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| “ | Before, you were insignificant specks of dust. But now that you've banded together, you've become an eyesore. Detectives, my a**. Annoying little sh-ts. | „ |
| ~ Yomi Hellsmile abusing Yakou Furio and the detectives at the end of his introduction scene. |
| “ | Oh, Martina. There's something I wanted to ask you before you go. What's...love? | „ |
| ~ Yomi taunting Martina before attempting to execute her with an Amaterasu Corporation-made presser, mockingly telling her he doesn't know what love is. |
| “ | Hmph, those responsible for killing the doctor and that piece of trash are under arrest. This case is closed. We're done here. Take them away. | „ |
| ~ Yomi attempting to falsely arrest the detectives for murdering Dr. Huesca and Yakou Furio, moments before Halara and Vivia show up to save them. |
Yomi Hellsmile is the secondary antagonist of the 2023 adventure game Master Detective Archives: Rain Code.
He is the director of the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers, also meaning he is forced to submit to CEO Makoto Kagutsuchi to his disdain, and the enforcer of what qualifies as law in Kanai Ward. In reality, Yomi is a corrupt, malicious and loathsome individual who couldn't care less about law or justice despite preaching such and is willing to destroy the lives of others to get ahead in life, holding no compassion for anyone or anything before him.
His means of getting into power prior to the story was trading with outside military sources, allowing him to use coercion to stay in control while remaining immune to any legitimate punishment for his corruption and abuse of others. He is the arch-nemesis of Yakou Furio, chief of the Nocturnal Detective Agency.
He is voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka in Japanese, who also voiced Freed Sellzen in High School: DXD, and Howard Wang in English.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- He abuses his power over Kanai Ward as Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers director for no other reason than for his psychopathic goals of personal gratification and self-indulgence, uncaring for anyone or anything but himself and being the most successful individual in the city and the company as a whole. This also means that, unlike Makoto Kagutsuchi, he is not well-intentioned in any way nor is he trying to protect Kanai Ward for any legitimate reason and is working solely so he can become the most powerful individual in Kanai Ward.
- When Makoto took charge of Amaterasu Corporation by isolating Kanai Ward and protecting it from the Unified Government, giving the company the opportunity to develop into what it is by the time the Master Detectives arrive at Kanai Ward, he exploited Makoto’s bigger conspiracy for personal gain to continue abusing the citizens by lazily covering up judicial cases happening in the city without discovering the true culprit behind them, nor cared to investigate his superior’s suspicious actions.
- He is cruel to all of his associates and only uses them for his own pragmatic purposes:
- This includes willingly abusing his Peacekeeper subordinates just for his own sadistic purposes or to express his anger whenever he desires to, and he doesn't even love vice director Martina Electro as he discards her the moment that she disappoints him, something that ends up working against him later on in the story.
- What happens to his closest allies isn’t of his concern either as he never once addresses the death of his hitman, the Fake Zilch Alexander, and conducts Yakou Furio’s murder of Dr. Huesca, his business partner who helped him gain the influence that he did by trading with outside military sources, from behind the scenes solely because he was planning to flee Kanai Ward for his personal safety.
- As well as this, he deliberately antagonizes his boss Makoto and had the former CEO killed solely because he gave his position to the aforementioned, believing he was entitled to the position because of his achievements, and he never cared for the UG’s goal of creating an immortal army of homunculi and only used their research project as an opportunity to gain more power.
- Even though he avoids attacking Makoto throughout the game, this is also pragmatic as he only follows Makoto’s lead due to him being Yomi’s superior and was willing to brutally have him killed when he exposed Yomi’s deals with Dr. Huesca as part of his scheme to oust him.
- He has no comedic moments to detract from his heinousness, and is portrayed as a serious threat from start to finish. This also extends to his subordinates due to his influence on them, of whom are played completely seriously as well.
As a human[]
- Five years ago, sometime after Amaterasu Corporation gained influence and wealth after it was hired by the Unified Government to develop an army of immortal homunculi, he and Dr. Huesca conspired together to illegally sell Amaterasu Corporation’s technology to national enterprises and external military sources, and with the money he received from these dealings, Yomi bribed the company and various citizens in Kanai Ward to maintain control over the city and avoid punishment any way he could.
