List of The Skull Man anime characters

This is the list of characters in the 2007 anime series The Skull Man. Where appropriate, English names are on the left while the original Japanese names are on the right.

Protagonists[]

Skull Man (スカルマン, Sukaru Man): Voiced by: Hiroshi Tsuchida; A mysterious man in skull shaped mask making appearances in Ōtomo City and rumored to have been killing numerous victims in the city, especially those roaming at night. He is believed to be the missing Tatsuo Kagura at first, but late in the series, Father Yoshio Kanzaki, a close friend of Hayato's, reveals himself as the true Skull Man and explains that the only people he has been killing are those who are members of a new cult who transform into monsters. After Yoshio's death, Hayato becomes Skull Man himself and saves Maya from the ritual, for Yoshio's sake. The Skull Man is actually not a person, but an ancient helmet that grants the user supernatural abilities and deadly weapons. At one point, Kiriko's brother Jin dresses up in a fake Skull Man suit and uses it to commit murders, however he uses a gun, not swords.

Hayato Mikogami (御子神隼人, Mikogami Hayato): Voiced by: Makoto Yasumura; Hayato Mikogami once lived in the orphanage in Ōtomo City. After being adopted and raised, he left Ōtomo to move to Tokyo so he can work for a famous newspaper. Years later at 23 years old, he is working for a second rate newspaper and with permission leaves to go back to Ōtomo City to search for the legendary figure, Skull Man who by rumors had recently killed an actress. While on the train trip, he meets young Kiriko who doesn't have the correct passport to get into the city and he helps her in by presenting a business card of Gōzō. Later, after getting comfortable into his old house, he gets locked outside due to Kiriko's tantrum. Without realizing, he breaks the midnight curfew and witnesses a man who is running away from someone. The man injures Hayato after he tries to help him but the man is killed by the Skull Man. Hayato collapses on scene, pinning him to the murder but is let off due to this ties with Gōzō.; Hayato is a care-free guy who smokes and is constantly annoyed by Kiriko. Later he develops a close friendship with her. At the end of the series, Hayato takes up the mantle of the Skull Man against the original's warning, mortally wounding himself when he overuses the mask's powers. For reasons unexplained, the white mask turns black in the rising sunlight before a mysterious group, later revealed to be Black Ghost, picks him up and converts him into a cyborg.; It is revealed at the end of the series that Hayato himself is the mysterious Tatsuo Kagura - his father unearthed the helmet and researched it, then built a religion around it realizing its power. The Otomo Concern had him and his wife killed by the corrupt police chief, but the son actually survived and was smuggled to an orphanage, growing up but not remembering anything due to the shock.

The Ōtomo Concern[]

Masaki Kumashiro (神代正樹, Kumashiro Masaki): Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa; Secretary of the Australian branch. He is an illegitimate child of chairman Gōzō, but his father does not respect or accept him in public. As a result, he is envious of Maya and eventually betrays his father, kills his stepmother, and uses the device to evolve into a mutated creature. He fights the Skull Man and mortally wounds him, but he is further mutated against his will and finally destroyed by him.

Akira Usami (宇佐神明, Usami Mei): Voiced by: Hiroyuki Yoshino; Researcher from Ōtomo Pharmaceutical, he was engaged in several mysterious acts, and contacted Hayato to reveal important information to him. Unfortunately, he was murdered by the fake Skull man along with his accomplice Masaki Kumashiro in the fifth night.

Gōzō Kuroshio (黒潮豪蔵, Kuroshio Gōzō): Voiced by: Osamu Saka; A 58-year-old acquaintance of Hayato and leader of the Ōtomo Concern. While he pretends to be a philanthropist on the outside, he is directly involved with the incident from ten years ago, and is not below using dirty means such as assassination to advance his own agenda. He knew the helmet was an evil force, but did not want to destroy or hide it, rather he had it researched, and once the scientist tasked with it turned it into a religion and refused to be manipulated, he had him killed. At the end he confesses all this to the old detective, and helps Hayato in confronting his illegitimate son, who kills him.

Eimei Fumakoshi (船越英明, Hideaki Funakoshi): Voiced by: Yōsuke Akimoto; Gōzō's assistant and a secretary of the Ōtomo Concern.

