Ponta Hayari

* Ponta
* Citrus

**Ponta Hayari** (流行ポンタ), also known as **Citrus** (シトラス), is an ally in Cap Revolution Bottleman DX. He is voiced by Takeo Ōtsuka.

## Description

Ponta is one of Cota Coga's friends and his senior at the battlefield-cleaning part-time job. However, his real identity is actually Citrus, the legendary Bottle King who claimed the throne by defeating Io Hocari at the age of 10 and had gone missing for a long time.

As a 10-year-old, Ponta took on the name Citrus in the Bottle Battling field. He also met Eri Hocari, whom he befriended. When he first defeated Eri's husband Io, who was the then Bottle King and BMA President, Ponta was confused to why Eri cried for him in sadness. However, he soon understood why Eri was sad for him, as the moment he was crowned as the Bottle King, people only idolized him instead of wanting to become his friend, making him lonelier each year. He also was forced into one of the Vital Sync experiments by Machiko Hocari during his time as the Bottle King. Therefore sometime after he turned 18, one day he decided to take on a disguise and leave his partner Dragogina DX behind, disappearing from the public eye.

After appointing for a job as a part-time battlefield cleaner, Ponta met Cota and saw Cota's talent at bottle cap shooting. He later became Cota's friend, and also befriended Mitsuya and Iroha.

Sometime later, he, in disguise, got Colamaru DX, which was called Origin, from Ryo. Fearing that Origin would fall into the wrong hands, Ponyta hid it in his locker, but forgot to lock it and made Cota meet Colamaru instead. So he tried to look out for Cota, but gradually noticed that Cota had been improving thanks to Colamaru.

At first, Ponta seems to be unassuming and tends to get knocked out of the battlefields a lot. However, after B-DACT is announced by Machiko and a Battle Royale between B-DACT and BMA breaks out, Ponta grows disillusioned of the fight between two different factions, and decides to reinstate his Bottle King position after his 8-year absence in Episode 32. However, upon reusing Dragogina DX, this gives the AI the perfect chance to hijack his body by the end of Episode 38 due to the AI using Vital Sync to control him, after he overestimated himself against the AI and therefore leaving himself vulnerable to it.

Losing control over his body, the emotionless Ponta begins to attempt destroying Bottle Battling as a whole. Nevertheless, after Cota has a battle with him in Episode 46, Ponta finally remembers his passion for Bottle Battling and ejects the AI out of his body, then proceeds to disqualify himself to put an end to Team Citrus. He later voluntarily resigns his Bottle King title in Episode 47, and ultimately passes his torch to Cota after the events of the Bottle Royale that decides the new Bottle King.

When Cota and Ryo seemingly perished in the explosion of the abandoned facility during the AI crisis, Ponta originally believes both boys are done for and starts crying, until Seimei Usami informs him that they have both survived, much to Ponta's relief. He is last seen giving out handmade rice balls while cheering for Cota and Ryo with their friends and rivals after the AI crisis is over.

## Appearance

In his civilian disguise, Ponta tied his hair up, making it seem to be black. He also wore an yellowish orange tracksuit with green and red accents.

His real appearance is of platinum blonde hair. He also wears a black sleeveless vest, his tracksuit is tied around his waist, and wears extra accessories like black bracelets and a silver necklace.

In both appearances, he has olive green eyes, chipped teeth, and a pair of purple sneakers with white accents. His hair also retains its cyan tints in both disguise and real appearance. Both of his ears have triangular silver earrings.

He temporarily had blue eyes when his body was being controlled by the AI.

His platinum blonde hair had little to no blackness when he was a child.

## Personality

Ponta is a caring and loyal, albeit sometimes scatterbrained, senior and friend. He is good at cooking, particularly with making rice balls and orange themed treats. Despite his easygoing nature, he can get serious when he feels the need to. Although generally even-tempered, Ponta can sometimes get too carried away and underestimates his opponents.

