Yomotsu Hirasaka

Yomotsu Hirasaka (平坂 黄泉, Hirasaka Yomotsu) is the Twelfth diary owner. A blind man, Yomotsu is a vigilante who wishes to do good and help out those in need. Following a unique philosophy of justice, Yomotsu dresses in a mask and spandex outfit, and uses his "Justice Diary" to find crime and injustice.

Personality
Yomotsu is a zany man and one of the more madder of the diary owners. He has a cheery disposition, completely convinced he is a costumed fighter and follows the directions of his diary to the letter in order to perform his own brand of justice and heroics. He believes in the philosophy that "winners are righteous, and losers are evil", namely believing those who can achieve something are heroes, and those who fail are villains.



Yomotsu emphasises his vigilante work by wearing a battle costume, seemingly inspired by those of the Kamen Rider shows. By performing an eccentric "transformation sequence", Yomotsu puts on his costume, consisting of a black spandex costume, a large transformation belt, a mask made from white cloth, tied over his head with ropes. A large red eye is painted on the mask to make it resemble an eyeball. Yomotsu considers himself an "all-hearing" hero, being blind, and relies on his other senses, namely his enhanced hearing, to perform his acts of heroism. He also follows the superhero tradition of never revealing his secret identity, wearing a paper bag over his head at one point, and even wearing another one under that. However, he is shown not wearing a mask, having dirty brown hair.

During his meeting with Muru Muru, Yomotsu admits he believes justice to be a lie, mainly because his attempts to perform good are hampered by his appearance or actions.

Diary & Abilities
His diary is the Justice Diary, taking the form of an audio recorder which vocally describes his diary's predictions to him. It predicts any form of crime or injustice, from littering to murder. He is shown to be quite intelligent, using his diary's power of hypnotism to manipulate those he targets, putting them in a zombie-like state and under his command. The hypnosis seems to wear off after a short while, or if Yomotsu frees his victims himself; though it appears he can remotely rehypnotize them, such as when the cultists briefly went back to normal but then returned to being a zombies with out running into Yomotsu in between making them sleeper agents. He can also cause halucinations, once causing Minene to think that a piece of wood was her diary. The victims are left with no memory of being brainwashed.

His intelligence is demonstrated by how he reveals that the many diaries have strengths and weaknesses akin to Rock-Paper-Scissors, that is there is one diary with absolute strength over another.

Despite being blind he can move normally, such as jump from a roof or perform feats like a super-hero entry, which shows he has pyrotechnic knowledge. His hearing sense is arguably his strongest ability, as he can pick up the sound of a small stone hitting an obstacle and react immediately.

He also has some knowledge of bombs as he swallowed one to commit a suicide attack. He also seems to have some degree of medical skills, as he removed Minene Uryu's eye and then patched it.

By the end of the series, it seems he is also physically strong enough to restrain the fully protected Third.

Path of Righteousness
Yomotsu debuted with the other diary owners at Deus Ex Machina's first meeting of the survival game. He gained his Future Diary from Muru Muru beforehand when she visited him in his log cabin located in the woods of Sakurami City. Yomotsu takes an interest in Yukiteru Amano after he killed Takao Hiyama, and targets him like several of the other diary owners.

Yomotsu makes his move in the game by targeting the Ninth diary owner, Minene Uryu, who had attacked Yuki a couple of days ago at school. Minene's left eye was pierced, leaving her in a wounded condition and on the run from the police. Fleeing from the police and then the cult members of the Omekata religious order, Minene hid in the woods and fainted. Yomotsu approached Minene, taking her to his log cabin. Yomotsu, wearing a bag on his head, gives Minene a drink upon awakening, and inspects her damaged eye, realizing it has been blinded. Yomotsu offers to take her to see an optician who happens to a friend of his. Giving Minene a piggyback, Yomotsu heads outside only for Minene to unmask him, revealing he is wearing another paper bag under the first one.

Minene and Yomotsu flee from the Omekata members, Yomotsu claiming to have called for an ambulance which will meet them. They find the ambulance at the bottom of a hill, but an army of searching cult followers are between them and the ambulance. Yomotsu reveals he knows who Minene is, and asks why she hates God, and killing and replacing him would just make her God. Yomotsu continues to guess Minene truly hates the world because of a traumatic event in her past, namely the deaths of her parents during a religious shootout in a Middle Eastern country. Minene is nearly reduced to tears when Yomotsu tells her to trust people more, and he runs off to distract the Omekata followers.

Minene runs for the ambulance, running into the paramedics who help her into the ambulance. Yomotsu confronts the followers, having actually hypnotised them into following him. He snaps his fingers and they all fall unconscious. In the ambulance, the paramedics are revealed to be cult members, Minene hypnotised by Yomotsu earlier. Injecting Minene with a truth serum, the cult followers interrogate her to learn about the other diary owners, namely Yuki, Yuno Gasai and Keigo Kurusu. The followers then brutally remove Minene's eye. In the anime, Yomotsu saves Minene from the police and takes her to his cabin. However, he drugs her, paralyzing Minene so he can remove her eye and interrogate about Yuki. Later, Yomotsu reveals he approached Tsubaki Kasugano, the Sixth owner and leader of the Omekata cult, to "join" her cult and was given the task to capture Minene to gain entry into the religion.

