Hajime Tenga

Hajime Tenga (Japanese: 天河 一, Romanized: Tenga Hajime) is a main character and one of the group of seven kiznaivers in the titular anime, manga, and novel series. His identification when he experiences pain is D-2. His modern-day sin is The Musclehead Thug (Japanese: 脳筋ＤＱＮ, Romanized: Nōkin Dokyun, literally "Hothead Lowlife").

Character Outline
An "all brawn and no brain" character who always acts before thinking. While his behavior may be rude and obnoxious, he does have good leadership qualities. He is a very soft-hearted and honest person who never breaks his promises.

Despite being known around his neighborhood by the nickname "Mad Dog" (狂犬, Kyōken), it is revealed very early on that he suffers from cynophobia.

Appearance
Tenga has hazel eyes and spiky pink hair. He is very tall and muscular man for his age, which helps reinforce his image and reputation. His skin is slightly tanned and there is a darkened lightning-bolt shaped marking on his hairline, which is possibly a scar. He wears lime green bottom-rimmed eyeglasses, and his eyes have a defined, yet gentle, down-turned shape. Whenever he appears in his school uniform, the fact that he is wearing a bright yellow t-shirt with a logo on it instead of a white collared shirt, along with wearing shiny red and white dress shoes, sticks out like a sore thumb.

His personal style is equally loud and adventurous, but it is noticeably more practical. He is often seen sporting tank tops or any shirt that shows off his muscles, along with accessories and, at times, loud flowery or geometric patterns paired with bright colors, typically worn with flip-flops for the summer. Overall, he seems to wear whatever he wishes to as long as it's comfortable, and doesn't seem to adhere to any particular style. His signature accessory is a white beaded bracelet with two pale yellow beads surrounding a blue bead in the center.

He is noticeably taller than most characters in the series, appearing to stand at around 185 cm (6 feet).

Personality
Of the Seven Deadly Sins of Modern-Day Japan, Tenga's sin is that of the "Musclehead Thug." However, while he is known among his peers as an unpredictable and intimidating delinquent, his true personality holds a deep-seated desire to help others.

In the proper spirit of the "Musclehead," Tenga is an incredibly energetic and physically strong person who many times acts on a whim in order to push through and keep events moving along. In spite of his image, however, he in many situations can display some of the highest practical intelligence and observational skills among the seven kiznaivers, easily able to glean the root of a problem without much effort.

Although his nature is typically thoughtful and concerned for others, when he is faced with strong emotions such as jealousy, Tenga is capable of displaying liberal amounts of selfishness to the point of extreme senseless violence. Still, even in such rare cases, he eventually comes to terms deep down that his actions are misguided.

Tenga is shown to be quite the pervert, as exhibited when he attempts to fondle Nico Niiyama's "boobies" as she explains the concept of the Sleep Fairy, earning a big slap from her that everyone connected through the system is forced to endure, and suggested when he initially talks of "violating" Noriko Sonozaki each time she annoys him.

Episodes 1-3
In the first episode, Tenga's first appearance is from within an outdoor bathroom stall, where he hears Katsuhira Agata being bullied by a couple of kids who have been harassing Katsuhira and taking his allowance money for years. He grins, presumably at his luck for stumbling upon the situation at the right time. Within moments, Tenga is shown helping Katsuhira out by scaring the bullies away (after demanding a 20% commission for the service). After successfully running the bullies off, Tenga hears that from Katsuhira's point of view, the bullies were not actually hurting Katsuhira, because the boy cannot actually feel pain. He decides to test out the validity of Katsuhira's claims, but misreads the meaning of Katsuhira's words and ends up accidentally choking him out.

Noriko Sonozaki then appears, taking the two of them with her to perform a mysterious experiment that she is involved in. After waking up following the surgery that connects his wounds with those of his classmates, Tenga is shown to be very confused about the experiment itself as well as its purpose initially, as are the other five present — Chidori Takashiro, Tsuguhito Yuta, Honoka Maki, Nico Niiyama, and Katsuhira — and he attempts to leave the area with Yuta, Honoka, Nico, and Chidori. However, they are all trapped again until they act according to Sonozaki's terms, which is to "introduce themselves" to one another. During this time, Tenga makes a sexual advance on Nico while she tries to find a way out of the hospital which causes her to slap him in the face, resulting in the first instance of shared pain among the kiznaivers. As their glowing wounds appear, both events appear to help them understand their situation a bit better.

