lengthy character stuff

[cybercentric]

Perhaps typical for a young boy, Daichi is very active and full of energy. He's loud, boastful, always running gung-ho at a goal (literally or not), and often trying to assert his superiority over others. He isn't always successful at this, not because he isn't good at hacking or retrieving lost cyber pets, but because he has a bad habit of acting before he thinks, leaping into situations headfirst with everything he's got. This lack of strategy and pure gut instinct often leads him to getting outclassed, especially by Isako. Another negative aspect of his gut-over-brain attitude that Daichi tends to let get in his way is the fact that he often doesn't know how to put his own feelings into words, or even identify or rationalize what he's feeling in the first place. He developed a crush on Fumie a few years previous to the series, and ineffectively tried to woo her for a short time. When he realized that Fumie was not getting the point and his feelings might compromise his "manly" image, he began bullying her with mean nicknames like Busue ("ugly"). This eventually evolved into the hacking fights the two engage in in the series.

Daichi's superiority complex is strong (perhaps through stubbornness), but it's not overwhelming enough that he might not outgrow it with time. He's a typical young boy in that he's selfish and often looking out for himself and his reputation more than anything else. He's more often than not trying to one-up anyone who poses a challenge in order to prove dominance, whether in friendly rivalry with Fumie or pure competition for leader position with Isako. He even has a basic, naughty, though fairly harmless disregard for authority figures. He enjoys teasing his homeroom teacher about her lack of boyfriends, and making naughty puns of her lectures. As far as the Hackers go, he seems to believe that he should be leader because he's better at hacking through hard study, rather than thinking himself more "special" than the others. Once he reaches his goal of top dog, however, he's more than happy to dump the more menial tasks onto his lackeys. This is a fairly correct term to call them, for though the group of boys that Daichi hangs out with is often together, he treats them less like friends and more as his underlings. It's not very clear whether he has any loyalty to them, but definitely demands loyalty from them. He's also possessive of them, again reiterating the fact that he doesn't really see them as friends, but tools and key items in maintaining his status as a leader and mischief-maker. This changes over the course of the series. After being kicked out of the Hackers, he's surprised to find that Denpa is still by his side and will always be there, and Daichi realizes Denpa's value as a friend and teammate, not just a minion (though he isn't entirely out of the habit of giving orders). They spend much of summer vacation searching for metabugs together, and Daichi learns how to work side-by-side with someone, as opposed to being above them. He listens to Denpa and begs him not to leave when he threatens it.

Daichi is terrible at handling a loss of face or image. When he loses a bout with someone, he's shocked and disbelieving, before blatantly denying the fact and angrily demanding compensation for financial loss or trying to reverse any negative effects his loss will create (such as denying being kicked out of the Hackers by Isako). Sometimes he winds up in an utter panic about loss of face and over-exaggerates about his life being over, but he quickly recovers if encouraged by others. The only time that Daichi will "willingly" give up top position is if he is clearly outclassed by the person in question, even more so if he has something to gain. He quickly gives up being leader of the Daikoku Hackers the moment he finds out that Isako is an Encoder, in the hopes of stealing or learning her secrets. It is difficult for him though; it took him a moment to decide, and he constantly grumbles about being the underling for a change. He hates being ordered around, and always questions Isako's actions. He only follows orders when threatened, bribed, or given good reason.

The only person he absolutely follows is his eccentric and overbearing father, even going so far as to ditch the other Daikoku Hackers and ignore Isako's orders rather than face his father's wrath. It's true that Mr. Sawaguchi is a formidable presence, extremely well-built and with a very rough, masculine speech pattern. He threatens to take care of "disciplining" the boys at the summer sleepover and intimidates them into good behavior. Mr. Sawaguchi has very strong (if strange) sense of family and manliness, finding the Biology Club a less desirable pastime than the Ping Pong Club he participated in at Daichi's age. Daichi probably emulates his father to a lesser degree in order to prove his strength to himself, since his father is able to control him so thoroughly (usually through parental force, like dragging him by his ears). Mr. Sawaguchi's eccentricity annoys Daichi, as does the way he goads the boy; Daichi tends to fall for it (like the hair growth), perhaps to prove his father wrong. Mr. Sawaguchi is very active in the community and is very well-thought of by other adults, which may be why Daichi has a fixation for reputation; his father is head of the festival committee and a member of the PTA.

For all his selfishness, shallowness, and stupid typical boy behavior, Daichi is a good kid and does have a strict moral code. (There are so many examples of this that it's difficult to sort through.) He only picks on those who can fight back in their own right on an equal playing field, such as his constant bickering and fights with Fumie through hacking. (He uses spy equipment to find weaknesses, but only under the correct assumption that Fumie does the same.) He hates involving innocent bystanders, and unnecessary harmful measures and extreme punishment for losing, even if he won. He defended Denpa from being bullied for his weight, and tearfully sympathizes with Akira, Fumie's younger brother, when Akira admits to being bullied by his own sister. Daichi also seems guilt-stricken and confused when under orders from Isako to break the glasses of Fumie and her gang should they lose the trial of courage. He's even down-hearted and depressed the rest of the festival after being ordered, apparently not looking forward to the prospect at all. At first, he chose his pride as a "man" over his feelings for Fumie and doing what's right, and took out his frustration and anger at himself out on Fumie and screaming that he hated her. This was until the trial of courage was completed; he verbally declared victory over Fumie's group (even though it was a draw), but he didn't take any action to finalize it. He also defended Fumie towards the end of the series when the children were forbidden from using glasses; a few boys were physically bullying Fumie, who is pretty defenseless in that area. Daichi immediately used his karate on them and told them to never hurt anyone again.





