The Legend of Mother Sarah features many characters but, due to the series being a Road Trip Plot, only Sarah and her relatives are actual recurring characters. As always with character pages, beware the spoilers!
Main Characters
The series protagonist is an attractive tall and athletic woman who used to live happily with her whole family in one of the satellites orbiting around Earth after the great nuclear disaster.
After losing her children and her husband in a riot upon descending back to Earth, she sets about finding her children, believing her husband to be deceased.
Sarah is a typical determined widow: strong-willed, devoted to her family, unafraid to stand alone, usally composed and in control of her emotions. A trained brawler and decent markswoman, she doesn't hesitate to get physical if she has to, her unusual height giving her an advantage when she's being attacked.
Despite her outwardly tough attitude, she's actually very maternal and nurturing towards the people she meets, especially youngsters who remind her of her lost kids.
- Action Mom: Her defining characteristic. While she will never go around looking for fights, Sarah is a much more comptetent brawler than what you would give her credit for.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: A very blatant example.
- Amazonian Beauty: Sarah is very beautiful, as most men in the series will quickly point out. She's also a taller woman whose life on the road has caused her to develop a jacked physique.
- Anti-Hero: Indeed, a very Rare Female Example. Despite being having definitely noble intention, Sarah is also not above using unorthodox methods to get by.
- Apron Matron: She has all the characteristics (imposing presence, unyielding, maternal, experienced) except the elderly appearance.
- The Atoner: Mainly for having been forced to leave her children behind during the satellites' riot and also for having killed her own baby as a sacrifice for greater good, namely avoiding another family from getting killed.
- Badass Longcoat: Her niqab-like cloak that she wears almost constantly.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: Her fighting style. While she may use firearms when it's necessary, when pressed to fight, Sarah fights barehanded.
- Breast Attack: Self-inflicted, in a very harsh way. Because she wouldn't stop lactating despite her baby being already dead (see above), Sarah decides to punish herself for having committed infanticide and thrusts a wooden stake through her right breast. She is now wearing a permanent steel prosthesis.
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine : Her usual dynamics with her sidekick Tsue.
- Celibate Hero: She has been obviously involved with Bard and bore him 4 kids but she constantly rejects all flirting attempts directed at her, clearly saying that she has no time for romance or sex.
- Determinator: Instead of a regular Plucky Girl since the series is too serious for that. Sarah is determined to retrieve all of her kids, no matter what happens.
- Dude Magnet: Zigzagged. On one hand, most males she meets are entranced by her beauty and will try to woo her. On the other hand, there are times where her good looks are completely irrelevant, like the one time she got beaten black and blue for helping Harato escape an adversary faction that captured her.
- Due to the Dead: Ultimately, she decides to live by fulfilling Bard's last wish and vows to keep his legacy going.
- Happily Married: From what little we see of it, her marriage with Bard was indeed a successful one.
- Invincible Hero: Averted. Sarah is unusually powerful for a woman but, against a highly trained male fighter or, worse, several ones, she can only hold her own for a time before getting overwhelmed. Thus, she often resorts to pragmatic combat to come up on top.
- I Will Find You: Her main motivation is to find all of her children.
- Mama Bear: Obviously.
- Nay-Theist: Discussed with her daughter upon reuniting with her. She doesn't object to the presence of God, but she refuses organized religion, saying that religious leaders are way too similar to gurus.
- Never a Self-Made Woman: Averted. Sarah doesn't owe her brawling chops to any man, not even to her husband.
- Offing the Offspring: A particularly heartbreaking instance when she has to smother her own child to prevent the family she was hiding with and herself from getting killed. She cried bitterly during the whole experience.
- Religion Is Wrong : During the Mother-Daughter Reunion Arc, she clearly states that her belief in God is... limited. She even decries Mother Theresa as nothing more but a guru.
- Rape as Drama: After getting captured by one of the numerous militias that would soon join Epoch and Mother Earth, she was Made a Slave and forced to earn her keep by working along with the men in a mine. One night, she got mobbed by a good number of her jailers who ended up being powerful enough to overcome her and then gang-rape her.
- So Proud of You: Upon reuniting with Harato and Satoko, she can only express her joy of seeing that both her eldest kids have survived thanks to their own skills.
