Giant Freaking Character Survey
Body and Appearance
1. Describe the character's height and build. Is he heavyset, thin, short, rangy?
Tall (~6' 2") and on the slender side. Very fit, fairly lanky looking, nicely muscled under the business suit.
2. How old is he? About twenty-five (fourteen at the start of canon, then accounting for several arcs + ten year jump)
3. Describe his posture. Does he carry himself well or does he slouch? Calling it "slouching" is a little unfair, but he doesn't tend to stand all that stiffly. He also moves like someone who's used to being a lot taller than the people he hangs around and probably leans down a little unconsciously.
4. How is his health? Is he fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities? Very excellently fit, no conditions or disabilities.
5. How does he move? Is he clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid? Always pretty graceful and fluid, relaxed. Tends to lope, and likes walking with his hands tucked in his pockets or holding onto something, generally occupied. If something triggers his athletic/fighting instinct, he moves quickly, smoothly, and economically.
6. How attractive is this character physically? How does he perceive himself in the mirror? Target of a good bit of informed attractiveness in the manga, so apparently he's a pretty hot piece of ass as a kid. He grows into a little more ruggedly handsome guy, and while he's not unaware of it, it's not something he'd think about either. Judging by his hair in most panels, I'm reasonably certain he doesn't actually own a mirror.
7. Describe his complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred? Tannish for a Japanese guy, and leaning towards the scarred side. The only visible one is the ridiculous nick on his chin.
8. Describe his hair: color, texture, style. Short, very dark brown/black, and incredibly disheveled. Open question as to whether he owns a comb, either. He definitely doesn't seem to take any kind of care of it, so the stuff must be fairly coarse and unruly to stick up like it does.
9. What color are his eyes? Light brown, amber-goldish.
10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features? Other than the scar and his height, not particularly.
11. What are his chief tension centers? Shoulders, neck.
12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does he have six of the same suit? In GnD, yukata. Plenty of yukata. Which he's actually perfectly comfortable with and isn't problematic to him. Generally speaking, he has a casual wardrobe that veers towards the ridiculous and eccentric sometimes (puffy vests, capris and sandals, fur-trimmed jackets, and leather pants all come to mind) and a tendency to dress down the nice clothes he does wear. Expect him to never have ties or sashes properly fixed, his shirts to be unbuttoned at the top and his yukatas to gape open a little lower than they should. Colorwise, he seems to like most things that aren't pastel, but he's openminded to pink.
13. Do his clothes fit well? Does he seem comfortable in them? Yes and yes. Though as mentioned before, they'll never be properly done up. He's just a little too comfortable.
14. Does he dress the same on the job as he does in his free time? If not, what are the differences? Back home, there's actually a difference; he'll go from suits to jeans and t-shirts, basically. Here it's all yukata all the time, unless he can dig up some hakama for sword practice.
15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando? Assuming boxers, like everyone else shown in his canon. Now fundoshi.
Speech
1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse? On the deep end of tenor, mellow. Kind of like this or this.
2. How does he normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does he talk easily, or does he hesitate? Unhurriedly, but at a decent clip, and like he's not shy. He can get loud when he gets riled, like at baseball games. No hesitation.
3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics? Nothing in particular, though he talks in a pretty boyish/manly way. (uses "ore" for I and a lot of informal sentence structure and ending.) He's also relatively informal, tending strongly to calling everyone by their last name with no suffix as a default state.
4. What language/s does he speak, and with how much fluency? Very fluent Japanese! Probably a scattered amount of English from school, and some Italian by necessity from mafia business. He's mentioned to have been traveling for some time before the start of the TYL arc, so it's possible that he's had occasion to practice non-Japanese languages.
5. Does he switch languages or dialects in certain situations? Not really. Unless he has a compelling reason not to, Japanese is what he's comfortable in.
6. Is he a good impromptu speaker, or does he have to think about his words? Yamamoto is the kind of guy who shoots from the hip. He doesn't really meditate before speaking, but he also won't talk if he's got nothing to say. He's fine with a silence just being a silence. He's also not shy about admitting when he doesn't know something, and he never worries about sounding stupid.
