Hashiba Touma

Hashiba Touma is one of the five main characters in Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, aka Ronin Warriors, and is the wielder of the Tenku yoroi (Armor of Strata in North America).

Standard Notes: This is my opinion of this character. Very little of this is fact; this is my analysis of Hashiba Touma based on what I have seen of him and the discussions I've had about him and the other Troopers with Tavestry, Celestial Tiger, Magma Angel, and Becky, as well as other people. They've all expanded upon my knowledge of Touma, and I am grateful to them for helping me understand him.

Touma is the definition of the contradiction of "Knowledge is Power" but "Ignorance is Bliss." On one hand, he is the statistician and brains of the Trooper group. Wisdom is his virtue (in the original Japanese storyline), and he is a certified genius with an IQ of 250.

And yet Touma has not had the happiest of lives. His childhood was spent with two parents who, although they loved him, never had time for him. They never had time to SHOW their love for him, and so he is an essentially love-starved child. He encouraged his parents to divorce because it was better for them, and they realized the wisdom of their child's advice.

I don't really think their divorce did any damage to Touma; after all, it was his decision. But now without the illusion of a marriage to keep up, each parent became more involved in their work, and THAT hurt Touma.

So Touma craves affection, and the display of it. He needs, perhaps more so than any of the Troopers, to feel cared for. And the other Troopers, with the bond of the armor, fulfill that need. They are as close to him as his family, closer really. Touma believes firmly in the idea that you can be a family as long as you care enough, and that this family, that you can choose and who can choose you, is as strong or stronger than genetic family, where the only bond is blood. Where, to quote Home for the Holidays, "[You] don't have to like each other...[You're] family."

The other Troopers are THE most important people in the world to him. They are the other parts of his soul, via the bond and his own strong feelings for them. There seems to be little evidence of close friendship in Touma's life before the Troopers, and so now that he has them, he is NOT letting go of them. Period, end of sentence.

Touma can go back and forth from smart-aleck to absent-minded professor. He picks up on visual clues that the others miss, but at the same time sometimes forgets common sense. He isn't as likely to pick up emotional cues from the guys, even with the bond open, because his mind runs on logic and reasoning more than emotion and feeling. He leaves that to his heart, and thinking with his heart isn't as easy for him as thinking with his mind.

Touma is prone to analyzing things into the ground and hates not knowing things. His intelligence, although it may have made him socially shunned by all but the other Troopers (a common occurrence with smart children), is what he views as his one asset. Besides this, he genuinely enjoys learning and figuring things out. Mental stimulation is important to him, so he'd most likely read mysteries, science-fiction and fantasy (I can see Touma really enjoying The Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears).

His book-smarts are impeccable, and of course he's a superb warrior, but beyond that, Touma is lost. Fashion seems to be a problem for him, but I can blame that more on the illustrators. But I can see Touma not really knowing or caring about fashion and trends; is it comfortable? Does it fit? Okay then. That's all he'd really care about.

As for fighting, well...like all the guys, he comes to dislike it. They were never eager warriors really, but they had to do it because SOMEONE had to and they were the ones in possession of the tools needed to do the job. But Touma, like all the guys, learned to hate not the youja, nor the yoroi, but the NECESSITY. He's sacrificed his life, despite the fact that he's still breathing. He has offered his life up in order to save humanity as a whole.

But that's not what keeps him fighting.

That would be his friends.

His real family.