Overman King Gainer/Characters

This page describes the characters appearing in Yoshiyuki Tomino's Overman King Gainer and the tropes associated to them. Please help out with the blurbs.

Also, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Proceed with caution.

Yapan Exodus

Gainer Sanga

Played by Hirofumi Nojima (Japanese), Darrel Guilbeau (English), Gwen Lebret (French)

• Ace Pilot
• An Ice Person / Brainwashed and Crazy: Courtesy of the Overdevil.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: More like Crowning Moment of Funny Declaration Of Love... Sara was not amused!
• Ascended Fanboy: Subverted in that videogame champion Gainer is perfectly aware of the difference between reality and fiction, and really does not like fighting.
• Childhood Friend Romance: After a lot of misunderstanding and flip-flopping, he and Sara get together after the Overdevil's defeat.
• Grumpy Bear: Gainer is quite skeptical whether going into Exodus is really a good idea.
• Heroes Want Redheads
• Heroic Neutral: The guy ended up fighting for Exodus despite being against it. And ended up a more mature person from that, too.
• Hikikomori: Spent 27 days cooped up in his room playing games at the start of the Exodus.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Gainer learned how to pilot by playing video games, and he also improved by playing them.
• Manly Tears
• Nerd Glasses: which become Scary Shiny Glasses when the Overdevil controls him.
• Platonic Life Partners: With Cynthia, in both continuities. With Sara, in the manga.
• Punch Clock Hero: At first.
• Refusal of the Call: He tried to get out of the Exodus in the first few episodes.
• Shaming the Mob: In Volume 5 of the manga, Gainer calls out a group of former Exodists who accused Gain of being the cause of their imprisonment, saying that Gain never forced them to go into Exodus.
• Sobriquet: His title of Game Champ.
• Supporting Protagonist: Well, not really... but quite often, it is Gain who ultimately wins the day. Gainer does achieve his own victories, though, so this trope only partially stands for him. Besides, most of the fights are about him and someone else.
  • Which makes perfect sense, if you think about it. Okay, Gainer might pilot a Super Prototype, but he's only been fighting in simulations, while Gain has years of experience despite being in a much inferior machine. Hard Work Hardly Works is averted.
• Turn the Other Cheek: When discovering that Gauli was the one who killed his parents, Gainer does not forgive him, but does not take revenge either, because he thinks it would be pointless.
• Wangst: In his defense, he was under Overfreeze at that moment.
• You Killed My Father: Averted!

Sara Kodama

Played by Ai Kobayashi (Japanese), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (English, credited as "Olivia O'Connor"), Agnès Manoury (French)

• An Ice Person / Brainwashed and Crazy: Courtesy of Gainer after he had been taken over himself by the Overdevil.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Played straight in her case.
• Can't Catch Up: A pretty decent pilot, but she's stuck with a Silhouette Machine for the whole series. Super Robot Wars remedies this by allowing her to pilot an Overman.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Mild example, and Played for Laughs.
• The Empath: Towards Brunhild. Possibly a Shout-Out to Brain Powerd's Hime Utsumiya.
• Luminescent Blush: Gets this during Gainer's love confession in Episode 17...which every member of the exodus heard.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Loves Gainer back, but fails to come clear about it until the last few episodes.
• Platonic Life Partners: With Gainer, in the manga. At least, as of yet.
• Plucky Girl
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Adette. The quarrels between the two are the stuff of legend!
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: And sometimes, Gainer has to remind her that reality may not be so nice.

Gain Bijou

Played by Otoya Kawano (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English, credited as "Ron Allen"), Emmanuel Gradi (French)

• Ace Pilot
• Badass
• Badass Normal: When you can take down Overmen with an obsolete Silhouette Machine, you are badass!
• Big Brother Mentor: He's more or less this towards Gainer.
• The Casanova:
  • A one-night stand between Gain and Asuham's sister kicks off Asuhan's desire for revenge.
  • Gain spots Adette as a SR plant right away, but decides to take her out for dinner rather than turning her in.
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Friendly Sniper
• Gravity Sucks: His Emperanza's most powerful weapon.
• The Gunslinger
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Which save the day more than once, actually.
• Manly Tears
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Emperanza, a one-of-a-kind Overman.
• Shut UP, Hannibal: Asuham should know better than to try to deconstruct the motives of someone as Badass as Gain Bijou...
• Sobriquet: Black Southern Cross
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Not to a huge degree, but his backstory with Asuham and Karin, and the fact that he participated in a failed Exodus could have been elaborated on a little more...
  • The whole point of his backstory with Asuham and Karin was that there wasn't really a backstory, except in Asuham's imagination.

