Tokyo Afterschool Summoners Kamata Crafters / Characters

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Kamata Crafters ^note

In General

A guild of mechanics, engineers, and artisans located in Kamata dedicated to the perfection of their craft. An unspoken truce exists among the other guilds of Tokyo not to come into conflict with the Crafters, as their members often work on ways to better understand the Sacred Artifacts of those who come to see them.

Kurogane

Vocational School Student

Voiced by: Bin Shimada

Guild master of the Kamata Crafters. While not in high school, Kurogane is still the youngest official member of the Crafters. Orphaned at a young age, Kurogane has since come to view his guild mates as family, and treats them as such. His arm was amputated during an incident that occurred as a child, and has since been replaced by a prosthetic which houses his sacred artifact.

Family Extermination: Kurogane's parents were both killed while he was very young. Fortunately, he was adopted by the Crafters, who all act like a big family.
Gadgeteer Genius: Kurogane is an excellent engineer, and, with the use of his sacred artifact, has performed some pretty impressive feats of engineering. He upgraded Amatsumara's cybernetic eye with little effort, and during the events of the Island side event, made serious upgrades to the group's shelter with very few materials to work with.
Ship Tease: With Takemaru. Kurogane is a very open and loving person, and often pesters Takemaru with physical affection when he feels he's being too serious. This kind of affection tends to fluster Takemaru when it happens.
Swiss-Army Appendage: Zig-zagged. Kurogane's prosthetic arm is his Sacred Artifact, and he does use it for a variety of building and engineering tools; however, the arm itself doesn't transform. Kurogane's real power is the ability to "make the intangible tangible" and essentially pull "something" from nothing: it's simply that he chooses to primarily use that ability to create tools for his work.

Amatsumara

Vocational School Teacher

Voiced by: Daisuke Toyama

The oldest member of the Crafters. A teacher at the tech school the Crafters are based out of, Amatsumara serves as the guild's faculty advisor. As a blacksmith from Takamagahara, he's continued teaching his craft to others and often treats those he teaches like family. He's especially critical of people that mistreat their weapons. His right eye holds an additional sacred artifact.

Blow You Away: His Sacred Artifact hammer is said to unleash storm-like gales upon impact.
Father to His Men: He's this to the younger members of the Kamata Crafters.
Genius Bruiser: Not only is he the well-muscled faculty advisor of the guild and pulls double duty as the professor at the Junior College, as the Desert Journey event shows, he is no slouch in battle, keeping both Seth and Hanuman on their toes as he swings his giant hammer around.
Magical Eye: Like Hephaestus and Mineaki, he also possesses an artificial Sacred Artifact in his right eye. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to improve his actual sight, as shown in his personal "Desert Journey" event.
Man Behind the Man: It's clear that while Kurogane's the Guild Master, Amatsumara's the one who work the day-to-day business of the guild.
Muscles Are Meaningful: Has this as a personal belief, believing that "technique and muscle" are the same and enforces this as a philosophy among the Crafters, possibly being the sole reason why everyone in the Crafters is so buff.
Wake-Up Call Boss: While in practice, he's fought like a regular enemy in-game, during the Desert Journey event, as "Dokkakuji", he's the first person to give the Heroes a hard time in a fight and actually gives Seth trouble in combat.

Takemaru

Heart Mender

Voiced by: Shuhei Matsuda

Big Good: He was one to the Oni in the Land of Wa along with Shuten, to the point that Ibaraki calls him "Takemaru of the West".
Book Ends: When he's introduced, he refuses to acknowledge Kurogane while admitting to himself that while he's cute, he still hates Kurogane because he's human. By the end of the event, when he meets Kurogane again, he, having gotten over his dislike of humans, says welcome to Kurogane first.
Casting a Shadow: His element in 3 and 5-Star is Infernal. Unlike most characters with that element, it seems to represent how his Artifact works rather than represent his existence, since the home cave it connects to and the Oni that "live" there are constructs of his memory, not unlike Surtr and his Jotunn mobs he summons.
Character Development: He starts out in the event disliking humans and keeping a safe distance for them. Eventually, once he's able to confront his personal demons and from interacting with Motosumi and the Protagonist, he eventually learns to overcome his dislike of humans and open up his heart to love again.
Cycle of Revenge: Takemaru was a part of one during his time as "Takemaru of the West", going into war with humans after they burnt down his village and murdered all of his Oni brethren. Eventually, after much bloodshed, he gives up and allows himself to be executed by decapitation by humans, being summoned to Tokyo right after.
Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: He goes through this once he realizes that the Oni in the cave his Rule links to act upon his desires.
Hidden Depths: It's shown in his personal event that he takes his architect research really seriously, to the point of traveling to buildings he wants to research and taking personal measurements himself. Also, it's shown that he can really get into his work to the point of ignoring outside distraction.
Humble Goal: As noted in his profile, to build a home to settle down with someone he truly, deeply loves.
Losing Your Head: Like the legend he's based on, he's had this happen to him at the hands of humans more than once. Unlike his counterpart, he's had it happen to him multiple times, to the point he was summoned to Tokyo with his head off his body. According to his 3-Star bio, the Crafters have made it so this can't happen again.
Loving a Shadow: Inverted with Suzuka, as anytime he sees her, he reminds himself that his love isn't as terrible and barbaric as Suzuka. Usually, within range of Suzuka and her blades.
Master Swordsman: It's implied that he's better with swords, as he admits twice that he wouldn't have problems protecting you if he still possessed his 3 swords.
Mundane Utility: Uses his Rule to save on the Crafters' budget by obtaining materials from his home cave.
My Greatest Failure: He sees falling in love with a human as his, because the end result was that the woman he loved betrayed him when she took his swords, and as a result was powerless to stop humans from destroying his home and killing his Oni brethren, kickstarting an long Cycle of Revenge which ended in his execution.
The Perfectionist: Downplayed, but it's clear that despite building very good houses, he doesn't live in them because he feels like they're lacking something that makes them perfect. It's this tendency of his which leads to him becoming "Takemaru of the West", because he ends up giving said homes to homeless Onis before making another one, which eventually became a village. Eventually, he admits to the Protagonist the part that was missing was someone he was in love with.
Trauma Button: Does not like seeing Suzuka, mainly because she resembles the human he fell in love with so long ago.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: He surprisingly shows a callous view toward the Oni in his cave, justifying it as they're not "real" Oni, but constructs of the cave. Notably, he turns this around once he realizes that they all resemble the Oni he knew in the past.

