Blood+

The Blood+ anime, light novel, and manga series features an extensive cast of characters designed by Chizu Hashii and created by Production I.G and Aniplex. The series is set within fictionalized versions of various real-life cities, including Okinawa, Japan; Hanoi,Vietnam; Yekaterinburg, Russia; Paris, France; London, England; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and New York, New York.

The central character of the series is Saya Otonashi, a seemingly ordinary teenage girl who was adopted into the family of Kai and Riku Miyagusuku a year before the series begins and who cannot remember her past. Her life is dramatically changed when she learns that she is a chiropteran—a vampire-like creature—who was born in 1833, survives by drinking the blood of others or receiving it through blood transfusion, and is the only one who can destroy other chiropterans and her twin sister Diva. Saya and Diva are the "queens", the descendants of a line of supremely powerful chiropterans that are always born as twin females. Aiding Saya in this century-long quest is an organization called the Red Shield, with a man named David assigned to be Saya's primary "handler." With Saya forced to return to her former life, she is reunited with Hagi, her chevalier—a special form of chiropteran created by feeding a human the blood of a queen which causes a powerful bond to form and compels the chevalier to serve and protect his queen at all costs.

Characters:

Saya Otonashi

Saya Otonashi  was "born" in 1833 from one of two cocoon-like objects taken from the belly of a chiropteran mummy, the other cocoon containing her sister Diva. Both are kept at the "Zoo" by Joel Goldschmidt, where Saya is treated as his daughter and Diva, who is left nameless, is confined to a tower. Saya does not learn about Diva's existence until 1863, when she hears Diva singing and finds her locked in a room at the top of the tower. Saya then names her Diva. In 1870, Amshel purchases a twelve-year-old boy named Hagi from his parents to become Saya's companion and friend.During a birthday party for Joel in 1883, Saya releases Diva so that she can sing for Joel; Diva, however, slaughters everyone in the Goldschmidt house while Saya and Hagi are out looking for Joel's favorite flower.Realizing that Diva is a monster, Saya spends her periods of activity hunting Diva to try to kill her, her chevaliers, and any chiropterans they have created.

Hagi

Hagi is Saya's first, and only living, chevalier. In 1870, he was purchased by Joel and Amshel from his parents for a loaf of bread to be a companion for Saya, with hopes that they might mate and create more specimens for future experimentation. Hagi lives with her in Joel's mansion for many years, him growing up but her never aging. In 1883, he falls from a cliff attempting to pick a flower that Saya wants as a present for Joel's birthday. Misunderstanding an earlier conversation between Hagi and Joel about why Saya lives on blood, and wanting to save him, Saya feeds him some of her blood, unwittingly turning him into a chevalier. Saya feels some guilt over this through the years, but when she apologizes, Hagi assures her that he has no regrets as it allows him to always be at her side while she lives her dream of traveling the world with her sword.

Shinreigari: Ghost Hound

Ghost Hound (Shinreigari) is an anime TV series, created by Production I.G and Masamune Shirow, noted for being the creator of the Ghost in the Shell series. The original concept and design was first developed by Shirow in 1987.It is Production I.G's 20th year anniversary project and was first announced at the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair.
The series is staffed by director Ryūtarō Nakamura (Serial Experiments Lain, Kino's Journey), scriptwriter Chiaki J. Konaka (Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, The Big O), character designer and chief animation director Mariko Oka (Hell Girl) and art director Hiromasa Ogura (Spirit of Wonder, Jin-Roh, Ghost in the Shell). It premiered on Thursday, October 18, 2007 in Japan on WOWOW at 23:30 JST. A manga adaptation, featuring art by Kanata Asahi, has also been serialized in Comic Blade.


In a small town of Suiten, located in a remote mountain region on the island of Kyūshū, reality and the spirit realm collide. Ghosts and paranormal occurrences appear in the real world, spreading through the town. Three high school boys, Tarō, Makoto and Masayuki, who have all had traumatic experiences in their childhood, observe the strange occurrences happening at Suiten. Together, they investigate the strange happenings by entering the spirit realm, or the Unseen World, although no human is supposed to be able to do so. The three boys are granted entrance, only to realize the key to their childhood traumas lies within this Unseen World. The local Shinto priest and his daughter, Miyako, also become involved in the occurrences.
 
