Michelangelo (2012 TV series)

"Booyakasha!!"

- Michelangelo's (2012 TV series) catchphrase

Michelangelo or Mikey is the "wild one" of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though he possesses a "child-like" innocence, he always brings his best game to a fight. He fights with two nunchaku, which convert into kusarigama.

Michelangelo is voiced by Greg Cipes.

Personality
Michelangelo is the youngest, shortest, and least mature of his brothers. Enthusiastic, positive and adaptable, Michelangelo is extremely creative and goes with the flow. He loves to joke around and pull pranks, especially with his brothers. He loves pop culture and readily accepts opportunities to widen his social group. As a brother and friend, Michelangelo is always openly playful and affectionate. While not very bright or book-smart, he can surprise others with his intuition, his keen sense of heart (or "corazon", as he called it), and his quick graceful reflexes even in the absence of conscious thought.

Michelangelo has the capacity to be scatter-brained, naïve and excitable, which sometimes causes trouble for the team. However, his brothers are protective of him on occasion, especially his second oldest brother, Raphael. Though they find his idiocy rather irritating, they often freak out when he shows intelligence. Michelangelo sets a trend early in Season 1 of giving designated names to various mutated enemies, getting very upset if someone else names them before he can.

Biography
Fifteen years before Rise of the Turtles, Part 1, the benevolent Hamato Yoshi purchased the four turtles as pets. Yoshi came into contact with a rat and had to fight against a couple of Kraang. During the scuffle, the aliens dropped a container of mutagen, causing the mutation of Yoshi and the turtles. Yoshi raised the turtles as his own children and continues to train them in Ninjutsu.

Abilities
Michelangelo is considered the most athletic and talented of his brothers. His nunchuks match his flexible abilities when it comes to battle. While he's not as disciplined as Leonardo, strong as Raphael, or as smart as Donatello, Michelangelo's raw talent, agility and sheer unpredictability make up for it.

In Follow the Leader while fighting Leonardo, he proves to be able to actually use moves from the capoeira fighting style. He also shows a lot of endurance. Splinter considers Michelangelo the one with the most potential of all of his three brothers combined, particularly complimenting his ability to fight without thinking (Although he cannot do this when actually asked to do so, panicking when Donatello asked him to confront the telepathic Doctor Victor Falco). Like his brothers, Michelangelo is stealthy, can hide in the shadows, sneak around without being detected, and can use hand-to-hand combat.

Despite his lack of intelligence, there are numerous of times where he is shown providing critical knowledge, such as when he and Raphael were looking for Casey and coming up with a solution saying they can use their T-Phones to get a feedback from Casey's T-Phone. He is also known to be very intelligent in Dimension X often providing help with his brothers and showing the ability to create Retro-Mutagen

Weapons
During most of the series, Michelangelo wields a pair of Nunchaku with which, like his brothers with their chosen weapons, he is highly skilled. In some episodes he refers to them as 'chucks' - such as in Kraang Conspiracy he says "Okay, that was just gross, dudes. I have April Derp on my chucks." (April Derp had been reduced to black goo at this point).

In Pulverizer Returns, Splinter says that the boys are getting too reliant on their own weapons and makes them swap. After this process, Michelangelo is left with Leonardo's Katanas (which causes him to do an impersonation of his brother and make him believe he is the leader). During a fight, the Turtles become uncooperative with their new weapons and swap back. When Splinter finds out, he takes away all of the weapons, stating that any object can be useful for real ninjas. When he and his brothers are trying to save Timothy, Michelangelo uses a chain and holds and fights with it in a style similar to his Nunchucks. Both of his Nunchucks can convert into Kusarigama. In Turtle Temper and The Gauntlet he also used a Yumi bow and like the rest of his brothers wields shurikens. In Target: April O'Neil, he briefly used a Kraang blaster that he picked up, and a plasma sword he stole from Chrome Dome, both of which he dropped after he almost hits his own brothers.