Hephaestus

^{Click here to see Talos}

Robot Engineer

Voiced By: Kenji Nomura

Hephaestus is a timid, physically scarred, and insecure man who is desperate for his adoptive mother's approval. As a genius inventor, he has built Talos - an android made to be an idealized version of himself.

His Sacred Artifacts are the flames held within his eyes, which can "burn away impurities" in something by identifying their flaws and correcting them.

Abusive Parent: A cycle that started with Hera who threw him from Olympus, just like in myth, then he unfortunately continue to perpetuate with his own “son”, Talos. Narrations of chapter 9 makes it clear that Hephaestus only sees Talos as an extremely expensive gift he has worked hard to prepare for his mother the Protagonist, rather than as a living person with their own will and desires. Fortunately, things improve a little between them in the same chapter.
Always Someone Better: He deliberately invoked this trope when he made Talos, an android who represents the “ideal self” Hephaestus seeks. Talos is not only more physically able, confident, and sociable than Hephaestus is, but also carries all his memories and intellect. This of course, unfortunately results in Hephaestus holding a certain degree of disdain toward his own creation/son as he constantly sees Talos as a version of himself without any of his flaws and someone who is more deserving of his mother's love than he is.
Androids Are People, Too: While Talos is submissive to Hephaestus’s will, moments within chapter 9 makes it clear Talos is more than just a tool and has his own feelings regarding both his creator and the Protagonist. This all culminates in Talos’ decision to save Hephaestus, a person who Talos still views as a father-figure despite his treatment of him, from the rampaging Protagonist by physically shielding him.
Big Prick, Big Problems: Implied with Hephaestus. All swimsuit and underwear alts between them show that Hephaestus is noticeably more endowed. Considering Hephaestus built Talos to be his ideal self, this suggests that the former views his size as a problem that needed to be fixed.
Chekhov's Gun: Hephaestus briefly mentioned a pauldron he was commissioned to create for an unknown individual that was enchanted to be capable of repelling "misfortune". Turns out the pauldron was for Perun, a major member of the Southern Invaders guild out to claim the Player.
Death Seeker: Having his memories from previous timelines restored by the Warmongers’ guild and by extension, the knowledge that the Protagonist was repeatedly slain in these loops by their loved ones, which includes Hephaestus. Hephaestus had resolved to secure the Protagonist first, then accelerate the fighting in Tokyo to new cataclysmic levels with the intended end results of killing everyone save the Protagonist and Talos.
Genius Cripple: As in myth, Hephaestus does not have functioning legs. Of course, that does nothing to stop him from creating an army of mecha troopers, an android duplicate equipped with an advance AI, and even a pair of prosthetic legs to overcome his disability.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: Scars litter his body, likely the result from his fall from Mt. Olympus. These and his right eye are some of the key differences between him and Talos, whose skin possesses none of Hephaestus’ scars.
Green-Eyed Monster: His reason for “disliking” Takemaru. While Takemaru is a natural leader with a jovial temperament, Hephaestus is the complete opposite.
Half the Man He Used to Be: A berserk Protagonist unfortunately blew a defending Talos to pieces during their rampage. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious as Hephaestus was able to quickly put him back together to repel Hombre Tigre at the end of the chapter.
Heroic Sacrifice: Talos threw himself between Hephaestus and the Protagonist in order to shield his creator from the Protagonist's Exception energy eruption. While he was reduced to a dozen pieces, it thankfully only put him offline and Hephaestus was able to quickly repair him and get him online again to repel the invading Warmongers.
Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Talos is this for Hephaestus. This was a deliberate feature as Hephaestus wanted to ensure Talos would be capable of adapting to and resolving any situation once he was passed on to the Protagonist, had things gone according to plan and Talos was made the Protagonist’s sole protector.
Leave No Survivors: Hephaestus’ plan for all of Tokyo, himself included, had he been successful in containing the Protagonist, to ensure no one could ever hurt his “mother” ever again.
Love Makes You Evil: Well, not evil, so much as desperate and extreme. Having his memories restored resulted in Hephaestus becoming resolved in protecting the Protagonist in this timeline at any cost, even it means killing anyone who could even remotely pose a threat to us, even and especially including himself.
