Haruo Sakaki

Haruo Sakaki is the main protagonist in the Godzilla anime trilogy. He is bent on killing Godzilla after mankind was driven of the planet Earth.

His Japanese voice actor is Mamoru Myano, and his English voice actor is Chris Niosi.

Origins
When he was only four years old, his parents were killed by Godzilla. Since the evacuation of Earth, he desired revenge against Godzilla.

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
At the beginning of the film, Haruo is threatening to destroy a landing shuttle when the Committee plan to send the elderly on to the now inhospitable Tau Ie. However, he eventually is arrested, and thrown in prison, left to watch in anger and sadness as the landing shuttle with all the elderly people explode before his eyes.

Some time later, Metphies comes in to smuggle Haruo the classified data on Godzilla. This Haruo uses to make an anonymous thesis on how kill the monster. When the Committee members make the choice to return to Earth, and find Godzilla still alive, Metphies calls for Haruo’s release. Now on bail, he explains the attack strategy, An day calls for 600 men to go down to Earth.

When the crew go down to Earth and set up camp, Haruo goes with Dr. Martin on the investigation. Colonel Leland sends Yuko Tani with Captain Sakaki to watch him. In the forests, he and Yuko Tani talk. Dr Martin’s assistant finds ruins of Earth buildings. Seeing this, Haruo falls on his knees, and promises that they will take Earth back.

When a swarm of Servum attack the camp, Haruo and the rest of Thebes investigation crew urgently return to camp to see what is happening.

After the attack, Colonel Leland orders that the team must retreat and headbands back to the Aratrum. Haruo is angered by this, for he wants their true home back. Regardless, the attempt a return to the Aratrum through Tanzawa Pass.

However, what they think is the full on Godzilla appears, and attack should the shuttle. Haruo ejects from the ship on a hover bike, and attacks Godzilla to try and get a recording of the shield generation. However, Colonel Leland does this, and dies.

Though Metphies was going to receive the position, he passed it on to Captain Sakaki. He leads the group in an attack. Though many die, he, Yuko, and other power suit operators are able to force EMP probes into Godzilla, destroying it.

However, in the aftermath of the battle, Dr Martin tells him his fears that the one they killed was merely a cell relative. The original Godzilla emerged from the mountain, confirming this fear, and was massive after 20,000 years of rest. Haruo attempts to distract Godzilla so the others can escape, but Godzilla shoots all of them down, with Haruo included.

He wakes up in a hut, with a tribal girl tending to him.

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
Haruo Sakaki awakens one foggy morning in a Houtua hut, suprised to find that he is still alive after the Godzilla attack. As he suits up, and prepares to leave the hut and get signal so he can contact others, he runs into the tribal girl who tended to his wounds. When she runs away, he follows after her, asking about whether humanity really survives after 20,000 years. When she gets out of his sights completely, he walks to a heat signature, which leads him into a churning pit with Servum flying overhead. The tribal girl then calls to him, and Haruo comes to her. He tells her his name, and she learns it.

Haruo receives distress call from Yuko Tani, An day he responds. Yuko is relieved to receive a response from Sakaki. But when Yuko’s response is cut off, Haruo uses his radar to find where the call was coming from. He meets with Yuko Tani, Belu-be, Adam, and some other survivors. He tells them urgently not to shoot the tribal girl. Unknowing of the fact that the girl who attacked them was a twin of the other, Belu-be tells Haruo that they’ve were attacked by the girl. They do not have long to talk this over before a group of Houtua appear out of the brush and surround them. The group of survivors is out of ammunition, and are forced to surrender.

The Houtua take them to their underground village. They are put in a room with bones on the wall. Haruo and the others rejoin with a second group of survivors, two of them being Dr Martin An day Galu-gu. Haruo is glad to find them all. As they put their trust in Haruo for a plan of what to do, the Houtua take them out of their cell, An day take them to an alter place. The two twins amplify the thought said of the Houtua, who ask the survivors if they came twith intent to harm the Houtua people. Haruo assures them that they had no intent of harming them, and only wished to kill Godzilla. The Houtua people told them that they would lose in their attempt.

The group, lead by Haruo, go to retrieve supplies for their cause. The two twins, who’s names are Maina and Miana, accompany the group through the forest. Haruo explains how they can tell the difference. When Yuko strays into the same pit Haruo found, she is pulled to the ground by roots, and Worm Servum slither towards her. Haruo and the others quickly rush to her when she screams in fright. The survivors fire their guns, and Maina and Miana launch Houtua arrows at them. The Worm Servum die, but a group of Flying Servum tough down, and attack. However, much to the luck of Haruo and husband group, Metphies comes to their rescue with another group of survivors, armed with a Mech and artillery tanks.