- In addition to his conspiracy with Dr. Huesca, he had anyone who accused him shot on sight using his hitman, the Fake Zilch Alexander, including Yakou Furio’s wife, who he later blames the doctor for murdering instead so he isn’t held responsible. Yakou’s partner dying would contribute to his cynicism and fear of the Peacekeepers, something that would also affect the quality of his detective agency.
- Three years ago, upon hearing of the UG successfully creating Makoto Kagutsuchi, the first homunculus in existence made from the DNA extracted from Number One of the World Detective Organization, he and Dr. Huesca conspired together to create Project: Homunculus, a very shady research project, in an attempt at creating homunculi out of Kanai Ward’s residents in order to catch up, Yomi instigating the project by enforcing a false blood test on Kanai Ward’s residents so that their blood could be used as a template to create homunculi from. The UG was never informed about this happening and Makoto himself had no influence on their decision to do this, meaning that the results of this research would be entirely their responsibility. Despite this, Yomi ultimately cared for nothing but gaining more power and the results were the least of his concern.
- As a result of the conduction of Project: Homunculus, thanks to Yomi and Dr. Huesca’s efforts, their research would produce defective homunculi that were sensitive to sunlight and needed human flesh to sustain themselves on. These vicious clones would proceed to kill all of Kanai Ward’s residents and replace them, after which they would forget their massacre once Makoto returned the homunculi to normal after entering the city to rectify this outcome by creating the rain cloud generator, covering the city in clouds that block out the sunlight. Despite Dr. Huesca attempting to warn others of this, there is no evidence of Yomi doing the same, showing that he was apathetic even to the fact that all of Kanai Ward’s residents were being killed by their own clones, and it’s likely he only tried to ensure his own survival rather than save anyone else as this was happening.
As a homunculus[]
- Following the defective homunculi of Kanai Ward’s residents replacing their original counterparts and forgetting this happened, an event that would be dubbed “The Blank Week Mystery”, alongside Makoto Kagutsuchi isolating the city, covering it in artificial rain, and tricking the residents into eating meat buns filled with the meat from kidnapped and processed humans, Yomi continues his oppression over everyone living there, uncaring for the oddities happening within Kanai Ward thanks to Makoto exploiting the homunculus research for his own goals.
- Despite the research being objectively unethical, he and Dr. Huesca protested Makoto's decision to have it shut down following The Blank Week Mystery, the event where this resulted in the defective homunculi they created swapping out Kanai Ward's original human residents, establishing that he ultimately didn't care at all for the consequences or ethics of researching homunculi.
- Even though he apparently follows Makoto’s orders to move homunculus corpses to the restricted area before they revive as zombies to maintain the lie that bodies in Kanai Ward rot in the rain and tries to conceal the truth as much as his superior does following the events of The Blank Week Mystery, this is obviously pragmatic on Yomi’s part and is only another opportunity for him to oppress everyone in the city even further.
- As part of one final plot to gain power over Kanai Ward, he and Dr. Huesca intended to leak homunculus information to the outside world, which would lead to the UG acting on their initial plan to kill the defective homunculi in the city. While Yomi didn’t know that everyone was replaced, this is a heinous act regardless and influences the entire plot of the game to happen by prompting Makoto to lure the Master Detectives over to the city to oust him before he can accomplish this goal.
- When Makoto sends Master Detectives from the World Detective Organization to Kanai Ward so he can use them against Yomi, he has his hitman pose as Zilch Alexander and kill the detectives riding in through the Amaterasu Express, the same transport that would be used by Number One, who is possessed by the death god Shinigami and posing as “Yuma Kokohead”, so he can frame any survivors and prevent the detectives from investigating the city. He orders Swank Catsonell to personally deal with the Amaterasu Express route, leading to Swank attempting to falsely arrest Yuma as a result of accusing him of the murders. This wasn’t the only situation where this occurred as every available route into the city involved an attack from Yomi and his subordinates for the very same purpose.
