The many characters of Infinite Ryvius
Main Characters
Kouji Aiba
Voiced by: Tetsu Shiratori (Japanese), Brad Swaile (English)
An ordinary high school student attending class at Liebe Delta with his brother Yuki, whom he is feuding with. Kouji prefers to avoid conflict whenever possible, but finds himself becoming one of the supervisors of Ryvius.
Tropes:
- Character Development: He becomes less obstinate as the show goes on, while retaining his compassion.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Kouji is indecisive and his desire to not upset anyone borders on sycophancy.
- Fatal Flaw: His refusal to take the initiative on his own. This applies not only to his love life, but also to his approach to the many changes in the Ryvius. He goes along with anything ordered by the current leaders, usually after a token complaint that is quickly shot down, and you can often hear him saying there is nothing he can do about it. His younger brother hates him for that, and as time goes on Kouji is forced to realize he won't truly be happy just by waiting for someone else to fix the problems around him.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: When he learned that Yuki was also in love with Aoi, Kouji decided to step aside. This led Yuki to beat up Kouji, beginning their rivalry.
- Nice Guy: Too nice in fact. It's pointed out that his passivity is in part due to a desire to not hurt other by confronting them.
- Non-Action Guy: Despite being the main character, Kouji lacks proficiency at controlling the Vital Guarder, often gets beat up (usually by his younger brother), and when he attempts to threaten Ikumi, Yuki, and Stein with a gun, he is quickly disarmed and shot with said gun.
- Official Couple: With Aoi.
- Pinball Protagonist: He prefers to let others make decisions for him and goes along with every change in the Ryvius's political situation. He grows out of this when he realizes that no one else has a feasible plan to save the Ryvius.
Aoi Housen
Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Alexandra Carter (English)
Kouji and Yuki's childhood friend. She becomes a chef on the Ryvius.
Tropes:
- Converse with the Unconscious: In Episode 24, after Kouji is shot and wounded by Ikumi, then treated by Criff, a heartbroken Aoi spends a good amount of her remaining screentime in the episode begging for him to regain consciousness.
- Hates Being Alone: After both of her roommates leave, Aoi has a breakdown.
- Official Couple: With Kouji
- The Pollyanna: She is one of the most cheerful girls in the crew, even after Ryvius becomes isolated, but she is a subversion. After disaster befalls her closest friends, and her attempts to console them fall flat, it becomes clear even someone as optimistic as her has their limits, and she has a breakdown.
- Victorious Childhood Friend: She and Kouji become a couple towards the end of the series.
Yuki Aiba
Voiced by: Soichiro Hoshi (Japanese), Kirby Morrow (English)
Kouji's younger brother. He has a violent temperament and often beats up his older brother. He becomes one of the main controllers of the Vital Guarder.
Tropes:
- The Ace: The best student at controlling the Vital Guarder.
- Aloof Big Brother: Inverted, Yuki is Kouji's younger brother and is cooler, stronger, taller, and better looking than the nebbish, goodie-two-shoes Kouji.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He's in love with Aoi, but thinks that she prefers Kouji. He's not amused when Kouji starts dating Faina instead.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He has a violent temperament, but he's not a bad person and even when he attacks Kouji, he makes sure not to seriously injure him.
- Official Couple: About halfway through the series, he starts dating Cullen.
- Tough Love: Good luck making him admit the "love" part, but still, a number of character realize the reason he keeps attacking his brother is because he wants to teach him to defend himself and stop letting others make decisions for him.
Ikumi Oze
Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Bill Switzer (English)
Kouji's classmate and best friend. He becomes a Vital Guarder controller and due to his skill and charisma he becomes the Lift Ship crew's informal leader.
Tropes:
- Beware the Nice Ones: He is one of the nicest, most friendly guys aboard the ship for most of its travels, but when Kozue is beaten up by some bullies, Ikumi snaps hard.
