Main Series: Main Characters (Naofumi Iwatani) | Naofumi's Allies | Three Heroes and Allies (Motoyasu Kitamura) | Antagonists (Malty Melromarc) | Other Characters
Spin-Offs: The Reprise of the Spear Hero
Motoyasu Kitamura
Voiced by: Makoto Takahashi (Japanese), Xander Mobus (English)note
A 21-year-old University Student summoned to be the Hero of the Spear. He is extremely popular with women and views it as his duty to protect them and show off his cool side. As he immediately believes anything Malty tells him, he's often put in conflict with Naofumi.
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A-I
- Abhorrent Admirer: He falls madly in love with Filo, who hates him because of his annoying personality and gives him the Groin Attack regularly.
- Adaptational Villainy: A minor case. In both the anime and the light novel, Motoyasu tried his utmost to murder Naofumi after thinking he was responsible for killing Itsuki and Ren. In the anime, it wasn't mentioned that Motoyasu is convinced that any hero who dies in this world will simply wake up in their original worlds. Naofumi is still pretty rightfully pissed about Motoyasu's belief that this will happen even though it's a random assumption based on nothing (But at least in the Light Novel, he didn't think he was genuinely going to kill a man).
- Bad Boss: While not an abuser like Itsuki, he fails to notice the evidence of Malty and Lesty bullying his other party members.
- Battle Harem: Motoyasu is mostly interested in recruiting women by way of flirting, and notes that he put significantly less effort into retaining the odd male party member he somehow picked up. As such, the rest of Motoyasu's party are women who fawn over him. However, this is also a subversion as, while they have some battle capabilities, his party serves more like his personal cheerleading squad that rarely participates in combat. They do not hesitate to abandon him during the Spirit Tortoise incident and Motoyasu later learns that all his party members secretly hated him and used his status as a Legendary Hero to get some perks such as money or prestige. In Malty's case, Motoyasu served more or less as her personal attack dog until he loses his usefulness and drops him as easily as she drops trash.
- The Beastmaster: After his mental breakdown, he discovers a talent for raising Filolials.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: After Bitch finally betrays him, Motoyasu hits rock bottom and suffers a complete mental breakdown. The only one who tries to cheer him up at his lowest point is Filo, which causes Motoyasu to become utterly obsessed with her while he can only see other women as pigs now.
- Book Dumb: Despite being a university student, Motoyasu doesn't seem particularly bright.
- Broken Ace: Naofumi repeatedly acknowledges him as the strongest Hero and eventually, his most powerful ally, partially thanks to him incorporating the different refinement methods. Thanks to how the Spear works, he has access to both normal spears for close range and throwing spears for long range. He also learns powerful offensive magic like Brionac and Judgement. The Spear also unlocks passive skills much quicker than the Sword, though not as quickly as the Shield, making him a Jack of All Stats whose stats skyrocket past Naofumi's in a short time. Once the curse of Lust effectively seals his womanizing tendencies, he shows high academic aptitude and talents like making magical clothing and raising Filolials. All this just came at the cost of Motoyasu getting screwed over by Bitch's manipulations and losing all his sanity in the process.
- The Bully: This is what his "duel" with Naofumi amounted to. He fully knows Naofumi should not be able to win, and when he starts winning anyways Motoyasu immediately starts whining that he's not playing fair, which is tantamount to letting him win.
- Bullying a Dragon: Motoyasu repeatedly tries to bully and belittle Naofumi and his friends whenever they cross paths, even though there have been many times that prove that that is a terrible idea.
- Bystander Syndrome: Raphtalia calls him out on this with her Armor-Piercing Question. When Motoyasu tries to argue slavery is evil and Naofumi is evil for owning one, Raphtalia asks him if he’s even capable of helping slaves the same way Naofumi helped her. Motoyasu weakly says yes, only for Raphtalia to counter that he would have a rescued slave speaking up for him if that were true. Raphtalia points out that Naofumi has done far more to help her than someone who claims slavery is evil, yet blissfully ignores it unless it involves a cute girl he could add to his harem.
- Casanova Wannabe: While he is able to coast on his looks and make a good first impression, his chauvinistic tendencies end up putting off more than a few of the women he pursues. While he's implied to have done okay for himself back home up until he attracted two yandere at the same time, most of the girls seen flattering him as the Spear Hero are only interested in taking advantage of the perks he gets as the Spear Hero. Naofumi also finds the way he brags about getting laid to be so juvenile that it's hard to believe he's actually good with women.
- Character Development: Strange enough, after Motoyasu was betrayed by Myne and went through his curse series, he gained better qualities and can no longer be manipulated by Myne, despite still having some of his bad traits.
- Chick Magnet: Motoyasu tends to attract women and loves showing off to them but is largely oblivious to their true personalities. This comes back to royally bite him in the ass. Not only does Malty betray him the same way she did Naofumi, but one of his traveling women is revealed to have been mooching off from him the entire time.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Motoyasu's Legendary Spear is great for going against mid-range enemies; because of his lack of skill, it's not so good when the enemy gets up close and personal.
- Crutch Character: Deconstructed. His protectiveness and his party's laziness leave him to do most of the fighting himself. As a result, his party is the weakest and they can't take care of themselves without him.
- Death by Woman Scorned: He was killed by two Yandere who wanted him to choose one of them as his girlfriend. When he tried to remain close friends with both, they started arguing over who would go to heaven with him while stabbing him to death.
- Despair Event Horizon: After the Spirit Tortoise incident and Malty's betrayal, Motoyasu falls into a deep depression after being abandoned and shunned. Rather than emerge from his despair a better person, he suffers a psychotic break and goes completely insane. He does get better in a way, but in the "his sanity and Harem Seeker tendencies were traded in for much higher competence" sense.
- Didn't Think This Through: None of the three heroes are good at this, but Motoyasu takes the cake. Not only does he rush through decisions and fail to think of the consequences, but he's also a naive moron who trusts everything his party tells him, including Malty, against all evidence to the contrary, or even basic logic. This ultimately results in him unlocking his curse series and becoming mentally insane.
- Dirty Coward: Every time the advantage is not in his favor he whines and tells his opponent (especially Naofumi) to fight "fairly" which is especially hypocritical considering how he always calls Naofumi a coward even though Naofumi always fights honorably.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: After he unlocks the Lust Spear IV, the tip of his spear becomes a rather... dubious shape. Humorously enough, only women can see it in its true state while men like Naofumi can only see a mosaic. Thankfully, it is only like that when the curse is active.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Behaving more like a shameless playboy than a proper Hero, Motoyasu is like this to some of the major female characters like Raphtalia and Filo, but is mainly this to Malty. This is *heavily* deconstructed over the course of the series however, as the latter is all too happy to take advantage of his inability to think things through when a cute girl is involved, resulting in him coming off more like a Dumb Blonde simp who blindly follows her orders as her personal attack dog no matter how blatantly nasty she and her demands are, or how badly their actions ends up backfiring. It's only after she casually throws him away like hot garbage that Motoyasu realizes that Malty never cared about him in the slightest, causing him to go insane with grief.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Whenever he thinks there's a pretty girl in trouble, Motoyasu feels the urge to rescue her. This is very annoying for the girls who explicitly don't want his help such as Raphtalia and Filo, especially because Motoyasu keeps unfairly accusing their master Naofumi of abusing them.
- Dumb Blond: A rare male one. He's the only blond summoned hero and coincidentally, the dumbest of the four. Subverted since it's actually dyed.
- Dumb Jock: Overlaps with Dumb Muscle considering what he actually amounted to in regards to Malty. This is Motoyasu's personality and character in a nutshell. His behavior in the first half amounts to flaunting his raw strength and waving his "spear" around in an attempt to impress the ladies, and bullying the "whiny loser" (Naofumi) in an attempt to establish his presumed superiority. But the joke's on him since Naofumi not only manages to accomplish way more than he ever did by actually bothering to use his head and take the situation seriously but his precious "harem" also ditches him after the Spirit Tortoise incident he helped cause.
- Entitled to Have You: Part of the reason Motoyasu tries to free Naofumi's demi slaves (even though Melromarc is such a racist hellhole for demis that Naofumi's slaves are actually better off under his physical and legal protection as slaves rather than being free with no rights whatsoever) is that he's creepily obsessed with one of them, Filo, and has convinced himself that if he frees her, she'll have to join his party out of gratitude. This is made even creepier by the fact that Filo is a small child, leading to Naofumi accusing him of being a pedophile.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first "duel" with Naofumi. Everything you need to know about Motoyasu is in full display: his Dumb Jock tendencies by challenging Naofumi to a one-on-one fight, his cocky attitude going into the duel, and his selfish whining when he starts losing.
- Failed a Spot Check: He heard Rino's screams after she had been Made a Slave, but assumes it's a prostitute fulfilling someone's fantasy.
- Fire Is Red: His magic affinity is fire and he has a red color scheme.
