Toru Hoshina

Toru Hoshina
Native name	星名透 Hoshina Tōru
Born	2180-2181 Tokyo, Japan, Earth[1]
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Allegiance	Earth Federation
Service/branch	United Nations Cosmo Navy (2199) United Nations Cosmo Force (2202)
Rank	Warrant Officer (from 2199)
Unit	Yamato BBY-01 security division
Battles/wars	Yamato Mutiny, Battle of the Rainbow Star Cluster
Relations	Yuria Misaki (spouse)
Portrayed by	Motogi Takagi (Japanese) Justin Briner (English)

Toru Hoshina is a security officer serving in the United Nations Cosmo Navy. During the first voyage of the space battleship Yamato, he is a junior member of the ship's security division, and plays a vital role in stopping a mutiny that would have ended the mission. More than three years later, Hoshina helps his fellow crew members to steal the vessel for a journey to the planet Terezart.

HistoryEdit

2199: Voyage to IscandarEdit

Hoshina is promoted to warrant officer^[2] and is assigned to Yamato's security division under Lieutenant Shinya Itou. Early in the voyage, he is part of the armed security response to a potentially dangerous Garmilloid robot that escapes from the ship's science lab ("Clockwork Prisoner"). Along with Itou, he monitors Lieutenant Susumu Kodai's interrogation of a Garmillas prisoner through a video feed from Yamato's brig ("A World I Once Saw").

Stopping the MutinyEdit

Despite his relatively young age, Hoshina earns the friendship and confidence of Lieutenant Itou. He is eventually brought into a conspiracy led by Itou and Lieutenant Kaoru Niimi to seize Yamato and reactive Project Izumo, a plan to resettle human survivors of the Garmillas-Earth War on a habitable world ("Point of No Return"). Unbeknownst to them and the rest of the crew, Hoshina had already been secretly recruited by United Nations Cosmo Force Strategic Planning Office director Heikuro Todo to watch for and stop any pro-Izumo activity^[3] ("A Choice for the Future").

After Niimi identifies a suitable Earth-like planet and the ship's commanding officer, Admiral Juzo Okita, falls ill in the wake of a devastating battle, the Izumo supporters prepare to make their move, forcing Hoshina to accelerate his own response. He convinces Lieutenant Daisuke Shima to go along with Niimi's invitation to join the conspiracy. Once the mutiny is underway and Itou's security team has taken control of key sections, Hoshina helps to free loyal crew members from captivity, and arranges for the ship's chief medical officer to prepare Admiral Okita for duty. Hoshina then makes his way to the main bridge and fires a single shot at Itou just before he can kill Niimi for betraying him, and before Shima can shoot Itou. Hoshina's shot merely disarms Itou, allowing Okita to resume command and for the mutiny to end without bloodshed ("Point of No Return", "A Choice for the Future").

MisakiEdit

During and after this time, Hoshina gradually develops a relationship with Assistant Warrant Officer Yuria Misaki. Hoshina approaches Misaki and finds that she is willing to chat amicably with him, although she is not especially interested in him. However, he shares a spreading rumor about a ghost aboard Yamato, and she confides in him that she regularly saw ghosts back on Earth ("Gravestone on a Frozen Field", "Farewell to the Solar System", "Wish Upon a Star"). Several weeks later, when Misaki begins to wander around the ship and to show an unusually keen awareness of and interest in wave motion energy and the alien planet Iscandar, Hoshina becomes concerned and keeps watch over her. He remains by Misaki's side whenever possible after he and the rest of the crew learn that she is being psychically controlled by an Iscandarian hidden aboard the ship ("Point of No Return", "Over the Black Light", "They're Coming!").

During the Battle of the Rainbow Star Cluster, Hoshina leads her away from an observation lounge to a safer area of the ship. On the way, he notices three officers who are unfamiliar to him, not knowing that they are in fact disguised agents of the enemy Great Garmillas Empire who had covertly boarded Yamato moments earlier. He demands that they identify themselves. One of the three draws a weapon and shoots Hoshina, wounding him and rendering him unconscious ("Under a Rainbow Sun"). While he recovers after the battle, the real Misaki admits that it was her own fear for Hoshina's life and her own desire to return to him that finally freed her from alien control ("Prison Planet 17").

2202: Terezart and the War with GatlantisEdit

By 2202, Hoshina transfers from the UNCN to service in the broader UN Cosmo Force.^[4] On December 8 of that year, exactly three years after Yamato's return to Earth, Hoshina gathers with other members of the crew at a statue honoring Admiral Okita to commemorate his life and the bonds that all of them continue to share. While there, he discovers that a vision that he received urging him to take the space battleship to the planet Terezart was shared by virtually everyone else ("Tension – Reach the Embassy on the Moon").

As preparations are made sometime later to launch Yamato without authorization, Hoshina joins most of the crew aboard the retired battleship Kirishima to slip past security. Yamato's progress out of its underwater dock is stopped when a control room is destroyed. Hoshina leaves Yamato with Mikage Kiryu, Susumu Yamazaki, and Misaki to help open the dock gates. He and Kiryu succeed in transferring control, but armed security forces impede their progress and they are unable to reach Yamato before water flooding the dock becomes too deep. From the safety of a secondary control room, Hoshina and the others salute the ship as it is forced to depart without them ("Departure to the Unknown!"). He is quickly caught and imprisoned along with the others, but is released after the Earth Federation president decides to authorize the new Yamato mission ("Clash! Yamato vs. Andromeda").

PersonalityEdit

Hoshina maintains a cheerful and supportive demeanor in most situations ("Gravestone on a Frozen Field", "Farewell to the Solar System"). He is persistent and easily develops trust, traits that serve him well in his attempt to infiltrate the highest levels of the Izumo conspiracy aboard Yamato and to recruit allies to stop it ("Point of No Return", "A Choice for the Future"). He continues to be friendly with Misaki even after she initially rebuffs his advances, and is mindful of her as her behavior becomes increasingly unusual. His steadfastness with her is eventually rewarded as she begins to reciprocate his affection ("Wish Upon a Star", "Out of the Forest of Memory", "Prison Planet 17"). At the end of 2202 or early in 2203, Hoshina and Misaki are married.^[5]

Hoshina enjoys swimming ("The Distant Promised Land").

Notes and ReferencesEdit