- Broken Ace: Ikumi is a skilled student and is respected by every faction on the ship, but he is secretly traumatized over his incestuous relationship with his sister and her suicide and then Kozue being assaulted drives him over the edge.
- Brother–Sister Incest: He was in an incestuous relationship with his sister and she killed herself over it.
- Fire-Forged Friends: He is a lot nicer to Yuki after fighting together with him to protect the Ryvius through the Vital Guarder.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Trusting Stein doomed any chance of his regime actually becoming peaceful, as Stein is more than willing to get rid of people he thinks are dragging down the Ryvius, even though Ikumi only wanted to punish violence and let everyone live in peace.
- Knight Templar: After Kozue is assaulted, he takes over the Ryvius and cracks down on all violence at the ship at the expense of everyone's freedom.
- Loving a Shadow: He always conflated Kozue with his sister and he's not sure that he ever saw her as her own person.
- Maybe Ever After: He and Kozue don't see one another for a year after they are rescued, but they are very happy to be reunited. Whether their relationship recovers is left to viewer interpretation.
- The Perfectionist: He simply cannot accept that sometimes, you can't save your friends. After Kozue is beaten by some bullies, Ikumi refuses to accept there wasn't something he could have done to prevent this, which in turn makes him believe he has to atone for his failure by preventing something like that from happening again. So he decides to force everyone on the ship to stop fighting under the threat of the Vital Guarder. He also makes a point to tell Stein he won't be satisfied until the violence aboard the Ryvius has been brought down to 0%.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the last arc of the series he becomes a dictator who promises violent retribution to anyone who does anything wrong in the ship, but only because he can't think of any other way to protect Kozue and his friends.
Kozue Izumi
Voiced by: Sakura Tange (Japanese), Jocelyn Loewen (English)
Aoi's best friend who has a crush on Ikumi. She is also a chef on the Ryvius.
Tropes:
- Expository Hairstyle Change: She stops wearing her hair in pigtails after getting assaulted. This has the unfortunate side effect of making her resemble Ikumi's late sister, leading to his further Sanity Slippage.
- Maybe Ever After: She and Ikumi don't see one another for a year after they are rescued, but they are very happy to be reunited. Whether their relationship recovers is left to viewer interpretation.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her outspoken desire to be protected by Ikumi, coupled with her clinging to him even harder for emotional support after she is assaulted, ends up bringing forth an ugly side of him, which is how he ends up as the dictator of the Ryvius in the last arc. Changing her hairstyle to one that resembles the one Ikumi's late sister had also wasn't good for his mental health.
Faina S. Shinozaki
Voiced by: Rikako Aikawa (Japanese), Chiara Zanni (English)
A student from Titania. She follows a strange religion that emphasizes self-reliance and cutting off the past.
- Blue Blood: She's the granddaughter of the ruler of Titania. As such, she is granted special privileges, including being granted one of the few single bedroom quarters and private showers on Ryvius.
- Cute and Psycho: She looks like a cute and demure girl at first glance, but murders two people with her own hands and nearly adds Kouji to the list.
- Heroic BSoD: When Liebe Delta is attacked, she goes into shock and aimlessly wanders away from the rest of the evacuees before fainting. Subverted as a flashback much later implies that she was actually panicking over having murdered her boyfriend.
- Karma Houdini: She seemingly suffers no legal consequences from murdering two people, the first of which is implied to happen before she was aware of the attack on Liebe Delta.
- Never My Fault: She refuses to admit responsibility for her murders, clinging hard to her religion's belief in leaving the past behind to justify herself. She finally breaks in the finale.
- Rescue Romance: Kouji saves her life during the first attack and the two of them start dating shortly after.
- Romantic False Lead: She and Kouji date for much of the series, until Kouji realizes that he can't abide by her philosophy of rejecting the past and breaks up with her.
