Protagonists | Supporting Cast
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Supporting Characters
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1945
Tamao Kurabe
Voiced by: Hisako Tōjō (Japanese), Bonnie Gordon (English)
Member of the Kurabe family in 1945. She's close to Miura and Chihiro.- Alternate Self: She's the latest clone of the leading artificial intelligence researcher Professor Tamao Kurabe, who lived in 2188.
- Body Backup Drive: As part of deal with Ida, Ms. Morimura was secretly implanting Tamao with memories from the AI version of her from the previous loop, the plan being to give Tamao's body to the AI. Unfortunately for them, Tamao is fatally wounded in 1945, and Universal Control has to eject her from the simulation to save her. So the Tamao AI has to instead occupy a robot body.
- Cool Big Sis: She's quite motherly towards Keitaro and Takatoshi. And when Keitaro has to fight off the Deimos invasion, he leaves his sister Chihiro in Tamao's care.
- Disney Death: She seemingly dies and vanishes into light in front of Keitaro and Natsuno. But as confirmed by Okino later on, she was likely only ejected from the simulation and still alive in the real world, hence why her Sentinel unit never appears in the story and nobody else pilots it, so we don't get to see her in the fight against the Kaiju. Sure enough, she's alive and well by the epilogue and still with the others.
- Nice Girl: Quite a pleasant and kind young lady, always looking after her loved ones.
- Ret-Gone: A variation. While she seems to be alive and well in 1985 despite never being seen or heard on-screen, it's eventually revealed that her "visiting relatives in Shimane" is a cover-up by Universal Control for the fact that she was erased from existence when Erika Aiba (who also hosts her consciousness) enters Sector 4.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Her present version dies a sad and miserable death, having been manipulated by Gouto to act as asset for him in Sector 5 before he kidnaps the young Chihiro Morimura in front of her as the kaiju begin their invasion. He also revealed enough of what he knew about the Awful Truth of their world to her, leaving her almost inconsolable over her failure to protect Miura's sister like she promised and how everything about her life until that point from her village to her parents wasn't real. For her fellow compatibles, it's an awful and illuminating display that despite their importance to the plot, they can perish just as abruptly, and if they don't handle them well enough, they can very well be similarly crushed by the revelations of what's actually going on with the Deimos attacks.
- Sacrificial Lion: Her salvaged self from one loop ago is an experienced Sentinel pilot whose personality was put into a powerful android body, but she's ultimately outmaneuvered and defeated by 426.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Her simulated body gets killed in the kaiju invasion of Sector 5 at the beginning of the story. This makes her, alongside Okino, one of the two clones that weren't able to fight the kaiju directly in the current loop. Her incarnation from one loop ago ends up participating a bit more on the plot with her droid body before she gets hijacked by 426.
Tsukasa Okino
Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura (Japanese), Veronica Taylor (English)
A high school prodigy with an extremely high IQ. He is familiar with the Defense Force and has created various technologies, including the Sentinels. He is full of intellectual curiosity, and has a habit of turning a deaf ear to what others say to act on his own accord. In 1944, in order to adapt to the era, he cross-dressed as a girl who called herself Kiriko Douji.- Ace Custom: His First Generation Sentinel No. 12 isn't packaged with missiles present on earlier models, but it has Composite Ceramic Armor, a feature formidable enough that the Deimos have it installed on their Gladiators by default.
- Alternate Self: He is the latest clone made from Tsukasa Okino, the programmer who coded the simulation the characters live in, in 2188.
- Anti-Hero: While on the heroes' side the whole time, the things Tsukasa does to secure victory can get questionable very fast. He knocks out and scans the brains of multiple compatibles for his research, uses his cute female guise to trick several characters, places Takatoshi in a makeshift lie-detector where Tsukasa can expose his most embarrassing kinks, and is suspected to be willing to do bad things to Natsuno should he find out that she has the D-Code on her.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: He passes so well as a girl that Hijiyama fell for him with his disguise as Kiriko Douji.Takatoshi: "Why do you wear women's clothes?"
Okino: "Doesn't feel great to hear you say it like that. You weren't complaining when you confessed to me."
Takatoshi: (Stammers)
Okino: "I'm not exactly the picture of masculinity anyway. Better than trying to pass as some militant with a buzzcut."
Takatoshi: "So why are you dressed like that now?"
Okino: (Smirks) "Because I know you like it."
Takatoshi: (More stammering) - Brains and Brawn: The pragmatic genius contrasting with Takatoshi's Dumb Muscle attitude.
- Bury Your Gays: Subverted. He pulls a seeming Heroic Sacrifice, but his real body is still alive outside the simulation, and long before it's revealed what's going on, he's able to communicate with Hijiyama during the story portions of the combat segments.
- Casting Gag: A Mystical White Haired Stoic voiced by Veronica Taylor, just like Iron Maiden Jeanne from Shaman King.
- Closet Key: Takatoshi realizes he's still attracted to him soon after his real gender is revealed - a fact which Okino gleefully embraces.
- Death of Personality: His case is a bit complicated. He willingly injected himself with the virus DD-426, as it allowed him to remove his D-Code. The problem is that it essentially erases the memories and personality of the infected. He got around this by backing his personality up into nanomachines and then reimplanting himself after the virus finished its job. So he's not exactly a clone of Okino, but rather an AI with his original personality that took over his clone after his personality died. In Okino's opinion, this is a subversion, since there's so much left of him in his AI that it was more or less him waiting for the virus to run its course.
- Deuteragonist: Despite being a supporting character that doesn’t have his own route, Tsukasa is just as important as the main characters especially in Hijiyama‘s route.
- Disney Death: He gets seemingly killed at the end of the story, but still appears when fighting the kaiju. The reason for this is that he only died in the Simulation, and the "cockpits" for the Sentinels turn out to be the incubation pods for the clones of the Ark—he's been ejected from the simulation, but his body outside the simulation is still alive. As he's sharing No. 12 with Hijiyama, he's able to communicate with him (and only him) as long as he's in No. 12.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Professor Morimura is notably put off when Tsukasa talks to her, as she knows he's a clone of her son, and it's implied this gave his argument to her more weight.
- Effeminate Voice: He's voiced by a woman in both dubs, with neither attempting to give his voice all that low of a pitch.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: His secrecy and actions give most of the compatibles little reason to trust him. Outside of Takatoshi, nobody is particulary close with Tsukasa; Tomi blackmails him for cooperation, and Nenji actively keeps vital information from him out of distrust.
- Gender Bender: He teases Hijiyama in the ending, after re-entering the simulation, by strongly implying he made his virtual body female, inviting Hijiyama to check for himself.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: A version with clones instead of parents. The story makes a point that the clones aren't the same people as their genetic sources, but sexual orientation seems to be consistent, as both this Okino and the original are gay.
- I Am What I Am: To counter the memory-destroying DD-426 nanomachine virus, Okino basically converted himself into an AI that took over his body afterward. He shows no angst over this, even if it's possible it changed his personality, as he reasons personalities are constantly changing anyway.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Takatoshi comes across Tsukasa feeding the stray cat that hangs around Sakura High. The latter reveals he's been coming by every day to feed the cat, and even names the cat "Shintaro" (and not 'Fluffy').
- Moment Killer: Zigzagged at the end of Hijiyama's arc which looked like it was concluding with the young soldier swearing to rescue Okino from Universal Control while protecting the city they call home. Once Hijiyama is in the Sentinel, he learns that Okino is actually freer than he's ever been, and he chides him for his dramatic declaration. Afterwards, the mood darkens as Okino reveals the true nature of the Sectors, an Awful Truth that is so immense and sudden that Hijiyama is unable to fully confront it until the outright finale of the game.
- Not So Stoic: Cool and collected Okino gets the living daylights scared out of him when Kisaragi catches him keying into a gate.
- Official Couple: With Hijiyama at the end of the game.
- Pet the Dog: He's rather morally ambiguous, but he's gotten into the habit of feeding the cat that comes to Sakura High School.
- Shared Family Quirks: He's a fairly unflappable genius programmer just like his biological mother, Chihiro Morimura.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A same-sex version; he finds Hijiyama's honest nature appealing and seems to genuinely enjoy getting to spend time with him. Perhaps the crowning moment is Takatoshi offering half his Yakisoba Pan, a food he wouldn't give up for anything, and Tsukasa notes Takatoshi's kindness in a touched tone."You're a good guy, but kind of an open book, you know that?"
- The Stoic: He's generally calm and collected, though with a whimsical sense of humor.
