Hamato Karai

*"Anata wa hitori ja nai."*

―Hamato Karai

**Hamato Karai**, or **Karai** for short, also known as **Gram-Gram** by the Turtles, is the founder of the Hamato Clan and the daughter of Oroku Saki, who later became the leader of the Foot Clan and the demon known as The Shredder. She appeared in *Shreddy or Not* as a major character.

## Physical appearance

Karai is a middle-aged Japanese woman with long straight graying black hair styled in a high ponytail, black eyes, light skin, and a thin figure. She dons a sage green jumpsuit with ¾ sleeves, silver pauldrons, and a light olive green sash around her waist that drapes on both sides of her body with the Hamato Clan emblem placed on the center. She has black fingerless gloves, black and silver knee-high boots, a fern green scarf, and a matching hair tie.

## Personality

Karai is warmhearted and honest, however, she can be stern and serious if the situation demands it. She is grandmotherly towards the Turtles and is shown to be proud of who her descendants are. She is capable of inspiring and motivating others, visible in her interactions with Raphael in "Anatawa Hitorijanai".

Karai has a strong sense of justice, willing to leave her birth clan and create another to combat the terror spread by the Shredder and the Foot Clan. She is also very dedicated to her family, having sacrificed herself twice to save them. The first time trapping herself in an alternate dimension to repel her father for eternity and the second time to protect the Turtles from the Shredder's violence in "Shreddy or Not", partaking in a fight that ends her life, but death does not stop Karai from being with her family as her devotion to them continues even as a spirit.

Karai has an accepting and understanding nature shown in her easy embrace of Splinter and the Turtles' species and in her gentleness towards Splinter's lack of education he instilled in his sons involving their clan's culture.

## History

### Many years ago

Karai was born 500 years ago to her father Oroku Saki as a member of the Foot. She was a young child when her clan was ravaged by another clan, bringing an end to her tranquil childhood. An evil alien being gave her father the Kuroi Yōroi, an evil, but very powerful suit of mystic armor which he used to protect the Foot from the threat of the attacking clan. The armor corrupted Karai's father into a demon and he twisted the Foot into a violent, destructive clan, leading it as the Shredder. Karai then made the decision to defect from the Foot and establish the Hamato Clan to fight against the Shredder's cruelty. During her and her clan's struggle with him, Karai came to learn that no mortal weapon could harm him and so she utilized Hamato Ninpō to eternally lock herself and him in the Twilight Realm to ensure that even if the Kuroi Yōroi was successfully reassembled, the Shredder would be unable to overcome his weakened state.

### Modern day

Karai was first depicted in "Shadow of Evil" as Splinter informed April O'Neil of the Shredder's mythology after realizing that the Foot was genuinely working to resurrect him.

Karai debuted in "Finale Part 1: E-Turtle Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". To her horror, Baron Draxum accessed the Twilight Realm and Splinter and the Mad Dogs pulled her from it, empowering the Shredder to regain his full strength due to her absence, and she was briefly rendered unconscious after regaining her human body.

After waking in "Finale Part 2: Shreddy or Not", Karai quickly came to understand that Splinter and the Turtles were her relatives. She explained to them her role in the Shredder's banishment and how the Shredder came into existence, stating that she herself was the weapon that defeated and confined him. Exhausted from her residence in the Twilight Realm, Karai then sought to rest, but her sleep was disrupted by the Turtles' efforts to bond with her. She resolved to instruct them on accessing their Hamato Ninpō, but was unable to due the Shredder and the Foot's sudden invasion of the lair. Too weak to confront him at the moment, she evaded the Shredder through Leonardo's mystic portal, hiding in Donatello's laboratory while Draxum, Splinter, and the Turtles fought. Karai's location was quickly discovered by the Shredder and he entered the laboratory, striking down Karai's impromptu bodyguard S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. and attempting to attack her. She was vulnerable as she was still unable to harness her Ninpō, but fortunately, Raph seized the Shredder before he could inflict any harm on her, throwing him into the lair's atrium. However, Karai chose to rescue Raph after the Shredder had him in his grasp. She used her Ninpō against the Shredder and he intercepted her strike from her mystic blade, destroying it. She was then grabbed by him and she, in turn, attacked his body with an intense discharge of her Ninpō in a direct hit, causing his chest split open. Shaken by the sight of Saki's soul during her attack, Karai was unable to defend against or evade impalement from the Shredder and offered reassuring words to the Turtles before they fled the scene.

