Lieutenant J.G. Shinya Itou is security chief of the United Nations Cosmo Navy vessel Yamato during its maiden voyage to Iscandar. With Lieutenant Kaoru Niimi, Itou plans and leads an unsuccessful mutiny aboard Yamato.
History[]
Chief of Security[]
Prior to becoming Yamato's master-at-arms, Itou served in the UNCN's Information Bureau[2].
Internal security aboard the ship does not pose any significant challenges for the most part during the first several months of the mission to Iscandar, limiting Itou's contributions to routine police work. On one occasion, he leads the security team pursuing an escaped Gamiloid robot named Alter. Itou insists on an armed response, but is convinced to allow Yamato's robot crew member, Analyzer, to confront Alter without security backup ("Clockwork Prisoner"). He develops a close working relationship with a young subordinate, Warrant Officer Toru Hoshina ("The Sun Sets on Pluto", "Point of No Return").
During this period, Itou secretly conspires with Lieutenant Kaoru Niimi on a plot to abandon the mission to Iscandar and reinstate the Project Izumo to re-settle survivors from the ravaged Earth on a habitable alien world. Itou first encourages Niimi to recommend to Admiral Juzo Okita that the crew speak with their families back on Earth before leaving the solar system, as a way of lowering morale ("Farewell to the Solar System"). After Niimi's attempt to convince Okita to investigate a promising planet fails ("Wish Upon a Star"), she and Itou wait for an opportunity to take more drastic measures. Itou brings Hoshina into the conspiracy, and he begins to take a suspicious interest in the mysterious circumstances surrounding one of the ship's senior officers, Lieutenant Yuki Mori ("Point of No Return").
Mutiny[]
Itou shows Mori an Iscandarian device found in Mori's quarters.
Itou and Niimi's time to act arrives when the crew discovers Beemela 4, a lush and remote Earth-like planet. On the way to Beemela 4 to resupply after a breakdown of the ship's OMCS food processing system, Yamato is ambushed and nearly destroyed by a massive Garmillas task force, and Admiral Okita falls ill after the battle. Once the ship enters the planet's atmosphere and dispatches a survey team, Itou and members of his security force prepare body armor and heavy weapons, enter the bridge and other key areas, and with the help of chief navigator Daisuke Shima, engineer Sukeji Yabu, and other officers, seize control of Yamato.
Itou then turns his attention to Lieutenant Mori, and accuses her of being an alien. Having reviewed her personnel file, learning that her supposed accident and resulting amnesia happened at nearly the same time as the arrival of an emissary from Iscandar, Princess Yurisha Iscandar, and seeing that she was closely associated with the very highly placed Admiral Ryu Hijikata, Itou had already concluded that Mori was actually Princess Yurisha masquerading as a human. He presents his final piece of evidence to Mori and the rest of the bridge crew: a small holographic projector of Iscandarian origin, taken from Mori's quarters. He finishes by announcing that by manipulating humanity, Iscandar is no better than the Garmillas that have been attacking Earth ("Point of No Return", "A Choice for the Future").
Impatient to begin the return trip to Earth, Itou orders Shima to leave Beemela 4 immediately. Shima hesitates, unwilling to abandon the survey team. Itou puts a gun to the navigator's head and repeats the order, but Shima refuses to comply. Before Itou can pull the trigger, he is pushed aside by Niimi, who sees that the mutiny was a dreadful mistake. Itou recovers and, enraged, aims his weapon at her. A single shot hits his hand and he loses the weapon. When he looks up, he realizes that Hoshina had fired the shot. Operating under secret orders given to him by Director Heikuro Todo before launching from Earth, Hoshina had found Project Izumo supporters aboard Yamato and acted to stop them. With the loss of Niimi's support and their followers around the ship beaten back by loyal crew members, Itou's hopes for Izumo come to an end ("A Choice for the Future").
Escape and Death[]
Itou is imprisoned in Yamato's brig along with his fellow mutineers ("Out of the Forest of Memory", "They're Coming!"). During another savage battle with Garmillas forces, an enemy torpedo hits near the brig and kills all the mutineers who are there at the time except for Itou and Yabu ("Under a Rainbow Sun"). The pair are able to escape confinement and eventually make their way inside a Seagull transport. Soon afterward, Lieutenant Susumu Kodai and the ship's true alien passenger, Princess Yurisha--who had been hidden away from the crew while she recovered from her own injuries--board the Seagull for a reconnaissance flight of the planet Leptapoda. Itou and Yabu surprise them and order them at gunpoint to be transported to the planet's surface. Kodai pulls the craft into a sharp climb in an attempt to throw the two off balance, but Yabu's gun accidentally discharges, damages the controls, and sends the Seagull into a crash landing. The wrecked transport is soon found by Gamiloid soldiers, and the four are captured and brought in shackles to the nearby Garmillas prison complex.
Itou makes a final plea to Princess Yurisha.
As the new prisoners are being processed, a riot erupts. In the ensuing chaos, the four are separated, and Itou follows Yurisha into one of the prison buildings. He address her as "Mori"; the two women have nearly identical appearances, and Itou still refuses to believe that they are different people. He picks up a Garmillas firearm from the floor and shoots a guard who appears around a corner. He uses the gun to free Yurisha from her bonds. Itou hands her the weapon to do the same for him, but the injured guard fires a single round into Itou's chest before collapsing. Itou lies on his back bleeding, and as he dies, he takes Yurisha's hand and asks her to guarantee that Yamato reaches Iscandar and saves Earth ("Prison Planet 17").
Personality[]
Shinya Itou values the survival of the human race and acts in ways that he sees as best for ensuring it, even when his actions place him into direct conflict with his comrades and superiors. His views are so extreme that he has come to instinctively distrust all aliens, regardless of their intentions ("Point of No Return", "A Choice for the Future", "Prison Planet 17"). Seeing Itou's ruthlessness in pursuing an escaped Gamiloid robot aboard Yamato, Shiro Sanada questions whether Itou has a heart, after Itou casually dismisses the notion that the Gamiloid may have one ("Clockwork Prisoner").
Despite the fact that Itou is usually cheerful with others, he often displays a patronizing demeanor. Itou is also sexist. Although he does not routinely express his opinions of women, he openly claims on one occasion to hate them ("A Choice for the Future"). He can be overly direct and uninhibited when approaching women. In a private moment, Itou makes a blatant pass at his colleague and co-conspirator, Lieutenant Niimi, who cooly ignores and rejects him ("Farewell to the Solar System").
Notes[]
- Shinya Itou's "squinty eye" appearance is a recurring trope in Japanese animation. Characters who appear to always be squinting or have their eyes closed are generally considered to have villainous traits, even if they are heroes or are allied with the story's protagonists.[3][4]
- Itou's name is similar to that of Itō Kashitarō, military advisor to the Shinsengumi special police force operating in Japan from 1864 to 1869.
References[]
- ↑ Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 website character data
- ↑ ibid
- ↑ Brenner, Robin E., Understanding Manga and Anime, p. 42.
- ↑ "Eyes Always Shut," TV Tropes