- Foil: Of all the three heroes, he is the best one to Naofumi. Whereas Naofumi uses his head, Motoyasu is a Dumb Jock. Naofumi establishes bonds of trust, Motoyasu gets betrayed by all of the women in his life. Naofumi accomplishes all of his goals, Motoyasu gets left in the dust. He is The Casanova while Naofumi is the Clueless Chick-Magnet. He focuses purely on offense while Naofumi focuses on defense but sometimes also counterattacks. They have been both betrayed by Malty/Myne/Bitch but walked on different roads after. Naofumi mostly recovered and later regained his ability to trust others (especially women) and also accepted his harem in the end of the web novel while Motoyasu recovered less and completely lost his trust with women with the exception of Filo and Fitoria and thus, can't form a harem anymore.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Motoyasu is the second-most disliked of the four ahead of Naofumi, as his arrogance, lechery and general foolishness mean that people only associate with him because of his status as the Spear Hero. Ren and Itsuki, meanwhile, can at least be occasionally seen willingly hanging out together.
- Handsome Lech: Motoyasu is used by Naofumi as the standard by which men's attractiveness is rated, with many being described as "good looking, but not on Motoyasu's level." He squanders this by turning off any girl he might like with his shameless perversion.
- Harem Seeker: Malty gets rid of his male followers and Motoyasu only actively recruits females, purely for the sake of being pretty freeloaders. Motoyasu is pleased with this so long as he can show off and seduce them.
- The Hedonist: At the end of the day, he would rather take advantage of his position as a Cardinal hero, and the Royal Favorite at that, to seduce and fool around with women than actually do his job or get stronger. This is one of the reasons Naofumi, who is constantly working to get stronger, surpassed him.
- He-Man Woman Hater: After Malty shows him her true colors and abandons him, Motoyasu is only able to see women as disgusting pigs. The exceptions are Filo, the girls who are friends with Filo and Filolial Queens.
- Heroic Wannabe: Like Itsuki and Ren, Motoyasu doesn't need to strive for recognition because he is the chosen Hero of the Spear. However, he only presents himself as a hero for the sole purpose of appealing to the ladies. The fact that he's too thick-headed to realize he's being used by Malty simply reinforces the fact that while he may try to present himself as a righteous hero, he is anything but one.
- Hopeless Suitor: He's instantly smitten with Filo and after he loses his sanity, he becomes obsessively in love with her. However, Filo feels nothing but disdain and annoyance for him.
- Horrible Judge of Character: He always takes what Malty says at face value without confirmation of any kind (although this extends to pretty much any lovely lady he travels with). He then goes on to take this as an irrefutable fact and refuses to back down when given evidence to the contrary.
- When he's shown proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Malty's accusations regarding Naofumi are completely false, and she was plotting to kill her own sister, he still believes Malty is an innocent victim and her punishment, though unbelievably lenient, is undeserved.
- He lets himself believe that Naofumi killed Ren and Itsuki, despite this being physically impossible. It takes Pope Balamus himself admitting that he lied about the Shield Hero's actions to get him to see sense.
- It really says something that the only time he realizes he's being used is when the people who lied to him outright spell it out.
- Motoyasu had blind faith in his party members until one of them bluntly tells him she actually hates him and only stayed by his side for fame and glory.
- The biggest wake-up call, however, has to be when Motoyasu finally discovers that yes, Malty had deceived and used him, and all the horrible stuff he heard about her is true when she lies to Ren that he sexually assaulted her and abandons him for Ren in front of his face.
- Humiliation Conga: His party abandons him to the Spirit Tortoise with the expectation he'll die, he's captured by Kyo and used to power the tortoise, comes out of a coma weeks later to find the country now resents him as a failure who made the tortoise disaster worse than it already was, and spends weeks trying to maintain a low profile while searching for his party during which people threw stones at him. Upon tracking down the girls who used to support him and thinking he's about to turn his luck around, the first girl tells him off and admits that she can't stand him at all and was only mooching off of him the entire time. Bitch then adds icing to the cake by not only flaunting that she's leaving him for Ren but had already told him false allegations about the ways that Motoyasu threatened and sexually abused her, all while Motoyasu pleads for her to stop lying and tries to convey how worried he was about her. Motoyasu's subsequent suicidal depression leads to him breaking mentally at the first actual gesture of kindness he's shown, causing him to go completely and incurably insane.
- Hypocrite: One of his defining traits:
- After Naofumi is framed by Malty, Motoyasu states that the world they're in isn't some consequence-free playground. Overtime, however, it becomes increasingly apparent that he's the one who views the world that way, going so far as to pick a fight with Naofumi in the middle of a public street.
