GETBACKERS

is a manga series written by Yuya Aoki and illustrated by Rando Ayamine. It is published by Kodansha in Japan and serialized in ''Shonen Magazine''. In total, the series has 39 volumes; it has ended its serialization in Japan on 21 Feb 2007. Currently, the first 18 volumes have been released in English by TOKYOPOP, with Volume 19 scheduled for release on 10th July 2007, and subsequent volumes released bi-monthly throughout the year.
In 2002, the series was adapted into an anime series, produced by Studio Deen, which aired from 2002 to 2003 and ran for 49 episodes. It was broadcast by the anime television network, Animax, across its respective networks worldwide, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and South America. The series has been licensed in North America by ADV Films and given a 10-volume DVD release.

Contents

Story

Characters and groups

References

Episode list

Other media

Theme songs

Drama CDs

Trivia

Notes and references

External links

Story

The manga tells the story of a pair known as the GetBackers, consisting of Ban Mido and Ginji Amano. The duo reside in one of the seedier areas of Shinjuku in Tokyo, and are often broke and resort to sleeping in their car. Ban and Ginji operate a freelance repossession service or ''dakkanya'' (奪還屋). For a fee, they will recover ''any'' lost or stolen item for a client. The two boast an "almost 100% success rate" (100% in the anime). Their motto is: "We get back what shouldn't be gone".
However, Ban and Ginji are not ordinary human beings. They each possess mysterious abilities which they use to carry out their many recovery missions. Ban's powers include the "Snakebite", a skill which gives his hands a grip of 200 kilograms-force, and the "Evil Eye" ("Jagan", 邪眼, a Japanese term roughly meaning "evil eye"), an ability to induce minute-long hallucinations of Ban's choosing in whomever he makes direct eye contact with. However, this ability cannot be used on the same person twice in a 24-hour period, and he has to rest between uses. The Evil Eye can also only be used three times in one day. Ginji, on the other hand, can generate enormous amounts of electrical energy in his body for tasks such as attacking opponents, or overloading electronic systems; this has earned him the moniker of "Lightning Lord" (雷帝, "''Raitei''", a Japanese term also translated as "Thunder Emperor", or "Lightning Emperor").
Despite the simplicity of their job's description, Ban and Ginji's profession often places them into bizarre and dangerous situations in order to obtain the objects they must find. Their targets range from everyday objects such as a video game a school kid has lost to an even much more dangerous object which might just affect the safety of the nation (such as a vital part of an atomic bomb). As such, the plot mostly revolves around the dangerous (yet sometimes silly) adventures they both go through, which is often complicated by connections to the pair's dark and twisted pasts, and a mysterious place called Infinity Fortress (無限城, "''Mugenjou''", a Japanese term also translated as "Limitless Fortress", "the Infinite Castle" and "Maze City").
There are numerous "acts" in the story. Each act, divided into a number of chapters, describes a different recovery task taken on by the GetBackers. As the story develops, new characters (some with past relationships with Ban and Ginji) are revealed, and details of a shadowy conspiracy involving the GetBackers slowly rise to the surface.
The plotline of the anime is initially similar to that of the manga, but diverges sharply after the 25th episode as the anime attempted to compress the ongoing story arcs into a manageable anime arc with a reasonable ending. The second Limitless Fortress arc is not in any way connected to the one in the manga, though some of the characters featured have also recently appeared in the manga.

Characters and groups

Main articles: Characters of GetBackers

Both the anime and the manga have large casts of characters, spanning the original GetBackers (Ban Mido and Ginji Amano), their friends and enemies, and a large array of secondary characters. Most of the characters appear in the manga, although their circumstances, personalities and roles are different than that of the anime.

References

The series refers to many actual persons, and events. It also references pseudoscience, albeit with a fictional twist. Although they don't have a direct impact on the main story, the background information they provide gives the series more depth than the average action series.

★ In the ''Get Back the Magical Sunflower!'' arc, the titular sunflower is supposed to be the "13th Sunflower" drawn by Vincent van Gogh. In reality, he only drew 12 at once on a canvas (or 15, depending on the actual painting; see Sunflowers (series of paintings)).

