Characters / Under Night In-Birth: Hyde Kido

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Original Cast (Hyde | Later Additions) | Sys:Celes | Guest Fighters and NPCS

Hyde Kido

Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese), Kyle McCarley (English, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle)

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He awakens.
In order to free the girl from the chains of eternity that seal her fate.
The power burning within him is the Void.
The blade he carries, the Insulator.
Each day became lost in a sea of banality, living under the threat of the Night.
The Hollow Night approaches, and where reality and fantasy meet, this young boy takes a stand...
To reclaim everything, and return it to nothingness.

---

The young boy, victim of chance and coincidence.

^UNI1

"I'm going to put an end to this twisted world."

PROFILE:
Height: 171 cm (5'7")
Weight: 55 kg (121 lbs)
Blood type: O
Date of Birth: April 14th
Weapon: The Insulator
EXS ability: Void Red
Known alias: The Unknown Actor

A second-year high school student who was attacked by a Void on his walk back home from school. His life was saved by Linne, a strange girl he became acquainted with a few days earlier. Having awakened as an In-Birth, he is taken under Linne's wing and begins training under her and her companion Waldstein preparing himself for when the Hollow Night comes again. His association with Linne quickly earns him a reputation out in the night as the Unknown Actor, and later gains further notoriety by his possession of a particular blade. In his regular life, he is close friends with Orie, a childhood friend to Yuzuriha, and unknowingly becomes a rival to Seth. Hyde hates all of this confusion and chaos injected into his life and just wants to go back to his boring normal days, but not without doing everything he can for Linne first.


Eventually, Hyde comes to blows with Hilda and manages to defeat her. However, right after this, Kuon begins to put his plans in motion, trouncing Hyde in single combat before declaring his intentions to the horizons beyond. Now with Linne gone to settle the score on her own and with a chance to finally return to normalcy, Hyde gears up for a rematch against Kuon that will decide the fate of not just the Hollow Night, but also possibly the world as we know it.


Hyde awakens to his ability, the EXS of Darkness^note Literally Jet-Black: Void Red, which manifests together with the ability to call forth the legendary sword, the Indulgence of Insulating, otherwise known as the Insulator. Aside from its already formidable capabilities of slaying immortals, his EXS ability grants the manipulation of flame-like shadows that is commanded with the sword, apparently influenced by his affinity to the color black. Hyde's powers however are especially draining on his person as he struggles to completely maintain his abilities and is seen gasping for air or having his right arm convulse with pain if he over-exerts himself. Sometimes, he states that he feels like his body moves on its own accord during combat. He is shown to be able to draw out the Insulator from one of his palms.


In game-play terms, Hyde's unique mechanic is tied to his blade where all of his sword-based normals deal chip damage, strengthening the quality of his impressive pressure game.


His Force Function, Strict Daze^note (or Vestige of Cruelty), is a large empowered slash that deals significant chip damage when blocked and sends opponents flying if landed, with its effects increasing if fully charged. Hyde's power has grown in UNI2, utilizing the Insulator's power to destroy EXS with his new Blaring Outrage technique, which has Hyde form a cross-shaped residual slash that shoots forward as a projectile which deletes other projectiles it comes into contact with.


His Infinite Worth, Gyre Vortex, sees Hyde planting the Insulator in the ground beneath him, bringing forth a violent geyser of darkness-tainted EXS.


His Chronicle Mode story is called A Reluctant Hero, the penultimate Chronicle Mode episode, which details Hyde returning home from his nightly training before he encounters a mysterious figure out in the night who bids him to meet with Amnesia's boss.

