Sandbox / Slow Damage - Towa

Slow Damage Character Index
Main Characters (Towa, Takuma Murase) | Supporting Characters (The Takasato-gumi)

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Towa

Voiced by: Yuki Ono ^note  Credited as Santa Hīragi

Age: 26
Birthday: March 7
Height: 175 cm
Blood Type: A

"When or where I die doesn't concern me."

The main protagonist of Slow Damage. He lives in his own studio on the third floor of Murase Clinic and currently works as a receptionist there. In his free time, he likes hanging out in the bar Roost. He has the unique ability to see the auras of other human beings.

He is also known as the artist euphoria, and is able to grant the wishes of the person he paints. He does not just paint anyone, however, and will only paint when overcome with both inspiration and interest.

NOTE: BOLDED means my opinions on whether these trope are valid or not.

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A-E

• Affluent Ascetic: Towa resides on the third floor of Taku's clinic, and the place doesn't have much utilities besides the basic necessary appliances as well as all of Towa's painting supplies. After Ryuujirou Takasto's death, the man's will dictated that a lot of money was left for Towa. But when inquired about it, Towa refuses to take even a single yen and has no complaints about his current living arrangements.
• The Alcoholic: Towa drinks alcohol more than he does water and never goes through the day without at least a single bottle's worth of booze.
• Amnesiac Hero: Towa has little to no recollection of his past, though it's not until the true route that the reason behind his memory loss is explained.
• Animal Motifs: More than one character has likened Towa to a cat, or more specifically, a stray cat. Depending on who says it, the comparison is made either in a teasing or a demeaning way.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Towa technically qualifies for the trope, though he's far from the sinister kind. When he was still a child, he followed every one of his mother's orders even if he didn't like whatever he was told to do because he would get harshly punished otherwise, and his upbringing had never let him realize that he could disobey Maya. However, the seeds of rebellion were planted when he was befriended by Mei, who soon encouraged him to run away. Although that failed and he never saw her again afterwards, he soon realized that Maya had something to do with that, to which he then finally stood up to his mother. It resulted in a scuffle where Towa pushed Maya down the stairs in an act of self-defense, and she died some time after the fall. But even with the deep-seated trauma Towa was left with despite the amnesia he suffered from the incident, Maya's plans for him were still far from over. Once he learns exactly what those plans are in the true route, he staunchly refuses to take part in it.
• Artists Are Attractive: Towa's paintings have plenty of fans, with countless people asking if they could also be his model, establishing that he has a solid reputation as an artist. Not even the scars all over his body can detract people from the fact that Towa is still a looker, with those same scars causing him to be regarded as a Blemished Beauty in-universe.
• Aura Vision: Towa has the ability to see people's auras except for his own, and the way said ability is described hints that Towa might have something akin to real-life synesthesia. He's able to use this ability to tell if someone's being honest or not with him, and to read and manipulate people.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Towa possesses a sharp eye and can easily figure out some things faster than others, such as when he's able to deduce that Ikuina is the one who's been anonymously sending flowers to the clinic, and that Mizuno is the culprit behind the ambush-assaults that's been occuring in Shinkoumi.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: With Rei, Madarame or Fujieda, Towa starts to have feelings for them on the basis of a Commonality Connection. But if Taku's route is chosen, Towa's growing affection for him results from the way Taku would always look out for his well-being both then and now— a fact that he started reflecting on more in said route.
• Blemished Beauty: Towa is a dead ringer for his mother, who is described by many to be incredibly beautiful. The difference is that he has a lot of scars that extend from his face down to his legs, and they're eye-catching in both an alarming and an alluring way to many people.
• Blood Knight: In his teenage years, while still masochistic, Towa also had just as much fun in beating the hell out of anyone who provoked him enough. This side of him gradually went away after the incident that cost him his right eye, though said side can come back in full throttle in Madarame's route.
• Break the Cutie: His bleak outlook on life? His disregard for his own health and safety? The way he Really Gets Around? His addiction to alcohol and cigarettes? All of that points to a victim of some of the worst forms of child sexual abuse.
• Broken Bird: To sum up: the reason Towa is so detached, has an unhealthy love for pain and is eerily indifferent about his own welfare is because he had been through several kinds of abuse that would make the ordeals of many other abused children seem tame by comparison. Even though Towa has forgotten all about his childhood, the psychological damage his past had inflicted on him run too deep that not even amnesia can help him start on a completely clean slate.
• Brutal Honesty: While Towa isn't necessarily what one would call sharp-tongued, he isn't one to sugarcoat his words either and will say things as they are.
• But Not Too Bi: Towa's flings are mostly with men and he ultimately ends up with a man in any of the Euphoria endings. However, it's confirmed in Taku's route that Towa tried to date women before, but he eventually found them to be too much work to go out with; never mind the fact that most women generally make him feel uncomfortable.
