The animated series Dragon Striker features various characters created by Sylvain Dos Santos and Charles Lefebvre. The series is set in a world called Asteria and features people who have tamas, essentially superpowers, and use them to play the sport Gorotama. The series centers on Key Nagatatsu, a 12-year-old farm boy who possesses the Dragon tama, the most powerful tama, and is destined to become the Dragon Striker. He attends the school Kal Asterock and befriends a group of outcasts to form the team the Knights and play against the school's other banner teams.
This is a list of characters who appear in the show.
Main Key Nagatatsu
Key Nagatatsu is a 12-year-old boy who was raised on the farm by his widowed father Dino. Having grown up loving and talking non-stop about the sport Gorotama, he was excited to head into Mestras with his father in the hopes of seeing a game up close. He comes in contact with a similarly hopeful Ssyelle Tournefeuille whom he bonds with over a shared love of the sport. He manages to get his wish to see a game when he convinces an exhibition match to let Ssyelle play for them when one of their players is unable to. When Key believes that harsh player Ragno is about to harm Ssyelle, Key's Dragon tama awakens, catching the attention of Goyen Sugoi. Sugoi, having known Key's mother Edina, convinces him that he is the destined Dragon Striker and that he must attend Kal Asterock.
Key is an outgoing young boy who is very emotional and often tries to make light of various situations. He has difficulty "picking his fights" and will go out of his way to defend his friends or talk up against someone whom he deems as disrespectful such as Ragno. He occasionally has trouble controlling his temper which is implied to be due to the severity and lack of control over his tama. Key is also easily amazed at other people's tamas and tries to be very supportive of those who might feel inferior. His ability to make others feel better usually results in him getting supported back. He usually feels like he has something to prove and wants to please people or live up to their expectations.
Key's tama is the Dragon tama which manifests as flames that he is able to produce from his body. This becomes apparent when he kicks the ball into a flaming spire or exert fire blasts from his feet, allowing him to essentially rocket across the field. When he unleashes the full might of the Dragon tama, he develops flaming horns and wings, and gets a draconic looking eye. As the series progresses, it becomes apparent that his tama is difficult to control and, if not utilized properly, could lead to destruction. It is later revealed that he has a literal dragon in his subconscious that is rooted into his abilities.
His last name is of Japanese origin and directly translates to "eternal dragon".
Ssyelle Tournefeuille
Ssyelle Tournefeuille (pronounced see-ell turn-a-foy) is a 12-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a Gorotama player. After meeting Key, she starts to seriously pursue wanting to be a goalkeeper and winds up joining Kal Asterock with him. When Key and Milo Stonegarden fail to pass the banner trials, Ssyelle refuses to join any of the other banner teams and tries to find a loop hole. She eventually discovers that the Knights, a long abandoned banner team, can be reinstated if she can meet the required minimum and recruits her friends, along with her roommate Ameline, and Milo's reluctant older brother Odward. Because of her determination, she becomes the Knights' informal team captain and wants her and her friends to play for glory.
Ssyelle is a very smart, determined, and studious girl. While she is very mature, she can also be very playful and spastic, making her come off as a little eccentric. Having experienced numerous hits to the head, she sometimes experiences minor bouts of forgetfulness. She is also very emotional and quick to cry during intense moments. Because of Key's kindness and supportiveness, she has a very strong attachment to him, giving the impression of a mutual attraction. Ssyelle and Key later realize that their personalities are similar, when in the heat of the moment, the former begins to display a highly competitive urge that rivals the latter's. Ssyelle is a very comforting person and also acts as the den mother of the team.
Ssyelle's tama allows her to create bubbles that slow down time. She usually creates them around herself, but occasionally creates one around other people. Anything that enters her bubbles slows down significantly, though they are still able to comprehend it. Her time bubbles only seem to affect her when she allows it to.
Milo Stonegarden
Milo Stonegarden is a soft-hearted, kind boy who reluctantly pursues Gorotama. Implied to have come from a wealthy family, Milo attended Kal Asterock with his older brother, Gorotama veteran, Odward. Milo didn't appear to what to have anything to do with Gorotama, but thanks to Key and Ssyelle, he sums up the courage to eventually try out for the banner trials. Unfortunately, he and Key don't pass, but Ssyelle, refusing to give up on her friends, convinces them to help rebuild the Knights so that they can play together. Milo ultimately convinces Odward to join their team after he has a bad break up with Casper and the Bards. Milo soon becomes a major player for the Knights and even gains a following of his own.
Milo is a shy young boy who suffers from self-deprecation and seems to not believe in his own abilities. He does make up for this by being very observant and enjoying the finer things in life. As the series progresses, he becomes more determined and supportive, and even begins to see his own value and self-worth. He starts being very cowardly, listing Pregrina Freaks and ghosts as his two biggest fears. When he learns that his tama perfectly combats them, he becomes much more upbeat and ecstatic. He relies on the support of his friends, particularly Key whom he admires for standing up for him. While he can be pushed to his limits, he can also easily bounce back from trouble and display a courageous attitude.