Taekumi Kusaka (日下匠, Kusaka Takumi): Voiced by: Katsuhisa Hōki; The 53-year-old Mayor of Ōtomo City. One of the spokesperson of the Ōtomo Concern. During the plot of assassination and the fatal car mishap, he was killed by the fake Skull Man on the sixth night.

Ōtomo Police[]

Tsuyoshi Shinjou (新條剛, Shinjō Tsuyoshi): Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki; A detective in the Ōtomo City Police, he's assigned to watch and keep tabs on Hayato Mikogami, but he becomes involved in the Skull Man affair as he comes across several suspicious events and crime scenes of the Skull Man's victims. He falls in love with Nami, and is devastated when she is revealed to be a beast as well and killed by the Skull Man. On the twelfth night, he manages to rescue the children of Kanzaki's orphanage from the Cyborgs, escaping from Ōtomo along with those citizens that have not been converted into beasts. With Reina Shingyoji's help, he survives a later attack by his old partner who turns out to be a member of the church and a mutant beast. At the end of the series, it is revealed he and Reina opened a detective agency in Tokyo.

Gisuke Haniwa (埴輪儀助, Haniwa Tadashi Suke): Voiced by: Shinpachi Tsuji; Ōtomo City police chief. He is a corrupt cop, doing whatever Gōzō or the mayor tells him, but he is not a member of the cult. We learn that he was the one responsible for the murders of the Kagura family, acting on Gōzō's orders, but taking it too far and killing his son and burning the building too. It is revealed at the end that he was the superior of Tachigi during World War II, and because he threatened to expose his many crimes (looting, embezzling) he had him sent to the front lines and imprisoned his family, who died in prison. He tries to kill Tachigi but is shot and killed by him.

G. R. O.[]

Rena Shingyoji (真行寺麗奈, Shingyõji Rena): Voiced by: Michiko Neya; A mysterious biker chick who can turn into a were-cat. She Tetsurou's sister. She saves Hayato several times, and is later revealed to be one of the Lost Numbers - early experiments of the beast transformation procedures, who actually preserved their humanity even when transformed. It was she and her brother who told Father Yoshio about the cult and its experiments, and she later serves him when he dons the mantle of the Skull Man. She survives the events in Otomo city and becomes a private detective with Shinjou, the two are implied to be a couple.

Tetsurou Shingyouji (真行寺徹郎, Shingyōji Tetsurō): Voiced by: Hideki Tasaka; A mysterious man seen hanging around the city. He is later revealed to be the were-dog mutant who is one of the Skull Man's assassins. He dies while protecting him from the cyborgs.

Other Characters[]

Kiriko Mamiya (間宮霧子, Mamiya Kiriko): Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi; A 16-year-old girl aspiring to be a photographer. Hayato helps her get into the city, and she decides to stick to him and help him in his work. She actually enters the city to look for a friend of hers, Jin, who was with her in the resistance and disappeared two years ago.

Father Yoshio Kanzaki (神崎芳生, Kanzaki Yoshio): Voiced by:; A 23-year-old catholic priest working at an orphanage, and a childhood friend of Hayato. He is helpful to him and the others who he knew from his childhood, and has feelings for Sayoko, but harbors a dark secret. It is revealed later in the series that he is the eponymous Skull Man, and has been committing the murders all along to "cleanse the evil". He served as a chaplain in "the war" (implied to be the Vietnam war), where he found the helmet and the two "Lost Numbers" in an Otomo Concern bunker. Realizing the evil that resided in the helmet is being used to create monsters, he dons it and sets out to kill everyone "infected" - even if this pains him greatly due to his vows and because many of these people were his friends. In the confrontation with the Cyborgs, he is grievously wounded as the Skull Man, and Hayato follows and confronts him. He tries to continue the fight and wants to spare Hayato from using the helmet, but is then killed by the collapsing building when the surviving Cyborgs blow up the church.

Kyōichirō Tachigi (立木恭一郎, Tachigi Kyōichirō): Voiced by: Katsunosuke Hori; Kyōichirō Tachigi is a 70-year-old self-styled private detective who arrives to Ōtomo City on the same train as Hayato Mikogami and Kiriko Mamiya. He is a private investigator who seems to have ulterior motives of catching Skull Man. It is revealed later that he is working for Brain Gear and researching the origins of the helmet. He helps Hayato throughout the series, and in the end moves back to Tokyo, where it is implied he dies of a heart attack when he glimpses the resurrected cyborg Hayato.