When Metphies contacts the Aratrum, Haruo is told that the Committee plans to leave the solar system and resume the search for a habitable planet. Haruo then nearly accepts, but Galu-gu and Belu-be tell him that the Nanometal is still existing, and is their key for defeating godzilla. Then, Haruo gives a speech, An day allows the crew a choice between returning to the ship to wander in space, or staying on Earth and continuing the fight to regain Earth from Godzilla.

The Houtua escort the group to the Nanometal stores. On the way, Dr Martin told Haruo about how Earth chose Godzilla as an avatar to restore the environment, and now the environment is suited to solesly serve Godzilla. Haruo dismisses this, and states that they will kill godzilla.

The group reach the Nanometal stores, and find that Mechagodzilla’s Nanometal has become a massive city, called Mechagodzilla City. Servum attack, but the Nanometal consumes them. The group continues into the city, and Galu-Gu activates the city through Mechagodzilla’s severed head. Haruo and the group then discuss the new, modified strategy which involves the Nanometal.

However, Haruo is unnerved by the Nanometal and the Bilusaludo’s work. Metphies talks with Haruo. He tells him that he believe she the Bilusaludo want to become monsters, and tells him how the Exif (his kind) lost their planet to King Ghidorah. Later, he meets with Yuko, who tells him that she was inspired by how he could remain angry at what he could not forgive, and that she would follow him. The two kiss.

The other crew members’ suspicions are confirmed when they find out that the Bilusaludo are fusing themselves with the Nanometal. Haruo tells Galu-gu that this plan is wrong, because they must not become monsters, and that they cannot give up their humanity to defeat Godzilla.

Godzilla himself then becomes active. The ceasing of the Nanometal fog meant Godzilla could find Mechagodzilla City. He stops, then blasts an atomic ray at the base. However, the blast is deflected by the Nanometal. Haruo, Yuko, and Belu-be set out in the new Vulture mechs to slow Godzilla down and allow time to prepare the EMP Harpoons. They blast Godzilla. He attacked back as he advanced towards the mountain. He is lead into the trap point, and then is trapped in liquid Nanometal. They destroy the dorsal spines, and activate the EMP Harpoons to make the electromagnetic energy overload.

However, to their horror, Godzilla did not explode, but was converting excess energy into 1000 degree Celsius heat, according to Dr Martin.

Gal-gu tells Haruo that they can still defeat Godzilla, by removing a part weak against heat. He tells him that the heat weak part was his body, and then Nanometal starts to envelope parts of the three pilots bodies. Belu-be allows himself to fuse with the Nanometal, along with Galu-gu, who believes that Haruo will allow himself to become Nanometal in order to defeat Godzilla. Yuko screams in pain and horror as it begins to envelope her, and then opens the hatch to escape, only to be injured by the intense heat. Haruo does not allow the Nanometal to take him over, and it breaks off.

Galu-gu tells Haruo that to defeat the monsters, they have to give up their humanity. However, Metphies urges him to remain human, and that destroying Mechagodzilla City’s control center will save Yuko Tani and earth, for it also threatened to assimilate the entire planet. Between the two choices of defeating Godzilla and losing his humanity, destroying the Nanometal, thus saving everything on Earth and putting aside husband goal to destroy Godzilla, he chooses the latter, An day blasts the control center, and salvages Yuko’s Mech.

While he flies it to safety, Godzilla has reached a suitable electromagnetic energy level, and decimated the rest of the city with an atomic breath.

Haruo get some Yuko out, but then finds that she has died, with liquid streaming out of her eyes. He is on his knees with her in his arms, and his immense sadness and anger causes him to cry out in grief.

Godzilla: Eater of Stars/Godzilla: Planet Eater
Haruo Sakaki will return in the last film in the anime trilogy.

Personality
Haruo seems to care very deeply for human life, as shown when he attempted to stop the emigration to Tau Ie, for he knew it was wrong to kill abandon people. While he feels contempt towards men like those in the Committee for how they tried to sacrifice the elderly, he also feels guilty for his contempt towards them, understanding that most people in that situation of decreasing supplies would do something like that.

He feels a deep desire for vengeance against Godzilla, and a deep desire to reclaim Earth from Godzilla.

Trivia

 * Haruo Sakaki is very similar to Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan.