They Look: Has lived for over three centuries.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Briefly glimpsed in the opening sequence of the series. In episode 4, they says that if they use their power, the world will be destroyed. This is proven in episode 12, as it's shown that the longer O.D stays transformed, the worse the damage in the surrounding area gets, with the area above the Gatchaman base caving in and crumbling apart while he's only been transformed for minutes and while fighting Katze underground. The implication being that if O.D were to transform as often as the others do, or maintain it for a long period of time, the rest of the world might follow suit.
- Sad Clown: They're almost always flamboyant and cheerful, but shows signs of wistfulness or sorrow when alone or with Paiman.
- Team Dad/Team Mom: They're easy to get along with, shows concern over the others, tries to gently nudge everyone into doing the right thing, knows more than they usually let on, and while hesitant to transform due to the risk it poses to the world, is more than capable of making that decision in the case that the rest of the team isn't up for it.
- The Host: In Insight, they co-host an internet show.
- Uncertain Doom: In episode 12, they get severely injured fighting Katze, collapse after tossing Rui's NOTE to him, and are never seen again afterwards. The director's cut disputes this and shows them alive.
- Vague Age: They're not given an official age and their age range is very vague at first, appearing to be an adult team member around Joe's age (29) or older, though actually being around a few centuries old.
- Willfully Weak: The reason they doesn't transform; otherwise they'd destroy the world.
Utsutsu Miya/G-99
Voiced by: Kotori Koiwai (JP), Carli Mosier (EN)
A fifteen year-old girl and underclassman of Hajime. She has a negative self-image and fears being closer to others, preferring instead to work in the gardens. She can only speak normally and feel comfortable around O.D.
- Blessed with Suck: Her powers cause great trouble for her.
- Cast from Lifespan: How her Healing Hands work. She can get around this by sucking life out of things or people beforehand, but she doesn't like to.
- Catchphrase: "I'm gloomy" (utsuutsu shimasu), which Crunchyroll intially mistook as "I'm dreamy" (utsutsu shimasu).
- Character Development: From a distant Shrinking Violet to a Nice Girl who strives to save people.
- Curtains Match the Window: Green hair, green eyes.
- Defrosting the Ice Queen: Thanks to Hajime.
- Expressive Hair: She has two flaps of hair that look rather like cat ears, and they tend to move according to her emotions.
- Expy: Physically, she bears a striking resemblance to Saya, though their personalities could not be more different.
- Ms. Fanservice: When at the CAGE or at home, Utsutsu usually wears nothing but a black bikini and a garter on one leg, though this is not focused on like one would typically expect.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: It's implied that this is simply what she's most comfortable wearing when in the relative privacy of the base.
- Nice Girl: Despite her shyness and preference to be by herself, she is very nice and caring towards others.
- No Name Given: Her last name was not given until Insight.
- Scarf of Asskicking: Has this when in gatchaman form.
- Self-Duplication: She can produce clones at will. She activates this power by dividing her life energy. In gatchaman form, the clones lack her scarf.
- Shrinking Violet: Utsutsu is very quiet and prefers to be by herself.
- Stripperiffic: Her outfit of choice when at home or at the CAGE is a small black bikini and garter.
- Vampiric Draining/Healing Hands: She can absorb Life Energy with one hand, and return it with another. Initially she isn't happy about this, because she can't really touch people safely because of it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Absent in the epilogue. The director's cut of episode 12 fixes this.
Paiman/G-3
Voiced by: Aya Hirano (JP), Luci Christian (EN)
An alien Gatchaman whose history goes back hundreds of years. He's entrusted by JJ to lead the team and give them their orders. He also happens to resemble a tiny panda.
- Berserk Button: Don't call him a panda. Or threaten to hurt children.
- Butt-Monkey: Paiman wants to be taken seriously, so of course the show spends the majority of his time making sure he isn't, whether it's Hajime disregarding his self-aggrandizing and overly-stiff sense of manners and courtesy, playing up his inherently cute looks, or seeing that his first episode transformed ends with him running away scared.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After he chickens out of a battle and feels unfit to lead the team.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Crowds, no one but Sugane takes him too seriously.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: It turns out in episode 10 that he's had them during the whole run of the show. During his He's Back! moment, they turn gray and shiny.
- Friend to All Children: Develops shades of this after visiting the kindergarten.
- Hammerspace: Both his smart phone and NOTE are larger than himself, yet he somehow manages to keep both of them in his pants.
