Name:
Hideki Yamato
Gender:
Male
Age:
18
Height:
5'7
Sexual Orientation:
Heterosexual
School Year:
Third Year at Bara High School
Role in club:
Vice President
Personality:
Hideki's quite the outgoing lad, always has been. He gets along with most anybody and doesn't usually hold grudges. With girls, especially friends or clients, he'll tend to lapse into a peculiar mix of flirtation and sardonic jokes, which is his way of understanding people (for their compatibility, you see). Under that, though, he's a little wary of being in a relationship himself. Thus, while he considers the Lover's Club vital to the well-being of the student populace (Did you know that 90% of the couples the Club makes continue after graduating high school? Now you know! -Hideki), he isn't interesting in using their services himself.
Likes:
Music (heavy metal in particular), fantasy manga and novels, flirting, manzai comedy, chicken rice
Dislikes:
Over-attachment and obsession, stupid customers, beef, techno music
Crush:
TBD
Relationships:
He's very close with his sister Kohaku and more than a bit protective of her, mostly on account of their shared history as latchkey siblings. He considers his best friends overall to be Akira Tsukino and Toshiro Akiyama, his bandmates. He and Haruhi are close as well, since he was one of the early club members, and helped her out with a few of their early successes that established their name. Nowadays he's closer with Rin, having worked with her and found that her icy demeanor hides a keen altruism. He's also struck up an odd friendship with Ryuunosuke, mostly started because Ryuunosuke somehow found out about Blade, eavesdropped on a rehearsal, and persuaded him into burning a demo CD, the band's first. But after that, they grew in respect for each other.
Bio:
Picture, if you will, a small family in Yokokami. Mother (Setsuna), father (Goichi), elder son (Hideki), younger daughter (Kohaku). Got that? Now take out the mother and that's the Yamato family now, sadly. Goichi simply couldn't keep up with his job in the city anymore, and moved out to be closer to family who could help him raising his young son and daughter. This worked for a while, but even so, the Yamato siblings grew up a bit more independent than their peers, but not much more different. Hideki was reasonably popular, certainly known to be a friendly guy.
This changed near the end of elementary school. His father took him to the Bara High School festival. The little family did many things at the festival, but Hideki only remembered the rock band that played at the close of the festival. Instantly he knew: he wanted to do that. He wanted to play guitar. His aunt bought him a cheap starter guitar set for his next birthday, and he started learning. He gravitated pretty quickly towards hard rock and metal, but he largely kept this to himself, with the occasional brief conversations while buying his CD's at the store.
This, too, changed in high school. Hideki joined the nascent Lovers' Club early in his freshman year thanks to his also-nascent friendship with Haruhi, but not long after he recognized one of the soccer team's freshman players at the record store, examining a Deep Purple CD. His name was Akira Tsukino, and they became close friends outside of school, even as their paths rarely crossed within the school. In their second year, after seeing Earthshaker live, they decided to form a band, with Hideki playing rhythm guitar and singing, Akira on lead guitar, and...well, that was a problem. They couldn't find anyone else for a while despite putting out some flyers at the music shops around Yokokami. They wrote songs, sure, but without a bassist or drummer, they were stuck. In addition, Hideki was starting to feel inadequate compared to Akira's guitar prowess.
After what felt like forever (but was really only a few months), one Toshiro Akiyama called. He played drums, and was interested in most of the bands they listed (Deep Purple, Anthem, Loudness, Earthshaker, Rush, etc) The three met and got along as well as Akira and Hideki alone had. On impulse, Hideki announced he would switch to bass to complete the lineup. He followed through with this with some reluctance, selling his guitar to help fund the new bass rig. Coming up woefully short, he begged his father to help. Goichi agreed to help on the condition that Hideki get a part-time job to pay for the rig over time, which he did, working as a dishwasher and busser at an izakaya near Bara High.
Since then, the trio have soldiered on under the name of Blade (Toshiro's idea). Hideki continues to work part-time at the izakaya, and while the band hasn't played a show yet, they rehearse every Saturday in an old shed owned by Toshiro's sympathetic neighbor. He's not very open about it, unless someone asks.
Meanwhile, in the Lovers' Club, he managed to ascend to the vice-presidency, though more by virtue of seniority than any particular success on his part. In practice, he tends to help the others where needed, including with info gathering, planning events, or simply staying on task.
Between the job, his club activities, and the band, he's a pretty busy guy noawadays.
Theme Song:
Feeling Free Again - Manilla Road
Extra:
As mentioned above, Hideki plays bass and sings in a metal trio called Blade, alongside Akira on guitar and Toshiro on drums. He plays a
brown-burst Yamaha bass into a Peavey combo amp. He can play guitar as well, but doesn't own one. And if you're curious, his favorite bassists are Tetsuya, Glenn Hughes, Phil Lynott, and Naoto Shibita.
Voice:
Johnny Yong Bosch (though to get an idea of his singing voice, check that theme song. He's got that weird semi-nasal thing going on.)
Face-claim:
Keitaro Urashima