 CHARACTERS:

• Tarō Komori

A narcoleptic 14-year-old boy is the main protagonist. Tarō and his older sister, Mizuka, were kidnapped 11 years ago, on September 22, 1996. Only Tarō survived the incident. Since then, he has had recurring nightmares and vivid out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Tarō records these visions to try and make sense of it all. He seeks help from a psychiatrist to help him sort through the details and deal with the fallout of his childhood trauma. Tarō can not remember the face of his kidnapper and has flashbacks containing a black giant taking his sister away. Once in the Unseen world, Tarō hopes to meet his sister so that he can clarify the past and come to terms with her death. Tarō seems to have romantic feelings for Miyako. In the later episodes, he begins to believe that Miyako is the reincarnation of his dead sister, Mizuka. As a result, he thinks that to be the cause of his feelings for Miyako. However, that is later subverted as Tarō admits that Miyako is Miyako, and no one else, after all.

• Makoto Ōgami

A brooding, hot-tempered delinquent who avoids contact with his classmates, and rarely comes to school. A relative of Tarō's, his family is a branch of the Komori's. Makoto experiences O.B.Es like Tarō and Masayuki, and is able to bring the experience on while playing his guitar, a regular pastime of his. Makoto's family founded a religion of which his elderly grandmother, Himeko, currently serves as the central point, and who wishes that Makoto succeed her as its head, though Makoto is not interested in it. In the direct aftermath of the kidnapping of the Komori children, his grandmother told the police where to find them; his father committed a bizarre suicide shortly after they were found, with the circumstances of his death being unknown. Makoto subsequently discovered his father's bloodied corpse, which resulted in a traumatic encounter for him; due to this, he wishes to find out more about the circumstances of his father's death and had initially harbored resentment towards Tarō; however, he appears to have warmed up to him, upon gradually knowing him better and gathering more information about the circumstances relating to the kidnapping incident. He has, in the course of his out of body experiences, learned how to transform his spirit into the form of a wolf-like hound. In the course of an incident, he later meets his mother, who has remarried. He is shown to be angry towards her for having left him, even thinking of wanting to stab her, though fails to do so, running away from his mother's house in the process. After he later learns of his mother's deep depression and her attempt to commit suicide by overdosing on pills and maybe even burning her house though later it is assumed that the Ogami religious group might have been responsible for the arson part, he runs off in its direction, saving her from the debris of the house's burning remains. In the immediate aftermath of this incident, his mother briefly loses her memories and reverts to her seventeen-year-old self, but soon regains them later on. In episode nineteen, he finally called his mother, "Mom" instead of addressing her as "that woman". In this scene, both him and his mother cried as an indication that they really love and forgive each other. It is then revealed that he damaged his head not because of his mother but because of the kidnapper that kidnapped him before Taro and his sister.

• Masayuki Nakajima

Recently transferred to Tarō and Makoto's school from Tokyo, he tries to make friends with both due to an interest in investigating the kidnapping incident. While he was initially ignored by both, they eventually warmed up to him, with the three of them beginning to try to find the circumstances behind the kidnapping incident and the reason behind their O.B.Es. He tends to be very confident, and initially somewhat arrogant and rude. He has had a fear of heights ever since he bullied someone to suicide by jumping off the school roof, and the victim left a message on the blackboard cursing Masayuki. Masayuki unashamedly admits he ran away due to the message. Instead of feeling guilt he is angry at the student for making him a murderer, a fact he can't get out of his conscience. He is, however, very determined to overcome this problem and tries extensively, including standing on the edge of the school roof, to cure his fear of heights. During his spare time, he often plays his head-mounted display virtual reality game. His father is a researcher at Japan Bio-Tech, while his mother appears to spend large amounts of time playing console games, primarily Tetris or something similar. Of the two other boys, Masayuki has a friendlier relationship with Tarō, visiting him in hospital and joking with him. Recently, during a joint experience of O.B.E. with Makoto and Taro, Masayuki displayed the ability to evoke the same weaponry from his virtual reality video game in his spirit form, and used it to apparently destroy the spirit of Taro's former kidnapper. After the incident, he begins to have a little more confidence, finally deciding to intervene in the bullying of one of his classmates. He is always the one who is spying on Reika because he found out about her relationship with his father.