- Heroic BSoD: Katze showing up triggered one, and he doesn't break out of it until episode 8.
- I Am Not Weasel: Really, he doesn't like being called a panda.
- In-Series Nickname: Nicknamed "Pai-Pai", much to his frustration.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mild example. He spends most of the serious standing by and mouthing off to Hajime instead of actively taking part in the fight until the last few episodes, but once he gets over himself, he's as devoted to doing the right thing as everyone else is.
- Mentor Mascot: Well, he tries. The first few episodes shows that while he's influenced Sugane to a certain extent, he's largely ineffective when it comes to Hajime.
- My Greatest Failure: Apparently, Berg-Katze was responsible for killing his friend.
- Negated Moment of Awesome: When he finally decides to go after Berg-Katze he transforms and speeds off to Katze's location... then gets cold feet and runs off.
- Older Than They Look: Looks like a cute little panda, but drinks beer, acts like an old man, and has been around longer than the rest of the team.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Transforms into a huge cylindrical rocket-tank-mecha.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: A superhero example. He's completely useless as a leader, and knows it. Mostly, he compensates for his inadequacies through blind adherence to the gatchaman rulebook and JJ's prophecies, and when that doesn't work, he either freezes up or runs away. He eventually admits this to himself and changes for the better.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Hajime certainly seems to think so, and he resents that he can't be taken seriously as a higher-ranked Gatchaman because of it.
- Swallowed Whole: Has a heroic version of this power when transformed. He swallows the CROWDS and shoots them out of his shoulder in a stunned state.
- Transforming Mecha: When transformed he's basically this. He can even carry other people inside him.
- Vacuum Mouth: One of his powers when transformed.
JJ Robinson
Voiced by: Katsuji Mori (JP), Leraldo Anzaldua (EN)
An alien guardian of Earth who has looked after the galaxy, having seen the rise and fall of life over aeons. He is in charge of granting the gatchaman title to those who have the correct characteristics and powers, and guides them with his premonitions.
- Big Good: The others thinks so.
- Cryptic Conversation: Most of his pronouncements are vague poetic statements the other characters have to interpret.
- Enigmatic Empowering Entity: He's just a bit mysterious. And he pulls out Transformation Trinkets from people's chests.
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: After the MESS are dealt with, he does... absolutely nothing. Eventually, the gatchamen politely call him out on this and say they don't need him anymore. He does not seem to care. Insight even has Paiman comment how he's getting sloppy with his statements sent to the Gatchaman, since he sent it after they had already arrived at where the spaceship crashed.
- In Mysterious Ways: He works like this rather than giving out direct orders to the gatchaman, giving them vague poems to guide them and choosing gatchaman. The problem was that the gatchaman became too reliant on his words and never tried to take action for themselves, which seems to have been his reasoning for choosing Hajime. In Insight, he's still up to this and chose Tsubasa to be a gatchaman out in public.
- Remake Cameo: He has the same voice actor as Ken the Eagle from the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: His fate at the end of Crowds is unclear, though in Insight, we learn he's still leaving prophecies and awakening gatchamen.
Allies
Rui Ninomiya/LOAD GALAX
Voiced by: Ayumu Murase (JP), Shannon Emerick (EN)
A highly-intelligent young man who finds the current world lacking, and seeks to update and advance it at any cost. He created President X and the "GALAX" network in hopes of solving the world's problems.
By the end of Crowds and in Insight, he officially becomes a gatchaman.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: In-universe and outside of it; Hajime and the G-Crew alternate between using neutral and masculine pronouns for him and it's not clear what Rui considers himself. Meanwhile, fan opinion is all over the place regarding it.
- Break the Cutie: Painfully so, in both seasons.
- Character Tic: Biting his nails when he gets nervous.
- Dark Magical Girl: Kind of. Contrary to what you would expect, he doesn't become a gatchaman himself until the very end of Crowds.
- Deal with the Devil: Though seemingly done involuntarily on his part, and he's extremely hesitant about using his powers.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The power he got from Berg Katze and hopes to use in order to update/change the world for the better. Serving as a kind of good chaos to Bergs bad chaos.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Many of his outfits while crossdressing are intended to be this, but none of them are an accurate representation of the fashion.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: The reason he worries about using the CROWDS, as he knows they are a power Katze has given him. That said, he is still willing to use it to his advantage.
- Guardian Entity/Summon Magic: The CROWDS are basically this. He describes them as manifestations of human consciousness and they can be summoned through an app he created. Anyone who summons a CROWD gains Synchronization with it.
