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Most Tortured Anime/Manga Character
Aiba Takaya
Many of you may not have heard of this series, but Tekkaman Blade (Technoman in dub) is an older anime which may have poor animation quality, but has an outstanding plot. Takaya is one of those characters who amazes me that he hasn't given up and moved to a remote island somewhere. Anything he tries to save the people he loves ends up endangering them and himself. And then there are those people that can't be saved, and he must destroy. The following summary is out of sequence anime-wise, but fits the timeline. Some of it is vague due to the fact I've been forced to watch the series raw since there are no translations for beyond the first season.
Takaya and his twin Shian are the youngest boys in their family. Their father puts together a mission to Saturn, and the whole family is on this ship as a part of the crew: the twins; youngest sister, Miyuki; older brother, Kengo; his fiancee; and an old family friend. Once near Saturn, they find an alien ship. Of course, curiosity brings a search party aboard the alien craft. Once there, all the men are attacked and 'eaten' by somethings like venus fly traps. Eventually, everyone on board the ship is taken as well. These pods start to transform these prisoners into what is known as Tekkamen.
Most people could not survive the punishment of adapting to the Tekkaman system, and were rejected by the pods to die shortly after. One such man was Takaya's father. But instead of dying, he manages to free Takaya from his pod and walk him over to the escape vessel of the ship. On the way their, his father tells Takaya that the aliens plan to invade Earth, and it is Takaya's duty to warn them. Takaya doesn't want to leave his father behind, but is too weak to oppose the older man. Just as the door closes, the father tells Takaya one last thing: he will have to fight those he loves. The father discovered that the Tekkaman system not only changes the body of humans into robotic type warriors, but it also corrupts the mind. Takaya is to forget his past, to forget his family, and to forget his friends so he will be able to destory them when they attack the Earth. Takaya is then released into space with the burden of the Earth on his shoulders.
Once he reaches Earth, the invasion has already begun. As told by his father, Takaya remembers nothing of his past and has become only known as Tekkaman Blade. After a fight with Tekkaman Dagger, Tekkaman Blade is thrown to the earth with many wounds from the battle, one resulting in a scar above and below his left eye. The Space Knights find him and take him to their headquarters to fix him up. When he wakes up, he is frantic to get back into space to try and stop more of the incoming invasion. When asked who he is by Chief Freeman, he replies that he cannot remember, but it is unimportant. He runs off and finds the space ship Blue Earth. Noel and Aki chase after him, just barely getting on the Blue Earth before it launched, and it is then when Takaya is renamed D-Boy (for Dangerous Boy) by Noel. Once in space, D-Boy tells Noel to take control of the Blue Earth. Noel and Aki aske D-Boy just what exactly he think he can do in space. D-Boy tells them that they know nothing about him, and runs into the airlock. There, D-Boy transforms into Tekkaman Blade and destroys the minor aliens (space crabs was the dub name for the alien lackeys) before they reached Earth.
While transforming into Tekkaman Blade makes it possible for D-Boy to fight for the humans against the aliens, there are of course the drawbacks. If he remains as Tekkaman for longer than 30 minutes, he looses his humanity as the Tekkaman system takes control. When he fights Tekkamn Evil (Shian), the Tekkaman system does manage to take over, and during that time D-Boy could not be stopped by anything from army tanks to really large missiles. Only when Milly, a young Space Knight who looks like Miyuki, steps in front of Tekkaman Blade does D-Boy take control again. Of course, Milly was almost killed by D-Boy in the process. From there, D-Boy begs Noel to take him into space where D-Boy 'kills' his twin.
This whole event takes a hold on D-Boy, who then suffers from nightmares and halucinations of him killing his friends and sister. It eventually gets to the point where he could not force himself to transform into Tekkaman Blade for fear he would become a monster. Only after Aki convinces him that there is no possible way D-Boy could ever be truly a monster does D-Boy get the courage to face his fears and fight for Earth once again.
Then Miyuki returns to Earth. After many troubles and a battle with the reborn Tekkaman Evil, the brother and sister are reunited. Miyuki has not been corrupted by the Tekkaman system...she was rejected instead. D-Boy is forced to leave his dying sister's side to prevent a madman general from killing large populations of people in a hopeless attempt to stop the aliens. When he leaves, four Tekkaman (Evil, Lance, Ax, and Sword) attack the Space Knight base. Miyuki decides to fight against them as a Tekkaman despite her weaken state. Once she is caught, they pierce her to a wall and torture her. D-Boy returns just in time to see his bleeding sister activate her self destruct in an attempt to destroy the Tekkamen.
The Space Knights, with their headquarters destroyed, become separated. After three months Aki, Noel, Milly, and Levin meet up with D-Boy (btw, yes Takaya has all his memories by now, but everyone still calls him D-Boy). D-boy is eventually forced to face Tekkaman Ax, a man who once taught the twins how to fight and win. After an intense battle, D-Boy barely survives to see Tekkaman Ax destroyed.
A new problem with the Tekkaman system is discovered--it has been slowly eating away at Takaya's body. If he transforms too many more times, he will be destroyed. To remedy this, Chief Freeman offers D-Boy the possibility of integrating with a second Tekkaman system that was artifically created from the alien pods that have scattered the Earth. Despite the 50/50 chance and Aki's pleads, D-Boy decides to suffer the pain once again. It is a success, and just in time for him to kill Tekkaman Lance. But upon de-transformation, D-Boy is blinded and deafened.
Fortunately, those effects were short lived...instead a more sinister effect takes place. Slowly, after each use, part of D-Boy's memory is taken. At first, he doesn't understand why everyone is calling him 'D-Boy' when his name is Takaya. At this point, he doesn't believe anyone who tells him that he shouldn't use the upgraded form of Tekkaman Blade. But after the second use, he doesn't remember Miyuki's favorite flower, and just barely remembers Miyuki. It is at this point that Takaya panics, and realizes that no matter how hard he tries, his fate has been doomed since he left the Earth with his family.
Despite everyone's pleads and attempt to stop D-Boy from transforming into the upgraded form, that extra power is needed to defeat the last of the Tekkaman, especially the leader Omega (Kengo). In the last battle with Tekkaman Evil, the twins fight expands the world with both in upgraded forms. Finally, D-Boy is able to pierce Evil with his spear. Suddenly, a tiny parasite jumps out of the Tekkaman and Shian de-transforms. Shian tells D-Boy how much he loves his older brother, and he gives D-Boy his crystal so he may go to the moon and destroy Omega. D-Boy, enraged at losing his brother just when he returned to normal, Begins to live for space. Aki tries calling for D-Boy, but he says that he is D-Boy and Takaya no longer, only Tekkaman Blade.
There's a slight miscalculation on D-Boy's part: the moon is further away than he can get in thrity minutes. But instead of turning into a slave of Omega, something snaps within D-Boy and all he can think of is killing Omega. Once he meets with Omega, it doesn't look good at all. Omega is a whole lot bigger than D-Boy, and has all the energy he needs. But somehow, D-Boy is able to call upon incredible power from his upgraded form to create a pillar of light simular to the one Miyuki creates when she self destructed. Just before Omega is destroyed, Takaya returns to himself for a moment and tells his older brother, let's return home.
The last scene tells how D-Boy was blasted back to Earth, but has forgotten everything: walking and speaking are mysteries to this young man. But he will always have Aki to take care of him, and perhaps one day tell him of his past.
[I have to say that personally, I think this was a cheap trick to keep the main character alive...from my pov, he should've been destroyed in that last attack. As I said, the column of light was very similar to Miyuki's self destruct mode. Him returning to Earth is a little bit too easy, too American.]
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