Yamato Hotsuin

**Yamato Hotsuin** is the master of ??? in the ??? Holy Grail war.

"*Our will makes our ideals take shape... I call that power equal to the demons.*" — Yamato Hotsuin

## Profile

### Appearance

Yamato is a young man who has messy, straight, silver hair and purple eyes with his bangs hanging over his right eye. He wears a JP's standard director uniform with white gloves, black heavy trench coat, black baggy trousers, and black leather boots.

In the anime, at the end of the last episode, he has a small scar on his cheek close to his mouth that he received from Hibiki in the last day before time was reset.

In Record Breaker, Yamato sometimes takes off his JP's trench coat, showing his dark grey collar shirt with black tie.

### Personality

Yamato has a calm composure when making decisions and deciding on actions while fighting the mysterious invaders. He has great leadership abilities, is smart, decisive and effective, but lacks common sense about "unnecessary" things that his parental figures never taught him about. He is also very unyielding in his views and unlike his opposite Ronaldo, who at least acknowledges the merits of Yamato's ways, refuses to give any thoughts to any views that opposes his. He can say cruel things and make harsh decisions without feeling remorse because he has no concept of compassion taught to him. Due to his upbringing, he judges the worth of an individual based on their capabilities and the results that they can achieve, rather than on their money or connections. He thus believes that the most capable individuals should lead the world. This is reflected in how he organizes the JPs, giving a large degree of freedom and authority to the members that have proven themselves. He has pride in his family name and cannot accept the current state of the world as he views it as being unworthy of his family's protection.

Despite his perceived cruelty, Yamato truly wishes for the best of the world and therefore intends on using Polaris to create a new world based on meritocracy. Some of the other members interpret this as a Darwinian world where the strong would bully the weak. He is shown to be absolutely dedicated to this view and is willing to kill or sacrifice anyone that he does not deem worthy or a useful pawn. He will also not be swayed to join the protagonist when he is beaten in the Anguished One's path or Ronaldo's path. However, he can be convinced to join in the Daichi's Liberator and Restorer paths, provided the protagonist has developed enough of a bond with Yamato to convince him that his way has a chance. If Yamato is convinced to join the protagonist, Yamato seems to have shown some change on his view towards the society, trying to understand the civilians before fighting Polaris. In his route, Makoto has also commented that Yamato has changed for the better ever since he met the protagonist.

Yamato's change is made apparent in Triangulum Arc where Yamato now has completely trusts not only the protagonist, but also the rest of his comrades, even showing concern for them albeit in distant matter. At one point, Daichi was even able to have a small talk with Yamato, though Yamato's lack of normal social skill and ignorance of civilian life makes him misunderstand Daichi's intention to show his appreciation, which eventually leaves the protagonist to explain everything. Through watching the development of his comrades, he is finally able to believe that humans are capable of changing no matter what kind of people they are, letting go of his previous meritocracy view.

In the anime, Yamato is much more reserved and colder, completely replacing his sarcasm in the game. He also has no qualms in recruiting civilians whereas his game counterpart looks down on them. His relationship with the protagonist, Hibiki, is far from friendly due to their contradicting views, but he eventually learns to accept what Hibiki has taught him. The only aspect that he shares with his game counterpart is his dedication to his goal on creating a meritocracy society to the point he chose to die preserving his goal rather than disregarding it even after he is convinced that Hibiki's way has a chance.

## Abilities

Yamato is by far, the strongest summoner in the series. He already shows high spiritual and magical power since he was a child, able to summon high class demon when he was five years old. He is also strong enough to supply the magical power of the transport terminal on his own. As the heir to the Hotsuin Family, he is able to harness the Dragon Stream's power via the towers that protecting the five cities in Japan, increasing his own power as summoner. His demons are by following; Cerberus, Baal, Nebiros, Zaou Gongen and Satan.

* Overwrite: Yamato is so far the only summoner capable of overwriting demon's abilities, changing the stats of the demon to the way he wants it to perform in the battle. This also allows him to customize his demon to become capable on nullfying a magical attack. When using this ability, a data-like statics will surrounds his body and a magic circle will appear beneath the demon he's overwriting.

* Dragon Stream: Yamato is able to harness the Dragon Stream's power, increasing his own magical power as a summoner and amplifies his overwriting ability, thus, also increasing his demons' stats. He can also control any demon that connected to the Dragon Stream. The closer he get to one of the towers, the stronger he become. However, using this power cost a lot of energies. Using it too much will resulting weakens his body. When using this ability, like Overwrite, a data-like statics will surrounds his body and a magic circle will appear beneath him. He can also use this magic circle as a barrier and launches a magic wave to attack.

# References

https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Yamato\_Hotsuin

https://devil-survivor-2-the-animation.fandom.com/wiki/Yamato\_Hotsuin