- Hair Color Dissonance: The wig he usually wears as LOAD seems to vary between being depicted as blonde, strawberry blonde, or a light pink, depending on the lighting and shading in a scene.
- Informed Attractiveness: Hajime notes he looks better without makeup than with the thick makeup he wears as Load. He's drawn the same way regardless. However, Hajime's make up comment was most likely an analogy about Rui being distrustful and hiding his identity.
- King Incognito: He dresses as a woman so he can travel through the city and see how his GALAX network is working out in the real world.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Despite being the creator of a wildly popular social network, he doesn't seem to have any close friends besides X.
- Offscreen Teleportation: As part of his ability to summon CROWDS, he can also teleport.
- The Presents Were Never from Santa: A subversion, in that he was aware Katze was bad from the beginning.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Katze is trying to force him into this. It doesn't happen, so Katze decides to set things in motion himself.
- Sixth Ranger: Despite not becoming a gatchaman until Insight.
- Teen Genius: Besides creating GALAX, Rui knows English, Japanese, and Chinese. He also learned how to hack from places all over the world.
- Telephone Teleport: In Insight, this becomes his power as a gatchaman. When he teleports himself or another person, all cell phones in the area get a phone call from the teleportee.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Often eats from a jar of jelly beans while talking to X. Berg-Katze picks up this habit when he disguises himself as Rui, eating handfuls of jelly beans and crushing them under his heels.
- Vague Age: He has a youthful enough appearance to easily pass for being a prepubescent girl, but is financially independent.
- We Can Rule Together: When he contacts Hajime and Sugane, he asks them to give up being gatchaman and work as GALAXters, claiming that gatchaman will become unnecessary and possibly even a hindrance in the world he is trying create. Sugane understands where he's coming from but refuses because he doesn't think gatchaman are unnecessary. Hajime then refuses because... well, she doesn't say, but she implies that Rui's being hypocritical since he has abilities like a gatchaman himself.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: He just wants the people of the world to join forces against evil. But he's slowly becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist to get this goal.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: As part of his King Incognito outings as "LOAD GALAX". According to the series planner Takao Kudo, Rui does this because he enjoys pretty things. It's possible that he's intended to be genderqueer, though the creators haven't confirmed or denied this.
President X
Voiced by: Sakura Tange (JP), Jenny Strader (EN)
An artificial intelligence created by Rui Ninomiya. It monitors the "GALAX" network, provides information to its users, and acts as Rui's assistant.
- Artificial Intelligence: As per the above description. X almost always defers to Rui's judgment and decisions and by extension, Katz when he impersonates Rui, and rarely speaks in opposition to him, much less in outright defiance, so one could almost see this as a Downplayed Trope. However, there are times when X shows subtle concern and guidance towards Rui by way of keeping its questions within the framework of its original purpose of acting as Rui's assistant in "updating the world." When X raises its voice as Rui completely withdraws from society in ''Insight'', it's a heads-up things have gotten that much more serious.
- Adaptational Heroism: The Gatchaman character it is named after was the Big Bad of the series.
- Face–Heel Turn: In episode 8, after Katze copies Rui and locks him out of the system. Interestingly, this is not because of any malice on X's part, but because it is literally not capable of understanding that there are two Ruis.
- Brainwashed: When it starts noticing the differences between Rui and Katze in Rui's form, Katze causes it to glitch out with a wave of his finger, making X think there's nothing wrong.
- Heel–Face Turn: And Rui regains control of X in episode 11.
- Face–Heel Turn: In episode 8, after Katze copies Rui and locks him out of the system. Interestingly, this is not because of any malice on X's part, but because it is literally not capable of understanding that there are two Ruis.
- Mission Control: To the entire GALAX network.
- Mundane Utility: X is used in Insight as a poll site for people to use. Eventually it reaches the point that X even has a poll about whether people should use it or have Gel do all the thinking for them.
- Mythology Gag: The fact that it's a computer and was eventually controlled by Berg-Katze is a similar to one of the original drafts for the original gatchaman.
- One-Letter Name: While its official name is either President X or General X, Rui typically refers to it as simply "X."
- Mythology Gag: Named after the original series' Big Bad.
- Spell My Name With An S: The website says its English name is "President X". However the Japanese name is "Sōsai X". To make things more confusing, Crunchyroll's description calls it "General X". (Both president and director-general are valid translations of sōsai).
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: It does hack into other systems if it detects there is a potential emergency. Like a shipment of bad milk, for instance.
