Sniper, later known as Murder S (マーダーS), is the commander of Riki's pack, and later the secondary antagonist of GNG, and returns with the same antagonistic role in the GDW manga.
In GNG, he works with his minion Hyena to conspire against Riki and eventually overthrow him. In GDW, he briefly works as Hōgen's strategist and right hand.
Appearance[]
Sniper is a black Doberman with brown eyes and red collar (in the manga).
In the GNG anime, he has colored grey paws and he wears a spiked grey collar around his neck.
In Ginga Densetsu Weed, he has a brown collar (different than his earlier one) and artificial back legs made of steel (including very sharp and dangerous claws) and a steel plate to protect his injured right side of the head, which is missing his ear and his eye. His body has many old scars. He has blue eyes (sometimes brown).
Personality[]
Sniper is a cold, serious and greedy dog. He is a ruthless killer and seems to care only about himself.
Sniper has a greed for power and territory, believing that only he can be the leader. He is ready to do anything to get the rank of the leader.
He even starts to order Bill's minions around like they were his, even though he was only Bill's visitor.
He is a very aggressive and demanding commander, often getting furious at the soldiers. He also has a bully side to him, as shown when he's picking on Ben, despite the latter apologizing for holding up the platoons. He is afraid to lose his rank to Ben and later to Gin, thus he wants to get rid of them both. He orders his minion Hyena spy them again and again, not caring about his safety.
Sniper is a skilled fighter, but slightly overly confident. In the end, he is revealed to be a coward and he is ready to use low and unfair tricks when his own strength isn't enough. When Bill blames him of this behaviour, he turns angry and starts to call the other Doberman a coward.
In Ginga Densetsu Weed, Sniper is old and has been disabled for years. He is extremely bitter and blames Gin for everything, living only to kill him. He is obsessive in his thirst for revenge, not much caring about his own life.
He believes that other dogs laugh at him due to his disability, though it isn't true. He is a cold-hearted and cruel dog. He is very cunning and often helps Hōgen with planning and gives him new ideas. He seemed to share some sort of understanding and connection with Hōgen.
Overall, Sniper is a cruel, hateable, and hate-filled dog with a insatiable lust for power.
Ginga Nagareboshi Gin[]
Meeting Gin[]
Sniper is the general of Riki’s pack. When he meets Gin for the first time, he at first belittles him for being a kid, and thinks little of him. When Gin hops onto the rocks atop Ōu to get a better look at Riki, having suspiscions that he's his father, and at last confirming it, Sniper attacks him for his so-called "impoliteness", resulting in a small brawl between the two dogs.
The brawl would have gotten messier if not for Riki's timely intervention. Sniper tries to protest, but Riki stops him, feeling Gin's worthy of being a soldier (albeit his amnesiac state at the time).
Later on, when Riki ponders about the events in the past, and why Gin called Riki "father", Sniper and Hyena secretly watch on, and they both have suspicions Gin was telling the truth.
However, despite Gin's supposed status as Riki's son, Sniper doesn't like him, due to his intense lust for power and desire to be boss. He doesn't like him because he fears his chance to be boss would be too late if Riki chose Gin instead. He then plans with Hyena to kill him and tells Hyena to spy on him.
Issues with the dogs[]
Sniper does everything to ruin Ben and the groups mission of gathering other dogs. He kills one dog with the help of Hyena, Gin and Smith see this and Sniper and Hyena chase after them, leading them to a waterfall and then give up. After Sniper learns of Ben surviving rocks he orders Hyena to return to the pack because they need more information, Hyena does this but turns against Sniper. Sniper gets defeated by Gin in the mountain that surrounds Shikoku, but doesn’t give up.
Final battle and disappearance[]
He returns before the final battle against Akakabuto and fights Ben, but Ben gets the upper hand. After Ben throws himself and Sniper into a river, Sniper tries to drown Ben, but gets disturbed by Hyena who witnessed everything and jumped down to save Ben.
