Jin Saotome (ジン・サオトメ) is the main protagonist from the 2D mecha robot fighting game Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness.
Biography[]
Appearance[]
Jin is 21 years old, always dressed in pure white, with his trademark white scarf billowing behind him. Jin wears a white fundoshi beneath his outfit, as seen in his Marvel vs. Capcom appearances during one of his taunts or one of his special moves where he burns his clothes to form a powerful flaming projectile.
Personality[]
Jin strives to follow in the footsteps of his father, a very traditional Japanese soldier. Though modeled after his father, Jin's fighting techniques on and off a VA are self-taught.
Being self-taught and not actually enlisted, many of Jin's traits are an exaggerated parody of that image, including an adherence to Bushido. Incredibly hot-blooded, his mood regularly goes from calm to rage within seconds, but he remains a good guy. He is also friends with Gawaine Murdock, his father's former mentor.
Concept[]
While his story and personality hit many of the same beats as Domon Kasshu's from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Kinu Nishimura stated that the basis for Jin's character is Kakugo Hagakure from Apocalypse Zero,[1] another character based on an exaggerated version of a WWII Japanese soldier, they both wear spiked, sci-fi armor versions of fighter pilot uniforms with giant, trailing scarves.
Story[]
Jin's father (Ken Saotome) belonged to a unit that was killed in what was thought to be an accident one year before the start of Cyberbots. To honor his memory, he descends to Earth from a space colony and seeks to become the best Variant Armor pilot alive to prove his worth through the VA battle circuit. He begins to question his father's death after meeting Shade for the first time, who, it turns out, was the one responsible.
His main mech is the BX-02 BLODIA, a reworked model once piloted by Jeff Perkins.
Other appearances[]
Jin is an unlockable character (piloting BLODIA) in Tech Romancer, and is a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Jin makes a small cameo in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, shown on a poster in the background of the Days of Future Past stage with other veterans from the previous games, as one of the "Slain" characters; doubling as a reference to his ending in the first Marvel vs. Capcom. He also makes a small cameo in Hawkeye's ending as part of his new West Coast Avengers, and both Jin and Blodia appear in the game's Heroes and Heralds mode as individual support cards.
Trivia[]
- In Project X Zone, Devilotte can summon Blodia (along with Mobilesuits Alpha and Beta from Side Arms Hyper Dyne) as part of her attack.
- Jin's surname, Saotome, is most likely a reference to Dr. Saotome from the Getter Robo series. His given name is also (probably) taken from Hayato Jin from that same series.
- Rather than aiming to glorify the traditional elements, many of Jin's are played for comedy, such as his insistence on wearing fundoshi underwear he washes himself and other corny quirks. Design notes insist he look short and have cartoonier proportions around others to emphasize his brattiness.
- The back of Jin's uniform originally had a quarter of an Imperial Japanese flag sewn on that used to adorn his father's VA. His costume already being very complicated to draw, it was changed for Marvel vs. Capcom with the kanji 宇宙一 (Best in Space) since that could also be flipped on sprites.
- In Street Fighter V, Ryu has Jin's outfit as one of his alternate costumes. In E. Honda's character story as an opponent, Ryu also wears a white fundoshi and headband similar to Jin.
- In his debut game, despite Jin himself being based on Domon Kasshu from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, he is voiced by another Gundam character before Domon, Tōru Furuya, the voice actor of the original Gundam protagonist, Amuro Ray from Mobile Suit Gundam.
- In both Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Jin is voiced by Yūji Ueda, who also voiced Strider Hiryu in the same games as well.
References[]
- ↑ "Cyberbots Official Guidebook: Alliance Army Secret Files"
Gallery[]
For more of this character, see their gallery.