In this page I'm going to provide you with some details about Gunbuster's characters; I won't describe just the main characters but I'll give you a sight of the whole series, including minor characters, aliens and... robots and spaceships ^_^

Noriko Takaya  -  Noriko Takaya
Noriko Takaya is the daughter of the famous spaceship commander Yuzo Takaya. Since her childhood Noriko would like to follow his father's steps... Unfortunately, admiral Takaya died during a battle against alien forces when Noriko was still a young girl. At the age of 16, Noriko decides to attend the Okynawa High School for girls willing to become pilots but she is not so good with the control of the robots... Kazumi's suggestions turn out to be very usefull to make Noriko trust her own abilities and possibilities. In spite of that many other girls are more capable than Noriko, but when the names of the two girls going to space are announced, she and Kazumi are the ones selected. She has much untapped power, very high potential, and coach Ota knows that... Noriko will be the one in charge of piloting the Gunbuster!
Usually calm, sweet tempered and often insecure, Noriko turns to a real fury when she's fighting with the Gunbuster: in the key moments of the adventure she always know what to do, she becomes selfconfident and very determined in achieving her goals. A real leader.

Kazumi Amano  -  Kazumi Amano
Kazumi Amano is the best student of the school; every girls talk with her with reverence (Noriko always calls her "Onesama") as Kazumi is definitely a step forward: her abilities nevertheless do not derive form her natural talent but from her continuous diligence and devotion to work and training. Usually Kazumi is very determined, she will at first have doubts about Noriko's abilities but she will soon completely trust her friend... They are linked by a close bound of affection and this will be evident when the time situation will become complex...
Fate will also state that Kazumi's work as pilot will heavily influence her sentimental life...

Jung Freud  -  Jung Freud
Jung Freud, member of the Soviet space squadron, is known as a genius of fighting; she comes from the Lunar base and meets Noriko and Kazumi as soon as they arrive to the spaceship Exelion. Since the first dialogs, there's a great rivalry especially between Jung and Kazumi, but their dispute will soon be replaced by the battles against aliens... At first insolent and superficial when she wants to prove her superiority in fighting, Jung becomes later a very good friend of Noriko and Kazumi even if their rivalry still remains alive as Kazumi will always get things Jung wants for herself...

Kimiko Higuchi (Akaiki once married) Kimiko Higuchi
Kimiko Akaiki is Noriko's best friend in the school's period; when Noriko leaves and goes to space Kimiko drops the project of being a pilot and for the rest of the series she's a kind of symbol of time flowing on the Earth. The memory of Kimiko infuses Noriko with feelings of nostalgia and (may be) guilty for having abandoned her friend (and being unable to come back home and say hallo to her...)
While the events concerning the alien invasion go on, Kimiko gives birth to her daughter Takami who soon become fond of Noriko too, probably impressed by the great influence that Noriko exerts upon Kimiko. Finally Takami will attend the same school of Kimiko and her "aunt Noriko"...

Reiko Kashiwara Reiko Kashiwara
Kashiwara was the one who should have been selected to go to space with Kazumi before the choice of Noriko made by Ota. She is defeated by Noriko during a little fight with RX-78 on Earth when for the first time Noriko's talent starts revealing itself... Thanks to an interesting evolution of the school's situation, Reiko will later have a chance to revenge herself and satisfy her thirst of power...

Smith Toren Smith Toren
Smith Toren is an American pilot; he's the only one that tries to comfort Noriko during her dismay caused by Kazumi's temporary mistrust. He's Noriko's first love and he fights as a couple with Noriko in a battle in the third episode as Kazumi "Onesama" Amano takes part in that battle with another girl. In the rest of the events Smith will indirectly but heavily condition the heroine's life...

Koichiro Ota Koichiro Ota
Ota is the main teacher of the school and later the second-in-command of Exelion, the spaceship used as headquarters for missions in space. Ota completely trusts Noriko and her skills that will allow her to pilot the Gunbuster, extremely powerfull robot able to effectively contrast the aliens. Moreover Ota was one of the crew men of Noriko's father's ship: during the unlucky battle in which he died, admiral Takaya refused the last chance of escaping and let Ota go instead. Probably due to this, Koichiro holds Noriko in great esteem and trusts her.