Family

 * Leonardo - Michelangelo's oldest brother. He and Leonardo are the only ones that don't seem to fight that much with each other, but Leonardo sometimes criticizes his excitable behaviour. Michelangelo also tends to imitate Leonardo as a leader in a funny way. Michelangelo doesn't seem to interact with Leonardo as much as he does with his other brothers Raphael and Donatello.


 * Raphael - Michelangelo's second-oldest brother. He gets beaten up by Raphael in a playful manner (sometimes violently) which is almost always punishment for Michelangelo's stupid or irrelevant comments. Raphael is very protective when it comes to Michelangelo, such as facing his fear when a giant cockroach took Michelangelo in Cockroach Terminator or in I, Monster, when Splinter hurts Michelangelo, Raphael immediately becomes angry. It is also shown that Michelangelo cares for Raphael. In The Gauntlet, when Shredder electrocuted Raphael, Michelangelo was the one who ran to him to make sure he was okay, and in The Pulverizer he's the one who stays at Raphael's side when he gets poisoned, and takes care of him. In Slash and Destroy, when Slash beats up Michelangelo, Raphael was deeply shocked by this and stopped Slash.
 * Donatello - Michelangelo's third-oldest brother. He seems to fight with Donatello the most because of their completely opposite personalities, but they do tend to get along while they're fighting the Kraang and the Foot. Also, they seem to be really close as brothers. It is also shown that Donatello is very protective of him and does things such as yelling Michelangelo's name when he gets hurt, or stopping Dogpound from killing him. (Nickname: "B-Team") He is closest to Donatello and they interact the most.
 * Splinter - Michelangelo's surrogate father. He usually doesn't understand his sensei's advice very well, and doesn't really take it that seriously, but he trains well under Splinter, despite his slight dimwittedness. Out of all the Turtles, Michelangelo interacts with Splinter the least. However, when it comes to his safety and that of his other brothers, Splinter always gets concerned.
 * Karai- As she spends most of her time personally dogging Leonardo or taking on all comers at once, Karai has limited interaction with Michelangelo. However, when Mikey he learned of her familial relationship to, he incredulously queried, "She's our sister!?"

Friends / Allies

 * April O'Neil - Michelangelo's first human friend. He and April don't seem to interact much, but they care about each other as friends.
 * Casey Jones - A friend and ally, but the two are seldom shown interacting in any more meaningful way.
 * Leatherhead - One of Michelangelo's first mutant friends, the two hit it off very quickly and came to share a loving bromance. Michelangelo was the first person since mutation ever to show Leatherhead compassion, and the two developed a strong mutual affinity and rapport. Michelangelo has proven to be one of the few influences that could calm Leatherhead down from his fits of rage and make him feel at ease. Indeed, they became extraordinarily affectionate and intimate, with Michelangelo giving Leatherhead massages and body rubs and even sleeping spooned together on the floor. In, when the Turtles saw Leatherhead again for the first time in the episode, Michelangelo immediately reacted with love at the sight of Leatherhead sleeping. Later in this episode, Leatherhead became stranded in , and the two would not meet again for an entire season. Later in  after the long-imprisoned Leatherhead managed to send a message through a portal to the turtles, Michelangelo was shown to strongly love and miss Leatherhead in a series of tender sepia-toned flashback scenes, and he impulsively leapt into Dimension X to rescue him. This reunion was short-lived, as Leatherhead soon went missing again during  and neither he nor Splinter joined the others who fled to the O'Neil Farm. Mikey and Leatherhead met again in  and , with their mutual affection undiminished as they shared tender loving embraces in three separate scenes over course of the two-part episode's events. Leatherhead is one of the few people to consistently call Michelangelo by his full five-syllable name, rather than just "Mikey."
 * Timothy - Michelangelo acts positively towards Timothy, but seldom interacts with him, and sometimes forgets he even exists. In, Michelangelo saw the newly -recruited Timothy from afar and commented, "Anybody else find this dude kind of adorable?" Later in that episode, when Timothy sent a text message to Donatello, Donatello said, "Text message from you-know-who." But Michelangelo had forgotten all about Timothy, and Donatello corrected, "Text message from everybody-but-Mikey-knows-who."
 * Ice Cream Kitty - When April found a stray cat and left her for Michelangelo to look after, the stray cat ate some ice cream laced with the mutagen that mutated her into Ice Cream Kitty. At first, Michelangelo was horrified about what will happen if April catches him with Ice Cream Kitty. But later, Michelangelo brought Ice Cream Kitty to battle against the Rat King. Since then, Michelangelo decided to keep Ice Cream Kitty as his pet.