• Byronic Hero: Downplayed. Putting aside the fact that he's packed with all kinds of physical and mental trauma, Towa prefers to mind his own business and isn't what anyone would call honorable, empathetic or virtuous, but he still has a heart and some moral scruples, and won't hesitate to protect the people he cares for.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: In the event that he recalls his childhood and, consequently, Maya, the tone he uses whenever he speaks of her changes entirely. He refuses to regard her as a maternal figure worthy of any filial respect, and in the few instances he addresses her as "[his] mother", he means it in the loosest sense possible. Otherwise, he always refers to her by either her stage name or by the term "that woman" ^note In Japanese, what Towa says is ano on'na (あの女), which is a rather blunt and rude term when referring to another woman, and depending on the context, can even translate to "that bitch"., and both are said in a cold and hostile tone.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: When talking about his injuries, old or new, Towa would speak as if it's no more than one of the most mundane topics of the day. In Fujieda's route, Towa talks in the same nonchalant tone when he tells Taku and Rei that he tried to kill himself.
• Casual Kink: In all good endings, Towa no longer seeks the extremes of sexual violence as he once did, although he still feels aroused whenever his scars are touched and the extent to which he still indulges in a bit of pain during sex varies from love interest to love interest. ^note From mildest to roughest: Taku, Fujieda, Rei and Madarame.
• Character Development: In Fujieda's route, he becomes more spirited as he slowly begins to heal from his trauma and finds love with Fujieda. Even the other characters observe that while Towa is still stoic, he's no longer as gloomy and detached as he used to be, and is more open about his concern for others.
• The Charmer: If he wishes it, Towa can convince someone to do his bidding by saying the right words, even adding a fliratious tone in said words if necessary.
• Chekhov's Skill: During Towa's time in the Takasato-gumi, he was taught how to pick locks in case he had to infiltrate the house of a debtor, and though the skill never actually came to use for that specific purpose, it does end up coming in handy for other reasons. Being a member of a yakuza organization also meant that Towa learned how to use a gun, which serves him well on one instance in both Taku and Madarame's routes.
• Color Motifs: Towa is often associated with the color red. Red symbolizes impulse and desire, violence and danger and struggle and survival, all of which are associated with him; Towa's love of painting, his willingness to sleep with anyone that catches his interest, his sadomasochism that lets him to constantly seek out pain and him finally coming to terms with the demons of his past and avoid repeating the actions of his abusive mother.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Downplayed. Towa no longer feels inclined to engage in a fistfight like he would before. But whenever he does, he gets excited in more ways than one at both punching someone and being punched back in turn; though he doesn't take any pleasure in completely one-sided beatings.
• Compelling Voice: Played with. He can actually see hints of what people desire when he looks at them and uses that to his advantage to wrap the people he's targeting around his finger. He even muses that he's quite the scammer because of this ability.
• Cope by Creating: Towa has a compulsion to paint other people's desires, and when he finds the right target and is able to give them what they want, he's then taken over by the desire to capture the exact moment when that happens in a painting. This has something to do with the kind of childhood he had, which causes him to essentially reenact what his mother would have others do to him, albeit with certain differences.
• Covered with Scars: He has several kinds of cuts adorning his face, wrists, chest and back. Some of them are even self-inflicted.
• The Cynic: Towa is apathetic, borderline nihilistic and doesn't hold any illusions about how screwed up either he or the city he lives in is, and his disposition is anything but a sunny one.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Towa went through a lot during his childhood, which is still putting it mildly. He had an unstable psychopath of a mother who forced him to serve her customers, all of whom would brutally torture or rape him. Every time, his mother would always attempt to comfort him with the words "It's okay", which soon turned into his Trauma Button. He then befriended someone who tried to help him escape... only for that person to get killed on Maya's orders. Then finally, when he rebelled against his mother for the first time and refused to let her continue her madness, she was utterly enraged and attempted to kill him. In the ensuing fight, Towa pushed Maya off of him, only for her to fall downstairs, resulting in her death. The resulting shock from the experience hit Towa so hard that he ended up forgetting about the whole thing.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Towa's default attire consists of mostly the color black, and both his attitude and his lifestyle make it obvious that he's not someone with plenty of morals or a strong sense of compassion. Even then, he proves to have a Hidden Heart of Gold when the time calls for it.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Downplayed. Towa can walk out during the day just fine, but he's not used to having the sunlight in his studio, as he reacts with complete discomfort when Fujieda opens the windows to let in some fresh air.
• Deadpan Snarker: Towa can be sardonic at times, and he tends to deliver his witty remarks with either a blank face or a small smirk, all while talking in the same impassive tone he always uses.
• Death Glare: One of his facial sprites shows his eyes sporting an insanely fierce look when his anger goes past simple annoyance or irritation.
• Deceptive Legacy: In the true route, when Towa asks Sakaki what his mother was like, Sakaki says she was a kind woman who loved Towa dearly, and that Towa loved her too. Despite not being able to remember anything about her, Towa feels both uncertain and uneasy about Sakaki's claims. It then turns out that while Maya didn't exactly hate him, she did put him through several kinds of hell and is the primary reason that he's so miserable and broken. And in contrary to loving her, Towa feels nothing but hatred for her.
• Defrosting Ice King:
  • The epilogue of Taku's route (which is covered in the After Story drama CD) has both Rei and Arimura remark on how Towa has become a lot more well-adjusted compared to before, especially after Taku has returned from prison. And whenever the two are alone, Towa shows a softer side towards Taku and occasionally asks for his affection— neither of which he would have ever done in the past.
  • Towa's edges visibly soften after getting together with Fujieda in the latter's route, and it's noticeable enough for Rei and a few other characters to point it out. The trope applies even more once he fully gets closure with his past. While he's still not the most expressive person, Towa is not as aloof as he was before, is more open with his emotions, and outwardly shows his concern for others.