- Take Up My Sword: Gets taken out by droids at the end of Hijiyama's arc, which means he cannot pilot his Sentinel. He still was able to relinquish the access ID of No. 12 to Hijiyama before disappearing, which was pretty convenient since Hijiyama's own sentinel (No. 19, which probably contained Hijiyama's AI from the past loop) was forcibly transported to sector 5, where Miura took control of it.
- Thinking Out Loud: While much of the cast is prone to the occasional vocal aside, Okino talks to himself out loud at length about even highly sensitive information. These monologues are occasionally overheard by other characters, and even get Okino in trouble at points.
- Teen Genius: He's extremely adept with technology. So much so that he can claim to have designed sentinel technology without anyone who knows him doubting him.
- The Tease: Likes to flirt with Hijiyama a lot, completely unashamed of the fact he's crossdressing half the time. In general, he seems to be the sort of person who gives others a hard time for fun.
- Theseus' Ship Paradox: Sekigahara questions whether he's really the original Okino, even though he possesses his original body and his backed-up memories and personality have been imprinted back on his brain. Okino largely considers himself the same as the original, and retorts that people don't stay the same even without interference from nanomachines and memory-deleting viruses.
- Trans Equals Gay: Zig-zagged; he's gay, physically androgynous, has a very feminine voice, and likes to cross-dress, but he doesn't have many other stereotypical feminine traits and is more often entirely masculine-presenting. He does suggest that he's plugged into a biologically-female sim body in the finale, but just to fluster Hijiyama.Let's just say some binaries work for me and others don't.
- Unknown Relative: Because of who they're clones of, Iori is genetically Okino's mother—as are Ms. Morimura and Professor Morimura, to the extent AI copies of humans have genes. Only Professor Morimura knew this, and it's not known if she bothered to inform anyone, as Okino barely ever talked to the other two.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: While disguised as "Kiriko Douji," Takatoshi pretty much experienced Love at First Sight, so he was quite unnerved to find out that "she" was actually a "he." Going by his original self, it really doesn't matter.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: His "Kiriko Douji" disguise is really part of his normal repertoire for clothing.
Chihiro "Miura" Morimura
Voiced by:Atsumi Tanezaki (Japanese), Allegra Clark (English)
Keitaro Miura's little sister. A little girl who looks just like her can always be found with Renya Gouto. She cherishes her rabbit plushie that she carries in her yellow bag. The kindergarten uniform she wears was prepared by Gouto.
- Acting Your Intellectual Age: She's the mind of a ~fifty/sixty-year-old genius in the body of a toddler, and so acts like an adult despite the clear contrary.
- Aloof Ally: Although some of her actions are pretty morally questionable, she eventually learns to trust and collaborate with the protagonists. If she hadn't diverted the trajectories of a number of satellites to act as relays for the Orbital Command Center while it was out of sight from the terminals, the protagonists would have probably been overrun by the kaiju. The reason for this is that due to the rules of the simulation, the kaiju get progressively stronger and more numerous as time passes, and since the Orbital Command Center is, well, in orbit, the protagonists would have needed to fight for 12 hours straight defending the last terminal before Miyuki could appear again in the horizon and finish taking over.
- Alternate Self: Subverted, in a sense. Is an AI that was implanted with the personality and memories of Professor Morimura - the original one from 2188. The reason this was possible is that Juro Izumi, from 2188, modified the Ark so that the personality and memories of Professor Morimura would get restored in her body. Ms. Morimura created young Chihiro as a backup clone of herself and implanted memories without realizing that it was Professor Morimura's memories and not her own that were implanted. After deeming her a failure, Ms. Morimura suppressed her memories and placed Chihiro with the Miura family in Sector 5. As a result, when she regains her memories, she becomes a small-scale reconstruction of the original Morimura, as opposed to an alternate version like Iori or Ms. Morimura.
- Becoming the Mask: The precious little sister that Miura remembers was nothing more than a temporary personality implanted in Moriumura as to ease the transition for her true personality's reemergence. Despite this, Morimura continues to carry around the rabbit plushie Miura gives her when they reunite and is even shown petting it at some points, indicating that she does have some emotional attachment to him despite him not being her actual older brother.
- Big Bad: Takes over the role after Ida is dealt with, and whether she'll go through with her Evil Plan is the driving question of the late-game story.
- Big Good: Ironically ends up as this, saving all of the A.I citizens during the final kaiju invasion and even being the key to victory alongside Miyuki Inaba.
- Body Backup Drive: The little girl that appears to be Keitaro Miura's kid sister is actually a clone of Chihiro Morimura placed in Keitaro's era. Gouto then takes her and implants the older Morimura's personality into the girl.
- Creepy Child: Downplayed. After being fully subsumed by Professor Morimura's persona, she's still friendly and helpful, but shows an overwhelming sense of despair and callousness born from desperation and the belief she can just reset the simulation to undo her actions.
- Death of Personality: Subverted; Morimura uploading her memories to Chihiro Miura was supposed to put her personality in charge. Instead their two personalities perform some kind of Mental Fusion, so she identifies both as Keitaro's little sister and as the Professor Morimura of Project Ark.
- Despair Event Horizon: Even worse than Ms. Morimura; she woke up to discover that humanity has been an endless cycle of death for millions of years, and now just wants it to stop. This is subverted by Miwako, however, who manages to convince her to try one last time, and she has a full Heel–Face Turn later when she realizes Miyuki Inaba can help her free everyone instead of binding them to a peaceful prison.
- Enemy Within: Literally. It's Morimura's body, but the wrong Morimura's memories were implanted in it. She'll go on to shoot Ms. Morimura dead. Ironically, she has the same exact motives as Ms. Morimura, but was afraid her new nature getting out would risk their plans.
- He Knows Too Much: Attempts to kill Renya Gouto after he finds out she killed Ms. Morimura.
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed. As a self-aware digital reincarnation of Professor Morimura, she carries with her the complete knowledge of her hand in Project Ark, and to that extent she's also cognizant of the illegal actions she committed that would lead to humanity's downfall and her digital reincarnation. Her sole concern being self-preservation into a new loop causes her to commit several acts that would serve to hinder the protagonists, including murdering Ms. Morimura. In spite of her actions, she's effectively the only one of the 2188 humans to survive into the new world, though she ultimately commits to assisting the protagonists in the final battle and later assisting them with research on bringing AI humans into the real world.
- Little Professor Dialogue: After joining up with Gouto, she suddenly starts using Spock Speak. Justified, because she has the personality of an adult scientist.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: She notes to her chagrin that even though her mind is that of an adult, she's still vulnerable to the childish impulses of her body. When interacting with Miura, she can't help but still consider him her cherished big brother despite knowing that's not the reality of their situation."In case you couldn't tell, I have a child's brain. The occasional memory lapse is to be expected."
- Pyrrhic Victory: Narrowly averted. She wants to reset the simulation but with her memories and knowledge of the Deimos intact, allowing her to become the Big Good of the next loop, able to organize it to find a solution. What she doesn't know is that the loop she woke up in is the last loop, and she would be erased along with everyone else. Thankfully, she helps out with this loop and it doesn't come to that.
- Time Abyss: Her personality is one of the original creators of the simulation, meaning that mentally, she's at least several million years old.
- Walking Spoiler: Perhaps more so than any other character in the game.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like Ms. Morimura, she's lost faith that the Deimos can ever be defeated, so she wants to reset the loop and give everyone time to come up with a better solution with her leadership and expertise.
Heizo Douji
The originator of Shikishima industries, and lead of the Sentinel Project in the 1940s.
- The Ghost: Despite being namedropped by several characters, and working directly with Tsukasa, the Professor never once appears onscreen.
Kiriko Douji
Tsukasa disguised as Kiriko
Daughter and research assistant to Professor Heizo Douji; she hails from Tokyo. Tsukasa Okino disguises himself as her in order to monitor the Sentinel Project alongside the Professor.- The Ghost: Tsukasa's disguise is the only hint to Kiriko's existence. Otherwise, she never appears herself.
- Real After All: The Mystery Files, as well as comments by other characters, confirm that Kiriko is real and was simply in Tokyo while the events of Sector 5 transpired.
1985
Kyuta Shiba
Voiced by: Yoji Ueda (Japanese), Ben Diskin (English)
Juro Kurabe’s childhood friend. Together, they would always watch science-fiction and tokusatsu (special effects) movies. He is a simple-minded person who is sociable, fun to be around, and is always making jokes. He possesses some sort of mysterious power.