Enemies

 *  - Michelangelo's archnemesis. Michelangelo first met Shredder in "The Gauntlet" and was terrified at first, but he still managed to escape with his life, along with his brothers. He seems to be intimidated and scared by him, presumably more than his brothers. Perhaps this is because during the battle Shredder caused a part of a sign to fall on Michelangelo.
 * The Kraang - Michelangelo's targeted archenemy. Michelangelo was the first of his brothers to discover these aliens with robot bodies and is freaked out by the brain/squid like creatures inside of them. Not much interaction is shown, but it is obvious that he dislikes them.
 *  - One of Michelangelo's enemies. Michelangelo accidentally gave Baxter Stockman the T-Pod, which upgraded his armor and made him a more competent villain. He defeated Baxter by shoving bees in his face, further heating Baxter's dislike of the turtles. Although further interaction is unknown, he is shown to dislike him. He dubbed him The StockmanPod after Baxter upgraded his armor.
 * Fishface / Xever - One of Michelangelo's enemies. Their interaction is not shown much, but it is assumed that Michelangelo doesn't like him. Michelangelo dubs him Fishface after Xever mutates into a fish.
 * Rahzar / Dogpound / Chris Bradford - One of Michelangelo's archenemies, though his mixed treatment of Bradford has proven more complicated than that of clear-cut enemy. When Bradford was still human and a public martial arts celebrity, Michelangelo deeply admired and fanboyed over Bradford, wanting to become his friend. They eventually accepted each other's friend requests on Facerange (a fictionalized version of the website Facebook).  Bradford was actually very much not Michelangelo's friend, but he managed to trick Michelangelo into thinking they were friends so that Bradford could extract information and use Michelangelo as bait to help his secret master  get to Michelangelo's master .  During their time of false friendship, Michelangelo nicknamed Bradford "Rad Brad", and Bradford taught Michelangelo his signature kata, the Death Dragon, which Michelangelo later demonstrated it to his brothers in the . But when Splinter witnessed Michelangelo perform this move, he instantly recognized it as a  maneuver that  had used against him in the past when he was still the human .  When Michelangelo had outlived his usefulness, Bradford declared he was never Michelangelo's friend, and was actually sworn enemy to Michelangelo, his brothers and his master Splinter, and that he was a disciple of the Shredder.  This revelation deeply hurt Michelangelo's feelings, ended all pretense of friendship, and all but killed his affection towards Bradford.  Later, Bradford mutated into a dog-like creature which Michelangelo dubbed "Dogpound".  Michelangelo called him "Rad Brad" one more time even after this mutation.  Even later still, Dogpound mutated again into a werewolf-like form, which Michelangelo dubbed "Rahzar".   had a life-size cardboard cutout of Chris Bradford, which Michelangelo never got rid of even after they had cemented their mutual enmity, and was still standing in his room when they finally had to abandon the . In Vision Quest it was shown that Michelangelo's spirit enemy is Rahzar with after a struggling battle Michelangelo defeated him in the spirit plain.
 * Snakeweed - Another of Michelangelo's enemies. He was the first enemy of the turtles whom Michelangelo nicknamed.
 * Rat King - He is the first mutant enemy of the turtles who wasn't named by Michelangelo.
 * Spider Bytez - He is the second mutant enemy of the turtles whom Michelangelo named.

