Hamato Yoshi (Long Story Short)

The Good Guy Leader

**Hamato Yoshi** (also frequently referred to by his alias **Splinter** or **Master Splinter**) is a mutant rat, ninjutsu sensei, known for being both the adoptive father and sensei of all four of the Ninja Turtles, the long-lost biological father of Hamato Miwa, husband of Tang Shen as well as the adoptive brother and sworn enemy of The Shredder (born Oroku Saki).

## Physical appearance

### As Yoshi

As human, he is a tall and muscular Chinese human, with black hair and brown eyes, and he also wears a Hamato Clan kimono.

### As Splinter

As mutant, he is a short mutant brown rat, who wears now a Hamato Clan robe. As well, he has bandages wrapped around his arms and legs, and is barefoot.

## Personality

Splinter is very wise, noble, polite, humble, disciplined and generous ninjutsu sensei who can be very strict when it comes to training and letting his sons venture up to the surface. At certain times, he may use harsh methods in order for them to learn a lesson. Nonetheless, Splinter is a loving father who only wants what is best for his sons, and will do anything that he can to protect them from harm's way.

Though stern at certain times, Splinter was known as a wise sensei, a defensive, protective and affable parent, a loving father, a stern disciplinarian, a quirky master, and a Zen (he is very often seen in the Dōjō meditating). Having lost a family once, he is very determined to train and protect his new one at all costs, though he grudgingly realizes that the Turtles are now at an age where he will have to, at some point, give them the freedom to make their own mistakes in the outside world. The fact that he has gone through decades of ninja training does not only mean that he is always fierce when he fights, but that he's also remarkably in tune with the universe. He is a ninja master at the height of his abilities; he is so in tune with the universe that he can literally feel its vibrations, allowing him to project and sense energy and, occasionally, the intentions of others.

Splinter's absolute worst fear is losing his family all over again to the Shredder. His fear of losing the Turtles to the Shredder caused him to push their training to the point where they become exhausted, stressed, and antsy, though he does eventually apologize for it. Splinter fears the fact that the Turtles will leave him someday.

## History

**Hamato Yoshi** and Oroku Saki were rivals competing over the love of a woman named Tang Shen. But Shen only loved Yoshi, and they got married and had five children. Four boys: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo. One girl: Miwa. But one day, Saki came to Shen and Yoshi's house to kill Yoshi and marry Shen, but Shen escaped (unbeknownst to Yoshi and Saki). Saki murdered Yoshi's four sons and abducted Miwa, renaming her Karai and raising her to hate Hamato Yoshi (teaching her that he killed Tang Shen). Yoshi then went to New York City and hid in the sewers.

The canister dropped on top of Yoshi who was holding four baby turtles (a spiny softshell turtle, an alligator snapping turtle, an ornate box turtle, and a red-eared slider). Yoshi mutated into Splinter, a short, fat rat man, and the Turtles mutated into four mutant baby turtles. Yoshi began to raise them and fed them pizza. The Turtles were always fascinated by the human world, so Splinter decided to give it a shot.

Splinter and the Turtle Tots walked through the streets of Times Square, it was beautiful. But then Splinter bumped into a woman. People were so shocked that they saw a rat man, they decided to chase and kill him. After going back into the sewers, Splinter raised the turtles to hate humans, and taught them ninjutsu moves he had learned from his early days in the Foot Clan to defend the turtles from disgusting monsters called humans.

## Abilities

Originally, as a human, he was a great and powerful master of Ninjutsu. He was training for his entire life when he was very young. He has mastered many skills and has great abilities, such as great strength, acrobatics, speed, stamina, and endurance greater than Olympic athletes and had pushed his body to peak physical condition. Splinter seems to be very adept in regards to the mind.

* **Mutant Physiology:** As a mutant, the Mutagen Ooze increased Splinter's natural abilities to considerable superhuman levels. He demonstrated his mutant abilities throughout the series as listed below:
* **Jaw Strength:** Splinter's jaws are powerful enough to break certain forms of metal, such as Shredder's retractable sword.
* **Enhanced Leaping:** Splinter's strength extends into his legs, allowing him to jump at exceptional heights and distances. He can even jump very well to Shredder's window.
* **Enhanced Speed:** He is shown to have a lot of abilities that ordinary rats possess - namely running on all fours. His speed is sufficient for him to get behind.
* **Enhanced Reflexes:** Splinter possesses great reaction speed and shown in many fight occasions that he can dodge incoming attacks.
* **Enhanced Stamina:** For a mutant of his age (58), Splinter seems to be very well to fight without getting tired as much as regular humans. This is shown that he is well enough to take attacks from Shredder as he was able to go toe-to-toe with him.
* **Enhanced Endurance:** Splinter has extreme levels of pain tolerance. Even when countless heavy pillars fell on him during another fight with Shredder, he was still more than capable of fighting competently against his opponent. He was able to endure the attack from the mind controlled Slash's mace. He survived getting repeatedly struck by large structural metal beams while falling in considerable immense height sewer.
* **Enhanced Agility:** Splinter is extremely agile and because of his great agility, he used his agility as his advantage against his opponents.
* **Enhanced Healing:** With constant years of practice, Splinter has learned healing techniques to recover from massive trauma injuries. As evident in some episodes, he taught his adoptive sons like Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo on how to heal themselves from incurable poisons, which implies Splinter knows various healing techniques.

**Ninjutsu:** As a master of Ninjutsu, Splinter was extremely knowledgeable, speedy and has greater strength. He can take down larger opponents without a whole lot of effort.

**Enemy Detection:** He can easily detect when an enemy is coming, even though he is blind. This is either do to excellent hearing that he got when he mutated or his "balanced mind" but this type of power or ability when he was human couldn't hear the noise that April was hearing. Similarly to April, he appears to possess a rare sensitivity gift.