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• Accidental Pervert: His first meeting with Linne and how he found out her gender involved him copping a feel of somewhere he shouldn't have by accident while trying to save her from some criminals (not that she needed the help). Not only does this make her angry enough as it is, he reveals that he thought she was a boy the whole time. Linne flips out and chokes him unconscious.
  • Hyde ends up laying on top of Nanase when he's trying to get her to safety because she won't cooperate with him and she ends up pulling him down on to her. This being Nanase, not only does this get her bitten by a Void, she blames Hyde for this.
  • He tries to get a good look at Hilda's vessel in her chest, which ends up looking like he's staring at her boobs. He ends up actually staring at her boobs because of this. Hilda notices and trolls him for it by showing him even more while doing a dance.
  • His first encounter with Vatista involves Hyde encountering the Automatic Nerve while she was naked. While Vatista has no issue with her predicament, Hyde does and he forces her to put on a set of clothes. The misunderstandings go off the roof once Nanase finds out about the incident.
  • Vatista's ending in Sys:Celes reveals that something happened between Hyde and Wagner which involves the former stumbling onto the Crimson Knight while she is in her birthday suit. Erika doesn't seem bothered by it after the fact but does bring the occasion up in conversation twice to Hyde's distress.
  • In Merkava's good ending in Sys:Celes, Hyde had the (mis?)fortune of getting a good look at his human form's anatomy. Much like with Vatista, he tries to get Merkava to put something on his more indiscreet features.
• All-Loving Hero: Hyde never shows any hatred towards any of the characters at any point, not even Hilda or Merkava. He refuses to kill anyone and his misfortunes and attempts to harm or kill him at the hands of the rest of the cast are never taken personally. His entire appearance in Linne's and Nanase's chronicle modes is a long demonstration of how friendly and kind Hyde can be with a total stranger even if that person is initially somewhat hostile to him.
• Alternate Character Reading: A Kinoko Nasu tradition and a tradition in a ton of shounen-based anime: Hyde's moves are written in kanji with katakana in the place of hiragana particles, and they have different furigana-styled transliterations that may or may not translate exactly to their kanji readings. For example, his Black Orbiter move's kanji reading is "Enkan no Maga-Uzu" (Bane Vortex of the Torus).
  • This is even applied to his name in kanji (城戸 灰都, Kido Haido).
• Animal Motifs: A clownfish, mostly as a joke due to his strangely two-toned hair.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Hyde's gameplay style in a nutshell. Because of his lack of defensive options and a standing overhead, Hyde players are encouraged to constantly go on the offensive using Hyde's Scratch Damage to whittle down defending opponents.
• Badass Adorable: Quite kind in his day-to-day life, which helped him garner a laundry list of female admirers. He also wields one of the deadliest weapons in the game's entire setting.
• Badass Back: Hyde’s standard win animation has him turning his back to the screen and rest the Insulator over his shoulder. This was also his win-screen pose during the first game.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Compared to the other males in the roster, Hyde gives off this impression as he fights in a dressed down school uniform, with the blazer, shirt, tie, dress pants, shoes and everything.
• Bad Liar: Played for Drama AND Played for Laughs in his chronicle mode. Hyde is so bad at not being honest that he ends up giving Hilda all the information she needs because his tells are so bad that even Hilda can pick up on them. His attempts to hide things from her go so badly that eventually, he decides to just tell her who he is. It's made even worse by Hilda's flirting and coming on to him made Hyde Distracted by the Sexy the whole time. It's even foreshadowed at the beginning of his story when he admits that lying to his neighbors is hard. His appearance in Orie's arcade mode also turns into a fight because he was comically bad at hiding information from her.
• Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: The balanced one in Linne's trio. Hyde's playstyle can vary between relentless offense against certain opponents and a quasispacing-zoning game with his two, later three, projectiles.
• Book Dumb: Hyde's school-smarts hovers around the average line but he's definitely not the smartest kid when it comes to school work. Thankfully Orie is there to help him.
• Boring, but Practical: One of Hyde's most obvious weaknesses is that his mixup game is rather bad compared to most of the other characters. To compensate, his passive ability allows him to do chip damage with his sword normals on block (the rest of the cast only gets chip damage on specials). This can add up as Hyde's blockstrings can get fairly long, even if they are slightly easier to block due to his lack of a standing overhead or confusing moves.
• Butt-Monkey: Hyde is already frequently on the receiving end of unfortunate jokes throughout the story, but he always becomes this whenever he encounters Nanase, much to his despair.
  • In general, Hyde receives this treatment when dealing with members of the opposite sex, seeing that his hormones and inability to lie would cause him to dig himself into a hole if he gets caught in an unfortunate situation.
• Casting a Shadow: His main power with his EXS ability and the Insulator. These shadows are fittingly colored red, the color of raw EXS.
• Cessation of Existence: The true ability of the Insulator, Eternity Killer, Loop End, can rend apart EXS, which gives Hyde the power to kill Re-Births, the strongest beings in existence.
• Character Song: "Scraper Sky High", a fast-paced techno rock track with electric guitars, synthesizers and electronic drumbeats that showcases Hyde's hot-blooded personality and status as The Hero of the series. He also has "Mutual Situation", which plays whenever he fights Seth; a hybrid track that combines the fast-paced techno beat of Hyde's theme with the heavier metal guitars of Seth's theme, the dual guitars contrasting each other, almost like they're fighting.
