| “ | Let me introduce you someone from this episode, James McCloud. He's 32 years old, blood type A and he has a wife and a son. He's from Corneria in the Lylat system and he often stays with his partners, Pigma and Peppy. They say he handles the Little Wyvern as good as a fighter plane. But, I think that if you teach your students properly, you would be more respectable. You can't win em all. | „ |
| ~ Bart Lemming puppet about James McCloud. |
| “ | Smart people will always stay one step ahead. | „ |
| ~ James McCloud giving advice to Miss Killer and the rest of the Dark Million members after being cornered. |
James McCloud is a minor antagonist in the 2003 anime series, F-Zero: GP Legend, serving as the titular main antagonist of the 33rd episode.
Essentially the anime counterpart of the James McCloud of the video games, he is portrayed as a harsh drill sergeant who was hired by the Director of the Mobile Task Force, John Tanaka, in order to train the members of the Mobile Task Force to become stronger. However, thanks to his brutal training regime, no-nonsense attitude and conflicting ideals, he was unpopular with the members of the Mobile Task Force. However, beneath his no-nonsense attitude and harsh training regime, McCloud hides a dark secret that made the chief of the Mobile Task Force, Jody Summers, become suspicious of him. It was then revealed that he used to work for Dark Million and that he is an unfettered opportunistic person who would do anything to win the F-Zero race. His car number is #11 and is called “Little Wyvern”. He is also loosely based on James McCloud from the Star Fox series.
In the Japanese dub, James McCloud is voiced by Shin'ichirō Miki, best known for voicing James from the Pokémon franchise, Zamasu from the Dragon Ball franchise and Haiji Towa from Danganronpa: Absolute Despair Girls.
Personality[]
Throughout the episode, McCloud is portrayed as a stern, no-nonsense drill sergeant who has no hesitation in putting his pupils through a very harsh training regime as shown during the first parts of the episode where he has no hesitations in shooting several F-Zero cars the Mobile Task Force had placed as an obstacle. This made him a rather unpopular figure, including among several members of the Mobile Task Force. He is also rather unapproachable, shown when he was unable to take a joke that Jack Levin made or having unpredictable thoughts, at least according to Lucy. However, as time went by, McCloud also showed his shrewd, manipulative and somewhat treacherous side, willing to use anyone as a pawn in order to get everything that which he desired. This can be shown when he intentionally pits all of the members of Dark Million and the Mobile Task Force against each other so that he could win the race with most of the people he trained too busy fighting with each other. In addition, McCloud is also shown to be somewhat of a hypocrite, getting called out by Ryu on how his past doesn’t excuse his actions and how he is no better than the soldiers that abandoned him and his partner. In the end, according to him, he is just a mere mercenary willing teach anyone for a profit.
In spite of his negative sides, McCloud also has a few redeeming qualities to his character. A tragic figure, it was revealed that McCloud’s treacherous personality stemmed from the moment where he and his partner, O’Donnell, were abandoned in a war by their comrades, leading to O’Donnell's death. This causes him to develop a philosophy that humans just betray and use each other for their own benefit. Despite Ryu respecting him, he has no hesitation calling him out on his hypocrisy, reasoning that he is no better than the army that abandoned him and his partner in the past albeit he still understands why McCloud acts the way he does. In the end, it was shown that he still cared and respected his fallen partner dearly. Other than his tragic backstory and his respect for his friend, McCloud will also show respect to those who manage to succeed his training course, as shown with Ryu Suzaku, who was willing to risk himself to follow McCloud's training. This causes McCloud to praise Ryu for his tenacious personality, as he never saw Ryu give up on his training, reminding him of his late partner. In addition, despite being a mercenary that will betray anyone as long as they are useful to his goals, McCloud still keeps a professional conduct when it comes to teaching his students due to his no-nonsense and rigid personality. Eventually, during the ending of the episode, it is shown that he has somewhat changed for the better as shown through the allegory of him changing his favorite drink from a black coffee to a sweeter one, indicating that not only is he opening up to his softer side, but also that he has grown to respect those around him. In the end, even if he has a lot of trust issues, according to the puppet Bart Lemming, he is a happily married man with a wife and child.
