Shiro (Voltron: Legendary Defender)

Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane is one of the main protagonists (alongisde Allura and Keith) of the Voltron: Legendary Defender series. He functions as a Paladin of Voltron, piloting the Black Lion.
He was voiced by Josh Keaton, who also voice Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Jak in Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, Spider-Man / Peter Parker in The Spectacular Spider-Man, XLR8 in the 2016 reboot of Ben 10, and the young Hercules in the Disney animated film.
== Background ==
Originally an exploration pilot for the Galaxy Garrison, Shiro traveled to Pluto's moon Kerberos with Dr. Samuel Holt and his son, Matt Holt, which at that point in time was the furthest that humans had ever traveled into the universe. While Earth's governments officially reported them missing due to pilot error, the three had in reality been abducted by a passing Galra ship which had been scouting Earth's solar system for signs of Voltron. Dr. Holt was sent to a labor camp, while Shiro and Matt were sent to become fighters in Emperor Zarkon's Gladiatorial Arena.
== Personality ==
Shiro's personality is that of a born leader, naturally adept at calmly commanding his team. Although he holds a commanding presence, Shiro is actually quite kind as well as sensitive to the struggles and concerns his fellow Paladins are undergoing or may have. This is highlighted in his patience with Pidge, as he knew that she was Katie Holt due to having worked closely with her missing family members, and sympathized with her loss and understood her grief, frustration, and desire to uncover their fates. Shiro's skills as a leader are further enhanced by the familial bond he forms with all of his teammates. Despite how serious and straightforward Shiro can be, he can also be just as silly and laid back as his friends when he has the chance, such as when his friends were making "laser noises". He initially sided with Keith on knocking it off before engaging in it himself, causing the Red Paladin to appear embarrassed that his leader was acting so ridiculously.
==Biography==
===Past===
The rest of Shiro's past is unknown, but at the time he came of age he joined the space organization "Galaxy Garrison", where he not only became it's greatest pilot, but also became the best pilot in the world. Where he made friends with commander Sam Holt and a relationship with another pilot named Adam. It was also during that time that he found a special interest with a juvenile orphan named Keith, who despite having a discipline issue with others, saw great potential in him and got him recommended for the Garrison.
Eventually, Shiro was selected to be part of a space mission to the moon Kerberos, but was rejected due to a discovery that he has muscular dystrophy, this causes a strain in his and Adam's relationship when he was ultimately allowed to go on the mission with Sam and his son Matt. However, when they got to Kerberos and started collecting ice samples on its surface, they get surprisingly ambushed by an alien warship and get pulled up in it's tractor-beam while it was tracking for a secret superweapon, despite assuring the aliens on board they're harmless, they are taken as prisoners of the Galra empire and the Garrison, fearful of causing the world to panic, cover up their kidnapping as "piloting disorder".
After being taken back to the main Galra fleet for interrogation, Sam (also being a scientist) is taken to a work camp with other scientists while his son and Shiro was taken to the gladiator pits to fight for entertainment for all the empire to see, seeeing Matt scared to fight, Shiro faked a lust for blood and was made the first to fight the Gladiator Myzax, who despite all odds, is able to defeat him and earned him the nickname "champion", but after that, he was taken for experiments and had his right hand replaced with a mechanical one.
One year later, Shiro was taken to the labs for another experiment, but to his own surprise, one of the scientists attacks the others and helps him escape, he reveals his name as Ulaz, who is part of a Galra rebellion named the blade of Marmora and gives him coordinates to one of their bases, after a while, Shiro is able to get into an escape pod and flies to earth where he learns that the Galra is heading to earth to find the weapon they were searching for a year ago, but during his trip back home, he gets bonked in the head that gives him amnesia of everything he had experienced.
