Shirako Takamoto

**Shirako Takamoto** is the Japanese member of the Teku team, and has a passion for music.

## Appearance

Shirako has orange-tinted glasses and tall bluish-black hair. He sports a white vest with a black and orange shirt under it, and a white undershirt below that.

## Personality

Shirako Takamoto drives in style, reflecting his passion for music. He rarely talks, often only speaking in single sentences. Takamoto is serious about his look, his car, and especially his music. He takes much pride in his car’s audio and video systems as in the spectacular moves that he demonstrates while racing. But when someone trashes his car, he gets serious and challenges them.

Shirako does not display no hostility towards the Metal Maniacs when he handed a pair of drone legs to Monkey for Sparky to use.

## Biography

Shirako arrived alongside his teammate and leader, Nolo after receiving the call to help their team to defeat the Racing Drones. Arrived at the coordinates to the Acceledrome in the aftermath of the Storm Realm, where he is loudly blasting music and bright lights as he navigates the stone maze outside the Acceledrome. Later, while he is "Teku-izing" Kurt's *Battle Spec*, he attracts the attention of his Metal Maniac rival, Pork Chop. Porkchop insults him, but Shirako ignores him and turns up his music on *Bassline* causing the tires nearby to dance until Karma turned his music off to alert everyone of the Wheel of Power activated.

In the Swamp Realm, Shirako encounters one of the giant mosquitos which lands atop his car lifts it several meters in the air. Shirako, annoyed by the out-of-tune buzzing uses the massive speakers on the back of Bassline to repel the bug. It drops him and he continues on the track as normal. At the end of the realm, Shirako arrives after Nolo wins and pacifies the swamp monster. He picks up Vert Wheeler, who had his car destroyed and exits the realm.

### The Cavern Realm

Driving through the Cavern Realm, Shirako seems to be more of a detriment to his fellow racers than a help. First he blinds Porkchop by using *Bassline*'s multi-colored lights, causing Porkchop to retaliate with a slam to the side of Shirako's car, he turns up his music, resulting in the sound waves bring down stalactites onto the track. Lani warns him of this, but he fails to hear her. Toward the end of the realm, giant bats attack the racers. Kurt tells Shirako turn up his music so the bats would not be able to navigate properly. He finishes the realm second, after Porkchop who won the race, and is still listening to his music, much to Porkchop's chagrin.

### The Water Realm

Shirako participates in the Water Realm, spending most of his filming the exotic sea life and fights between Wylde and Kurt for his website, rather than focusing on the race. When the Racing Drones catch up to the humans during the sea level end portion of the realm, Shirako is hit by RD-L1's Ram Hyperpod and is sent flying off the track. Shirako uses the Swamp Realm Accelecharger to get back onto the track.

### The Cliffside Realm

In the Cliffside Realm, Shirako claims to have a problem. He says that he cannot access the Internet for new music. He opts to play his old beats louder. This annoys Lani, who wonders if he knows that he can damage his hearing listening to loud music. Nolo apparently told him about this, but he acted like he did not hear him. Fellow racer, Kurt Wylde, sees a Drone sweeper driving the opposite direction on the track and tells Shirako to stay behind him. Kurt uses the Swamp Accelecharger to avoid the sweeper while Shirako follows. On a later section of the track, a sweeper drone gets under Shirako's car and begins cutting through his Nitrox 2 tank.

Lani tries to warn him that if he uses his booster, his car will explode. Kurt says there is only one way to stop Shirako. He uses his booster to catch up to Shirako and knocks him off the track. Shirako uses his E.D.R. to escape the realm.

*(More to add)*

## Powers and Abilities

### Semblance

According to Nolo, Shirako has a semblance based on sound manipulation and uses the music to charge up his Semblance to use in combat, able to to create a barrier made from sound for defence and blast it from his body with the boost of his gear.

## Equipment

### Weapons

His headphones can transform into guantlets to propel the sound-based waves.

#### Mantis Flip Coin

Shirako is in possession of a Shen Gong Wu, the Mantis Flip Coin which gave him incredible jumping with extreme height, skill, and agility

## Quotes

* *“Yoh, let‘s pump up the bass line!”*
* *”Cool.”*

## Trivia

* Shirako even listens to music in his sleep, but also revealed to be part of his Semblance to charge up
* In the final chapter of the Ultimate Race Arc, Shirako is in possession of a Shen Gon Wu, the Mantis Flip Coin and unclear how he obtained it or if possible connections to the Jade Academy.
* Shirako's voice actor Kirby Morrow is the first actor who passed away in 18th November 2020.