Biography[]
Hailing from the planet Corneria in the Lylat Solar System, McCloud was enlisted in the military before the main story started. During his tenure as a soldier, he met his partner, O’Donnell. As a result, both McCloud and O’Donnell became partners in arms and were then assigned to operate the Rescue 1 plane. During one of their battles, they received a mission to rescue their other comrades in an enemy base. However, while they were infiltrating the enemy base, their ship was attacked by the enemy boss and they ended up crashing to the ground. While both McCloud and O’Donnell survived the crash, it caused McCloud to get injured. As a result, O’Donnell decided to call Rescue 02 team to save them. Despite O’Donnell’s pleas for help, the Rescue 02 refused to rescue them. This is due to the fact that they had no choice but to abandon the battlefield as the battle had ended and it would break the peace treaty if they continued to fight. This causes O’Donnell to decide to brute force his way through enemy lines which resulted in him getting killed. Although McCloud survived and was able to escape from the enemy, the trauma of seeing his partner getting killed in front of him and the fact that his comrades abandoned him were implanted in his brain resulting in him gaining a massive distrust of everyone around him. As a result, he becomes a cold, no-nonsense backstabber in order to get what he wants.
Despite being married, having a son and also working with new partners, Pigma and Peggy, McCloud decided to choose to become a mercenary. Due to his experience as a soldier, he also works as a freelance drill sergeant and will train anyone if the payment is right. As a result, prior to the main story, McCloud ended up training several members of the Dark Million organization such as Octoman and Bio Rex and making them stronger as racers. After training the Dark Million members, McCloud then offered his services to the Mobile Task Force of his own volition, while still also training members of Dark Million. Promoting his name through a seemingly reliable source, this ended up attracting the director of the Mobile Task Force, John Tanaka, who then paid a lot of money to McCloud in order to hire him as a trainer for the Mobile Task Force members.
After becoming a temporary member of the Mobile Task Force, McCloud begins the episode by putting several members of the Mobile Task Force such as Ryu Suzaku, Jack Levin, Lucy Liberty and EAD through very harsh and brutal training, similar to what he put the Dark Million members through, with McCloud shooting at everyone's cars. When Lucy complains about the intensity of the training, McCloud tells her to stop complaining and that they need to operate with precision to sneak up on their enemies while also calling them terrible pilots. In addition, McCloud orders the four to execute a technique generally used by fighter plane pilots in order to get close to each other. Due to the intense training, Jack expresses his desire to quit only for James McCloud to almost shoot him which causes Jack to go back to his car as McCloud advises Jack that being vigilant isn’t enough as an enemy would strike them from behind. In spite of the brutal training he was put through by McCloud, Ryu becomes interested in him due to the fact he has a soldier background and decides to continue the training anyways.
Predictably, thanks to McCloud’s insane training, most of the Mobile Task Force members dislike him, including their mechanic, Dr. Clash, as he had to fix a bunch of cars that were damaged thanks to McCloud’s training regimen. This resulted in the leader of the Mobile Task Force, Jody Summers, filing complaints about the brutal training regime McCloud had put them through. However, the Director tells Jody to not disappoint both McCloud and himself as he wants the best for the members of the Mobile Task Force which causes Jody to have no choice but to listen to McCloud. In spite of this, Jody ends up growing suspicious of McCloud due to the dubious legitimacy of the source that made Tanaka hire him. Meanwhile, as Jack attempts to crack some jokes and impersonate McCloud, mocking him for not having a sense of humor and him being unable to smile, Ryu then reminds the Mobile Task Force members that McCloud was standing in front of them. This resulted in McCloud deciding to continue the brutal training regime for the members of the Mobile Task Force which causes them to get intimidated except for Ryu who still wants to learn from him.
Despite putting him through harsh training, seeing the fact that Ryu never gave up despite the adversities he had endured, McCloud praises Ryu for his tenacious and vigorous personality. This is due to the fact that Ryu wants to do anything in order to defeat Dark Million once and for all. Hearing Ryu’s goal, McCloud is reminded of his late partner. When Ryu asks where McCloud came from, McCloud simply retorts by saying that Ryu can quit anytime just like the other people that were trained by him, proving that the Dark Million and Mobile Task Force members were not the first people to be trained by McCloud. In spite of this, Ryu continues to trust him and McCloud keeps training Ryu.
During their break at the Falcon House, McCloud then tries the coffee that was made by the owner of Falcon House, Bart Lemming, and he compliments the coffee Bart had made. This is because Bart adjusts the coffee according to the customer's tastes, much to Ryu’s surprise. Bart makes the coffee the same as Ryu's albeit with a big difference: While Ryu likes to drink a sweet coffee, McCloud prefers to drink a black coffee without any sugar. After drinking his coffee, he then leaves the Falcon House as one of the employees that worked for the Falcon House and the hacker for Mobile Task Force, Clank Hughes, found him to be a difficult person to talk to, an opinion shared by several Mobile Task Force members.