• Chick Magnet: Most of his interactions in the storyline involve female characters. In fact, his entire Arcade Mode's notable encounters are female^note Though there is a random chance that he will come across Waldstein. He's basically met all of them except Mika. On top of this, Linne, Orie, and Yuzuriha are heavily implied to have feelings for him at various points both Chronicle and Arcade mode. Hilda finds him very cute and enjoys teasing him a little too much. Nanase thinks he's unusually kind for a pervert and becomes a Tsundere towards him in her arcade ending. Vatista has a high opinion of his character and has a very unusual reaction to Hyde holding her hand. Wagner doesn't seem all that interested but she was seen naked by him.
  • In short, the only girls in the cast that haven't had any Ship Tease with him are Phonon who thinks he's an annoying idiot, an opinion Hyde returns, Strix who is indifferent and condescending towards Hyde, Kaguya who is more interested in pairing him up with Orie, and the ones Hyde has yet to meet under the Night such as the unreleased Uzuki and Izumi.
• Childhood Friends: To Yuzuriha, who is at least two to three years older than him. Hyde previously trained under her family's dojo when he was in elementary school and when she was in middle school. He was very close to her as exemplified when he still refers to her as a big-sister figure with "Yuzu-nee". Yuzuriha herself notes at how he always used to follow her around back in the days. After an unknown incident however, the two have rarely seen each other. As of Sys:Celes they seem to be back on speaking terms.
• Chuunibyou: Averted and Deconstructed. Hyde possesses features of almost all of the common stereotypical chunnibyou delusions in popular culture (attacks with two names each, darkness based powers that he can't control and occasionally control him, a hand and arm that ache with a strange power, saying super dark and edgy lines when fighting, etc. Basically everything Phonon believes, desires, and embodies for comparison.). The problem is Hyde isn't a chuunibyou, he's a very mentally grounded in reality high-school boy who is being forced to live those delusions and considers it a nightmare that needs to end as soon as possible so he can go back to a normal, boring, peaceful life.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: He has a crush on Orie without realizing that she reciprocates his feelings. Going further than that, it doesn't occur to him that Linne and Vatista might have deeper feelings about him than he believes, is convinced that Yuzuriha hates him after the Noodle Incident that caused them to grow apart when the truth couldn't be more wrong, and (more justifiably) doesn't understand why Nanase is so cruel to him.
• Cool Sword: Wields a red blade known as the Insulator, or literally the Danretsu no Menzaifu (Indulgence of Sever Rending). It can erase people from existence and it's forged from a removed wing from one of the most powerful entities in the story.
• Covert Pervert: Hyde tries to come off as someone that is pretty unmoved around pretty girls, but when chronicle mode was added the audience gets to see his thoughts more often and it shows that this definitely is not the case. Especially if they have large chests. He seems to have shrugged this off as he got to know the cast more as he is not fazed by either Hilda anymore and is more concerned about Orie in his conversation with Kaguya.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite his punk appearance and abilities based around darkness, he's an exceptionally generous person who has no problem with letting complete strangers stay at his place.
• Dash Attack/Deadly Lunge: His Veil Bringer^note Wazawai Shouseshi Shoukou no Kusabi (Wedge of Calamity Calling Sick Crimson) EX Move starts off with one of these. The dash is invulnerable, which makes it a good tool for reversals or for a full screen punish. The stronger version in Cross Tag Battle is dubbed as Veil Bringer Arose^note Kakusei Wazawai Shouseshi Shoukou no Kusabi (Awakened Wedge of Calamity Calling Sick Crimson).
• Declaration of Protection: Towards Linne to repay the favor since she saved his life.
• Die or Fly: Hyde first awakens his Void Red powers defending himself from a VERY large void poised to devour him while Linne was preoccupied killing another one. Even Linne admits that manifesting a weapon from thin air, and immediately after being bitten, takes talent and skill.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Not Hyde as a whole since he's one of the easier characters to understand and use for new players, but his Vacant Shift special specifically. When done correctly, Hyde can delay the follow-ups to get closer to the ground, allowing him to pick up the opponent again. This makes for some of his most damaging combos that have the ability to carry an opponent to the corner, but the delay timing varies with the rest of the combo and is fairly strict depending on when it is used.
  • On a fundamental level, Hyde's moves are quite unsafe, especially on his special moves. However, his whiff-punishment game is quite scary due to his sword-based normals and other similar moves having solid range when used on a proper reaction to a bad move on his foe's part.
• Distracted by the Sexy: His first encounter with Hilda he can't stop thinking about how hot she is even when he knows she's dangerous. In Nanase's chronicle mode, carrying an unconscious Nanase with her chest against his back gets him thinking about how he might lose to Yuzuriha's body. In both cases, he desperately tries to refocus on the situation at hand and stop his perverted thoughts, with hilariously little success.
• Dual Wielding: Averted, but Hyde hopes to one day learn how to wield two blades as efficiently as Linne does. He's got a decent start seeing as how he's already taking after Linne's habits by utilizing both his hands in wielding his sword as well as utilizing both standard and reverse-grip. This is most likely a nod to early concept art where he is dual-wielding blades.
• The Dulcinea Effect: Hyde ends up protecting Linne from some rowdy thugs the first time they meet despite having no reason to do so. After that, he refuses to let her wander off on her own and uses his whole day to make sure she's comfortable with the city even after she beats him up for thinking she was a boy. Linne even wonders how Hyde could be so forward, helpful, and kind to someone he met just that afternoon. After she saves his life, Hyde will move Heaven and Earth to protect Linne without hesitation.