Yui Onizuka (鬼塚結衣, Yui Onizuka): Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara; Another actress and a friend of the late Hitomi. She has been shot dead by the fake Skull Man on the third night.

Sayoko Karasuma (烏丸小夜子, Sayoko Karasuma): Voiced by: Yumi Kakazu; Yui's assistant. She involuntary transformed into a bird-woman mutant to protect Yui when the Skull-Man threatened her, only for it to be revealed that he was only pretending it to lure her out. After Reina bites ones of her wings off, she is killed by the real Skull Man while reciting Shakespeare.

Mitsuo Yamaki (山木光男, Yamaki Mitsuo): Voiced by: Kenjirō Tsuda; Ōtomo City police detective. Tsuyoshi's friend and partner. In the 12th episode, he is revealed to be working for the cult and being a mutant himself who tries to kill Tsuyoshi for knowing too much - he kills him with Reina's help.

Kōichi Jin (神晃一, Jin Kōichi): Voiced by: Kenji Matsuda; Akira's assistant and co-researcher of Ōtomo Pharmaceutical and Kiriko's mentor, for whom she entered the city. It is revealed he has been working as an assassin to kill enemies of the cult while pretending to be the Skull Man - although unlike the real thing, he uses a gun. When he is given two lizard mutants controlled by a whistle to kill the real Skull Man, things go wrong and he is mortally wounded by the mutants, and then shot by the people who hired him so he cannot reveal their secrets.

Sara Kuroshio (黒潮沙羅, Kuroshio Sara): Voiced by: Kazue Komiya; Gōzō's wife. She is the chairwoman of the religious organization White Bell Association.

Maya Kuroshio (黒潮真耶, Kuroshio Maya): Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa; Gōzō's 17-year-old daughter. Despite her weak health she secretly helps out at the orphanage, apparently due to her attraction to Kanzaki. She is also deeply involved with the White Bell Association sect.

Hitomi Tachibana (橘ひとみ, Tachibana Hitomi): Voiced by: Kei Kobayashi; An actress who is killed days prior to the start of the story.

Tatsuo Kagura (神楽辰男): Allegedly killed in an arson case ten years ago, but rumored to be alive and seeking revenge. Hayato believes this person to be the prime suspect for the identity of the Skull Man. It is eventually revealed that Hayato himself is Tatsuo Kagura - Gōzō sparing him after eliminating his father.

Brain Gear[]

A large multinational corporation who are shown to be working for a mysterious person called "The Black Phantom". They originally seem to be an ally of the Otomo Concern, but are really just looking out for their own interest, trying to acquire the Skull Man's helmet.

The Black Ghost that appeared in Cyborg 009 is allude to be a brainwashed, cybernetically augmented Hayato at the end of the series - though as this series is not related to Cyborg 009, it is more likely an easter egg.

Alucard Van Vogt (アルカード・ヴァン・ヴォグート, Arukādo Van Vogūto): Voiced by: Unsho Ishizuka; An agent of Brain Gear, originally working for Otomo Concern but then turning on them and the military. He speaks with an American accent, and is shown to have cybernetic enhancements himself.

Helen (ヘレン, Heren): Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino; A female agent working with Vogout. Like him, she is also cybernetically enhanced.

SIRKS 01

Voiced by: Showtaro Morikubo

One of the Cyborg soldiers Brain Gear brings in to fight the Skull Man for Otomo Concern.

SIRKS 02

Voiced by: Chafurin

A cyborg soldier who specializes in search operations.

SIRKS 03

Voiced by: Mitsuo Iwata

A cyborg soldier specialized in submarine warfare.

SIRKS 04

Voiced by: Nobuo Tobita

A cyborg soldier.

SIRKS 05

Voiced by: Akio Ohtsuka

A cyborg soldier specialized in melee combat.

Dr. Gamo Whiskey (ガモ·ウィスキー博士, Gamo Wisukī Hakase): Voiced by: Seizō Katō; A doctor who created the Cyborg SIRKS soldiers 01-05.

Voice of the Directive (指令の声, Shirei no Koe): Voiced by: Iemasa Kayumi; An unidentified person giving Vogt instructions over the phone.

Skull or Scarl (Heisei Edition) (BG総帥スカール, BG Sōsui Sukāru): Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto; The tyrannical leader of an evil organization called the Black Ghost Organization (from Cyborg 009). He is the third iteration of the Skull Man.