During the following "Self Introduction" phase of the experiment, the newly formed kiznaivers are encouraged with high ramification to go beyond the basic first interaction, and instead share their deepest secret with each other — specifically, the one thing they absolutely don't want anyone to know. Sonozaki instructs each of them to look "deep within their chests" for an answer, which causes Tenga to remark that it's "cruel" to tell Chidori to look deep within her chest since it appears to be flatter than average, which causes Chidori to slap Tenga similar in manner to Nico's in the previous episode. After much argument, Tenga's secret ends up coming out first, as Noriko sends several large barking black dogs conveniently crashing through a window, breaking free of their leashes and muzzles.

Tenga shrieks in terror and makes a bolt through the door, tripping and hurting himself over a flight of stairs as he attempts to flee from the loose animals. When the dogs (and the kiznaivers) inevitably catch up with him, they see him jump onto a hospital bed and throw a chair at the dogs, shouting at the dogs to "stay back" and "don't get any closer." Despite the kiznaivers' attempts at calming him down, Tenga remains hysterical. Finally he collapses in a corner, crying and shaking, and begins mentioning in a dreadful voice before screaming through tears that he "really hates dogs!" Immediately after he exclaims this, an approving sound effect goes off, indicating that Tenga's deepest secret is that he has a phobia of dogs. He confirms that he dedicated a lot of time and effort to making sure no one found out about his fear, and Chidori and Nico attempt to support him while Tsuguhito Yuta chuckles into his hand.

Despite the obvious complexity and depth of his own secret, Tenga is later shown making fun of Yuta without shame in regards to Yuta's own secret, which was that the latter used to be a "fatty" before he entered high school.

After all of the kiznaivers reveal their respective secrets to the best of their abilities and are released back into the public, Tenga starts hanging out excessively in Katsuhira's apartment. After Tenga literally spends the night, Katsuhira finally comments on the fact that Tenga is spending a lot of time in his living room as Katsuhira cooks breakfast for the two. Tenga responds that living with Katsuhira seems like the "logical" course of action since Tenga swore to protect Katsuhira from the bullies, which is all the more imperative now that he feels everything that happens to Katsuhira. Katsuhira dryly remarks that there is no one more unfit to use the word logical, but doesn't put up any protest against Tenga's idea. Tenga casually asks to borrow Katsuhira's smartphone to play a mobile game, and then after he has it in his hand, he lectures Katsuhira about lending his phone to strangers, an action which, in Tenga's eyes, allows room for "bad guys" to do "bad stuff" with Katsuhira's personal phone.

Before long, Tenga discovers that Katsuhira and Chidori Takashiro are next-door neighbors. In excitement over the classic setup (of childhood friends as next-door neighbors), he tries to jump over from the ledge of Katsuhira's balcony onto Chidori's balcony — he fails however by a slim margin, slipping backwards and crashing into the bushes below. The pain of the fall is distributed equally among all of the kiznaivers, and Chidori and Tenga cry out in pain.

When the kiznaivers find out about the existence of a seventh kiznaiver from their class, who is in fact discovered to be a truant by the name of Yoshiharu Hisomu, Tenga is very enthusiastic in aiding in the search for him, believing that the seventh should join together with the group in order to become a team.

Episode 5
At the training camp, Tenga helps Chidori out by becoming something of her wingman when he ends up shedding light on the fact that she still has feelings for her childhood crush, Katsuhira. He roots for her throughout the entire first half of the episode, however his efforts to help give her a boost all prove to be fruitless.

When the Kizna Committee, made up of Noriko, Mutsumi Urushibara, and Kazunao Yamada, decides to announce their intention to put the kiznaivers through a "Test of Courage," Tenga is the first to notice that Chidori has disappeared just seconds before. By the time horror-themed Gomorins bust through the door with chainsaws, Tenga is quite worried for Chidori's safety due to what Chidori's sudden injury and Kazunao's words have implied, and he demands to know what has happened to her. He attempts to attack Yamada, but Yamada swiftly quells the altercation and Yuta suggests that instead of remaining in such a dangerous environment to focus on things which have already happened, the group should try to get out of the area and find where Chidori currently is, to which Tenga and the others agree.

