SC - app (31 July 2011)

[rainflames]

[ CHARACTER INFORMATION ]

Name: Takeshi Yamamoto
Age: 15
Gender: male
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, ver: manga
Timeline: Post Chapter 346, end of the Inheritance arc.
History: Character wikia here.

Character Personality:

Once, there was a young boy who was admittedly kind of a jock but was really an all-around nice kid. He loved baseball very, very much. He decided that when he grew up he was going to be a star professional baseball player! Through years and three hundred chapters of dedicated hard work, he slowly approached his dream--

No, wait, that’s a manga that makes sense. Elsewhere, in Katekyo Hitman Reborn: once, there was a young boy who loved baseball very much and practiced all the time, dreaming of someday going pro. Then he broke his arm training, realized the baseball god had thrown him away, tried to jump off the school roof, and joined the Mafia. In that order.

Really, the series of actions and choices that leads Yamamoto to join Tsuna’s Mafia family are hugely symptomatic of his personality. Yamamoto is a laid-back, friendly, ordinary guy who happens to get unreasonably fired up where his personal goals are concerned. His standards for himself are absurdly high and he pushes so hard to meet them that it’s not surprising for him to hurt himself in the process. Yamamoto logic is straightforward and simple to a fault; if his arm is broken he can’t play baseball, and if he can’t play baseball he has nothing to live for. So much of Yamamoto’s sense of self-worth is wound up in the dual goals of meeting the ridiculously high expectations he sets for himself and in living up to his teammates’ expectations that it’s not all that surprising that his reaction to failure is so extreme.

For a long time, even after becoming friends with Tsuna, baseball remains Yamamoto’s number one priority. He protects his right arm in fights because he’s worried about injuring himself before a baseball game and still spends most of his time at baseball club activities. It’s only when he’s forced to decide for the first time whether to keep protecting himself or to protect his friends that he finally outright chooses Tsuna over baseball and injures his arm in a fight to keep Tsuna safe. He never wholly abandons baseball, but he makes his friends his first priority, resolved that he can manage both no matter what. Yamamoto is stubborn and in many ways intensely self-contained. His pride takes a beating from losing in fights but he never shows less than a cheerful or determined face to his friends. His inclination to tackle his problems himself can lead to some pretty stupid life choices, like his intended suicide or (in the anime) his decision to abandon his positive outlook and fight seriously. He’s always willing to sacrifice himself to protect his friends, sometimes stupidly so, making a sacrifice when it’s not even necessary because he tries to make important decisions on his own without involving anyone else.

In three words or less, Yamamoto’s role in the group is: cheerful dumb jock. He fixates on baseball, a sense of “team spirit” and laughs off insults and dangerous situations equally. It’s a deceptive oversimplification. While it’s easy for people in his world to blow him off because of his generally laid-back nature and habit of calling the whole Mafia situation “the Mafia roleplaying game,” it’s kind of important to keep in context exactly how seriously Yamamoto takes his games. He plays to win, a fact that’s more than a little driven home when his father compares his own assassin swordstyle to Yamamoto’s baseball as things that are equally serious to each of them. Games, especially games where he has teammates relying on him, are Incredibly Serious Business to Yamamoto. It’s not necessarily accurate to call him stupid, either. Yamamoto is simple, chipper, and chronically school-lazy. His reasonable explanations for the completely insane things happening around him make him look like more of a dolt than he would be in normal circumstances, but Yamamoto is just cheerfully unperturbed and slow to shift his world view. He’s also not shy about saying flat-out when he doesn’t know something, all of which makes it easy to call him an idiot. He isn’t, really; he’s good at observing the world around him, and he prettymuch never needs things explained to him twice... when he’s listening. He’s just also happy to slap his own “logical” explanations onto things like assassin babies, being shot at, and his best friend being a Mafia boss.

