This is actually a game, not an anime.
From Wikipedia:
The game's story centers on a group of adventurers as they battle a powerful mega corporation called "Shinra ,which is draining the life of the planet to use as an energy source. As the story progresses, conflicts escalate and the world's safety becomes a major concern.
Look up Final Fantasy VII on Wikipedia for the very long - but quite interesting! - full description.
The characters I will be writing about as 'main' or 'central' characters, are Vincent Valentine and Reno.
Vincent is a very cool character. Cool calm and collected, he joins the Avalanche team (good guys) after they find him trapped in a coffin in the ShinRa mansion. He had been a former member of Shinra Turk's unit, which had been killed off. He later comes back as an immortal (one who cannot die) through experimental anatomic reconstruction. He has a golden metal claw on one arm and his eyes are permanently red. According to the site you read about him on, the claw may or may not be removable, and he is super-sensitive to strong light. He's often referred to as a vampire. Hojo, the evil scientist, did major genetic work on him. He heals almost instantly and doesn't age.
from Wikipedia:
Vincent appears as a tall, thin, brooding man with long, unkept black hair wearing a ragged red cloak over black clothes. His left arm below the elbow is covered by a Metal Claw His cloak covers the lower half of his face and is held closed by a series of buckles. His eyes are distinctly colored red. As of Advent Children, his weapon of choice changed to a triple-barrel revolver named "Cerberus.The name derives from the dog's heads that adorn each of the three barrels as well as the silver charm that hangs from the hilt known as the Dirge It is also occasionally referred to as the Death Penalty.
Character designer Tetsuya Nomura has explained that Vincent Valentine's character shifted from that of Horror researcher, to detective to chemist finally arriving at the figure of a former member of the Shinra Company's Turks with a tragic past, only part of which involves being used as a human test subject. It has been further explained that his crimson mantle was added to symbolize the idea of Vincent carrying a heavy weight�related to death�on his shoulders
Vincent was once a member of the Turks thirty years before the events of Final Fantasy VII. He was assigned to supervise The Jenova Project in Nibelheim where he fell in love with a scientist named Lucrecia , an assistant to Professor Hojo.
At first unknown to Vincent, Lucrecia once was an assistant to his father Grimoire Valentine on the discovery of Chaos and Omega but Grimoire died pushing her away when the tests of the experiment went wrong. Vincent later discovered her link with his Dad and asked Lucrecia why she never told him. She fled from Vincent, but he wanted to find her so he could tell her his true feelings for her. When he spoke to Lucrecia later, she didn�t want to be with him as she felt too guilty about his father�s death. She told him it was all her fault ultimately entering a relationship with her associate Hojo instead. Lucrecia became pregnant afterwards, and her unborn child was to be part of the Jenova Project, which was an investigation into the effect of Jenova cells on an unborn child. Vincent was strongly opposed to this and confronted Hojo to ask him if what he heard was true. As Lucrecia entered, Hojo told him it had nothing to do with him and that they were scientists; they knew what they were doing. Vincent then asked Lucrecia if she was sure it was what she wanted, and she retorted that if it concerned only her then yes, she was sure. So, in the interest of science, she decided to proceed with the treatment. After a while, Lucrecia became very sick and started to see visions of what would become of her unborn son in the future. Outraged, Vincent confronted Hojo in the Shinra Mansion's underground laboratory. Hojo, being angered with Vincent�s approach, pulled out a gun from his lab coat and shot Vincent in the stomach. He proceeded to use his body as the subject for experiments that involved making his body stronger and capable of transforming. Hojo's experiment, however, ended up being only a partial success, because although he was able to make Vincent both stronger and able to alter his anatomy, he was still dead all the same in the end. But Lucrecia, who had felt guilty for being unable to help him, went into the lab where Vincent was and tried to find a way to save him. Lucrecia started to look through her unfinished thesis on Chaos, Omega and the Lifestream. Hojo caught her looking at her files and said to her that she just wanted to use him so she could finish her thesis because of how people thought it was so �unrealistic�. Lucrecia didn�t want to believe she was doing it for that, so she persisted so she could try to save him. Lucrecia injected him with stagnant Lifestream which revived Vincent and turned him into the beast Chaos. He was able to be such a perfect host for Chaos because Hojo made his body so strong (immortal). However, due to Chaos becoming violent and nearly attacking her, Lucrecia put the materia called "Protomateria" inside him to keep Chaos and its feral nature under control.
