• – an "eccentric" youth, suitable for becoming the next Mother. He is referred to as a 'lost child,' by many in this world, and so he seems to be. He rarely speaks at first except to murmur broken historical facts of the past Earth, which are of course unfamiliar to the dwellers of Marginal. The boy refers to himself in the first person as 'Kira,' and is later found to be one of four identical hermaphrodites. The Marginal dwellers assume he is only a boy though. • – the cultist who killed Mother. Though brutal when necessary, he's kind and gentle and regrets the killings he chose to do. He rescues the mysterious boy Kira and only sells him because he fears that Kira will share his punishment for murdering the Mother. Even so, he stays with him and the boy's new owner, Ashijin. He and Ashijin become friends and comrades, but not for long. His tribe wear blue tattoos in the corner of their eyes.
Rachel Thorn describes Grinja as a 'straight man' to Kira's eccentric, and feels Grinja represents "death and grim resignation". • – A brash, confident, mysterious man, a lone dweller of the Moon Caves. Grinja originally sells the boy Kira to him for one sand cow. Later, the two rescue the boy from bandits and come to dwell together in the Moon Cave for a number of days. Ashijin is a loner, but a proud, self-assured one, obsessed with his own supposed immortality. Despite his courtesy and easy goodwill, this supposed 'cursed man' has a dark side. His jealousy drives him to self-righteous cruelty and violent temper toward those who betray him. Rachel Thorn feels that Ashijin is a 'straight man' to Kira's eccentric, Ashijin representing "life and hope". Ebihara describes him as "the only optimistic relief" in the series. • – an employee of the Company that oversees Earth. Has a "cursed gene" and is forbidden to reproduce, and takes medicine to suppress this gene that has made his body feminine. According to Ebihara, Meyard is not as repellant to Hagio as his analogue in
Star Red, Paveman, is. • – a "scientific genius from Mars" who created Kira. He is a genius but highly unstable. Ebihara describes him as an "adult child". When he was young, his father left his mother for another woman, then tried to return to Ivan's mother. She refused, and then Ivan's father knocked her unconscious and raped her. She committed suicide "half a year later". When grown, Ivan wanted to create "happy children", by giving them powerful empathic abilities - Kira is the result of this wish. ==Media==