• Delicate and Sickly: Towa's constitution and physical condition are,needless to say, not all that great, and his harmful lifestyle doesn't help with that. Taku confirms that Towa would always get sick since he was still a child, and the environment that Towa grew up in had a lot to do with it.
• Delinquent Hair: It's hard to notice at first, but the tips of his hair have a rusted-gold highlight color to it. It's revealed in Madarame's route that Towa used to dye his hair blonde in the past, and will dye his hair blonde again in Madarame's Euphoria ending.
• Dissonant Serenity: Towa often remains tranquil and expressionless even in situations where one would expect him to have a bit of a reaction. However, the narration makes it clear that he is feeling some emotion even if he isn't able to express it outwardly.
• Distressed Dude: Putting aside the instances where he willingly engages in an Interplay of Sex and Violence with someone else, the number of times that Towa gets in situations where his life is endangered still can't be counted with only two hands.
• Does Not Like Spam: Towa isn't a fan of boiled sweet beans.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": In the past, every time Towa would think about his real name, his mind would immediately attempt to make him forget because of the trauma linked to his identity as Haruto Sakuragi. In fact, being called by his real name makes Towa literally sick.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Besides the treatments Taku would administer to him when he gets too sick or injured, Towa doesn't like accepting help from others. For example, if he gets dragged into a beatdown in the middle of the street, he won't let anyone call an ambulance for him, nor will he accept any one of their offers to help walk him back home.
• Eccentric Artist: Towa's main hobby is painting, and even has his own studio. However, he only paints people, mainly because people have desires that Towa can perceive through their auras. He also does not paint often, only picking up the brush when driven by an urge to do it, and he only gets motivated to paint under very specific conditions.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He has black hair and pale skin, which on their own is an indicator of his cool and stoic nature. But combine that with the scars marring his skin and his unhealthy love for pain— and anyone can tell that there's just something off about Towa even before the game explains why that's the case.
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: Downplayed. Towa isn't someone who's shy with words, but he's not the kind of person anyone would expect to ever say "I love you". True enough, he never says those three words with any of his love interests after they get together. That being said, his actions make it clear that he soon comes to reciprocate their feelings, and he does get to show his affection for his lover in other ways.
• Empty Eyes: His sprites in Taku's Madness ending show his eyes looking completely blank and unfocused. This is due to his growing addiction to the drugs Taku would give him, causing his sanity and cognition to go haywire.
• Empty Shell: The narrative introduces Towa early on as someone who's both emotionally and physically numb and distant, with pain and violence being the only things that make him feel remotely alive.
• Even the Guys Want Him: His promiscuity aside, many men have found themselves falling for Towa's charms, whether they actively intend to sleep with him or not, and whether they were interested in the same sex or not. He's also more popular around men than he is with women, which ties in with Towa's preferred choice of partner.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Towa neither hates nor likes kids in particular, but he feels uncomfortable at the thought of children being sexually abused or being sold into sexual slavery, especially since — even though he doesn't remember it — his subconscious knows all too well how horrifying of an experience it is.
  • While Towa prefers to stay uninvolved in other people's troubles, even he holds some level of disdain for Rei's father. He even takes the initiative to deck the man in the face simply because he's enraged at how much of a shitty person and parent the other man is.
  • Towa has countless justifiable reasons to hate Maya and refuse to acknowledge her as family, but even he's left horrified when he remembers that he caused her death. This, even though it was she who attacked him first, and he only shoved her down the staircase in self-defense.
• Every Scar Has a Story: Some of the scars on Towa's body aren't simply for decoration or due to his love for pain— they are intrinsically tied to his past. It's soon revealed that most of his scars were inflicted by Maya's clients, who were allowed to do whatever they wished with him. The player also gets to find out who's responsible for the incisions on Towa's chest, shoulder blades, and collarbone, namely Ikuina, Asakura, and Megumu Kirihara, respectively. Though the former two do not remember Towa as the boy they were coerced into scarring, nor does Mizuno recognize Towa as the boy his brother mutilated in a video he watched.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Towa's ability to literally see a person's emotional state as well as his knowledge of both human behavior and social interaction allow him to easily perceive the personality and interests of those who he interacts with. The narration does make note at one point that he wasn't always so good at reading other people and he had to learn to get better over the years.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • Towa grows out his hair in Taku's route and his hair color loses its bleached edges, symbolizing how Towa has become less inclined to violence as well and has also changed for the better after receiving genuine and gentle affection from another person.
  • In Madarame's route, Towa dyes his hair blonde the same way he once did in the past. This signifies how he has turned back into more Hot-Blooded, headstrong and destructive self.
• Expository Pronoun: The trope is used to ominous effect for Towa in Fujieda's Madness ending, where Maya's influence won over and Towa ends up "becoming" her to the point that he starts to imitate her physical and verbal mannerisms. When Fujieda sees Towa again, he realizes that something is definitely not right with Towa when he refers to himself with the feminine "watashi" instead of the more masculine "ore".