- He tells Raphtalia that nobody should be forced into a fight, even though only earlier he had no problem with the King and Malty forcing Naofumi into a fight with him. What's more is that the Four Heroes were technically forced to fight against the Waves, yet Motoyasu never shows any issue with that.
- He accuses Naofumi of cheating to win the races and duels he initiates, when in fact Naofumi played fair and it was Motoyasu's party that interfered. This is on top of the fact that Motoyasu, being over twice Naofumi's level and endowed with a weapon actually useful for attacking, forced a support character to a one-on-one duel, one he full well knew should be a Hopeless Boss Fight for the Shield Hero. As soon as Naofumi shows himself to be Weak, but Skilled, Motoyasu starts whining that he's "not fighting like a man." Apparently, a duel is only fair if Motoyasu is winning it.
- He keeps calling Naofumi a coward even though he always bitches and whines when Naofumi gets the advantage over him, and he even begged Naofumi not to harm him during their duel when Naofumi was about to attack till Malty intervened.
- Motoyasu repeatedly accuses Naofumi of mistreating the female members of his party, yet it is clear that he has little respect for women viewing them as unfit for battle and prizes to be won.
- In the web novel, he has the nerve to call Naofumi a "whiny loser" for protesting his lack of payment for protecting the citizens of a nearby village in the first wave. This is the same guy who whined about him not "fighting fair" during the duel he forced Naofumi into when the latter was putting up a hard fight instead of simply letting him win.
- His hypocrisy reaches a phone-smashing extreme when he finally realizes that the Three Heroes Church is evil by virtue of its ringleader spelling it out to him. He immediately requests Naofumi's help, who is understandably miffed since the former just tried to kill him earlier, but then his annoyance turns into outright anger when Motoyasu tries to justify their team-up by saying, "You don't want to die with a crime you didn't commit tarnishing your name, do you!?". This is coming from the guy who up until this point had been blaming Naofumi for just about every crime he could think of and willingly bought into the False Rape Accusation. Raphtalia even outright states that he of all people has no right to say what he just did.
- As mentioned above, Motoyasu is quick to blame Naofumi for just about any crime he can think of, yet he's very quick to take offense whenever someone points out something wrong he's done, which is most of the things he does.
- Idiot Hero: Deconstructed. Motoyasu's sheer idiocy, on top of his gullibility and ego, makes him more of a hindrance than a hero. This becomes increasingly obvious as time goes on, as he's always ready to believe Malty's lies regardless of proof (or lack thereof) no matter how obvious they are, or turn a blind eye to her insults and a sizable share of Kick the Dog moments. This reaches its zenith by the time the other heroes realized that the Church of Three Heroes was obviously up to no good, and he still followed their every word because Malty said so.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- Regarding the rape accusation against Naofumi, he seems especially dead set on believing that he's a helpless, cowardly, pathetic weakling and that he was fully capable of forcing himself on someone who (at least on paper since she can't be bothered to fight directly) is fully capable of both cutting him down and immolating him with fire magic. This is just one result of his so-called "chivalry"; every cute girl in his presence needs to be protected, regardless of whether they actually need it.
- Naofumi outright spells out to him early on that the reason why he was able to buy Raphtalia as a slave is because of King Aultcray's own laws denying demi-humans any rights. Instead of registering this and immediately questioning the king, or remembering the fact that he needs somebody to fight for him (which Raphtalia herself calls him out on herself later), he concludes that Naofumi is the evil monster and forces him into a duel (said duel is also rigged to be in Motoyasu's favor as well in fact). To add insult to injury, he never bothers looking into this and just continues on with his "harem".
- Insufferable Imbecile: Not only is he a complete idiot, he's also arrogant, self-important, completely oblivious, a complete hypocrite and tries to sexually assault a child. Even Raphtalia can barely tolerate him, though she generally keeps it to herself.
- I Reject Your Reality: Among the Three Cardinal Heroes, Motoyasu is the most adamant that his understanding of the world he was summoned to is the correct one, and he will accept no arguments to the contrary. Unlike Ren and Itsuki who eventually accept that the new world is not a game and their decisions have consequences, Motoyasu cannot reconcile the fact that he, a hero, can make mistakes and suffer karma. After one cold slap of reality too many, the logical conclusion happens and his sanity is shattered. He never recovers. The only reason he can still fight the Waves is because Naofumi unwittingly became his Morality Chain.
- Irony:
- Despite being killed by two yandere girls in his past life, he still fully trusts Malty and actively seeks a harem.
- A minor one in the manga, but Motoyasu makes a point of believing and defending Malty despite her heinousness. Later when her name is changed post-trial, he is the first one to (unwillingly) call her "Whore/Slut" when the Queen catches him saying her former name.