**Weapon Proficiency:** Splinter is skilled with the usage of many weapons, as well as capable of adapting other items into weaponry.

**Master of Stealth:** As a ninja, Splinter is trained in stealth.

**Intelligence and Strategist:** He is naturally very intelligent, and has honed his intellect with knowledge of strategy in combat.

**Pressure Point Intuition:** Splinter is highly knowledgeable in pressure point techniques, which can stun anyone. For example, he uses this technique on Raphael after gloating about his "victory".

## Relationships

### Relatives

**Leonardo** - The youngest son and ninth child of Splinter and the leader of his 3 older brothers. Splinter seems to share most of his knowledge with him. Leo is the closest to Splinter out of all of the Turtles. However, it is just in hopes of embracing Leo's role as the leader - and making him more tactful and intelligent. Because of Leo's status, Splinter always discusses how to perfect his leadership.

**Raphael** - The 2nd-oldest son and third/middle child of Splinter and the most aggressive of his brothers. Him and Splinter are shown to have similarities in their temperament, such as when Splinter retaliated on The Shredder, which resulted in the tragic death of his own wife. And much later, when an arrogant man caught the turtles on video with an I-Phone, Raph sought to break the phone 'and the man's face'. However, due to the knowledge that Splinter had acquired from the result of his temper against Shredder, he tells Raph that he must maintain his temper...in order to get the best of the situation. Splinter is the person that Raphael would listen to the most.

**Donatello** - The oldest son and sixth child of Splinter and the most technological of his brothers. Like he does with his other sons, he occasionally enjoys teasing Donnie and teaching him important lessons. At one point, he attempted to teach Donnie a lesson in not forcing someone, i.e. April, to like another person, i.e. Donnie, back.

**Michelangelo** - The second youngest son and child of Splinter‘s nine children and the wildest of his brothers. Splinter says that Michelangelo can fight easily without thinking. Despite Mikey's apparent absentmindedness, Splinter claims that he has the greatest potential.

**Karai** - Splinter's eldest child and only daughter of the nine children. Since the final confrontation with Oroku Saki before he bought four baby turtles in New York, he thought Miwa was also dead as well as Shen because of the fire around him. Miwa was actually kidnapped by the Shredder who called her Karai and raised as his own daughter. Splinter only found this out upon being forced to duel with the Shredder, after April O'Neil's abduction by him. Once he knew the truth and after she showed up, he refused to fight her, leaving the Shredder’s lair deeply upset on what the Shredder has done to his daughter. Even though Miwa is out of Splinter's life in one sense, Splinter still has one place that he still holds her his heart. Despite Miwa's place as a foot assassin, Splinter still deeply loves her and believes that there is still good in her, just like how Leo felt since the moment he met her.

**Scumbug** - Hamato Yoshi's wife. They both love each other deeply. Splinter was so excited that Tang Shen was still alive and mutated into Scumbug (since Splinter was so depressed when he thought Shen died and was apparently attracted to cockroaches). After they defeated Shredder together, they both lived happily together in the sewers.

**Shredder** - Yoshi and Saki met as orphan street kids and started the Foot Clan. A rivalry between them started when Tang Shen joined the Foot Clan.

**April O'Neil** - A teenage girl who met Splinter and the Turtles after being mugged by the Purple Dragons. Since he lost his true daughter many years ago, he has comes to view April as his surrogate daughter, and he even supplied her with the weapon that he once intended to give to Miwa. April respects Splinter as well and saw him as a father-figure after her own father was kidnapped by the Kraang. Splinter considers April to be part of his family and she helped him regain his reason. He continued her training until she became a full fledge ninja as she thanked him for the great honor.

**Casey Jones** - Splinter respects Casey as an ally and also as a friend to both April and Raphael. Since being introduced to Splinter and the Turtles, Casey became a regular visitor to the lair.

**Slash** - Before Spike's mutation into Slash, Splinter was barely ever seen acknowledging his existence, and was only shown using him as a sounding board to tease Raphael into listening to Splinter's story.

### Enemies

**Shredder** - Splinter's adoptive brother and current arch-nemesis. They fought over Tang Shen when Saki was consumed with jealousy, which resulted in Splinter's house catching ablaze and killing Splinter's four sons.

## Quotes

* HOOOT SOUUUP!!!!
* Guess what? Scumbug is Shen! I like her new look. I'm really into cockroaches.
* I've always liked... COWABUNGA!
* I made a funny.

## Trivia

* He has a fear of cats.
* In TMNT: Next Chapter, he mentions he has night vision (even though he is blind).
* Splinter's given name, "Yoshi", (喜), translates as "like, love, enjoy", or "joyful thing". Splinter's surname "Hamato" (濱戸), translates as "beach/sea coast/river bank door/family". If written purely in hiragana, "Hamato Yoshi", (はまとよし), means "Alright still".
* Splinter's completely avoids contractions in his speech. Instead of "doesn't", "won't", "he'll", "I've", etc., he says "does not", "will not", "he will", "I have", etc.
* Although Yoshi and Shen are married, Japanese law requires since 1896 that spouses adopt either the husband’s or the wife’s surname, thus their married names should be "Tang Yoshi" or "Hamato Shen".
* Splinter's:
	+ Hobbies are reading and cooking.
	+ Favorite types of music are traditional Japanese music and Reggae.
	+ Favorite food is cheese.
	+ Favorite book is "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" by Ruth Benedict.
	+ Height is 3'0".
	+ Weight is 115 lbs.
	+ Eyes are brown.
	+ Is left-handed.
	+ Is partial to both purple and yellow as his favorite colors.