As they fight Gomorins while cornered in the fake graveyard, Tenga instructs a compliant Katsuhira to go and find Chidori "no matter what," still attempting to play the wingman even in the midst of such a crisis situation.

Abilities

 * Physical Strength: Tenga is shown to be very physically strong, being able to send the bullies that are harassing Katsuhira flying away with one swing from his fist. He is aware of his own strength and shows absolutely no reserve, making use of his entire body during a fight — including his glutes and his chest. He is shown to enjoy fighting and punching things (but mostly people), goes on to show this physical strength on many separate occasions.
 * Intelligence & Reasoning: Despite his delinquent qualities, he is shown to be very deductive. This is displayed when he comes to the conclusion that the different numbers following the letter D (for "Damage") that appear on their wrists when they share pain must represent each one of them, thereby identifying the source of the pain. Additionally, when everyone else is stumped as to the cause for Maki's harsh and icy behavior, he is the one to deduce that Maki is suffering from a broken heart; he shows these observational skills on more than one occasion.

Katsuhira Agata
Tenga and Katsuhira are first introduced to each other in the first episode, when Tenga saves Katsuhira from two bullies in exchange for a percentage of Katsuhira's money. Afterwards, when they become kiznaivers, Tenga decides to live at Katsuhira's apartment and makes himself comfortable there. This is in order to do a better job at protecting Katsuhira from the bullies, according to Tenga.

Once Tenga figures out that Chidori still has romantic feelings for Katsuhira, however, Tenga's focus shifts onto getting Katsuhira to become interested in Chidori in the same way. He consistently tells Katsuhira to go after Chidori instead of someone else whenever events go south, wanting Katsuhira to save her in order to get the two alone together and encourage something to happen. However, due to Katsuhira's indifference, this proves itself to be a challenge.

After Katsuhira's indifference and lack of concern ends up really hurting Chidori, Tenga becomes very angry and beats Katsuhira up in front of all the other kiznaivers. He initially does this under the belief that he is defending Chidori as a friend, but when Katsuhira expresses his confusion at the situation and says that he was just doing what Tenga and Chidori told him to, Tenga's true feelings eventually come out and as he beats Katsuhira he questions why someone like Katsuhira is Chidori's love interest and not him. This leads Tenga into being "pissed off" at Katsuhira for a while after the fact, and giving him the silent treatment.

He later empathizes with Katsuhira's hard time and realizes that he did not understand Katsuhira previously, affirming that he cared for Katsuhira the whole time. In the final episode, he states that he can't abandon Katsuhira (proving he strongly cares for him). When Chidori tells Noriko that Katsuhira forgives her even after what she (and Tenga) put him through, he knows deep down that he was selfish and unfair, and regrets what he did to Katsuhira.

Katsuhira is the only kiznaiver Tenga met before the experiments were performed. It is unclear whether he continues living in Katsuhira's apartment after the experiment concludes.

Chidori Takashiro
In the beginning, Tenga does not seem to show much of an interest in Chidori; he only starts to become attracted to her once he observes her actions closely and she shows her "cute side." Once he confirms his suspicion that she still has a crush on Katsuhira, he tells her that he will help her win his heart, and on multiple occasions he makes advancements on her behalf. However, these all end in failure, and at least once results in Tenga looking interested in Chidori for himself.

During the storm in episode 8, it is shown on a love chart that Tenga is in fact romantically interested in Chidori, but that he ignores these feelings due to Chidori's feelings for Katsuhira. However, once Katsuhira breaks Chidori's heart by displaying utter indifference toward her feelings in favor of Noriko, Tenga becomes frustrated and enraged and later asks why Chidori likes Katsuhira more than him through the mental link, implying that he deeply believes he is a better match for her than Katsuhira.

After the storm and the kiznaivers return home with their link severed, Tenga is fully aware that his feelings are out in the open. He confronts Chidori on the school rooftop and asks her if she can come out and reject him straightforwardly. He explains that even more than wanting closure for himself, he wants to give her freedom to move on unfettered by the heavy feelings of someone else which she can't return. Chidori takes the implication personally and snaps, yelling at Tenga that she doesn't understand that kind of feeling because it isn't hers. Tenga is stunned into silence, but appears to understand where she's coming from and doesn't appear to push her any more after this.