- Sometime after Vivia Twilight would arrive at the Nocturnal Detective Agency to investigate Kanai Ward’s Ultimate Secret, he would send a letter to Yakou Furio that Dr. Huesca was responsible for his wife’s death four years ago, a year prior to Project: Homunculus when Yakou was his original counterpart, alongside the lab map only he could access from an exclusive storage room, so Yakou would be prompted to murder the doctor as he was planning to flee from Kanai Ward after betraying Yomi six months ago. Unlike Makoto, who aided in this to protect Kanai Ward’s defective homunculi and oust Yomi from power, Yomi did this solely for personal gain and to maintain his control over everyone in the city.
- Six months ago, at the time that Dr. Huesca had betrayed him, Yomi ordered Seth Burroughs to take donation money from the church’s priest so that the Peacekeepers would cover up his crimes as the Nail Man, a serial killer who murders any immoral residents in Kanai Ward at others’ request. When Seth fails to keep the priest from being exposed and executed for his crimes, moments after smacking him with his own motorbike helmet, he confronts him before the detectives alongside Martina Electro and accuses him of betraying the Peacekeepers despite him following Yomi’s orders to the letter, then has him sent to be executed for his failure to cover for the priest’s crimes, while pretending it's to punish him for his alleged betrayal. This is a hypocritical claim on Yomi’s part as well due to his multiple conspiracies with Dr. Huesca, something of which would be revealed several cases after the Nail Man’s exposure.
- When Aiko was killed by Karen in Aetheria Academy, an event that also happened six months ago, Yomi and his Peacekeepers covered up the case and determined that Aiko had instead committed suicide. Consequently, Yoshiko, Waruna and Kurane, Aiko’s friends, conspired together to take revenge upon Karen during a rehearsal play by tricking her into being poisoned using a painted prop glass after Yoshiko secretly exposed the truth of Karen's murder to the other two using her connections to Amaterasu Corporation, which was the same method Karen used to cover up her murder of Aiko.
- When Yomi orders Martina to investigate the case of Karen’s murder, he pays no mind to Martina trying to frame Kurumi Wendy as the culprit instead, despite the case happening in the first place because of a previous cover-up, and as a result of her failure to cleanly destroy the detectives' agency using a torpedo as retaliation for defying the Peacekeepers once more, as well to discover the truth behind the case and being outsmarted by Yuma and Desuhiko Thunderbolt, he sends her to be executed by turning her into a cube using an Amaterasu Corporation presser, all while taunting her by claiming that he never loved her at all. The only reason this fails is due to Makoto pragmatically saving Martina from her fate by ordering the Peacekeepers to stop, something that urges her redemption.
- After Yuma finds a resistance group following the detective agency being destroyed and him reuniting with Fubuki Clockford, Yomi has Guillaume Hall chase down Yuma when Icardi frames him as a terrorist trying to attack Kanai Ward, dismantling the resistance in the process, leading to the resistance being exposed to the Peacekeepers for them to dismantle it themselves and Icardi gaining an opportunity to kill Shachi as part of his scheme to rob Kanai Ward’s banks and flee the city for himself. The Peacekeepers would have Fubuki and Kurumi involved in this chase. Even though the detectives return to expose Icardi’s guilt following his execution, Yomi still attempts to execute Yuma because he was tricked into planting bombs around Kanai Ward, only stopping because he reluctantly obeys an order from Makoto not to attack the detectives, and even when obeying, he threatens the detectives not to cross him again.
- Despite Yomi investigating the underground Amaterasu research lab for Fink the Slaughter Artist so he can find an intruder in the lab, after Makoto hired him to aid Yakou Furio’s plot to kill Dr. Huesca, this is only pragmatic as he uses it as another excuse to prove his superiority over others and doesn’t really care if a hitman is in the lab, not even one that would attack the many other scientists uninvolved in his villainy.
- He has Makoto escorted out of the critical lab entrance out of suspicions for his claim of wanting to check up on the doctor and Yuma locked up in a random room for no reason other than personal sadism, all while accusing Makoto of never truly helping Kanai Ward despite his claims of caring.
