Read or Die Characters
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* Yomiko Readman: The heroine of the series. A half-Japanese, half-English woman in her mid-20s. An extreme bibliomaniac and "paper master", employed by the British Library Special Operations Division as an agent, being the 19th of the codename The Paper; her cover identity is a substitute teacher. Her power as a paper master enables her to control any paper she can touch, giving it almost unlimited strength, arbitrary sharpness, any form she can imagine, along with a speculated ability to manipulate its adhesiveness; in extreme circumstances she also falls back on special "battle paper" (戦闘用紙, sentou-you gami) prepared by Jiggy. It is, however, briefly seen that while fighting an I-jin, she is able to control American dollar bills (which is technically cloth, not paper) that had briefly been used to form a blade. After it was forced to revert back to normal money, Yomiko is seen manipulating the dollar bills in mid-air, with no physical contact to most of the dollar bills. In the manga, she can delay the transformation of the paper, leaving them inside a book and when someone finishes reading it, the pieces of paper will pop up as animated objects.
* Joker: Yomiko's boss, the acting head of the Special Operations Division. Joker is a stereotypical Englishman (Kurata describes him as "someone whose photo you would expect to see in the entry for 'Englishman' in the Encyclopedia Britannica"); his cool head and skill with words are his primary weapons. He is extremely cool and clever in the novel most of the time because of his ambition to become the actual head of the Division and gaining control of the whole country only under the command of Gentleman. Later in the novel, Joker's main thought is to destroy Gentlemen after he gained full control of the British Empire including all military, police, military intelligence and such which Gentleman appointed him for 9 days.
* Gentleman: The head of the British Library, and, behind the scenes, the ruler of the British Empire. An ancient man with a cybernetic eye and apparently boundless knowledge and wisdom. Although most people think of him as immortal, he knows he is not and constantly finding ways to make himself one by all means. He estimated himself to have about 100 years to live if he stayed in the helpless old man form or about 9 days in his young and best physical condition form. He is able to change by his own will and also able to give life energy to animals and transform them into powerful monsters. The same technique would kill a human instead because humans are physically very weak. Gentleman is also the father of all humanity with China as his wife 500000 years ago.
* Jiggy Stardust: The Special Operations Division's resident scientist, an aging man whose knowledge of paper is unrivalled. His role is similar to that of Q in the James Bond series. The name derives from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust character.
* Wendy Earhart: A half-Indian, half-English girl. She joins the Special Operations Division young (aged 19), and soon becomes Joker's personal secretary. She still has the subfix in training after her work title. She is earnest, devoted, and hopelessly clumsy. In the OVA, she is found to be more of a misplaced school-girl than an actual employee under the British Library; yet, in the Anime series, she is found to be more emotionally stable and serious about her work. At one point, she has Yomiko and the Paper Sisters at gun point; an action she is subliminally found to be incapable of performing in the OVA. What adds to this dramatic change is that she is also placed as head of a tactical squad at the same time in the gun-point incident, which suggests that she has also become more understanding of her own capabilities. In the novel, she was even once tricked by Joker to wear a French maid outfit to send message of Joker to Yomiko.
* Nancy Makuhari: An agent recruited by Joker in China. Her special power is the ability to become intangible and pass through solid objects; an ability known in the series and OVA as "Diving" She later remarks when meeting Yomiko that she has a distaste for her codename, claiming it makes her sound "like a porn star". In the DVD version of R.O.D, she is revealed to be a clone of Mata Hari, a spy during World War I. She herself stated her ability has one weakness, is that she cannot breathe when the ability is activated because air will also pass through her lungs. She thought she could escape from any situation with her abilities but was proven wrong by Dokusensha's trapping her in a military submarine making impossible her escape with no air within a few hundred metres outside (and she would probably freeze to death even if she did swim to the surface). Her ability can also be suppressed by the use of Ofuda (making her phasing speed slow down, not blocking her).
* Drake Anderson: A veteran of American special forces, currently employed by the Special Operations Division as a field support operative mercenary for their agents. Drake is a hardened, no-nonsense soldier. Though he has no super-powers, he is incredibly strong, and a highly-skilled soldier with considerable combat experience. Anderson has a young daughter named Maggie, whom he cares for deeply. He is also kind hearted and will not harm children even if it goes against the mission.
* Faust: A mysterious character imprisoned in the British Library. Though he appears young, he has in fact lived for hundreds of years. He is the one with the closest resemblance to Gentleman and China and shares their very slow growing speed. And because of that, Gentlemen trapped Faust just to hide his own secret. Faust is a knowledgable scholar with great skills in decrypting scripts. His name is referenced (stated in the novel) of Faust, summoner of the devil Mephistopheles, in the novel Faust.
* China: The head of Dokusensha in the novel. She is also called granny/grandma (Obasan) by higher ranked agents of Dokusensha. She called herself China when introducing herself to Yomiko. She is Gentleman's ex-wife and knows the true history of humans hidden by Gentleman. She appears as a little girl with superb kung fu skills. Since her energy consumption in the child form is too great, she needs to go into deep sleep to recoup her energy and thus falls into an almost unbreakable sleep an entire day of each week.
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