  • He has a pretty bad case of this really. Despite how much hostility Nanase gives him, he doesn't hesitate at all to save her from a Void and even carries her on his back and looks after her until she wakes up.
  • This carries over in his appearance in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle when nearly all of his fights are started because he jumps in to defend a female character he believes is in danger.
• Endearingly Dorky: Things like his reaction to Merkava, his awkwardness around attractive women and goofy conversation about random things related to Phonon's whip are only a couple of the instances in the game where Hyde does something cute and dorky. This is in stark contrast to his outward appearance, which tends to throw off some other characters that get to know him.
• Expy: Like Ragna the Bloodedge before him, Hyde is a loud, vulgar, and yet ultimately kind protagonist that wields a moderately large blade and and has attacks that are all cast in darkness that all can inflict chip damage on block. Two of his attacks even involve reverse-grip very similar to Ragna's (Vacant Shift First Layer-to-Inferno Divider and Shadow Scare-to-2D).
  • This came full circle when Hyde got his own BlazBlue expy in the form of Naoto Kurogane, who shares even more traits along side the above that they both share with Ragna like being an Ordinary High-School Student and tendency to run into disastrous women but still want to help them. Naoto even has an identical haircut and Idiot Hair, and even has a fighting style that gives him defensive bypassing options (Hyde has Scratch Damage on all of his sword-based moves; Naoto can charge his unique mechanic-based attacks for a guard break), and are also both glass cannons who have the second-lowest HP pools out of the rest of the cast. Word of God stated that Hyde's creator directly sought advice from Toshimichi Mori himself (the director of BlazBlue) on how to design a protagonist such as Hyde.
• Face of a Thug: His clear disinterest in wearing his uniform properly aside, Hyde's most basic expression is a mean looking scowl and both his character select art in the game and in the crossover has him with a rather grim expression. He's hardly a punk though.
• False Rape Accusation: Ends up being a victim of one courtesy of Nanase in her arcade story. Because of her limited understanding of the Night and her extremely questionable vocabulary, Nanase almost destroyed Hyde's relationships with Orie and Linne in the course of a single night. Luckily, the misunderstanding cleared up in the end after Vatista, Linne, and Orie filled in with Nanase on her In-birth circumstances.
• Fatal Flaw: Hyde has a bad habit of following his instincts when he really shouldn't. He knew it was a bad idea to listen to Kuon and approach Hilda's manor, but ended up doing it anyway, which ultimately ended in him spilling all kinds of information to Paradox in an encounter where he only escaped with his life because she felt like sparing him. He later ignores Linne telling her to stay behind in the real world and enters the Hollow Night, intent on helping her regardless of what she wants. It manages to work out in most of the routes, but in Hilda's it gets him and Linne killed and hands the Insulator over to Hilda on a silver platter.
• Fearless Fool: Once Hyde obtains his powers, he tends to jump straight headfirst into danger without considering the consequences. One, he goes out into the Hollow Night alone to confront Paradox and assist Linne despite Linne telling him not to. Two, Hyde ends up taking Kuon's suggestion and goes to the mansion in the park despite knowing that it may be a trap. Three, in Merkava's arcade story he approaches Merkava and attempts to make contact with him out of curiousity. Even Merkava is annoyed that Hyde lacks the cautious reaction most other humans have with it.
• Fighting Your Friend: The first story focused battle in his Arcade story has him facing Yuzuriha, his old childhood friend, as his opponent. He later fights Orie as well as Linne herself later on. In Sys:Celes' arcade, he fights Waldstein as his first notable encounter.
• Final Boss: For Hilda, Nanase, Eltnum and Akatsuki in the first game. To Nanase and Kuon in Sys:Celes.
• Glass Cannon: Hyde has very high damage potential, yet is tied with Wagner and Londrekia for having the 2nd lowest health counts in the game. This comes with subverting part of his Jack of All Stats status, since as of Exe: Late[st] he has the same HP amount as Wagner, with the both of them just having the second-lowest HP totals in the game with Seth's being the lowest. Gameplay and Story Integration accounts for that fact that Hyde is just an Ordinary High-School Student;
• Hair Antennae: One that also features the blonde/black coloring.
• Has a Type: Hyde evidently seems to prefer girls with long hair. His interactions with Linne mostly resemble that of a teacher and student relationship as well as something akin to siblings and he tends to avoid girls like Nanase. On the other side of the hair-length spectrum he was extremely close to Yuzuriha during their youth and it's implied in Yuzuriha's chronicle mode that the Noodle Incident that destroyed their friendship was of a romantic nature, was intent on helping Vatista and offered his home to her, found both Strix and Hilda pretty, and most notably is really good friends with Orie. Chronicle Mode had Linne observe Hyde and Orie walking out of school together and she noticed that Hyde's posture, tone, and demeanor were completely different compared to when he was with her when they first met, deducing that Orie fits Hyde's tastes and if anything, both showed a mutual attraction towards the other.
  • He also seems to believe in the Buxom Beauty Standard. He's not impressed with Linne or Nanase's figures and his flustered reactions to Vatista seem to be more worried that she has no sense of modesty. But he fantasizes about feeling Yuzuriha's body when carrying Nanase and his first encounter with Hilda starts with him ranting internally about how big her boobs are. He even guesses that she became so powerful because all her opponents were distracted by them before thinking that he's probably the one being most distracted by them and how confusing it is that the notoriously evil and strong Paradox is so attractive. Orie is pretty far from flat as well.
  • He seems particularly locked in to pursue Orie above all in Sys:Celes as he doesn't seem distracted by the likes of Hilda or even Kaguya anymore. Overcoming Yuzu might take a little longer though.
