Sahaku twins

Rondo Ghina and Rondo Mina Sahaku are fictional characters in the Gundam universe. They appear in the Cosmic Era manga side story Gundam SEED Astray and its sequels.

Rondo Ghina Sahaku and Rondo Mina Sahaku were fraternal twins and Coordinators who were members of the Orb Union's nobility. While Rondo Ghina was male and Rondo Mina was female, the two looked nearly identical. The defining difference between the two were their attitudes, while Ghina was highly aggressive, Mina was more calm and empathetic than her brother.

Background

In addition to their appearance, they also shared the desire for Orb to rule the Earth Sphere. While Ghina was both tyrannical and aggressive, Mina was benevolent and democratic. To achieve that goal, Ghina initiated Morgenroete's collaboration with the Earth Alliance in building the G Project mobile suits on Heliopolis. While providing genuine assistance, Morgonroete also stole data on many elements of the G Project in order to create their own prototype mobile suits, the MBF-P01 Astray Gold Frame, MBF-P02 Astray Red Frame, and MBF-P03 Astray Blue Frame. When Heliopolis came under ZAFT attack, Morgenroete planned to destroy the Astrays and erase all evidence of their actions, but Ghina had other ideas. He uploaded a prototype Natural-use operating system into the Red Frame and data on multiple hardware upgrades into the Blue Frame, then escaped the colony using the Gold Frame and a heavy bazooka Morgonroete had designed for the GAT-X102 Duel. However, his intent to recover the other two Astrays was inadvertently thwarted by a Junk Guild team and the Serpent Tail mercenaries, who took possession of the Red Frame and the Blue Frame.

Later, shortly after the death of their father Koto Sahaku left Ghina as the head of the family, the Sahakus acquired several powerful Earth Alliance mobile suits, piloted by Socius series Combat Coordinators, through secret arrangements with Blue Cosmos leader Muruta Azrael (who most likely was unaware of the Sahakus being Coordinators), and also carried out covert missions on behalf of Azrael. These missions, carried out personally by Ghina as the pilot of the Gold Frame, eventually led to conflict with the pilots of Orb's lost Red Frame and Blue Frame, Junk Guild technician Lowe Guele and Serpent Tail leader Gai Murakumo, respectively. The first two battles proved inconclusive, but the third cost Ghina his life at Gai's hands. With the death of her brother, Mina's ambitions waned and she was content to simply defend the "Ame-no-Mihashira" and protect the refugees from terrestrial Orb who had gathered there after its fall. After the war's end, Mina dispersed the forces under her command to await the restoration of the Orb Union. Later, Mina and three of her Socius clones joined forces with the Junk Guild and Serpent Tail (whose roles in Ghina's death she remains unaware of) in a failed attempt to stop the "Break the World" terrorist attack by shooting Junius 7's remains with GENESIS Alpha.

Shortly afterward, Mina was a guest at the wedding of Cagalli Yula Athha and Yuna Roma Seiran, and witnessed the "abduction" of Cagalli by her twin brother Kira Yamato. When Martian pilot Agnes Brahe attempted to pursue Kira in his GSF-YAM01 Δ Astray, Mina boarded Amatu and blocked his path, convincing him that "rescuing" Cagalli would not be in her best interest.

At their height, the Sahaku family's military forces consisted of the space fortress/mobile suit factory "Ame-no-Mihashira" (August Pillar of Heaven, named from a Japanese creation myth), the battleship "Izumo", the MBF-P01-Re2 Astray Gold Frame Amatu, a GAT-X133 Sword Calamity, a GAT-X255 Forbidden Blue, a GAT-333 Raider Full Spec, two GAT-01D Long Daggers, and numerous MBF-M1 and MBF-M1A Astray mobile suits. Approximately ten of these mobile suits were piloted by Socius clones.

Trivia

* Rondo Ghina Sahaku was voiced by Nobuo Tobita in the video game "Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Generation of CE". On a side note, Tobita has been the voice of Kamille Bidan since Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam in 1985. Ironically, the man who kills Rondo Ghina, Gai Murakamo, is voiced by Kazuhiko Inoue, who voiced Kamille's archrival Jerid Messa. The character roles however are switched.

* It is perhaps interesting to note in the Tokyopop translation, both Rondos are translated as sisters.