TV Special
Description
Clotho Buer, also referred to in Japanese sources as Crot Buer, is a character who appears in the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its compilation films, including Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Special Edition. Clotho is one of three individuals designated as Biological CPUs, a group of elite pilots artificially enhanced for combat. He serves the Earth Alliance, specifically the OMNI Enforcer faction, and his assignment is to pilot the GAT-X370 Raider Gundam. As is standard for members of this secretive program, his personal history and identifying records were deliberately erased from all military files, making his life before becoming a pilot largely unknown. It is implied that he was among the children trained at a covert Earth Alliance facility.
Clotho has a very distinctive and volatile personality. He is talkative, quarrelsome, and frequently argues with his teammates, Shani Andras and Orga Sabnak. His behavior in battle is unusual; he shouts out phrases reminiscent of video games, treating combat as a kind of high-stakes game. When off-duty, Clotho often isolates himself, spending his time playing on a portable game system called the Great Wonder Swan XXX to perfect his virtual shooting skills. In combat, he can appear psychotic and overly proud, but he is also capable of being rational at times. As a pilot, he is dependent on a performance-enhancing drug known as Gamma Glipheptin, which boosts his stamina and reaction time but leads to severe withdrawal symptoms in his nervous system without regular doses.
Clotho’s primary motivation in the story is directly tied to his conditioning as a Biological CPU. He fights for the Earth Alliance because he does not want to lose, a sentiment he expresses as his core reason for continuing to battle, rather than for any specific ideological goal like ending the war. This is intertwined with his dependency on Gamma Glipheptin; his drive to fight is reinforced by the need for the drug, and the terror of the withdrawal seizures he suffers when it wears off. His role in the plot is as an antagonist, particularly during the latter half of the war. He, along with Orga and Shani, is deployed as a special force to eliminate key threats to the Alliance, most notably the pilots of the battleship Archangel, Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala. They are first deployed in combat during the Earth Alliance's invasion of the neutral Orb Union, and later participate in the pivotal space battles at the Mendel Colony, the asteroid fortress Boaz, and finally the Second Battle of Jachin Due.
Clotho’s relationships with his teammates are tense and dysfunctional. He is constantly bickering with Shani Andras, who often tells him to be quiet, and both of them annoy Orga Sabnak. Their collaboration is strained and marked by a lack of trust, with Clotho often mocking Orga when he falters in battle. Despite their shared status as Biological CPUs and the core of their small unit, there is little genuine camaraderie between them, driven more by mutual need for survival and the drug than by friendship.
Over the course of the conflict, Clotho’s combat skills show gradual improvement. Initially, he fights with a reckless style, heavily relying on the agility of the Raider Gundam's mobile armor mode. However, as the war progresses, he becomes more competent and dangerous in piloting his machine. The most significant development in his character occurs at the end of the war. As his two teammates are killed in the Second Battle of Jachin Due, Clotho’s mental state deteriorates rapidly, compounded by the agonizing effects of drug withdrawal. In a frenzied and desperate final attack, he shows a complete lack of self-preservation. The specific details of his death differ between the original television series and the Special Edition compilation. In the original broadcast, he is killed by Yzak Joule of ZAFT, but in the version presented in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Special Edition, he is killed by Dearka Elsman immediately after the death of Orga Sabnak.
Clotho Buer is noted for his abilities as the pilot of the Raider Gundam. The Raider is a transformable mobile suit, and Clotho effectively utilized its capabilities, shifting between its humanoid form and a bird-like mobile armor mode to perform high-speed hit-and-run attacks. He wielded its powerful armaments, including the Zorn 100mm energy cannon and the Scylla large-bore beam cannon mounted on the unit, in a reckless and aggressive combat style that matched his video game-inspired personality.
Clotho has a very distinctive and volatile personality. He is talkative, quarrelsome, and frequently argues with his teammates, Shani Andras and Orga Sabnak. His behavior in battle is unusual; he shouts out phrases reminiscent of video games, treating combat as a kind of high-stakes game. When off-duty, Clotho often isolates himself, spending his time playing on a portable game system called the Great Wonder Swan XXX to perfect his virtual shooting skills. In combat, he can appear psychotic and overly proud, but he is also capable of being rational at times. As a pilot, he is dependent on a performance-enhancing drug known as Gamma Glipheptin, which boosts his stamina and reaction time but leads to severe withdrawal symptoms in his nervous system without regular doses.
Clotho’s primary motivation in the story is directly tied to his conditioning as a Biological CPU. He fights for the Earth Alliance because he does not want to lose, a sentiment he expresses as his core reason for continuing to battle, rather than for any specific ideological goal like ending the war. This is intertwined with his dependency on Gamma Glipheptin; his drive to fight is reinforced by the need for the drug, and the terror of the withdrawal seizures he suffers when it wears off. His role in the plot is as an antagonist, particularly during the latter half of the war. He, along with Orga and Shani, is deployed as a special force to eliminate key threats to the Alliance, most notably the pilots of the battleship Archangel, Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala. They are first deployed in combat during the Earth Alliance's invasion of the neutral Orb Union, and later participate in the pivotal space battles at the Mendel Colony, the asteroid fortress Boaz, and finally the Second Battle of Jachin Due.
Clotho’s relationships with his teammates are tense and dysfunctional. He is constantly bickering with Shani Andras, who often tells him to be quiet, and both of them annoy Orga Sabnak. Their collaboration is strained and marked by a lack of trust, with Clotho often mocking Orga when he falters in battle. Despite their shared status as Biological CPUs and the core of their small unit, there is little genuine camaraderie between them, driven more by mutual need for survival and the drug than by friendship.
Over the course of the conflict, Clotho’s combat skills show gradual improvement. Initially, he fights with a reckless style, heavily relying on the agility of the Raider Gundam's mobile armor mode. However, as the war progresses, he becomes more competent and dangerous in piloting his machine. The most significant development in his character occurs at the end of the war. As his two teammates are killed in the Second Battle of Jachin Due, Clotho’s mental state deteriorates rapidly, compounded by the agonizing effects of drug withdrawal. In a frenzied and desperate final attack, he shows a complete lack of self-preservation. The specific details of his death differ between the original television series and the Special Edition compilation. In the original broadcast, he is killed by Yzak Joule of ZAFT, but in the version presented in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Special Edition, he is killed by Dearka Elsman immediately after the death of Orga Sabnak.
Clotho Buer is noted for his abilities as the pilot of the Raider Gundam. The Raider is a transformable mobile suit, and Clotho effectively utilized its capabilities, shifting between its humanoid form and a bird-like mobile armor mode to perform high-speed hit-and-run attacks. He wielded its powerful armaments, including the Zorn 100mm energy cannon and the Scylla large-bore beam cannon mounted on the unit, in a reckless and aggressive combat style that matched his video game-inspired personality.
Cast