- Yandere: She tries to sabotage Kouji's relationships with Aoi and Yuki. She also murdered her previous boyfriend because he knew that she committed a religious taboo and then killed her former roommate when she asked after him. When Kouji leaves her for Aoi, Faina sends her cultists to kill her and then she ultimately tries to kill Kouji to bury her past.
Neya
Voiced by: Rei Sakuma (Japanese), Chantal Strand (English)
A mysterious, strangely dressed girl who appears out of nowhere. She has the ability to read the students's thoughts.
Tropes:
- Creepy Good: She means well, but her appearing and disappearing out of nowhere and reading people's innermost thoughts out loud are off-putting to those who don't know her.
- Creepy Monotone: Usually speaks like this, except when the collective emotions of the crew reach a high point.
- Emotionless Girl: She begins the series as a blank slate. By episode 22 she's capable of talking and acting like a normal human, as being around the kids has helped her learn by osmosis what it's like to be human.
- Immune to Bullets: At one point Airs Blue shoots Neya, to no effect.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: If you can even call those things around her body "clothes". Lampshaded when she attends a party.
- Intangibility: She can walk through walls and bullets pass right through her harmlessly. She can touch other people if she wants to, as she demonstrates when she carries Kouji to his friends after Ikumi shoots him.
- Spaceship Girl: She is the source of the Ryvius's gravity powers and is for all intents and purposes the avatar of the ship.
- Talking the Monster to Death: When Neya confronts the Sphix of the Geshpenst, she doesn't attack it, instead pleading for it to see reason even as it pummels her. She finally succeeds in convincing it to let her speak to Captain Viscuess.
- Mysterious Waif: Appears as a teenage girl and her identity is only revealed late in the series.
Zwei
Lucson Houjou
Voiced by: Bin Shimada (Japanese), Samuel Vincent (English)
The leader of Zwei and the captain of the Ryvius
Tropes:
- Break the Haughty: After Blue's coup, Lucson gets banned from the bridge, reassigned as a janitor, is routinely stripped by bullies, and is generally treated with no respect at all. It ultimately leads to him becoming a better person and for the Ryvius's second voyage he is restored as captain.
- Butt-Monkey: After being deposed, he is forced to work as the ship's janitor, frequently has his clothes stolen, and is constantly ridiculed by his fellow students. Even eight-year-old Pat thinks Lucson is "uncool."
- Fake Ultimate Hero: He winds up being credited with saving the Ryvius because he published a book on his experience there. In reality, he spent most of the voyage as a janitor.
- Large Ham: He gets very loud when trying to call attention to himself, to the annoyance of others.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: He's a fool who got his position through his lineage. The one decision that Team Blue makes that the rest of Zwei agrees with is removing Lucson as captain.
- Promotion to Parent: He's made Pat's full-time guardian after getting demoted.
- Shameful Strip: After getting demoted, he is regularly stripped to his underwear by bullies.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Becomes a lot more compassionate about others after his many Break the Haughty moments.
Juli Bahana
Voiced by: Kyoko Hikami (Japanese), Kelly Sheridan (English)
The most academically skilled Zwei member. She is the voice of reason on the bridge.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: In spite of her better judgement, she can't help but develop an attraction to Blue.
- Broken Ace: On paper, she's the most competent student on the ship. In reality, she has a severe lack of confidence that only gets worse when she's continuously tasked with getting the crew out of impossible situations.
- The Chains of Commanding: She's an ineffective captain because she's not confident enough to make life-or-death decisions.
- Establishing Character Moment: In her first real scene, she's been relegated to giving coffee to the rest of Zwei, despite having been previously been mentioned as having the best grades of all of them. She attempts to correct Lucson, but backs off when he glares at her.
- Everyone Can See It: Her crush on Blue. It doesn't do her much good, as it makes her attempts to protest against the more extreme methods of managing the Ryvius sound unconvincing. At one point one of her arguments is shot down because "we are doing the same thing your beloved Blue does".