F-P

• Fashion-Based Relationship Cue: In the epilogue of all Euphoria endings, Towa undergoes a change of attire, which also reflects the nature of his relationship with each of his love interests.
• Forgets to Eat: Towa ingests mostly coffee and alcohol. If he ever eats food, he only eats a very small amount, to which Rei and Taku occasionally press him to eat some more. However, it's when Towa becomes consumed with the desire to paint that he will completely neglect to eat, let alone drink, anything.
• Former Teen Rebel: Towa was a lot more Hot-Blooded and belligerent during his time in the Takasato-gumi. While he was not the type to pick fights, he could easily be provoked into exchanging fists, and he also used to enjoy doling out pain as much as he did receiving it.
• Fragile Speedster: He's nowhere near the likes of Rei or Madarame in terms of fighting skill, but Towa can still land a hit just as well as he can take one. Though even with his high pain threshold, his low stamina and overall poor physical condition makes him highly susceptible to getting knocked out after he gets roughed up enough.
• Freak Out: The more Towa digs deeper into his past, the more emotionally unstable he becomes, and it gets bad enough that he often suffers spontaneous outbursts of unhinged emotion. It reaches its peak when he finally recovers his memories of both Maya and Mei, and he begins screaming almost nonstop as the memories come flooding back to his mind.
• Functional Addict: Towa's main source of sustenance is both nicotine and alcohol, and he completely neglects his health when he gets into the zone once he starts working on a painting. Nonetheless, provided he's not too mentally stressed, he's able to do his job as a receptionist just fine, even if he isn't the most punctual worker around.
• The Gadfly: Towa has a mischievous side to him, and there are times when he's in the mood to rattle someone either out of curiosity or purely for the kicks.
• Given Name Reveal: His real name is Haruto Sakuragi, though he would rather not have anything to do with that name. Any time he tries to remember his real name, his mind would immediately repress the memory, causing him to forget. Even after he comes to terms his trauma in the Golden Ending, the fourth After Story drama CD shows that he'd still prefer to not be associated with his old identity.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He frequently smokes to the point that Rei nags him for pulling out a cigarette while they're in the middle of eating a meal. Taku even remarks that Towa is quite the heavy smoker. In all of the Euphoria endings, Towa cuts back on the habit, though he still smokes from time to time.
• Hates Their Parent: After Towa remembers his past and what Maya was really like, every time he thinks of her or speaks of her, it is with a measure of dread but mostly of contempt. His confrontation with Sakaki even has him outright state that he despises her, and for a very good reason.
• Hating on Monday: Towa isn't too fond of the month of December and even feels more ill than usual during said month, although he doesn't know why. It's revealed in the true route that December is the month Maya died, and anything related to that event is something his mind is actively trying to forget.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Downplayed. Towa doesn't despise women, per se, but he generally feels uncomfortable in their presence and can't feel relaxed around them like he does with men. Though there are still a few women who he can have a civil interaction with, such as Lisa and the elderly candy shop owner.
• Hemo Erotic: Rough treatment aside, another easy way to get Towa into the mood during sex is to cut him and make him bleed. It's only in Madarame's endings (both good and bad) that he retains this specific type of lust, as he gets aroused whenever he tastes or smells blood.
• Heroic Bastard: Zigzagged between this and Bastard Bastard. There's no mention of Ryuujirou Takasato having any legitimate children, as both Towa and Kaga are a result of the man's relationship with his mistresses than his legal wife. Besides that, Towa doesn't have what anyone would call a squeaky-clean history, what with the countless number of men he had slept with and his modus operandi when he prepares for a painting. Not to mention, there was a time when he was outwardly violent and temperamental. Though when it comes down to it, Towa is still an apple who doesn't appear ripe on the surface but has nevertheless managed to fall very far from the rotten and withered tree. He's even disgusted and disturbed at the idea of being the same kind of person his psychopath of a mother was.
• Heroic BSoD: After Towa recovers his memories, he undergoes a near-complete breakdown and spends a few hours in a state of listless depression, then goes on a self-destructive rampage where he lets himself get beaten up and violated before he then attempts to burn himself alive.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Towa's demeanor makes him come across as someone who could care less if the world burns around him, and he's not exactly the most moralistic person in the Wretched Hive that is Shinkoumi. But when push comes to shove, Towa still feels compassion, can feel fear at the possibility of losing the people he cares about, and will take action to protect them.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His hair covers the right side of his eye, which is also covered with a patch. This emphasizes not just the fact that he's emotionally closed off from almost everything and everyone, but also how he's not able to properly perceive the world around him, partly from his half-missing eyesight and partly from his synesthesia.
• Hollywood Atheist: Downplayed. Towa isn't into religion, but he also isn't against it either, and comes off more as agnostic. He even remarks that whether his prayers are sincere or not, if God exists, he's bound to hear it anyway.
• House Husband: After Towa and Fujieda get together, Towa is the one who looks after the house and takes care of the cooking, cleaning and laundry whenever Fujieda is out for work.
• I Am Not My Father: Maya's last wish was to have Towa groomed into another version of her. But in the Golden Ending, Towa refuses to let this happen, resolving that he is own person and not a copy of his mother.
