jigokucho ☘ application

[crybabyhero]

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Wind
ARE YOU AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD?: Y
CONTACT: shogunsensual
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Takemichi Hanagaki
CANON: Tokyo Revengers
CANON REFERENCE: Delinquents, But Make Them Pretty
CANON POINT: Chapter 262, right after Mikey sends him flying
CRAU HISTORY: N/A
AGE: Physically 16, mentally 26
APPEARANCE: Tokyo Revengers deals with time travel, so Takemichi features both as an adult and a teenager. The poor boy doesn't actually grow much in between; he just stops caring about his appearance.
CONTRACT PAYMENT: Takemichi would ask for what he failed to accomplish himself, a future in which all of his friends are alive and happy.

QUESTIONNAIRE:

✧ How important is loyalty to you? What does it take to earn your loyalty? What extents are you willing to go through to maintain loyalty, and respect the loyalty others might have invested in you?

Takemichi's confidence hangs on a frayed and harried thread, glued together with nothing but blood and spit. This means that all it takes to earn his loyalty is the most basic acknowledgement. Mikey and Draken commend him for being willing to protect his girlfriend, and suddenly he's eager to risk his life for them. Hinata tells him she loves him even though he's not strong, so he proposes to her. While loyalty is not only expected but enforced in a gang like Toman, Michi repeatedly goes above and beyond what anyone thinks he's capable of, refusing to stand down even as his vice captain begs him to stop before he's killed.

Despite how completely he's willing to sacrifice himself for his loved ones, however, he doesn't expect any loyalty in return. It's not that he doesn't want it or doesn't think it's important. He doesn't think he deserves it, honestly. Twelve years of wallowing in isolated, cowardly depression didn't magically disappear the moment he got a second chance. Takemichi remembers that life and overcompensates for it with his entire being because he is terrified of ending up alone again. Any time someone he's saved returns the favor, it's an unexpected and overwhelmingly emotional moment for him that makes everything he's gone through worth it. It's everything to him.

These moments just reinforce his dedication further, spurring him to risk his life for them once again. It's an endless cycle. Takemichi seems willing to go to any lengths for those he's loyal to. The only thing he won't do is prioritize himself.

✧ What are your greatest regrets, if you have any? What would you have done differently?

Takemichi's greatest regret is abandoning his friends in middle school. He and his group of besties were beaten bloody by a member of Toman, Kiyomasa, then forced to compete in fights that outsiders would bet on. All five of them were miserable, at the end of their ropes. When Michi hit his breaking point, he ran away, not just from the abuse but from everything in his life. He never sees his friends, girlfriend, or seemingly even his family again until after he dies.

It isn't until he's already timeleaped twice that he learns his closest friend, Akkun, is the one who pushed him in front of the train that killed him. That knowledge cements his guilt firmly in place. Nothing short of killing Mikey himself is likely to top how deeply he regrets giving up back then.

Luckily for him, Tokyo Revengers is literally about Takemichi getting the chance to do things differently. This time he doesn't run. He goads Kiyomasa into fighting him in order to keep his friends out of it. He is absolutely destroyed, just like he knew he would be, but he holds out long enough for Mikey, Toman's leader, to arrive and put a stop to Kiyomasa's betting ring. He successfully saves his friends, and in doing so, he's able to keep them.

A happy ending.

Now he just has to figure out how to save everyone else using the same method.

✧ How do you define "failure"? How do you deal with the consequences of failure, from light to severe?

Takemichi might answer that question with a sad, little smile and a half-joking "me." The truth is a bit more complicated. He does see himself as a failure, but his definition of the word does not match with Webster's. To Takemichi, failure isn't a lack of success; it's loneliness.

He lived his first life pathetic and alone, running away not only from his problems but from the people he loved as well. Now that he has a second chance, he's spent it repeatedly failing to save their lives. He's seen so many of his friends die, often right in front of him, that he can't help but internalize every murder, suicide, and heroic sacrifice as his own personal failing. No matter that he's never pulled the trigger himself.

He won't succeed until he saves each and every one of them.

Having said that, it's important to note that he won't give up just because he can't succeed. Even if his task is impossible, he'll charge in headfirst anyway. Takemichi has confidence in his ability to do one thing and one thing only: endure. So that's the mindset with which he approaches every mission. He faces each failure that comes his way - from something as severe as the brutal murders of all his friends to something as mundane as wearing an embarrassing shirt that his vice captain made for him - with the same endlessly stubborn determination. He'll cry and scream and whine the entire time he's solving the problem, but he won't give a single inch. The only way to stop this boy is to kill him.

✧ You've worked with your Faction awhile now and you feel like the reward of your contract is within reach. But at the last moment, you are told you have even more service to pay beforehand, an obscure clause in the contract being exploited to keep you under your boss's thumb even longer. Your Faction Leader hasn't spoken on this, and might be able to dispute it. Do you go to your leader? Do you argue the dispute yourself? Do you begrudgingly accept the additional work? Something else?

Since Takemichi began timeleaping, his life has consisted of nothing but putting his all into a mission, supposedly succeeding, returning to his own time, and discovering that he's somehow made everything worse. News like this would just be yet another failure to him, yet another mistake he has to make up for by continuing the mission no matter what. He makes a whole lot of mistakes, and every time, he has no choice but to pick himself up and fix it. He'd absolutely accept the additional work.