- When Motoyasu first meets Filo, he insults her, laughs at her, and calls her lame. After she learns how to gain human form, he spends a few chapters trying to earn her trust. Nothing works. When she finally shows him some affection when he falls into a deep depression, he goes literally insane.
- Motoyasu is straight-up The Casanova with a very good reputation while Naofumi's Harem Seeker got psychologically beaten out of him and is a Hero with Bad Publicity. At the end of the Web Novel, Naofumi is more famous than he is and married most if not all his female companions while, due to his party abandoning him as well as Bitch's betrayal, Motoyasu loses his trust in women with the exception of Filo and Fitoria and doesn't flirt with anyone else anymore.
J-Y
- Jerk Jock: If Malty is an Alpha Bitch, then Motoyasu definitely fits this niche. He is a muscular guy who is popular with women, as well as being a Casanova. He is also a Jerkass who acts incredibly mean towards his fellow heroes and frequently bullies them, especially Naofumi.
- Jerkass: For instance, even when it's clear as daylight that Raphtalia and Naofumi are an item, he still thinks Naofumi has brainwashed her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As bad as he can be, he does make a point that Naofumi purchasing slaves looks very bad for someone supposed to be a hero, even if Naofumi doesn't care. Not only that, while all four of the heroes are from different worlds, they all come from similar ones where slavery is seen as morally wrong. Naofumi even later agrees that he has a point; in their world slavery was morally wrong, and that it does look pretty bad on his part. He isn't wrong for thinking slavery is bad, it's how he handles it that ultimately makes him a Jerkass.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: He's an arrogant, selfish Jerkass who tried to sexually assault a child. Naturally, this means that everyone in Naofumi's group gets a piece of him. Filo gets a special mention as her crotch kicking him is a Running Gag. There's also him: getting his ass kicked by Naofumi in a forced duel that Malty had to cheat for in order for him to win, all the times Filo kicked him in the groin, losing a race despite Malty's cheating, being completely ineffectual against the Soul Eater and getting curb stomped by Glass along with the other heroes, getting decked in the face by Filo in her human form, getting curb stomped again by Naofumi and his party, among other things.
- Kick the Dog: It comes with being an arrogant prick for someone who is supposed to be a hero.
- Motoyasu's entire behavior during the rigged duel between him and Naofumi, partly because he has the nerve to ignore Raphtalia being bound and gagged by the King's own men prior to this, and being blind enough not to see Malty's blatant cheating. He even calls Naofumi's protesting "whining" for pointing it out and accuses him of brainwashing Raphtalia when she defends him while the latter is weeping in her arms when he can't accept the full truth being spelled out to him.
- In the web novel, Naofumi also protests getting nothing from the King for his services in the second wave, despite prioritizing the safety of the country's citizens above everything else. Motoyasu just calls him a "whiny loser".
- Knowing full well that the King refuses to even lift a finger to help him, Motoyasu has no problem mocking Naofumi for having to actively work for everything he gets.
- It says something about Motoyasu's character (at least in the anime) that he, along with Malty, calls Naofumi a coward for putting the safety of a nearby village first over dealing with the source of the Third Wave, once again ignoring the citizens in danger of being killed by monsters already swarming them.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- He ends up in the exact same situation Naofumi was at the beginning of the story; falsely accused of rape by Witch, alone and abandoned by his party, and publicly shamed as a terrible Hero. But unlike Naofumi, he never gets out of it.
- More specifically, Motoyasu was dead set on believing Malty was a "good girl" despite all her vile actions committed right in front of him, that she was unfairly wronged no matter how much blatant evidence is shoved into his face, and believes every last lie out of her mouth, especially the ones about Naofumi, no matter how painfully flimsy or contradictory it was. For all his blind devotion, and to the point of making you wonder if he was really all there to begin with, it's rewarded with casually being discarded by her once things went south and left with nothing but a brutal Heel Realization to crush away at his sanity.
- Lethally Stupid: Generally speaking, Motoyasu is (questionably) well-meaning, but he is so thick-headed and naïve that he fails to think critically about anything and will believe most people who lie to him right to his face. As Naofumi tells him at one point, he crosses a line where it doesn't matter if he's a decent person being led astray because he's so easy to fool, and so insufferably arrogant, that he's a danger to not just the people around him but even the entire world as a whole.
- Like a Son to Me: He sees all of his Filolials as his children and denies any romantic interest.