• I Am Not Pretty: Towa rarely, if at all, comments on his own appearance. The one time he does is when Fujieda comments on how bad he looks due to the recent injuries he sustained, to which Towa misunderstands Fujieda's words and casually replies that he's always looked like a mess. In the After Story drama CD, he's visibly embarrassed when Fujieda tells him that he's beautiful.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Downplayed in Rei's route. After seeing Rei fight his opponent in a Moneymatch, Towa finds himself feeling lust at the sight of Rei's passion for fighting, which reminds him of his own love for violence.
• The Insomniac: He sleeps and wakes at very irregular hours, and he's only able to get any sleep thanks to some hypnotics prescribed to him by Taku. Even then, he always has trouble waking up on time before his shift at the clinic starts.
• Interrupted Suicide: After Towa tells Fujieda about his past and what happened to Mei, Towa falls into a state of depression. Believing that Mei's death isn't worth his own life, he attempts to end it all by burning himself in his studio. Had Fujieda not arrived in time, Towa would have already kicked the bucket.
• It Only Works Once: Part of how Towa operates as euphoria is that if he finds an art model that he's interested in and successfully gets them to express and achieve what they desire the most, he will then proceed to paint them. However, he can do this with that model only the one time. After the deed is done, he completely loses interest in the model afterwards and will ignore their requests for a second painting.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He oftentimes acts harsh with Taku in the latter's route, but more often than not, his curt behavior isn't uncalled for especially when he reminds Taku that whether he likes it or not, his troubles ended up getting Towa involved. Likewise, he calls Taku out for being irresolute yet again in the After Story drama CD and doesn't downplay his words when he points out how Taku's been vacillating in many matters; thus inadvertently making things worse. However harsh Towa's words were, they're also what helps Taku properly reflect and resolve to be more decisive for good.
• Lack of Empathy: Zigzagged. By Towa's own admission, he's apathetic to everything and everyone around him and doesn't have much in the way of emotion. There are even a few times where he gets called out for his tendency to remain stone-faced even in a situation where someone else's physical or emotional well-being is compromised. However, Towa can feel compassion, even if he's not the most expressive about it.
• Laugh of Love: After he ends up with any of his love interests, he occasionally gives a soft chuckle or giggle to show his affection for them. The trope isn't as pronounced with Madarame, given their punch-and-kiss dynamic.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: Zigzagged. Towa may have inherited his mother's looks, and he's skilled in the art of persuasion due to what she taught him, but deep down, they are not the same. Maya manipulated and murdered with no remorse, found herself incapable of expressing a healthy and normal kind of love until the very end and died lonely and unfulfilled. On the other hand, Towa would never resort to murder even with his propensity for violence, is capable of feeling empathy and can learn to genuinely love and be loved by someone, with all of his good endings having him find that particular someone, thus ensuring that he will never be alone or abandoned.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Zigzagged. Many have brought up the fact that Towa is one of the illegitimate children of the Takasato-gumi's leader, but that's all there is to it, and Towa isn't even chosen to be the deceased leader's heir. At most, Sakaki only mentions some monetary inheritance. What plays a much bigger role in the plot is Towa's relation not to his father, but to his mother, and all the omens that come with it.
• Living Lie Detector: Towa's ability to see the auras, or the "Smoke", of other people allows him to perceive how they're really feeling and whether they're being honest with him or not.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Towa grew up in a mansion where his mother also ran her business, which happened to be an extremely lucrative one. However, the kind of environment Towa was raised in didn't allow him to have any friends or even just a group of people he could feel at ease with. The one time he managed to make a friend, said friend was also tragically taken away from him.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: In Taku's good ending, Towa grows out his hair, and he looks absolutely lovely with it]]. This is a result of Towa being so focused on his paintings that he never bothered to cut his hair during the one year he waited for Taku to be released from prison, though he doesn't mind his new hairstyle and leaves it as it is.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: In this case, Towa is not the instigator of the trope. Rather, he's on the receiving end of the trope... almost all the time. He'll gladly sleep with any man who is willing to take him, but during sex, most of his partners usually tend to chase their own pleasure without much regard for what Towa himself is feeling during the act. While Towa's masochistic has him care for the pain more than anything else, there are still occasions where he expresses dissatisfaction at how some partners fail to give him an orgasm. Therefore, when he has sex with any of his love interests, all of whom seek to make Towa feel good with them, Towa finds the more pleasurable sensations to be titillating but also disconcerting.
• Made of Iron: Zigzagged. His exposure to being cut and mauled multiple times has left him with an extremely high pain threshold. However, he's not the most physically active person around and this, combined with his tendency to eat as little food as possible, makes it easier than usual for him to get exhausted.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Because of Towa's proclivity for pain, his reactions amount to no more than a flinch or a weak grunt or gasp whenever he gets punched, kicked, cut, or stabbed. The only time he ever exclaims in pain is when his arm gets brutally snapped in Taku's route.
