Leonardo Hamato

**Leonardo Hamato** (濱戸レオナルド, *Hamato Reona​rudo*), known as "**Leo**" (レオ, *Reo*), is both a fictional character and protagonist of the *Marvel's* *TMNT* series created by Martin Goodman and Kevin Eastman. He is the leader, and the oldest brother, of the Ninja Turtles.

He is the oldest, most mature, and responsible of the four brothers, and takes honor and responsibility as his priority. Among them, he's the most ordered and disciplined, and possesses a strong bond with his adoptive father/mentor, Master Splinter.

"*My name's Leo. I've got 3 rowdy brothers: Raph, Donnie, and Mikey, who always give me a hard time. But I keep them in line... usually. Master Splinter picked me to lead because I eat, sleep and breath Ninjustu. Not that my brothers aren't good, I'm just better. But nothing can get in my way in protecting my family.*"

—Leonardo Hamato.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Jason Biggs (English), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Croatian), Not Known (Danish), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Filipino), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Ukrainian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (Canadian French), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Spain-Spanish)

### Appearance

Leo is an fern green colored anthropomorphic mutant turtle ninja warrior. His eyes have cobalt blue irises with black pupils, but like his brothers when they are shown fighting or being stealthy, they disappear, leaving his eyes white. He wears a royal blue bandana mask where the tails length range between Donnie and Mikey's. Leo is the most skilled fighter.

His height ranges between Raph and Donnie's. His ninja gear includes brown knee pads and elbow pads, and beige rolled bandages wrapped around his wrists, ankles and fingers. Leo's hands have two fingers and a thumb and has 3 little toes (like his brothers).

* Hair Color: N/A
* Skin Color: Fern Green
* Eye Color: Cobalt Blue
* Age: Not Known
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 5'7"
* Weight: Not Known

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* April O'Neil
* Casey Jones
* Foot Clan
	+ Karai
	+ Shinigami
* Usagi Miyamoto

### Family

* Splinter Hamato (adoptive father/mentor)
* Raphael Hamato (young brother)
* Donatello Hamato (younger brother)
* Michelangelo Hamato (youngest brother)

### Enemies

* Old Foot Clan
	+ Shredder
	+ Master Khan
	+ Dr. Stockman
	+ Dr. Chaplin
	+ Foot Ninjas
	+ Footbots
		- Elite Footbots
	+ Chrome Dome
	+ Mutant Foot Soldiers
		- Tiger Claw
		- Fishface
		- Dogpound/Rahzar
		- Rocksteady
		- Bebop
		- Shredder Mutants
			* Shiva Shredder
			* Claw Shredder
			* Mini Shredder
* Kraang
	+ Kraang Prime

## Abilities and Powers

Leonardo is the most stern, serious, focused, disciplined, responsible and among his brothers, being able to take on much larger opponents quicker and more easily in addition to coping with hectic stress. Like his brothers, Leonardo has been extensively and intensively trained by Splinter to become a highly skilled ninja warrior, but to a much greater extent.

### Powers

* **Mutant Physiology:** As a mutant, the Mutagen Ooze heightened Leonardo's physical attributes to considerable extraordinary levels. He possesses strength, speed, reflexes, agility, endurance, recovery speed, and stamina much greater than even the finest human specimen athlete. His mutant abilities has been listed as shown below:
	+ **Enhanced Strength:** Leonardo is the second physically strongest of the turtles, as he was shown to be beaten by Raphael during their early scuffles and training sessions, but he had also beaten him at times too. However, he is stronger than Donnie and Mikey (as seen in Mousers Attack! where he and Raph consider themselves as the two strongest fighters). Leo possess enhanced strength that gives him an advantage in a fight, such as overpowering humans like the Foot Clan ninjas. Not only is he able to deliver powerful blows with his physical attacks, but he is able to throw heavy objects (including people) over his head. He is also able to knock back and hold his own against larger and/or physically stronger opponents.
	+ **Enhanced Speed**: Leonardo is able to move at great speeds, able to free run on rooftops without losing momentum. Despite being a turtle, he is not slow. He can also move things at enhanced speeds too, like twirling his katana blades. Leo was shown to deflect the laser fire from a Kraang weapon with both of his katanas.
	+ **Enhanced Reflexes**: Leonardo possesses great reaction speed, allowing him to dodge projectiles such as lasers the Kraang's blasters, and enemy attacks. He can run fast enough to avoid laser fire from a Kraang weapon. He can also spin swing twin katana at incredible speed to deflect incoming attacks.
	+ **Enhanced Healing**: Splinter taught Leonardo a unique ancient secret art and healing technique known as the Healing Hand. With the technique, Leonardo is able to heal himself and others, and even remove Karai's venom from his body despite there being no known cure for it. According to Splinter, he shows great gifts as a healer, and that being at the edge of his life had given him "a power that few martial artists can tap." His healing factor seem to work while in water, where he woke up after being ambushed by the Foot Clan during the Kraang Invasion 3 months later, but the fight left him injured.
	+ **Enhanced Agility**: Leonardo is very agile and shown to be more agile than his brothers except for Michelangelo. His agility and dexterity allows him to achieve great acrobatic flips from one building to another building at further distance. Leo was agile enough to quickly leap up to an apartment building while using each step of his foot.
	+ **Enhanced Intelligence**: Although Leo's intellect is not quite on par with his brother, Donatello, he proven enough to have above normal intelligence. He is capable of understanding the methods from Donatello's super genius mind much faster than his brothers like Michelangelo and Raphael as well as normal humans. His intellect has also allowed him to become a highly tactician as evident for that is shown on many occasions.
	+ **Enhanced Stamina**: Leo possesses a high stamina and much more than Olympic-level athletes. During The Invasion, he was able to handle and stay much alive while fighting the long Foot-Bot challenge and defeat all of Shredder's henchmen, but all that work worn him out giving Shredder the chance to finish him off.
	+ **Enhanced Endurance**: Leonardo is very resilient to great amount of injury. Leo was able to withstand the impact after falling from several stories of a building without any sign of discomfort and injury. He withstood attacks from superhuman opponents like Dogpound, Slash, etc.
	+ **Retractable limbs into Shell**: Though rarely (if ever) depicted, he has retractable limbs and the normal ability of a turtle to retract his head and limbs into the safety of his shell.

