Tiger Mask (Naoto Date)

Naoto Date (伊達 直 人 Date Naoto?), Ring Name Tiger Mask (タイガ ー マスク Taigā Masuku?), Is the titular main protagonist owner of the manga Tiger Mask, of his anime adaptation and the 2013 live action adaptation. It is dubbed in Japanese from the late Kei Tomiyama, but replaced by Katsuji Mori per disease in episodes from 31 to 39, and from Noriko Watanabe when he was a boy. In the 2013 live action movie, he is interpreted by Eiji Wentz.
== Story ==
It is a powerful Japanese wrestler, orphan and raised and trained by a criminal organization known as Tiger's Den who, after a violent past converts to the good devoting himself to voluntary works towards the orphanages. Naoto is an orphan grown in the Chibikko House, a Tokyo orphanage, in a Japan of the 60s brought on their knees by the after-effects of the Second World War. Flying from orphanatrophy, it is hired by the Tiger's Den criminal organization, which trains ruthless and bloody wrestlers, and subjected to some inhuman workouts that tempride it and form it as unfair and evil wrestler. Its Wrestler costume includes a tiger mask, black mutant, gray trousers and black combat boots. After a period in which, faithful to the dictates of Tiger's Den, he fought in a unfair, fierce and ruthless manner (which made him earn the pseudonym of "Yellow Devil"), decides to use his proceeds for works of good and not to respect The clause that requires popular wrestlers to give half of their proceeds to Tana delle Tigers, therefore coming banned from the organization as a traitor and sentenced to death. It then takes to compete in the Japan Pro-Wrestling Association, creating a sort of alter ego, generous on one side and ruthless on the other, while Tiger's Den continues to hunt, sending them against wrestlers who are real killers with the task of killing him. Since this decision takes, Naoto promises himself that he will no longer fight evil and incorrectly, but unfortunately he is often forced to return to the manners of the past when he finds himself to deal with particularly crazy, violent and cruel wrestlers (as the ruthless Red Death Mask, a wrestler known for his violence and his cannibalism habits).
From here on, the story of Naoto undergoes significant differences between manga and anime: in manga, after facing a fighter called Miracle 3 - actually three wrestlers who alternate illegally in the ring praxing a single, very strong fighter - the evil Mister X - a henchment responsible for healing the killing of the criminal organization to kill him - kidnaps Kenta - a very friend of Naoto's friend and who admires Tiger Mask without knowing that they are the same person - and leads to Tiger's Den. Naoto starts at the time of the organization's headquarters to free it and, thanks to the unexpected help of his companions of the Japanese Fight Federation (Baba, Inoki etc ...) all dressed like him, not only free him, but puts an end to Tiger's den causing the helicopter's escape of the four managers of the organization and of Mister X. At one point another tiger man appears (completely identical) that terrifies America making himself call Yellow Devil. The tiger man, exchanged for this impostor, goes to Japan to prove that he is not evil and defeated him to Las Vegas, discovering that under the tiger mask he hines Kim of him a tiger's colleague of Tiger's den. After that, stuck by a contract that he hadn't read well he is obliged to fight and win a wicked struggle tournament. Won this tournament, Naoto returns to Japan and, welcomed as a hero, prepares to defeat the world champion (an American at the time really in office), but to save a fell in front of a truck in a running truck is overwhelmed before of the final and dies in the middle of the road (without mask). Before dying, Naoto casts the tiger mask in a river, to ensure that no one knows the truth.
This version of Naoto's destiny is confirmed in the non-canonical sequel Tiger Mask 2, both in the anime version and in its manga adaptation, with the difference that the identity of Naoto was made public. In this sequel, the young Tatsuo Aku (orphan grown in the same orphanage in which Naoto grew and he too Tiger's den fighter) collects the heritage of Naoto becoming Tiger Mask 2. 