• Mark of Shame: Subverted. Even after remembering Maya and how he got some of the scars on his body, Towa still chooses to see his scars as his own marks and not his mother's.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Towa's name is derived from the phrase "daredemo towazu", which essentially means that he'll hook up with anyone no matter who they may be.
  • Towa's artist name is euphoria. "Euphoria" means the experience or effect of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness. This can explain his personality, as he only reacts strongly to things that he finds interesting.
• Men Can't Keep House: His studio is cluttered and messy, with the smell of oil paints always permeating the room.
• Misery Builds Character: Deconstructed. Almost everything about why Towa's personality and proclivities are the way they are has something to do with the abuse that he suffered in his childhood, resulting in his masochism and his tendency to indulge himself in many kinds of destructive and violent vices as a coping mechanism as well as a means of both self-pleasure and self-castigation. When Towa remembers his past in full in the Golden Ending, he briefly falls into despair but soon resolves to live on and refuses to conform to what Maya wanted for him, and both Fujieda and Taku commend him for overcoming his trauma.
• The Misophonic: Inverted. Towa isn't one for talking and he's not fond of being in loud spaces, but he hates it even more if there is no noise whatsoever filling the room. His aversion to complete silence is strongly implied to have something to do with his traumatic childhood.
• Mr. Fanservice: It comes with the territory of being a Nitro+CHiRAL protagonist, but there's a lot of official artwork that feature Towa in provocative or sexually explicit poses.
• Must Have Nicotine: He smokes a lot, to the point he pretty much says that if he could, he'd live off of just cigarettes.
  Towa: Cigarettes are my food and water.
  Taku: No, you still need actual food and water. Or else you'll kick the bucket early.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • After he remembers his past, he's devastated to realize that he has been repeating his mother's actions of having others enact their twisted desires on him, even though that is precisely the same experience that left him with all sorts of trauma.
  • Even though he detests Maya for everything she had done to him, the memory of him pushing his mother down to her death is still horrifying enough for his mind to repress it. When he recalls that incident, his first reaction is to scream in terror.
• Never Gets Drunk: Downplayed. Towa's drinking habits means he has a very high alcohol tolerance. That being said, he still can get intoxicated to the extent that he starts having difficulty walking or thinking straight.
• Nightmare Fetishist: With what he does as euphoria, it comes with the territory that he finds himself just as captivated and intrigued as his models are with regards to their truest desires, no matter how morbid and twisted that desire may be, especially if pain and blood is involved.
• Not a Morning Person: Even when considering the fact that his job at the clinic has him until early morning, his insomnia makes waking up early or at least on time a difficult task for him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Towa's indifferent personality makes him come across as the kind of person who wouldn't really care what happens around him. However, Towa uses his apathetic demeanor to his advantage when he's plotting something while making people think that he's too disinterested to even do such a thing.
• Oblivious to Love: Despite how perceptive he is of people's thoughts and emotions, Towa fails to notice Taku and Rei's growing feelings for him in their respective routes until they outright spell it out to him.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Towa prefers to sleep on the couch even though there's a bed on his studio. This is mainly because the couch is closer to the door so he doesn't want to waste the effort of walking a few more steps to the bed. It's also implied that his childhood trauma also has something to do with his disinclination towards sleeping on the bed whenever possible.
• Only One Name: Towa is introduced without a family name. If he ever needs to use a surname, Towa uses Taku's last name as an alias. It's soon revealed in the true route that his legal name is Haruto Sakuragi, but Towa doesn't want to be involved with that identity ever again and still prefers to go by his current name.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Although the time needed for Towa to complete a painting varies from model to model, he never actually struggles with finishing the painting. The moment this happens, both he and the others are highly alarmed.
  • Towa isn't the most enthusiastic, let alone the most punctual, about his job, but he still does his job nonetheless; hence it becomes very obvious that something's not right with him when he starts slipping up and becomes forgetful and unfocused during work hours.
  • Towa may love to hurt himself, but he never seeks to kill himself, and while he doesn't wish to die, he won't resist either if death comes knocking. Therefore, it says something about how much he's been put through the wringer when he decides to willingly end his own life.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Towa occasionally suffers from nightmares, which are hinted to be about memories that he had forgotten, although he never has a clear idea of what exactly he would be dreaming about. It is only in the final route that his dreams and what they signify become clearer and clearer, and each nightmare he gets becomes more horrifying than the last.
• Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: Even though Towa is in disbelief about it, the scars across his face and body are an indicator that there's something troubling him deep down, even though he can't figure out or recall what kind of baggage he's carrying. It's only in the true route that Towa (and the player) will realize how his physical and his mental scars are connected, and it all has something to do with his mother.
• Protectorate: Given his masochism, his artistic tendencies, and the fact that he neglects his own health and well-being, it's not a surprise that Taku and Rei worry about him practically all the time.