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: She is the main reason why Zwei doesn't get the Ryvius killed under Lucson's leadership. However, when she's made captain, she finds herself choking under the pressure of command. During the Ryvius's second voyage, she's made first officer to keep Lucson in line.
- Maybe Ever After: She's shown wearing a ring in the epilogue, implying that she got engaged to Blue.
- Promotion to Parent: She becomes Pat's primary caretaker after his father dies. She passes him on to Lucson eventually, but Pat still views her as family.
- Puppet King: After Blue is overthrown, she is "elected" captain, but all she does is parrot stuff Stein thought up, since she is popular and the crew is more likely to listen to her. She grows tired of this a couple of episodes later and willingly gives up the position of captain.
- Scholarship Student: While the rest of Zwei are scions of powerful families, Juli is an orphan on a scholarship. It's the source of some of her self-esteem issues.
Stein Heiger
Voiced by: Isshin Chiba (Japanese), Matt Smith (English)
A stoic and ruthlessly efficient member of Zwei.Tropes:
- The Atoner: He joins the Ryvius on its second voyage to atone for his crimes under Ikumi's regime.
- Evil Chancellor: To Ikumi. He uses Ikumi's desire for absolute security to plot to abandon the least useful crew members (and people Stein personally dislikes) to their deaths.
- Moral Myopia: Claims that Blue's group were unfit to command the Ryvius to justify overthrowing them, but has no issues keeping their totalitarian system in place now that Zwei benefits from it. Later, he adopts the posture that any act of violence within the ship is a threat to order and thus wrong, but he is willing to murder dozens indirectly during the finale, just because he judged them to be useless.
- Not So Stoic: He finally loses his cool during the final battle of the series, after seeing up close the physics-defying ship that is the Geshpenst, and realizing the Ryvius is the inferior ship compared to it.
- Sorry, I'm Gay: The Cay sisters' attempts to seduce him fail because he's gay.
- The Stoic: Always remains calm no matter the situation.
- Surrounded by Idiots: In his case it's Played for Drama. He grows frustrated with how many people inside the Ryvius don't take the most logical course of action to survive, which leads to him devoloping his own particular case of Moral Myopia: stuff done by "idiots" is bad, stuff done by him and the rest of the leadership he agrees with is good.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: He was never a polite dude, but at first his logical and stoic attitude was shown as helpful, making him one of the more productive members of Zwei. As time goes on, he becomes a perfectionist whose need to mantain order within the Ryvius leads to him supporting Ikumi's tyranny and ordering the deaths of people who, according with him, were sowing disorder.
- Treacherous Advisor: He turns down the position of captain because he prefers to be an advisor instead. Naturally, he dreams of being The Man Behind the Man.
"Charlie"
Voiced by: Toshiharu Sakurai (Japanese), Alex Doduk (English)
His real name is Good Turtleland III, but Team Blue nicknames him Charlie because they find his real name too cool for him and the nickname sticks. He passes information from Zwei to Team Blue, at first because he's intimidated, but later because he falls in love with Criff.Tropes:
- Appropriated Appellation: His nickname is intended as an insult because Team Blue thinks that he's too lame to be named "Good Turtleland III", but he embraces the name because it's what Criff calls him.
- Character Development: Starts out as an idiot willing to do anything for the slightest bit of affection with Criff. After Criff admits that she was just using him, Charlie starts to take his position seriously and becomes a boyfriend worthy of Criff.
- Dogged Nice Guy: He continues to pursue Criff after she makes it clear that she was just playing with him. He ultimately wins her over for real when he saves her from the revolutionaries.
- Official Couple: With Criff.
- The Quisling: Shamelessly sells out Zwei to Team Blue in return for Criff's affection.
Team Blue
Airs Blue
Voiced by: Nobuyuki Hiyama (Japanese), Andrew Francis (English)
The leader of a band of juvenile delinquents on board the Ryvius.Tropes:
- Fetishized Abuser: He's in love with Juli, but expresses it through threatening and sexually harassing her. Despite this, she falls for him. The ending implies they got engaged.