7. Is he eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change? Actually has a tendency to irritate Gokudera by saying the "cool" thing in any given situation. He can become inarticulate when extremely flustered, which is just a little difficult. Naked people can probably do it? But only if they surprise him.
Mental and Emotional
1. How intelligent is this character? Is he book-smart or street-smart? A lot smarter than he seems, but not a rocket scientist by any stretch. More towards street-smart, but he learns quickly hands-on. He can do math problems that look exactly like the ones in the book, for example, but won't deal well with something off the beaten path. Most of his intelligence is in an intuitive grasp of physics and kinetics; he learns to ride a motorcycle prettymuch his first try, masters a sword style after seeing each move once, and can unravel an opponent's strategy and make up new techniques midbattle.
2. Does he think on his feet, or does he need time to deliberate? Almost always on his feet, save for major decisions. He spends a fair bit of time brooding over his failures when he gets into emomode (see post choice-loss in the anime's inheritance arc, his introduction in the manga, etc.)
3. Describe the character's thought process. Is he more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical? By and large, intuitive. Sharply observant and good at extrapolating eventually, but anything involved will take him a long time. He's not as idealistic as he was when he was younger, but there's still a decent dash of it in there. He likes believing the best of people, but he won't miss obvious evidence to the contrary.
4. What kind of education has the character had? Ambiguous. At least through high school. Based on Japanese college education rates, there's a 50/50 chance he has college, too, but it's by no means a given.
5. What are his areas of expertise? What, if anything, is he interested in learning more about? Baseball. :D Also swordsmanship of various kinds, and probably a decent bit of knowledge about traditional Japanese culture and historical swordsmen. His father is fairly strictly traditional and he's been raised with that in mind.
6. Is he an introvert or an extrovert? Extrovert! Welcoming to almost anyone, not at all shy. He compartmentalizes well and is pretty reserved about some things, though.
7. Describe the character's temperament. Is he even-tempered or does he have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven? Very, very even-tempered. Internally driven but it doesn't manifest much unless someone phrases something as a challenge. Perennially, annoyingly cheerful. He can go from grinning to srsfais at the drop of a hat if he goes into his fighting mode.
8. How does he respond to new people or situations? Is he suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic? Pretty open and mellow to new experiences, relaxed in most situations.
9. Is he more likely to act, or to react? Generally speaking, he'll react--action is reserved for those rare things he's especially decisive about. Safety of friends, sword training, baseball.
10. Which is his default: fight or flight? fight, if he has to, but he's hard to rile. He's prone to getting a little too stubborn to retreat, generally because if he actually gets backed into a fight he's not in a situation he can fall back from.
11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does he appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks? Bizarre. He laughs at all sorts of inappropriate moments, sometimes when no one else can see what's funny (like, say, during a hospital visit). He finds just about anything amusing, though elaborate puns or nerd humor are likely to fly right over his head. He also has a broad streak of gallows humor and a tendency to smile or grin in a truly alarming way in battle.
12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does he deal with them? None. He's probably one of the more sane characters in the series.
13. What moments in this character's life have defined him as a person? Most definitely, his attempted swan dive off the school roof at age fourteen. Generally his defining moments are with his friends/family: finally deciding to place the safety of his friends over his own safety and baseball, inventing his first sword form in the middle of his battle with Squalo, and finding out that his father was dead among the top three. In a parallel but alternate timeline that demonstrates Yamamoto's personality in general though not the life experiences of this specific Yamamoto, his outburst at Gokudera during the Gamma battle, the fond reunion with Squalo, and the unquestioning forgiveness of Kaoru and Byakuran rank high as defining moments.
14. What does he fear? More than anything, failure. He has pretty severe self-doubt issues when it comes to letting down his team or his friends, or in failing to meet his own absurd expectations. He also has a hard time reconciling his happy-go-lucky nature with the darker undertones of the mafia world, and having to make the call to either compromise his morals or endanger his friends is the kind of thing that gives him brooding fits and probably nightmares.
More generic fears probably include being severely, debilitatingly injured or being trapped.
15. What are his hopes or aspirations? Once, he wanted to become a pro baseball player. That got put aside in favor of being a reliable guardian for his mafia family. His first and foremost priority is always protecting the people he cares about.