===Role in the series===
====Season 1====
When Shiro's pod crash-landed on earth, he is immediately taken into quarantine by the surrounding Garrison members, he tries to tell them of the coming Galra ship, but is knocked out due to him being missing for a whole year. Suddenly, Keith (whose discipline issue ultimately got him expelled from the Garrison) breaks into the lab and frees an unconscious Shiro when all of a sudden, three other cadets named Lance, Hunk, & Pidge, who, after a crazy hoverbike chase, settled down in a shack Keith lived and explained that after being kicked out, began to uncover wave lengths that led to a blue lion, Pidge (who was also tracing the same wave lengths) codes them down and leads the five to the blue lion they discovered
Surprisingly it accepts Lance as its pilot and takes the five through a wormhole to a Castle on a planet called Arus, where they find and meet an alien Princess named Allura, her royal advisor named Coran and four space mice in cryostasis from a planet named Altea. Upon awakening, Allura is shocked to discover that 10,000 years have passed since they were placed in cryostasis. However, while that was happening Haggar, a high-ranking member of the Galra Empire, senses Allura's awakening and informs Zarkon, the Galran Emperor, who sends closest Galra troops commanded by Sendak after them. Sensing incredible powers in the five, Allura names the others as Voltron Paladins, bestows them with armor and bayards (the Paladins' weapons) and tasks them with finding the other lions. Lance and Hunk retrieve the Yellow Lion while Shiro accompanies Pidge to find the Green Lion. The Red Lion, as it is unfortunately revealed, is in the hands of the very Galra ship advancing on Arus. Unsure of whether to run or fight, Allura consults the artificial intelligence formed by the memories of her father, King Alfor, who admits he was wrong to hide Voltron and encourages her to fight. Keith, Shiro and Pidge infiltrate the ship so Keith can find the Red Lion while Shiro and Pidge, who repurposes a Galra drone dubbed "Rover", search the ship for prisoners, revealing to Shiro his father and brother were the other missing astronauts from the Kerberos mission Shiro was on. With all four lions retrieved, the Black Lion is released from the Castle and selects Shiro as its Paladin. All five Paladins use their lions to fight the Galra, and succeed in uniting to form Voltron and destroying Sendak's ship before accepting their new roles as the Defenders of the Universe.
After sometime, the team discovers the location of a secret Galran transport hub. Allura joins the Paladins in infiltrating the station in order to extract information, but find nothing useful there. When another ship arrives, Allura decides to infiltrate the ship herself to extract its information by making use of her Altean ability to change her skin color and height, allowing her to resemble a Galran soldier. Shiro accompanies her, unwilling to let her go alone as well as needing his hand to access Galran technology. During the trip, Shiro remembers his method of escaping the prison ship by timing the guards marching patterns, but they ultimately get caught and Allura is taken back to Zarkon's flagship.
Determined to rescue Allura from Zarkon, the team wormholes into Galra central command which immediately activates it's barrier and sends all the fleets in the area to capture them. While Voltron is able to take down multiple ships, Zarkon uses some kind of magical means to split them apart, pulling the Black Lion in and ejecting Shiro from it, he manages to break into Zarkon's ship to find Allura, he runs into Haggar who plays mind tricks on him and is easily overwhelmed, but he is thankfully saved by Hunk and a now-rescued Allura. Afterwards he reunites with the Black Lion and rescues Keith (who was battling Zarkon in his attempt to claim the Black Lion), but are unable to escape thanks to the barrier when Thace, another member of the Blade of Marmora, turns of the shield and allows them to escape. But in the last moment, Haggar blasts it with her lightning and causes the Paladins and the castle to be scattered to various parts of the universe.
====Season 2====
Shiro ends up crashing on a desolate moon separated from the black lion until Keith with the red lion hurry to his aid and rescue him, while recuperating, Shiro tells him that should the time ever come when he isn't around, he wants him to the black lion's pilot, which is something he worries for until the castle picks them up.
After returning to the castle, Shiro is placed in a recovery pod and vividly dreams of everything that happened the day he escaped, including the one who helped him, while also discovering that Zarkon was the previous Black Paladin of Voltron. Using the coordinates in Shiro's artificial arm, the Paladins locate Ulaz, who reveals he is part of an order known as the Blade of Marmora, who are hidden within many ranks of Zarkon's Empire. Suddenly, Zarkon (whose connection to the black lion is still strong) finds them and sends a Ro-Beast to take down the Paladins and quickly gains the upper hand, until Ulaz sacrifices himself to destroy the monster. Before his death, Ulaz gives the team the location of the Blade of Marmora's headquarters; Shiro and the group decide to wait on journeying there until they learn how Zarkon is tracking them.