In the series finale, Chidori and Tenga are shown standing together in the mall waiting for the others to arrive when Chidori brings up the topic of giving "a proper rejection." She reveals that all she can think about lately is Tenga, subtly implying that she has developed feelings for him. Tenga is overjoyed by her words and in spite of trying to appear "cool" involuntarily breaks into a big smile.

Tsuguhito Yuta
Tenga tries to get friendly with Yuta initially, but when he is rejected by Yuta, he seems to back off for a while.

When Yuta's secret is revealed in the second episode, Tenga wastes no time in making fun of Yuta and how different from his current self he used to look in the past. Before he is even fully aware that the smiling kid in the picture is Yuta, he calls the smiling kid a "fatso" and goes on to frequently throw around the phrase "show us your fatty potential" when trying to get Yuta to eat more for whatever reason, much to Yuta's embarrassment and disapproval. His making fun of Yuta may or may not be because Yuta offended him before by rejecting his friendly advances. But in spite of his joking behavior, Tenga is likely to actually care about Yuta's wellbeing to some degree, genuinely encouraging him to eat more "real food" instead of taking pills as a meal replacement while at the training camp.

In any case, the two seem to understand each other by the end of the series in some ways, and Tenga is subtly shown throughout the series to see merit in both Yuta's opinion and his sense of logic.

Honoka Maki
While the two don't experience much one-on-one communication, Tenga is the first to independently understand that Honoka's bristly behavior is likely due to having had her heart broken in the past. He believes that in spite of that pain, the reason she continues to show up and hang around with the rest of the kiznaivers for an extended period of time is because she is in fact tired of the pain of being alone.

Once he comes to this conclusion, he throws his entire being into defending her when he sees her being harassed by the camera crew. Tenga seems to care for Honoka in his own way, regarding her as his "homie," although he doesn't know how to approach her himself due to her situation's complexity. Still, once Honoka fully warms up to the kiznaivers, she seems to have grown fond of Tenga as well.

Nico Niiyama
For the most part, Tenga sees Nico as a cute, weird, and somewhat troublesome girl. Early on, Tenga insinuates that he sees Nico and Hisomu as being very close contenders in weirdness. As with the rest of the kiznaivers, eventually Tenga and Nico grow closer and Tenga is even seen trying to comfort her on at least one occasion.

According to the love chart, Nico has romantic interest in Tenga. However, Tenga is left completely unaware of these feelings until Noriko reveals to everyone that Nico is in love with him without Nico's consent. In shock, he blushes and watches as Nico runs out of the gym in embarrassment. Although he doesn't want to confront her about her feelings, he is convinced by Yuta that the same way Tenga keeps telling Katsuhira to go after Chidori, Tenga has to go after Nico.

Tenga himself has actually shown attraction to Nico more than once: in the second episode he attempts to grope her breasts, and in episode 8 he blushes and turns his face away when he can see her boobs through her wet shirt. He also calls her cute when he sees her wearing a gym jacket as opposed to her regular clothing, however, it is implied that he is only romantically interested in Chidori. Despite the admonishment from Yuta and what he himself says to Chidori about rejections on the rooftop in episode 10, it is unknown whether he actually properly rejects Nico's feelings for him or not. However, the two are able to continue on as good friends either way.

Yoshiharu Hisomu
At Hisomu's first appearance, Tenga seems to take it as a challenge more than others in tracking him down and capturing him, even taking advantage of the pain bond to get Hisomu to climax loudly, thus cluing the seven in to his location. When Hisomu is finally apprehended, Tenga listens to him talk and wonders aloud if Hisomu is "into guys" in addition to being a masochist, when he interprets the mood in the room as Hisomu flirting with Katsuhira. Hisomu clarifies for him that his addiction to pain is nothing "psychological" like that, and that it wouldn't matter if the pain was coming from a person or a sea creature.

Overall, Tenga sees Hisomu as an extremely outlandish individual and Hisomu seems to view him in the same way he views the rest of the kiznaivers sans Katsuhira.

Noriko Sonozaki
Tenga greatly despises Noriko, perhaps bearing the largest grudge out of all of the kiznaivers since day one due to his and her clash in personality.

