Al is an apprentice gnome (a person that maintains the gravity levels of Aqua to match that of Man-Home). Despite his youthful looks and short stature, he is actually nineteen, though he has the tendency to crack "old guy jokes", which irritates Aika to no end whenever she's present. He does wear glasses, although it's not known whether he has very bad eyesight or not. He has excellent nightvision, though, like all gnomes, mostly due to their life spent underground. In the manga, he's prone to fainting spells at first, assumedly because gnomes are unaccustomed to the heat normally associated with summer days in Neo-Venezia. He nevertheless lives on Ukijima, which may or may not account for him often taking care of Akatsuki and Woody when they were children. It is known that Aika has a crush on him, as she always turns shy around him.