• Having a Blast: His Dark Lotus^note Shin'en ni Saku Kokuren (Black Lotus Blooming in the Abyss) special. The ground version involves him blowing up a Black Orbiter already in flight, while the midair version does it without any prerequisite at all other than being in the air.
• Hellish Pupils: Look close; he's got cat-slits.
• The Hero Dies: He gets killed by Hilda and Kuon in their respective game's arcade endings for the Insulator.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: While well-liked by the people that know him personally, Hyde is a known affiliate of the Night Blade's runaway princess Linne, and the carrier of the infamous sword Insulator. This combination has caused Hyde to make a lot of enemies in the Hollow Night. Ironically enough, Hyde doesn't seem all that focused on by Amnesia aside from Hilda herself and the rest of Licht Kreis does not seem to consider him too much of an issue, which is huge given that not only does Hyde has connections to the Night Blade princess and wield the Insulator, but he is still in one piece after seeing the Crimson Knight in the nude.
• Hidden Depths: All of the characters that meet him think that he's a slob and a delinquent due to the way he looks and talks, but Hyde is neither of those things. Most of Linne's chronicle mode has moments where she will think something bad about Hyde only to immediately be proven wrong.
  • Despite his unkempt appearance, Hyde is very responsible. He likes doing his own chores and cleaning his house for the sense of accomplishment.
  • Linne and Nanase both first saw him as an All Girls Want Bad Boys kind of ladies man who would make inappropriate advances on women like assaulting them in the park or forcing them to go on dates with him. In reality, Hyde gets ridiculously nervous around women that he finds attractive and has trouble even interacting with them at all. A weakness that Hilda exploits for terrible consequences, giving her all the information she needs about him and the Insulator.
• Hot-Blooded: He's pretty explosive and loud while fighting.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Hyde's brain does not function well around beautiful, curvy women, and he doesn't like how this holds him back one bit much to his chagrin. Linne notices him blushing and had an excited expression when talking to Orie when Linne watched them leave school together, acting completely different than when he was around her. Also, he and Orie both stammer and fumble their sentences in their win quotes against each other and in arcade mode. When carrying Nanase in close contact not only got him a little flustered but also made him start fantasizing about Yuzuriha's body to the point where he ends up trying math exercises in a futile attempt to stop thinking about it, and his disaster of a first encounter with Hilda was made much worse because not only is Hyde normally too honest for his own good to deceive anyone, he couldn't think straight the entire time because he couldn't stop thinking about how sexy she is or ignore her seductive advances. This last one ends up giving Hilda everything she needed to know about the Insulator.
  Hyde: (I can't lose to her... Maybe if it were Yuzu-nee... No,no, I have to stop thinking!)
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Hyde adapted to his powers pretty fast and will still jump into action at first notice for Linne, even when told to stay away, but he hates being involved in the Hollow Night and his second goal besides protecting Linne is to end it once and for all so that he can go back to his boring peaceful life, no matter what.
• I Owe You My Life: After having his life saved after a Void attack, he's very protective of Linne.
• Idiot Hero: Slightly averted. He's dead average in school and means very well. His status as a newcomer adds to this a bit regarding the context of the Hollow Night and his abilities in general. Thankfully he's got multiple people close to him who can provide the information about the Hollow Night between Linne and Wald, Vatista, and even Yuzu.
• Immortal Breaker: Not Hyde himself, but his Insulator can kill even the Immortal Re-Births by striking at their EXS directly. Small wonder he is the ultimate enemy Hilda and Kuon have to overcome in order to realize their ambitions. After all is said and done, Linne intends to use it to end her eternal curse once and for all [[spoiler: .
• Infinity +1 Sword: The reputation and power of the Insulator precedes his own, as exemplified when Hyde is often referred to as the Insulator instead of his usual alias. Its in-universe ability to slay immortals and rend apart any form of EXS in general is a very big deal considering that a majority of the problems he faces are wholly dependent on EXS. It should be noted that the blade's quality on its own is average but the explosive conduit of EXS is nothing to scoff at. That said, the Insulator can be a double-edged sword in Hyde's hands, since while Hyde can end most of the Hollow Night's conflicts by himself using its power, Hyde himself can still be easily taken down by In-births more seasoned than him and god forbid what may come if they are interested in the Insulator.
• It's Personal: After he defeated Hilda the previous night, Hyde ends up getting jumped by Kuon and got beaten to a pulp. Hyde hasn't forgotten what transpired and seeks to settle the score with Kuon the following night.
• Jack of All Stats: Players will really have to play at their best to use him well; Hyde focuses both on fundamentals and large-ranged whiff-punishment on his normals, lest he himself gets whiff/block-punished as hard due to his risky and laggy specials. However, he does lack solid mixup, since his Force Function, Strict Daze^note Shoukoku no Zansai (Vestige of Cruelty), is his only grounded-overhead attack that needs to be fully charged up first.no doubt his durability is on the low end when his prior training has amounted to just a few months.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: Hyde makes a string of puns about what to call Phonon and her whip and ends up being genuinely amused by his own jokes.
  • Said pun-related humor might have been influenced from Yuzuriha as she makes the same type of joke when he encounters her in arcade mode.
• Launcher Move: Has one with his 3C command normal. Others include his 6B, j.2C, Dark Lotus, Red-Clad Craver, Vacant Shift and Gyre Vortex.
• Leitmotif: Scraper Sky High, as well as Mutual Situation for matches against Seth.