In the anime, instead of Miracle 3, there are the Miracle Brothers, two siameses twins detached by miracle. After that, after countless fillers opponents, another Yellow Devil appears in America, but it does not claim to be Tiger Mask and in fact it has a different mask, a simple striated hood. After having defeated him, Naoto discovers that this is Ken Takaoka, a colleague of Tiger's den who decides to rebel and fight with him against the criminals who will also attack him from that moment. The 3 bosses of Tiger's Den, tired of waiting in vain the death of the two, will descend into the field revealing their real identities: those of the terrible King Tiger, Big Tiger and Black Tiger, three wrestlers so strong to be withdrawn from competitions due to lack of opponents worthy. Together with Yellow Devil and another former ribelle colleague named Daigo Daimon, Naoto defeats and kills the three wrestlers, the price of Daimon's death. Mister X decides to eliminate it out of the ring and numerous ambush tents, the last of which will cost life to him. Meanwhile the boss of Tiger's den Boss (figure introduced exclusively in the anime), appears to challenge Naoto with the same dress that belonged to Miracle 3 (and with the same name but without the big 3 on the costume chest) this' last victims in the ring up to the confrontation with Ken, where Miracle 3 reveals its true identity, presenting itself with a new and monstrous purple costume with a mask of gray tiger and the symbol on the chest of a skull bent from a dagger, taking the name Battle of Tiger The Great and defeating and reducing Ken at the end of life. Naoto then descends into the field against Tiger The Great, being brutally put to the narrow and losing the mask in front of the cameras. In the prey of anger and desperation, Naoto therefore resumes to fight the great tiger, killing him in front of the public and, full of remorse, exile himself from Japan in search of catharsis. 
In the Tiger Mask W sequel (which is linked to the first anime series and completely ignores Tiger Mask 2), Naoto is not dead. However, there are no news of him from the night in which Tiger The Great defeated, in which he disappeared forever from circulation aboard an unknown destination plane. 
=== Other versions ===
In the manga reboot Tiger Mask The Star (made without the consent of Toei Animation and Kodansha, and therefore made interrupted after two volumes) Naoto is reinterpreted in Chuiji Kurenai character, a kind boy and great success with women who decides to leave At the wrestling inspired by a phrase from Hulk Hogan, taking the chandelier's clothes from the Red Blood Yuji tiger mask, ending up with Tiger's Den. 
== Personality ==
During and after the training period at Tiger's Den Naoto shows a fierce, sadistic and bloody side, fighting aggressively and torturing and seriously injuring his opponents. When he decides to change ways of acting, he fights in a more correct way and he devoted himself to generous works of activism giving the proceeds of his he will meet the orphanages, although this will cost him the accusation of betrayal by Tiger's den. Despite the promise not to use more unwilling, on some occasions Naoto will again come back to him to resort to the violent ways of him to save his life or defeat very violent and dangerous opponents, and these decisions causes great shame and remorse in him.
== Powers and abilities ==
Naoto has a hardened physique for years of heavy workouts that have almost cost him life, and has developed almost superhuman skills. It is equipped with a force that allows him to subdue great felines such as lions and tigers, an agility that allows jumps of ten meters and a great resistance to pain, wounds and blood loss. It is also a very skilled martial artist and is equipped with great cunning, intelligence, rationality and spirit of observation, all abilities that make it a very technical wrestler. 
Category:Manga Heroes
Category:Anime Heroes
Category:Fighters
Category:Lethal
Category:Tragic
Category:Traitor
Category:Criminals
Category:Redeemed Villains
Category:Deceased
Category:Status Dependent on Version
Category:Insecure
Category:In Love
Category:Alter-Ego
Category:One-Man Army
Category:Anti-Heroes
Category:Protectors of Innocence
Category:Provokers
Category:Protectors
Category:Wrathful
Category:Rebellion Heroes
Category:Wise
Category:Mascots
Category:Fictionalized
Category:Big Good
Category:Hope Bringers
Category:Live Action Heroes
Category:Friend of a Villain
Category:Assassins
Category:Adventurers
Category:Warriors
Category:Berserkers
Category:Merciful
Category:Honest
Category:Controversial
Category:Orphans
Category:Chaotic Good
Category:Brutes
Category:Strong-Willed
Category:Vengeful
Category:Movie Heroes
Category:Martyr
Category:Martial Artists
Category:Legendary
Category:Related to Villain
Category:Dreaded
Category:Pessimists
Category:Loyal
Category:Siblings
Category:Nemesis
Category:Charismatic
Category:Optimists
Category:Healers
Category:Sympathetic
Category:Symbolic
Category:Legacy
Category:Giants
Category:Disciplinarians
Category:Mentally Ill
Category:Mentors
Category:Paragon
Category:Nurturers
Category:Wrestlers
Category:Male
Category:Titular
Category:Superheroes