GetBackers

Heterosexual Partners For Life.

We get back what shouldn't be gone! The recovery service with an (almost) 100% success rate!

A 1999 manga that was adapted into an anime in 2002, Get Backers focuses on Ban Mido and Ginji Amano, two superpowered pals who run a repossession service to help people get their lost stuff back. Ginji's body can generate a powerful electrical current, and Ban has both a two kilo-newton grip (look it up) and the "Evil Eye", which can induce powerful hallucinations through eye contact.

They inevitably run into conflicts of interest (such as an equally superpowered "delivery service"), which they deal with by kicking ass. Though it starts out as a light-hearted Shonen action series, it later took a sharp right turn into Cerebus Syndrome country with the Limitless Fortress arc.

The anime was co-produced through Studio DEEN, who is famous for other series popular in America such as Fruits Basket, Ranma ½, and Rurouni Kenshin.

Tokyopop has pulled a Dragonball Z and is releasing the second half of the series as GetBackers: Infinity Fortress, starting with volume 26 (we think, anyway). Volume 3 of Infinity Fortress has been canceled, as Tokyopop no longer has the license to continue the translation.

Ban and friends appear in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover game, Sunday VS Magazine Shuuketsu Choujou Daikessen.

This series has a character sheet. All character tropes should go there instead.