- Long-Range Fighter (see also Javelin Thrower): After Itsuki, he has the longest attack range of the four heroes, thanks to the length of his spear and being able to employ distance skills like Air Strike Javelin in his attacks.
- Love at First Sight: Motoyasu falls head over heels when he lays his eyes on Filo's humanoid form because he has an Angelic Beauty fetish.
- Lust: His defining attribute, which unlocks his Curse Series Weapon.
- Mad Love: He becomes the epitome of this towards Filo after he goes crazy. While the Filolial Queen wants nothing to do with him, Motoyasu doesn't notice. Naofumi finds a way to exploit this by using Motoyasu's crazy love for Filo to get the Spear Hero to do his bidding.
- Manchild: Whenever things don't go his way in a fight, he will often accuse his opponent of cheating even when the battle was deliberately stacked in his favor. Tends to reach Psychopathic Manchild levels when he fights Naofumi and after his Sanity Slippage.
- Mr. Vice Guy:
- Lust. Motoyasu practically embodies this vice more so than the other heroes. He recruits only women who act as buffers and cheerleaders when in a fight, he will listen to Myne no matter how obvious her lies get and he will routinely use Raphtalia and Filo as an excuse to keep hating Naofumi. Even his Cursed series is based around Lust, the Lust Spear capable of inducing temptation on its target at the expense of one's own ability to feel pleasure of any kind.
- Pride. While Ren and Itsuki have this as well, Motoyasu is most likely to let his own delusions of grandeur cloud basic common sense, usually ignoring basic facts and refusing to admit when he's wrong to I Reject Your Reality levels in an attempt to wash his hands of responsibility.
- Minor Living Alone: In his old world, he lived on his own since middle school because his parents were always away on business trips.
- Missed Him by That Much: An omake shows that he narrowly missed Naofumi and Raphtalia while guarding a supply caravan.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Naofumi is rather surprised to learn that he hasn't done anything to the Filolials he raises.
- Narcissist: He might seem well-meaning but he really just wants to improve his own image to attract all the ladies and create his own perfect harem without really doing much as a hero, unless it has something to do with Naofumi.
- Never My Fault: He absolutely refuses to admit when he's made a mistake or is in the wrong about something. It takes a complete and total breakdown, driving him to irreversible insanity to overcome this, and even then, he still struggles with it from time to time.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He cured a famine by unsealing a seed that produces all manner of fruit at an absurd rate, which was the correct solution to that "quest" in the game he played. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't mirror the game perfectly, and the seed turns out to have been sealed because it grows uncontrollably and spawns plant demons.
- In the Web Novel, the only reason the Spirit Tortoise went on a rampage was because he, Ren, and Itsuki released it. This decision was based solely on how they all had a similiar raid boss in their respective games plus Myne telling him where the shrine is located. Along with the other heroes and their parties, Motoyasu also subdues the monks who were guarding the shrine, killing a few in the process. This ends up destroying the shrine and all records of how to seal away the Guardian Beasts and triggers the other Guardian Beasts to awaken and start rampaging through the world to collect souls.
- Parental Substitute: He eventually starts taking in Filolials as his pets and acts like a father figure to all of them.
- Phrase Catcher: "Ugh... Spear Guy's so annoying!" and variants from Filo.
- Playing with Fire: He has an affinity for fire magic.
- Pretty Boy: He is the most handsome of the Heroes and is popular with women. He's also Malty's favorite, although this is very likely less because of his looks and more because he is such an absolute moron she can play him like a fiddle.
- Prince Charming Wannabe: He fantasizes himself as an irresistibly handsome Knight in Shining Armor who must rescue the poor Beautiful Slave Girls from the despicable sex offender Naofumi. When Raphtalia and Filo tell him Naofumi is a kind-hearted master who treats them well, Motoyasu is sure Naofumi is so evil that he has brainwashed them.
- Privileged Rival: In contrast to Naofumi's poverty, his status as the Royal Favorite makes him the most financially supported of the heroes.
- Psychological Projection: Until he goes completely and irreversibly insane, he always accuses Naofumi of having his flaws, such as being a cheat, liar, and sore loser while thinking himself completely innocent of them, even when he sees with his own eyes that his party is cheating on his behalf whenever he forces Naofumi into any kind of contest with him and his own cheating is brought to light.
- Quieter Than Silence: His Silence Lance makes it so his opponent can't hear anything or make a sound.