★ In the ''Venus de Milo'' arc, besides the arms of the statue, the nose of the Sphinx is also on auction. In reality, both artifacts are considered lost.

★ The ''Divine Design'' arc has many references to Christianity and the Bible.

★ The ''Marine Red'' arc has references to World War II, along with the Axis powers' alleged research in germ warfare/the occult (a virus which turns humans into vampires is used in the manga). It's also mentioned that Romania, being on the same latitude as the Bordeaux region of France, could in theory produce good wine. On the other hand, Captain Brandon became a vampire as he wanted to assassinate Adolf Hitler himself for Hitler's ravages on Romania during the war.

★ The implosion lens mentioned in the ''IL'' arc is an actual component in implosion-typed atomic weapons (e.g. Fat Man, used during World War II; in the story, "IL" is the codename for the computer disc containing the program needed to manufacture MakubeX's A-bomb).

★ The environment within Infinity Fortress is said to be a mixture of real objects and virtual reality, resulting in a "half VR dimension".

Episode list

'List of Episodes in ''GetBackers'' anime'

story arc	ep no	episode title	related manga arc
(oneshot stories)	1	The Initials are "G"(Ginji) and "B"(Ban)	(anime only)
	2	GetBack the Rusted Bonds	Act 1. Enter The GetBackers
Platinum	3	Operation: Recover the Platinum	Act 3. Givers and Takers
	4	Recovery Service vs Transport Service
	5	Deathmatch at Sunrise: The Lightning Emperor vs Dr J
The Stradivarius	6	Get Back the Divine Melody	Act 4. (Get Back) The Sound of Life
	7	The Animal Transformation of the Beastmaster
	8	Timbre of Life, Resound
13th Sunflower	9	Get Back the Phantom Sunflowers! Part One	Act 5. Magical Sunflower
	10	Get Back the Phantom Sunflowers! Part Two
Operation Recover "IL" (first Limitless Fortress arc)	11	Breach the Limitless Fortress - Operation Recover IL	Act 6. Return to the Infinity Fortress
	12	The Unknown Boy, MakubeX
	13	Explosion: Fuuchouin - School Thread Technique
	14	The New Four Kings
	15	The Loulan Dance Whip That Twirls in the Night
	16	Explosion! The Lightning Emperor Angry
	17	Recovery Team. Rendezvous!
	18	Crash! Shido vs Emishi!
	19	Oh, My Friend - Kazuki vs Juubei
	20	The Man from Babylon City
	21	Blade of Revenge: Ban vs Fudou
	22	Awakening: The Advent of the Lightning Emperor
	23	Attack! The Virtual Corps
	24	The Final Fight! Ginji vs MakubeX
	25	Get Back the Limitless Future
(oneshot stories)	26	Steam Recovery: The Hot Springs Travel Diary?!	Interlude III. Let's Go to the Hot Springs!
	27	High School Girl vs. Recovery Service	(anime only)
	28	The Man Who Lost His Past	(anime only)
Venus de Milo	29	Get Back the Arms of the Goddess	Act 7. The Lost Arms of the Goddess
	30	Mystery Assassins: The Miroku Siblings
	31	Hera and Krait
	32	The Mission Start! Ginji vs Miroku
	33	Get Back the Eternal Goddess
(oneshot stories)	34	The Get Backers Break Up?! The Enemy is Ban Midou	(anime only)
	35	Get Back the Flame of Life	(anime only)
	36	The Children of Destiny	(anime only)
	37	Natsumi Does Her Best!	(anime only)
	38	A Recital Just for You	Interlude II. Shido and Madoka
	39	Ginji Hospitalised? It's a Hospital! Everybody Assembled!	(inspired by Divine Design part 36 only)
	40	Monkey Counterattack!	(anime only)
	41	Farewell, My Beloved	(anime only)
	42	The Cost of Betrayal	(anime only)
Return to the Limitless Fortress (second Limitless Fortress arc)	43	The Man Who Came Back... The Limitless Fortress, Once More	(anime only)
	44	The Last of the Four Kings
	45	Demon of Revenge - Fudou Passes Away
	46	Brain Trust
	47	Bust Into Beltline! Ginji vs Masaki
	48	Fated Confrontation - Ban vs Akabane
	49	GetBackers

As can be seen in the above table the anime follows the manga up to episode 25. In the second half of the anime there are only two story arcs and only one, the Venus de Milo arc, appears in manga, with the remaining episodes being one-shot stories.
Notes:

★ Episode titles are those used in English dub by ADV.

