Xenosaga Episode II cast

Characters in each section are listed in order of recap appearance.

Main characters

chaos

Xs2cast-chaos.jpg Nickname(s): CHAOS!!!
Age: 16 (in appearance)
First Appearance: Part 1

Of all the mysteries this series puts forward--some solved, some left hanging forever--the one that haunts me the most is WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WANG?! It was there, all snug in those hot pants, and now it's GONE. I suddenly feel the need to make a crazy conspiracy wall with some screencaps, colored yarn, and pushpins.

Jin Uzuki

Xs2cast-jin.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 35
First Appearance: Part 1

Unsurprisingly, it turns out Shion's brother is not a clingy, embarrassing dork, but a badass swordsman with a sexy voice, perfect hair, and his own bookstore. In fact, he's a straight-up Gary Stu, he's so fucking amazing. He probably smells like strawberries. And the fact that Shion loathes him makes him even more compelling. Their perplexing sibling dynamic will be a major component of the next two games, and it's going to be agony, guys.

Shion Uzuki

Xs2cast-shion.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 22
First Appearance: Part 2

Don't be fooled: she may look like a Pod Person, and sound like a Pod Person, and she may not be wearing her goddamn fake-ass glasses she never needed in the first place, but this is still our Shion. And our Shion is a total bitch. In fact, she's somehow even more of one now. Jin really brings out the worst in her.

KOS-MOS

Xs2cast-kosmos.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 18 (in appearance)
First Appearance: Part 2

Yeah, she looks and sounds weird now, but KOS-MOS remains a BAMF robot gal with tiny feet and a stomach vagina that vacuums up Gnosis. Though most of the last game was about her development and awakening, this game backgrounds KOS-MOS a little bit. But don't worry, she's still around so Shion has something to be irrational about.

Gaignun Kukai, Jr. (Rubedo)

Xs2cast-jr.jpg Nickname(s): Jailbait
Age: 26 (12 in appearance)
First Appearance: Part 2

If I had to guess, precisely one focus group was convened before this game's development, in which participants were asked what they wanted to see more of in the sequel. The participants overwhelmingly responded, "We need more fraternal angst between the U.R.T.V. kids. WAY more. If Rubedo could be crying the entire game, that'd be great." And the people are getting what they want. But he's still cute and sassy and sending me to hell in a handbasket, so I'm not complaining.

Ziggurat 8 (Ziggy)

Xs2cast-ziggy.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 30 (in appearance)
First Appearance: Part 2

Ziggy is the least changed of our main protagonists from the last game, I imagine because the writers have no idea what to do with the guy. So they just left him alone. He cultivates a half-baked "relationship" with MOMO's mom, and it's weird, but I strongly prefer that to him screwing MOMO.

MOMO

Xs2cast-momo.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 12 (in appearance)
First Appearance: Part 2

God, what happened to this girl. I'd say puberty hit her and she's not cute anymore, but literally no time has passed since the last game, and she doesn't age anyway. In the sequel we learn a little more about the girl MOMO was made to emulate, and SURPRISE, she was a tragic little Mary Sue. I did not see that coming.

Other characters

Canaan

Xs2cast-canaan.jpg Nickname(s): Realian Weasley
Age: 27
First Appearance: Part 1

Just what we all needed: another ginger Realian that's super special and different from all other Realians, and carrying the goddamn MacGuffin Data. But this one is a hot, adult man, so I'll allow it. Canaan has spent over a decade trying to decrypt the MacGuffin Data in his brain, and if somebody could have alerted everybody to that fact in the last game, that would have been great. Maybe MOMO wouldn't have been sexually assaulted by an albino. But no, let's just have nobody tell each other what they know.

Helmer

Xs2cast-helmer.jpg Nickname(s): Mace Windu
Age: 56
First Appearance: Part 1

Still involved, explicitly or behind the scenes, in every important event in the series. Still reeeeeeeeeeeally boring. He's also Canaan's, uh, owner, and therefore the person who really could have mentioned that he already had the fucking MacGuffin Data. Whatever.