Returning to the Mobile Task Force headquarters, it was revealed that McCloud had secretly contacted the Dark Million members through a computer without Jody’s permission. This causes Jody to confront him in order to figure out McCloud’s intentions. However, McCloud ends up shutting down the computer, telling Jody that it’s a private conversation that Jody shouldn’t pry into before leaving the area. After Jody asked Clank for help, they managed to access the conversation with McCloud and the members of Dark Million, confirming Jody’s suspicions to be true. As Octoman and Bio Rex were having a conversation with McCloud, one of the higher-ups of Dark Million, Miss Killer, becomes interested in what Bio Rex and Octoman had done. This is due to the fact that both Bio Rex and Octoman had an intention to beat Ryu Suzaku in a race once and for all through McCloud’s aid.
During the F-Zero tournament at the Surface Slide Circuit, McCloud and Ryu were confronted by Jody as she exposes McCloud for who he is and how his recommendation towards the director was fake. Unable to hide it anymore, McCloud decides to embrace the truth and tells Ryu and Jody that he is a mere mercenary that has been using both the members of the Mobile Task Force and the Dark Million organization in order to pit them against each other so that he could win the F-Zero race, knowing that the two organizations had bad blood with each other. This causes Ryu to be disappointed as he was used as a pawn by McCloud in order to get what he wants. Due to the fact he was betrayed years ago during the war, McCloud then tells Ryu that people betray each other and it’s the sad reality of the world, though Ryu rejects this. Afterwards, the F-Zero race starts with most of the Mobile Task Force members knowing he had been troublesome in the first place. Thanks to McCloud’s intense training of members of both organizations, the F-Zero competition became a lot more intense and most of the racers were in disarray due to the fact they were fighting against each other using McCloud’s techniques. This resulted in McCloud using the chaos as an opportunity to win the competition. Despite Ryu’s attempts at stopping him, McCloud ended up winning the competition and getting all the prize money in the end much to the dismay of the Mobile Task Force members.
After getting the prize money, all of the Dark Million members then cornered him and Miss Killer decided to threaten him into giving her all of the prize money. In spite of this, McCloud still tells them he is proud to have taught them, and that they were easy to be fooled. Seeing that he was cornered, McCloud then gave Miss Killer and the rest of the Dark Million members a lesson by saying that smart people will always stay one step ahead before using a smoke bomb to run away. However, the Dark Million members manage to corner him before Ryu comes to rescue and save him with McCloud using this as an opportunity to get away. After running away from Dark Million, McCloud asks Ryu why he saved him as he could be killed. It was revealed that the reason why Ryu rescued McCloud is because he felt truly indebted to him, even in spite of his betrayal, and the fact that they have similar taste in coffee. Reminding him of his own partner, McCloud then tells Ryu the story of his partner and why he ended up becoming who he is today.
Hearing his backstory, Ryu tells McCloud that the soldiers who abandoned him and his partner almost definitely regret what they did, and calling out McCloud for being no better than the soldiers he despises because he basically did the same thing. McCloud then tells Ryu that he can't understand his feelings. In spite of what happened, Ryu wishes that McCloud could meet with his partner again in paradise and express his gratitude due to the fact he can operate his machine a bit better than before. After this, McCloud left saying he won't thank Ryu for his words. After McCloud resigned from the Mobile Task Force, the Director pinned the blame on the Mobile Task Force members for driving him away. When Ryu wonders if McCloud would live in the same way, Bart tells Ryu that McCloud will remember Ryu’s words and it was revealed he changed the flavor of his coffee to match Ryu's favourite flavor, as a form of goodbye towards Ryu, the Mobile Task Force members and Bart himself, indicating he might change himself for the better even if he doesn't know it. McCloud was last seen enjoying the beautiful scenery of Mute City from the highway while reminiscing about Ryu Suzaku before departing.
Trivia[]
- With the character being loosely based on characters in the Star Fox series, certain aspects of his character hold references to them. However, according to Nintendo Power, the character himself doesn't have any direct connection to the Star Fox characters that inspired him such as Fox McCloud and his father, James. In spite of this, some fans were still able to spot references to the series within his character:
- His appearance bears a resemblance to Fox's father, James McCloud, with him wearing a similar jumpsuit, jacket and even having a white head stripe.
- Him being a leader of the flight squad known as Galaxy Dogs, with partners who share the names with the Star Fox characters Peppy Hare and Pigma Dengar.
- His deceased partner being called O'Donnell is likely a nod to Wolf O'Donnell, Fox's rival and the leader of the Star Wolf squadron.
- Him hailing from a planet called Corneria located in Lylat System. In the Star Fox series, Corneria and the Lylat System are essentially the home of Fox McCloud and his companions and is also the first location where the Star Fox team began their missions.
- His status of being married and have a kid, paralleling the Star Fox counterpart of James McCloud having a son himself.