- Vague Age: It is never mentioned what her true age is, especially after birthing 4 children, but she looks like a well-preserved woman in her early forties.
- Walking the Earth: She roams the land with Tsue, going from town to town to find her kids.
Sarah's sidekick and caretaker. A diminutive travelling merchant, he goes from town to town to sell whatever goods he could scavenge or buy from various wholesales.
It is never elaborated in-story how he and Sarah got acquainted but it is aluded to several times that he found her not long after her escape from the work camps and allowed her to ride alongside him in his merchant truck as a helper and bodyguard of sorts in exchange of a free ride.
Despite his short height, he's actually very resourceful and his occupation often allows him to strike bargains with hostile factions so as to avoid fights he couldn't win otherwise, what with him being a lone merchant who often has to deal with people way stronger than him.
- Action Survivor: Because of his short size and scrawny build, Tsue seldom fights hand-to-hand and mostly uses firearms to defend himself. Otherwise, he has a tendency to Know When to Fold 'Em.
- Ambiguously Brown: His descent is never talked about. From the looks of it, he's either of African or East Indian descent.
- Characterization Marches On: One of the most noticeable in the series. He grows from being a mere salesman to being a very competent aide to Sarah and other people, demonstrated especially in the final debacle around the last remaining bomb and the remaining satellites coming back to earth.
- Disaster Scavengers: How he started his business.
- Fish Eyes: His defining physical characteristic are his sideways eyes. A rare comedic take on the trope.
- Greed: His main flaw (he's a shop-owner after all) to the point that Sarah litteraly had to pull him away from a deadly trap that he would have fallen in otherwise because it was made of gold bars.
- Intrepid Merchant: Goes to unusual lengths to gain his items.
- Jack of All Trades: What he become by the end of the series, despite his specialty remaining commerce.
- Lovable Coward: Not the bravest character around at the start of the story, he gradually grows out of it.
- Older Sidekick: Just like Sarah, his age is never mentioned but he's clearly a bit older than her.
- The Reliable One: Despite his cowardice and commercialism, he's actually Sarah's only friend throughout the series and the only one she can count on when things get heated.
- Snake Oil Salesman: Subverted. He only looks like one but what he sells is actually always useful stuff.
- So What Do We Do Now?: Precisely what he says to Sarah upon the eventual defeat of both Mother Earth and Epoch, right after she paid her respects to her just deceased husband. To which Sarah answers that there will always be things to do, especially fulfilling Bard's last request.
- Subordinate Excuse: By the end of the series, it is clearly hinted that he does have a thing for Sarah.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Sarah being way taller than average for a woman, she dwarfs him when they stand side by side.
- We Sell Everything: He genuinely sells everything that would be of use in a dystopian world like the one he and Sarah evolve in.
Sarah's Family
Sarah's firstborn and eldest son.
A typical firstborn sibling, Harato is tough, responsible, self-reliant and serious but well-meaning.
Separated from Sarah during the satellites' riots along with Satoko and Tsumuri, Harato was then separated from his sister and eventually got stranded with Tsumuri in one of the many war orphanages that were built after the premature return to earth of the satellites.
After the vanishing of the ailing Tsumuri, Harato went on joining a militia whose command he eventually assumed and vowed to take down both Epoch and Mother Earth, whom he denounces as self-serving tyrants whose goal isn't peace but utter domination through the threat of death and violence.
- Aloof Big Brother: Harato isn't the most affectionate person around. And even though he does care about his siblings, he's not very demonstrative about it.
- The Atoner: After the fiasco of the Peace Conference, Harato wishes to atone for everything he did wrong in his life and starts with applying for the Unity Army, whose goal is to put a definitive end to the endless war between Mother Earth and Epoch by uniting both factions under the same banner, instead of constantly trying to one-up each other in the pursuit of power.
- Badass Biker: His signature means of transportation and attack vehicle is a stylized motocycle. Also a Shout-Out to Shotaro Kaneda.