Villains
MESS
An alien species that absorbs humans. The gatchaman team has been tasked with exterminating them. Shortly after becoming a gatchaman, Hajime successfully communicates with a MESS, causing the entire species to stop attacking and return the humans they absorbed.
- The Assimilator: Although Hajime gets them to stop.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The MESS are believed to be this in episode 3, with the G-Crew believing them to simply view humans as ants or rocks rather than being malicious towards them. The implication is that when Hajime actually talked to them in a way they could understand, they realized that humans were sentient.
- Ditto Aliens: They all look alike. Justified due to being a Hive Mind.
- Good Costume Switch: Although it's not a costume, the MESS Hajime befriends shrinks in size and ditches the black tentacles.
- Heel–Face Turn: When Hajime convinced them to stop absorbing people and various objects.
- Hive Mind
- In-Series Nickname: Hajime dubs the MESS she befriends MESSY.
- Non-Malicious Monster: Once Hajime establishes communication they release all the people they absorbed unharmed.
- Poor Communication Kills: Though once Hajime finds a way to talk to them, they stop causing trouble.
- Sinister Geometry: They look like giant rainbow colored cubes. The one Hajime befriends becomes less sinister.
- The Speechless: They seem to communicate by altering their shapes.
- Starter Villain: Before being swapped out for Berg-Katze.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: MESSY stops showing up after a while.
- The Bus Came Back: They come back for the last episode... but they don't actually do anything. They show up again every couple of episodes in Insight.
Umeda/Number 26
Voiced by: Koji Yusa (JP)
One of the Hundred GALAX users empowered by Rui's CROWDS. Due to a disagreement with Rui, he was removed as a Hundred, until Katze approached him again.
- The Dragon: Leader of the Neo Hundred.
- Heel–Face Turn: Eventually realizes the errors of his ways and decides to help when he can. Including being a defender of CROWDS even after VAPE.
- Morality Pet: His young daughter.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Believes it's necessary to spill blood to change the world. The disagreement between himself and Rui is what drives Rui to remove him from being a Hundred.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Emphasis on extreme.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: His fate is unrevealed in the original broadcast, but the episode 12 director's cut shows him being reunited with his family. In Insight, he's seen again briefly with his daughter.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: More than a little bit bloodthirsty in a Reconstruction.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Berg-Katze exposes his name and his family on the internet when he isn't useful to him anymore.
Berg-Katze
Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (JP), David Wald (EN)
A shady individual claiming to be an alien from outer space and a fallen Gatchaman. His goals and motivation are shrouded in mystery.
In Insight, he's still sealed inside Hajime and reduced to being a complaining voice.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The original Berg-Katze was a blonde, while his counterpart in this series has a long mane of dark-pink hair.
- Ax-Crazy: Delights in making people kill each other.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: The power of his NOTE is to create discord among living beings and make them fight each other. One has to wonder how he was able to become a Gatchaman in the first place.
- Break Them by Talking: One of his preferred methods.
- Breakout Villain: The original series villain was The Dragon. Here he's the Big Bad.
- Butt-Monkey: In Insight, he's become little more than a gag character. Hajime regularly makes him A Twinkle in the Sky of her headspace.
- Calling Your Attacks: Averted. In fact, he mocks those who do.
- Cluster F-Bomb: By Insight, he's pretty much been reduced to calling Hajime variations on "Bitch", with little ability to influence anything
- Don't Look At Me: In the director's cut, when Hajime cuts his hair. Probably symbolic of how trolls need their anonymity.
- The Dreaded: To O.D and Paiman.
- Enemy Without: In the episode 12 director's cut, Hajime says he's this for everyone.
- Enemy Within: In Insight, he is trying to be this to Hajime... or, at least, would be if she cared.
- Evil Is Hammy: SCREAMS!! or draaaaws out nearly all of his dialogue.
- Evil Redhead: Well, pinkhead.
- Evil Tastes Good: Finds suffering yummy. The actual word he's saying is meshiuma, which is Japanese internet slang for schadenfreude. Read about it here
— the word is a abbreviation of meshi ga umai, which means "my food tastes good". This relates to a Japanese proverb which basically means "the misfortune of others is sweet like honey", which is a plot point in one episode. - Fallen Hero: He's a former gatchaman.
- Faux Affably Evil: At times, particularly when speaking to Hajime.
