The Speed Grapher anime series features an extensive cast of characters created by Yuusuke Kozaki and Masashi Ishihama. The series takes place in a fictional universe where the rich and powerful can have their deepest desires filled by a fetish club called the Roppongi Club. The series follows the discovery of the girl at the center of the club and one man's quest to free her.
Speed Grapher's main character is Tatsumi Saiga, a veteran war journalist who now survives on photographing for tabloids. He discovers the Roppongi Club while stalking for the newspaper and meets Kagura Tennōzu. He takes her from the club and tries to escape the influence of Chōji Suitengu with the help of others. Suitengu, wishing to have Kagura back in his control, sends club members, all Euphorics who were granted special powers based on their desires, to stop them.
Main characters
Tatsumi Saiga
is the male protagonist of the series. He is a veteran war journalist who, despite all the death and carnage he witnessed, somehow took a liking to it. His love for photography soon develops into a sexual fetish where he gets an erection whenever he takes an exciting picture. However, after returning to Japan, his passion seems to have died.
While investigating a secret club where rich and influential people meet to fulfill their most perverse desires, he receives a kiss from Kagura and develops the ability to make anything he photographs explode - "Death by Photograph". Saiga can also enhance his ability by using different kinds of camera and lens, such as improving the range and power of his attacks by using a telescopic lens instead of a regular one. He can also psychically load film into his camera. It revealed later on in the series that Saiga was infected by the virus on the same island that Suitengu was after getting buried underneath a mountain of rubble. Funnily enough, Saiga uses a Nikon camera and what appear to be Nikkor lenses despite the title of the series, and is never depicted with a Speed Graphic). When using his powers, Saiga's camera gains a black aura whilst his shooting eye turns bloodshot as the iris becomes green and large veins protrude around it. Although he is thrown headfirst into a battle he does not fully understand, Saiga has demonstrated a natural prowess for combat as he is able to keep a cool head while under fire and has even demonstrated a level of training in close-quarters fighting; no doubt he picked up these kind of skills after years of being a war photographer.
Over the course of the series, Saiga grows more and more protective of Kagura. At first acting like a sort of teacher for her, showing the young girl the world she never saw. When anyone questions whether he is in love with her, he casually brushes it off saying "it's not like that", or just ignoring the question altogether. However, in the final episode when Kagura says the world would be better off if she and Suitengu were dead, Saiga admits to her that he loves her and wants her to live more than anything. Five years after Suitengu's coup d'etat, a now blind Saiga is taking pictures of the sunset, when a twenty-year-old Kagura walks through the laundry drying in the sun. He then says "welcome back", and the two embrace as the screen moves up toward the sunset.
His Japanese voice actor is Yūji Takada. Christopher Sabat provides his voice in the English version.
Kagura Tennōzu
is the female protagonist and a student at the elite and prestigious St. Ignatius Academy. Raised as the heir to the powerful Tennōzu Group, her bodily fluids contain an enzyme that has the ability to transform people infected with a mysterious virus into Euphorics (people with supernatural powers related to their innermost desires). She also has an inoperable brain tumor, causing her to only have six months left to live. Associates of Suitengu have given her injections to keep her from reaching puberty as this will apparently cause her to stop producing the enzyme, not to mention Shinsen starves her to almost death.
Even though Saiga doesn't acknowledge his feelings about Kagura, she has no problem expressing the fact that she wants to be at his side no matter what. When Saiga comes to terms with his feelings and Kagura sees how much he changes she often jokes about how "uncool" he has become, but nevertheless she still loves him. Before Saiga's fight with Suitengu he tells Kagura his feelings, which makes her very happy. Then tells Ginza to take Kagura to the island where Ryōgoku is, so he can treat her right away. After five years she returns to Japan to be at Saiga's side.
Her voice actress in the original Japanese version is Kei Shindou, and she is voiced by Monica Rial in the English version.
Tokyo Police Department
Hibari Ginza
is a vicious policewoman who is in love with Saiga. She gets jealous very easily and will do anything she can to protect him from potential harm. She has a joking habit of saying "self-defense" whenever she shoots or kills someone, usually right before or directly after they attack her. She blackmails Saiga into having sex with her by stealing his camera and promising to give it back after. She is very envious of Kagura and makes a deal with Shinsen to recapture her if she can "keep" Saiga. After returning Kagura, she takes an unconscious Saiga back to her apartment. Ginza begins to become depressed when people tell her things about Saiga she didn't know. She really goes off the handle when Suitengu tells her that she severely underestimated the worth of Saiga and Kagura to the Tennōzu Group, after which she tried to bargain for his life in exchange for a petty conman. Ginza eventually realizes that she cannot stop Saiga from loving Kagura and helps him to stay alive. Even though she is angry when Saiga tells Kagura that he loves her, Ginza agrees to take her to the island where Ryōgoku is in order to get treatment. When Kagura resists, saying that she wants to stay with Saiga, Ginza states that she was heartbroken when Saiga confessed his love to Kagura but cannot let her die as a matter of pride, Ginza then proceeds to swiftly knock Kagura unconscious. It is revealed at the end of the series that Ginza does eventually find happiness with Dr. Ryōgoku.