- Red Is Heroic: He wears a lot of red but this is subverted since he isn't that heroic.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: As made abundantly clear up to now, Motoyasu is not exactly the brightest bulb among the heroes, which is not helped by being Malty's knight and getting extra privileges from the king as a result. This comes to a point when he's made lord of Lute Village by Malty and she tries to enforce a tax of fifty silvers to enter and leave. When Naofumi asks him how much it costs to stay in the village, he bumbles with the answer. At this Naofumi sets him straight: One silver for a day's worth of lodging and food. If he were to be made the lord he would've ridiculously overcharged the country just to enter and leave a town.
- Rousing Speech: Subverted. He tries to deliver one to the Three Heroes Church and the Pope, but his speech is so cliched and forced that Raphtalia notes his words are hollow and even he doesn't believe what he's saying.
- Royal Favorite: Out of the four heroes, Motoyasu finds himself getting the most favor from the king of Melromarc. This is due to Princess Malty/Myne being on his team and because Aultcray is a descendant of the past Spear Hero. This is shown by how, after the first monster invasion, he gets a heftier monetary reward than the other three, and nearly being made the lord of a town. Eventually subverted after the King is forcibly kicked off the throne.
- Selective Obliviousness: A bonus chapter describes him as only hearing what he wants and ignoring what upsets him. Whenever met with evidence of something he doesn't want to believe, he makes up excuses ranging from plausible but unlikely to downright willfully ignorant. For example...
- When Malty makes up the Brainwashing Shield, Motoyasu uses its supposed existence to explain away all instances of women siding with Naofumi over him or the people praising his work.
- Whenever Malty does something blatantly evil in front of him, he assumes she doesn't know better or has a good reason that he isn't privy to.
- After overhearing his party complaining about how hard he is to put up with, he attributes all of the insults to monsters mimicking their voices to try and sow doubt. (To his credit, this does occur in a dungeon where monsters do this.)
- Each time his party snubs his cooking because they see it as poor people food, Motoyasu assumes that the reason there's so much left over is that he cooked too much or that the girls only took a bite or two because they're dieting.
- He did notice that the two yanderes he was dating in Japan had red flag behaviors, but he dismisses most of it as miscommunication. When he does start to consider how one girl keeps showing up everywhere at a frequency that makes it seem like she's following him, he then laughs off the idea that she could be a stalker. She was a stalker. He persists in assuming everything was a miscommunication even after they both stab him.
- Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: After he becomes obsessed with Filo, Motoyasu proclaims her to be his lover and also calls Naofumi and Raphtalia his father-in-law and sister-in-law respectively. Filo just thinks he's annoying.
- Sequential Artist: After going insane, he displays surprising skills as a Doujinshi artist and his manga prove quite popular. Naofumi is a bit squicked that the major character in the erotic ones is Filo.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Motoyasu proves on multiple occasions that he suffers from all the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Lust: Other than trying to create his own harem, he lusts after Filo for her angelic appearance and a bit of lust for Malty till she betrayed him, and now he only lusts after Filo and other Filolial.
- Envy: Motoyasu has the tendency to get extremely jealous when Filo stays by Naofumi's side and attempts to take her and Raphtalia away from Naofumi to "save" them when it's really just jealousy driving him so he can add them to his "harem".
- Pride: Arrogant and egotistical, Motoyasu thinks way too highly of himself and will do anything just to prove that he's better even if it endangers lives or as he deludes himself into believing he's the "hero" of this story, representing his extreme narcissism.
- Wrath: Flies off the handle too easily when he's told he's wrong about something and even attacks Naofumi multiple times at the slightest suggestion of anger for "committing crimes" against Myne.
- Greed: Motoyasu thinks everything should belong to him just because he's a cardinal hero and must obtain these things for his own selfish needs, especially women.
- Gluttony: Maybe not a glutton when it comes to food, but he is a glutton for power as he wants to gain the power to become the greatest hero ever under his false sense of justice.
- Sloth: Takes his role seriously as a cardinal hero, except when it comes to training in order to become stronger, he attempts to take shortcuts instead of training properly which endangers himself and the rest of his companions. He doesn't even put much effort into improving his primary strengthening method.
- Sexual Karma: After the Spirit Tortoise incident, the Casanova Wannabe Harem Seeker that is Motoyasu was made into a wanted man throughout the world. He would go to his faux Battle Harem begging for help but was told they never liked him and only stayed with him for the recognition and money that comes with being a companion to a legendary hero. After finding Bitch (Formerly Malty) badmouthing him to fellow hero Ren, including lies of sexual abuse he never did, he not only realized everyone was right about the Consummate Liar, but he enters a depression that results in incurable insanity, a disgust in women, and an obsession with Filo (Who is both forever trapped in the body of a pre-teen girl and is repulsed by him). In the original Web Novel, compared to everyone else, he stood out as having never married or had children, other than raising Filolials.