The team then spends that time freeing more planets from the Galra's control, gaining more allies in their own rebellion, but Zarkon uses his connection to the black lion to find them every chance he gets. When Shiro figures this out, he decides that he needs to make a stronger connection with his lion, doing this, the Black Lion shows Shiro it's origin, and how Zarkon and Alfor were once friends. However, Zarkon then connects to Shiro on the psychic plane and the 2 fight for the lion's control, Zarkon initially gets the upper hand but Shiro's words of trusting his Lion earn its protection and makes Zarkon loses more connection to the Black Lion and Shiro is now more connected to it. Afterwards, knowing Zarkon can no longer track them, Shiro decides it's time to head to the Blade of Marmora's headquarters.
Upon arriving to the Blades headquarters, Shiro and Keith enter the base and meets the blades leader Kolivan, who discovers that Keith has possession of one of their blades and causes immediate friction. After a long & gruesome trial, Keith finally relents the blade to them, but in doing so, he awakens its true form of a saber upon his enlightened decision and reveal a truth: Keith has part Galra ancestry. Now fully trusting of each other, Kolivan and Shiro devise a plan to stop Zarkon for good.
Shiro, Lance, and Pidge head to a prison to free Slav, a scientist whose genius is needed to to make a supersized teludav invisible, and when he finishes that, he returns with the rest to put their plan into motion. Using what's left of Zarkon's connection to the black lion to his advantage, Shiro lures his entire fleet to their location and with Zarkon so caught up with claiming his old lion, Kolivan uploads a virus in the Galra mothership that shuts down all of it's power and Allura has the teludav teleported far away from his empire's call for help.
Upon forming Voltron, Shiro and the other paladins destroy the base to end Zarkon's reign for good. But Haggar, wanting to protect the emperor from doing something crazy, uses dark magic to drain Voltron of it's Quintessence, but is overloaded by the purity of Voltron. While the Lions are unresponsive, their Paladins still live, but Zarkon, deciding it's time he'll take Voltron himself, arrives in a Ro-beast made in his image. Leading Shiro to lead Voltron against him to put an end to him for good. As the battle rages on, Zarkon splits Voltron back into the individual Lions and knocking Shiro unconscious, waking up seeing his team being beaten up and the Bayard access port in his Black Lion opening up, Shira & his lion physically connect & together, they activate its Transcendent Wings to phase through Zarkon's Ro-Beast and reclaim the original Black Bayard, as well as permanently severing his connection for good. The Paladins fight with new strength, and Shiro uses his Bayard to supercharge the Voltron Sword and destroy Zarkon's Ro-Beast armor, majorly weakening him. After escaping the battlefield, Keith and the others rush to the lion to see if he's alright, but to their shock, they discover that Shiro has vanished from the Black Lion. 
====Season 3-5====
As revealed later on in the series, Zarkon was able to take down Shiro with him, which destroyed his body in the process. But the Black Lion, now fully trustful of him, is able to save his soul by containing it inside it's consciousness, where he remained completely unknown to anyone. During this time, the team still needing Voltron, ultimately decide it's time to pick a new black paladin, and Keith (despite not wanting to at first) is ultimately chosen, with lance as the red lion's pilot & Allura as the Blue lion's.
It is also during that time that with the Galra Empire losing more of it's territory to Voltron & the resistance; Lotor, Zarkon's exiled, half-breed son, used this opportunity to take control of the empire and complete his own plans, where it involved stealing a Comet whose ore was used by Alfor to create Voltron in the first place (Because it had the special and unique ability to travel across other realities whenever it wants), and use it to build a ship capable of entering the quintessence field (a space between realities) and allow the Galra to claim unlimited quintessence and stop the war. The paladins, though doubtful at first, eventually form an alliance with him.
However, unbeknownst to both sides, Haggar (really Lotor's Altean mother Honerva) grew disappointed in her son's experiments and decides to do something about it herself. It is revealed that after taking Shiro's arm, She used it as part of a secret experiment called "Operation Kuron", and made dozens of clones of him to blend in with his allies, once Shiro disappeared, Haggar activated one of them and left him stranded to be picked up by the team, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take them down.
====Season 6====
Eventually Shiro is able to get the paladins attention when they discovered that Lotor was harvesting quintessence from some of the surviving Alteans he secretly provided refuge, it was then that the Shiro clone is taken control by Haggar and escapes with an unconscious Lotor, Keith (who previously left the team to let Shiro take control of the black lion where he met his Long-lost mother, a space-wolf, and an altean named Romelle) takes back control of the black lion and rushes to get to Shiro, but the clone is ordered by Haggar to lure him away.