• Living Macguffin: As Hyde has the power to summon the legendary Insulator, this makes him a walking target of a lot of organizations (and Nanase) that endeavor to take the sword from him to use for their own agendas.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Due to having Linne and Vatista as companions, Nanase ends up identifying Hyde as one and adds it to her imaginary assault list.
• My Greatest Failure: Whatever he did to ruin his friendship with Yuzuriha is his biggest regret. When he meets her in arcade mode, he tells her that he always be sorry for hurting her and being so pathetic. By Sys:Celes they seem to have "mostly" patched up their relationship as Yuzuriha is now more or less affiliated with the rest of his house-mates.
• Naïve Newcomer: He's only been an In-Birth for a short time and naturally has no idea how the Hollow Night works, fortunately Linne and Waldenstein are there to fill him in. He is noticeably more mature and knowledgeable in Sys:Celes since at that point he fought in 2 more Hollow Nights since he defeated Paradox.
• Naked First Impression: Frequently a victim of this, with Vatista (twice), Wagner, and Merkava.
• Named Weapons: The Indulgence of Insulation, or simply the Insulator.
• Nice Guy: Disregarding his profanity and lack of tact, Hyde's actually a really friendly and generous person, and will not hesitate to lend someone a hand if they seem to be in trouble. Linne personally describes him being loud and having no delicacy in his speech but still very much a good person.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His first encounters with Linne and Nanase are him saving them from a dangerous situation (though Linne didn't need it, but Hyde couldn't have known that since she looks like a child). This ends badly for him both times. He mistakes Linne for a little boy and gets an ass-kicking from her as a result. Nanase's confusion makes her think Hyde molested her and she begins chasing him around the Hollow Night trying to beat him up.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Showing up to fight Hilda in her arcade mode ends up getting him and Linne killed for good, and gives Hilda all she needs to complete her plans.
  • He also screws up pretty bad in Chronicle mode by listening to Kuon and trespassing on Hilda's property. This combined with him being a Bad Liar and Hormone-Addled Teenager lets Hilda learn all she needed. If she wasn't a stupid adrenaline junkie looking forward to seeing him for fun on the Hollow Night, she would have killed him and taken it with no effort then. It's completely clear that he only walked away from her there because she felt like it. Linne calls him the stupidest person to ever live for this.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Shared an incident with Yuzuriha during their youth which caused Hyde to distance himself from her. Hyde is distressed about it and wants to make it up to her while Yuzuriha has seemingly forgotten about it and still treats him the same as ever. Chronicle Mode reveals that Yuzuriha herself is trying her best to forget and still doesn't want to think about it.
  • Has a very interesting history with Erika Wagner that she refuses to let Hyde live down revolving around one of Hyde's "accidents". Details are vague, but it involves Hyde accidentally seeing Wagner in the nude.
• One Degree of Separation: Hyde is at the epicenter of all the Hollow Night's factions by the time the final night rolls by due to the sheer amount of In-births that he knows. At the beginning of his arcade story, Hyde notes that he knows a lot of people in the night, but has to end everything by himself anyways as routine. To note:
  • Hyde is nominally a member of the Night Blade due to his loyalty to Linne after that fateful night. By the time he defeated Paradox, he eventually became acquainted with fellow Night Blade members Seth and Yuzuriha.
  • Hyde is a person of interest to the EFG due to his powers, reputation and connections to Tsurugi, Nanase and Phonon, with word being that they actually tried to recruit Hyde into their ranks but was turned down.
  • Hyde's friendship with Orie makes him an ally to the Licht Kreis and given that he is in somewhat amiable terms with Kaguya and even Wagner of all people makes it that the only reason Hyde wasn't considered a member at this point are his Y-chromosomes.
  • Hyde canonically takes down Paradox after the first Hollow Night, making him Amnesia's enemy…supposedly. If Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is to be believed, then Hyde and Gordeau definitely met and fought, though the outcome of the battle is unclear.
• Ordinary High-School Student: And he wants to keep it that way. His combat experience comes down to minimal kendou training in his childhood and formal training from Linne and Waldstein in a course of one short month before the big Hollow Night, but still fights toe-to-toe with his sword against much stronger and experienced fighters and can still emerge victorious.
• Power of the Void: The Insulator's power to destroy EXS and return it to nothing suggests that this is the true nature of Hyde's Void Red ability. This is what allows Hyde to destroy the Abyss and prematurely end Hollow Nights.
• Quantity vs. Quality: Hyde is the Quality to Kuon's Quantity regarding the Insulator. Hyde's power revolves around summoning the real Insulator from the other side of the Abyss and his destructive power and immoral slaying abilities is mostly concentrated in the sword itself. Meanwhile, Kuon is the original wielder of the Insulator and can use his powers to replicate the blade's functions and shape which is dubbed as the Insulator "Imitate", though while the imitations aren't as powerful as the genuine article Kuon can create plenty to compensate using his abilities.
• Real Men Cook: With his parents working overseas, Hyde has grown accustomed to and rather skilled at cooking and cleaning for himself. All three of his household companions (Linne, Waldstein, and Vatista) praise his culinary ability.
• Real Name as an Alias: He's referred as "Kido-kun" by Orie (his family name) as he still uses his real name aside from his alliance with Linne.
  • However, it's somewhat played with and subverted in that his name is all in kanji. His name when written in the character select is often in katakana.
• Red Baron: He is known in the Night as the Unknown Actor, or the Unknowing Costar when literally translated. He's also simply referred to as the Insulator, in reference to his blade.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's a Nice Guy most of the time, but he holds nothing back when fighting, and if you're in his way, he'll make you move.