- Big Bad Friend: He's introduced as Juro's closest school friend, but that quickly gets flipped around when it's revealed that Shiba is an AI, then suddenly their interactions become a lot more sinister in tone. Eventually it's subverted once it's revealed that Shiba, actually 426, has been a Well-Intentioned Extremist the whole time.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While initially he’s portrayed as a kind albeit hyperactive and slightly selfish friend to Juro it’s shown early on that he’s been manipulating Juro’s memories and has being doing it for quite some time… and then it’s subverted when it’s revealed that he was manipulating Juro’s memories so he wouldn’t have his personality replaced with Izumi and he genuinely cared about Juro all along.
- Class Clown: Juro outright describes him as such on account of his goofy and mischievous nature. Though it's subverted given that nobody else can see Shiba.
- Clones Are People, Too: His eventual opinion on Juro Kurabe; while Juro is a once-removed clone of himself, Kyuta/426 regards him as an entirely separate individual after a bit.
- Corrupted Character Copy: An in-universe example, as 426 based his appearance and personality on the "kinda guy" that both Juro Kurabe and Juro Izumi get along with. That is, their respective best friends Shu Amaguchi and Tsukasa Okino.
- Creepy Good: When Kurabe discovers his true nature he casually talks about mind-hacking him and wiping his memory, before cheerfully suggesting they watch another video of false memories. Him using Juro's appearance and voice to hand Shu Amaguchi another video of memories in one of his scenes is especially unsettling. He ultimately means well though in both cases.
- Imaginary Friend: His real identity is "Synthetic Personality 48Q;" "Kyuta Shiba," as the files note, is basically a Japanese pun that doesn't translate very well. He's the current incarnation of 426, the AI created from the memories of another clone of Juro Izumi from a past loop. To escape death, he transferred into the nanomachines of the current Juro, who is the only person capable of seeing him. The Kyuta Shiba personality he adopted was based upon the kind of guy Kurabe would like. The videos he always lent to Juro were not actually old Sci-Fi films, but rather his own memories. By allowing the current Juro Kurabe to see these memories in third-person, Kurabe's personality was stabilized, by allowing him to dissociate himself from memories that weren't his own.
- Lost in Translation: A good chunk of his in-game file is taken up by a translator's note trying to explain the etymology of his name.
- Keet: Juro describes him as being hyperactive.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Enforced; Kyuta is an artificial personality whose framework was built from traits that Juro is familiar and comfortable with. In practice, the program acts like a speech filter for 426, who is much more rude, sullen, and cantankerous in his other disguises when he talks.
- Non-Standard Character Design: The way he's rendered in Remembrance mode leans slightly more cartoony than other characters, and his animations are extra exaggerated too for comedic effect. This ends up being a hint that there's something unnatural about him...
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He acts like Juro's goofy best friend most of the time, but in actuality it's just a persona he plays up to make managing Juro's memories easier. The act first drops when Juro summons a Sentinel in his prologue, and Shiba proceeds to drop some vaguely ominous dialogue before erasing Juro's memory of the moment.
- Two Aliases, One Character: Try three. He is Juro Izumi under a different name, while the other one is a cat named Fluffy.
Miwako Sawatari
Voiced by: Eriko Matsui (Japanese), Xanthe Huynh (English)
A close friend of Iori Fuyusaka and Tomi Kisaragi. The three of them often hang out as a trio and eat sweets together on their way home from school. She has a reserved and kind personality. She is self-conscious about her plump figure.
- Affectionate Nickname: Iori calls her "Miwa-chan."
- Big Beautiful Woman: Downplayed. She's sensitive about her plump figure, but it doesn't make her any less cute.
- Childhood Friends: With Nenji. She also made friends with Iori and Natsuno in elementary school.
- The Cutie: Unfailingly adorable and sweet to everyone she meets, and has many friends who would do anything to keep her safe.Iori: "She's gentle, kind, loves talking about romance - even though she's shy with boys."
- Death of Personality: The Miwako who went on an adventure to the blasted wasteland of 2025 was deemed too aberrant by the system operating the simulation and erased, replaced with an identical copy with most of her other memories. Tomi is still devastated to realize that her friend is effectively dead and copied, though she doesn't hold it against the replacement.
- The Ditz: Whereas Tomi is understandably skeptical of Nenji's nuke theory, Miwako quickly believes him and starts panicking about radiation poisoning.
- Fangirl: Has a crush on Shu and Renya and tries to talk to them when possible. This is actually required to proceed with Ryoko's route as Miwako fangirling over Renya will distract him enough for Ryoko to ditch him.
- In Love with Love: She's a true hopeless romantic and will start fawning at any hint of love. She ships Iori with Sekigahara the moment she hears about the former's crush and swoons at the sight of handsome guys like Amiguchi and Gotou."Being in love is wonderful, Usami-chan. Even just watching from afar... It's like your heart is wrapped in a warm blanket."
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: She carries cat treats with her, and was the one feeding the cat at school.
- Locked Out of the Loop: The one time she does pick up on the setting's mysteries - being stranded in Sector 3 with Tomi and Nenji - Universal Control wipes her memory to maintain the illusion of the simulation. Miwako thus is working in the dark for most of the game, and doesn't seem to realize that she's a virtual human by the end.
- Nice Girl: Her kindness and willingness to risk her own life for other people moves even Chihiro Morimura, who up until that point had been waiting for the protagonists to fail so she could force a reset. After she meets Miwako, she steps in to evacuate all the AI to another sector and gets herself involved in the fight.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Surprisingly played straight. She's one of the only characters who is exactly what she appears to be. Oh, except for the fact that she's an AI, but then again, almost everyone is.
- Shipper on Deck: Will frequently ship characters if they so much as breathe next to each other. She immediately latches onto Iori's infatuation with Ei and begins teasing her at every chance.
- Spanner in the Works: Her moment of selfless kindness to Chihiro pushes the scientist out of her nihilistic slump and gets her to give the protagonists one last fighting chance to prevent the end.
Erika Aiba
Voiced by: Hisako Tōjō (Japanese), Bonnie Gordon (English)
A student from class 1-D. A mysterious girl with a unique way of seeing things. She loves detective novels, fantasizing Takamiya as Holmes and herself as Watson, and enjoys investigating the case when Minami disappears.
- Alternate Self: She's actually the Tamao Kurabe of the previous loop, who's consciousness was restored as an AI.
- Artificial Human: Is actually revealed to be a droid made by Tetsuya Ida, holding the consciousness of Tamao Kurabe from one loop ago. Like it happens with BJ and Miyuki Inaba (and Takatoshi as well, although he doesn't appear in the game proper) she wasn't restored perfectly by Sector 0 due to an explosion.
- Back from the Dead: Okino manages to restore the Tamao AI in the epilogue, allowing her to coexist alongside the current Tamao and the others.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Her fixation on mystery-solving leaves her sounding a bit detached from her present situation. With the reveal that she was putting on an act toward Yuki the whole time, it was likely just a way to play into her role.
- The Ghost: Nenji confirms that there is a real Erika Aiba in Sector 4, which Yuki confirms for herself by visiting her in the hospital offscreen. Though the Erika that the Tamao android impersonates never appears onscreen.
- Grand Theft Me: The Erika Aiba that interacts with Yuki Takamiya is actually revealed to be 426, having traveled to Sector 4 by hijacking the droid of Tomi Kisaragi. He then hijacks the Tamao Kurabe android after she destroys Tomi's droid body in a confrontation in the girls' bathroom trying to stop him. After 426's cover is blown, he escapes with heavy injuries and manages to transfer himself into Juro's nanomachines, manifesting himself as Kyuta before him, and as Fluffy before Megumi.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Eager to begin his plans in earnest, 426 failed to research what Tamao's alias at Sakura High was, and latched onto the Erika Aiba identity in haste. Consequently, this makes the disguise so fragile that even Nenji is able to see through it immediately, and it only gets as far as it does with Yuki because she's new to the school and close enough to have her memories manipulated by 426's abilities.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: 426's idle animation in this body has him fiddling around with her schoolgirl uniform, and he voices enjoyment as to how breezy wearing a skirt feels.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Upon Takamiya confronting her that she is an android controlled by 426, Erika's eyes turn red.
- Shipper on Deck: Megumi living with Juro Kurabe was her idea; Tamao/Aiba proposed to Megumi a compromise to live with Juro under the condition that she notifies Tamao if his memories as Izumi return. Tamao seems genuinely interested in the pairing though, as she notes Megumi's feelings for Juro as preface for the arrangement.