Ana Medaiyu

Played by Noriko Kitou (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English), Isabelle Volpe (French)

• Little Miss Snarker: Sometimes.
• Nice Hat
• Rebellious Princess
• The Scrappy: Averted! She managed to nimbly dodge this dreaded trope by being a wise and thoroughly likeable little girl.
• Shipper on Deck: Was absolutely delighted when Gainer confessed to Sara in Episode 17.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Comes from being a royal, and being trained to think that way.
• The Woobie: I dare you to see her cry in Episode 7 and not feel sorry for her.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair

Bello Korissha

Played by Shuusaku Ohtake (Japanese), Derek Stephen Prince (English, credited as "David Umansky")

• Can't Catch Up: Just like Sara, he doesn't pilot anything that could possibly fight against an Overman.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Poor guy is stuck in Sara's "friend zone". And he's probably there to stay.
• Expy: Of Kyao Nilau, a character of Heavy Metal L-Gaim.
• Hotblooded Sideburns: Definetely not as bad as certain other characters featured in the trope but he does still have sharp sideburns on either side.
• Improbable Hairstyle: Not as bad as certain other characters featured in the trope but still improbable nonetheless.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Sara.

Hughes Gauli

Played by Tohru Kusano (Japanese), Tony Oliver (English)

• An Ice Person / Brainwashed and Crazy: Quite literally is frozen by the Overdevil at first, but is then subjected to both tropes at once.
• Badass
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: He might be kind of obsessed with Yapan culture and ninjas, but when it's time to do his job, he does it well.
• Calling Your Attacks: He does this whenever he uses the Ninpou.
• Crazy Awesome: When he goes into Ninja mode.
• The Comically Serious: It's incredible how he can remain stone-faced even in the most funny situations.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Gainer hung a lampshade on that in the manga.

Gainer: An orange suit? Doesn't it kind of stand out?

• Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja
• I Did What I Had to Do: His explanation for killing Gainer's parents.
• Large Ham: In Ninja mode. Otherwise The Comically Serious
• Ninja
• Otaku: A more well-adjusted version than most, though.
• The Stoic
• Strangled by the Red String: With Adette.
• Suicide by Cop: When he falls under Kashmir's control later in the series, and ends up endangering the City Units, he tries to convince Gainer to kill him, even by revealing that he was the one who killed his parents. However, it doesn't work, as Gainer opts to Take a Third Option.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: An heroic example - he gives priority to the Exodus over everything else. If that means sacrificing some people, or even himself, he won't hesitate - though he won't be proud of it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gets one of these from Gain - who actually punches him for his killing of Gainer's parents.

Meeya Laujin

Played by Yumiko Nakanishi (Japanese), Kate Davis (English)

• Idol Singer: Of sorts.
• Genius Ditz: Is wise, but acts like a Cloudcuckoolander or Genki Girl at times, to the irritation of her manager.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl: Well, light blue, actually.

Siberian Railroad / St. Reagan / London IMA

Asuham Boone

Played by Takehito Koyasu (Japanese), Doug Erholtz (English), Gérard Rouzier (French)

• Berserk Button: "GAAAAAAIN!"
• Big Bad: Kind of... but primarily for Gain.
• Big Brother Instinct: He only, well, almost caused The End of the World as We Know It for her.
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: Watch him shoot down an Unhand Them, Villain! attempt in Episode 9...
• Disproportionate Retribution: Gain has a one night stand with my sister? I'll pursue him in the frozen lands, try to capture him at the cost of putting innocent lives in danger, and when that fails, I'll awaken the Overdevil and destroy the world.
• Hannibal Lecture: Asuham tries one on Gain in the manga, showing him a concentration camp filled with captured Exodists, and telling him that Gain is to blame for their condition, and for instilling in them false hope of a better life through Exodus. Gain, however, shrugs the lecture off.
• Impossible Thief: His Jinba's Overskill allows him to "steal" objects at a distance... which includes mechanical parts!
• Karma Houdini: Of the "it doesn't matter anymore" variant. Still, you'd think he would get a somewhat harsher punishment for some of his excesses.
• Kick the Dog
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Deconstructed. His Knight Templar attitude results in mass Disproportionate Retribution and chaos to everyone around him, ending in a Motive Decay. Additionally, he didn't even consult his sister about her opinion on the situation.
• Large Ham: His speeches to the Overdevil could have been delivered by Brian Blessed without a single change in pacing.
  • This carries over to Super Robot Wars Z, where his lines when attacking Gain, Aquarion, The Big O, and the Turn A Gundam are presented quite loudly and dramatically, and during a quicksave skit, he gets into a ham contest with another Takehito Koyasu voiced Large Ham Gym Ghingnham!.
• Manipulative Bastard: To a smaller extent than others, but in this series it's a prerequisite for Mini Boss or higher rank.
• Motive Decay
• Poor Communication Kills: If only Karin had told him that was a one-night stand.
• Revenge Before Reason: He encourages Jaboli's crush on him when it's the only way to escape and continue chasing Gain. To his credit, he regrets doing so.
• Super Strength: His Power Golem's Overskill.
• The Scrappy: Among the show's fandom, Asuham is often considered an uninteresting, one-note villain for his obsession with capturing Gain and his Motive Decay.
• The Worf Effect: After he has been established as a fearsome opponent even Gainer has to struggle against, Cynthia curb stomps him.

