Yu Ominae

Yu Ominae (御神苗優) is a fictional character in the manga series Spriggan created by Hiroshi Takashige and Ryōji Minagawa. He is the manga and animated film's main leading protagonist, stationed at ARCAM's Japanese branch. In the video game, Spriggan: Lunar Verse, he is a secret character.

Known for being a high school delinquent to his teachers and classmates, he is secretly a special Spriggan agent for the international conglomerate ARCAM Corporation. As such, Yu gets thrown into missions in and out of Japan when OOPArts are involved in a mission.

Pre-Spriggan
Yu was orphaned at a young age after his archaeologist parents were killed by unknown men in Iran. Taken by relatives in the United States, he was kidnapped and was brainwashed to be a COSMOS commando before his involvement in an operation helped restore his memory. He was eventually found by Oboro, who took him back to the ARCAM Corporation and was made as a Spriggan field agent back in Japan.

He had been called upon by ARCAM to conduct black ops for the company, which results in several disruptions from his studies. His most dangerous mission to date was to be deployed into the South Pole in order to eliminate the South Pole Shrine.

Depending on the question of canonicity, it may or may not have been canon for Yu to make his first appearance in the First Mission Gaiden that was published by Shogakukan in 2001.

Post-Spriggan
After the successful operation to eliminate the rampaging Fire Snakes from the South Pole Shrine and defeating Markson's Trident forces in the South Pole, Yu was seen attending college after graduating from his high school. He is still posted at ARCAM's Japanese branch, attending to a mission in Mexico to secure the Gold Statue of Pachacamac and secure the safety of his classmate, Nanako Kondo.

First mission
Yu made his first appearance in the Spriggan: First Mission one short story where he had first mission to infiltrate a Machiner's Platoon building in Japan after being order to recover the Megiddo Flame from Major Humming Bat, a Machiner's Platoon officer who ran the facility. Yu had his first encounter as well with Yoshino Somei, who was working undercover under the alias of Sakura Himeno. Though Yu defeated and disabled Humming Bat by removing his cyborg arms, he was outwitted by Yoshino when she gassed him and grabbed the Megiddo Flame before Yu recovered and waited for her inside her car.

Later recovering the said artifact, Yu met Yoshino again when the two were seen outside the gates of a nearby school somewhere in Tokyo.

Sprigggan: Lunar Verse
Yu appears in Spriggan: Luner Verse as a hidden character after a players beats the game and save the cleared game.

Character
A slacker at heart, Yu is the typical delinquent who happens to get in trouble with some of his teachers since he doesn't pay attention to some of his classes. In addition, he cuts classes for most of the time, leading to teasing from his peers to think that Yu wants to avoid school since these are only good times for him to conduct his Spriggan missions in secret before he graduated from high school (With one of them telling Yu that he should have a girlfriend). At one point, Yu wishes that he wasn't a Spriggan agent, but he doesn't regret where he was now.

Yu uses a Yamaha V-Max motorcycle as his personal means of transportation from school to ARCAM's Japanese headquarters in Tokyo and vice versa, with other trips to different places as needed. His current residence is in the top floors of ARCAM Japan's main building, furnished to accommodate Yu and possibly other Japanese or foreign Spriggan operatives with penthouse-style accommodations.

Yu has negative looks on Yoshino Somei, because she gets herself into trouble for most of the time whenever he is deployed in an ARCAM-sanctioned mission.

Skills
Thanks to his forced indoctrination from COSMOS and his ARCAM military training, Yu is on par with some of the most dangerous opponents including Sho Kanaya and Iwao Akatsuki on two occasions namely the Forest of No Return in India and in Romania.



His skills were highly regarded that the EARCE computer, infected with the YAMA virus, had evaluated Yu's personal combat skills during the raid on ARCAM's main research center as A+ and his option [overall] combat skills as S-Class, indicating his high level of expertise in all forms of fighting and warfare.

Reception
Animetric.com calls Yu as a "richly depicted hero" due to his tragic past. Otaku Fridge comments that Yu is not an ordinary bishōnen protagonist but a tough character due to the fight scenes seen throughout the OVA. Underland Online has compared Yu similarly to the Metal Gear series' protagonist Solid Snake as both of them had been "trained in deadly forms of killing and getting the blessings of many high tech pieces of gear."

In an article written by Cyberdojo, Yu's attitude and character places him similarly to other action heroes like Rocky, Rambo and Dirty Harry due to his desire to not give up despite having the odds of being able to win in a situation against him. Heroic Cinema praises Yu's role in the OVA as the only salvation remaining to prevent humanity by trying to risk his life in order to save them from being destroyed by Noah's Ark with his "his vulnerability, his beserker rage and personal-level emotions a representation of the anger and fear experienced by those of us with no power to influence what 'great men' do."