- The Unseen: She isn't actually Erika Aiba. The real Aiba has called out sick and is never seen; she hears thus while tracking Natsuno in the track club room and adopts her identity (and a persona as a silly mystery fan) to get close to Yuki while they look for her together.
- Unwanted Assistance: Yuki's not too thrilled to have Aiba following her around during her investigation, mostly just letting her observe than do any of the work.Yuki: "I met Aiba while I was trying find out more about Nat-chan. Seems she likes me, follows me around like a damn puppy dog. Even my steeliest glare doesn't scare her. Freakin' weirdo..."
- Walking Spoiler: The simple fact that Yuki's sidekick is a dead-ringer for Tamao Kurabe is a pretty big indicator from very early on that there's a lot more going on with her than it seems. And there's a reason that Erica doesn't show up on any other story routes...
- The Watson: Verbatim she calls herself the Watson to Yuki's Holmes when she joins in on the latter's investigation.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The Tamao personality appears in only a few scenes before 426 steals her body, and then 426's "Erika Aiba" persona only plays a major role in Yuki's story before being found out and forced to hide in Juro's nanomachines.
Chihiro Morimura
Click here for her agent outfit
Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (Japanese), Allegra Clark (English)
The school nurse for Sakura High School. She is also the class teacher for class 1-B, which includes Juro Kurabe and Iori Fuyusaka.
- Action Girl: The most action-minded female character in the game, especially during her time as a runaway rebel with Juro.
- Alternate Self: She is an AI made from the backed-up memories and personality of a clone of Professor Morimura who escaped through Sector 0 two loops ago when the world got destroyed by the kaiju.
- Back from the Dead: She's revived when the simulation is fully restored in the epilogue, and she can finally reunite and reconcile with her Juro Izumi.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Has the largest bust in the game, which is very appreciated by the student body and often put on emphasis by Male Gaze shots.
- Cleavage Window: Her Spy Catsuit has this accessory.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She and the Juro of her loop were forced to escape their world as it literally broke apart under their feet, losing their best friend Tsukasa and finding themselves in an identical reality where they'd have to survive on their own for years, eventually becoming fugitives trying to take down a mega-corporation. Juro then got arrested giving her time to escape a police confrontation, and the Kaiju still attack despite their efforts to delay them. She then watches Juro gun down the all of the compatibles she gathered to assist them - including the loop's iterations of themselves - and has to kill him, then sacrifice herself to give Ida a chance to escape to the next loop. And all of these memories are then implanted in the next Chihiro Morimura who has to now concoct a plan to stop the simulation from resetting again and killing every compatible for good. It's no wonder she goes so far with her actions throughout the game.
- Despair Event Horizon: Failing to save the her loop or the next caused her to lose all faith the Deimos could be defeated with the Sentinels, and she set her sights lower to ending of the Forever War even if they were stuck in the simulation permanently.
- Dragon with an Agenda: While she's portrayed as being on Tetsuya Ida's side for most of the story, it soon becomes clear that her objectives are very different from his.
- Future Badass: She's a version of Chihiro Morimura - the true identity of Iori Fuyusaka - who grew up and became a time-hopping outlaw alongside Juro Izumi.
- Gilded Cage: Her Aegis plan consists of activating the Aegis system in all terminals to destroy the kaiju. This would end up saving their lives, but since activating the terminals also means sealing them, it would leave the protagonists with no way of escaping the simulation or restarting another loop.
- Hartman Hips: Has this whether she is in her Naughty Nurse Outfit or Spy Catsuit.
- Hospital Hottie: Somewhat this during her time as a School Nurse, due to her Naughty Nurse Outfit.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: Displays this in full glory while wearing her Spy Catsuit.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Wears this in her School Nurse appearance. Doubles as a Naughty Nurse Outfit due to it displaying her physical attributes.
- Morality Pet: For Juro Izumi/426; when faced with a Chihiro from a different loop than his and with different memories, he's hesitant to pull the trigger, leaving himself open to be shot and killed by her.
- Ms. Fanservice: Her good looks and buxom figure are noted by several characters, some of who get flustered just by being near her. If she's not wearing her uniform as a School Nurse, she's in a skintight Spy Catsuit that she wears partially unzipped, exposing her cleavage. Her animations also often have her take a Boobs-and-Butt Pose.Tomi: "Have you seen how the guys react when Morimura walks in? Let's just say they're not looking at her eyes."
Miwako: "She does have a nice figure. I can sort of understand." - Naughty Nurse Outfit: Her Labcoat of Science and Medicine is definitely this. While it's not Stripperific, her figure still shows.
- Official Couple: With 426/Juro Izumi. The two reunite before the final ending card.
- Out-Gambitted: By another version of herself, no less. Ultimately she gets shot by Professor Morimura in the body of 5-year-old Chihiro, to ensure the Ark project would come to fruition and the simulation would end.
- Outlaw Couple: She and her Juro waged war on Shikishima in an attempt to disable production of the Deimos.
- School Nurse: Her job while undercover at Sakura High School.
- Spy Catsuit: Wears this during her missions showing her perfect form.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Each of her three iterations seen in the story die during a loop. Her version of two loops ago dies after the kaiju win, her version from one loop ago is murdered by 426 as a teenager, and her current one disguised as a nurse is shot dead by Professor Chihiro Morimura.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Over the course of her partnership with Ida, Morimura learned that when the two of them time-travelled 16 years in the past to what looked like the year 2089, they had in fact just shifted during a Universal Control reset. This stored their data in Sector 0, which automatically created artificial constructs distinct from the new compatible versions of themselves. Because of this, Morimura no longer considers herself to be human.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She was willing to activate the Aegis system to destroy the kaiju to save everybody's lives and stop the endless loops of warfare. However, she also knows that doing such a thing will freeze the flow of time and trap everybody in their Sectors, as "Time Travel" would no longer be possible.
Fluffy
Voiced by: Yoji Ueda (Japanese), Ben Diskin (English)
Megumi: "This cat is talking to me..."
Fluffy: "That's stupid, cats can't talk. You might want to try thinking before you speak."
Megumi: "This cat is talking to me..."
Fluffy: "That's stupid, cats can't talk. You might want to try thinking before you speak."
A talking cat that appears before Megumi Yakushiji. He promises to grant Yakushiji’s wish to save Juro, and sends her on a dangerous mission in return.
- Ambiguously Evil: He offers Megumi a Deal with the Devil is also framed to be incredibly suspicious, with Megumi only obeying his orders of shooting other characters reluctantly. Surprisingly, he turns out to be Good All Along and his plan ultimately gave the protagonists the power to defeat the Deimos.
- Deadpan Snarker: He regularly doles out sarcastic insults to Megumi.
- Dub Name Change: He goes from "Shippo" in Japanese to "Fluffy" in English.
- Expy: To Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica; he's a talking catlike creature who offers a distraught girl a "contract" to grant her any wish once she performs some questionable tasks for him.
- Foreshadowing:
- Everything he sarcastically tells Megumi is actually completely true, including that he comes from another world and has knowledge of an "ancient" civilization.
- His true nature as a Virtual Ghost seems to contradict how he eats all the cat food that Megumi gives him, hinting at the true nature of the setting.
- Good Is Not Nice: He's manipulative and cold, but he's ultimately just trying to make sure the Sentinels have pilots.
- Jerkass Realization: At the end of Megumi's story arc, he realizes he was overestimating his control over events and was manipulating her feelings to no good end, apologizing for how he treated her.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: When his manipulations were uncovered, Megumi, Gouto and Chihiro assume he took control over the Sentinels and the Kaiju to secure victory for the latter. While his actions border on Omniscient Morality License, the actual plan was to make the Sentinels stronger.
- Sarcastic Confession: His "joking" about his past turns out to be a good summation of his / 426's life.
- Shipper on Deck: In the end, he really was rooting for Megumi to have her Juro back, and was secretly doing what he could to restore his memories as Izumi. Though while Juro Izumi is no more, Juro Kurabe still loves Megumi, and she comes to reciprocate, meaning Fluffy does manage to fulfill her wish in the end. He does still give the two hell for public displays of affection in the epilogue, though.
- Talking Animal: Not much to be said; it's his most identifiable characteristic.Ei: "No way, you are not a talking cat. There must be some trick to it....
Fluffy: "The only trick here is my unrivaled genius." - Two Aliases, One Character: Three in this case. He is one of the two identities of 426/Juro Izumi, the other being Kyuta Shiba.