In "Finale Part 3: Anatawa Hitorijanai", Karai laid dying in the now-deserted lair when April returned and discovered her. Karai stopped her attempt to help her and transferred her soul into April's body, succumbing to her chest injury soon after. The transferal allowed her to communicate with April and she instructed her to seek out the Turtles. Later, April found the Turtles at Cuddle Cakes Puppy Rescue where Karai gave her the information to relay to them about unlocking their Ninpō. When Raph became despondent about the situation involving the Shredder and the Foot, Karai met with and consoled him, helping him understand that familial trust is essential to accessing their clan's Ninpō. This allowed Raph and his brothers to tap into their Ninpō and be ready to challenge the Shredder.

Karai fought alongside April in her and the Turtles' battle against the Shredder in "Finale Part 4: Rise" and struck him herself with April's mystic baseball bat. She aided in delivering the final blow on the Shredder and her ghost departed from April's body afterward. His death allowed Karai to reunite with her beloved father and she thanked the living Hamato Clan and its allies for their efforts, disappearing with the ghosts of the clan's previous generations.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Hamato Ninpō:** Karai is the one who knows the Ninpō to defeat the Shredder. With this, her agility is enhanced, she is strengthened to extreme levels, and becomes incredibly swift. It is unknown what her full potential is with this power as the Shredder states in "Shreddy or Not" that she has been weakened, along with where this power comes from scientifically, besides spiritual connection.
	+ **Weapon transformation:** Karai can create a weapon from seemingly anything, shown when she turned Donnie's sculpture to create a spear powerful enough to temporarily puncture the Shredder's armor. Karai is able to take this ability a step further and even turn herself into a weapon, namely a sword, a form she took for centuries to seal the Shredder in his prison dimension. She can also use somewhat of a telekinetic ability, shown when she manipulated fragments of rubble created from the Shredder erecting blades from the ground and transformed them into energetic daggers.
	+ **Soul transferal:** Karai has the ability to move her soul into the body of another, giving her the ability to communicate with and strengthen her host. It is currently unknown if she was capable of this while she was alive as well or only upon/near death.

### Abilities

* **Kenjutsu:** Karai has been shown wielding a short sword with a straight blade, squared guard, dark red grip with geometric engravings, and a golden snake with red eyes and a gaping mouth that wraps around the sword's hilt and beyond its matching guard in "Shadow of Evil" and "E-Turtle Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". However, her level of proficiency with it is currently unknown.
* **Ninjutsu:** Karai is a practitioner of the art of ninjutsu and is presumably highly skilled.

## Relationships

### Family

* Oroku Saki - Father
* Unnamed mother
* The Mad Dogs
	+ Leonardo - Descendant Grandson
	+ Raphael - Descendant Grandson
	+ Donatello - Descendant Grandson
	+ Michelangelo - Descendant Grandson
	+ April O'Neil - Descendant Granddaughter-figure

* Hamato Yoshi - Descendant Grandson

## Quotes

* "Hamato Yoshi, I'm Hamato Karai." - Karai introducing herself to Splinter

## Trivia

* Like Hamato Koji in the 1987 TV series (who was the founder of Hamato Yoshi's clan, the Foot), Karai is the founder of Yoshi's ninja clan, the Hamato.
* Karai is voiced by Gwendoline Yeo, the same actress who voiced Shinigami in the 2012 TV series.
* This is the first television incarnation of Karai to be biologically related to the Shredder, and the second version to be related to him in *TMNT* overall after Oroku Karai in the IDW comics.
	+ She is also the first version of Karai to be the biological daughter of the Shredder.
	+ She is also the second version overall to be biologically related to Splinter, and through her, Splinter and the Turtles are the first versions of their characters to be directly biologically related to Oroku Saki.
* Karai was planned to have a larger role in season 2 of *Rise of the TMNT* (around ten episodes), but was unable to due to the series' mid-season cancellation. The time constraints of the abrupt series finale lead to Karai having to die soon after her debut, a change that unsettled the female crew members of the series. *Rise of the TMNT* writer Russ Carney revealed in August 2020 in a Tweet, "Karai dying was a big concern with some of our amazing female board artists who felt we were "fridging" the character. I'm grateful to have learned that term from them. We wanted to get the character into the series, but had 4 episodes to do so. Unwinnable situation.". Karai was originally planned to stay dead and not reappear as a ghost, but heeding their crewmates' desire to stay as far from fridging her character as possible, the script was revised to have Karai remain an active character even after her death.
	+ Fridging (also referred to being stuffed into the fridge) describes a writing trope where a female character (though it can occur to non-female characters, the trope is disproportionately utilized on female characters) is injured, killed, or otherwise incapacitated as a plot device to move the story of a male character forward. The trope carries the sexist overtone of a female character's potential only being worth what she can do for the male character(s) in the story, reducing her to a plot device instead of a real character.