Subaru Hidaka

"Excuse my rudeness, but I hate you."
Subaru Hidaka (日高 昴, Hidaka Subaru) is a second-year student in the same school as Kaito Yashio and Akiho Senomiya who is skilled roboticist that he has won the ROBO-ONE championship several times under the guise of "Mr. Pleiades." Subaru is secretive of his involvement with robots due to promising his father he would undertake the family's fishing business after graduating. Despite initially refusing to join the Robotics Club, Subaru is later blackmailed to join by Kaito.
==Character Overview==
===Personality===
Subaru has a very cynical demeanor and is generally stoic, afraid to allow his emotions to control him. This is the result of him growing under a very controlling father, who is incredibly insistent on him inheriting the family fishing business and will often physically abuse him when he attempts to go down another path of career. Despite this stoic attitude, Subaru has proven to be a very shy person, prone to stuttering when nervous and uncomfortable about physical contact with others, especially girls. 
Subaru is very realistic, always prioritizing success and practicality over aesthetics and superficialness. This trait causes him to frequently clash with Akiho, who has a bad habit of letting sentimentality get the better of her. A good example of this is when he attempted to convince her to give up on GunBuild-1 and start on a new robot from scratch, saying that there was no point in sticking to such a hopeless project, regardless of how much work she and the other club members had put into it. While he is very blunt with his opinions, Subaru nonetheless gives Akiho very sound advice, and is shown to respect her a good deal, even calling her 'Chief', something no other club member does.
While under his Mr. Pleiades persona, Subaru becomes someone completely different. Haughty and flamboyant, Mr. Pleiades personifies all the emotions Subaru keeps repressed. In addition, the fame Mr. Pleiades has garnered amongst the robotics community is something Subaru is very proud about. He is shown to switch to the Mr. Pleiades persona on impulse his whenever the mask is put on, something that ended up exposing his true identity to Kaito and Akiho. Overall, Subaru shows that he can be just as silly as Akiho at times, despite otherwise being one of the more normal members of the group along with Kaito.
Subaru appears to be a fan of anime, though to what extent is unknown, as he was able to recognize the 'Gendo Pose' when Akiho did it, during the club's first visit to JAXA.
===Skills & Abilities===
Subaru is the most well-rounded member of the club; while not as skilled an operator as Kaito, not as brilliant a programmer as Frau and not as ambitious an engineer as Akiho, he is nonetheless quite skilled in all three categories. He is very knowledgeable about the inner workings and designs of robotics, understanding the best way to construct a robot to maximize performance. His programming skills are shown by how he single-handedly built and programmed his M45 robot.
===Appearance===
Subaru always wears a mature, calm expression on his face. He is rather tall and is typically seen in his school uniform. Subaru has black hair and hazel eyes and his signature glasses have a blue frame. His PokeCom is fastened to his hip.
His Mr. Pleiades outfit possesses a range of flamboyant colors and has a military theme. He also dons a masquerade mask to further hide his identity.
== History==
Growing up, Subaru had a deep fascination with robotics and yearned to compete in the Robo-One robot tournaments. However, his father had other plans for Subaru and desired his son to inherit the family fishing business. Forbidding his son from straying from this course, Subaru was forced to repress his love of robots. However, he would later follow his passion anyways under the secret identity of Mr. Pleiades, winning the Robo-One tournament twice before the events of the series.
==Relationships==
===Family===
Only Subaru's father has made an appearance. His father is shown to be very commanding and is inflexibly against his son's interest in robotics. He is shown to use physical abuse to discipline Subaru.
===Friends===
*Kaito Yashio: Subaru is initially reluctant to associate with Kaito, but after Kaito blackmails him into joining the Robotics Club, he quickly develops a degree of respect for him, particularly admiring his operating skills. The two are shown to get along for the most part, but often trade snarky comments, and Subaru denies being Kaito's friend.
*Akiho Senomiya: Polar opposites of each other, Subaru is often frustrated by Akiho's naive optimism and typically holds her at arms length. Over time, Subaru slowly opens up to Akiho and though he does not admit it, he envies her for being able to openly express her love of robots. Overall, his relationship with Akiho is very much love/hate; he even notes this himself, stating that he often doesn't know whether to be amazed or disgusted by her.
*Junna Daitoku: As with most members of the Robotics Club, Subaru tries to remain indifferent with Junna, though the two eventually become good friends.
*Kona Furugoori: Frau's perverted tendencies and social awkwardness, coupled with Subaru's own inability to empathize with others, leaves the two with a very odd relationship. Though he greatly admires Frau's programming abilities, he is completely disgusted by her pervertedness.
== Quotes==
*"That's nonsense." - Subaru's common negative response.
==Etymology==
* The name Subaru means "Pleiades" (昴). 
** Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus.
* Subaru's surname Hidaka means "sun, day" (日) (hi) and "tall, high" (高) (taka/daka).
==Trivia == 
* As noted by Kaito Yashio, "Subaru" is the Japanese way of saying "Pleiades," the star cluster.
* The star cluster Pleiades is recorded as Messier Object 45, which can be shortened to "M45".
* Subaru's Pleiades persona is an homage to "Char Aznable" of the Gundam series.
==Gallery==
Birthday 2023-02-22 Hidaka Subaru.jpg|Graphic from Subaru's official birthday post in 2023.@kagakuadv: Subaru's birthday's tweet on Twitter (2023)
==References==
== Navigation ==
Category:Robotics Research Club
Category:Male Characters