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( CHARACTER INFORMATION )

Name: Arakita Yasutomo
Canon: Yowamushi Pedal
Canon Point: Chapter 180 of the manga.
Age: 18

History: Wiki here!

Personality:

Aggressive, aggressive, aggressive. In a signing session, the mangaka of Yowamushi Pedal said that even someone that's dating Arakita would have to "put up with his verbal abuse", which says something about this kid: foul-mouthed, temperamental, and difficult, the word "aggressive" is a pretty good catch-all descriptor for Arakita.

It's difficult, though, to talk about Arakita without talking about how he transitioned. So, let's start with that.

What we see of present canon Arakita is the culmination of a lot of things. Firstly, it's important to note that Arakita hit rock-bottom during his middle school years, which almost turned his life around for the worst: a promising baseball player, Arakita won MVP as a pitcher in his first year of middle school and was expecting his big breakout to happen in his second year by winning the prefectural championships. It's implied that he had a lot of expectations about himself, and accordingly, a lot of pride. This concept of pride is essential, because said pride is shattered almost immediately somewhere between Arakita's first and second year of middle school, due to an elbow injury that made him unable to continue playing the sport he excelled at. Wanting to blame anything but himself, and unable to reconcile his sudden downwards spiral, Arakita decided to default to escapism as a way to cope with his crushing disappointment: instead of embracing his situation, he decided to mire himself in it and lash out at others for his misfortunes. He couldn't stand seeing people playing baseball or giving it their all in something, and consequently decided to enroll in Hakone Academy after graduating middle school purely because the school didn't have a baseball team.

Not exactly the most mature kid in the world at this point, but this is where things start turning around.

Without turning this section into a history section, the outline of Arakita's paradigm shift happens like this: boy hates world, boy wants to give up on world for feeling like the world's given up on him, boy meets inspiration, boy stops being preoccupied with the blame game and mans the fuck up. Essentially, meeting Fukutomi Juichi of Hakone Academy's Bicycle Club, and being told after a very humiliating defeat of bicycle VS moped that he needs to stop looking to anything but himself to explain his current situation, is what finally gets Arakita to stop digging his own grave and move forward.

And this is where the aggression and the pride come back into play.

As previously mentioned, Arakita is dynamic. Always yelling, berating, or seemingly antagonizing, he's harsh on others the way he's harsh on himself, singleminded when it comes to competition, and incredibly, incredibly fearless. This is attributable to the fact that he felt that he, essentially, had nothing until Fukutomi gave him a second chance (the only person who bothered) and the ability to have pride in something again: Arakita says time and time again that riding is the only thing he has, and that it'd be fucking stupid for him to give it up in any way, shape, or form. He's finally found something to be driven in, and that drive, the pride in his drive, is what pushes him to extremes without batting an eye. Since he spent so long being a backwards thinker and self-pitying and worrying about everything but how to move forward, he's taken that mentality and discarded it completely to go 180 degrees the other way; he's become preoccupied with pressing forward and winning, winning, winning. He wants to be fast, he wants to make Hakone the best, he wants to win and he wants Fukutomi to win, and he's thankful for that purpose as much as he's very adamant about it. There's a reason why people call him a wolf, and it's because he hungers for victories, hungers for that propulsion forward, that adrenaline. He doesn't ever want to stop moving forward again, he's had enough of stagnation.

That insistence and directness play into how he interacts with other people, as well! He finds it easier to be no-nonsense about everything and anything, and he's cited to be that guy who "says what everyone is thinking but is too afraid to say". Arakita rarely coddles, and very rarely decorates his words with pleasantries or niceties— it's the way he prefers to be treated as well, citing being told to "do his best" as the thing he hates most. A good example of how incapable he is of coddling is when one of his teammates, Shinkai Hayato, has a slump in his second year due to running over a rabbit during one of his races. Arakita says quite bluntly that Shinkai is an idiot for giving up on something that he excels at, though most people would approach something like racing PTSD with a little bit more sensitivity. Instead of kind words and sympthy, Arakita chooses to insult Shinkai for skipping practice over "something like that", while simultaneously acknowledging his teammate's talent and expressing, in not-so-gentle terms, that it'd be a waste for Shinkai not to race.

