Bro Santa (ブロ・サンタ) is a veteran Giver within the South Branch Cleaners and the leader and supervisor of Team Child — the unit whose members include Dear Santa and Guita. At 35 years old, he is one of the more senior active members of the South Branch, trusted by Arkha Corvus with the specific responsibility of overseeing younger Givers.
He advocates for peace above all else, tends to apologise for his team members' social transgressions before they escalate, and approaches every difficult situation — whether it is a tense standoff with a Raider veteran or a mission deadline racing against Dear's bedtime — with the same patient, calm disposition. He is not soft. He is simply someone who has enough experience to know that composure usually costs less than force, and enough care for the people around him to act accordingly.
The relationship between Bro and Dear Santa is the defining context for almost everything about him. They are not related by blood. That fact is established early and matters less than the other fact: he adopted Dear, and the bond functions exactly as it looks.
Bro is a tall, muscular man standing at 195 cm (6'5") with a weight of approximately 98 kg. He has long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail with blonde dye, brown eyes, and a short pointed dark goatee. He wears black earrings.
His most immediately recognisable feature is his pale green bandana decorated with a navy blue cross-eye pattern across the entire surface — a headwrap that covers his hair and functions as both personal signature and, as the series confirms, his Vital Instrument. Unlike the other Cleaners, he does not wear the standard Cleaner jacket. Instead he wears a shirt that incorporates the jacket's design elements — the black patches, the Cleaners' "eye" insignia, and the armbands — as a garment better suited to his frame and movement.
In hazardous or polluted zones he uses the standard Cleaner gas mask, which typically hangs around his neck when not in active use. His physical scale — nearly matching Bundus Beggalcate's 200 cm — means he reads as a frontline presence even when he is not positioned as one.
Bro is peaceful, polite, and genuinely apologetic — not in the self-deprecating way of someone lacking confidence, but in the way of someone who spends a lot of time managing the social fallout of a child who communicates exclusively through glares and does not consider other people's candy to be theirs. He absorbs the friction Dear generates and smooths it over before it becomes an incident. This is not weakness. It is the specific skill set of someone who has been doing it long enough to be very good at it.
Paternal Priority
His official profile explicitly states that he dislikes "anyone who hurts Dear." That is not a preference. It is a boundary. In practice, his attentiveness to Dear's wellbeing shapes operational decisions — he has noted mid-mission that the team needs to finish quickly before Dear "gets the sleepies," treating Dear's stamina management as a genuine tactical factor. He acknowledges Dear's growth with real attention, believing that when a child sets their mind on something, a parent needs to pay attention rather than assume they know what the child can do.
Disciplined Professional
His peacefulness does not extend to compromising the organisation. In his standoff with Bundus, he was clear: he would not disclose anything "damaging to the Cleaners." He handled the exchange with diplomatic precision — gathering intelligence without yielding information that could hurt his organisation. He is loyal, cautious, and aware that good manners and good security are not mutually exclusive.
Conversationalist and Board Game Enthusiast
Bro genuinely enjoys conversation and is noted for his love of board games — a detail that, alongside his dislike of sweetness, gives him a texture beyond his role as Team Child's supervisor. He is someone who has cultivated a life that includes leisure, which on the Ground is not a given.
Introduction — Welcoming Rudo
Bro was present at the Cleaners' headquarters the first time Rudo visited, alongside Guita and Dear. He attended Rudo's welcoming party with Team Child. His early appearances establish the texture of his domestic role within the South Branch: when Riyo showed Rudo sweets for the first time and Dear appeared demanding Rudo hand all of them over, Bro dragged Dear away and apologised. The scene is small and precisely placed — it does what all good character introductions do, showing rather than describing.
Enjin later invited Team Child to a meeting to discuss Raiders who had revealed they were tipped off by someone trying to find a weakness in the Cleaners, after which the South Branch came under attack from the Raiders.
Penta Arc — The Bundus Standoff
During the mission to Penta, Bro and Dear were separated from the main group and intercepted by Bundus Beggalcate — the Raiders' veteran, one of the most experienced Givers on the Ground. Bundus proposed an information exchange: he wanted details on Arkha Corvus. Bro declined to provide anything damaging to the Cleaners, but handled the negotiation without escalating to combat. The standoff ended with what the series calls an "equivalent exchange" — Bro walked away with the significant intelligence that the Raiders had succeeded in creating their own artificial Trash Beasts. That information changed the Cleaners' operational picture fundamentally. Bro was the first character to acquire it.
The Border Arc — Defence Inside the Trash Beast
Bro participated in the mission to the Border, where the team became trapped inside a massive Trash Beast. He provided defensive support — using his Vital Instrument to hold off threats while the group worked to find a way out. His function in the encounter was the same as his function in Team Child: keep the younger, less experienced members alive long enough to do what they were capable of.
Vital Instrument — Centralian (The Bandana)
Bro's Jinki is Centralian — his pale green bandana, which he wears as the signature item of his appearance and activates as a combat weapon. The NamuWiki confirms its primary property as elasticity: the bandana can extend, stretch, and snap with significant force, functioning as both a restraint tool for trapping opponents and a mobility device for sending colleagues out of harm's way or repositioning allies in the field.
The combined technique he uses with Dear Santa — announced as "Vital Cloth! Instrument Centra-lian!" — is a synchronised activation that produces a powerful energetic output capable of subduing large-scale targets. The exact mechanics of the combination have not been fully depicted, but it represents the coordinated deployment of both Vital Instruments as a single combined force.