### Abilities

* **Leadership**: Leonardo's bravery, determination, and willpower make him a great leader. In the beginning, his only flaws as a leader were due to his lack of experience (mostly due to his teenager status). His immaturity also caused him to occasionally make impulsive decisions that might make the situation worse, as well as his brothers sometimes disobeying his orders, and a desire to be a hero that results in him making rather poor taunts in battle. His most significant fear is to let the team down and fail as their leader. However, as he and his brothers continued to fight against the Shredder and his forces, Leonardo becomes more focused and disciplined as a leader, even becoming willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of others. He's also able to make difficult choices whenever the situation came down to it. A note to make is that Splinter truly believed and chosen Leo to become the leader of his brothers ever since he was a small boy.
* **Kenjutsu**: Leonardo is a highly skilled martial artist and master swordsman. Leonardo was trained by Splinter in Japanese sword fighting. As his signature weapons are his twin katana, he is highly skilled in the sword fighting style of the Niten Ichi-ryū,(二天一, "two heavens as one"), making him an excellent swordsman. He makes use of his katana for skilled offense and defense, allowing him to slice through the metal of the Kraangs' robot bodies, as well as the Foot-Bots (stabbing and dismembering them), deflect shuriken and lasers. His skills with his swords enable him to fight against powerful and skilled members of the Foot Clan including Tiger Claw, Karai (until she discovered the truth about her origin), and even Shredder, able to push him back even slightly during their fights.
* **Ninjutsu Mastery**: Through years of vast amount of training, Leonardo is a master of ninjutsu.
* **Tantōjutsu**: Aside from his swordsmanship Leonardo is also skilled with a tantō. Whenever he finds himself without his either of his katana, Leo can take the tantō from the handle of one of them and use it for self-defense.
* **Kyūjutsu**: Leonardo also possesses aptitude in archery and uses a yumi and arrows to fight long-ranged.
* **Shurikenjutsu**: Leonardo can throw shuriken with remarkable accuracy.
* **Master Martial Artist**: Leonardo is very known as to be the best combatant of the Ninja Turtles team. With the combination of his martial arts training and enhanced attributes, Leo's prowess skills has shown to defeat an army of Foot-Bot as well as Shredder's best henchmen during the Invasion on his own.
* **Master of Stealth**: Being taught by Splinter, Leonardo, as well as his brothers, are able to be one with darkness and hide and move within the shadows without being noticed. Like his brothers, he is stealthy, can hide in the shadows, sneak around without being detected, and use hand to hand combat like a real ninja.
* **Improvising**: Leonardo is highly capable of improvising the objects around him to his advantage. Which is essential to his leadership abilities especially when he's on constant pressure.
* **Tactician and Strategist**: As a leader of the ninja turtles, Leonardo is highly expert in strategies. He has a good line of defense, and is the best at planning strategies. In most episodes, he's highly capable of improvising the objects around him to his advantage.

### Weapons

#### Niten Ryu

His signature weapons of choice here are purely dual twin katana (刀) swords, which he uses and fights in the Niten Ryu (also known as Niten Ichi-ryu "The strategy of two heavens as one") style of kenjutsu, making him a skilled and excellent swordsman (although referred to as katanas, Leonardo's swords are actually much more closely modeled around the "Ninjatō" (忍者刀 ninjatō), (also known as ninjaken (忍者剣) or shinobigatana (忍刀)), a fictional sword similar to the katana, depicted as being a ninja's version of the weapon. It is usually straight-bladed, has a square guard, and is shorter than katana. . The handles have the same dark red and gold color that Raph's sai and Mikey's nunchucks have. Unique from his brother's weapons (Bo-Staff, Sai, and Nun-Chucks) Leo's weapons are the only ones specifically designed to deliver killing blows, though Leo is much too honorable to want to do so. You know what they say, "two swords are better than one."

## External links

* Leonardo Hamato *Wikipedia*
* Leonardo Hamato *Heroes Wiki*
* Leonardo Hamato *TMNTPedia*