- Foil: To Hajime. They have a lot of similarities which highlight their differences as well; one superficial one is Hajime's sing-song chanting of "gatcha" in the first episode, which sounds like a Dark Reprise when Katze does the same thing later on.
- For the Evulz: Wanders the universe killing random people and making entire civilizations destroy themselves, just because he can.
- Gratuitous English: As opposed to using any of the Japanese personal pronouns, he uses the English word "me".
- Hellish Pupils: Katze's eyes are entirely red, with moving black bands in the center.
- Instrument of Murder: When transformed. When used on O.D, he creates colorful doppelgangers of his target that Katze attacks to damage them.
- Invisible to Normals: In practice, his Perception Filter works like this since no one pays attention to him when he's hiding as a normal person, no one notices that there are two identical individuals in the area when Katze starts framing his victim, and he can get away with his transformation kiss in the middle of a busy street without getting so much as an odd glance. This may be a reversal of the standard "Only the pure of heart can see it" since no matter how hard she tries Hajime can never see him. In the director's cut, Hajime finally sees him when she realizes that Katze is basically in everyone.
- Ironic Hell: Seems very put out by Hajime dragging him along on "dates" in the epilogue.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: He once ran into Gel before CROWDS and Insight. His response was to run away.
- Manipulative Bastard: His modus operandi is to get a planet's inhabitants to destroy each other.
- Meaningful Name: Berg-Katze is roughly german for "mountain cat", which goes well with tormenting our bird-based heroes for fun and fits with either taking the "mountain cat" translation at face value or if it refers to him being a cougar.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Which he keeps even after shapeshifting.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Destroys entire planets without getting his own hands dirty.
- Order Versus Chaos: He embodies negative chaos that seeks to spread mayhem and destruction just for the sake of it.
- Perception Filter: Seems to possess this power; Hajime can't see him prior to episode 12's director cut.
- Phrase Catcher: In Insight, Hajime responds to his complaining with "Katze, shut up".
- Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Oh boy. Not so much after Hajime seals him, though.
- Psycho Pathic Manchild: O.D believes he might be a troublesome child when talking to Sugane in episode 8.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When they're actually shown, his eyes are a solid red with the same black diamond pattern he has for his tail and imprinted on his neck and feet.
- Sealed Evil in a Can / Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: As shown in the director's cut for the final episode, Hajime kisses him, which transforms Katze into his own NOTE, before stuffing it into her chest, sealing him inside of her.
- Spell My Name With An S
- NTV's licensing info spells his name "Berg-Katze", but most other materials use "Berg Katse"/"Katze". The hyphen might just be there to clarify the name order for a Japanese audience.
- "Katze" vs. "Katse".
- Super-Empowering: Gave Rui and Rizumu of Insight the power of CROWDS by releasing their notes.
- Super Power Lottery: Even amongst gatchaman, he's got casual flight and Voluntary Shapeshifting, and his gatchaman form is apparently extremely strong.
- Tail Slap: It's described as a tail, at any rate.
- The Unreveal: His transformed state in episodes 4 and 7. Finally revealed in the episode 12.
- Troll: The entire point of his character is that he's an internet troll in real life, with superpowers. Given the ending, the series' Aesop may well be "Don't feed the trolls".
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Takes on other peoples' appearances by kissing them.
Characters introduced in Insight
Tsubasa Misudachi
Voiced by: Kaori Ishihara (Japanese), Chelsea McCurdy (English)
A high-school student who wants to make fireworks like her great-grandfather. After an alien lands near her house, she encounters the gatchamen before becoming one herself.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Unlike Hajime, who knew what to do when she joined the gatchamen, Tsubasa is still trying to figure everything out. She can't even transform properly.
- Genki Girl: She's not as exuberant as Hajime, but she's still pretty outgoing.
- Idiot Hero: As the show goes on she frequently acts on her emotions rather than thinking things through, suggesting she doesn't always realize what she's getting into.
- Leg Focus: Occasionally has focus put on her legs; a notable example is a split-second shot in the OP which shows them off.
- Leitmotif: Hopeful Wings.
- Meaningful Name: "Tsubasa" means "wing(s)", which is a word constantly used to describe the gatchamen. More literally, Tsubasa's gatchaman sports a pair of wings.
- Naïve Newcomer: As the latest member of the G-Crew, and with Hajime well established as a Gatchaman, Tsubasa falls into this role.
- Power Incontinence: Tsubasa has difficulty transforming. There may be an element of Centipede's Dilemma as she was able to transform without consciously trying to in episode 1.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Hajime's blue.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Deconstructed. Her idealism has resulted her in developing a very narrow black and white worldview.