Daichi is a single child and has lived in Daikoku all his life; his mother is only seen once and never speaks, and his father is a karate instructor.
Daichi was the president of the Biology Club for a time, before defacting and forming his own club, the Daikoku Hackers (though according to the faculty they're all still Biology Club members). He also searches for lost cyber pets as a member of Megabaa's Cyber Detective Agency, competing with Fumie for the reward of metabugs to pay for his illegal cyber weapons. He seems to do this only when it suits him, because he never answers Megabaa's summons. It seems the search for "Hepburn" in the first episode was the only case from Megabaa we're ever shown him actually participating in. It's assumed his Agency number is 6, since it's the only number unaccounted for in the series.
After Isako transfers to the cast's class, Daichi invites her to join his club as the first girl member. She quickly turns him down, and Daichi tries to bully her with hacking as punishment for affronting his pride. Isako beats Daichi at hacking fairly quickly, and takes over the Hackers, much to Daichi's annoyance. Isako tricks Daichi into following her to a bus graveyard under the pretense of searching for metabugs, and paid him back for needlessly picking on her. Isako uses Daichi and the other boys to carry out various menial tasks for her, such as keeping guard over elaborate encryptions and challenging the other children to duels.
Daichi spent some time at the end-of-term summer festival with Fumie and the rest of the children before challenging the other side to the duel. He used Akira to spy on Fumie and Yasako, and found that the girls had a weakness to ghost stories. He told spooky urban legends on Michiko, a legendary cyber entity. Ultimately, he too was unnerved by Haraken's telling about Michiko, and fought his way through the trial of courage. Unfortunately, both groups ended in a draw, which Daichi verbally denied. But because he didn't take the other group's glasses like Isako ordered him to, he was kicked out of the Hackers.
In his indignation, he and Denpa formed the "Original Hackers Club," and spent most of the summer vacation searching for Illegals and metabugs, followed by Yasako's little sister Kyoko. Kyoko dislikes Daichi, and therefore loves bullying him and playing tricks on him. (Their relationship is purely comedic; mostly slapstick when she stomps his foot or pours ramune down his yukata, and his ability to understand what she means when all she's saying is "poop!" He trusts her as a metabug/Obsolete Space-finding ally.)
His recklessness caused a lot of trouble when he managed to fish a Illegal shaped like...a fish out of an Obsolete Space. Determined to dig tons of metabugs out of the creature, he kept feeding it dead graphic pixels and letting it grow larger and larger, convinced that it would produce dozens of metabugs and make him rich. He refused to stop feeding it, and it grew to epic proportions, covering the city in a cyber ocean and floating throughout Daikoku, feeding off of the cyber network of the city. Daichi was in shock and sat watching, at a loss of how to fix the mess he created. But even when confronted, he still refused to give up the fish Illegal and the metabugs he thought it carried. He was arrested by Tamako Harakawa, the young woman behind Satchii. Fumie traded Megabaa's vaccine metatag for Daichi's release, much to his surprise, but not before forcing him to null his victory over her and to beg her forgiveness. It was a crushing blow, but Daichi gave up and complied in order for the problem to be solved.
It wasn't long after that the beard-like Illegal spread among the children. These Illegals were like sentient bacteria, spreading across one's face like a beard, and from person to person. These Illegals formed civilizations, and were able to communicate with the children through chatrooms. Daichi was the second to be infected but first to show symptoms, after a sleepy Kyoko gave him a big smacker on the lips (he was very indignant about losing his first kiss to her). He was devastated by the beard, even though he had been searching for the growth of bodily hair because of his father provoking his lack of manliness. The beards (which the children called The Bearded Ones) advanced quickly, especially Yasako's. They even went so far as to create space programs, and opposite sides of Yasako's face fought a nuclear war. Things quickly dissolved into "interplanetary" war, with each beard sending nukes at the beards of the other children. The children bonded over the communication and monitoring of their beards and acting as gods, and finally solved the problem by sending The Bearded Ones to the "promised land" of a old man's bald head.
As the series was coming to a climax, Densuke was identified as the special cyberbody that connects to the Coil Domain, a Coil Node. Kyoko ran off with him when the Satchii 2.0 came to destroy him, chased all the while. Under orders from Tamako, Daichi caused a distraction with his many Mr. Forthwrights in order to grab Kyoko and run off with her. He learned from Megabaa and Tamako the truth about the Coil Node and Obsolete Spaces. After the Coil Space incident, Daichi's glasses were taken like the rest of the children. He used the karate he had been learning ove rthe summer vacation to defend Fumie from a bully who was physically hurting her, and warned them from hurting anyone again.