Q-Z

• The Quiet One: He's not one to speak much, even when around the people he's close to.
• Rage Breaking Point: When Towa was a child, he was helpless against the abuse his mother had put him through, and he could only do whatever she wanted. It took until Mei's death and learning the reason behind it for him to decide that enough was enough and confront Maya, refusing to follow her orders for another minute.
• Rape as Backstory: Towa was passed around by Maya to her clients. Since she was running what was essentially a Den of Iniquity, all of her customers were given free rein to violate him in all kinds of ways. This is the root cause behind his promiscuity and his unhealthy love for painful and violent sex.
• Rape Leads to Insanity: Having been forced to "serve" Maya's clients, no matter their gender or age, eventually took a toll on Towa's mental state. The clincher was Maya's death, which caused his mind to suppress all memories of his childhood. While Towa doesn't go insane, per se, the trauma from his time as his mother's prisoner turned him from a quiet and gentle boy to an impassive adult who's both highly self-destructive and promiscuous. And if pushed too far, said trauma can break his mind permanently.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Towa has black hair with skin so pale that it's almost white in color.
• Really Gets Around: He regularly hooks up with strangers, and his name even comes from a phrase which describes how he would sleep with anyone who was interested in sex with him. This is soon revealed to be a result of the abuse he suffered when he was a child, since Maya would force him to serve as a Sex Slave to her customers.
• Real Men Cook: He's helpless with keeping his room organized and clean, so one wouldn't expect him to know his way around a kitchen. Though it turns out, he knows how to prepare his own meals if he needs to, as he proves to cook even better than Fujieda.
• Real Men Hate Affection: Deconstructed. Towa doesn't despise affection as much as he's just not accustomed to it. When he was a child, he was made to be a plaything for countless people with depraved interests, and the experience drilled into his subconscious that he's only worthy of being degraded and not treasured. As such, he panics whenever someone treats him with gentle affection instead of violent lust.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Much like Taku, Towa is not one for sweets and the mere sight of a whole plateful of them is enough to give him heartburn; although he still can help himself to a sweet pastry once in a while.
• Rebellious Spirit: According to both Rei and Madarame, Towa used to be a lot spunkier and more defiant in his youth.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: When it comes to sex, specifically. Towa has had his fair share of either one-night stands or Friends with Benefits, but he's never had a serious relationship with anyone before, nor is he interested in having such a kind of partner. Naturally, that changes once he gets together with any of his love interests. And as long as Madarame's route isn't chosen, Towa's relationship with the other three also causes his masochistic tendencies to dwindle to a healthier or near-nonexistent level. Though no matter who he ends up with, Towa still proves to have quite the high sex drive, being eager to get in bed with his boyfriend as often as he can.
• Scars Are Forever: All the wounds that Towa had sustained from the various kinds of harm and torture he was forcefully subjected to in his childhood had left a permanent mark on his body, resulting in scars of various lengths and sizes on his skin, from his face all the way down to his legs.
• Self-Harm: Towa is a masochist, leading to a few scenes where he would cut himself as a means to bring himself pleasure. It's soon revealed that his masochism is tied to a subconscious need to punish himself as much as they are an attempt from him to gain back some autonomy after having others torment him in countless ways when he was still a child.
• Self-Made Orphan: Although it was entirely accidental, Towa nevertheless ended his mother's life.
• Sex Slave: Towa was forced to subject his body to endless mutilation and molestation when he was a child, as Maya ran a Den of Iniquity where people of import could get to enact their fetishes and desires on the people trapped there, with their favorite target being children. And Maya had no qualms about having her son serve those customers in a similar capacity.
• Sins of Our Fathers: In Fujieda's route, it takes a while for their relationship to improve partly because Fujieda blames Towa for what happened to Mei. While Towa also feels responsible for what happened, the real culprit behind Mei's death is not him, but his mother. Fujieda admits later on that it was wrong of him to blame Towa for Maya's actions.
• Slasher Smile: He tends to sport a wide and unsettling grin during a "euphoric session" with his models, showing how he only gets truly excited in either the extreme highs of pain or the throes of someone else's deviant passions.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Since Towa is an employee at the clinic that Taku runs, should he end up with Taku, he technically would be engaging in a relationship with his superior.
• Smoky Voice: Towa's voice is not that deep or overly guttural, but it is somewhat husky and has a subtle gravel to it. This is only to be expected, given how long he's been smoking and how much he would smoke each day.
• The Social Expert: Towa is far from sociable. That being said, he is uncannily good at reading people and surmising their intentions and thoughts, partly due to his ability to see their auras.
• Son of a Whore: Toono hints at Towa being this trope by mockingly remarking that Towa's not that unlike his mother with how he would seduce other people and beguile them into doing what he wants. Toono isn't entirely wrong; Maya used to work at a nightclub, was able to attain power by becoming the mistress of the Takasato-gumi's leader, manipulated and deceived everyone around her, and even ran her own brothel.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: While Towa isn't surly, he finds himself to be incapable of feeling any strong emotion. He's indifferent about almost anything or anyone, and he only feels truly excited in the throes of violence and blood. As the final route would reveal, he wasn't always that way, but the trauma Maya had inflicted on him caused him to develop both his apathy and his masochism.
• The Stoic: Towa is not very emotive and responds to most things with a detached and cold expression— something that other characters have even pointed out.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks exactly like his mother, albeit with shorter hair and a lot more scars on his body.
• Supporting Protagonist: The common route and the bridging chapters that lead to Taku and Rei's routes give ample focus on Towa as much as it does the people who will soon become his models for his paintings. Once the game gets to the chapter focused mainly on the love interests, Towa begins to play the role of this trope more. While the events of the game are still told from his perspective, the conflict of the route is not really about him as much as it about is his love interest's and the development of their relationship with Towa. This trope is subverted in Fujieda's route, where Towa becomes the central focus of the plot.
• Survivor's Guilt: It's not apparent at first, but once his repressed memories come back to the surface, causing him to remember what became of Mei, he's left overwhelmed with guilt— an expression he thought he would never feel. More specifically, he feels guilt for the fact that Mei, an innocent young girl who just wanted to reunite with her brother and help out a friend, died an unjust and horrible death and yet he's still alive, having spent the next few years wasting his life in apathy and debauchery as a means to cope with the trauma he got from his mother's abuse. Because of this, he felt that, in contrast to his previous nonchalant stance about whether he dies or lives for another day, he no longer feels deserving of his life and even takes measures to end it. He even nearly succeeds in killing himself before Fujieda intervenes at the last moment and convinces Towa to continue living so that Mei's sacrifice won't be for nothing.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He stands at 175 cm, which makes him fairly tall. He also prefers to dress mostly in black, and is considered captivating enough for most men to find themselves attracted to him, willingly or otherwise.
• The Tease: Towa often takes the opportunity to rile up any of his love interests during or after sex.
• Terse Talker: He speaks as curtly as possible, and is not one for talking if he could help it.
• That Man Is Dead: Even without his memories, Towa is fine with his current name. In fact, remembering his previous identity as Haruto Sakuragi is enough to make Towa ill from sheer mental trauma alone, hence why he doesn't want to have anything to do with his old name.