While the cheerful, dippy side of Yamamoto is the one he shows most often, put a baseball or a sword in his hands and the transformation is almost instantaneous. When Yamamoto goes into “game mode” he can get serious at the drop of a hat and his smile goes from friendly to scary just that fast. Yamamoto hates losing, and he’ll push himself to his limits and beyond in order to do his best and protect his friends. When he’s in this mode he loses perspective pretty easily; he’ll pitch a 100 km/hr fastball at a five year old because he doesn’t know how to hold back once he’s throwing something. Even so, Yamamoto operates on his own rules. He doesn’t typically fight to kill because that’s just not how he plays his games. He wants (very badly!) to win, but he wants to do it in a sportsmanlike way. He’s quick thinking and calm in battle, causing Reborn to label him a “natural hitman” because of how readily he adapts to (and even seems to enjoy) the danger. The only time Yamamoto ever seems to fight to kill or seriously maim is to avenge a badly wounded friend. Otherwise, his temper is more or less unflappable, even in battle. The “friend” whose wounds outraged him so much had stabbed him and put him in a coma the last time they talked, but Yamamoto tends to offer forgiveness incredibly easily--often, whether or not it’s asked for. He has few problems with one-sided, unreciprocated friendships, though even his incredibly level temper can get a little strained if someone’s attitude is detrimental to the team or other friends. Angry outbursts from him are once in a blue moon, but if his temper is actually roused he’s blunt and brutally honest though not cruel.

In many ways, Yamamoto has a difficult to read and deceptively friendly personality. He’s outgoing, mellow, and quick to make new acquaintances. However, he’s also stubbornly self-sufficient and fairly reserved about showing anger or unhappiness if that’s what he’s feeling. His first concern is always for those who have helped him out in the past. He’s almost bizarrely normal and accepting of weird circumstances, quick to rationalize and hard to surprise. Yamamoto is more than happy to play a support role to friends in need. He’s sunny and encouraging and absolutely reliably steadfast. Yamamoto’s most important trait is his ability to keep smiling through almost any difficulty, and to maintain a sort of aggressive idealism about the way the world should work despite counter-evidence. This is the role he fills in Tsuna’s Mafia family as the Rain Guardian, whose job is "to become a blessed shower that settles conflict and washes everything away." The Rain Guardian not only fights to protect the family, he also mediates and soothes arguments between members. Yamamoto is the steady and tranquil team member who’s always telling people to calm down and take a step back, keeping things under control.

Character Abilities:

Yamamoto is a mostly ordinary human with about average intelligence. That being said, he’s a great kinesthetic learner. He can learn a sword move from observing it just once, pick up how to ride a motorcycle in a matter of hours, and has an innate sense for anything physical. He’s also got a sharp natural battle sense, including the ability to remember an enemy’s moves and analyze the way they fight later to adapt his own style. He has baseball-honed strength, meaning he’s got quick reflexes and good hand-eye coordination with an aptitude for throwing or hitting things. He also has a hitman’s instinct and seems to be able to sense “killing intent” even before he sees an opponent.

In battle, Yamamoto is primarily a swordfighter. He’s shown brawling once or twice but it’s likely that he relies on his strength and speed without possessing any actual technique, similar to his early sword abilities. He’s the successor to the Shigure Souen sword style, inheriting eight techniques and creating an additional four of his own invention. He carries a bamboo shinai, Shigure Kintoki, that tranforms into a real steel blade when used with Shigure Souen techniques. Fighters in Yamamoto’s universe also have the ability to channel their resolve into a physical flame, called Dying Will Flame. Rather than burning, this flame possesses other properties. Yamamoto’s Dying Will flame is Rain attribute which generally has calming, slowing, or canceling abilities. Rain flames will nullify other Dying Will flames or paralyze or slow an opponent.

Yamamoto has a necklace, his Vongola gear (Rain Necklace Version X), which he can use to activate a magical girl transformation into his fighting gear (traditional Japanese kimono and hakama) and summon his two box animals, an akita and a swallow. Both animals can transform into swords, dog-headed and swallow-headed respectively, each with abilities themed on the animal. His akita sword can “sniff out” an opponent and guide his attacks even when their location is covered by illusions or poor fighting conditions, and the swallow sword can be used to follow up and release a lightning-fast attack using the scent tracking.