★ Story arc names are not official but only for the conveniance of this table.

Other media

Theme songs

;Opening Theme
:#''Yuragu Koto Nai Ai (揺らぐことない愛; Unshaken Love)'' by Tamura Naomi (Episodes 1-25)
:#
★ 'Lyrics': Tamura Naomi
:#
★ 'Music': Tamura Naomi, Kawamoto Morifumi
:#
★ 'Arrangement': Kawamoto Morifumi
:#''Barairo no Sekai (薔薇色の世界; The Rose-Colored World)'' by PIERROT (Episodes 26-49)
:#
★ 'Lyrics': Kirito
:#
★ 'Music': Aiji
:#
★ 'Arrangement': PIERROT & MASAHIDE SAKUMA
;Ending Theme
:#''Ichibyo No Refrain (一秒のリフレイン; One Second of Refrainment)'' by Otoha (Episodes 1-13)
:#
★ 'Lyrics': Otoha, Doujima Kouhei
:#
★ 'Music': Doujima Kouhei
:#''Namida no Hurricane (涙のハリケーン; Hurricane of Tears)'' by Bon-Bon Blanco (Episodes 14-25)
:#''Mr. Déjà vu'' by naja (Episodes 26-37)
:#''Changin' by Nona Reeves featuring YOU THE ROCK (Episodes 38-48)
:#''Yuragu Koto Nai Ai'' by Tamura Naomi (Episode 49)
Besides these songs, there's an "image" song for some of the main characters. These songs are based on the characteristics and personalities of the characters, and are sung by the characters' seiyu. They can be found on the Get Backers Target G or Target B CDs.
;Target B
:
★ 'Ban': ''Evil Eyes''
:
★ 'Kazuki': ''花鈴 (Karin; "Flower Bells")''
:
★ 'MakubeX': ''核 -Core-''
;Target G
:
★ 'Ginji': ''Born Again''
:
★ 'Akabane': ''死の純度 (The Purity of Death)''
:
★ 'Shido': ''Beast Master''

Drama CDs

A series of drama CDs has been released for the story arcs in the manga which are not found in the anime. Currently, the series has covered the Kami no Kijitsu (Divine Design), Marlin (Marine) Red and the Kiryuudo arcs. Seiyuus who voiced characters in the anime return to voice their characters in the narrations. A note of interest are some of the seiyuus who voiced characters found in the manga but not in the anime. They include Tanaka Rie (Gundam Seed's Lacus Clyne), Neya Michiko (Full Metal Alchemist's Riza Hawkeye and Last Exile's Maestro Delphine) and Saito Chiwa (Last Exile's Lavie Head). Even more interestingly, in the Kiryuudo arc, 3 of the Kiryuudo are voiced by seiyu who have voiced characters in Godannar: Honda Takako, Kaida Yuko and Kosugi Juurouta.

Trivia

★ Yoshino Hiroyuki was one of the few ''seiyū'' who voiced different characters in the anime and in the drama CDs (though both characters appear in the manga as well, with Shuu in the anime and Amon Natsuki in the drama CDs). The other is Takagi Wataru (Kait in the anime and Semimaru Kanade in the drama CDs).

★ The characters featured on the spines of the manga volumes have always been either Ban or Ginji, until volume 30, when Kazuki was featured instead. Volume 35's spine once again features Ban.

★ In the Kiryuudo arc, Juubei (Koyasu) battled against Senimaru (Takagi), as did Akabane (Tobita); in the Hellsing OVA, the Valentine Brothers (Koyasu and Takagi) attacked the Hellsing manor on orders from Montona Max (Tobita).

★ In one episode, the Juggle Butt Gang from ''Rave Master'' makes an appearance.

Notes and references

External links

★ ADV Films' ''GetBackers'' website

★

★

★ ''GetBackers'' Anime Screenshots Archive