Gai Daigoji

Gai Daigoji is a fictional character on the anime series Martian Successor Nadesico. His real name is Jiro Yamada (a very boring name in Japan, equal to being called John Smith in English), but he claims that Gai is his soul's name (something akin to 'Ace' or 'Max'). He is an Aestivalis pilot on the high mobile battleship Nadesico, and is also the ship's resident otaku. He is a rabid fan of the ancient anime series, "Gekigangar 3" (a running spoof of Getter Robo in "Nadesico"). When he first boarded the "Nadesico", he was angry at Akito Tenkawa because Akito had become another pilot, stealing Gai's previous limelight as the sole pilot aboard. They soon bond over their mutual love of "Gekigangar", however. He played a crucial role in the Nadesico's escape from Earth, shooting down 7 UEAF robots.

However, Gai did not continue to play a significant role for he was fatally shot by Admiral Munetake when he and his fellow UEAF officers made their escape from the Nadesico. His death would cause a great deal of anguish for Akito.Despite his early death he makes several appearances later in the series; In Episode 14, the 'Filler/Recap' episode of the series, Ruri asked him. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be dead?" to which Gai replies something along the lines of, "Relax, it's a guy thing."There is also the Jovian, Tsukomo Shiratori who, as well as looking like Gai, is a "Gekigangar" fan and giant robot pilot. But like Gai, he dies as well, in exactly the same way.

Gai's next appearance, after his death, occurs after Akito quizzes Admiral Munetake about Gai's death. The Admiral was overcome with grief, and injects himself with the nanomachine treatment needed to pilot an Aestivalis. He then stole Seiya Uribatake's experimental Aestivalis, "X-tivalis". In his delusion, he sees the Cosmos as the Jovians and attacks it. As he flies towards the battleship, he sees Gekigangar III flying toward him. Gai appears, dressed as its pilot Tenku Ken and proclaiming himself as an angel of mercy. The Admiral next asks Gai whether he would forgive him, to which Gai replied: "He who is truly righteous has no memory of evil". With Gai guiding him, the Admiral charged the X-tivalis's Gravity Blast Cannon. This, as predicted by Seiya, caused an energy build up that caused the X-tivalis to explode, killing the Admiral.

Gai's final post-mortem appearance comes when Akito, Izumi and Akatsuki are all confronted by the epitome of their fears or feelings on death, each one taking the image of someone dear to them.

In only the second episode, Gai gives away information that would spoil several large plot twists in the Martin Successor Nadesico series. In episode 2, after the entire crew is detained by the Earth military, Gai forces a reluctant crew to watch Gekigangar 3. During his defense of the series, Daigoji yells "...a secret base overthrown, a military conspiracy! Can't you see how the surviving children will rise up and resolve the situation with their own sweat and blood?" This is clearly a reference to the Jovian's origins; however, due to the placement in only the second episode and that Daigoji is prone to making nonsensical statements, the quote goes largely ignored.

There is discussion among fans of some of the similarites between Gai and Roy Fokker of Macross/Robotech. Both characters are ace pilots who serve as mentors to the male leads up until their untimely deaths. The English dub furthers this comparison by giving Gai the same voice actor as Roy (Brett Weaver).

In the Super Robot Wars series of video games, it is possible to keep Gai as a playable character if the player fulfills specific requirements. In Super Robot Wars W, Gai is not shot after the Nadesico breaks out of Earth Orbit, but is thought dead when he is shot down during the ship's escape from Mars. However, he turns out to have been rescued by the Jovians. He rejoins the group, appearing to have established a camaraderie with Tsukumo, who survives his own death when Gai takes a bullet for him (Which Gai survives as well). Gai is shown as a member of the Nadesico-B's crew during the events of the Prince of Darkness, albeit missing cut-in character portraits during regular attacks (though he is shown wearing a pilot suit resembling Ken from Gekiganger III while performing the Double Gekigan Flare combination attack with Tenkawa Akito). Despite that, his character portrait was indeed updated to have jet black hair instead of hints of gray to suit the character redesigns during the timeskip. Naturally, he is also written in to be hoping for Akito to return so they can fight alongside each other again (which does happen, as the Double Gekigan Flare attack is still present despite the events prior to Akito's return near the end).