Lucrecia left and tried to kill herself because she was not allowed to see her son, Sephiroth and she was unable to forgive herself for the pain she had caused Vincent. However, she was unable to do this due to the Jenova cells still in her body, so she went to a nearby cave and trapped herself within the mako crystals there. Vincent awoke on the operating table � Hojo and Lucrecia nowhere to be seen. Due to Hojo's metamorphose experimentation, this resulted in Vincent's anatomy being altered allowing him to temporarily change his physical form into monstrous enities, this also is the reason Chaos bonded with Vincent so well. Vincent responded to his modified body with both anguish and rage. He believed that this was his punishment for his �sin�, not being able to save Lucrecia, so with that, he punished himself further more by putting himself in a coffin in the Shinra Manor basement, where Hojo locked the door with a key which he locked inside a safe along with one of his experimental monsters that attack anyone who opened it. Because of Hojo experiment's, Vincent's age remains physically at 27.
After sleeping for thirty years, Vincent is found by Cloud, who had managed to retrieve the key from the safe. Vincent is surprised to hear that Cloud knows Sephiroth, and demands an explanation. Cloud tells him about everything that had happened with Sephiroth and the atrocities he had committed, but this only served to make Vincent feel even more guilt for his failure to stop the experiment so he shuts himself back in the coffin. After some further coaxing from Cloud, he emerges from the coffin again and tells about who he was and about Lucrecia and how she was Sephiroth's true mother, then he shuts himself back in the coffin. But after Cloud leaves the room and begins to head back upstairs, Vincent catches up to him and joins Cloud after learning that his group may meet up with Hojo sooner or later.
~
And he's prettier than most of the female characters. Plus he has a very sad past - he was chosen for experimentation by Hojo because he fell in love with Hojo's wife, Lucrezia. There are even rumors that Hojo's son, Sephiroth, may actually be Vincent's son. Vincent blames himself for Lucrezia's death since he didn't take her away. Most sites decide that Sephiroth isn't really Vincent's son, which is good since I plan on pairing them in the future.
Reno is a member of the Turks (bad guys) and is more of a main character in the movie Final Fantasy VII - Adven Children, than he is in the game. He's an insane redhead with a fondness for bombs and fighting. Most sites make him out to be a slut, but there's no real support for that in the game or the movie. Unless the lines are different in Japanese, of course.
The following is from Wikipedia:
He sports a lanky physique, unkempt red hair terminating in a long ponytail and two symmetrical red tattoos on his cheekbones. He is always seen wearing goggles on his forehead, an unzipped suit jacket and an untucked dress shirt. He is characterized as arrogant, cynical, and somewhat lazy, but is highly skilled and takes pride in his work. Reno also has a penchant for gossiping and is a competent helicopter pilot. In the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children, he is portrayed as being somewhat less cynical, clumsy and more of a comical character. His fighting skills are obviously far above the level of a normal human, but he is defeated with relative ease by Loz and Yazoo, having landed only one blow. In battle, he wields a retractable, metallic stun baton .
Reno is first encountered in Final Fantasy VII when he enters a derelict church in the slums of Midgar's Sector 5 in an attempt to capture Aerith (where he instructs his subordinates to be careful not to step on the flowers after stepping on them himself). Not long after, he activates the bombs that blow up the Sector 7 support pillar before having a brief battle with Cloud Strife ,Tifa Lockhart and Barret This fight leaves him temporarily incapacitated. He later reappears outside of Gongaga with his long-time partner, Rude, having been assigned to intercept AVALANCHE Despite the rivalry between the two groups, he is not beyond teaming up with Cloud and his companions in Wutai where both parties had to work together after each had a member kidnapped by Don Corneo After this incident, Reno's group receives new orders to search for Cloud but Reno decides not to fight Cloud on the pretext of being off duty (Reno, Rude, & Elena). Near the end of Disc Two of Final Fantasy VII, the player has the option to fight Elena, Reno, and Rude, or refuse the battle. In either case the Turks survive, so there is no clear canonical outcome to this situation.
An interesting aspect of Reno's personality is his unique speech pattern. In the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII Reno frequently ended his sentences with the phrase "zo, to" or a slightly more formal "yo, to". The closest English equivalent to this pattern is adding "yo" to the end of a sentence. In the Japanese version of Advent Children, fans realized Tifa was talking to Reno in the beginning, because she mimicked his speech when speaking with him ("Oboeteru, zo to" "Yeah, I remember you, yo"). |