Character Weaknesses:

Yamamoto’s a typical popular jock with all the expected attendant strengths: he’s quick to learn physical things, strong, good-looking and even-tempered. However, he has most of the typical weaknesses too. He’s definitely not booksmart; prone to taking things at face value and charging in underinformed; quietly self-critical to a fault; quick to call himself “in a slump” or become frustrated with himself; stubborn and prideful when things come to a competition; overly prone to bottling up things that upset him and trying to tackle them himself; trusting and forgiving to the point that he’s not infrequently called “weak” by his more cutthroat associates. Friends come before everything else to him, and if his were threatened he’d compromise anything else--instructions, mission objectives, whatever--if that was what it took to help them. In spite of being a vocal advocate of teamwork, Yamamoto is surprisingly bad at confiding his own worries and frustrations in anyone else, instead resolving to handle them in his own way. This can lead to some truly spectacularly stupid decisions like planning to jump off the roof because he breaks his arm.

Yamamoto’s dependency on team play means he’s also not the world’s greatest self-starter. He’s used to deferring to someone else’s calls or having another person to back him up. While far from incapable of jumping in and making his own decisions, when lots of people are involved or he doesn’t consider something his area of expertise, he’s prone to standing back and letting others decide how they want to tackle a situation. He holds back his full potential for a lot of reasons, ranging from not wanting to injure himself before baseball games to not being willing to commit to killing someone. On the flipside, when his mind is made up he builds up momentum on a solution and charges straight ahead even if it’s a terrible idea--sometimes right into walls. He’s not as dumb as he seems but he’s no rocket scientist by any means, and he’s particularly careless when the safety of his friends or allies is in question. His stubbornness is as much a flaw as an asset and sometimes it’s luck rather than judgement that saves him from its consequences. His pride makes it easy for him to get carried away and cocky, biting off more than he can chew in a fight just because he can’t stomach giving up.

Specific to his current point in canon, he was recently healed from a severe injury that had left him in a coma and has only been recovering his strength for about a week.

[ SOUL CAMPAIGN SECTION ]

What are the abilities that your character will retain in Soul Campaign?

• excellent physical condition: above average human speed and endurance, moderate high strength (essentially, on par with any extremely well-conditioned athlete)
• sword training and knowledge of edged weapon techniques
• excellent baseball skills!!!
• quick physical learning
• ability to drive, applies to standard motorcycle type vehicles

What are the weaknesses that your character will lose or gain in Soul Campaign?

• gained: overconfidence probably exacerbated for a little while while he adjusts to not being able to use his flames/swords and learns the local fighting style.
• lose: BREW should help heal him up from the last battle, so he’s at least not in an exhausted post-coma state! Full physical condition.

The majority of Yamamoto’s weaknesses are psychological and/or personality flaws. They won’t disappear overnight when he appears in the city. However, given the context of the environment, the biggest ones he’s likely to be forced to address and work on over the course of the game are:

• lose (gradually): his dependence on his friends and teammates. Though he has canonmates it’s also a necessity that he meet new people and act more independently than he’s been accustomed to in a while.
• lose (gradually): his inclination to bottle up his problems and tackle them alone. He won’t be able to fight effectively without fully committing to a Weapon partnership, so that should force him to open up more when things trouble him.

Keeping the game’s premise in mind, please give us a brief explanation of your plans for your character in Soul Campaign.

I want Yamamoto to provide grounding and warm background support for his close castmates, as he does in canon. However, I also want him to be pushed to expand beyond the friends group he’s become comfortable with and reach out to more people in an environment that isn’t his home territory either. I think he could help substantially with the war effort, so I want to get him actively involved both for that reason and also to work on his character growth. Exploring his reactions at being out of his depth and how he deals with the blow to his competitive nature of suddenly not being the best at things is another goal.