- Shock and Awe: His Lightning Spear. He can use it to fire electricity or throw a spear made of electricity.
- Single-Target Sexuality: After he is betrayed by Bitch, his mind is so broken that he can't even see women as human anymore. When women speak to him, all he sees are pigs oinking at him. He later does learn to see some females as people again, but the only female he will ever be able to take a romantic interest in is Filo the Filolial.
- Skewed Priorities: Anime only. Despite being a so-called "Hero", Motoyasu along with Malty has no problem mocking Naofumi over prioritizing the safety of the citizens over dealing with the Third Wave. To add insult to injury, he's later stubbornly convinced that Naofumi had brainwashed everyone into praising him instead of earning it the right way.
- Sore Loser: He's unable to accept that he would have lost the duel if it were not for Myne's interference, and when Naofumi and Filo beat him and his dragon he spitefully claims he let Naofumi win even though the latter won in spite of Myne's cheating.
- Soul Power: He is able to absorb the souls of monsters he defeats and imbue them with special powers and increase their stats.
- Spin Attack: He can use Windmill to deflect attacks by spinning his spear.
- Stalker with a Crush: He falls obsessively in love with Filo after going insane. Among other creepy things, he made a life-sized Filo doll and sleeps with it every night.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Displays shades of this due to his "chivalry" towards women. According to him, Naofumi is an evil coward for "forcing" Raphtalia and Filo to fight "for" him, never mind that they voluntarily choose to fight alongside him, and his low attack power means that he needs someone to act as his sword. A number of the girls he attempted to recruit are implied to have left because he thinks they don't want to get dirty from fighting, and at one point in the light novels, he mentions that a big concern for him with eliminating Naofumi is that the next person summoned to be Shield Hero (and therefor be forced to fight in the front lines) could be a girl.
- Teleporter's Visualization Clause: The Portal Spear allows him to teleport to places he has saved before.
- The Rival:
- He serves as one to Naofumi. He constantly antagonizes Naofumi over every little thing and repeatedly challenges him to duels and races. He also possesses overwhelming Pride and acts like a bully towards Naofumi. This also applies to cooking. While Motoyasu's an okay cook, Naofumi is just so much better than him.
- After his Heel–Face Turn, he becomes this to S'yne when it comes to sewing. In side stories, it is shown that the two of them often clash in their opinions about what kind of clothing suits the Filo Rials of Naofumi's village best.
- The One Guy: While his party has had male members, he is the only one to stay and the only one to be named.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Zigzagged as the first time this happens to him it utterly breaks him to the point of irreversible insanity after hitting his life's rock-bottom, head first. But gets played straight as he finally catches a break when he dedicates his life to become a better person and begins raising Filolials in earnest.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Motoyasu delivers a direct challenge to Naofumi after the first wave of monsters is defeated, having learned that Naofumi had been using the slave Raphtalia to fight his battles for him.
- Undying Loyalty: He swears loyalty to his "father-in-law" Naofumi after he goes insane and becomes obsessed with Filo.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Even when he initially intended to leave Motoyasu and Malty to die at the hands of the Pope for everything they did to him, Naofumi still ended up protecting them and ultimately saved their lives. Despite requesting his protection in the first place after trying to kill him, Motoyasu went right back to blaming him for everything wrong once the Queen returned and forced Malty to be held accountable for her actions along with the King, stubbornly calling him "the evil one" and even trying to fall back on the faulty brainwashing excuse before being repeatedly shut down by him and the Queen.
- Unknowingly Possessing Stolen Goods: Played with. The chainmail he wears originally belonged to Naofumi but was later stolen by Malty. It was given to Motoyasu with Malty lying about buying it for Motoyasu as a reward. In the web novel he denies that it ever belonged to Naofumi in the first place, even when the Queen has the chainmail's ownership spell activated to verify that the chainmail did in fact belong to Naofumi all along.
- Unwanted Assistance: Near the end of Chapter 32 in the manga, after Malty and her father get their names forcibly changed, Motoyasu almost calls her by her former name "Myne" while proclaiming he will believe her no matter what, which earns him a Death Glare from the Queen. He yells her current adventurer name (Whore) in a fashion reminiscent of an instance of verbal abuse, making her feel mortified.
- To add to the humiliation, he was ironically the first one in calling her by her new name.
- Verbal Tic: He frequently ends his sentences with "desu zo" (translated in the light novels as ending sentences with "I say") following his mental break.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Malty no longer deems Motoyasu useful in her plans following the Heroes' battle with the Spirit Tortoise.
