GET BACKERS

Plot

See also: List of GetBackers characters

The series tells the story of Ginji Amano and Ban Mido, a pair of superpowered individuals known as the “GetBackers”. The duo operates a freelance repossession service out of one of the seedier areas of Shinjuku, Tokyo. For a fee, they will recover any lost or stolen item for a client with “a 100% success rate”. The GetBackers’ job often leads them into bizarre and dangerous situations in order to “get back what shouldn’t be gone”. Their targets range from lost video games to misplaced components of an atomic bomb. The plot mostly revolves around their adventures, often complicated by the pair’s convoluted, individual pasts and a mysterious place known as the Infinity Fortress.
A conglomeration of disused, condemned buildings clustered together to form a self-contained habitat, Limitless Fortress is subdivided into three specific tiers – Lower Town, the Beltline and Babylon City. Lower Town is the lowest in altitude, with several layers extending below ground level. The Beltline, the most dangerous area of The Limitless Fortress, is ruled by Der Kaiser, Ban’s father. Babylon City, the upper most level of the Limitless Fortress, is said to be where the Brain Trust resides, and is the home of Ginji’s mother. In actuality, Babylon City is what one might consider the real world, with everything else being a virtual reality creation. Only those who have won the Ogre Battle may enter Babylon City and when that happens, they can change the world as they see fit. Both Ban and Ginji go to the Fortress with Ban wishing to rescue a kidnapped Himiko from Kagami, and Ginji finding a possibility to meet his mother. Going to the Belt Line, the GetBackers encounter various warriors taking orders from a being known as Voodoo King from Babylon City. The Voodoo King seeks to obtain three “keys” which will help him unlock the gates from Babylon City sealed by Ban’s grandmother various years ago. After finding the three keys: Shido’s chimera spirit, Himiko’s mirror and the GetBackers, the Voodoo King is faced by Ginji whose Lightning Lord alter-ego attacks him in a clash which destroys both beings. Following this, both Ban and Ginji face each other in Ogre Battle with Ban giving up, impressed with Ginji’s will. Ginji goes to Babylon City where he meets his mother from a parallel universe, who explains how she created the Fortress and its surrounding world. Following a discussion between the two of them, the Fortress’ world remains unchanged except that the virtual people living become real beings. Ban and Ginji continue their retrieval job, ending the series when requested to go on a mission that will lead them to meet Ban’s mother.
The plot of the anime adaptation of GetBackers follows the manga’s closely until the first season’s ending. The second season features various stand alone episodes focused in the GetBackers’ missions, while also two story arcs, the second ending the anime series with an open ending.^[1]

