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Hamato Yoshi is a martial arts school owner and the husband of Tang Shen.
History[]
Hamato Yoshi was the Foot Clan's greatest shadow warrior and owned a rat named Splinter, who had copied his movements as he practiced ninjutsu in the Foot dōjō. He was in love with a woman named Tang Shen. Shen, too, loved Yoshi, but another member of the clan—a jealous, selfish man named Oroku Nagi—wanted Shen for himself.
One night, Nagi entered Shen's home and demanded Shen love him. Shen's rejection infuriated Nagi, so he savagely beat her, somehow reasoning that if he couldn't have Shen, nobody could. Yoshi arrived shortly after and in a blind rage, he slew Nagi in order to protect Shen. Since Yoshi had murdered a member of his own clan, he was dishonored and forced to choose between suicide or banishment from Japan. Yoshi chose to flee to the United States of America, specifically, New York City, with the now-recovered Shen and Splinter. There, Yoshi created a small martial arts school and his life improved.
Years later, Nagi's younger brother Oroku Saki climbed the ranks of the Foot to become assigned the leader of its New York branch. He followed the two lovers to New York City to avenge Nagi and located their apartment. By the time Yoshi returned home from work that night, Shen had already been murdered by Saki and Yoshi was also murdered soon after.
In Tales of the TMNT issue 22, the Turtles encountered a ninja with a Shredder gauntlet on her arm. She vowed to kill the Turtles for crimes Yoshi committed against her family, but she wasn't a member of the Oroku family. This had the Turtles wondering if Splinter was withholding information from them.
In Turtles Forever, the original Mirage version of the Turtles mentioned that their "Master Yoshi" was killed by the Shredder, whom they wish to avenge one day.
Trivia[]
- In a very early draft of his character's creation, Hamato Yoshi was originally named "Yoda" in reference to the Star Wars character. In another very early draft, his given name was "Homatio" while his surname was "Yoshi".[1]
- When asked if Yoshi was meant to be a good guy or a villain with standards like Karai in April 2017, TMNT creator Peter Laird answered in a Blogger post, "That's a very astute and interesting question, and I have to confess that I never gave that much thought beyond Yoshi's being an 'honorable ninja', whatever that means. (Can one be an honorable assassin?) As far as his being a 'good guy', I suppose you could say it's a relative thing -- but he was clearly a 'better guy' than Oroku Nagi!"[2]