[ MEISTER ONLY SECTION ]

Why your character should be a Meister:

Yamamoto is a good team player with a cooperative nature who would do well in either position. However, he’s also headstrong in battle, very adaptable, and has an excellent innate combat sense. He knows how to improvise and to make the best of his partner’s strengths and weaknesses. In canon he’s shown as having a very strong awareness of his weapon and exactly how it feels and moves, to the extent that he’s able to see through an illusion of his sword being damaged because he knows how the fractures would affect the swing. The same trait would be a fairly strong advantage as a Meister and advantageous in learning different weapons and keeping track of his partner’s status in battle.

Meister Ability:

Calming Wavelength: This parallels neatly with Yamamoto’s role as Rain Guardian and his perpetual job of telling people to chill out. He’s pretty nicely resistant to the madness around him in canon, too.

Soul Boost: While he holds back in a lot of situations, Yamamoto’s full fighting abilities come out when defending a friend. He releases his inhibitions to use his maximum potential. Resonating with a Weapon would be the same situation to Yamamoto as teamwork/”combiplay”/fighting together.

Soul Sidekick: Yamamoto pulls out his most drastic skills/invents new moves on the spot when he’s strained in battle. Giving his weapon partner an energy boost in a dire moment is similar in tone.

[ SOUL INFORMATION ]

Soul Description:

Friendly, confident, determined, easygoing, self-contained, dependable.

Soul Appearance:

Yamamoto’s soul is a bright, pale blue the same color as his Rain flames. It has a perpetual smile and open eyes. The top has fluttery spiky bits reminiscent of his early-arc cockatiel hair.

[ SAMPLES ]

First Person:

[video]

[The feed flicks on to show a boy smiling bemusedly at the camera. He looks a little lost, but like he’s probably not too upset about it.]

Haha, wow, that was a lot of rules. So basically there are bad guys, and we’ve all gotta find partners so we can take ‘em down, save the city, and go home? Did I miss anything?

[There’s a momentary pause for him to consider before he adds hopefully:] Tsuna, Gokudera, you guys here playing this too? We should make a team, right?

Third Person:

He’d missed the weather, the smell of the practice field grass, the crack of the bat hitting the ball, the fresh air roaring in his ears as he raced towards first base. He hadn’t been conscious in the hospital for long but the stillness and the quiet and the sharp antiseptic smell were still vivid in his mind. Thunking his head down on his desk he breathed in the smell of dust and chalk and books and thought maybe he’d even missed that. It was good to be back.

Somewhere outside the classroom he could hear Tsuna and Enma, laughing at some kind of weird game they were playing with Adelheid. Dangling from the top of the school building in nets kind of looked like a punishment game to him, but it sounded like they were having fun. Maybe he’d tag along next time. That made him smile even as his eyes slid inevitably closed, not fighting the urge to yawn. It was morning, and the sunlight through the window was warm, and his healing body was comfortably tired from early morning baseball practice. There was the background lull of peaceful noises and the anticipatory boredom of the lesson about to begin... A short nap couldn’t hurt. Class hadn’t even started yet and he was still recovering energy anyway.

When he groggily opened his eyes again it felt like time had passed. A lot of time. Enough time for it to get really dark, which was kind of weird, if he thought about it. He’d missed afternoon practice and Kaoru hadn’t come to get him? Tsuna, either... That was definitely weird. Slowly he stretched and picked himself up, expression gone incredulously amused. He’d overslept in class before but this wasn’t his classroom--actually, this wasn’t any part of his school. Hibari would’ve had things to say about the wreckage, the damage to school property, the statues.

“Tsuna?” he finally ventured, voice more curious than alarmed. “This one of those family test things again? You guys could’ve told me. Pop quizzes are the worst!”

The quality of the stillness raised the hair on the back of his neck, but it wasn’t really a sense of danger. Just strangeness. His eyes narrowed a little as he picked his way across the darkened room--and then, the screen flickered on.

[ NOTES ]

I’d like it if he could keep his Rain Necklace because without his flames it isn’t inherently a weapon, just a trinket with a fair amount of emotional significance to him.