- Vocal Dissonance: Looks like an adorable little kitty, but with the voice a middle-aged man. He happens to actually be a middle-aged man, as he's the Juro from a couple loops ago - aka 426. So the voice sounding like it does is not very surprising.
BJ
Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese), Zach Aguilar (English)
A mysterious robot Natsuno Minami encounters. It is about 60 centimeters in height. He wants Minami to help him find one of the Sentinels.- Alternate Self: He's an AI holding the consciousness of Keitaro Miura from one loop ago. The reason he's an AI without a simulated body (unlike 426 before he got shot or Ms. Morimura, which are A.I.s with bodies inside of the simulation) is because his vehicle exploded while he was trying to get to Sector 0, which means it couldn't restore him completely. He was revived as an AI by Ida and moved to No. 17, serving as that Sentinel's AI and piloting it in the battle in Sector 2. When the DD-426 infection incident occurred, he transferred himself into drone before being randomly shifted.
- Back from the Dead: After the simulation is restored, Natsuno finds BJ alive and well in the locker room like where he used to hide. The two along with Miura even discuss the possibility of making a body for BJ to enter the real world.
- Benevolent A.I.: He proves instrumental to providing the protagonists the means to fight back the kaiju in the end, having date from previous loops to help their understanding of the conflict and eventually sacrificing himself so that Natsuno can command his Sentinel.
- Cute Machines: Is definitely one in Natsuno's eyes, despite calling him an alien initially.
- Heroic Sacrifice: As his personality is stored in a drone, downloading the data from No. 17 means he doesn't have enough memory to store his personality, so he willingly deletes himself so the rest of the protagonists may see the data and find out the truth. It was his plan from the start, to the point where he actually made the current Keitaro swear to protect Natsuno as he wouldn't be able to anymore. Subverted in the game's end as the protagonists manage to restore the simulated world to before the kaiju attack and BJ is restored along with it. Both Natsuno and Keitaro offer to have BJ hop into their nanomachines and leave the simulation to join them in the outside world.
- Mr. Exposition: He provides a lot of vital information about the conflict and setting through Natsuno's route, including the existence of the Sectors and, most vitally, the game's extremely expansive timeline.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Needing Natsuno's help and cooperation, he doesn't fully correct her assumption that he's an alien until she discovers the remains of a different Shikishima drone. It helps that, as he points out, he's technically an extraterrestrial in the most literal sense as he wasn't originally born on Earth.
Takemi Wajima
Voiced by: Atsushi Imaruoka (Japanese), Robbie Daymond (English)
A delinquent from 1985, and gang leader at Nigakuri Tech High School. He is nicknamed “Tak of Kuri High.” He has a mean face and uses foul language, and acts as if he is strong in fights, but almost always gets himself defeated.
- Boisterous Weakling: He almost always picks the fights he gets into, doesn't even fight fair since he has his whole gang join in at once, and then they get beat up anyway.
- Butt-Monkey: For a Japanese Delinquent who goes around with a posse, he seems to get his ass handed to him a lot. More than half the protagonists get a shot to kick his ass at least once.
- Curbstomp Battle: Despite being a leader of a gang of high school delinquents, he and his gang often get smacked to the side courtesy of either Ogata, Takamiya, or Hijiyama.
- Jerkass: Foul-mouthed, sexist, confrontational; safe to say he's not the nicest dude.
- Real Men Hate Affection: He has absolutely no idea how to handle it in the ending when Ogata throws his arms around him, weeping and happy to see him after years outside the simulation, moments after he'd challenged him to yet another brawl, and finds himself awkwardly asking his old enemy if he's okay.
- Stalker with a Crush: In Iori's route he starts harassing her until she calls on Onishi to drive him off. The gang stalks and corners them afterwards, with lustful intentions, until Ei shows up and reveals he's had training as an amateur boxer.Y'know, all my life, I've been shit outta luck when it comes to women. Until now. I'm tellin' ya, girl. The moment I saw you, I knew you'd be mine."
Heizou Onishi
Voiced by: Motoi Koyanagi (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)
A police officer from the juvenile crimes section of Kamazumi Ward police department. He strictly cracks down on juvenile crimes and violence, but has a kind heart and many of the kids who encountered him call him “Oni-hei” out of respect and friendliness. He and Wajima know each other.
- Alternate Self: Ambiguous, but he shares his surname with 426's prison officer in 2105, which would make him the only non-main character to have one. He also shares his name with the unseen, supposed WW2-era creator of the Sentinels, Professor Douji. note
- Big Damn Heroes: Onishi drives off Wajima while he and some of his gang members are harassing Iori, then arrests them later when they try to corner the girls and Ei beats them all up.
- Locked Out of the Loop: He keeps trying to get the heroes to come clean to him about what's going on, before Ida's agency cuts him off.
- Parental Substitute: It's implied he's the closest thing Yuki has to adult figure in her life. The first thing he does when seeing her, after she beats down Wajima and gets arrested, is check up on her and lightly chastise her for not informing him about her latest activities.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's implied to have taken Yuki under his wing since her actual father is in jail, and his interest in the students is usually focused on protecting them rather than causing trouble for them.Yuki: "Onishi the Ogre may be an old fart, but he's an old fart I think I can trust."
Miyuki Inaba
Voiced by: Mao Ichimichi (Japanese), Fuu Ito (Singing Voice), Cassandra Lee Morris (English)
A popular idol in 1984.- Alternate Self: She's an AI with the consciousness of Tomi Kisaragi from one loop ago. The reason she's an AI without a simulated body is because her vehicle exploded while she was trying to get to Sector 0, which means it couldn't restore her completely. She was revived as an AI by Ida and moved to No. 16 at her request, serving as that Sentinel's AI and piloting it in the battle in Sector 2. When the DD-426 infection incident occurred, she was randomly shifted to the Orbital Command Center.
- Benevolent A.I.: She does everything in her power to help the protagonists battle the kaiju and eventually escape the simulation so they can prosper in the real world.
- Big Good: Her actions end up being instrumental towards saving the protagonists from their fate, as she's the only character who can observe and somewhat influence reality outside the Ark simulation. She mostly attempts to take back control of the simulation from inside the orbital command module of the RS-13∝ colony.
- Foreshadowing: Her true identity is hinted at early on with Tomi mentioning posting a new "Inaba Rabbit" video in Megumi's route.
- The Lost Lenore: She's based on the Tomi Kisaragi of Ida's loop who was killed as the Deimos invasion commenced and she and a group of compatibles failed to transfer to Sector 0. He attempted to recreate her personality as an AI replica who shares the original's sentiments, but she comes to abandon Ida after realizing the extant of his plans (replacing another Kisaragi's personality with the AI's). She then manifests as Miyuki Inaba in order to aid the pilots of the next loop.
- Ms. Exposition: She explains to Shu the nature of the simulation and how all the characters live in an enclosed space under Universal Control.
- Nice Girl: Always gentle and kind to those around her.
- Secret Identity: She's posing as a TV idol to hide herself from Universal Control and Tetsuya Ida, while giving vital clues to Shu Amiguchi.
- Virtual Ghost: Like BJ and Tamao, dying as she shifted corrupted her data to a degree, making it so that she can't get a new body from her archived Sector 0 information in later loops like Ida and Morimura can.
- Walking Spoiler: Her identity and motivations are tied to some of the deepest mysteries of the game.
2065
Tetsuya Ida
Voiced by: Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Japanese), Mick Wingert (English)
A part-time instructor at Sakura High School. He teaches Ryouko Shinonome’s class. In reality, he is actually the chairman of the Special Intelligence Agency, a government spy organization. He draws out Shinonome to the battlefield.
- Alternate Self: He is an AI made from the backed-up memories and personality of a clone of Tetsuya Ida who escaped through Sector 0 one loop ago.
- Big Bad: The closest one in the game; his actions to force another loop plays a major role in all thirteen character's arcs, both directly or indirectly. Him tricking Shinonome into injecting DD-426 before the 2064 battle is what kicks offs much of the events of the game, including Juro Izumi being teleported to 2024 and Ei Sekigahara being caught in a Frame-Up.
- Book Ends: In the past, Ida piloted a Type-98, an anti-kaiju weapon that predated the Sentinels. Shu, his clone and successor, pilots a Fourth-Generation Sentinel, the latest and last kind of anti-kaiju machinery.
- Create Your Own Hero: He placed the infant version of himself from the loop after his into an adoptive family, hoping that child would one day be usable as a body to transfer memories into and live on. That baby would grow up to be Shu Amiguchi, who proves to be a major thorn in Ida's side through his route.