BAN MIDOU
Ban Midou (美堂蛮, Midō Ban^?) is one of the main protagonists in GetBackers. His name comes from his grandmother’s surname “Midou” and the “Ban” from Japanese word for Savage (野蛮, Yaban^?). This is the result of the first meeting between Paul and Ban. When der Kaiser first introduced the infant Ban to Paul, Ban kicked Paul in the face while being held by him, causing Paul to insist that the Ban of Yaban suited the child perfectly. der Kaiser agreed.
Known variously as “The Man with the Evil Eye” (邪眼の男^?) and “The Genius of Battles”, he is the “B” in the GetBackers. He is 18 years old in the manga and 21 years old in the anime. He is one quarter German and the grandchild of the “Last Witch of the 20th Century”. Ban is a brother-like figure to Himiko Kudo after she came to terms with her brother’s death, and later it is revealed in volume 38 of the manga that Ban is actually related to her by consanguinity through the Witch Queen.^{[citation needed]}
In the GetBackers duo, he’s often the one who thinks of plans for their moves. Initially, Ginji Amano was seen to be a sidekick to him (in fact, when they first formed their partnership, Ban insisted that Ginji was only his sidekick), but as the story progressed, Ginji gradually held his own in their missions, and Ban acknowledged him as an equal.
Ban is very intelligent, having studied fighting techniques, science, history, and magic from a very young age as a result of being hunted in Europe by shamans during his childhood. More often than not, he is able to surprise everyone with his knowledge and abilities, such as being able to play the violin. He also bears a striking resemblance to his father. In fact, in the arcs where his hair is “down” (Venus de Milo and Kiryuudo arcs), he looks like der Kaiser during his Getbacker days with Paul. Another trait which both father and son share is that while they may appear cold and ruthless on the surface, they are actually very warm and caring towards their friends.
It was his grandmother who passed on the powers that Ban has today. Ban utilizes two main abilities. His primary technique is the Evil Eye (邪眼, Jagan^?), which allows him to force anyone he makes eye contact with to watch a one minute long illusion. It should, however, only be used three times per day and cannot be used on the same person for the next 24 hours. Furthermore, while the illusion only lasts for one minute, should Ban will it, the one affected by the Jagan can be placed inside a time-warp zone via the illusion created by the technique, meaning that to them, one minute in real life could last up to several hours in the Jagan’s influence. It is rare for Ban to use the Evil Eye to defeat his opponents, preferring to use it to aid in the retrieval process or to give clients happy/nightmarish dreams; however, he has been shown to use it in defeating Takuma Fudou’s insight during the blank second.
Additionally, there is a penalty for using the Jagan a fourth time within the 24 hour limit. After the fourth use the user disappears both from the physical world and from the memories of all who know him. With this in mind, Ban requested one final duel with Akabane Kurodou. After an intense struggle, the two manage to strike each other, causing Ban to collapse and Akabane to disappear. However, Akabane had not died, as assumed, but instead, implanted a surgery scalpel into Ban’s chest as a “final favor”, given to Ban for allowing Akabane to see his own limits. Akabane later explained that because having Ban disappear would be a pity, he attempted to fool the Archive by faking Ban’s death and delaying Ban’s disappearance from using his fourth Jagan just long enough for Ginji to reach Babylon City and resolve everything, thus saving Ban from disappearing.
His second ability is the Snakebite. Because he is a direct descendant of the Witch clan, and being born under the star of Asclepius, he possesses incredible superhuman strength, which gives him a gripping force of 200 kgf (2 kN^{[note 1]}) in each hand. It is also shown that he is strong enough to break open the doors of an armored steel truck and punch hard enough to create large craters in the ground or break walls, occasionally even collapsing multi-story buildings. While powering up to 100 percent, the ghost-like outline of a giant snake can be seen surrounding him, although just as frequently, when he utilizes this attack, a single wing will appear above his right arm as he strikes. This occurred during his battles with Lucifer and then later during the Ogre Battle with Ginji. At full power, his right hand becomes that of a dragon’s claw. He is also able to use the dragon’s claw to rip a hole in the fabric of dimensions as shown when he believes Ginji has said farewell after Raitei’s fight with the Voodoo King in volume 38.
In the “Get Back the Lost Time” arc, his skills grow by leaps and bounds due to his learning abilities. Against Natsuhiko, he manages to execute a new move, “Snake Kill”, using his left hand.
Anime News Network praised the style of the Jagan in the manga to be a “horrifying nightmare.” The Tokyo Pop translation of the Ban Midou dialogues has been criticized for making him sound like a gangster.^[1]
Voiced by: Nobutoshi Canna, Naomi Shindou (as child) (Japanese), Rich McDonald (ep 1-5) Jason Liebrecht (ep 6-49) (English)

Ginji Amano
Ginji Amano (天野銀次, Amano Ginji^?) is the “G” in the GetBackers. He is 17 years old in the manga. Ginji is currently the Number 1 Getbacker after defeating Ban Midou in the “Ogre Battle”, which determined the new King of Creation, and formerly the leader of a gang called “The VOLTS” in the Limitless Fortress, the fearsome Lightning Emperor (雷帝, Raitei^?).
He received the title Lightning Emperor because of his ability to control electricity. This control grants him several unique abilities such as amazing regenerative power and the ability to become a human magnet and battery. Despite Ginji’s dark past, his demeanor is one of an unassuming, energetic, and friendly boy with a strong sense of justice. He makes friends easily, often without trying — and is trusting and open to an almost naive extent. However, when exposed to remnants of his past, he has a tendency to revert to his darker “Lightning Emperor” persona. For comical purposes, he also turns droopy and super deformed, most likely designed after a Tarepanda. He’s frequently beaten up by Ban for doing stupid things. As a child, his guardian was Takeru Teshimine, then ruler of the Limitless Fortress. Before his departure, Ginji founded the “VOLTS”, a gang led by The Lightning Emperor, and “The Four Kings of the VOLTS” to protect the Infinity Fortress from the monsters of the Beltline. During the era of the VOLTS, only one man (Midou Ban) is known to have handed the Lightning Lord defeat.
Little is known of his past until the last volume of the manga where it is revealed that his mother, whom Teshimine told Ginji was waiting for him in Babylon City, had created the world in which the GetBackers live. Her reason for doing this was that in the real world (Babylon City), Ginji had died as a child. Unbearably sad, she considered cloning him, but realized that it would not be the same child, she created a back-up of the world where he could live and grow.
When transformed into Raitei, Ginji glows with a brilliant light and has bolts of electricity (even orbs of plasma at times) flowing around him. Although sharing the same body as that of Ginji, Raitei is the polar opposite of the happy-go-lucky Ginji; his features will harden and he will be merciless towards almost anyone. He first came into being when Ginji was a young boy, as the Beltline Monsters invaded the lower levels of the Limitless Fortress. Ginji and a friend were attempting to escape from the hunters when Ginji’s friend was struck by an arrow. The whole invasion force was annihilated in an instant. From that point on, whenever Ginji is confronted with a difficult situation, emotionally or physically, Raitei appears to make everything that troubles Ginji disappear. However, this ultimately causes more pain for the peaceful Ginji, as death is the last thing he wants.
In the “Get Back the Lost Time” arc, after Raitei was successfully able to defeat the Voodoo King, it is revealed that the Raitei would never appear again as his reason for existing was over. The Raitei, who was born from the synchronization of Ginji’s rage and Mugenjou’s power, existed in order to defeat the person whose purpose was disrupt the plans of the Archive (the Voodoo King). His purpose was to protect the world without judgment from Good or Evil.
The source of Raitei’s power is the limitless energy currents flowing through the Limitless Fortress, and as such, he draws as much power from them as he needs. Sometimes, though, this can put the Infinity Fortress in a bad situation if Raitei calls for more power in a single instant than the tower is capable of producing. For this reason, he is dangerous to the “Brain Trust” in Babylon City who possess the “Archive” (the sum total of human knowledge past, present and future) as he could potentially erase the “Archive” if he blacked out the Limitless Fortress (this fact was later used by der Kaiser in the Voodoo Child arc). Another reason why Ginji/Raitei is so dangerous inside the Limitless Fortress is because his existence is “random” in the Babylon City Archives. This means his existence was not foretold and therefore his existence inside the Limitless Fortress changes all the prophecies made by the Brain Trust. The reason for this most likely has to do with his mother.
Voiced by: Showtaro Morikubo (as an Adult), Ryōko Shiraishi (as a child) (Japanese), J. Shanon Weaver (English), Marcelo Campos (Brazilian Portuguese)