Milo's tama is the ability to produce jelly. The jelly, while multicolored, is inedible and apparently tastes bad. The jelly is also shown to be very slippery, so much so, that Milo occasionally slips on it himself. When he learns to control it, he uses the jelly to slide across the field and slip up the opposing team's players. His tama is also very malleable as he can easily fuse it with Key's tama to make a jelly dragon, or with Ameline's tama to make power sapping jelly.
Odward Stonegarden
Odward Stonegarden is a fourth year Gorotama player. Implied to have come from a wealthy family, Odward made a name for himself being a part of the Bards at Kal Asterock and formed a romantic attachment to teammate and captain Casper Ferreiro. By the time, his younger brother Milo started attending Kal Asterock, Odward had grown tired of Casper's elitist attitude and soon broke up with him and quit the Bards when Milo was insulted. Odward initially blamed Milo for his predicament, but after turning him down and seeing no other alternative, he decides to join the recently reinstated team the Knights. He first viewed them as a group that lacked severe coordination, but over time eventually comes to see them as his proper teammates and friends.
Odward is a very arrogant and egotistical person. Ironically, he left his old team because he thought the same of them. Short-tempered, and occasionally mean-spirited, Odward started off as a harsh critic, belittling his teammates, particularly Key, for their inability to catch up with the rest of the banner teams. When everyone chooses to have Ssyelle lead them, Odward briefly doubts himself, until he begins to receive compliments for his skills, and his tall flattop. He begins to mellow out significantly and even begins to become more open to his teammates. He hides a soft-sensitive side that plays to his deepest desires and fears, particularly his unresolved feelings for Casper whom he is still smitten with. He eventually grows to trust his fellow Knights and comes to rely on them for support.
Odward's tama is the ability to make reflective duplicates of people or objects. He usually uses this to create reflections of himself or the ball to throw off other players. His reflective abilities are so effective that Anansi of the Dragons is unable to detect the real one. He can also use the reflections to mimic other people's voices as well. The one downside is that his reflections are very brittle and can break easily.
Ameline
Ameline is a mysterious student at Kal Asterock. Often keeping her nose in her book, Ameline apparently came to Kal Asterock with certain intentions. She kept plenty of books in her dorm, ultimately befriending her new roommate Ssyelle. Later, she met Key and Milo, when the three were trying to expand their roster for the revived Knights. Without skipping a beat, Ameline accepted being the fourth member of the team. It quickly became apparent that Ameline had possessed certain gifts that made her an asset to the team. Ameline continues to refrain from revealing certain aspects about herself, but heavily involves herself with the team whenever they need her.
Ameline is a quiet and studious girl who comes off as enigmatic. She is a bit of a nerd and has an interest in magic and the history of Kal Asterock. She is very childlike, often running into and hugging people a small child would do. She speaks in a very strange dialect where she simplifies her sentences, saying things like "Need bathroom!" instead of "I need to use the bathroom!" Even though she doesn't talk much about her past, she is sensitive to when people, especially, show some doubt or distrust with her. Ameline is clearly a lot smarter than she lets on and holds her teammates near and dear to her.
Ameline's tama is the ability to absorb other tamas. In order for her to do this, she needs to be close to the person in question and literally suck the tama out. She must keep her mouth shut and hold her breath afterwards, otherwise the tama will leave her and revert to the original host. She can fuse her tama with her teammates like Milo, making a tama sapping jelly.
Goyens Noreen Sugoi Noreen Sugoi (voiced by Flora Montgomery) is the coach for the Dragons. She herself played for the team in her youth alongside Edina Nagatatsu, her best friend. Many years later, Sugoi would become the Goyen for the Dragons and invited Edina to her first year. Unfortunately, a situation that was supposedly caused by Edina resulted in her supposed death. Sugoi has since felt that it is her duty to train Key by having him enroll at Kal Asterock. While she failed to have Key become a member of her team, he would bounce back under the Knights, causing her to still keep an eye on him. She continues to occasionally pull him to the side to properly teach him certain things about himself.
Sugoi is calm, yet stern individual who holds the importance of the school and Gorotama above all else. While she is calculative, she is also warm and caring and does hold genuine concern for the students, especially Key. Sugoi has a dry sense of humor, though she rarely shows it, but she also has an implied sad longing for her friend Edina. When Key continued to show lack of understanding of his tama, Sugoi was noticeably irate, though she later acknowledged this was her problem rather than Key's. Sugoi is very intellectual and does carry a good amount of wit.
Sugoi's tama is the ability to mimic other tamas. She has to be touching the other person when she does this, for as soon as she lets go she no longer carries the ability. It is also heavily implied that she can have great mastery over the ability regardless of whether the person she is touching is actually well skilled at their own tama or not.
Surya Sunspear