- Death Equals Redemption: In the ending, Tetsuya's personality ends up being saved in the simulation, and he does his part in helping rebuild the Sectors. He also comes to accept Miyuki and plans to transfer himself to her control satellite so they can be together.
- Despair Event Horizon: The death of his fellow compatibles to 426, including the girl he loves, sends him down a dark path.
- Dissonant Serenity: The Kisaragi of his time notes how odd it is that he can keep calm even when surrounded by total destruction. He claims that on the inside he's just as terrified as she is, though.
- Easily Forgiven: His Tomi/Miyuki Inaba forgives him in the epilogue despite everything (he even notes his surprise at this given how he now realizes what a monster he's been), and they resolve to be together on the orbital station.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He would never hurt his version of Tomi or directly alter her memories as 426 insinuated. On the other hand, instigating a new loop so that she won't remember his screw-ups and character failings when he retrieves her from Sector 0 again, and ignoring her pleas to not do that fails to elicit any hesitation on his part.
- Expy: He takes many cues from Gendo Ikari, being mysterious, morally-ambiguous authority figures commanding a bunch of teenagers with huge robots. His relationship with Ryoko also looks like a combination of Gendo's relationships with Rei Ayanami and Ritsuko Akagi, with manipulation, forced dependence and unrequired love. Their motivation is also fairly similar.
- First-Name Basis: Everyone refers to him by his first name as a sign of either familiarity or disrespect.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The indication that he's going from his kinder teenaged self to the selfish Ida of the present is that he starts wearing glasses as a young adult.
- Go Through Me: Got between 426 and his loop's versions of Chihiro Morimura and Megumi Yakushiji only to become the Sole Survivor when the grizzled Juro Izumi gunned them all down.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: A record of Ida that Ogata meets during his route explains that he made DD-426 in good faith, hoping that the virus would poison and defeat the kaiju by using the Sentinels as infection vectors. Instead, it critically hobbled all the pilots at the time, forcing Morimura to scatter them across the colony, and ultimately losing them Sector 2. While he regrets this mistake, it's not enough to stop him from exploiting the disastrous outcome to hasten the coming of the next loop so he can try to do better after the supposed reset.
- Heel Realization: Sekigahara telling his back-up android that a new loop would be impossible to perform causes him to suffer a meltdown, partially because all of the lives he manipulated and ruined in the current loop were All for Nothing but also because he realizes that Tomi/Miyuki was trying to warn him about that from the start. The consequences seem to have stuck, as he is willing to accept Tomi/Miyuki as her own person in the epilogue and works alongside her to oversee civilization's redevelopment from the orbital station.
- In-Series Nickname: Yuki always refers to him as "Four-Eyes".
- Lean and Mean: Formerly of average build with a babyface visage, his current physical appearance is taut and skinny.
- Love Makes You Evil: Ultimately his motivation simply ends up being to have Tomi Kisaragi for himself, with little regard to what she herself or others may think. This is why he attempts to seal Miyuki Inaba, and why he modified DD 426 to take over Units 13, 14, and 15 as he's trying to force another loop to undo his botched attempt at restoring Tomi with a droid body. What's worse, the implication is that his manipulative personality is what caused Shinonome to fall into despair and cause the loops in 2188.
- Mad Scientist: The original creator of Sentinel technology, the DD-426 virus, and Brain Uploading. He's also a manipulative, possessive creep.
- Manipulative Bastard: He will lie, cheat, and do anything necessary to cause another loop and to get Unit 17's data for himself. Everyone else is just a means to an end for this guy.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After Sekigahara tells his back-up android that a new loop would be impossible to perform, Ida starts rambling in despair about what he had just done, especially regarding Tomi/Miyuki's warnings he had promptly ignored. This leaves him wide open for Sekigahara to finish him off.
- Nature Versus Nurture: He abducted his current iteration from Sector 3 as a baby and stranded him in Sector 4 so that he could exploit Shu's mainframe access privileges while presumably making sure that he'd grow up different enough that he'd never get around to discovering his status as a compatible. Shu proves to be innately intelligent and manages to pursue Ida with only a handful of clues garnered from Mikyuki Inaba's broadcasts and Morimura's memory implants, but his older counterpart is surprised that of all the ways he could've deviated that would've been more convenient to him, Shu's fallen in love with Yuki Takamiya when a Tomi Kisaragi was in his general vicinity.
- Out-Gambitted: He gets shot by Shinonome when she discovers he never cared about her, and his back-up droid ends up being shot by Sekigahara in a moment of distraction after learning that the current loop is the last one before Sector 0 will need to be rebuilt as it's nearing the end of its lifecycle.
- Pet the Dog: The glimpses of him seen working in 2100 show that he got along well with #18/the Tamao of his loop. While working on the Tomi android, he apologizes to Tamao for the length of the process and assures that he'll work on her body as soon as he can, all with a gentleness absent from his present self.
- Smug Snake: His SIU version immediately comes across as a vile creep in nearly every route. It only gets worse as we learn more about him, and he was no better as a younger man.
- Start of Darkness: His obsession with reviving Tomi as an AI gets the better of him, and he begins devolving into a selfish, Manipulative Bastard who sets all of the conflicts of the present in place.
- Stoic Spectacles: Wears glasses and always speaks in a low monotone.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Was previously as kind and valorous as Shu, but being hunted by 426, failing to defeat the kaiju during his loop, Morimura's Heroic Sacrifice, and Tomi's death darkened his heart.
426
Voiced by: Hiro Shimono (Japanese), Chris Hackney (English)
An AI holding the consciousness of Juro Izumi from two loops ago. His actions shape much of the plot.- Alternate Self: He is an AI made from the backed-up memories and personality of a clone of Juro Izumi who escaped through Sector 0 two loops ago when the world got destroyed by the kaiju.
- Big Good: If it wasn't for him, ultimately Juro Kurabe wouldn't have been able to fight and the Sentinels wouldn't have been strengthened. He, alongside Professor Morimura and Miyuki Inaba, made victory possible.
- Body Surf: His Virtual Ghost form possesses an android version of Tomi, then "Aiba" after a physical confrontation with the Tamao android body, then infects Juro Kurabe's mind to pose as Kyuta Shiba, eventually also infecting Megumi to pose as Fluffy.
- But Now I Must Go: During the epilogue, he leaves Juro's nanomachines for good so he can focus on trying to reconcile with Morimura in the virtual world.
- Create Your Own Villain: Ida was already delving into sketchy territory by the time he reunites with 426 in his adult years, but 426 ends up inspiring him to restart the loop when he mocks Ida for being too short-sighted to directly put his Tomi's consciousness into a new organic body so he wouldn't have to debate with Tomi over the ethics of putting her AI into another iteration of herself.
- Decoy Antagonist: Despite being built up as an ominous threat throughout the game and genuinely being responsible for a few horrific things, he’s actually a Big Good working to give the children a means to defeat the Deimos once and for all. Without him, victory would have been impossible.
- The Dreaded: He has multiple deaths on his hands and is extremely difficult to confine due to his nature as an AI; every character that talks about him does so with dread. Ryoko backs away from Juro in fear at the mere suggestion of 426 being present in his nanomachines.
- Frame-Up: On the receiving end. While he does some pretty extreme things over the course of the story, he wasn't responsible for blowing up a factory and killing Tomi, Miura, Tamao Kurabe, and Hijiyama. They died when the Type 98 bipedal vehicle they were using to escape to Sector 0 got blown up by the kaiju. Ida lied to Morimura about this, which caused her to shoot 426 in the current loop. This, in turn, meant that his backup in the factory at Sector 1 ended up needing to hijack Tomi's droid to enact his plans in an extremely roundabout way.
- Good Is Not Nice: Everything he does is to give everyone the best chance in fighting the Deimos and finally end the cycle of loss and sacrifice they've been stuck in, but he does some frankly extreme and even cruel things to get everyone where they need to be.
- Kick the Dog: When he steals the Usami-Bot's body after Ida leaves, instead of deleting her outright, he instead leaves her in his previous exoskeleton to be deleted by Ida, even cruelly taunting her over it. Later, after Megumi has already agreed to serve as his pawn in trying to vaccinate the other heroes, he appears in the house as Fluffy and begins berating and insulting her seemingly for the hell of it.
- Manipulative Bastard: A heroic example. While he is trying to give everyone the best chance to fight the Deimos, he does so by treating those he needs like pawns, preying on their insecurities and flaws in order to get them to do what he wants. At the very least, he has the decency to debrief as many of those he has manipulated as he can afterwards.