He also follows that up by saying that yeah, fine, since Shinkai is sooo pathetic and sooooo dumb, sure, he guesses that he can help Shinkai practice.

For all of Arakita's belligerence, he's really not that bad of a guy.

Obviously, Arakita is Bad at the whole emotions game. He'd spent two years generally being a loud asshole at everyone, and then his first year of high school rolled around and he finally joined a club where he was told that it'd be impossible for a novice like him to climb to the top; meaning, he spent about 2 years being a friendless loser, and then spent his first year in high school generally trying to Prove Himself, not for anyone else but for himself. Arakita has the uncanny ability to seek out people who he respects and wants to stick with, but is famously bad at communicating emotions outside of yelling, making affectionate but prickly digs, and calling people by weird nicknames ("iron mask", for example). He Cares, though, and often lets his actions speak louder than his words (which is understandable given the type of person he is, put up or shut up), like the aforementioned Shinkai case, and more obviously, with his affinity for cats despite saying that he doesn't care about them at all. Similarly, he hates being complimented or having his efforts be acknowledged— both out of embarrassment, supposedly, and because he doesn't see his actions as things to be commended, especially if he's just doing something of his own volition.

In short, he's a huge tsundere, and he's awkward as all hell.

Arakita is sincere, though. To Fukutomi, who he wholeheartedly believes he owes his current situation to, he gives his absolute trust. To his teammates, even when the going gets tough, he gives his loyalty and support, no matter how grudging he makes it seem. Arakita is someone who Pulls Through, both as an ace assist of Hakone Academy's bicycle team, and as an individual: he even extends his "professional" courtesy to a rival team member, Onoda Sakamichi, and values the other boy for his straightforwardness and honesty. At one point, he even promises to treat his competitor to a bottle of his favorite drink, Bepsi, after beating him... what a guy.

Fundamentally, Arakita likes people. When he was a delinquent, it's implied that despite his vehement distancing from other people, what he really wanted was for someone to push back and insist to be around him anyway. He has an affinity for difficult people, outspoken people, strugglers; but aside from the people he pushes and pulls with, the regular members of the Hakone bike team are the first people in ages that he's made a genuine connection with, and he's fiercely protective of them under his thick veneer of annoyed impassiveness. Mess with his pack, and he'll bite, hard.

Arakita has the audacity to provoke, but the compassion to dish out tough love when he thinks it's necessary. He's too awkward to be openly kind, but within that prickly outer shell is a boy who's hurt in the past and has the capacity now, after his growth, to support others in their time of need. Because really, Arakita is a guy who used to be a bottom-of-the-barrel loser, someone who can admit to that now without being bitter about it. And ultimately, his own aggression in life suits him fine; it's the trophy of his struggles, and it's something that's made him bigger and better as a person.

It's still important to note, though, that Arakita is Very Rude and has cultivated his potty mouth from constantly fighting with his two sisters, so don't expect him to be polite or reverent if you're not Fukutomi... Despite that, he's actually a pretty damn expert-level team mom, since everyone on his team are actual nerds who only questionably function outside of club activities. Someone has to be the voice of reason every once in a while, and Arakita actually wears that mantle quite well, when he's not getting punked hardcore by his teammates or yelling at them about how fucking stupid they all are. This is also all very rich coming from Arakita, though, who used to have a horrible pompadour and still wears his juvenile delinquent title with some sort of convincingness. He still walks and talks like a thug, seems to have a hard time controlling his damn facial muscles (is he capable of closing his mouth, the world may never know), and slacks off when he doesn't feel like doing something (he's all talk sometimes)...

...But cut him some slack, he's a teenage boy.

Abilities, Strengths, and Weaknesses: Is road racing an ability... He has a lot of stamina and endurance, if those count! He also has some sort of weird inexplicable superhuman sense of smell, apparently, one that lets him "sniff out" how people are feeling, among...other things. It's become a Thing in Hakogaku to let Arakita smell the first-years to see who'll quit and who'll stick around: how this works, literally no one knows.

No notable weaknesses other than being a regular ol' human and having terrible social skills!!