• Too Broken to Break: Maya's abuse had left Towa completely desensitized to any other kind of cruel and dehumanizing treatment anyone else would subject him to. In fact, it's only his memories of Maya and what she had done to him that can rattle Towa and (potentially) destroy his mind past the point of repair.
• Too Kinky to Torture: He likes pain to the point that he gets turned on whenever he gets hurt. The more painful it is, the more pleasurable it is for him. This can either be taken to a higher level in the bad endings, or to a lower level in the good endings.
• Torture Is Ineffective: In the fourth After Story drama CD, Towa gets taken hostage by some men who have a grudge against Fujieda. Any attempt they make to torment him barely fazes him, however, given that he's both engaged in and been forced to endure far worse. Towa even stabs himself to distract his kidnappers and help Fujieda deal a surprise attack on them, and all the while, he barely reacts to the injury.
• Tough Love: In Taku's route, there are occasions where Towa will not hesitate to prod and provoke Taku, or even give him the cold shoulder if needed, to get the older man to quit hemming and hawing around and to be honest with himself.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Although Towa isn't one to eat in general, even he can't say no when he's offered some nuts to munch on.
• Tragic Keepsake: Played with. The pocket watch that hangs on Towa's easel was originally his mother's, although Towa never realized this, nor is he even intending to keep anything in memory of her especially after he remembers just what kind of mother she was.
• Tranquil Fury: Downplayed. When he gets genuinely mad, he can let the other party know about it with a fist to the face. When he speaks while still in an angry mood, he doesn't raise his voice much, though his voice still sounds much colder and sharper.
• Trauma Button:
  • The word "daijoubu"^note translated along the lines of "it's okay" makes Towa feel uneasy, and this is reflected in the game screen flickering for a brief second every time someone says it. This is because his mother would always say that word to him in her twisted attempt to reassure him while he was forced to endure all kinds of torture from her clients. In the Golden Ending, he eventually overcomes this, even saying "I'm okay" both to trick Sakaki and to reaffirm to himself that he has finally relinquished Maya's hold on his psyche. The After Story drama CD even reinforces his recovery by showing that he no longer reacts negatively whenever the word is said in his presence.
  • The mere topic of Towa's real name has him feeling dizzy and out of breath, and actually hearing it shocks him into passing out. Fortunately, he gets over it after he's gained closure with his past. The drama CD proves this in the scene where he and Fujieda talk about what legal last name should Towa have, and Towa doesn't break out into a cold sweat when Fujieda mentions the surname "Sakuragi".
• Trauma Conga Line: His mother ran a Den of Iniquity and made him one of its "employees", forcing him to serve her customers, who were given free rein to do anything they want to him. Because of this, Towa was exposed to all kinds of obscenities and depravities, with the scars on his body becoming a symbol of what he experienced while in her care. Even on the days when he didn't have to entertain a client, he was either left on his own, or his mother would teach him over and over how to exploit and control other people. If there was any memories of his past that Towa can look back on without feeling unease, they were very few and far between.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: According to Sakaki, both Towa and his mother fell down the stairs, with the impact robbing Towa of his memories. This isn't a complete truth: it was only Maya who fell down... because Towa pushed her during an altercation. While it wasn't his intention to shove her down to her death, the incident still proved to be too much for his mind to take, resultinig in all his memories being suppressed.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Towa has a unique case of synesthesia which allows him to see other people's auras, but it also causes him to see the world around him in colors different from their actual hues and shades. It's strongly hinted that this is a result of his childhood trauma, since it's only in the Golden Ending that his synesthesia goes away, symbolizing how he has begun to heal from past wounds.
• Troubled, but Cute: Towa is a bundle of many issues, but even he can prove to have an endearing side, especially when he lets down his guard and he shows a bit of a bashful side during an affectionate moment with his chosen love interest. The trope is more pronounced in some of his moments with either Taku or Fujieda.
• Tsundere: If he ends up with Fujieda, Towa becomes this trope to a degree. While he's often the one who pokes fun at Fujieda due to how serious yet awkward the man can be, he's also taken aback just as often by the man's earnestness, and he becomes embarrassed and huffy whenever Fujieda gets a bit too affectionate with him.
• Turning Into Your Parent: When Towa learns of what happened to him when he was a child and what his mother truly was like, he's gutted at the fact that he ended up repeating his mother's degeneracy and is essentially becoming another her. It gets worse in the climax of the last route, where Sakaki reveals that Maya planned for Towa to succeed her, something she meant almost literally; hence Sakaki proceeds to enact Maya's plans on her behalf by mailing Towa relics of his past to spur him into recovering his memories, which Sakaki hopes will eventually cause Towa to become a second iteration of Maya.
• Uke: Just like every other Nitro+CHiRAL protagonist, Towa always bottoms whenever sex is involved. However, it's offhandedly mentioned that there were times Towa topped before, and he wasn't opposed to it if that was what his partner wanted.
• Unkempt Beauty: Even with his scars and the fact that he's also considered a Blemished Beauty, Towa still has an overall messy appearance and doesn't bother with grooming himself. Even then, his natural looks still seem to shine through, resulting in many being attracted to his unusual charm.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Towa was a lot more demure and innocent when he was still a child. The trope takes a more sinister edge, however, when it's revealed that while he was genuinely more innocent in his younger years, said years weren't kind to him, to say the least.
• Villainous Legacy: In the sense that Towa himself is the legacy that Maya wanted to cultivate through her teachings and abuse— all in the hopes that in case she was no longer around, her son would adapt her ways and become her successor to continue where she left off.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender-inverted. Towa is no stranger to violence, but he still draws the line at outright murder, even if it's for the sake of self-defense. This is best shown in his horrified response to remembering how he brought about his mother's demise, even though it wasn't his intention. That being said, both Taku and Fujieda's routes prove that Towa will not regret taking a life, directly or indirectly, if it meant protecting his love interest.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: In spite of Towa's sexual experience, he's a stranger to feeling intimate with another person. As such, he feels overwhelmed whenever he has sex with any of his love interests and it isn't strictly for the physical pleasure of the act. Not to mention, whenever he does sleep with others, he tends to be given the rough and brutal treatment, so being treated gently and carefully during sex isn't something he's accustomed to and leaves him both confused and scared.
• Writer's Block:
  • A sign that Towa's already-frangible mental state is getting worse is when he struggles to finish painting Ikuina after their "euphoric session" in Fujieda's route. Even attempting to half-ass the painting in completion didn't work either, and his frustrations eventually boil over, causing him to have a breakdown and violently throw things around in his room.
  • In Fujieda's Euphoria ending, after Towa finishes his portrait of Fujieda, Towa no longer feels the desire to paint again. Though in the short story, Towa gradually starts taking up the brush once more, though he does it mostly as a hobby now and no longer continues his occupation as euphoria.
  • In the Euphoria endings of the other routes, Towa states that he no longer engages in his usual artistic tendencies, as confirmed in the After Story drama CDs.
• You're Not My Father: Considering what Maya had put him through, Towa only barely acknowledges the fact that she is still his mother by virtue of them sharing the same blood, but he otherwise abhors Maya with every fiber of his being. Even gaining a better understanding of her after reading her diary does nothing to change the fact that he still holds her in contempt for how she raised him, and this is after he had already conquered his trauma.

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