Tashiro Tatsumi Tashiro Tatsumi
Tashiro Tatsumi is the main commander of Exelion, headquarters of the anti-alien space fleet and guardian of the Gunbuster. In the last episode, captain Tatsumi will be in charge of every operations on the Eltreum; basically Tashiro takes every decisions concerning what to do and any military strategy, but the great decision the humans' future depends on will be taken by another person...

Aliens Aliens
Aliens have an intelligence that man can't understand; they behave like insects working together to evolve their colony at other life forms' expense. Mankind has to exterminate the relentless alien form of life or be destroyed by it. Aliens don't need spaceships as they are naturally able to flight in the space; they settle their eggs on stars and then leave a trail of destruction wherever they move. The smaller aliens are more than 10 meters long but the bigger ones are 100 meters long; they only have natural weapons but they make up for this lack with their huge number and with their considerable dimensions; finally at the end of the series aliens are also able to warp the space in order to travel at a speed higher than the light's one (not possible, phisically speaking, but necessary to justify some situations in the series :P)

Gunbuster Gunbuster
Gunbuster is the most advanced weapon created exept for the Black Bomb (the huge bomb used in the last episode in the final battle against aliens) that was realized later. Gunbuster is composed by two units, the Buster Machines, that can be used separately or together after an extraordinary fusion (according to the tradition of robotic series ^_^). This two units are piloted by Noriko and Kazumi (even if Jung should have been in charge of unit n.2 during the final battle, she let Kazumi use it instead) and when they are combined into the great Gunbuster, the two girls have different job to do: Noriko controls all the robot's main functionalities while Kazumi acts as navigator. Noriko's cockpit is spherical and uses sophisticated virtual reality systems providing Noriko with 360 degree vision of the surrounding space. If you consider that the whole movements of the robot are controlled through sensors connected to the pilot's arms and legs, you can easily understand that Noriko finally found the robot suiting her style of piloting, without lots of levers, buttons and monitors to control. Moreover the Gunbuster's weapons are triggered by vocal orders and are very powerfull: they include lasers equipped on the robot's forehead and hands, missiles on the fingers, extremely powerfull electrodes equipped on the robot's hands and feet able to hit aliens with very high voltage electric discharges, ... And you shouldn't understimate the power of the Buster Shield ^_^ (it's a kind of cloak of the robot, used as a shield... really ROTFL!)

RX-7 RX-7
The RX-7 robots were considered the state of art before the coming of Gunbuster; used also on the Earth trainings, RX-7s are the main elements forming the robot army in the space. Much smaller than the Gunbuster (which is 250 meters high), the RX-7s are undoubtedly weaker and they are often defeated even by lesser aliens; however before the last battle a new step of evolution of RX-7 will be made ready so that they can effectively help the Buster Machines.

Luxion Luxion
Luxion was the first spaceship used to explore the Milky Way. During one of these explorations, on the 19th of December 2015, admiral Takaya and his crew were cought in an unexpected ambush by aliens. After that all the spaceships were specifically designed to fight aliens.

 

Exelion Exelion
The famous spaceship Exelion was designed specifically to fight and destroy aliens; it was equipped with a lot of weapons (look at the picture at right and imagine how many laser cannons it has...) and completed many missions in the space until progresses in technology made a new generation of spaceships available. The end of Exelion was caused by a "supposed" suicidal mission in which it was used as a bait and then men made it implode to exterminate a large ammount of aliens.

Eltreum Eltreum
Finally, Eltreum was designed as the last chance for mankind, a kind of lifeboat that will have led a few people to safety in case of attack against the Earth. Actually Eltreum was used as the main ship of the massive final expedition against aliens and the whole directions for the protection of the Black Bomb before the deflagration were sent from it.