- Big Damn Reunion: Averted. When he and Sarah reunite, it is in the middle of a gunfight so they can't really talk to each other. And afterwards, quite unlike his sister, his reunion with his mother consists more of a serious but sincere heart-to-heart, clearly displaying that he has become a grown man and that, while he is very happy to have been able to see and talk to his mother again, he can't remain around her. See below.
- Break the Badass: Combined with Break the Haughty. At the start of the series, Harato is a militia leader and a highly trained brawler and marksman but also cocksure and insolent, often talking down to his subordinates and has named his militia after himself. As his arc progresses, he gradually drops the attitude and becomes a way more humble and earnest person.
- But Now I Must Go: The conclusion of his reunion with Sarah. Harato tells his mother that, even though he doesn't mind meeting her again sometime, he has chosen a path that doesn't allow him to be around family that much.
- Coming of Age Story: A very dark version of it. One must remember that, by the time we see him again in the series, he's merely 19/20 years old and, despite having matured prematurely due to his time as a Resistance fighter, he's still a very young man and displays a typical teenage bravado. His arc is about his arduous and painstaking path to the responsbilities of manhood.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Discussed with Sarah upon talking alone with her for the first time in years. He clearly states that he did many evil things and that he blames himself for the disappearance of Tsumuri. All of this prevents him from staying around his mother and siblings, because he can't forgive himself for the decisions he made back then.
- Egopolis: A variation. He named the militia he heads "Harato".
- The Farmer and the Viper: During one of his mission, he rescues a young refugee whose face reminds him of his disappeared brother and names him Tsumuri, even though the boy's actual name is Claus. An action that sadly soon goes sour as the boy only took the opportunity secretly act against Harato and his men.
- He's All Grown Up: The main reason why Sarah can't recognize him at once is that he's indeed a grown man now. That and the long hair don't help either.
- I Should Have Been Better: Even though he never shows it, he feels deep guilt for having left Tsumuri behind back in the days and for not having looked for Satoko either. In addition, the fact that he eventually failed to lead his militia to victory and lost most of him comrades in a battle against his enemies has left him broken inside.
- Important Haircut: After the violent disbanding of his militia, he trades his long hair for a shorter haircut.
- Meaningful Rename: At the end of the series he renames himself "Latz", hinting that he has turned over a new leaf.
- Perpetual Frowner: Because of what life did to him and his lifestyle, there isn't much room for laughter for him.
- La Résistance: What the "Harato" are, defiant towards both Epoch and Mother Earth and wanting to take both of them down so the rest of the people may not suffer under military oligarchs.
- The Needs of the Many: His main motto and the whole reason why he chose to do what he does.
- Orphanage of Fear: Subverted. While it is never stated that the owners of the orphanage him and Tsumuri got in were abusive, they were both suffering from malnutrition.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Zigzagged. His group began as this but each of them became more and more competent as time went by.
- Real Men Hate Affection: Implied. His brief interaction with his girlfriend is anything but affectionate. Also, his hert-to-heart with his mother is sincere but dispassionate, which he explains mostly by his Dark and Troubled Past.
- Suicide Attack: What he attempts to do to both governors of Mother Earth and Epoch in revenge of his companions' death. But he's interrupted by his girlfriend Just in Time and doesn't succeed to.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: A taller man (like both his parents) with dark eyes and hair and a handsome face.
- Training from Hell: Implied. During the rare flashbacks of the series, it is hinted that he went through this after seeing that the orphanage had been destroyed.
Sarah's only daughter.
As the only female sibling, Satoko is more compassionate, caring and nurturing than her brothers yet incredibly strong-willed and brave.
Like her brothers, she got separated from her parents during the satellites' riots and then from her brothers, due to being female and thus sent to another orphanage.
She was then taken in by a nunnery led by Mother Theresa, a former brothel madame and works mostly as a caretaker of orphaned kids and as a war nurse, all while being a nun. Due to her fortitude under fire, most other nuns consider her as their leader in the absence of the mother superior.
- Action Survivor: Unlike Harato, Satoko is no fighter. That being said, she is fearless in the face of danger, going as far as pulling a brazen Go Through Me against... an army tank!
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Discussed with Sarah who is openly sceptical regarding her daughter's religious beliefs, especially the motivations of the mother superior who supervises her nunnery whom she calls a "guru".