He wouldn't accept it quietly though. He'd start shouting the moment he heard the bad news, angry and humiliated and loud. Perhaps even violent. That's one hell of a disappointment. But if his emotional pleas were shot down, he wouldn't ask someone else to make his case for him, least of all his faction leader. That's too rational for a guy like Michi. He's more likely to conclude that his only option is to become the next faction leader and change the rules himself!!1!

POWERS & ABILITIES: Takemichi is a timeleaper. He activates his ability by shaking the hand of someone who shares his intense desire to change a specific event in the past. His mind is then transported back in time and inhabits his past self. How many years back in time he travels depends on what he and his accomplice want to change, but he will always be transported to the same calendar day in the past as the day he shakes hands in the future. In order to return to the future, he has to find his accomplice in the past and shake their hand again. At that time, the future abruptly adjusts itself to whatever changes Takemichi made in the past. Both he and his accomplice retain their memories of prior timelines they've altered.

More recently, he's also begun to see flashes of the future without actually timeleaping. By touching a relevant object or person, he's hit by a vision of a potential bad end that he has to prevent. These visions rarely have any context to them, just to make his job that much more difficult.

SUITABILITY: Takemichi lived his first life in a way that is highly unsuitable for a setting like Jigokucho, and he died alone at twenty-six years old. Then he woke up again, miraculously given the chance to relive his teenage years.

Ever since that day, he has willfully immersed himself in deadly brawls, investigated the gruesome murders of his friends, dined with mob bosses, become the leader of a motorcycle gang, and even promised to save the man who shot him dead. Despite all the trauma life has thrown at him, he refuses to abandon his goals now that he has them. If he can come to terms with the fact that several of his closest friends have murdered him more than once and that even he (pure cinnamon roll protag-kun) is capable of pulling a gun on someone, then he can handle Jigokucho.

Not well, mind you, but he'll handle it the only way he knows how: by never giving up.

FACTION SUITABILITY:

✧ Shuten

Shuten is where Takemichi would feel most at home. The delinquent gang lifestyle present in Tokyo Revengers is just a more childish version of Yakuza culture, and the Toman gang itself becomes the most feared crime syndicate in Tokyo in many of Takemichi's future timelines. The gang was founded for the purpose of creating a new era in which delinquents are taken seriously, and Takemichi very much believes in this purpose. In order to achieve it, Toman members must be both powerful and principled. Thus, while Takemichi downright venerates strength, he can't truly accept someone who abuses their power, no matter how strong they are. As an example, Takemichi is in awe of Mikey after he sees how easily the guy takes out his abuser, but he doesn't have any desire to follow him until his girlfriend slaps the guy and Mikey compliments her for it rather than retaliate. His philosophy, and Toman's, is a perfect match for Shuten's.

Though he's the weakest ranking member of Toman physically, his vicious and inhuman endurance would be an invaluable asset to a faction so obsessed with fights. Brawling until he's black and blue, then partying it up with all his friends is an ideal day for him. Plus, it's cool as shit and feeds his starving ego.

As a member of Shuten, he's likely to do work managing arena fighters, making sure all competitors are prepped and all rules are followed. Maybe join a soccer team on the side.

✧ Tamamo

The Tamamo Clan is where Takemichi would fit in least. He simply doesn't jive with their core philosophy. When it comes down to it, he seeks power so that he can ensure everyone else's freedoms. He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he achieved his own. In fact, he got himself murdered three days before his fairytale wedding precisely because he couldn't accept the perfect life he was given knowing that the one who gave it to him was miserable. He's no longer capable of selfish indulgence.

He is capable of getting carried away and having fun, however. He feels most fulfilled, most like himself, when he's spending time with his loved ones, so if he was expected to indulge, that's how he'd do it.

As a member of Tamamo, he'd probably work a lot of part time jobs behind the scenes, avoiding the service half of the service industry with a vehemently blushing passion. He's got a girlfriend, after all; he can't let himself be tempted!

✧ Sutoku

There aren't many words that describe Takemichi as precisely as underdog. His fight has always been one that no one believed he could win, not even himself, but over time, he was able to persuade an entire gang of friends and allies to his side. This more than anything else has proven to him that knowing the right people is its own strength. It's one of the few strengths he has, so he shamelessly puts it to use.

Though he appreciates the importance of intelligence gathering, however, he's not subtle when he goes about it, and he's too earnest to play corporate games. He'd make a better company mascot than info broker.

In fact, as a member of Sutoku, that's probably what I'd have him do: work as a very suspicious mascot character who sidles on over when he spots important looking conversations and breaks up fights before they get dangerous. He may not be wise or pious or calculating, but he's loyal and determined and he'll get the job done eventually, no matter how many people insist its impossible.

✧ Enma

If Enma represents order by any means necessary, then Takemichi is the faction's spiritual opposite: vigilante justice. He didn't join a delinquent gang because he valued any societal system, that's for sure. He does value people and their safety though. Nobody who doesn't want to be involved in the danger of the underground should ever have to be dragged into it! He's risked his life countless times to ensure that, and he'll risk it as many more times as it takes.

Takemichi would never put Enma's law over the wellbeing of innocent people or his friends, no matter how harsh a punishment he's threatened with. As long as these two ideals never conflict, he'd fit in well enough. If they did clash, however, he would switch factions in a heartbeat.

As a member of Enma, he'd likely take up the mantle of motorcycle cop. That's almost as cool as motorcycle gang leader.

SAMPLES

TDM 1, TDM 2