He is passionate about Bottle Battling and wants to share excitement through the sport, but has become disillusioned by the competition system. Therefore, his biggest wish is to start a new Bottle Battling system from scratch where people can enjoy battles more sincerely without being driven into conflicts or power struggles.

When he was a child, Ponta was a happier and more fun-loving person. However, after achieving the Bottle King title, people only worshipped him for his power, leading to him to lose his joy from being a Bottle Battler for a long time. However, he regains his happiness and resolve after Cota's friendship and words that have saved him from the AI.

## Bottleman

Ponta appears to have at least two Bottlemen. As Ponta, he uses an unnamed Bottleman with green core and golden, green and orange armor coloring; while as Citrus, he uses Dragogina DX, a multi-type Bottleman themed after the Draco Constellation.

## Trivia

### Background

* He is named after POM Juice and Bireley's (バヤリース, **Bayarī**su), Japanese and American brands of orange beverage respectively.
	+ His Bottle King moniker Citrus refers to the fruits from the citron family, which is the classification where oranges belong.

### Notes

* In earliest concept artworks, Ponta was originally designed to be a college student with shorter hair and glasses.
	+ His later design sheets resembled his current appearance much closely, but he was also designed to be less friendly and more serious than his current personality.
* Ponta's identity as Citrus has been foreshadowed in different scenes, such as:
	+ he made orange treats like orange tea and orange muffins (which are thematically correlated to Dragogina DX's orange theme),
	+ him being aware of how Citrus' signed caps have grown in value since his own absence in Episode 05,
	+ him knowing that Citrus had put a branded cap inside Cota's locker in Episode 18,
	+ him glancing into the night in the end of Episode 28 after BMA and B-DACT got into their power struggle, and
	+ him asking Cota about how the latter feels about the purpose of Bottle Battling in Episode 31.
* His connection with rice balls is originated from Eri Hocari giving him such food when he met her as a 10-year-old.
	+ Due to his love for rice balls, he even has written special recipes for each of them, which are reserved for Cota.
* As revealed in Episode 22, he has a strategy called Square More, which is to expose enough weakness by having some relaxation, before striking his best shots. He is later seen physically utilizing this strategy in Episode 47.

## Gallery

### In Cap Revolution Bottleman DX

Silhouette of Citrus in the intro sequenceSilhouette of Citrus in Episode 04A cloaked Citrus hiding within the crowd in Episode 12Ponta using his generic BottlemanPonta revealing his identity as CitrusCitrus taken over by the AIPonta as a 10 year old when he was crowned as the Bottle King
### Behind the scene

Citrus's design in the second opening themeEpisode 31 storyboard illustration of Ponta revealing himself tobe CitrusEpisode 40 illustration of AI-controlled Ponta/Citrus temporarily regaining his sensesPonta in earliest concept artPonta's later concept artPonta/Citrus's first expression sheetPonta/Citrus's second expression sheet
### Other media

Special Valentines Day illustration by character designer Sayaka OnoAnother illustration by Ono, featuring Ponta wearing tracksuit like his disguised appearance, but with his hair down like his Citrus appearanceIllustration by Ono, featuring Ponta celebrating the beginning of 2023 Illustration of Citrus/Ponta smiling Illustration of Ponta/Citrus under petals Illustration of Ponta being emotional Illustration of Ponta/Citrus being serious Illustration of sad Citrus/Ponta for episode 43 by Sayaka Ono Rough sketches by Sayaka OnoMore rough sketches by Sayaka OnoPonta and sunny doll 10 year old Ponta illustration by Ono
## Links

### References

1. ↑ Official tweet revealing Citrus' age
2. ↑ Original artwork
3. ↑ Original artwork
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1609246665093033986?s=20
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1645025648568827905?s=20
6. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1642918307585204224?s=20
7. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1639798797411975168?s=20
8. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1660986287019687939?s=20
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1619499846322515968?s=20
10. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1610536527200944129?s=20
11. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1610536527200944129?s=20
12. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1609070719576723458?s=20
13. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1609070111905968130?s=20
14. ↑ https://twitter.com/sayalene/status/1604282345443725312?s=20