- Big Damn Reunion: Being the first of her children that Sarah eventually reunites with, Satoko's reunion with her mother is tearful and emotional indeed.
- Coming of Age Story: Much like her brother above, Satoko's arc is also about how the teenage girl she is when Sarah meets her again becomes a woman, mostly through motherhood and hard work.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Discussed with Sarah again. Because of the "side activities" Mother Theresa puts them through in order to obtain food and other necessities from the local soldiers and military leaders, Satoko eventually got pregnant from a soldier she fell in love with and with whom she plans to leave once the child is born. Her lover regularly visits her. Sarah discusses the danger of getting pregnant in such a dangerous and unstable setting, saying that Satoko could get killed much more easily if she ever were to put her pregnancy to term.
- Go Through Me: What she did to stop a M.E. tank team from destroying a village. See above.
- Her Heart Will Go On: Sadly, Yukito, her lover and father of her child, is killed before her eyes during a gunfight with Epoch.
- Nun Too Holy: See Sex for Services below.
- Number Two: To Mother Theresa. Even though she isn't officially this, her overall resilience to hardships made all the other nuns defer to her as this.
- Pregnant Badass: Downplayed. She doesn't fight but she regularly has to run around, help wounded soldiers and gather all of her wards for emergency escape. She's pregnant during all of these happenings.
- Sex for Services: Because Mother Theresa, her mother superior, was once a brothel madame, she treats the nuns under her command as she once did the prostitutes she once headed and makes them exchange food and goods from the local officers for sexual favors. Needless to say, Sarah doesn't approve!
- She's All Grown Up: Same deal as Harato above, Sarah doesn't recognize her upon meeting her because her little girl is now an adult woman.
- Someone to Remember Him By: At the end of her arc, Satoko gives birth to Sarah's grandson in presence of Sarah, and gives him the name of his late father, Yukito.
- Taking the Veil: She became a nun after leaving the orphanage.
- Teen Pregnancy: A variation on the trope. Despite being in her late teens when she becomes a mother, Satoko was much more experienced than the average teenage girl and was in a relationship with a young soldier a few years older than her and got pregnant as a result. But Yukito is shot dead before he can see his son born, making Satoko a single mother. Sarah herself doesn't judge Satoko on becoming pregnant but she points out that having a baby in such a setting is still dangerous for both Satoko and her child.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Unlike Harato, Satoko doesn't think very highly of herself, mostly because she feels powerless despite her best efforts to tutor the various war orphans under her wing and tending to the countless wounded soldiers. Her side-job as a prostitute also makes her feel worthless. But Sarah teaches her that War Is Hell and that actions undertaken during that time are contextual and that Satoko is much braver and upstanding than she thinks she is.
Sarah's middle son.
Very young when he got separated from his parents, Tsumuri cries in anguish when Harato and Satoko try to take him to safety during the satellites riots.
Mostly an Out of Focus character, Harato states to his mother that he died of malnutrition in the orphanage both used to stay in. But he Never Found the Body, hinting that he's might actually be still alive unbeknownst to everyone. The finale strongly implies that he is indeed still alive but took a whole new identity. He forms a fast friendship with Harato, yet both siblings don't recognize each other upon reuniting.
- Back for the Finale: As said above, it is highly implied that the boy called "Zabel" that Harato, now "Latz", meets upon enrolling in the Unity army is actually an alive and well Tsumuri.
- He's All Grown Up: Downplayed. If anything, Tsumuri, now Zabel, is now a teenage boy around 14/15 years old.
- Left Hanging: Neither he nor Harato recognize each other upon reuniting. It isn't shown nor told whether or not they ever will.
- Mouthy Kid: What he seems to have become over the years, seen especially when he tells Harato that he can't write nor read and demands that Harato helps him fill in the form.
- Missing Child: Out of all of Sarah's kids, he's the only one she could never see again.
- Never Found the Body: The orphanage in which he laid got destroyed but there was no grave, no corpses, nothing left.
- Never Learned to Read: The boy named "Zabel" that Harato meets upon applying for the Unity army is completely illiterate and can't write, which further cements the suspicion that the boy and Tsumuri are one and the same due to the fact that Tsumuri got separated from his parents before reading/writing age.