The Cult of the Sixth
By the time that Yuki, Yuno and Kurusu arrived at the Omekata Temple, Yomotsu had reunited with Minene whose eye had been removed. Now keeping Minene locked up in a prison cell in the temple's dungeon, Yomotsu acts as her guard and initiates his plan to kill Tsubaki, knowing the true darker side of her cult. Yomotsu hypnotises all of the followers in the temple to kill Tsubaki. The followers stage a murderous rampage, "killing" each other but are actually playing dead. Yomotsu puts his costume on, revealing his true eccentric personality and explains his justice philosophy to Minene, believing he is a winner and Tsubaki is a loser.



Yuno realises that the followers are not dead and begins killing them, much to Yomotsu's surprise. Listening to his diary, Yomotsu explains to Minene what it is and is alerted to some dropped litter and immediately leaps to deal with it. Hearing his diary's entries change, Yomotsu leans in to listen, only to react negatively to the unheard entry. Giving Minene the keys to her chains, Yomotsu takes his leave, taking one of Minene's miniature bombs with him.

Kurusu finds Minene and learns about Yomotsu, phoning Yuki and informing him of Twelfth's approach. Outside, Yuno spots Yomotsu standing on a rooftop. Four other people dressed like Yomotsu join him on the roof, the red eyes coloured in blue, yellow, green and pink. Together, the quintet do a dramatic Super Sentai inspired entrance, complete with an explosion set off by one of the Yomotsu impersonators. The five, identifying themselves as the "Quintwelve", leap down before Yuki, Yuno and Tsubaki and all introduce themselves as Twelfth. Talking one after the other, the five explain one of them has swallowed Minene's bomb which will explode shortly, and the real one ate the bomb. Yomotsu points out to Yuki the sins of the Omekata cult, planning to commit suicide by blowing himself and Tsubaki to pieces, revealing his diary has a Dead End flag.



Yomotsu and the other four charge at Yuki, shuffling around to make it trickier for the trio to stop them. Yuno quickly realises Yomotsu is blind, picking up a rock and throws it at a rail. The sound of the rock causes Yomotsu to cock his head to listen to it, giving him away. Yuno races through the Quintwelve and slashes Yomotsu's throat with an axe. Yomotsu is sent flying, tumbling through the air and concludes Yuno is a "winner" before disappearing into thin air. The bomb explodes seconds after. Tsubaki's true goals are revealed, eventually leading to Yuki to save Yuno and destroy Tsubaki's diary, Yomotsu's justice fulfilled. Minene, inspired by Yomotsu, moves into his log cabin and forms allies with the other diary owners.

The Final Battle
In the third parallel world created when Yuno, Muru Muru, Yuki and Minene perform a time leap and travel back in time, arriving two years in the past, Yomotsu is seen apprehending a criminal when he is alerted to the explosions and bright lights occurring at the elementary school, caused by the fights between Muru Muru and Minene. He is later seen capturing Takao Hiyama.

Two years later, Yomotsu is shown among the gathering of characters in the final chapter. He is seemingly not considered an outcast and interacting with other citizens; this suggests his vigilante missions, if any at this point, have been better received. In the anime, he successfully captures Hiyama, often visiting him in prison.

Future Diary: Paradox
Yomotsu reprises his role in Paradox and his actions at first follow the main storyline. He captures Minene and imprisons her in an underground dungeon in Omekata Temple. However, when the fire erupts in the temple, Aru Akise elopes with Tsubaki Kasugano, which foiled Yomotsu's plan to ambush and kill Tsubaki. Muru Muru, frustrated that Akise's actions have changed the future, enlists the help of Yomotsu and the hypnotised Omekata followers to eliminate both Akise and Tsubaki when the time came.

When Akise and Tsubaki returned to the temple to expose Funatsu as the murderer of Tsubaki's parents, they used Reisuke Houjou to wander around as a lost child, which prompted Yomotsu to rescue him as his Justice Diary says. Reisuke told Yomotsu of the real situation: that Funatsu is a bad person who killed Tsubaki's parents and forced Tsubaki to endure two years of being a sex slave to the cult. Outraged that he had committed a wrong by siding with the Omekata Cult, Yomotsu immediately redressed his sins by freeing the followers from his hypnosis. At the same time, Funatsu, due to provocation by Akise, admitted to his crime of killing Tsubaki's parents, the founders of the religion. The followers surrounding him, freed from hypnosis and astounded by his declaration, revolt against Funatsu, one member punching him and knocking him out.

Through this changed future, Yomotsu was shown the true path of justice, not his previous ideology of winners being righteous. However, Muru Muru eventually succeeds in reversing time, erasing all the events in Paradox.

Trivia

 * Yomotsu's outfit and actions parody Kamen Rider and the Super Sentai series.
 * Yomotsu's name refers to Pluto, the Roman god of death. His name actually means "Hades", "Pluto", "Realm of the Dead", and "The Next World".
 * In the Japanese mythology his name is a reference to Yomo-tsu-Hirasaka, a slope that descends into Yomi, the underworld. One of the most famous tales about it is when Izanagi fails to save Izanami upon seeing her decaying body and flees from Yomi.
 * Yomotsu's character theme song is "Justice Sentai Go 12th" by ZAQ and performed by Yomotsu's voice actor Yoshihisa Kawahara.
 * Yomotsu's eccentricity, comedic nature and masked visage are also reminiscent of Faust from the Guilty Gear series.
 * Being a blind vigilante is similar to Marvel Comic's, Daredevil.