Margulis

Xs2cast-margulis.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 44
First Appearance: Part 1

I don't know how I didn't figure this out earlier, but the thing Margulis needed to make him a compelling villain, and not just a pompous exposition fountain with fancy tailored skirts, was a saucy erotic rivalry with another hot man. Enter Jin Uzuki, the Phoenix Wright to Margulis's Miles Edgeworth. Thirty seconds into these two crossing swords and exchanging crackling innuendo, I am hooked forever. I feel like the last game ripped me off.

Orgulla

Xs2cast-orgulla.jpg Nickname(s): Iggy Azalea
Age: ?
First Appearance: Part 2

A lady who works for Ormus and the Patriarch. She looks like Pellegri but as far as I'm aware they are not related. That didn't stop me, the first time I played this, from thinking she was Pellegri for the entire game. Oops.

Sergius XVII (the Patriarch)

Xs2cast-patriarch.jpg Nickname(s): Pope Exposition
Age: ?
First Appearance: Part 2

The Pope of Ormus, and the Immigrant Fleet, and maybe U-GEE--who fucking knows? He's being undermined by someone named Cardinal Heinlein. Probably some radical who wants to stop diddling altar boys. Clearly he must be stopped.

Pellegri

Xs2cast-pellegri.jpg Nickname(s): Wonderbra
Age: 35
First Appearance: Part 2

Still mostly functions as Margulis's Number Two. In this installment she also gets to pilot an E.S. and boss around Richard and Hermann on Margulis's behalf. I want to believe she's as fervent a Margulis/Jin shipper as I am. I need company.

Allen Ridgeley

Xs2cast-allen.jpg Nickname(s): Corey Feldman
Age: 24
First Appearance: Part 2

Still can count "in love with Shion Uzuki" as his number one character trait. And I'm not bothering to write anything else about someone that sad.

Captain Matthews

Xs2cast-matthews.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 40
First Appearance: Part 2

He still has a ship! And an adorable beer gut and cool hat! And is so deeply in debt that the sidequest to pay it off can't even be completed in one playthrough! In my imagination he's paying off student loans he amassed getting a liberal arts master's degree. That bubble STILL hasn't burst, even in 60xx.

Tony

Xs2cast-tony.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 29
First Appearance: Part 2

Another guy who is sad and into Shion. But I'm pretty sure he's at least faking it. Please be faking it.

Hammer

Xs2cast-hammer.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 27
First Appearance: Part 2

Okay, the Elsa crew basically hasn't changed one iota from game to game. The only thing that could possibly be different about Hammer is his CTE is worse after repeated kicks to his head by Matthews.

Juli Mizrahi

Xs2cast-juli.jpg Nickname(s): Yuri Mizrahi
Age: 44
First Appearance: Part 2

Dr. Mizrahi slowly--oh so slowly--begins the process here of not hating her daughter MOMO. And we get a little more context for why she ever disliked and feared her so much in the first place. It's possible one other focus group was held, and the participants indicated that Dr. Mizrahi was a total bitch, so she comes across a lot better now. Unlike some people.

Gaignun Kukai (Nigredo)

Xs2cast-gaignun.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 26
First Appearance: Part 2

Poor Nigredo spends most of this game as a prop in Rubedo and Albedo's Angst and Melodrama Jamboree. He's basically being soul-murdered every time we see him in the present, but nobody seems to notice or care. He's basically Edith on Downton Abbey. I should start referring to him exclusively as POOR GAIGNUN.

Richard

Xs2cast-richard.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 14
First Appearance: Part 2

For this bio I was going to try and stick with the few things we know about Richard from this actual game--namely, that he talks a lot and is annoying--but then I read that he is supposedly 14 years old. Which 1) is way fucking young, even for a guy with that nasal and whiny of a voice, and 2) an auspicious year to be born in this series! THAT WAS A BUSY YEAR.

Hermann

Xs2cast-hermann.jpg Nickname(s): none
Age: 25
First Appearance: Part 2

Hermann is Richard's manservant, and now that I know Richard is fucking 14, I am picturing Hermann as the Alfred to his Bruce Wayne, taking care of him after his parents were tragically murdered and helping him set up a deranged vigilante lair in the cave under his mansion.