16. What is something he doesn't want anyone to find out about him? He's not really covering up the mafia thing, but he doesn't advertise it either. Ditto his suicide attempt when he was young, his father's death (and subsequent undeath, thanks to some amazingly broken quantum magic), or Tsuna's supposed death. He's not the kind of guy who talks about things that upset him.
Relationships
1. Describe this character's relationship with his parents. His mother is conspicuously absent in spite of his home being shown repeatedly in canon; presumed missing or dead, never stated. However, he's very close to his father, and they seem to share a strong bond that transcends words. On returning to the past where his father is still alive, Yamamoto tells him outright "I don't know how long we'll have, but I'll do my best to be a good son." He's dutiful and obedient towards his dad, and his dad trusts him in turn and doesn't ask a lot of questions--like why his son needs to learn sword fighting. Very strong filial bond, and probably one of the most important people in the world to Yamamoto.
2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like? None!
3. Are there other blood relatives to whom he is close? Are there ones he can't stand? None, but he has plenty of family via the Vongola Mafia Family. Who... he gets along with everyone in, including former villain Mukuro (I hope he's on our team again!) and brooding hatemachine Hibari, as well as his own prior opponent Squalo. Who can punch him hard enough to knock his teeth out and still have Yamamoto tease him and act overwhelmingly fond.
4. Are there other, unrelated people whom he considers part of his family? What are his relationships with them? Tsuna and Squalo are probably his two closest relationships outside of the one with his father. Gokudera is also worth a mention, being one of the only people in canon who can actually make Yamamoto angry.
5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet? Tsuna. They were middle school classmates; Yamamoto was the jock, Tsuna was the loser. After a strange winning streak for Tsuna and a self-perceived slump for Yamamoto, Yamamoto started hanging out with Tsuna and asked for his advice. When this same advice led Yamamoto to break his arm and then attempt suicide, Tsuna inadvertently saved him and Yamamoto followed him ever since.
6. Does he have other close friends? All of the Vongola count to varying degrees. He seems to have especially close relationships with Reborn, Squalo, and Gokudera.
7. Does he make friends easily, or does he have trouble getting along with people? Very easily! Or rather, he makes warm acquaintances very easily. He makes strong friendships more slowly. Not reluctant to do so, but he takes them very seriously, too.
8. Which does he consider more important: family or friends? It's not clear that he actually makes a mental distinction. He goes where his friends need him, but if for some reason his retired badass swordsman father was in trouble, he'd be there in a heartbeat.
9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has he been married more than once? Single, probably never married. It's dubious whether he's even dated, given how married he is to his jobs and his hobbies; it'd be a bit of a stretch to assume that an attractive midtwenties jock guy is still a virgin, however, so he's probably had a few flings.
10. Is he currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse? None.
11. Who was his first crush? Who is his latest? Completely ambiguous. He tends to have a kind of tunnel vision when it comes to priorities like baseball training, or sword training. Probably someone he spent a lot of time with at one of those, like a girl who came to all his games, the sister of a teammate, or even a teammate or sparring partner.
12. What does he look for in a romantic partner? Strong will, honesty, courage, and self-sufficiency are all high priorities. He also values a sense of compassion, but he'll settle for just plain passion instead. People who are driven and goal-oriented have his respect and interest.
13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does he relate to them? If no, does he want any? None! He's good with kids, kind of. Just not so good at gauging appropriate force around them.
14. Does he have any rivals or enemies? He's a little too friendly to mentally frame it as such. Squalo qualifies as his rival in swordsmanship, and that's a very close bond for him. Similarly, Gokudera was his "rival" for the position of Tsuna's right hand man.
15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does he fall on the Kinsey scale? Probably a kinsey twoish. Women are his default assumption if he's thinking about sex, but he wouldn't see anything wrong with sleeping with a guy. Blah blah blah Japanese views on sexuality are not western ones; gayness is something you do, not something you are. Sleeping with a guy wouldn't be any challenge to his self-identity, because the issue just isn't framed that way in his mind. That being said, it might not occur to him as an option without an overt sign of interest from a guy, either. He has no problem with checking out and appreciating attractiveness of both genders.