Magical Eye: His first sacred artifact, a right eye that grants him the ability to identify the flaws of anything he gazes upon, which allows him to create nearly flawless inventions and weapons. This greatly aids in his work as an engineer and blacksmith as he can always ensure his inventions of the highest specs and in the case where they do fail, identify and immediately improve upon those flaws.
Mecha-Mooks: He has apparently discovered how to reverse engineer and replicate Curren’s Troopers. He has made enough for a small army in his underground bunker/workshop.
Navel-Deep Neckline: Both Hephaestus and Talos wear their mechanic overalls with the zipper completely undone, thus showing off their expansive chest and abs.
Nice Guy: Mostly applies to Talos as per his intended programming.
No Social Skills: Hephaestus in spades, unlike Talos.
Parental Abandonment: Just like in myth, Hephaestus was abandoned at birth by Hera due to his crippled legs.
Parental Substitute: Eurynome found the abandoned infant Hephaestus and raised him back in Olympus. He had thought the world of her and spent most of his early childhood inventing and building for her sake, until the day she faded away, implied to be when she had the call to Tokyo. This left Hephaestus greatly saddened, until he too answered the call to Tokyo and found the Protagonist who carried the soul of Eurynome. He now views the Protagonist in much the same way he saw Eurynome and is willing to go to any lengths to protect them.
Playing with Fire: His in-game element. Fire flows from his magical eye and is one of the key differences between him and Talos. Talos, on the other hand, is capable of emitting searing heat from his body.
Replacement Goldfish: A two-fold case. The Protagonist, who holds Eurynome’s soul, who is the adopted mother of Hephaestus, is this to the smith god. At the same time, Hephaestus had initially planned for Talos to be this for the Protagonist if his plan to kill had gone off without a hitch, as Hephaestus had no plans to survive the cataclysm and thus wanted a reliable guardian for the Protagonist.
Robot Me: Talos, his second sacred artifact, serves as this. Although this was originally not the case, as Talos’ initial form is described as similar to a bronze drum.
Self-Deprecation: Hephaestus is seemingly entirely incapable of loving himself. His internal monologue throughout most of chapter 9 is filled with self-demeaning labels about himself like “Trashy Genius” and describing himself as no better than an arms-dealer.
Tears of Remorse: Overlaps with Heel Realization, as Hephaestus only realizes Talos had cared about him after Talos was blown to pieces trying to protect him. After doing what he could for the Protagonist’s sword, Hephaestus was left alone to weep over the remains of his son. Thankfully he managed to regain himself and put Talos back together.
Tron Lines: They appear on Talos’ limbs and neck to represent where these parts are joined together.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: With his memories of previous timelines restored. Hephaestus concluded that everyone in Tokyo, himself included, was a danger to the Protagonist and had to be eliminated. To this end, he was prepared to go on an all-out war against everyone in Tokyo to ensure no one could be left to harm and/or exploit his “mother”, the Protagonist, ever again.

Tvastar

Kamata Bioengineer

Voiced by: Subaru Kimura

Blue-and-Orange Morality: Initally, Tvastar doesn't seem to get why someone wouldn't want to be modified to be perfect without flaw: He has to ask Tez why he wants his new body to have all the wear and tear of his old one, and doesn't understand why Cat Sith refuses to accept his offer. He does later grow out of this.
Conflict Ball: You end up fighting him at the end of Chapter 5 of the event, because he decides that he's going to modify Cat Sith to help with his magic show finale, and will not take no for an answer.
Freudian Excuse: At first, it was stated that Tvastar's desire in bioengineering and aggressivness in having people accept his modifications was in reaction to the death of one of his sons. Eventually, he admits that he had this desire long before his death, because he didn't like seeing his children be unable to do what they desired as a result of their weaknesses.
Playing with Fire: Not only his 3 and 4-Star Element, but In-Universe, one of his common modifications is the ability to breathe fire, which not only gives to a willing Transient, but uses for himself when becomes "Tvastar 2.0".
Replacement Goldfish: Vritra, the dragon coiling around him in his pic, is one to his late son, specifically made sans his son's flaws to avoid the pain of losing him again. Unfortuntely, the attempt to replace his son went horribly wrong: Rather than fill the void made by the loss, it caused Tvastar to remember his late son by being reminded of the flaws he removed. Despite this, he loves the living factory dearly.

Characters / Tokyo Afterschool Summoners Kamata Crafters
aka: Tokyo Afterschool Summoners Book 2

Massive unmarked spoilers below! Read at your own risk.

In General