- Master of Disguise: Throughout the story, he takes on the guises of Kyuta Shiba, Tomi Kisaragi, Erika Aiba, and Fluffy, all of whom show personalities completely distinct from each other, even if they aren't great imitations of the originals.
- Pet the Dog: One of Eli's flashbacks, set in the bunker lab in 2104, has him being saved from androids by 426 possessing the Tomi android. 426 then fills Ei in about the effects of DD-426 and even offers medication and pointers to assist Ei in treating himself.
- Walking Spoiler: His identity and motivations are tied to some of the deepest mysteries of the game.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He's practically defined by this trope, as over time he takes more and more extreme measures to combat the kaiju. After escaping with Morimura from Sector 0 into the world of one loop ago, he, along with Ms. Morimura, essentially becomes a terrorist and tries to destroy Shikishima using guerrilla warfare. After he gets caught by the police and given the designation "426" as a prisoner, he escapes after a kaiju attack. Then he shoots Izumi, Sekigahara, Shinonome, Okino, Yakushiji and Morimura from one loop ago, in order to invalidate the control key and stop the invasion, which backfired spectacularly. Finally, he embarks on a Body Surf spree to manipulate everyone into the best possible starting position for fighting the Deimos and to stop Ida's myopic and self-destructive plan.
2188
Project Ark
A project to preserve and restart humanity after Earth is wiped clean by the viral nanomachine plague. Fifteen humans volunteered their genetics to Project Ark, many of whom were staff that directly contributed to the project. All of them have been dead for countless eons now, but their actions still linger over the current plot.
The lead scientist of Project Ark.
An assassin who is secretly contracted by Renya Gouto to kill Chihiro Morimura.
The engineer who designed the Sectors and their virtual residents. He was in a relationship with Natsuno Minami.
A young girl who was rescued from Earth as the nanomachine plague spread and took refuge on the last surviving colony.
CEO of Shikishima Industries.
A genetic engineer who discovered a way to create humans using AI as a personality template.
A systems administrator for the simulation. He was also in a very toxic relationship with Ryoko Shinonome, regularly manipulating her feelings.
The lead programmer behind the simulation the compatibles all inhabit, including the design for Universal Control.
The engineer behind the self-replicating probes that carry humanity's seed for revival. She's the mother of Natsuno Minami.
Tropes applying to all of them
- Dysfunction Junction: Calling most of them flawed is a understatement; many of the fifteen are directly responsible for humanity dying out in the first place, as well as the struggles that their descendants face restarting humanity.
- Generation Xerox: Zig-Zagged; the game's themes are based around how the current compatibles follow and subvert the actions and traits of their predecessors to varying degrees.
- Posthumous Character: They died out with the rest of the humanity in the year 2188, but their DNA and Project Ark's probes allowed for humanity to restart with clone descendants who can carry the restoration of humanity to fruition.
- Uncertain Doom: Downplayed; all of them died, but the circumstances of individual deaths are mostly not revealed. This includes Yuki, Natsuno, Keitaro, Megumi, Tomi, Ida, Ryoko and Tamao. Though Tamao, being in her hundreds by 2188, is most likely to have died from old age.
Chihiro Morimura
- Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her right eye was covered by her bangs, indicating her cold and closed-off personality. It also differentiates her from both Iori Fuyasaka and Ms. Morimura, who have both eyes completely uncovered and are much more emotionally open.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: She is the mother of 2188 Tsukasa Okino, albeit as a Donor rather than as a traditional birth. The latter is implied to have never known about their relation.
- Official Couple: She and Juro Izumi were an item. He uploaded a backup of her memory files to Sector 0 in the hope that she could keep leading the project even after they're all gone.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her reckless trading of nanomachine tech on the black market was what lead to the development of the plague that wiped out humanity. She's one of the only surviving humans that knows this, and evidently spends her final days in shame over the fact.
Ei Sekigahara
- Even Evil Has Standards: He expresses disgust in Morimura's role in humanity's downfall, and considers his assassination against her to be doing humanity a service.
- Murder-Suicide: It's implied by his final log that he knowingly got caught in the blast he created to kill Morimura, telling her that he'll be "seeing her soon" right before she dies.
- The Stoic: He always remains creepily calm in every situation.
Keitaro Miura
- Born in the Wrong Century: He arranged for his clone-descendants to grow up in the Sector based on the 1940s, wanting to experience how the world evolved from the innovations of World War II. Safe to say he had a very rose-tinted perspective of the era, given that the Keitaros born after him had to experience the horrors of war for themselves.
Megumi Yakushiji
- The Baby of the Bunch: While everyone else were grown adults, Megumi was only eight years old.
Renya Gouto
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He sent Sekigahara to kill Professor Morimura to prevent her activities from exposing his company's secret slush fund.
- Evil Old Folks: One of the oldest surviving humans and a ruthless CEO who ordered an assassination on the lead of Project Ark.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He was this to Kengo Ogata; Gouto might've been a Corrupt Corporate Executive who put out a hit on one of his former employees to prevent the exposure of his company's slush fund, but at least he didn't doom humanity by intentionally unleashing a nanomachine plague in a bid for immortality.
Ryoko Shinonome
- Greater-Scope Villain: She is the chief cause of the Kaiju invasion, having sabotaged the simulation's code by inserting the Deimos. When the current Ryoko discovers this, she freaks out.
- Last of Her Kind: Alongside Ida, she was the last human left alive.
- Woman Scorned: Her final moments with Ida are implied to have been quite awful, with the director's comments indicating that he backed out of a promise the two made to die together when there was no one else left.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: By the end of her life and when she creates the Deimos Code, she's utterly and irreversibly broken by the extinction of humanity, the falling out between the other members of the colony, and being emotionally betrayed by Ida. As horrifying as her actions are, it's hard to fault her for her state of mind.
Tetsuya Ida
- Greater-Scope Villain: His awful treatment of Shinonome resulted in her sabotaging Project Ark, creating the endless cycle between the Deimos and Universal Control that drives the game's conflict.
- Irony: The present Juro and Shu (Ida's clone-descendent) are close friends who regularly hang out and confide in each other. Ida meanwhile spends his final moments insulting the already dead Juro of 2188, implying an antagonism between the two.
- Last of His Kind: Alongside Shinonome, he was the last human left alive.
Tsukasa Okino
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He was a genius programmer, but he also had a tendency to skimp out on details if he thought he could get away with it. This includes using code from an old video game to create the Ark simulation. Unfortunately, his sloppy work made it very easy for someone as inexperienced as 2188's Shinonome to hack the system and sabotage the project.
- Feet of Clay: He attempted to pull the plug on Project Ark when the choice came to divert the colony’s remaining power to the probes or the life support of the still living humans onboard. Juro would end up shooting and killing him to prevent this from happening, which would then sparked a massive shootout that resulted in the deaths of both Juro and Hijiyama.
- Unknown Relative: He turns out to be the biological son of Chihiro Morimura, although neither of them knew at first. She had to donate one of her ovules when she was young due to government policy to curb depopulation. The child from that egg turned out to be Okino, although she didn't find out until she had to sequence the genes of the last 15 survivors.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The decision to include code from DEIMOS, a videogame he created, into the Ark simulation creates the Kaiju that wreak havoc in the story when 2188 Shinonome uses it to sabotage the Ark.
Yuki Takamiya
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: She jokingly invokes a Gender Inverted version, telling Miura that she never approved of him dating her daughter just to rile Natsuno up and get her to open a communication channel with her.
- Good Parents: She and Natsuno seem to share a close relationship. Tellingly, both of their descendants are placed in the same sector where they grow up and remain close for life.
Nozomu Yakushiji
Voiced by: Kazumasa Nakamura (Japanese),
Megumi Yakushiji's father. In 2188, he was an astronaut who helped work on the Ark Project.
- Papa Wolf: His final moments were to secure his daughter a spot on the colony containing the last humans, while Nozomu remains behind either to succumb to his nanomachine infection or die from a lack of life support in space.
- Take Care of the Kids: Since he can't be let back onto the colony ship, he asks Juro to take care of Megumi for him.Major Izumi: "Sorry, Yakushiji. You're going to have to leave your daughter with me. In the meantime, you'll have to return to your pod."
Nozomu: "I entrust you with her life. My daughter... My Megumi."