Following the clone to Haggar's cloning facility, Keith is cornered by the clone and engages him in a very heated battle, after a long struggle and failure to get the clone to listen to reason, Keith, who got the black bayard, cuts of the clone's mechanical arm, severing Haggar's control over it but causing the entire base to collapse in on them. Fortunately, the Black Lion is able to save Keith and meets with Shiro on the astral plane, where he explains everything to him, and with his guidance, Keith is able to unlock the Black Lion's wings and reunites with the team to battle Lotor's sincline robot.
After a long gruesome battle that expanded in the quintessence field. The paladins are able to return to their universe, but discover that Lotor's constant jumping in and out of the field has caused various rifts in reality to form and will expand until their entire universe is destroyed. Coran deduces that he could overload the teludav to seal all the rifts, but it will sacrifice the Castle in the process. With no other choice, the Paladins unload and evacuate the Castle. As the Castle enters the rift, the teludav overloads and the Castle is destroyed, but fortunately close the rifts, leaving behind a single diamond as a result of the Castle being crushed by the sheer pressure of the rifts. After landing on a normal asteroid, Shiro's soul, with the help from Allura, is able to merge with the clone's and is once again able to live, afterwards, needing a new base for the lion's the team decides to return to earth.
====Season 7====
After sometime recovering and fully accepting the clones body, Shiro and the paladins then fly back to earth to get a new ship for the lions prepared, however, during the trip back to the milky way, they not only learn that Lotor's death caused the empire to turn against each other, but they learn that being in the quintessence field caused them to jump ahead 2 years in time.
When they return to earth, they are shocked to discover that the Galra forces led by a surviving Sendak had taken over earth and is using it in exchange for the lions. When settling in the Garrison: the only place strong enough against the Galra invaders, Allura makes Shiro a brand new mechanical arm for him to use. Using the knowledge extracted from Sendak, they discover that he's been building zaiforge cannons capable of destroying planets, with the stakes high, Shiro suggests the paladins call the lions (which they landed on Saturn for protection) to destroy all bases at once. While the plan is beginning to be successful, Admiral Sanda, still completely doubtful of the plan, willingly leaks the plan out to Sendak and easily captures all the lions, determined to save them and the Earth, Shiro suggests taking the offensive, and believing if they transfer all power, including that powering the particle shield, to the IGF-Atlas, they might be able to get it powered and flying. The MFE fighters provide cover while Shiro, Coran and Sam try to get the Atlas airborne. After a failed attempt, Coran realizes the crystal formed from the destruction of the Castle of Lions could be the key and inserts it in the ship. It instantly powers the ship and the Atlas launches and joins the fight. After the paladins are freed and form Voltron, they go into space and do battle with the armada, but when the Voltron is pinned down by the blockade, Shiro resorts to personally infiltrate Sendak's flagship and destroy it's crystal, which shuts down the ship and one of the cannons, allowing the paladins to destroy the rest in time while the MFEs finish destroying all the launch bases. But without power, Sendak's ship begins plummeting to earth's surface with Shiro still onboard, Shiro manages to escape the ship, Sendak follows him and the two battle it out on the crashing ship, Fortunately, the paladins manage to land the ship in a desert and just before Sendak kills Shiro, Keith manages to jump out and kill Sendak in time.
But just as they celebrate defeating the Galra forces around Earth, a powerful enemy robot appears and attacks them, despite giving it their all, the paladins are shocked to discover that the robot is armed with the komar that zaps away their quintessence. In the heat of battle, Shiro unlocks the Atlas' surprising ability to transform into a giant robot and give the robot a harder time, which distracts it long enough for Voltron to destroy it. Afterwards Shiro helps the paladins recover from the battle and in time, invite the remaining members of the Voltron coalition to earth. Months later, Shiro and the garrison recover the remains of the robot and to Allura's shock, discover that it was a mech suit piloted by an Altean.
====Season 8====
After spending some time rebuilding earth, Shiro allows everyone to have a day to themselves before departing from earth to liberate all remaining planets under Galra control. During so, he (Along with their altean allies) learn from the Altean that Haggar, now going by her true name Honerva, has rallied all the surviving Alteans together to harm the universe due to their misplaced love of Lotor and begins her ultimate endgame plan, prompting the coalition to stop her.