• Reverse Grip: Uses it in his 3B, 3C, Black Orbiter, Vacant Shift (first input) and Shadow Scare.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Linne and Seth's Blue; of particular note in the latter because their primary weapons are colored after their motifs.
• Say My Name: He cries out to Linne when Hilda kills her for good with the Insulator in her arcade ending.
• Schmuck Bait: He's able to tell that the weird kid that turned out to be Kuon was no good, but it doesn't stop him from doing what Kuon told him to do and trespassing on the grounds of a nearby mansion. This turns out to be Hilda's building. Hyde only ends up walking away from the encounter because Hilda let him.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Fights in his high school uniform, though don't expect him to ever wear it properly.
• Scratch Damage: Hyde's unique trait in combat, as unlike most powers of darkness in previous fighting games, all of Hyde's sword-based normals can inflict chip damage. Gameplay and Story Integration may indicate that the Insulator's powers are even dangerous on any form of contact with the blade itself, and this was confirmed as the blade's ability to rend EXS is likened to that of a Void devouring EXS. It's also a balance tool because Hyde lacks a good standing overhead and his zoning and rushdown game is vastly inferior to characters that are more specialized in those roles.
• Ship Tease: Primarily with Orie and Vatista, but also with Linne and Yuzuriha in more sparse doses. Nanase also becomes a Tsundere towards him after her arcade mode.
  • Orie in particular shares a very close relationship with Hyde as he presumably helped her ease into the school-life environment as she had only attended an all-girl's school prior to her transfer. Apparently, the two are on such good terms that Orie frequently visits Hyde's home to help clean and cook with him, as well as helping him study for class. Orie is also the most distressed during Nanase's Arcade story, whereas Vatista simply finds Nanase's condemnations against Hyde contradictory to her own experiences with him while Linne is more concerned, as a mentally older female, in how Hyde plans to be a father. When the misunderstanding is cleared, Orie is astute in noting that she never doubted Hyde's morals in the first place. Orie's own ending in Sys:Celes has her returning to Japan from Europe after dealing with the Final Night with Hyde welcoming her back. Hyde's encounter with Kaguya in the latter's arcade mode practically confirms his laser-guided interest in going steady with Orie as he vehemently tries to deny that he doesn't have feelings for her.
  • On Vatista's end, he first encounters her while she's completely naked, and she goes on to save him from Hilda later on. The aftermath is just loaded with this, between praising her strength in battle, inviting her to live with him after seeing she has nowhere to go, grabbing her hand to bring her to meet Linne. Vatista is the only girl who defends his character in Nanase's arcade mode and promises to remember his name even after he dies while she sleeps. It doesn’t stop there, Vatista’s Chronicle story reveals that Hyde’s Insulator was created from her seventh wing, giving them a connection that transcends the bounds of fate. The sword also is implied to still have some of Vatista's will in it and is overprotective of Hyde to the point of being dangerous. The creators then went on to state that Vatista's fashion sense was tailor made to suit what Hyde considers most attractive. Vatista only avoids being an Implied Love Interest from the sheer amount of sub-text by virtue of Orie's presence in the story.
  • In Linne's case, she saved his life from a Void, causing him to turn into an In-Birth, and because of this he's very protective of her. In his arcade ending, he gives a blushing Linne a piggyback ride home. Hyde seems to view Linne as more of a teacher and a little sister to him, a sentiment Linne thinks to herself as well with Hyde being her reckless younger brother, yet Linne gets irritated seeing him so close to Orie, and gets more annoyed by wondering if Orie is his type. The entire third chapter of Linne's chronicle mode is basically Hyde taking her on a date, which Linne greatly enjoyed.
  • Yuzuriha is Hyde's longest known acquaintance and their relationship as childhood friends are deeply rooted in both parties. Yuzuriha remembers Hyde's clinginess fondly while Hyde remembers Yuzu's equally affectionate reciprocation. Both seem intent on repairing their relationship to what it once was when they were younger before their little incident. Yuzuriha currently seems concerned over Hyde dressing like a slob while Hyde still remembers the feeling of Yuzuriha's chest.
• Shoryuken: His Red-Clad Craver^note Kou Matoishi Yami no Tsubasa (Wing of Crimson-Clad Darkness), and his aforementioned Vacant Shift^note Kokuu wo Buntsu Dansou (Fault Dividing the Empty Air) being a reverse-grip version of it although Vacant Shift isn't invincible on startup.
  • Veil Bringer involves a different kind of move from his Craver via different visuals and with it being an overall different move (Dash Attack performed prior to the rising slash ending with a Meteor Move-styled kick).
  • The EX version of his Vacant Shift (aptly named as "Vacant Shift - Sediment^note Kokuu wo Buntsu Dansou - Tajuu Kakusou (Fault Dividing the Empty Air - Multi-Gulf Layer) in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle) instead, makes him rise knee-first before doing a rapid automated sequence of it.
• Shotoclone: A well-rounded fighter equipped with a projectile, uppercut, and Dash Attack. But like several examples with the latter trope, Hyde has his own unique touches/moves to help differentiate from other shotos out there, with the biggest twists being his fireball/projectile followups and possessing two, later three, different types of projectile attacks.
• Spanner in the Works: Double Subverted. Linne intended for Hyde to be the joker in her deck against the likes of Kuon and Hilda, but he ends up getting found out by both of them prior to the Hollow Night. This forces Linne to go back to her original plan to take on Paradox by herself since Hyde is no longer an unknown factor, but decides to let him roam free anyway. This potentially works out in both ways as Hyde can either take down Paradox himself and destroy the abyss, or befriend Vatista who will eliminate Hilda in Hyde's stead and become an ally in the upcoming night.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Downplayed Trope, seeing as he is The Protagonist, but Linne's chronicle mode is more about Hyde than it is about her. A good three-fourths of it is how she first met him and how he became an In-Birth as well as how he goes about his everyday life. Linne also spends most of her chronicle analyzing Hyde's personality and frequently internally monologues about his various quirks.