Major Izumi: "I'll protect her at all costs. I promise." - We Hardly Knew Ye: Appears for only one scene, in which he leaves Megumi in Juro's hands after he was infected in 2188.
- Your Days Are Numbered: He was infected with the nanomachine plague that was wiping out the rest of humanity. His only option left was to make sure his uninfected daughter could live on without him.
Kengo Ogata
Voiced by: Motoi Koyanagai (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)
Father of Nenji Ogata and former CEO of Shikishima Corporation until his death in 2187.
- All for Nothing: His plan to live forever after humanity nearly goes extinct by forcing the Ark's activation and pulling a Grand Theft Me on his son failed — He was supposed to take over Nenji when he turned 18, but thanks to the Kaiju and the Loops, he never reached that age while in the simulation.
- Bald of Evil: The game's script book shows that he's bald.
- Evil Sounds Raspy: Most wouldn't listen to his scratchy drawl and take him for a good guy.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Almost everything that goes wrong in the story can be traced back to this guy. He's the true mastermind that destroyed humanity in 2188 by tricking Professor Morimura into releasing her nanomachines upon the Earth. The reason behind this is that, as CEO of Shikishima, his AI was uploaded into the Ark project. Thus, by forcing the activation of the project, he eventually could have been revived into a clone.
- Immortality Seeker: Almost every event in 2188 happened due to him wanting to live forever. Of course, he didn't count on Shinonome injecting the D-Code into the Ark simulation and forcing the world into an endless loop of creation and destruction...
- Posthumous Character: He left an AI recreation of himself after death to continue pursuing his goal of being reborn on the new world. And the last known log of Renya Gouto has Ogata mocking him in the face of humanity's looming extinction.
- Uncertain Doom: We never actually learn what happens to him, but as he doesn't appear in the game proper save a few flashbacks, it's probably safe to say that he is stuck inside Sector 0 with no way out.
- The Voice: He's never seen on screen (the picture here comes from the game's script book), but we hear the voice of his AI in a conversation with Gouto.
- Walking Spoiler: His identity and motivations are tied to some of the deepest mysteries of the game.
Deimos
In General
An extraterrestrial species of huge mechanical monsters, also called the kaiju, that are the enemy forces invading Earth and attacking the city. They are the primary antagonists and enemies of the game and come from several different types.
- Lensman Arms Race: The reason they keep getting stronger is due to the fact that the Ark simulation that the characters live in was made in a hurry by Tsukasa Okino from the data of an old game, named DEIMOS, in which the enemies get progressively stronger as the player continues playing. After the nanomachine disaster of 2188, the game had to be hastily repurposed into a simulation of different time periods and the monster data from the game was purged, but the D-Code injected by Shinonome took the data from the terraforming heavy machinery in the colony and made them the enemy. Amusingly, thanks to the efforts of Yakushiji and Fluffy, this is also the reason why the Sentinels can get stronger using meta-chips: the program in the bullets she shoots makes the system give the protagonists rewards for defeating kaiju.
- Living Program: The Deimos are effectively code given form inside the simulation, which borrow the designs of the Shikishima terraforming robots stored within the mainframe. This is also why, at times, particularly huge Deimos like the Terra Carriers are explicitly noted to disappear instead of leaving wreckage when defeated: they're simply de-spawning from the game's world.
- Mechanical Monster: The kaiju are also visibly machines, but no less hideous or monstrous in their designs.
- Meaningful Name: "Deimos" is a Greek god, one of the two sons of Ares; the only thing the Deimos seem to crave is violence and destruction. "Deimos" also means "pain", and Shinonome's virus to forcefully awaken their aggressive AI was born out of her Despair Event Horizon.
- Mook Debut Cutscene: When each type of Deimos appears, some of the characters will talk about the capabilities of it before continuing the battle.
- Mundane Utility: When introduced, everyone quickly points out a model's civilian uses. As it turns out, the civilian uses are the intended ones; they're autonomous construction and terraforming equipment loaded with weaponry.
- Non-Malicious Monster: They're effectively enemy creeps in a video game; they attack and attempt to destroy cities because that is what they are supposed to do, and the reason they are destroyed when an Aegis is activated is because they recognize the signal as a win state that results in them being programmed to retreat and self-destruct, because the level is over. It's only horrifying because the human Non Player Characters they are programmed to attack are sentient, something that was not true in DEIMOS as an actual game.
- Not the Intended Use: They are actually revealed to be made by the Shikishima corporation, same as the Sentinels. Rather than being machines specifically designed for fighting, they are part of the Planet Terraforming Plan devised in 2188 to help humanity expand beyond the Earth. Their overwhelming numbers, however, make them exceedingly dangerous foes in spite of that.
- Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: They are actually construction equipment, but look like mechanical monsters, especially because of their color scheme and glowing red eyes.
- Zerg Rush: Sentinels can carve through armies of them, the problem is they have plenty of armies. This is an early hint that they are hijacked terraforming machines, not war robots.
Workers
- The Goomba: They're the most frequent kaiju to appear, and also one of the easiest to kill due to there being few gimmicks to them.
- Zerg Rush: While most other Deimos come in groups of 10 at most, Workers come in groups of over 100.
G-Molers
- Mascot Mook: They're the most visible of the enemies throughout most of the game and generally serve as the "face" of the Kaiju threat, despite other models having more important roles. Even in-universe they're the entire reason the enemies are referred to as "Deimos" and "Kaiju" in the first place, as they bear a strong resemblance to the title creature of the classic monster movie Mighty Kaiju Deimos which turns out to be because the viral code used to force the automated factories to turn them into weapons and mass produce them was partially created from the enemy data in a VR game based on the film.
- Stone Wall: As they move more than the Twintails and aren't primed to explode once they reach a target, the primary threat they pose is blocking ground-based pilots off from reaching more high-profile enemies. Certain armaments like the Leap Attack and Tackle can circumvent their blockades though.
- Tripod Terror: Its tail/backhoe arm has a foot on it to help support its weight, but it usually only uses it at rest and walks more like a large, bipedal dinosaur.
Twintails
- Long-Range Fighter: They stick to the enemy backline and fire at Sentinels and the Terminal.
Drum Mines
- Action Bomb: Their only method of attacking is to explode.
APSOS
Kaiju that protect other kaiju by shielding them. When a kaiju is covered with their shield, they will not take any damage. Prioritizing these kaiju before they emit their shield will be key to combat.
- Squishy Wizard: Their ability to create shields on other enemies makes them a very high-priority target. Good thing then that they're so easy to kill in one hit.
Hunters
- Airborne Mooks: They are among the only three kaiju capable of flight. The other two are the Drillflies and the Terra Carriers.
Drillflies
- Airborne Mooks: They are among the only three kaiju capable of flight. The other two are the Hunters and the Terra Carriers.
Terra Carriers
- Airborne Mooks: They are among the only three kaiju capable of flight. The other two are the Hunters and the Drillflies.
- Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Terra Carriers house and unleash armies of Hunters that do most of the damage for them.
RPFs
- Mook Maker: The can mass-produce different varieties of the aforementioned kaiju.
Hi-Quads
- Climax Boss: The Hi-Quad EX is the last boss-type Deimos fought in the main story, in the second-to-last fight. The Final Fight itself has no final boss, just a relentless horde of Kaijus.
- Mascot Mook: When the Deimos are attacking in Visual Novel sections, they're representative of the kaiju as a whole.
Gladiators
- Degraded Boss: The first wave that they appear in has you fighting three of them as a Wolfpack Boss fight, but by the end of the game they've joined the rank and file of the other Deimos.
- Lightning Bruiser: Unfortunately for the protagonists, Gladiators are just as capable of performing Leap Attacks as the First Generation Sentinels they control.
- Loophole Abuse: Their Ceramic Composite Armor negates individual blows rather than total damage, allowing them to shrug off otherwise devastating attacks like the Demolisher Blade.
- Mirror Boss: Fighting them is basically like having to fight Nenji, Ei, or Takatoshi, only you tend to fight more than just three of them.
- No-Sell: Being first-generation Sentinels means they have Ceramic Composite Armor, which makes attacks that do less than 300 damage at a time completely ineffective. This is a particular problem for Fourth Generation models, who usually rely on their basic attacks having Armor Piercing to do damage to hard targets and can only reliably hurt it with Leg Spikes, which not all Fourth Generation models even have access to and only Yuki really specializes in, and only slightly less aggravating for Second Generation Sentinels, who have only a single un-upgraded attack that can penetrate it, their otherwise-niche Heavy Knuckles (though their placeable Sentry guns can).
