Raphael

Michelangelo (younger brother)

Master Splinter (father)

Age: 15 (2014 film) 17 (2016 film)

Date of death

**Raphael**, also known as **Raph**, is one of the two deuteragonists (alongside Leonardo) of the Paramount Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise.

He is one of the Ninja Turtles. As the toughest and hot-headed of his brothers, he is a mutant turtle that wears a red bandanna and uses sais as his signature weapons. As the muscle of the Ninja Turtles, he is shown to love pressuring his brothers, even though he also loves them, and prefers to first attack and then ask questions. Raphael debuts in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

## Films

### Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Like his brothers, Raphael started out as a small turtle hatchling being used for scientific research in the laboratory of Eric Sacks. He was regularly injected with mutagen that gave him increased strength and healing.

After April O'Neil freed the Turtles and Splinter, they began to rapidly grow in size and intelligence, both of which were comparable or greater than that of humans. For the next fifteen years Raphael spent most of his life in the sewers with his brothers and adoptive father, where he was taught the art of ninjutsu. His preferred weapon was a pair of sais, which he was proficient at using in any way he chose (he was able to carve a rough statue with them in a matter of seconds).

Fiercely independent and aggressive, he was the most eager to engage the Foot Clan against Splinter's orders, and was the first Turtle that  April O'Neil sees after stopping the Foot Clan, although she did not get a good look at him and thought he was a man. When she tracked them down and took their picture, Raphael was highly threatening towards her, believing that she would share information about them for the sake of a story. He remained suspicious of her even after Splinter summoned her to their lair and revealed the part she had played in their lives, being the only brother who did not bow to her.

When the Foot invaded their lair, Raphael attacked several with a large revolving fan, but was buried under a pile of rubble and presumed dead. In actuality he was only knocked unconscious, and upon awakening he found Splinter mortally wounded. The mutant rat told him to save his brothers, who had been abducted by the Foot, and Raphael reluctantly did as he was told.

Teaming up with April and Vern Fenwick, Raphael infiltrated Eric Sacks' laboratory facility, where his brothers were being drained of blood. Before he could free them, Shredder appeared and attacked him, beating the Turtle unconscious and cracking his shell while April freed the other Turtles. Raphael recovered quickly and accompanied them on their journey back to New York, where he followed Leonardo's lead in the battle against Shredder. At the end of the battle, believing that they were all about to die, Raphael blurted out his true feelings about his brothers, though he pretended not to be crying when they safely made it to the ground.

Having reclaimed some of the mutagen, he and the other Turtles headed back home and were able to heal Splinter. Upon seeing April again, Raphael acknowledged that she had not sold out his family for the sake of a job, as he had thought she would.

### Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Two years later, Raphael had begun to chafe under the restrictions placed on them by their nature as giant turtles, feeling that they deserved some recognition for the things they had done for others. This led to more friction with Leonardo, who maintained that they needed to stay in the shadows, and that they would never be accepted by the outside world for who they were.

When the brothers set out to stop Shredder from escaping from a prison convoy, Raphael leapt out of the garbage truck and disposed of three Foot Soldiers on motorcycles.

Further friction was produced when Leonardo learned of the properties of the purple ooze, which had the potential to turn the Turtles human, but opted not to tell Michelangelo or Raphael of this. After Michelangelo told Raphael of this, Raphael was angered by the fact that Leonardo would deprive them of an important choice, and held back information that they had a right to know. When Leonardo left him behind on the next mission, Raphael decided to get his hands on more purple ooze so that he and Michelangelo could make their own decision.

To do this, he lied to Casey Jones and April about the purpose of the ooze, and formulated a plan to infiltrate police headquarters. Unfortunately the plan was wrecked by the theft of the ooze by the Foot Clan. Though Raphael was able to recover the substance, the Turtles' existence was revealed to the police, and April and Casey were arrested.

Before anything could be done about this, the Turtles had to leave for Brazil to prevent Bebop and Rocksteady from reclaiming an alien device. Raphael struggled the most with this mission, due to his fear of jumping from one plane to another in mid-flight, and the subsequent panic he suffered after falling from the crashing plane into a river.

Upon returning to New York, Raphael and his brothers were presented with the choice of whether to appear human for the rest of their lives. After some deliberation, Raphael smashed the beaker of purple ooze, finally accepting his Turtle nature for good. Instead the Turtles offered an alliance to Chief Rebecca Vincent, in order to stop Krang from assembling the Technodrome over New York and taking over the world. The Turtles successfully fought Krang and drove him back into his home dimension.

Along with his brothers, Raphael was given a key to the city in front of the NYPD. When Vincent said that they could live normal lives, he responded, "Normal, what fun is that?"

## Appearance

At the age of 5, Raphael wore a black and white zebra striped do-rag, a red vest, black boots, gray shorts with red stripes down the sides, and a black elbow pad on his left arm, and white wrapping on his left arm.

Raphael's bandana resembles a do-rag, He has a scar across his lips' right side. Raph wears much more bandages on his arms and legs than his brothers. Raph's shell has Japanese characters painted in red and pieces of tape, there's one on his right side where it's written "Mikey was here".

In the second film, Raphael wears the same do-rag like mask. He also wears black shorts, knee pads.