- With Us or Against Us: She firmly believes in this and that they should make people agree with her and Gel rather than think about difficult stuff or having an opinion of their own.
Tsubasa's Grandfather
The elderly grandfather of Tsubasa. He deals with fireworks that Tsubasa one day hopes to have as her own job.
- Cynicism Catalyst: It's implied that losing his brother in a war is what made him the rational and cynical man that he is today.
- Only Sane Man: He's the only member of his family that realizes why letting Gel run things or leaving it all to Gel is a really bad idea.
- Uniqueness Value: Like Hajime he's one of the very rare individuals whose social cloud appears grey whenever Gel uses his power.
Gelsadra
Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (child), Tomokazu Sugita (adult) (Japanese), Bryson Baugus (child), Chris Patton (adult) (English)
An alien that crash-lands on Earth near Tsubasa's house. Has the power to make colorful smiley balloons appear over people's heads, representing their thoughts and feelings.
- Adaptational Heroism: Unlike his Gatchaman II counterpart, this Gel Sadra is presented as heroic when introduced.
- Affectionate Nickname: Is either called "Gel-chan" or "Dera-kun".
- Badass Pacifist: Known to end wars in all the previous planets he visited, and is obviously very hurt when people around him fight, to the point of tears.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: He values unity above all else and admits that he sees no problem with eliminating nonconformists to achieve it.
- Blow You Away: He possesses wind powers, with one attack called "Innocent Storm".
- Catchphrase: "Gerururu", which he uses when making the social atmosphere visible.
- Dual Age Modes: Has a child form and an adult form he can switch between at will if the situation calls for it.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: His child form. His adult form, not so much.
- Hair Antennae: Has four thunder-shaped antennae that move when he is detecting people´s feelings.
- Individuality Is Illegal: Wants everyone to agree and think the same things for peace and unity. To the point that he'll let them vote to have him do all the thinking for them.
- This also works both ways, as he will also let the people vote to tell 'him' what to do. If they vote to tell him to get lost, then he will comply.
- Messianic Archetype: Apparently goes to planets in order to bring peace to them. He has a good track record — many of the planets he visited became considerably better off afterward.
- Mythology Gag: He's named after the villain of Gatchaman II.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens: He's humanoid, but with hair antennae and red skin.
- Order Versus Chaos: He represents Order in contrast to Berg's Chaos.
- Spell My Name With An S: "Gelsadra" vs. "Gel Sadra". Crunchyroll's sub translates it as the former.
- Stealth Pun: Gel has an association with wind. His power lets him show the mood of people, or to put it another way, he makes the (social) atmosphere visible.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Berg once ran into Gel in the past and his response to seeing Gel was to flee
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: He has an innocent and very childish view of the world, believing that everyone can work together if they all think the same way.
Rizumu Suzuki
Voiced by: Yuichiro Umehara (Japaneze), Patrick Poole (English)
A medical student responsible for an anti-CROWDS terrorist group known as VAPE.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Of Insight until he gives up.
- Evil Counterpart: To Rui. He has the same powers but opposite goals.
- Hypocrite: Subverted Awesomely
- Humans Are Bastards: Seems to think that humans can never evolve and giving them CROWDS was a mistake.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Wears one, fitting since he is a medical student.
- Misanthrope Supreme: He contemptuously thinks of humans as apes, and even masterminds an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Has this attitude towards Rui's usage of CROWDS, and is willing to go to extreme lengths to prove it.
- Spell My Name With An S: Sometimes gets referred to as "Rhythm", as "rizumu" is the Japanese transliteration of "rhythm".
- The World Is Not Ready: Believes the CROWDS to be this.
Kuu-sama
Creatures spawned from the emoticon clouds made by Gel Sadra. These gentle beasts are happily welcomed by the apes.
- Assimilation Plot: If they can't make you become one willingly they'll just absorb you instead!
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: They are implied to do this with physical contact like hugs and saying happy and sweet things that break down their guard. So far most of the Gatchaman have been shown to be immune. Except Rui and Utsutsu hesitating.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Enforces this. The majority decision is always right, no matter how minor the matter is. If your friends want Ramen but you want a Beef Bowl? Wrong, you want Ramen as well. If you insist you want a Beef Bowl, they just might get rid of you.
- Eyeless Face: They have no eyes.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: They'll make you happy if they have to.
- Overly-Long Tongue: Have a long green tongue that they can use to grab people with.