  • Hyde is also the focus of the last chapter of Nanase' chronicle mode, where half of the story is told from Hyde's perspective instead of Nanase's.
• Shout-Out: Other than having Yu Narukami's stance and playstyles, he also has Awakened Kaede's hairstyle and colors, and his playstyle too.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: On the receiving end from all of the girls who like him though some of his initial charms tend to be a mistaken case of All Girls Want Bad Boys, which gets commented on by Linne.
• Stock Light-Novel Hero: He hits a few ticks from this trope. Namely, he's a rather plain looking high schooler who awakens to a powerful ability and has quite a few girls implied to have deeper feelings for him. He does subvert the usual personality traits, being an Idiot Hero. While he does acquire a powerful ability, he's considered a complete greenhorn compared to the more experienced cast members and he's firmly Unskilled, but Strong. Makes sense given the developers being the ones who made a spin off to a visual novel.
• Storybreaker Power: The Insulator allows him the ability to kill anyone by rending apart their EXS, which even includes the immortal Re-Births. Sure enough, Hyde is one of the very few Inbirths who can take down Kuon the Eternal and put an end to his plot without making a sacrifice or relying on outside assistance.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Hyde and Seth both think Carmine reminds them of a crayfish for the same reasons. Obviously, hearing this twice gets Carmine extremely pissed.
• Supreme Chef: Apparently is a very competent chef if his three housemate's comments are to go by.
• Sword Plant: His Infinite Worth, Gyre Vortex^note Shuu'en e Sasou Rasen no Ori (Cage of Alluring to the Demise Spiral), has him plant the Insulator into the ground, which causes a geyser of darkness to erupt around himself.
  • Also has a Reverse Grip version of it with his Shadow Scare^note Chi wo Ugatsu Kage (Earth-Drilling Shadow).
• Take a Third Option: In his Arcade ending in Sys:Celes, Hyde discovers that Kuon had stripped Linne of her seal of Reincarnation, so he is no longer required to cut down Linne to uphold his end of the promise but her brother, the one who had tormented her for centuries.
• The Protagonist: The main character of the series. Despite this, outside of cameo in Orie's chronicle, he shows up nearly 80% of the way through [st]'s extensive Chronicle Mode. Once he does show up, however, he gets a major role in two chronicles besides his own.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: He's far more merciful than his partner Linne, exemplified by the fact that he lets Hilda live in his arcade ladder ending while Linne kills her in hers. He considered it, but found that he simply didn't have it in him. Hyde knows that this is going to be a huge problem when Linne finally asks him to kill her because he's not sure that he can go through with it. Hyde finally breaks this vow when he finally cuts down Kuon with his Insulator, thus ending the century long conflict between himself and Linne, though he admits that if he knew Kuon's circumstances, it would have complicated his thoughts on the matter.
• Three-Strike Combo: His Vacant Shift is his 3-stage aerial rekka/multi-input special that is essential for his extended combos both mid-screen and in the corner. Learning how to delay them properly is required to play him efficiently.
• Too Many Belts: His school uniform definitely seems to have a lot more than usual^note Four to be exact.. Even then, he wears them very sloppily, his waist belts pretty much being undone.
• Travel to Projectile: Hyde can fire his "Black Orbiter" projectile and then immediately follow up with "Bend Sinister", a leaping slash that travels more or less the same range as the projectile.
• Undying Loyalty: Made a promise to Linne out of gratitude after she saved him from being devoured by Voids.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Orie and Yuzuriha. Yuzu is especially unresolved since even after not seeing her for so long he still thinks of her as extremely sexy, as shown by his thoughts about not being able to keep himself from doing something inappropriate to Yuzu if he was carrying her instead of Nanase in Nanase's chronicle mode.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Hyde can be described as a level five character wielding Excalibur. He barely knows how to fight compared to the rest of the cast outside of some kendou lessons from his childhood. Linne and Waldstein's first priority becomes intensively-training him so he will be able to survive the Hollow Night. By the time Arcade mode starts he's still very far from ready, but goes out into the night anyway. Luckily, the Insulator is an Infinity +1 Sword and his Void Red powers are cracked enough to cover the deficit in experience. It also helps that the Insulator is also a case of Weapon Wields You and will frequently move Hyde's body to defend him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Has this dynamic with Tsurugi and Seth. Tsurugi is his friend and classmate from his normal life who Hyde recently finds out is an Inbirth and finds his presence to be overbearing and wants little to do with him. Seth is his The Rival who he is eventually confronted by but became something of an Aloof Ally between Hilda's defeat and Sys:Celes due to their intertwining interest in saving Linne from her curse to the point where they can collaborate with one another to achieve a common goal, though they still can't stand each other.
• Weapon Wields You: Victory dialogue has Hyde mention how feels that his body moves on its own sometimes during combat. Specifically, when defending himself his right hand has a mind of its own. It cut down the void that bit him this way when he first gained his powers. This trait was carried over to BlazBlue, where his arm nearly attacks Narukami when he was Hyde's teammate all by itself.
  Hyde: Sorry... My body just kind of moves on its own. I don't really know how to control this power yet.