Tropes used in GetBackers include:
  • Art Evolution (The manga has this going strong. Most dramatically Ginji and Himiko, but compare any pre-volume 9 character with a shot of them after volume 22 or so. The differences are amazing.)
  • Achilles' Heel (Ban's Jagan's limitations)
  • Affably Evil (Akabane, and in manga, Kagami.)
  • Anime Theme Song
  • Another Dimension (Pretty much the entire world, but this was only in the manga)
  • All Just a Dream (Evil Eye)
  • Badass: Plenty of characters—most notably, Ban.
  • Backstory (Practically all major characters and villains have more than one flashback throughout the series, constituting to very complicated backstories)
  • Badass Longcoat (Akabane. Ban (in the anime only) would fall under the "excessively long shirt" subset.)
  • Big Bad ( The Voodoo King, but only in the manga)
  • Big Damn Heroes: Too many occasions to count. Ban has a lot of these, but so do Ginji, Kazuki, Juubei...everyone at some point or the other, really.
  • Big Fancy House (Various clients, including Madoka)
  • Boat Lights: Characters possessing the Stigma have this effect, with the notable exception of the Voodoo King, who has Stigmas in all three of his eyes!
  • Boke and Tsukkomi Routine (Emishi & Amon/Shido, Ginji & Ban. A panel of Juubei tossing a needle into Saizou is captioned "Juubei's tsukkomi level up!")
  • Bishonen (Most male characters in the anime. Specifically, Kazuki, who retains his bishounen status even in the manga.)
  • Bloodstained-Glass Windows (Juubei vs. Toshiki & Orpheus)
  • Bowdlerise: The manga-to-anime transition shows this to some extent—in the anime most of the ecchi scenes were completely removed, there's barely any bloodshed even during the most heated of battles, and Ban is definitely not a pervert.)
  • Brainwashed and Crazy (Divine Design: Kazuki; Lost Time: the rest of Fuuga)
  • Brother-Sister Team (Manga only; Ban and Himiko. Juubei and Sakura get to become one when they're brainwashed.)
  • But Not Too Foreign (Ban)
  • Canon Immigrant (Definitely Ujiie Kaoru and Sarai Kagenuma. Where exactly Masaki and Kanou fall on this scale is iffy: their first appearance in the Eternal Bond arc is very close to the anime's beginning.)
  • Cast Full of Pretty Boys: The anime is very much this. The manga to a much lesser extent.
  • Cast Herd
  • Cast Speciation (Somewhat averted. There are multiple blind characters, doctors, string-fighters and animal whisperers, but the last two are somewhat justified by being family skills.)
  • Catch Phrase (Ban's "Just one minute," and "Did you have a nice dream?" Also, Ginji's cheeful "I feel like I'm forgetting something..." (in regard to Akabane).)
  • Character-Magnetic Team
  • Charles Atlas Superpower
  • Clothing Damage (Himiko, who gets all her clothes ripped off about five times per arc. Actually, ALL of the girls basically come under this as any time they fight, their clothes are off no matter what. To be fair, Ban occasionally suffers from this trope too)
  • Combat Sadomasochist (Takuma Fudou, who seems to love the pain he receives as much as the pain he deals out.)
  • Cooldown Hug (This and Cooldown Touch are Ban's primary methods of snapping Ginji out of his Psycho Electro or Brainwashed and Crazy states.)
  • Crossdresser (Kazuki, usually not by choice. Usually. The outfit he wore in his Fuuga days is pretty... fabulous, to say the least.)
  • Creepy Cool Crosses: The Stigma is a creepy cool cross engraved on the eyeballs of certain characters.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass (Ginji is totally this.)
  • Cursed with Awesome (Ban and Ginji.)
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique (EVERYONE has one of these around here. Ban may use his Jagan only 3 times a day, lest he suffer fatal consequences. Ginji becomes a megalomaniac if he strains himself. Akabane's weapons are made out of his own blood)
  • Deadly Doctor: Akabane. That is all.
  • Diagonal Cut
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: A recurring cause of debt for our heroic duo.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him (Probably the basis of the Ban/Kazuki ship)
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady (Guess.)
  • Dysfunction Junction (Anyone who has Witch's Blood, is a Voodoo Child, or lived in Mugenjou at some point... oh, wait.)
  • Even the Guys Want Him (Kazuki, sort of.)
  • Evil Costume Switch
  • Evil Eye
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Ren's reaction when figuring out who Kazuki is.
  • Five-Man Band (Several)
  • Fan Service (HEVN and Himiko and all the other random big breasted girls who show up wearing nothing but bras for no real reason. Partially suspended in final manga arc, where winter forces Hevn to get dressed properly—but introduces Maiya Kokuchouin, who is 13 and makes Hevn look positively shy.)
  • The Faceless - In the anime, whenever Raitei and the original Four Kings are shown in flashback, the 4th King, Kurusu Masaki is always hidden in shadow (Fridge Brilliance because he has the superhuman power to generate/manipulate light) and only his blackened silouhette is shown. This lasts until the first episode of the final story arc, where he is formally introduced.
  • Fermats Last Theorem: Lucky, is given a problem like this to solve. The dog answers that it's unsolveable (x = "nothing"), which is what really clues Ban into the fact that the whole "genius dog" thing isn't a parlor trick... the dog's actually been infected with the same virus that caused apes to mutate into humans, the so-called "Missing Link Virus." It... doesn't make sense in context, but there is an explanation.
  • Foe Yay (Akabane and Ban/Ginji, no wonder Ginji gets so nervous when he's around. And taken Up to Eleven, there's the one-sided Takuma Fudou and Ban.)
  • Four Is Death (Ginji's Four Kings and MakubeX's New Four Kings)
  • Gag Penis (Shido. Anime only)
  • Groin Attack (Madoka vs. Hishiki)
  • Hair Colors (Ginji, Makubex, Himiko, Kagami...)
  • Heterosexual Life Partners (This trope is Ban and Ginji.)
  • Hot Springs Episode
  • Hot Mom (manga only Ginji's)
  • Homoerotic Subtext (Everyone. And I mean everyone. This series is a Slash Fic writer's wet dream!)
  • I Have the High Ground (Raitei and the Four Kings are often shown sitting or standing on large columns of rubble. A later filler episode has Emishi parody it, then Kazuki play it straight, then Emishi completely destroys Kazuki's coolness factor by bringing him into the parody as "the Beauty Warrior of love and good looks." Kazuki is not amused.)
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight
  • Important Haircut (Manga only: Kazuki, to the horror of fangirls everywhere.)
  • Improbable Weapon User (Sakura's cloth, Akabane's scalpels, Ban's arm cursed by the Greek god of medicine...)
  • Intimate Healing (Uryu's resurrection)
