List of Grendizer characters

Below is a list of UFO Robot Grendizer characters. UFO Robot Grendizer is a super robot anime television and manga series created by Go Nagai. The robot's first appearance in the United States was as a part of the Shogun Warriors line of super robot toys imported in the late 1970s by Mattel, then in Jim Terry's Force Five series, both under the title Grandizer. It is still widely popular in the Middle East and was especially popular in continental Europe and in the province of Quebec under the title, Goldorak.

Characters

Blaki

Blaki (ブラッキー隊長, Burakkī Taichō^?), sometimes called Colonel Blaki or Commander Blacki, first appears as the leader of the Vegan invasion of Earth, but is soon revealed to be under the orders of King Vega and General Gandal. Blaki is the mastermind of the Vegan attacks during the series' first season and is repeatedly chastised by Gandal for his failures to defeat Grendizer. His main strategy is to employ brute force and send one saucer beast after another against Grendizer, without much success. On some occasions, Blaki does not hesitate to betray Vegan officers whose success against Grendizer could put his own position in jeopardy. His base consists of a large pink saucer called the Motherburn which is used to store saucer beasts, minifos, and midifos and usually remains on the far side of the Moon. Although it is armed with missiles and lasers it was rarely used in battle.

While, in the manga version, Blaki tries to murder Gandal, he remains faithful to the Vegan empire in the anime version. Obsessed with doing away with Grendizer pilot Duke Fleed, Blaki goes so far as to make a desperate kamikaze attack on the giant robot in the 27th episode (end of season 1) and perish as a result.

In spite of his repeated failures to conquer Earth, Blaki appears to still have been a highly-regarded military leader. When planet Vega was destroyed later in the series, the Emperor regarded it as the greatest loss since Blaki's death (stated in the French version).

Duke Fleed

Duke Fleed (デューク・フリード, Dyūku Furīdo^?) is the Crown Prince and one of the few survivors of Planet Fleed, which was destroyed by the forces of King Vega. He has found a new home on planet Earth and vowed to protect his new homeland and take revenge on King Vega and his minions. With the super robot Grendizer at his command, Duke Fleed fights back invasion after invasion in the 74 episodes of the UFO Robo Grendizer series, with the help of former Mazinger Z pilot Koji Kabuto, who serves as his sidekick.

Duke Fleed's Earth name is Daisuke Umon (宇門大介, Umon Daisuke^?). He purports to be a normal human and his cover is that of the son of Professor Umon, head of the Space Science Lab. He works as an employee of farmer Danbei Makiba. At first Makiba, his teenage daughter Hikaru and young son Goro know nothing of Daisuke's secret identity and nature as an alien prince. Makiba, a hot-tempered source of comic relief, just bullies Daisuke to get on with his work (which he frequently neglects in order to go and fight Vegans) and sees him as not good enough for his daughter who is enamoured with the young man. However, various incidents lead them to discover who he really is.

Later on, it is revealed that Duke’s younger sister Maria Grace Fleed has also survived the planet's destruction and fled to Earth. She joins Duke's team in its fight against Vega.

In the show's last episodes, it is shown that Duke Fleed was engaged to King Vega’s daughter, Princess Rubina, prior to the attack on Fleed.

After King Vega's final defeat, Duke and Maria Grace return to Fleed to help rebuild their homeland.

In continental Europe and in the province of Quebec he is named Actarus.

Gandal

Under the orders of King Vega, General Gandal is in charge of the invasion of Earth by the Vegan empire, but lets his right-hand man Blaki do much of the dirty work during the show's first season.

Gandal's unusual feature is to share his body with a feminine creature known as Lady Gandal. In the show's first season, his face actually splits open to show the diminutive figure of Lady Gandal from the inside. After Gandal is wounded in episode 27, Lady Gandal appears in a different way: her face replaces Gandal's when she speaks and she sometimes takes control of their common body. This is a similar masculine-feminine duality to the one seen in Baron Ashura, another Go Nagai villain, but unlike Ashura's feminine and masculine sides, Gandal and Lady Gandal have two distinct personalities.

Gandal is a brutal and scheming military man, but not particularly imaginative and extremely loyal to King Vega. Lady Gandal is sometimes depicted as more cunning and ruthless than him. After too many defeats against Grendizer, Gandal is forced by King Vega to share power with Minister Zuril.

In the show's last episode, Gandal fights against Grendizer using his own robot. After he fails, narrowly escaping with his life, Lady Gandal becomes frustrated and takes control of their common body, in an attempt to murder King Vega and then propose a truce to planet Earth. Gandal retakes control of the body and shoots him/herself in the face, killing Lady Gandal. Though wounded, Gandal then goes to fight Grendizer again, only to die in battle.

King Vega

King Vega is the absolute and ruthless ruler of planet Vega. He first approached planet Fleed with apparently benevolent intentions and his daughter, Princess Rubina, was to marry Duke Fleed, the crown prince of Fleed. But the Vegan forces then turned against Fleed, destroying it. Only Duke Fleed and his sister Maria Grace escaped. Duke Fleed relocated to Earth and used his super robot Grendizer to save his new homeworld from the Vegan forces.

King Vega first followed from his homeworld the struggle of his army against Grendizer. In the last part of the series, planet Vega was destroyed by a natural disaster and King Vega left much of its citizens to die. Relocating to his base on Earth's moon, King Vega personally directed the struggle to invade Earth, only to be thwarted over and over by Duke Fleed. King Vega died in the series' final episode when Grendizer destroyed his mothership.

Zuril

Minister Zuril is a cunning and ruthless scientist, who favors elaborate plans over the use of brute force, but he is no more successful in defeating Duke Fleed and Grendizer than Blaki and Gandal. Every time he thinks he has found a weakness in Grendizer and seeks to exploit it, Duke Fleed's ally Dr. Umon has found a counter-measure.

Unlike Blaki he is not merely General Gandal's subordinate but an equal. Also unlike Blaki he does not acquire his battleship, the Warrior Mothership, right away. Both men are often in conflict over tactics, though they secretly unite against the Emperor's latest favorite, who has developed even more efficient type of giant robots to fight Grendizer called the Vega Monsters. After killing him, Zuril and Gandal adopt his new methods of producing giant robots: in this case cyborg-like creatures combining elements of animals and technology.

In Episode 69, Zuril's own son comes to his rescue, sacrifying his own life to allow his father to escape Grendizer unharmed. Zuril appears sincerely devastated by the loss of his child, as shown by his abundant tears and despair, and proving that even Vegans have a heart and care for their children in spite of their ruthlessness. Zuril comes back two last times in episodes 71 and 72, now showing extreme coldness and resignation after his child's death.

In episode 72 Zuril is revealed to be a rival to Duke Fleed for the affection of King Vega's daughter, Princess Rubina. He therefore goes directly in battle against Grendizer and tries to murder Duke Fleed, only to be shot by Koji Kabuto.

In the manga version, Zuril is a more complex figure than in the anime. He aims at creating a benevolent dictatorship on colonized Earth in order to save the planet from pollution and war, and he is actually shocked to find out that King Vega intends to exterminate mankind ; at the end of the story, Zuril survives and vows to redeem himself after contemplating an aurora.