He is very rude towards her and will never turn down an opportunity to speak poorly of her. Noriko even asks him to refrain from speaking so rudely about her at one point, even though she is all the more guilty of doing the same thing towards him and the rest. Tenga is often seen either mocking or threatening her, and at the culmination of his frustrations toward her he even blurts out that in his opinion she is "no girl" and deems her "the enemy."

Overall, he can't stand her ignorant and out-of-touch puppet master attitude and doesn't approve of her unpleasant treatment of others. In the final episode, his negative feelings about her haven't changed much, but he seems to have released them to an appropriate degree and smiles together with the rest of the kiznaivers when she compliments the friendship of the seven and how close they've all gotten.

Kazunao Yamada
He possibly despises Yamada equally or even more so than Noriko, due to the teacher's apparent lack of care for others' feelings and his tendency to easily counteract Tenga's attempts at resistance or rebellion. His hatred for Yamada only intensifies when he hears the full story from him as to his involvement in the tragic first run of the Kizna Experiment — Tenga responds that he can't stand people who "mess with kids and pigeons" the most, the former of which Yamada is extremely guilty of.

Yamada seems to dislike Tenga to some degree as well, even going so far as tripping the latter onto his face when he attempted to leave the room when the former was joking publicly at Tenga's and the others' expense — although it could be argued that Kazunao displays this outward lack of respect toward everyone. The root of Tenga's problem with Kazunao could be that Tenga can't understand his personality, or that he can't come to terms with his motivation.

Mutsumi Urushibara
He seems neutral to her, but he doesn't appear to view her as harshly as the other Committee members ironically both due to her more subdued and mature personality, and tendency to work in the background.

Quotes

 * "Jiggly-jiggly... Hip... Summer!" (Episode 1)
 * "I'm talking about all of the money you've taken from him. Bring back every last yen." (to Katsuhira's bullies, Episode 1)
 * "It is a big deal! It's so lame that I wanna die! Even going to and from school, I've researched which houses have dogs, and the routes and times those dogs go on walks... All my life, I've done everything I could to ensure no one found out!" (Tenga on his fear of dogs, Episode 2)
 * "Don't be stupid! Letting someone else use your smartphone is unthinkable! What would you do if I were some bad guy using your phone to do bad stuff?" (Episode 3)
 * "I'm a man that always follows through!" (Episode 4)
 * "You can't give up just because you were rejected once or twice! Even if they hate you or think you're annoying, 'friend' is an honorable title you earn by going in for the attack over and over until you win!" (Episode 6)
 * "I'm against violence!" (shouted as he attacks the Gomorins attacking Hisomu, Episode 8)
 * "I've never done anything like this before. Like, liking someone, or having someone like me. So, after thinking about stuff, I thought... For me, rather than someone not being able to answer my feelings, it’s way harder to not be able to respond to someone else's feelings." (Episode 10)

Trivia

 * Tenga's birthday is on September 18th, making his zodiac sun sign Virgo.
 * According to him, his hobbies are "fishing for crawfish" and "raking guys who are twisted over the coals." He is shown fishing in the river in the manga series.
 * His blood type is O.
 * It is revealed in episode 2 that he is afraid of dogs, to the extent that he goes to great lengths to avoid coming into contact with them at all so that others don't see the way he reacts to them. He regards this to the point that he feels the desire to die at the thought of how afraid he is, since he knows that the fear of dogs in itself is irrational. The medical term for such an intense and paralyzing fear is cynophobia, and it is typically caused by some traumatic experience involving dogs occurring in early childhood.
 * In the prologue of the Kiznaiver novel, Katsuhira claims through narration that Tenga is getting over his fear of dogs "little by little through an earnest effort," which implies that Tenga is undergoing exposure therapy with the help of one or more of the other kiznaivers (something which is shown statistically to have a high success rate if carried out at the proper pace for the individual).
 * In the gag manga series Mini! Kiznaiver Theater, a chibi-fied Tenga mentions in one panel that he owns a pet turtle.
 * Though it is never formally stated in the series, the classical Deadly Sin that Tenga embodies is the sin of Wrath. As if to poke fun at this, the symbol on Tenga's yellow t-shirt is that of a bear, which is a well known historical symbol linked to the sin. The Heavenly Virtue he achieves by the end of the series is Patience.
 * Although Tenga was one of the first characters to be confirmed for the show's cast, he underwent many different character designs before the final one was settled on.