16. How does he feel about sex? How important is it to him? Honestly, not really a priority for him. Also not something he hangs a lot of weight on. It's fun, and a nice recreational thing, and not really bogged down in notions of morality. Baseball and swordfighting are also fun, and if he needs to blow off steam he'll probably think of those first.
17. What are his turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits? Athletic bodies are just more attractive to him. Also people with explosive tempers are weirdly fascinating. Adrenaline, playfulness, and general good humor are turn ons. Not very many turn-offs, but he'd be liable to get a little uncertain or unhappy if he felt like his partner was inexperienced or uncertain to the point where he'd be taking advantage of them.
Beliefs
1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does he fit type? Almost on the cusp, Taurus. "Patient and reliable, Warmhearted and loving, Persistent and determined, Placid and security loving." Very good fit.
2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in his life? Not particularly either. He might be moderately superstitious of general things, but in an absentminded rather than an active way. Eg he won't pass food chopsticks to chopsticks, but he doesn't go out of his way for superstitions.
3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it? Very much so, and he holds to it like a man with a lifeline, sinking into existential angst if it becomes clear that he has to choose between it and his ultimate goal of protecting people. He dislikes killing--that's just not how he plays his game. He also has an athlete's sense of fair play and sportsmanship, and hesitates to break it. He really wouldn't do it for anything short of feeling it was paramount to protecting his friends and family.
4. How does he regard beliefs that differ from his? Is he tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent? Completely tolerant and sometimes curious. He won't even get particularly offended by villainous tricks, although he'll sometimes get scoldy or trashtalky in battle when they do something heinous. "Lying is the first step to theft," to an illusionist, for example.
5. What prejudices does he hold? Are they irrational or does he have a good reason for them? No particular strong ones. He likely has a default assumption that girls are noncombatants, just from the general precedents in his life and Japanese social standards, but if a girl presents herself as a warrior he won't question it either.
Daily Life
1. What is the character's financial situation? Is he rich, poor, comfortable, in debt? He seems fairly average, but by extrapolation his family (meaning, his father) must be fairly well off. They own both a restaurant and a dojo, which is a substantial amount of property in Japan where land values are so high.
2. What is his social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected him? Ordinary guy from a semi-wealthy traditional family to a respected member of a high-ranking Mafia family. It hasn't really changed his laid back attitude all that much, but he's probably learned at least a little about how to carry himself at formal events.
3. Where does he live? House, apartment, trailer? Is his home his castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does he share it with others? He has a room in Tsuna's secret underground base. As a kid, he lived in his father's combo sushi restaurant and house.
4. Besides the basic necessities, what does he spend his money on? He has a few vices included some interesting taste in clothes and a motorcycle hobby. Beer, good food, and a decent TV to watch baseball on are all likely candidates for spending also.
5. What does he do for a living? Is he good at it? Does he enjoy it, or would he rather be doing something else? Mafia-ing. His one true dream was to be a baseball star, but he wouldn't abandon his friends for anything, so it's safe to say that given the circumstances of his life there's nowhere he'd rather be. Though he might sometimes wish things were different.
6. What are his interests or hobbies? How does he spend his free time? He loves baseball, training, exercise, swimming, motorcycling, and generally chilling out with TV (spooorts) or video games (though he's likely outgrown this). Also group activities like bowling or generally hanging out are A++ by him. Now that he's older, he likely enjoys hangout places like bars or occasionally clubs.
7. What are his eating habits? Does he skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods? An athlete's unconsciously regimented eating schedule. He eats regularly and healthily, probably more food than his lanky frame really suggests he intakes given how much energy he burns daily. He'll drink occasionally, but not often to excess. He eats like someone who takes meticulous care of his body, basically.
Associations
Which of the following do you associate with the character, or which is his favorite:
1. Color? Blue.
2. Smell? Fresh grass, steel, rain.
3. Time of day? Afternoon.
4. Season? Summer.
5. Book? Mishima's Sound of Waves or Musashi's Go Rin No Sho.
6. Music? wadaiko, but also most pop and rock. Illogical mental association goes to Gin Blossoms.
7. Place? Baseball field, but also dojo.
8. Substance? Earth/dirt, ocean waves.
9. Plant? Japanese maple, or any solid and deep-rooted tree.
10. Animal? Dog, or wolf.
END
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