- After Yakou Furio murders the doctor and Fink stabs Yakou to death outside the critical lab to conceal his own crime, following spitefully kicking Yakou's dying body because he died before Yomi could personally punish him, Yomi falsely arrests the detectives under the assumption that they’re responsible and nearly succeeds, only stopping because Halara Nightmare and Vivia Twilight save their allies from him. While Yomi’s Peacekeepers are continuously attacked during Halara and Vivia's defenses, he proceeds to cowardly flee during the commotion to retrieve more.
- During the detectives’ investigation of Dr. Huesca’s murder, his Peacekeepers continue to enforce their rule inside the lab despite it already being a restricted area full of his own company’s employees in an attempt to conceal the fact that he triggered the murder in the first place.
- When Yomi finds Yuma and Vivia investigating the doctor’s computer, happening upon his emails that expose his conspiracy with the doctor, he attempts to have them killed, even threatening to dump Yuma’s bones down a sewer once he does so, so they don’t discover the truth, clearly annoyed by them interfering with his rule for the last time.
- Following the Mystery Labyrinth, after the detectives discover the truth, he ignores Vivia’s accusations that he was conspiring with the doctor by whipping him, then attempts to gun Yuma down alongside his friend despite him not making an attempt to challenge him. He’s only stopped when Makoto and Martina return to arrest him for his illegal deals with the doctor, leading to Yomi accusing the former of fabricating these deals so he can convince his subordinates to kill him. However, his subordinates no longer tolerate Yomi’s constant and unwarranted abuse of them and instead arrest him for his crimes.
- As he’s taken away to be arrested, he refuses to show remorse, instead declaring vengeance against Makoto and everyone else in the critical lab for ruining his life.
- His defeat isn’t played for any sympathy whatsoever and is instead played for satisfaction, as he continuously used the resources he ended up losing only to abuse others.
Trivia[]
- He is the only Master Detective Archives: Rain Code villain to be Pure Evil.
- Fitting his motif of being an irredeemably heinous villain who is openly self-centered and egotistical, Yomi's color palette is primarily black and red to represent his malice. The red in his color palette is actually from his dyed royal blue hair, representing how he desires to destroy Kanai Ward's peace with his tyranny; however, this red is always seen, meaning it technically isn't an artificial element of his overall design.
- As well as this, out of all of the Peacekeepers besides himself, vice director Martina is the only other character to share Yomi's palette.
- Notably, this is also the color palette of Kazutaka Kodaka's previous and influential Pure Evil character, Junko Enoshima, who originates from Danganronpa, the franchise that largely inspired the style of Yomi's game, whose most iconic outfit predominantly features black and red. However, even though she isn't seen with red hair, her hair is actually dyed blonde and her natural hair is red (something that is retroactively revealed when she turns out to be Ryōko Otonashi from Danganronpa Zero).
- This contrast is likely because, unlike Yomi, someone who deludes himself into believing he's a savior but is actually destroying others' peace for his own sadistic reasons, Junko hides her villainous self behind superficial charm when she's an unreasonable, abusive and misanthropic sadomasochist who just wants to destroy humanity because she can.
- He is a rare case of a Pure Evil official who doesn't hide his villainy behind a comedic or faux affable personality to seem more cooperative than he truly is, and instead openly shows himself to be a hostile jerk the moment he's presented to the audience, leaving it blatantly unambiguous the intent behind his actions both in the present day and the backstory of his character.
- Unlike Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa before him, the game franchise that largely inspired Yomi's game of origin due to also being created by Kazutaka Kodaka, while Junko manages to show up in alternate modes casually interacting with the characters who are normally shown to be her sworn enemies, Yomi has no opportunities to do this due to the linear story and genre of the game he debuts in as all of the side events of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, like the Gumshoe Gab and DLCs, are based only on its main timeline (where Yomi and his superior Makoto both act as the antagonists).
External Links[]
- Yomi Hellsmile on the Villains Wiki
- Yomi Hellsmile on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
- Yomi Hellsmile on the Hate Sink Wiki