- Out of Focus: He's only seen at the beginning of the story, during the reunion scene with Harato where he appears in a flashback and then in the final chapter but doesn't appear otherwise in the story.
- Orphan's Ordeal: Out of all the siblings, it's strongly implied that he had it even tougher than Harato and Satoko.
- Red Herring Twist: Downplayed. As said above, it is strongly implied that the boy "Zabel" is actually a grown Tsumuri who probably lived as a scavenger given his attire.
- Replacement Goldfish: The boy Harato named "Tsumuri" isn't his brother but a boy who losely resembled his brother and whom he took as a replacement since he's convinced that the real Tsumuri is long dead.
- That Man Is Dead: Quite unlike Harato who simply changed his name so as not to be recognized and to start over, Tsumuri seems to have completely renounced his identity and now calls himself "Zabel".
Sarah's husband and the father of her children.
Bard, a renowned scientist, was identified as dangerous during the riots that ravaged the colony satellites and was obligated to leave his family behind as he tried to escape. Sarah, who got ratted out by one of the colony's inhabitants, had to fight off an arrest attempt and got separated from her kids as well.
After this, Bard was never seen again, to the point that Sarah considered herself widowed. Turns out Bard actually escaped successfully from the colony satellite and remained hidden in one of the rare colonies that weren't sent back to Earth after the riots. His goal was to produce plants - potatoes especially - strong enough to grow in the parched wasteland that post nuclear-war earth had become and was considered a rebel for that.
He's seen in the late chapters of the series, reuniting with Sarah and trying to bring his project to fruition, which would have worked had the Peace conference not been sabotaged by Lt. Tomaru. He gets killed in the Final Battle, leaving Sarah to mourn him right after killing Lt. Tomaru who killed Bard.
- Back for the Finale: Much like Tsumuri above, except he didn't change his name.
- Badass Bookworm: A very well-versed scientist who apparently had no compunctions in engaging in forbidden research for the good of other people.
- Badass Pacifist: Bard wishes to "Make Earth Green Again" so that the endless wars that tore it down wouldn't happen again.
- Disappeared Dad: To all his children who never go to seem him again.
- Doomed Moral Victor: At the end of the day, all he wanted was to bring a means to lasting peace on Earth so the whole world could reconstruct itself. And for that, he got persecuted back in the colony satellites and eventually killed by the opposing factions M.E and Epoch.
- Happily Married: If anything, his interactions with Sarah hint at a rather harmonious relationship between them.
- Looks Like Jesus: Upon seeing Sarah again, he traded his fine moustach and short hair for this look.
- Not Quite Dead: He was only presumed to be dead by Sarah and her kids, he was just hiding. Until Tomaru eventually shoots him dead, mistaking the corpses used as incubators for his potatoes as vectors of a major outbreak.
- Out of Focus: Never seen in the series apart from the beginning and the very last volume.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: His extended time in the satellites under less than optimal condtions have left him grey-haired.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: This is strongly implied to be the usual dynamics between Sarah and him, but in a much more mature way than usual, since both of them are adults now.
- Silver Fox: Despite having aged much due to the trauma of losing his whole family and staying away in a satellite, Bard is still a very good looking man to Sarah.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: No matter what, it seems the satellite riots have signed the end of Sarah and Bard's romance, at least until the series' finale.
Despite her best efforts, Sarah eventually had to kill her own baby because he was crying at the most inopportune time during one of the many raids during which the factions were slaughtering the survivors from the fallen satellites, menacing to have her and another family killed if she hadn't silenced him. She eventually had to smother him to death, all while crying.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Averted. Much like many other kids and babies in the series, the dystopian world that has become Earth didn't allow him to survive.
- Kiss of Death: In a very heartbreaking way, Sarah has no other choice but to smother him with her own mouth.
- Offing the Offspring: The victim of it. In order not to have a whole family killed along with her, Sarah had no other option but to kill her own child who would have had her and said family spotted by the murderous militias who were slaughtering the satellites survivors.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Dies early in the story.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Kazuki wouldn't be so important to the story if he weren't the direct reason why Sarah got her prosthetic right breast.
