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π first impressions
stats
STRENGTH: β
β
β
β
β
SPEED: β
β
β
β
β
INTELLIGENCE: β
β
βββ
WILLPOWER: β
β
β
β
β
CHARISMA: β
β
βββ
ENDURANCE: β
β
β
β
β
LUCK: β
ββββ
MENTAL STABILITY: β
β
βββ
EMOTIONAL STABILITY: β
β
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PHYSICAL STABILITY: β
β
β
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β
AURAL: Atsushi is voiced by Yuuta Uemura in Japanese, which is the voice I generally go with when playing Atsushi. Here (cw: vague suicide mentions) is a good idea of what he sounds like in the anime iteration. He also has a really good character song as well.
background
personality
As a heads up: there will be some mentions of cw: abuse + self-harm in his personality section because it's an inherent part of his character.
When you're first introduced to Atsushi Nakajima, you immediately notice that he's not your stereotypical protagonist. The first thought that comes to mind is him thinking about his favorite food, chazuke and that he's starving to death due to the fact that he was kicked out of the orphanage at the age of eighteen. And that's when you first catch a glimpse of what defines Atsushi as a character both in the first chapter alone and even now -- the sheer impact the people at the orphanage had on him. He has a lot of anger inside of him, no thanks to the torture that he's experienced over the last couple of years. But it's also for this reason that he has such a strong will and keen determination to actually live.
It's said that the hell Atsushi lived in was what cultivated that - and while he might be kind and willing to help others because of it, that isn't simply because of any selfless reasons. In fact, it's the opposite - it's because of sheer selfishness along with the idea of "Someone who can't save even one person does not have the value to live on." shoved into his head. He truly and earnestly believes in this -- that if he can't save anybody, then he'll be an inconvenience to others around them and even cause misfortune for the others around him. Atsushi doesn't like or want to accept that concept that has been ingrained in him since he was a child. And it's because of that alone he's willing to do reckless things - even things that Atsushi considers himself as stupid ideas - in order to prove to himself alone that he has the right to live. And that's why even Atsushi's motto is simple: "What's better than being alive?" It's also part of the reason why he has so much self-loathing - he doesn't feel like he deserves much of anything because it's so ingrained in him that he doesn't have any worth unless he can actually save others.
Also, because of this kindness and yearning to save others that he easily empathizes with those who have fallen into misfortune - in particular, those who are also orphans or have dealt with any sort of abuse in the past. He feels like he has a need to help them not only because of what he was told by his Headmaster, but also because when Kunikida tells him that "he only has room forone on his boat and that misfortune like this is plentiful in this world", he winds up questioning himself that if that's the case and people only could help themselves, then why was he - someone who also had misfortune like that - saved to begin with?
However, that hell didn't just form kindness and the want to save others. He also received quite some PTSD from the experience, and it actually shows - he tends to have flashbacks to his time in the orphanage whenever he does things that remind him of it, and he especially has a tendency to even at times hallucinate the Headmaster that has been tormenting him all this time, even to the point that after he dies in an accident that Atsushi himself says that "the Headmaster lives inside my head now" which reveals that because of the sheer impact that the man has had on Atsushi all these years, he's still haunted by his past. He just simply cannot get over those memories so easily, after all.
Because of the constant amount of times that he was told that he was a 'good for nothing' or 'useless garbage', Atsushi tends to struggle at recognizing some of the more positive emotions directed at him. But when he notices that the Armed Detective Agency has pushed so hard to actually care about him and treat him as an actual person instead of someone that's meant to be discarded; they care and have done so much for him that he sometimes feels like he doesn't deserve it and it's enough to have brought him to tears. There are also times when love tends to go over his head, as Lucy's tsundere tendencies are completely missed, and he even just accepts her help and friendship as simply that, nothing more. On the flip side, however, Atsushi can read a little more into the negative emotions of other people and even can tell when he's messed up and said something that he shouldn't have said and flipped the proverbial switch.
In spite of his kindness and wanting to be a good person, that does not necessarily mean that Atsushi himself does not have a bit of a nasty streak. After all, a tiger has its claws, and Atsushi is no different. When it comes to the people that he truly detests, he has no qualms in hiding it. In fact, Atsushi's emotions are mostly an open book, and it shows in his expressions a lot of the time. He even actively admits that he and Akutagawa were actively trying to kill each other and even gets pissed whenever anyone compares the two of them for being so similar - which is probably one of the reasons why Atsushi takes issue with Akutagawa to begin with. But this just shows that while Atsushi himself might not be the kind of person whose minds immediately goes to murder, he's definitely inherently flawed and can have violent tendencies when situation arises for it. It's also because of this streak that he has quite a bit of snark in him - there are times when he'll play the tsukkomi (straight man) to Dazai's boke (funny man). He also, at times, yells at Akutagawa and chastises him to the point where he starts calling him names to the point where he's snappy.
While Atsushi might be a bundle of anxiety - and he still is, in many ways, as his tendency to stutter hasn't gone entirely - he's gained a lot of things by joining the Armed Detective Agency, but especially growth in a positive environment, something he wasn't able to have back at the orphanage. And it's because of that growth that he has gained over the last couple of months. He still tends to easily fluster when he mistakenly puts his foot in his mouth. He's even a rather terrible on the spot liar - he has a rather bad tendency to come up with rather strange, weird lies, after all, but are easily brushed aside by 'him being anxious'.
All in all, Atsushi is a person that's been through a lot of shit and is trying his hardest to piece himself together and figure out who he is and who he wants to be because a lot of Atsushi is cultivated by his traumas. But it's because of everything that he's experienced that rounds him out as a person.
appearance
Atsushi Nakajima is a rather slender young man at 170 cm. He generally wears the same outfit - a white dress shirt, tie with two pins on it, suspenders, black pants, a rather long belt, fingerless gloves, and rather high shoes as can be seen in his official art. He also has a black streak in his hair as seen here but is not shown in the anime proper due to it being too difficult to animate.
CW: abuse mentions start
He also has several scars along the side of his ribcage due to the abuse he's received from the headmaster of the orphanage.
CW: abuse mentions end
skills
Beast Beneath the Moonlight. In the Yokohama he's from, a select few are known as ability users, and Atsushi is one of them. With this ability, he is able to transform into a white tiger - and thanks to Fukuzawa's ability, All Men Are Equal, he is able to control this ability. With it, he can be in several states of transformation, which include changing just single parts of his body (i.e his arms, legs and even teeth) and he's even used it to amplify his senses, such as smell and sight. He even gains immense speed, durability, strength, and stamina and has quite a bit of healing capacity (he's regrown a leg before), which are described by Yosano to be "more of a restoration than a regeneration".
In terms of his more mundane abilities, Atsushi has been learning basic combat from Kunikida. Atsushi also says that because he's always observed people's expressions that he's picked up a skill; one of being able to notice the 'change' of something in a part of someone's mind that's touched that should never be touched.
other
CONTENT5