Quotes
See: Michelangelo (2012 TV series) / Quotes 

Gallery
See: Michelangelo (2012 TV series) / Gallery

Trivia

 * Michelangelo is named from the famous Renaissance master, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.
 * Michelangelo's name is Italian, meaning "Who is like God, an Angel".
 * In Katakana, Michelangelo's name is spelt: ミケランジェロ (Mikeranjero).
 * Given the fact that he was adopted by Hamato Yoshi/Splinter, Michelangelo's full name would be "Hamato Michelangelo".
 * While Michelangelo still fights with his weapons of choice, a pair of Nunchaku, in this incarnation they can both be converted into Kusarigama, (a "chain-sickle"), via a retractable blade inside of one of the sticks of each nunchaku, and extra lengths of chain stored in the other stick of each nunchaku.
 * This new feature actually makes it's first appearance in Rise of the Turtles, Part 1, when Michelangelo takes on a lone Kraang and in fear uses the blade of the kusarigama inside one of his nunchaku, slicing open it's face, revealing it to be a robot, (the actual first appearance of Michelangelo's kusarigama is shown in extended version of Rise of the Turtles, Part 1   during a change-screen, where the Turtles are ready to go up on their first excursion to the surface, as all four turtles are shown with their weapons, Michelangelo's nunchaku are shown becoming kusarigama.
 * His mastery of Ninjutsu includes: Taijutsu, Qigong, Nunchakujustu, Kusarigumajustu, Shurikenjustu, Archery, Throwing water balloons, Hensojustu, Sui-ren, Intonjustu, Kayakujustu, Naming stuff, and Pranking anyone.
 * He is the shortest one of the group, about under 5 ft tall as well as the youngest of his brothers.
 * In this incarnation, Michelangelo is the one who primarily does the cooking, even after discovering pizza.
 * But in, it was shown that Michelangelo also makes homemade pizzas. He even makes his own pizza crust from scratch, which in real life is typically the most complicated and time-consuming part of making pizza.
 * He is the one who gives the names to the people that have been contaminated with, but also other things like the T-pod. He also gets somewhat irritated when someone else does the naming of new items and bad guys.
 * Michelangelo and Beast Boy (from Cartoon Network's Teen Titans) seem to be similar; same VA [voice actors], they like pizza (more accurately they both like junk food, comic books and video games, they like to make jokes, listening to music and goofing around, and they both even have the same skin tone (which is green), and they're both the closest to the smart one of the group (Michelangelo & Donatello and Beast Boy & Cyborg).
 * He is shown to hate Polka music (see "'I Think His Name Is Baxter Stockman ' ").
 * His catchphrase in this incarnation is "Booyakasha!" (which is an equivalent of the infamous "Cowabunga!").
 * Michelangelo seems to develop his own unique fighting style, which he calls "Hot Nunchuck Fury". Although it's hard to estimate if it's really a fighting style or just a fancy name.
 * Part of his secret kata consists of Kamen Rider V3's henshin pose.
 * He was the first to taste pizza and so far he's the one who likes it the most (Rise of the Turtles, Part 1). He will even eat it off the floor, or if it came from the trash, (as shown in Panic in the Sewers), and he overreacted after Donatello destroyed a slice with Kraang Water (as seen in Karai's Vendetta).
 * In "Never Say Xever", Michelangelo claims he wants a tattoo. When he shows them the tattoo by sweeping down his hand, the tattoo is the 1987 version of himself.
 * In Enemy of My Enemy, it is revealed that he doesn't know what "Booyakasha" means. He just likes yelling it because he thinks it fun. Donatello said it in Metalhead and Raphael said it in New Girl in Town.
 * According to Greg Cipes, Booyakasha means, "Blessing and love to the very moment.". So when Michelangelo or any of the turtles say it, it means celebration to the hour.
 * He was the first turtle to show an anime-ish like face.
 * This incarnation of Michelangelo has ADHD-I, is confirmed in his bio.
 * He has a proficiency for naming things and pranking.
 * He is the first turtle to hide completely inside his shell (TCRI (episode) and Target: April O'Neil).
 * Michelangelo appears for the first time without his mask in Slash and Destroy.
 * In Fungus Humungous (episode), it was revealed that his fear is the Squirrelanoids.