Zakki Bronco

Played by Richard Hayworth (English)

• The Dragon: to Asuham.
• Harmless Freezing: In the finale. Though Yassaba, in a moment of Comedic Sociopathy, suggests leaving him for dead...
• Satellite Character: He's Asuham's right hand man. And... that's it. You could take him out of the story, and nothing would change.

Jin Yassaba

Played by Hisao Egawa (Japanese), Michael McConnohie (English)

• Cool Old Guy: Not that old (see below), but he does fit.
  • Apparently this was why he was dropped as a character - he's too cool in a world without many cool adults and was threatening to overshadow the others. (The director even apologized to Hisao Egawa for this.)
• Disney Death: Averted - we see him alive and well in the final episode.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason why he's so dedicated to stopping Exodi from taking place? His parents went into one, and he was discriminated and bullied by other children for that.
• Heel Face Turn: You can actually recruit him in Super Robot Wars games.
• Hot-Blooded
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Kill It with Fire: One of his Overman's weapons.
• Man Child: Weird example; he seems to bounce between acting like an immature kid and an extremely stern and capable pilot and leader.
• Manly Tears: When Adette defends him from his ungrateful underlings, he melts into water works.
• Parental Abandonment: Quite literally, as the manga reveals.
• Pet the Dog: During his forced stay in a city unit, he saves an impoverished little girl from being bullied and begins to act as a surrogate father figure to her. He later travels with her to her homeland (if this troper recalls correctly, the country was basically India)
• Time Stands Still: His Rushrod's Overskill. Sort of; anything that crosses paths with the attack will stop dead in its tracks.
• Younger Than They Look: He's 32, but looks much older than that.

Adette Kirstler

Played by Marika Hayashi (Japanese), Wendee Lee (English), Anne Plumet (French)

• Action Girl
• Badass Normal
• Boisterous Bruiser
• Boobs of Steel: Actually won a race thanks to them!
• Cool Big Sis: Even the other Railroad officers call her "big sister", and she becomes one with Gainer after her Heel Face Turn.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: A fan favourite since early episodes.
• Heel Face Turn: A pretty abstract one with little to no reason given and made up mostly of Contrived Coincidence even though it's spread over several episodes.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Adette is bossy, arrogant and rude, but genuinely cares about her students and other people.
• Latex Space Suit
• The Mole: Tries to be this at first, but Gain sees through her act. And still gets a brief date with her...
• Ms. Fanservice: Her suit emphasizes her assets, to say the least. She tried to get Gainer to wear a similar one at one point.
• The Power of Love: How Adette breaks Gauli free from his brainwashing.
• Strangled by the Red String: With Gauli... well, it's hinted at once in the whole series in a gag before it's official.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sara.
• Woman Child: Especially in regards to her rivalry towards Sara. Not that Sara herself is much more mature, mind you.

Kashmir Valle

Played by Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese), Chris Kent (English)

• Ambiguously Gay: Just... look at him!
  • Seriously. He's practically Camp Gay without the Gay.
• Dirty Coward: Kashmir is supremely dedicated to staying out of the line of fire.

"If I don't fight, I can't lose!"

• Improbable Hairstyle: You wouldn't think an highly-placed Siberian Railroad official would sport a mohawk, of all things.
• Karmic Death
• Manipulative Bastard
• Smug Snake
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Purple, actually.