- Heel–Face Turn: During the final battle with the Grey Gespenst, Blue comes out of hiding to defend Juli from Ikumi's enforcers and Conrad's soldiers. He goes on to be a crew member in the Ryvius's second voyage.
- Hypocrite: He tortures and jails two crew members for attempting to steal the Lift Ship and abandon the Ryvius. A few episodes later, he tries to do the same thing as they did.
- Martial Arts Headband: He wears a headband to signify his authority, with the boys in his team wearing smaller headbands. After being overthrown, he gives his headband to Juli, who looks at it whenever she needs to reassure herself and wears it herself when performing surgery to save Kouji. Blue takes it back during his Heel–Face Turn in the finale, only to lose it to Yuki in the epilogue during an offscreen fist fight.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: He overthrows Zwei early on and while his regime starts out reasonable, his implementation of a points system to ration resources while giving himself and his friends unlimited points leads to widespread starvation and the beginning of the breakdown of social order on the ship.
- You Can't Go Home Again: According to Neya, his siblings kicked him out of his home. Before he can return, the Blue Impulse destroys his homeworld of Hyperion.
- Younger Than They Look: Despite his imposing looks, he's one of the younger students at age 15.
Fu Namuchia
Voiced by: Hisao Egawa (Japanese), Michael Adamthwaite (English)
The spokesman for Team Blue.Tropes:
- Mouth of Sauron: Acts as Blue's minister of propaganda.
- Out of Focus: He's a fairly important player in the first half of the show, but fades into the background in the second half. Even after getting released from jail to serve as one of Ikumi's enforcers, he doesn't get much screentime.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He's not seen in the epilogue and it's unclear if he returned to the Ryvius for its second voyage.
Criff Cay
Voiced by: Naomi Nagasawa (Japanese), Tabitha St. Germain (English)
The elder of the Cay sisters. Criff seduces Charlie into working for Team Blue.Tropes:
- Chekhov's Skill: Early on, it's mentioned that she was studying to be a nurse at Liebe Delta She uses this education to save Kouji after he gets shot.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She grew up in extreme poverty and has been the victim of transphobia.
- Love Redeems: After realizing Charlie loves her for real, Criff decides to stay with him, staying away from the groups trying to control the ship for the rest of the series and even saving Kouji in the finale.
- Official Couple: With Charlie.
- Sultry Bangs: The coy and seductive Criff has her hair styled in a way that one side of her face is always covered by her long hair, enhancing her sultry looks.
Michelle Cay
Voiced by: Yui Horie (Japanese), Vanessa Morley (Japanese)
The younger of the Cay sisters.Tropes
- Dark and Troubled Past: Like Criff, she grew up in extreme poverty.
- Kids Are Cruel: Michelle is one of the youngest members of the crew at age 14, and is one of the most ruthless. She allies with Ikumi's totalitarian regime to defend herself and abandons Criff because she views her love for Charlie as a weakness
- What Happened to the Mouse?: She's not seen in the epilogue and it's unclear if she returned to the Ryvius for its second voyage.
Others
Pat Campbell
Voiced by: Omi Minami (Japanese), Danny Mc Kinnon (English)
The son of an instructor at Liebe Delta. His father is killed during the first attack and Juli takes him inTropes:
- Children Are Innocent: In spite of everything bad that happens to the ship, he maintains his innocent personality throughout the series.
- Innocently Insensitive: Justified by him being a child. He talks about Lucson's numerous failings in a blunt way, and openly prefers Juli over him.
- The Load: He's too young to work and gets by on Juli's unlimited points. This leads Stein to abandon him to die along with the rest of the crew's troublemakers and slackers.
- Morality Pet: For Lucson, who even at his worst can't bring himself to be mean to a small kid. Becoming Pat's caretaker brings a better side out of him.
