Azuma Higashi

* Profile (16Y)
* Profile (17Y)
* Choujin
* Choujin (Armor Form)

## Image Gallery

**Azuma Higashi** (東 アヅマ, *Higashi Azuma*?) is one of the protagonists of the Choujin X series. He is Tokio Kurohara's best friend.

## Appearance

Azuma is a short yet very athletic young man who is described as possessing rather attractive features. He has short white hair in a bowl cut, yellow eyes and can usually be seen wearing glasses.

Azuma's Choujin form dons a cloth wrapped entirely around his head making it impossible to see his face. He also wears a black choker with a broken chain, broken metal hand-cuffs, and tight, black pants.

## Personality

Azuma has a very straightforward and heroic personality. Due to his father being an accomplished police officer, Azuma was raised with the mentality to always be ready to help people in need, no matter who they are. However, he can get carried away at times, like when he broke both of Johnny's arms.

Although normally good friends with Tokio, deep down Azuma is marked by an inferiority complex and a severe atychiphobia which was developed ever since a time in their childhood in which they played arm wrestling in front of their class. Although Azuma "won", he could feel in his hand that Tokio was far more capable than shown. The event marked him to his core, and made him fearful of his friend.

Upon awakening as a Choujin he becomes a warped manifestation of his fear and his desire to remain a hero-figure to Tokio, making him berserk and viciously attack everyone in his proximity, especially the source of his conflict; Tokio himself. He ruthlessly attacks Tokio and goads him into fighting in order to prove that he is superior, becoming a mix of his desire to avoid defeat at all costs while demonstrating to Tokio that he is the superior one of the two, and thus can remain his "hero". As Tokio grows stronger, he becomes desperate and terrified, while succumbing to his defeat.

After his fight with Tokio, Azuma studies under Hoshi Sandek to learn self-control. Although Azuma has certainly tries his hardest to make up for his failings, he frequently lets his impulses get the better of him. When stopping one of the Tower's attempted terrorist attacks on a civilian plane, Azuma is more focused on catching Nari than he is on the civilians, to the point that Ely has to remind him of what their priorities are.

Azuma bases his sense of self on Tokio's perception of him, forming a co-dependent relationship with him in which Azuma is desperate remain Tokio's hero for the sake of keeping up his own self-esteem. After Tokio stops him when he goes berserk upon awakening to his powers, Azuma is forced to confront his shortcomings, asking Tokio to kill him if he ever totally loses control. That said, Azuma is deeply hurt when Tokio leaves for Iwato on his own without even saying goodbye, largely out of jealousy that Tokio was able to take a leap of faith by dropping out of school.

After Tokio goes off on his own, Azuma ends up turning to Ely Otta as an emotional crutch, basing his sense of self around her perception of him just as he did with Tokio, and the two of them become partners at Yamato Mori. As a result of Ely's headstrong personality, talent, and strong moral compass, Azuma develops romantic feelings for her. When Tokio returns home from Iwato, Azuma evidently feels threatened by Tokio's and Ely's friendship, culminating in him trying to force Ely to choose between him and Tokio.

Eventually, Tokio's and Azuma's mutual friend Maiko Momoma calls *both* of them out on letting their friendship fall apart, giving both of them the push they need to finally try to open up to each other. The two childhood friends finally meet, at which point they let out their pent-up aggression towards one another in a fistfight. Tokio wins and the two of them return to Yamato Mori together, and it's then that Azuma confesses that he has romantic feelings for Ely. Although it's clear that there's still a lot of issues between them, Tokio and Azuma are once again on speaking terms with each other, as both do genuinely want to repair their friendship.

## Background

Azuma and Tokio have been friends since childhood. Due to his father being an accomplished police officer and engraving the idea of justice into his head, Azuma would often protect his friend from bullies by fighting them, something that Tokio greatly appreciated.

## Plot

Azuma first appeared after Tokio witnessed a girl getting harassed by Johnny and his gang. Tokio called him and he arrived shortly thereafter, quickly defeating Johnny by breaking both of his arms with a single kick. Azuma then walked back home with Tokio. In the following days, he asked Tokio to volunteer with him for the plane crash clean-up, which Tokio gladly did as it was a good excuse to skip school.

Later that day, Azuma and Tokio were ambushed by Johnny with his gang, and used his newly acquired Choujin powers to withstand Azuma's kick and easily defeat him by extending his neck and arms. As it soon became apparent that Johnny was aiming for Azuma's life, the two thugs accompanying Johnny urged him to stop and return back to how he was, to which Johnny reacted in a rather brutal way, squeezing their heads until they exploded, killing them both. This gave Tokio a chance to run away. Without a second thought, he grabbed Azuma and jumped into a nearby water canal. They both swam to safety, and when they got out on the riverbank, they noticed the two syringes lying on the floor next to them; the very same ones Johnny tried to convince his deceased thugs to use. As Azuma knew he had no chance against a Choujin, he immediately wanted to take the syringe and become a Choujin, however, Tokio couldn't bear the idea of just idly sitting and not helping his friend. After a brief argument and a short flashback, both Tokio and Azuma seemingly injected themselves with the syringes and Azuma fell on the ground unconscious.

## Abilities

Azuma is able to intentionally suppress his **Raise** to detach a piece of himself. Using a device that detects the oscillations of the **Raise**-suppressed wounds, he is able to locate the piece of his body, using it as a tracking chip.

* **Martial Arts Skill**: Azuma is very skilled in both Judo and Karate. This was demonstrated when he broke both of Johnny Kiyoshi Takeyama's arms with one kick. He also won Judo and Karate tournaments 5 times in a row despite his small stature.

## Trivia

* Azuma's name (東 - read as *azuma,* although written in katakana in the manga) and last name (東 - read as *higashi*) both mean "east", which means his full name literally translates to "East East".
* Azuma's hobby is collecting and scrapbooking clippings of various crimes.