• Miyako Komagusu

A mysterious young girl with the ability to see ghosts. She is somehow able to see Tarō's spirit during his O.B.E., as well as having been able to sense when all three boys entered the Unseen World for the first time. She lives at a shrine, which seems to have a lot of paranormal activity surrounding it, and regularly helps her father with exorcisms and the like. She acts rather mature for her age, often chiding the older boys for acting childish, and even scolding her father when he attempts to drink too much. She is shown later to have been possessed by spirits, resulting in her classmates trying to avoid her. When Taro told her that she might be the reincarnation of his sister, she is hurt by his words so much that she even starts to cry and says that she hates him because she has been convincing herself that, "I am me and not anybody else" and that Taro saw her as Mizuka not as Miyako. After this, she seems to be ignoring Taro, as if she has never known him. After her father is hospitalized, she is manipulated by the Ōgami group into becoming their new matriarch. However, the efforts of Taro and his friends prevent this.

• Takahito Komagusu

Miyako's father and head of the shrine they live at. He has lectured as an assistant lecturer at a university of Tokyo, where Reika Ōtori was a student of his. He is worried about Miyako's long-term psychological health and has spoken to both Ōtori and Hirata about her. He was one of the group of teenagers who initially visited the abandoned hospital after the construction of the dam. He is later pushed off the steps of the Komagusu shrine, later being hospitalized.

• Ryōya Komori

Tarō's father, and a famous sake brewer. He seems to have handled the incident much better than his wife. He has concerns about a nearby plant, which he knows will damage his business due to the waste it pumps into the river since clean water is needed for making sake.

• Miki Komori

Tarō's mother. Although her daughter Mizuka died eleven years ago, she is still very emotionally damaged by the incident, and tends to show this with an unintended eye-twitch whenever Mizuka is mentioned. She also has admitted to taking medication, possibly to help her sleep, and also apparently cannot dream due to this medicine.

• Atsushi Hirata

Tarō's new counselor and therapist. An eccentric clinical psychologist from a university of Tokyo, he introduces much of the series' psychological terminology, and is apparently interested in Tarō's dreams and condition as a means supporting his own theories. Initially he does not believe Tarō's O.B.Es. are in any way supernatural and attributes these moments as states of altered consciousness. He later begins to admit that there may be a supernatural component, and that the land around the mountain in question may be the trigger of these events. He has also experienced supernatural events during the series, but prefers to keep them private, as they fit the diagnostics for certain psychological alterations.

• Masato Kaibara

Makoto's mother's husband. He is the person shown to be wandering through Kakuriyo under the identity of Snark and meets with Tarō. He appears to have apparently died while Makoto's mother attempted to commit suicide.

• Kei Yakushi

A friend of the Komori family who also helps manage their sake business. She had a crush on Kaibara.

• Yasuhiro Nakajima

Masayuki's father, who works at Japan Bio-Tech. He is shown to be having an affair with Reika Ōtori.

• Reika Ōtori

A neurologist who treats Tarō and regularly prescribes medicine to his mother. She works in the labs at Japan Bio-Tech and part time as a doctor, and is the series's other source of psychological and neurological information.

• Michio Hoshino

Masayuki's and Makoto's classmate that was being bullied until Masayuki stood up for him. He and Masayuki have since become good friends, with Masayuki telling him about his O.B.Es, which Michio soon experiences for himself. He has been shown as able to read the Kojiki.

• Himeko Ōgami

Makoto's elderly grandmother and head of the religion started by the Ōgami family. During the kidnapping incident, she had suggested searching for the children in the dried up dam. After the incident, her son, Makoto's father, whom she had wanted to succeed her as the religion's leader, committed suicide. Himeko later adamantly refuses to acknowledge anything whatsoever concerning it, and forbids Makoto from entering his father's former room. She also wishes that Makoto take over the reins of the family's religion, however Makoto has shown no interest in it. She also appears to be ill, regularly administering medicine, and dies later onwards.

• Motoi Yazaki

A politician, who appears to be corrupt. He was friends with Makoto's parents and Takahito Komagusu, while they were students in high school, and had entered the abandoned hospital with them. Makoto tries to ask him about his father, but he is shown to be shocked upon knowing his identity, refusing to answer any of his questions.