After sometime, Shiro and the other Paladins learn that every Altean has an evil entity inside of them, which were the first enemies the 1st generation of paladins, and Allura releases one from one of them, but is tempted by the entity to enter her body. However, Allura thinks she can use the entity to enter Honerva's mind and together, the paladins learn that Honerva plans to use Lotor's mech to cross over realities to find one where she can be with her family, however, doing so will destroy every reality she crosses on her journey.
Now determined more than ever to stop Honerva, Shiro and the others rush to the star system where Altea and Daibazaal once existed. Despite their best efforts, Honerva breaks threw realities and heads to the reality she's searching for, in an act of gratitude, a group of Balmerans give their quintessence that combines Voltron and the Atlas and together, they head over to stop Honerva.
When Shiro and the paladins arrive on the reality Honerva longed for, Honerva had gone crazy with grief when the Lotor from her reality saw her for the monster she became, heading travels to the source of all realities, she coldly destroys all realities until finally, the paladins are able to convince her that while life is hard and rough, it is still gorgeous and vibrant and is still worth living, something Allura reminds her of by showing Honerva her memories of the happy girl she used to be. But knowing she can't fix what she had broken alone, Allura and Honerva sacrifice their lives to restore all the destroyed realities, restoring Altea & Daibazaal in the process. 
====Epilogue====
A year after Allura's sacrifice, Shiro and the paladins are finally able to get the Galra to become a peaceful empire and with that, they ultimately end the Galra's conquest of the universe for good and together with them and the now reformed Alteans, they continue to connect with other sectors of the universe, and in the end, Shiro retires from space traveling and settles down while marrying an Atlas crew-member named Curtis, knowing that his time as being defender of the universe is over and he's earned his Happily ever after.
== Abilities ==
Shiro is a pilot of almost unheard of ability. He is a natural pilot of legendary reputation back on Earth, where his skills made him a hero to many aspiring pilots such as Keith and Lance. In addition to his skills piloting human ships, Shiro was also a master pilot of the Black Lion. His bond with Black was so deep that Shiro was the only Paladin to pass the blind dive training exercise, thus allowing him to see through Black's senses and body. Shiro was also known to be among the most skilled in hand-to-hand combat among the Paladins. Shiro's lean and muscular build marks him as possessing incredible athletic abilities that allow him to rival even the likes of Hunk in terms of raw strength, and is able to duck and dodge with great agility and grace, rivaling Keith's speed, Pidge's balance, and Lance's precision. Shiro's greatest asset is his superb tactical mind and leadership skills, allowing him to take on stronger foes such as Myzax in both the gladiator pit and on Arus within Voltron. Shiro regularly and skillfully inspires his team with his charismatic personality and indomitable spirit and is able to bring them from the depths of defeat and ignite their will to win, thus allowing them to push back with the strength of a true army while acting as one. He is also skilled in military tactics, which is how he learned the guards' routines aboard the prison ship where he was held. Shiro is also skilled at reading the tactical weaknesses of others, devising plans based on their weak points, and often drawing out fights against stronger foes to learn any and all possible faults in their fighting styles and move sets.
After his soul transferred into a clone body bereft of the original's defects and other flaws (the body in question was originally developed by Haggar as part of Project Kuron involving formidable sleeping agent) and attaining new prosthetic arm, Shiro's original combat parameters increased significantly. In addition of surviving the explosion of teludav crystal powering Sendak's ship, he is able to fight against Sendak on equal terms despite the latter's superior prosthetic upgrade in their final fight 
==Trivia==
*Shiro's scar has the same as Iruka from Naruto.
*Shiro is LGBT+ representation in the series, having had a lover on Earth named Adam. This was always intended to be part of his character, but his history had to be postponed due to scheduling and production. As far as his exact orientation, staff wrote him in such a way so as to leave room for interpretation. However, both Lauren Montgomery and Joshua Hamilton refer to Shiro as a gay man.
**At one point during early production, Shiro was intended to die during the second season. Staff did not want to kill off their gay character, so they were going to focus on a different character for LGBT+ representation instead up until they decided to keep Shiro alive and his story was rewritten.
*Shiro's birthday is on Leap Day (February 29), which only occurs once every 4 years. Leap Day birthdays are usually celebrated on the 28th on years that it does not occur.
*The black vest that Shiro sports in the first two seasons once belonged to Keith's father.
==External links==
*Shiro - Voltron Wiki
*Shiro on Pure good Wiki
*Shiro on Wikipedia
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