Kejinan, Enge and Jaboli

• Country Mouse: Word of God says Jaboli is one, although personality-wise, she's not quite as naive. Kejinan and Enge are also hinted to have been born in the boonies.
• Despair Event Horizon: Played for laughs when Kashmir tested his new Overman whose overskill is to lower morale and cause doubt in people's minds. They forgot their helmets.
• Elite Mooks: They pilot a trio of low-level Overmen who still manage to give some trouble to Gainer.
• Faux Symbolism: Their Overmen are often compared to a trio of flying Buddhas, even in-universe by Adette.
• Punch Clock Villains: They work for the paycheck and for the chance of getting a promotion. That's it. They even considered quitting the job at various points in the show.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad
• Terrible Trio: Not so terrible, really.

Jaboli Mariela

Played by: Maki Tamura (Japanese), Mia Bradly (English)

• Ambiguously Brown:
• Bodyguard Crush: Jaboli had one for Asuham.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: Jaboli is the sanest of the Terrible Trio, and tries her hardest to point out what not to do in combat. Sadly, Kejinan and Enge don't listen to her.
• Meganekko
• Only Sane Man: Poor girl, being forced to put up with Kejinan and Enge.

Kejinan Datto

Played by: Hiroshi Kitazawa (Japanese), Dave Wittenberg (English, credited as "David Lelyveld")

• Anguished Declaration of Love: To Adette, while holding her captive with his Overman. He was utterly shot down.
• Bishonen: Kejinan tried to be one with his Overman's illusion powers in the Anguished Declaration of Love above. It just makes him look ridiculous.
• Gonk: Lampshaded by Adette at the end of his Anguished Declaration of Love.
• Jerkass: He's not evil, mind you, but good luck getting along with such a self-centered cad!
• Lolicon: Both Kejinan and Enge. They found Cynthia to be hot, for crying out loud!

Enge Gam

Played by: Tsuyoshi Koyama (Japanese), Richard Epcar (English, credited as "Richard George")

• Eyepatch of Power: though the power part is debatable.
• Lolicon: Both Kejinan and Enge. They found Cynthia to be hot, for crying out loud!

Cynthia Lane

Played by Rena Mizuki (Japanese), Tara Malone (English)

• Ace Pilot
• An Ice Person / Brainwashed and Crazy: Courtesy of the Overdevil in the climatic battle.
• Ascended Fangirl: Played for drama, in that Cynthia (at first) doesn't understand that people can actually die in battle.
• Curb Stomp Battle: In which she utterly PWNS Asuham.
• Cute and Psycho
• Enfant Terrible / Tyke Bomb: As described under "Ascended Fangirl" above.
• Girlish Pigtails: Of the "immaturity" type.
• Goggles Do Nothing
• Heroic BSOD / My God, What Have I Done?: When Gainer actually gets hurt during their battle and Sara calls her out on that, Cynthia is devastated.
• Little Miss Badass
• Platonic Life Partners: With Gainer.
• Shapeshifting: Her Overman, the Dominator.
• Sweet Tooth: She is often seen snacking on candies.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: She works for President Munt because he's her surrogate father and she wants to repay him for his kindness.

President Kids Munt

Played by Seiji Sasaki (Japanese), James Lyon (English)

• Affably Evil
• Bald of Evil
• Big Bad: Shares this role with Asuham, although Munt is a lot more evil.
• Evil Tastes Good: He's a glutton, alright.
• Large and In Charge
• Man Child
• Moral Event Horizon: He won't look so funny anymore, when you'll see him crushing a City Unit under the Crystal of Agate.
• Obviously Evil: Yoshiyuki Tomino himself stated that he wanted Munt to look evil.
• Pet the Dog: He adopted Cynthia and was like a father to her. Played With in that he did so in order to turn her into a Tyke Bomb.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: His fate at the end of the series is not very clear. He's possibly been absorbed by the Overdevil, but no definite word is given.

Mecha

Brunhild

The Overdevil

• An Ice Person
• Bigger Bad
• Brainwashed and Crazy: It can make people like this, alter their bodies, and control them as it likes.
• Eldritch Abomination
• Expy: It is possible (and I repeat, possible) that Father Llymic, an alien monster from the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 manual Elder Evils, might be an Expy of the Overdevil, since the two horrors share similar powers and abilities. Of course, it could all be an incredible coincidence...
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: I mean, wouldn't you be afraid of something called "The Overdevil"?
• That One Boss: In the Super Robot Wars episodes where it appears, the Overdevil is considered one of the toughest bosses.
  • The kicker? You have to fight it repeatedly due to it being Elite Mook material. Hint: kill all Elite Mook Overdevils FIRST.
    • Make that Boss in Mook Clothing material.