## Nickelodeon's Description

* Named after the Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, Raphael Sanzio da Urbino
* Chose his weapons (Sai) due to his quick and "pointed personality"
* The "anti-hero", "fight first and ask questions later"
* Dark green and the second oldest turtle
* Physically strongest turtle
* Aggressive nature, big attitude
* Most fearsome and fearless of the group
* Several scratches and chips on his shell, red mask is long with a tattered tail
* Usually the one who throws the first punch
* Stead-fast and Strong-minded and acts like a typical rebel who questions authority

## Crush Soda's Description

With his red bandana, and twin sai in his belt, Raphael is the biggest of the brothers...and his ego is probably even bigger. Not one to hold back his temper, Raph is aggressive and struggles with following orders. His deep-seated fear of being alone is masked by his fierce independence and tough-guy exterior.

## Personality

Impulsive with a short temper, Raphael has a cynical and grumpy personality,he is extremely serious even more than Leonardo,and also rash.He dislikes being ordered around as he was annoyed by Leonardo keep telling him what to do. While he has very hard and fierce personality, he genuinely loved his brothers as proven when they were kidnapped by the Foot Clan,he embarked on a one man mission recklessly to saved them.

## Movie Novelization Description

With his red bandana, and two sais in his belt, Raphael is the biggest brother...and his ego is even bigger. Not one to hold back his temper, Raph is aggressive and struggles with following orders. His deep-seated fear of being alone is masked by his fierce independence and tough-guy exterior.

## Powers, Abilities, and Weaponry

**Immense Strength:** Enhanced by the Mutagen and extremely tough body building regimen,Raphael has immense strength, superior to his brothers in terms of brute strength alone. He could hold his own against Shredder and could counter his armor superhumanly enhanced physical attacks. He was also able to single handedly lift a shipping container with his bare hands, and then kick it with one foot at foot soldiers to knock them into the river. He was also able to bench press very heavy looking weights.

**Immense Speed :** Raphael has great agility,being fast and agile enough to keep up with his brothers in quickly moving about in New York City.He has advanced reflexes able to quickly defend Leonardo against Shredder extremely quick strikes.

**Mutated Armor Shell :** Raphael like his brothers had his hard shell mutated by the Mutagen gaining great size and immense density which function as natural body armour having Bullet Proof Durability as well as protecting him from suffering serious injuries from Shredder's vicious assault.

**Master Sai expert:** Raphael is a masterful ninja who is highly proficient in using his dual sais.

**Stealth:** Thanks to his ninjutsu training, Raphael is able hide in the shadows and move through them without being seen or detected.

**Sais:** Raph uses two sais as his signature weapons. In the first film he uses a pair of sais with silver steel blades with red handles. In the second film he uses the same pair of sais.

**Folding up in shell:** Like the rest of the turtles, he is able to fold up in his shell.

**Expert Marksman:** Raph has been shown to be an expert marksman, as he was able to throw one of his sais into the pole of a stop sign next to Casey, with ease.

**Indomitable will:** Like the rest of his brothers, Raph has an indomitable will, being able to withstand being in the Ha-shi for a whole 11 hours, while standing on a wobbling tricycle, on one foot, while knitting.

**Wood crafting:** Raph possess impressive wood crafting skills, being able to carve through an entire log of wood with his sais in a matter of seconds, and making it look like a sculpture of himself in a karate gi in crane fighting pose.

**Knitting:** Raph possess impressive knitting skills, being able to knit even while standing on a tricycle on one foot, while in the Ha-shi.

## Equipment

2014 film:

* sais

2016 film:

* sais
* shoulder walkie talkie

## Trivia

* Raphael is named after the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael.
* Raph likes to chew on toothpicks.
* Raph possesses knitting skills.
* Splinter and the Turtles were laboratory experiments, much like in the IDW comics origin story.
* The scene where Raphael is walking disguised on the streets with April was cut off the final version, but it was a reference to the way the Turtles used to disguise themselves in the Mirage comics, 1987 series, Archie Comics, 1990 film, and 2003 TV series.
* Raphael's face is based on Clint Eastwood.
* Raph is right-handed, as when he is seen throwing the canister of purple ooze against the wall, he uses his right hand to throw it.
* Raph is the only turtle to wear a mask resembling a do-rag, a possible reference to the 1997 live action show "Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation", in which Leonardo and Donatello both wear masks that resemble do-rags.
* His favorite type of soda is "Strawberry Crush".
* Raph has "Mikey was here", written on his shell, due to Mikey.
* His favorite color is red.
* He is the second oldest of the four turtles.
* His biceps are 40 inches.
* When he and the rest of the turtles are punished by Splinter and sent to the Ha-Shai, his punishment is to stand balanced with one foot on a red tricycle while knitting.
* He along with the rest of his brothers, are all Knicks basketball fans.
* He knows how to play the guitar, as shown due to the presence of an acoustic guitar in his bed in the fist turtle lair.
* In the 2016 film, Raph is shown to have a bit of a fear of heights as shown when they are jumping out of the plane, however it can't be to big of a fear since he is able to jump from building to building high in New York with his brothers no problem.
* He tends to lose control and become overly aggressive, even during training.
* He is impatient with details.
* He is highly emotionally driven.
* He is self sufficient and independent.
* He doesn't like taking orders.
* He privately considers himself to be the more qualified leader.
* He has a pretty severe "inferiority complex", meaning he feels less adequate in all things compared to his brothers and copes with his feelings by overcompensating through excessive aggression.
* Mikey considers him to be "The hype man", in their hip hop Christmas album.
* He watched a Batman movie once, and then invented a Batman voice.
* He is the only one of the four turtles to not wear shoes, and instead stick to the classic no shoes, bare feet look.

## Quotes

* "Lets just say that we're four brothers from New York, who hates bullies, and love this city."
* "We're gettin' our asses kicked out there."
* "Cowabunga"