Sniper kills Hyena and then disappears for the rest of the series, not appearing at all in the Wolf Arc. He would return in the Ginga Densetsu Weed manga.
In the anime, Sniper still fights Ben, but after Ben jumps down the cliff with Sniper, he is never seen again. He had possibly died from the long fall before Hyena dived down to save Ben afterwards or he could have survived.
Ginga Densetsu Weed[]
Sniper is the sworn enemy of Gin. He tried to kill Gin several times when he was younger and wanted to take over Ōu himself. He became handicapped after he got crushed between stones when he tried to drown the Great Dane, Ben, in the fierce river.
Sniper was found and saved by a woman who healed his wounds and built him a small carriage to help him walk. She inserted a metal plate to protect his wounded face.
She also gave him artificial back legs made of metal after he lost his own legs, but Sniper didn't know about this for years because he didn't feel nor saw his back legs. Sniper, being evil and ruthless, kills the woman who helped him after he was strong enough and left.
Sniper started to train several contract killers under the title Murder S, his best apprentices being Lecter and Thunder.
Hōgen Arc[]
He joins up with Hōgen to get revenge on Gin and take over Ōu. Hōgen respects the Dobermann's cunning and persistent nature. Sniper gives many ideas and helps Hōgen in plotting new plans.
However, Hōgen grows suspicious of Sniper as he was originally an Ōu soldier too and decides to bury him alive. Sniper's last words prove his loyalty and apparently Hōgen changes his mind and saves Sniper, now having his full respect for the Dobermann.
During the burying, Sniper carriage broke and he starts to feel pain on his back legs he thought he no longer has. Sniper finds out he has back legs, deciding to start recovering. Hōgen makes Sniper the commander of Japanese Alps and his right hand.
Sniper, going on out of thirst for revenge, starts to learn walking on his hard metal legs. He soon learns to walk again and use his artificial legs as dangerous weapon for cutting.
When Kamakiri comes with his pack to join Hōgen, the two leaders decide to make their trusted minions to fight for their leaders. Sniper challenges Stone and easily defeats him by cutting his head off with his back legs.
When Gin escapes from Hōgen, Sniper could not retrieve him (as Gin was taken away by truck drivers), and he kills a Gin's look-alike instead and carries the corpse back to Hōgen. The trick works and Sniper is now the only one who knows of Gin’s existence. As Hōgen and Kamakiri leave to Ōu, Sniper is left on the charge of the fort and his mission is to kill Weed who is coming towards it.
While waiting for Weed to come, Sniper travels out of the fortress many times to kill Gin but has to return empty-handed as the Akita is in guard of humans. Finally, Weed shows up and challenges Sniper. Sniper fights fiercely against Weed and as a lest resort the young dog uses Zetsu Tenrō Battōga which wounds Sniper badly and makes his metal plate fall off.
While his own soldiers and Weed's one fight, Sniper sneaks away of the camp. Weed and Jerome follow him, soon followed by others. Sniper feels humiliated and rage after being defeated by Gin's son and gets ready to die in order to kill Weed.
He manages to hide and surprise Weed, but eventually gets kicked off the cliff right in front of the car. Weed and others believe he was ran over and died, but actually he uses the vehicle to escape.
Sniper disappears for awhile but returns before the final battle to Ōu. He doesn't want to return to Hōgen after his mission failed but he is searching for Gin and Weed instead. When Tesshin is about to kill Hōgen, Sniper jumps in and cuts open Tesshin’s stomach. He then jumps into a gorge to find and kill Gin.
He fights with Gin but falls into a hole that's so deep that only his head is visible. When Weed arrives shortly after, Sniper tricks him closer and tries to drag Weed down the hole, to die with him and fulfill his last revenge on Gin.
Weed tries to talk sense to Sniper but when he realizes he can't be changed, he orders Sniper to be drowned. Sniper eventually lets go of Weed as he cannot breath and vanishes through the hole before crashing into the rocks and drowning in the river below.
Trivia[]
- Sniper is Yoshihiro Takahashi's least favorite out of his own characters.