She is voiced by Takako Honda in the original Japanese version and by Clarine Harp in the English version.
Shiina Ginza's partner in the force, tends to be very scared of Ginza and pretty much follows her orders without so much as thinking of telling her no. It is also revealed that he is an amateur photographer as well as a big fan of Saiga's work. At the end of the series, Shiina finally manages to become a photographer (even taking over Saiga's old job) but is constantly degraded because his skills are inferior to Saiga's, despite his blindness.
His Japanese voice actor is Jin Yamanoi and his English voice actor is Anthony Bowling.
Chief Ekoda Chief is the Chief of the Tokyo Police Department, notable for his diminutive stature. When he was first introduced, Ekoda seems like a relatively normal man, albeit not a very strong-willed one, but later on it is revealed that not only is he a member of Suitengu's club, but he also has an extreme leg fetish; cutting off the legs of numerous women (even his wife and daughter's) and proudly displaying them in a special room inside his house.
After being confronted by Ginza for his involvement with Suitengu, Ekoda manages to subdue her with sleeping drugs, taking her to his place and binding her to a chair. Ekoda then admits that he has always lusted after Ginza's legs and that wishes to cut them off and add them to his collection. Luckily, before he can do this, Ginza manages to free herself enough to wrap her legs around his neck and snap it once he comes too close to her.
His voice actor in the original Japanese series is Naoki Makishima and his English voice actor is Mike McFarland.
Roppongi Club/Tennōzu Group
Chōji Suitengu
is the main antagonist of the series, a ruthless businessman who runs the Roppongi Club, a place for the wealthy and influential to indulge in their fetishes. He is also a Euphoric, possessing the ability to freely manipulate his own blood and use it for either attack, defend, or movement. At first, it seems like he was only using Kagura and her mother to extend his influence and profits, but as the series goes on, it appears that Suitengu has a hidden vengeance plan in his agenda. He is often seen carries around a music box that belonged to his younger sister, Yui.
Long ago, Suitengu was known as "Ueno Takeshi" and he used to live a normal, happy life with parents and younger sister. However, everything changed when his parents were murdered after failing to pay a large debt they owed to the Ashikaga Group; then predecessors of the Tennōzu Group. Yui and Takeshi were separated, the latter being given to a gun-using sergeant before getting turned into a soldier while the former was sold into prostitution. Takeshi grew up on the battlefield, told that every kill he made reduced his parents' debt and brought him that much closer to freedom. His last mission was infiltrating a research lab, but the facility was destroyed and Takeshi was severely wounded, losing one of his arms, in the destruction. However, he contracted the Euphoria virus as a result of this and was thus retrieved and repaired by the research lab's remaining scientists so that they could preserve their work. They grafted different body parts from his mercenary team as well as the arm of Kazuki Odawara, Kagura's father and the scientist who not only developed the research, but who also possessed the enzyme which awaken his power. Takeshi eventually managed to escape, changing his name to "Suitengu Choji" and beginning to plot his ultimate revenge.
Suitengu despises the fact his family and life were ruined because of money and thus hold a secret, yet deep-seated hatred for it. Eventually, he was reunited with his sister, but was horrified to discover her state of mind had been shattered from years of abuse in the sex industry. As he held her with bloody tears streaming down his eyes, he reluctantly euthanized Yui to end her suffering. His ultimate goal was to take revenge on the Prime Minister who destroyed his peaceful life and punish people steeped in greed and money by causing the entire country to go bankrupt. To flout his wealth, he rolls his cigarettes using 10,000 yen bills.
His voice actor in the original Japanese series is Toshiyuki Morikawa and his English voice actor is Christopher Ayres.
Shinsen Tennōzu is Kagura's mother and president of Tennōzu Group. However, before all of that, Shinsen had been an aspiring model scouted by a woman known as Gōtokuji. She would have her body "remodeled" by a doctor named Kazuki Odawara, whom she soon fell in love with. Despite her rise to fame, Shinsen chose to leave it all behind and marry Kazuki, even signing their marriage licenses and waiting several days for him to arrive at the hot spring they'd chosen as their meeting place, but he never came. Left heartbroken and bitter, Shinsen returned to Tokyo and eventually gave birth to Kagura, whom she views as the ultimate symbol of Kazuki's betrayal. She would spend her time punishing the girl, either starving her to near death or even having sex with one of her female teachers just so Kagura would catch them in the act, purely out of spite for the girl's father.