Combat Style
Bro's combat approach reflects his role as Team Child's anchor: he prioritises defence, area control, and keeping his team functional over personal offensive output. His Anima quality is high enough — from years of consistent use — to physically pressure elite opponents when necessary. His standoff with Bundus Beggalcate did not escalate to full combat, but the implication of that encounter is that both parties assessed each other as serious enough to make negotiation preferable to testing the outcome.
Tactical Intelligence
Bro's most consistently demonstrated skill outside of direct combat is situational management: reading an encounter accurately, determining the best available outcome, and steering toward it without unnecessary confrontation. The Penta standoff is the clearest example — he turned a potential fight with a Raiders veteran into an intelligence acquisition that significantly benefited the Cleaners, without giving up anything damaging in return.
Bro & Dear vs. Bundus Beggalcate (Diplomatic Standoff)
The encounter with Bundus in Penta was the most significant moment in Bro's arc to date. Bundus intercepted them with a proposal — information for information — and made his interest clear: he wanted details on Arkha Corvus. Bro held the line. He declined to provide anything that could harm the Cleaners, managed Dear's energy and attitude throughout (including Bundus's suggestion to call Dear "Little Dear," which visibly angered the boy), and navigated the standoff to a conclusion that benefited the Cleaners without triggering a fight against one of the Ground's most experienced Givers. He walked away with the Raiders' most guarded operational secret — that they had successfully manufactured artificial Trash Beasts — while giving Bundus nothing actionable in return.
Cleaners vs. Border Trash Beast
Trapped inside a colossal Trash Beast near the Border, Bro served as the team's primary defensive anchor — using Centralian to hold off internal threats while others worked on an exit strategy. The fight demonstrated his value in a support capacity: he kept the younger and less combat-experienced members alive in an environment where the options were limited and the stakes were not abstract. He did not take the fight apart. He made sure the people who could take it apart had enough time and space to do so.
Dear Santa — His Adopted Son
Dear is the centre of Bro's personal world. They are not related by blood — Bro adopted Dear at some point before the series begins, and Dear joined the Cleaners as a member of Team Child. Their dynamic functions exactly as a genuine parent-child relationship: Bro is protective, attentive, and reads Dear's wordless communications (facial expressions and sounds) accurately enough to relay them to others. Dear is guarded, irritable, and — under the surface — attached. The series describes their bond as "heartwarming" and treats it without irony. Bro acknowledges Dear's growth with real attention, noting that a parent needs to watch carefully rather than assume what a child can and cannot do. Dear responds with the specific quietness of someone who is not going to admit how much they rely on the person they rely on.
Guita — The Third Member of Team Child
Guita is the third member of Team Child and operates under Bro's supervision alongside Dear. Their relationship is less extensively depicted than the Bro-Dear dynamic, but Guita is consistently present in the Team Child scenes and treated with the same quiet care Bro extends to his entire unit.
Arkha Corvus — His Boss
Bro is loyal to Corvus and has been entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the Cleaners' younger generation — a position that requires Corvus's direct confidence. Bro notes Corvus's "mysterious aura" as an observable quality, which reads as respectful acknowledgment rather than suspicion. He does not probe the mystery. He does his job.
Bundus Beggalcate — The Raider Who Respected Him
Bundus viewed Bro as a "worthy conversationalist" and peer in tactical experience — a significant assessment from a man who is 44 years old, 200 cm tall, and has been fighting on the Ground for most of his adult life. The standoff in Penta was the only direct interaction between them, but Bundus's reading of Bro as a genuine equal rather than an obstacle to be removed says something about how Bro presents in high-stakes encounters.
- Bro's birthday is January 25th, placing him under Aquarius — a zodiac sign associated with loyalty, humanitarianism, and a calm, considered approach to conflict. The alignment with his character is accurate.
- He is voiced by Wataru Takagi in the Japanese anime adaptation (Studio Bones, 2025). Takagi is known for voicing expressive, often warm supporting characters across numerous series.
- His Vital Instrument is his bandana (Centralian) — not a metal staff as some profiles suggest. The "Vital Cloth! Instrument Centra-lian!" technique name and the NamuWiki's confirmation of elasticity as its core property both point to the bandana as the Jinki. He wears his weapon on his head at all times.
- At 195 cm, he is the second tallest confirmed Cleaner in the South Branch — falling just short of Bundus Beggalcate's 200 cm on the Raider side. The visual pairing of the two in the Penta standoff works partly because they match each other physically as well as tactically.
- Bro was the first character to learn that the Raiders had successfully manufactured artificial Trash Beasts — a piece of intelligence he extracted from Bundus Beggalcate through a negotiated exchange rather than combat or surveillance. He delivered that intelligence without disclosing anything damaging in return.
- His stated dislikes include sweetness — which creates a specific domestic irony given that Dear Santa's listed likes include sweets and that incidents involving Rudo's candy have been a recurring source of Team Child disruption.
- Dear Santa communicates exclusively through facial expressions and noises — never speaking. Bro reads and relays these expressions to others, functioning as Dear's interpreter in social contexts. The dynamic means Bro is not just Dear's guardian but also, in a practical sense, his voice.
- Dear Santa became irritated when Bundus suggested calling him "Little Dear" during the Penta standoff — a detail that confirms Dear's presence in the encounter and that Bro managed the resulting tension as part of the same negotiation he was already conducting.
🇯🇵 Japanese Voice Actors
Takagi, Wataru
🇯🇵 Japanese
🇺🇸 English Voice Actors
Davila, Gerardo
🇺🇸 English