Character Index
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Tokyo
Rolling Master
Rolling Master's logo by Import Tuner Challenge
- There are some things you can't see when part of the herd.
...But the Expressway's beckoning, and especially the memories of all those years alongside his brother and friends, couldn't be ignored so easily either. On some nights, people swear they've sighted that familiar red-and-black AE86 once again, long enough for its driver to leave them in the dust...
Satoru Kobayakawa was the original Rolling Guy #1. After leaving his team in the care of his brother, he returned to the Expressway under the moniker of Rolling Guy to keep a closer eye on his former teammates.
- Adaptational Job Change: As a result of Crave's translation, Satoru's job went from "professional racer" to "professional wrestler" until Import Tuner Challenge.
- A Father to His Men: Aloof as Satoru can be, he genuinely cares about every single member of Rolling Guy, even after leaving the team. He regularly challenges them to see their improvements first-hand and help draw out their latent potential, and continues to support the team "from afar".
- Blatant Lies: Satoru will swear up and down that he has no regrets nor any lingering interest in the team after leaving Rolling Guy in Zero... yet, he will constantly seek out his former teammates to challenge them and see their progress first-hand. If he can teach them a lesson, all the better. He gets better about this by Import Tuner Challenge, as he now claims to "support them from behind the scenes". Yeah, right.
- But Now I Must Go: Satoru was one of the original founders of Rolling Guy, bringing the team near the top of the mountain pass racing world in Drift and Chain Reaction before moving their base of operations to the Metropolitan Expressway. Upon finding enough success in circuit racing to gather enough interest and go pro, however, he abandoned his creation after the events of Zero. His thoughts and behaviour strongly suggest he did this so the team, especially Akira, could begin growing without him and take a further leap forwards, but it was not an easy decision from him.
- Call-Forward: Per Satoru's bio in Chain Reaction, he believes Rolling Guy to have achieved everything that was within their possibilities on the mountain passes of Japan. As a result, he already has his eyes set on their next goal: conquering the Metropolitan Expressway. This only fits the trope if one is aware that Chain Reaction is a prequel to the first game.
- Dirty Business: Back in the days of the first Drift game, when he and Rolling Guy were just getting off the ground, Satoru's Levin lacked the power and agility it would become renowed for in later years. As such, he often had to resort to blocking and other vicious, dirty maneuvers to come out the winner in mountain pass races. The entire ordeal brought forth no small amounts of self-loathing in him at the time.
- Goal in Life: One that was revealed retroactively, but nonetheless: Satoru always dreamed of becoming a professional racer in spite of his very meager resources and lack of connections. In spite of that, he slowly worked towards that goal alongside Akira, his brother, and their friends, one step at a time. By the time of the first game, Satoru begun seeing the first fruits of his labour, as he slowly begun dedicating himself more and more to circuit racing. He finally achieved his dream sometime after Zero: all games that follow it chronologically list his profession as "professional racer".
- No Badass to His Valet: To circuit racing crowds, Satoru Kobayakawa is the kid who came from nowhere and immediately awed and wowed anyone through his sheer talent, going from an amateur to a professional in a very short span of time. To street racing crowds, Rolling Master is a Living Legend in his own right, one of the few capable of taking a supposedly-underpowered car like the AE86 and battling evenly with far more powerful monsters. To his former underlings in Rolling Guy? He's the same old Satoru, the founder of their team, the guy who walked out on them and left the leadership to his baby brother. The animosity fades after 3, but they still don't rave madly over him unlike everyone else.
- Papa Wolf: There's a small age gap between the ages of Satoru and the other members of Rolling Guy, but in spite of that he behaves far more fatherly than what one would be lead to believe, even to his brother Akira. Even with the aloof façade Satoru has put on, he clearly cares about his former underlings: the only way to get him to come back to Tokyo is by defeating every other Rolling Guy member and strutting around like one of them... upon which, he'll usually mop the floor with unprepared players.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Satoru used to be the very first team leader players faced in the first three games of the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series, often accompanied by his brother Akira. Despite being more challenging than the rest of Rolling Guy, he was still easy compared to the opponents faced after him. Come 3, and he's become an incredibly tough late-game Wanderer, capable of pushing his AE86 well beyond its usual limits and leaving unsuspecting players lagging behind in an instant.
- This applies to him In-Universe too: Satoru started out as an unassuming kid racing down Omote Rokko pass alongside his brother and their friends in one of many small-time street racing teams. In an absurdly short amount of time, he became one of the top mountain pass racers in Japan, before moving to Tokyo to battle on the Expressway, where he and his team found themselves back on step one. Come 3, Satoru's become a renowed professional race car driver and a feared street racer, with a reputation almost on par with those of the Thirteen Devils.
White Revolution
- Adaptation Name Change: His street name changes from "White Revolution" to "White Rebellion" in Racing Battle: C1GP
Electric Shark
Nagoya
West Unit # 5
The WEST Racing and Trading Co. logo, as used by WEST No.5.
- Like a ninja.
- Bragging Rights Reward: You can only face him in Nagoya's second stage via West Higashimeihan if you reach a battle speed of 124 MPH and a top-speed of 212 MPH on Mondays.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Tetsuya's Corvette is featured in the opening cinematic of 3 before it's shown blending in with Manabu Orido's RIDOX Supra ("Orimabu") and Shinichi Kobayashi's MCR BNR34 GT-R ("Shutokou Leader").
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Averted. His Corvette's black paintjob helps him to blend with the darkness in order to catch his rivals off-guard as a "ninja-like move".
- Leitmotif: "FLASH
" by Juntei Fujita, as heard when you watch a replay against him. - Lightning Bruiser: Since it's one of the Infinity +1 Swords in 3, the WEST Corvette is an absolute 600 HP V8 monster. After beating Tetsuya, the said Corvette can be bought for a hefty price of 795,800 credit points. Making it the second most expensive car to purchase only to be beaten by the Matchless Crowd Racing BNR34 GT-R.
- Special Guest: He's based on a real-life tuner of the same name.
- You Are Number 6: His street name is "West Unit #5".
He's also the only representative of WEST Racing in the entire game, which makes it unclear as to why he's number five.
Osaka
Night King