Nicks Chaiplapat
Voiced by: Rikako Aikawa (Japanese), Reese Thompson (English)
A younger member of the crew who joins Kouji's team.Tropes:
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rude, but unlike a lot of the crew is seldom violent.
- Those Two Guys: He's usually seen with his friend Akihiro. The two of them represent the more normal members of the crew.
Akihiro Miyabi
Voiced by: Toshiharu Sakurai (Japanese), Gabe Khouth (English)
A member of Kouji's team. He prefers to avoid conflict.Tropes:
- Dirty Coward: Akihiro will always go along with the status quo to avoid reprisal. In the epilogue, he resolves to change his ways as he regrets not doing anything in the face of the injustices of Ikumi's regime.
- Shadow Archetype: To Kouji, as another character who prefers to do what he is told instead of challenging the status quo, but is aware of it and has no desire for improvement. In a later episode Akihiro tells him that people like the two of them should only work in the background without doing anything to stand out. Realizing he had been acting like this makes Kouji determined to change. And Akihiro follows his example in the final episode.
- Those Two Guys: He's usually seen with his friend Nicks. The two of them represent the more normal members of the crew.
Cullen Lucciora
Voiced by: Kyoko Hikami (Japanese), Maggie Blue O'Hara (English)
A girl who likes listening to music. She befriends Yuki and becomes one of the Vital Guarder's operators.Tropes:
- Action Girl: The only girl among the Vital Guarder's operators.
- Chekhov's Gunman: She starts out as one of the show's many recurring background characters before becoming more important in the back half of the show.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Tries her best to keep Yuki in line and mediate between him and Kouji.
- Everyone Has Standards: One of the very few times she gets visibly upset is when it looks like Yuki is going to let Ikumi kill his own brother Kouji.
- Official Couple: She and Yuki are strongly implied to be dating.
- Opposites Attract: Subverted. While at first it seems like her relationship with Yuki is a case of this as she has a rather bubbly personality and he is very abrasive, the two of them are alike in that they prefer to keep others at a distance to ease their own anxiety.
- Stepford Smiler: She admits to Yuki that her cheerful personality is just an act to let her remain distant from others so she won't get hurt.
Conrad Viscuess
Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (Japanese), Ron Halder (English)
The commander of the forces that attack Liebe Delta and the RyviusTropes
- The Dragon: Conrad commands the military force for the politicians who want to capture the Ryvius.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Conrad is under orders to capture the Ryvius, however, he wants to kill Neya to avenge his daughter Ange. To that end, he lies about the Ryvius being stolen by terrorists so he can have justification to destroy the ship.
- Heel Realization: After seeing that Neya has Ange's face, he realizes how horrible he's been, orders his men to rescue the children on Ryvius, and kills himself.
Sergei Berkovich
Voiced by: Toshohiko Nakajima (Japanese), Tyronne Lhirondelle (English)
Vice Minister of the Orbital Security Bureau and the leader of the conspiracy targeting the Ryvius.Tropes
- The Bad Guy Wins: In the end, he gets everything he wants except for his own freedom.
- Big Bad: As the one sending soldiers to hunt the kids, Berkovich is the main antagonist of the series.
- Know When to Fold Them: After the Ryvius crew are rescued, Berkovich turns himself in and confesses to his crimes rather than continue to make things difficult for the kids to save himself.
- The Unfought: He turns himself in at the end of the series with none of the Ryvius crew ever even getting to meet him.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He seeks to use the Ryvius and Neya to develop interstellar travel technology so humanity won't go extinct when the Geduld renders the solar system uninhabitable. As far as he's concerned, any deaths he's responsible for are nothing compared to the lives he'll save a thousand years from now.
- Would Hurt a Child: When he's told the Ryvius is likely crewed by children, he concludes that he is willing to sacrifice a few hundred children to save all of humanity.