Kazuki Fuuchouin
Kazuki Fuuchouin (風鳥院花月, Fūchōin Kazuki^?) is a major supporting character and ally of the GetBackers. Formerly one of the Four Kings of the Volts, known as Kazuki of the Strings, Kazuki is the last master of the Fuuchouin String Arts, a fighting style which utilizes koto strings controlled by vibrations in his fingertips. The strings are very sharp and can tear up solid earth, bones, skin, muscles, and sometimes steel based on the vibrations of the finger. The strings also have other uses, such as listening in on distant conversations. The strings are stored in two bells tied to the front right strand of his hair to ease manipulation.
It is later revealed that the enemy clan, the Kokuchouin, destroyed Kazuki’s clan. Kazuki is usually an ally of the GetBackers, due to his friendship with Ginji. He and Ban tolerate each other, but are not close. In manga Kazuki almost killed Kurayame Tojite. Kazuki is also the most notably feminine character among the males. Although he dresses and exhibits behaviors of a woman, in one episode, it is hinted that he is not gay as some may think. He gets very annoyed when someone calls him gay. He also has strong ties to one of their enemies, namely Juubei, because they had been friends in the past.
Voiced by: Soichiro Hoshi (Japanese), Matt Hislope (English)

Juubei Kakei
Juubei is sometimes called Juubei of the Flying Needles (飛針の十兵衛, Tobari no Jūbei^?) because he fights using long acupuncture needles. His needles have different powers, some even lethal, and he must control them with precision in order for them to be effective. Juubei is protective of his older sister, Sakura, and will come to her defense if she is threatened. Ever since he was a child, he has protected Kazuki, as he betraying believed his clan was destined to guard his family. When VOLTS disbanded and Kazuki left, Juubei offered his support for MakubeX in pursuit of a new Endless City. When Kazuki goes with the GetBackers to stop them, they faced each other in a battle.
The heir to a clan that has served the Fuuchouins as doctors since time immemorial, he and Kazuki Fuuchouin were childhood friends. In the Limitless Fortress, he assumes the second post under Kazuki in the legendary gang. When Kazuki left Limitless Fortress, Juubei remained and they eventually met in battle during the IL retrieval, at which point Juubei lost his eyesight. However, in the aftermath of the battle, they were reconciled and became close again.
He recovers his eyesight in the arc “Get Back the Lost Time”. In this arc, he battles with Ginji. The fight reaches a point when Ginji reverts to his old self, the boy Raitei, and proceeds to destroy everything in his path, including Juubei. However, Juubei is saved by Ban and MakubeX, and the former manages to make Ginji return to his former state. Later, he, together with his sister, Sakura Kakei, and his rival-turned-comrade, Toshiki Uryuu (all remnants of Fuuga), present a last stand at the gate to the Beltline, in order to protect the GetBackers, MakubeX, and Kazuki as they enter the threshold of horrors. After this, Juubei somehow manages to join up with Kazuki as the latter faces off with the Ura-Fuuchouin clan. For a while, his heart is ripped out of its body by Yohan. In the end, he is saved by Kazuki, who manages to end the feud between his younger brother, Yohan, and the rest of his clan.
Voiced by: Koyasu Takehito (Japanese), Brent Werzner (English)