  • It Only Works Once (Ban's Evil Eye only works once on a person.)
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold (Ban)
  • Jerkass Facade (manga only. Ban's father)
  • Knight of Cerebus (Makubex.)
  • Legacy Character (Ban and Ginji are the third generation of the Get Backers. The second gen was the trio who gave them their Subaru 360 and the "last piece" analogy. The first gen was Paul and Ban's father, der Kaiser.)
  • Let's Get Dangerous (manga only Paul)
  • Lovable Sex Maniac (Ban. He'll grab any set of boobs that comes within range.)
  • Lovable Traitor (Akabane, again)
  • Ludicrous Gibs (Some of the cuts Akabane makes are just... amazing)
  • Manipulative Bastard (Makubex, Kagami, and in manga, Akabane)
  • Master of Illusion (Makubex. Also Ban, to a lesser extent. And, to an even lesser extent, Kagami.)
  • McGuffin (Every single plot revolves around one of these. Subverted in second half of manga. Madoka pops up as a retrieval target. In the last arc, they are to retrieve Himiko, among other stuff.)
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate (Akabane. Again.)
  • More Than Mind Control (The Archangels)
  • Ms. Fanservice (Hevn)
  • Murder the Hypotenuse (Takuma Fudou to Ginji, over Ban. Seriously. "When you're around, Midou doesn't even notice me. Midou's eyes are not on me... because you're in the way!")
  • Nakama (Just about everyone Ginji knows finds their way into a large, complicated nakama. Ban doesn't really like any of them, though, and professional obligations come first.)
  • Names to Know in Anime (Takehito Koyasu, voice of Juubei: the most active seiyuu with 200+ credits to his name. Also Nobutoshi Canna (Guts) as Ban)
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Dr. Jackal, Lucifer
  • Necromantic
  • Neutral Female (Natsumi, and later, in the manga,Rena)
  • Non-Action Guy (Makubex, at first)
  • No Sense of Humor (Juubei)
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted when an item to be delivered turns out to be a key nuclear bomb component.
  • Occult Blue Eyes: Midou Ban has almost preternaturally blue eyes, as well as being an actual case of association with witches, as noted above. He also has the ability to give the Evil Eye.
  • Official Couple (Shido and Madoka)
  • 108 (Akabane. His scalpels number that many, to be accurate.)
  • One Steve Limit (Averted with Kaoru Haruki. Her surname is Emishi's given name, and her given name sounds identical to Kaoru Ujiie's, although they use different kanji. There's also Rena Sendou and Ren Radou.)
  • Only One Name (Hevn, Makubex)
  • Orgasmic Combat (Takuma Fudou tends to have this, but only when he fights with Ban.)
  • Panty Shot (As often as possible, especially for Himiko.)
  • Parental Abandonment(Manga only. Lots, but somewhat mitigated by the fact that most of the characters are over 18 by the time the series starts. Let's see: After knowing that he's a freak, Ban's mom declared him a child of the devil (and this was after the father had placed a seal on it at birth.) He was then set loose at a tender age. For Kazuki, his family was killed by a rival clan, later revealed to have been helmed by his younger brother, who was given away at birth. Shido is the son of the leader of the Fuyuki tribe, but his parents were probably killed in the Kiryuudo war and he ran away to Mugenjou in his early teens because the Kiryuudo thought he was the one with the chimera. Natsumi's parents are dead. Makubex was abandoned as a baby and adopted (yet not named) by Gen. Himiko is an aborted fetus brought back to life, raised by her brother, and he's dead. Rena's father is dead, and her mother is emotionally distant, and her stepfather raped her. Madoka's parents are either dead or don't notice that their blind seventeen-year-old daughter has a twenty-one-year-old man & his animal posse shacking up with her, or that she was kidnapped by his enemies--but hey, it's a pretty Big Fancy House! As for Ginji, he's technically a created being. His mother, after her son's death, created Ginji in the alternate dimension which houses Mugenjou. Subverted by the Kakei siblings, who left home of their own will, against the advice of their father, and Toshiki Uryuu, who's illegitimate and ran away from home after either beating the crap out of or outright killing his younger-but-legitimate brother for the right of inheritance.)
  • Perma-Stubble (Takuma Fudou.)
  • Perpetual Poverty: Man, they can't ever catch a break!
  • Person of Mass Destruction (Yep, everybody again.)
  • Pose of Supplication
  • Prophet Eyes: Manga-only. Several characters, including Akabane, Kagami and Miroku Natsuhiko. Note that none of them are actually blind.
  • Punch Clock Villain (Straddling the line between this and True Neutral is Maguruma-san)
  • Psycho Electro (Raitei Ginji)
  • Psycho for Hire (Akabane... again. And Fudou.)
  • Rapid-Fire Typing
  • Rapunzel Hair (Kazuki's floor-length hair)
  • Razor Floss (Kazuki, also known as "Kazuki of the Strings")
  • The Rest Shall Pass (It seems to be required to pair off the heroes and villains)
  • Retired Badass
  • Satellite Character (Sakura to Makubex)
  • Say My Name (Especially in the manga, where speech bubbles containing just names can fill up an entire page. BAAAAN-CHAAAAN!!! KAZU-CHAAAAN!!! Shido! Shido! Shido! Makubex! Makubex! Makubex! Juubei! Toshiki! Madoka! Hevn! Himiko! Ginji! )
  • She's a Man In Japan (Kazuki in the Tokyopop version; corrected later)
  • Sinister Silhouettes (The Four Kings)
  • Speaks Fluent Animal (Shido)
  • Spell My Name with an "S" Japanese fans tend to romanize Kazuki's name as Kadzuki or Kaduki, which is technically correct.
  • Super-Deformed (Ginji, for the most part.)
  • Stalker with a Crush (Takuma Fudou towards Ban, which is even Lampshaded by the latter, who calls him a "damn stalker zombie.")
  • Status Quo Is God / Failure Is the Only Option (Something always fixes it so that Ban and Ginji never make a profit.)
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders (Kazuki is this for both Ban and Ginji... as well as for other characters. There was even a part where both Ban and Ginji saw him bathing in the hot springs from the back, and tried to peek because they thought that they finally found a hot naked girl to spy on.)
  • Team Mom (Sakura)
  • The Cracker (Makubex)
  • The Four Gods (As guards in Divine Design)
  • The Idiot From Osaka (Emishi)
  • Intro Dump (The first scene of the 'three transporters' is like this, as they have to call each other both by their actual names, and their professional monikers.)
  • The Messiah (Ginji)
  • The Promise (Ban to Yamato; Juubei to Kazuki)
  • Wax On, Wax Off (Stacking eggs)
  • We Gotta Stop Meeting Like This:

Akabane: [to the GetBackers] "We've just got to stop meeting like this."

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